JUDITH LEE (continued 6)

“No, sir, I have not, sir. And if I had it would make no difference. I—I—I give you my word—I’m not a fool.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?” The Colonel rose in sudden wrath.

“Now, Colonel—gently.” This was Griffiths, the peacemaker.

“Are you prepared to pay me, sir, the twenty-three thousand one hundred and fifty pounds you owe me in cash?”

Drink seemed to be having the effect of making Uncle Jack sleepy; he looked up at the irate Charlie with heavy eyes.

“I am not, sir—I am not prepared—to pay it—at all.”

“This is too much—you dirty little hound!”

Charlie, leaning over the table, lifted Uncle Jack off his chair and bore him across the green cloth as if he were but the small quadruped he called him. The action suggested that Charlie was strong. Then, laying him flat across the board, he ran his fingers through his victim’s pockets with a swiftness and dexterity which hinted at much practice. He held up a pocket-book.

“We’ll see what you have in this, sir.” He proceeded to do so. “You may not have a cheque-book on you, sir, but you do appear to have a cheque.” He unfolded one which he had taken from the pocket-book. “Now, sir, pen and ink will be given you, and you will fill up that cheque in my favour for twenty-three thousand one hundred and fifty pounds—at once, without any further nonsense.” He picked him off the table, sat him on a chair. “Griffiths, where’s a pen and ink?” Those requisites were produced by Miss Parsons. “Here, sir, are pens for you to choose from; find one which suits your hand and fill up this cheque. Try this one, sir—if you don’t take hold of it——”

It was not necessary for Charlie to finish his sentence, because Uncle Jack did take hold. A woeful spectacle he presented, after the ignominious manner in which he had been handled—a fuddled, muddled, frightened little man, with those three great men, and two big women, looking down at him. Charlie continued to play the part to which he was accustomed.

“Now, sir, have you got well hold of that pen? Draw that cheque in favour of Colonel Frederick Stewart for twenty-three thousand one hundred and fifty pounds, put your usual signature at the bottom and leave it open. Why aren’t you doing as I tell you, sir?”

“I—I’d rather not,” stammered Uncle Jack.

“Then you’re a thief, sir. As it is the custom in the part of the world in which I was raised for a gentleman to shoot a thief at sight, if you don’t get a move on you and fill up that cheque, I’ll put the contents of this gun inside you.”

Charlie, producing a revolver from some part of his person, pointed it at Uncle Jack, whose terror was so great as to be almost ludicrous.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” he wailed. “I’ll draw the cheque.”

He made haste to do as he was bid. Charlie checked his enthusiasm.

“Steady, sir, steady, or your handwriting will be all shaky, and you’ll spoil the cheque. Just you fill up this cheque, without a shiver or a shake, in your usual handwriting—and you’ll make a friend of me for life.”

Whether the prospect held out to him by the other’s words charmed Uncle Jack I cannot certainly say; he filled up the cheque with what appeared to be a surprisingly steady hand. The others watched him. Charlie picked up the cheque when he had finished. He handed it to Griffiths.

“Seems all right.”

The two women and Poyntz came and looked at it over his shoulders as he held it between his fingers.

“It does seem all right,” he admitted, “as far as seeming goes.”

“I’ll see that it is all right. You keep him here a night. I’ll go up by the first train. If they make any fuss at the bank, I’ll put them on to the telephone. You see that he tells them to cash it—they probably know his voice. Only don’t you let him play the fool by seeming to hesitate.”

“I’ll make it my business to see to that.” This was Poyntz, who smiled as he spoke. “Trust me. Hadn’t you better put him to bed straight off, perhaps with something which will help him sleep?”

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t—we’ve done with him.” Griffiths turned to Miss Parsons. “You can manage a little something, can’t you?”

Drawing a tiny bottle from her corsage, Miss Parsons took from it what seemed to be a minute globule, which she dropped into a glass, drowned in whisky to which she added soda and held to Uncle Jack.

“Drink that up, old man,” she told him. “It’s a night cap.”

It seemed to me that the time had come for me to interfere. For a minute or so I had been conscious of certain sounds without the house for which I had been waiting. While the dashing lady was endeavouring to induce her poor little dupe to take the tumbler, with its drugged contents, between his tremulous fingers, drawing the curtains asunder, I stepped into the room. Mine was quite an effective entry—they stared at me as if I were some strange object dropped from the skies. Before either of them had a chance of speaking or of moving, I whistled. I am rather a good hand at whistling. My whistle rang through the house. Before it died away, or they had an opportunity to recover from their amazement, half a dozen men came streaming through the door—uniformed policemen, with an inspector at their head. Him I addressed.

“That man, Inspector, with the revolver in his hand, is Chicago Charlie, a well-known American crook, for whom, I have no doubt, the police have had inquiries.”

Charlie’s stupefied astonishment was almost funny. For once in his life he had been caught napping. He stared at the inspector, then his glance came back to me—which was where he made a mistake; for while he glared in my direction two policemen stole on him from behind, one gripped the wrist which held the revolver and snatched it from him, while round the other wrist his colleague snapped a handcuff. His surprise was complete; he did not even attempt to struggle. He merely thundered, ornamenting his words with adjectives which I am unable to reproduce:

“Who in the name of all that’s wonderful are you?”

“I’m a person,” I informed him, “who takes a great interest in characters like you, and your friends. I am already well known to Mr. Finlayson; not so well to Miss Parsons; and only slightly to Mrs. Hammond. Allow me to recall myself to their recollections—I am Judith Lee.”

As I spoke I removed the scarlet transformation—and how they stared! It is surprising what a difference a little thing like that does make, under certain circumstances, to unobservant eyes. While seated at dinner, watching what that trio was saying, I had been scribbling a note on the back of a menu card, which I slipped into an envelope brought me by the waiter. When I left the dining-room I gave instructions that it was to be taken at once to the police station. In that note I had made it clear what I expected in that remote house, rightly named “The Wilderness,” and requested that adequate assistance might be sent; a certain signal was to advise me of the arrival of that assistance; my whistle was to serve as a signal for the police to enter. Everything worked as smoothly as could have been desired; that little party had quite a different ending from what had been intended. Uncle Jack was taken back to the hotel; his cheque was retrieved; the two ladies and three gentlemen who had proposed to share the proceeds of that cheque between them spent the night as His Majesty’s guests.

The unfortunate part of the business was that later the ridiculous little man expressed himself, to me as well as to others, as absolutely convinced that my action in the matter was inspired by the affection I felt for him. I have reason to doubt if even the plainest possible language from me sufficed to drive the preposterous notion wholly from his head. As I asked at the beginning—why are some men so silly?

X. MANDRAGORA

So many things come about by what seems accident, a caprice of chance. In this world few things seem hidden from me; I am a sort of general confessor to the universe at large; only the confessions are both involuntary and unconscious. So often, where people are gathered together, I have only to look about me to share their thoughts, their confidences, their secrets. How often I have made a special effort not to do so. Only once, perhaps, in a thousand times do I light on something worth a second thought, and then it is by the merest hazard.

Take what I call the case of George Young. Who would suppose that while eating a hasty lunch in a crowded restaurant I should have picked up the first threads of what was destined to prove one of my not least interesting experiences?

I had returned from week-ending with a friend, and was having lunch at the railway station dining-room before returning to my work. The place was crowded, with that miscellaneous assemblage which is the peculiarity of such places. Just as the waiter had brought me what I ordered, two men, coming hurriedly in, took the only two vacant seats in sight, at a little round table next to mine. Something in their appearance attracted my attention. They were of different ages. One was about thirty, tall, dark, square-faced; the other was possibly nearly twice that age, a little white-haired man, who looked as if his health was failing. What caught my attention chiefly was that he seemed to be in such a curious state of nervousness. He could not keep still; some part of his body was always in motion; watching him gave one the jumps. At last his companion commented on it; they were sitting sideways to me, so that I could see both their faces. The younger man spoke in a most matter-of-fact way, between the mouthfuls of cold roast beef which he was eating.

“If I were you, Hutton, I should take something for it.”

It was the first time either had spoken; perhaps it was the unexpectedness of the remark which caused the elder man to give a sort of lurch in his chair. He replied with his fork suspended between his mouth and his plate:

“For what?”

The other answered with a stolidity which was almost bovine:

“For whatever it is you’ve got.”

The elder looked as if, for a moment, he did not grasp the other’s meaning; then he sighed—a sigh which seemed to come from the very depths of his being.

“Ah, Walker, I wish I could take something for it; but—who can minister to a mind diseased? Mandragora would have no effect on me.”

Then he sighed again. An unpleasant look came upon the other’s face; then he said:

“I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense; what do you suppose is the good of it?”

“There is no good in it—that’s the worst of it; there’ll never be any good in anything any more; we’ve murdered goodness. You’re a different type of man from me.”

“Thank heaven!” The speaker took a long drink of beer.

“For one thing, I am nearer the grave than you are; perhaps that’s why I’m so much more disposed than you to think of what’s beyond it. I never thought that I should go to the Judgment Seat with such a crime to answer for; I don’t know what I shall say when I get there. If I feel like this now, what shall I feel like then?”

“If you don’t stop talking like that, taking up that pose, you and I will quarrel.”

“I’m not afraid of that, Walker; I’m inclined to wish that you and I had quarrelled before. Rather Dartmoor with Young than hell with you.”

“You are a pretty creature, Hutton; didn’t the first suggestion come from you? When we saw the way which things were going, didn’t you hint to me, pretty clearly, that our only chance was to put Young in the cart?”

“I dare say; I shouldn’t wonder. I don’t know how it all began; I only know what it’s come to; and, Walker, I’m afraid to think of how it’s going to end. What shall I say when I’m before the Judgment Seat of God?”

“Hutton, I can’t think what’s come to you; you didn’t use to be this kind of man. You’ll worry yourself into actual illness if you don’t look out.”

“I’m a sick man already, sick unto death.”

Although they were unaware of the fact, I had become more absorbed in their conversation than in my lunch; I thought, as he said that, how he looked it. There was a quality in the coming shadow which seemed to be upon his face which went to my heart. His companion took another mouthful of beef and another drink of beer.

“Of course, if it pleases you to feel like that, I can’t help it, can I? Only—let me give you a tip. You played a trick on George Young, don’t you try to play a second on me. It won’t benefit you to go to the Judgment Seat with two crimes to answer for.”

“That’s true; don’t I know it? That’s what holds me in bonds. I’d have made a clean breast of things before this if I were the only one who would have to suffer; but we stood together at a critical moment for both of us, and—how can I play the traitor to you?”

The younger man put down his knife and fork and, sitting back in his chair, regarded his companion fixedly. He pressed his lips close together; a savage something came into the expression on his face.

“Hutton, we did this thing together, but the first suggestion came from you. If I thought that because of any sophistical nonsense, or because your digestion was out of order, you were meditating putting me where we put him—I’m not sure that I wouldn’t kill you.”

“I wish you would kill me, Tom; if it weren’t that you’d have to pay the penalty, I’d say do it at once. I dare not determine my own life; but—God forgive me for saying so—if some one would do it for me—I’d be grateful. You don’t know it yet, but one can be in hell even in this life; I know it—because I’m there.”

His sincerity seemed to impress his younger companion, who looked at him as if seeking words with which to answer; then, as if finding none, he summoned the waiter, paid their joint bill, and rose from his chair.

“Come on,” he said; “aren’t you ready?”

“Yes,” said the old man, with the oddest smile, “I am ready.”

They went out; they had got through their lunch in a very few minutes. Since their entry I had barely touched mine. I had, before I knew it, become a confidante in a tragedy under circumstances which had deprived me of the little appetite I had had. I sat with that old man’s face in front of me long after they had gone. What would he have done if he had had the remotest idea that the brown-faced girl at the next table was drinking in the words which revealed his agony? Would his companion have liked to kill me? There was one of the moot cases which I was often putting to myself. Ought I to carry a board in front of me—“Warning to all those present! I can tell every word you are saying by merely looking at your faces”? Or ought I to go to each individual separately, observing, “Do be careful what you say—I have only to glance at your lips to know what it is. You just now asked the waiter for the mustard; suppose you had been discussing the family skeleton, I should have known what it was”? Neither of those courses commended itself to me; still I ought not to have watched the two men at the little table next to mine; yet—at the moment it had seemed as if I could not help it. For days afterwards I kept asking myself what was the nature of the tragedy which made that old gentleman so willing that his companion should kill him.

In the late summer of that year I went to a seaside town, which I will call Easthampton. I believed it to be an obscure hamlet, until, on getting there, I found it impossible to rent a bed and sitting-room, either for love or money. It seemed that every house in the place was crammed to the roof. When I had received the same answer for about the twentieth time, I asked the flyman, who was taking me from one likely house to another, if there was still another he could think of.

“I can’t say, miss, that there is; at least there is a cottage in the fields about half a mile along the shore in which you might find accommodation, but I can’t say that I know much in its favour.”

“Do you know anything against it?”

“I can’t say exactly that I do, not against the house itself, that is.”

There was something in his tone which, ordinarily, might have prompted me to ask him what he meant; but there was my box, and there was I, and neither of us wanted to go back to town, and the outlook began to appear desperate. I told him to drive me to that cottage. It turned out to have just the accommodation I was looking for and to be quite a charming cottage in itself. It was not overburdened with furniture, but there was all I needed, and the rooms were spotlessly clean. Then, I liked the landlady: she was quite a pretty woman, possibly not more than twenty-six years old. She told me she had one child, a girl of six, and kept no servant but did all the work herself. When I touched on the question of terms, she asked if I thought fifteen shillings a week too much. As at the last house at which I had made inquiries they had told me that their terms at that time of the year were a guinea and a half per room, without extras, which amounted to I do not know how much more, I thought them absurdly little. I entered on my tenancy then and there.

I was never in more comfortable quarters. I had been threatened by one of those nervous collapses which do come to me when I have been overworked, and rest, comfort, and fresh air were the three things of which I had need. I found them all three at Laurel Cottage. And my landlady was a most charming person; no make-believe lady, but a very real one. Before I had been in the place four-and-twenty hours I was wondering how she could have come to be where she was. Although she showed herself unusually competent to do the work she had undertaken, I was certain that only very lately had she done anything of the kind.

She was very reticent. She told me that her name was Mrs. Vinton, and that she was a widow—her husband had been dead three years. I could see that she was very poor, but she never allowed a hint to escape her that she had ever occupied a different position. Since she was practically my sole companion, I saw a good deal of her. Mine was the only sitting-room the house contained. I asked her to share it with me, she and her little girl. She did bring her sewing and sit with me nearly every evening, and often I sat with her in the kitchen, which was quite as comfortable as my sitting-room. I never met a woman who had a finer gift of silence. She could sit for hours and say nothing; not because she had nothing to talk about; she was not only a highly educated woman but she had seen a great deal of the world. She had been to most of the places I knew, and to many I did not. What cause she had for silence I could not tell; she had a cause; she could talk freely, and brightly, and charmingly enough upon all sorts of subjects when she could forget it; then memory would return, and in an instant she would become almost like one of the dumb folks with whom so much of my life was spent.

I admit that she interested me greatly; in a way she mystified me still more. One or two trifles set me wondering. One evening, as I was going to my room to change my blouse for dinner, the door of the bedroom which she shared with her small child was wide open. She was putting the maid to bed. The child, kneeling at her mother’s knee, was about to say her prayers; the mother, bending over, said to her:

“I want you, Nellie, to pray for papa to-night very specially indeed; it’s his birthday.”

Tears fell from her eyes on to the child’s fair hair. I had left my walking shoes downstairs and was moving very quietly; I suppose that was why she had not heard me come. I just glanced in as I passed, and that was all I saw her say—and that left me with a feeling of having intruded on a sacred confidence. Yet in such fashion am I constituted that I could not help thinking—though it was no business of mine. I had been there ten days. She had told me, in so many words, that her husband was dead—had been dead three years; she had told me so more than once. If he had died three years ago, why did she direct her child to pray for him so specially because it was his birthday? She was not a Roman Catholic, she was a member of the Church of England. She did not pray for the souls of the dead; why had she made such a point of wishing her child to do so?

The very next day something else occurred. I made another intrusion on her confidence—I protest, quite unwillingly. It was when I was passing the kitchen window, which, like the bedroom door on the previous evening, was wide open. I could not help seeing that Mrs. Vinton was on her knees beside the kitchen table, that she had a photograph in her hands, that tears were streaming down her cheeks, and that her lips were forming words.

“My dear! my dear! May the Lord God bless and keep you, and send you back to me before my heart is quite broken.”

The words were undoubtedly addressed to the original of the photograph which she had in front of her. Plainly, there was a skeleton in this lady’s cupboard. Why did she say her husband was dead if she prayed the Lord God to send him back to her? It struck me that if he were to come back to her before her heart was broken he would have to be pretty quick. That some secret grief was eating into her soul was pretty clear. Observation has convinced me that a grief shared is a grief halved. This woman was fighting alone when she had much better have some one else at her side. I was so drawn to her that I was prepared to be that some one. I resolved to force her confidence.

It was the following evening, after dinner. We were at my sitting-room window, looking out across the wheat-field which divided us from the sea. Although she had done her best to hide it, I felt pretty certain that she had been crying nearly all day long. She looked worn and white, and almost like one at despair’s last gate.

“If you are not careful, Mrs. Vinton, you will make yourself ill.”

With this remark I broke a silence which was becoming almost painful. She started, and her cheeks were flushed with pink—I did not like the way in which that pink flush came and went.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, with startled eyes.

“Because it is so obvious. I wonder if you’ll forgive me if I say something. Do you know that each of us has been keeping a secret from the other?”

“What do you mean?” Her surprise seemed to increase. The sewing, which she had seemed for some time to have lacked energy to continue, slipped from her unconscious fingers on to the floor.

“The secret I have kept from you is that I have the gift of seeing what people say by merely watching their lips, even if they are speaking to themselves.”

“I don’t understand. How can you possibly do that?” Her eyes seemed to grow larger; they were very pretty eyes. She sat straight up on her chair; just now she had seemed to be a limp rag, I was certainly putting life into her.

“The secret you have been keeping from me is that your husband is still alive.” I had done it then—she got off her chair with quite a jump.

“Miss Lee!”

I thought she was going to say things to me, pointed things; she would have been quite justified. What she actually did was to collapse in a sort of heap on to the floor, pillow her head on the seat of the chair on which she had been sitting, and burst into tears. It was my turn to be startled. I sat for a moment silent, then, kneeling beside her on the floor, I put my hands on her shoulders, whispering:

“I am so sorry to have intruded on your confidence, but I could not help it; I would not have said a word about it, only I felt you were in such trouble and I thought that I might help; I can be of help at times. Keep your own counsel if you like; if you like I will never speak of it again; but if you think it just possible that a human being can be of help—give me a chance.”

She stood up, the tears still streaming down her cheeks.

“I am ashamed of myself, Miss Lee. I have been ashamed ever since I told you I was a widow, and afraid, because I knew you would find out; I suppose some one has been telling you something.”

“Not a word. All I know you have told me yourself.” I explained to her how that was. Her tears ceased to fall; the expression on her face was like a note of exclamation. “You see, it is because of this gift I have of reading people’s most secret thoughts—sometimes, as in your case, even against my will—that I thought I might be of some little help to you; that gift of mine has been of help to people now and then.”

“I don’t see how you can be of help to me; I am past helping; that’s—that’s where it is. It’s quite true, as you say, that my husband is alive; but he might as well be dead, because he’s in prison.”

She said it with what I dare say she meant to be an air of defiance, but even as she spoke she shuddered, and she put her hands up to her face. Her words were unexpected. I do not know why, but I had taken it for granted that he had deserted her, or that for some reason they had parted. I had not thought it was like that; I felt ashamed of myself for having touched upon so tender a spot. I told her so.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Vinton; I did not guess it was that way—please forgive me; still, perhaps I can be of help to you—please give me a chance. Don’t think me conceited—sometimes I have wrought wonders.”

Neither her attitude nor her words were encouraging; she stood very straight, her hands to her sides, her cheeks very white, her voice suddenly grown hard and cold; something in her manner went to my heart.

“My husband was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude; he has served three; under those circumstances, I don’t see what help you, a perfect stranger, can be to me. I had a little money when—when it happened, but it is nearly all gone. I thought to make a little by letting lodgings, but I have not made enough to pay the rent even of this cottage.”

“I might at least be able to send you some lodgers.”

“Do you think people will come and lodge with me when they know who I am? They whisper all sorts of things about me in Easthampton—I know. I don’t suppose anyone knows the whole truth about me, I have done my best to hide it, but even as it is they shun me as if I were the plague. I sometimes think that I must create an atmosphere about me in which decent creatures cannot breathe.”

“That is nonsense; I have never breathed better than since I knew you; I believe that I am fairly decent.”

I was at a loss for things to say, the situation being one for which I was so utterly unprepared. Had I realized what was the real story of the missing husband, I might have had my mind in order; as it was, the thing of which I was chiefly conscious was that banalities were out of place. Presently she gave me unlooked-for help, while inflicting on me what was very like a snub.

“This is a subject, Miss Lee, on which you have forced my confidence—I am not sure, quite fairly; whether you go or stay, on one point there must be no misunderstanding—it is a subject on which you must never speak to me again. But before quitting it for ever, I should like to make myself clear to you on one matter; the jury found him guilty, the judge sent him to prison for fourteen years, the world thinks that punishment well merited; but I know that my husband is innocent. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll see about your dinner.”

She turned to leave the room; but something within made it impossible for me to let her go—at least without an effort to detain her.

“Mrs. Vinton!—One moment, please! Don’t you see that if your husband is innocent, that is just the point on which I might be able to help you?”

Again her manner was not encouraging; she looked me up and down as if I were some one distinctly undesirable.

“Help me?—You?—How can you help me?”

“I might be able to make your husband’s innocence clear to the whole world.”

Her pretty face was distorted by a smile which was worse than tears.

“You must forgive me, Miss Lee, but circumstances have made me suspicious of the whole world. Why should you, an entire stranger, take such an interest in a woman who lets you lodgings for a fortnight or three weeks? Do you suppose that if it were an easy thing to establish my husband’s innocence that I should not have done it long ago? I truly believe I have done all that can be done; do you seriously think that you could succeed where I have failed? You say you have wrought wonders; I do not know who you are, nor anything about you; you will have to work a miracle to restore my husband to his former place among his fellow-men; yet I tell you he is innocent.”

“Even miracles may be worked. You say that he is innocent. I have sufficient confidence in your judgment, Mrs. Vinton——”

“My name is not Vinton; nor is my husband’s. His name is George Young.” I suppose it was because I started that she added: “Now you will probably adopt a different tone; in common with all the world you held my husband to be guilty.”

“I know nothing of either your husband’s innocence or guilt.”

“You recognized his name; you must be acquainted with his case. The newspapers made it one of the topics of the hour.”

“Nearly four years ago I left England for a long tour round the world; your husband’s trial must have taken place while I was away. If there was an account of it in any of the few English papers I saw during my absence I never read it.”

“I saw you start when I said my husband’s name was George Young; if you did not know it, why start as if you did?”

Her tone was suspicious, even resentful.

“I have a retentive memory; I keep all sorts of facts there as it were in pigeon-holes; I had a feeling, when you mentioned it, that I had heard your husband’s name before, and was wondering in which pigeon-hole it was.”

“You probably heard it in connection with his trial; how else could you have done? What is the matter with you? Why do you jump up like that?”

“I do believe I’ve found the pigeon-hole,” I said. “Of all the extraordinary things. Talk about wonders.” I sat down again as suddenly as I had risen. “You have heard how the mouse helped the lion; I honestly think it is within the range of possibility that I may be able to help you. You say your husband’s name was George Young—tell me all about him; although what you say is quite true, and I am an entire stranger, I don’t think you will regret it. With what was he charged?”

She hesitated; looked at me very fixedly; then she asked herself, as if unwillingly—her lips moving so slightly that only my keen eyes could have caught the words which were shaped on them:

“I wonder if I can trust her?”

“Yes,” I exclaimed, the instant her lips had formed the words, “you can; Mrs. Young, you can trust me wholly.”

How she stared!—as if I were some amazing object.

“Miss Lee!” she gasped. “What—what do you mean?”

“Did I not tell you that by merely looking at a person’s lips I can tell what he is saying—even, sometimes, what he is thinking? I saw the words upon your lips, ‘I wonder if I can trust her,’ and I tell you that you can. I do not wish to gush, or to indulge in any high-fallutin, but I should not wonder if I turned out to be one of the best friends you ever had. Now tell me with what your husband was charged.”

Abandoning her intention of quitting the room to look after my dinner, she had sunk upon a chair, seeming like one who was suffering from shock. Her words limped a little.

“My husband was managing clerk to a firm of solicitors. He was about to be made a partner when it was discovered, that, among other things, a large number of securities which had been entrusted to his principals for safe-keeping were missing. They were very fond of George, and for his sake as well as their own they did their best to try to conceal the facts, in hope of restitution. There was a trust fund of rather more than twenty thousand pounds of which they were custodians; when the trustees wanted the money, it was gone; they charged George with taking it. Other charges were made against him in the course of the trial; but it was on that charge that he was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude. I have newspapers upstairs containing a full report of his examination before the magistrate, and afterwards of his trial. You can read them if you like; you will see that nothing can be clearer than the evidence against him; yet I tell you he is innocent.”

The story, told thus baldly, did not sound very lucid; it would have to be told at much greater length and with much more attention to detail if even the rudimentary facts were to be adequately grasped; but it was not those facts I was after. My thoughts were travelling in a direction of their own; they were in that railway refreshment-room, in which two men were lunching at a little table next to mine—two men whose conversation had so oddly affected me almost willy-nilly. Had they been sent to that particular table, and had I been directed to watch them, by what almost seemed to be a special Providence? I might be on a wrong tack altogether; it behoved me to be careful; I felt my way.

“What was the name of the firm by which your husband was employed?”

“Hutton—Hutton and Walker. Young Mr. Hutton had died sometime before the discoveries were made. The firm consisted of old Mr. Hutton, the senior partner, and Mr. Walker.”

“Was his name Thomas Walker? and did Mr. Hutton sometimes call him Tom?”

“You know the firm—or do you know Tom Walker? His name was Tom. I was almost engaged to him once, and should have been quite, if George had not—well, you know.”

A faint flush tinged her white cheeks; I wondered if that had had anything to do with the position Mr. Walker had taken up.

“Was Mr. Hutton a little man, all a bundle of nerves?”

“His nerves were strong enough before the trouble began; he was a very able man; his health broke down after it was over—he grew old all of a sudden. Now he is ill and, I believe, unhappy—at least he says so. It seems to have been almost as great a trouble to him as to me; once he found out where I was and came to see me; he was so changed that I hardly knew him. I cannot help thinking that he has my movements watched, because when I came here I not only concealed my address, but I changed my name. Yet the other day he wrote to me, a curious, rambling letter, parts of which almost suggested that he was in his second childhood. He is at Torquay, and hints that he does not expect to leave it again alive. But that I can hardly believe. He wants me to go and see him, but—I couldn’t.”

“What is his address at Torquay? It is just possible that I may go and see him.”

“You? Then you do know him?”

“I saw him once in my life—and I am not quite sure of that, but I think I did. He is not conscious of my existence—but it is possible that he soon will be.”

“You are very mysterious; I don’t understand you in the least. I tell you everything, you tell me nothing; I hope I have not been even more foolish than usual—that you are not going to make an improper use of what I have said.”

“Mrs. Vinton, or Mrs. Young, whichever it is: experience, if not nature, has made of me a non-committal, cautious kind of creature. I wish to make no positive statement, but I think it just possible that before many weeks have passed the miracle of which you spoke may not seem so impossible as you supposed.”

She plied me with questions, to which, I fear, she received but scanty answers. I was not sure that I had not said too much already; she grew quite excited. I had no right to raise her expectations, or to drop so much as a hint which might cause them to be raised. As perhaps I am prone to do, I had only jumped to conclusions from what might be quite insufficient premises; I had absolutely nothing positive to go upon; it might be the merest will-o’-the-wisp I was chasing; all the same, when she had given me old Mr. Hutton’s address at Torquay, and had gone to bed that night, I was convinced that something like a gleam of hope had come into her life, the responsibility for which lay on me. It was a pretty heavy responsibility, because if I failed to perform what the ordinary observer would have said was an impossibility her last fate would be worse than her first.

I went to Torquay the very next day, having to go right across London to do so. A tedious journey it was; especially as the nearer I came to my destination the stronger became the feeling, not only that I might be engaged on the veriest wild-goose chase, but that anyhow I was mixing myself up in matters which were not the slightest concern of mine, and behaving, generally, like a weak-minded busybody, who would put a finger into other people’s pies. So conscious was I of my folly, that when the train stopped at Exeter I got out of my carriage, resolved to go no farther; only when the train was on the point of restarting did I clamber back again, my impedimenta in both hands. It was the thought of the white-faced woman who was hoping such great things of this wild-cat expedition which urged me on again.

On arrival at Torquay I put up at an hotel on the Strand; dined; spent a very dull evening; and went to bed. The next morning when, waking up, I remembered where I was and what I was there for, I asked myself what on earth I was to do. I had no plan of campaign. I could hardly go to the rooms of that ailing old man and charge him with all sorts of misdemeanours on the strength of a few words he had uttered in a public dining-room, which, perhaps, he had never meant at all—or which, at any rate, had never been intended to bear the significance I had given them. I dressed, had breakfast, went into the public garden on the other side of the road, armed with a book and a newspaper. After I had had enough of reading, which was pretty soon, I wondered what I was to do next, I had hoped that inspiration would come while reading; it had not; it had had the cheering result of having left me more conscious of the futility of my quest. Rising from my seat, I began to walk about. There were not many people in the garden—I never have seen many people in Torquay. Somehow, in spite of its pleasant situation, it always seems to me to be one of the places which have been, and which now wear an air of decay. Even most of the people you do see there seem to be “have beens”—the few adults in those public gardens struck me as relics of humanity. I wondered what their pasts had been. There was an elderly woman alone on one seat, who was certainly an old maid, and a very old lady alone on the next, who looked as if she never could have been young; and on the third there was an old gentleman——

I stopped as I was approaching that old gentleman, suddenly conscious of a little catching of the breath. I had seen that old gentleman before—once; it was to see him a second time that I was there. He would certainly never recognize me; I was convinced that he had not recognized me in the first instance; yet it was with an effort that I brought myself to continue my walk in his direction, and it was with a feeling of absurd nervousness that I marched slowly past him. I need not have troubled—he paid not the slightest heed to me. He sat back in his seat, and his eyes were closed; but not even the most unobservant could have supposed that he slept—there was a look upon his face which no sleeper ever has. I thought of what Mrs. Young had told me he had said in his curious, rambling letter—that he did not expect to leave Torquay alive. He had not been very far from the mark there. He looked to me like a very sick man indeed; smaller than when I had seen him first—as if he had lost both flesh and vitality.

I passed and repassed him six times; not once did he change his position—he seemed at least to have acquired the art of keeping still. I was wondering whether or not to address him, and what method of address to employ, when I had another little shock of surprise. Some one else had entered the gardens; a tall, upstanding, quite young man, who certainly did not look as if he were a relic of the past. It was the square-faced man who had sat with the other at the adjoining table. He struck me as being the kind of man who does observe; I had an uncomfortable feeling that he had noticed me on what was likely to prove that momentous occasion. He eyed me as we passed each other as if my face was not entirely unfamiliar—as if he were asking himself where he had seen it before. It would matter little if he recalled the occasion; yet for some reason I had a feeling that I would rather he did not.

He went one way, I the other; I had no doubt that he was making for the old man on the seat. Turning into a side path upon the left, I turned again into another narrower path which ran parallel with the broad one I had left. I retraced my steps along it. Between the intervening shrubs and trees I could see the seats on the broader walk. When I came abreast of the one on which the old man had been sitting, he was talking to the new-comer. I was particularly anxious to know what was being said. A clump of rhododendrons was between us, high enough, unless particular search was made for a suspected presence, to serve as a screen. Standing as far back as I could without losing sight of the two men’s faces, I made it serve as a screen for me, and I watched, so far as I could, what was being said upon the seat.

The younger man came up while the elder still had his eyes closed. He stood for a moment observing him; then he greeted him: “Good morning.”

The old man opened his eyes, looking up at him as if he were not quite sure who he was; then he said:

“It will never be a good morning to me again—never, never.”

The other smiled ironically.

“Isn’t that rather a strong thing to say on a morning like this, when the sun’s in a cloudless sky?”

“Nor will there be any sun again for me—ever; for me there is only outer darkness.”

I could see from the look on the younger man’s face that he sneered.

“Aren’t you slightly melodramatic? Didn’t you sleep well?”

“I have not slept well since the day on which George Young went to jail; his going murdered sleep. All night I lie in agony.”

“You were saying the other day how you longed for something to give you sleep; here is something.”

The speaker took out of a waistcoat pocket a small, blue phial, offering it to the old man on his open palm. The old man looked at the phial and then up at the face of the person who offered it.

“What is it?”

“Mandragora.”

“Will it give me sleep?”

“If you choose; sleep which will know no waking.”

The two men exchanged looks, such strange ones; then the elder took with tremulous fingers the phial off the other’s palm. Then, when he had got it, he shut his eyes again. The younger, without another word, passed on. I saw him leave the gardens by the gate which was at the other end of the walk; I felt sure that he had not seen me. I waited—if I could help it I was not going to lose sight of the phial which was in the old man’s hand. Presently an empty Bath chair came down the walk. The chairman, assisting the old man to enter, began to draw him away. I followed. They stopped at what I recognized to be the house in Belgrave Road which Mrs. Young had given me as Mr. Hutton’s address. The old man entered the house leaning on the Bath chair man’s arm. The chairman, coming out again, went off with his chair; he was one of the unobservant sort; I doubt if he even noticed my existence. I walked up the road, then back again. Twenty minutes had elapsed since the old man entered. It was one of those lodging-houses in which the hall door proper is never closed in the daytime; you have only to turn the handle of the inner door to enter. I particularly did not wish to give warning of my coming; I preferred to announce myself. Turning the handle, I passed into the hall. I had noticed that the Bath chair man had led the old gentleman into a room on the left. After momentary hesitation I turned the handle of that room, and, without any sort of ceremony, passed in. It was, as I had expected, a sitting-room. There was a big arm-chair on one side. On this, propped up by cushions, was the old man. I perceived, in an instant, that my intuition had not been at fault—that I was only just in time. He had a small, blue phial in his hand; the cork was out; he was in the very act of raising it to his lips. I crossed the room, and it was in my hand almost before he knew it. There was no label on the phial, but one sniff at its contents was enough to tell me what it was.

“Do you imagine, Mr. Hutton, that by committing suicide you’ll escape the consequences of crime? That when you stand before the Judgment Seat you’ll be able to excuse yourself by pleading that you murdered yourself because you had murdered another?”

He stared at me as if I were some supernatural visitant; his jaw dropped open, his head fell back, he was one great tremble. I went on:

“When you allowed George Young to be sent to prison for the crime of which you were guilty, you practically committed murder—you slew the better part of him, his character and reputation; to say nothing of the unceasing torture which you propose to inflict on him for fourteen long years. Conscience has you by the throat; God punishes in this world as well as the next; do you think this will save you from the wrath to come?”

I alluded to the phial. He stammered out a question.

“Who are you?”

“I am the voice of the avenging angel, calling you to account for the evil you have done and still would do. You foolish old man! Are you so ignorant as not to know that only through repentance comes forgiveness? Repent!—there is still time—and God’s infinite mercy will give you peace at last.”

He gasped—I thought every moment he would collapse.

“If I only thought it—if I only could believe it!”

“Surely your own common sense must tell you that there is at least more chance that way than this.” I held out the phial. “Take your sin to God; show that you repent of it; try to right the wrong which you have done; make public atonement; it is not improbable that that way you will know once more the comfort of a mind at ease.”

“I do not know who you are, where you come from, what you want with me; but—if I only could believe that by doing what you say I could be at peace again with God and man.…”

He did believe before I had done with him, or, if his faith was not so perfect as it might have been, he did as I wished. He made a complete confession of the whole painful business. I wrote down every word he said. Then I read over to him what I had written; the landlady was called in, and in her presence and mine he signed it. The landlady, by the way, seemed surprised to see me, and rather disposed to wonder who I might be and how I came to be where I was. When she had gone again—with her curiosity unsatisfied—and I was alone again with Mr. Hutton, I was struck by what I have noticed on other occasions—that there is some truth in the saying that “Open confession is good for the soul.” Confession had done him good—visible and obvious good; he owned as much. His tongue once unloosed he became positively loquacious. He told me many things about himself which enabled me to understand the situation better than the bare outlines of the formal confession he had just now made.

His son had been the thief—his only child. When detection threatened, to escape punishment he had committed suicide. There was a good deal in this part of his story which impressed me in a manner which I tried to hide from him. The son had poisoned himself; how he had obtained the poison remained a mystery. And not only so, the tragedy had been handled in such a fashion as to make it appear that George Young had been to blame for it. At the trial certain evidence was produced which made it seem that he had been Young’s victim; that he was of such a sensitive nature that, rather than face what must be the result of George Young’s villainy, he preferred to die. As I heard this part of the tale I thought of the phial which had been given to the old man and I drew my own conclusion.

I was with Mr. Hutton altogether about four hours—I even lunched with him. It was a strange lunch. When I left I returned to my hotel—to find a telegram awaiting me. It was in answer to one I had sent while I had been following that Bath chair. I smiled as I read it; I glanced at the clock, and I thought I saw my campaign finished. I had learnt from Mr. Hutton where Mr. Thomas Walker was staying; he was in a house—in the higher part of the town—which belonged to a relative of his, and of which, in his relative’s absence, he was, with the exception of some sort of servant, the only occupant. About a quarter to four, at which time the London express reaches Torquay, I went to call at Mr. Thomas Walker’s—leaving a note for a person whom I told them I presently expected.

The address the old man had given me was “Tormohan, Ilsham Road.” Any idea I might have had of introducing myself to Mr. Walker as I had done to Mr. Hutton vanished directly I saw what kind of place “Tormohan” was. It was shut off from the main road on which it stood by a high wall. Admission was gained by a gate which opened on what was presumably some sort of passage-way; the way to get that gate to open was to pull at the old-fashioned bell which hung beside it. I pulled; when nothing particular happened I pulled again; I pulled four times before the door was opened a few inches, and the square-faced man looked through the opening. Rather an odd dialogue took place—which I commenced.

“Mr. Thomas Walker?”

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I wish to see you on very important business, and my name is Judith Lee.”

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

“It is possible; if you will open the door a little wider, I shall be able to come in.”

“I don’t know that I want to see you—why do you want to see me?”

“I think I shall be able to satisfy you that I do want to see you when you have allowed me to enter.”

He opened the door just wide enough to allow me to enter, and I went in; the moment I was in he closed it. Now I rather wanted that door to be left open; but as I did not see my way to tell him so in so many words, I suffered him to close it. We were, as I had expected, in a sort of passage covered with a glass roof. He led the way to the house; I followed. We passed through another door, which, this time, was opened by turning a handle. We went into a dark hall, and then into a room at the back which was shadowed by a big tree which grew nearly up to the window; if it had been my house I should have had that tree cut down in less than no time. When we were in the room he eyed me with what I felt were inquiring glances.

“Did I understand you to say that you are Miss Lee? On what business, which is of such great importance, do you wish to see me? I should have told you, if you had not said your business was so very important, that I was alone in the house; the woman who acts as servant is out; which explains why you were kept waiting at the door and why I answered your ring myself.”

It did occur to me as I observed him that it would have been the part of discretion to have postponed my visit until I was accompanied by the person whom my telegram had brought from town; but I had all at once become convinced of this man’s utter baseness to such an extent that I was consumed by a desire to bring him to book on my own account, before the law began to deal with him. The thought of the innocent man, despairing, desperate with a sense of wrong, wearing his life out within the prison walls which must seem to him like some hideous, mocking, unending nightmare; and of the woman, young, pretty, gentle, delicate, refined, with her white face, hopeless eyes, broken heart, longing with a longing which she knew never would be gratified for the beloved husband of whom she had been so foully and cruelly bereft; these rose before me, moving me to sudden rage, so that I broke into language which amazed Mr. Thomas Walker.

“The business which has brought me here is to tell you that you are a contemptible, cowardly, murderous scoundrel, and that the hour is struck in which your sins are going to find you out; that, in the first place.”

I rather fancy that that fashion of opening the ball took him rather by surprise. He stared as if he wondered if I were mad. Then he smiled oddly.

“That, in the first place—and in the second?”

“In the second, I am going to enter into details by way of recalling certain facts to your recollection.” Then I jumped at my fences without stopping to consider what was on the other side. “How many years ago is it since you began to incite young Frank Hutton to rob his father?”

At that he did change countenance; I had found a safe landing on the other side of the fence.

“What on earth are you talking about? Who are you? and what do you want with me?”

“You taught Frank Hutton to be a thief—in a small way at the beginning, on a large scale later on. You shared his ill-gotten spoils, yet, when detection threatened, you so played upon his fears that you induced him to commit suicide in order to escape the consequences of what were more your misdeeds than his. Did you, a lawyer, forget that when A assists B in committing suicide, A is guilty of murder? When you put the poison within Frank Hutton’s reach, knowing perfectly well the use he was about to make of it, you committed murder; for that murder the law is presently going to call you to account. Part of the business which has brought me here is to tell you so.”

The way in which he looked at me! I already began to suspect that his fingers were itching to take me by the throat. He merely said:

“Is that so? May I ask from what quarter you have acquired the facts on which you base your rather surprising observations?”

I did not answer him; I just went on, warming to the work as I did so. The feeling was growing momentarily stronger that this man was one of those unspeakable creatures who are dangers to whom ever they are brought in contact with.

“Not content with destroying young Frank Hutton, soul and body, to cover your own offences, you proceeded to wreck his father’s happiness, and to lead him into crime. You lied to him about his son; you were so skilful as to be able to make him believe that his boy was the sole offender; and then, pretending that it was your desire to spare him shame, you put it into his head to lay the burden upon an innocent man; you were so skilful as to make it seem that the suggestion came from himself and not from you. You unutterable thing!”

This time, when I paused, he said nothing; I was aware that he was all the more dangerous on that account. But I cared nothing—so intent was I on speaking my mind.

“You made black seem white; you manufactured false evidence; you lied, and lied, and lied—and George Young was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude; thief, murderer, liar, you have succeeded in doing that. I have no doubt you hoped that you were safe at last—you short-sighted fool! The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine—your sort they grind to powder. You are already being slipped between the stones—your course has run.”

That time, when I paused, the grimace which distorted his face was rather a grin than a smile. He asked:

“In the name of all that’s marvellous, from what madhouse have you been permitted to escape?”

“When you planned that grand coup, putting the onus of all your guilt upon an innocent man and shutting him up for fourteen awful years, you overlooked one small point—that all men are not devils; that to some is given the power to repent of their sins; and so poor a judge of character are you, that you were unaware that your own partner, your first victim’s unhappy father, was one of them. From the moment he sinned, he began to repent.”

He interrupted me—speaking for the first time savagely.

“Have you been talking to old Hutton? Has he been coaching you in this tissue of nonsense?”

As before, I left his questions unanswered; I simply went on:

“Fortunately for himself, your partner was one of those who cannot know happiness unless his conscience is clear and he is at peace with God; better be whipped in this world than through all eternity. Had you in your composition even a trace of the things which make for goodness you would have been moved by his remorse. Instead, you have made of it a mock; you seem to be all evil; instead of joining yourself with him in an act of atonement, you pressed him towards further crime. You had his son in your mind. By inciting him to self-murder you believed yourself to have escaped one danger. You hoped, by inducing the father to imitate his son, you would escape another. To-day—only a very little while ago—you murdered him.”

It was, if I may be allowed to say so, my coup de théâtre; I had planned it from the first; it produced the effect I had intended. He became, on an instant, another man. His skin became livid, his lips trembled, words stuck in his throat, fear touched his heart.

“What—what do you mean?”

I believe he meant to say more but could not; he shrank back from me as if in physical terror. I gave him no quarter. I held out my right hand, palm uppermost. On it was the small blue phial.

“Do you know that?”

He looked at it as if it were some dreadful thing; again he stammered his question: “What—what do you mean?”

“This morning I saw you give that phial to your partner, Michael Hutton. He has long had it in his mind to escape from the weight of remorse which has made life intolerable to him, as you are well aware. I saw you give him this phial a few hours ago in the public gardens. He said to you, ‘What is it?’ You replied, ‘Mandragora.’ He asked, ‘Will it give me sleep?’ You said, ‘If you choose; sleep which will know no waking.’ You let him take the phial between his shaking fingers, and you walked off, knowing that you had left death behind you.”

“Who are you? How do you know these things?”

“My knowledge is of God. He has given me the power to put to confusion such men as you.”

There was a momentary silence; he cast shifty glances round him, as if he sought on every side some way of escape, finding none. Presently he asked, moistening his parched lips with the tip of his tongue before he was able to pronounce his words:

“Is—is old Hutton dead?”

“Do not imagine that that will profit you; he made complete confession. The whole story is set down in black and white, signed by his own hand. This phial will avail you nothing.”

Suddenly I realized that he was eyeing the tiny glass bottle with a new expression in his glance.

“I don’t believe it’s empty.” He said it almost as if he were speaking to himself. He drew closer. “I don’t believe the contents have been touched.”

He made a sudden grab at the phial; I withdrew it just in the nick of time. There was a sound of an unmusical bell.

“Who is that?” he asked; he was probably so obsessed by other thoughts as to be unaware that he had all at once acquired the trick of speaking his thoughts out loud. “It is some one at the outer door; who can it be?”

I said: “Had you not better go to the door and see?”

He looked at me. As I have remarked, he was one of your observant men who have a trick of seeing what is beneath the surface. I suppose he saw something on my face which set his own thoughts travelling.

“Is it some one for you?”

“It is some one for you.”

“For me?”

“At last.”

“Is that so? Some one for me—at last.” He stopped; there was silence; the bell rang again. I was just about to suggest again that he should go and see who was at the outer door when—he leaped at me. No other word but “leaped” would so well describe the manner of his assault. And I was unprepared. He had me by the throat before I had even realized that danger threatened. I was to blame; I ought to have been on my guard. As it was, so swift were his movements, so strong his grip, that I was already finding it hard to breathe before I had a chance to pull myself together.

I am a woman, but I am no weakling. I have always felt it my duty to keep my body in proper condition, trying to learn all that physical culture can teach me. He had the start of me; as I said, he was already choking the breath out of me before I was able to pull myself together; when I did, he did not find me so helpless as he perhaps had hoped. I only recently had been having lessons in jiu-jitsu—the Japanese art of self-defence. I had been diligently practising a trick which was intended to be used when a frontal attack was made upon the throat. His pre-occupation, his insensate rage, his unpreparedness, which was even greater than mine had been—these things were on my side. Even as, I dare say, he was thinking that I was already as good as done for—I tried that trick. His fingers released my throat, and he was on the floor without, I fancy, understanding how he got there, I doubt if there ever was a more amazed man. When he began to realize what had happened, he gasped up at me—he was still on the floor—

“You—you——” While he was still endeavouring to find adjectives sufficiently strong to fit the occasion, the person came into the room for whose attendance I had telegraphed to Scotland Yard. In the note I had left at the hotel I told him to follow me at once, and if he was not able to obtain instant admission to the house, then he was to use means of his own to get in quickly; I had had a premonition that I might have trouble with Mr. Thomas Walker. He had some useful skeleton keys in his pocket, which had once been part of a skilful burglar’s outfit; when there came no answer to his ringing, he promptly opened the front door with them.

Mr. Thomas Walker understood what the new-comer’s presence meant; he needed no explanation. In the struggle I had dropped the blue phial, a fact which he realized quicker than I did. Before I knew it had fallen, he—still on the floor—had snatched it, had the cork out, was putting the bottle to his lips—

“Stop him!” I cried. “It’s poison!”

I cried too late; before we could reach him he had emptied the phial—he was dead—as quickly as if he had been struck by lightning. The phial had contained sufficient cyanide of potassium to kill fifty men. The death he had meant for his partner was his instead.

Representations were made to the authorities; Michael Hutton’s confession was placed before them, together with certain facts which came to light when examination was made of Thomas Walker’s papers. George Young was pardoned—for what he had never done. Old Mr. Hutton was arrested—he died before the magistrate’s examination was concluded; it was found that he had made a will by which all he possessed was left to the man he had so cruelly injured.

I was only in Torquay one night and part of a day; on the night of that day I slept in London. The following morning I returned to Easthampton. I had told myself, more than once, what a foolish person I was to meddle in such unpleasant matters which were no concern of mine; but when I explained to Mrs. Young what had happened, and saw the look which came upon her face as she listened and began to understand—I was not so sure that I had been foolish after all.

XI. “8 ELM GROVE—BACK ENTRANCE”

This story is, in many respects, such a strange one, that it is not easy to know how to set it down; whether to tell it backwards, or to commence at the beginning. It is on that account that I preface it with a remark that when, one afternoon, I was at the Arnolds’, and the parlourmaid came into the room with a tea-tray in her hands, at the sight of her I was so startled that I nearly dropped the pastel I was holding.

But the story did not begin there. It began when I was returning from spending an evening with some friends at Blackheath. I came back by the Greenwich tram; I had to return or I would have stayed the night with my friends, who were most reluctant to let me go. I believe it was the last tram. It was most dreadful weather. I had the vehicle to myself until it was boarded by two men, whom I should have described as of distinctly suspicious appearance. They sat in perfect silence till one of them rose to get off, when the other said to him in tones which were inaudible to me:

“Now don’t you make any mistake—8 Elm Grove—back entrance. Got it right?”

“Of course I’ve got it right. What do you take me for? Think that in my position I’m likely to make a mess of a thing like that?”

The speaker had a large square bag, made of what seemed to me to be a piece of old red carpet. It seemed to be full of something which was so heavy that it was all he could do to carry it. The car stopped; he got off; the other man remained. He was a square-faced, dark-visaged person; his cloth cap was crammed close down over his head. His cheeks were blue with the promise of a beard which badly needed a razor. As was the case with the man who had just departed, there was nothing to screen his lips, so that to me the words which they had uttered had been obvious.

Presently the car stopped again; a policeman got on. At sight of him the man started. If it had been possible, he would undoubtedly have got off. But it was too late. The policeman shook, as well as he could, the rain off his cape; left it near the door of the car, then entered and took his seat. He looked about him. He saw the black-visaged man, and the man saw him; plainly they knew each other. The man looked murder; the policeman grinned.

“So it’s you,” he said. “I didn’t know you were out.”

The man replied with a sort of venomous fury.

“Who asked you what you knew? You mind your own affairs, and don’t you talk to me when you’re not wanted to; that’s not your duty; you do your duty and leave me alone.”

“All right, Chippy, no harm intended. I hope you’ll keep out longer this time than you did last.”

The man made no reply; if looks could have killed there would certainly have been an end of that policeman. I wondered what had been the meaning of that reference to “8 Elm Grove—back entrance”; and what had been the contents of that bag. I should rather have liked to ask a question or two. The car stopped in the Westminster Bridge Road. The three of us descended. The policeman went his way; I presume the black-visaged man went his; I know that I went mine. I should probably have forgotten the incident had it not been for something which happened not many days afterwards—which brought it all back to my memory with a rush.

I was standing in Piccadilly, waiting for an omnibus. A shabby, unpleasant-looking individual was standing not very far from me, an ancient billycock crammed over his eyes, his hands in his breeches pockets, a broken clay pipe in the corner of his mouth. Suddenly some one came hurrying across the road, threading his way among the vehicles with the dexterity which is the birthright of a certain sort of cockney. He was an undersized youth, whose attire was in the last stage of decay. Apparently he wore no shirt; his coat was buttoned up to the neck, the collar turned up. He kept his hands in his jacket pockets as if he were unwilling to expose them to the air; I had a feeling that in one of those pockets there might be something about whose safety he was anxious. He went straight to the unpleasant-looking gentleman with a pipe in his mouth. The man’s lips formed themselves into a question.

“Got it?” The youth nodded, casting quick glances behind him and on either side. The man went on: “Then I told you what to do with it—if I was you, the sooner the better. Remember what I said? 8 Elm Grove—back entrance. Don’t you make any mistake.”

The youth passed into an entry which leads into Jermyn Street, and was gone before I had realized where I had encountered that unpleasant-looking person’s words before. “8 Elm Grove—back entrance”—that was what the black-visaged man had said in that Greenwich tramcar to his companion, who got out carrying the heavy carpet bag. My bus came up before I had quite grasped the singularity of this, and it was only after I had taken my place that I was inclined to think that I had been perhaps a trifle hasty. That unpleasant-looking person might have been worth a little observation.

I dare say it was a fortnight afterwards that I was at Waterloo Station. There had been a race-meeting on the line; I doubt if there are many places where one can see more evil-looking faces than at Waterloo Station on such an occasion as that. It sometimes seems to me that the place is full of the sweepings of the prisons. The race-goers were returning; a cheap train was in. I drew away from the horde of men who all at once crowded the platform. As I looked about me, thinking of what a great artist would make of these singular countenances, I noticed a man in a fawn-coloured overcoat go up to a short and sturdy person who—with his legs wide apart and his hat cocked on the back of his head—immediately accosted him. I saw quite distinctly what he said.

“Hullo, George! I’ve been waiting for you. What luck?”

The other replied—I saw his answer; I wished I had not. His mouth vomited forth foulness. He had had no luck; he had not been within ten miles of a winner; he had come back stony broke. The other looked at him; he had a toothpick between his lips, which he shifted from side to side.

“Then it’s about time we did something, ain’t it, George? As far as coin goes I’m about where you are. How about the girl? We’re ready for her.”

“She comes out of Wandsworth prison to-morrow morning at six sharp, and I’m going to be there to meet her; that’s what about the girl. She’ll be ready as soon as we are.”

“I suppose she’ll be all right.”

“You bet she will; I’ll see to that. She does what I tell her or—she’ll be sorry; she will.”

“Are you going to marry her, George?”

“Marry her?—Me?—Me marry her?—She won’t dare to ask me.”

“Suppose she cuts up rough—girls do sometimes, you know.”

“Yes, and so do men. That girl cares for me. I’ll show you how she cares for me before we’ve done with her.” The speaker smiled—a thin, horrible smile. “She’ll do just as I tell her without so much as a whimper; she’d go through hell for me, and she shall.”

“She comes out to-morrow morning? Perhaps she’d better stay inside.”

“They won’t keep her, not this time they won’t. I shouldn’t wonder if next time she makes more of a stay. When a woman’s been really useful to you, it’s just as well to have her for once in a while out of your way.”

“But this one’s very young, ain’t she?”

“All the better, you can work them easier when they’re young; and when they’re young they are so fond of you—that makes it easier still.”

The two men grinned, and I could have struck them for it. The man who had been racing stood closer up to the other, he showed him something which was in his overcoat pocket. What it was I could not see; but I saw him say, in tones which were clearly meant to reach the other only:

“I’ve got a little something here—out of a lady’s bag.”

“Seems to me you’re always fond of the ladies, George. I suppose it’s another case of 8 Elm Grove—back entrance.” Again the two men grinned. “I have got a bob left; suppose we have something liquid.”

The pair moved off to the refreshment-room. I had been a spectator of one of those scenes of which I see more than I like; I had been made, after a fashion, a confidante of two individuals who I had no doubt whatever were seasoned criminals. And again there had been that reference to “8 Elm Grove—back entrance”; I could guess at what was the nature of the something which the fellow had in his overcoat pocket, but what stuck in my mind—what hurt me most—for when they were gone I felt as if I were smarting all over—were their allusions to the girl who, the next morning, was coming out of Wandsworth prison. To what a fate she seemed to be coming; as the short man had hinted, she had much better stay inside. The fellow in the overcoat was, to a superficial eye, not bad-looking. He was about five foot nine or ten, slightly built, upright; about him an air of jauntiness. His features were fairly regular—he had a tiny moustache; but apart from the fact that he had those whity-blue eyes which I, sometimes perhaps unjustly, associate with cruelty and treachery, there was in his whole expression a something mean, underhand, cunning, which would have made me, had I stood near him in a crowd, look after my belongings very carefully. He was, in short, the sort of person whom I would have expected to “find” something in a lady’s bag. The idea that he was going to get a young girl into his hands at the moment she was coming out of the jail to which she had been sent for what, probably, was her first offence; that she should be at his mercy to be fashioned into whatever thing of evil he might choose; this was an idea which I found it very hard to digest. The result was that at a very early hour the next morning I set forth on a quixotic errand. Before six o’clock I was outside the gates of Wandsworth jail.

Early though it was, I was not the first arrival. Perhaps a dozen people were there before me—such specimens of humanity. There was nothing to be seen of the man in the fawn overcoat. It suddenly burst upon me that I should not be able to recognize the girl to whom he and his companion had referred unless he addressed her first. While I was glad enough that he was not there, in his absence what was I to do when the discharged prisoners began to come out? I decided to await events.

The prison clock had struck six some minutes when the great gate which fronted us swung back—and a procession came out. Such a procession! Whether such a procession is a daily occurrence I cannot say; I imagine not. Probably chance had it that a number of sentences should terminate together; I should say that more than twenty persons emerged through the gates. I presume that they were liberated at such a matutinal hour in order that they might re-enter the world before people were up and about to observe from whence they came; yet, early though it was, nearly without exception, each prisoner was met by some one at the gate. For those who had no personal friend, there was a Salvation Army lass and a bearded individual who bore the insignia of that great organization. A slight, grey-headed man in tweeds who had a notebook in his hand was, I took it, a representative of some society.

I kept my eye on the gate. No one at all resembling the person I sought had, so far, appeared. Then, at the tail of the procession, she came; I knew her in a moment. As she came, there appeared, I could hardly have said from where, the man in the fawn-coloured overcoat. He was dressed precisely as he had been on the previous afternoon. He lifted his hat as she appeared, took her hand, and kissed her before us all; and all at once she was in his arms crying as if her heart was breaking.

It was a delicate situation—by me wholly unexpected. I could hardly interfere in such a tender meeting; on what grounds? Because of something I had not heard but seen the man say the previous afternoon. If I proffered such a reason I might be laughed to scorn. I might have misjudged him; I might have got the thing all wrong. How she cried; how tenderly he soothed her. So far as intervention went, it struck me with unpleasant force that I had not a leg to stand upon. I let them pass me, the man’s arm round the weeping girl’s waist—I making no attempt to thrust myself upon them. He led her to a taxi-cab, which was standing by the kerb at a little distance. As they entered and the cab drove off I recognized what a wild-goose errand I had come upon.

The procession ceased; the gates reclosed; prisoners and their friends went their several ways. I moved off, with the feeling strong upon me that I might just as well have stayed away. I went so slowly that the others who went with brisker steps, before I had gone any distance, were out of sight. Just as the last of them had vanished round a corner, round that same corner there came a woman running—a matronly woman, in a state of what, to me, seemed frenzied agitation. She was moving quicker than I should say she had done for many a year. When she got to me she stopped, her breath failing her.

“Have they—have they come out?” she gasped.

“Do you mean the prisoners—from the jail?”

“Of course I do. Who else would I mean?” She spoke like a person from the country, setting her old-fashioned bonnet straight with trembling hands. “I meant to have been here before, and I ought to have been, only my train was late. Do you know if they’ve come out, young woman?”

“Some minutes ago; they’ve all of them gone their different ways.”

“Then—my daughter—has she come out?”

In her voice there was a note of anguish and of terror. Her agitation increased. An idea occurred to me.

“Was your daughter a slight, dark-haired young woman, with big brown eyes?”

“That’s my Mary, miss; did you see her, miss? If she’s out, where is she? She knew I was coming; she might have guessed my train was late; where has she gone?”

“If she’s the young woman I suppose, she was met by a slightly built man, with very light blue eyes, who took her away with him in a taxi-cab.”

The woman shrieked, positively shrieked, out there in the open street. I have seldom been more startled.

“You don’t mean to say she’s gone with him! She can’t, she can’t! Not when she knew that her mother was coming to meet her and take her home! I’m her mother, and I tell you, she’s my girl.”

Before we parted I had heard her story and the story of her daughter’s downfall. A painful one it was, though I am afraid it is one which is only too common. The poor old lady was nearly broken-hearted. I saw her to the railway station, into the train which was to take her back home—alone. I promised that I would make all the inquiries that could be made; and though I was occupied with very many matters, I did my best.

But more than three months passed, and I learned nothing of the whereabouts of her erring daughter until that afternoon when I was at the Arnolds’ and that parlourmaid came into the room with the tea on a tray. She was the young woman whom I had seen that morning emerge from Wandsworth Prison, whom her mother, because the train which brought her had been behind the scheduled time, had been too late to meet. It was not surprising that I nearly dropped the pastel I was holding; which brings me to the real beginning of my tale.

Mrs. Arnold’s drawing-room is a charming room; in the best sense of the word, a feminine room—delicate, refined, delightful. Amy Arnold had had her portrait done by a fashionable pastellist; it had just come home; I had been looking at it when tea appeared. That parlourmaid struck such a jarring note; she, as it were, projected me into another world. Those doubtful characters on the Greenwich tram; the young thief in Piccadilly; the pair of rascals at Waterloo; the scene at the Wandsworth Prison gate—that dreadful procession, with the girl at the tail; the despairing mother who had lost her child—all these things came back to me in a series of discordant notes as the parlourmaid put down the tea-tray. The shock was so sudden that I hardly knew what to do; the pastel did not fall, but I laid it on my lap lest it should fall next time.

It was undoubtedly the girl; her uniform made a difference, but there was no mistaking her. I doubted if she had noticed me or what an effect her entrance had had on me. I had probably gone unobserved by her in the little crowd outside the prison gate.

When she had left the room I hardly knew what to say. They continued to speak of the pastel; my thoughts were with the maid. As I thanked Amy for the cup of tea she gave me I asked if the servant who had brought it in was not a fresh one.

“Do you mean Jane?” she asked.

“Is her name Jane?” I inquired.

“Jane—or to give her her full style and title—Jane Stamp. I suppose she has been with us about six weeks.”

“Nearly two months,” chimed in her mother, “and a very nice girl she is, and a good servant. She is quite refined for a servant, yet not a bit above her place. Don’t you think she’s pleasant looking?”

“I think she looks pale.”

“She is pale. I fancy she has troubles of her own. I have suspected her, more than once, of crying.”

“Where did you get her from?”

“Through an advertisement. I got sick of the creatures they sent me from the registry offices, so I tried an advertisement in the Post. She was the result.”

“Did you have a character with her?”

“Of course I had a character.” Mrs. Arnold opened her eyes as if I had suggested something utterly monstrous. “Does she look to you like a girl who hasn’t a character? She was three years in her last place; she only left it just before she came to me.”

“Where was her last place?”

“She was with some people named Reynolds who had a flat near the Marble Arch—9A Waterman Mansions.”

“Did you see Mrs. Reynolds?”

“Of course I saw her; do you suppose that I should be satisfied with a written character? My dear Judith, what are you thinking about? I called one afternoon. She was rather a florid-looking person, but the character she gave Jane was excellent. She only parted with her because they were giving up the flat. I have found that sometimes servants don’t come up to the characters I have had with them, but I must say that, up to the present, Jane hasn’t given me any cause for dissatisfaction. Of course, I’m aware that new brooms sweep clean, but I am venturing to hope that I’ve found a jewel at last. You seem to be very interested in Jane.”

I was—though Amy spoke casually. We returned to the subject of the pastel. Amy thought that the artist had given her a little too much colour; but while we talked my thoughts were with the parlourmaid. I was wondering what I ought to do. I knew that her name was not Jane Stamp—nor Jane anything; I knew that she had not been three years in her last place, nor, at any time, with people named Reynolds. I knew, in short, a great many things about her which would have surprised Mrs. Arnold not a little. The question I had to answer was—was it my duty to tell her what those things were? That would mean instant dismissal for Jane Stamp. No mistress would keep her in her house after such a revelation. And that would mean something of which I did not care to think for the maid. Placed as she had been, she could only have obtained such a situation by methods which would not bear the light of day; but, having obtained it, might she not intend to do her best, and, profiting by her past painful experience, be resolute not to sin again?

I went away from Mrs. Arnold’s leaving these questions unanswered. I admit that I was desirous of avoiding the responsibility of arriving at a too hasty decision. A few hours should make no difference; I would employ them in making certain investigations of my own. Afterwards it would be time enough to speak to Mrs. Arnold—or to Jane.

The first thing I did when I reached home was to get out a directory. I looked up the Elm Groves; as I had expected, there were plenty of them; there seemed to be Elm Groves in all parts of London. One at New Cross attracted my attention. My knowledge of that locality was not very exact, but I took it that that tramcar had been somewhere about New Cross when that man with the carpet bag got out. So far as I could judge, there might be an Elm Grove within quite a short distance of where he had alighted; and No. 8, at the time that directory went to press, was empty. It might have become occupied since then. At any rate, I thought I would go and see; and I went, by the Greenwich tramcar.

When we had gone some little distance I asked the conductor if he knew of any Elm Grove in that district. He did not; tramcar conductors never do know anything about places which are not immediately on their line of route. But there were persons who had heard my question—then the car was as full as it could hold—who were able to supply me with the information I required. I received the most precise directions from more than one of my fellow-passengers as to how I was to reach Elm Grove; but precise as they were, it did not prove an easy place to find.

Elm Grove was one of those surprises which one often encounters in suburban London; it was a relic of the past; a street of old-fashioned, solidly built houses, each standing in its own garden. There seemed to be about a dozen on either side. I came to No. 8—there was nothing to show that it was to let. A person came out of what I took to be No. 10, whom I addressed.

“Can you tell me,” I asked, “if this house is to let?”

He was rather a fussy-looking person, with a red face and whiskers to match.

“That’s more than I can tell you,” he replied; “and, so far as I know, more than anyone else can tell you either. I have been here going on for five years, and it was like that when I came, and it’s like it still. I believe that some of the rooms are furnished, because I have seen lights in some of the windows, and I have heard that people have been seen going in and out—but not by me. Between ourselves, round about here that house is looked on as a bit of a mystery.”