Chapter Twenty One.
What Occurred in Dean’s Yard, Westminster
That same evening, attired in my working clothes, I watched Winsloe’s chambers in King Street at the hour when I knew his habit was to return to dress for dinner.
From five o’clock till half-past seven I lingered in the vicinity; then returning to my hotel in the Adelphi I there met Budd, whom I sent round to the man’s chambers to inquire when he would be in.
Half an hour later my valet returned with the information that Mr Winsloe was out of town, and was not expected back for several days. He had gone to the north, his man believed, but he had no instructions to forward letters.
Gone north! Had he discovered Tibbie’s whereabouts and gone after her?
Mine was a tantalising position, unable to return to my own rooms for fear that Winsloe and Parham should discover that I was still alive. They believed me to be dead – that I had “gone home,” as “White Feather” reported.
That night I spent several hours wandering through those streets behind Regent Street, trying to recognise the house with the fatal stairs. All, however, was to no purpose. I had, I think, mistaken the direction which we had taken. Tired and worn out, I ate supper about ten o’clock in a small and rather uncleanly little foreign restaurant in Dean Street, and then returned to the Adelphi, where I sat a long time in my room overlooking the Embankment and the Thames, lost in the mazes of mystery that now presented themselves.
Where was Eric Domville? Where was Ellice Winsloe? Where was John Parham, alias Humphreys?
Tibbie evidently knew a great deal more than she would admit. She had told me that my friend was in Paris. How could she know if she held no communication with anyone?
No – the more I reflected the more evident did it become that she was playing a double game.
As I sat at the window with the dark deserted gardens below me, the row of gas-lamps and the wide river before me, I tried to analyse my real feelings towards the dainty little love of my youth.
She was a woman guilty of the terrible crime of murder, and yet I had promised to shield her because she had declared that her enemies intended to crush her. Had I really acted rightly? I asked myself. Truly, I was endeavouring to defeat the ends of justice. Nevertheless, I recollected her wild earnest appeal to me, how she had fallen upon her knees and implored my help and protection. I remembered, too, that in her desperation she would have taken her own life rather than face her enemies.
What did it all mean?
So extraordinary had been the sequence of amazing events that my mind failed to grasp the true significance of all the facts.
Of one truth, however, I was well aware, namely, that the dull life of workaday Camberwell had worked a wonderful change in my little friend. She was more sedate, more composed, more womanly, while her calmness accentuated her sweetness of manner. Yet why did she wish to pose as a married woman? What did she fear beyond the exposure of her crime?
She was fascinating, I own that. But upon her beauty and grace was resting that dark, gruesome shadow, the shadow of the sword of retribution, which hung over her, and from which she, alas! would never escape.
What did the family think of her prolonged absence? What did the police think?
I knew well that both old Lady Scarcliff and Jack were leaving no stone unturned to try to discover her, while Wydcombe had left word with Budd that as soon as ever I returned he wished to see me. I would dearly have liked to have gone round to Curzon Street, but by doing so, I saw that Jack would know I had been there, and he might mention my visit to Winsloe, who, without doubt, was still his friend.
My cipher advertisement had been so successful that, after due consideration, I resolved to try and draw “White Feather,” and ascertain the identity of that mysterious person.
Therefore I sat at the table, and after half an hour had reduced to the cipher the following announcement, —
“To White Feather. – Must see you. Very urgent. Meet me to-night at entrance to Dean’s Yard, Westminster, at nine, without fail. – S.”
If “White Feather” was in London he or she would certainly keep the appointment with Sybil. My only fear was that she might see the paper up in Newcastle, and detect the forgery.
Before midnight I handed in the advertisement at the newspaper office in Fleet Street, and next morning had the satisfaction of seeing it in print.
The day I spent in comparative idleness. Budd, to whom I explained my strange conduct by saying that I was still engaged in watching someone, called with my letters and executed several commissions for me. I wrote to “Mrs William Morton” at the post-office at Carlisle, and spent the afternoon reading in the hotel. Budd had instructions to let me know immediately anything was heard of Eric, and was now acting as my secret agent, eager to serve me in every particular.
It was a wet, unpleasant night, as, a little before nine, I alighted from an omnibus in Victoria Street, and passing up Great Smith Street, approached Dean’s Yard from the Great College Street side, the opposite entrance to the spot where the appointment was to be kept.
Dean’s Yard is a quiet square of ancient smoke-blackened houses, a cloister of the abbey in the old days, quiet and secluded even in these modern go-ahead times. In all Westminster there is no quieter, old-world spot, frequented in the daytime only by the few persons who use it as a short cut to Tufton Street and Horseferry Road, and at night quiet and deserted.
Entering the small secluded square from the opposite side, I slipped along half-way on the south side to a position where I could have a good view of the great arched gate communicating with Victoria Street, and there found a deep, dark doorway which afforded me admirable concealment.
I stood and waited. Scarcely had I settled myself there when the chimes of Big Ben rang out the hour, and then I strained my eyes towards the great ill-lit Gothic gateway.
Not a soul was in the place, not even a policeman. Presently a poor woman with a shawl over her head hurried past in the falling rain, and afterwards came the postman, who, very fortunately, had no letters for the door where I stood concealed in the shadow. The place seemed dark, mysterious, almost ghostly, in the dead silence of the night.
The quarter chimed, but no person lingered at the gateway. Perhaps the advertisement had not been seen; or, more likely, “White Feather” was absent from London.
At last, however, I heard the rattle of a four-wheeled cab outside the gateway. I saw it stop, and a man alighted. Then the vehicle moved on slowly, and again stopped, as though awaiting him. A dark figure in black overcoat and low felt hat loomed up in the darkness of the gateway, and entering the Yard glanced eagerly around.
Next moment another person, a rather taller man, entered and passed him by, but without speaking. Indeed, they passed as strangers, the second man strolling slowly along the pavement in the direction of where I was in hiding. He passed by me, and as the street lamp shone upon his face I saw that he was young and his features were aquiline, dark and evil-looking. I had never to my knowledge seen him before. He seemed well-dressed, for his overcoat did not conceal the fact that he was wearing evening clothes. His collar was turned up, but he went on heedless of the rain, his sharp eyes searching everywhere. My hiding-place was a most excellent one, however, and he failed to detect my presence.
A few minutes later a third man entered the Yard, a youngish man with the air of the Cockney from the East End. He wore a hard hat of the usual costermonger type, a red woollen comforter about his neck, and his trousers were bell-bottomed and adorned with pearl buttons. He, however, gave no sign to either of the other two, although it was apparent that they were acquainted, for sorely three men could not be keeping appointments at that unfrequented spot at the same moment.
The first comer still stood in the gateway, but too far away to allow me to clearly distinguish his features. He stood back in the shadow, his face turned expectantly out to the open roadway, where ever and anon I saw the lights of cabs passing and re-passing. Meanwhile, the two men in the quiet little square had walked to the opposite gateway, and there halted, though at a respectable distance from each other.
The man who had arrived in a cab stood for a long time in patience, the other two giving no sign whatever of their presence. At first I was half inclined to think that the trio were strangers to each other, but on watching their movements I saw that something was premeditated – but what it was I could not gather.
While the man dressed as a costermonger – or perhaps he was a real costermonger – remained near the exit to the Yard ready to give warning of anyone approaching, the man in evening clothes slowly re-passed me, while at the same time the watcher at the gate came forward in his direction.
When not far from me he halted and struck a vesta in order to light a cigarette. The fickle flame betrayed his countenance.
It was the man John Parham, the person believed by his wife to be in India.
What was contemplated? The four-wheeled cab was still in waiting in the little open space which divides Dean’s Yard from Victoria Street, while the exit to Great College Street was being watched, and the thin-faced man lurked there ready for Sybil’s arrival.
Within myself I smiled to think that all their elaborate arrangements were futile, and wondered if Parham was the man who signed himself “White Feather?” In that fellow’s house were the fatal stairs, therefore if I followed him I should now be enabled to fix the actual place to which I had, on that never-to-be-forgotten night, been enticed.
While the costermonger remained on vigil, Parham and his companion passed and re-passed, but still without acknowledging each other.
Once the costermonger suddenly began to whistle a popular music-hall air, and turning I saw that it was a preconcerted signal. A man had entered the Yard from Great College Street and was crossing to where Parham was standing.
For fully three-quarters of an hour they waited patiently until ten o’clock struck. Then Parham approached his companion, and they stood in earnest conversation.
Almost at the same moment a female figure in deep black came swiftly through the gateway into the Yard, causing both to start quickly and draw back. Next instant, however, Parham started off briskly, walking past me to where the costermonger was standing, while his thin-faced accomplice slipped past the newcomer and disappeared into Victoria Street.
It was evident that the woman’s appearance had instantly upset all their calculations.
The newcomer stopped, glanced around and strained her eyes into the darkness. She wore a close black hat, a long mackintosh, and carried an umbrella, yet so swiftly had Parham disappeared that she had not noticed his presence in the Yard, while the other man had so cleverly slipped past her and out through the gateway that she had not seen his face.
For a few moments she stood expectant. I could see that she had hurried, in fear of being too late.
Then, as she approached me, I discerned that she was the girl O’Hara.
And of her, Parham and his lurking accomplices were evidently in fear, as they separated and disappeared.
I watched her standing there and wondered why she had come. Was it in order to save Sybil from some plot that had been prepared for her?
Was it their intention to take her to that dark, mysterious house with the fatal stairs?
I felt convinced that it was. The truth was plain. There was a plot against Sybil. The cab had been in waiting there to convey the victim to her grave!
Chapter Twenty Two.
Is an Echo from Charlton Wood
My bitterest regret was that I had not been able to follow Parham and trace him to the house of doom, but at the moment of his disappearance I had been unable to emerge from my hiding-place, otherwise the girl O’Hara would have seen me. Perhaps, indeed, she might have recognised me. So, by sheer force of adverse circumstances, I was compelled to remain there and see the trio escape under my very nose.
I had learnt one important fact, however, namely, that a deep conspiracy was afoot against Sybil.
It was beyond comprehension how Tibbie, daughter of the noble and patrician house of Scarcliff, could be so intimately associated with what appealed to me to be a daring gang of malefactors. The treatment I had received at their hands showed me their utter unscrupulousness. I wondered whether what the police suspected was really true, that others had lost their lives in that house wherein I had so nearly lost mine. What was the story of Tibbie’s association with them – a romance no doubt, that had had its tragic ending in the death of the unknown in Charlton Wood.
To me, it seemed plain that he was a member of the gang, for had he not their secret cipher upon him, and did not both Winsloe and Parham possess his photograph?
I recollected the receipt for a registered letter which I had found among the letters in the dead man’s pocket, and next morning told Budd to go and unlock the drawer in my writing-table and bring it to me. He did so, and I saw that the receipt was for a letter handed in at the post-office at Blandford in Dorset, addressed to: “Charles Denton, 16b Bolton Road, Pendleton, Manchester.”
I turned over the receipt in my hand, wondering whether the slip of paper would reveal anything to me. Then, after some reflection, I resolved to break my journey in Manchester on my return to Tibbie in Carlisle, and ascertain who was this man to whom the dead unknown had sent a letter registered.
Next afternoon I passed through Salford in a tram-car, along by Peel Park, and up the Broad Street to Pendleton, alighting at the junction of those two thoroughfares, the one leading to aristocratic Eccles and Patricroft, and the other out to bustling Bolton.
The Bolton road is one over which much heavy traffic passes, and is lined with small houses, a working-class district, for there are many mills and factories in the vicinity. I found the house of which I was in search, a small, rather clean-looking place, and as I passed a homely-looking woman was taking in the milk from the milkman.
Without hesitation I stopped, and addressing her, exclaimed, —
“Excuse me, mum, but do you happen to know a Mr Charles Denton?”
The woman scanned me quickly with some suspicion, I thought, but noticing, I supposed, that although a working-man I seemed highly respectable, replied bluntly, in a pronounced Lancashire dialect, —
“Yes, I do. What may you want with him?”
“I want to see him on some important business,” was my vague reply. “Is he at home?”
“No, he ain’t,” was the woman’s response. “Mr Denton lodges with me, but ’e’s up in London just now, and ’e’s been there this four months.”
“In London!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, but I don’t know his address. When he goes away ’e never leaves it. He’s lodged with me this two years, but I don’t think ’e’s been here more than six months altogether the whole time.”
“Then you have a lot of letters for him, I suppose?”
“Yes, quite a lot,” answered the good woman. The letter sent by the dead man might be among them!
“It was about a letter that I wanted to see Mr Denton – about a registered letter. I’ve come from London on purpose.”
“From London!” ejaculated the woman, a stout, good-humoured person.
“Yes. I wonder whether you’d mind me looking at the letters, if it is among them I’d know he had not received it. The fact is,” I added in confidence, “there’s a big lawsuit pending, and if he hasn’t got the letter then the other side can’t take any action against him.”
“Then you’re on his side?” she asked shrewdly.
“Of course I am. I came down to explain matters to him. If I can ascertain that he didn’t get the letter then that’s all I want. I’m a stranger, I know,” I added, “but as it is in Mr Denton’s interest I don’t think you’ll refuse.”
She hesitated, saying she thought she ought to ask her husband when he returned from the mill. But by assuring her of her lodger’s peril, and that I had to catch the six-thirty train back to London, I at last induced her to admit me to the house, and there in the small, clean, front parlour which was given over to her lodger when he was there, she took a quantity of letters from a cupboard and placed them before me.
Among the accumulated correspondence were quite a number of registered letters, and several little packets which most likely contained articles of value.
While I chatted with the woman with affected carelessness, pretending to be on very friendly terms with her lodger, I quickly fixed upon the letter in question, a registered envelope directed in a man’s educated hand, and bearing the Blandford post-mark.
In order, however, to divert her attention, I took up another letter, declaring that to be the important one, and that the fact of his not having received it was sufficient to prevent the action being brought.
“I’m very glad of that,” she declared in satisfaction. “Mr Denton is such a quiet gentleman. When he’s here he hardly ever goes out, but sits here reading and writing all day.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “he’s very studious – always was – but a very excellent friend. One of the very best.”
“So my husband always says. We only wish he was here more.”
“I saw him in London about a month ago,” I remarked, in order to sustain the fiction.
How I longed to open that letter that lay so tantalisingly before me. But what could I do? Such a thing was not to be thought of. Therefore, I had to watch the woman gather the correspondence together and replace them in the cupboard.
I rose and thanked her, saying, —
“I’m delighted to think that Charlie will escape a very disagreeable affair. It’s fortunate he wasn’t here to receive that letter.”
“And I’m glad, too. When he returns I’ll tell him how you came here, and what you said. What name shall I give him?”
“Williams – Harry Williams,” I answered. “He will know.”
Then as I walked round to the window I examined the room quickly, but to my disappointment saw that there were no photographs. He might, I thought, keep the portraits of some of his friends upon the mantelshelf, as so many men do. Was this Denton one of the conspirators, I wondered? His absence without an address for four months caused me to suspect that he was.
Just as I had given her my assumed name, somebody knocked at the door, and she went to open it.
Next instant a thought flashed across to me. Should I take that letter? It was a theft – that I recognised, yet was it not in the interests of justice? By that communication I might be able to establish the dead man’s identity.
There was not a second to lose. I decided at once. I heard the woman open the door and speak to someone, then swift as thought I opened the cupboard, glanced at the packet of letters, and with quickly-beating heart took the one which bore the Blandford post-mark.
In a moment it was in my pocket. I re-closed the cupboard, and sprang to the opposite side of the room just as the good woman re-entered.
Then, with profuse thanks and leaving kind messages to the man of whom I spoke so familiarly as “Charlie,” I took my leave and hurried along the broad road into Salford, where I jumped upon a tram going to the Exchange.
I was in the train alone, in a third-class compartment, travelling north to Carlisle, before I dared to break open the letter.
When I did so I found within a scribbled note in cipher written on the paper of the Bear Hotel, at Devizes. After some difficulty, with the aid of the key which the writer had evidently used in penning it, I deciphered it as follows: —
“Dear Denton, – I saw you in the smoking-room of the Midland at Bradford, but for reasons which you know, I could not speak. I went out, and on my return you had gone. I searched, but could not find you. I wanted to tell you my opinion about Ellice and his friend. They are not playing a straight game. I know their intentions. They mean to give us away if they can. Sybil fears me, and will pay. I pretend to know a lot. Meet me in Chichester at the Dolphin next Sunday. I shall put up there, because I intend that she shall see me. Come and help me, for I shall have a good thing on, in which you can share. She can always raise money from her sister or her mother, so don’t fail to keep the appointment. Ellice has already touched a good deal of the Scarcliffs’ money from young Jack, and I now mean myself to have a bit. She’ll do anything to avoid scandal. It’s a soft thing – so come. – Yours, —
“R.W.”
The dead man was, as I had suspected, one of the gang, and he was a blackmailer. He had compelled her to meet him and had made demands which she had resisted. Yes – the letter was the letter of a barefaced scoundrel.
I clenched my hands and set my teeth.
Surely I had done right to endeavour to protect Sybil from such a band of ruffians. Once I had pitied the dead man, but now my sympathy was turned to hatred. He had written this letter to his friend Denton, suggesting that the latter should assist him in his nefarious scheme of blackmail.
He confessed that he “pretended” to know a lot. What did he pretend to know, I wondered? Ah! if only Sybil would speak – if only she would reveal to me the truth.
Yet, after all, how could she when that man, the fellow who had written that letter, had fallen by her hand?
The letter at least showed that her enemies had been and were still unscrupulous. Winsloe, even now, was ready to send her to her grave, just as I had been sent – because I had dared to come between the conspirators and their victim. And yet she trusted Nello – whoever the fellow was.
Who was the man Denton, I wondered? A friend of the mysterious “R.W.,” without a doubt, and a malefactor like himself.
I placed my finger within the linen-lined envelope, and to my surprise found a second piece of thin blue paper folded in half. Eagerly I opened it and saw that it was a letter written in plain English, in bad ink, and so faint that with difficulty I read the lines.
It was in the scoundrel’s handwriting – the same calligraphy as that upon the envelope.
I read the lines, and so extraordinary were they that I sat back upon the seat utterly bewildered.
What was written there complicated the affair more than ever. The problem admitted of no solution, for the mystery was by those written lines rendered deeper and more inscrutable than before.
Was Sybil, after all, playing me false?
I held my breath as the grave peril of the situation came vividly home to me.
Yes – I had trusted her; I had believed her.
She had fooled me!