William Le Queux (continued 2)

So it was with Dick. He had lost the woman he had loved in his college days, yet, as far as I could judge, none other had ever taken her place in his heart.

Two o’clock had struck ere we turned in, and both of us were up at seven, our usual hour, for evening papers, issued as they are at noon, are prepared early in the morning. We were always at our respective offices at half-past seven.

My first thought was of the meeting I had arranged in St. James’s Park, and of my friend’s misgivings regarding it. Full of anxiety, I worked on till eleven o’clock, when Boyd was shown into my room, greeting me merrily. His appearance was in no way that of a police-officer, for he wore a shabby suit of tweed, a soiled collar, and an old silk hat much frayed at the brim, presenting the appearance of the typical beery Fleet Street lounger.

“I’ve come to see you, Mr Urwin, regarding this meeting in the park,” he said. “Do you intend going?”

“Of course,” I answered, surprised that he should ask such a question. “Why?”

“Well, because I think it would be best to leave it entirely to us. You might be indiscreet and queer the whole thing.”

“I don’t think you’ll find me guilty of any indiscretion,” I said, somewhat piqued.

“I don’t apprehend that,” he said. “But on seeing you at the spot appointed, the mysterious person who made the inquiry last night will at once get away, for he will know that the secret is out. We must, as you know, act with greatest caution in this affair, so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion that the keeping of this appointment is in the hands of the police.”

“Then what, in your opinion, is the best course to pursue?” I inquired.

“First, your friend Mr Cleugh must not go near the park. I’ve already written him a note to that effect. Secondly, you must act exactly as I direct. A single slip will mean that the individual will escape, and in this we must not court failure by any indiscreet move.”

“And how do you intend that I should act?” I asked, sitting back in my writing-chair and looking at the shrewd detective who was known throughout London as one of the cleverest unravellers of crime, and who had been successful in so many cases wherein human life had been involved.

“Well,” he said, hesitating, “truth to tell, I would rather that you didn’t go to the park at all.”

“Why?”

“Because you could not wait about in the vicinity of the spot indicated without betraying a sign that you were in expectation of some one,” he answered. “Remember, you are not a detective.”

“No,” I answered, “I’m not a detective, but I’ve had a few years’ training in investigations. I think I could disguise my anxiety sufficiently.”

I was extremely anxious to keep the appointment, and his suggestion that I should not go caused me disappointment and annoyance.

“But if you were seen waiting about, the man we want would certainly not make his appearance. He’d scent danger at once. We’ve evidently got to deal with a very cunning scoundrel.”

“I could conceal myself,” I declared. “I promise you I will act with greatest discretion.”

“Well,” he said at length, after some further demur, “I suppose, then, you must have your own way. Personally, I don’t think the man will be such a fool as to run his neck into a noose. There’s been some clever work in connexion with this matter, and men capable of such ingenuity must be veritable artists in crime and not given to the committal of any indiscretion. The voice in the telephone was a squeaky one, I think you said?”

“Yes, weak and thin, like an old man’s.”

Boyd glanced at his watch—a gold hunter with an inscription. It had been given him by public subscription in Hampstead in recognition of his bravery in capturing two armed burglars in Fitzjohn’s Avenue.

“It’s time we went,” he exclaimed; but as we rose Dick entered in hot haste. He had just received Boyd’s note and had run round to my office.

“I’ve been out making an inquiry,” he said, having greeted us and expressed disappointment at Boyd’s decision. “I thought, in order to satisfy myself, and so that I could use the information later on, I would go round to Professor Braithwaite at the Royal Institution and ask his opinion of the scientific apparatus found in the laboratory. I went down to Patterson, got permission to remove it from the house, and took the whole affair in a cab to the Royal Institution.”

“Well, what’s the result?” I inquired breathlessly.

“The result?” he answered. “Why, the old Johnnie, when he saw the paraphernalia, stood dumbfounded, and when he put it together and commenced experimenting seemed speechless in amazement. The discovery, he declared, was among the greatest and most important of those made within the last twenty years. He sent messengers for a dozen other scientific men, who, when they saw the arrangement, examined it with great care and were equally amazed with old Braithwaite. All were extremely anxious as to the identity of the discoverer of this mode of liquefying almost the last of the refractory gases, but I, of course, held my tongue for a most excellent reason—I did not myself know. I merely explained that the apparatus had fallen into my hands accidentally and I wished to ascertain its use.”

“Then quite a flutter has been caused among these dry-as-dust old fossils,” I observed, laughing.

“A flutter!” Dick echoed. “Why, the whole of the scientific world will be in a state of highest excitement to-morrow when the truth becomes known. Old Braithwaite declared that the discoverer deserves an immediate knighthood.”

“Let’s be off,” Boyd said. He took no interest in the discovery. Like myself, his only object was to solve the mystery.

“Then I’m not to go?” Dick said inquiringly.

“No,” the detective replied. “I’m sorry, but a crowd of us will queer the thing. You shall have all the details later. Patterson has promised that you shall publish first news of the affair.”

Dick was sorely disappointed, I saw it in his face; nevertheless, with a light laugh he wished us goodbye when we emerged into Fleet Street, and hurried away back to the offices of the Comet, while Boyd and myself jumped into a hansom outside St. Dunstan’s Church, and drove along Pall Mall as far as St. James’s Palace, where we alighted and entered the park. The detective explained his tactics during the drive. They were that we should separate immediately on entering the park, and that he should go alone to the spot indicated by the mysterious voice, while I idled in the vicinity. I was to act just as I pleased, but we were not to recognise one another either by look or sign.

I own, therefore, that it was with considerable trepidation that I left the detective on entering the Mall and wandered slowly along beneath the trees, while he crossed and entered the park himself. In that thoroughfare, which forms a short and pleasant cut for taxis going eastward from Victoria station, there was considerable traffic at that hour. The sky was blue, and the June sun shone warmly through the trees, giving the Londoner a foretaste of summer, and causing him to think of straw hats, flannels and holiday diversions. A bright day in a London park at once arouses thoughts of the country or the sea. With my face set towards the long, regular façade of Buckingham Palace—a grey picture with little artistic touches of red, the scarlet coats of the Guards—I wondered what would be the outcome of this attempt to obtain a clue. That thin squeaky voice sounded in my ear as distinctly at that moment as it had done on the previous night, a weird summons from one unknown.

At last, just as Big Ben, showing high across the trees, chimed and boomed forth the hour of noon, I entered one of the small gates of the park and strolled along the gravelled walk down to the edge of the ornamental water, where, for some minutes, I stood watching a group of children feeding the water-fowl.

Though trying to look unconcerned, my eyes were ever on the alert. I had expected to see Boyd, but there was no sign of him, therefore I strolled along, passing the end of the water, the exact spot indicated. There was no one there beyond half a dozen school children feeding the birds with portions of dinners brought with them from distant homes.

Undecided whether to halt there, I kept my attention fixed upon the children, then, fearing to annoy Boyd by remaining at that point, I strolled slowly along the shore in the direction of Birdcage Walk. The detective had certainly concealed himself successfully, for although I kept my eyes on the watch I could discover no sign of him.

The hour of the appointment had passed, but, not daring to turn back to look, I kept straight on, until, at some distance beyond, I came to a seat beside the path and there I rested, drawing a newspaper from my pocket and pretending to read. Unfortunately, from where I sat, at a point opposite the Wellington Barracks, I could obtain no view of the meeting-place, and although Big Ben struck the quarter I was compelled to remain there inactive, watching furtively the few passers-by.

With a diligence perhaps unworthy of a journalist I read and re-read my newspaper for nearly half an hour, and in the course of that time the people who went along did not number a dozen. Of none of these did I entertain any suspicion. They included a couple of soldiers, two or three old women, a lady with a small child, a couple of nurses with children, a park-keeper, and a bank clerk with his wallet chained to his belt.

Secreted somewhere in the vicinity, Boyd was watching, but where I knew not. His surmise had unfortunately proved correct, I reflected, as the half-hour chimed. The man, whoever he was, was no fool.

For five minutes longer I remained, when a sudden impatience seized me, and I folded my paper and rose.

As I did so there came round the bend of the path, from the direction of the spot the mysterious voice had indicated, a slim figure in deep mourning, evidently a lady. She walked with an even swinging gait, not as one who was idling there, but as though with some fixed purpose. On her approach I saw that she was attired entirely in black, wearing a dress of the latest mode, the wide skirt of which rustled as she walked; a large hat with swaying feathers which at that moment struck me as somewhat funereal, and a thick spotted veil. Her black silk sunshade she carried on her arm, and as she came nearer I could not help being struck by her neatness of figure, her small waist, wide hips and well-moulded bust.

I lingered at the seat to brush the dust from my coat, so that she might pass and allow me a glance of her face.

She went by with a loud frou-frou of silken underskirt, and at that same instant I turned my gaze upon her and looked into her face.

Next second I drew back, startled and aghast.

Her hair was fair, her eyes large and blue, her features familiar. Even that thick veil could not conceal her marvellous beauty.

I looked again, believing it to be some chimera of my disordered imagination.

No. There was no mistake. It was an astounding, inexplicable truth.

She was the woman I had discovered cold and dead in that house in Kensington on the previous night—the woman whose body had so strangely disappeared.

For a few moments I stood rooted to the spot. The discovery held me petrified.

Then, with sudden resolve, I moved forward and followed her.

Chapter Seven.

Eva Glaslyn.

I glanced behind me, but saw no sign of Boyd. Of a sudden it crossed my mind that he had not been present at our first discovery; therefore, expecting a man to keep the appointment, he had allowed her to pass the spot unnoticed.

The appearance of that neat figure before me, the figure of the woman over whose beauty I had mourned as dead, was in itself a most startling fact, adding still another feature to the already dark and inscrutable mystery. I wanted to have a word with Boyd and ask his advice, for I knew not how to act in such unexpected circumstances. One of the victims was actually keeping an appointment with an accomplice of the assassin, for there seemed no doubt that murder had been committed by some secret means.

When she passed me I noticed the queer, half-suspicious glance she cast at me with those large blue eyes of hers, a glance in which anxiety was mingled with terror and despair. Evidently she had sought some one whom she had not been able to find, and was disappointed in consequence. With the silhouette of her figure before me like some phantom which I was endeavouring to chase in vain, I strolled on at a respectable distance, endeavouring to look unconcerned. I saw what a strikingly smart figure hers was; how slim the waist, how wide and well-rounded the hips, and how through the bodice of her dress was shown the outline of those narrow French corsets, mere bands for the waist which only women with superb figures ever dare to wear. Her skirt of fine black cloth hung in folds unusually graceful, for London skirts are always more or less “bunchy,” dragging behind and rising in front, unless made by the first-class houses in Regent Street or Bond Street. London dressmakers cannot cut a skirt well. But her gown was a model of simplicity and good fit, evidently the “creation” of some expensive ladies’ tailor.

Her hair, in the full light of day, was not golden brown as I had believed it to be, but really auburn, and her black hat suited her admirably. From moment to moment I feared lest she should glance back and discover me following her, but fortunately she kept straight on at the same even pace, passing out of the park by Storey’s Gate, and continuing along Great George Street until she entered the bustle of Parliament Street. Here, fearing she might escape me, I was compelled to approach nearer, at risk of being discovered, and even then was still utterly undecided how to act. My first impulse was, to walk up to her, introduce myself and tell her of the circumstances in which I had discovered her in that house, apparently lifeless. On reflection, however, I judged that by her presence in the park she was acquainted with the assassin or his associate, and that by keeping close watch upon her I might discover more than by at once exposing my hand. There seemed in her very appearance, in that deep mourning, something grim, weird, mysterious.

At the corner of Parliament Street, outside the steamy tea-rooms, she stood for a few moments gazing anxiously up and down, as if in search of an omnibus. A man approached her, crying the second edition of the Comet, a copy of which she purchased eagerly, folding it small and placing it within the folds of her sunshade.

Why had she done that? I wondered. Did she expect to find in that paper an exposure of the secret tragedy of the previous night?

I stood reading some excursion time-tables outside the railway booking-office on the opposite corner, watching her furtively. From her manner I could plainly see how nervous and excited she was.

After some hesitation she turned and walked along to King Street, where she entered the telegraph office and dispatched a telegram. She evidently knew that part of London, or she would not have known the whereabouts of that office hidden down the short side street. I waited in Parliament Street until her return, and unnoticed strode back behind her to the corner of Bridge Street, where she at length entered a taxi and drove off.

From the telegram I might, I thought, obtain some clue, but, alas! telegrams are secret, and I should be unable to get a glance at it. To apply at the office would be useless. The police might perhaps obtain permission to read it, but so many dispatches are daily handed in there that to trace any particular one is always a difficult matter.

I was divided in my impulses. Should I go back to King Street and make instant application regarding the telegram, so that it might be marked and easily traced afterwards, or should I follow the taxi which at that moment was crossing Westminster Bridge?

I decided upon the latter course, and jumping into another motor, pointed out the taxi I desired to follow.

Our drive was not a long one—only to Waterloo Station, the busy platform of the loop line. Here I could easily conceal myself in the crowd of persons every moment arriving and departing, and as I stood near the booking-office, I heard her ask for a first-class ticket to Fulwell, a rather pleasant and comparatively new suburban district between Twickenham and Hampton.

The Shepperton train was already in the station, therefore she at once took her seat, while I entered another compartment in the front of the train. I did this in order to be able to alight quickly, leave the station before her, and thus avoid recognition. The journey occupied about three-quarters of a hour, but at length we drew into the little rural station situated in a deep cutting, and ere the train stopped I sprang out, passed the barrier and leaped up the steps, escaping ere the gate was closed by the ticket inspector. By this quick movement I gained several minutes upon her, for the barrier was closed, and alighting passengers were not allowed to leave before the train had again moved off.

The high road from London opened right and left, one way leading back to Strawberry Hill, the other out to New Hampton. I felt certain that she would walk in the direction of the latter place, therefore I started off briskly until I came to a small wayside inn, which I entered, and going to the window of the bar-parlour called for refreshment, at the same time keeping a keen look-out for her passing.

Several persons who had come by train hurried by, and at first I believed she had taken the opposite direction. But at last she came, holding her skirts daintily and picking her way, for it had been raining and the path was muddy. She, however, was not alone.

By her side walked a young rather handsome man about twenty-five, who wore tennis flannels, and who had apparently met her at the station. She was laughing merrily as she passed, while he strode on with a light, airy footstep indicative of happiness.

“There’s a lady just gone past,” I exclaimed quickly, turning to the innkeeper’s wife, who had just brought in my glass of beer. “I often see her about. Do you know who she is?”

With woman’s curiosity she went to the door and looked out after her.

“Oh, that’s Lady Glaslyn’s daughter,” she said.

“Lady Glaslyn’s daughter!” I echoed in surprise.

“Yes, it’s Miss Eva, and the young gent with her is Fred Langdale, the son of the great sugar-refiner up in London. They both live here, close by. Lady Glaslyn, a widow, is not at all well off, and lives along at The Hollies, the big white house with a garden in front on this side of the way, while the Langdales have a house further on the road to Hampton, overlooking Bushey Park.”

“Oh, that’s who they are!” I said quite unconcernedly, but secretly delighted with this information. “And who is this Lady Glaslyn? Has she lived here long?”

“Nearly a year now,” the good woman answered. Then, confidentially, she added, “They are come-down swells, I fancy. That they’ve got no money is very evident, for the tradespeople can’t get their bills paid at all. Why, only last week, Jim Horton, the gas company’s man, was in here, and I heard him tell his labourers that he’d got orders to cut the gas off at The Hollies because the bill wasn’t paid.”

“Then they must be pretty hard up,” I observed. “Many aristocratic families come down in the world.”

The name of Glaslyn puzzled me. It sounded familiar.

“Who was her ladyship’s husband? Do you know?”

“No, sir. I’ve heard several stories. One was how that he was a baronet who led an exploring party somewhere in South America, and died of fever, and another that he was a shady individual who was connected with companies in the City. But nobody here knows the truth, I think.”

A glance at Debrett or Burke when I returned to my office would quickly settle that point, I reflected; therefore, having obtained all the information I could from her I wished her good-day, and left.

Along the Hampton Road I strolled in the direction the pair had taken, and in the distance saw the mysterious Eva take leave of her companion and enter a house, while he lifted his hat and walked on. I proceeded slowly, passing The Hollies on the opposite side of the way. It was a rather large place, decidedly old-fashioned, standing back in its own grounds and approached by a carriage drive, a three-storied redbrick house with those plain windows surrounded by white wooden beams of the early Georgian era. In the old-world garden, hidden by a high wall, grew a profusion of roses and wallflowers which diffused a sweet scent as I passed, and half the house seemed hidden by ivy and creepers. The small lawn in front, with its laurels and monkey-trees, were well kept, and the place seemed spick and span, and altogether comfortable.

As I passed I fancied I saw a black-robed figure standing at one of the ground-floor windows. What if she recognised me? I dared not to look around again, but kept on my way, walking through New Hampton, past the long wall of Bushey Park, until I came to Old Hampton town, whence, half an hour later, I took train back to Waterloo.

I had, at any rate, made one discovery, which was in itself absolutely bewildering. At first I had doubted that this sweet-faced, clear-eyed woman was actually identical with the dead form that lay back in her chair on the previous night. I believe that she only bore some striking resemblance, heightened, perhaps, by the agitated state of my mind. But all doubts on this point had been set at rest by one fact. The woman whose cold hand I had grasped had worn in her bodice a brooch of unusual pattern—a tiny enamelled playing-card, a five of diamonds quaintly set in gold—and this same ornament, striking on account of its originality of design, was at the throat of Eva Glaslyn, showing plainly against the dead black of her dress.

The mystery was certainly most remarkable. In wonder how Boyd had fared, or whether Patterson had been prosecuting inquiries in other directions, I went straight to Kensington from Waterloo, and found the inspector in his room over the police-station. It was a small apartment with drab-painted walls, plainly furnished as police-stations are. The table whereat he sat was littered with papers, mostly pale straw-colour, and on the mantelshelf stood an interesting collection of photographs of people “wanted,” each bearing a number in red ink corresponding to the index book, wherein a short account of their crime was recorded.

“Why,” he cried, as I entered, “wherever have you been? I’ve been hunting high and low for you.”

“I’ve been down to Hampton,” I laughed.

“To Hampton!” he echoed. “What on earth have you been doing down there?”

“Making inquiries,” I answered, affecting an air of unconcern. “I’ve made a rather queer discovery.”

“What is it?” he asked, as I took a seat before him.

“I’ve found the woman whom Patterson and I discovered dead last night, and the strangest part about it is that she’s alive and quite well.”

“My dear fellow, are you mad?” he asked, looking at me strangely. “People aren’t in the habit of coming to life again, you know.”

“I’m well aware of that,” I responded. “Nevertheless, the fact remains that the woman seen by Patterson and by myself is actually alive. I met her in the park, and followed her home to New Hampton.”

“Met her in the park!” he cried. “There was one woman I noticed, fair-haired, and dressed in black.”

“The same,” I answered. “Fortunately I recognised her and kept her under observation.”

Then, in response to his demand, I related to him the whole circumstance in detail.

“And her name?” he inquired, when I had concluded.

“Eva Glaslyn, daughter of Lady Glaslyn.”

“Glaslyn!” he ejaculated. “Good heavens! Surely it can’t be the same!”

“Why the same?” I inquired.

“Oh, nothing!” he answered evasively, quickly seeking to allay my suspicions. “There was some mystery, or scandal, or something connected with that family once, if I recollect aright. I may, however, be mistaken in the name. At any rate, Mr Urwin, you’ve acted with tact and discretion, and discovered a most important fact.”

“What have you been doing?” I asked.

“Well,” he answered in hesitation, “the fact is, I’ve had a somewhat exciting experience.”

“Did you, then, discover the man?” I inquired anxiously.

“I met a man, but whether he was the one who made the appointment by telephone I don’t yet know,” he said. “I waited until a quarter to one, concealed behind some bushes, and presently saw a grey-haired old gentleman, well-dressed in frock coat, and silk hat, strolling in my direction. He was quite a dandy with well-pressed trousers, varnished boots, gold-headed cane and single eyeglass. His air was that of a lawyer or doctor. As if in search of some one he lingered in the vicinity, subsequently sitting upon a seat at the very end of the lake, the exact spot which had been indicated.”

“And what did you do?”

“I waited and watched. There was no one near, yet from his sharp glances in all directions I saw that he was in fear lest some one might approach whom he didn’t wish to see. He appeared violently agitated, and at last, when he was entirely alone, he placed his hand into his inner pocket, took out something, and rising from the seat with a swift movement cast the object far away into the water.”

“Something he wanted to get rid of. Suspicious, wasn’t it?”

“Of course,” said the detective. “After that you may rest assured that I didn’t lose sight of him. When the object he had thrown away had fallen into the lake he turned, and after glancing up and down in fear that his action might have been observed, he returned to his seat, and waited until Big Ben struck again. Then he rose and left the park, strolling airily along the Buckingham Palace Road, peering a good deal under the bonnets of the pretty women who were looking in the windows of the shops. He entered the bar of Victoria Station, drank a whisky-and-soda, and then continuing along to Ebury Street passed twice or three times up and down in front of a house on the left-hand side. There were a number of people in that street at the time, but the instant he thought himself unobserved, he dived down the area of the house he kept passing and repassing. In a moment I noted that the number was twenty-two, and having done so placed a watch upon the house, well satisfied that I had taken the first step towards unravelling the mystery.”

“Remarkable,” I said, “I wonder what it was he threw away?”

“That’s impossible to tell without dragging the lake, and to do that at present would excite suspicion. He evidently went there in order to meet the assassin, but as the latter did not keep the appointment, this unknown object, which might prove convicting if found upon him, he resolved to get rid of, and no better place could there be than at the bottom of the lake. There’s lots of pieces of evidence there, you bet.”

“Then there must be some mysterious connexion between the appearance of Eva Glaslyn at that spot and this man who got rid of some evidence of the crime,” I observed.

“Most certainly,” the detective said. “It almost seems as though she came there for the purpose of meeting him, but he being late she grew impatient and left before his arrival. At every step we take the enigma becomes more complicated, more extraordinary, more bewildering.”

Chapter Eight.

Some Remarkable Evidence.

Three days went by, days full of wonder and anxiety.

Many were the discussions between Patterson, Dick and myself regarding the extraordinary development of the mystery which had now resolved itself into as complete a puzzle as ever occupied the attention of Scotland Yard. In Ebury Street and at Hampton most careful observation was being carried on night and day, but according to Boyd absolutely nothing suspicious could be discovered. Lady Glaslyn was, according to Debrett, widow of a Sir Henry Glaslyn, a Scotch baronet who had died several years before, leaving no heir to continue the title, and only one daughter, Eva.

In the meantime the bodies of the man and the woman had been removed to the mortuary secretly in the early hours of the morning in order not to arouse the suspicion of the neighbours, and a post-mortem had been held by two local doctors, with the result that it was found possible to hold the inquest on the afternoon of the third day. The Coroner held his inquiry in a small back room in the Kensington Town Hall, not far from the scene of the tragedy, and, in opening, made a short address to the jury, pointing out the necessity for preserving the utmost secrecy in the matter, and expressing a hope that no one present would defeat the ends of justice by giving any facts to the newspapers.

“Pardon me, sir,” exclaimed the tradesman who had been elected foreman, “but I see two gentlemen of the Press present.”

“Both have assisted us in our inquiries,” Patterson briefly explained to the Coroner.

“Of course,” the Coroner answered, “this is a public court, and therefore we cannot exclude any one. Yet I am confident the reporters will respect my wishes.”

This we both promised to do, Cleugh, well-known to the Coroner, speaking first.

The Coroner, when the jury had returned from viewing the bodies, made a few further observations, pointing out to the jury that although the affair was one of the most mysterious and inexplicable that had ever come beneath his notice in the course of his twenty years’ experience as a London coroner, yet they were there to try and decide the cause of death alone. They had no concern with any other facts except the cause of death, and he trusted they would give the matter their undivided attention.

Patterson was the first witness. In terse language he gave an account of his discovery and of his second visit to the house in my company. Then, when he had concluded, I was called and bore out his statement, relating how we had entered the laboratory and found the marvellous scientific apparatus, and how in the pocket of the dead man I had found a penny wrapped in paper. The cards with the strange devices which had been beneath the plates on the dining-table were handed round to the jury for their inspection, and then a statement which I made startled even the Coroner. It was how the body of the woman at present in the mortuary was not the same as the one we had at first discovered.

“Impossible!” exclaimed the Coroner, while the twelve jurymen stood aghast at my statement.

“That is quite true, sir,” exclaimed Patterson, rising from his seat. “The lady we first discovered was younger, with fair hair.”

“Then there must have been a triple tragedy,” observed the Coroner, astounded. “This is most extraordinary.”

I was about to explain how I had recognised in the girl I met in St. James’s Park the identical woman whom we had discovered lifeless, but a sharp look from the inspector silenced me.

“We are making diligent inquiries,” the officer went on, “and we have reason to believe that we shall be able to make a further statement later—at the adjourned inquiry.”

The Coroner nodded, and turning to the jury, said—

“Of course, gentlemen, it would not be wise at this stage for the police to disclose any of the information in their possession. Their success in such matters as this mainly depends upon secrecy. I think we may now, perhaps, hear the medical evidence.”

The jury stirred uneasily and settled themselves to listen intently as Dr Lees Knowles, the police divisional surgeon, stepped forward and was sworn.

“I was called by the police to the house,” he said, “and found there two deceased persons, a man and a woman, in the drawing-room on the first floor. The attire of the man was rather disarranged, as the police had already searched him, but there were no signs whatever of a struggle.”

“You made a cursory examination, of course,” suggested the Coroner.

“Yes. Life had been extinct sometime, and rigor mortis had commenced. There was, however, no external sign of foul play.”

“And the post-rnortem?”

The Court was silent in anxious anticipation of the doctor’s response.

“Assisted by Doctor Lynes I made a post-mortem, but found absolutely nothing to account for death. There was no mark of violence on either of the bodies, and no physical defect or slightest trace of disease. Nevertheless, the position of the bodies when found makes it evident that both persons died with great suddenness, and without being able to obtain assistance.”

“Was there nothing whatever to give any clue to the cause of death?” asked the Coroner, himself a medical man.

“Nothing,” responded the surgeon. “One thing, however, struck us as peculiar. On the inside of the right forearm of both the man and the woman were identical tattoo marks. The device, nearly an inch in diameter, represented a serpent with its tail in its mouth, the ancient emblem of eternity. The mark on the man had evidently been traced several years ago, but that on the woman is comparatively fresh, and could not have completely healed over more than a month ago. It is as though the mark on the man has been copied upon the woman.”

“And what do you think is the signification of this mark?” inquired the Coroner, looking up from the blue foolscap whereon he had been writing down the depositions.

“I’m utterly at a loss to know,” the doctor answered. “Yet it is very curious that upon one of these cards we found beneath the plates there is a circle drawn, while it also seemed that snakes were kept in the house as pets. To my mind all three circumstances have some connecting significance.”

The jury bent together and conversed in whispers. This theory of the doctor’s seemed to possess a good deal of truth, even though the mystery was increased rather than diminished.

Many more questions were put to the doctor, after which his colleague, Dr Lynes, was called, and corroborated the police surgeon’s evidence. He, too, was utterly unable to ascribe any fatal cause. The tattoo marks had puzzled him, but he suggested that the man and woman might be husband and wife, and that in a freak of caprice, to which women of some temperaments are subject, she had caused the device on her husband’s arm to be copied upon her own. Opinions were, however, divided as to whether the pair were husband and wife. For my own part I did not regard his theory as a sound one.

“You did not overlook the contents of the stomach, of course?” the Coroner exclaimed.

“No, we sent them in sealed bottles to Dr Marston, the analyst of the Home Office.”

“And have we his report?” inquired the Coroner.

“Dr Marston is here himself, sir. He has come to give evidence,” Patterson answered from the back of the room, while at the same time an old grey-haired gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles rose, and walking forward took the oath.

“You received from the previous witnesses two bottles?” suggested the Coroner. “Will you please tell us the result of your analysis?”

“I tested carefully with group reagents for every known poison, and also for ptomaine,” he said, “but all the solvents—alcohol, benzol, naphtha, ammonia and so forth—failed. I tested for the alkaloids, such as strychnine, digitalin, and cantharidin, and used hydrochloric acid to find either silver, mercury or lead, and also ammonia in an endeavour to trace tin, cadmium or arsenic. To none of the known groups does the poison—if poison there be—belong. Therefore I have been utterly unable to arrive at any definite conclusion.”

“Is there no direct trace of any poison?”

“None,” was the answer. “Yet from the result of certain group reagents it would appear that death was due to the virulence of some azotic substance.”

“You cannot, we take it, decide what that substance was?”

“Unfortunately, no,” the renowned analyst answered, apparently annoyed at having to thus publicly acknowledge his failure. “The state of the stomach of either person was not such as might cause death. Indeed, there was only a secondary and most faint trace of the unknown substance to which I have referred.”

“Then, to put it quite plainly,” said the Coroner, “it is your opinion that they were poisoned?”

“I can scarcely go so far as that,” the witness responded. “All I can say in evidence is that I found a slight trace of some deleterious substance which all tests refused to clearly reveal. Whether it were an actual poison which resulted in death I hesitate to say, as the result of my analysis is not sufficiently clear to warrant any direct allegation.”

“Do you suggest that this substance, whatever it was, must have been baneful and injurious to the human system?”

“I think so. Even that, however, is not absolutely certain. As you know, certain poisons in infinitesimal quantities are exceedingly beneficial.”

“Then we must take it that, presuming these two persons actually died of poison, it must have been by a poison unknown in toxicology?” observed the Coroner.

“Exactly,” the analyst responded, standing with his hands behind his back and peering through his spectacles at the expectant jury.

The Coroner invited the jury to ask any questions of the analyst, but the twelve Kensington tradesmen feared to put any query to the man who had the science of poisoning thus at his fingers’ ends, and whose analyses were always thorough and absolutely beyond dispute. He was the greatest authority on poisons, and they could think of nothing further to ask him. Therefore the Coroner politely invited him to sign his depositions.

After he had withdrawn, the Coroner, placing down his pen, sighed, leaned back in his chair with a puzzled expression, and once more addressed the twelve men who had been “summoned and warned” before him. They had heard the evidence, he said, and it was now for them to decide whether the two persons had died from natural causes, or whether they had met with foul play. In the circumstances he acknowledged that a decision was extremely difficult on account of the many mysterious side issues connected with the affair, yet he pointed out that if they were in real doubt whether to return a verdict of natural death or of wilful murder, there was still a third course, namely, to return an open verdict of “Found dead,” and thus leave the matter in the hands of the police. He was ready, of course, to adjourn the inquiry, but from what he knew of the matter, together with the evidence which had just been given, it was his honest opinion that no object could be obtained in an adjournment, and further by closing the inquest at once they would prevent any inexpedient facts leaking out to the newspapers.

The jury retired to consult in an adjoining room, and in ten minutes returned, giving an open verdict of “Found dead.” Thus ended the inquiry, and while the law had been complied with, public curiosity remained unaroused, and the police were enabled to work on in secret.

With Cleugh I lingered behind, chatting with Patterson and Boyd.

“We’re keeping observation at Upper Phillimore Place,” Boyd explained, in response to my inquiry. “Funny thing that nobody else calls there, and that the servants have never come back.”

“Have you found the snake that was in the garden?” Cleugh asked of Patterson, with a significant glance at me.

“No,” he responded, rather confused. “You see any search there might arouse suspicion. Therefore we are compelled to be content with watching for the return of any one to the house.”

“But you haven’t yet succeeded in establishing the identity of the pair,” Dick observed.

“No. That’s the queerest part of it,” Boyd exclaimed. “The owner of the house, a builder who has an office in Church Street, close by, says that the place was taken furnished by a Mrs Blain, who gave her address at Harwell, near Didcot. She paid six months’ rent in advance.”

“Harwell!” echoed Cleugh, turning to me. “Isn’t that your home, Urwin?”

“Yes,” I gasped. The name of Blain caused me to stand immovable.

“Why,” Dick exclaimed, noticing my agitation, “what’s the matter, old fellow? Do you know the Blains?”

“Yes,” I managed to reply. “They must be the Blains of Shenley Court. If so, they are friends of my family.”

I had never told my companion of my bygone love affair, because it had been a thing of the past before we had gone into diggings together.

“Who are they?” inquired Boyd quickly. “Tell me all you know concerning them, as we are about to prosecute inquiries in their direction.”

“First, tell me the statement of the house owner,” I said.

“Well, he describes Mrs Blain as a middle-aged, rather pleasant lady, who came to his office about a year ago in response to an advertisement in the Morning Post. She appeared most anxious to have the house, and one fact which appears to strike the old fellow as peculiar is that she took it and paid a ten-pound note as deposit without ever seeing the interior of the premises. She told him that it was for some friends of hers from abroad, and that they not having arrived she would sign the agreement and accept all responsibility.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes,” the detective replied. “She was accompanied by a young lady, whom old Tritton, the landlord, took to be her daughter. Now, tell me what you know.”

I paused, looking at him fixedly. The disclosure that Mrs Blain was the actual holder of that house of mystery was certainly startling. It was remarkable, too, that on the very night of the crime I should receive a letter from Mary, the woman who had so long lingered in my memory. Was that, I wondered, anything more than a mere coincidence?

“I don’t know that I can tell you very much about the family,” I answered, determined to put him off the scent and make inquiries myself. “They were much respected when at Shenley, where they kept up a fine country house, and entertained a great deal. They were parishioners of my father, therefore I went there very often.”

“Do you know Mrs Blain well?”

“Quite well.”

“And her daughter?” suggested Dick, much interested. “What’s she like? Pretty?”

“Passable,” I answered, with affected indifference.

“Then they are not a shady family at all?” suggested the detective.

“Not in the least. That is why the fact of Mrs Blain having taken the house is so surprising.”

“It may have been sub-let,” Cleugh observed. “Her friends from abroad may not have arrived after all, and she might have re-let it, a circumstance which seems most likely, as no one appears to have seen her enter the place.”

“At any rate it’s most extraordinary,” I said. Then, turning to Boyd, I asked, “Why not leave the inquiry in that quarter to me? Knowing her, I can obtain information far more easily than you can.”

“Yes,” Cleugh urged. “It would be a better course—much better.”

“Very well,” answered the detective, not, however, without some hesitation. “But be careful not to disclose too much. Try and find out one fact only—the reason she took the house. Leave all the rest to us.”

I promised, and after drinking together over in the refreshment bar at High Street Station we parted, and Cleugh and I took a bus back to our chambers.

He stopped in Holborn to buy some last editions of the papers, while I hurried on, for, being terribly hungry, I wished to give old Mrs Joad early intimation of our readiness for the diurnal steak.

With my latch-key I entered our chambers. The succulent scent of grilled meat greeted my nostrils, and I strode eagerly forward shouting for the Hag.

As I entered the sitting-room I started and drew back. A quick word of apology died from my lips, for out of our single armchair there arose a tall female dark, well-fitting dress, bowing with a grace that was charming.

I saw before me, half concealed beneath a thin black veil, a smiling face eminently pretty, a tiny mouth parted to show an even row of pearly teeth, a countenance that was handsome in every feature.

That pair of eyes peering forth at me held me motionless, dumb. I stood before my visitor, confused and speechless.

Chapter Nine.

The Love of Long Ago.

There are hours in our lives which are apparently without importance, but which, nevertheless, exercise an influence on our destiny.

Little wonder was it that at this instant I stood before my visitor voiceless in amazement, for in her erect, neat figure I recognised the broken idol of those long-past summer days—Mary Blain.

Of all persons she was the one I most desired at that moment to meet. Her letter to me, and her presence in my chambers that evening, were two facts that appeared pre-arranged with some ulterior motive rather than mere coincidence. Not an hour before Boyd had made a most puzzling statement regarding her mother, and here she was, confronting me with that smile I knew so well, as if anxious to make explanation.

“I believe I’ve startled you, Frank,” she exclaimed, laughing, as she held out her gloved hand in greeting. “Is it so long since we met? Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to come here to your chambers, but I wanted to see you. Mother would be furious if she knew. Why didn’t you answer my letter?”

“Forgive me,” I said in excuse. “I’ve been busy. The life of a daily journalist leaves so very little time for correspondence,” and I invited her to be re-seated in our only armchair.

She shrugged her shoulders, smiling dubiously.

“You men are always adepts at the art of excuse,” she remarked.

She was pretty—yes, decidedly pretty. As I sat looking at her, there came back to me vivid recollections of a day that was dead, a day when we had exchanged vows of undying affection and had wandered in secret arm-in-arm along those quiet leafy lanes. She was a girl then, and I not much more than a stripling youth. But we had both grown older now, and other ideas had sprung up in our minds, other jealousies and other loves. Almost four whole years had passed since I had last seen her. She had grown a little more plump and matronly, and in her dark, luminous eyes was a look more serious than in her old hoydenish days at Harwell. How time flies! It did not seem four years since that autumn evening when we parted in the golden sunset. Yet how great had the change been in the fortunes of her purse-proud family, and even in my own life.

There was no love between us now. None. The days were long-past since a woman’s touch and words would make me colour like a girl. Even this meeting when she pressed my hand and her eyelids fluttered, did not re-stir within me the chord of love so long untouched. I had heard of her only as a flirt and fortune-hunter, and had read in the newspapers a paragraph announcing her engagement to the elder son of a millionaire ironfounder of Wigan. Nevertheless, a month ago the papers contained a further paragraph stating that the marriage arranged “would not take place.” Since we had parted she had evidently been through many love adventures. Still, she was nevertheless uncommonly good-looking, with a grace of manner that was perfect.

“I’ve often wondered, Frank, what had become of you,” she said, leaning her elbow on the table, raising her veil and looking straight into my eyes. “We were such real good friends long ago that I’ve never failed to entertain pleasant recollections of our friendship. Once or twice I’ve heard of you through your people, and have now and then read your articles in the magazines. Somehow I’ve felt a keen desire for a long time past to see you and have a chat.”

“I feel honoured,” I answered, perhaps a trifle sarcastically, for mine was but a bitter recollection. “It is certainly pleasant to think that one is remembered after these years.” Then, in order to add irony to my words, I added: “I’ve heard you are engaged.”

“I was,” she responded, glancing at me sharply. “But it is broken off.”

“You found some one you liked better, I presume? It is always so.”

“No, not at all,” she hastened to assure me. “The fact is there was very little love on either side, and we parted quite amicably.”

“As amicably as we did ourselves—eh?”

“No, Frank,” she said with a sudden seriousness, dropping her eyes to the table. “Do not refer to that. With years has come wisdom. We were both foolish, were we not?”

“Perhaps I was when I believed your vow to be a true one,” I responded a trifle bitterly, for I had thought the summer of my life over and at an end.

“Ah, no!” she cried. “I did not come here to reopen an incident that has been so long closed. You love another woman, no doubt.”

“No,” I answered. “I loved you once, until you forsook me. I have not loved since.”

“But I was a mere girl then,” she urged. “Ours was but a midsummer madness—that you’ll surely admit.”

I was silent. I had believed myself proof against all sentiment in this respect, for of late I had thought little, if at all, of my lost love. Yet alone with her at that moment all the bitter past flooded upon me, my wild passion and my shattered hopes, with a vividness that stirred up a great bitterness within me. Not that I loved her now. No. On the contrary, I hated her. She had played others false and treated them just as she had treated me.

“After madness there is always a reaction,” I answered, recollecting how fondly I had once loved her, and how, since the day we parted, my life, even Bohemian as it must ever be in journalistic London, was nevertheless loveless and misanthropic, the life of one whose hopes were shattered and whose joy in living had been sapped. Shenley was but the tomb of those summer recollections. I never now visited the place.

“But all this is very foolish, Frank,” she exclaimed with a calm philosophical air and a smile probably meant to be coquettish. “Why recollect the past?”

“When one has loved as I once did, it is difficult to rid oneself of the memory of its sweetness or its bitterness,” I said. “Your visit here has brought it all back to me—all that I have striven so long and so strenuously to forget.”

She sighed. For a single instant her dark eyes met mine, and then she avoided my gaze.

“I ventured here,” she explained in a low, apologetic tone, “because I believed that our youthful passion had mutually died, and that I might renew your acquaintance not as lover but as friend. If, by coming here, I have pained you, or caused you any particularly unhappy recollections, forgive me, Frank—forgive me,” and she stretched forth her hand and placed it upon my arm with a gesture of deep earnestness and regret.

“Certainly, I forgive you,” I answered, annoyed with myself for having thus worn my heart on my sleeve. It was foolish, I knew. That idyllic love of ours was a mere dream of youth, like the other castles in the air we build when in our teens. It was unwise to have spoken as I had, for after all, truth to tell, I was at that moment secretly glad of my freedom. And why? Because the mysterious woman, whose beauty was perfect, yet whose very existence was an enigma, had awakened within my soul a new-born love.

Since that bright morning when she had first passed me in St. James’s Park my thoughts had been constantly of her. Although I had not exchanged a single word with her I loved her, and all thought of this dark-eyed woman who had once played me false had passed from me.

Thus, angry with myself at having spoken as I had, I strove to remedy whatever impression my words had made by treating my visitor with a studied courtesy, at the same time seeking to discover the real motive of her call. I recollected the mystery, together with the fact that had been elicited regarding the tenancy of the house, and felt convinced that her visit was not without some strong incentive. She either came to me in order to learn something, or else with the object of satisfying herself upon some point remaining in doubt.

This thought flashing through my troubled brain placed me on the alert, and as we with mutual eagerness changed the topic of conversation, I sat gazing into her mobile countenance, filled with ecstatic wonder.

“As you know,” she chattered on, quite frankly, in her rather high-pitched key, “before we left Shenley father had some very heavy losses in the City. At first we found a smaller house simply horrible, but now we are quite used to it, and personally I’m happier there, because we are right on the river and can have such jolly boating.”

“But Riverdene is not such a very small place, surely?” I said. Dick, who knew the river well, had once told me that it was a fine house situated in one of the most picturesque reaches.

“No,” she laughed, “not really so very small, I suppose. But why not come down and see for yourself? Mother often speaks of you, and you know you’re always welcome.”

Now, in ordinary circumstances I should have refused that invitation point-blank, but when I reflected that I was bound to make certain inquiries of Mrs Blain, I, with apparent reluctance, accepted.

“Mother will be most delighted to see you. We have tennis very often, and boating always. It’s awfully jolly. Come down the day after to-morrow—in the afternoon. I shall tell mother that I met you in the street and asked you down. She must, of course, never know that I came here to see you,” and she laughed at her little breach of the convenances.

“Of course not. I won’t give you away,” I said. Then suddenly recollecting, I added: “May I get you a cup of tea?”

“Oh, no, thanks, really,” she answered. “I’ve been in Regent Street to do some shopping, and I had tea there. I was on my way home, but thought that, being alone, I’d venture to try and find you.”

“I’m very glad we have met,” I said enthusiastically, for, truth to tell, I saw in her opportune invitation a means by which I might get at the truth I sought. There was something extremely puzzling in this allegation that the calm-mannered, affable Mrs Blain, whom I had known so well, was the actual tenant of the mysterious house in Phillimore Place. Then, looking at her steadily, I added: “In future our relations shall be, as you suggest, those of friendship, and not of affection—if you really wish.”

“Of course,” she replied. “It is the only sensible solution of the situation. We are both perfectly free, and there is no reason whatever why we should not remain friends—is there?”

“None at all,” I said. “Tell your mother that I shall be most delighted to pay you a visit. You have a boat, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes. And a punt, too. This season I’ve learned to punt quite well.”

I smiled.

“Because that pastime shows off the feminine figure to greatest advantage,” I observed. “Girls who punt generally wear pretty brown shoes, and their dresses just a trifle short, so that as they skip from end to end of the punt they are enabled to display a discreet soupçon of lingerie and open-work stocking—eh?”

“Ah, no,” she protested, laughing. “You’re too sarcastic. Punting is really very good fun.”

“For ladies, no doubt,” I said. “But men prefer sculling. They’ve no waists to show, nor pretty flannel frocks to exhibit to the river crowd.”

“Ah, Frank, you always were a little harsh in your conclusions,” she sighed. “I suppose it is because you sometimes write criticisms. Critics, I have always imagined, should be old and quarrelsome persons—you are not.”

“No,” I responded. “But old critics too often view things through their own philosophical spectacles. The younger school take a much broader view of life. I’m not, however, a critic,” I added, “I’m only a journalist.”

I could hear old Mrs Joad growling to herself because the steak was ready and she could not lay the cloth because of my visitor. Meanwhile, the room had become filled to suffocation with the fumes of frizzling meat, until a blue haze seemed to hang over everything. So used was I to this choking state of things that until that moment I never noticed it. Then I quickly rose and opened the window with a word of apology that the place “smelt stuffy.”

She glanced around the shabby, smoke-mellowed room, and declared that it pleased her. Of course bachelors had to shift for themselves a good deal, she said, yet this place was not at all uncomfortable. I told her of my companion who shared the chambers with me, of his genius as a journalist, and how merrily we kept house together, at which she was much interested. All girls are more or less interested in bachelors’ arrangements.

Our gossip drifted mostly into the bygones—of events at Harwell, and the movements of various mutual friends, when suddenly Dick Cleugh burst into the room crying—

“I say, old chap, there’s another first-class horror! Oh! I beg your pardon,” he said in apology, drawing back on noticing Mary. “I didn’t know you had a visitor; forgive me.”

“Let me introduce you,” I said, laughing at his sudden confusion. “Mr Cleugh—Miss Blain.”

The pair exchanged greetings, when Cleugh, with that merry good humour that never deserted him, said—

“Ladies never come to our den, you know, Miss Blain; therefore please forgive me for blaring like a bull. Our old woman who cleans out the kennels is as deaf as a post, therefore we have contracted a habit of shouting.”

“What is the horror of which you spoke?” she asked, with a forced laugh, I was looking at her at that instant and noticed how unusually pale and agitated her face had suddenly become.

“Oh, only a startling discovery in to-night’s special,” he answered.

“A discovery!” she gasped, “Where?”

He glanced at the paper still in his hand, while she bent forward in her chair with an eagerness impossible of concealment. Her cheeks were pallid, her eyes dark, wild-looking and brilliant.

“The affair,” he said, “seems to have taken place in Loampit Vale, Lewisham.”

“Ah!” she ejaculated, quite involuntarily giving vent to a sigh of relief which Cleugh, quick and observant, did not fail to notice.

My friend threw the paper aside, sniffed at the odour of burnt meat, and suggested that the Hag was endeavouring to asphyxiate us.

“The Hag!” exclaimed Mary, surprised. “Who’s the Hag!”

“Old Mrs Joad,” responded Dick. “We call her that, first, because she’s so ugly; and secondly, because when she’s cooking for us she croons to herself like the Witch of Endor.”

“She certainly is decidedly ugly with that cross-eye of hers. It struck me, too, that she had an ancient and witch-like aspect when she admitted me,” she laughed.

Thus we chatted on until the bell on the Hall struck seven and she rose to go, first, however, inviting Dick to accompany me to Riverdene, an invitation which he gladly accepted. Then she bade him adieu and I accompanied her out into Holborn, where I placed her in a taxi for Waterloo.

On re-entering the room, Dick’s first exclamation was—

“Did you notice how her face changed when I mentioned the horror?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Her name’s Blain, and I presume she’s the daughter of Mrs Blain who is tenant of that house in Kensington?”

I nodded.

“An old flame of yours. I remember now that you once spoke of her.”

“Quite true.”

“Well, old fellow,” he said, “it was quite apparent when I mentioned the tragedy that she feared the discovery had been made in Kensington. Depend upon it she can, if she likes, tell us a good deal.”

“Yes,” I answered thoughtfully, “I agree with you entirely, Dick. I believe she can.”

Chapter Ten.

On the Silent Highway.

Whatever might have been Mary’s object in thus renewing my acquaintance at the very moment when I was about to seek her, one thing alone was apparent—she feared the revelation of the tragic affair at Kensington. There are times when men and women, whatever mastery they may possess over their countenances, must involuntarily betray joy or fear in a manner unmistakable. Those sudden and entirely unintentional words of Dick’s had, for the moment, frozen her heart. And yet it was incredible that she could have any connexion with this affair, so inexplicable that Superintendent Shaw, the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, had himself visited the house, and, according to what Boyd had told me, had expressed himself utterly bewildered.

Next day passed uneventfully, but on the following afternoon we took train to Shepperton, where at the station we found Simpson, the chauffeur who had been at Shenley, awaiting us with a smart motor-car, in which we drove along the white winding road to Riverdene.

Dick’s description of the place was certainly not in the least exaggerated when he had said that it was one of the most charming old places on the Thames. Approached from the highway by a long drive through a thick belt of elms and beeches, it stood, a long, old-fashioned house, covered with honeysuckle and roses, facing the river, with a broad, well-kept lawn sloping down to the water’s edge. The gardens on either side were filled with bright flowers, the high leafy trees overshadowed the house and kept it delightfully cool, and the tent on the lawn and the several hammocks slung in the shadow testified to the ease and repose of those who lived there. Many riparian residences had I seen during my frequent picnics and Sunday excursions up and down the various reaches, but for picturesqueness, perfect quiet and rural beauty, none could compare with this. I had expected to find a mere cottage, or at most a villa, the humble retreat of a half-ruined man; yet on the contrary it was a fine house, furnished with an elegance that was surprising, with men-servants and every evidence of wealth. City men, I reflected, made money fast, and without doubt old Henry Blain had regained long ago all that he had lost.

How beautiful, how tranquil was that spot, how sweet-smelling that wealth of trailing roses which entirely hid one-half the house after the dust and stuffiness of Fleet Street, the incessant rattle of traffic, and the hoarse shouting of “the winners.” Beyond the lawn, which we now crossed to greet our hostess and her daughter, the river ran cool and deep, with its surface unruffled, so that the high poplars on the opposite bank were reflected into it with all their detail and colour as in a mirror. It was a warm afternoon, and during our drive the sun had beat down upon us mercilessly, but here in the shadow all was delightfully cool and refreshing. The porch of the house facing the river was one mass of yellow roses, which spread their fragrance everywhere.

Mrs Blain was seated in a wicker chair with some needlework, while Mary was lying in a chaise-longue reading the latest novel from Mudie’s, and our footsteps falling noiselessly upon the turf, neither noticed our approach until we stood before them.

“I’m so very pleased you’ve come, Frank,” exclaimed the elder lady, starting forward enthusiastically as she put down her work, “and I’m delighted to meet your friend. I have heard of you both several times through your father. I wonder he doesn’t exchange his living with some one. He seems so very unwell of late. I’ve always thought that Harwell doesn’t suit him.”

“He has tried on several occasions, but the offers he has had are in towns in the North of England, so he prefers Berkshire,” I answered.

“Well,” she said, inviting us both to be seated in comfortable wicker chairs standing near, “it is really very pleasant to see you again. Mary has spoken of you, and wondered how you were so many, many times.”

“I’m sure,” I said, “the pleasure is mutual.”

Dick, after I had introduced him to Mrs Blain, had seated himself at Mary’s side and was chatting to her, while I, leaning back in my chair, looked at this woman before me and remembered the object of my visit. There was certainly nothing in her face to arouse suspicion. She was perhaps fifty, with just a sign of grey hairs, dark-eyed, with a nose of that type one associates with employers of labour. A trifle inclined to embonpoint, she was a typical, well-preserved Englishwoman of motherly disposition, even though by birth she was of one of the first Shropshire families, and in the days of Shenley she had been quite a prominent figure in the May flutter of London. I had liked her exceedingly, for she had shown me many kindnesses. Indeed, she had distinctly favoured the match between Mary and myself, although her husband, a bustling, busy man, had scouted the idea. This Mary herself had told me long ago in those dreamy days of sweet confidences. The thought that she was in any way implicated in the mysterious affair under investigation seemed absolutely absurd, and I laughed within myself.

She was dressed, as she always had dressed after luncheon, in black satin duchesse, a quiet elegance which I think rather created an illusion that she was stout, and as she arranged her needlework aside in order to chat to me, she sighed as matronly ladies are wont to sigh during the drowsy after-luncheon hours.

From time to time I turned and laughed with Mary as she gaily sought my opinion on this and on that. She was dressed in dark blue serge trimmed with narrow white braid, her sailor hat cast aside lying on the grass, a smart river costume of a chic familiar to me in the fashion-plates of the ladies’ papers. As she lay back, her head pillowed on the cushion, there was in her eyes that coquettish smile, and she laughed that ringing musical laugh as of old.

A boatful of merrymakers went by, looking across, and no doubt envying us our ease, for sculling out there in the blazing sun could scarcely be a pleasure. Judging from their appearance they were shop-assistants making the best of the Thursday early-closing movement—a movement which happily gives the slaves of suburban counters opportunity for healthful recreation. The boat was laden to overflowing, and prominent in the bows was the inevitable basket of provisions and the tin kettle for making tea.

“It’s too hot, as yet, to go out,” Mary said, watching them. “We’ll go later.”

“Very well,” Dick answered. “I shall be delighted. I love the river, but since my Cambridge days I’ve unfortunately had but little opportunity for sculling.”

“You newspaper men,” observed Mrs Blain, addressing me, “must have very little leisure, I think. The newspapers are always full. Isn’t it very difficult to fill the pages?”

“No,” I answered. “That’s a common error. To every newspaper in the kingdom there comes daily sufficient news of one sort or another to fill three sheets the same size. The duty of the journalist, if, of course, he is not a reporter or leader-writer, is to make a judicious selection as to what he shall publish and what he shall omit. It is this that wears out one’s brains.”

“But the reporters,” she continued—“I mean those men who go and hunt up details of horrors, crimes and such things—are they well paid?”

That struck me as a strange question, and I think I must have glanced at her rather inquiringly.

“They are paid as well as most professions are paid nowadays,” I answered. “Better, perhaps, than some.”

“And their duty is to make inquiries and scrape up all kinds of details, just like detectives, I’ve heard it said. Is that so?”

“Exactly,” I replied. “One of the cleverest men in that branch of journalism is our friend here, Mr Cleugh.”

She looked at the man I indicated, and I thought her face went slightly paler. It may, however, only have been in my imagination.

“Is he really one of those?” she inquired in a low undertone.

“Yes,” I responded. “In all Fleet Street, he’s the shrewdest man in hunting out the truth. He is the Comet man, and may claim to have originated the reporter-investigation branch of journalism.”

She was silent for a few moments. Lines appeared between her eyes. Then she took up her needlework, as if to divert her thoughts.

“And Mr Blain?” I asked at last, in want of some better topic. “How is he?”

“Oh, busy as usual. He’s in Paris. He went a fortnight ago upon business connected with some company he is bringing out, and has not been able to get back yet. We shall join him for a week or two, only I so much dislike the Channel crossing. Besides, it is really very pleasant here just now.”

“Delightful,” I answered, looking round upon the peaceful scene. At the steps, opposite where we sat, was moored a motor-boat, together with Mary’s punt, a light wood one with crimson cushions, while behind us was a well-kept tennis-court.

Tea was brought after we had gossiped nearly an hour, and while we were taking it a boat suddenly drew up at the landing-stage, being hailed by Mary, who jumped up enthusiastically to welcome its occupants. These were two young men of rather dandified air and a young girl of twenty, smartly dressed, but not at all good-looking, whom I afterwards learnt was sister to the elder of her companions. When the boat was at last moored, and the trio landed amid much shouting and merriment, I was introduced to them. The name of sister and brother was Moberly, a family who lived somewhere up beyond Bell Weir, and their companion was a guest at their house.

“We thought we’d just catch you at tea, Mrs Blain,” cried Doris Moberly as she sprang ashore. “And we are so frightfully thirsty.”

“Come along, then,” said the elder lady. “Sit down, my dear. We have it all ready.”

And so the three joined us, and the circle quickly became a very merry one.

“They kept us so long in the lock that I feared tea would be all over before we arrived,” young Moberly said, with a rather affected drawl. He appeared to be one of those young sprigs of the city who travel first-class, read the Times, and ape the aristocrat.

“Yes,” Doris went on, “there was a slight collision between a barge and a launch, resulting in lots of strong language, and that delayed us, otherwise we should have been here half an hour ago.”

“Did you call on the Binsteads?” Mary asked. “You know their house-boat, the Flame? It’s moored just at the bend, half-way between the Lock and Staines Bridge.”

“We passed it, but the blinds were down. They were evidently taking a nap. So we didn’t hail them,” Doris responded.

Then the conversation drifted upon river topics, as it always drifts with those who spend the summer days idling about the upper reaches of the Thames—of punts, motor-launches, and sailing; of the prospects of regattas and the dresses at Sunbury Lock on the previous Sunday. They were all river enthusiasts, and river enthusiasm is a malady extremely contagious with those doomed to spend the dog-days gasping in a dusty office in stifled London.

After tea followed tennis as a natural sequence, and while Moberly and his sister played with Dick and the youth who had accompanied the Moberlys, Mary and I wandered away into the wood which skirted the grounds of Riverdene. She was bright and merry, quite her old self of Shenley days, save perhaps for a graver look which now and then came to her eyes. She showed me the extent of their grounds and led me down a narrow path in the dark shadow to the bank to show me a nest of kingfishers. The spot was so peaceful and rural that one could scarcely believe one’s self but twenty miles from London. The kingfisher, startled by our presence, flashed by us like a living emerald in the sunlight; black-headed buntings flitted alongside among the reeds, and the shy sedge warbler poured out his chattering imitations, while here and there we caught sight of moor-hens down in the sedge.

She had, I found, developed a love for fishing, for she took me further down where the willows trailed into the stream, and pointed out the swirl over the gravel where trout were known to lie, showed me a bush-shaped depth where she had caught many a big perch, and a long swim where, she said, were excellent roach.

“And you are happier here than you were at Shenley?” I inquired, as we were strolling back together, both bareheaded, she with her hat swinging in her hand.

“Happy? Oh, yes,” and she sighed, with her eyes cast upon the ground.

“That sigh of yours does not denote happiness,” I remarked, glancing at her. “What troubles you?”

“Nothing,” she declared, looking up at me with a forced smile.

“It is puzzling to me, Mary,” I said seriously, “that in all this time you’ve not married. You were engaged, yet it was broken off. Why?”

At my demand she answered, with a firmness that surprised me, “I will never marry a man I don’t love—never.”

“Then it was at your father’s suggestion—that proposed marriage of yours?”

“Of course, I hated him.”

“Surely it was unwise to allow the announcement to get into the papers, wasn’t it?”

“It was my father’s doing, not mine,” she responded. “When it was broken off I hastened to publish the contradiction.”

“On reading the first announcement,” I said, “I imagined that you had at length found a man whom you loved, and that you would marry and be happy. I am sure I regret that it is not so.”

“Why?” she asked, regarding me with some surprise. “Do you wish to see me married, then?”

“Not to a man you cannot love,” I hastened to assure her. I was trying to learn from her the reason of her sudden renewed friendship and confidence, yet she was careful not to refer to it. Her extreme care in this particular was, in itself, suspicious.

Her effort at coquetry when at my chambers two days before made it apparent that she was prepared to accept my love, if I so desired. Yet the remembrance of Eva Glaslyn was ever in my mind. This woman at my side had once played me false, and had caused a rent in my heart which was difficult to heal. She was pretty and charming, without doubt, yet she had never been frank, even in those long-past days at Shenley. Once again I told myself that the only woman I had looked upon with thoughts of real genuine affection was the mysterious Eva, whom once, with my own eyes, I had seen cold and dead. When I reflected upon the latter fact I became puzzled almost to the verge of madness.

Yet upon me, situated as I was, devolved the duty of solving the enigma.

Life, looked at philosophically, is a long succession of chances. It is a game of hazard played by the individual against the multiform forces to which we give the name of “circumstance,” with cards whose real strength is always either more or less than their face value, and which are “packed” and “forced” with an astuteness which would baffle the wiliest sharper. There are times in the game when the cards held by the mortal player have no value at all, when what seem to us kings, queens, and aces change to mere blanks; there are other moments when ignoble twos and threes flush into trumps and enable us to triumphantly sweep the board. Briefly, life is a game of roulette wherein we always play en plein.

As, walking at her side, I looked into her handsome face there came upon me a feeling of mournful disappointment.

Had we met like this a week before and she had spoken so softly to me I should, I verily believe, have repeated my declaration of love. But the time had passed, and all had changed. My gaze had been lost in the immensity of a pair of wondrous azure eyes. I, who tired before my time, world-weary, despondent and cynical, was angry and contemptuous at the success of my companions, had actually awakened to a new desire for life.

So I allowed this woman I had once loved to chatter on, listening to her light gossip, and now and then putting a question to her with a view to learning something of her connexion with that house of mystery. Still she told me nothing—absolutely nothing. Without apparent intention she evaded any direct question I put to her, and seemed brimming over with good spirits and merriment.

“It has been quite like old times to have a stroll and a chat with you, Frank,” she declared, as we emerged at last upon the lawn, where tennis was still in progress. The sun was now declining, the shadows lengthening, and a refreshing wind was already beginning to stir the tops of the elms.

“Yes,” I laughed. “Of our long walks around Harwell I have many pleasant recollections. Do you remember how secretly we used to meet, fearing the anger of your people; how sometimes I used to wait hours for you, and how we used to imagine that our love would last always?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “I recollect, too, how I used to send you notes down by one of the stable lads, and pay him with sweets.”

I laughed again.

“All that has gone by,” I said. “In those days of our experience we believed that our mutual liking was actual love. Even if we now smile at our recollections, they were, nevertheless, the happiest hours of all our lives. Love is never so fervent and devoted as in early youth.”

“Ah!” she answered in a serious tone. “You are quite right. I have never since those days known what it is to really love.”

I glanced at her sharply. Her eyes were cast upon the ground in sudden melancholy.

Was that speech of hers a veiled declaration that she loved me still! I held my breath for an instant, then looking straight before me, saw, standing a few yards away, in conversation with Mrs Blain, a female figure in a boating costume of cream flannel braided with coral pink.

“Look?” I exclaimed, glad to avoid responding. “You have another visitor, I think.”

She glanced in the direction I indicated, then hastened forward to greet the new-comer.

The slim-waisted figure turned, and next second I recognised the strikingly handsome profile of Eva Glaslyn, the mysterious woman I secretly loved with such passionate ardour and affection.

“Come, Frank, let me introduce you,” Mary cried, after enthusiastically kissing her friend.

I stepped forward, and as I did so, she turned and fixed on me her large, blue laughing eyes. Not a look, not an expression of her pure countenance was altered.

As I gazed into those eyes I saw that they were as dear as the purest crystal, and that I could look through them straight into her very soul. I bowed and grasped the tiny, refined hand she held forth to me—that soft hand which I had once before touched—when it was cold and lifeless.

Chapter Eleven.

Beauty at the Helm.

Together we stood on the lawn near the river-bank gossiping, and as I looked into Eva’s flawless face, whereon the expression had now become softened, I longed to tell her the most sacred secret of my heart. Had she, I wondered, recognised in me the man she encountered in St. James’s Park when on that mysterious errand of hers? What could have been the nature of that errand? Whom did she go there to meet?

One fact was at that moment to me more curious than all others, namely, her friendship with Mrs Blain, the woman who, according to the landlord, rented that house of mystery. By the exercise of care and discretion, I might, I told myself, learn something which would perhaps lead, if not to the solution of the enigma, then to some clue upon which the police might work. But to accomplish this I should be compelled to exercise the most extreme caution, for both mother and daughter were evidently acute to detect any attempt to gain their secret, while it seemed more than probable that Eva herself—if actually aware of the affair, which was, of course, not quite certain—had some motive in keeping all knowledge of it concealed.

Who, a hundred times I wondered, was the man who, after lingering opposite Buckingham Palace, had entered the house in Ebury Street? Without doubt Eva had gone to the park to meet him, but it seemed that, growing impatient, or fearful of recognition by others, she had left before his arrival.

True, the police had watched the house wherein the man disappeared, but up to the present he had not been seen again. Boyd had told me, when I had seen him that very morning, that he had left by some exit at the rear, and that his entry there was only to throw any watcher off the scent.

It was evident that the man, whoever he was, had very ingeniously got clear away.

Dick, who was playing tennis, at last came forward to be introduced to my divinity, and presently whispered to me his great admiration for her. I was about to tell him who she really was, but on reflection felt that I could act with greater discretion if the truth remained mine alone, together with the secret of my love for her. Therefore I held my peace, and he, in ignorance that she was the missing victim of that amazing tragedy, walked at her side along the water’s edge, laughing merrily, and greatly enjoying her companionship.

Mrs Blain invited us all to dine, but the Moberlys were compelled to decline, they having a party of friends at home. Therefore, we saw them off amid many shouts, hand-wavings and peals of laughter, and when they had gone we sat again on the lawn, now brilliant in the golden blaze of sundown.

It still wanted an hour to dinner, therefore Mary suggested that we all four should go out on the water, a proposal accepted with mutual enthusiasm. As I was not an expert in punting, Mary and Dick pushed off in the punt, the former handling the long pole with a deftness acquired by constant practice, while, with Eva Glaslyn in the stern of a gig, I rolled up my sleeves and bent to the oars.

The sunset was one of those gorgeous combinations of crimson and gold which those who frequent the Thames know so well. Upstream the flood of crimson of the dying day caused the elms and willows to stand out black against the cloudless sky, while every ripple caused by the boat caught the sun-glow until the water seemed red as blood.

A great peace was there. Not a single boat was in sight, not a sound save the quiet lapping of the water against the bows and the slight dripping of the oars as I feathered them. We were rowing upstream, so that the return would be easier, while Dick and his companion had punted down towards Chertsey. For the first time I was now alone with her. She was lovely.

She had settled herself lazily among the cushions, lying back at her ease and enjoying to the full the calm of the sunset hour, remarking now and then upon the beauty of the scene and the charm of summer days upstream. Her countenance was animated and perfect in feature, distinctly more beautiful than it had been on that well-remembered night when I had found her lying back cold and lifeless. How strange it all was, I thought, that I should actually be rowing her there, when only a few days before I had beheld her stiff and dead. Alone, with no one to overhear, I would have put a direct inquiry to her regarding the past, but I feared that such question, if put prematurely, might prevent the elucidation of the secret. To get at the truth I must act diplomatically, and exercise the greatest caution.

I sat facing her, bending with the oars, while she chatted on in a voice that sounded as music to my ears.

“I love the river,” she said. “Last year we had a house-boat up beyond Boulter’s, and it was delightful. There is really great fun in being boxed up in so small a space, and one can also make one’s place exceedingly artistic and comfortable at very small expense. We had a ripping time.”

“It is curious,” I remarked, “that most owners of house-boats go in for the same style of external decoration—rows of geraniums along the roof, and strings of Chinese lanterns—look at that one over there.”

“Yes,” she laughed, glancing in the direction I indicated. “I fear we were also sinners in that respect. It’s so difficult to devise anything new.” And she added, “Are you up the river much?”

“No,” I responded, “not much, unfortunately. My profession keeps me in London, and I generally like to spend my three weeks’ vacation on the Continent. I’m fond of getting a glance at other cities, and one travels so quickly that the thing is quite easy.”

“There are always more girls than men up the river,” she said. “I suppose it is because men are at business and girls have to kill time. We live down at Hampton, not far from the river. It’s a quiet, dead-alive sort of place, and if it were not for boating and punting it would be horribly dull.”

“And in winter?”

“Oh, in winter we are always on the Riviera. We go to Cannes each December and stay till the end of April. Mother declares she could not live through an English winter.”

This statement did not coincide with what the innkeeper’s wife had told me, namely, that the Glaslyns were much pressed for money.

“I spent one season in Nice a few years ago,” I said. “It is certainly charming, and I hope to go there again.”

“But is not our own Thames, with all its natural picturesqueness, quite as beautiful in its way?” she asked, looking around. “I love it. People who have been up the Rhine and the Rhone, the Moselle and the Loire, say that for picturesque scenery none of those great European rivers compare with ours.”

“I believe that to be quite true,” I answered. “Like yourself, I am extremely fond of boating and picnicking.”

“We often have picnics,” she said. “I’ll get mother to invite you to the next—if you’ll come.”

“Certainly,” I answered, much gratified. “I shall be only too delighted.”

We were at that moment passing two fine house-boats moored near one another, one of which my companion explained belonged to a well-known City stockbroker, and the other to a barrister of repute at the Chancery Bar. Both were gay with the usual geraniums and creepers, having inviting-looking deck-chairs on the roof and canaries in gilded cages hanging at the windows.

“Shall we go up the backwater?” she suddenly suggested. “It is more beautiful there than the main stream. We might get some lilies.”

“Of course,” I answered, and with a pull to the left turned the boat into the narrower stream branching out at the left, a stream that wound among fertile meadows yellow with buttercups, and where long lines of willows trailed in the water.

I was hot after a pretty stiff pull; therefore, when we had gone some distance, I leaned on the oars, allowing the boat to drift on under the bank where the long rushes waved in the stream and the pure white of the water-lilies showed against the dark green of floating leaves. Heedless of the rudder-lines, Eva leaned over and gathered some, trailing her hand in the water.

“How quiet and pleasant it is here,” she remarked, her calm, sweet, beautiful face showing what a great peace had come to her at that moment. It may not have been quite in keeping with the convenances that she should have gone out like this alone with me, a comparative stranger, yet girls of to-day think little of such things, and she was nothing if not modern in dress, speech and frankness of manner.

We were far from the haunts of men in that calm hour of the dying day. Indeed, already the crimson of the sun was fading into the rose of the afterglow, and the stillness precursory of nightfall was complete save for the rustle of some water-rat or otter among the sedge, or the swift flight of a night-bird across the bosom of the stream. The shadows were changing and the glow on the water was turning from one colour to another. The cattle had come down to the brink, and wading to their knees, whisked the flies away with their tails as they slowly chewed the cud.

“Yes,” I agreed. “There is rest, perfect and complete, here. How different to London!”

“Ah, yes,” she answered. “I hate London, and very seldom go there, except when necessity compels us to do shopping.”

“Why do you hate it?” I asked, at once pricking up my ears. “Have you any especial reason for disliking it?”

“Well, no,” she laughed. “I suppose it’s the noise and bustle and hurry that I don’t like. I’m essentially a lover of the country. Even theatres, concerts and such-like amusements have but little attraction for me. I know it sounds rather absurd that a girl should make such a declaration, but I assure you I speak the truth.”

I did not doubt her. Any one with an open face like hers could not be guilty of lying. That statement was, in itself, an index to her character. She possessed a higher mind than most women, and was something of a philosopher. Truth to tell, this fact surprised me, for I had until then regarded her as of the usual type of the educated woman of to-day, a woman with a penchant for smartness in dress, freedom of language, and the entertainment of the modern music-hall in preference to opera.

I was gratified by my discovery. She was a woman with a soul beyond these things, with a sweet, lovable disposition—a woman far above all others. She was my idol. In those moments my love increased to a mad passion, and I longed to imprint a kiss upon those smiling lips, and to take her in my arms to tell her the secret that I dared not allow to pass my lips.

She leaned backwards on the cushions; her hands were tightly clasped behind her head; her sleeves fell back, showing her well-moulded arms; her sweet, childlike face was turned upward, with her blue eyes watching me through half-closed lids; her small mouth was but half shut; she smiled a little.

It entranced me to look upon her. For the first time the loveliness of a woman had made me blind and stupid.

I wanted to know more of the cause of her dislike of London, for I had scented suspicion in her words. Nevertheless, through all, she preserved a slight rigidity of manner, and I feared to put any further question at that moment.

Thus we rested in silence, dreaming in the darkening hour.

I sat facing her, glancing furtively at her countenance and wondering how she had become a victim in that inexplicable tragedy. By what means had she been spirited from that mysterious house and another victim placed there in her stead? All was an enigma, insoluble, inscrutable.

To be there with her, to exchange confidences as we had done, and to chat lightly upon river topics all gave me the greatest gratification. To have met her thus was an unexpected stroke of good fortune, and I was overjoyed by her spontaneous promise to invite me to one of their own river-parties.

Joy is the sunshine of the soul. At that restful hour I drank in the sweetness of her eyes, for I was in glamour-land, and my companion was truly enchanting.

We must have remained there fully half an hour, for when I suddenly looked at my watch and realised that we must in any case be late for dinner, the light in the wild red heavens had died away, the soft pale rose-pink had faded, and in the stillness of twilight there seemed a wide, profound mystery.

“We must be getting back,” I said quickly, pulling the boat out into mid-stream with a long stroke.

“Yes. The Blains will wonder wherever we’ve been,” she laughed. “Mary will accuse you of flirting with me.”

“Would that be such a very grave accusation?” I asked, smiling.

“Ah, that I really don’t know,” she answered gaily. “You would be the accused.”

“But neither of us are guilty, therefore we can return with absolutely clear consciences, can’t we?”

“Certainly,” she laughed. Then, after a brief pause, she asked, “Why did you not bring Mary out in preference to me?”