Chapter Fifteen.
By which Sybil Explains Something
Three weeks went by – dull, dreary weeks of constant anxiety. With the assistance of Eric – to whom I had, of course, explained the tragic incident in the home of John Parham – I was ever on the alert, compelled to go down to Neate Street at infrequent intervals in secret from Eric and pose for a few hours in the daytime as the husband of little Mrs Morton.
Poor Tibbie led a dreary life in that drab mean street. Mrs Williams was kind and pleasant, pitying the young wife so constantly separated from her husband. But if my work took me away, well, she ought not to grumble, the good woman declared. There were lots of compositors out of work she had heard, now that those linotypes were so universally adopted. And so she cheered Tibbie up, and the latter sought distraction by doing fancy needlework.
Each time I visited her I ran the risk of being followed by some person in the employ of Winsloe, who was, we knew, ever active in his efforts to discover her whereabouts. Her mother had raised a terrible hue-and-cry after a week had passed without news of her. Jack had unfortunately gone to Scotland Yard and given his sister’s description, as Cynthia had begun to express a fear that she had met with foul play.
As soon as I heard of this I persuaded Tibbie to write a letter to her mother, assuring her that she was quite well and happy, that she was with friends, and that she would return in the course of a few days. This letter I sent to a friend in Glasgow, and it was posted from there.
Time after time I looked in wonder at the photograph of the dead unknown which I had abstracted from Mr Parham’s drawing-room. And time after time I reflected whether it would be wise to suddenly confront Tibbie with it and demand the truth. Sometimes I was sorry that I had not left the portrait where I had found it, for I might, when calling upon Mrs Parham, have made casual inquiry regarding the original. Now that it was in my possession, however, I was unable to approach the subject. Undoubtedly she had missed it, and perhaps believed that in the confusion of that memorable evening it had been stolen, perhaps for the value of its frame.
One night about ten o’clock, while Eric and I sat by the fire in my chambers, my friend cast aside the Pall Mall Gazette which he had been reading, exclaiming, —
“So the Parham affair seems to have concluded to-day. At the adjourned inquest they’ve returned the usual verdict – wilful murder against someone unknown. Poor girl! She was an entirely innocent victim.”
“Yes,” I remarked, smoking my pipe reflectively, “strange that the police haven’t a scrap of a clue as to who did it.”
“We have the only clue that exists,” was his answer. “You saw one of the men.”
“Yes, but I doubt if I’d recognise him again. It was only like a shadow passing across the room. He was tall and thin, but I was too far away to distinguish his features.”
“Mrs Parham has apparently made no statement to the police of any value, and Parham himself is still absent. He fears, I suppose, certain inquiries regarding the possession of that gruesome object which we found in the false bottom of the secret hiding-place.”
“I’d like to meet this man Parham,” I said. “Recollect that he undoubtedly knew the man who was killed in Charlton Wood.”
“Yes,” remarked Eric, slowly. “It certainly seems strange that he doesn’t turn up again. He may, of course, be travelling abroad, as his wife seems to think he is. She has told the police that he’s often abroad, and she frequently does not hear from him for a fortnight or three weeks. It appears that only a short time ago he remarked that he might be compelled to go out to India on business connected with some jewels which an Indian prince has for sale. Perhaps he has gone, and will write to her from Port Said. That is what the police believe.”
“And if he does?”
“Well, I should think it most probable that he’ll be detained at Bombay and asked to return at once to London, to explain how the human eye came into his possession.”
“I wish we could get sight of a photograph of Parham,” I said. “It would help us so much.”
“He’s never had his portrait taken – objects to it, I hear. The police told me so. They always look with suspicion upon a man who objects to being photographed.”
I entertained the same suspicions regarding Parham as did the police, and resolved to revisit his wife and endeavour to discover something further.
Next day, however, receiving an urgent express letter from Tibbie, I was compelled to assume the guise of William Morton and travel by a circuitous route down to Camberwell. She had the midday dinner of roast sirloin and vegetables ready prepared for me, cooked by herself, and looked a thoroughly capable housewife in her cheap black gown and white apron. The clothes she had bought were well fitted to the station she had assumed, and beyond a smart saying or two which now and then escaped her, she passed well as the lady’s-maid married to an honest, hard-working compositor.
“The only thing I can’t do,” she confided to me, as we sat together at the clean little dinner-table, “is the washing. I put it out, and I fear that the landlady thinks me horribly extravagant. But the truth is I don’t know how to wash, and if I tried I’d at once betray my ignorance,” she laughed.
I glanced at her hands, now rather red and rough by unaccustomed work, and smiled.
“Let them think what they may,” I said. “You play your part far better than I ever thought you would.”
“Oh, sometimes I find it quite amusing,” she declared. “One sees more of the realities of life in Camberwell than in Mayfair. Here I see how the poor live, and I pity them. I was ignorant of how hard are the lives of the working people; how they have to struggle to keep the wolf from the door, or of the long hours of work, and the cutting down, of wages. Do you know, Wilfrid, I sometimes hear stories of poverty and distress that make my heart bleed. I want to help them, but how can I? To give them money would be to arouse suspicion against myself. I’ve found a method, however. I send them groceries and meat from certain shops in the Old Kent Road and Camberwell Road, and pay for it myself. They don’t then know where it comes from.”
I was somewhat surprised to discover this sympathetic trait in her character. I had never believed that, gay butterfly of fashion as she was, she entertained any thought of the poor seamstress who worked all night upon her ball-dress, or the consumptive shop-girl who danced attendance upon her, compelled to indulge her every whim. The Scarcliffs, if a wild race, were a proud one. They regarded “the people” as being different from themselves and treated all their underlings, save grave old Adams at Ryhall, without thought or consideration.
Yes, the few weeks that Tibbie had lived estranged from her fast, exotic set, and with the example of the workaday world before her eyes, had wrought a great change in her.
Yet, was this really so? To what cause could I attribute this sudden outburst of charitable feeling?
I held my breath as one suggestion occurred to me.
Was it repentance?
I had told her nothing concerning the strange occurrence at Sydenham Hill. The name of Parham had been found in the dead man’s pocket, therefore, connected as the two crimes seemed to be, I made no explanation. Without doubt, however, she had read the details in the paper which she took daily, and had that morning seen the verdict given at the adjourned inquest.
How I longed to show her the photograph and to ask her to tell me the truth.
One afternoon, a fortnight ago, she had casually remarked to me that she had seen in the paper the report of a man being found in Charlton Wood, whereupon I merely replied that I, too, had heard the details, and that I supposed the victim was some unfortunate tramp who had been killed by an enemy.
“He may have been shot accidentally by one of the keepers, who fears to tell the truth,” she suggested.
But I remained silent. I remembered Eric’s terrible denunciation.
I passed that afternoon with her in the cheaply-furnished little sitting-room, smoking and chatting. After she had removed the cloth she threw aside her apron, and sat in the low wicker armchair with a cigarette. Only when I was present dared she smoke, and I saw how thoroughly she enjoyed it.
“You, Wilfrid, seem like a visitor from the other world – the world which nowadays exists only in my dreams,” she said, throwing her head lazily back and blowing a cloud of smoke from her pursed-up lips. “As I sit here alone hour after hour, I wonder how it is that I have lived the life I have. Our foibles and follies and false appearances are, after all, wretchedly insincere, and surely the enemies of a smart woman are the bitterest in the world. Cynthia taught me to believe that our set was the world, but I now know different, for I see that there is happiness, yes, far greater happiness in the poor struggling homes about me here than in our own world of pleasure. Happiness?” she repeated to herself, looking blankly across the room and sighing, “I wonder if I shall ever know what real happiness means?”
“I hope so,” I exclaimed quickly. “Surely there is no reason why you should be unhappy. You are young, wealthy, courted, flattered, and one of the best-looking women in London. You are well aware of that, Tibbie.”
“Aware of it!” she exclaimed hoarsely, in a low, broken voice. “Everyone tells me so. Yes,” she added bitterly, “I have everything except the one thing debarred me – happiness.”
“And why not that?”
“Can one be happy if one does not possess peace of mind? That, alas! I do not possess.”
“Because you hold a secret,” I remarked slowly, looking into her eyes as they suddenly met mine. “Will you never reveal it to me, Tibbie?” I asked. “I could surely assist you.”
But she shook her head, replying, —
“No. The error is mine, and I must bear the punishment. Ah!” she cried, suddenly starting up, placing both palms to her brow, and pacing up and down the little room. “Ah! you don’t know what I suffer. Day and night I sit here and think and think, and wonder, and fear. Yes!” she cried, her eyes starting as she glared at me in her desperation. “I fear! I fear lest I may be discovered by those enemies who have sworn to effect my ruin! But – but you will save me, Wilfrid,” she gasped, suddenly advancing, turning her white face to mine, and clutching my hand. “You will protect me from them, won’t you?”
“Of course,” I answered, greatly surprised at her sudden terror, when only a few moments before she had been so calm in the enjoyment of her cigarette.
“But who are these enemies of whom you are in such fear? Tell me, and I may then act accordingly. Surely it is only just that I should be aware of their identity?” I urged.
“No. I – I – I mean I can’t explain. If I did, I should lose even you, Wilfrid – the only true friend I have in the whole world.”
Her hand holding mine trembled as I looked straight into her white, frightened countenance.
A silence fell between us. I gazed into those wonderful eyes of hers and noted her marvellous beauty now accentuated by her distress.
“Tibbie.” I exclaimed at last in a low, soft voice, scarcely above a whisper, “you are in deadly fear of the man with whom only the other day you contemplated marriage – Ellice Winsloe – the man who now intends to denounce you!”
“Who told you so?” she gasped, drawing back in an instant, and turning paler. “Who – who has betrayed my secret?”
Chapter Sixteen.
Friends and Foes
At seven o’clock that evening I took the train from Camberwell Gate to Westminster Bridge, like the industrious compositor that I represented myself to be.
In order to assert myself more prominently in the neighbourhood I had accepted the invitation of Williams, the mineral-water foreman, who was my landlord, to have a glass of ale at the neighbouring public-house; and in the bar was introduced by him to several other working-men as his tenant. They seemed a sober, good-humoured set, all having their glass after the thirst of the day’s labour.
My landlord remarked that my wife saw little of me, but I explained how my employers sent me to various parts of the country in connection with a new patent type-composing machine in which they were interested.
“Well, my missus does ’er best for Mrs Morton and cheers her up,” the man said. “Only it ’ud be more pleasant for ’er if you were at ’ome a bit more. The poor young lady mopes dreadfully sometimes. You needn’t say anything, you know, but my old woman has found her a-cryin’ to herself lots of times.”
I recollected his words as I sat on the top of the tram passing up those long broad roads lit by the flare of costermongers’ lights and rendered noisy by the strident cries of the butchers and greengrocers shouting their wares. In South London commercial life seems to commence with the sundown, for thrifty working-class housewives go out shopping after dark.
And Tibbie, the woman whom all smart London knew, who was so brilliant a figure at receptions, balls and weddings, and of whose beauty the ladies’ papers so constantly spoke, was living amid that poverty and squalor alone, terrified and crying her heart out.
For what? Had remorse seized her? Was it the awful recollection of that fatal moment in Charlton Wood, combined with the constant fear that Ellice Winsloe, whom she had now acknowledged as her enemy, would discover her and bring against her the terrible charge?
That night, after I had slipped unrecognised into my chambers, I changed quickly into my own clothes and went along to the Wellington Club to find Domville. The hall-porter had not, however, seen him that day; therefore, after strolling through the rooms, I was just on the point of leaving when, in the hall, I encountered Ellice Winsloe.
“Hulloa! old fellow!” he cried cheerily. “What are you doing to-night? Come along and dine with me at Boodle’s.”
I hesitated. I had no wish for the company of the man who was Tibbie’s secret enemy. Once I had distrusted him; now I hated him, for I saw how ingeniously he had kept observation upon my movements, and how his invitation, so warmly given, was with the ulterior object of ascertaining my movements.
In an instant it occurred to me that I might fight him with his own weapons. I could be as alert as he was. Therefore, I laughed and declared that I had no prior engagement.
“Come along, then,” he said; and we both went out and crossed Hyde Park corner together.
“I was at the Wydcombes this afternoon. It was Lady Wydcombe’s day. They’re till most anxious about Tibbie. Nobody knows where she is,” he added, with a covert glance at my countenance to watch the effect of his words.
“Yes,” I said, “she’s certainly a bit erratic. I hear, however, that she has written to her mother saying that she’s all right.”
“The police think the letter was written under compulsion. Jack took it to Scotland Yard, with the result that the Criminal Investigation Department have redoubled their efforts to trace her. What’s your opinion?”
I shrugged my shoulders. The fellow’s object was to get me to talk; but I knew how to be silent when it suited me, and was determined to tell him nothing.
“Old Lady Scarcliff is very upset, I hear,” he went on as we walked along Piccadilly to St. James’s Street.
“It is really too bad of Tibbie, don’t you think so? She ought to draw the line at disappearing like this. She may have met with foul play for all one knows. It seems, according to Mason, that she took a lot of her jewellery with her on the night she left Ryhall in the car.”
“Does Mason know or suspect anything?” I asked quite innocently.
“Nothing, as far as I’m aware. The detectives have made every inquiry, but discovered nothing.” Then he added, in a voice which sounded to me to convey a distinct hidden meaning, “They’ve been just as successful regarding Tibbie as they have been in the case of the mystery up in Charlton Wood.”
I said nothing. My object was to allow him to do all the talking.
At Boodle’s we sat down to an excellent dinner, though it was rather late.
As he sat before me, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped as he chatted, I looked into his face and wondered what were the inner workings of his ingenious mind. He made no mention of his call at that obscure hotel in Lambeth in search of Tibbie, but merely expressed a fervent hope that the jewellery which she had carried with her when she left on her midnight motor-drive had not been the cause of any attempt upon her by malefactors.
In order to watch his attitude I suddenly exclaimed, —
“That affair in Charlton Wood seems still a mystery. And yet I hear,” I added, making a bold shot, “that the police have at last found a clue.”
His countenance remained perfectly unchanged. He merely responded, —
“I hope they have. It was a dastardly thing. The poor fellow must have been shot treacherously – murdered in cold blood. Jack is most anxious to find the culprit, and I don’t wonder. It isn’t nice to have a murder committed upon one’s own estate.”
“It’s curious that the man has not yet been identified,” I said, regarding him keenly.
“And has it not also struck you as strange that Tibbie should suddenly disappear on the night of the murder?” he asked, his eyes fixed upon mine.
“No,” I replied, quite unconcernedly. “I had never given that a thought. It is curious, now that you recall it. A mere coincidence, of course.”
“Of course,” he said, pouring me out a glass of still Moselle. His air of refinement was irritating.
Then, after a brief silence, he said, —
“Do you know, Hughes, I can’t help thinking that something serious has happened to Tibbie. The letter Lady Scarcliff received was posted in Glasgow, but of course that was only a blind. She’s in London somewhere. I told Wydcombe to-day that they ought to advertise and offer a reward for her.”
His suggestion suddenly gave me an idea. In the pockets of the unknown man in Charlton Wood I had found the key to a cipher which he had evidently used to correspond with his friends. Why should I not through the medium of the papers open up some correspondence? Would anyone reply?
“You know how erratic Tibbie always is,” I remarked. “I’ve perhaps known her longer than you have. She was always the same, even as a girl – the despair of the old viscount.”
“And yet she is very charming, don’t you think so?” asked the man whom she declared to be one of her bitterest enemies.
“Delightfully amusing,” I agreed. “The set she mixes with spoils her. If she could only sever herself entirely from Cynthia’s friends she would be a very different woman.”
“Oh, she’ll marry some day and settle down,” laughed Winsloe. “I used at one time to hear that you were likely to be the lucky man.”
“I think not,” was my quick reply, somewhat annoyed at his remark. “I can’t afford to marry,” whereat he laughed, as though in disbelief of my poverty.
He questioned me with a subtle ingenuity worthy of a counsel at the criminal bar, but my replies were all of them empty ones, while at the same time I was watching him narrowly, noting that this warm friendliness was merely assumed, and that beneath that veneer of good fellowship was a fierce and bitter antagonism that I had never before suspected. Ever since Scarcliff had introduced us eighteen months ago we had been very good friends, and had seen quite a good deal of each other on the Riviera the previous season. I was staying at the Métropole at Monte Carlo, while he was at the Hermitage.
He seemed to have many friends there, well-dressed men whom I did not know. But one’s acquaintances on the Riviera are generally somewhat doubtful, and need not be recognised beyond the confines of the Principality. He became one of Jack’s most intimate friends. They often went over to Paris together, and on such occasions it was believed that young Lord Scarcliff played baccarat at a certain private house in the Avenue Kleber and lost considerable sums. Tibbie had told me so in confidence, but Jack naturally never mentioned his losses. If this were true, then it looked very much as though Ellice Winsloe was a shark, as my friend Domville declared him to be.
In a London club a white shirt and well-cut evening clothes enables many a scoundrel to pass himself off as a gentleman. Few young men who come into their inheritance and lead the fevered life of the West End escape the traps laid for them by those well-dressed blackguards who pose as friends and advisers, and at the same time cleverly contrive to pluck the pigeon. By some clever ruse or other they get him into their power, threatening exposure or the police for some fancied offence, and then the question of hush-money is mooted and the rest is so very easy. The fly is caught in the net, and the spiders grow fat at their leisure.
Ask any official at Scotland Yard, and what he will reveal to you regarding this will surely astound you.
Sitting with Winsloe and listening to his clever chatter I was rather amused than otherwise. Inwardly I laughed at his shrewd but futile efforts to obtain from me something concerning Tibbie.
We smoked a cigar, and about ten o’clock strolled along to the Empire, where we took a turn round the crowded grand circle. Variety performances, however, possess but little attraction for me, and we soon went out again. In the vestibule a fair-moustached, bald-headed man in evening dress greeted my companion effusively, exclaiming, —
“Why, Ellice – actually! My dear old fellow, how are you? – how are you?” and he wrung his hand in warmest greeting.
“And you, Sidney! Who’d ever thought of finding you in town again? Why, I thought you were still somewhere up the Zambesi.”
“Got back yesterday, my dear fellow. And not sorry either, I can tell you. The surveying for the new railroad was a far tougher job than I anticipated. I went down with fever, so they sent me home on six months’ leave.”
“But you’re all right now,” Winsloe said, and then introduced his friend as Sidney Humphreys who, he explained, had been out in Africa in connection with the Cape to Cairo railway.
“Where are you fellows going?” asked the newcomer.
“Home, I think,” Winsloe replied. “Hughes doesn’t care for ballets.”
“Come round to my rooms and see the curios I’ve brought back,” he urged. “I’ve still kept on the old chambers. The things I’ve got were mostly dug out of the ruins of an ancient city – relics of the time of King Solomon, I believe. You’re fond of antiques, Ellice, so come and spend an hour and have a look at them. You’ll be interested, I promise you, and I’d like to know your opinion.”
Winsloe hesitated for a moment, then, turning to me, said, —
“You’ll come too, won’t you?”
At first I excused myself, for I was anxious to find Eric, but presently I allowed myself to be persuaded, for truth to tell, I, too, was very fond of antiquities, and was therefore anxious to see this latest find.
We drove in a hansom along Regent Street, and then through several side streets, until presently we alighted before the door of a dark, respectable-looking house, into which Humphreys let us with his latchkey.
“Go on up,” he exclaimed, when we were in the hall. “You know your way, Ellice – the old rooms, second floor.”
And so while he held back in the hall looking at some cards that had been left, I climbed the broad old-fashioned stairs with Winsloe.
At the first landing my companion held back for me to go on before, laughing, and saying, —
“Go straight on – the room right before you,” and compelling me to ascend first, he followed.
Suddenly I heard men’s voices raised in angry altercation, apparently proceeding from another room, and what was more, I was struck by a distinct belief that one voice was Eric’s. Yet surely that could not be possible.
“I defy you!” I heard the voice cry. “Say no more. You hear! You may kill me, but I defy you!”
I halted, startled. The voice was so very like Eric’s that I could have sworn it was his.
A sharp cry of pain – a man’s cry – rang out from behind a closed door on the landing I was approaching. Then there followed a long-drawn-out groan, ending almost in a sigh.
A tragedy was being enacted there!
I clapped my hand upon the revolver I always carried in my hip-pocket, and went forward quickly, eager and puzzled, but just as I placed my feet upon the last steps to gain the landing where the man’s chambers were, four or five of the stairs suddenly gave way beneath me, and I fell feet foremost into the great yawning opening there revealed. I was the victim of a dastardly treachery!
I know that I clutched wildly at air when I felt myself falling down, down to what seemed an unfathomable depth. I held my breath, for at that instant a man’s wild shriek rang in my ears. Then next second I felt my skull crushed, and with it all consciousness became blotted out.
I was entrapped – helpless in the hands of quondam friends who were really my bitterest and most unscrupulous enemies.