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Title: The crystal claw
Author: William Le Queux
Illustrator: George W. Gage
Release date: February 4, 2024 [eBook #72870]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Macaulay Company, 1924
Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRYSTAL CLAW ***
THE CRYSTAL CLAW
[Illustration: The fatal candle flickered as its heat caused the
fragile balloon to expand.]
THE
CRYSTAL CLAW
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF “MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO,”
“THE VOICE FROM THE VOID,” ETC.
_Frontispiece by_
GEORGE W. GAGE
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1924
BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I MID SILENT SNOWS 9
II A TEMPORARY BRIDE 26
III THE DEADLY FOEHN 44
IV WHISPERS OF WOMEN 59
V ESTABLISHES SOME CURIOUS FACTS 74
VI THE HAM-BONE CLUB 88
VII IN THE WEB 97
VIII DOCTOR FENG’S VIEW 107
IX CROOKED PATHS 119
X IN ROOM NUMBER EIGHTEEN 131
XI LOVE VS. HONOR 143
XII STRANGE SUSPICIONS 158
XIII SPUME OF THE STORM 171
XIV IN THE NIGHT 191
XV MORE DISCLOSURES 204
XVI GROWING SUSPICIONS 218
XVII PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT 231
XVIII MISSING 244
XIX AT HEATHERMORE GARDENS 254
XX THE CHILD’S AIR-BALL 267
XXI WHO WAS DOCTOR FENG? 278
XXII THE SECRET DISCLOSED 298
THE CRYSTAL CLAW
THE CRYSTAL CLAW
CHAPTER I
MID SILENT SNOWS
“Yes, an extremely pretty girl,” remarked old Dr. Feng, bending towards
me and speaking softly across the _table-à-deux_ at which we were
dining at the Kürhaus hotel at Mürren, high-up in the snow-clad Alps.
“A honeymooning couple, no doubt,” he went on--“nice place this for a
honeymoon!” and the white-haired old Chinese who--most unusual in one
of his race, had a long white beard--smiled as he poured out a tiny
glass of white curaçao, the only form of alcohol I ever saw him indulge
in.
I glanced across in the direction he indicated and saw seated in a
corner, a pretty dark-haired grey-eyed girl of twenty. She wore a
flame-colored dance-frock, and was laughing happily as she chatted
with a good-looking young man, perhaps six years or so her senior.
The young fellow was smart and distinguished-looking and the girl was
very handsome, with irregular features, and singularly expressive
eyes, but hers was a nervous, restless physiognomy that rather chilled
one at first sight. The expression in both their faces told the truth
quite clearly. They were, indeed, newly wed, and they had that evening
arrived on the funicular railway from Lauterbrunnen, in the valley
below, by the service which had left Victoria station the previous
afternoon.
“Yes, a very handsome pair,” I agreed. “I wonder who they are?”
“Don’t inquire. When you marry, Yelverton, you won’t like people to be
inquisitive. All newly-married people are super-sensitive, you know,”
declared my companion.
Dr. Feng Tsu’tong, despite his seventy years, did not look a day more
than sixty. Much above the common height for a Chinese he possessed
features of the type which seldom show many signs of advancing age.
Erect and virile he carried himself like a much younger man and of his
activity and endurance I had had ample proof, for, in our frequent long
tramps and ski expeditions across the snow, he had shown me more than
once that his muscles were equal to my own, despite the great disparity
in our ages.
He was a highly-cultured and widely read man. I imagined when I first
met him, as I found to be the case when I knew him better, that he
must have left China many years before, for he spoke perfect English,
though with a slight American accent. His quaint philosophy had made
an instant appeal to me. Though he was much older than I, his mental
outlook was surprisingly young and we had become constant companions
and very firm friends in quite a short time. I have seldom met a
man in whom I felt such complete confidence and sympathy as in this
old Chinese doctor. We spent much time together, often taking long
expeditions afoot or on ski or sometimes as partners in a game of
curling of which he was passionately fond.
Our acquaintance as a matter of fact had been a casual one. I had left
London blanketed under fog and rain and after a twenty-four hours’
journey by rail had found myself in Mürren--that winter paradise of the
young, opposite the towering Jungfrau with its attendant heights, the
Monch and the Eiger, high-up in a glittering world of sunshine, snow
and silence. The scene looked almost like a typical Christmas card. We
were so high up that by day the sun shone brightly from a sky as blue
and cloudless as that of Cannes, there were ten feet of powdery snow
everywhere and the crystal-clear air was as bright and invigorating as
champagne.
Giacomo, the smiling head waiter, had placed me with Dr. Feng at a
small table set in the window in the great _salle à manger_. We had
taken to each other at once and had become companions, not only at
meals, but on the superb ice-rink which was in perfect condition as was
flooded and re-frozen each night. There we skated or curled, or we took
excursions on the wonderful rack-railway up to the Allmendhubel, or
else over the snow to what is known as the Half-way House, or else down
to the Blumen-tal.
Mürren in winter is _par excellence_ a sports centre for young people
who indulge in skating, tobogganing, _lugeing_ and skiing, the winter
sports that are, in these post-war days, happily eclipsing the exotic
pleasures one obtains on the Riviera. There, in the Bernese Oberland,
the vice of gambling hardly exists save in the form of occasional
bridge as a relaxation after the day’s sport.
Each winter the Kürhaus hotel is a centre for the ever-growing band
of enthusiasts who meet there for the bright social life and superb
out-door sport which Mürren affords. These are the people who truly
enjoy themselves healthfully. Skiing and similar pursuits demand
perfect physical fitness and at the Kürhaus one is in the centre
of wholesome out-door exercise by day and in the evening of a gay
merriment which only seems to round off and complete the pleasures of
days spent in the open air on the towering mountain slopes. At Mürren
one finds a winter life that cannot be excelled in Europe.
The scene was wonderfully attractive. All around us were the great
hills clothed in virgin snow, dotted here and there with merry parties
of girls whose bright sports costumes provided startling splashes of
color against the white background. Everywhere pretty lips laughed in
the sheer joy of young exuberant life. Everywhere merry conversation
rang out from dawn to dusk, everybody seemed to be active, healthy and
happy.
But beneath all the fun and frivolling I had found a deeper, more
serious note. It was struck for me by Dr. Feng.
More and more I found myself falling under the spell of the old man’s
mentality. More and more I realized how much we had in common. A native
of Yunnan, he had left China when about thirty--chiefly, I gathered, on
account of political troubles. The range and variety of his knowledge
was encyclopædic: there seemed to be hardly a subject on which he could
not talk brilliantly if he chose to exert himself. And we had one great
bond of sympathy--both of us loved music. Feng was a brilliant pianist.
I was passionately devoted to the violin and we spent many hours over
the works of the great composers. Like most other young men I had a
fairly good opinion of myself, but compared with Dr. Feng, I was a mere
child in musical knowledge. Our music, however, made us both popular
and it had become quite a regular evening custom for us to play to the
Kürhaus guests in the great ball-room.
There was, however, a still deeper side to our intercourse. Feng
had initiated me into the first principles of the little-known Yogi
philosophy--the doctrine that the real man is not the visible body,
that the immortal “I,” of which each human being is conscious to
a greater or lesser extent, merely occupies and uses the corporal
transient flesh. The Yogis believe that the body is but as a suit of
clothes which the Spirit puts on and off from time to time, and they
insist that the body must be brought under the perfect control of the
mind--that the instrument must be finely tuned so as to respond to the
touch of the hand of the master.
Feng had made a deep study of the Yogi teaching and was, in himself,
living evidence of a man virile and rejuvenated in both body and
mind. People stood astounded when they were told his actual age, and
I, admiring him, was now endeavoring in my own way to follow his
footsteps. The doctrine he urged with such compelling eloquence and
powers had taken a deep hold of my mind--how deep I never realized
until I found myself flung suddenly into dangers and temptations which
were to try my physical and mental fortitude to their very depths.
It was the arrival of Stanley Audley and his bride that, suddenly and
unexpectedly, changed the entire current of my life. And as I sit
here placing on record this chronicle of bewildering events, I wonder
that I came safely through the maze of doubt, mystery and peril in
which I found myself so suddenly plunged. I can only believe that a
man, profoundly influenced, as I very speedily was, by the splendid
philosophy of Yogi and buoyed up by a consuming love for a pure and
beautiful woman, will face dangers before which others might well
quail,--will even, as the saying goes, “throw dice with the devil” if
need be.
To make my story clear, I had better formally introduce myself. My
name is Rex Yelverton, my age at present moment twenty-eight and the
astounding incidents I am about to relate happened just over three
years ago, so that I was under twenty-five at the time.
My father had died when I was twenty-three and had left me a small
estate near Andover. I had been brought up to the law and had been
admitted a solicitor just before my father’s death. I could not
afford to live on the estate, so had cosy chambers on the top floor
of an old-fashioned house in Russell Square and having entered into
partnership with a solicitor named Hensman, practiced with him in
Bedford Row.
Hensman’s hobby was golf and for that reason he took his holiday in
the summer. I loved the winter life of Switzerland and for some years
had made it my rule to get away in the winter. In addition to my
music I was deeply interested in wireless, and had fitted up quite
a respectable wireless station in a room in Russell Square. I had a
transmitting license and with my two hobbies found my spare time so
fully occupied that I mixed but little in ordinary society.
On that never-to-be-forgotten night when I first saw Stanley Audley
and his handsome bride, the Doctor retired early, as was his habit.
So, strolling into the ball-room of the Kürhaus opposite the hotel, I
watched the pair dancing happily together, the cynosure of all eyes, of
course, though the room was not very full, as the season had only just
begun.
Like all other honeymoon couples, they were trying to pretend that they
had been married for years and, like all other honeymoon couples, they
were failing lamentably! The truth was, as ever, palpable to every
onlooker. Like every one else I admired them, though like every one
else, I smiled at their pretty pretense. As they had arrived by the
night train from Calais, I guessed they had been married in London
about thirty hours before and had come straight through to Mürren.
This, in fact, proved to be the truth.
In my admiration of the beautiful young bride I was not alone, for a
middle-aged, grey-bearded invalid, name Hartley Humphreys, with whom
I often played billiards before going to bed, also remarked upon her
beauty, and expressed wonder as to who they were. It was then that
another man in the room, also evidently interested, told us that their
name was Audley.
Next morning, on coming downstairs, I found little Mrs. Audley dressed
in winter-sports clothes and looking inexpressibly sweet and charming.
She wore a pale grey Fair Isle jersey, with a bright jazzy pattern,
with a saucy little cap to match, and over the jersey a short dark
brown coat with fur collar and cuffs, and around her waist a leather
belt. Brown corduroy breeches, and heavy well-oiled boots and
ski-anklets completed one of the most sensible ski-outfits I have ever
seen. That she was no novice at skiing was evident from the badge, a
pair of crossed skis, she wore in her cap. It was the badge of the
Swiss Ski Club--the same as that worn by the Alpine guides themselves.
Naturally I was surprised. I had, on the previous night, believed her
to be simply a handsome young bride who had come to spend her honeymoon
amid the winter gayety of Mürren, but now it was clear she was no
beginner.
She had already breakfasted and was smoking a cigarette and laughing
gayly with an American girl she had met on the previous night, and
apparently awaiting her husband.
In a few moments the husband, in a wind-proof ski-suit and wearing one
of those peaked caps of blue serge which nobody dare wear save the
practiced ski-runner, came down with a word of apology.
“I broke my boot-lace, dearest. I apologize.”
“Oh! That’s all right, Stan,” she laughed, “John has got the food in
his rucksack.”
Then I saw that John von Allmen, the intrepid and popular young guide,
was waiting outside for them. They were going on a skiing excursion
up the Schelthorn. Certainly they were no novices! I soon afterwards
discovered they had both passed their “tests” in previous winters at
Wengen and Pontresina.
The sun was shining brightly upon the newly fallen snow, although it
was not yet nine o’clock, and as I watched the happy young couple
adjust the ski-bindings to the boots and take their ski-sticks, those
iron spiked poles of cherry wood with circular ends of cane to prevent
sinking where the snow is soft, I noted how merry and blissful they
were.
Suddenly the tall, lithe, young Alpine guide in his neat blue serge
skiing suit drew on his leather mitts, hitched on his rucksack and the
little party slid swiftly away over the snow.
It was clear the girl was an expert--her every movement showed it.
Those who go skiing well know the difficulty of keeping their balance
on the long, narrow planks turned up in front which constitute ski. But
the bride had long ago passed through the initial stages. As I found
out later she had been year after year to winter sports and had long
passed the period when she practiced her “telemarks” and “stemmings”
on the “Nursery Slopes.” Her lithe swift movements were delightful
to watch and it was clear she was enjoying to the full the keen
exhilaration born of the swift gliding over the crisp snow.
As I stood watching the swift progress of the Audleys and their guide,
old Dr. Feng spoke behind me.
“A pretty sight, Yelverton. It is good, indeed, to be young. There’s an
example of the fate lying before you: you’ll have to marry some day,
you know.”
“No sign of it yet, doctor,” I laughingly replied.
As a matter of fact, matrimony had so far made no appeal to me: I had
never met a girl who had stirred me deeply. I had many friends--or at
least acquaintances--of my own sex, but I was deeply absorbed in my
hobbies and, not seeking society for society’s sake, I had hardly any
woman friends. Sometimes I fancied that the opposite sex found in me
something antipathetic and uncongenial: at any rate, I made little
progress with them and, perhaps for that reason, was quite content to
remain a bachelor and keep my father’s old housekeeper, Mrs. Chapman,
to “mother” me as she did when I was a boy and manage my flat in
Russell Square.
I suppose I was no better and no worse than thousands of other fellows
of my age. Men coming down from Oxford and flung into the whirl of
London life are not usually Puritans or ascetics. I suppose I was much
like them. Life was young in me, and fortune had been kind. If I had
few friends, I had no enemies: I had an income ample for my wants and I
enjoyed myself in my own way. My work kept me busy during the day: my
evenings were filled with music, my “wireless,” an occasional dance,
or theatre and I was always merry and happy. Nothing had occurred
to make me, a careless youngster, realize that there was something
in life deeper and dearer than anything I know. I was not given to
self-analysis or overmuch introspection and that a storm of love might
some day shatter my complacent existence to bits never crossed my mind.
My music and my experiments in radio-telephony were about the only
serious side of my life. So Dr. Feng’s good humored badinage left me
quite unmoved.
We strolled together to the curling rink for a match.
Old Mr. Humphreys, a grey-faced financier from the near East, and
a very charming and refined old fellow, sat in his invalid chair
watching us. The ice was in perfect condition and very fast, so that
the game was as good as could be obtained, even in Scotland itself.
The orchestra was playing gay music for the skaters, some of whom were
waltzing, laughter sounded everywhere and the bright sunny morning was
most enjoyable.
We lost the match, mostly, I fear, through several very bad stones
that I played, and our lack of energy in sweeping. Curling is a very
difficult game to play well, for, unlike golf or tennis, one can get
such little practice at home.
However, we all afterward retired to the bar, and over our cocktails
old Mr. Humphreys who, being a confirmed invalid, wheeled himself about
in his chair, chatted merrily. He had arrived about a week after I had
come. He seldom, if ever, left his chair during the day. His guidance
and management of the chair was wonderful and he could even play
billiards while seated. He and the doctor were great friends and often
joined a bridge party together, while I took my skis up the cable
railway to the Allmendhubel and swept back down the slopes.
The following afternoon, while passing along the terrace of the big
chalet which overlooks the rink, I found Major Harold Burton, here the
secretary of the Mürren Bob-sleigh Club, and at home an officer in the
Tank Corps, chatting with the Audleys.
“I say, Yelverton!” he exclaimed, “will you join us on a test on the
bob-run presently? Mr. and Mrs. Audley are coming. Let me introduce
you.”
I raised my ski-cap and bowed.
“Thanks,” I replied, “I’ll be delighted to make a fourth. You’re the
only man I’d trust to take me down. It’s too fast for me!” I added with
a laugh.
“Is it really a fast run?” asked the bride, smiling.
“Well, you will see for yourself,” I replied.
Laughing gayly we went over the snow, past the bend at the village shop
where one can obtain anything from a Swiss cuckoo clock, to a paper of
pins, and whose elderly proprietor is one of the best ski instructors
in the canton. Paying our fare, we ascended by the rack-railway up the
snowy heights of the Allmendhubel.
On the truck was our heavy “bob,” with its steel frame and runners, and
its delicate controls. At the summit the attendants pushed it along the
flat to the narrow entrance of the bob-run which a hundred hands had,
a few weeks before, constructed in the snow, digging it all out and
making many banked-up hair-pin bends down the side of the mountain for
two and a half miles back into Mürren.
Those curves are scientifically calculated for speed, but it takes an
expert to negotiate them successfully. The crew of a “big bob” must
know the course, and be alert to the command of the driver to bend over
“right,” “left,” or “up.” One’s first trip in a “bob” on a fast run is
an experience never to be forgotten. But both the bride and bridegroom
revealed that they had done such things before.
At the “gate” of the run--a narrow cut eight feet deep in the snow--a
smiling Swiss stood beside the telephone, which gave “clear passage.”
Burton, as an expert, who took no chances, had the “bob” turned over,
and examined the brakes and controls, which sometimes get clogged with
snow.
We all got in and set our feet forward on the rests, I being behind to
act as brakesman, and to “brake” at the instant order of Burton.
“Everybody all right?” he asked, as we settled ourselves behind each
other on the big bob.
We responded that we were, then four men pushed us off down the narrow
icy slope.
Slowly we went at first. Then, suddenly gathering speed, we saw a dead
end in front of us.
“Right!” cried Burton, and all of us leaned over to the right and thus
negotiated the corner.
“Left!” was the order, and round we went every moment gathering speed.
“Careful!” he cried, “in a minute we shall have a right and left
quickly. Now--! Right! Left! Up! Quick!”
By this time we were flying down the side of the mountain, showers
of particles of ice every now and then being thrown up and cutting
our faces. Now and again we swept through clouds of snow. We held our
breath and screwed up our eyes until we could only just see.
“Left! Right! Up! Left--again! Right!” shouted Burton, and each of us
alert and quick, obeyed. We were traveling at a furious speed and any
fault might mean a serious accident, such as that in which one of the
British Bob-sleigh team for the Olympic Sports broke both his legs
during a run at Chamonix.
“Straight!” we heard Burton shout as we flew along, still down and
down. “Right in a few moments,” he cried. “Be careful. Then a big bump
and we’re down. Steady!--steady! Now-w-w! Right!--Look out! Bump!
Good!” and he steered us down a straight path past where the watcher
stood at the other end of the telephone.
“Well?” he shouted to the time-keeper, as he pulled up, “what is it?”
“Four minutes, eight and a half seconds, sir,” replied the tall,
thin-faced Swiss peasant, speaking in French.
“Good! Fairly fast! But we’ll try to do it in better time tomorrow.”
I had sat behind little Mrs. Audley who, turning to me, her face
reddened by the rush of frosty air, exclaimed,--
“Wasn’t it glorious! I’ve been to Switzerland three times before. I
passed my third test in skiing two years ago, but have never been on a
big bob-run. That last double turn was most exciting, wasn’t it?”
I agreed, and we all four strolled together back to the hotel to tea.
Afterward, as I walked in the twilight upon the snowy path leading to
the station of the funicular railway, I found myself surrounded by
groups of young men and girls returning from skiing on the Grütsch
Alp, and other places. But even these cheerful greetings and joyous
conversations could not remove from my mind a new and entirely strange
feeling of fascination that I felt was exercised over me by pretty Mrs.
Audley. It was something magnetic, something indescribable, and, to me,
wholly weird and uncanny. I had only spoken to her a few casual words.
Yet I knew instinctively that into my careless and care-free life a new
and disturbing element had entered.
CHAPTER II
A TEMPORARY BRIDE
Though I was not, as a rule, fond of society, it was impossible to
resist the infection of the merry-making spirit at Mürren and in
consequence I joined heartily in all the fun that was going forward.
The night of the bob-sleigh trip found me playing the drum in the
amateur jazz band--a dance-orchestra formed among the visitors each
year, to carry on the dancing after midnight. Mrs. Audley and her
husband came into the dance-hall of the Kürhaus just as the merriment
began, and they danced together while I sat behind the drum with a
little comic, flat-brimmed hat in imitation of George Robey, upon my
head.
“Really your amateur band is more amusing than the professional one,”
declared Audley, during the interval. “Last night we watched you. It
seems that the visitors wait until you start up.”
“Well,” I laughed. “We try and keep things humming along until two, or
even three o’clock. We like to play and the others like to dance.”
“My wife loves it,” he declared. “She’s only just been saying that she
would like to join you.”
“Right!” I said, laughing. “She shall be our pianist tomorrow--if she
will.”
But the bride hesitated. “I’m afraid, Mr. Yelverton,” she said, “that
I’m not so good as the American girl you’ve got. She’s a professional,
surely.”
As a matter of fact she was studying the piano in Paris, and was in
Mürren for the winter holiday.
And then we struck up again and the crowd danced merrily till nearly
three o’clock.
The following day was a Saturday. I spent a large part of the morning
gossiping with old Mr. Humphreys, whose chief pleasures as an invalid
seemed to be to play bridge and to smoke his pipe. Though his was
rather a thoughtful disposition, as his deep-sunken eyes and shaggy
brows suggested, yet he was always a cheerful and entertaining
companion.
“I sometimes stay with my sister at Weybridge, in Surrey,” he
explained, as I walked beside him while he wheeled his chair over the
snowy road which leads out of the village along the edge of the deep
precipice overlooking Lauterbrunnen in the misty valley far below.
While we were in the bright keen air high-up above the clouds, with the
sun shining brilliantly over a white picturesque world, below, in the
valley, it was dark dull winter. “Very soon,” added my friend, “very
soon I’ll have to go back to Constantinople, where I have a good many
interests. But I shall only be there a few weeks. All this political
trouble makes things very difficult financially. Have you ever been in
Turkey?”
I replied in the negative, but added that it had long been my desire to
go there, and see the beauties of the Bosphorus.
“Yes,” he said, “You ought to go. You’d find lots to interest you. Life
in the Turkish capital and Turkish life is quite different from life
in Europe. The Turk is always a polished gentleman and, moreover, the
foreigner is now better protected in every way than the Turk himself,
thanks to the laws made years ago.”
“That, I suppose, is why Constantinople before the war was such a
hot-bed of European sharks, swindlers and bogus concession-hunters,” I
remarked, with a smile, for I had heard much of the “four-flush” crowd
from a friend who had interests in the Ottoman Empire.
“Exactly,” he laughed. “It is true that in Pera we have a collection
of the very worst crooks in all Europe. But it is hoped that, under
the new conditions, Turkey will expel them and begin a new and cleaner
regime.”
As he spoke we turned a sharp corner, and Stanley Audley and his
pretty wife, smart in another sports suit of emerald green that I
had not before seen her wearing, shouted simultaneously the warning,
“_Achtung!_”
Next second, recognizing us, they greeted us cheerily as they slid
swiftly past upon their skis.
“A very charming pair--eh?” remarked old Humphreys. “The more I see of
them the more interesting they become. What do you think of the girl?
You are young, and should be a critic of feminine beauty,” he added,
with a smile.
“I agree. She is very charming,” I said, “Audley is, however, rather
too serious, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do. She’s too go-ahead for him--she’s a modern product as they
call it. If a man marries he ought to have a comrade, not a cushion.
A woman, to be a perfect wife, should not be too intellectual. A
knowledge of literature, art and science does not necessarily make for
domestic happiness. In a wife you want heart more than brains. Yet a
giddy, brainless wife is even a worse abomination.”
“Do you mean Mrs. Audley,” I asked.
“Not in the least,” he replied quickly. “I don’t think she is either
brainless or giddy. I am only giving you my idea of the perfect wife.
The real wife would be a _mate_--the term is used by the lower classes
and expresses the ideal perfectly. It sums up the whole thing. And I
don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Audley are really _mated_, though at present
they are evidently very much in love with one another. I think they
married in a hurry.”
This was a new line of thought for me, and, naturally, I was
astonished. But I kept silence. Old Humphreys had seen far more of the
world than I had and I had a good deal of respect for his judgment.
When we got back to the hotel Dr. Feng was waiting for me and we went
in to lunch together. We were late and the big dining room was almost
empty. After we had finished our meal Feng went to his room and I
strolled into the lounge intending to have a cup of coffee there and
then go to my room to write some letters.
To my surprise--for I thought they were out skiing--I found Audley and
his wife seated on a settee. Both were obviously upset and the bride’s
eyes showed unmistakable traces of tears.
To this day I cannot imagine what prompted me, but I think it must have
been sheer nervous bravado for, without passing, I stepped across to
them, and with a laugh exclaimed,--
“Well--and what is the matter now?”
Both stared at me in natural resentment. I could have bitten my tongue
out in my vexation at having perpetrated such a banality. I started a
stumbling apology.
“Oh, all right, Yelverton,” said Audley, his resentment vanishing, “the
fact is we are in a difficulty and I don’t quite know what to do.”
“Can I help you anyhow?” I asked.
“I’m afraid not. But I’ll tell you how things are. We were married in
London only four days ago and now I have to go back and Thelma doesn’t
like it. I’m an electrical engineer at the head offices in Westminster
of Gordon & Austin, the big combine which holds concessions for the
supply of electricity to about forty towns in England. I’ve just had a
wire calling me to attend a meeting of the directors on Monday morning.
It is proposed to promote me to be manager of the power works at
Woolwich, which means a big lift that will be a great thing for me in
the future.”
“Well, of course, you’ll go,” I said.
“I suppose I must,” he replied. “But according to the papers there’s
a big gale in the Channel and only the little boat is crossing from
Boulogne. Thelma doesn’t want me to leave her and she is such a bad
sailor that if she came with me she would certainly be very seriously
ill. The last time she was seasick she collapsed very dangerously. She
cannot possibly make the crossing.”
The girl was obviously on the edge of a flood of tears.
“But surely,” I said to her husband, “Mrs. Audley will be all right
here for a few days. If you care to trust me so far I shall be
delighted to look after her and so, I am sure, will Dr. Feng and Mr.
Humphreys. She could be with us. You ought to be back by Wednesday
evening.”
“It’s awfully kind of you, Yelverton,” said Audley, “but it rather
looks like taking advantage of your good nature.”
“Nonsense,” I said, “we shall all be delighted. If you catch the
Boulogne express from Interlaken tonight you will be in Victoria
tomorrow evening in good time for your appointment on Monday. You can
leave again on Tuesday and be up here on Wednesday. We will keep Mrs.
Audley amused until then.”
Both expressed their thanks and we went to the telephone to get on to
the Sleeping-car Company in Interlaken and reserve a berth.
I arranged to leave with them at four o’clock that afternoon and
descend by the funicular into Lauterbrunnen, where Audley would take
train for Interlaken to catch the night-mail for Boulogne.
Thus, having fixed things up, I left them and went up to the Doctor’s
room where I told him what had occurred.
The old fellow at first laughed immoderately and declared I was
extremely foolish to intrude. However, he was sympathetic enough.
“Poor little girl!” he said. “Of course she would be very lonely.
We must have her to sit at our table, Yelverton, and of course, my
dear boy, you must entertain her. Poor little girl!--she has only one
honeymoon, and to think that it should be so interrupted! Yes. You did
quite the right thing,--quite right!”
At six o’clock I stood on the snowy platform at Lauterbrunnen station
with “The Little Lady,” as I called her, and we watched her husband
wave us farewell as the train left. It was dark, damp and dreary down
there. A thaw had set in and it was sloppy under foot. Lauterbrunnen is
not a pleasant place in winter. Suddenly she turned to me and with a
merry laugh exclaimed:
“Well, Mr. Yelverton, I suppose I am now your temporary bride--eh?”
We laughed together, and then crossed back to the little station of the
funicular railway and slowly ascended until, just in time for dinner,
we were back again in Mürren.
Naturally, the fun-loving guests at the hotel made the best of the
news that Stanley Audley had had to dash off to London and had left
his pretty wife in my charge. Chaff and banter flew freely, practical
jokes were played on us by the score and the excitement helped to chase
away Mrs. Audley’s depression. And, perhaps, wisely, she sought to get
rid of her natural sorrow by flinging herself into the whirl of the
Kürhaus life. She danced, laughed and even flirted mildly with one or
two young fellows in a way she certainly would not have dreamed of
doing had Stanley Audley been present. But it was all very innocent and
above-board and not even the strictest moralist would have found fault
with this gay abandon which, I fancy, was half assumed. For, disguise
it how she would, she was quite clearly devoted to her husband and
longed only for his return.
Next day she lunched with Dr. Feng and myself and in the afternoon we
put on our skis and I took her out over the snow to the Grütsch Alp
by a way which commanded a magnificent view of the high Bernese Alps.
We took our cameras with us and, on my table, as I write there is a
snap-shot I took of her as, in her smart winter sports kit, she sped
swiftly down a steep slope with her ski-sticks held behind her in real
professional style.
She proved a delightful companion. She was, I found, a Londoner born
and bred, and she had all the genuine shrewdness and good humor of the
town girl. She was well educated, a perfect encyclopædia of books and
plays, and she was, as I knew, a splendid dancer. Her mother, the widow
of an ex-naval officer named Shaylor, lived at Bexhill. Of her father
she remembered very little: he had been on the China Station for many
years and his visits home had been infrequent. He had died in China the
year before.
The humor of my position struck me forcibly. Here was I, a young
bachelor fairly well off and sufficiently good-looking, left in charge
of a beautiful young girl who was a bride of only a few days! In
England, of course, such a position would have been unthinkable. It did
not seem so strange in the free and easy camaraderie of Mürren where
the free and easy sporting life bred a harmless unconventionality and
where even the British starchy reserve was very early sloughed off.
Everybody made a joke of the whole affair and Dr. Feng and old Mr.
Humphreys laughed like boys at this novel status I had acquired.
Of course there was some malice: there always is in a mixed company.
After we had glided some miles across the snow, we halted and I poured
out some tea from the vacuum flask I carried. Just as Mrs. Audley was
drinking a party of men and girls from the hotel passed. Noticing us,
one of the girls made some remark. What it was I did not hear, but
it produced a burst of ill-mannered laughter and my companion turned
scarlet.
“They’re horrid, aren’t they?” she said and I agreed. “But it is
really delightful here,” she said, looking up into my face. “You are
most awfully kind to us, Mr. Yelverton. Stanley and I shall never
forget it. If he gets the position of manager at Woolwich it will mean
so much to us--and it will greatly please my mother.”
“Was your mother--er--against your marriage?” I inquired.
“Well--yes, she was. She thought I was too young. You see I’m not
nineteen yet, though people think I’m older,” she confessed with a
charming little moue. “Stanley is an awfully good boy, and I love him
so very much.”
“Naturally, and I hope you always will,” I said. “Of course, I’m older
than you, but our position here today is really a bit unconventional,
isn’t it?”
“It is,” she laughed, “I wonder how you like being bothered with a
temporary bride?”
“I’m not bothered, but most charmed to have such a delightful companion
as yourself, Mrs. Audley,” I declared.
We returned to dinner after an enjoyable afternoon amid those wild
mountains and snowy paths, and when she came to table she provided one
of us, at any rate, with a startling surprise.
We had taken our seats at our table and were waiting for her. Seated
with my back to the door I did not see her enter the room, but I saw
Dr. Feng, who was facing me, suddenly stiffen in his chair and not
even his Chinese impassivity could disguise the look of amazement,
almost of fear, which leaped suddenly into his eyes.
“Whatever is the matter, doctor?” I jerked out in amazement.
Instantly the old man had himself in hand again. But that glimpse of
his vivid emotion had startled me. Before I could say anything he had
risen and was greeting Thelma Audley. I sprang to my feet.
Mrs. Audley was wearing a dainty gown of ivory silk--her wedding dress,
she told us later, put on in compliment to the old doctor. She looked
very sweet and girlish in it. But Dr. Feng, I could plainly see, had no
eyes for the dress: his attention was concentrated on the extraordinary
pendant which Mrs. Audley wore on her bosom, suspended from a thin
platinum chain round her neck.
“Look what I have had sent me!” she cried as she called our attention
to it. “Did you ever see anything so quaint?” And she took it off and
handed it to the doctor. He took it from her with what, had the brooch
been some sacred emblem, I should have thought was an expression of
deep reverence, and examined it closely.
It was a sufficiently striking ornament to have attracted attention
anywhere. It was fashioned in the form of a peacock’s foot, about three
inches long. The shank, at the end of which was a tiny ring through
which the platinum chain was passed, was of rough gold studded with
small diamonds and each of the claws was composed of a single crystal,
cut to the natural shape of the claw. The jewels blazed in the glare of
the electric lights. The pendant was of exquisite workmanship and was
quite obviously enormously valuable.
“Why, wherever did you get that, Mrs. Audley?” I exclaimed. “It’s
really wonderful.”
“Isn’t it pretty?” she said. “It came by registered post this evening
and I found it waiting for me when I went up to dress. Mother had sent
it on from Bexhill. I don’t know who sent it--there was no letter--but
perhaps I shall find out when I get home.” It was evident she had not
the least idea of the value of this quaint jewel.
I was keenly watching Dr. Feng. For some reason I could not explain, I
connected the crystal claw with the unmistakable agitation he had shown
as he caught sight of Mrs. Audley entering the room.
“Did you say there was no letter with it? Perhaps you have kept the
packing,” he asked, gravely regarding the jewel as it lay in the palm
of his hand.
“Oh, it came from some foreign place,” Mrs. Audley said. “I could not
make out the name, but I will fetch the wrapper, perhaps you can tell,”
and she darted from her seat.
Feng sat silent, turning the claw over and over in his hand and
closely examining it. He seemed to have forgotten me entirely in his
abstraction.
A few moments later Mrs. Audley returned with a small box and some
peculiar paper in which it had been wrapped. The whole had been
rewrapped in brown paper in England and the original address--“Miss
Thelma Shaylor, care of Mrs. Shaylor, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England,”
was undamaged. It was a queer cramped handwriting, evidently that of a
foreigner.
Dr. Feng glanced at it. “This was posted in Pekin,” he said, “Have you
any friends out there, Mrs. Audley?”
“No, certainly not,” was the startling reply. “I have never known
anyone in China. Are you sure it is from Pekin?”
Dr. Feng smiled. “You forget I am a Chinese, Mrs. Audley,” he said.
“You can be quite sure that package came from Pekin. It is wrapped in
Chinese rice paper as you will see, and the address was written by a
Chinese.”
Mrs. Audley looked puzzled. “Well,” she said at last, “someone who
knows me must have gone to China. But it’s very pretty, and I wish I
knew who sent it.”
“You must take great care of it,” said Dr. Feng. “It is very valuable,
apart from sentimental considerations.”
Then our talk drifted to other topics and the crystal claw, for the
moment, was apparently forgotten. But I noticed that Dr. Feng could
not keep his eyes off it for long, and he was unusually silent and
abstracted during the meal.
Tired from her ski excursion Mrs. Audley left us early and went to bed.
The old doctor and I were sitting in the lounge drinking coffee when I
made up my mind to ask him about the crystal claw.
“What does the crystal claw mean, Doctor?” I said quietly, shooting the
question at him suddenly in an interval of our chat.
He glanced at me keenly. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What makes you
think I know anything about it?”
“All right, Doctor,” I laughed. “I happened to be looking at you when
Mrs. Audley came into the dining room and saw your face. Also I saw you
looking at the claw afterward. Don’t tell me you don’t know anything
about it. Remember I’m a lawyer.”
The old man laughed. “You’re right enough, my boy,” he said pleasantly.
“I know a good deal about the crystal claw. But what I don’t know is
why it was sent Mrs. Audley--or rather to Miss Shaylor.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Not by any means,” he rejoined quickly. “That claw was sent to Miss
Shaylor--to Miss Shaylor,” he repeated emphatically. “The fact that she
is Mrs. Audley has nothing whatever to do with it. She thinks it is a
wedding present. It is nothing of the kind. The man who sent her the
crystal claw could not have known of her wedding, anyhow.”
“Tell me all about it, Doctor,” I begged.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I don’t suppose it will do any harm if I do.
But you had better keep what I tell you to yourself, at any rate for
the present.
“The crystal claw,” he went on, “is the badge or sign of the Thu-tseng,
a powerful Manchu secret society. There is nothing illegal about the
society; it simply works for the political regeneration of China.
Hsi-yuan himself is one of its leading lights--you know of him, of
course. The claw is given, so far as outsiders are concerned, only
to those who have rendered some signal service to the society. Now,
I cannot see how Mrs. Audley, by any conceivable stretch of the
imagination, can have helped the Thu-tseng. Excepting myself, she has
probably never spoken to a Chinese in her life.”
“Did you know her father was a naval officer and was for many years on
the China Station?” I asked.
Feng started violently, “Is that so?” he asked quickly.
“Yes,” I replied, “she told me so only today.”
The old man sank back into his chair and pondered deeply.
“That may explain it,” he said slowly. “It is just possible the claw
has been sent to her in recognition of something her father did. But,
if so, it must have been something of very great importance. How long
has her father been dead?”
“About a year,” I replied.
“Well,” he said, after another period of thought, “there must have been
some reason why the sending of the claw was delayed. But,” he went
on with growing animation, “you can take it from me she has powerful
friends. With that claw in her possession she could ask almost anything
she liked in any part of China today. It would be a magic talisman
there.”
Of course, I was as completely bewildered and amazed as Dr. Feng. But
I could only assume that his solution of the mystery was correct. Mrs.
Audley apparently knew next to nothing of her father’s life abroad:
certainly she would and could know nothing of his political activities
there. But Feng was confident he had somehow been associated with
powerful members of the Thu-tseng.
“I will send some cables tomorrow,” he said, as we parted for the
night. “I am deeply interested in this affair. China is the land of
mysteries, and this is beyond me. The last time I saw the crystal claw
was when I was in Tibet twenty years ago. It was worn by a monk of a
Buddhist monastery there. But, of course, I could never find out why he
got it.”
CHAPTER III
THE DEADLY FOEHN
Next day, while old Humphreys remained in his invalid chair to write
some business letters to his agents in the Near East, and Doctor
Feng had a match at curling, I took “The Little Lady” out upon the
other side of the deep valley to the popular winter sports resort at
Wengen, which lies up the mountain on the opposite side of the valley.
We lunched at the splendid Regina Hotel, where every one goes, and
afterwards took some snap-shots. Later we took the train up to the
Schiedegg and came down on our skis, a glorious run back to Wengen,
the snow conditions being perfect. In everything she was interested,
admiring the scenery and thoroughly enjoying the run, until we returned
in the darkness up the mountain side again to Mürren.
I had come to the conclusion that Mrs. Audley had been a London
business girl, for she told me she knew shorthand and typewriting,
and she was evidently familiar with business affairs. The old invalid
had become even more interested in her. He studied her as the type of
the modern girl and she certainly was always bright and vivacious
when with us. Dr. Feng, however, though he was invariably polite to
her, seemed to have become, for some reason, decidedly antagonistic.
It is true the position was decidedly unconventional and irregular,
but I could not reconcile his present attitude with his earlier and
very obvious liking for Mrs. Audley. He now disagreed utterly with my
quixotic offer to look after her and did not hesitate to say so.
“You are playing with fire,” he declared. “You are both young and she
is a very pretty girl. The best thing you can do will be to clear out.”
I laughed, of course, and told him I had only accepted this
responsibility in order to help a man out of a difficulty.
He shook his head. “You don’t know either of them, and you don’t know
what you may have let yourself in for.”
I wondered, naturally, whether he had been influenced by the arrival of
the crystal claw, and asked him bluntly if this were the case.
“Not at all,” he assured me. “The crystal claw has nothing whatever to
do with it.”
In spite of all he said I would not take his advice. In the headstrong
way of youth I put him down as a thoroughly conventional old fogey, a
survival of the Victorian era when girls were compelled to go about
with chaperons and the smoking of a cigarette was a vice to be
indulged only in the strictest privacy. So Mrs. Audley and I continued
to enjoy ourselves, skating each morning on the rink and skiing
together in the afternoon over the freshly fallen snow.
With a view to throwing additional light on the mystery of the crystal
claw I tried as delicately as I could to “pump” her about her father.
But it was evident she knew little or nothing beyond what she had told
me. “He was a naval officer on the China Station for many years,”
seemed to sum it all up and I wondered whether, for some reason I could
not divine, further knowledge had been deliberately withheld from her.
Of Eastern political affairs she obviously knew nothing.
Of her husband she said little, though I saw she was devoted to him.
“When we get back, Stanley and I hope to get a flat at Hampstead,” she
said one day when we were resting after a swift run on skis close to
the Half-way House--which is on the electric railway line which runs
from Mürren along the edge of the precipice, before one changes into
the rack-railway to descend to the valley.
That night at dinner there was a strange incident. Mrs. Audley came
down in a gown which was the envy of many girls in the hotel. It was
made of ciré tissue, and the yoke and hem were of silver lace. The
front panel was ornamented with pin tucks and finished with a chou of
flowers. It was a charming frock. On her breast the crystal claw winked
and blazed in the light of the lamps.
Old Humphreys, contrary to his usual custom, had come into the dining
room for dinner and was seated in his wheeled chair at the same table
as Mrs. Audley, Dr. Feng and myself.
I shall never forget the look that came over his face when he caught
sight of the crystal claw! Rage, fear and amazement mingled together
until the old man looked positively demoniacal. Luckily, Mrs. Audley
was talking to Dr. Feng and neither of them noticed him.
It was a moment or two before the old invalid could control himself.
Then his face resumed its usual expression. But I had caught a glimpse
of the hell that, for a brief moment, must have raged in the old man’s
mind and once again the crystal claw seemed to be associated with
something sinister and dangerous.
“That’s a pretty new brooch you have, Mrs. Audley,” said the old fellow
in a grating voice which showed that even now he had hardly recovered
himself.
“Yes,” she laughed merrily, “isn’t it sweet? It came by post, sent to
me from Pekin. I haven’t any idea who sent it for there was no name. It
has been forwarded from London, and is no doubt a wedding present from
somebody who has forgotten to enclose a card.” And she turned over the
crystal claw so that he could admire it.
Afterwards we crossed the snowy road to the Kürhaus, where in the
spacious ball-room we danced together. She also danced with two or
three other admiring partners. Old Mr. Humphreys wheeled his chair into
the dancing room as was his habit each evening. It was pathetic to see
the grey-haired thin-faced man who seemed so active in every other
sense, deprived of the power of locomotion. When he left his chair he
managed to hobble along and with great difficulty up the stairs with
the aid of rubber-capped sticks. Mostly, however, the porters carried
his chair upstairs to the first floor and he wheeled himself along the
corridor to his room.
On the following morning, according to arrangements made over-night,
we started at nine o’clock and taking with us John, the smart,
ever-smiling guide, we started out on our skis to ascend the
Schwarzbirg, nine thousand feet high, by way of the Bielen-Lücke. The
ascent we found extremely interesting, but the weather, even when we
started, was grey and threatening. Now and then snow clouds drifted
quickly across, and that dangerous and mysterious Alpine wind, the
Foehn, ever and anon grew gusty. It was clear a storm was threatening.
“A little blizzard, perhaps,” remarked the slim, agile John, in his
soft English, as he slid along over the snow.
Weather conditions in the Alps change with every moment. A blizzard may
succeed brilliant sunshine within five minutes--a blizzard that whips
the face with its icy blast, piles snow deep, and freezes one to the
marrow. In the glacier regions of the higher Alps, the weather cannot
be depended upon for a few minutes together.
Thelma, that day, wore the ski kit in which I had first seen her--the
Fair Isle jazzy patterned jersey, and over it the short little
wind-proof jacket trimmed with fur, and her corduroy breeches and
stockings. It was in every way serviceable.
Presently when she had, to my surprise, executed what is known as an
“open Christiania,” and we were skiing together across a great plateau
of snow far above the tree-line, with John fifty yards ahead of us, she
suddenly exclaimed--
“Do you know, Mr. Yelverton, I’ve heard nothing from Stanley except a
telegram sent from Victoria at six o’clock on Sunday night, announcing
his arrival. I’ve wired, but I’ve got no reply. I’m worried about him,
but I don’t want to bother you.”
“That’s curious,” I remarked. “To where have you sent your wire?”
“To his office in Westminster.”
“Well, you ought to have had a reply. But never mind,” I said. “He’s
due back tomorrow night. We’ll go down to Lauterbrunnen and meet
him--eh?”
The sky had suddenly become darkened and a strong tearing wind had
sprung up. We had left the plateau and upon our skis were following
John “herring-boning” up the side of the mountain. When one starts
“herring-boning” one faces the incline and points the skis outwards at
a considerable angle to each other--then the slope can be mounted by
lifting the skis forward alternately and placing them in the snow on
the inner edges, the angle between them remaining the same.
It was a steep slope, so we made wider angles between our skis to
prevent them slipping backwards.
We were lurching heavily from side to side in order to throw the weight
of one ski while lifting the other, when John suddenly shrieked the
warning, “_Achtung!_”
Next second I heard a soft hissing sound overhead, then a loud rumbling
which increased to thunder. I instinctively seized Mrs. Audley. The
next moment we were struck violently in the back, covered by a blanket
of snow, and hurled down the mountain side amid an avalanche of snow,
stones and rocks.
When, very slowly, I awakened to a sense of things about me, I found
I had bitten my tongue badly and felt a severe pain at the back of
my skull where, I suppose, I must have struck a rock. Mrs. Audley was
still in my arms and unconscious, her bleeding face white as marble.
Both of us were deeply imbedded in the snow, but our heads fortunately
lay clear, otherwise we must certainly have been suffocated. The
avalanche had swept us down, but as I had instinctively grasped my
dainty companion, we had been held together.
Blood was flowing freely from the wound in my head, and Mrs. Audley’s
face was cut and bleeding. As quickly as possible I disengaged myself
from the heavy weight of snow upon me, and strove to rouse her from her
swoon. The thought that she might be dead drove me well-nigh frantic.
I seized her by the shoulders and shook her violently. Then with
trembling fingers I tore open her jacket, jersey and silk blouse, and
bent my head to listen. Her heart was beating faintly.
My vacuum flask of hot tea was battered and broken but in an inside
pocket I had, providentially, a small flask of brandy which was
undamaged. I forced a few drops of the spirit between her pallid lips.
Her lips moved. A moment later she opened her big grey eyes and asked
me in a whisper:
“Where am I?”
“You are safe,” I assured her, holding her in my arms. “Don’t worry.
We’ll be out of this very soon.”
“But where are we?” she asked gazing around upon the snowy
surroundings. “Where is John? Tell me!”
I told her briefly what had happened.
“But where is John?” she queried. “I hope he is all right. It was
very foolish for us to venture up here after the warm Foehn of
yesterday,--wasn’t it?”
“I expect John is all right,” I said. “He warned us, and no doubt took
precautions.” Guides in the Alps seldom fail.
With difficulty we wriggled out of the snow and stood up. Even in our
shaken condition we could not but admire the panorama of the Eiger, the
Jungfrau and the Wetterhorn, across the darkening valley before us. But
haste was imperative: the light was fading quickly and we were a long
way from Mürren.
I had lost one of my skis, which had been torn from its strong
Huitfeldt binding in our fall. Mrs. Audley’s, however, were intact, and
we started to descend. She soon recovered in the keen Alpine air, and
was able to help me, lame dog that I was. Repeatedly we gave the six
shouts recognized as the regular Alpine distress call, but there was no
reply.
It was quite dark when we struggled back, to find that our guide,
having happily escaped, had arrived before us and sent out a
search-party. By shouts and flashing signals, this was soon recalled.
At the hotel they put Thelma to bed at once, while after the Swiss
doctor had seen to my head, I sat in the bar recounting my experience
and drinking a strong whiskey and soda.
Dr. Feng and Humphreys were both most eager to know the details of our
adventure. But later the doctor said--
“I think you are very foolish, Yelverton! You ought never to have had
anything to do with the bride, she will only bring trouble upon you.
Humphreys agrees with me. You’re a young fool!”
“Probably I am,” I replied laughing! “I very nearly lost my life over
it today.”
“You are a regular Don Quixote,” he said. “Well, I admire you after
all. You would be a fine young fellow, if you were just a little more
cautious.”
“Cautious!” I laughed, facing the old doctor, “I’m young. You are old.
You weren’t cautious when you were my age, were you?”
“No,” he answered. “I suppose not--I suppose not.”
The night-mail train from Boulogne arrives at the little station at
Lauterbrunnen each evening about five o’clock. The next afternoon
therefore Mrs. Audley, who had quite recovered from her accident on
the previous day, accompanied me down into the valley by the cable
railway. She was all excitement, for her husband, before his departure,
had promised to return by that train, and had, indeed, booked his
sleeping-berth by it.
At last the train came slowly in from Interlaken, where the change
is made from the _wagon-lit_. A number of hurrying English visitors
descended but Stanley Audley was not among them.
Bitter disappointment was written upon the girl’s face.
“He must have missed the train at Victoria,” she declared.
“Well,” I said, “There is not another through train until
tomorrow--unless he travels by Paris and Bâle.”
The station master, however, informed us that the service from Paris
would not arrive till early next morning, so that we were compelled to
reascend to Mürren.
Audley’s failure to telegraph or write to his wife, struck me as
uncommonly strange.
While we were in the narrow little compartment of the cable railway, I
ventured to put several questions to her concerning him. But she would
give only evasive replies.
Next day she went to the little wood-built post office alone and
despatched several telegrams to various addresses, but the replies she
received gave no news of her husband. Evening came again, but Stanley
Audley was not among the arrivals from London, though I was with Thelma
on the arrival of the mountain train at Mürren station.
“I cannot make it out,” she said as we sped back to the hotel on our
skis. “Surely he must be delayed. Perhaps he has telegraphed to me and
the message has gone astray!”
“That may be,” I agreed in order to reassure her, but personally I felt
much mystified.
Next day I telegraphed to the managing director of Gordon & Austin, the
electrical engineers in George Street, Westminster, asking for news
of Stanley Audley, and in response about five o’clock in the evening
came a reply which read: “Stanley Audley is not employed by us and is
unknown to us.”
I said nothing to Thelma, but finding Dr. Feng alone, showed him the
telegram.
The old doctor grunted with dissatisfaction.
“Something wrong somewhere,” he remarked. “One should always be very
careful of hotel acquaintances. I warned you at the time that you were
indiscreet to offer to look after the bride of a man you don’t know.”
“I admit that! But the whole affair is very mysterious. He told me a
deliberate lie when he said he was employed by Gordon & Austin.”
“Yes. He’s a mystery, and evidently not what he pretended to be. What
does his wife think?”
“I haven’t shown her the telegram.”
“Don’t. Try and discover what you can from her.”
“You don’t seem to like her, Doctor,” I said bluntly.
“No. I don’t like either of them,” the old man admitted. “There’s too
much mystery about the pair. I was discussing them with Humphreys this
morning, and he agrees.”
“It is not Thelma’s fault,” I said.
“It may be. She evidently knows more about her husband than what she
has told you.”
“Well, she’s told me nothing,” I replied.
“There you are! She is concealing the truth. Go and find out all you
can. And don’t be indiscreet. Your present position is dangerous.
Perhaps he’s left her deliberately and palmed her off upon you, hoping
that you will both fall in love, and he can free himself of her at your
expense. Such things are not unknown, remember!”
“I don’t believe it,” I declared. “I undertook a trust--foolishly if
you like--and it is up to me to carry it out to the best of my ability.”
“Ah! my dear boy, your eyes are closed very often,” the old doctor
said. “The lookers-on see most of the game, and I’ve seen one or two
little things which show that your temporary bride is not adverse to a
little secret flirtation.”
“How?” I asked quickly.
“Well, she’s on quite friendly terms with that young fellow, Harold
Ruthen.”
“Ruthen!” I echoed. “I didn’t know they were acquainted. I’ve never
seen them speak.”
“No, not when you are about,” replied the old man laughing. “But I’ve
often seen them chatting together.”
This surprised me. Harold Ruthen was a rather foppish, fair-haired man
about my own age, whose airs were of the superior type. His interest in
Thelma had not escaped me, but I had never seen them speaking together.
He was, I understood, an ex-officer, and he was a very good skater. But
at first sight I had taken an instinctive dislike to him and, that he
should have made Thelma’s acquaintance in secret, greatly annoyed me.
I felt myself responsible to Stanley Audley, even if he had deceived me.
Now I found myself in a difficulty. Only at that moment I recollected
how, on the morning before Thelma’s husband had announced his forced
return to London, I had seen Ruthen walking with the doctor up a
narrow path with high snow-banks close to the hotel. They were deep
in conversation, and old Feng seemed to be impressing some point upon
Ruthen while he listened very attentively.
Did Dr. Feng know more than he admitted?
I must say that I did not like his hostile attitude towards the newly
wedded pair, an attitude which now seemed to be shared by old Mr.
Humphreys.
That night, when Thelma came to table, she was wearing a charming
gown of almond green, that we had not seen before. Though she looked
beautiful, her face was more serious than usual, and I suspected that I
saw traces of tears.
As we sat together I fell to wondering who was Stanley Audley? Why had
he deceived his young wife, and then deserted her, leaving her in my
charge?
Had I fallen into a clever trap?
CHAPTER IV
WHISPERS OF WOMEN
Two days passed, yet Stanley Audley did not return.
On the afternoon of the second day, old Mr. Humphreys spoke to me in
confidence while we sat at tea, which is almost a religious ceremony in
Mürren.
“Funny about that young fellow Audley,” he said. “Have you discovered
anything further?”
“No,” I replied, “the fact is I don’t like to be too inquisitive.”
“Of course, but the girl is left in your charge, and you certainly have
a right to know the truth,” declared the old invalid. “Personally, I
don’t like the situation at all. I shall go back to London in a few
days, but do let me know how you get on, for I am interested. You can
always write to me, care of the Ottoman Bank in London.”
I promised, and finding Thelma, who had just come in from the rink,
where there had been an ice-hockey match, I greeted her in the hall as
she went downstairs to tea.
Later we went for a stroll together and as we passed out into the grey
twilight, young Ruthen held open the door for us, bowing, but not
speaking. Before me the pair posed as strangers.
“I don’t like that fellow!” I remarked, as we walked along the snowy
road out of the village.
“Neither do I,” was her quick response.
“But, if I’m not mistaken, Mrs. Audley, you are acquainted with him,” I
remarked.
“Well--yes--and no,” she said. “It is true that he thrusts himself upon
me whenever he has the chance, and your back is turned. I’ve snubbed
him a dozen times, but he is always lurking about.”
“Then you are not friendly with him?”
“On the contrary. I confess I don’t like him,” she answered quite
frankly. Whereupon I resolved to try and catch him speaking with her
and tell him what I thought of him.
“He’s a cad!” I declared. “He pretends to be a gentleman, but he does
not behave like one.”
“You speak as though you are annoyed, Mr. Yelverton,” and she laughed
lightly.
“I am. You are left in my care, Mrs. Audley. Your husband would be
very angry if he knew that the fellow pestered you with his unwanted
attentions, would he not?”
“I suppose he would,” she faltered.
“I wonder why we hear nothing from Stanley?” I said. “It is all very
mysterious. Do you know that he is not employed by that electrical firm
in Westminster? They know nothing of him!”
She halted, held her breath and stared at me.
“What!” she cried. “But surely he is at Gordon & Austin’s? I left him
at their offices one day just before our marriage and he went in there.”
“They know nothing of him,” I assured her, telling her of their reply
to my inquiry.
“I really can’t believe it,” she said in a voice of despair. “Stanley
could not have lied to me like that.”
“Have you ever met his parents?”
“No. They are in India--at Lucknow.”
“But what do you know about him? Where did he live before you married
him?”
“He had rooms in Half Moon Street. I went there once or twice,” and she
told me the number.
“How long had you known him before you married?” I inquired.
“About six months, but he was mostly away in Paris, on business for his
firm.”
“That is the story he told you, but it is now proved to be incorrect.
The firm have no knowledge of him.”
“There must be some mistake,” she said, much puzzled.
“Did you introduce him to your mother?”
“Yes, he came home to Bexhill once and stayed the week-end at the
Sackville. Mother liked him awfully, but at the same time she thought I
was too young to marry.”
“Then during the time of your engagement he was mostly away--eh? Did
you ever meet any of his relatives?”
“No,” she replied--rather hesitatingly. I thought then she endeavored
to change the topic of our conversation.
I, however, pursued it. A suspicion forced itself on my mind that she
really knew a good deal more than she would tell me. But though I
persisted for some time she would tell me nothing more and naturally I
began to be annoyed. I did not wish to think hardly of her, but it was
impossible to stifle entirely the suspicions that insisted on forcing
themselves upon my mind. Had I been caught in some carefully prepared
trap or had I merely made a colossal fool of myself?
Ten minutes later, my companion, bursting into tears she could no
longer control, blurted out--
“I’ve been foolish, Mr. Yelverton--so very foolish! The fact is I--I’ve
married a man--a man--_I did not know_!”
“Did not know,” I gasped in turn. “Is that really the truth?”
“It is,” she said sobbing. “I--I believed all that he told me, but now
I have found out that what he said was false. And--and already he has
deserted me!”
“But you love him,” I said, full of sympathy for her in her obviously
genuine distress. “Perhaps, after all, we are misjudging him. Something
has occurred which prevents his return. I will wire at once to Half
Moon Street and see whether we can get any news.”
“Yes, do,” she urged. “Mr. Belton is the man who keeps the chambers. I
recollect the name.”
So we turned back to the chalet post office whence I sent a reply-paid
telegram. Next evening came the answer. “Mr. Audley left for abroad
about two months ago--Belton.”
That was all. We had at least one person who knew him and who might
place us in possession of more facts than we had at present.
After dinner that night Dr. Feng asked me to go with him to his room.
“I have had some telegrams from China,” he said, when he had
established me comfortably in an easy chair with a whiskey and soda at
my hand.
“Any news about Thelma?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied: “it’s a very curious story. Of course, I have no
details and I am afraid we shall never get any. But there is enough
information to show, as I expected, that the crystal claw was sent
to Mrs. Audley in recognition of services rendered by her father to a
powerful member of the Thu-tseng. Have you ever heard of Sung-tchun?”
I nodded. “Wasn’t he the chap who escaped from Siberia under rather
extraordinary circumstances in the early years of the war--about 1916
or 1917? There was a lot about him in the papers, I remember, but I
never saw any reason given for his imprisonment.”
“No public explanation ever was given,” said Dr. Feng, “but, as a
matter of fact, he was arrested on Russian territory north of China
on a trumped-up charge. As a matter of fact his party stood in the
way of certain Russian ambitions in China and he was quietly removed.
Incidentally I can tell you that after his escape the Russian
government paid very handsome compensation and apologized. But all that
was kept private.
“Now the interest to us is this: Sung-tchun’s escape was planned and
directed, from start to finish, by Mrs. Audley’s father. Of course, he
was not actively engaged in the actual rescue: he could not leave his
ship. But he organized and financed the whole thing. Sung-tchun was a
really important figure in China--far more important than the outside
world realized--and to have done them such a service would have been
ample to earn the undying gratitude of the Thu-tseng, who never forget
a friend or a foe. That is all the information my friends can get,
and I fancy it is all we shall ever get. What Captain Shaylor’s motive
was and how he was dragged into or embarked upon the affair and where
he obtained the huge sums of money the rescue must have cost, we shall
never know.”
“But why,” I cried, “has the crystal claw only just arrived? Thelma’s
father died over a year ago.”
“That is one of the questions I asked,” replied Dr. Feng. “Sung-tchun
died only last year and I imagine he must have kept very closely the
secret of his escape. In all probability the sending of the claw was
a kind of death-bed gift from him to the man who had helped him--or
rather to his daughter. That would be quite in accordance with
Sung-tchun’s known character.”
“Then the crystal claw does not imply a threat or any danger?” I
exclaimed.
“Certainly not,” declared Dr. Feng. “It is an expression of the very
utmost good will. Any member of the Thu-tseng would be bound by the
most solemn obligation to help in every way in his power the owner of
the crystal claw.”
“Well,” I said as I rose to say good-night, “at any rate, I am glad
there is no danger about it. But I don’t see how the Thu-tseng can ever
help Thelma.”
Old Feng gave me a queer look. “You can never tell,” he said slowly.
“Most people want help badly at some time in their lives. Mrs. Audley,
for instance, is in a position of considerable difficulty at the moment
and may be in a worse one very soon. And remember this, my boy--the
Thu-tseng has an arm longer than you dream of.”
As the days slipped by I became more and more concerned about
Thelma. Feng’s antagonism to herself and her husband became daily
more apparent, and I was glad when, the day after old Humphreys had
departed, he left for London. However, we parted good friends. He
was going to London first and then to the Riviera and he gave me his
solicitor’s address so that I might write to him.
Before he left I mentioned to him the effect the sight of the crystal
claw had had on old Humphreys. “Does _he_ know all about the crystal
claw?” I asked, half banteringly.
Feng was not even mildly interested. “He spent some years in China,
I know,” he remarked indifferently, “but I fancy you must have been
mistaken. All his interests were in trade and finance--not in politics.
Probably what you took for an expression of rage and fear was the
result of the terrible spasms of pain that seize him occasionally.”
The explanation seemed so reasonable that I accepted it without
hesitation. After all, it was extremely unlikely that old Humphreys
could have been mixed up with the Thu-tseng and Feng, I thought, could
hardly have been so unmoved had he really thought there was anything in
my suspicions.
But I was to learn months later that the astute Chinese had completely
hoodwinked me. I had made no mistake at all. The information I had
given him was to prove of supreme importance in the game Dr. Feng was
playing, so we learned when the final move had been played. The man
must have had nerves of iron. He was off his guard when the crystal
claw arrived, it is true, but the news--of tremendous import, as events
showed--that Humphrey’s had good reason to fear the Thu-tseng did not
cause even the quiver of an eyelash. There are few things in nature so
utterly impassive as the face of the cultured Chinese!
Thelma passed day after day in tense anxiety for news of Stanley. To
fill time we made frequent skiing excursions to the Schelthorn or the
_Seeling furen_ but every evening at half-past five we were at the
little shed-like station, breathlessly awaiting the train bringing up
travelers from England.
And each evening we hurried away disappointed.
In the hotel, on the ski-fields, and on the bob-run the fun was fast
and furious, but the laughter and the dance music jarred upon the
nerves of both of us. And, to make matters worse, many visitors were
beginning to look askance at Thelma, now that young Audley did not
return.
Questions were asked of Thelma on all sides, and to them she was
compelled to give evasive, and sometimes, untrue, answers.
Ten days after young Audley should have returned, I had, late at night,
left the ball-room at the Kürhaus opposite the hotel after a couple of
hours of strenuous drumming in the jazz orchestra.
Thelma had retired early, and, though in no mood for gaiety, I had been
compelled to help my brother amateur bandsmen. So at two o’clock we had
closed down and the dancers were all crossing the snowy road back to
the hotel.
The moon was shining brilliantly over the towering glaciers,
transforming the silent snow-clad mountains and forests into a
veritable fairyland. Such a clear, frosty night was inviting for a
stroll and many couples wrapped in coats had put on their “gouties”--or
snow-shoes--and were going for walks before turning in.
I turned into the hotel gardens where the trees were heavily laden
with freshly fallen snow, and entered a path where the snow was piled
six feet on either side. My footsteps fell noiselessly on the fresh
snow and suddenly I heard voices in the path that ran parallel with
mine--the voices of a man and a woman.
Instantly I recognized the woman’s voice as Thelma’s and I stood in
surprise that she should be out of doors at such an hour.
“Now, for the last time I ask you, Thelma, where Stanley is,” I heard
a man’s voice say. “You had a telegram from him today. Where is he? I
want to see him very urgently.”
The voice, beyond any possibility of mistake was Ruthen’s. Thelma
had assured me she disliked him, that he pestered her with unwelcome
attentions. Yet here she was talking to him at two o’clock in the
morning, three hours after she had said good-night and, apparently,
gone to bed!
“I tell you it is no business of yours,” came her reply in a hard,
resolute voice. “He is my husband and if he tells me to keep silence I
shall do so.”
“Then you refuse to let me see the wire?” he asked. “I arranged
ten days ago that I should know if you received a telegram. It was
delivered to your room at five o’clock tonight--and you know where
Stanley is, though to everybody, including that fool Yelverton, you
pretend ignorance and shed crocodile’s tears!”
“Oh! let me get back,” cried the girl. “I won’t be insulted! Mr.
Yelverton does not know the truth, but he is at least kind and
considerate towards me.”
“And takes Stanley’s place in your heart--eh?” the fellow sneered.
“Now, I ask you once again if you will tell me where I can find
Stanley. Every hour is of the greatest importance to both of us. If you
tell me, then your husband may be saved, after all!”
“Mr. Ruthen, if I could trust you, I would reply. But I don’t!” was her
plain answer.
I held my breath as I listened to that strange conversation.
“But surely you know me well enough, Thelma, to know that I am acting
only in your interest! Yelverton is a very good fellow, but happily he
is in ignorance, and his devotion to his duty as your guardian makes
it all the easier for us. Now, don’t be a little fool. Where can I get
into communication with Stanley?” he asked.
“I refuse to tell you!” replied the girl. “I know a little more than
you think, and I would rather trust Stanley than you--even though I
have to make pretence of ignorance to Mr. Yelverton.”
“To fool him, you mean!” laughed the man superciliously.
“Well, and if I have to fool him, it is for my benefit, not yours,” she
said defiantly.
“And suppose I told him all that I know?” said Ruthen. “I know that
he is your admirer--that Stanley ought never to have left you in his
charge, and--well it is patent to everybody that you are fonder of Rex
Yelverton than of your newly-married husband.”
“How dare you say such a thing!” she cried in fierce anger.
“Because it is true, my dear young lady,” was the cool reply. “I did
not come out here for nothing. Stanley has disappeared, and this
afternoon you had a telegram from him telling you, in secret, of his
hiding-place. I want to know it!”
“And I refuse to tell you. He has cut himself adrift from you forever.”
The man laughed jeeringly.
“That would be more difficult than you imagine,” he said. “You are
treading upon very dangerous ground now, Thelma. Tell me what I want to
know, and I will help both Stanley and yourself. You must know he is in
serious danger.”
“I refuse!” she said. “I will not betray Stanley.”
“Betray him! It is not a case of betrayal. He is already betrayed. It
is a matter of saving him.”
“From what?”
“You know. Don’t pretend ignorance, my dear Thelma! Surely we know
each other well enough to be friends when Stan’s safety is concerned!
He doesn’t know I’m here in Mürren, or he would have wired me his
whereabouts, so that I could go straight to him.”
I listened amazed to this extraordinary conversation. I had never
dreamed that the tall fair-haired young man who posed as a stranger to
my temporary bride, was, after all, an intimate friend of her husband’s.
“Remember,” he went on. “Yelverton is highly inquisitive--and very
naturally. He has been bamboozled from the very first. I wonder he
hasn’t smelt a rat long ago. But, of course, he is your admirer. But we
can’t waste time--we’ve been out here too long now. Tell me where I can
find Stanley.”
“I refuse,” was her firmly repeated reply.
“In that case I shall act as I have already warned you.”
“I do not intend that you should meet him again. I know sufficient
concerning your friendship--too much indeed,” she said determinedly. “I
am not blind to the fact that you are my enemy and Stanley’s. He has
hidden himself from his enemies, of whom you are one, and it is not
likely I shall tell you,” she added.
“Very well, then--take the consequences. I shall tell what I know,” the
man said.
“In which case I shall also tell what I know--which, I venture to think
you will find a trifle awkward for yourself. _So think it over_,” she
said defiantly in a low clear voice. “Good-night.”
Her footsteps were muffled in the soft snow as she made her way back
to the hotel, alone. Ruthen followed a few minutes later: no one would
have guessed that they had been out together.
I went to my room more puzzled than ever.
CHAPTER V
ESTABLISHES SOME CURIOUS FACTS
When I met Thelma next morning I noticed that she was pale and
obviously nervous and ill at ease. I longed to question her, but to do
so would have been to reveal the fact that--unintentionally, it was
true--I had been eavesdropping.
It was now plain that the man Ruthen, whom I had thought to be a mere
hotel acquaintance of Stanley Audley’s, was, in truth, something more,
whether friend or enemy I was still not quite sure. Thelma’s attitude,
it was true, suggested the latter, though Ruthen had professed friendly
motives. His attitude towards her thoroughly incensed me. But I
realized that there must be some reason, unknown to me, why Thelma
never acknowledged him when I was present. It was evident too that she
hated and possibly feared him and that she, at any rate, regarded him
as her husband’s enemy.
She made no mention of the telegram from her husband that Ruthen had
referred to and, as she had not denied having received it, I assumed
that Ruthen’s information was correct. It might have been, of course,
a reassuring message, but if this was so there was no apparent reason
why she should not have told me about it and her obvious anxiety and
nervousness seemed entirely to contradict the suggestion that it could
have contained any good news.
That morning we took our skis up the cable railway to the Allmendhubel,
a thousand feet further up the mountain side, and thoroughly enjoyed
our sport on the steep snowy incline above the village. A ski-jumping
competition had been arranged for the afternoon and we spent an hour
watching the competitors “herring-boning” and “side-stepping” as they
climbed over the snow up the distant heights in readiness for the swift
descent ending with the high jump that only experts can accomplish.
Thelma seemed silent and _distraite_ all the morning. At length I asked
her what was troubling her.
“I really didn’t know I was glum!” she replied. “Forgive me, Mr.
Yelverton, won’t you? I am awfully worried about Stanley. I really
think it is useless for me to remain here in Mürren any longer. I had
better go home to Bexhill.”
The suggestion seemed to confirm my suspicion that she knew her
husband’s whereabouts, and felt it useless to await any longer for him.
“My time is growing short, too,” I said. “I fear I must be back at my
office on Monday. My partner writes that he is very busy.”
“Then you will go on Saturday--the day after tomorrow, I suppose? If
so--may I travel with you?”
“Certainly,” I said. And as she had not booked a sleeping-berth on
the Interlaken-Boulogne express, I promised that I would see after it
during the afternoon.
Later that day I found that Audley had left her with only about a
hundred francs, and she was compelled to allow me to settle her hotel
bill.
As we came up into the hall after dinner the concierge handed Thelma a
note, saying--“Mr. Ruthen has left, miss, and he asked me to give you
this!”
She held it in her hand for a second, and then, after glancing at me,
moved away and tore it open.
The words she read had an extraordinary effect upon her. Her face
went as white as the paper, and she held her breath, her eyes staring
straight before her. Then she crushed the flimsy paper in her hand.
She reeled against a small table, and would have fallen had she not,
with a supreme effort, recovered herself, and quickly stood erect again.
“Forgive me, Mr. Yelverton,” she managed to ejaculate. “I’m not feeling
very well. Excuse me, I--I’ll go to my room!”
And she turned and ascended the stairs, leaving me astonished and
mystified.
What, I wondered, did that farewell note contain.
I saw her no more till next day. She sent me a message by the
chambermaid to say that she was not coming down again and I passed the
evening gossiping with Major Burton and two other “bobbing” enthusiasts.
By this time I had pretty thoroughly wearied of the eternal round of
pleasure. Thelma’s obvious distress and the extraordinary mystery into
which I had stumbled occupied all my thoughts and I could no longer
take the slightest pleasure in the gay life which seethed and bubbled
around me. It was therefore with a feeling of genuine relief that I
found myself at last in the restaurant car of the Boulogne express,
slowly leaving Interlaken for the long night run across France by way
of Delle and Rheims. Already we had left behind us the crisp clear air
of the mountains. The snow everywhere was half melted and slushy and
the train pushed its way onward through a dense curtain of driving
sleet.
We ate our dinner amid a gay crowd of holiday makers returning, not
only from Mürren but from Grindelwald, Wengen, Adelboden, Kandersteg,
and other winter sports centres. The talk was gay and animated, merry
laughter resounded through the long car. Yet Thelma sat pale, silent
and nervous and her tired eyes told their own tale of sleeplessness and
anxiety. She gave me the impression that she had been crushed by some
sudden and unexpected shock and though more than once I fancied she
was on the edge of confiding in me, she remained almost dumb and was
clearly disinclined to talk.
We arrived at Victoria on Sunday afternoon and I drove with her in
a taxi to Charing Cross. On the way she suddenly seized my hand and
looking straight into my eyes said--
“I really do not know how to thank you, Mr. Yelverton, for all your
great kindness towards me. I know I have been a source of great worry
to you--but--but--” she burst into tears without concluding the
sentence.
I drew her towards me and strove to comfort her, declaring that I would
continue to act as her friend and leave no stone unturned in my efforts
to trace Stanley.
At last, as we went down the Mall, she dried her eyes and became more
tranquil. We were approaching the terminus whence she was to travel to
Bexhill.
“Now--tell me truthfully,” I said to her at last, “do you, or do you
not, know where Stanley is?”
She started, her lips parted, and she held her breath.
“I--I deceived you once, Mr. Yelverton. I--I did once know where he
was. But I do not now.”
“Then you wish me to discover him?” I asked.
“Yes. But--but, I fear you will never succeed. He can never return to
me--_never_!”
“Never return to you? Why? Was he already married?” I gasped.
“No. Not that. Not that! I love Stanley, but he can never come back to
me.”
The taxi had stopped, and a porter had already opened the door. I asked
her to explain, but she only shook her head in silence.
Ten minutes later, I grasped her hand in farewell, and she waved to me
as the train moved off to the pleasant little south-coast resort where
her mother was living. Thelma Audley’s was surely a sad home-going.
Back in my rooms high-up in gray and smoky Russell Square, I found
old Mrs. Chapman, with her pleasant face and white hair, had prepared
everything for my comfort. The night was cold and rainy, and the London
atmosphere altogether depressing and unpleasant after that bright crisp
climate of the high Alps.
I looked through a number of letters which had not been sent on and,
after a wash, ate my dinner, Mrs. Chapman standing near and gossiping
with me the while. My room was warm and cozy, and with the familiar old
silhouettes and caricatures upon its walls, the side-board with some of
the Georgian plate belonging to my grandfather, and a blazing fire, had
that air of homelike comfort, which is always refreshing after hotel
life.
After I had had my coffee, and my trusted old servant had disappeared,
I threw myself into my big arm chair to think over the amazing tangle
in which I had allowed myself to become involved.
Was I falling in love with Thelma--falling in love foolishly and
hopelessly with a girl who was already married? I tried hard to
persuade myself that my feeling towards her was nothing but a deep
and honest affection, born of her sweet disposition and the queer
circumstances that had thrown us together. Stanley Audley, whatever
the explanation of his amazing conduct might be, had trusted me and
I fought hard in my own mind against a temptation which I realized
would, in normal circumstances, be a gross betrayal of confidence. I
had been brought up in a public school where “to play the game” was the
one rule of conduct that mattered and hitherto I had prided myself on
my punctiliousness in all the ordinary matters of life. Was I to fail
utterly in the first great temptation that life had brought me?
I could not disguise from myself, try how I would, that even an honest
admiration for Thelma had its perils. As Dr. Feng had said, it was
dangerous. We were both young. I had hitherto escaped heart-whole,
Thelma was not only more than ordinarily beautiful but she possessed
a degree of charm and fascination--for me, at any rate--that was
well-nigh irresistible.
For a long time I paced my room in indecision. To act as Dr. Feng
had suggested would be to break off our acquaintanceship, treating
it merely as the passing incident of a pleasant holiday. But that, I
argued, was impossible. I had promised Audley to look after his wife
when everything seemed plain and straightforward: to desert her now
when she was clearly in difficulty and distress was unthinkable. Yet to
go on might--probably would--spell utter disaster to my peace of mind,
and make shipwreck of my honor.
Hour after hour passed and I seemed to draw no nearer to a conclusion.
But at length the glimmerings of a solution of the problem began
to draw in my mind. If I could but find Stanley Audley I could cut
myself adrift from the mystery and try to forget Thelma as speedily as
possible. This I determined honestly to try to do, and I think I felt
better and happier for the resolution. What I failed to realize was the
strength of the feelings that had me in their grip. And ever and anon,
like an inducement of hope, came the resolution of Thelma’s declaration
that Stanley could never return to her. In that case--but I resolutely
tried to push away from me the thoughts that crowded into my mind.
Next day, after spending a couple of hours at Bedford Row with my
partner, Hensman, I set out on my first inquiry regarding Stanley
Audley.
I took a taxi to the house in Half Moon Street in which he had lived,
and there saw Mr. Belton, the proprietor.
He was a tall, bald-headed man in grey trousers and morning coat and
nothing could disguise the fact that he was a retired butler. “Yes,
sir,” he said in reply to my inquiry, “Mr. Stanley Audley lived here
for nearly two years. But he went abroad a short time ago, as I wired
to you, sir.”
“Well, the fact is, Mr. Belton, he’s disappeared,” I said.
“Disappeared!” echoed the ex-butler.
“Yes, I wonder if I may glance at his rooms.”
“Certainly, sir. But they are let again. Colonel Mayhew is out, so we
can go up. Mr. Audley sent all his things to store when he left, but I
was away at the time, so I don’t know where they went to.” He took me
to a well-furnished front sitting-room on the first floor.
“Do you recollect that he had a lady visitor--a tall, handsome,
dark-eyed young lady, whose name was Shaylor?”
“Certainly, sir. A young lady came once or twice to tea, but I don’t
know her name. And--well to tell you the truth, sir, his movements were
often very curious.”
“How?” I asked, with sudden interest.
“Well, he would walk out without any luggage sometimes, and then a week
later I would hear from him telling me to send on his letters to some
Poste Restante abroad. Once it was in Paris, another time at Geneva and
twice in Madrid. It always struck me as very curious that he traveled
without any luggage--or if he had any, he never brought it here.”
“Curious,” I said. “Then he was a bit of a mystery?”
“He was, sir. That’s his photograph there, on the mantleshelf,” and he
pointed to a photograph in a small oval ebony frame.
To my amazement it was the picture of a man I had never seen in my life.
“But that round-faced man isn’t Stanley Audley!” I exclaimed.
“Excuse me, sir, but it is,” was the ex-butler’s polite assertion. “He
lived here nearly two years.”
“He is not the Stanley Audley for whom I am searching, at any rate,” I
said.
“Well, he is the only Mr. Audley that my wife and I have had here.”
Suddenly I recollected that in my wallet I had a snap-shot of Thelma on
her skis which I had taken up on the Allmendhubel. I drew it out and
showed it to him.
“Ah! sir, that’s not the young lady who visited Mr. Audley. That’s a
young lady who came twice, or perhaps three times to see Mr. Graydon.”
“What is Mr. Graydon like?” I asked eagerly.
In reply he gave me a very accurate description of Thelma’s husband.
“Who, and what is Mr. Graydon?” I asked. “Tell me, Mr. Belton, for much
depends upon the result of this inquiry.”
“He’s a young gentleman very well connected--nephew of a certain earl,
I believe. He had the rooms above for about nine months, and was very
friendly with Mr. Audley.”
“And did he make mysterious journeys?”
“Yes, sometimes--but not very often.”
“Had he any profession?” I inquired.
“No. I understand that his father, who was a landowner in Cheshire,
left him with a very comfortable income. My wife and I liked him, for
he was a quiet, rather studious young fellow, though often at Mr.
Audley’s invitation he went out of an evening and did not return till
the early hours. But now-a-days with those dance clubs going, most
young men do that.”
“Well, Mr. Belton, may I see Mr. Graydon’s room?” I asked. In response,
he took me up to the next floor, where the sitting-room and bedroom
were even cosier and better furnished than the rooms below.
“Mr. Graydon, when he left, laughingly said that he might be married
soon, but if he didn’t marry he’d come back to us. He told my wife
that he was going on a yachting trip to Norway with some friends, and
afterwards he had to go to Montreal to visit some relatives.”
“But the curious fact is that the man I knew as Audley is none other
than the man you know as Graydon!” I said.
“That’s certainly very mysterious, sir. Mr. Graydon must have assumed
Mr. Audley’s name,” Belton said.
“The whole affair is a complete mystery,” I remarked. “I wish you’d
tell me more that you know concerning this Mr. Graydon. What was his
Christian name, by the way? And when did you last see him?”
“Philip. He left us last September.”
“And the young lady who came to see him?”
“Oh! She was certainly a lady. Indeed, I rather fancied that I had seen
her several years ago, and that with her mother she once came as guest
of old Lady Wentbrook, in whose service I was. But I was not quite
sure, and I could not, of course, inquire. At any rate, she was a lady,
of that there could be no mistake.”
“And Mr. Graydon was a gentleman?”
“Certainly, sir. But I can’t vouch for Mr. Audley. They were
friends--and that’s all I know.”
“You had certain suspicions about Audley, and were not sorry when he
gave up his rooms?”
“Yes, sir, you’re quite right, I was.”
“And how about Graydon?”
“We were very sorry when he left, sir. My wife liked him immensely. But
she always said that he was somehow under the influence of Mr. Audley.”
“Did you ever meet a Mr. Harold Ruthen?” I asked.
And from my wallet I took another snap-shot which showed him with a
party of skaters on the rink.
The ex-butler scrutinized it closely and replied:
“Yes. He’s been here. He was a friend of Mr. Audley’s. But I don’t
think that was his name. I believe he was called Rutley, or some such
name?”
“Did Mr. Graydon know him?”
“No, sir. Not to my knowledge. He came here once and stayed with Mr.
Audley while Mr. Graydon was up in Scotland shooting. But we’ll go down
below and show the photograph to my wife. She has a better memory than
I have.”
So we went into the basement, where I had a long conversation with
Mrs. Belton, a typical retired servant of the better class, shrewd and
observant.
That conversation definitely established several amazing facts which
served to make the mystery of Stanley Audley deeper and more sinister
than ever. It was clear--
(1) That Philip Graydon had, for some reason we could not fathom,
taken the name of Stanley Audley, while Audley had passed as
Graydon.
(2) That the movements of the two men were uncertain and mysterious.
(3) That Harold Ruthen, also known as Rutley, was associated with
both Stanley Audley and the man Philip Graydon.
(4) That Thelma had married the man who, passing as Philip Graydon,
was really Stanley Audley!
After that amazing revelation I passed along Half Moon Street, in the
winter darkness, to Piccadilly in a state of utter bewilderment.
CHAPTER VI
THE HAM-BONE CLUB
A few days later a client of ours named Powell for whom we were
conducting a piece of rather intricate business concerning a mortgage
of some land in Essex, invited me to join himself and his wife at
dinner at the Savoy.
Our table was in a corner near the orchestra and the big restaurant was
crowded. Sovrani, the famous _maître d’hôtel_ knew all three of us well
and we dined excellently under his tactful supervision. After dinner
Mrs. Powell, a pretty young woman, exquisitely gowned, suggested a
dance in the room below. We went there and danced until about half-past
ten when Powell said:
“Let’s go to the Ham-bone.”
“The Ham-bone,” I echoed. “What on earth is that?”
“Oh!” laughed Mrs. Powell, “it is one of London’s merriest Bohemian
dance clubs. The male members are all artists, sculptors or literary
men, and the female members are all girls who earn their own
living--mannequins, secretaries, artists’ models and girl journalists.
It is screamingly amusing. Quite Bohemian and yet high select, isn’t
it, Harry?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” I said.
“Well, one gets a really splendid dinner there for half-a-crown,
though, of course, you get paper serviettes, and for supper after the
hours, you men can have a kipper--a brand that is extra special--and a
drink with it,” she went on.
“Yes, Leila,” laughed her husband. “The place is unique. Half the
people in ‘smart’ society, men as well as women, want to become
members, but the Committee, who are all well-known artists, don’t want
the man-about-town: they only want the real hard-working Bohemians who
go there at night for relaxation. Burlac, the sculptor, put me up.”
The novelty of the idea attracted me, so we went in a taxicab to an
uninviting looking mews off Great Windmill Street, behind the Café
Monico in Piccadilly Circus. Walking up it, we passed through a narrow
swing-door, over which hung a dim feeble light and a big ham-bone!
Up a precipitous flight of narrow stone steps we went until we reached
a little door where a stout ex-sergeant of police smiled recognition
upon my host, placed a book before him to sign and relieved us of our
coats.
In a room above a piano was being played by someone who was evidently
an artist and dancing was in progress.
The place might have been a cabaret in the _Montmartre_ in Paris. I
thought I knew London’s night clubs fairly well--the Embassy, Ciro’s,
the Grafton, the Mayfair, the Royalty, the Twenty, Murray’s, Tate’s,
the Trippers, the Dainty, and others--but when I entered the big
whitewashed dancing room I found myself looking on a scene that was a
complete novelty to me.
The room was long and narrow. The walls were painted in stripes
representing oaken beams and set around them were many small tables.
The floor was filled with merry dancers, among whom I recognized many
people well-known in artistic and social circles. Some of the men wore
dinner jackets and many of the women were in beautiful evening dress,
but smart clothes evidently were regarded as a non-essential, for a
large proportion of the men wore ordinary lounge suits.
As we stood watching the scene a tall, elderly man rose from a table
and cried:
“Hulloa! Leila! What a stranger you are!”
My hostess smiled and waved recognition, whereupon her friend--a
portrait painter whose reputation was world-wide, bowed over her hand
and said:
“Well, only fancy! It is really delightful that you should return to
us! We thought we’d lost you after you married!”
“My dear Charlie,” she laughed--for it was a rule in the Ham-bone that
every member addressed every one else by his or her Christian name, and
“Charlie” was a Royal Academician--“I am an old Hamyardian: I was one
of the first lady members.”
“Of course. You’ll find Marigold here. I’ve just been chatting with
her. She’s round the corner, over yonder. But she’s funny. What’s the
matter with her? Do you know?” he added in a low, serious voice.
“No, I didn’t know there was anything wrong,” replied my hostess.
It was easy to realize that here in this stable converted into a club
was an atmosphere and an environment without its like in London or
elsewhere. The denizens of that little circle of Bohemia cared for
absolutely nothing and nobody outside its own careless world whose
boundaries were Chelsea and the Savoy Club.
Ordinary social distinctions were utterly and completely ignored.
Gayety was supreme and in the merry throng I caught sight within a
few minutes of a well-known London magistrate before whom I had often
pleaded as a Solicitor, a famous scientist, the millionaire owner of
a great daily paper. Several leading members of the Chancery Bar, an
under-secretary of State and quite a sprinkling of young scions of
patrician families.
They were men and women of the intellectual type who cared nothing
for the vicious joys of the ordinary night club. They came in frank
enjoyment of dancing and music and the fried kippers, as custom
decreed, in order to comply with the kill-joy law that ordained that
they must eat if they wanted a drink! Everything, apparently, was free
and easy gaiety. Yet it was at least as difficult to become a member of
the Ham-bone as to gain admission to any of the most exclusive clubs
along Pall Mall. Money was no sort of passport: only personality,
ability or the true inborn spirit of Bohemianism could open the portals
of the Ham-bone.
The “master of ceremonies” was a well-known landscape painter, whom
every one addressed as “George,” a smart figure in the brown velvet
jacket of his profession. He chaffed and joked with every one in
French, revealing a side of his nature certainly unsuspected by the
general public to whom he usually presented a grave and austere front.
But this was the key-note of the Ham-bone: every one seemed to “let
himself go” and the stilted social etiquette of our ordinary world
seemed as far off as if we had been in Limehouse or Poplar.
I was dancing with Mrs. Powell, when, suddenly, she halted before a
small table in a corner where there sat alone a beautiful dark-haired
girl in a smartly cut dance-frock of black charmeuse.
“Mr. Yelverton,” she said, “will you let me introduce you to my
dearest friend, Marigold Day?” And to the girl she said, “Marigold,
this is Mr. Rex Yelverton, the gentleman of whom I recently spoke to
you.”
Somberly dressed, her white neck and bare arms in vivid contrast
with her dead-black frock, she was almost wickedly beautiful. Her
well-dressed hair, across which she wore a bandeau of golden leaves,
was dark; her scarlet mouth was like the curling underleaves of a rose,
her lips with the true _arc-de-cupidon_ so seldom seen, were slightly
apart, and between them showed strong white teeth. Her eyes were large
and deeply violet and they held a fascination such as I had seldom
before seen.
“We’ll be back presently,” said Mrs. Powell, as we slipped again into
the dance. “I want to have a chat with you.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, as soon as we were a few feet away.
“Oh, that’s Marigold. We are fellow-members here. She was in business
with me before I married. Isn’t she very good-looking, don’t you think?”
“Beautiful,” I declared.
“Ah, I see,” laughed my partner. “You are like all the other men. They
all admire her, and want to dance with her. But Marigold is a queer
girl: I can never make her out in these days. Once she was very bright
and merry, and always gadding about somewhere with a man named Audley.
Now there’s a kink somewhere. She accepts no invitations, keeps herself
to herself, and only on rare occasions comes here just to look on. A
great change has come over her. Why, I can’t make out. We were the
closest of friends before I married, so I’ve asked her the reason of it
all, but she will tell me absolutely nothing.”
“Audley,” I gasped. “Where is she at business?”
“At Carille’s, the dressmakers in Dover Street. She’s a mannequin, and
I was a typist there,” she replied. “And now Mr. Yelverton, you know
what was my business before I married,” she added, with a laugh.
“Pretty boring, I should say, showing off dresses to a pack of
unappreciative old cats,” was my remark.
“Boring isn’t the word for it,” Mrs. Powell declared, “I couldn’t
have stood her work. You should see our clients--uneducated, fat,
coarse, war-rich old hags who look Marigold up and down, and fancy they
will appear as smart as she does in one of Monsieur Carille’s latest
creations. How Marigold sticks at it so long I can’t make out. She
ought to be awarded the prize medal for patience. I could never amble
about over that horrid grey carpet and place my neck, my elbows and
hands at absurd angles for the benefit of those ugly old tabbies--no
matter what salary I was paid!”
At that moment we found ourselves before the table where her husband
was seated, smoking and drinking coffee with Sava, the young Serbian
who was perhaps the greatest modern caricaturist.
Belgravia is good; Bohemia is better; the combination of both is surely
Paradise! Sava’s conversation was as perfect as his caricatures: he
had seen life in every capital in Europe and was a born raconteur. For
a time he held us engrossed with his witty comments on the men and
matters of half-a-dozen countries, all of which he knew to perfection.
Never have I seen so truly fraternal a circle as that little backwater
of Bohemianism. Every one was at his ease: there was no such a thing
as being a stranger there. The fact that you _were_ there--that some
member had introduced you and vouched for you--broke down all barriers
and men who had never before met and might never meet again met and
chatted as freely as if they were old friends and with an utter
disregard of all the vexing problems of wealth, rank, profession and
precedence.
Presently my hostess took me back to the mannequin in black whom I new
realized must be wearing a copy of one of the famous man-dressmaker’s
latest creations.
“Mr. Yelverton wants a partner, Marigold,” my companion exclaimed
gayly, whereupon her friend smiled and rising at once, joined me in
a fox-trot with an expression of pleasure upon her face. She was a
splendid dancer.
“Mrs. Powell has told me of your acquaintance with Mr. Audley,” I said,
after a few minutes of the usual ball-room chat. “I wonder if it is the
same man I know. He used to live in Half Moon Street.”
She clearly resented the question. “Why do you ask?” she demanded.
“Because I’ve lost sight of my friend of late,” I replied.
“Well, Mr. Audley did live in Half Moon Street, but he has gone away,”
she replied. And I thought I detected a hint of tragedy upon her face.
CHAPTER VII
IN THE WEB
As we danced Marigold told me something more about herself. She lived,
I found, with three other business girls at a boarding house in
Bayswater, going by tube to Dover Street each day. She had met Audley
and for a time they had been rather friendly, seeing a good deal of
each other. I guessed, though of course she did not tell me, that the
friendship bade fair to ripen into something deeper. Then Audley had
suddenly disappeared.
As our dance ended Mrs. Powell came up and we all went up the narrow
wooden staircase to the balcony where, as we enjoyed our Bohemian
supper, we could watch the dancing below.
It was just before midnight, when the fun was fast and furious and
the “Hamyardians,” as the merry circle call themselves, were enjoying
themselves in the wildest and most nonsensical fashion, that Marigold
Day, glancing at her wrist watch, declared that she must go. I went
down with her to the door.
“Can’t you tell me some more about Audley?” I asked just before she
entered her taxi.
She shook her head. “Don’t ask me, please,” she said and she entered
the taxi and was driven away towards Bayswater.
“Well, what do you think of Marigold?” asked Mrs. Powell, as I resumed
my seat at the supper table.
“She’s altogether charming, of course,” I replied, “but rather--well, I
don’t quite know the word. I should almost say mysterious: at any rate
she seems to be troubled about something and trying to hide it.”
“That’s it, exactly,” declared my hostess. “During the past few months
she seems to have become an entirely different girl. As you know, we
were the closest of friends. She seems to live in constant dread of
something, but she absolutely refuses to tell me what it is. Indeed,
she declares there is nothing wrong, but that is nonsense. No one who
knew her six months ago could fail to realize that something is very
wrong indeed.”
“Do you know anything about her friend, Mr. Audley,” I ventured to ask.
“Not very much,” said Mrs. Powell. “Of course, I have met him. Marigold
was getting very fond of him, I believe, but she will not talk about
him.”
Powell came up and declared it was time to go and I had no opportunity
of questioning Mrs. Powell any further, much as I wished to do so.
However, I determined to see her again and also to meet Marigold Day
and see whether either of them could give me further details about
Audley. Was he the real Audley? I wondered, or the man who had taken
his name.
A few days later I received a letter from Mrs. Shaylor inviting me to
go to Bexhill.
I was in two minds about accepting. I wanted to see Thelma--wanted to
help her and certainly did not want to lose touch with her as I might
if I refused to go. But was it wise?
Of course, inclination conquered prudence and I went. I found that she
and her mother lived in a pretty red-roofed, red-brick detached house,
with high gables, and a small garden in front. It stood in Bedford
Avenue, close to the Sackville Hotel and facing the sea.
Mrs. Shaylor, a pleasant, grey-haired woman of a very refined type,
greeted me warmly and thanked me cordially for what I had done for her
daughter in Mürren, while Thelma expressed her delight at seeing me
again.
I got a chance during the morning of speaking to Mrs. Shaylor alone and
asked her if Thelma had heard anything more of her husband.
“Not a word,” was Mrs. Shaylor’s reply. “It is a most disastrous
affair for her, poor girl. The suspense and anxiety are killing her.”
“She does not look so well,” I replied. I had, in fact, been struck by
the change in the girl. She was paler and thinner and it was evident
the strain was telling on her rather heavily.
“I understand you did not know very much of Mr. Audley,” I said.
“Very little indeed, unfortunately,” was Mrs. Shaylor’s reply.
“Thelma met him when she was staying with her aunt at the Majestic at
Harrogate, and they became friendly. He appeared to have considerable
means for he gave Thelma some very beautiful jewelry. He came down
here once, saw me, and asked if he might marry her. He told me certain
things about his relations in India, and she seemed so entirely devoted
to him that I gave my consent to their marriage in three months. But,
judge my surprise when a fortnight later they were married secretly and
left next day for Switzerland for their honeymoon.”
“Then you really know very little of him, Mrs. Shaylor?” I asked.
“Very little indeed. It was a most foolish and ill-advised marriage. He
seems to have lied to her here and then deserted her.”
“I must say I liked what I saw of him,” I said, “and I wonder whether
we are right in thinking that he really deserted her in the ordinary
meaning of the word. It looks like it, of course, but it has occurred
to me, though I have only very slight grounds to go on, that he is
being kept away from her by some influence at which we cannot guess. He
really seemed devoted to her and genuinely sorry to have to leave her.”
“Well, she certainly seems devoted to him and will not hear a word
against him. But what can one think under the circumstances?”
The drawing-room opened on to a wide verandah and across the promenade
we could see the rolling Channel surf beating upon the beach. The
winter’s day was dull and boisterous and now and again sheets of flying
spray swept across the promenade.
“He pretended to me that he was an electrical engineer,” I remarked,
“but I have found out that the firm for whom he said he worked knows
nothing of him.”
“That is what he also told me. But I have reason to believe that he is
in fact a young man of considerable fortune. Yet, if so, why has he
deserted poor Thelma?”
“I am doing my level best to find him, Mrs. Shaylor,” I said. “Some
very great mystery enshrouds this affair, and I have, in your
daughter’s interest, set myself to solve it.”
“I’m sure all this is extremely good of you,” she said, gratefully.
“We are only women, and both of us powerless.”
I paused for a moment. Then I said:
“I really came down here, Mrs. Shaylor, to put several direct questions
to you. I wonder if you will answer them and thus lighten my task. I am
a solicitor, as perhaps you already know.”
“Certainly. What are they?”
“Has your daughter ever known a man named Harold Ruthen?”
The lady’s face changed, and her brows contracted slightly. “Why do you
ask that?” she asked.
“Because it has a direct bearing upon the present situation.”
“Well--yes. I believe she has, or had, a friend of that name. A man who
lives in Paris.”
“Was he a friend of Audley’s?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Have you ever heard of a girl named Marigold Day--a mannequin at
Carille’s?”
“Never.”
I paused. Then I bent towards her and said, very earnestly, “Has it
ever struck you, Mrs. Shaylor, that your daughter knows just a little
more concerning Stanley Audley than she has yet told us?”
“Why do you ask that question?” she inquired.
“Well--because somehow it has struck me so,” I said. “And I will go a
little further. I believe she knows where her husband is, but--for some
reason or other--fears to betray him!”
“Is that your suspicion?” she asked, in a low strained voice.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Mr. Yelverton,” she said very slowly. “I admit that it is mine
also! I’ve questioned Thelma time after time, but she will tell me
nothing--absolutely nothing!”
“Are there any more facts you can tell me--anything to throw further
light upon these strange circumstances?” I asked her.
“No,” was her reply. “I’m afraid I know nothing else. Thelma is
worried. I feel terrified lest the real truth--whatever it may
be--concerning her husband, be disclosed.”
Thelma came in and we talked of other matters. She made great fun of
my position as her “temporary husband” at Mürren and seemed in better
spirits than when I came down.
After luncheon we went for a stroll together through the driving
health-giving breeze to Cooden Beach, and then back for tea. Thelma
wore a serviceable golf suit, thick brogues and carried a stick, while
her Airedale “Jock” ran at our side.
On the way I told her of my adventure at the Ham-bone Club. She was
much interested in the queer pranks of the Hamyardians and to find
out how much she knew, I told her about Marigold Day: in fact I
deliberately “enthused” about her. I watched her closely, but it was
evident Marigold’s name meant nothing to her. Then I went on the more
open tack and tried to get some further facts from her. It was in vain:
she seemed as determined to keep her knowledge to herself as I was to
get at the truth.
At last, as we neared the house, I made a direct attack.
“Now look here, Thelma,” I said, “do be frank. You know where Stanley
is, don’t you?”
She went pale: it was evident that it had never struck her that I might
guess at the truth.
“Why do you say that?” she asked sharply.
“Because I am certain Stanley has enemies and wants help.”
“Enemies!” she said, with an attempt to laugh “why should he have
enemies? What do you mean?”
“All that I have said. Cannot you trust me? If your husband is in
hiding for some unknown reason I should not betray him.”
“I have promised to say nothing,” she said blankly. “I cannot break my
promise.”
“Why does he not return to you?”
“There is a reason--he never can. We must live apart in future.”
“Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders, and after a few moments of hesitation
replied--
“There are certain facts, Mr. Yelverton, that I am forbidden by Stanley
to disclose. I have told you that we cannot be united again. That is
all. Please make no further inquiries.”
“But I will. You have been left in my care,” I asserted.
“If you do!--if you do it--it may be at your peril,” she declared, in a
hard unnatural voice, looking curiously at me as she opened the gate.
“Recollect, Mr. Yelverton, that my words are a warning.”
“But why?” I cried.
“I--I unfortunately cannot tell you,” was her reply, and we re-entered
her charming home together.
I returned to London more mystified than ever. The dual personality
of Stanley Audley, combined with the fact that his wife undoubtedly
knew of his whereabouts; her steadfast determination not to disclose
one single fact, and the strange threats I had heard Ruthen utter, all
combined to puzzle me beyond measure.
For a couple of days I did my best to attend to business, but
constantly I found my mind dwelling on the mystery of Stanley Audley.
I could not concentrate on legal problems and most of my work fell on
Hensman’s shoulders.
On the third night, after my visit to Bexhill, when I returned to my
rooms from the office, I found, lying upon my table, a typewritten
note which had been delivered that afternoon. It bore the Hammersmith
postmark.
Tearing it open I read some lines of rather indifferent typing, as
follows:--
“You have formed a friendship with Mrs. Thelma Audley. I warn you
that such friendship, if continued, will be at the cost of your own
life. Divert your love-making into another direction. I have no
personal animosity against you but you are placing yourself in the
way of powerful interests, and you will be removed if necessary.”
I read and re-read this strange message. Thelma’s warning leaped to my
mind. Was there, then, a real risk to myself in the strange coil?
Then something--sheer obstinacy I suppose--came to my help and I
declared to myself that I would go ahead with my self-imposed task;
that nothing--least of all mere cowardice--should induce me to give it
up.
CHAPTER VIII
DOCTOR FENG’S VIEW
I am not going to deny that at first that strange warning perturbed
me a good deal. After all, I make no claim to be a hero and not even
a hero likes threats of death, even though they be anonymous. At the
same time, I never proposed, even in thought, to give up my quest. For,
whether I wished it or not, I could not shake myself free of Thelma’s
influence: my day-dreams were themselves on the fancy that some day,
in some way, she would be free. More and more I began to think that
she had married Audley so suddenly under an overwhelming girlish
impulse; perhaps her mind had been made up by some story he had told
her to justify haste and secrecy. If this were really so, would her
love survive desertion and a separation which she herself apparently
regarded as permanent? It would be strange, indeed, if it did.
So, through the dark March days that followed, I worked at the office
half the day, while the remainder I devoted to seeking traces of the
mysterious young man who had lived in Half Moon Street under the name
of Graydon.
Mrs. Powell and her husband had been suddenly called abroad. But
Marigold Day was an obvious source of possible information and to make
further inquiry of her I wrote asking her to dine with me one evening
at the Cecil.
She accepted, and we ate our dinner at one of the tables set in the
window of the big grill-room overlooking the Embankment. She again wore
her plain black dress which enhanced the whiteness of her arms and
shoulders and laughed merrily at me across the table as we chatted over
dinner.
I hesitated to refer to Audley directly after the conversation of our
previous meeting, but I asked her suddenly whether she happened to know
a man named Harold Ruthen.
“Harold Ruthen?” she echoed, “Yes, but why do you ask?”
“Because he was a friend of Audley’s,” was my reply. “Do you happen to
know him?”
“Certainly. I saw him only a few days ago. He’s looking for Audley--he
believes he is in Paris.”
“Now, I wonder if the Mr. Audley you know is the same man as my friend.
Will you describe him?”
She did so, and the description made it clear that he was indeed
Thelma’s husband.
“Yes,” I said. “He is no doubt the same.”
“He was well-known at the Ham-bone, where every one called him
Stanley,” she said. “But I can’t think why he disappeared and has never
written to me. A girl told me that he’d married. But I don’t believe
it.”
“Why not?”
“For the simple reason that he had asked me to marry him,” was the
startling reply.
“Was Ruthen on very friendly terms with him?”
“Yes. But Stanley did not like him. He used to tell me that Ruthen was
not straight, and I know he avoided him whenever he could. I suppose we
all hate most those we fear most.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked in some surprise at her philosophy.
“Well,” she said, “I always had a suspicion that Stanley went in fear
of Ruthen. Why, I don’t know.”
“That’s curious. What made you think so?”
“From certain remarks he once let drop.”
“Then Audley may be hiding purposely from that fellow?” I exclaimed, as
I recollected that queer conversation between Ruthen and Thelma.
“I have thought that possible, but even then, he could easily write to
me in confidence, and tell me where he is,” said the girl.
“Where does Ruthen live?” I enquired.
“In Whitehall Court,” and she gave me the number.
“You have no idea what his profession may be?”
“Like Stanley--he is independent.”
“Audley is a rich man, isn’t he?” I asked.
“No doubt. When we first met he gave me some very expensive presents
merely because I happened to look after a girl he knew who was
suffering from pneumonia. He’s an awfully generous boy, you know.”
“The fact is, Miss Day, I am doing all I can to discover Stanley
Audley. Can you tell me any other facts--anything concerning his other
friends?”
“He had another friend named Graydon, living at the same chambers in
Half Moon Street, a rather stout, round-faced man. But he has also left
London, I understand.”
“Graydon!” I ejaculated. So it seemed that the pair exchanged names
when occasion required. At Half Moon Street Audley was Graydon, but
outside, he took the name of the man who lived on the floor below!
What could have been the motive?
I afterwards took my pretty companion to the theatre, and, later, she
took me to Ham-Bone Club, where we danced till nearly two.
From members there, I gleaned several facts concerning Stanley Audley.
He was apparently a rich young “man-about-town,” but surrounded, as all
wealthy young men are, by parasites who sponged upon his generosity. Of
these Harold Ruthen was undoubtedly one.
Days passed, and although I went hither and thither, making inquiries
in all likely quarters, I could obtain no further knowledge. Stanley
Audley had disappeared. I felt more convinced than ever that Thelma
possessed knowledge she feared to disclose.
In my perplexity, I thought, at last, of old Dr. Feng. Perhaps he
would be able to help me. I wrote to him in care of his solicitor and
received a prompt reply asking me to go and see him at an address in
Castlenau, Barnes.
The house was just across Hammersmith Bridge. The anonymous letter I
had received had been posted, I remembered, at Hammersmith. It was a
queer coincidence.
Doctor Feng’s house, I found, was of a large, old-fashioned detached
residence which, a century ago, had probably been the dwelling-place of
some rich City Merchant who drove each morning into London in his high
dog-cart, his “tiger” with folded arms seated behind him.
A maid conducted me to the front sitting-room, a large, well-furnished
apartment, where a big fire blazed.
“Well, Yelverton!” exclaimed the old doctor, rising, and putting out
his hand. “And how are you? I went to see my sister down at Mentone,
but the weather on the Riviera was simply abominable--a mistral all the
time. So I came back and took up my quarters here. Comfortable--aren’t
they? Sit down. It’s real good to see you again!”
I stretched myself in a deep comfortable chair beside the fire, and we
chatted for a time about Mürren.
“I wonder where Humphreys is?” he remarked. “He wasn’t a bad sort,
was he? And how about your temporary bride--the ‘Little Lady,’ as you
called her!”
“Well, doctor,” I said, “that is really what I came to see you about.
The whole affair is a tangle and I wondered if you could help me. I
have found out a lot of things about Stanley Audley that are certainly
most disconcerting and mysterious.”
He passed a box of cigars. “Have a smoke over it,” he said, “if I can
help you I will. But first tell me what happened after I left Mürren.”
“A lot,” I replied. “You know Thelma’s husband left for London. Well,
he never came back.”
“The young cad,” said the doctor. “But, after all, I more than half
expected it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, hesitatingly, “shall we say his sudden departure was
rather suspicious? To put it plainly the excuse was a bit thin. Would
any firm let an employee start on a honeymoon and three days later
find he was the man for an important appointment such as Audley spoke
of? Of course, such a thing _might_ happen, but a more probable excuse
would have carried more conviction. To me it suggested a story made up
suddenly, in default if anything better, to explain a departure forced
upon him by some much less welcome reason. However, I had no reason for
saying this at the time and, after all, I might have been wrong. But
as things have turned out it seems I was right and I am very sorry for
his wife. After all, whatever her husband may be, she is a charming
girl--much too good for him, anyhow. But go on, tell me what you have
found out.”
I frankly told him, and as he smoked he sat back listening thoughtfully
without a word of comment.
At last, when I had concluded, he asked--
“Have you seen Harold Ruthen?”
“Not yet. He is an enemy of Thelma’s.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked, whereupon I told him of the
curious conversation I had overheard.
He bit his lip and smiled mysteriously, but said nothing. It was,
however, plain that what I had described greatly interested him.
“And little Mrs. Audley will tell you nothing--eh? She refuses. She is
evidently hiding some secret of her husband’s. Don’t you think so?”
“To me, she seems in deadly fear lest I should discover her husband.”
“Oh! I quite agree, Yelverton,” the old man said. “There’s more behind
this curious affair than we’ve hitherto suspected. A man doesn’t leave
his young wife in the hands of a stranger without some strong and
very doubtful motive. Depend upon it that you were marked down as the
victim.”
“Not by Thelma!” I protested.
“No, she has been your fellow victim.”
“But the motive of it all?” I asked in dismay. “What is your opinion,
doctor?”
“The same that I formed when you first told me of your offer of
help--that you’ve been a silly idiot, Yelverton. Didn’t I point out at
the time the risks you were running?”
“Yes, you did,” I replied, “but I still intend--at all hazards--to get
to the bottom of the affair.”
Feng hesitated, and then, looking me straight in the face, said very
seriously--
“If you take my advice you will drop the whole affair.”
“Why?” I asked, in surprise.
“Because those men who lived at Half Moon Street and their friends are
evidently a very queer lot. In any case you ought to cease visiting
Mrs. Audley.”
I paused, recollecting that strange warning I had received, of which I
had not told him.
“But, after all,” I protested, “we are very good friends. Surely I
ought to help her by finding her husband?”
“When she probably knows where he is all the time!” scoffed Feng. “I
don’t see what good you will do that way.”
“Anyhow,” I said shortly, “I’m not going to see her left in the lurch
like this if I can help it.”
“Really, Yelverton, I don’t see what good you think you can do. We both
believe she knows where he is. If that is so why should you interfere?
Of course, what you tell me about the girl Day is very interesting and
may throw a good deal of light on Stanley Audley’s character. But,
after all, men change their minds and if Audley preferred Thelma to
Marigold, there was no reason why he should not have asked her to marry
him.”
“None the less, take my advice, drop the whole thing. You haven’t the
shadow of a legal right to interfere. The men who lived in Half Moon
Street, quite obviously a shady lot, have fled, evidently frightened of
something and apparently your temporary bride is as frightened as they
are. I don’t see why you should run any risk in the matter.”
“But what earthly risk do I run?” I asked. “Surely I am capable of
looking after myself.”
“Considerably more risk than you imagine, unless I am very much
mistaken,” he replied gravely.
I wondered for a moment whether my mysterious warning had come from
the doctor himself. But what could he know about the affair? I could
not read anything in his inscrutable face, but his manner certainly
suggested that he was in deadly earnest, and, to my intense surprise,
he suddenly let fall a remark, quite unintentionally, I believed, that,
I realized with a curious suspicion, showed that he knew Thelma and
her mother were living at Bexhill. Here was indeed a new complication.
I made no sign that I had noticed his slip, but sat as if thinking
deeply, as indeed I was.
How, and for what purpose, had he obtained that information. He had
professed not to know what had happened after he had left Mürren.
The idea flashed through my mind that he and Thelma were acting in
collusion to “call me off,” but this seemed so absurd that I dismissed
it at once.
“Now, look here, Yelverton,” he said presently. “You’ve not told me
everything.”
“Yes I have,” I protested.
“You haven’t told me that you’ve fallen deeply in love with little Mrs.
Audley. That is why I warned you--and still warn you--of rocks ahead.”
“I did not think that necessary,” I said with some heat. “That is
surely my own affair!”
“Certainly,” he said, dryly, in the paternal tone he sometimes assumed.
“But remember my first view of the situation was the correct one. I
thought you extremely indiscreet to accept the trust you did. It was a
highly dangerous one--for you.”
“But you agreed afterwards that I did the right thing,” I argued.
“You acted generously in the Little Lady’s interests, but you have
certainly fallen into some extraordinary trap. That’s my point of
view,” he answered. “In any case, you are in love with a wife whose
husband is absent. That is quite enough to constitute a very grave
danger to both of you. So, if I were you I’d keep away from her. Take
my advice as an old man.”
His repeated warning angered me, and I fear that I did not attempt to
conceal my impatience. At any rate I took my leave rather abruptly,
and as I walked in the direction of Hammersmith Bridge I felt more
than ever puzzled at his attitude, and more than ever determined not to
deviate from the course upon which I had embarked.
CHAPTER IX
CROOKED PATHS
One cold evening I returned from the office after a heavy day which
had been devoted to the successful settlement of a very complicated
and serious action for libel against a provincial newspaper which we
represented.
As I entered my room, Mrs. Chapman, in her spotless black dress--just
as she always wore when my father was alive--followed me in, saying--
“Oh! Mr. Rex. A gentleman called about three o’clock. He wouldn’t leave
a card. He gave his name as Audley--Mr. Stanley Audley. He repeated it
three times, and told me to be sure to recollect the name. He said he
was extremely sorry you were not at home, but you were not to worry
about him in the least.”
I started, staring blankly at her.
“Wouldn’t leave a card? Wouldn’t he call again?”
“He seemed to be in a very great hurry, sir. He said he had come from
abroad to see you, but couldn’t wait and said he was very sorry. Only
I was to give you his urgent message.”
“What was he like?”
“Well, sir, he was a round, rather red-faced gentleman. He was
evidently greatly disappointed at not meeting you, but he impressed
upon me the message that he was all right, and that you were not to
worry about him.”
This was indeed a surprise.
It was evident that my caller was the man who had lived on the first
floor in Half Moon Street, and was the friend of the Stanley Audley who
had married Thelma!
What did that amazing visit portend? It worried me. Why should a
reassuring message be given to me by a man who was not the person in
whom I was interested, and whom I had never met? The whole affair was
becoming more and more obscure and mysterious. As a solicitor I had
been brought into contact with more than one queer affair, but the
Audley mystery was beyond anything in my experience.
“Couldn’t he call again, Mrs. Chapman?” I asked.
“No, sir. He said he had come to see you just for a moment, and that he
was sorry that he couldn’t wait. He had a taxi outside.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Chapman. I’m sorry I was not at home to see him. Did you
give him my office address?”
“I did, sir. But he said he had no time to go round to Bedford Row, and
that you would no doubt understand.”
Understand! What could I understand? I was more bewildered than ever.
Next day I called again upon Belton, in Half Moon Street, and
questioned him more closely about his recent “Box and Cox” tenants. But
he could tell me nothing more than he had already. Mr. Graydon and Mr.
Audley were close friends. That was all.
“Tell me something about their visitors,” I asked. “Did Mr. Graydon,
the gentleman who lived above, have many?”
“No, sir. Very few. Several of them I knew quite well when I was in
service--gentlemen from the clubs. One a Canadian millionaire, came
often, but Mr. Graydon never had any lady visitors except that young
lady we spoke about a short time ago--the lady whose photograph you
showed me, Miss Shaylor.”
“And Mr. Audley, who lived below?”
“Oh, he had quite a lot of callers--both ladies and gentlemen. He
was older than Mr. Graydon, and seemed to have quite a big circle of
acquaintances. They used to play bridge a lot.”
“Now, tell me, Mr. Belton. What is your private opinion about your
tenants?”
“Well, sir, as you are a solicitor”--he had gained that knowledge from
my card,--“I can speak quite frankly. Now that they are gone I don’t
mind saying I held them both in suspicion. They had plenty of money and
paid well, but I don’t think they were on the straight. That’s my firm
opinion and my wife thinks the same.”
“What first aroused your suspicion?”
“Their card parties. They weren’t always square. I’m sure of it. Mr.
Audley had an invalid friend, an old man named Davies, who came about
three times, and when he came woe betide those who played. I kept my
eyes and ears open when I served their drinks, and I’m sure I am not
mistaken.”
“An invalid!” I exclaimed. “What kind of man was he?”
“Oh! he was very lame, was Mr. Davies, sir. An old man, but as keen as
mustard on poker.”
“Did Mr. Graydon play?” I asked.
“Very little, sir.”
“Did he ever meet this Mr. Davies?”
“I think not, sir. Because on the first occasion Mr. Davies came I
recollect that Mr. Graydon was away in Norway. The next time he came,
Mr. Graydon was away in Paris. No,” he went on, “as far as I can
recollect Mr. Graydon never met Mr. Davies.”
“Then this Mr. Davies was a person to be avoided?” I suggested.
“Distinctly so, sir. He was a shrewd and clever gambler, and I feel
certain that he was in league with Mr. Audley. Indeed, I know that on
the morning after one of their sittings they divided up a thousand
pounds between them. It had been won from a man named Raikes, a
manufacturer from Sheffield.”
“So they shared the spoils?” I said. “But tell me more about this
interesting invalid.”
“Well, sir. He was a grey-bearded man of about sixty I should think,
and he walked with difficulty with two sticks. He seemed to lisp when
he spoke.”
It struck me at once that the ex-butler’s description would have fitted
old Mr. Humphreys very closely, except that Humphreys did not lisp. I
had no reason for thinking that Humphreys could have known Graydon, but
he might have done so and he certainly was a very keen poker player.
“Had he a rather scraggy, pointed beard and did he wear in his tie a
blue scarab pin?” I asked.
“No,” was Belton’s prompt reply, “he had a round beard and I never saw
him wearing a scarab pin.”
Now old Mr. Humphreys always wore an antique pin of that description;
I never saw him without it. He was immensely proud of it and used to
declare it was a mascot that brought him good luck. He had a wonderful
story of how he obtained it from some old Egyptian tomb. So the chance
of Mr. Davies and old Humphreys being identical seemed a coincidence
almost too peculiar to be true. Yet I could not get rid of a suspicion
that they were one and the same person.
“You are quite certain that he never met the young gentleman you knew
as Mr. Graydon?” I asked Belton.
“I’m quite certain of that, sir. One day Mr. Audley asked me not to say
that Mr. Davies had been there, and asked that I would keep his visits
a secret from young Graydon as he did not wish them to meet. There was,
I remember, a lady named Temperley, who sometimes came with Mr. Davies.
She was a stout, dark-eyed, over-dressed woman whom I put down as a
retired actress. She had a young, thin rather ugly daughter, a girl
with a long face, and protruding teeth. Both mother and daughter seemed
to be on terms of close friendship with Mr. Davies.”
“Davies was an invalid. How did he get up these stairs?”
“With difficulty, sir. I used to help him up, and sometimes Mr. Audley
helped me,” was the ex-butler’s reply. “At poker he was marvelous.
I’ve seen poker played in several families in whose service I’ve been,
but I never saw a finer player. He was more like a professional than an
ordinary player for amusement.”
“And your tenant, Mr. Audley?”
“He was a fine player, of course. He used to have friends in at night
and sometimes they would play till dawn.”
“And did Mr. Graydon never play?” I asked.
“Very seldom; the parties usually took place when he was away.”
It was quite evident that Stanley Audley, alias Graydon, was a person
of mystery and his friends were as mysterious as himself. After a
moment’s reflection I decided to take Belton fully into my confidence
and tell him the whole story.
“Now, look here, Belton,” I said, “you may be able to help me
considerably. I will tell you the whole story so far as I know it, and
perhaps you will be able to remember further facts that may help.”
So I related to him everything that had happened since I first met
Stanley Audley and his bride at Mürren.
Belton listened in silence. When I had finished he asked me one or two
questions.
“Well, sir,” he said at last, “I think you had better see my wife. She
may know something more.”
He fetched Mrs. Belton and briefly outlined to her the facts I had
given him.
“You see, Ada,” he said, “the gentleman who called himself Audley here,
was not the Mr. Audley who married the daughter of Commander Shaylor.
Mr. Graydon is her husband. Isn’t it a puzzle?”
“It is,” replied his wife. Then, after I had made my explanation I
begged her to tell me any further fact which might be of service in my
inquiry. She hesitated for a moment and at last said:
“Don’t you recollect, Jack, that Mr. Graydon, before he came to us,
lived at Seton’s, in Lancaster Gate. He was very friendly with Mr.
Seton, who you remember was butler to old Lord Kenhythe at Kenhythe, in
Kirkcudbrightshire. You went there one shooting season from Shawcross
Castle, to oblige his lordship.”
“Oh! yes, of course!” exclaimed her husband. “Really, Ada, you’ve a
long memory!”
“Well, I was head-housemaid once at Shawcross Castle. You forget that!
But, don’t you recollect that young Mr. Graydon was very friendly with
Mr. Seton. I don’t know why he left there and came to us, but I fancy
it was because there was such a row at a party he had there, and he
wouldn’t apologize, or something like that.”
“Ah! I remember it all now, of course, Ada,” exclaimed the woman’s
husband. “Yes, you’re right--perfectly right! If there’s one man in
London who knows about Mr. Graydon it’s Mr. Seton.”
He gave me the address of Lord Kenhythe’s ex-butler, and an hour later
I called at a large private hotel facing Hyde Park, near Lancaster
Gate, with a scribbled card from Belton.
The man who received me was a tall, very urbane person with small
side-whiskers. He took me into his private parlor in the basement,
where I told him the object of my visit.
“Yes, sir. I know Mr. Philip Graydon. A very estimable young gentleman.”
“Who is he?”
“Well, his father was the great Clyde shipbuilder, whose works are at
Port Glasgow--the firm of Graydon and Hambling. When his father died,
about two years ago, he left him a quarter of a million.”
“You know him well?”
“I did, sir. His father used to shoot with his lordship regularly, and
Mr. Philip often came with him.”
I briefly told him that I was making inquiries into certain very
curious circumstances, and said--
“I want your private opinion, Mr. Seton. Is there anything peculiar
concerning Mr. Graydon? I ask this because on his marriage he took the
name of Audley.”
“His marriage! I didn’t know he’d married, sir.”
“Yes. And he is missing. It is on behalf of his wife, who is a friend
of mine, that I’m making these inquiries.”
“Mr. Graydon married!” he repeated. “Pardon me, sir, but whom did he
marry?”
“A young lady named Shaylor.”
“Ah!” he ejaculated. “Yes, I know. He was very fond of her--very fond!
Her mother is a widow in very straitened circumstances, I’ve heard. But
do you say he’s missing?”
“Yes. He disappeared while they were on their honeymoon in Switzerland.”
“And where is his wife now?”
“With her mother in Bexhill. But tell me, Mr. Seton, Mr. Graydon as you
call him, was with you for some months, wasn’t he?”
“For nearly a year and a half, sir.”
“And during that time did a man named Audley ever visit him?”
“Yes, a round-faced man who lived at Belton’s. He visited Mr. Graydon
first about six weeks before he left me to go and live at Belton’s.”
“Why did he leave you?”
“Well, he had a bachelor party one night--they were very noisy and I
remonstrated with him, and--well, he’s only young, sir--and the fact
is he insulted me. So I gave him notice. But we’re still the best of
friends,” said the ex-butler.
And then Seton sprang on me perhaps the greatest surprise of my life.
“Now I know your reason for wanting to see Mr. Graydon,” he said. “I
may as well tell you he is here now.”
“Here!” I gasped excitedly, “do you mean he is staying here?”
“Yes, sir,” was the reply, “he’s in number eighteen. He came here
yesterday quite unexpectedly.”
At last I had run Thelma’s mysterious husband to earth!
“He came in half-an-hour ago,” Seton went on, “and I gave him a letter
which came for him by express messenger. I know he’s upstairs. If you
would like to see him, I will send up.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Under the circumstances I think I would prefer
to go up unannounced if you have no objection.”
“Not in the least,” replied Seton. “Number Eighteen is on the second
floor.”
So I eagerly ascended the wide, thickly-carpeted stairs. I had no
very clear idea as to how I should approach the man I had known as
Stanley Audley, but I was determined to demand an adequate explanation
of why he had married Thelma under an assumed name and so cruelly
deserted her, and, if necessary, to back my demand by a threat of legal
proceedings.
CHAPTER X
IN ROOM NUMBER EIGHTEEN
On the second landing I rapped at the door of room Number 18, feeling
considerable pleasure at the thought of giving my whilom friend an
unwelcome surprise.
There was no reply, but I fancied I heard a movement inside. I listened
eagerly.
I knocked again. Yes. I felt sure someone was within, but my knock met
with no response.
A third time I knocked and more loudly, but to no avail. I tried the
door--it was locked.
Five times I hammered with my fist, but there being no answer I
descended the stairs and found Mr. Seton.
“But he must be up there if his door is locked,” he said. “He never
takes his key but always leaves it on the peg here,” and he indicated a
board on the wall in a little box-like room off the hall where visitors
left their keys. To each key was attached a bulky ball of wood, in
order that the key should not be carried away accidentally in the
pocket.
With the landlord I reascended the stairs and Seton knocked at the
door, calling his guest by name. But there was still no response.
“Do you know, I believe I heard somebody inside when I first knocked,”
I remarked.
Seton bent and peered through the keyhole.
“At any rate the door is locked on the inside,” he said.
Then he thundered at the door, after which we both listened. There was
no sound, but I thought I detected the smell of burning paper.
All the other guests were apparently out at the time, for the noise we
made attracted only the servants.
“Baker!” Seton cried to a man who was in his shirtsleeves and wore an
apron of green baize, “we must force this door. There’s a crow-bar down
in the cellar. Go and get it.”
As the man addressed ran downstairs, the ex-butler turned to me with a
scared expression upon his face, saying----
“This is very peculiar, sir. Why has he locked himself in like this?
Did you really hear a noise?”
“Yes. I am sure I did, yet with the roar of the traffic out in the
road, I really couldn’t quite swear to it,” was my reply.
“What I heard was like a man bustling about hurriedly, and yet trying
to make no noise.”
“Surely he can’t have fainted--or--or committed suicide!” Seton
remarked.
For a few minutes we stood outside the door utterly mystified, until
the porter brought us a rusty bar of iron about three feet long, curved
and flattened at the end--a very serviceable crow-bar.
This, Seton inserted between the door and the jamb, close to the lock,
and then drew it back slowly. The woodwork groaned, creaked and cracked
and with a sudden jerk the wood round the mortice lock tore away and
the door flew open.
We stood amazed. The room was empty.
In a few seconds we had searched the big old-fashioned wardrobe and had
looked beneath the bed and behind the curtains. But nobody was there.
And, moreover, while the key was still in the door on the inside the
window was closed and latched!
The fireplace was a small one with a flue through which not even a
small boy could pass. In the grate were smoldering ashes of something,
apparently a coat that had been hastily burned. There was an odor of
consumed petrol, and it occurred to me at once that some clothing had
been hurriedly saturated from a bottle of motor-spirit and set fire
to--for the room was still heavy with smoke.
Seton crossed to the window and saw at once that it had not been
opened. I glanced out and down. From the narrow window-sill there was
a sheer drop to the paved basement forty or fifty feet below with not
even a stackpipe by which an active man might have escaped.
“Well, this is extraordinary,” cried Seton. “How could Mr. Graydon
possibly get out of the room and leave it still locked on the inside?”
Seton bent suddenly over the fireplace. “Well, we may as well see what
he was burning,” he said as he picked up a half charred piece of paper
that had apparently been crumpled up hastily and thrown into the grate.
He smoothed it out and looked at it in amazement.
It was a portion of a fifty-pound Bank of England note! It was partly
burned but quite enough was left to identify it without any possibility
of a mistake.
“Well,” I exclaimed, “burning fifty-pound notes is certainly a new kind
of pastime. What on earth can it mean?”
“I can’t imagine,” replied Seton. “And how can Mr. Graydon have gone?
Certainly not through the door or the window.”
“And before he went,” I added, “he burnt a coat or something of the
kind and a fifty-pound note!”
In front of the window was a small early Victorian escritoire. Upon
it were several loose sheets of paper from a new writing-pad, an
ink-stained envelope, and a couple of bills from a local chemist.
Seton opened two or three of the drawers and from one of them drew a
folded wad of papers. “More notes!” he ejaculated, as he felt with his
fingers the crisp familiar crackle.
There were three notes for fifty pounds each, obviously quite new.
Clearly Graydon, in his hurry, had forgotten that they were there.
“It seems to me,” I said to Seton, “that Graydon must have been
frightened by something and had to get away quickly.”
“Frightened, but of what?” Seton asked. “I saw him only half-an-hour
before you came, and he seemed all right then.”
“Do you think my visit might have frightened him?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I don’t know. But why did he burn a fifty-pound note and
how did he get out? That’s what puzzles me. I could have understood it
if he had locked his door on the outside.”
“It beats me, anyhow,” I said, looking round the room. I noticed
Graydon’s two suitcases stood open and some of his clothes were hanging
in the wardrobe. Why, and above all how had he vanished so suddenly?
But for the fact that he had actually called to see me--showing that
he certainly was not afraid of meeting me--I might well have thought
that he would be alarmed on recognizing my voice. But he had evidently
not done so and must have thought I was someone else whom he urgently
desired to avoid.
Those fifty-pound notes puzzled Lord Kenhythe’s ex-butler as completely
as they did myself. Men do not usually go about burning fifty-pound
notes. We knew that the young fellow who, in Switzerland, had posed
as a hard-working electrical engineer welcoming the prospect of a
“rise,” was on the contrary, a rich young man. But that he should burn
bank-notes of such value or leave them discarded as he had done, was
simply inexplicable on any hypothesis we could frame.
I was deeply chagrined. I had come within an ace of capturing the
truant bridegroom and yet he had eluded me. Could it really, I asked
myself, have been the same man? Again I carefully described to Seton
the man I had known as Stanley Audley. He was emphatic in his assertion
that it was Philip Graydon, the man who had been in that very room
barely half-an-hour before. And as if to make assurance doubly sure, I
found on one of his suitcases a label of the Kürhaus Hotel at Mürren
and another put on at Mürren station, registering this case through to
Victoria.
There could not be the slightest doubt as to the mystery man’s identity
as Thelma’s husband.
“Look here!” said Seton, suddenly, as he held up a towel he had taken
from the rail. It was stained with blood. The hand basin was half full
of water deeply tinged with blood.
“Evidently he had cut himself badly,” was Seton’s comment.
“Perhaps,” I said, “but is this his own blood or someone else’s?”
“Surely, sir, you don’t suspect he has been guilty of a crime?” gasped
Seton.
I pointed to the charred fragments of the coat. “It might be so,” I
rejoined.
A few moments later, however, on making a closer search of the room
we found in the waste-paper basket a broken medicine bottle and on
the edge of a piece of glass was a blood stain. It told its own
tale--he had cut his hand upon the glass. Further, close beside the
dressing-table were three or four dark spots. I touched one, and found
it to be blood.
“I wonder why he destroyed his coat?” Seton remarked. “He’s gone away
leaving everything behind.”
“But how did he get out?” I persisted. “The door and window were both
fastened and there is no fanlight.”
We again carefully examined the lock. It was intact, it had been
locked from the inside and the key was still there.
Together we went carefully through the fugitive’s belongings, but found
nothing of interest. They were merely clothes of good quality or the
wardrobe of a fashionable young man. From the pocket of the suitcase
that bore the label “B. O. B.”--or Bernese Oberland Bahn--I took out
three one-pound Treasury notes. But we found not a scrap of writing of
any sort. There was some burnt paper in the fireplace, suggesting that
with the coat he had destroyed all documents that might give a clue to
his identity. The broken bottle smelt of petrol and apparently he had
kept the spirit ready for use if he wanted quickly to destroy anything.
Our search concluded, Seton had all the things removed to an unoccupied
room and locked the door.
“The Bank will pay the halfnote,” said Seton. “I shall pay the lot in
and hold the money until Mr. Graydon turns up again. He has plenty of
money, of course, and may not have missed it. There is no doubt some
explanation. I cannot believe, knowing Mr. Graydon as I did, that there
can be anything very seriously wrong.”
“But why should the note be burned?” I queried.
“It might have been accidentally among the other papers he destroyed,
sir. Don’t you think so?”
This, of course, was possible. For a long time we sat in Seton’s room
discussing the strange affair. At first Seton thought he ought to tell
the police, but I urged him not to do so. It would get into the papers,
I argued, and that was the last thing desirable for a high-class
private hotel such as his. I did not want a public scandal that must
involve Thelma in most unpleasant publicity.
“I wonder whether he had an inkling that you’d called, sir?” suggested
Seton. “Perhaps he saw you from one of the front windows and then
rushed up and prepared to bolt.”
“But why should he? I have acted towards him only as a friend and I see
no reason why he should take such extreme steps to avoid me. Besides,
he actually called at my flat.”
“Yes, I had forgotten that,” Seton admitted. “But still, I think
something must have frightened him--and frightened him badly, too. He
wouldn’t have cut his hand in opening the bottle of petrol, burned his
clothes and papers, and got away so swiftly if there wasn’t some very
strong motive for doing so. What’s your opinion?”
“The same as yours, Seton,” I answered. “But the affair is full of
remarkable circumstances. How did he get out of that locked room? He
was certainly in there when I first knocked.”
“My own belief,” said Seton, “is that he must have started to destroy
his things as soon as you knocked. He was certainly in a great hurry
for he smashed the neck of the petrol bottle when he found he could not
get the cork out--it’s still in the neck of the broken bottle--and cut
his hand in doing so.”
“But there wouldn’t have been time,” I said, impatiently.
“I think so,” said Seton. “The coat was a light one and saturated with
petrol, it would burn very quickly. You stood at the door probably for
ten minutes before you called me and it was certainly another quarter
of an hour, or even more, before I forced the door. That coat would
burn in that time.”
“Yes, perhaps, but that doesn’t explain how he got away from the locked
room, or where he went to.”
Lord Kenhythe’s ex-butler shrugged his broad shoulders and with a
mystified look upon his clean-shaven face, replied--
“How he got out, sir, and where he has gone to, is to me a complete
mystery. But I feel sure he’ll come back, or he’ll write and tell me
about it. Besides, he’s not a gentleman to leave without settling his
bill.”
“Well,” I said, laughing, “you won’t lose much. He’s left you two
hundred odd pounds.”
I left, promising to call again on the following afternoon. This I did,
eager to know whether he had any further news of his missing guest.
As I entered the room, I saw that the man’s face was graver and more
puzzled than before.
“Well, Mr. Seton?” I asked. “What’s happened?”
“Happened, sir. Those bank-notes. When I took them to the bank this
morning the manager called me into his room and questioned me very
closely. They’re forgeries!”
“Forged notes!” I gasped, staring at him.
“Yes, sir. The manager told me that all banks here and abroad had
been warned about six months ago that a quantity of spurious five and
fifty-pound Bank of England notes were in circulation. They’ve been
printed in Argentina. The police made a raid on the factory, seized
the printing press and plates and six men were arrested. All of them
have been sent to prison for long terms, but at the trial it came out
that they were in league with certain confederates in Paris, Madrid
and London who were engaged in circulating them--mostly the five-pound
ones.”
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I told the whole story. The manager took the notes, and I
believe he’s sent them to the Bank of England.”
“Then the police will start inquiries!” I cried, dismayed, for the
situation was becoming daily more complicated.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I understood from the manager that they will!”
CHAPTER XI
LOVE VS. HONOR
Here was a new and extraordinary complication.
Why was Stanley Audley, alias Philip Graydon, in possession of forged
notes from the notorious factory in South America? Why had he attempted
to destroy one of them, while leaving the others in a drawer?
In the hope, though it was but faint, of getting further information
about Audley, I telephoned to Marigold Day and asked her to dine with
me at the Piccadilly Hotel.
She promptly accepted, and during the meal I brought the talk round to
Audley, telling her of his remarkable disappearance from the room in
Seton’s Hotel in Lancaster Gate.
“But are you really certain it was Mr. Audley?” she asked.
“Quite,” I replied. “Seton’s description of him bears no possible room
for doubt. Besides, he had known Audley for a long time and there is no
possibility that he can have made a mistake.”
“It is an extraordinary thing if he has been in London that he did not
let me know,” she said, frowning and evidently puzzled.
“Yes, that is so, but we have to remember that for some unaccountable
reason he seems to have decided to completely efface himself.”
“Harold Ruthen believes that he is hiding in Paris,” she said.
“But from whom should he be hiding, and why?” I questioned. “Do you
think that he can possibly be hiding from the police?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she replied with a sigh, “but why do you
suggest the police.”
“Well,” I answered, “I think you ought to know that a very strange
thing happened at Lancaster Gate. When we searched the room we found in
the grate a half-burned Bank of England fifty-pound note. In a drawer
were three others. And all of them have been found to be forgeries.”
“Ah, then you know,” said the girl with a queer, hard look that I had
never seen in her eyes before.
“That is all I know,” I said, “and I wondered whether you could tell me
any more. Is it on account of these forged notes that he is hiding? It
certainly looks very like it, and I have no doubt whatever that that
will be the view of the police. What does Ruthen say?”
“He hasn’t told me anything, but I remember one queer incident. Once
when we were out together he paid for supper with a five-pound note
and we were about to go out when the manager of the restaurant came
back and declared it to be a forgery. Stanley apologized profusely,
and gave the man another in its place, explaining that he had cashed
a cheque at his club and they had given it to him with four others.
Apparently the others he had were genuine. I did not think much of it
at the time--such a thing, of course, might easily have happened--but
after what you have told me I don’t know what to believe.”
It was difficult to believe that the young fellow who had married
Thelma and for whom I had formed a genuine liking, could be the ally of
a gang of bank-note forgers, yet the evidence was becoming overwhelming.
“But I thought you told me Audley was well off,” I said. “Well-to-do
people don’t usually descend to dealing in forged notes.”
“He always appeared to be,” was Marigold’s reply, “but possibly that
was how he made his money. As a matter of fact I really did not know
very much about him. I met him through intimate friends and I suppose I
more or less took him for granted. He was quite obviously a gentleman
and one can’t enquire closely into the antecedents of every man one
meets.”
I wondered whether the girl had in some way stumbled upon the
truth. If this were the case, the shock of finding that the man she
undoubtedly was beginning to love was involved in such infamous
practices as the passing of forged notes would be quite sufficient to
explain the strange change Mrs. Powell had noticed and commented on. It
was quite clear, from what Mrs. Powell had said, that she had suffered
some blow which had utterly upset her. On the other hand, the knowledge
that Audley had married Thelma would have been an equally satisfactory
explanation.
In answer to a question, Marigold told me she had seen Ruthen at
Rector’s Club three nights before and had chatted with him. He had then
told her that he was still in search of Stanley and that he had been
looking for him in Paris. But, although she had questioned him, he
would not tell her his motives.
We went to a revue together and later I saw her into a taxi on her way
home. Though I questioned her as closely as I could, and she seemed
quite willing to help, she could not, or would not, tell me any more.
I walked home to Russell Square utterly bewildered and spent a
sleepless night racking my brain for a solution of the mystery. Here we
were in April and so far as I could tell I was as far off as ever from
finding the key to the enigma.
I decided next day to take my partner, Hensman, fully into my
confidence. He was five years older than I, and a keen, practical
business man for whose judgment I had considerable respect.
He heard me in silence. At first he was inclined to be amused but as I
went on his thin, clean-shaven face assumed a very serious expression.
“Well,” I asked when I had finished, “what do you think of it all?”
“Intensely interesting, Rex--but extremely complicated,” was my
partner’s reply, as he sat back in his chair. “On the face of it Audley
is a crook hiding from the police. Evidently he has not attempted to
get abroad, but is still somewhere in London. That’s my view.”
“But what causes his wife to tell me that he can never return to her?”
I asked. “What is your opinion of that?”
“I cannot tell that. But I believe she must hear from him and that
she knows his whereabouts from time to time. The telegram he received
calling him back from Mürren was, no doubt, a message of warning.”
“I quite agree,” I said. “But why did he escape so rapidly from
Lancaster Gate?”
“Probably he thought you were a detective.”
“But if he saw me enter the place he would have recognized me at once.”
“True. I never thought of that,” said Hensman. “No. He took fright at
something, and thought he’d destroy all the bank-notes. His escape, I
admit, was an ingenious one. He evidently slipped out while you had
gone downstairs to call Seton, and leaving the key on the inside of the
door, re-locked it.”
“How could he?”
“If the end of the key protruded, as it does in many cases, it would be
quite easy to turn with a pair of pincers,” Hensman replied. “If he is
a crook he most probably carries a pair, for by that means locked doors
are frequently opened by thieves.”
This explanation, simple though it was, appeared perfectly adequate and
I was chagrined that neither Seton nor myself had hit upon it. Later,
when I again examined the door, I had no doubt at all about it. The end
of the key projected beyond the surface of the door and as the lock was
well-oiled and went very easily, it was easy, I found, to turn the key
from the outside with a pair of pliers.
It was clear that Audley had been alarmed by something, whether it
was my knock at his door that had disturbed him, we could not tell.
Whatever it was, he had evidently slipped out when he heard me walk
away from the door, locked the door behind him and hidden in one of the
other rooms. Then his movements, masked by the noise made in breaking
open the door, he had calmly walked out and disappeared.
“My advice, Rex, is to have nothing further to do with the affair,”
my partner argued. “Leave it all severely alone. There is no sort
of reason why you should allow yourself to be dragged into any
police-court business. Suppose Audley is arrested, as no doubt he will
be eventually, then you’ll be called for the prosecution. And you don’t
want that.”
I demurred. It was the same advice that old Feng had given me. And
yet, try how I could, I could not bring myself to desert Thelma in her
distress.
Three days later I received a note from her from the Hotel Reubens, in
Buckingham Palace Road, saying that her mother and she were staying
there for a few days and asking whether I could see her.
I called that evening, and was invited to stay to dinner. She was very
charming, but I saw she was pale and anxious. She seemed overwrought
and nervous, her slim fingers ever fidgeting with her wedding ring.
After dinner we were taking coffee in the lounge when Thelma, seeing a
girl she knew, rose and left us to speak to her.
“Well, Mrs. Shaylor,” I asked quickly, “has Thelma had any further news
of her husband?”
“Not a word,” was the reply. “But several times a man, a stranger to
me, has been to see her, and they have gone out together. His name, I
believe, is Ruthen or Ruthven.”
“Harold Ruthen! He was at Mürren.”
“So I believe. But he seems to pester her to death,” replied her
mother. “Each time he comes she seems very upset, and I know she cries
bitterly after he has gone. He seems to hold some extraordinary hold
over her, but she will not say anything about it.”
“She does not like him?”
“I don’t know. She always receives him gladly. But she may not feel
what she pretends.”
“Curious if that fellow really has some hold over her,” I said,
recollecting that strange conversation in the night at Mürren. “My
opinion is that Thelma is in fear of him, and in order to cloak her
fear from you she pretends to welcome him, whereas his presence is
really hateful to her.”
“You think so?” asked the widow, stirring her coffee and looking
straight into my face. “All she has told me is that the man is a friend
of her husband’s.”
“I believe that is true,” was my reply.
“And he is in search of Stanley, just as you are, Mr. Yelverton,” she
added.
I drew a long breath, but made no reply, for at that instant Thelma
rejoined us, exclaiming:
“Only fancy, mother, I haven’t seen Sybil Deighton since I left school.
And now she’s married. That’s her husband she’s with. Rather a nice
boy, isn’t he?”
And she threw herself into the lounge-chair next to me.
Not until an hour later when Mrs. Shaylor had bidden us good-night and
we had retired into one of the cosy corners that I ventured to speak of
Stanley.
“No, Mr. Yelverton,” she said shaking her beautiful head sadly, and
raising her big gray eyes to mine. “I have heard nothing--not a word.
If Stanley is still alive he would surely send me a reassuring word.
I--I begin to think that he must be dead!”
Stanley Audley dead! If that were so I should be free to love her
and to win her if I could. The very thought caused my heart to leap.
I even found myself cherishing the wish that it might be true. Yet
a moment later I began to despise myself for entertaining such an
unworthy thought. It was not “playing the game” according to the right
traditions of the school in which I had been brought up. And so far,
at any rate, I had tried to conform to the code of personal honor that,
with many men, is a far more powerful rule of conduct than most forms
of religious belief.
Though I led the conversation several times in the direction of Harold
Ruthen, Thelma said nothing of his visits to Bexhill. I was irritated
because she would not be frank with me. At length I thought it would be
best to speak plainly and told her of my adventure in Lancaster Gate,
of course without mentioning the discovery of the forged bank-notes.
“But, surely it could not have been Stanley!” she exclaimed excitedly.
“Why should he want to avoid you, of all men? He could not imagine you
as anything else but a friend!”
“Equally so, why does he not let you know his whereabouts?” I asked in
turn.
She shook her head in dismay.
Then suddenly, with an expression of despair in her eyes, she put out
her thin white hand with the wedding ring upon it, and pointing to it,
said in a low voice--
“Think what--what a mockery this is to me!”
What could I reply? Here was a girl not yet twenty, married only a few
days and then deserted. Her distress was very real and very pitiful. It
had been on the tip of my tongue to tax her with her concealment from
me of Ruthen’s visits, but in view of what she was suffering I could
not bring myself to pain her further. Either she loved her husband,
in spite of his apparently callous desertion of her, or, for some
inexplicable reason she was playing a part with a skill that many an
actress would envy.
More and more I was tortured by my growing love for her. Hitherto
I had kept it within bounds, and, so far as I knew, I had
never--intentionally, at any rate--given a hint of it to Thelma
herself. But as I look back, I can see now that such a restraint could
not be maintained. A crash was bound to come. It came, very swiftly and
very suddenly a few days later.
Thelma and her mother had promised to come and have tea with me in my
rooms at Russell Square. At the last moment Mrs. Shaylor was called
to Watford to see her sister who had been taken ill, and Thelma
came alone. She was in comparatively good spirits and after my old
housekeeper had served us with tea, we spent a couple of delightful
hours. Thelma, an accomplished musician, sang to me, accompanying
herself on my piano, and as I sat watching and listening to her I
realized more fully than ever how handsome and lovable she was and my
anger against Stanley Audley became almost unbearable.
“Poor mother!” she exclaimed presently as she re-seated herself by the
fire, after singing a gay song from one of the latest revues, “She’s
awfully worried. That’s why we are up in town. The securities which
my father left are depreciating in value, and one of the companies in
which he invested most of his money has now gone into liquidation. She
came up to see my uncle, who is her trustee. Yes, Mr. Yelverton, the
war spelt ruin to us, as it did to so many others, and yet the Stock
Exchange speculators made fortunes out of it--out of lives of men.”
It was sad news she had told me, but I had not been blind to the fact
that Mrs. Shaylor was, like so many other gentlewomen of today, keeping
up a brave appearance, with but small funds at her disposal.
I longed to mention Harold Ruthen, but did not dare to do so lest I
should betray what her mother had told me in confidence. But I was
angry that the fellow dared to seek her at Bexhill and cause her worry.
It, however, proved one fact, that he, at any rate, was not aware of
Stanley’s whereabouts, and, for the moment, could not do him the harm
that I believe he fully intended.
How one’s most momentous actions depend at times upon the merest
trivialities! I little guessed that a trifle was to rouse in me a
gust of emotion destined to sweep away the last vestige of the iron
self-control I had honestly tried to set upon myself.
Thelma was the wife of another man: that fact I had tried to keep
always before my mind. I was to learn now that there are, in each one
of us, forces too strong to be enchained by any man-made codes of
conduct.
Thelma had seated herself in a low chair and was gazing sadly into
the fire. Either her gaiety had been a pretense or the thought of her
unhappy position had again overcome her.
“It’s very hard lines on you, Thelma,” I said softly.
She made no reply, but her eyes filled suddenly with tears. She put out
her hand as if in acknowledgment of my sympathy and I took it in mine.
Its touch seemed to pour liquid fire through every pore of my being.
I forgot all my good resolutions, all my pride of tradition and, in a
second, I was kneeling beside her, pouring out a flood of impassioned
words. What I said I have not the faintest idea. I was beside myself in
a passion of love that broke all bounds and defied restraint.
Thelma rose quickly from her chair, crossed the room to the window and,
burying her face in her hands, burst into a torrent of tears.
That brought me to my senses. I saw, too late, how unutterably foolish
I had been. How utterly inexcusable was my conduct. Yet I had no
regrets; rather I was thrilled with a savage joy that she should know
the truth at last.
“Stanley had no right to leave you as he has done, without cause, or
explanation after a few days only of marriage!” I cried. “It is harsh
and cruel. It is not the act of a man of honor.”
But she held up her hand as though to stay my further words.
“I--I’m sorry I came here, Mr. Yelverton,” she said, suddenly, quite
earnest and calm. “I thank you for all your efforts on my behalf but I
think we must not meet in the future.”
“Then you still love the scoundrel who has deserted you!” I cried,
unable to restrain myself.
“I will have no word said against him,” she replied gently. “Perhaps,
after all, we have misjudged him. It is time I went back to the Hotel.
Mother is taking me to see some friends tonight, and--and we return to
Bexhill tomorrow.”
That last sentence was equivalent to telling me not to call again upon
her.
“Why, I thought you were here for some days,” I exclaimed in dismay.
“I think mother has decided to return tomorrow,” was her significant
reply.
I saw her home to Buckingham Palace Road and there bade her farewell,
cursing myself for my frantic outburst. I had acted like a fool. Yet
the regret I knew I ought to feel would not come.
Next morning among my letters on the breakfast table was one addressed
in typewriting, which I instantly recognized. It was from Hammersmith,
having been sent by express messenger instead of being posted as the
other had been.
I recognized the uneven typing--and tore it open. The words I read were:
“Will you never take warning! You yesterday entertained Stanley
Audley’s wife at your rooms. As you have disregarded the caution
already given you, the consequences will be upon your own head. If
you value your life, you will relinquish the search for a man who
is already dead. To continue is at your own peril. This is the last
warning----”
I had a new and insistent problem to face. Who was my mysterious
correspondent and why was he sufficiently interested to threaten me
with death in case I refused to abandon my search for Stanley Audley?
CHAPTER XII
STRANGE SUSPICIONS
Try as I would I could not dismiss from my mind that old Doctor Feng,
if he was not actually the writer of the strange warnings I had
received, was in some way associated with the sender.
But what possible motive could he have? I could see none. I had no sort
of reason for thinking that he had any interest in Stanley Audley and
did not want him discovered, or that he had the smallest antipathy to
me personally: in fact he had invariably been extremely friendly. I
had, it was true, sensed a kind of latent hostility to Thelma, but this
appeared to be due more to the idea that I might make a fool of myself,
rather than to any active dislike of her. And I could see no kind of
reason why he should attempt to scare me by means of an anonymous
letter. Yet the suspicion stuck in my mind and refused to be dismissed.
Could the sender be Stanley Audley himself? Was he alive, yet for some
reason unable to come forward openly? He might have learnt something,
and suspected more, of my friendship with Thelma, and, in a fit of
jealousy, taken this means of trying to put a stop to it. This was
a possibility I could not ignore, yet I never, for a moment, really
believed it. On the other hand, I could not imagine anyone who could
possibly feel towards me the rancorous hate betrayed by the sending of
the letters.
I had worked myself into such a state that any real concentration
upon business had become impossible and at length my partner, quite
justifiably, took a strong line.
I had been engaged on an important right-of-way case in Derbyshire.
A committee of villagers had begun an action against a local Council
and I had been preparing instruction for the defense. Exasperated and
distracted by the evil shadow that had fallen across my life I was
bungling the business badly and at length had to turn it all over to
Hensman.
“Really, Rex,” he said, impatiently, “this can’t go on. I cannot
possibly do the whole work of the office.”
I handed him the second warning letter. He read it slowly, frowning
deeply the while.
“My dear Rex,” he said, “this thing is getting on your nerves. Cut it,
old man. Go up to Cromer and play golf for a week and think no more of
the girl, or the elusive bridegroom. Don’t mix yourself up with the
affair any more--unless--”
“Unless--yes, I know what you’re going to say. Unless I’m in love with
Thelma,” I replied. “She has a suspicion--only a suspicion, that her
husband is dead.”
“And then?” he asked. “And then I suppose you’d marry her--the widow of
a crook--”
“How do we know he is a crook?” I asked. “We have no proof of it.”
“Well, forged notes are pretty good evidence, aren’t they?” asked my
partner. “In any case you are quite unfit for work and it isn’t fair on
me--or you, either, for that matter.”
“But who can be sending me these threatening messages?” I asked him.
“Probably the wily husband himself. Wants a divorce, possibly. Perhaps
he will come to Hensman & Yelverton to file the petition!”
“You’re not serious!” I exclaimed pettishly. “You don’t see what all
this means to me--the upsetting of my life and of my profession.”
“I’m perfectly serious, anyhow, in saying this has got to end. We can’t
go on with one partner a passenger: things are getting behind. Cut the
whole affair. Your friend Feng, as any man of sense would have been,
was against it from the first. And how about that old invalid from
Constantinople? Have you heard from him?”
“Not a word. That’s a reminder. I’ll write to the Ottoman Bank and see
whether he is back again. But I don’t see how he can help.”
“He was back in London three days ago. Look!” Hensman said, passing me
over a cutting from the _Times_. “I cut it out intending to give it to
you.”
I took the narrow little strip and read the words:
“Mr. Hartley Humphreys has returned from Constantinople to the Carlton
Hotel.”
“By Jove! I’ll call and see him,” I said. “The paragraph escaped me.
Thanks.”
“Well, Rex,--do be careful. This obsession about your bride in distress
is interfering seriously with business. It’s all very well, but we--the
firm--have to get on and to live.”
His reproach, I felt, was amply justified. I might have quarreled with
another man in my present state of mind, but Hensman and I had been
friends for many years and I had a real and deep liking and respect for
him. He was the last man on earth with whom I could wish to quarrel.
“You’re quite right, old man,” I said at last. “It’s not fair on you.
I’ll try to pull myself together. You don’t want us to part company?”
“Don’t be an ass, Rex,” he replied with a laugh. “It isn’t so tragic
as all that. But you are playing with fire. Suppose Audley turns up
all right? You are getting yourself tied up in a hopeless knot and
my advice to you, once for all, is to cut yourself adrift from the
whole business and have nothing more to do with it. After all, Mrs.
Audley is not in actual want and whatever may have happened at Mürren
she has no shadow of claim on you any further. Certainly there is no
kind of reason why you should run yourself into any danger for her
sake. I can’t help thinking that there is more behind the matter than
we know and that those letters are meant seriously. If you were in
any way legitimately involved I would not suggest you should show the
white feather--indeed, I would come in with you myself to the limit.
But put the question to yourself: is there any real reason, apart from
your infatuation for the girl--herself a married woman, why you should
continue to take a hand in a very perplexing and unprofitable business.
If we knew Audley was dead and you are really fond of the girl, it
would be, I quite admit, a different thing.”
I could not pretend that there was any flaw in his logic. Yet I was
still restless and dissatisfied. I went home with him that night and
dined with his wife and himself in their quaint little cottage home
at Hampton. As I sat in that small low-pitched room--for the house
was composed of two old-world cottages knocked into one--I envied my
partner his domestic happiness.
When I got back to Russell Square I sat down before the big fire old
Mrs. Chapman had left me and for the thousandth time went over the
affair from the beginning seeking to recall any trivial circumstance
that might throw some light upon it. As to the personal threat, I
recklessly made up my mind that I would not allow it to influence me at
all: I would not run the risk of being fooled by a practical joke on
the one hand, or, on the other, weakly run away if there were any real
danger.
I decided that, in any case, I would see Dr. Feng, show him the letters
and, if necessary, ask him bluntly whether he were the sender.
So at eleven o’clock next morning the maid at the comfortable house
in Barnes showed me into the Doctor’s sitting-room, and a few seconds
later Feng, with a smile of welcome, entered with outstretched hand.
“Well, Yelverton, so pleased to see you,” he said, inviting me to a
chair. “And how are things going with you?”
“Oh, pretty much as usual,” I replied rather moodily.
I hesitated a moment and then I took from my pocket the second letter
of warning.
“Look, Doctor,” I said, “I’ve received this. What do you think of it?”
As he read it I watched him closely. It was evident he was keenly
interested. It struck me, too, that he was unmistakably surprised and
my suspicion that he might have been the writer faded instantly.
“I wonder who could have sent you that?” he exclaimed. “Somebody who is
jealous of your attentions to little Mrs. Audley.”
His eyes met mine, and I thought I saw a curious look of mystery in
them.
“I thought it possible that you might have been the sender,” I said,
with a laugh.
“Me!” he replied, starting. “Whatever causes you to suspect that?
Ah!” he added a second later. “I notice the postmark is that of
Hammersmith--just across the bridge! No, my dear boy, I assure you that
I am not the sender.”
By his manner it was plain that he was telling the truth.
“I remember your many warnings, Doctor. That is why I suspected,” I
said apologetically.
“Well, I hope you don’t believe that I’m guilty of sending you such
silly nonsense. Personally, if I received such a letter I should take
no notice of it. You’re not alarmed, surely? It’s only some silly joke,
perpetrated, perhaps, by one of Audley’s mysterious and undesirable
associates.”
“I wish I knew whether Audley were alive or dead!” I said bitterly.
“His wife has heard that he is dead, yet I can find no evidence at all
that this is so.”
“She told you that he could never return to her,” Feng remarked.
“Yes; but that is another puzzle upon which she refused to throw any
light,” I replied.
“Oh! by the way,” Feng exclaimed suddenly. “You recollect old Hartley
Humphreys at Mürren? He wrote to me a few days ago and I went to dine
with him at the Carlton. He’s just back from Constantinople, and do you
know, his lameness is quite cured. He’s been to some German specialist
who has put him right. He was enquiring about you.”
“I’d like to see him again,” I said. “He is quite a pleasant old
fellow.”
“Go and call. He’d like to see you, I’m sure. He was interested in your
romance, and asked me how it had ended. I pretended ignorance, for I
did not know how much you would like him to learn. I never care to
obtrude in other people’s affairs.”
“I will certainly go and see him,” I said. “It’s good news that he is
cured.”
“Yes. He walks without a stick and seems rejuvenated.”
Next day I went to the Carlton and sent up my card, after which I was
conducted to a handsome private sitting-room on the second floor. As I
approached the door, I saw disappearing along the corridor, the back
of a man whom I could have sworn was Harold Ruthen. I recognized him
mainly by his walk, his grey felt hat, the well-cut brown suit and the
drab spats. But he had turned the corner and disappeared before I could
make sure.
In the room old Mr. Humphreys rose to meet me.
“Well, Mr. Yelverton! This is indeed a pleasure! I was asking the
Doctor about you only the other day. I had mislaid your address. I’m so
glad you’ve called.”
“The Doctor told me you were here,” I said.
“Excellent! Sit down. Have one of these Turkish cigarettes. They
are real Turkish, for I brought them home with me. You can get no
first-class Turkish cigarettes except in Turkey itself. As you know,
the export of the best tobacco leaves is forbidden. The second quality
only goes to Europe.”
I took one of the thin little rolls of golden tobacco, and lighting it
pronounced it to be exquisite.
“Well, and what you have been doing since I left Mürren--carrying on in
your profession, I suppose? And how about that charming little bride?
Did her husband come back?”
“No,” I replied. “He has not yet returned to her.”
“What!” cried the old man, opening his eyes widely. “Not back! Then
he deserted her and left her upon your hands!” he added. “A rather
dangerous situation for a young man--eh?”
I smiled.
“It is a tragedy,” I said, a few moments later. “The poor
broken-hearted girl is back with her mother at Bexhill.”
“And you see her sometimes, I expect.”
“Very rarely,” I answered. “But I am still seeking for traces of the
missing man.”
“Curious that he didn’t come back. He seemed quite a nice young fellow
and devoted to his wife. There is a mystery somewhere. I wonder what
really happened.”
“It is impossible to conjecture--unless he is keeping out of the way
for some unexplained reason.”
A moment later the door opened and Dr. Feng walked in. I was rather
surprised at his coming up unannounced. When he saw me he looked
annoyed for a moment, but only for a moment. Then he laughed and said--
“Well, I didn’t expect to find you here, Yelverton!”
“We were discussing little Mrs. Audley and her missing husband,”
Humphreys explained.
“Yes, some silly ass who is jealous has sent Yelverton two letters of
warning, threatening him with death if he continues his search for
Audley or his acquaintanceship with his wife,” the doctor said.
Humphreys laughed, and exclaimed--
“What rubbish! The letters must be a joke.”
“I think they are meant in earnest,” I said.
In the meantime the doctor had taken a chair before the fire, and
proceeded to light his pipe. It struck me suddenly that, so far from
being, as I had believed, mere hotel acquaintances, these two were
great friends.
This surprised me. The doctor had told me that he had made a formal
call in response to a letter, but as we sat there it was plain they
were on terms of close intimacy.
“I’ve had the agent round this morning about that house in Hampstead I
told you about,” Humphreys said. “Ruthen is seeing after it for me. I
fancy I can get it a bit cheaper than they want. As I’ll be in London
for quite a year now, I prefer a house to hotel life.”
Mention of the name of Ruthen caused me to prick up my ears. I had no
idea that the young man who so constantly pestered Thelma with his
questions was acquainted with Humphreys.
“Yes,” agreed the doctor. “I think you will be better off in a house
than in hotels. I always find the latter very wearisome and restless.”
“It’s quite a nice place,” Humphreys remarked. “A bit big perhaps, but
I shall often have some relatives staying with me. Ruthen is quite of
my opinion that it would just suit me.”
“So he told me yesterday,” said the doctor. “I met him at lunch with
Andrews.”
Here was another surprise. I learned that three men whom I had believed
to be practically strangers to each other were on terms of intimate
friendship.
I remained for about an hour and then left the pair together. Old
Humphreys begged me to call upon him again.
Two days later he rang me up at the office and asked me to dine with
him. I accepted and we had dinner together in the Savoy restaurant,
and afterwards watched the dancing in the room below. The old fellow,
always a pleasant companion, had certainly become rejuvenated since the
winter at Mürren.
“Isn’t it splendid!” he remarked when I referred to his cure. “Old
Professor Goltman, in Dresden, has worked a miracle. I can now get
about quite well, and I feel quite twenty years younger.”
“You look it,” I declared, for he certainly seemed an entirely
different man from the decrepit invalid who wheeled himself in his
chair, and had often to be carried upstairs.
Thoughts of Mürren reminded me that Harold Ruthen had been there for a
few days at the same time as the invalid. Evidently they must have met
there and their acquaintance must have been renewed in London, where
Ruthen was now acting on Humphreys’ behalf in regard to the house.
It struck me too, that if I mentioned Ruthen I might be thought too
inquisitive. But I decided to watch closely, for I was beginning to
grow distrustful of both the doctor and his friend: of Ruthen I had
never been anything else. My suspicions were greatly strengthened by a
curious circumstance which occurred about a week later.
Though I had struggled against it I had decided to go down and see
Thelma again, and put to her certain other questions which I hoped
would induce her to give me her entire confidence. The fact was that I
could not keep away from her, try how I would.
I little dreamed of the consequences that visit was to have!
CHAPTER XIII
SPUME OF THE STORM
It was evening when I alighted from the train at the clean,
spick-and-span little town of Bexhill, which in summer and autumn is so
animated, yet in spring and winter is practically deserted.
Darkness had already fallen and a rough easterly wind caused the
leafless boughs of the trees to crack and sway. A heavy gale was
blowing in the Channel that night and the boiling surf swept in upon
the shingle.
As I walked towards Bedford Avenue, that quiet select thoroughfare of
detached red-brick houses which lies close to the sea, I noticed, on
the opposite side of the way, two persons--a man and a girl--walking
slowly in the direction which I was taking.
As they passed beneath a street-lamp, I had a good view of them. It was
Thelma walking with old Doctor Feng!
I halted amazed, and instinctively drew back into the shadow of a hedge
which formed the boundary of a garden. They were walking engrossed in
conversation, in the direction of Mrs. Shaylor’s house.
I had no idea that they were on terms of friendship, and their
apparently clandestine meeting was a complete surprise to me. Feng was
bending to her, talking earnestly in an undertone, while she appeared
to be listening attentively.
There flashed across my memory a moment in Mürren when I had seen the
Doctor and Ruthen walking together in secret up a narrow snow-piled
lane, though we all believed they were strangers. What could it
possibly mean?
I allowed the pair to go ahead of me, following them at a distance and
watching.
I thought I heard the girl cry “No! No!” in a distressed tone. But it
might have been merely my fancy.
They walked together very slowly until they reached the corner of
Bedford Avenue. Here they halted, and again I drew back into the
shadow. From where I stood I could see them very plainly, for a lamp
shone full upon them. No other person was in the vicinity. I could
plainly see old Feng’s face and beard as he spoke evidently in deep
earnest, while Thelma, wrapped in her smart squirrel coat and wearing
the little fur toque which I had admired so much, stood listening.
Suddenly she appeared to utter some appeal. But the old man shook his
head relentlessly. He had apparently told her something which had
staggered her.
I watched, scarcely daring to draw breath, in a mist of uncertainty,
jealousy and dread.
How long they stood there I could not say, but it seemed a long time.
I was utterly amazed at the sight of Thelma keeping what was clearly a
secret appointment with this old fellow who had often warned me against
a dangerous friendship. Were both of them, I wondered, in some plot
to delude and play with me. Was Thelma, after all, in league with her
husband and his mysterious friends. Was old Feng for some sinister
reason a member of the same queer coterie?
At last he took her hand and held it in his for a long time. Then he
raised his hat and bade her farewell. She seemed glad to get rid of
his presence, for she turned away and flew towards her mother’s house
at the seaward end of the silent road, while he turned on his heel and
strode in the direction of the station.
Rather than go direct to Mrs. Shaylor’s I followed the Doctor at a
distance up the town until I saw him hurry into the station yard. Here
he had unbuttoned his overcoat and glanced at his watch. Evidently a
train was due.
So I turned back, and a little later I opened the garden gate, walked
up the path and rang the bell. “Jock,” Mrs. Shaylor’s Airedale barked
loudly, and in a few moments the neat maid opened the door.
In the artistic little hall Thelma, who had divested herself of coat
and hat, came forward exclaiming gladly--
“Well, Mr. Yelverton! Whoever expected to see you tonight? Come in.
Mother is out at a friend’s playing bridge, I think, and I am all
alone.”
She helped me off with my coat, took my hat, and ushered me into the
charming drawing-room overlooking the sea.
She switched on more lights and handed me her cigarette case, then
threw herself into a big chair before the fire opposite me.
“Now, tell me what you’ve been doing,” she asked. “It is a real
surprise to see you tonight.”
She was, of course, ignorant that I knew of her secret meeting with old
Feng, and I felt annoyed and mistrustful.
“Well,” I said, “I have very little news and none of any importance. I
came down hoping that you might have something more to tell me. My only
news is that the other day I met another of our friends--Mr. Hartley
Humphreys. You remember the old invalid at Mürren?”
“Oh yes, of course. He often spoke to me--a charming old boy. I
recollect him perfectly. How is he?”
“Better. His lameness is cured, and he’s quite young again.”
“And you have no other news for me,” she remarked meaningly.
“You mean about Stanley. No--nothing,” I said regretfully.
She sighed, and I saw again that hardening at the corners of her mouth
which seemed to come with every mention of her husband.
As for myself, my brain was in a whirl: my good resolutions, so easy
to make when I was away from her, vanished like smoke. At the same
time the suspicion I had felt when I saw her talking to Feng in the
dark, lonely road, melted like mist before the sun. She was so frankly
innocent and unspoiled; there was about her no trace of coquetry or
desire to provoke admiration. The impression grew stronger and stronger
as we sat chatting freely in that pretty drawing-room, with the roar
of the sea and wind sounding faintly through the curtained windows
that, whatever appearances might suggest, this child-bride of a few
days was actually alone--more hopelessly alone in her wedded life than
if she were in a convent. I saw myself looking into the depths of a
soul unsullied, and for the first time, I truly believe, I began to
understand dimly some of the feelings and desires that must be tearing
at her heart.
“My husband can never return to me!” Over and over again her
significant sentence beat itself upon my brain. I could not understand
it--I had not the key to the riddle it contained. Yet, for some
inexplicable reason it seemed to fill my mind with hope, even though I
knew that, so long as Stanley Audley lived, my love for his wife could
never be more than a tormenting dream. Try to disguise it how I would,
the girl held me, for good or ill; she had fascinated me utterly and
completely, not by the purposeful acts of the courtesan, but by her
own innate sweetness and modesty. What I had seen that night puzzled
me beyond measure, but in the hour I spent with her I became assured
that nothing on earth could shake my conviction that in every essential
she was true and good and sweet. Time, I felt, would solve the riddle
sooner or later.
So I sat there, foolish and fascinated, unable to bring myself to put
any serious question to her for fear of causing her sorrow or anxiety.
I knew, I felt, that I was indeed walking upon thin ice, that my honor
was wearing thin. Yet, I realized that Thelma was not as many other
women are, and I dared not again allow the feelings that ran riot in my
heart and sweep over me and submerge once more my self-control. So I
steeled my heart as best I could.
She said no word of her meeting with the old doctor, who had no doubt
come down from London to consult her, and had caught the last train
back to Victoria.
Presently she asked--
“Can you get back tonight, Mr. Yelverton?”
“No,” I replied, “I sent my bag to the Sackville. But now tell me, have
you heard anything else regarding Stanley?”
She gazed at me through the haze of her cigarette smoke, and, after a
pause, replied--
“No, I’ve heard nothing.”
“But, now, do be frank with me, Thelma. What am I to think? This affair
is growing serious, and I know you are worried more even than I am.”
“Mr. Yelverton, I’m absolutely bewildered. All I hear or find out only
increases the mystery. But I tell you quite plainly that I begin to
think--more and more--”
“What?” I asked, placing my hand upon her shoulder.
“I--I really can hardly believe it--but from what I have been told, I
think Stanley is dead!”
“Who told you that?” I demanded, for it crossed my mind that Feng
had done no less--that that was the reason for his visit. And yet as
I watched her I saw no signs of distress. Was she merely repeating
something she had been told to say. Did she, in fact, hold the key to
the mystery?
“What proof have you?” I asked quickly, as she had not replied to my
question.
“I have no proof, only what has been told me.”
“By whom?” I demanded.
“By a friend.”
“May I not know his name?”
She hesitated. Then she replied with narrowed brows--
“No. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. I am under a promise of secrecy.”
“You seem to have been under some such promise all along,” I remarked
rather petulantly I fear. Yet, as Thelma stood there before me under
the soft shaded glow of the electric lamps she touched even a softer
nerve in me. Something that was all tenderness and half regret smote me
as I gazed upon her lithe graceful figure like a garden lily standing
alone in the glow of a summer sunset. More and more I realized my love
for her and again, insistent and not to be denied, the thought arose
within me that if her husband were indeed dead, I should be free to
offer her my hand! And the thought of what might be merge into the wish
that it should be? Was I, indeed, a murderer at heart?
I hope that I am neither inhuman nor heartless. Once, in my early youth
I used to be quickly touched by any kind of feeling; but before I met
the pale handsome girl who now stood before me, life had seemed to me
cold and profitless. Thelma Audley was the one woman in all the world
for me.
That is why I hesitated to press her more closely concerning her
informant. She was dry-eyed; could she really believe that Stanley was
dead?
I began to suspect that the clever old Doctor had, all along, for
some reason I could not even guess at, misled me into a belief that
he was antagonistic towards her, while he was, in fact, secretly her
friend. She, who had fondly imagined that the riotous and exuberant
happiness that had commenced in Mürren was permanent, had been sadly
disillusioned by a man’s love that had only blossomed like the almond
or the may.
She handed me her big silver box of cigarettes, for she, like many
modern girls, was an inveterate smoker. I took one and she lit it for
me with a gay expression in her eyes which seemed to belie the tragic
news she had imparted to me.
That well-warmed room was indeed cozy and comfortable, for outside it
was a wild night in the Channel. The heavy roar of the waves as they
beat upon the beach reached us, while through the window--for the
curtains had not been drawn--could be seen the regular flashes of the
Royal Sovereign Lightship warning ships from the perilous rocks off
Beach Head, and here and there in the blackness were tiny points of
light showing that the fishing fleet were out from Rye and Hastings.
The very atmosphere seemed to be changed with the wild spin-drift of
the stormy sea.
I felt that though she was holding back certain facts concerning her
husband--dead or alive. Perhaps she was doing so out of consideration
to us both. Try as I would, I could get no further information from
her. She would tell me no more concerning her suspicion of Stanley’s
death, and later that night as I trudged along the storm-swept
promenade to the hotel close by, I confess that I felt both baffled by
Feng’s visit and annoyed at Thelma’s dogged persistence in refusing to
tell me anything.
Next afternoon, while I was sitting in my office in Bedford Row, the
telephone rang and a woman’s voice asked whether I was Mr. Yelverton.
I took it to be a client and replied in the affirmative, whereupon the
speaker said:
“I’m Marigold Day. Can I come along and see you, Mr. Yelverton?”
“Certainly,” I said. “I’ll be in till five. Is it anything important?”
“Yes. It is rather, I’ll come along in a taxi,” and she rang off
hurriedly.
About a quarter of an hour later my clerk showed in the pretty
mannequin from Carille’s, and when she was seated and we were alone,
she said--
“I--I want to tell you something about Mr. Audley. They say the poor
boy is dead!”
“Who says so?” I asked.
“Harold Ruthen. I met him in the Piccadilly Grill Room last night with
a girl friend of mine, and he called me aside and told me.”
“What exactly did he tell you?” I asked eagerly.
“Well, he said that Audley had met with a motor accident somewhere in
Touraine, and had been taken to the hospital at Saumur, where he had
lingered for four days, and died there. He asked me to keep the matter
a secret. Why--I don’t know. But if the poor boy is dead I really can’t
see any object in keeping the matter a secret, do you?”
“No,” I replied.
“Well, I thought you, being his friend, would like to know,” said the
girl, sadly. She made a pathetic figure, for she had been fond of
Audley, and I knew that under her merry careless Bohemian ways she was
capable of deep feeling.
I took her out to tea and questioned her further about Ruthen, and the
story he had told her.
She had no knowledge of old Mr. Humphreys, or of Doctor Feng, but she
was convinced by Ruthen’s manner that what he had told her was the
truth. Besides, as the young fellow had been in such active search for
his friend there seemed no motive why he should declare that he had
died.
Was it from Harold Ruthen that Thelma had gained the news? Or had
Ruthen told old Mr. Humphreys, who in turn, had told Feng, who had
gone to Bexhill and given her the report?
But was it really true?
I expressed my doubts.
“Well, Mr. Yelverton. I’ve only told you exactly what Harold told me.
He added the words: ‘After all, poor Stanley’s death will prevent a
good deal leaking out. His lips are closed, and it means security to
several persons.’ I wonder what he meant?”
“I wonder! He must have been in possession of some secret which closely
affected certain persons,” I said. “And probably Ruthen is one of those
who now feel secure.”
“Perhaps. Who knows?” the girl remarked reflectively as she crushed
her cigarette-end into the ash tray and rose to leave. “At any rate, I
thought you would like to know, as you seem so interested in Stanley.”
I thanked her, and left her at the corner of Chancery Lane in order to
return to my office.
Saumur! I knew that it was an old-world town--the center of a
wine-growing country--somewhere on the broad Loire.
I searched among my books, looked it up, and found that it was two
hundred and seventy miles from Paris by the Orleans Railway, and that
if I traveled by the through express, I could go direct by way of St.
Pierre-des-Corps and Savonnières. I resolved to make a swift journey
out there and enquire for myself.
Next morning I left London and in the afternoon of the following day I
entered a small hotel, the Budan, at the end of the long stone bridge
which spans the Loire at Saumur. I lost no time in making my inquiries
in the old Huguenot town, famed for its sparkling wines. At the
Prefecture of Police I saw the Prefect himself, a brisk little man with
a stubble of white hair, most courteous and attentive.
An automobile accident, and fatal? He would have the records examined,
if I would return next morning.
I dined, spent the evening in the Café de la Paix adjoining the Post
Office, and next morning returned to the Prefect.
Again he received me most courteously in his barely furnished office,
and when I was seated he rang his bell, whereupon an inspector in plain
clothes entered with some papers in his hand.
“It is, I find, true, monsieur, that an Englishman named Audley,
christian name Stanley, native of London, was motoring with two men
named Armand Raves and Henry Chest on the road between Langeais and
Cinq-Mars, when, in turning a sharp corner, they ran into a wall, and
the Englishman was injured. He was brought to the St. Jean Hospital
here, put to bed unconscious and died four days later. In his pocket
was found a wallet containing a number of notes of the Banque
d’Angleterre of five pounds and fifty pounds. They were sent by us to
the Banque de France to hold for any claim by relatives, but curious
enough, they were at once recognized as forgeries!”
“Forgeries!” I gasped, pretending ignorance.
“Yes, Monsieur,” said the Prefect of Police, while the Inspector spread
out his papers on his Chief’s desk.
“This telegram, Monsieur, is from the Bank of England, in London, sent
through Scotland Yard, and says, ‘Numbers of notes reported in telegram
of 5th are part of South American forgeries. Kindly send them to us for
record.’ They have been sent to London,” he added.
“But the men who were in the car with Mr. Audley. Where are they?”
“Ah! Monsieur! We do not know,” replied the shrewd old French official.
“We only know the names and addresses they gave to the agent of police.”
“The addresses they gave proved false, Monsieur le Prefect,” remarked
the inspector. “But we photographed them all--including the dead
man,--and we have a hue-and-cry out for them.”
“You have a photograph of the dead man!” I cried.
“Yes, Monsieur. It is on file among our photographs.”
“Cannot I see it?” I asked.
“Tomorrow, when we shall have further prints. Ours have been sent on to
Paris.”
“I would very much like to see it,” I said. “I am a lawyer from London,
and my inquiry concerns a strange string of circumstances. This fact
that forged bank-notes were found upon the man who died is truly
amazing.”
“It may be amazing, but it is nevertheless a fact,” declared the old
official.
“But did the injured man make any statement before he died?” I asked.
The inspector adjusted his pince-nez and searched the _dossier_.
“I think he did,” he said. “Ah! yes! Here we are,” and he took out
a sheet of paper. “On the morning before he died he spoke to Soeur
Yvonne, and uttered these words in English, ‘I am very sorry for all I
have done. I would never have done the bad turns to Harry or to George
unless it had been to gain money. But I could not resist it. They made
me join in the scheme of printing false bank-notes, though I warned
them of the peril. I know I must die, for the doctor told me so this
morning. My only wish is that little Thelma may be made happy. That is
my only wish. Let her discover the truth!’ Who ‘little Thelma’ may be,
monsieur, we have, of course, no means of knowing.”
“And was that the only statement made by Stanley Audley immediately
before he died,” I asked.
“Yes, monsieur. He died three hours later,” replied the inspector.
“He said nothing else--nothing more concerning Thelma?” I asked
anxiously.
“Those words were the only ones he uttered, monsieur,” replied the
inspector. “It is fortunate that Soeur Yvonne knows English, having
been a nursing sister in London. Of course, there is no doubt that all
three men were making a tour of France distributing spurious English
notes, for, within a few days of the accident, many forged notes were
brought to the notice of the police in Nantes, Orleans, Marseilles and
Bordeaux. All of them had been changed into French notes, and no doubt
in that car was a large sum of money.”
“Was nothing else of interest found in the dead man’s possession?”
“Nothing except a card-case, a silver cigarette case, a wallet
containing 220 francs, the return half of a first-class ticket from
Brussels to Marseilles and a tram-ticket taken in Barcelona.”
I left, promising to call again next day, and wandered out upon the
broad bridge that spans the Loire and affords such a splendid view up
the broad valley. What could the dying man have meant by that reference
to Thelma?
I spent a very anxious day, trying to idle away the time in the little
museum in the Hotel de Ville and inspecting the treasures of the
ancient church of St. Pierre. In the afternoon I watched the training
of a number of cavalry officers on the exercise ground, and after
dinner went to a cinema.
Next morning I returned eagerly to the Prefect and the inspector
appeared with several photographs. One showed the wrecked car at the
scene of the accident and beside it stood two men.
“They are the men Raves and Chester,” remarked the inspector.
“Who is the one leaning against the car. The one with the cap in his
hand?” I asked.
“That is the Englishman, Chester.”
And I had recognized him instantly as Harold Ruthen!
“And the dead man?”
He showed me a picture of a man taken with his head upon a pillow. But
it was not that of Stanley Audley, but of a round-faced man with a
small moustache--evidently the man who, when home in Half Moon Street
had assumed the name of Audley, while the real Audley lived as Mr.
Graydon.
Sight of those photographs staggered me. What message did the false
Audley wish to convey to Thelma? Was it concerning the whereabouts or
movements of her husband?
So Ruthen had been one of the rapidly moving party which had gone to
France in order to pass the spurious notes, and with such disastrous
results. It was true that Stanley Audley had been killed, but he was
not the man of whom I was in such diligent search, not the man to whom
Thelma had been married!
That afternoon I sent a telegram to Thelma at Bexhill, assuring her
that her husband was not dead, and that same evening I left Saumur for
London.
Next evening when I arrived at Russell Square, I saw upon my table one
of those now familiar envelopes. It had been sent by express messenger
from Crouch Hill, and not from Hammersmith. On tearing it open I read--
“You are still beating the wind! As you will not heed any warning and
are still trying to meddle with affairs that do not concern you, do
not be surprised if you receive a sudden shock. Your visit to Saumur
was a perilous one for more reasons than one. The truth is too deeply
hidden for you ever to discover it. Why court death as you are daily
doing?”
So my enemies already knew of my rapid journey to the Loire, though I
had not told a soul, except my partner Hensman! Evidently a close watch
was being kept upon my movements.
Ruthen was back in town, glad I suppose to escape from a very
embarrassing position, for it was clear that both men had immediately
made themselves scarce, leaving their friend to his fate.
At the office next day I told Hensman of what I had discovered, and
showed him the note that I had received on the previous night.
“Really, Rex, the puzzle seems to grow more and more complicated every
day, doesn’t it? The change of names, from one man to the other seems
so very curious. And yet, of course, Audley must have married in his
own name.”
“But that remark about Little Thelma,” I said. “The fellow just before
he died expressed a hope that she might be happy and that was his only
wish. ‘Let her discover the truth,’ he said.”
“Which plainly shows that, whatever we may surmise, Thelma does not
know the truth,” my partner remarked, leaning back in his writing chair.
With that I agreed. Yet our discovery threw no light on the friendship
between the two men who had met at Mürren, the Doctor and old
Humphreys; their friendship with the foppish young fellow who was a
friend of Stanley’s and was now proved to be one of a gang of forgers,
and on Thelma’s secret friendship with old Feng.
I rang up Bexhill half-an-hour later, and over the ’phone told Thelma
that I had ascertained definitely that the man fatally injured in the
motor accident in France was not her husband.
She drew a long sigh of relief.
“It is really awfully good of you, Mr. Yelverton, to take such a keen
interest in me and go to all that trouble.”
“I know the truth as far as the report of Stanley’s accident goes--not
the whole truth, Mrs. Audley,” I said. “I only wish I did. Won’t you
give me the key to the situation.”
I heard her laugh lightly, a strange hollow laugh it was.
“Ah! I only wish--I only wish I dare,” she replied. Then she added,
“Good-bye. What you have told me relieves my mind greatly and also
places a new complexion upon things. Good-bye, Mr. Yelverton--and a
thousand thanks. Mother is here and sends her best wishes.”
I acknowledged them, and we were then cut off.
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE NIGHT
Autumn was approaching. The long vacation had begun, and London lay
sweltering beneath a heat-wave in the early days of August. Legal
business was nearly at a stand-still, and Hensman with his wife had
gone for three weeks to that charming spot amid the Welsh mountains,
the Oakwood Park Hotel, near Conway in North Wales. Half the clubs were
enveloped in holland swathings for their annual cleaning. Pall Mall and
St. James’s Street were deserted, for the world of the West End seemed
to be in flight, northward bound for the “Twelfth,” or crossing to the
French coast.
At the office I was simply “carrying on” with such occasional matters
as demanded immediate attention. But legal business was almost dead,
half the staffs in London, our own included, were away. The time hung
heavily on the heads of those left in town. I found life insupportably
dull and had no energy, when the day’s scant duties were over, to
do more than crawl back to my dull room in Russell Square and sit
sweltering in the torrid heat.
In accordance with the usual arrangement, I had taken my holiday in
the winter and was looking after the office while Hensman was away.
He was one of the “sun-birds”; the delights of snow and frost had no
attraction for him, while to me the hot weather was trying in the
highest degree. Heat for him--cold for me!
Bedford Row in August is indeed a sorry place. The great wheels of the
law machine almost cease their slow remorseless grinding; lawyers and
clients seem able to forget their troubles and worries for a brief
spell. I lounged my days away, heartily wishing myself elsewhere, but,
with the help of the only lady secretary left, perfunctorily getting
through such work as could not be shelved.
Late one afternoon, after an unusually busy day--for I had instructed
counsel to appear for a client who was to be charged with a serious
motoring offence at Brighton--I had risen from my chair and was about
to take my hat and leave, when the telephone rang.
On answering I found a trunk call had come through from a village
called Duddington, near Stamford, in Lincolnshire. The speaker was a
young man who gave his name as Edward Pearson, the son of one of our
oldest clients, a large landowner in the district.
Having told me his name he said:
“I wonder if you could come to Stamford tonight, Mr. Yelverton? My
father is ill and has expressed his wish to add a codicil to the will
you made for him three years ago.”
“Is it a matter of urgency?” I asked. “My partner is away, and it is a
little difficult for me to leave London.”
“Yes. I fear it is urgent,” replied my client’s son. “My father had
a stroke about three days ago on his return from London. The Doctor
declares it to be a serious matter. Of course I won’t ask you to come
over to Duddington tonight, but you could get to Stamford tonight, and
sleep at the Cross Keys. I’ll call for you in the car at nine tomorrow
morning. I’d be so grateful if you can do this. Will you?”
I hesitated.
“You can catch a convenient train from King’s Cross tonight. Change at
Essendine. It takes about three hours,” he added.
“Is your father in grave danger?” I asked.
“He was, but he seems a trifle better now. He is asleep, and the Doctor
says he is not to be awakened. So we’ll see how he is in the morning.”
“Did he express a wish to make the codicil?” I asked.
“Yes. He wants to leave the Gorselands to my brother Alfred, instead
of to mother,” was the reply.
“Very well,” I said, rather reluctantly, for as a matter of fact I had
been looking forward to dining with old Mr. Humphreys that evening.
“I’ll meet you at the Cross Keys at Stamford in the morning. Good-bye,
Mr. Pearson.”
Having put down the receiver I resolved to ring up Hartley Humphreys at
the Carlton, and did so.
“I’m sorry you’re called away,” the old financier replied. “But in any
case come along now, and have a cocktail. You won’t leave London till
after dinner.”
I took a taxi along to the hotel and found him alone in his private
sitting-room. Together we took dry martinis, and while I smoked one of
his exquisite Turkish cigarettes I explained the reason for my sudden
visit to Lincolnshire.
“Well,” he laughed. “It all means costs to you, I suppose. And after
all I believe you have a dining car to Peterborough, so the journey is
not a very difficult one.”
“No. But I wanted to keep my appointment with you tonight,” I said.
The cheery old fellow laughed, saying:--
“My dear Yelverton, don’t think of that where business is concerned.
Come and dine another night--the night after tomorrow. Feng is
coming. We’ll have dinner at the Ritz for a change, and go to a show
afterwards. Any further news of your little bride?”
“None,” I replied.
“Heard nothing?” he asked, looking at me curiously, as though he held
me in some suspicion I thought. Did he know of my visit to Saumur and
my discovery concerning his factotum, Harold Ruthen?
“Nothing,” was my reply. His attitude was always curious whenever he
made any reference to Thelma.
In reply to a further question as to when I should return, I told him
that I must be back in London by four o’clock on the morrow as I had an
important appointment regarding the transfer of some London property--a
side of the business which Hensman usually looked after.
I smoked a second cigarette and rose. He gripped my hand warmly before
I left and repeated his invitation.
“Feng is very fond of you,” he added, “and we’ll have a real pleasant
evening together.”
Back again at Russell Square I looked at the time-table, dressed
leisurely and packing a suitcase, took the evening train from King’s
Cross and having had my dinner between London and Peterborough arrived
at the ancient little town of Stamford in the late evening.
It was, I found, a place of quaint crooked streets and old churches,
dim alleyways and a curious square with an ancient Butter Market
close by the old-world hotel, the Cross Keys, once one of the famous
posting-houses on the Great North Road.
Beyond three or four motorists and commercial travelers, I seemed to
be about the only person in the hotel, a roomy comfortable place with
many paneled rooms, and polished floors. About it was that air of cozy
comfort and cheery welcome such as one finds to perfection in the too
few old English posting-inns. The coffee-room was bounded by huge
mahogany buffets laden with silver, and the drawing-room was devoid of
that gimcrack furniture which one finds in most modern hotels.
My room, too, was big and spacious, with a window looking out upon the
great courtyard into which the stage-coaches on their way from London
to Edinburgh used to lumber before the days of motors. Yet even there I
saw a row of stables and was informed by the “boots” that in winter a
good many London gentlemen stabled their hunters there.
In the twilight, having nothing better to do, I strolled out of the
town along a path which led through meadows beside the Welland river
where many people seemed to be enjoying the fresh air after the
unusual heat of the day, while many anglers sat patiently upon the
banks.
It was dark when I returned to the hotel, and passing into the
smoking-room I found several men there, unmistakably commercial
travelers. I chatted with one of them, a tall, rugged-faced, sharp-nose
man in tweeds who spoke with a full Yorkshire burr, and whose business
was undoubtedly “woolens.”
“I come here four times a year,” he told me. “This hotel is one of the
best in the Midlands. The Bell at Barnby Moor is excellent, but a bit
out of the way for us. We have to stay in Doncaster. Half our game is
to know where to go, and how to live. A commercial’s life is a pretty
tough one now-a-days, with high prices in traveling and cut prices in
the trade.”
He seemed a particularly affable person, though his manner possessed
that business-like briskness which characterizes all men “on the road.”
I set him down as a man who could sell a tradesman nearly anything,
whether he desired it or not--one of those particularly “smart” men
found as travelers in every trade, shrewd, clever and far-seeing, yet
suave ambassadors of commerce who are invaluable to wholesalers and
manufacturers.
“I’ve had bad luck here today,” he said. “I was kept over-night in
Peterborough and got here at eleven o’clock. Started out and forgot
that it is their early-closing day. So I’m compelled to be here
tomorrow instead of getting on to Bourne. One can work this town well
in a whole day--not less.”
I noticed that his face was scarred and furrowed. He had no doubt led a
hard life, and from his erect bearing I thought that he might possibly
have risen to the rank of sergeant-major during the war. His keen black
eyes seemed to search everywhere, while his nose was almost hawk-like.
His cravat too, attracted me. It was of soft black silk, neatly tied,
but in it was an onyx scarf-pin, oval and dark with a thin white line
around the edge. It reminded me most forcibly of a miniature human eye.
As we sat together he gossiped about the bad state of trade, the craze
for cheap dress materials and the consequent low prices.
“Things are horribly bad in Bradford,” he declared. “Most of the
mills are only working half-time. In the cotton trade it is just the
same. Oldham has been very hard hit, now that the boom has passed.
Why, when that boom in cotton-mills was at its height, men became
semi-millionaires in a single week. I know a man who was a clerk living
in a seven-room house and keeping no servants who made a clear profit
of a quarter of a million within six weeks, and he made a further
hundred thousand in the same year. He’s just bought a pretty estate in
Devonshire. And now the slump has come and other people are bearing the
burden which the lucky ones unloaded on them.”
He took a cigarette case from his pocket and offered me one. I took it
and for a further quarter of an hour we smoked.
“Yes,” he said. “This is a pretty comfortable place. I’ve known it for
twenty years--and it’s always been the same. Old Brimelow, who used to
be the landlord, was a queer old fellow. He’s dead now. He used to make
us some wonderful rum-punch in the commercial room at Christmas-time.
His father kept the place before him, and he could remember the
stage-coaches, the York coach, the Lincoln coach, the Birmingham coach
and the Edinburgh coach, and tell tales of all of them.”
“Of highwaymen?” I asked laughing.
“No. Not exactly that,” he said merrily. “But sometimes he told us
tales of hold-ups that he had heard from his father. Why, King George
the Third once got snowed up at the Colly Weston cross-roads and slept
there. Oh! this is a very historic old place.”
After lighting another of his cigarettes I left my entertaining
companion and ascended the broad oak staircase to my room, which was on
the first floor.
It was a fine old apartment, three sides of which were paneled in dark
oak. The floor, on which a few rugs were strewn, was of polished oak
and creaked as I entered, while through the open window the moon cast a
long white beam.
After a glance out upon the silent courtyard I half closed the window,
drew down the blind and lit the gas. Then, having turned the key in the
door, I undressed and retired.
At first I could not sleep because I heard the scuttling of a mouse
or rat behind the paneling. I lay thinking of Thelma. A momentary
wish, wicked as a venomous snake, and swift as fire darted through my
thoughts. I wished that Stanley Audley were dead. With such thoughts
uppermost in my mind I suddenly experienced a heavy drowsiness and I
must have at last dozed off.
I was awakened by feeling something cold upon my mouth. I struggled,
only to find that I was breathless and helpless. I tried to cry out,
but could not. My breath came and went in short quick gasps. Was it
possible that I had left the gas turned on and was being asphyxiated!
I struggled and fought for life, but the cold Thing, whatever it was,
pressed upon my mouth.
In the darkness I strove to shout for help, but no sound escaped my
lips, while my limbs were so paralyzed that I could not raise my hands
to my face.
I recollect struggling frantically to free myself from the horrible and
mysterious influence that was upon me. I tried frantically to extricate
myself from that deadly embrace, but was helpless as a babe. I thought
I heard the sound of heavy breathing, but was not quite sure. Was I
alone--or was someone in the room?
My lips seemed to burn, my brain was on fire, a wild madness seized me
and then the cold Thing left my lips.
I must have fainted, for all consciousness was suddenly blotted out.
When I came to myself I heard strange faint whisperings around me.
Before my eyes was a blood-red haze and I felt in my mouth and throat a
burning thirst.
I breathed heavily once or twice, I remember, and then I lapsed again
into unconsciousness. How long I remained, I know not. I must have been
inert and helpless through many hours. Then I became half conscious of
some liquid being wafted into my face, as though by a scent-spray, and
once I seemed to hear Thelma’s soft, sweet voice. But it was faint and
indistinct, sounding very far away.
I fell back into a dreamy stupor. Yet before my eyes was always that
scarf-pin like a tiny human eye which had been worn by my commercial
friend. It had attracted me as we had gossiped, and as is so often the
case its impression had remained upon my subconscious mind.
I lay wondering. Things assumed fantastic shapes. I could still hear
that scuttling of rats behind the old paneling, and I recollected the
narrow streak of moonlight which fell across the room from between the
blind and the window-frame. I recollected too, the sharp brisk voice of
my commercial friend, and moreover I once more saw, shining before me,
that tiny gem like a human eye.
After a lapse of quiet I tried again to rouse myself. The room was
still dark, and I listened again for the scuttling of the rats
behind the paneling, but the only sounds I heard seemed to be faint
whisperings. Then suddenly I seemed to hear drowsy sounds of bells,
like the sweet beautiful carillon that I had heard from the tower at
Antwerp.
I lay there bewildered and alarmed. I thought of Thelma--thoughts of
her obsessed me. I did not know whether to believe in her or not. Was I
a fool? In those dreamy moments I remembered my last visit to Bexhill
when I had questioned her. She had trembled, I remember, and her
lustrous eyes had scanned me with what now seemed to my tortured brain
a remorseless and merciless scrutiny.
I recollected too, her words:--
“I am sorry, but I can’t tell you. I am under the promise of secrecy.”
The whole enigma was beyond me: in my half conscious state, the pall of
a great darkness upon me, I felt my sense strung to breaking point.
CHAPTER XV
MORE DISCLOSURES
Ten minutes later I grew conscious of unfamiliar surroundings.
I was no longer in that dark old room at the Cross Keys, but in a
bright airy little room enameled in white. I was lying upon a narrow
iron bedstead and my nostrils were full of the pungent odor of some
disinfectant--I think it was iodoform.
As I looked up I saw four faces peering anxiously down into mine. The
first was that of a grey-bearded man in gold-rimmed spectacles, the
second was that of an elderly nurse in uniform, the third I recognized
as old Feng--and the fourth--I could scarce believe my eyes--was Thelma
herself!
“Thelma!” I cried eagerly, raising my hand towards her.
“No! Keep quiet!” ordered the spectacled man who seemed to be a doctor.
“Listen! Can you understand me. Do you hear what I say?” he asked in a
harsh voice.
“Yes, I--I do,” I faltered.
“Then keep quiet. Sleep, and don’t worry about anything--if you want
to get well. You’re very ill--and you’ve been very foolish. But if you
obey me you will soon be all right again.”
“But--but Thelma--Mrs. Audley,” I asked eagerly.
“She’s here--by your side. Don’t worry, Mr. Yelverton, go to sleep and
you’ll be quite right again soon--quite right!”
I looked at his great gold-rimmed spectacles. They seemed to be
magnified in my abnormal sight.
“But,” I asked boldly. “Who are you?”
“My name is Denbury--Doctor Denbury,” was the old fellow’s reply.
“But why are you here with me in Cross Keys?”
“You’re not in the Cross Keys now. You are in the Burghley Hospital.
The police brought you here, and sent for me.”
“The police!” I gasped, staring at those large round spectacles, whilst
next moment I shifted my gaze upon Feng. “Look here Doctor Feng,” I
said addressing him. “What does all this mean?”
“Well, Yelverton, it is all a puzzle to us. Why did you come here to
Stamford and attempt to commit suicide?”
“What?” I cried in fierce indignation despite my weakness. “What are
you saying? Suicide--why, such a thing never entered my mind!”
Feng’s face wore a strange, cynical smile. Suddenly I felt he was not
my friend; for the moment I hated him.
“Well, the facts are all too apparent,” he said dubiously. “Whatever
could have possessed you? You’ve had a very near squeak of it, I can
tell you.”
“Yes, Mr. Yelverton,” said Thelma, bending over me till I saw her dear
face peering eagerly into mine. “Yes. They thought you were dead. Why
did you do it? Why? Tell us.”
“Do it?” I gasped astounded. “I did nothing. I--I only slept at the
Cross Keys before going out to Duddington to see a client.”
“But why did you come to Stamford,” asked the girl, bending over me
till I could feel her breath upon my cheek.
“No! I forbid any further questions,” exclaimed the bearded old doctor
in the gold spectacles. “Enough! He must rest, Mrs. Audley.”
Then I thought I caught sight of another man--a policeman in uniform!
A few moments passed when suddenly the doctor pressed a glass to my
lips.
“Come. Take this,” he persuaded. “It will put you to sleep again, and
you’ll awake a new man.”
That strange cold pressure on my lips recalled the Thing which had
gripped me in the darkness, and I shut my mouth resolutely. But he
spoke so kindly, declaring that it would do me good, that inert and
almost helpless as I was, I obeyed him. The draught tasted of cloves,
but was terribly bitter.
“Water!” I gasped, and immediately he held some to my fevered lips. I
took a great gulp with avidity. Then I felt drowsy, and again lapsed
into unconsciousness.
When once more I opened my eyes my senses seemed quite normal. I could
see clearly, and I could think and reason.
I found Thelma and old Feng again bending over me, gazing very
earnestly into my face.
“Where am I,” I asked eagerly. “What has happened?”
“Surely you know what has happened,” replied Thelma, “why did you
attempt such a thing?”
“Attempt what?” I demanded.
“To take your life as we have already told you. You took poison, and
you’ve only been saved in the very nick of time!”
“It’s a lie,” I declared angrily. “I never took anything. What do you
mean?”
“Well,” said Feng. “You were found in the morning with your door
locked, and as you didn’t appear at noon they broke it open and you
were discovered insensible with the empty bottle beside you and a note.”
“A note!” I cried utterly bewildered.
“Yes. You shall see it later on. It is addressed to the Coroner,
apologizing for your act!”
I held my breath.
“But, really,” I declared astounded, “you’re joking! I never wrote a
note, and I certainly did not attempt to commit suicide!”
“Well, there are the facts,” said Thelma. “The police brought you here
and they found your name on your cards, and in the letter you left. The
affair got into the papers, and I saw it. So I telegraphed to Doctor
Feng, and we both came here at once.”
“He must not be excited,” said the medical man in glasses.
“Keep quiet, Yelverton,” urged Feng. “You shall know all that has
happened in due course. You owe your life to Doctor Denbury’s efforts.
He gave you an antidote just in time!”
“But I did not write a letter, and I did not take any poison,” I
protested impatiently.
“Keep quiet,” old Feng urged. “It will all be explained in due course.”
“It is so utterly mysterious!” I cried, half raising myself.
“Yes, I agree,” said Feng. “The doctor has found that you are also
suffering from the after-effects of some drug.”
“Does your head pain you very much now?” inquired the doctor.
“Not so much,” was my reply. “But my throat is very bad.”
“I expect so,” he said, and he crossed the room, returning with a
draught which, on being swallowed, proved soothing. “Yes,” he went on,
“you’ve had a very narrow escape. I caught you just in time. I presume
that you must have swallowed the stuff about three o’clock on the
morning before last. When I first saw you I gave you up as hopeless.
But by sheer luck I was able to diagnose what you were suffering from.
Funnily enough it was the drug you took first that saved you. But,” he
added coaxingly, “go to sleep again, and when you wake up tell us all
about it. Your mind will then be quite clear.”
“Yes,” said Thelma, whose beautiful face peered anxiously into my own.
“Go to sleep now, Mr. Yelverton. You must not exert yourself too much.”
And her soft cool hand smoothed my brow.
I remained silent and a few minutes later I had again fallen asleep.
It was night when I found myself listening to an astounding story.
What Thelma told me was to the effect that, on the door of my room
being forced, it was found that I had swallowed something from a bottle
which was lying on the floor, while on the dressing-table lay a note
addressed to the Coroner and signed, “Rex Yelverton.”
Feng showed me the note. It was upon half a sheet of the hotel
note-paper, but written in an unfamiliar and rather uneducated hand.
“I never wrote that!” I protested, feeling now quite better, after
I had swallowed a glass of milk. “And I certainly did not take any
poison.”
“I knew it was not in your handwriting!” Feng said, quietly. “As soon
as Mrs. Audley telegraphed to me I at once met her and we came on here
together. But, tell me, how did it come about that you swallowed that
stuff? It hasn’t been analyzed yet, so Doctor Denbury is not quite
certain what it is. He, however, has made a guess, because of its
smell. But apparently you were drugged also. Tell me exactly what you
recollect about it. I want to know everything, Yelverton.”
I tried to compose myself and reflect.
Presently, while he and Thelma sat side by side, I told them pretty
much as I have written here, exactly what had happened since my arrival
at the Cross Keys.
Feng listened very attentively without uttering a word. Now and then
he grunted, but whether owing to uncertainty or satisfaction I could
gain no idea. His attitude puzzled me sorely. I could not reconcile his
secret friendship with Thelma, with his pretended hostility. Even now,
in spite of the care he was taking of me, I wondered whether he was my
friend, and in summing up all the past circumstances I came to the
conclusion that he was not to be trusted.
The effort of thinking out all this proved too much for me, weakened as
I was by the poison--whatever it was--and, again feeling drowsy, I once
more closed my eyes, and slept.
I was conscious of a prick in my arm, and I know now that Doctor
Denbury gave me an injection.
Not until noon on the following day was I able to get up and dress, and
then, accompanied by Feng and Thelma, I managed to walk round to the
Cross Keys which was only a short distance from the hospital.
The brisk, bald-headed manager invited me into his private room and
with many inquiries about my health and expression of amazement, asked
me to relate what had actually happened. But what could I tell him? I
did not myself know.
Up till that morning I had--I now discovered--been practically under
arrest as having attempted suicide, but now that it was clear that I
had been a victim of a plot, the red-faced constable whom I had noticed
idling about the room, had been withdrawn. The papers had got hold of
the story, and had made a “mystery” out of it, to Hensman’s intense
disgust. On seeing the newspaper reports he had hurried from North
Wales to see me.
“You’ve been an infernal fool, Rex!” he said. “I’ve telephoned to old
Pearson at Duddington. He is quite well. His son never rang you up,
and he doesn’t want to add a codicil to his will. You’ve been had--my
dear fellow! You ought to have heeded those warnings concerning that
little married lady!”
That was all the sympathy I got from him!
I told the bald-headed hotel-manager of my chat with the rugged-faced
commercial traveler from Bradford, who was a constant guest at the
hotel and who had worn that curious onyx tie-pin like a little human
eye--that pin that I had seen in my strange nightmare.
“Describe him again,” he said looking into my face rather puzzled.
I did so, whereupon he replied:--
“I recollect seeing him at dinner. He was in Number Thirty-Four, the
room immediately above yours. But he was a complete stranger. I’ve
never seen him here before. I don’t think he was a commercial. At least
he had no samples. The only commercial travelers we had were Mr. Sharp
from London, Mr. Watson from Manchester and Mr. Evans from Thomas’s,
the flannel manufacturers of Welshpool. I had a long chat with Mr.
Evans in the commercial room before we went to bed. He remarked that
there were only three travelers that night--for it was unusual. We
generally have eight or nine here, all of them known to us--except at
the week-end.”
“Then the man who told me about old Mr. Brimelow was evidently not a
commercial!” I remarked.
“Old Mr. Brimelow. Who is he?”
“The man from Bradford told me that he was once proprietor here a few
years ago.”
“Never,” laughed the manager. “This house has belonged to the Yates
family for the past seventy years. The man evidently told you some fine
fairy stories.”
“Evidently he did,” interposed old Feng. “You say that the man had a
room over Mr. Yelverton’s. That is interesting. May we see it?”
“Certainly,” was the reply, and all of us ascended to a small, stuffy
little single room on the second floor--the window of which was exactly
over that of the room I had occupied.
I told them of that cold thing that I had felt pressed to my lips, but
I could see that they were all incredulous--the hotel-manager most of
all. Everybody who runs a hotel has a horror of any untoward happenings
there, for, of course, they are apt seriously to prejudice business. In
this case I was supposed to have attempted suicide, leaving a letter of
apology to the Coroner. And I felt sure that the hotel-manager believed
that I had attempted my life, even though he seemed to humor me and
pretend to credit my story.
We had no police-officer with us. Feng had seen to it that we had gone
to the hotel unaccompanied.
The Doctor showed an inquisitive eagerness quite unusual with him. He
leaned out of the window in order to ascertain whether he could see
inside the room below. Then from his pocket he took a piece of string
and lowered it to the upper sash of the window of my room and made a
knot in it. Afterwards he examined the window-sill very minutely.
“Has this window been cleaned since?” he asked the manager. “But
there,” he added. “I see it hasn’t by its condition. Not for a
fortnight--I should think--eh?”
“They were all cleaned about three weeks ago,” replied the bald-headed
man.
“Now we will go down to the room in which Mr. Yelverton was found,” he
said.
A few moments later we stood in the room wherein I had been attacked.
The manager pointed out the table upon which the letter incriminating
me had been found, and I gazed wonderingly around.
“The bottle was found on the floor beside the bed,” he said. “When I
first saw you I believed you were dead. Your mouth was discolored and
your face was as white as paper. Ada, the head chambermaid, went into
hysterics.”
“Yes. That’s all very well,” I answered. “But what could have really
happened? I only remember that funny sensation of breathlessness and
the cold thing pressed to my lips--a bottle I suppose it must have
been.”
“Well, to me, it is plain that your entertaining friend from Bradford
was not exactly what he represented himself to be,” said Feng, busying
himself, and examining the room with the closest attention to every
detail. Suddenly he seemed to bristle with excitement, and turning to
the manager he asked:--
“Did the man--what is his name--arrive here before Mr. Yelverton?”
“No,” was his reply. “He arrived just after. He gave his name as
Harwood and particularly asked for the room he occupied. He seemed to
know his way about the hotel quite well. He had no luggage, except a
small handbag, therefore he paid for his room on arrival.”
“And when did he leave?”
“I cannot find out. The night-porter says that he did not see him. He
must have left very early, but there is no train leaving here in the
morning before the 7.49.”
“So he got away by car, no doubt--a car that was waiting for him
somewhere,” Feng remarked quickly with his gray brows knit. “Is his bag
still here?”
“No. He took it.”
“And none of the servants have ever seen him before?”
“No. I asked the three commercial gentlemen who were here that night,
and they all declared him to be a stranger. Commercial travelers always
know each other on the road.”
“Well,” I remarked. “It seems to me that my entertaining friend must
have known which room I occupied, got down from his window to mine and
entered this room while I was asleep.”
“I think so, Yelverton,” said the old Doctor. “It seems to me that
entering by the window that you left open, he first ascertained that
the cigarettes he gave you--which obviously were drugged--had sent
you to sleep. Then he pressed the little bottle to your lips, forcing
you to drink part of its contents--you recollect the cold thing you
felt upon your lips--and then, not knowing how much you had swallowed,
because in the darkness he could not distinguish, he threw down the
bottle and leaving everything to make it appear that you had committed
suicide, he clambered back to his own room and afterwards escaped.”
“Do you think so?” asked Thelma.
“I do,” old Feng replied briskly. “Let us go upstairs again and see
what we can find.”
We did so. And on examining the outside woodwork of the window which
the affable man from Bradford had occupied, we found a large freshly
bored hole into which, no doubt, a stout hook had been screwed. To this
he must have attached a rope, which enabled him easily to reach my
window-sill.
Truly the plot of my enemies had been a well thought out and ingenious
one. The threat that if I continued my search for Stanley Audley I
should pay for my disobedience with my life, had not been made without
the full intention to carry it out!
CHAPTER XVI
GROWING SUSPICIONS
I had been fortunate enough in my life to escape many of the shadows
that lie in wait for most men. No serious betrayal of friendship had
come to make me bitter or cynical: I did not--as even my profession
might have taught me to do--look upon men with suspicion and distrust.
I preferred to give them my confidence.
But in spite of this I found myself growing more and more distrustful
of old Feng, more suspicious of his motives, more convinced that, for
some reason I could not fathom, he was playing a double game.
I knew that he was on a footing with Thelma quite different from what
he allowed me to believe. So much their secret interview at Bexhill had
shown me. And his attitude towards the attempt made upon my life went
to increase my distrust.
Had it not been that the handwriting of the note left beside my bed
differed so completely from my own--why no attempt to imitate my
hand had been made completely puzzled me--I should undoubtedly have
been charged with attempted suicide. The local police if not very
brilliant, were keen enough on the affair. I wanted to give them a
detailed account of everything that had led up to the attack on me--to
tell them the whole amazing story. To have done this would have shown
them that there was far more behind the affair than they could possibly
imagine. They, of course, looked upon the matter as being within a very
narrow circle. I knew, as Feng knew, that much more complicated issues
were involved.
Feng, however, strenuously opposed my proposal to tell the police
anything more than the barest facts, which, indeed, could not be
concealed. I wondered why, and asked him.
“It will serve no good purpose,” he argued. “These local policemen
have already confessed their ignorance of the man from Bradford. He
was not seen to leave by train, and as, from your description of him
his appearance was rather striking, I think, we may assume he did not
go that way. Probably he had a car in readiness and escaped unnoticed.
If you tell the police more than they know already you must inevitably
drag Mrs. Audley and her husband’s affairs into a very unpleasant
publicity. No, let us keep our own counsel.”
I remained in hospital two days longer. Thelma and Feng visited me
each day and I could not help noticing the queer bond of understanding
that seemed to have grown up between them. Not a word was said by
either of them to indicate that they were more than mere friends
but--perhaps my growing suspicions were responsible--I seemed to see or
to imagine evidence that their association implied very much more than
I was intended to believe. Feng had always opposed my association with
Thelma--had seemed, indeed, decidedly hostile to her. His hostility,
at least, had apparently evaporated. Yet I found he was as strongly as
ever opposed to the continuance of my intimacy with her.
Did he fear for me? Did he fear for her? Did he fear for both of us?
I could not tell. But there was no mistaking the advice he gave.
“Look here, Yelverton,” he said to me a few hours before I was to leave
the hospital, “you have had a very narrow escape. You owe your life to
the merest chance and you may not be so lucky in the future.”
“In the future!” I echoed. “Surely you don’t think there will be
another attempt to get me out of the way?”
“Indeed, I do,” he replied very gravely. “I don’t pretend to understand
the reason, but I should think it must be perfectly clear that your
friendship with Mrs. Audley is involving someone in a danger so grave
that they will not stick at trifles to avert it.”
“But how on earth can my friendship with Thelma affect anyone else to
such a degree as that?” I demanded, with some heat. “Stanley Audley
might perhaps object, but even he could hardly imagine that it was a
cause for murder. And even if he did the rather elaborate plot evolved
by someone would hardly have been the line he would have chosen.”
Feng shook his head. “You can rule Stanley Audley, as the husband, out
of your reckoning. But what about Stanley Audley, the bank-note forger.
Suppose he and his associates know that your constant efforts to find
him might mean bringing the whole gang to justice? Desperate men would
not hesitate at murder when the stakes involved are so great. My own
belief is they fear that by your continued friendship with Mrs. Audley
you will pick up a hint that will set you--and the police--on the right
track. Probably they think that is your real motive. Take my advice--I
mean it very seriously--and cut yourself adrift from the whole thing.
Go back to London, take up your work afresh--and forget Thelma ever
existed.”
“I can’t and I won’t,” I declared passionately. “I’m going to try to
get the man who attacked me, and I’m going to try to find Stanley
Audley. Thelma thinks he is dead. I’m going to leave no stone unturned
to find out the truth. If he is really alive and returns to her--well,
I should have to keep away. In the meantime I want to discover the man
who tried to murder me.”
“He will be discovered some day, you can be quite certain,” was Feng’s
reply.
His tone surprised me completely: there was in it a curious ring of
certainty entirely unexpected. It was as if he knew with certainty and
positive conviction.
I glanced at him sharply. “You seem very certain of it,” I said.
“Well, I am pretty certain,” was his reply, with a curious expression
on his usually inscrutable face. And once again came to my mind the
uncanny conviction that the old fellow really knew a great deal more
than he would tell me. My suspicions of him redoubled.
“Drop it, my boy,” he said kindly enough. “If you had taken my advice
at first this would never have happened.”
Then for the twentieth time he went over with me every detail of the
description of the mysterious stranger from Bradford. What motive lay
behind the ceaseless questioning I could not imagine. Feng was not
a policeman, he strongly opposed telling the police any more than
we could help, yet he discussed the man from Bradford as though he
expected to meet him in the street next day and arrest him on the
instant.
But for what I had seen myself, but for the unmistakable “human eye”
scarf-pin that I had unmistakably seen when in the throes of what was
so nearly my death agony, I should have hesitated to believe that the
mysterious man from Bradford could have been concerned in the attack
on me. Anyone less like a criminal it would be difficult to conceive.
His keen, cheery countenance, indelibly stamped on my recollection;
his frank, engaging manner; his open, goodfellowship and gay-hearted
discussion of any and every subject of interest that cropped up, all
tended to give the lie to the suggestion that he would be a murderer in
intent if not in fact. But that scarf-pin! It could not be mistaken.
There could not by any stretch of coincidence be two such pins in that
Stamford hotel on the same night. And upon that pin I had undoubtedly
looked during that awful night when I so nearly lost my life.
Another thought had flashed upon my mind. Young Mr. Pearson had
driven from Duddington to see me. I had never spoken to him before
and instantly I knew that his was not the voice I had heard upon the
telephone. Then I knew whose voice had come to me over the wire. It
was that of the man from Bradford. I wondered I had not thought of it
before. But I was sure my recollection was right.
On that last afternoon, when the hospital doctor pronounced me fit to
travel back to London, I took a walk with Thelma through the town, and
out along the pretty road which leads to Great Casterton. We soon left
the road by a footpath which took us up the hillside and into some
delightful woods, part of the ancient far-reaching Rockingham Forest.
There we rested together on the trunk of a big fallen elm.
Around us the sun’s rays slanting through the foliage, fell upon
the gray lichen of the huge forest trees and the light green of
the bracken, while the damp sweet smell of the woods greeted our
nostrils--that delightful perfume which seems peculiar to rural England
in summer.
“Mr. Yelverton,” exclaimed my pretty companion, gazing suddenly into
my eyes. “I--I want to ask you to forgive me. This wretched affair has
happened all through me. I alone am to blame for it.”
“Blame!” I echoed, as I took her hand--“what do you mean? You are
certainly not to blame. It seems I have a secret enemy who tried to
kill me--I don’t know why; I have done no one any harm that I know of.
But to say you are to blame is absurd.”
“Doctor Feng says you should have taken heed of the warning that was
sent you concerning myself,” she replied. “He thinks, too, that
another attempt will probably be made upon you--so do be careful.”
“But why? Tell me why,” I demanded.
She spread out her hands in a little gesture of helplessness and drew
her cream-colored sports coat more closely around her. She looked very
sweet and dainty in a close fitting little pull-on hat of cherry color
in fine pliable straw, a summer frock of pale gray silk striped with
cherry to match her hat, and gray suede shoes and stockings.
It never struck me at the time that if she really believed Stanley to
be dead she would have worn mourning.
“Doctor Feng is very concerned about you,” she declared. “Has he told
you anything?”
“No,” was my reply.
“Well, he seems very upset about something. I can’t make it out.”
“Neither can I!” I replied. “The whole affair of Stanley’s flight and
the subsequent happenings are beyond my comprehension, Thelma.”
“His flight!” she exclaimed in a startled voice. “You surely don’t
think that he has left me intentionally?”
“Then why doesn’t he write to you or return?” I asked pointedly.
“Perhaps,” she suggested gently, “there are circumstances that prevent
him doing either.” I had thought she would have been offended.
“No,” I said, “he is your husband. His duty is clearly to tell you
where he is and why he has not returned. I am sure he would if he
really loved you,” I added recklessly.
She was plainly startled now. Whatever she knew--and I was sure she
knew more than she would tell me--the idea that her husband did not
really care for her was clearly new and overwhelming. She gazed at me
white-faced and wide-eyed.
“If he really cares for me!” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
I could not bear this. “Of course he cares for you,” I said with a
laugh meant to reassure her, “but he ought to write to you anyhow.
Perhaps he has done so.”
I gazed at her as she sat at my side on that glorious afternoon. Above
us a pair of wood doves were softly cooing, while a thrush annoyed at
our presence, uttered his clattering alarm-note to his mate. Village
chimes sounded somewhere across the Welland valley, together with the
shrill whistle of a railway engine.
“Thelma,” I whispered at last. “Do tell me the real and actual truth.”
I looked into her grey eyes. They were as unclouded, her cheeks as
cool, her candor and serenity as undisturbed as when, on that winter’s
day amid the high-up snows she had shyly thanked me for offering to
look after her during her husband’s absence. I, on the other hand,
felt like a fool. My heart, though I had done my best to steel it to
endurance, was torn by a thousand conflicting feelings. Wild ideas
rushed through my brain. Was it possible that in her secret heart she
was not altogether sorry to be rid of Stanley Audley? Had she married
him hastily in an outburst of girlish passion, only to find out her
mistake when desertion and solitude brought her opportunity for
reflection? Was this the real explanation of her mysterious declaration
that her husband would never return to her? And if so was there still a
chance for me?
“Thelma,” I said softly, taking her hand in mine. “I want to speak to
you, but--but I hardly know how to say it. Since you left Mürren you
have never been frank with me--never confided in me--never told me the
truth.” Then, after a pause I went on. “Remember I took upon myself
a sacred trust, to see after you. I have carried out my promise to
Stanley as any honest man should carry it out, but it seems that by
doing so, I have brought a deadly hatred upon myself. Why? I ask you,
Thelma--why?”
She drew a long breath, her hand trembled in mine and her eyes grew
troubled.
“Mr. Yelverton,” she said at last in a trembling voice. “The question
you ask me is very, very difficult for me to answer. There are, I
confess to you at once, some things which I am bound for my husband’s
sake to conceal, and therefore I know you will not ask me to divulge
them. I can’t tell you more. You nearly lost your life because of me. I
was to blame and I am very sorry.”
“But why?” I demanded. “Why ‘because of you?’ How do you come into it?
Neither of us has done any harm.”
“I--I don’t know. Dr. Feng says you have secret enemies and that it is
because of me. That is all I know.”
“But where is Stanley?”
“I don’t know; if I did he would be here. But I believe he is dead.”
“But have you any fresh evidence?” I asked, eagerly. “You know the man
who was killed in France was not Stanley.”
“I know only what I have been told.”
“But who told you?” I persisted.
“A friend. For certain reasons the strictest secrecy has been imposed
upon me. Please do not question me further. You have been my dearest
and kindest friend and it is very hard to have to prevaricate with you.”
“Thelma,” I said. “I have all along striven to be your friend, though
circumstances have been so much against me. I made a promise to
Stanley, and I have endeavored to keep it.”
“And at what a cost!” she exclaimed. “Yes! I thank you awfully, for
you have been the best and dearest friend any girl has ever possessed.
Yet you have narrowly escaped losing your own life because of your
chivalry!” and her face flushed slightly.
For the second time my discretion went to the winds.
“Thelma!” I cried, “don’t talk of chivalry. Can’t you see the real
reason? Can’t you realize that I love you? Can’t you love me a little
in return.”
Her cheeks grew hot. “I--I don’t know,” she stammered. “It wouldn’t be
right. I am married already.”
The girl’s transparent innocence was amazing. Not a shadow of a thought
of wrong crossed her mind. She gazed at me as candidly and sweetly as
if she had been my sister.
“But Thelma,” I pleaded, “suppose Stanley is really dead; could you
care for me a little?”
For a few seconds she sat silent, then she answered in a low voice
broken by emotion. “Before I can answer that we must learn the truth.”
My heart gave a great leap. There was hope for me.
“I will find out,” I declared, “whatever the cost.”
“But, Mr. Yelverton, please be careful,” she said. “Dr. Feng is
terribly apprehensive. He evidently thinks you are in great danger and
doesn’t want me to see you.”
“But why should he be?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I cannot make him out at all. Sometimes I think he knows
more than he will ever admit about Stanley.”
But I cared nothing for Feng. My heart was singing. Thelma’s words
acted as a spur to my decision to continue my investigations. I
determined once more and for all to play for the biggest stake. If I
lost I must accept my fate philosophically. If I won--!
CHAPTER XVII
PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT
Next day, Feng having left for Edinburgh to visit some friends, Thelma
and I traveled to London together. At King’s Cross I saw her into a
taxi, for she was going to Highgate to spend a few days with a girl
cousin, and myself went across to Russell Square.
Mrs. Chapman was greatly excited at my return, and was eager to know
exactly what had happened, for already Hensman had been round and told
her of my accident.
“Yesterday, about four o’clock, a gentleman called, sir,” my old
servant went on. “He was very anxious to see you, and seemed worried
that you were away. I told him I expected you back today. Then, after
hesitating a little, he asked leave to come in and write a note for
you. He’s left it on your table, sir.”
“Who was he?”
“I’ve never seen him before, sir. He was a tall man with a long hooked
nose, and a thin face deeply lined.”
It sounded very like a description of my affable friend from Bradford!
“Did you notice his tie-pin?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. It was a funny one--like a little eye.”
I dashed into my room where upon my blotting-pad lay a letter. This
I tore open and read. It was written in the same handwriting as that
mysterious letter to the Coroner, and upon a sheet of my own note-paper.
“_Do you refuse to be warned?_” it read. “_Drop your search for
Stanley Audley, or next time steps will be taken to prevent you from
escaping. It is known that you love Thelma, and that is forbidden,
for Stanley Audley still lives, and is watching you!_”
There was no signature. I took from my pocket the strange letter left
in my bedroom and compared them. The writing was exactly similar.
“How long was the man here?” I asked of Mrs. Chapman, on entering the
little kitchen of the flat.
“Oh! about ten minutes, sir. He seemed very busy writing, so I left
him.”
“Ten minutes!” I echoed. “Six lines of writing could not take that
time!”
Clearly there must be another reason why my home should have been so
boldly entered, so I dashed back to my room and on opening the drawers
of my roll-top desk I found three of them in disorder, as though they
had been hurriedly searched.
At once I realized what had gone. All the letters I had received from
Thelma I had kept tied up with pink tape because of my legal training,
I suppose. They had been lying in the bottom drawer on the right hand
side. It was not my habit to lock up anything from my old and trusted
servant, hence the desk had not been closed down. Had it been, the
drawers would have locked themselves automatically.
The letters were no longer there! The mysterious visitor had evidently
sought for and found them. Was the intention to place them in the hands
of the missing man? Or was it blackmail?
Every incident in the queer tangle of events seemed to add a further
puzzle to the mystery of Stanley Audley and his associates. An
intention to levy blackmail might explain the theft of the letter,
though they were innocent enough. But they did not explain the attack
on myself and the constant espionage to which I was subjected. Why
should I be marked down for assassination? That I had made a foolishly
romantic promise to act as guardian and protector of a pretty bride,
was not enough to answer that question.
Each day that passed since that fateful afternoon amid the silent
Alpine snows had increased the mystery which surrounded Stanley Audley.
Was he a crook, an associate of an unscrupulous international gang
of forgers--or was he after all, an honest man? If only Thelma would
speak! But it was obvious her lips were sealed, and I felt convinced
they were sealed by fear. Someone, it was obvious, had some hold over
her which enabled him to command her silence. It was her duty as a
wife, she claimed, to preserve her husband’s secrets inviolable. But
what was the secret?
I returned to the office next day depressed and puzzled to the last
degree. I was hardly conscious of what I was doing. As in a waking
dream I lived through the agony I had gone through at Stamford. Time
and again I seemed to feel that cold thing on my lips; the small,
evil-looking eye I had seen in my half-consciousness seemed to glare
balefully at me even in the broad daylight. And time after time,
as I sat in my office striving wearily to read letters and dictate
coherent replies, Thelma’s exquisite face appeared to float in the air
before me. Distraught and overwrought I realized at last that work was
hopeless and hurriedly left the office.
For hours I tramped the London pavements, tormented by thoughts of
Thelma, racking my brain for some possible way out of the horrible
position in which I found myself. It must have been far into the
morning before--quite automatically--I staggered homeward and flinging
myself, dressed as I was, upon my bed, fell into the deep stupor of
utter exhaustion.
Four days after my return to London I happened to be passing along Pall
Mall, when a sudden fancy took me to call upon old Humphreys. There
another surprise awaited me.
“Mr. Humphreys is away, sir--in Edinburgh,” the fair-haired clerk at
the key-office informed me.
Edinburgh! Old Feng had left me suddenly to go there! Was it a
coincidence, or were they meeting in Scotland for some purpose?
“We expect him back tomorrow night,” the young man added.
So I turned away.
Next day, knowing that Thelma was going shopping with her cousin in
the West End, I spent the afternoon wandering in Regent Street in the
hope of meeting them. I had telephoned to Highgate with the intention
of making an appointment and taking them to tea, but they had already
left. Thelma’s aunt, who spoke to me, had mentioned several shops they
intended visiting, and I had spent nearly an hour and a half in search
of them, when suddenly near the Oxford Circus end of Regent Street,
I noticed a rather shabbily dressed old man standing at a window,
examining the jewelry displayed.
Next second my heart gave a bound. It was Doctor Feng, but so well
disguised was he that I was compelled to look twice in order to
reassure myself that I was not mistaken. Gone was the erect alert
figure I knew so well. The man before me stooped heavily, with his chin
kept well down; Doctor Feng’s usually well-cut and well-tended clothing
had given place to garments utterly frayed and shabby, while the old
felt hat on his head was badly stained and worn.
Instantly I drew back in astonishment, not wishing to reveal myself.
For what reason was he idling there in that garb? He presented a
broken-down appearance, as if he were a professional man who had fallen
on evil times.
It was clear that his interest in the jewelry was only feigned, and
before long I saw he was keenly watching the entrance to a well-known
milliner’s, though from such a position he was not likely to attract
the notice of anyone emerging.
I stood there watching the watcher, for perhaps ten minutes. Then
Thelma and her cousin came out and turned towards Piccadilly Circus.
Feng at once moved slowly on, following their movements. I was within a
few yards of him, but so intent was his watch upon the two girls that
he never once turned round. Otherwise he would almost certainly have
seen me, for I knew his eyesight was remarkably good.
He watched them enter two shops, keeping himself well away from
observation. At last they entered a tea-shop. Then having apparently
satisfied himself that they had seated themselves, he strolled away.
In about a quarter of an hour he returned, and so suddenly did he
re-appear that I was half afraid that he must have seen and recognized
me. A few minutes later, however, it became clear that he had not, for
again he stood idly looking into a neighboring shop window.
When Thelma and her cousin came out they crossed the road, and walked
to Piccadilly Circus, where they entered a well-known draper’s. It was
then after five o’clock.
Again old Feng lounged outside while I, fearing recognition, remained
on the opposite side of the road near the entrance to the Café Monico.
The time passed slowly. The hurrying home-going crowds focussed upon
the Tube station where all had become bustle, and already half-an-hour
had passed. I watched the old man peer into the big shop every now
and then curiously impatient and anxious. It was plain that he could
not see the pair. He must have thought they were making extensive
purchases, for nearly three quarters of an hour elapsed ere it
seemed to dawn upon him that there were two exits from the shop into
Piccadilly!
His chagrin could be plainly seen. Ignorant, of course, that they were
being watched, the two girls had unwittingly eluded his vigilance and
calmly left by the other entrance.
He hurried round the corner amid the crowd awaiting the motor buses,
and then sped back again. It was plain that he was annoyed, and I
thought very considerably perturbed.
Realizing at last that they had eluded him he crossed the Circus and
entered a motor bus which would take him home to Barnes. Then, having
watched his departure, I turned away and walked thoughtfully back to
Russell Square.
On leaving the office early next afternoon, I called upon Hartley
Humphreys, at the Carlton. A page took me up in the lift and knocked
at the door. But before he did so I distinctly heard voices within and
recognized them as those of Humphreys and Feng. They were laughing
loudly together. When they heard the page knock, they instantly ceased
talking. I heard a door communicating with the adjoining room close,
and then Humphreys gave permission to enter.
The old financier sat alone and was most effusive in his welcome.
“So glad to see you, Yelverton!” he cried, grasping my hand. “Sit
down,” and he touched the bell for the waiter. “I’ve been north and
only got back last night. Next week I hope to move into that house at
Hampstead that I’ve bought. I’m sick to death of hotels. You must come
and see me there; come and dine one night.”
I thanked him and expressed great pleasure at his invitation.
Why, I wondered, had Feng hurriedly disappeared? He had passed into
that adjoining room which was a bedroom, and thence, I supposed, out
into the corridor. Or perhaps he was in the next apartment listening to
our conversation.
Over a whiskey and soda I told Humphreys of the desperate attempt
that had been made upon my life, and described all the circumstances.
Somehow I felt confidence in him, even though he had Harold Ruthen in
his employ. I suspected Feng the more because of the manner in which he
had kept secret watch upon Thelma.
“By jove!” said Humphreys, when I had finished. “You certainly had a
very narrow escape.”
“Yes. But fortunately the dose given was not fatal, though the doctor
has told me that had I swallowed a few more drops I should certainly
have died.”
“But the letter to the Coroner!” remarked the old man. “Your enemy took
care to complete the picture of suicide, didn’t he?”
“I should have had some difficulty in disproving the charge of
attempted suicide if it were not for the handwriting,” I said. “The
assassin did not reckon on the chance that I should escape and prove
the letter to be a forgery!”
Then I told him of the visit paid to my rooms and the theft of Thelma’s
letters.
“Ah!” he said. “It is your association with that little lady which has
brought you into danger. Depend upon it there is some secret connected
with Audley that, at all hazards, has to be kept--even if it involves
plotting your death. You have had a pretty severe warning and if I were
you I should certainly heed it. Whatever the secret may be--and it
clearly must be something very serious--it evidently does not concern
you personally and if you drop the whole affair you will be safe
enough. Surely there is no reason why you should run any further risk?”
“It concerns Thelma,” I said doggedly, “and for her sake I have
determined, no matter at what risk to myself, and no matter who
threatens me, to elucidate the mystery of Audley’s dual rôle, and his
curious disappearance. For the future at least I shall be forearmed.”
The old man, with knit brows, shrugged his shoulders dubiously.
“Of course I can quite understand, Yelverton,” he said at last with
a smile. “You have fallen in love with her. Oh! it is all very
foolish--very foolish, indeed. I suppose you have discovered a good
many things concerning Stanley Audley?”
“Yes, many curious facts which require explanation,” I said.
“Really?” he asked, interested. “What are they?”
In response, I told him one of two strange things I had discovered
concerning the missing man, at which he expressed himself utterly
astounded.
“I really don’t wonder that the remarkable affair has bewildered you,”
he said at last. “I had no idea that Audley was such a man of mystery.
I thought he had merely left his bride and hidden himself because he
grew tired of her.”
“No. He is hiding because of his fear of somebody--that is my opinion.”
“Have you any idea where he is?”
“Not in the least,” I replied frankly, at the same time recollecting
that his friend, Ruthen, whom I so disliked, was also in search of
Thelma’s husband.
“But don’t you think that his wife knows his whereabouts?” he asked.
“I cannot form a decided opinion,” was my reply. “Sometimes I think she
does; then at others I feel sure that she firmly believes that he is
dead.”
“You do not believe they hold communication in secret?”
“I think not.”
“What causes her to believe that he is dead, I wonder?”
“Because she obtains no news from him and somebody has told her
so,” was my reply, reflecting that Feng might be listening to our
conversation.
Slowly he placed his cigarette-end in the ash tray at his elbow and
drained his glass.
“Well, Yelverton,” said the calm old cosmopolitan who was once such a
confirmed invalid and whose lameness had happily been restored, “after
all, I don’t see how Audley’s movements concern you--except for one
thing--your indiscreet affection for his wife. Of course the position
does not please you--it is natural that it should not please you--but
if I were you I would drop it all. I agree with Feng that for you to
continue can only lead to unhappiness. More than that you run a great
risk at the hands of some unknown persons whose desperation is already
proved by what happened at Stamford. Something more serious may yet
happen. Therefore,” he added, regarding me very seriously, “were I in
your place I would run no further risk.”
“I know your advice is well meant, Mr. Humphreys,” I declared. “But I
have made up my mind to solve this mystery, and I will never rest until
I have done so.”
“For Thelma’s sake--eh?” he asked, or rather snapped impatiently.
“Perhaps.”
“Then, of course, you must make up your mind to take the consequences.
You have asked my advice, and I have given it. But if you pursue an
obstinate course,” he said, stroking his thin gray beard as though in
thought, “if you are so foolishly obstinate you will have yourself
alone to blame should disaster fall upon you. I honestly believe that
if you continue, you are a doomed man!”
His tone of voice struck me as highly peculiar: he might almost have
been passing sentence of death upon me!
I had no reason to doubt his friendliness, yet his intimate
acquaintance with Feng, whom I distrusted, puzzled me more than ever.
“What causes you to think that another attempt may be made upon me,” I
asked again, looking very straight at my companion.
“Has not the past proved the existence of some mysterious plot against
you--that some person or persons are determined that you shall never
learn their secret?” he asked again very seriously. “Complaisance is
always the best policy before anything we cannot alter.”
I saw the force of his argument, of course, but with firmness replied--
“Nothing shall deter me from solving this mystery, Mr. Humphreys.
Nothing.”
CHAPTER XVIII
MISSING!
A week later I was engaged one morning dictating letters to my typist
when Hensman rushed into my room, evidently in a state of great
agitation.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?” he asked. He was pale and agitated.
At a sign from me the girl left the room. “What’s wrong, old man?” I
said.
“Have you seen the paper this morning?” he asked.
“No, not yet. Why?”
“Then you haven’t seen this,” he said, handing me his copy of the
_Times_ which, as most solicitors do, he was in the habit of scanning
before he began his day’s work.
What I read staggered me. It was as follows:
MISSING LADY
“The police are actively in search of Mrs. Thelma Audley, aged
20, daughter of Mrs. Shaylor, widow of Lieutenant-Commander Cyril
Shaylor, R.N., who left her home at Bexhill-on-Sea on the morning of
the 18th inst. after the receipt of an urgent telegram calling her to
London.
“She did not show the message to anyone, but its receipt apparently
caused her great excitement, for she hurriedly packed a bag, telling
her mother that she would be staying at the Grosvenor Hotel at
Victoria and would return next day.
“Nothing has since been seen or heard of her. She did not arrive at
the hotel, and it is an open question whether she actually ever went
to London.
“Inquiries show that she did not travel by the train she intended.
But as there are two lines of railway from Bexhill to London the lady
may have taken the second route, by a train leaving half-an-hour
later, which brought a good many returning excursionists to London,
so that she may easily have passed unnoticed.
“One curious feature of the case is that Mrs. Audley, on receipt of
the telegram, apparently burned it by applying a match, as the tinder
was found in the fireplace of her bedroom. Another most curious
feature is that her mother Mrs. Shaylor received on the following day
a telegram handed in at Waterloo Station, with the words, ‘_Am all
right, do not worry. Back soon--Thelma._’
“Mrs. Audley and her mother are well-known in Bexhill, where they
have lived for two years. The young lady married early in the New
Year, but her husband being called abroad, she has remained at home
during the summer. Any information concerning the missing lady will
be gladly received by her mother, and can be given to any police
station. Her description which was circulated yesterday is as
follows:--”
Then followed a very minute description of Thelma, and of the clothes
she wore when she left Bexhill.
Thelma had disappeared! Did that mysterious message emanate from her
husband? Had she gone to join him in hiding?
Why had she been so careful to destroy that message which called her to
London? If it were from Stanley, as I felt certain it was, then what
more natural than that she would have told her mother and explained
that she was rejoining him?
She was elated at receipt of the message! Why?
“This is even more amazing than the past events,” I declared to Hensman
when, at last I found my tongue. “What do you think of it?”
“I don’t know what to think of it, old chap,” was my partner’s reply,
“except that it makes the whole affair more mysterious than ever. It is
quite clear she has disappeared of her own free will. Possibly she has
some motive, as her husband undoubtedly had, for effacing himself, and
I should think it quite possible she has gone to join him, wherever he
is.”
I put in a telephone call to Mrs. Shaylor at once. Her strained voice
clearly betrayed acute distress and anxiety. When I told her I had read
the account of Thelma’s disappearance, she said:
“Oh! Mr. Yelverton, I am so terribly distressed. What do you think of
it all? I suppose you know nothing of my girl’s whereabouts.”
“Absolutely nothing,” I said despairingly. “I wrote to her some days
ago, but had no reply.”
“Your letter is here. It came on the night she left. I recognized your
handwriting. I believe she is in London, and that she sent me that
reassuring telegram from Waterloo, but the police do not believe it.
They doubt that she ever went to London.”
“Who says so? The local police?”
“One of the two detectives who came down from London yesterday to see
me.”
“But that telegram which she burned,” I asked. “Who was the sender.
Have you any suspicion?”
“I feel quite certain that it was from Stanley.”
“Then if she is with her husband, why should we worry?” I asked.
“Because--well, because I have a strange intuition that there is
something seriously wrong. Why, I can’t tell--a mother’s intuition is
usually right, Mr. Yelverton.”
“Is that really all you know?” I asked eagerly. “Cannot I be of any
service in assisting to trace her?”
“Well, the police are evidently doing their best,” was her reply.
“There is one queer circumstance about the affair, namely that on the
day before she received the telegram, a stranger called to see her.
We had just had dinner when he was announced. He was a tall, thin,
fair-haired young man, and he asked to see Thelma. She saw him in the
morning-room, and she was alone with him for about ten minutes or
so. After he left she seemed to be wonderfully elated. She would tell
me nothing, only that some good news had been imparted to her by the
stranger. I asked her why she did not confide in me, but she replied
that it was her own affair, and that at the moment she was not allowed
to divulge it. Later on she would tell me all. Then next day she
received the telegram which she had apparently been expecting, and left.
“Oh! Mr. Yelverton! The mystery of it all is driving me to
distraction,” the poor lady went on. “If you can do anything to help me
I shall thank you forever.”
“Listen, Mrs. Shaylor,” I said over the wire. “Will you kindly repeat
the description of that stranger who called to see Thelma on the day
previous. It is important--very important!”
She gave a detailed description of the fair-haired young man and the
clothes he wore.
“Did she appear to know him?”
“Oh, yes! It was evident that they had met before,” came the voice
over the telephone. “He greeted her merrily, and asked to be allowed
to speak with her in private. Later, I heard Thelma’s voice raised in
exultant laughter.”
“Have you never seen the young man before?” I asked.
“Never. He was a total stranger to me. But Thelma knew him without a
doubt. If you can help me to re-discover her it is all I can ask of
you, Mr. Yelverton. You can imagine my distress. Why she does not let
me hear from her I cannot think.”
“Perhaps Stanley--who is evidently in hiding, forbids it,” I said in an
effort to relieve her anxiety, though the fact of her disappearance in
itself showed some sinister influence at work.
“Perhaps so, Mr. Yelverton. Yet if that is the case it is surely very
unfair to me!”
“Time’s up,” chipped in the voice of the operator at the exchange.
“Sorry! Time’s up!”
And the next instant we were cut off.
Hensman had been standing beside me as I had been speaking.
“Well, what shall you do now?” he asked. “You’ve apparently placed
yourself in a fine fix, Rex. First you narrowly lose your life, and now
the lady is missing. Is it yet another plot?”
“Undoubtedly,” I replied, reflectively. “I must have time to consider
what steps to take.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t mix myself up in the affair any further. Take
my advice, old man. You haven’t been the same for months. It has got on
your nerves,” he declared, as he filled his pipe.
“I know it has, my dear fellow, but when I decide to do a thing, I do
it. I mean to solve this enigma.”
“Well, you haven’t been very successful up to the present, have you?”
he remarked, a trifle sarcastically, I thought.
“No. But I will not give up,” I said firmly. “This second mystery of
Thelma’s disappearance makes me more than ever determined to continue
my search.”
“Then forgive me for saying so, Rex--it is perhaps unpardonable of me
to intrude in your private affairs--but I think you are acting very
foolishly. If the young lady has disappeared, then, no doubt, she has
done so with some distinct motive.”
“In that case she would have confided in her mother,” I argued.
“Over the telephone you spoke of some stranger who had visited her.”
“Yes. It is that fact which urges me on to prosecute my inquiries,” I
replied. “The young man evidently bore some message, but from whom?”
Hensman’s advice was, of course, sound enough, but he was not in love
as I was. He saw things through quite a different pair of spectacles.
An hour later I took a taxi to Castlenau to seek old Doctor Feng, my
object being to ascertain whether he had any knowledge of what had
occurred.
In answer to my ring the doctor’s housekeeper appeared. She was a
sour-faced old woman in a rather soiled apron, whom I had seen before.
“The doctor ’aint in, sir,” she replied, in true Cockney intonation. “I
don’t know where ’e is.”
“What time did he go out?” I asked.
“Oh! ’e went out on Tuesday morning, and ’e ’aint been back since. But
’e often goes away sudden like.”
“Does he?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah!” I laughed. “I see you don’t like him.” I hoped to get more out of
her.
“I do. The doctor’s real good sort, sir. ’E’s been awfully good to me
and my girl, Emily. I don’t know what we should ’ave done this winter
if we ’adn’t ’ad this place. ’E’s a bit lonely, is the doctor. But ’e’s
been a real good gentleman to me.”
“Do you happen to know a friend of his, a Mr. Harold Ruthen,” I asked
suddenly.
“Of course I know ’im, sir. ’E’s often ’ere. ’E’s brought a lady once
or twice--a pretty young married lady. I don’t know ’er surname, but
the doctor calls ’er Thelma.”
Thelma! I held my breath. In face of what I had learned this was
staggering.
“I know the lady,” I said, with an inward struggle to remain unexcited.
And I went on to describe her and her dress.
“That’s the lady, sir.”
“When was she last here?”
“Oh! Well, it was about three days ago, sir. She came with another
young gentleman whom I’d never seen before--she called ’im Stanley.”
Stanley! Could Stanley Audley have been there?
“Yes,” I said excitedly as I stood within the hall, “and what else? I
have reason in asking this. A great deal depends upon what you can tell
me.”
“I ’ope I’m not telling anything wrong, sir,” replied the woman. “Only
you’ve asked me, and I’ve told you the truth.”
“Thanks very much,” I replied. “This is all most interesting. Describe
what this friend of the young lady’s was like.”
She reflected a moment, and then, telling me that he wore a dark blue
suit and was a “thorough gentleman”--presumably because he had given
her a tip before his departure--she described a young man which was
most certainly the missing man, Stanley Audley.
I questioned her, and she became quite frank--after I had placed a
couple of half-crowns into her hand--concerning the visit of Thelma and
Stanley.
“They came ’ere early in the afternoon,” she said. “They’d a long talk
with the doctor--a very serious talk, for when I passed the door they
were only a talkin’ in whispers. I don’t like people what whisper,
sir. If they can’t talk out loud there is somethin’ wrong--that’s what
I always says.”
I agreed. Further, I gathered from her that the conference between
Thelma, Stanley and old Feng had been most confidential.
“The young man left ’arf an ’our before the young lady,” she told me.
“’E seemed very nervous, I thought. It was dark when ’e went, and as he
said good-bye to the doctor, I ’eard ’im say, ‘Remember, I’m dead--as
before!’ I wonder what ’e meant? I’ve been thinking over it lots of
times. But, of course, sir, wot I’ve told you is all secret. I ought
not to ’ave told you anything. I’ve got a good job, and I don’t want to
lose it, as things are ’ard in these days, I tell you straight. So you
won’t repeat to the doctor what we’ve been talkin’ about, will yer?”
“No!” I said. “Certainly not.”
CHAPTER XIX
AT HEATHERMOOR GARDENS
That night the newspapers contained a paragraph repeating what had
appeared in the morning concerning Mrs. Audley’s disappearance, and
stating that no trace of her had been discovered after she had left
Bexhill.
Her secret visit to old Feng, accompanied by Stanley, three days
before, added to the mystery. Feng knew of my search for Audley. Then,
why had he not told me the truth? With what motive was I being misled
and befooled by a conspiracy of silence?
I began to realize that that motive, whatever it was, must be far
stronger than I had previously suspected. And in my heart, I confess,
I was dismayed by the knowledge that Stanley Audley was still alive:
it showed that the goal upon which I had set my heart would never be
reached. My distress and dismay as I sat late into the night in my
silent bachelor room, may well be imagined.
Had Thelma purposely gone into hiding with her husband, and with the
connivance of Feng--or had she since met with foul play? Her failure
to take her mother into her confidence seemed to me to suggest the
latter.
I was strongly tempted to go to Scotland Yard and tell the police all
I knew about the missing girl. But after long consideration I decided
that I could do little, if any, good. The police were pursuing their
own methods and what I could tell them would not help matters much. In
addition I am afraid I did not want the police to get hold of Stanley
Audley. If, as I strongly suspected, he was engaged in the nefarious
trafficking in forged bank-notes, anything I did could only bring fresh
distress upon Thelma. And I could not force myself to believe that her
husband would be sufficiently callous and cold-blooded to allow any
serious harm to befall her. In the long run it proved I was right. The
issue was in other hands than those of Scotland Yard.
I was trying to fix my mind upon my work at the office next day, when
my telephone rang and I heard the cheery voice of old Mr. Humphreys.
“Look here, Yelverton, I’ve been meaning to ring you up for some
days past. Can you come and dine with me tonight? I’m in my place
at Hampstead at last--moved up here a week ago. Will you take the
address--14, Heathermoor Gardens--up at the top end of Fitzjohn’s
Avenue.”
I scribbled the address on my blotting-pad.
“You’ll easily find it,” he went on. “Come at eight, won’t you? The
best way is to go to Hampstead Heath tube, and walk. It’s only two
minutes.”
I gratefully accepted, for I wanted to discuss with him Thelma’s
mysterious disappearance.
“Have you seen Doctor Feng lately?” I asked him, before he rang off.
“No; I think he must be in Paris. He told me he was going over,” was
the reply.
About a quarter to eight that night I emerged from the lift at
Hampstead station, and having inquired for Heathermoor Gardens, walked
through the rain to a highly respectable road of large detached houses,
each wherein dwelt prosperous city men, merchants, barristers and the
like. The night was dark, and even though the street lamps shone, it
was with some difficulty that I found Number Fourteen.
The house proved to be a large corner one, of two stories and
double-fronted. Certainly it was the largest and best of them all and
had big bay windows, and possessed an air of prosperity akin to that of
my friend, the Anglo-Turkish financier.
The door was opened by a round-faced clean-shaven young man-servant
who asked me into the spacious lounge-hall in which a wood fire burned
brightly, and after taking my hat and coat, ushered me into a small
cozy library on the left, where old Mr. Humphreys rose from the
fireside, greeting me merrily.
“I’m awfully glad you could come, Yelverton,” was his greeting, “I
haven’t asked anybody to meet you, for I thought we’d just have a quiet
hour together, so that I can show you round my new home, and we can
have a gossip. Sit down. Dinner will be ready in a moment.”
Then he pressed the bell and a moment later the man appeared bearing
a tray with two cocktails. We raised our glasses and drank. Mine
was delicious. I gazed around the sumptuously furnished room and
congratulated him upon it.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve tried to make it as cozy as I can. I thought I
would bring my furniture from Constantinople, but on second thought,
decided it was too oriental and heavy and would hardly have been in
keeping with an English house. So I sold it and have bought this place
and furnished it.”
“It is really charming,” I said, noting the taste displayed.
“Yes, I didn’t want it to appear too new, so some of the stuff
is second-hand. I hate a place which looks like the palace of a
war-profiteer, don’t you?” he laughed.
The room was just my ideal of a man’s den, lined as it was with books
with a soft-lined Turkish carpet, a big carved writing table and
several deep saddle-bag chairs. The atmosphere was heavy with the
scent of his exquisite Turkish tobacco--that my host smuggled--the only
way to get the first grade of tobacco-leaf.
He referred to it as he handed me a thin cigarette.
“In these days of Turkey’s trials--thanks to her German betrayers,
one no longer gets a little of the tobacco reserved for the Yildiz as
it used to be. The Sultan grew his own tobacco in Anatolia--the most
delicious of all tobacco and the second grade was sold to Europe as
the finest. But the best was always kept for the Yildiz and for His
Majesty’s ministers and his harem. I fear the few cigarettes I have
left are the last of the Imperial tobacco.”
My cosmopolitan host was a prominent and powerful figure on the
Bosphorus. I knew what he had said was the truth, and I smoked the
delicious cigarette with intense enjoyment.
“Dinner, sir!” announced the smooth, round-faced man.
Crossing the hall I found myself in a long, sumptuously furnished
dining room with shaded pink lights and at a small table set in the big
window covers were laid for two.
A big dining table of polished rosewood, which could seat a dozen
persons or more, stood in the middle of the room. In its centre was
an oblong piece of Chinese embroidery and upon it was set a great
apricot-colored bowl of autumn flowers.
“I eat at this little table,” he laughed as we sat down. “One has to
have a larger table, but I shall only use it when I have guests.”
The room was a very handsome one with several fine old portraits on
the green-painted walls, while a cozy wood fire burned upon huge
old-fashioned “dogs,” sending out a fragrant scent and a glowing warmth
which was comforting on that chilly autumn night.
“It is most artistic,” I declared when I was seated.
“Yes, but somehow I miss the oriental sumptuousness of my house at
Therapia, down on the Bosphorus. Still, when one is forced to live in
London, one must adopt London’s ways.”
The man had served us with excellent clear soup and had left the room
when my host suddenly looked up at me and said:--
“Oh, by the way, what is the latest concerning your little friend of
Mürren and her husband?”
“Well, Mr. Humphreys,” I said, “the fact is she’s disappeared. That is
what I want to consult you about.”
“Disappeared!” he exclaimed, staring at me. “Then she’s followed her
husband into oblivion--eh?”
“It certainly appears so,” I said.
“Very curious! I didn’t see it in the paper,” he declared. “Tell me
what you know.”
“Well--what I know only puzzles me the more,” was my reply. “She
simply left her mother at Bexhill, saying she was going to London, and
disappeared. But one very curious fact I’ve discovered is that a few
days ago she and her husband called upon Doctor Feng.”
“Called on Feng!” he cried, starting up. “You--you’re mistaken, surely!
Audley has called on Feng--impossible!”
“Why?” I asked, surprised to see how perturbed he was. He saw my
surprise and the next instant concealed his keen anxiety. But it had
struck me as very unusual. I knew that Feng and he were close friends.
I suspected the former of knowing more than he had revealed to me,
and it seemed now that old Mr. Humphreys was equally annoyed that his
friend had concealed Audley’s visit from him.
“It seems incredible that the missing husband and his wife should
call upon Feng,” he said. “How do you know this, Yelverton? I am much
interested--so tell me. The whole affair has certainly been amazing.
You say they saw Feng a few days ago?”
“Yes, at his house at Castlenau,” I said. “But I thought the Doctor
would certainly tell you, as you and he are such friends.”
“He’s told me nothing. I saw him only two days ago and we spoke of you.
He was going to Paris. He declared the whole affair to be a romantic
mystery--and the unfortunate feature of it was--well, that you had
fallen in love with Audley’s wife.”
“I believed that Audley was dead,” I said, in haste to excuse myself.
The old man stroked his scraggy beard with his thin hand, and smiled.
“Ah! my dear Yelverton, you’re young yet,” he said. “Nobody will blame
you. She’s uncommonly good-looking, and in her distress you, no doubt,
pitied her and then the usual thing happened. It always does. She was
alone and unprotected, and you stood as her champion--eh?”
I only laughed. I suppose his words accurately described the situation.
But I could see that what I had told him concerning this visit of the
missing man to Feng had somehow disturbed him deeply. Indeed, his very
countenance had changed. He was no longer the well-preserved, hale and
hearty old man he usually looked. He had suddenly become pale and wan,
and he questioned me, with obvious anxiety, as to how I had gained
knowledge of what I alleged.
Quite frankly I repeated almost word for word what I have already told
concerning my visit to Castlenau and what old Mrs. Martin, the Cockney
housekeeper, had revealed to me.
Humphreys only frowned, grunted in dissatisfaction and remarked:
“I can’t think that Feng would have seen the missing young fellow and
say nothing to me.”
“Why?” I asked, perhaps unwisely.
“Why--well, that’s my own affair,” he snapped. “I have reasons for
saying so,” he almost snarled.
At that moment the man-servant came to take our soup plates and served
the fish with almost religious ceremony--“sole Morny” it was.
Suddenly my host laughed, a deep, rippling laugh.
“Well, after all, Yelverton, you’ve been badly bamboozled, haven’t
you? You thought young Audley was dead, and that dainty little woman
was free to marry you. But he’s evidently turned up again. Yes--I
realize the disappointing situation from your point of view. Absolutely
rotten!” and he laughed merrily. He had apparently recovered his usual
self-possession.
But the change I had noted had set every nerve in my body keenly on
the alert. I remembered how his face had changed, the sudden, sullen
contraction of his brows, his anxiety that was obvious no matter how he
tried to hide it. Of course I could not understand his sudden mistrust
of his friend, Feng. Perhaps, after all, the old doctor had some
hidden motive for concealing the fact that bride and bridegroom had
met again after those many months of inexplicable separation, and that
his silence was not merely accidental. Still, it was clear Humphreys
did not think so.
“I thought that the doctor would certainly have told you of Audley’s
reappearance,” I remarked. “Indeed, when you rang me up I was at
once extremely anxious to see you and hear your opinion of the whole
situation.”
“You want my opinion,” he said in a hard tone--a voice quite changed.
“Well, as you know, I thought you a fool from the first. You ought
never to have had anything to do with the affair. It was far too
dangerous.”
“But why dangerous? Tell me.”
“Well--it was--that’s all. You told me of the warning and of the
attempt upon you. But tell me more of Feng--of what his housekeeper
told you,” he urged, rising, taking a bottle of white wine from the big
carved side-board and pouring out a glass for me and for himself. “This
is very interesting.”
I described my telephone chat with Mrs. Shaylor and my call at
Castlenau in further detail.
“Strange!” he remarked, reflecting deeply. “Really, I had no idea that
Audley had ventured to be seen again.”
“Ventured!” I echoed. “Why did he disappear?” His remark betrayed
certain knowledge that he had never divulged to me.
“My dear fellow,” he laughed. “He disappeared, as you know, but I
assure you I haven’t the slightest knowledge of either his motive or
his intention. I believed Feng to be as much in the dark as I am. But
it is evident that he knows and has held back his knowledge from me. I
can’t understand it,” he added, his countenance clouding again.
Then, after a moment’s reflection he said with a smile:
“But, after all, why should I, or you worry, my dear Yelverton?
You have surely cut the little woman out of your heart. If you
haven’t--you’re a fool.”
“I haven’t,” I replied frankly.
“You still love her?” he asked, looking keenly at me as I sipped my
wine.
I nodded.
“Then you are still a fool! I should have thought that after all your
experience of being misled, duped and ridiculed, you would have seen
how impossible it was.”
“Why impossible?” I asked. “Mr. Humphreys, I believe you know far more
than ever you will reveal to me,” I said earnestly. “Do tell me what
you know. I don’t conceal the fact from you that I love Thelma.”
“You needn’t. I’ve known that all along. So has Feng. You’ve worn
your heart on your sleeve for everybody to see. Ah! how very foolish
you have been, my boy. But tell me--are you still determined to solve
the mystery concerning Audley’s disappearance?” And again he looked
straight into my eyes.
“I am,” I replied, “nothing will deter me from seeking the truth.”
“Nothing?” he asked, with an inscrutable smile.
“No,” I said firmly. “I love Thelma and I mean to clear this mystery up
at all hazards.”
The man seated before me drew a long sigh, and I saw that his brows
were knit.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “I repeat that you have been foolish--very
foolish, my dear young fellow, and I am afraid that you will regret it
when--when too late.”
What I had told him regarding Audley’s meeting with Feng had evidently
caused him great anxiety, and I noticed that he had left his wine
untouched.
Again he spoke, but his words sounded so faint that I did not catch
them. At the same moment I thought I heard in the distance a shrill
scream--the scream of a woman!
I listened. The scream was repeated!
I saw Humphreys spring from his chair in sudden alarm.
“Hark!” I cried, breathlessly. “What was that?”
But as I spoke the room seemed suddenly to revolve about me rapidly.
Then everything faded from my sight: and I felt paralyzed.
Again that shrill scream of terror fell upon my ears with increased
distinctness.
Next second consciousness left me and everything was abruptly blotted
out.
CHAPTER XX
THE CHILD’S AIR-BALL
When at last I regained consciousness, after an interval I could not
measure, my half-opened eyes fell upon a strange scene, one which at
first seemed to be fantastic and unreal.
The room was unfamiliar, of good size and well-furnished but dimly lit,
only one light showing in the electrolier in the centre. Even by that
light I recognized that it was neglected and evidently had been long
closed, for a strange close smell greeted my nostrils and I saw that
dust lay thickly upon the round polished table in the centre.
Upon the table a small piece of candle was set upon a plate.
I tried to make out where I was and what had happened. But all I could
tell was that I was seated in a cramped position, tied hand and foot.
My limbs ached intolerably as though I had remained there many hours.
Suddenly I heard a movement in the shadow, the opening and closing of a
door, and a moment later I saw silhouetted before me the figure of old
Humphreys.
“Well?” he asked in a hard, sarcastic voice, “and how are you getting
on now--eh?”
“I--I don’t know,” I replied so faintly that I could scarcely hear my
own voice. “Where am I?”
“You are in my hands at last, Rex Yelverton,” he snarled. “You chose to
interfere in matters that did not concern you. You have had plenty of
warning. But as you refused to heed them I have decided to act.”
“What do you mean?” I cried in dismay. “What harm have I done you?”
The old man merely chuckled exultantly at the way I had fallen into
the trap he had so cunningly prepared--with Feng’s aid, no doubt, I
thought. I had all along believed the old cosmopolitan financier to
be my friend. I sat aghast at the astounding discovery that he was my
enemy. For a few seconds I remained speechless.
“Now,” he said in a deep vindictive voice, “there is but little time
left. Look over yonder.”
He turned the switch and the room was instantly flooded with light, and
as I gazed, dazzled by the sudden brightness, I saw seated in a chair
within a few feet of me, a woman’s figure.
It was Thelma!
I shrieked her name, but only a faint sound escaped my lips, for my
throat was dry and sore, and I could scarcely raise my voice above a
hoarse whisper.
Her hair was dishevelled, her eyes were closed, her face was white
as marble, and her head hung inertly on one side. She was clearly
unconscious.
It must have been her scream of terror that I had heard while we sat at
dinner!
“What does this mean?” I demanded trying to rise. But my hands were
secured tightly behind my back with a piece of rope, which had been
passed through a hole in the wall behind me and secured upon the
opposite side.
I was powerless to move more than six inches from the wall!
“It means that you have only five minutes more to live!” the old
man answered slowly, with diabolical grin. “You escaped once by a
miracle--but I have taken good care not to fail this time.”
“You assassin!” I cried, glaring at him and yet entirely powerless.
“That’s enough!” he cried, striking me a blow upon the cheek with his
open hand.
“But I can’t understand!” I cried. “What harm have I done--or what has
Thelma done?”
“It does not matter to either of you,” he laughed. “You love her.
You’ve told me so. Well--in five minutes’ time you will be married to
her--in death!”
My brain was clearing rapidly as the effect of the drug I had taken
wore off and I was cool enough to think keenly to desire some means of
escape. But, try as I would, I was powerless. The more I strained at my
bonds the more cruelly the rope cut into my tortured wrists.
A flood of questions poured through my mind. What could have happened?
Where was Stanley Audley? Was he in the hands of Feng, whom I now
looked upon as Humphreys’ fellow conspirator? But, above all, what had
I done--what had Thelma done to arouse Humphrey’s diabolical hatred?
Despite the pain I was suffering I made another furious effort to break
loose. I strained, till I felt my very wrists must give way, to go to
Thelma’s assistance. But I was held in a vise.
Thelma lay white as death. Was she, indeed, dead already at the hands
of the bearded fiend who, I now thought, must be a lunatic.
My attention was diverted to Humphreys’ proceedings. I watched him
closely, puzzled by what he was doing and utterly unable to comprehend
his purpose.
From a cupboard in the room he brought out a tin of petrol. From his
pocket he drew a large toy balloon of the kind which enterprising firms
use to advertise their goods. It was not inflated, but limp and I
remember that even in my bewilderment, I noticed that it was a bright
yellow and bore painted upon it the name of a famous West End firm.
Using a small funnel he began very carefully to fill the balloon with
petrol. I was surprised at the amount it held. The tin, which had been
full, was nearly empty before he had finished.
Then, suddenly, like a flash of lightning, understanding of his
horrible purpose burst upon my mind.
“My God!” I gasped, “you surely do not intend to burn us alive.”
“My dear young fellow, you have had every chance to escape, and yet
you have refused, because of your silly love for Audley’s wife,” he
said in hard, metallic tones. “This house, I may tell you, is ‘to let
furnished.’ The board is now hidden in the shrubbery. The dinner served
you was provided by a well-known firm of caterers who sent their man,
whom I have dismissed. In a few moments this place will be a roaring
furnace and a mystery-house to the Fire Brigade of the London County
Council.”
Then with diabolical coolness he went on with his preparations.
Above the table was a handsome electrolier. To this, by means of a
piece of string, he hung the petrol filled balloon so that it was
suspended about a foot above the candle I had noticed on the table.
“You see,” he explained with a grin, “I light the candle and put
it just below the balloon. You can spend the time--it might be
half-an-hour perhaps--in imagining what is about to happen. The heat
from this little candle will cause the petrol slowly to expand until it
bursts the balloon. Then down comes the petrol on the candle and the
whole house will be a roaring furnace in a couple of minutes. Do you
understand?” and he laughed in my face.
I ground my teeth, but made no reply.
“Well, good-bye, Yelverton,” he said in a voice of affected cheeriness,
and yet in triumph. “I wish you both a merry journey into the next
world. Perhaps you’ll find her your soul-mate there. Who knows?”
Next instant he had switched off all the lights and left us alone.
Only that fatal candle flickered as gradually its heat was causing the
fragile yellow balloon to expand to bursting point.
Soon it would explode and then we should both be burned alive. Nothing
could possibly save us!
My heart sank. Once again, however, hope revived within me. I strove to
tear myself free from my bonds. But it was useless.
I heard the front door close with a bang and then knew that the man who
had entrapped us had left. No doubt he would be lurking in the vicinity
in order to make sure of the result of his devilish handiwork.
I tried to rouse Thelma by calling to her. Apparently Humphreys had
not troubled to bind her and if I could only awaken her she might be
able to get help before it was too late. But I could not raise my voice
above a hoarse whisper: no shrieks of mine could call assistance. And,
I reflected, Thelma, even if she were not dead, must have been heavily
drugged and would no doubt remain unconscious for some time. Humphreys
would never have run the risk of leaving her free to move if she came
to herself.
My brain whirling I gave up the struggle after one more ineffectual
attempt to free myself and resigned myself to my fate.
Horror froze the blood in my veins as I gazed in agony first at
Thelma, helpless and unconscious in her loveliness, and then at that
innocent-looking toy balloon, charged with the deadliest menace,
hanging only a few inches above the flickering candle. To my distorted
imagination it appeared to be swelling monstrously and hideously. I
felt myself stupidly wondering how much larger it would grow until it
split and let loose a flood of fire in that silent room.
I realized the devilish ingenuity of the scheme. It was clear that once
the balloon burst and the volatile spirit became ignited, the furniture
and hangings of the room would burn with terrific violence. The fire
could not be seen through the shuttered windows until practically
the entire house was ablaze, even if at that late hour a chance
passerby should come along. And before help could possibly reach the
spot, the house would be a furnace. Every trace of the cause of the
fire would be consumed: only our bodies, charred beyond all possible
identification, would be found beneath the ruins. Our fate would remain
unsolved and the fire would be relegated to the ever-growing list of
London’s unsolved mysteries. I found myself dully speculating as to
the insurance, realizing that the owner of the house would be duly
recompensed, and that the assassin whom I had never even suspected
would go scot free.
And above all, even in those swiftly flying moments, I still speculated
as to Humphreys’ possible motive in a plot which, I was now convinced,
must have been originally formed amid the snows of Switzerland--a plot
between the mysterious doctor and the cosmopolitan financier who had
posed as my friend. How could Hartley Humphreys, reputed millionaire,
benefit by the extinction of two such humble lives as Thelma’s and my
own? Murder is seldom or never motiveless, except it be committed by
the homicidal maniac. Was Humphreys really insane or was he a cool,
calculating, ruthless criminal, working out to its logical end some
plan to which I had not the key?
At any rate, so far as we were concerned, we were faced by instant
peril. Humphreys had laid his plans well. We had no possible loophole
for escape. I was pinned and could not budge from the wall against
which I was held. If I had been handcuffed--and handcuffs can be bought
of many gun-makers in London--they would have remained as tell-tale
evidence amid the débris of the fire. That length of rope showed how
cleverly the plot had been devised so that all evidence of the murders
would be effaced by the roaring flames.
By the faint light of the candle I could scarcely discern more than
the marble face of the girl I had grown to love. My eyes ever and anon
wandered to that yellow globe suspended above the table.
At any second it might burst. Then the flames would run rioting through
the room and in a moment we should be enveloped.
Again I tried to shout for assistance.
All was silent. The candle flickered and then again grew brighter.
“Thelma!” I shrieked in my agony, but my voice was only a whisper.
“Thelma! Thelma! My God! _Thelma!_” I cried, trying in vain to arouse
her.
But she still remained there with her beautiful head drooped in a
manner which showed that either death or unconsciousness had overtaken
her.
I realized that death was very close to both of us. For myself I cared
little. I could face it. But Thelma! Must I, loving her as I did,
watch her die before my eyes?
Those moments of agony seemed like hours. Outside the circle of light
thrown by the candle the room seemed dark and cavernous. The smell of
motor-spirit hung heavily on the air and the silence was absolute.
I could even hear my watch ticking in my pocket. Unless a miracle
happened we were doomed. I had become too weak to make more than feeble
efforts to free myself and these, of course, were futile.
“How much longer?” I caught myself asking. How long would it be before
that innocent-looking globe splits asunder and lets loose its flood
of fire. As the slow moments passed the pressure of the vapor within
caused the thin film of rubber which held the inflammable spirit to
swell larger and larger.
At first, I had noticed, it sagged heavily, dragged down by the weight
of the liquid. Now the bright yellow globe was distended until it
seemed on the very point of bursting. The white printed words of the
advertisement on its sides danced mockingly before my eyes.
Now and again the flame of the candle flickered, caught by some stray
breath of air. Then it steadied and grew bright. I noticed that the wax
had begun to gutter into the plate. The evil flame fascinated me: held
my eyes fixed on it in helpless horror.
By this time the balloon had become distended to twice its original
size.
Suddenly the end came. The balloon split apart. A blaze of flame
momentarily lit up the room and in its lurid glow I caught a glimpse of
Thelma. At the same instant I heard a door open.
Then all was blackness and I knew no more.
CHAPTER XXI
WHO WAS DOCTOR FENG?
I fancied that I heard my name spoken. My ears were strained--
“Rex! Rex! Listen; can’t you hear?” I seemed to hear faintly afar off.
The voice sounded unusual, like a child’s, weak and high-pitched.
Surely I was in a dream.
“Rex! Rex! Listen! Can’t you hear?” the voice continued. It seemed like
the shrill voice of a tiny girl.
I listened stupidly: in my lethargy I had not the power to reply.
For a long time I listened, in a sort of delirium, I suppose, but did
not hear the voice repeated.
Suddenly, how long afterwards I cannot tell, I distinctly saw Doctor
Feng’s face grinning into mine. Upon his white-bearded countenance
was a look of exultant triumph. His eyes danced with glee. The sight
angered and horrified me. I closed my eyes to shut out the features
that seemed to me sinister and mysterious.
A strange sense of oppression, of being deprived of air and of my body
being benumbed, overcame me. I could not stir a muscle. In my ears
there sounded a strange singing like the song of a thousand birds. At
the same time I experienced considerable difficulty in moving, for I
seemed to be enveloped in something which, weighing upon my limbs, kept
them powerless, as though I were still manacled.
I remember that both my wrists pained me very badly, where the rope
had cut into them so cruelly. Then, like a flash, came back a hideous
memory of those moments of horror and those darting red tongues of
flame. The terror of those moments when I faced a horrible death I now
lived over again. I lay appalled.
I must have shrieked in my befogged agony, and in shouting I again
opened my eyes.
An eager face peered into mine; it was that of a woman in a white linen
head-dress--a hospital nurse evidently. She uttered some words that I
did not comprehend. I tried to grasp them, but my hearing was so dull
that I only heard high-pitched sounds.
No wonder! After a few moments of blank bewilderment I realized that
from head to foot I was swathed in oil-soaked cotton wool. There were
small openings for my eyes and another small aperture lower which
enabled me to breathe.
Now memory surged back upon me in full flood and again the horror of
those dreadful moments at Heathermoor Gardens fell upon me.
I recollected everything in detail. But I was alive--alive! after
passing through the valley of the shadow of death, through the flames
that had licked my face!
But where was Thelma?
I tried to ask. But the calm-faced nurse only shook her head. Was it
that she could not understand my muffled words; or was it that Thelma
was dead?
Once more I implored her to explain, but she again shook her head,
placing her fore-finger upon her lips to enjoin silence.
Then she put some medicine to my lips, and speaking soothingly,
compelled me to swallow it.
I lay there stretched upon the bed, my wondering eyes seeing only the
whitewashed ceiling of the narrow room. The atmosphere seemed heavily
laden with some disinfectant and I noticed, with idle curiosity, how
very closely the nurse watched over me.
I believed it to be about mid-day. But my bewildered brain was obsessed
by thoughts of those two devilish plotters--Feng and Humphreys--who had
been my friends amid the Alpine snows and had later conspired to kill
me.
The full purport of what had actually happened I could not understand:
I remembered nothing after the flash of flame and the noise of the
opening door. Closing my eyes I racked my brain in useless conjecture.
Why should the hateful old doctor, of all men, have shot that
triumphant glance at me, while I lay there inert and helpless?
After that I must have lapsed into unconsciousness. The injuries I had
suffered, coupled with the awful mental agony I had undergone, had
brought about, as I learned afterwards, complete loss of memory and
many weeks elapsed before I was able to understand what was going on
around me.
My awakening to consciousness was a curious experience.
I was utterly unaware of anything that was passing until suddenly, I
heard, as from a vast distance, a thin voice calling my name:--
“Rex! Rex! Rex Yelverton!” It came again. Then I seemed suddenly to
wake up. There was a blaze of sunlight round me. And there before me,
radiant and beautiful in a flimsy white summer gown, stood Thelma, her
face positively shining with happiness and tears of joy running down
her beautiful face.
I held my breath, scarcely believing I could be awake. Was it a vision?
Memory rushed back to me. Again I saw Thelma, limp and helpless, in
that hateful room at Hampstead. Was I alive? Had she indeed escaped
the awful fate that had threatened her.
There she stood against a background of high feathery palms. Beyond
her was a sapphire, sunlit sea, while around were orange trees heavily
laden with fruit and a wealth of climbing geraniums and crimson rambler
roses.
As my brain slowly cleared I looked around. To my surprise I
found myself seated in a low cane lounge-chair upon a well-kept
lawn--seemingly a hotel-garden. Not far away some people were
strenuously playing tennis; others were seated beneath great orange and
emerald colored umbrellas, taking tea.
“Thelma!” I gasped, my burning eyes staring and bewildered.
“Rex! Thank God! At last! _At last you know me!_” she said, springing
forward and grasping both my hands. “You’ve been very ill, my dear,
devoted friend.”
I stared at her and saw that she was very pale and worn. But the soft
hands that I held were real!
So surprised, so utterly perplexed was I, that I could hardly find my
tongue. But after a few moments of silence, the chords of by unbalanced
brain, at first unable fully to realize my whereabouts, were touched.
I heard her speak. “You _do_ know me now, Rex--you do, don’t you?” she
demanded in tense eagerness.
“Yes,” I replied.
“And you can really recollect?” she asked, softly, bending over me.
“Everything,” was my answer, as I sat there like one dreaming. But,
indeed, at that moment, I doubted the reality of it all, for the evil
faces of both Feng and Humphreys overshadowed that fair scene of
feathery palms and tranquil sea.
“Ah! The doctors were right after all!” she cried joyously. “They
advised us to bring you here--to Cannes.”
“What? Am I in Cannes?” I asked astounded.
“Yes,” she said, “This is The Beau Site Hotel. Do you feel well enough
to know what has happened?”
I nodded--weakly, I am afraid. I felt well enough physically, but
shaken and overwrought.
“Can I have some tea?” I asked limply.
Thelma burst out laughing. “Now, I’m sure you are better,” she bubbled.
“Wait a moment and I will have it sent out.”
She disappeared into the hotel and in a few moments a waiter appeared
with tea things. He glanced at me and bowed. “I’m glad monsieur is
better,” he said simply.
How good that tea tasted! It was glorious to be alive again and I ate
and drank with good appetite. I felt better every moment: it was clear
I was well on the way to recovery.
“And now, Thelma,” I asked when we had finished. “Tell me what
happened. I remember nothing after the fire. Have I been ill long?”
“You must be prepared for a surprise, Rex,” she said gently. “Do you
know--of course you cannot--that that was five months ago?”
“Five months!” I echoed stupidly. “Have I been ill all that time?”
“You have been very ill indeed, Rex, and for a time we had very little
hope that you would ever recover. You got over the burns fairly quickly
in the Hampstead Hospital but your memory gave way. But don’t worry
now, the doctors all said you would probably recover yourself quite
suddenly and be absolutely yourself again. But they could not say how
long it would be and it has been weary waiting.”
“How long have I been here?” I asked.
“About a month. Doctor Feng will be here soon: he will be delighted.”
“Doctor Feng!” I flared out. “Why should he be pleased? Perhaps
Humphreys will be pleased too. He was a great friend of Feng’s.”
“Humphreys is dead,” Thelma said gently. “I can’t tell you the full
story yet--you are not well enough--but he was traced from the house in
Hampstead to some rooms he had in secret in Earl’s Court Road and he
shot himself there when the detectives went to arrest him. Now be quiet
and don’t bother your head about things. Everything is all right and
you shall learn all from Doctor Feng. You can recognize me now and you
will soon be yourself.”
“But, Thelma,” I cried, “how did you escape? Were you hurt?”
“Now, don’t trouble about me,” she said lightly. “You will see Doctor
Feng soon.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I said snappishly. “He was a friend of
Humphreys’ and I believe was in league with him.”
Thelma looked at me, a soft light in her eyes. “No,” she said simply.
“You are making a great mistake. You never had a better friend, nor
Humphreys a more deadly enemy than Doctor Feng.”
I sat up in amazement. Feng my friend! Had I distrusted the old doctor
without reason?
“Here he is!” cried Thelma joyously and I looked up to see Doctor Feng,
in a gray summer suit and white felt hat striding briskly across the
lawn towards us.
A glance at me was sufficient to tell him the good news; there was no
need for Thelma’s excited outburst. The old doctor silently held out
his hand, his seamed face alight with obvious pleasure.
I took it in silence and wrung it hard. The scales had fallen from my
eyes and I felt thoroughly ashamed of my lack of faith. I had ignored
my real friend and had put my trust in the scoundrel who had planned,
happily in vain, to send Thelma and myself to a horrible death. At that
moment my confidence in my knowledge of men, on which I had been apt to
pride myself in bygone days, sank to zero.
Feng was the first to break the silence.
“By jove, Yelverton,” he said, “I’m glad to see you all right again.
You’ve had an infernally narrow squeak of it. And it was all my fault.
I ought to have been more wary.”
“Your fault!” I stammered. “How?”
“Well, your narrow escape from being burned to death with Thelma, was
due in part to me. Owing to my belief in my own foresight I made a big
error of judgment.”
“How? I don’t understand. All I know is that Thelma and I were
entrapped by your friend Humphreys in that house in Heathermoor
Gardens. A most diabolical plot was laid for us both. What happened?”
“Then you recollect it all--eh? Well, that’s an excellent sign,” he
said. “You both escaped death by a hair’s breath. The damnable plot
was well devised and the plotters never dreamed for an instant that
it could fail. Every precaution had been taken, even to the cutting
of the wires of the fire-alarm outside Hampstead Station! Yes, you
can both thank Providence that you are alive today. But, do rest, my
dear fellow,” he added. “You must not tax your brains too quickly.
In an hour’s time I’ll tell you more. Till then, I’ll leave you both
together. But remember, your conversation must not concern the affair
in the least. I forbid it, Thelma! Please recollect that,” he added
very seriously.
“Very well,” she said. “We’ll go for a stroll down to the Casino and
back,” and I rose and accompanied her.
Thelma chatted as we strolled along. But in obedience to Doctor Feng
she would not refer to what had passed. For my own part I felt utterly
mystified. Where was Stanley Audley? Why was Feng my friend and
Humphreys’ enemy? What was Thelma doing here away from her husband? How
had we been saved? These and a hundred other puzzling questions darted
through my mind, and I fear my attempts at conversation were poor and
spiritless.
But one thing she told me roused my keen interest.
Day after day, she said, she had sat by my side, many times every
day, softly calling my name. Doctor Feng was responsible. He had an
idea--perhaps because he knew my love for Thelma--that her voice
might be the means of rousing me from my stupor. And, thank God, the
experiment had succeeded, though Thelma confessed she had almost given
up hope after many weary weeks. At last, after hundreds of failures,
her call had reached my subconscious mind, the dormant cells of memory
had suddenly awakened, my unbalanced mind once again returned to its
normal state.
As I looked into her great grey eyes, I saw how filled she was with
anxiety concerning me. I gazed at her in silence. The suffering she had
undergone seemed to have had no power to mar her great personal beauty.
Though her face was colorless it was calm, and her eyes were full of
sadness.
One subject alone was uppermost in both our hearts, but old Feng had
forbidden us to mention it. Therefore as we strolled along together
through the gay streets of Cannes with its well-dressed merry-making
throngs, our conversation was but a stilted one.
To me that passing hour seemed a year. Soon I was to learn the truth so
long hidden--the secret of the great mystery was to be solved, for I
saw from Doctor Feng’s manner that he knew the truth, and would at last
disclose it.
When at last the hour passed and we returned to the Beau Site, Thelma
took me up in the lift to a comfortable private suite where, in the
sitting-room, Feng was standing before the window which gave a wide
view of the Mediterranean, calm in the amber glow of late afternoon.
“Let us sit down,” he said, and I noticed how much more marked his
slight American accent had become. “What I have to tell you, Yelverton,
will take some little time. It will surprise you too, for it is a
remarkable and complicated story--an amazing hotchpotch of love, hate,
avarice, and a callous, cruel cunning perfectly devilish. I may as well
begin at the beginning.”
I took an easy chair and the old man went on with his strange history.
“First of all,” he said, “it is necessary to go back to the days when
Thelma’s father was alive and on the China station. You will remember
I told you he was able to render a very great service to Sung-tchun,
who was one of the leaders of the Thu-tseng. Exactly what that service
was we shall never know--the secret would involve too many men who are
still alive.
“But whatever it was, it was very important--very much more than a
mere matter of organizing the escape of Sung-tchun from Siberia. That,
of course, was important, but, after all, it was only a matter of one
man’s life. There must have been something far greater, of which we
shall probably never learn.
“Do you remember my once saying to you that the arm of the Thu-tseng
was long?”
I nodded. I remembered perfectly the old chap’s grave look as he spoke
the words. I had little suspected their tremendous import.
“Well,” Feng continued, “you and Thelma have to thank the Crystal Claw
for the fact that you are alive today. Had I not been at Mürren when it
arrived, had I not know its significance, the devilish plot planned by
Humphreys must have succeeded.
“I did not know when I arrived at Mürren any of the facts that soon
after came into my possession. That I should have been there was one of
the wonderful instances of the working of Providence.
“The arrival of the Crystal Claw fairly staggered me. Never before
has it been bestowed upon a European. I knew at once that around
Mrs. Audley some tremendous story must hang. I am not unknown in the
Thu-tseng and I determined to get at the truth. What I learned in
reply to my cables both surprised and alarmed me. It showed me that
Mrs. Audley was in terrible danger. It put me at once on my guard with
reference to Hartley Humphreys. From that time forward he was under
almost incessant supervision.
“Now here are the essential facts. Sung-tchun was an extremely wealthy
man--how wealthy no one exactly knew. He made a very remarkable will,
in which he left the whole of his vast fortune to Miss Thelma Shaylor.”
Thelma started violently. “Left a fortune to me!” she burst out. “Why I
never heard a word about it.”
“No,” said Feng, “there was a proviso in the will that except for some
grave reason, of which the trustees were to be the judges, you were
not to be told until you reached the age of twenty-one. Sung-tchun
was anxious that you should not be exposed to the advances of mere
fortune-hunters until you were old enough to have had a reasonable
experience of the world.
“Now if the will had contained nothing else there would have been
no difficulty: you would have been perfectly safe. Unfortunately
Sung-tchun added a codicil which was, as events proved, to bring you
into terrible peril.
“That codicil provided that if you died childless the vast bulk of
Sung-tchun’s wealth should devolve upon a Chinese named Chi-ho who was
living in New York. Now here is a crucial fact. Chi-ho was hopelessly
in the power of Hartley Humphreys.
“Humphreys learned of the provisions of Sung-tchun’s will. He had
lived in China; he knew the country well and he was very wealthy. By
the treachery of an official of the Thu-tseng he learned of that fatal
codicil. It was an amazing instance of leakage of information for
which the history of the Thu-tseng knows no parallel and the offender
has expiated his crime by the forfeit of his life.
“Chi-ho probably never realized the vastness of the sum to which he
would be entitled if Thelma died childless. Humphreys, no doubt, only
told him part of the truth. Chi-ho, in consideration of getting his
freedom from Humphreys made over to the latter, in strictly legal form,
all his interests under the will of Sung-tchun. That document was found
among Humphreys’ papers after his death, of which Thelma has already
told you.
“Very soon after that document was signed Chi-ho died--stabbed to death
in what was said to be a tong feud in the Chinatown district of New
York. I cannot say with certainty that the whole thing was arranged by
Hartley Humphreys but Chi-ho’s death was very convenient to him.
“Now you have this interesting position: only Thelma’s life stood
between Hartley Humphreys and the Sung-tchun fortune.
“All these facts came to me by cable--in code, of course, from Canton.
I did not think it necessary or desirable to tell you and of course I
had no permission to reveal the fact that Thelma was a great heiress.
But I was keenly on the watch. My Canton correspondent warned me very
specifically to beware of Hartley Humphreys, whose secret record in
China--outwardly he was of the highest respectability--was appalling.
And the Thu-tseng knew all there was to know about him.
“That will explain to you, Yelverton, Humphreys’ alarm when he saw the
Crystal Claw. He knew it might mean anything--for instance that Thelma
was being watched over and guarded by the agents of the most powerful
secret society in the world. If that were the case, he knew, a single
false step would mean his certain ruin--perhaps even his death.”
“You didn’t seem much concerned about his alarm when I told you,” I
interrupted.
“No,” said the doctor with a smile, “it wasn’t necessary. I should not
have been surprised if the sight of the Crystal Claw had frightened him
off his scheme. But his avarice was evidently so unbounded that he was
willing to run any risk for the sake of money.
“Now comes a curious part of the story that I think Mrs. Audley had
better tell herself.” He turned to Thelma. “Please tell Mr. Yelverton
about your marriage,” he said.
“Well,” said Thelma, hesitatingly. “I was introduced to Stanley
Audley at a dance at Harrogate. He was an electrical engineer and was
apparently also possessed of considerable means. We met frequently.
Twice I had tea at his rooms in London and one day at the Savoy he
introduced me to Harold Ruthen who, I understood, was a newly formed
acquaintance of his.
“Mother rather liked Stanley, who always spoke enthusiastically of his
firm, Messrs. Gordon & Austin, the great electrical supply company, and
of his eagerness for advancement. When we became engaged mother raised
no objection, for he was so keen and enthusiastic in everything. One
day he motored me down to a place called ‘Crowmarsh,’ near Wallingford,
where I found he possessed a fine old-world house, where we were
to live when we married. I was charmed with it and we both spent a
glorious day there. Three weeks later we were, as you know, quietly
married at St. James’ church in Piccadilly, and went at once out to
Switzerland for our honeymoon, where we met you both.
“Then one morning Stanley received a telegram. When he read it he
became both confused and alarmed. He did not show me the message, but
told me that it was imperative that he should return to London at
once. I now recollect that we were in the hall of the Kürhaus when the
concierge handed him the message, and seated in his invalid chair, near
the big stove on the right, was old Mr. Humphreys, whom I did not then
know, but who was no doubt watching us intently.”
“He had followed you to Mürren with a very definite object,” Feng went
on. “He must have been watching you for some months beforehand, and I
have no doubt your sudden marriage was a severe blow to his plans.
“I had serious difficulty in making friends with him. Of course he
knew I was a Chinese and I really believe that he suspected at first
that I was an agent of the Thu-tseng. It was only when he found that
I had been at Mürren some time before Thelma and Audley arrived--and
therefore, he thought, could not be specially interested in them--that
I succeeded in getting inside his guard. Of course, by posing as his
friend, I was able much more easily to keep track of his movements.
“Do you remember your escape from the avalanche?”
“Rather!” said Thelma and I simultaneously.
“Perhaps you will be surprised to learn that that avalanche was not the
unaided work of Nature,” said the doctor. “You did not notice a man
some hundreds of feet above you?”
“No,” I said, “but what do you mean?”
“It’s a very easy thing to start an avalanche,” said Feng with a smile.
“There _was_ a man above you that day and the avalanche _was_ started
deliberately. Your guide John found out the truth afterwards. But the
would-be assassin--I have no doubt he was in the pay of Humphreys--was
never traced and the matter was hushed up. It would not have done to
let Humphreys know that the truth was suspected. As a matter of fact I
did suspect it and implored John to investigate.
“But with regard to Stanley Audley I confess I was completely misled.
When he received that telegram recalling him to London I believed that
the story he had told you about his profession as electrical engineer,
was a true one. Only when it was proved to be without foundation did I
see that I, like yourself, had been cleverly bamboozled. Until then I
had believed Audley to be what he represented himself to be. I never
dreamed of the truth. Hartley Humphreys, a crook to his finger tips,
possessed a master-mind, obsessed by criminality, and having no idea of
my actual purpose he acted with such amazing cunning and forethought
that he must be placed among the list of the master-criminals of the
world.”
“Of course I had no suspicion,” said Thelma. “I didn’t even know that I
was an heiress.”
“And I was fool enough to think that Humphreys was my friend and you
were my enemy, Doctor,” I said with some shame as I thought of how
completely I had been deceived.
“Well,” laughed Feng, “that’s all over now. But I’m glad I was able
to deceive you because it helped me to deceive Humphreys. He was
quite aware of your feeling towards me. You are fairly transparent,
Yelverton, if you don’t mind my saying so!”
“The position was very extraordinary. Humphreys got Audley out of the
way--I will explain that later--and that, he thought, would leave
Thelma unprotected. But he never expected your interest in the bride.
You became a very unwelcome bit of grit in a very well-oiled machine.
You were constantly with Thelma, she was never left alone for a
moment--and you were in the way.”
And the shrewd old man smiled mysteriously.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SECRET DISCLOSED
“But what was the mystery of Audley’s disappearance?” I asked Feng, in
breathless eagerness, now that the enigma was in course of solution.
“Well, Humphreys at first did his level best to prevent the marriage,
but finding that impossible he went very cleverly to work. Audley, who
was a young man of means--though he pretended that his profession was
that of electrical engineer--had, Humphreys discovered, fallen into the
hands of a man named Graydon, a friend of his, who lived in the same
house as Audley and who was one of a gang of note forgers.
“By clever means this gang had used Audley for their own purposes,
even to the extent of sometimes inducing him to assume Graydon’s
identity. Harold Ruthen was one of Graydon’s accomplices in passing
spurious notes, hence old Humphreys knew of Audley’s connection with
the forgers. After Thelma’s marriage which he had tried in vain to
prevent, it was highly necessary for the furtherance of Humphreys’
sinister plan, to get her husband away. He therefore caused to be sent
to him at Mürren a veiled message that the police were making inquiries
in London and that he had better at once efface himself, even from his
wife. This he did, leaving Thelma in your care.”
“But was Stanley really a forger?” I asked.
“At first I thought so, but later I found that the poor fellow had
acted in all innocence. He was being blackmailed by the gang and thus
forced to assist them, until he received that warning and fled,”
replied Feng. “I was all the time watching the very deep game played
by the wily old crook who posed as an invalid. With Audley out of the
way he expected that it would be easy to complete his plans. Instead,
to his great chagrin, you came forward as the bride’s companion and
protector. It was then that he determined, if you still continued to
watch over the girl, from whose husband he had contrived to part her,
that your activities should be suppressed. It then became my active
duty to keep guard over both of you, which I did to the best of my
ability.
“It was, of course, a difficult task. Had he been in New York you would
both have been watched night and day by men of the Thu-tseng. The
Chinese make the finest ‘shadowers’ in the world and in New York they
are so very numerous that I could employ them with impunity. In London
they are too conspicuous. It was really through this that Humphreys
nearly beat me at the finish.
“But I will give you an instance of how narrowly you escaped. Do you
remember one night when we all had supper with Humphreys at a Chinese
restaurant near Piccadilly Circus?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“And you remember that I signalled to you not to eat the cold soup that
was served?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I thought you meant it was something I should not
like.”
“You would have been dead in five days if you had eaten it,” said Feng
grimly. “It was by a miracle of luck that I saw Humphreys drop into it
a tiny pellet as he reached his hand out for some bread. The Chinese
waiter took your soup away. Humphreys did not notice the Chinese
remark I made to the waiter, but that soup was preserved and analyzed.
It contained a virulent culture of the germs of typhoid fever. The
Chinese waiter, of course, was an agent of the Thu-tseng. I daresay you
will meet him some day. He happens to be a doctor and a great friend
of mine. He analyzed the soup for me. If you had taken a spoonful of
it while Humphreys was telling the funny stories at which you were
laughing, you would have been dead in five days--of perfectly natural
causes.”
“But, Thelma. Did you know anything of all this?” I asked turning to
her, astounded and muddled.
“Some of the facts I knew, but not all,” she replied. “I hope you will
forgive me, but I acted all along upon Doctor Feng’s instructions.
At Mürren I knew nothing, and was entirely unsuspicious of the plot
against us both.”
“Humphreys had degenerated into perhaps the cleverest financial crook
in Eastern Europe,” said Feng. “The way in which he held Audley aloof
from his wife while his friends Graydon and Ruthen were at the same
time terrorizing him and compelling him to assist in passing their
spurious notes, was a most remarkable feature of the case. He acted
with such caution and pre-arranged things so cunningly, that I confess
I was more than once misled and befogged.
“It was he who sent you those warnings from Hammersmith and North
London in an endeavor to frighten you off. He certainly had a sort
of superstitious fear of you. My chief fear for Thelma was that she
might be secretly poisoned in a similar manner to the attempt upon
yourself. Therefore I insisted that she should never take her meals in
a restaurant alone.”
“And I was in ignorance,” I exclaimed.
“I deemed it best. I did not wish to alarm either of you, and indeed it
is only since the narrow escape you both had at Heathermoor Gardens
that I revealed to Thelma the motive of the plot. I did not suspect
that terrible death-trap, but as soon as Thelma was missing I naturally
felt that she must have fallen into the hands of one or other of the
gang. Judge my surprise when I discovered that she surreptitiously,
at Audley’s request, rejoined him in hiding at a small private hotel
in Gloucester Road, Kensington. Audley was in constant dread of the
police, an apprehension kept alive by Ruthen and Graydon, and for that
reason he destroyed his clothes and some false notes before escaping
from the room at Lancaster Gate. He turned the key from the outside, in
order further to mystify those whom he believed to be his pursuers.”
“I was his pursuer,” I remarked.
“True. But he was avoiding you, as well as the police,” Feng said. “He
was told that you were making inquiries concerning him on his wife’s
behalf and would, if you gained the truth, reveal it to her. Naturally,
he had no desire that Thelma should know that the police were wanting
him upon grave charges of forgery.”
“But why did he not openly defy those men into whose hands he fell
before his marriage?” I asked. “Surely, he could have cleared himself
and have given information to the police.”
“Ah! Humphreys, the criminal with the master-mind took very good care
that he was so deeply implicated that he dare not utter a word,” my
friend pointed out. “Recollect his determination was that Thelma, alone
and without friends except her mother, should meet with an untimely end
in order that the Sung-tchun fortune should pass to him.
“First, however, she married unexpectedly, and, secondly, you came
upon the scene as her protector. It was for that reason an attempt was
first made to poison you, and then that clever plot at Stamford whereby
you were drugged by that final cigarette given you by the supposed
commercial traveler, who afterwards entered your room, forced against
your lips a bottle containing a deadly drug, and made it appear as
though you had committed suicide. Humphreys believed that you knew too
much, so he intended that you should die before the girl over whom you
were so carefully watching. He had no idea, however, of the part I was
playing--until the police went to arrest him.”
“But could you not have told me the truth long ago--and given me
warning?” I asked.
“That was impossible,” he replied. “Remember I warned you repeatedly.
You would only have laughed had I told you Humphreys was your enemy:
you were already deeply prejudiced against me. Thelma, too, tried to
induce you to give the whole thing up, but you refused. Had Humphreys
known that you suspected him he would have had you both murdered out
of hand and chanced detection. But as things were he elected to wait
until he could devise a plot that would be absolutely safe. So long
as Stanley Audley was out of the way there was no need for him to do
anything rash. And by his patience he nearly won in the end.”
“But he very nearly lost,” I said. “Suppose Thelma and I had been burnt
to death. We could never have been identified and Humphreys could not
have proved Thelma’s death. That meant he could not have inherited her
fortune at any rate until sufficient time had elapsed for the Courts to
presume her death.”
“You are a lawyer, Yelverton, and of course that point would occur to
you. But it also occurred to Humphreys--another instance of his amazing
foresight--and he took steps accordingly. Thelma, show Mr. Yelverton
your locket.”
With a smile Thelma took from her pocket a heavy locket attached to
a chain and handed it to me. I was astonished at its massiveness and
weight, until I saw both locket and chain were of platinum. On the
front of the locket was deeply engraved the inscription, “Thelma
Audley--from Stanley.”
“Platinum; you see, Yelverton!” said old Feng.
I gasped in astonishment at the realization of Humphreys’ cleverness.
“Of course,” I said, “it would resist the fire, the locket would be
found in the débris and Thelma’s disappearance would be explained, in
part at any rate.”
“Yes,” rejoined Feng, “the locket would account for Thelma and what
more natural than the conclusion that the remains of the man found with
her were those of her husband?”
“But what has become of Stanley?” I asked, wondering why Thelma was
here without him.
“Stanley Audley is dead,” said Feng very gently, and I noticed the slow
tears begin to trickle down Thelma’s face. “He died like a hero. It
was he who rescued Thelma from the blazing room. By some extraordinary
chance the fire seems to have spread mainly in your direction and
Thelma escaped with the loss of most of her clothing and her hair which
was almost burnt off. But poor Stanley was so terribly burned that
he died three days later in the hospital. There is no doubt he loved
Thelma deeply and utterly regretted the trouble he had brought upon
her.”
Stanley Audley dead! I held my breath! Then Thelma was free! Such was
my involuntary reflection.
Thelma was weeping softly. I hardly dared look at her. But I put
out my hand and clasped hers. She turned her head away and gazed in
silence at the golden glow in the west across the sea. But she did not
withdraw her hand and a great wave of joy flooded through me.
“But how did we escape?” I asked Feng.
“We were only in the nick of time,” he replied. “When Thelma
disappeared from her husband in Gloucester Road I felt certain that
she had been decoyed away. She was--by a message purporting to come
from her husband asking her to call at Heathermoor Gardens. She
did so and fell into the hands of the man who intended she should
die. Yet so clever was old Humphreys, that, though I kept him under
close observation, I could not discern that he was acting at all
suspiciously. I did not know of course, of his plot to burn you alive.
But we were watching him very closely. That night Stanley and I tracked
him to the house at Hampstead. We saw you arrive later, but we little
dreamed that Thelma was held there a drugged and helpless prisoner.
She screamed twice, apparently, and you heard her, but some accomplice
of Humphreys’ gave her a hypodermic injection--we found the mark
afterwards on her arm.
“We watched until the first man-servant came out and later Humphreys
himself left the place and walking in some distance away concealed
himself in full view of the house. Then I knew you were left in there,
and I became seriously alarmed.
“Fortunately a constable was near, and unseen by the old villain I
approached him, told him of my suspicions, and we all three approached
the house together. To our rings and knocks there was no answer,
therefore we forced the door and rushed in. As we opened the door of
the room where you were, we saw the air-ball burst and in a second the
room was a furnace.
“Then came a desperate fight for life. Audley dashed to Thelma and
succeeded in getting her out into the street at the cost of his own
life, while I and the constable cut the rope which secured your wrists,
and carried you out terribly burned and insensible. Both the constable
and I were also burned, but not very seriously. Before the fire brigade
arrived the house had been seriously damaged: but for our early warning
it must have been utterly destroyed, as Humphreys intended.
“Meanwhile, Humphreys, who had seen the failure of his plot, made
himself scarce and it was not until three days later that Inspector
Cayley of Scotland Yard, with two sergeants traced him to a room in
Earl’s Court Road, where he was hiding. But the old criminal had
locked himself in and before they could break open the door he had
put a bullet through his brain. A week ago both Ruthen and Graydon
were arrested at the Pavilion Hotel in Boulogne on charges of passing
spurious notes in various towns in France. They will, no doubt, go to
hard labor for some years.”
“Well, Yelverton,” the old man concluded, “I think you know everything
now. You have both had a very narrow escape from a terrible fate. Only
a devil in human form could have devised such an atrocity. But now I’ll
leave you alone for a bit: you will have plenty to talk about.”
And with a cheery smile and a loving look at Thelma, the sturdy,
bearded old man, to whose watchfulness we both owed our lives, turned
on his heel and left the room.
* * * * *
The calm Riviera sunset had deepened into twilight, swiftly as it
always does, and the night clouds rising over the pine-clad Esterels
cast their long grey shadows across the calm sea. Beneath our window
twinkling lights shone and from among the orange graves below came
voices and merry laughter.
I had been speaking earnestly to Thelma--pleading with her all the
fervor of the love I had so long held in restraint but which, now she
was free, poured out with violence that overwhelmed me. She heard me
without comment or response. But she made no protest, she allowed me to
hold her hand, even when I pressed it tenderly to my lips she did not
withdraw it.
The hope that had never quite died rose again in my heart. I felt
Thelma trembling; a beautiful warmth that I had never seen before
glowed upon her cheeks, her eyes were lustrous with the brilliancy of
tears which welled up into them but did not fall. She stood looking
out across the broad Mediterranean towards the African coast which the
colors of the sunset paled into the faint splendor of the afterglow.
The light was nearly gone, and still she made no sign. But presently
words failed me and I simply stood and held out my arms in a last
despairing appeal.
Then my darling came to me, slowly and sweetly, her great grey eyes
aflame with a light I had never seen before. And our lips met at last.
* * * * *
We were married in October and spent our honeymoon in Seville and
Malaga. Christmas found us at the Hotel Regina at Wengen, a little
below Mürren, where we both went skiing daily. We visited Mürren, of
course, hallowed to us for all time as the place of that strange first
meeting from which all our troubles and all our happiness had sprung.
We are rich, of course, Sung-tchun’s fortune was enormous. But we live
very quietly in my old home--my father’s quaint, old-world cottage on
the Salisbury road a few miles from Andover. Most of our income, apart
from our own modest wants, goes to help the slum children of London.
Thelma never tires of them and every summer forms a big camp to which
hundreds come down for a few days’ glorious holiday. They all seem to
worship her and over even the roughest of them she seems to exercise a
magical fascination.
Old Doctor Feng, to whom we owe so much, is our chief friend. He comes
and goes as he pleases. There is a room reserved for him and always
ready. Devoted to Thelma, he spends much of his time with us. He never
tires of talking of the Crystal Claw, the magic talisman that saved us
for each other. And every now and again, with his inimitable chuckle,
he croaks out, “Yelverton, I told you the arm of the Thu-tseng was
long!”
It was long indeed. It stretched half across the world to give us--two
tiny units caught in a cruel trap--a helping hand in our dire distress.
We owe our wealth, our radiant happiness, our very lives to the magical
influence of the Crystal Claw.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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