William Le Queux (continued 3)

By the aid of my probe I satisfied myself that the bone was not fractured, as it would have been by a deliberate blow dealt from behind. The nature of the wound, indeed, was very much as if it had been caused by the unfortunate man’s head coming into contact with some sharp stone.

Then, after very careful investigation, lasting over half an hour, during which I took a number of accurate measurements which might be used later in the identification of the weapon, I came to the rather vague conclusion that the crime had been committed not by a blow, but by hurling the victim from the little bridge below which he had been found.

“Do you believe that death was instantaneous?”

“I am not certain,” I responded. “There is no injury to the spinal column which could have caused death. He was, without doubt, pinioned from behind, at the moment he had crossed the foot-bridge, and thrown backward, rolling down the bank into the lake.”

“His shirt-stud has gone,” remarked the detective. “That looks like robbery.”

“I don’t think so,” I answered.

“Why not?”

“Well, do you notice a long green mark there?” I said, pointing to the limp shirt-front. “You see that it runs straight across the stud-hole. By that mark I feel assured there was no robbery.”

“I see the mark,” Bullen answered, “but at the same time, I don’t quite see your argument.”

“That mark was made by a damp branch or bramble. When he fell he tumbled backward into the bushes, and, crashing through them, rolled into the water. One of the branches caught his shirt-stud and broke it out. If you have a strict search made you will find it somewhere near where he fell. His watch and chain and ring are still upon him, you will notice.”

“I quite understand your theory,” he responded. “I will order active search to be made, for it is an important point whether the murder was done by thieves whom he discovered upon his property. It might have been that burglars were lurking there, and, being disturbed by him, they killed him in order to prevent an alarm being raised.”

“I scarcely think that,” I argued. “If they were burglars they would not have attacked him from behind without any ulterior motive. They would have remained in hiding.”

“But how do you account for him wandering about the park at that hour?” asked the detective.

“That point can only be cleared up by his widow,” I exclaimed. “I think we should see Mrs Chetwode without delay.”

With this suggestion he agreed, and having rearranged the body, I left it to the police surgeon to make his post-mortem.

Out in the corridor we met the butler, by whom Bullen sent his card to the widow with the request that she would grant us an interview.

Ten minutes later we were received in the morning-room by a pale, fair-haired, rather fragile woman, the redness of whose eyes told plainly that she had been crying, but whose improvised mourning became her well. She was perhaps thirty, certainly not more, rather handsome, with an air of self-conceit, and a slightly cockney accent in her voice, which told me that she was not quite so well bred as one might have expected the mistress of Whitton to have been.

Bullen apologised for being compelled to intrude upon her privacy, but explained that it was necessary to make searching inquiries into the painful affair, and he would therefore esteem it a favour if she would answer one or two questions.

To this she assented willingly, and, asking us to be seated, sank into an armchair.

The detective had not introduced me, therefore she no doubt believed me to be an emissary of Scotland Yard.

“Have you any idea of the hour at which the Colonel left the house?” asked Bullen.

“No. I think, however, it must have been about half-past ten,” she responded in a hard voice.

I was watching her carefully, and saw by the nervous twitching of her hands that she was striving to calm the conflicting emotions within her. She kept her eyes—beautiful eyes of almost a violet tint—fixed upon her examiner.

“But if he went out as early as that, you would surely wonder why he did not return?” observed the detective.

“Ah, no,” she said quickly. “I was in ignorance of his absence until—until my maid awoke me at a quarter-past five this morning, and told me of the awful discovery.”

She pursed her lips very slightly. That almost imperceptible movement aroused my suspicions. I had been told that she was on bad terms with the dead man, and probably that had prejudiced me against her.

“Then he went out without your knowledge? Will you kindly tell me how you spent the evening?!”

“How I spent the evening?” she asked with a slight start.

“I mean how you all spent the evening,” he said, correcting himself. “You had guests here, I understand.”

“Yes; we had quite a number of people. And after dinner, as usual, the men played billiards and smoked, while we women remained in the drawing-room. About half-past nine the men joined us, a couple of dances were played, some songs were sung, and the evening passed without further event, as far as I am aware.”

“But your husband?”

“Well, about half-past ten he came to me and said that he was not feeling very well, therefore he should go to his room.”

“And you never again saw him alive?”

“No,” she faltered. “When I saw him again he was down in the hall. Some men were carrying him in—dead! Oh, it’s awful! I—I can’t realise it!” And she burst into a torrent of tears.

“It certainly is a most painful affair,” said Bullen, sympathetically; “but we are striving our utmost to solve the mystery. Therefore, I trust you will forgive me for seeking this interview. Whatever information you can give us will assist us very materially in our inquiries.”

“I don’t think I can tell you anything more,” declared the distressed woman.

“But what is your theory? Do you believe that the announcement that he was not feeling well was a mere excuse for absence?”

“Ah, that I cannot tell,” she responded. “The house was locked up at midnight, and it was evident that he was out then, for this morning all the doors were bolted, and the windows were found fastened, just as the servants had left them.”

“Well,” he said, “that shows that he went out before the house was locked up. Were any of the other guests out in the park?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she replied, after a second’s hesitation. “Of course the men went out upon the drive in front of the house, and walked up and down to smoke after dinner.”

“From your statement it would almost appear as though your husband went out to keep some secret appointment. Have you any suspicion that he had arranged to meet any one?”

“None whatever.”

“And he had never mentioned to you any single person with whom he was at enmity?”

“Never.”

“I presume that most of the guests who were here last night have since left?”

“All have left. I am practically alone.”

“I shall be glad if, as soon as you can do so, you will kindly make me out a list of your guests, together with their addresses. We may not require it, but in this matter we must not overlook a single point.”

“But surely you don’t suspect any of them?” she exclaimed quickly.

“We suspect no one, at present,” he responded. “But in order to prosecute our inquiries satisfactorily, it is necessary to know exactly who was in the house at the time of the tragedy.”

“Oh, of course—of course,” she said. “I will make out the list and let you have it in the course of an hour—if that will do?”

“Excellent,” the detective said.

Bullen glanced across to a half-open door, which appeared to give entrance to the library, saying—

“If you will permit us, we will examine the Colonel’s papers; they may give us some clue. It is just possible that he received a letter making the appointment in the park.”

“You are quite at liberty to act just as you think best,” she answered with perfect frankness.

He thanked her, and then tactfully turned the conversation back to the events of the previous night. It might have been owing to the prejudice which I entertained towards her, but somehow she seemed anxious to avoid any remark regarding the period immediately preceding the tragedy. Naturally a wife whose husband has been foully assassinated in a manner so mysterious, would look back in horror upon past events; but in some strange, indefinite way she seemed to hold our presence in dread.

Bullen, not slow to notice this, continued to ply her with questions in order to obtain further details of how the hours after dinner had been spent.

“Who saw your husband last?” he inquired.

“I don’t know for certain. I believe it was one of the guests—a Mr Durrant, with whom he had played billiards.”

“After he had complained to you of not feeling well?”

“No; he played billiards before,” she answered. Then readily added, “On leaving me he returned to the billiard-room to fetch his cigar-case. It was then he wished Mr Durrant good-night.”

“Did he tell him, also, that he was unwell?”

“Yes, I believe so. But Mr Durrant sent a card of sympathy to my room and left without seeing me. I therefore only know this by hearsay from the servants.”

“You have a stepson—Lieutenant Chetwode. Where was he?”

“With me in the drawing-room. Ah! here he comes.” And at that moment a thin, dark-haired, well-set-up young man entered, eyeing us with an inquiring glance.

This, then, was my wife’s lover.

Briefly the widow explained who we were, and, in reply to Bullen’s questions, the dead man’s son described how his father had managed to slip out unobserved, and how his absence had passed unnoticed until the awful discovery had been made in the morning.

“You have no suspicion that he had any enemy, I suppose?” the detective asked.

“None whatever. The terrible affair is a most profound mystery.”

“Yes,” said Bullen reflectively, his grey eyes fixed upon those of the widow; “it’s a mystery we must try to solve.”

“I hope you will,” the young man exclaimed. “My father has fallen beneath the hands of some cowardly assassin concealed in those bushes down by the lake—he was the victim of the revenge of some person unknown.”

“What makes you think the motive was revenge?” inquired the detective, quick to scent any clue.

The widow and her stepson exchanged rapid glances. I was watching, and it occurred to me that some secret understanding existed between them. My friend of the Red Lion had declared that they were enemies, but to me it certainly appeared as though they were acting in complete accord.

“Oh,” responded Cyril Chetwode, rather lamely, “I merely suppose that.”

“Revenge for what?”

“Ah! if we only knew the reason it would not be difficult to find the murderer,” answered the man who loved my wife. “It may be that some person sought revenge for an imaginary grievance.”

“But why was the Colonel walking at that lonely spot at that hour? He must have had an object. It looks suspiciously as though he went to keep a secret appointment. The excuse that he was ill seems to have been made with a view to securing his room from intruders who might disturb him.”

“He may have kept an appointment,” his son replied. “But only he himself could tell us the truth.”

The detective acquiesced, and after some further conversation, in which I joined, he rose, and passing through into the library, commenced an examination of the papers lying on the writing-table. With my rival in the affections of the woman who was my wife, I assisted him, while the widow stood behind us watching, her face pale and anxious and her nervous hands trembling.

She was in fear. Of that I felt absolutely convinced. But what discovery did she dread?

While we were bending, examining the contents of one of the drawers, which was full of papers relating to the Colonel’s duty as a justice of the peace—for it was here that he performed his judicial work—his widow stood behind me, and, with a quick movement, sidled up to her stepson. The next instant it occurred to me that she had passed something to him; but, pretending to be engrossed in the papers, I made no sign that I had observed their rapid exchange.

“Have you found anything?” she inquired calmly, after a few moments.

“No; nothing, unfortunately,” Bullen responded. And then, having searched the room from top to bottom, suggested a move to the Colonel’s bedroom.

Here the search, both of the clothes in his wardrobe and of the room wherein he usually slept, likewise proved fruitless. After twenty minutes or so, however, I contrived, while the others were busy turning over the dead man’s effects, to slip back to the library. Young Chetwode had, at the moment when the suspicious movement had been made behind me, stood with his back to the black marble mantelshelf, and it was to examine this that I returned. While doing so I suddenly found a crack between the wall and the upright marble support, where the plaster had dried out by the heat of the winter fires, and, peering within, I saw something concealed there.

With the aid of my scarf-pin I managed to pick it out, and found that it was an unmounted photograph that had been crumpled in the hand and was dirty. Mrs Chetwode had managed to seize it before we could discover it, and the stepson had concealed it in that ingenious hiding-place.

I spread it out; the picture I gazed upon was both startling and ghastly. It was a portrait of Beryl, my love, supported by pillows, her face expressionless, her eyes closed.

The hideous truth was plain. The photograph had been taken after death!

Chapter Fifteen.

The Grey House.

I placed the mysterious picture in my pocket and remained silent. That my wife had been photographed after death there could be no doubt, for I, as a medical man, was, alas! too well acquainted with the appearance of a face from which life had faded, as distinguished from that of one asleep or under the influence of an anaesthetic.

Yet she was now living, bright, vivacious, and defiant! Had I not stood near her, seen her silhouette in the darkness, and heard the sweet music of her voice only twelve hours ago? It was incomprehensible—an absolute and complete enigma.

Fearing lest suspicion might be aroused by the missing photograph, I took a small scrap of paper from the waste-paper basket and thrust it into the crack. No doubt they would return for it, but, finding another piece of paper there, would probably believe that the photograph had gone so deeply into the crack as to be hidden successfully in the heart of the wall.

Bullen was still with the widow and her stepson when I rejoined him in the drawing-room, accounting for my absence by saying that I had been around the exterior of the house. He was again questioning Mrs Chetwode, and I could discern by her manner that she was acting in accord with her stepson. To the latter I had taken an instinctive dislike. Although an officer of hussars, he was an over-dressed youth with a three-inch collar, a cravat of an effeminative shade of lavender, a fancy vest, and a general get-up which stamped him as an interesting specimen of the “saltator Britannicus,” or common or garden “bounder.”

Presently we took our leave of the pair, and together went down to the spot where the body had been found. One of the detectives had discovered the missing shirt-stud, as I had predicted, while the various marks in the vicinity had been carefully examined and noted.

I spent the whole morning striving to obtain some clue, sometimes with the others and often wandering by myself.

My lunch I took in the bar of the Station Hotel. I had a purpose in doing this, for during a chat with the proprietor I learned that the Major had remained there three days, and had paid his bill and left on the previous evening. That in itself certainly appeared a suspicious circumstance. He had left the place ostensibly to return to London, yet he had kept that appointment in the park and had afterwards gone—whither? The last train left Hounslow for Waterloo at 11:05. He had, however, not taken that, for eleven o’clock struck from Whitton church tower just after I had watched them disappear into the night.

During the greater part of the afternoon I was with Bullen, and at the latter’s request assisted the police surgeon to make his post-mortem. But we discovered nothing further to account for death, absolutely nothing.

“What is your opinion?” I asked of my friend, the detective-inspector, when alone with him.

“I have no opinion,” he responded, “except that that woman knows something more than she will tell us.”

“Exactly?” I exclaimed. “I wonder what her object is in concealing any facts she knows?”

“Ah, Doctor,” he replied, “women are funny creatures; one never knows what motive they may have. In this case we shall be compelled to act very warily, and, if possible, mislead her and place her off the scent. She has given me a list of the guests, which may be useful.”

He took from his pocket a sheet of writing-paper with stamped heading, and I quickly glanced down the list of names. In an instant I saw that it was incomplete. The two persons whom I knew had been there she had omitted; their names were Lady Pierrepoint-Lane and Beryl Wynd.

Without comment I handed it back to him. It occurred to me that it might be best to keep my knowledge to myself, for by so doing I might perchance discover a clue.

That evening, having resolved to remain and watch the inquest on the morrow, I scribbled a hasty line to Bob, and then spent the hour after dinner in company with Bullen and Rowling in the bar parlour of a neighbouring public-house.

At the inquest held in the billiard-room at Whitton next morning, reporters were present in dozens, and the “note” taken by all was verbatim, for being the dead season, such a mystery came as a welcome “scoop” to those journals whose only claims to notoriety are the sensationalism of their contents bills and their remarkable “cross-heads.”

The same evening I returned to Rowan Road, where I found Bob in his den, stretched out lazily in his cane deck-chair, smoking his big pipe with a whisky-and-soda at his elbow.

“Hullo, old chap!” he cried, jumping up as I entered. “Back again, eh? And with a murder case on hand, too?”

“Yes,” I responded, sinking into a chair, wearied and tired out. “Most extraordinary, isn’t it?”

Then at his request, I gave him a minute and detailed account of all that had occurred, and placed in his hands the hideous post-mortem photograph.

“Well?” I asked. “What do you think of it?”

“Think of it?” he said. “Why, the mystery becomes more involved than ever. You are certain that this photograph is of her?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“Then it seems to me very much as though she is hand-in-glove with the Major, her lover, and Mrs Chetwode, and that they all of them know the truth regarding the tragedy.”

“That’s exactly my theory,” I responded, taking down my pipe from the rack, and filling it while Bob poured me out a drink.

“But the injuries?”

I described them in terms which, being technical, are of no interest to you, my reader, and he sat listening with a dark, thoughtful expression upon his round, usually merry countenance.

“A fact which is very puzzling to me, old fellow,” he said at last, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips, “is the reason her ladyship was so extremely eager to make your acquaintance.”

“Yes; I can’t understand it in the least. It is fortunate, however, that she is in ignorance of my visit to Whitton.”

“Most fortunate,” he answered. “My idea is that the truth is only to be obtained here, in London—and not down there.”

“Do you think. Bob, that I acted wisely in keeping the secret of that midnight meeting to myself?” I asked earnestly, for I felt that perhaps I had, by so doing foiled the activity of the police.

“Certainly. You are in possession of two distinct facts which may lead us to a clue, not only to the murderer, but to the motive of your marriage to this mysterious wife of yours.”

“Does it strike you that the Major may be the actual assassin?”

He was silent, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe.

“No,” he responded. “To tell you the truth, that isn’t my theory.”

“Then what is?” I asked.

“If Mrs Chetwode and this mysterious wife of yours are acting together, Tattersett cannot be the culprit. It would rather be to their interest to denounce him.”

I saw the trend of his argument, but nevertheless clung to my theory that the man who had in my hearing proposed murder had committed the crime.

The mystery at Whitton, startling though it was, was quickly forgotten by the public. Several times, in the days that followed, I went down to Hounslow and held consultations with Bullen and his assistant, but no fresh discovery was made, for not the slightest clue presented itself. A verdict of “Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown” had been returned, and the matter left in the hands of the police.

A week went past, but I could not decide whether it would be policy to call at Gloucester Square and have an interview with Beryl and her cousin. I recollected that the Colonel’s widow had not given their names to the police—a fact full of significance, for it appeared as though she desired to conceal their visit to Whitton.

I longed to see my love to speak with her, to hold her hand and bask in the sunshine of her smiles.

She had defied the man who had tempted her to revenge, she had declared her intention of renouncing all the past. Ah, that past! If I could only glean something regarding it! If I could only stand by her as her champion without arousing any suspicion within her.

This impulse to see her proved too strong. I could not resist it, therefore one day I went to Gloucester Square to make an afternoon call, but found the blinds down.

“Her ladyship is out of town, sir,” the maid-servant answered in response to my inquiry.

“And Miss—Miss Ashwicke?” I said, quickly remembering that she had been introduced to me by that name.

“Ashwicke,” repeated the girl, puzzled. “There is no Miss Ashwicke in the family, sir.”

“Oh, of course,” I said, rather lamely I fear; “it’s my mistake. I meant Miss Wynd.”

“She’s with her ladyship in Wiltshire, sir.”

“At Atworth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did they leave?”

“Three days ago, sir. Sir Henry went with them.”

“Did a young gentleman named Chetwode accompany them?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“But you know Mr Chetwode, of course?” I said.

“Oh yes, sir. They say he is to marry Miss Beryl,” answered the girl, smiling.

“And his mother is a frequent visitor also, isn’t she.”

“Yes; she’s here very often indeed.”

“And Major Tattersett?”

“He’s only been here once, I think—a long time ago. He’s a round-faced gentleman who wears a single eyeglass, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Did he call to see Sir Henry?”

“No, sir. He came to see Miss Beryl.”

“And he has only been here once, you say?”

“Yes—only once, as far as I know.”

“I suppose you don’t expect the family back till the end of September—eh?”

“Oh, not before the middle of October. They’ll stay there through the shooting.”

Other questions I put to her she answered frankly, and I left a coin in her hand as I turned and went down the steps. Why, I wondered, had her ladyship thought fit to introduce Beryl to me as Feo Ashwicke?

In deep disappointment I returned to Rowan Road. Every effort I made seemed unavailing.

As the weeks passed in inactivity, and I was still Bob’s guest, assisting him among the few patients who rang the surgery bell, I began to feel that I must stir myself and find a fresh post as assistant. Rather than borrow off Bob, I had slid into a pawnbroker’s one evening and exchanged the watch which my mother had given me in my schoolboy days for two pounds and a ticket upon which was inscribed a false name and address. Of this money only a few shillings remained, and I was existing upon my friend’s charity.

While in this unsettled state of mind I was called out one morning to visit a patient over in Brook Green, and on my return entered a saloon-bar opposite Hammersmith Station for a glass of that homely and inexpensive beverage vulgarly known as “bitter.” Upon the counter before me the London Post-office Directory lay open, and of a sudden it occurred to me that I had never searched for the name of Ashwicke.

I turned over the pages curiously until I reached that headed “Ash,” and suddenly, half-way down, I came across the name I wanted: “Ashwicke, Alan Wynd, 94, Queen’s-gate Gardens, S.W.”

Without hesitation I went forth and mounted an omnibus, which set me down at the corner of the Cromwell Road, and ten minutes later I stood before the house which the directory indicated.

Instantly I saw that its exterior was identical—a large grey place with a great dark portico supported by four huge columns. It was the house to which I had been called on the day the strange marriage had taken place.

Chapter Sixteen.

The Veiled Lady.

The neighbouring houses were mostly closed, their owners being out of town for the summer; but the one before which I halted was apparently occupied, therefore I boldly ascended the steps and rang the bell.

My summons was answered by a burly, ill-dressed man in carpet slippers, who, when I inquired for Mr Ashwicke, responded—

“He don’t live here; this is Mrs Stentiford’s.”

“But he did live here,” I protested. “How long has he been gone?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only been here a fortnight, but I believe the mistress has lived here for three or four years.”

“Is your mistress in?”

“No; she’s away in Switzerland.”

“And you’re taking charge of the house?”

“That’s so.”

“Well,” I said, “Mr Ashwicke lived here until a short time ago, that’s very certain. I feel sure I haven’t mistaken the house; I used to be a visitor here. Would you mind me glancing at some of the rooms?”

He eyed me with distinct suspicion.

“No,” I laughed, “I’m not a swell mobsman, nor a burglar on the look-out for a likely house to rob—I’m a doctor.” And, to convince him, I took off my silk hat and displayed my stethoscope in the lining, as well as giving him a card.

“Well,” he answered, rather ill-manneredly, “I don’t see why I should satisfy you. You aren’t a friend of Mrs Stentiford’s?”

“No,” I admitted; “but I only desire a glance at the library and at the bedrooms upstairs, just to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Why?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, there occurred here, in this house, an incident which was the crisis of my life. For that reason I am full of curiosity to see the rooms again, and I ask you as a favour to allow me to do so.”

“Very well,” he said at last, after a moment’s hesitation, “come along. You say you want to see the library.” And I followed him down the hall, at the end of which he opened a door.

I went in and looked around. Yes; it was the same. Nothing had apparently been moved.

I looked into the dining-room—that same handsome apartment in which champagne had been drunk to my health and happiness. Bah! what a mockery it had been!

We went into several of the other rooms after that, and all of them were, I found, well furnished in a style rather out-of-date but nevertheless comfortable.

“And how long have you been in Mrs Stentiford’s service?” I inquired, as we descended the stairs.

“Just a fortnight.”

“You’re a police-officer, aren’t you?” I inquired.

“Yes—a sergeant,” he answered. “But how do you know?”

“Oh,” I answered, laughing, “when a man’s been in the police there’s little mistake about it. We doctors have our eyes open, you know.”

He smiled, but was apparently surprised that I should have detected his calling.

“There are none of the other servants here, I suppose?”

“No—none. Why?”

“Because I’m anxious to find out whether Mrs Stentiford has ever let her house furnished.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What gives you that impression?”

“Because before she went away she told me that she preferred to close the place and pay me, rather than to let her things be ruined by strangers.”

“And I suppose you’ve heard from neighbours about the house?”

“Yes,” he replied; “I’ve heard that a gentleman lived here about four years ago—I think the name was Ashwicke.”

“But he was living here a few weeks ago,” I declared; “I visited him here.”

The retired police-sergeant looked at me incredibly.

“I think you must be mistaken. Mrs Stentiford was certainly occupying the house then.”

“But you were not here?”

“No; I wasn’t here, that’s true.”

“She might have let it for a few weeks, during the London season—eh?”

“She certainly might,” he responded; “but, if she did, she kept the matter a secret, for none of the neighbours are aware of it.”

“Then you have already inquired?” I asked, somewhat surprised, for he spoke so positively.

“Yes,” he replied. “Curiously enough, a few days ago I had some one else call and ask for Mr Ashwicke.”

“Who was it?” I demanded quickly.

“A lady—a young, rather good-looking lady.”

“What was she like? Describe her to me.”

“Well, she wore a thick white veil so that I couldn’t see her face quite distinctly,” the man answered; “but she, like yourself, declared that she knew Mr Ashwicke, and had been a visitor here. She asked to see the very same rooms as you have seen. Very curious, isn’t it?”

“Very,” I exclaimed in wonder. “Did she give any further explanation?”

“No; she gave me half a sovereign instead,” he laughed.

“And she also declared that Mr Ashwicke had lived here recently?”

“Yes; that’s what caused me to inquire.”

“Very remarkable,” I said. “I wonder who she could have been. Can’t you give the slightest description of her?”

“I only noticed that she spoke in a soft, refined voice, and that she had very pretty eyes, blue-grey, I believe they were. But those thick white veils, with embroidery on them, make it very difficult to see a woman’s face clearly.”

“And her hair? Was she fair or dark?”

“Between colours.”

“Fair?”

“No; not fair, and not dark. Almost chestnut colour, I think it was.”

“Was she tall?”

“Middling. She came in a hansom, and it waited for her. She was evidently a lady.”

“She gave no name?”

“No; she was very discreet. And that’s what made me scent a mystery when you called and asked for the same person, and to see the same rooms.”

“Well, it is extraordinary,” I remarked. “Most extraordinary!”

I was sorry that I had no money to give him a tip, but my last half-crown reposed in the corner of my pocket, and I could not summon courage to leave myself penniless; so I merely thanked him, and, descending the steps, left him with disappointment plainly depicted upon his face.

The man might be useful, I felt, therefore I had decided to return at an early date, when my funds were not so low, and give him a similar tip to the one he had received from the veiled lady.

Who was she? I wondered. Surely it could not have been Beryl herself.

By good fortune, on my return to Rowan Road, I found a letter awaiting me, and on opening it discovered that it was from a doctor practising in Bayswater, who, in reply to my application a week before, appointed me his locum tenens. Therefore, on the following day, I thanked Bob warmly, for all his hospitality towards me, and bade him good-bye.

“Promise me one thing, Dick,” he said, as he stood in the hall, holding my hand in a firm, friendly grip of farewell.

“Well,” I asked, “what is it?”

“That you’ll try and forget all about this mystery of yours,” he said earnestly. “You’ll be getting brain fever, or something equally disagreeable, if you don’t try to control yourself and think no more of it. The experience is unusual, but, depend upon it, the mystery is so well-kept by the set of scoundrels into whose hands you fell, that you’ll never get to the bottom of it.”

“But I mean to solve it,” I said resolutely. “I’m married, my dear fellow, and—well, I love her.”

“I know. That’s just the devil of it,” he answered bluntly. “You’re gone on her, and the mystery makes you the more eager to claim her as your wife!”

“Exactly, old fellow,” I answered. “I know that you’re my best friend. Indeed, you have kept me out of the gutter or the common lodging-house these past weeks, and I am ready to repay you in any way in my power; but as to taking your advice in this matter, I really can’t.”

“Then, you’re a fool, Dick.”

“I may be,” I responded; “but I mean to clear up the mystery.”

“Because you are jealous of this young Chetwode.”

“I don’t deny that I’m jealous,” I replied with perfect frankness. “But I know that Beryl is in danger, and, as her husband, I should be at her side to protect her.”

“That’s all very well; but, after all your exertions, you’ve really discovered absolutely nothing.”

His words were, alas! only too true. I had made many discoveries, but each of them had only served to render the veil of mystery more impenetrable.

“But why do you urge me to give it up?”

“For your own sake,” he responded. “You can’t practise properly when your head is full of such a bewildering puzzle. Don’t you see that in this affair your reputation is at stake?”

“But her life is of greater moment to me than my own reputation,” I declared. “Let me have my own way, there’s a good chap.” And I wished him good-bye.

An hour later I became installed as temporary assistant to a surgeon in Richmond Road, Bayswater, who, having been “run down” by the unusual number of cases of influenza, had resolved to take a month’s vacation.

The Bayswater surgeon proved a genial fellow, but I saw little of him, for he left for North Wales with his family early next morning, after handing me his visiting-book and giving me general instructions. A fortnight went by, and so large was the practice—for I had to attend a number of the large drapery establishments in Westbourne Grove, where my principal was medical officer—that I had but little leisure. To forget the strange enigma which so troubled my brain I had thrown myself heartily into the work.

One hot, oppressive evening, after I had been in Richmond Road about three weeks, I was busy seeing the patients who, crowding the waiting-room between the hours of seven and nine, entered the consulting-room one by one to describe their physical ills, when the servant came in with a card, saying—

“A lady wishes to see you at once, sir.”

I took the card she handed me, and started with mingled surprise and satisfaction when I recognised the name—Lady Pierrepoint-Lane. At last she was in London again! But how, I wondered had she discovered my whereabouts. Quickly I went into the hall, and there found her with blanched face and in a state of great agitation.

“Ah, Doctor,” she gasped breathlessly, as I greeted her and our hands met, “I am so glad I’ve found you? I went to Hammersmith, but your friend, Doctor Raymond, told me you were here.”

“What is the matter?” I inquired, surprised at her eager manner. “Has anything occurred?”

“Yes, something most mysterious!” she answered hoarsely. “You are the only doctor whom I can trust. Will you come with me at once? I have a cab in waiting.”

“Where?” I inquired. “To your house?”

“Yes,” she urged. “Do not let us lose time. Apologise to your other patients here, and come at once. It’s a matter of life or death.”

“Of life or death?” I cried. “Who is ill?”

“It’s all a mystery,” she answered in the same breathless manner. “But you will keep it a secret—promise me.”

“I have many family secrets entrusted to me,” I answered. “Rest assured that I shall betray no confidence.”

“Then come quickly, and recollect that what you may see or hear to-night you must never divulge. On your word of honour as a gentleman.”

“I give you my word of honour,” I answered, wondering what fresh mystery was in store for me.

Then, turning, I asked a servant, who stood near, to tell the patients waiting for me that I had been unexpectedly called out to an urgent case, and would return in an hour.

“Good!” her ladyship exclaimed. “Let us not lose an instant.”

Instinctively I placed my instrument case in my pocket, and took down my hat.

“Tell me the nature of the illness,” I urged. “How did it occur? Who is the patient?”

“How it occurred nobody knows. It is a mystery, as I tell you. My cousin Feo, to whom I think I introduced you, is dying!”

“Dying!” I gasped, staring at her amazed. “Here in London?”

“Yes, at my house. I have called you because you are a doctor, and I can rely upon your secrecy.”

Chapter Seventeen.

In Peril.

Without loss of a moment we entered the hansom and drove along Bishop’s Road and Westbourne Terrace, and thence across Sussex Gardens to Gloucester Square.

Beside me my companion sat pale, erect, and rigid, responding only in monosyllables to my questions, and refusing to tell me anything beyond what she had already said—that her cousin was dying. Her manner was strange, as though she were in deadly fear.

I had taken her hand to assist her into the cab, and found it was cold as ice. Her face was the face of a woman haunted by some imminent terror, a white countenance with eyes dark and deep sunken. How changed she was from the bright, pleasant woman who had consulted me under such curious circumstances, when I had first taken Bob’s place at Rowan Road. Could this change in her be in any way due, I thought, to the tragedy at Whitton? I recollected the singular fact that Mrs Chetwode had omitted the name and that of Beryl from the list furnished to the police. Again I glanced at her ashen face as we rounded the corner into Gloucester Square; it was that of a woman absolutely desperate. She was trembling with fear, yet at the same time striving to preserve an outward calm. My suspicion of her was increased.

The hall door having been thrown open by a servant, my companion led me through into a pretty boudoir on the left, where, lying fully dressed upon a divan of yellow silk, I saw my love. Her wonderful hair had become disengaged from its fastenings and fell dishevelled about her white face, and her corsage was open at the throat as though some one had felt her heart.

In an instant I was at her side, and, while her cousin held the shaded lamp, I examined her. Her great fathomless eyes were closed, her cheeks cold, her heart motionless. Every symptom was that of death.

“Is she still alive?” asked the terror-stricken woman at my elbow.

“I cannot decide,” I answered, rising and obtaining a small mirror to test whether respiration had ceased.

Hers was no ordinary faintness, that I at once saw. The limbs were stiff and rigid as in death, the hands icy cold, the lips drawn and hard-set, the whole body so paralysed that the resemblance to death was exact.

All the startling events of my fateful wedding day came back to me. From that white throat that lay there exposed I had taken the tiny gold charm, which now hung round my own neck, reminding me ever of her. That sweet face, with the halo of gold-brown hair, was the same that I had seen lying dead upon the pillow in that house of mystery in Queen’s-gate Gardens, the same that I had bent and kissed.

I took her hand again; there were rings upon it, but all were set with gems. The bond of matrimony that I had placed there was absent.

For a moment I stood gazing at her, utterly confounded. But I saw that to save her life no time must be lost, therefore, rousing myself, I obtained her ladyship’s assistance to unloose my loved one’s corset, and then made a further examination.

“This is a serious matter,” I said at last. “I shall be glad if you will send a servant in a cab to Bloomsbury with a message.”

“To Bloomsbury? Why?” she asked. “Cannot you treat her yourself?”

“Not without consultation,” I responded; and taking a card from my pocket, I wrote upon it an urgent message to accompany the bearer at once.

She gave me an envelope, and, enclosing the card, I wrote the superscription, “Doctor Carl Hoefer, 63, Museum Mansions, Bloomsbury.”

Her ladyship at once sent the servant on the message, and then without delay returned to my side.

“Well, Doctor,” she asked in a low, strained voice, “what is your opinion? Will she recover?”

“I cannot say,” I responded mechanically, my eyes still fixed upon my patient’s face, watching for any change that might occur there.

At my request her ladyship brought the brandy decanter from the dining-room, and I managed, after some difficulty, to force a few drops between her cousin’s lips.

“Now tell me,” I said firmly, turning to the agitated woman at my side, “how did this occur?”

“I don’t know.”

“But if her life is to be saved we must know the truth,” I said, my eyes fixed upon her. “In this manner to prevaricate is useless. Tell me how it is that I find her in this condition of fatal collapse.”

“I cannot tell you things of which I myself am ignorant,” she answered, with a well-feigned air of innocence.

“You wish to save your cousin’s life?” I inquired.

“Certainly. She must not die,” she cried anxiously.

“Then answer my questions plainly, and leave the rest entirely in my hands,” I replied. “From your manner I know that you have some secret which you are striving to conceal. Knowledge of this secret will, no doubt, place me in a position to combat this extraordinary attack. If because you maintain silence she dies, then an inquest will be held, and the truth must come out—and a scandalous truth it will be.”

“Scandalous!” she exclaimed with some hauteur. “I don’t understand.”

“An attempt has been made upon her life,” I said as calmly as I could. “Those who are responsible for this must, if she dies, be discovered.”

“An attempt upon her life? How do you know?” she gasped.

I smiled, but made no direct answer to her question.

“I am aware of it by the same means that I know that Feo Ashwicke and Beryl Wynd are one and the same person.”

She started quickly.

“Who told you that?” she asked, with a strange flash in her eyes.

I smiled again, answering, “I think it would be best if you confided in me in this matter, instead of leaving me to obtain the truth for myself. Remember, you have called me here to save your cousin, and yet, by her side, while her young life is slowly ebbing, we are engaged in a battle of words. Now tell me,” I urged, “how did this occur?”

She shook her head.

“Shall I begin?” I suggested. “Shall I say that you came up with Miss Beryl from Atworth yesterday, quite unexpectedly, in order to keep an appointment? That you—”

“How did you know?” she gasped again. “How did you know our movements?”

“I merely ask whether this is not the truth,” I responded calmly. I had noticed that the furniture in the room was undusted, and therefore knew that they had returned to town unexpectedly. “Shall we advance a step further? I think, if I am not mistaken, that there was a strong reason for your return to town, and also for keeping your presence in London a secret. That is the reason that you communicated with your friend.”

“With whom?”

“With Mrs Chetwode.”

The light died from her face. She swayed slightly, and I saw that she gripped the edge of the little glass-topped table to steady herself.

Then her features relaxed into a sickly smile, and she managed to stammer—

“You are awfully clever, Doctor, to be aware of all these things. Is it clairvoyance—thought-reading, or what?”

“Those who have secrets should be careful not to betray them,” I responded ambiguously.

“Then if I have betrayed myself, perhaps you will tell me something more of equal interest.”

“No,” I answered. “I have no desire to make any experiments. In this matter your cousin’s life is at stake. It will be, at least, humane of you if you place me in possession of all the facts you know regarding the dastardly attempt upon her.”

“I tell you that I know nothing.”

“Nothing beyond what?” I said very gravely.

Again she was silent. I watched the inanimate body of the woman I loved, but saw no change. In what manner that state of coma had been produced I knew not, and I was in deadly fear that the last breath would leave the body before the arrival of Hoefer, the great German doctor whose lectures at Guy’s had first aroused within me a desire to become a medico-legist. There was, I knew, but one man in all the world who could diagnose those symptoms, and it was Hoefer. I only prayed that he might not be out of town.

“Well,” I went on, “it seems that you hesitate to tell me the truth, because you fear that I might divulge your secret. Is that so?”

“I believed that I might trust you to attend my cousin, and preserve silence regarding her illness and her presence in London,” was the haughty reply. “But it seems that you are endeavouring to ascertain facts which are purely family affairs.”

“The doctor is always the confidant of the family,” I answered.

“But the other—the doctor who is coming?”

“He is an old friend and will promise to keep your secret,” I said. “Come, tell me.”

She stood hesitating, erect, statuesque, her eyes fixed immovably upon me.

“I know you are in trouble,” I added in a tone of sympathy. “I am ready to assist you, if you are open and straight forward with me. I have already given you my pledge of secrecy. Now tell me what has occurred.”

She wavered in her resolution to tell me nothing. My sympathetic tones decided her, and she said in a low, hoarse voice—

“It is a mystery.”

“In what way?”

“As you have already said, we left Atworth in order to keep an appointment here. I was entertaining a house-party, but made an excuse that one of my aunts in Cheltenham was dangerously ill. I left, and, unknown to my husband or any other person, travelled with Beryl to London.”

I noted that she inadvertently used my love’s proper name instead of Feo, the name by which she had introduced us.

“The appointment was with Mrs Chetwode?” I suggested.

“Yes,” she answered. “I had arranged to meet her to-day at two o’clock.”

“I have read in the newspapers, reports of the terrible tragedy at Whitton. It was her husband who was murdered, was it not?”

“Yes,” she answered in a tone rather unusual. Then she pursed her lips and held her breath for a single instant. “She has been staying with her sister in Taunton since the awful affair occurred, and came to town purposely to meet me.”

“I think, if I mistake not, both you and your cousin were at Whitton at the time of the tragedy,” I observed with affected carelessness.

“Oh no; fortunately we were not,” she answered quickly. “We left the day previously.”

That certainly was not the truth—at least, Beryl had been there at four o’clock in the afternoon. But I made no remark. It would not be policy to tell this woman of my visit to Whitton and of all I had overheard and seen.

“Well, and to-day? Did your friend Mrs Chetwode call?”

Again she hesitated, and that aroused within me a further suspicion.

“Yes,” she replied. “She remained an hour, then left.”

“Alone?”

“No; we went with her?”

“Where?”

“To visit a friend in Cadogan Place.”

“And how long did you remain?”

“About half an hour.”

“Cannot you tell me the name of this friend?”

“No,” she answered; “it is of no account.”

“Did you or your cousin eat or drink anything to-day, except here in your own house?”

“Nothing. The person whom we visited offered us port wine, but neither of us accepted.”

“No tea?”

“None,” she answered. “We afterwards returned home, arriving about five o’clock, took tea here, and dined at half-past six. An hour later, just as we had finished dinner, the servant handed Beryl a card; and she rose, excusing herself on the plea that her dressmaker had called, and, saying that she would return in a moment, left me alone to finish my dessert. I waited for her return for fully twenty minutes, then went across to the morning-room. The light had been switched off, and, when I turned it on, I saw to my horror that she was lying full length on the floor, apparently dead. We carried her here, and then I at once went in search of you.”

“And is that all you know?” I inquired rather incredulously.

“Everything,” she assured me. “I found Beryl lying helpless and insensible, just as she is now.”

“And that was an hour and a half ago?” I remarked.

“Yes.”

“But who was this caller? Surely you are able to ascertain that? The servant asked the person in.”

“It was a woman, and she asked for my cousin.”

“Then you don’t actually know that it was the dressmaker?”

“The servant can give no accurate description, except that she was middle-aged, dressed in deep mourning, and wore a veil. She said she was the dressmaker.”

“Then the woman escaped from the house without being seen?”

“Yes,” her ladyship replied. “No one heard a sound after poor Beryl entered the room. What occurred there no one knows.”

“We only know what occurred by the effects,” I said. “A desperate attempt was made upon her life. This is no mere fainting-fit.”

“But who could this mysterious woman have been?” her ladyship exclaimed. “It is absolutely astounding!” A thought flashed across my mind at that moment. Could the visitor in black actually have been that dreaded person of whom even Tattersett had spoken with bated breath—La Gioia?

Chapter Eighteen.

The Mystery of the Morning-Room.

My eyes wandered from the face of the trembling woman before me to the blanched countenance of my love. In an instant I detected a change there. While I had been speaking the muscles had relaxed until that face I adored had become blank and quite expressionless. No deep medical knowledge was necessary to detect the awful truth. It was the exact counterpart of the photograph which had been in the Colonel’s possession.

With a cry of despair I sank upon my knees, touching her cheeks and chafing her hands. I held the mirror against her mouth. But the jaw had dropped, and when I looked eagerly for signs of respiration, there were none. Beryl, my mysterious, unknown wife, was dead.

I pressed her hand, I called her by name, and, aided by her cousin Nora, frantically tried the various modes of artificial respiration. But all in vain. Her frail life had flickered out even while we had been fencing with each other. All was useless. She had, as the Major had predicted during that memorable interview at Whitton, been struck down swiftly and secretly in some manner that was impossible to determine.

“She’s dead!” I cried, still holding her thin, cold hand, and turning to the woman who had brought me to her side. “Dead—dead!”

“Impossible!” she gasped. “No, don’t tell me that. Do your best to save her, Doctor. You must save her—you must!”

“But she is beyond human aid!” I declared. “Respiration has ceased. She has been murdered!”

“By that woman in black!” she shrieked. “But how?”

“That I do not know,” I responded very gravely. “There is no wound; nothing whatever to account for death.”

“Oh!” she cried in desperation, “I ought to have told you everything at once, but I feared you would not believe it if I told you. A strange thing has occurred in this house, something very uncanny. It is as though the place is overshadowed by some evil influence.”

“I don’t understand you,” I answered quickly interested; but ere the words had left my mouth there was a tap at the door, and the servant, ushered in my old friend and lecturer, Carl Hoefer.

“Ah, my dear Doctor!” I cried eagerly, rushing forward to welcome him—“You will excuse me calling you so unexpectedly, and at this hour, but something very unusual has transpired—a matter in which I require your assistance.”

“Ach!” he answered, shaking my hand, “I was surprised to get your kart, my frient. But, you see, I haf come to you at once.”

He was a stout, ill-dressed man, broad-shouldered, short-legged, big-headed, heavy-jowled, about fifty-five, with scraggy yellowish hair upon his furrowed face, a pair of big eyes which blinked through large gold-rimmed spectacles, and a limp shirt-front secured by a couple of common pearl studs. Typically German in figure and manner, he spoke with a strong accent, his English grammar being often very faulty, but he was nevertheless a burly, good-natured man, possessing a keen sense of humour.

I introduced him briefly to the baronet’s wife, and then, indicating the inanimate body of my love, gave him a short, technical account of her symptoms. He bent over her, examined her face, and grunted dubiously.

“It looks as though the young lady were dead,” he said with his strong accent, his great sleepy-looking eyes blinking at us through his spectacles.

“I see no sign of life,” I responded. “What is your opinion?”

He went down on his knees, grunting over the effort, and while I held the lamp for him, examined her throat and neck carefully, as though looking for some mark or other.

“And how did it all happen?” he inquired presently, after a long, thoughtful silence.

I exchanged glances with her ladyship, and then related him the story just as she had told it to me.

“Her ladyship wishes that it should be kept a profound secret,” I added.

“Secret!” he snorted. “How are you going to hoodwink the coroner?”

“Then you think poor Beryl is really dead?” her cousin gasped.

“She is dead,” the old fellow answered gruffly.

“But can you do nothing?” I urged in desperation.

“If she’s dead, that’s impossible,” he declared.

“No,” I said. “I refuse to believe that she is actually beyond your aid. To us she may appear dead, but her state may be only a cataleptic one.”

He shook his great shaggy head dubiously, but made no response. This man, one of the greatest chemists of the age, who had been recognised as private docent of pathological anatomy and bacteriology at the University of Naples, and was renowned throughout the world for his excursions into the queer byways of medicine, was a man of few words.

His grunts were full of expression, and his fleshy face with the dull eyes was absolutely sphinx-like. The story he had heard regarding Beryl’s sudden seizure did not convince him. His expressive grunt told me so. He had ripped up the tight sleeves of her dress, and was examining the inside of the arms at the elbows, but what he saw did not satisfy him.

I told him of the mirror-test, of the artificial respiration which I had tried, and he listened to me in silence. With his finger he opened the left eye and looked long and earnestly into the pupil. Then after a long suspense he suddenly spoke.

“Ach! we have been meestake; she is not dead.”

“Not dead?” I cried joyfully. “Thank God for that! Do your best to restore her to us. Doctor—for my sake! How can I assist you?”

“By remaining quiet,” he growled reprovingly.

And again he recommenced the examination of the inside of the elbows after having ordered other lights to be brought. Then, without saying where he was going, he left us, promising to return in a few minutes. He was a queer old fellow, very eccentric, and with a method that was as curious as the particular branch of the profession in which he was a specialist.

Not more than ten minutes passed before he returned grunting, puffing, and carrying a small packet in his hand. He had evidently been to the nearest chemist’s.

“Some water!” he commanded—“warm water.”

This was at once brought, and, arranging several little packets on the glass-topped table, he seated himself leisurely, and commenced to open and examine the contents of each very slowly.

“You have a hypodermic syringe?” he inquired. I took it from my pocket-case and handed it to him. He grunted and made a disparaging remark about the make—German needles were so much better, he declared. Then, having cleaned the syringe, he mixed a solution with the utmost care, and then administered a subcutaneous injection in Beryl’s arm.

He took a chair and sat beside the cold, inanimate form, eagerly watching the effects of the drug he had administered.

Her ladyship stood near, her dark eyes, framed by the white agitated countenance, fixed immovably upon us.

Hoefer glanced at his cheap metal watch, and, grunting, crossed to the table and mixed a second injection, grumbling all the time at the inferior quality of my hypodermic syringe. So rough, unpolished in manner, and unsparing in criticism was he, that her ladyship drew back from him in fear.

The second injection proved of as little avail as the first, and from the great man’s grave expression I began to fear the worst. No sign of life asserted itself. To all appearance my adored had passed away.

Suddenly he rose, and, turning to her ladyship, said in broken English—

“Now, madam, you will tell me, please, how this occurred.”

“I do not know. Doctor Colkirk has told you all I know about it.”

“But, just as Doctor Hoefer entered, you were telling me about something mysterious that had happened here. What was that?”

She pursed her lips for a moment, and glanced quickly at the old German.

“It is a most serious thing. I cannot make it out. There is some mystery in the morning-room.”

“Ach!” exclaimed Hoefer, with a grunt—“a mystery! The symptoms of the lady are in themselves mysterious. Please explain the mystery of the room.”

“Well,” she answered, “when I entered, after the departure of the visitor, and discovered my cousin lying on the floor unconscious, I was quite well; but when I left I experienced a most curious sensation, just as though all my limbs were benumbed. I, too, almost lost consciousness while in the cab in search of Doctor Colkirk. But the most curious part of the affair is that my maid and the housemaid, who rushed in when I raised the alarm, experienced the very same sensation. It was as though we were struck by an icy hand—the Hand of Death.”

“There is something very uncanny about that,” I observed, puzzled.

“To me it seems as though poor Beryl were struck down in the same way as myself.”

“But you say that you felt nothing on entering—only on leaving?” inquired Hoefer, his eyes seeming to grow larger behind his great glasses.

“Only on leaving,” she assured him.

“Strange!” he ejaculated. “Let us see the room. We may, perhaps, obtain a clue to this mysterious ailment from which your cousin is suffering.”

“But she is not dead?” I asked in doubt.

“No,” he responded. “The last injection must be given time to take effect. We can only hope for the best.”

“But the electric battery?” I suggested. “Could we not try that?”

“Useless, my dear friend,” he responded; “it would kill her. Let us see the room of mystery.”

The baronet’s wife conducted us along the hall to the further end, where she opened the door, herself drawing back.

“What!” I inquired. “You fear to enter?”

“Yes,” she faltered. “I will remain here.”

“Very well. We will go in,” I laughed, for the idea seemed so absurd that both Hoefer and myself put it down to her excited imagination.

What ill effect could the mere entry into a room have upon the human system, providing there were no foul gases? Therefore we both went forward, sniffing suspiciously, and walking to the window, opened it widely.

The half-dozen lights in the electrolier illuminated the place brightly, revealing a fine, handsome room furnished with taste and comfort. On looking round we certainly saw nothing to account for the extraordinary phenomena as described by the trembling woman who stood upon the mat outside.

While we made a careful examination of the place in which my love had met her strange visitor, the door, creaking horribly, swung slowly to, as doors often will when badly hung. Hoefer examined the floor carefully, seeking to discover whether the unknown woman in black had dropped anything that might give a clue to her identity, while I searched the chairs for the same purpose. We, however, found nothing.

What, I wondered, was the nature of the interview that had taken place there a couple of hours before? Who was the woman who had called and represented herself as Beryl’s dressmaker? Could it have been the woman whose vengeance was so feared, the woman whose very name had been uttered by that miscreant with bated breath—La Gioia?

With her ladyship standing in the hall watching us we searched high and low. Neither of us felt any curious sensation, and I began to think that the story was merely concocted in order to add mystery to Beryl’s unique seizure. Yet, from that woman’s face, it was nevertheless evident that she stood there in fear lest any evil should befall us.

“Do you experience any queer feeling?” she inquired of us at last.

“None whatever,” I responded.

“It is only on leaving,” she replied.

“Very well,” I answered with a laugh, scouting the idea, and then boldly passing out into the hall.

“Good Heavens?” I gasped a few moments later, almost as soon as I had reached her side. “Hoefer! come here quickly. There’s something devilish, uncanny in this. I’ve never felt like this before.”

The old German dashed out of the room and was in an instant beside me.

“How do you feel?” he inquired.

I heard his voice, but it sounded like that of some one speaking in the far distance. The shock was just as though an icy hand had struck me as I had emerged from the hall. I was cold from head to foot, shivering violently, while my lower limbs became so benumbed that I could not feel my feet.

I must have reeled, for Hoefer in alarm caught me in his arms and steadied me...

“Tell me—what are your symptoms?”

“I’m cold,” I answered, my voice trembling and my teeth chattering violently.

He seized my wrist, and his great fingers closed upon it.

“Ach!” he cried in genuine alarm, “your pulse is failing. And your eyes!” he added, looking into them. “You are cold—your legs are rigid—you have the same symptoms, exactly the same, as the young lady?”

“And you?” I gasped. “Do you feel nothing?”

“Nothing yet,” he responded—“nothing.”

“But what is it?” I cried in desperation. “The feeling is truly as though the Angel of Death had passed and struck me down. Cannot you give me something, Hoefer? Give me something—before I lose all consciousness!”

The woman near me stood rooted to the spot in absolute terror, while the old German placed me upon an oaken settle in the hall, and ran along to the boudoir, returning with the syringe filled with the same injection which he had administered to my love. This he gave me in the arm, then stood by breathlessly anxious as to the result.

The feelings I experienced during the ten minutes that followed are indescribable. I can only compare them to the excruciating agony of being slowly frozen to death.

Through it all I saw Hoefer’s great fleshy face with the big spectacles peering into mine. I tried to speak, but could not. I tried to raise my hand to make signs, but my muscles had suddenly become paralysed. Truly the mystery of that room was an uncanny one.

It ran through my mind that, the house being lit by electric light, the wires were perhaps not properly isolated, and any person leaving the place received a paralysing shock. This theory was, however, completely negatived by my symptoms, which were not in any way similar to those consequent on electric shock.

Hoefer looked anxiously at his watch, then, after a lapse of a few minutes, gave me a second injection, which rendered me a trifle easier. I could detect, by his manner and his grunts, that he was utterly confounded. He, who had sneered at the weird story, like myself was now convinced that some strange, unaccountable mystery was connected with that room.

To enter, apparently produced no ill effect; but to leave brought swiftly and surely upon the fated intruder the icy touch of death. I had laughed the thing to scorn, yet within a few seconds had myself fallen a victim. Some deep, inscrutable mystery was there, but what it was neither of us could tell.

Chapter Nineteen.

Hoefer’s Strange Methods.

Twenty or thirty minutes elapsed before I regained my power of speech. The drugs administered by Hoefer fortunately had the effect desired. His sleepy eyes beamed through his great spectacles as he watched with satisfaction the stimulating consequence of the injection. He dissolved in water a tiny red tabloid, which he took from a small glass tube in a case he carried, and ordered me to drink it. This I did, finding it exceedingly bitter, and wondering what it was.

I asked no questions, however. He was a man who had made many extraordinary discoveries, all of which he had kept a secret. In the medical profession he was acknowledged to be one of the greatest living toxicologists, and his opinions were often sought by the various medical centres. Indeed, as every medical man knows, the name of Hoefer is synonymous with all that is occult in the science of toxicology, and the antidotes he has given to the world, from time to time, are as curious as they are drastic in effect.

“Have you experienced any strange sensation?” was my first question of him.

“No, none,” he answered. “Ach! it is all very curious—very curious indeed! I have never before seen similar cases. There is actual rigor mortis. The symptoms so closely resemble death that one might so easily mistake. We must investigate further. It cannot be that there is any lethal gas in the room, for the window is wide open; and, again, while actually in the room no ill effect is felt. It is only on emerging.”

“Yes,” I answered. “I was struck almost at the instant I came out. It was as sudden as an electric shock. I cannot account for it in the least; can you?”

“No,” he answered; “it is a mystery. But I like mysteries; they always interest me. There is so much to learn that one is constantly making fresh discoveries.”

“Then you will try and solve this?” urged her ladyship, after expressing satisfaction at my recovery.

“Of course, madam, with your permission,” he answered. “It is a complex case. When we have solved it we shall then know how to treat the young lady.”

“And how do you intend to begin?” I inquired, raising myself, not without considerable difficulty.

“By going into the room alone,” he answered briefly.

“You, too, will risk your life?” I exclaimed. “Is it wise?”

“Research is always wisdom,” he responded. Then, finding that I was recovering rapidly from the seizure, he gave me some technical direction how to treat him in case he lost consciousness.

He arranged the tiny syringe, and the various drugs and tabloids, upon the hall table, and then, with a final examination of them, he opened the door of the fatal room and entered, leaving us standing together on the threshold.

Walking to the window he looked out, afterwards making several tours of the room in search of its secret. He, however, found nothing. The air was pure as London air can be on a summer’s night, and, as far as either of us could discern, there was nothing unusual in the department. The door swung to halfway, and we heard him growling and grunting within. He remained in the room for perhaps five minutes, then emerged.

Scarcely, however, had he crossed the threshold when he lifted his left arm suddenly, crying—

“Ach, Gott! I am seized. The injection—quick!”

His fleshy face went pale, and I saw by its contortions that the left side had become paralysed. But with a quick movement I pushed up his coat-sleeve, and ran the needle beneath the skin.

His teeth were closed tightly as he watched me.

“It is almost unaccountable,” he gasped in an awed voice, when I had withdrawn the needle after the injection. “I was cold as ice—just as though my legs were in a refrigerator!”

“Your feet are benumbed?” I said.

“Yes,” he responded. “The sensation is just exactly as you have described it. Like the touch of an icy hand.”

I felt his pulse; it was intermittent and feeble. I told him so.

“Look at your watch, and in three minutes give me the second injection. There’s ether there in the larger bottle.”

I glanced at the time, and, holding my watch in my hand, waited until the three minutes had passed. We were silent, all three of us, until I took up a piece of cotton wool, and, saturating it with ether, nibbed it carefully on the flesh. Then I gave him the second injection.

“Good!” he said approvingly. “It acts marvellously. I shall be better in a few moments. Did you feel your head reeling and your strength failing?”

I responded in the affirmative.

“And so did I,” he answered. “The seizure is sharp and sudden, the brain becoming paralysed. That is the condition of the young lady: paralysis of the brain and heart, coma and collapse.”

“But the cause?” I asked.

He was pale as death, yet he took no notice of his own condition.

“The cause?” he echoed, in his deep guttural German. “It is for us to discover that. I have never met a more interesting case than this.”

“Yes, it’s interesting enough,” I admitted; “but recollect the lady. We must not neglect her.”

“We are not neglecting her,” he responded reprovingly. “Now that we know something of the symptoms, we may be able to save her. Before, we were working entirely in the dark.”

“But you are still ill,” I said.

“No, no,” he laughed; “it is nothing.” And he passed across the threshold and stood just within the room again.

Apparently he thought that the seat of the mystery lay in the doorway. Then he rejoined us, but felt no further symptoms.

There was evidently some uncanny but unseen influence contained within that apartment, but what it was we could not discover. All that was plain to us was the fact that any person emerging from it must be struck down as by an ice-cold hand.

Together we returned to the boudoir, and, to our satisfaction, saw an unmistakable sign that life was not entirely extinct. My love had moved!

“Good!” exclaimed the old German. “I go again to get something else.” And, without further word, he crammed his shabby soft felt hat upon his head and hurried out.

“The mystery of that room is most extraordinary,” I remarked to her ladyship when we were alone. “Has the influence ever been felt there before?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she responded. “Never before to-night.”

“Never before the entrance of that strange woman?” I suggested.

“Exactly! It is an absolute mystery.”

“And you have no knowledge of whom that person was?”

“None whatever.”

“Not even a surmise?” I inquired rather dubiously.

My thoughts reverted to what I had overheard regarding the unwelcome presence in London of that woman known as “La Gioia.”

“No, not even a surmise,” she answered.

Should I tell her of my own suspicions? No. To keep my knowledge to myself and seek to discover the key to the problem was my best course.

“And your cousin was with her for twenty minutes, you say?”

“Yes, about that time,” she replied. “I did not hurry to finish my dinner as I believed Beryl was talking with the dressmaker regarding some alterations to an evening bodice which she had mentioned to me. They did not interest me, therefore I sat awaiting her return.”

“And by that time this woman, whoever she was, had already slipped out of the house.”

“She must have done so. No one heard her leave.”

“Let us hope that Hoefer will solve the enigma. If any one is able, he is.”

“But first urge him to bring poor Beryl back to consciousness,” she said, turning to gaze upon the still inanimate form of the woman I adored.

At that moment the German returned, puffing and grunting, for he had hurried, and the perspiration was rolling off his brow.

He took several little packets from his pocket, and, seating himself at the table, commenced to carefully prepare another solution, the ingredients of which were unknown to me. Some of the drugs I knew by their appearance, of course, but others were white powders, impossible to recognise.

Again he administered an injection into the arm of my prostrate loved one, and then we all three stood in silence watching for the effect.

Hoefer gave vent to a further grunt of confidence, glanced at his watch, and turned back to the table to rearrange his array of drugs. I saw that the little pocket-case lying on the table contained about twenty tiny tubes about an inch and a half long; each contained very small pilules of tabloids, coloured brightly to render them more easily distinguishable, and not much larger than ordinary shot. Each tube was marked, but by mysterious signs unknown in British pharmacology.

The action of this last prophylactic was slow, but signs were nevertheless not wanting that its effect was to reanimate, for by degrees the deathly pallor of the sweet face I adored became less marked, and the lips showed red instead of that ashen hue which had told us of her nearness to death.

The German returned to her, and, feeling her pulse, counted the seconds upon his watch, while at the same time I listened to the respiration.

“Good?” exclaimed the old fellow, beaming through his glasses. “The diagnosis is correct, and the refocillation is more rapid than I should have expected. She will recover.”

Suddenly the pallid cheeks became flushed. Life was returning. The liquid injected into the blood bad at last neutralised the effect, stimulated the circulation, reanimated the whole system, and revived the flickering spark of life. The hand I held grew warmer, the pulse throbbed more quickly, the breathing became regular, and a few minutes later, without warning, she opened her eyes and looked wonderingly around. A loud cry of joy escaped my lips. My love was saved.

“You know me, I think?” I said, bending down to her. “My name is Colkirk.”

“Yes, I know you quite well,” she responded very faintly. “But what has happened? Where is she?”

“Whom do you mean? Your visitor?”

“Yes,” she responded eagerly.

“We have no idea,” I replied. “You have been taken ill, and my friend here. Doctor Hoefer, has been attending you.”

“How do you feel?” the old German asked in his brusque manner.

“I am very thirsty,” she answered.

He took the decanter, and, mixing a little brandy and water, gave it to her.

Then just at that moment her ladyship re-entered, and, falling on her knees, clasped her cousin around the neck and shed wild tears of joy.

Liquid beef and other restoratives having been administered, the woman whose appearance had been identical in every respect with that of the dead was, ere long, able to sit up and talk with us. Her recovery had been almost as rapid as her attack.

We questioned her regarding her symptoms, and found them exactly similar to those we had ourselves experienced.

“I felt as though my whole body were frozen stiff and rigid,” she explained. “At first I heard a strange voice about me—the voice of Doctor Colkirk, I suppose it must have been—speaking with Nora; but I was unable to make any sign. It was just as though I were in a kind of trance, yet half-conscious of things about me. My muscles were paralysed, and I knew that you believed me to be dead. The one horrible thought that possessed me was that I might, perhaps, be buried alive.”

“But you were not conscious the whole time?” Hoefer asked.

“No; I think I slept during the latter part of the seizure. How long have I been lying here?”

“About two hours and a half,” answered her cousin. “Do you feel able to talk any more now?” I inquired.

“I feel much better,” she responded. “The draught that your friend has given me has had a wonderful effect. I’m quite restored.” And she rose to her feet and stood before us, little the worse for her experience, save, perhaps, that the dark rings about her beautiful eyes showed that her system had received a terrible shock.

“We want you to relate to us in detail what occurred when you entered the morning-room to see the woman who called upon you.”

She glanced inquiringly at her cousin, as though to obtain her permission to speak.

“Nothing occurred,” she answered; “she was sitting there awaiting me.”

“She had sent in a message, and you thought it—as your dressmaker, did you not?”

“Yes. And I was very much surprised to find that it was not.”

“Was it some other person whom you knew?”

“I had never seen her before,” answered the woman who was my wedded wife. “She was tall, thin and dressed in black which seemed much the worse for wear.”

“Dark or fair?”

“Dark. But I could not see her features well because of her thick black veil.”

“She was young, I suppose?”

“Not very, I think. Her voice was low and rather refined.”

“And how did she explain her reason for sending in a message that she was your dressmaker? She must have been aware that you expected the woman to call on you.”

“She explained that the ruse was necessary, as she did not wish her visit to be known, either to my cousin or to the servants.”

“Why?”

“Because she had brought me a message.”

“A message?” I exclaimed. “From whom?”

“A verbal message from—from a friend.”

“And may we not know the name of that friend?” I asked. “There is a most remarkable mystery connected with that room into which she was shown, and, in order to solve the problem, we must be in possession of the whole truth.”

“What mystery?” Beryl inquired quickly, opening her eyes widely.

“Any person who enters is, on leaving, attacked just as you were. Your cousin here, Doctor Hoefer, and myself, had all three experienced exactly similar symptoms.”

“That’s most extraordinary!” she declared, in an incredulous tone. “When I was seized it was not until I had left the room. I went out with the object of obtaining a sheet of note-paper from the library in order to write a reply to the message, but on emerging into the hall I was suddenly seized, and returned to the morning-room at once. I stood holding on to the table; but my limbs failed me, and I fell to the ground.”

“And then the woman who had called upon you slipped along the hall and out into the street.”

“I suppose she must have done, for I did not see her again. I tried to call out, but could not. The electric light was suddenly switched off. She must have done that on her way out.”

“Cannot you tell us either of the nature of the message or from whom it came?” I asked earnestly.

She was silent for a moment, glancing at her cousin. “No,” she answered; “I am unable to do that.”

Chapter Twenty.

The Chill Hand.

Was the message from her lover or from that villain Tattersett?

Her refusal piqued me, and I was half inclined to suggest that it was from the one or the other. Still, in this marvellous maze of mystery, I saw that it was not at all a judicious proceeding to show my hand. What I already knew was of value to me in my efforts to piece together this bewildering puzzle.

The more I reflected the more convinced I became that the visitor in black was none other than the dreaded woman whose threatened vengeance was known to be imminent—La Gioia the mysterious.

“The visitor did not touch you?” I asked. “Neither did she give you any note?”

“No; the message was verbal. I went once to the library and obtained a sheet of note-paper, but on returning found it to be soiled. Therefore I went out again to get a second, sheet, and it was then that I felt a sudden grip, just as though an icy breath had touched me. In an instant I went cold all over, and my limbs became so benumbed that I could not feel them.”

“You did not suspect this woman of producing this effect upon you?” Hoefer asked, grunting dubiously.

“Certainly not. How could she?”

“But her actions afterwards, in switching off the light and stealing out, were suspicious.”

“That’s so; but how do you account for your own seizure nearly two hours after her departure?”

“Ach!” he cried; “it is extraordinary—that is all we can say.”

“The room is nothing less than a death-trap,” I remarked. “And yet the baneful influence is a mysterious one. I wish you could tell us the name of the sender of the message, Miss Wynd. It would materially assist us in our researches.”

“I tell you that it was a friend who could have no object whatever in making any attack upon my life,” she answered, ambiguously.

“But this woman,” I continued. “Are you certain that you do not know her—that you have never met her before?”

“Quite certain,” she responded without hesitation. “She was an utter stranger.”

I exchanged glances with Hoefer. The mystery was still inscrutable.

Again we all four went to the door of the room of mystery, and Hoefer, still grunting in dissatisfaction, declared his intention to re-enter the place. Seen from the hall there was certainly nothing about the apartment to excite suspicion. It was bright and comfortable, with handsome substantial furniture, sage-green hangings, and a thick Turkey carpet into which one’s feet sank noiselessly.

“It is a risk!” exclaimed her ladyship, when Hoefer made the announcement. “Death lurks in that place. Let us close and lock it.”

“Ach! no, madame,” he responded. “It is no risk now that we have the prophylactic.” And, turning to me, he handed me a little of the last injection which he had given to Beryl, together with the phial of ether and the syringe.

“Use this, if necessary,” he said, briefly, and then leaving us, he crossed the threshold and examined every nook of the room.

The window was still open, but he closed and fastened it. Upon a little writing-table in the corner lay the soiled sheet of note-paper that Beryl had obtained on her first visit to the library, thus proving the truth of her story. The door swung to, as before, and after about five minutes he again emerged.

Scarcely had he crossed the threshold when he gave vent to a loud cry.

“Gott!” he gasped. “The injection—quick!”

He had again been seized. The unseen hand of Death was upon him. Truly, it was an uncanny mystery.

Without a second’s delay I filled the syringe, rubbed the flesh with ether, and then ran the needle beneath the skin. The effect was almost instantaneous. The sudden paralysis was arrested, and the muscles reanimated in a manner most marvellous. One fact was, therefore, plain: Hoefer had discovered the proper treatment, even if the cause of the extraordinary seizure remained unknown.

He stood for a few moments motionless, but at length declaring himself better, said—

“The thing is an absolute enigma; I can discern no cause whatever for it. There would seem to be some hidden influence at work, but of its nature we can discover absolutely nothing. The attack does not occur until one emerges here into the hall.”

“Can it be out here?” I suggested, whereat both my companions turned pale with fright.

Certainly the situation was as weird and uncanny as any in which I have ever found myself. An unseen influence is always mysterious, and this chill touch of the hand of death that we had all experienced was actually appalling.

We held council, and decided that the room should be closed and locked to prevent any of the servants entering there. Our conversation had undoubtedly been overheard by them, and Hoefer was anxious that the place should remain undisturbed so that he might make further investigations, which he promised to do on the following day.

Then we entered the dining-room together, partook of some wine which her ladyship offered us, and left the house in company—not, however, before I had promised to call again on the morrow and visit my patient.

“Now, Hoefer, what is your candid opinion?” I asked my companion as we stood on the kerb, opposite the Marble Arch, awaiting the belated omnibus to take him back to Bloomsbury.

“I don’t like it, my dear frient,” he answered dubiously; “I don’t like it.” And, shaking my hand, he entered the last Holborn ’bus without further word.

On foot I returned to Bayswater utterly confounded by the curious events of the evening. By Hoefer’s serious expression and preoccupied manner, I saw that the influence within or without that room of mystery was to him utterly bewildering. He had spent his life in the study of micro-organisms, and knew more of staphylococci, streptococci, and pneumococci than any other living man, while as a toxicologist he was acknowledged, even by his clever compatriots in Germany, as the greatest of them all. He had searched out many of the secrets of Nature, and I had myself at times witnessed certain, of his experiments, which were little short of marvellous. It was, therefore, gratifying that I had enlisted his aid in solving this most difficult problem.

Yet, as I lay awake that night, reflecting deeply upon the curious situation, I could not arrest my thoughts from turning back to the tragedy at Whitton and the omission of those two names from the list of visitors furnished to the police. That her ladyship was a bosom friend of Mrs Chetwode’s was quite plain, and that she was present, together with Beryl, earlier in the day, I had myself seen. Somehow, I could not get rid of the conviction that Sir Henry’s wife, the woman who had taken this secret journey from Atworth to London to have a clandestine interview with some person whom she declined to name, knew the truth regarding the Colonel’s death.

I was plunged into a veritable sea of perplexity.

If I could but discover the identity of La Gioia! That name rang in my ears, sleeping or waking. La Gioia! La Gioia! Ever La Gioia!

Beryl held her in abject dread. Of that I knew from those words of here I had overheard at Whitton. She had declared that she would commit suicide rather than face her vengeance. What had rendered my adored one so desperate?

As I sat over my lonely breakfast on the following morning, there being already a couple of patients in the waiting-room—clerks who had come for “doctors’ certificates” to enable them to enjoy a day’s repose—the servant brought in the letters, among them being one for me which had been forwarded from Shrewsbury by my mother.

The superscription was in a formal hand, and, on reading it, I was surprised to find that it was from a firm of solicitors in Bedford Row, stating that my uncle George, a cotton-spinner in Bury, had died, leaving a will by which I was to receive the sum of one thousand pounds as a legacy. I read the letter, time after time, scarcely able to believe the good news.

But an hour later, when I sat in the dingy office in Bedford Row, and my uncle’s solicitor read a copy of the will to me, I saw that it was a reality—a fact which was indeed, proved by the cheque for fifty pounds which he handed me for my immediate use. I drove to the Joint Stock Bank in Chancery Lane, cashed the draft, and returned to Bayswater with five ten-pound notes in my pocket. From a state of penury I had, within that single hour, become possessed of funds. True, I had always had expectations from that quarter; but I had, like millions of other men, never before been possessor of a thousand pounds. In a week or two the money would be placed to my credit. To a man with only half a crown in his pocket a thousand pounds appears a fortune.

I counted the crisp new notes in the privacy of the doctor’s sitting-room, then, locking three of them in my portmanteau, took a cab down to Rowan Road to receive Bob’s congratulations. He was delighted. He sent Mrs Bishop out for a bottle of the best champagne procurable in the neighbourhood, and we drank merrily to my future success. Then, while smoking a cigarette over what remained of the wine, I related to him my strange adventure of the previous night.

He sat listening to my story open-mouthed. Until I had concluded, he uttered no word. Then gravely he exclaimed—

“The affair grows more and more amazing. But now, look here, Dick! Why don’t you take my advice, and drop the affair altogether?”

“Drop it? What do you mean? Remember Beryl!”

“I know,” he answered. “But I can’t help feeling that association with those people is dangerous. They’re a queer lot—a devilishly queer lot!”

“Of course they’re a queer lot,” I said; “but I can’t leave her to their mercy. She’s in deadly peril of her life; they intend to kill her.”

A grave expression was on his face. “Do you think that last night’s curious phenomenon was actually an attempt to kill her?” he inquired.

“Without a doubt.”

“Then, if so, how was it that you all experienced similar symptoms? What’s old Hoefer’s theory?”

“He has none.”

“He never has—or, at least, he pretends that he hasn’t; he keeps all his discoveries to himself. That’s why he has always refused to write any books. When he lectures he’s always careful to keep his secrets to himself.”

“Yes; he’s a queer old boy,” I remarked, for his eccentricities were many, and had often caused us much amusement at Guy’s.

“I only wish, Dick, that you’d try to forget all about this tangled affair,” Bob said earnestly. “You’re worrying yourself to death all to no purpose.”

“Why ‘all to no purpose’?” I echoed. “I am patient, and I shall discover something one day.”

“No,” he said confidently. “You’ll never discover anything—mark my words.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you are watched far too closely.”

“Watched!” I cried in surprise. “Who watches me?”

“Several persons. Among them your wife herself.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I saw her in this street, on the evening before last, evidently in search of you. She passed several times, and glanced across here. Yet she tells you—or, rather, her cousin tells you—that they were not in London at that time.”

“Are you certain?”

“Absolutely.”

“But how did you recognise her?” I demanded eagerly. “Why, you’ve never seen her!”

He started quickly. By the expression on his face I recognised in an instant, that he had inadvertently betrayed to me the fact that they were not strangers.

He knew her! And he had tried to dissuade me from following up the slight clue I had obtained. With what motive? This man, whom I had believed was my friend, had played me false.

The discovery was as a blow that staggered me.

Chapter Twenty One.

Two Hearts.

The truth was plain. Bob Raymond, the man whom I had believed to be my friend, had endeavoured to dissuade me from following up the clue I had obtained, fearing lest I should discover the whole of the strange conspiracy.

I pressed him for an explanation of how he had been able to recognise her, but with marvellous tact he answered—

“Oh, I recognised her from your descriptions, you know.”

Frankly I did not believe it. Whether he had a personal acquaintance with her or not, it was nevertheless manifest that she was actually in London at a time when she was believed to be at Atworth; and further, that not knowing of my change of address, had been in search of me.

Why had she not rung the bell and inquired? There seemed but a single answer to that question; because she feared to meet Bob!

I scented suspicion. In our conversation that followed I detected, on his part, a strenuous determination to evade any explanation. That he was actually acquainted with Beryl was apparent. Perhaps, even, he knew the truth regarding my strange marriage, and, from motives of his own, refused to tell me.

Anger arose within me, but I preserved a diplomatic calm, striving to worm his secret from him. Either he would not or could not tell me anything. In that hour of affluence, after all the penury of past years, I was perhaps a trifle egotistical, as men who suddenly receive an unexpected legacy are apt to be. Money has a greater influence upon our temperament or disposition than even love. A few paltry pounds can transform this earth of ours from a hell into a paradise.