JUDITH LEE (continued 2)

III. CONSCIENCE

I had been spending a few days at Brighton, and was sitting one morning on the balcony of the West Pier pavilion, listening to the fine band of the Gordon Highlanders. The weather was beautiful—the kind one sometimes does get at Brighton—blue skies, a warm sun, and just that touch in the soft breeze which serves as a pick-me-up. There were crowds of people. I sat on one end of a bench. In a corner, within a few feet of me, a man was standing, leaning with his back against the railing—an odd-looking man, tall, slender, with something almost Mongolian in his clean-shaven, round face. I had noticed him on that particular spot each time I had been on the pier. He was well tailored, and that morning, for the first time, he wore a flower in his button-hole. As one sometimes does when one sees an unusual-looking stranger, I wondered hazily what kind of person he might be. I did not like the look of him.

Presently another man came along the balcony and paused close to him. They took no notice of each other; the new-comer looked attentively at the crowd promenading on the deck below, almost ostentatiously disregarding the other’s neighbourhood. All the same, the man in the corner whispered something which probably reached his ears alone—and my perception—which seemed to be a few disconnected words:

“Mauve dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume; four-thirty train.”

That was all he said. I do not suppose that anyone there, except the man who had paused and the lazy-looking girl whose eyes had chanced for a moment to wander towards his lips, had any notion that he had spoken at all. The new-comer remained for a few moments idly watching the promenaders, then, turning, without vouchsafing the other the slightest sign of recognition, strolled carelessly on.

It struck me as rather an odd little scene. I was constantly being made an unintentional confidante of what were meant to be secrets; but about that brief sentence which the one had whispered to the other there was a piquant something which struck me as amusing—the more especially as I believed I had seen the lady to whom the words referred. As I came on the pier I had been struck by her gorgeous appearance, as being a person who probably had more money than taste.

Some minutes passed. The Mongolian-looking man remained perfectly quiescent in his corner. Then another man came strolling along—big and burly, in a reddish brown suit, a green felt hat worn slightly on one side of his head. He paused on the same spot on which the first man had brought his stroll to a close, and he paid no attention to the gentleman in the corner, who looked right away from him, even while I could see his lips framing precisely the same sentence:

“Mauve dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume; four-thirty train.”

The big man showed by no sign that he had heard a sound. He continued to do as his predecessor had done—stared at the promenaders, then strolled carelessly on.

This second episode struck me as being rather odder than the first. Why were such commonplace words uttered in so mysterious a manner? Would a third man come along? I waited to see—and waited in vain. The band played “God Save the King,” the people rose, but no third man had appeared. I left the Mongolian-looking gentleman still in his corner and went to the other side of the balcony to watch the people going down the pier. I saw the gorgeous lady in the mauve dress and big black picture-hat with a fine ostrich plume, and I wondered what interest she might have for the round-faced man in the corner, and what she had to do with the four-thirty train. She was with two or three equally gorgeous ladies and one or two wonderfully attired men; they seemed to be quite a party.

The next day I left Brighton by an early train. In the compartment I was reading the Sussex Daily News, when a paragraph caught my eye. “Tragic Occurrence on the Brighton Line.” Late the night before the body of a woman had been found lying on the ballast, as if she might have fallen out of a passing train. It described her costume—she was attired in a pale mauve dress and a big black picture-hat in which was an ostrich-feather plume. There were other details—plenty of them—but that was enough for me.

When I read that and thought of the man leaning against the railing I rather caught my breath. Two young men who were facing each other at the other end of the compartment began to talk about the paragraph in tones which were audible to all.

“Do you see that about the lady in the mauve dress who was found on the line? Do you know, I shouldn’t wonder a bit if it was Mrs. Farningham—that’s her rig-out to a T. And I know she was going up to town yesterday afternoon.”

“She did go,” replied the other; “and I’m told that when she started she’d had about enough cold tea.”

The other grinned—a grin of comprehension.

“If that’s so I shouldn’t wonder if the poor dear opened the carriage door, thinking it was some other door, and stepped out on to the line. From all I hear, it seems that she was quite capable of doing that sort of thing when she was like that.”

“Oh, quite; not a doubt of it. And she was capable of some pretty queer things when she wasn’t like that.”

I wondered; these young gentlemen might be right; still, the more I thought the more I wondered.

I was very much occupied just then. It was because I had nearly broken down in my work that I had gone for those few days to Brighton. I doubt if I even glanced at a newspaper for some considerable time after that. I cannot say that the episode wholly faded from my memory, but I never heard what was the sequel of the lady who was found on the line, or, indeed, anything more about her.

I accepted an engagement with a deaf and dumb girl who was about to travel with her parents on a long voyage, pretty nearly round the world. I was to meet them in Paris, and then go on with them to Marseilles, where the real journey commenced. The night before I started some friends gave me a sort of send-off dinner at the Embankment Hotel. We were about half-way through the meal when a man came in and sat by himself at a small round table, nearly facing me. I could not think where I had seen him before. I was puzzling my brain when a second man came across the room and strolled slowly by his table. He did not pause, nor did either allow a sign to escape him to show that they were acquaintances, yet I distinctly saw the lips of the man who was seated at the table frame about a dozen words:

“White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast; to-night.”

The stroller went carelessly on, and for a moment my heart seemed to stand still. It all came back to me—the pier, the band of the Gordon Highlanders, the man with his back against the railings, the words whispered to the two men who had paused beside him. The diner in front of me was the Mongolian-looking man; I should have recognized him at once had not evening dress wrought such a change in him. That whispered sentence made assurance doubly sure. The party with whom I was dining had themselves been struck by the appearance of the lady in the white frock, with the diamond star in her hair, and the pink roses arranged so daintily in the corsage of her dress. There had been a laughing discussion about who was the nicest-looking person in the room; more than one opinion had supported the claim of the lady with the diamond star.

In the middle of that dinner I found myself all at once in a quandary, owing to that very inconvenient gift of mine. I recalled the whisper about the lady in the mauve dress, and how the very next day the body of a lady so attired had been found on the Brighton line. Was the whispered allusion to the lady in the white dress to have a similar unpleasant sequel? If there was fear of anything of the kind, what was I to do?

My friends, noticing my abstraction, rallied me on my inattention.

“May I point out to you,” observed my neighbour, “that the waiter is offering you asparagus, and has been doing so for about five minutes?”

Looking round, I found that the waiter was standing patiently at my side. I allowed him to help me. I was about to eat what he had given me when I saw some one advancing across the room whom I knew at once, in spite of the alteration which evening dress made in him—it was the big, burly man in the red-brown suit.

The comedy—if it were a comedy—was repeated. The big man, not, apparently, acknowledging the existence of the solitary diner, passed his table, seemingly by the merest chance, in the course of his passage towards another on the other side of the room. With a morsel of food on his fork poised mid-way between the plate and his mouth, the diner moved his lips to repeat his former words:

“White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast; to-night.”

The big man had passed, the morsel of food had entered the diner’s mouth; nothing seemed to have happened, yet I was on the point of springing to my feet and electrifying the gaily dressed crowd by crying “Murder!”

More than once afterwards I wished I had done so. I do not know what would have happened if I had; I have sometimes asked myself if I could say what would not have happened. As a matter of fact, I did nothing at all. I do not say it to excuse myself, nor to blame anyone, but it seemed to me, at the moment, that to do anything was impossible, because those with whom I was dining made it so. I was their guest; they took care to make me understand that I owed them something as my hosts. They were in the merriest mood themselves; they seemed to regard it as of the first importance that I should be merry too. To the best of my ability I was outwardly as gay as the rest of them. The lady in the white dress, with her party, left early. I should have liked to give her some hint, some warning—I did neither; I just let her go. As she went across the room one or two members of our party toasted her under their breath. The solitary diner took no heed of her whatever. I had been furtively watching him the whole time, and he never once glanced in her direction. So far as I saw, he was so absorbed in his meal that he scarcely raised his eyes from the table. I knew, unfortunately, that I could not have mistaken the words which I had seen his lips forming. I tried to comfort myself with the reflection that they could not have referred to the vision of feminine loveliness which had just passed from the room.

The following morning I travelled by the early boat-train to Dover. When the train had left the station I looked at my Telegraph. I read a good deal of it; then, at the top of a column on one of the inside pages, I came upon a paragraph headed: “Mysterious Affair at the Embankment Hotel.” Not very long after midnight—in time, it seemed, to reach the paper before it went to press—the body of a young woman had been found in the courtyard of the hotel. She was in her night attire. She was recognized as one of the guests who had been staying in the hotel; she had either fallen or been thrown out of her bedroom window.

Something happened to my brain so that I was unconscious of the train, in which I was a passenger, as it sped onwards.

What did that paragraph mean? Could the woman who had been found in her night attire in the courtyard of the Embankment Hotel be the woman who had worn the white dress and a diamond star in her pretty brown hair? There was nothing to show that she was. There was nothing to connect that lightly clothed body with the whispered words of the solitary diner with a touch of the Mongol in his face; yet I wondered if it were not my duty to return at once to London and tell my story. But, after all, it was such a silly story; it amounted to nothing; it proved nothing. Those people were waiting for me in Paris; I could not desert them at the last moment, with all our passages booked, for what might turn out to be something even more fantastic than a will-o’-the-wisp.

So I went on to Paris, and, with them, nearly round the world; and I can say, without exaggeration, that more than once that curious-looking gentleman’s face seemed to have gone with me. Once, in an English paper which I picked up after we had landed at Hong-Kong, I read about the body of a woman which had been found on the Great Western Railway line near Exeter station—and I wondered. When I went out into the streets and saw on the faces of the people who thronged them something which recalled the solitary diner at the Embankment Hotel—I wondered still more.

More than two years elapsed. In the summer of the third I went to Buxton, as I had gone to Brighton, for a rest. I was seated one morning in the public gardens, with my thoughts on the other side of the world—we had not long returned from the Sandwich Islands—and I was comparing that land of perpetual summer with the crisp freshness of the Buxton air. With my thoughts still far away, my eyes passed idly from face to face of those around me, until presently I became aware that under the shade of a tree on my left a man was sitting alone. When I saw his face my thoughts came back with a rush; it was the man who had been on the pier at Brighton, and at the Embankment Hotel, and who had travelled with me round the world. The consciousness of his near neighbourhood gave me a nasty jar; as at the Embankment Hotel there was an impulsive moment when I felt like jumping on to my feet and denouncing him to the assembled crowd. He was dressed in a cool grey suit; as at Brighton, he had a flower in his button-hole; he sat upright and impassive, glancing neither to the left nor right, as if nothing was of interest to him.

Then the familiar comedy, which I believe I had rehearsed in my dreams, began again. A man came down the path from behind me, passing before I had seen his face, and under the shady tree paused for an instant to light a cigarette, and I saw the lips of the man on the chair forming words:

“Grey dress, lace scarf, Panama hat; five-five train.”

His lips framed those nine words only; then the man with the cigarette passed on, and I really do believe that my heart stood still. Comedy? I had an uncomfortable conviction that this was a tragedy which was being played—in the midst of that light-hearted crowd, in that pleasant garden, under those laughing skies. I waited for the action to continue—not very long. In the distance I saw a big, burly person threading his way among the people towards that shady tree, and I knew what was coming. He did not pause even for a single instant, he just went slowly by, within a foot of the chair, and the thin lips shaped themselves into words:

“Grey dress, lace scarf, Panama hat; five-five train.”

The big man sauntered on, leaving me with the most uncomfortable feeling that I had seen sentence of death pronounced on an innocent, helpless fellow-creature. I did not propose to sit still this time and allow those three uncanny beings, undisturbed, to work their evil wills. As at the hotel, the question recurred to me—What was I to do? Was I to go up and denounce this creature to his face? Suppose he chose to regard me as some ill-conducted person, what evidence had I to adduce that any statements I might make were true? I decided, in the first place, to leave him severely alone; I had thought of another plan.

Getting up from my chair I began to walk about the gardens. As had not been the case on two previous occasions, there was no person in sight who answered to the description—“Grey dress, lace scarf, Panama hat.” I was just about to conclude that this time the victim was not in plain view, when I saw a Panama hat in the crowd on the other side of the band. I moved quickly forward; it was certainly on a woman’s head. There was a lace scarf spread out upon her shoulders, a frock of a very light shade in grey. Was this the woman whose doom had been pronounced? I went more forward still, and, with an unpleasant sense of shock, recognized the wearer.

I was staying at the Empire Hotel. On the previous afternoon, at tea-time, the lounge had been very full. I saw a tall lady, who seemed to be alone, glancing about as if looking for an empty table. As she seemed to have some difficulty in finding one, and as I had a table all to myself, I suggested, as she came near, that she should have a seat at mine. The manner in which she received my suggestion took me aback. I suppose there are no ruder, more ill-bred creatures in the world than some English women. Whether she thought I wished to force my company upon her and somehow scrape an acquaintance, I cannot say. She could not have treated my suggestion with more contemptuous scorn had I tried to pick her pocket. She just looked down at me, as if wondering what kind of person I could be that I had dared to speak to her at all, and then, without condescending to reply, went on. I almost felt as if she had given me a slap across my face.

After dinner I saw her again in the lounge. She wore some very fine jewellery—she was a very striking woman, beautifully gowned. A diamond brooch was pinned to her bodice. As she approached I saw it was unfastened; it fell within a foot of where I was sitting. I picked it up and offered it to her, with the usual formula.

“I think this is your brooch—you have just dropped it.”

How do you think she thanked me? She hesitated a second to take the brooch, as if she thought I might be playing her some trick. Then, when she saw that it was hers, she took it and looked it carefully over—and what do you suppose she said?

“You are very insistent.”

That was all, every word—in such ineffable tones! She was apparently under the impression that I had engineered the dropping of that diamond brooch as a further step in my nefarious scheme to force on her the dishonour of my acquaintance.

This was the lady who in the public gardens was wearing a light grey dress, a lace scarf, and a Panama hat. What would she say to me if I told her about the man under the shady tree and his two friends? Yet, if I did not tell her, should I not feel responsible for whatever might ensue? That she went in danger of her life I was as sure as that I was standing there. She might be a very unpleasant, a very foolish woman, yet I could not stand by and allow her quite possibly to be done to death, without at least warning her of the danger which she ran. The sooner the warning was given the better. As she turned into a side path I turned into another, meaning to meet her in the centre of hers and warn her there and then.

The meeting took place, and, as I had more than half expected, I entirely failed to do what I had intended. The glance she fixed on me when she saw me coming and recognized who I was conveyed sufficient information. It said, as plainly as if in so many words, that if I dared to insult her by attempting to address her it would be at my own proper peril. None the less, I did dare. I remembered the woman in the mauve dress, and the woman in the white, and the feeling I had had that by the utterance of a few words I might have saved their lives. I was going to do my best to save hers, even though she tried to freeze me while I was in the act of doing so.

We met. As if scenting my design, as we neared each other she quickened her pace to stride right past. But I was too quick for her; I barred the way. The expression with which, as she recognized my intention, she regarded me! But I was not to be frightened into dumbness.

“There is something I have to say to you which is important—of the very first importance—which it is essential that I should say and you should hear. I have not the least intention of forcing on you my acquaintance, but with your sanction——”

I got as far as that, but I got no farther. As I still continued to bar her path, she turned right round and marched in the other direction. I might have gone after her, I might have stopped her—I did move a step or two; but when I did she spoke to me over her shoulder as she was moving:

“If you dare to speak to me again I shall claim the protection of the police; so be advised.”

I was advised. Whether the woman suffered from some obscure form of mental disease or not I could not say, or with what majesty she supposed herself to be hedged around, which made it the height of presumption for a mere outsider to venture to address her—that also was a mystery to me. As I had no wish to have a scene in the public gardens, and as it appeared that there would be a scene if I did any more to try to help her, I let her go.

I saw her leave the gardens, and when I had seen that I strolled back. There, under the shady tree, still sat the man with the touch of the Mongol in his face.

After luncheon, which I took at the hotel, I had a surprise. There, in the hall, was my gentleman, going through the front door. I spoke to the hall porter.

“Is that gentleman staying in the house?” The porter intimated that he was. “Can you tell me what his name is?” The porter answered promptly, perhaps because it was such an unusual name:

“Mr. John Tung.” Then he added, with a smile, “I used to be in the Navy. When we were on the China station I was always meeting people with names like that—this gentleman is the first I’ve met since.”

An idea occurred to me. I felt responsible for that woman, in spite of her stupidity. If anything happened to her it would lie at my door. For my own sake I did not propose to run the risk. I went to the post office and I sent a telegram to John Tung, Empire Hotel. The clerk on the other side of the counter seemed rather surprised as he read the words which I wished him to wire.

“I suppose this is all right?” he questioned, as if in doubt.

“Perfectly all right,” I replied. “Please send that telegram at once.”

I quitted the office, leaving that telegraph clerk scanning my message as if he were still in doubt if it was in order. In the course of the afternoon I had another idea. I wrote what follows on a sheet of paper.

“You threw the woman in the mauve dress on to the Brighton line; you were responsible for the death of the woman in the white dress at the Embankment Hotel; you killed the woman who was found on the Great Western line near Exeter station; but you are going to do no mischief to the woman in the grey dress and the lace scarf and the Panama hat, who is going up to town by the five-five.

“Be sure of that.

“Also you may be sure that the day of reckoning is at hand, when you and your two accomplices will be called to a strict account. In that hour you will be shown no more mercy than you have shown.

“That is as certain as that, at the present moment, you are still alive. But the messengers of justice are drawing near.”

There was no beginning and no ending, no date, no address—I just wrote that and left it so. It was wild language, in which I took a good deal for granted that I had no right to take; and it savoured a good deal of melodrama and highfalutin. But then, my whole scheme was a wild-cat scheme; if it succeeded it would be because of that, as it were, very wild-cat property. I put my sheet of paper into an envelope, and I wrote outside it in very large, plain letters, “Mr. John Tung.” Then I went into the lounge of the hotel for tea—and I waited.

And I kept on waiting for quite a considerable time. It was rather early for tea, but as time passed and people began to gather together, and there were still no signs of the persons whose presence I particularly desired, I began to fidget. If none of them appeared I should have to reconsider my plan of campaign. I was just on the point of concluding that the moment had come when I had better think of something else, when I saw Mr. John Tung standing in the doorway and with him his two acquaintances. This was better than I had expected. Their appearance together in the public room of the hotel suggested all sorts of possibilities to my mind.

I had that missive prepared. I waited until I had some notion of the quarter of the room in which they proposed to establish themselves, then I rose from my chair and, crossing to the other side of the lounge, left on a table close to that at which they were about to sit—I hoped unnoticed—the envelope on which “Mr. John Tung” was so plainly written. Then I watched for the march of events.

What I had hoped would occur did happen. A waiter, bustling towards the new-comers, saw the envelope lying on a vacant table, picked it up, perceived that it was addressed to Mr. John Tung, and bore it to that gentleman. I could not hear, but I saw what was said. The waiter began:

“Is this your letter, sir?”

Mr. Tung glanced, as if surprised, at the envelope which the man was holding, then took it from between his fingers and stared at it hard.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“It was on that table, sir.”

“What table?”

“The one over there, sir.”

Mr. Tung looked in the direction in which the man was pointing, as if not quite certain what he meant.

“How came it to be there? Who put it there?”

“Can’t say, sir. I saw an envelope lying on the table as I was coming to you, and when I saw your name on it I thought it might be yours. Tea, sir?”

“Tea for three, and bring some buttered toast.”

The waiter went. Mr. Tung remained staring at the envelope as if there were something in its appearance which he found a little puzzling. One of his companions spoke to him; but as his back was towards me I could not see what he said—I could guess from the other’s answer.

“Some rubbish; a circular, I suppose—the sort of thing one does get in hotels.”

Then he opened the envelope, and—I had rather a funny feeling. I was perfectly conscious that from the point of view of a court of law I had not the slightest right to pen a single one of the words which were on the sheet of paper inside that envelope. For all I could prove, Mr. Tung and his friends might be the most innocent of men. I might find it pretty hard to prove that the Mongolian-looking gentleman had whispered either of the brief, jerky sentences which I had seen him whisper; and, even if I could get as far as that, there still remained the difficulty of showing that they bore anything like the construction which I had put upon them. If I had misjudged him, if my deductions had been wrong, then Mr. Tung, when he found what was in that envelope, would be more than justified in making a fine to-do. It was quite possible, since I could not have eyes at the back of my head, that some one had seen me leave that envelope on the table, in which case my authorship might be traced, and I should be in a pretty awkward situation. That woman in the grey dress would be shown to have had right on her side when she declined, with such a show of scorn, to allow me even to speak to her. So, while Mr. Tung was tearing open the envelope and taking out the sheet of paper, I had some distinctly uncomfortable moments. Suppose I had wronged him—what was I to do? Own up, make a clean breast of it—or run away?

I had not yet found an answer when I became perfectly certain that none was required. My chance shot had struck him like a bombshell; the change which took place in his countenance when he began to read what was written on that piece of paper was really curious. I should have said he had a visage over whose muscles he exercised great control—Mongols have as a rule. But those words of mine were so wholly unexpected that when he first saw them his expression was, on the instant, one of stunned amazement. He glanced at the opening words, then, dropping his hands to his sides, gazed round the room, as if he were wondering if there were anyone there who could have written them. Then he raised the sheet of paper again and read farther. And, as he read, his breath seemed to come quicker, his eyes dilated, the colour left his cheeks, his jaw dropped open. He presented a unique picture of the surprise which is born of terror.

His companions, looking at him, were affected as he was, without knowing why. The big, burly man leaned towards him; I saw him mutter:

“You look as if you’d had a stroke. What’s the matter? What’s that you’ve got there? Don’t look like that. Every one is staring at you. What’s up?”

Mr. Tung did not reply; he looked at the speaker, then at the sheet of paper—that time I am sure he did not see what was on it. Then he crumpled the sheet of paper up in his hand, and without a word strode across the lounge into the hall beyond. His two companions looked after him in bewildered amazement; then they went also, not quite so fast as he had done, but fast enough. And all the people in the lounge looked at each other. The manner of the exit of these three gentlemen had created a small sensation.

My little experiment had succeeded altogether beyond my anticipation. It was plain that I had not misjudged this gentleman. It would be difficult to find a more striking illustration than that presented by Mr. John Tung of the awful accusing conscience which strikes terror into a man’s soul. I could not afford to let my acquaintance with these three interesting gentlemen cease at this moment; the woman in the grey dress must still not be left to their tender mercies.

After what seemed to me to be a sufficient interval, I left my tea and went after them into the hall. I was just in time. The three men were in the act of leaving the hotel. As they were moving towards the door a page came up, an official envelope in his hand.

“Mr. John Tung? A telegram for you, sir.”

Mr. Tung took it as if it were some dangerous thing, hesitated, glanced at the men beside him, tore it open, read what was on the flimsy sheet of pink paper, and walked so quickly out of the building that his gait almost approached a run. His companions went after him as if they were giving chase. My wire had finished what those few plain words on the sheet of paper had begun.

I was lingering in the hall, rather at a loss as to what was the next step that I had better take, when the woman in the grey dress came out of the lift, which had just descended. A cab was at the door, on which was luggage. Although she must have seen me very clearly, she did not recognize my presence, but passed straight out to the cab. She was going up to London by the five-five train.

I no longer hesitated what to do. I, too, quitted the hotel and got into a cab. It still wanted ten minutes to five when I reached the station. The train was standing by the platform; the grey-frocked lady was superintending the labelling of her luggage—apparently she had no maid. She was escorted by a porter, who had her luggage in charge, to a first-class carriage. On the top of her luggage was the tell-tale thing which has probably done more harm than good—the dressing-bag which is so dear to the hearts of many women, which ostentatiously proclaims the fact that it contains their jewels, probably their money, all that they are travelling with which they value most. One has only to get hold of the average travelling woman’s dressing-bag to become possessed of all that she has—from the practical thief’s point of view—worth taking—all contained in one portable and convenient package.

At the open door of the compartment next to the one to which the porter ushered her the big, burly man was standing—rather to my surprise. I thought I had startled him more than that. Presently who should come strolling up but his more slightly built acquaintance. Apparently he did not know him now; he passed into the compartment at whose door he was standing, without a nod or a sign of greeting. My glance travelling down the platform, I saw that standing outside a compartment only a few doors off was Mr. John Tung.

This did not suit me at all. I did not propose that those three gentlemen should travel with the grey-frocked lady by the five-five train to town. Rather than that I would have called in the aid of the police, though it would have been a very queer tale that I should have had to tell them. Perhaps fortunately, I hit upon what the old-time cookery books used to call “another way.” I had done so well with one unexpected message that I thought I would try another. There were ten minutes before the train started—still time.

I rushed to the ladies’ waiting-room. I begged a sheet of paper and an envelope from the attendant in charge. It was a queer sheet of paper which she gave me—and on it I scribbled:

“You are watched. Your intentions are known.

“The police are travelling by the five-five train to London in attendance on the lady in the grey dress. If they do not take you on the road they will arrest you when you reach town.

“Then heigh-ho for the gallows!”

I was in doubt whether or not to add that last line. I dare say if I had had a second or two to think I should not have added it; but I had not. I just scrawled it off as fast as I could, folded the sheet of paper, slipped it into the envelope, which I addressed in large, bold letters to Mr. John Tung. The attendant had a little girl with her of, perhaps, twelve or thirteen years old, who was acting as her assistant. I took her to the waiting-room door, pointed out Mr. Tung, and told her that if she would slip that envelope into the gentleman’s hand and come back to me without having told him where she got it from, I would give her a shilling.

Officials were examining tickets, doors were being closed, preparations were being made to start, when that long-legged young person ran off on her errand. She gave Mr. Tung the envelope as he was stepping into the carriage. He had not time even to realize that he had got it before she was off again. I saw him glance with a startled face at the envelope, open it, hurriedly scan what was within, then make a dart into the compartment by which he was standing, emerge with a bag in his hand, and hurry from the station. Conscience had been too much for him again. The big, burly man, seeing him going, went hurrying after him, as the train was in the very act of starting. As it moved along the platform the face of the third man appeared at the window of his compartment, gazing in apparent astonishment after the other two. He might go to London by the five-five if he chose. I did not think it mattered if he went alone. I scanned the newspapers very carefully the next day; as there was no record of anything unusual having happened during the journey or afterwards I concluded that my feeling that nothing was to be feared from that solitary gentleman had been well founded, and that the lady in the grey dress had reached her destination in comfort and safety.

What became of Mr. Tung when he left the station I do not know; I can only say that he did not return to the hotel. That Buxton episode was in August. About a month afterwards, towards the close of September, I was going north. I started from Euston station. I had secured my seat, and, as there were still several minutes before the train went off, I strolled up and down the platform. Outside the open door of one of the compartments, just as he had done at Buxton station, Mr. Tung was standing!

The sight of him inspired me with a feeling of actual rage. That such a dreadful creature as I was convinced he was should go through life like some beast of prey, seeking for helpless victims whom it would be safe to destroy—that he should be standing there, so well dressed, so well fed, so seemingly prosperous, with all the appearance about him of one with whom the world went very well—the sight of him made me positively furious. It might be impossible, for various reasons, to bring his crimes home to him, but I could still be a thorn in his side, and might punish him in a fashion of my own. I had been the occasion to him of one moment in which conscience had mastered him and terror held him by the throat. I might render him a similar service a second time.

I was seized with a sudden desire to give him a shock which would at least destroy his pleasure for the rest of that day. Recalling what I had done at Buxton, I went to the bookstall and purchased for the sum of one penny an envelope and a sheet of paper. I took these to the waiting-room, and on the sheet of paper I wrote three lines—without even a moment’s consideration:

“You are about to be arrested. Justice is going to be done.

“Your time has come.

“Prepare for the end.”

I put the sheet of paper containing these words into the envelope, and, waylaying a small boy, who appeared to have been delivering a parcel to some one in the station, I instructed him to hand my gentleman the envelope and then make off. He did his part very well. Tung was standing sideways, looking down the platform, so that he did not see my messenger approaching from behind; the envelope was slipped into his hand almost before he knew it, and the boy was off. He found himself with an envelope in his hand without, I believe, clearly realizing whence it had come—my messenger was lost in the crowd before he had turned; it might have tumbled from the skies for all he could say with certainty.

For him the recurrence of the episode of the mysterious envelope was in itself a shock. I could see that from where I stood. He stared at it, as he had done before, as if it had been a bomb which at any moment might explode. When he saw his own name written on the face of the envelope, and the fashion of the writing, he looked frantically around, as if eagerly seeking for some explanation of this strange thing. I should say, for all his appearance of sleek prosperity, that his nerves were in a state of jumps. His lips twitched; he seemed to be shaking; he looked as if it would need very little to make him run. With fingers which I am sure were trembling he opened the envelope; he took out the sheet of paper—and he read.

When he had read he seemed to be striving to keep himself from playing the cur; he looked across the platform with such an expression on his face and in his eyes! A constable was advancing towards him, with another man by his side. The probability is that, scared half out of his senses, conscience having come into its own, he misinterpreted the intention of the advancing couple. Those three lines, warning him that he was about to be arrested, that his time had come, to prepare for the end, synchronized so perfectly with the appearance of the constable and his companion, who turned out to be a “plain clothes man” engaged in the company’s business, that in his suddenly unnerved state he jumped to the conclusion that the warning and its fulfilment had come together—that those two officers of the law were coming to arrest him there and then.

Having arrived at that conclusion, he seems to have passed quickly to another—that he would not be taken alive. He put his hand into his jacket pocket, took out a revolver, which had no doubt been kept there for quite another purpose, put the muzzle to his brow, and while the two men—thinking of him not at all—were still a few yards off, he blew his brains out. He was dead before they reached him—killed by conscience.

They found his luggage in the compartment in which he had been about to travel. The contents of his various belongings supplied sufficient explanation of his tragic end. He lived in a small flat off the Marylebone Road—alone; the address was contained in his bag. When the police went there they found a miscellaneous collection of articles which had certainly, in the original instance, never belonged to him. There were feminine belongings of all sorts and kinds. Some of them were traced to their former owners, and in each case the owner was found to have died in circumstances which had never been adequately explained. This man seemed to have been carrying on for years, with perfect impunity, a hideous traffic in robbery and murder—and the victim was always a woman. His true name was never ascertained. It was clear, from certain papers which were found in his flat, that he had spent several years of his youth in the East. He seemed to have been a solitary creature—a savage beast alone in its lair. Nothing was found out about his parents or his friends; nor about two acquaintances of whom I might have supplied some particulars. Personally, I never saw nor heard anything of either of them again.

I went on from Euston Station by that train to the north. Just as we were about to start a girl came bundling into my compartment whom I knew very well.

“That was a close shave,” she said, as she took her seat. “I thought I should have missed it; my taxi-cab burst a tyre. What’s this I heard them saying about some one having committed suicide on the platform? Is it true?”

“I believe there was something of the kind; in fact, I know there was. It has quite upset me.”

“Poor dear! You do look out of sorts. A thing like that would upset anyone.” She glanced at me with sympathetic eyes. “I was talking about you only yesterday. I was saying that a person with your power of what practically amounts to reading people’s thoughts ought to be able to do a great deal of good in the world. Do you think you ever do any good?”

The question was asked half laughingly. We were in a corridor carriage. Two women at the other end of it suddenly got up and went, apparently, in search of another. I had been in no state to notice anything when I had got in; now I realized that one of the women who had risen was the one who had worn the grey dress at Buxton. She had evidently recognized me on the instant. I saw her whisper to her companion in the corridor, before they moved off:

“I couldn’t possibly remain in the same compartment with that half-bred gipsy-looking creature. I’ve had experience of her before.”

I was the half-bred gipsy-looking creature. The experience she had had of me was when I saved her life at Buxton. That I did save her life I am pretty sure. I said to my friend, when they had gone:

“I hope that sometimes I do do a little good; but even when I do, for the most part it’s done by stealth, and not known to fame; and sometimes, even, it’s not recognized as good at all.”

“Is that so?” replied my friend. “What a very curious world it is.”

When I thought of what had happened on the platform which we were leaving so rapidly behind, I agreed with her with all my heart and soul.

IV. MATCHED

This gift of mine of entering into people’s confidence, even against their will, has occasionally placed me in the most uncomfortable situations. Take, for instance, what I will call the Affair of the Pleasure Cruise, or Matched.

The story began at Charing Cross Station. I had just entered the station and was looking about for the platform from which my train was going to start, when I saw one man hurrying up to another. I do not know what it was which caused him to catch my eye, unless it was that he was in such desperate haste, and was so covered with freckles, and had such a very red moustache; but I distinctly saw him say to the other—what he meant I had not the dimmest notion; some of the language he used was strange:

“She’s done a bunk all right, and is away with the best of the swag. Here’s her brief.” He handed to the other man what looked to me like a continental railway-ticket. “I don’t fancy the bloke is going; you’ll have to go on and get the lot out the other end. It’s worth having, you know; we’ll be able to plant it easily. You understand? Move yourself; the train’s just starting.”

The man addressed did move himself, tearing through a gate over which was a board inscribed “Folkestone Harbour and Continent.” His doing so made me think of Mr. Brookes. I had been to his wedding that morning, and had, indeed, only just come away from the reception which followed. I had gathered that he and his bride were to travel by that boat-train.

Thinking thus about the bride and bridegroom, who, since the train had started, I took it for granted were already on their way, what was my surprise to see coming through the wicket on to the platform which the boat-train had just quitted—Mr. Everard Brookes! He had discarded the orthodox “frocker” in which he had been married, and in which I had seen him last, for a grey tweed suit—but it was he. And he seemed to be in a state of great disturbance, as if he were looking for some one he could not find. A railway official was on either side of him, each of whom seemed doing his best to calm his obvious agitation. What struck me as the strangest part of it was that he was alone. An idea occurred to me as I walked towards him.

“Mr. Brookes,” I asked, “have you missed your train? You haven’t let your wife go off alone?”

“She hasn’t gone on alone,” he rejoined. “She isn’t in the train at all.”

“She might have been in the train, you know, sir,” struck in one of the officials. “It’s not easy to make out every one who’s travelling in a long train like that.”

Mr. Brookes turned on him with a show of anger which I knew was quite foreign to his character.

“I tell you I saw her go through the gate as clearly as I see you now, but though I watched for her to come back she never returned, although I never once took my eyes off the gate; that I am prepared to swear.”

He turned to me with an explanation of his discomposure which filled me with surprise.

“We were standing, my wife and I, outside the compartment in which I had reserved our seats, when, about ten minutes before the train was due to start, she said to me: ‘Everard, I’ve forgotten something. I must go and see about it at once. I’ll be back in a moment.’ She got into the compartment, took her travelling-bag off the seat, and was about to hurry down the platform. I asked her what she had thought of so suddenly; if it was something she wanted I offered to go and get it for her. She laughed at me. ‘You stay where you are and let no one get into our carriage. I’ll be back in less than a minute.’ She was off before I could stop her. I thought it rather odd that she had thought of something so very pressing at the last minute, and had actually taken her bag with her, which contained all her belongings. I saw her go down the platform and through the gate; then, when I had waited two minutes, I strolled down the platform to see if I could discover her. I could see nothing. I was afraid to go through the gate lest we should miss each other, so I stood close to the gate, and I’ll swear that no one the least like her came through it.”

Mr. Brookes took off his bowler hat and passed his handkerchief across his brow. I had never seen him so disturbed.

“It occurred to me, after I had been waiting some little time, and the train was due to start, that, at her suggestion, I had put the tickets in her bag and practically all my money. I did not know what to do. I had never been in such a position in my life; I had not dreamt that I could be in such a position. They were calling out, ‘Take your seats,’ and were shutting the doors. What had become of Clare? I could not imagine. I could not go without her. Our luggage was in the train, I could not ask the officials to delay the train on our account, and while I was in a state bordering on distraction the issue was taken out of my hands—the train started; and now”—turning to one of the officials—“this man wants me to believe that she was in the train after all. I am perfectly certain that she was nothing of the kind. What has become of her I don’t know, but I’ll swear she wasn’t in that train.”

The amazing part of it was that he never did know what had become of her—the bride had left the bridegroom on the eve of their wedding journey and vanished into space. Unfortunately, there were one or two suspicious circumstances about that vanishing. She had taken her brand-new dressing-case with her, a present from him, which contained all their portable property which was worth having—besides two hundred pounds in English money which was to have been spent upon the honeymoon. Mr. Brookes never saw any of that again. The heavy luggage which had gone on by the train was claimed at the Gare du Nord by an individual who produced the checks for it, as well as the keys, which permitted of the Customs examination—and that vanished. The wedding reception had been held at a South Kensington hotel, at which the presents had been exhibited. Before Mr. Brookes got back to it some one called for the presents, armed with a letter from Mrs. Brookes—it seemed that she had made arrangements with the hotel people before she left to hand over the presents to some one who was to call for them—and they were never seen again.

The thing was very well done; Mr. Brookes found that he had been robbed in almost every direction in which he could have been robbed. To an onlooker it had its comical side, but it was a tragedy to him. He told me afterwards that, in one way or another, he reckoned he had been done out of more than a thousand pounds—to say nothing of his wife.

He had gone on one of those cruises, which are so in vogue nowadays, to the Norwegian fiords. On the boat was a most charming lady, a Miss Clare Percival. He was a well-to-do bachelor, about forty years of age—the lady struck him as being the wife he had been looking for for years. Affairs of that sort on yachts I believe grow rapidly. Ere long she owned that she liked him, when he asked her; before they reached England—I think it was a twenty-eight-day cruise—the liking had turned to love, or so she said. Three weeks after they were back in London they were married—that episode at Charing Cross Station was the result. The whole affair was decidedly funny—except for the mourning bridegroom.

About eighteen months afterwards I went for a yachting cruise—mine was to the Morocco coast and all sorts of pleasant-sounding places. Our party—we were called a “party”—consisted of about fifty persons. We had not been two days at sea when I had become impressed by two facts. One was that we had on board the proprietor of “Ebenezer’s Grey-Blue Pills” and samples of his large and ebullient family, and the other was that among the passengers was a lady whose appearance had the most singular effect on me. The moment I saw her I had a feeling that I had seen her somewhere before, but for the life of me I could not think where and when.

She was a delightful person; full of resource, skilled in all sorts of what are known as “parlour tricks”; she could sing and recite, tell funny tales, perform conjuring tricks, and play on the piano and the banjo and the fiddle, and, what was then the latest craze in musical instruments, the balalaika. She was good at bridge—some of the people said she was the best lady-player they had seen, and her knowledge of the sort of games which are calculated to amuse a general company was simply abnormal. She seemed to have lots of money, and some pretty dresses and some nice jewels. Before we were out of the Bay of Biscay she was the most prominent and popular person on board. By that time she had given people to understand, in a casual kind of way, that she had been an actress, and that she had been a singer, and that she had been an entertainer, and that she had written things and painted things—but I was commencing to wonder if she had ever been Mrs. Everard Brookes.

I frankly admit that the idea first came into my head because of the similarity of the cases; Mrs. Brookes had once been a single lady on a yachting cruise, and here was Marianne Tracy—she took pains to explain exactly how “Marianne” ought to be spelt—occupying precisely the same position. Of course, that was merely a coincidence; lots of single ladies go on yachting cruises, and they are all of them charming and respectable; and beyond that coincidence there was nothing, absolutely nothing. She bore no physical resemblance, from what I remembered, to Mrs. Brookes. I had only seen that lady once, and that was at her wedding, and I had a more or less vague recollection that she had fair hair, which matched her complexion, and that she was tall and slender, and, to my mind, uncomfortably prim; just the colourless sort of person one would expect Mr. Brookes to marry. Miss Tracy was black as night—black hair, black eyes, black eyebrows, and even the faintest shadow of what might be a black moustache. She was no taller than I was, but she was much plumper, and she was full of vivacity and high spirits; and as for prim—I do not wish to do the lady an injustice, but even by abuse of language one could not call her prim. She was hail fellow with every one on board—the officers, the passengers, the stewards, the crew, and, I dare say, the stokers down below; she had a knack of making friends with every one with whom she came in contact. Seeing, as I do, a great deal more than many people suppose, I was not a little tickled by some of the conversations in which I saw her take a very active part. She was a flirt. Before we were out of the Bay I believe that most of the male creatures on board, of all sorts and kinds, were under the impression that she was in love with them.

It was that faculty which I possess of seeing so much more than many folks guess which caused my vague suspicion to take, by degrees, a very concrete form. It was the evening on which we were leaving Gibraltar, where we had spent the day. Most gorgeous weather—the sky was ablaze with stars. I was prowling about the ship when, in a corner on the lower deck, I came upon an individual the sight of whom gave me quite a start. He was in a steward’s uniform, but I had certainly never seen him on board before. Whatever his duties might be, they had never brought him into the passengers’ saloons; I should have recognized him on the instant if they had. His was a face which, once seen by an observant pair of eyes like mine, was not likely to be forgotten, even after a lapse of eighteen months—and that period of time had passed since I had seen him.

The last, and first, time I had beheld that gentleman was at Charing Cross Railway Station on the afternoon on which Mrs. Everard Brookes had disappointed her husband by vanishing on the eve of their honeymoon. He was the individual who had hurried up to a masculine acquaintance and told him, right in front of me, that some one feminine had “done a bunk all right,” and was “away with the best of the swag”; and had handed him what he called “her brief,” and which had seemed to me to be a continental railway-ticket. There was no mistaking those freckles and that flaming moustache—or, indeed, the man as a whole.

My surprise at seeing him there was so great that for some seconds I did not realize whom he was talking to; then I saw that it was Miss Marianne Tracy; and, as I watched what they were saying, I began to understand. He said to her:

“The best of the old girl’s things he takes care of; those diamonds and pearls which we got the office about, which the old girl flashes around, are in a bag which he keeps in his locker. Some of the girls’ things are in it too; I dropped into the cabin as if by accident the other morning, and I saw him put them into his bag.”

The man winked at her when he said “by accident”; I have no doubt that Miss Tracy grasped his meaning. I had had no intention of playing the spy—I had made no attempt to conceal myself; so that when Miss Tracy looked round, as she did just at that moment, she saw me at once. With perfect presence of mind she came straight up to me.

“Taking a stroll about the ship, Miss Lee?”

I do not know what possessed me; I do sometimes yield to impulse, and I did then. This person did seem to me to be such an impudent piece of goods that, without counting the cost, I felt bound to have a shot at her—and I did then and there. I looked her very straight in the face, and with what I am sure was the most perfect civility I asked her a question.

“Aren’t you Mrs. Everard Brookes?”

She did not change countenance—the baggage! She must have had a front of brass. She just looked at me inquiringly, and she smiled, and she said:

“So! We have met before, Miss Lee!”

She put her lips together, and she gave a tiny little whistle; it was scarcely audible, but I fancy it was heard by some one, because, without a moment’s warning, some one, stealing on me from behind, put something over my head which blocked out all the light and made it difficult for me to breathe, and I was dragged down backwards on to the deck. I would have screamed when I got there, only a hand was pressed against my mouth, on the outside of the stuff which covered my face, and I could not utter a sound. The same hand held me down tight, another took me by the throat and almost choked me, while a second pair of hands took hold of my wrists and tied them together, and then did the same to my ankles. I could not struggle, because the pressure on my mouth and throat seemed to be driving the sense all out of me. Then two hands were slipped under the cloth, my jaw was forced open, something was thrust into it—and there was I as helpless as a trussed fowl, and incapable of uttering a sound.

I am free to admit that it was very well done, evidently by persons who had done that sort of thing before. I had not the use of my eyes, but, if I could trust my ears, not a word was spoken nor an instant wasted. Presently two pairs of hands lifted me by the head and heels; I was carried a few feet, and deposited under what I have no doubt was cover, and there I remained for I have not the faintest notion how long. And in the cabin, as I was perfectly aware, they were waiting for me to make a four at bridge. I could picture Miss Tracy explaining how I had been overcome by a sudden headache, and how I had asked her, with their permission, to take my place; and as I continued to lie in that ignominious position I have no doubt that the creature who had been chiefly instrumental in putting me there was playing my hands.

Time passed; the hours went by—they seemed to me years—and as I was wondering if I had become an old woman and my hair had turned grey, I was lifted again by two pairs of hands, though I had not heard a sound of anyone approaching. I was carried this time some distance; a rope was tied round my waist, and immediately afterwards I became pleasantly conscious that I was being lowered over the side of the ship. I took it for granted that my two friends, desirous of avoiding the noise of a splash, had adopted this method of dropping me into the sea. I feared my end had come, and was momentarily expecting to come in contact with the water, when I went plump against something solid instead, and on what I had bumped against I stayed. The tension of the rope ceased. I was being lowered no longer; apparently I was on, or in, something. I suppose I was there some minutes before I discovered that the ligature which bound my wrists together was not so taut as it had been, and it did not take me very long after the discovery was made to wriggle both my hands loose. Then I put them up and pulled that covering off my head and face. I found it was a canvas-bag which had contained something undesirable, because my eyes, and nostrils, and mouth were full of grits, and something gritty was worrying my hair and skin. I took the gag out of my mouth; they had actually used a piece of cotton waste. Then I sat up, and I learned that I was in a small boat, which was all alone on what—literally to me—was a trackless ocean. My sensations on making this discovery were of the most exhilarating kind. I would have cried if I had thought it would do any good. As a matter of fact, I was consumed with rage; my one craving was to get that freckled man and that false woman by their throats, one hand at the throat of each, and knock, knock, knock their heads together; there would not have been much left of them if I had had a chance of knocking them together then. I would have just smashed them up like egg-shells.

I nursed my pleasant dreams of being revenged on them for quite a while. Then I untied my ankles, got on the one seat in the boat, and looked around. There was nothing to see, except water; and there was too much of that. I must have been lying for hours with that disgusting bag over my head, because it was clear, from the appearance of the heavens, that the dawn was on the point of breaking. It did break; I floated on, and on, and on. All of a sudden I saw something straight in front of me which caused me to get on to my feet and stare with all my might.

It was land—I believed it was land; I was sure it was land. It was ever so far away; but if I only had—then I realized that there was a pair of oars on board that boat. Whether that pretty couple had put them there on purpose, with the intention of giving me a chance to save my life, I have never known—but there they were. Presently I put them in the rowlocks, and I was pulling for dear life. I can row, but never before or since have I rowed as I rowed then. I sincerely hope I shall never have such a long pull again. I reached land, or I should not be telling the story. When I did I just lay down and felt as if I were as good as dead. If there had been so much as a ripple on the sea, I doubt if I should ever have gained the shore at all—my strength was utterly spent; but not only was the sea as calm as a mill-pond, but I have been told since that there is a strong current in that part of the world which sets towards the land. No doubt that helped to carry me in as much as my straining at the oars.

I want to get over this part of the story as fast as possible. I don’t like to think of it even now. After a while I became conscious that people were standing by and looking down at me. I never knew quite who they were, but I suppose they were Moors, because I had got ashore in Morocco. They could not speak English, and I could not speak what they spoke, so neither side understood a word of what the other side said; but I followed them, because a man took me by the wrist and made me go to a disreputable-looking sort of village, which I dare say an artist would have called picturesque; but I like my villages to be clean and wholesome, and that certainly was not. There I met an old man who had some English, of rather a curious kind; he must have acquired it in some strange company, because every third or fourth word was an oath; still, it was better than nothing. I knew, of course, that the yacht was making for Tangier, and I asked him how far that was. As far as I could gather from what he said, it was about six months’ journey; but I did not believe it was anything of the kind, because I knew that the yacht expected to get there early that day, and in that cockle-shell of a boat I could not possibly have gone very far out of its course.

As a matter of fact it was four days before I reached Tangier. The sight I must have presented when I got there! I walked nearly all the way. I had never had a wash, or been able to brush or comb my hair—considering when I was lowered into that small boat I was in full evening-dress. I had on a costume of sky-blue satin covered with chiffon, the corsage cut low, no sleeves, a pair of blue silk stockings to match, and the flimsiest of shoes. When you have got those details clearly in your mind, and remember that I had spent a night at sea, rowing in a small boat, and that afterwards I walked for four days on the roads of Morocco, without once coming within sight of soap or water, brush or comb, I don’t think I need say any more of what I looked like when I reached Tangier.

I created a sensation when I did get there; for that matter, I created a sensation all along the road. I was the centre of a highly amused mob of the inhabitants of the place, when, of all people in the world, who should I encounter but the proprietor of Ebenezer’s Grey-Blue Pills, his wife, his son, his two daughters, together with other passengers from the yacht which I had so unintentionally quitted. And they fell on me all at once, not with sympathy, but with accusations of robbery and theft.

We all adjourned to the house of the British Consul, and half the population of the town seemed to be waiting in the street without. There I was informed that jewels, and other valuables, belonging to John T. Stebbings, had been taken out of his cabin on the night I had gone, and every one took it for granted that they had gone with me. So there I was, charged with leaving that yacht of set purpose and intention, with no end of valuables belonging to other people.

Looking back, I find that I have omitted something; it comes back to my mind at this moment just as it did then. It is not very much—just a trifle; but one of those trifles which turn the scale.

As, on that eventful night, Miss Marianne Tracy looked round and beheld me, she was in the very act of saying something to her freckled friend. I only saw her lips form part of the sentence; how it began I do not know, and it never ended. The words I saw her lips form were only these:

“… the Villa Hortense, in the Street of the Fountain——”

In the excitement of the thrilling moment which immediately ensued I think I scarcely realized that those words had reached my brain—anyhow, I should not have known to what they referred. But in that room in the Consul’s house, confronted by my accusers, they came back to me. I even had some inkling of what they might mean.

I told my tale. They listened with an amazement which grew; then, when I had come nearly to an end, and I felt that I had made some sort of impression, I asked the Consul a question:

“Is there in this town a Street of the Fountain?”

He said there was; he ventured on a statement, eyeing me sharply.

“You have been here before—this is not your first visit to Tangier?”

I told him not only that it was, but that I hoped it would be my last. I explained the circumstances in which I had seen the words uttered. How he stared, and how they all stared, as if I were some wonderful creature! It is a continual source of amusement to me how many people think I am doing something wonderful when I am merely putting into practice the principles by the teaching of which I make my living.

“I understand,” I added, “that Miss Tracy left the yacht the night before last, to spend a day or two ashore. I think it possible that you will find she prefers to remain ashore when the yacht goes.” I put another question to the Consul: “Do you happen to know, sir, if in the Street of the Fountain there is a house called the Villa Hortense?”

“By repute I know it very well. It is a house which, at various times, has had some curious occupants—persons of whom somewhat queer tales have been told. I believe that at the present moment it is without a tenant.”

“I venture, in spite of your belief, sir, to express my belief that if Mr. John T. Stebbings would like to learn something about the jewels belonging to Mrs. Stebbings and the Misses Stebbings, he cannot do better than make inquiries at the Villa Hortense, in the Street of the Fountain.”

They all trooped off to that poetically named street; I tried to get it into their heads that that was not the most desirable way of making what ought to have been a discreet approach. Each was willing that some one else should stay behind, but was bent on going him or herself. So they all of them went together. Some one, I do not know who, had lent me an aboriginal sort of wrap which I believe was called a burnous; that covered the worst of me, but there was still enough of me visible to make me one of the most striking figures in that singular procession.

The Street of the Fountain proved to be very narrow, so the procession had to tail off, whether it wished to or not. From the outside the Villa Hortense seemed to be quite a good-sized house. While people were wondering how we were going to get in I turned the handle and opened the door. The door led directly into a room. As I entered I saw a feminine figure passing through a door which was on the other side. Although she looked quite different, I knew that she was Miss Marianne Tracy. As I made a dash at her she shut the door with a bang, I heard a key turned in the lock and bolts shot home. As the door was a solid construction, apparently six inches thick, my desire to get through it had to be postponed. Others had come in after me, and they were eyeing with surprise the contents of the room—which certainly were rather amazing. There were articles of clothing which had undoubtedly belonged to Miss Tracy, and what is known as a “transformation,” which had probably belonged to her too, to say nothing of some odds and ends of an extremely intimate kind. The great discovery was made by Mrs. Stebbings and her two daughters; they dashed forward with a chorused cry: “Father’s bag!”

There, on a sort of stool, was the bag which Mr. Stebbings had kept in his locker, and which had contained the most valuable possessions of the feminine part of the family. There were some of them left still—what the family seemed to regard as unconsidered trifles; the articles really worth having were there no more. They had probably gone with the lady who had locked and bolted—on the other side—that extremely solid door. While we were assimilating this interesting fact a person garbed as a sailor appeared in the doorway and informed us, at the top of his voice, that if we wanted to continue our yachting cruise we had better get on board at once, as the boat was on the point of starting.

There was a nice to-do. Every one seemed to be strongly of the opinion that the captain was an exceptionally unreasonable person; but, as no one wished to be left behind, a common inclination was shown to rush to the shore. As nobody was more eager to get on board than I was, for divers reasons, I kept well to the front. We reached the quay just as the ship’s boat was about to put off, and I was the first one in. They all came tumbling after me. We discussed the captain’s conduct on the way to the ship, and we kept on discussing it to the end of the voyage. He was tried by a sort of court-martial, no two members of which agreed.

Mr., Mrs., the Misses, and Master Stebbings were of opinion that the captain ought to have kept the ship at Tangier while search was made for that disreputable woman, and at least endeavoured to recover their valuable property. As the ship had stayed there already much longer than she ought to have done, the captain made it quite clear that his first duty was to the owners, and that if the Stebbings family had wished to remain they might have done so and come on by another ship. But as their remaining property was on board and they had only a few pounds on their persons, it was not strange that they had not seen their way to act on the captain’s suggestion. Mrs. Stebbings asked him pointedly if he thought she could live for a fortnight in the clothes she stood up in, and the young ladies hinted that he was not the kind of person they had taken him for. So the captain retired, and I should not be surprised if he bullied the crew. I believe efforts were made by wireless to ascertain the woman’s whereabouts and to regain the Stebbingses’ gems, and that directions were given to leave no stone unturned which should bring these things about. But, so far as I know, nothing ever came of what was done.

The yachting cruise went on, under a sort of blight. Everything seemed different without Miss Tracy and the Stebbingses’ gems. The numerous inquisitions which were held on me, and the myriad questions which I had to answer, caused me seriously to consider whether it would not be desirable to remain at one of the ports at which we touched and continue my journey later. But the truth was that I had had enough of yachting, and the one thing for which I craved was to have done with that pleasure trip and get back home. I did get back home—we all got back home—and I think that most of us parted from each other in the hope that we might never meet again.

This story is episodical, with an interval between each episode. There was another interval of about eighteen months, during which I managed to keep myself alive, though, for the most part, I was badly over-worked; and one afternoon I went to call upon a friend who was staying at the Hotel Metropole in town. I stayed in the lounge while she went to write some letters. Right on the other side was a party of Americans. They seemed to be so much amused by what they were talking about that I could not help watching them, and I saw one of them tell this story. He struck me as a man who had been in this world about sixty years, and who had lived them every one.

“Have I told you about Alexander King?”

He asked the question, and with one accord his listeners said that he had not; so he told them then.

“Last fall Alexander went on a pleasure cruise to the coast of Florida. On board there was a lady—I don’t mean that there weren’t other ladies on the ship, but she was the only one for Alexander. Alexander had had three wives already, and he told me himself that he thought enough was as good as a feast; but the sight of her made him think he’d try again. All the way there and back he made hay of that young female’s heart to such an extent that, when he got back to New York, nothing would suit him but that he should rush off to the first handy place, and make her the fourth Mrs. King. But she was not taking any; she was a modest creature, and wanted time to prepare her mind. So he gave her time, as little as she would let him give her, and he spent most of it in buying such articles as New York had to sell; so that when they had the wedding he had quite a nice collection to pour into the lap of his bride. They were going to Tennessee for the honeymoon, and they went down to the depot, and they boarded the train. And just before the train was going to start she remembered that she had forgotten something somewhere, and she caught up a bag which contained all he had worth having, as well as some trifles of her own, and she started off to get it. And she left Alexander alone in the train—and he’s been alone ever since. Yes, boys, he has. That train started with Alexander alone in it, without even his bag. She had recommended him, like a good and thoughtful wife, careful of her husband’s interest, to put all his cash into that bag, and everything he had worth taking; and he had acted on her advice, and now the bag was gone, and she with it. That’s the last he’s ever seen of either. Yes, boys, that’s a fact. What honeymoon he had he spent all alone, which didn’t amount to much; and, from what I have heard, it would seem that he has been spending most of the money he had left on telegraphing descriptions of the bag and the lady to every part of the world. He has met with no success so far, and I take it that his money will give out before he does. So he’s a widower once more.”

His hearers laughed, and I had to laugh—he had such a comical way of telling a story—but I laughed with rather a wry face. I had no doubt that Mrs. Everard Brookes, and Miss Marianne Tracy, and Mrs. Alexander King were one and the same person. The audacity of the creature was almost incredible! I believe I should have gone across to them and told them so, only just then my friend came up and insisted upon bearing me off without giving me a chance to explain.

A few days afterwards I was in Bond Street, when a beautifully attired lady came out of a shop, and stopped to stare at me. I could not believe my eyes—it was Marianne Tracy, though transformed into quite another being. Her coolness was almost supernatural.

“It is Miss Lee, isn’t it? I thought it was. I’m so glad to have met you.”

That was all she said, in the sweetest tone of voice. Then she got into a gorgeous motor-car, which I had been conscious had been standing at the kerb, and as she pulled the door to she leaned over and said:

“By the way, how did you enjoy that little trip to sea?”

Before I could answer the car was off. What was I to do? I could not run after it; it was lost in the traffic before I had got my wits about me. I could not give a description of the car—I had scarcely noticed it; I was not sure either of the shape or colour. That woman had slipped through my fingers, merely because her presence of mind was greater than mine. If I had only kept my head enough to take her by the throat in the middle of Bond Street!

A week afterwards I had a call from Mr. Everard Brookes. He began to talk about his wife—he still called her his wife. The man struck me as being more than half a lunatic. He told me that he had more than once thought of going into mourning. The very notion! I thought of what her feelings would have been if she had seen him in widower’s weeds. He said that he felt that in the first flush of his agitation he had misjudged her; he was sure that she had cared for him; he had had proofs of it. I wonder what they were. He was nearly convinced that she had been the victim of one of those tragedies of which one reads in the newspapers; she might have been run over by a motor-bus; he had a morbid feeling that he himself would one day be run over by a vehicle of that description. Something had happened to her, he believed; one day it would be made known what it was.

I hoped that it never would, for his sake. He was one of those men who—because nothing ever has happened to them—like to think that something has happened to them at last—something wonderful, altogether out of the common way; that they have been the victim of some supreme tragedy. I doubt if he would have made much of a husband, anyhow. He was actually happy under the delusion that some strange, mysterious fate had in some altogether incomprehensible way robbed him of what might have been his life’s bright star. His existence might have been so blissful had Destiny only stayed its hand. It is my belief that he endeavoured to make this clear to everybody he met after five minutes’ acquaintance; so that, if he lost his wife before she was really his, at least he had an object in life.

The next morning I met William B. Stebbings, the son of Ebenezer’s Grey-Blue Pills, and, as soon as he had made up his mind who I was, the very first words he said to me were:

“I say, Miss Lee, I’m going to be married—yes, I am; and I hope to see you there; you must have a card. It’s on Tuesday week.” Then, though we were out in the open street, he closed his left eye and winked. “Have you ever heard anything of Miss Tracy? She was a dandy of a girl, she was; and, between ourselves, I believe that she didn’t object to me. If it hadn’t been for that little upset, matters between us might have gone farther than—— Well, strictly between ourselves, I don’t mind telling you that she told me herself that she would like to be my wife; she meant it too. She was fond of me, that girl was. Pity she made such a mistake.”

I did not know to which mistake he alluded, and I did not ask him. I did not want to know. He was an extremely plain, clumsily built, stupid young man; and I was half inclined to wish that she had married him. Where women are concerned, men are the most amazing things. What all those men, of different ages, different tastes, different altogether, saw in her was beyond my comprehension. The proof that she had a fatal fascination for the male animal came to me in still stranger shape only a few days later.

I was standing in one of the Tube stations, when a decently dressed young man came up to me and took his cap off.

“Excuse me, but aren’t you Miss Lee? I don’t suppose you know who I am, but I remember you because of Miss Balfour.”

“Miss who?” I asked. I was quite certain I had never seen him before; he was almost a gentleman and quite nice-looking, about twenty-three or four.

“Miss Balfour spoke to you in Bond Street, now rather more than a fortnight since. You were passing when she came out of a shop and spoke to you, and then she got into the motor-car. I was the chauffeur. She told me afterwards who you were.”

“So she calls herself Miss Balfour now, does she?” A light was beginning to dawn on me. “I shall be very much obliged if you can tell me where Miss Balfour is to be found at the present moment.”

He pulled rather a long face.

“I wish I could; that is what I hoped you would be able to tell me.”

“No one is less likely to be able to tell you about the movements of the woman who, according to you, now calls herself Miss Balfour than I am. Are you no longer in her employ?”

He shifted his cap a little to one side and scratched his head. I thought what a rueful-looking object he was all at once.

“Well, it’s rather a long story. It’s like this.” He paused, as if to try back to the beginning. “I wasn’t exactly in her employ; the fact is, an uncle of mine left me a legacy, and I laid it out in buying a motor-car, meaning to hire it out to people who wanted one. It’s a first-rate car, and I wanted to get at people of better class. Miss Balfour hired it—first by the day, then by the week, and then by the month. We used to go off together for tours in the country, and”—he began to look sheepish—“she made herself very pleasant to me. Of course, she paid my expenses, and nothing would suit her but that we should take our meals together—late dinner and all that; and—well”—he looked more sheepish—“she began to make out that she had taken a liking to me, and, of course, I liked her; so then I gave her the motor-car.”

“You did what?” I almost shouted in that Tube station.

“You see, we were going to be married——”

“Oh, you were going to be married!”

“Of course; I knew she’d got lots of money, and that it would be a first-rate thing for me, and so I thought, there being only one thing I could give her worth having, that was the least I could give her, so I gave her the motor-car, thinking,” he quickly added, “that, as what was hers would be mine, it would make no difference, and that it would be as much mine as ever; only the mischief was I gave it her before witnesses; and that very same night, if she didn’t get up in the middle of the night, and go down to the garage, and take the car out, and drive off with it, and I’ve seen nothing of either of them since.”

This was such an astounding story that if it had not been for the sincere air of depression which marked the man I should have thought that he was having a joke at my expense; but he was serious enough, as he had good reason to be.

“It was no use my going after her, even if I had known where she was, because, of course, she hadn’t stolen the motor-car, seeing that I had given it to her in the presence of witnesses—and that’s how it was.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve lost your motor-car?”

“It looks as if I had. I did hear by a sort of side-wind that she’s taken it to France, but, seeing that it’s hers, I don’t see what I can do to her if she has. She’s had me fairly. It was one of the best motor-cars that money could buy; I didn’t grudge anything in the way of fittings.”

He sighed. My train came up, and I left the youth lamenting. He was only another example of what absolute idiots all sorts and conditions of men, old and young, can make themselves over a woman.

It was not very long afterwards that a letter reached me which bore the Paris post-mark. As a specimen of—I will call it courage—I give it verbatim. There was no date and there was no address.

“My dear Miss Lee—may I call you Judith? …”

It was at this point that I realized that the letter was from that woman. Might she call me Judith! I read on—with my teeth set pretty close together.

“When I saw you the other day in Regent Street—I don’t know if you saw me; I was in a motor-car and you were walking—quite a wave of emotion passed over me. It was so sweet to see again one of whom one has such sunny memories. And you were looking so well; a little older, perhaps, but a few years more or less would make no difference to your appearance. I should have liked to stop my motor-car and begged you to have a cup of tea. I cannot help sending you just a line to say so, if only to recall to your recollection one who I hope you look upon as an old friend.

“A great change is about to take place in my life. I am shortly to be married—to a Russian merchant of immense wealth. One has to be married some time. I wonder if you will ever be? There are men who will marry anything—who knows?

“I had no idea until the other day that you were the famous Judith Lee. It was a surprise. I had heard so much about you—about how wise and clever and wonderful you were. You are not the least like what I expected. And yet how beautiful it must be to be able to read people’s thoughts, even the secrets of their hearts, as I am told you can. Who would have thought it? I shall look forward to meeting you again some day, in order that you may teach me some of the strange magic—I am bound to call it magic—of which you are such a mistress. You will find me an apt pupil; don’t you think you will?