William Le Queux (continued 2)

The sudden impression produced upon the others was such that they failed to notice the change in Ellice. I, however, saw it distinctly.

I was confident of one thing—that he had identified the victim.

Yet he said nothing beyond agreeing with his companions that a dastardly crime had been committed, and expressing a hope that the assassin would be arrested.

“He’s a stranger,” declared Scarcliff.

“Yes—an entire stranger,” said Winsloe, emphatically, and at the same time he bent forward to get a better view of the lifeless countenance. Standing behind, I watched him closely.

The sight of the body had produced a remarkable change in him. His face was wild and terrified, and I saw that his lips trembled.

Nevertheless he braced himself up with a great effort, and said,—

“Then it’s a complete mystery. He was found by Harris, the keeper, last night?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Booth. “He’d been dead then some hours. Dr Richards says it’s murder. He’s goin’ to make the post-mortem this afternoon.”

“Has the revolver been found?” he asked.

“No, sir. We’ve been searching all the morning, but can find nothing.”

“And what was in his pockets?” inquired Winsloe, his anxiety well disguised.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?” he demanded.

“Oh! a knife, a piece of pencil, a little money and a few odds and ends. But nothing of any use to us.”

“Then you can’t identify him?”

“Unfortunately we can’t, sir,” was the man’s reply.

“We hope to find out who he is, but from all appearances he’s a total stranger in these parts.”

“It’s very evident that the murderer searched the poor fellow’s pockets,” Jack said. “He was afraid lest his victim might be identified.”

“That’s what we think, m’lord,” remarked one of Booth’s companions. “The tab off the back of his jacket, which bore the maker’s name, has been cut out.”

“By the murderer?” asked Wydcombe.

“Probably so, m’lord.”

“Then whoever killed him took good care to remove every scrap of evidence which might lead to his victim’s identification,” Ellice Winsloe remarked, standing with his eyes fixed steadily upon the dead face.

“That’s what our superintendent thinks. He believes that if we establish who the poor fellow is, that we shall have no difficulty in putting our hand upon the guilty person.”

“But did no one hear the shot?” Winsloe inquired.

“Nobody. The doctor thinks the affair took place late in the afternoon,” answered Booth.

Winsloe pursed his white lips, and turned away. For an instant a haggard, fearsome look crossed his hard countenance—the look of a man haunted by a guilty secret—but a moment later, when Wydcombe turned to join him, his face changed, and he exclaimed lightly,—

“Let’s get out of this. The thing’s a complete mystery, and we must leave it to the police to puzzle it all out. Of course, there’ll be an inquest, and then we may hear something further.”

“At present the affair is a complete enigma,” Jack remarked. Then, bending again towards the dead man’s face, he added, “Do you know, Ellice, I can’t help thinking that I’ve seen him before somewhere, but where, I can’t for the life of me recollect.”

I saw that Winsloe started, and he turned again. “I don’t recognise him in the least,” he said quickly. “A face is always altered by death. He now resembles, perhaps, somebody you’ve known.”

“Ah, perhaps so,” remarked the young viscount. “Yet I certainly have a faint impression of having seen him somewhere before—or somebody very like him.”

“I hope your lordship will try and remember,” urged the village constable. “It would be of the greatest assistance to us.”

“I’ll try and think, Booth. If I recollect I’ll send for you,” he answered.

“Thank you, m’lord,” the constable replied, and as I glanced covertly at Winsloe I saw that his face had fallen.

Would Scarcliff recall who he really was?

“To identify a dead person is always most difficult,” Winsloe remarked with assumed disinterestedness. “I’ve heard of cases where half a dozen different families have laid claim to one dead body—wives, mothers, children and intimate friends. No doubt lots of people are buried from time to time under names that are not their own. Richards, of any doctor, will tell you that a countenance when drawn by death is most difficult to recognise.”

By those remarks I saw that he was trying very ingeniously to arouse doubt within Jack’s mind, in order to prevent him making any statement. His attitude increased the mystery a hundredfold.

I recollected the secret Sybil had revealed to me on the previous afternoon when we had stood together in the Long Gallery—how she had told me that she intended to many Winsloe. What he had said now aroused my suspicions.

Winsloe knew the victim. That he had identified him I was fully convinced, and yet he held his tongue. What motive had he in that? Was he, I wondered, aware of the terrible truth?

Fortunately, I held in my possession those injudicious letters of Sybil’s, and that miniature; fortunately, too, I knew the real facts, and was thus enabled to watch the impression produced upon Winsloe by sight of the victim.

As we left the barn I walked by his side.

“A queer affair, isn’t it?” I remarked. “Strange that a man could be murdered here, close to the village in broad daylight, and nobody hear the shot!”

“But we were shooting until late yesterday afternoon, remember,” he said quickly. “The villagers thought it was one of our shots, I expect.”

“I wonder who he is?” I exclaimed.

“Ah! I wonder,” he said. “He walked a long way, evidently. He’s probably some tramp or other. He might have quarrelled with his companion—who knows? Perhaps the police will find out all about him.”

“It will be interesting to see if they discover anything,” I said, glancing at him at the same instant.

“Yes,” he said, “it will,” and then he turned to speak with Wydcombe, who was walking at Booth’s side.

Whatever his knowledge, his self-command was marvellous. The others, who had not seen that expression on his face when he had first gazed upon the dead countenance, had no suspicion of the truth.

Yes. Ellice Winsloe was playing a double game; therefore I resolved to wait and to watch.

Together we walked up through the park again, discussing the strange affair. Jack advanced more than one theory.

“Charlton Wood doesn’t lead to anywhere,” he pointed out. “Therefore the dead man kept an appointment there. Perhaps he was lured to his death,” he added. “There may have been two or more assassins.”

“No, I rather disagree,” said Wydcombe. “If there had been a plot to kill him they wouldn’t have risked firing a revolver, as it would attract too much attention. No, depend upon it that the affair was not a premeditated one. Did you notice his boots? Although dusty and badly worn they were evidently by a good maker. Besides, I felt his hand. It was as soft as a woman’s.”

“But you surely don’t believe that he was a gentleman, do you?” asked Winsloe. “To me the fellow was more like a tramp.”

“I hardly know what to think, Ellice,” was his lordship’s reply as he lit a cigarette. “It’s a mystery, and that’s all one can say. Whoever killed him was a confoundedly good shot.”

“You don’t think it was suicide?” Winsloe asked slowly, looking the speaker straight in the face.

“Suicide! Of course not. Why don’t you hear? They haven’t found a revolver.”

And with such remarks as these we went back to the house for lunch.

When we had all assembled at table, Eric and Lady Wydcombe alone being absent, old Lady Scarcliff exclaimed suddenly,—

“Tibbie has broken out again. She took Mason and went off in the car early this morning without telling anyone where she was going. Did anybody hear the car go off?” she inquired, looking around the table.

But all expressed surprise at Tibbie’s absence, and of course nobody had heard her departure. Where had she gone, and why, we all asked. Whereupon her ladyship merely replied,—

“I’m sure I can’t tell you anything. Simmons brought me a scribbled note at nine o’clock this morning, saying that she had found it in her room. It was from Tibbie to say that as she couldn’t sleep she had got up and gone out with Mason. ‘Perhaps I shall be back to-morrow,’ she says, ‘but if I am not, please don’t worry after me. I shall be all right and will write.’”

“Gone to see Aunt Clara down at Hove, perhaps,” remarked Jack. “She said something about running down there a few days ago.”

“But it isn’t proper for a young girl tearing about the country by herself and driving her own car,” protested the old lady. “She knows that I most strongly disapprove of it.”

“And therefore does it all the more,” laughed the man who had identified the victim in Charlton Wood.

“Tibbie is really quite incorrigible.”

“Quite, Mr Winsloe,” declared her ladyship. “My only fear is that one day something terrible may happen to her. The driving of a big car is, I always say, not a proper occupation for a girl. She’ll come to grief some day—depend upon it!”

Ellice looked straight at the old lady, without uttering any word of reply. What did he know, I wondered? Was he, too, aware of her secret?

But the others were chattering gaily, and next moment he turned from me and joined in their merry gossip.

That afternoon I remained at home, but he drove out with two ladies of the party to make a call on some people about five miles away.

After he had gone Eric returned, and I told him all that I had seen, and of my suspicions.

He stood at the end of the grey old terrace, and heard me through to the end, then said,—

“This puts an entirely new complexion upon matters, old fellow. You suspect him of knowing something. If so, then we must act at once, and fearlessly—just as we did last night.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“He’s out. Therefore we must go to his room and see whether he has anything there—any letters, for instance. To me, it seems plain that he was in expectation of the tragedy, and that he fears lest the dead man should be identified.”

“Then your suggestion is to search his belongings?”

“Certainly. Let’s go up there. There’s no time to lose. He may be back at any moment.”

And so we crossed the great hall and quickly ascended to his room unseen by the servants. Then after looking rapidly through the drawers we found that one of Eric’s keys fitted the strong brown kitbag at the foot of the bed.

In a moment it was open, and a few seconds later its contents were out upon the floor.

Among them we saw something lying which caused us to stare blankly at each other in utter amazement. The sight of it staggered us completely.

Again the mystery was still further increased. It was inexplicable.

I recognised my own grave peril if I dared to carry out Tibbie’s bold and astounding suggestion.

Chapter Nine.

Strictly in Secret.

Thursday night was wet and dismal in London as I stood outside the underground railway station at King’s Cross at eight o’clock, keeping my appointment with the Honourable Sybil.

There was a good deal of traffic and bustle in the Pentonville Road; the shops were still open, and the working-class population, notwithstanding the rain, were out with their baskets, making their purchases after their day’s labour.

At that spot in the evening one sees a veritable panorama of London life, its humours and its tragedies, for there five of the great arteries of traffic converge, while every two minutes the subterranean railway belches forth its hurrying, breathless crowds to swell the number of passers-by.

The station front towards the King’s Cross Road is somewhat in the shadow, and there I stood in patience and in wonder.

What Eric and had discovered in Winsloe’s kitbag had rendered the mystery the more tantalising, it being a cheap carte-de-visite photograph of the dead stranger—a picture which showed him in a dark tweed suit and golf-cap stuck slightly askew, as many young men of the working-class wear their caps.

We were both greatly puzzled. How came the portrait in Ellice’s possession? And why, if he were not in fear of some secret being divulged, did he not identify the stranger?

Again I recollected well how Sybil had declared her intention to marry Ellice. For what reason? Was it in order to prevent her own secret being exposed?

We had replaced the photograph—which, unfortunately, bore no photographer’s name—re-locked the bag, and left the room utterly confounded.

During the two days that followed both of us had watched Winsloe carefully, and had seen his ill-concealed anxiety lest the dead man should be identified by Jack. Once or twice, as was but natural, at table or in the billiard-room, Scarcliff had referred to the strange affair and declared,—

“I’m sure I’ve seen the poor chap before, but where, I can’t for the life of me recollect.”

The face was constantly puzzling him, and thus Winsloe remained anxious and agitated.

In order to watch and learn what I could, I remained Jack’s guest until after the inquest. The inquiry was duly held at the Spread Eagle at Midhurst, with the usual twelve respectable tradesmen as Jurymen, and created great excitement in the little town. Ellice went out shooting with Wydcombe on that day, while Jack, Eric and myself drove over to hear the evidence.

There was very little to hear. The affair was still a complete mystery. According to the two doctors who had made the examination the stranger had been shot through the heart about eight hours prior to his discovery—murdered by an unknown hand, for although the police had made a strict search the weapon had not been discovered.

The fact that not a scrap of anything remained to lead to the dead man’s identity puzzled the police, more especially the absence of the tab from the back of the coat. The two detectives from London sat beside us and listened to the evidence with dissatisfaction. Booth made his statement, and then the inquiry was formally adjourned.

There was nothing else. Both police and public were puzzled and the coroner remarked to the jury that he hoped when they next met some information would be forthcoming which might lead to the stranger’s identity.

We drove back in the dog-cart, and on the way Jack turned to me, saying,—

“I’d give worlds to know the real truth of that affair. I’m quite positive I’ve seen the face somewhere, but where, I can’t fix.”

“That’s a pity,” Eric remarked. “One day, however, it’ll come to you, and when it does we may hope to discover the guilty person.”

That night in the billiard-room Winsloe asked us what had taken place at the inquest, endeavouring to put his question unconcernedly. Eric and I could, however, see how anxious he was.

“Nobody knows yet who he is,” Jack answered, as he chalked his cue preparatory to making a shot. “The police have discovered nothing—except that a woman was seen coming from the wood just about four o’clock.”

“A woman!” I cried, staring at him. “Who said so? It was not given in evidence.”

“No,” he replied. “Booth told me just as we came out that somebody had said so, but that he did not give it in evidence, as he considered it wiser to say nothing.”

I held my breath.

“Who was the woman?” asked Winsloe, apparently as surprised as myself.

“He didn’t tell me. In fact, I don’t think she was recognised. If she had been, he would, of course, have interrogated her by this time.”

Ellice Winsloe was silent. I saw as he stood back in the shadow from the table that his brows had contracted and that he was pensive and puzzled. And yet upstairs in his bag he had a portrait of the dead man, and was, therefore, well aware of his identity.

Now that we reflected we agreed that we really knew very little of Ellice Winsloe. He was Jack’s friend rather than ours. The son of a Cornishman whose income was derived from his interest in certain tin mines, he had, on his father’s death, been left well off. Jack had known him at Magdalen, but had lost sight of him for some years, when of a sudden they met again one night while at supper at the Savoy, and their old friendship had been renewed. Ellice, it appeared, was well known in a certain set in town, and up to the present moment we had both voted him as a good all-round sportsman, a good fellow and a gentleman. But this secret knowledge which he refused to betray, and his evident fear lest the dead man be identified, aroused our serious suspicions.

“I wonder,” suggested Eric, when we were alone in my room on the night of the inquest, “I wonder whether Ellice was in hiding in those bushes watching us search the body? Do you know, the idea has been in my mind all day,” he added.

“If he was, then we are placed in a very awkward position,” I said. “He may make a statement to the police.”

“No. I don’t think he’ll do that. If he did he would betray his own knowledge,” was my friend’s answer.

The next day passed uneventfully, and beyond the general surprise at Tibbie’s continued absence there was nothing unusual in the household at Ryhall Place.

Late that night Mason returned, saying that her mistress had driven the car to the Bath Hotel, at Bournemouth, and put it into the garage. Three hours later she left the hotel to go for a walk, but did not return. After she had gone the maid had, it seemed, found a letter in which her mistress ordered her to remain there until Wednesday, and telling her that if she did not return then she was to go back to Ryhall and send the chauffeur to Bournemouth for the car.

Mason, used to Tibbie’s erratic ways, thought little of it. Her mistress travelled a great deal, had a very large circle of friends, and besides, was entirely unconventional and knew well how to take care of herself. Therefore the maid had remained until midday on Wednesday and then returned to Ryhall.

“I’m getting a little anxious about Tibbie,” remarked old Lady Scarcliff in the drawing-room that evening. “This kind of thing is not at all proper—flying about the country alone.”

Jack laughed.

“No good worrying about Tibbie, mater. She’ll turn up all right to-morrow, or you’ll get a wire from her. You remember that time she met the Hursts in Nice and went off yachting with them down the Mediterranean, and we didn’t know where she was for three weeks. And then she calmly said she’d quite forgotten to tell us where she was going.”

“Ah, I remember,” said the viscountess, a kind-faced old lady whom I liked immensely. “I do wish she would consider my feelings a little more.”

With that the subject dropped.

Next morning I took leave of them all, and promising to meet Eric a few days later, took the train up to town to keep the secret tryst with my little friend who had so suddenly disappeared.

As I stood at the kerb looking up and down the wet pavement with its busy, hurrying crowd carrying umbrellas, I knew that I had commenced a very dangerous game. Would she keep her appointment? Did she really intend to go into voluntary exile in some mean street in one of the dismal southern suburbs? Was it possible that she who had from her birth been used to every luxury and extravagance could pose successfully as the wife of a compositor with forty shillings a week?

Ah! would not her very voice, her smart expressions, betray her as a lady?

I heard the rumbling of a train below, and once again up the grimy stairs came a long string of eager men and women returning from the City to their homes, tumbling over each other in their anxiety to get back after the day’s toil. They swept past me along the Pentonville Road, and then I stood again, reflecting and watching, until suddenly a figure in neat black halted before me, and I found myself face to face with the fugitive.

“Tibbie!” I cried. “Then you’ve really come, after all?”

“Of course,” was her answer in a low, half-frightened tone. “When I make an appointment I keep it. Where shall we go? We can’t talk here, can we?”

A hansom was passing, and hailing it we got in hurriedly. I told the man to drive across Waterloo Bridge to the Elephant and Castle, a neighbourhood where we would be both quite unknown. Then, as I sank beside her, she asked, with a pretty, mischievous smile,—

“Well, Wilfrid, and how do you like me as your wife?”

“My wife!” I echoed. “By Jove, yes. I forgot that,” and I recollected the strange game I was playing.

“Don’t Mason’s things fit me well? She’s just my figure. I took this dress, jacket and hat from her box and put them into mine when I left Ryhall in the car. I thought they’d come in useful.”

I looked at her, and saw that with her brown hair brushed severely from her forehead, her small close-fitting hat and slightly shabby black jacket she was quite a demure little figure. The exact prototype of the newly-married wife of a working-man.

“It’s really quite a suitable get-up, I think,” I said, laughing.

“Yes. I’ve decided to explain to the curious that I was a lady’s-maid, and that we’ve been married nearly a year. Recollect that—in order to tell the same story. Where’s the ring? Did you think of that?” Yes, I had thought of it. I felt in my vest pocket, and taking out the plain little band of gold that I had bought in a shop in Regent Street that afternoon, placed it upon the finger, she laughing heartily, and then bending to examine it more closely in the uncertain light of the gas-lamps in Gray’s Inn Road.

“If I told you the truth, Wilfrid, you’d be horribly annoyed,” she said, looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers.

“No. What is it?” I asked.

“Well—only—only that I wish you were my real husband,” she answered frankly. “If you were, then I should fear nothing. But it cannot be—I know that.”

“What do you fear, Tibbie?” I asked, very seriously. “Tell me—do tell me.”

“I—I can’t—I can’t now,” was her nervous response in a harder voice, turning her gaze away from mine. “If I did, you would withdraw your help—you would not dare to risk your own reputation and mine, as you are now doing, just because we are old boy-and-girl friends.”

On we went through the streaming downpour along Chancery Lane and the Strand, the driver lowering the window, for the rain and mud were beating into our faces.

“Well,” I said, “and what do you suggest doing?”

“To-night I must disappear. I shall sleep in some obscure hotel across the water, and to-morrow you must call for me, and we’ll go together to fix upon our future ‘home.’” Then she inquired eagerly what impression her absence had produced at Ryhall, and I told her.

For a time she remained serious and thoughtful. Her countenance had changed.

“Then Mason came back, as I ordered her?”

“Yes,” I answered, “but won’t she miss those things of hers you are now wearing?”

“No. Because they were in a trunk that she had packed ready to send up to town. She won’t discover they’ve gone for some weeks, I feel sure.”

She described her night run from Chichester to Bournemouth, how she had escaped from Mason, taken train direct up to Birmingham, remained that night at the Grand, then went on to Leicester, where she had spent a day, arriving in London that evening at seven o’clock. In Bull Street, Birmingham, she had been recognised by a friend, the wife of an alderman, and had some difficulty in explaining why she was there alone.

Our present position was not without its embarrassments. I looked at the pretty woman who was about to pose as my wife, and asked,—

“And what name shall we adopt? Have you thought of one?”

“No. Let’s see,” she said. “How about Morton—Mr and Mrs William Morton?”

“All right, then after to-morrow I shall be known as William Morton, compositor?”

“And I shall be your very loving and devoted wife,” she laughed, her eyes dancing. “In any case, life in Camberwell will be an entirely new experience.”

“Yes,” I said. “I only hope we sha’n’t be discovered. I must be careful—for I shall be compelled to lead a double life. I may be followed one day.”

“Yes, but it is for my sake, Wilfrid,” she exclaimed, placing her small trembling hand upon my arm. “Remember that by doing this you are saving my life. Had it not been for you I should have been dead three days ago. My life is entirely in your hands. I am in deadly peril,” she added, in a low, desperate whisper. “You have promised to save me—and you will, Wilfrid—I know you will!”

And she gripped my arm tightly, and looked into my face.

Notwithstanding her assumed gaiety of manner, she was in terror.

Was that dead, white face still haunting her—the face of the stranger who had, in secret, fallen by her hand?

Chapter Ten.

Explains Certain Important Facts.

That night she remained at a small quiet hotel near Waterloo Station, a place patronised by third-class passengers from the West of England, and at ten o’clock next morning I called for her.

To disguise oneself as a working-man is no easy matter. I had experienced one difficulty which I had not foreseen, namely, how to allay the suspicions of my man, Budd, when he found me going out in the cheap clothes and hat I had purchased at an outfitter’s in the Lambeth Road on the previous night.

On getting up I dressed myself in them, and then examined myself in the glass. I cut a figure that was, in my eyes, ridiculous. The suit bore a stiff air and odour of newness that was tantalising, yet I saw no way of altering it, save by pressing out the creases, and with that object I called Budd, who first looked me up and down, and then regarded me as though I had taken leave of my senses.

“Is that a new suit, sir?” he asked, scrutinising it.

“Yes, Budd,” I replied. “Now, you see what it is. I want to appear like a working-man,” I added confidentially. “The truth is I’m watching somebody, though, of course, you’ll say nothing.”

“Of course not, sir,” he answered discreetly, for he was a reliable servant.

Then I took counsel with him how to take off the palpable newness of the clothes, and he, like the clever valet he was, took them out, and after a while returned with them greatly improved.

So when dressed in a cheap cotton shirt, a dark red tie, a suit of dark grey tweed, and a drab cap, I at last looked the typical working-man from South London wearing his best clothes.

With Budd’s ready assistance I slipped out of my chambers into Bolton Street, and half an hour later arrived by omnibus at the obscure hotel where Tibbie awaited me.

When she saw me she smiled merrily; and when we were alone together in the Waterloo Bridge Road she burst out laughing, saying,—

“What an interesting pair we really do make. Your get-up is delightful, Wilfrid. You look a real compositor. But just put your cap a little on one side—it’s more graceful. What does Budd say?”

“He first thought I’d taken leave of my senses; but I’ve allayed all his suspicions.”

And so we went jauntily on along the wide road to the Obelisk and then up the London Road, where the costermongers’ barrows were ranged and hoarse-voiced men were crying their cheap wares to thrifty housewives.

All was strange to her. She knew nothing of working London, and viewed everything with keen interest. I could not help smiling at her demure little figure in the cheap black dress.

At the bottom of the London Road we entered a tram and went as far as Camberwell Gate, the neighbourhood where she had decided to establish herself as Mrs William Morton.

Leaving the main road we turned down a long, dreary street of uniform smoke-blackened houses with deep areas in search of a card showing “apartments to let furnished,” and at last discovering one, we ascended the steps with considerable trepidation and knocked.

“You talk to them,” I whispered. “You want three rooms furnished,” and next second the door opened and we were face to face with a big, red-faced woman whose bloated countenance was certainly due to the undue consumption of alcohol—probably that spirit so dear to the lower class feminine palate—Old Tom.

Sybil explained that we were in search of apartments, and we were conducted up to the second floor and shown three dirty, badly-furnished rooms, the very sight of which was depressing.

Tibbie’s gaze met mine, and then she inquired the price.

“Of course, you’d want the use of the kitchen. That’s downstairs,” replied the woman.

“Oh! there’s no kitchen, I see,” Tibbie remarked quickly, seizing that defect as a means of escape from the miserable place. “I’m afraid then they won’t suit us. My husband is always so very particular about having the kitchen on the same floor.”

And then with many regrets we withdrew, and found ourselves once more out upon the pavement.

House after house we visited, some very poor but clean, others dirty, neglected and malodorous. Surely there are no more dismal dwelling-places in England than furnished lodgings in South London. Through the Boyson and Albany Roads, through Villa Street and Faraday Street we searched, but discovered no place where Tibbie could possibly live. Tousled-haired women were mostly the landladies, evil-faced scowling creatures who drank gin, and talked with that nasal twang so essentially the dialect of once-rural Camberwell.

At last in Neate Street, a quiet thoroughfare lying between the Camberwell and Old Kent Roads, we saw a card in the parlour window of a small house lying back from the street behind a strip of smoke-dried garden. On inquiry the landlady, a clean, hard-working, middle-aged woman, took us upstairs, and there we found three cheaply-furnished rooms with tiny kitchen all bearing the hall-mark of the hire system.

The woman, who seemed a respectable person, told us that she had been a parlour-maid in the employ of a lady at Kensington, and her husband was foreman in a mineral-water factory in the neighbourhood.

Tibbie was struck with the woman’s homely manner. She was from Devonshire, and the way she spoke of her own village showed her to be a true lover of the country.

“My husband, Mr Morton, is a compositor on a newspaper in Fleet Street and is always away at nights,” Tibbie explained. “We’ve been married nearly a year. I, too, was in service—a lady’s-maid.”

“Ah! I thought you ’ad been,” replied the landlady, whose name was Williams. “You speak so refined.”

So after re-examining the rooms Tibbie seated herself in the wicker armchair of the little parlour, and leaning back suggested that we should engage the apartments.

To this I, of course, agreed, and having given Mrs Williams half a sovereign as deposit, we left promising to take possession with our personal belongings—that same evening.

Outside, Tibbie expressed herself well pleased.

“I rather like that woman. She’s honest and genuine, I’m sure,” she declared. “Now I must buy a second-hand trunk and some clothes suited to my station as your humble and obedient wife,” she laughed.

So we went through into the Old Kent Road, and there purchased two big old travelling trunks, into which we afterwards placed the parcels which she had purchased at a cheap draper’s. Then, just before dusk, we returned to our new abode and entered into possession. We had tea together, prepared for us by Mrs Williams.

“You really make a model husband, Wilfrid,” she laughed when we were alone, holding her cup in her hand. “I suppose you’ll have to go to work very soon. I wonder what time compositors go to work at night?”

“I haven’t the ghost of an idea,” I declared. “I must find out. I suppose about seven or eight. But,” I added, “I hope you will be comfortable, and that you won’t be too dull.”

“I shall work,” she said. “I’ll keep the rooms clean and dusted, and when I’ve got nothing to do there’s always needlework.”

“We must pretend to be very frugal, you know,” I urged. “A compositor’s wages are not high.”

“Of course. Leave that to me. You’ll have to buy some more clothes. A Sunday suit, for instance, and a pair of squeaky boots.”

She had made no mention of the affair in Charlton Wood, but on the excuse that she might be lonely when I had left her, she had bought both the morning and evening papers, although as yet she had not glanced at them.

Besides posing as William Morton I had much else to do, and many inquiries to make. I intended to lose no time in ascertaining who was the man living on Sydenham Hill, and whether he had any acquaintance with the dead unknown.

For quite an hour we were alone in the rather cosy little parlour, the blind down and the gas lit. The furniture was indeed a strange contrast to that at Ryhall, yet the couple of wicker armchairs were decidedly comfortable, and the fire gave out a pleasant warmth as we sat near it.

“Ours is a curious position, Wilfrid, isn’t it?” she whispered at last, looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers.

“What would the world think if they knew the truth?”

“If they knew the truth,” she said, seriously, “they would admire you for your self-sacrifice in assisting a helpless woman. Yet it is really very amusing,” and Tibbie, so well known and popular in the smart set of London, leaned back and smiled.

I was about to refer to the mystery of her flight, yet I hesitated. There was time for that, I thought, when she was more settled in her hiding-place.

It was certainly a novel experience to pose as the husband of Tibbie—the gay, merry, vivacious Tibbie Burnet, who was the life and soul of the go-ahead set in which she moved, and as we sat chatting we had many a good laugh over the ludicrous situation in which we found ourselves.

“You’ll have to pretend, in any case, to be very fond of me,” she laughed.

“I suppose I ought to call you ‘dear’ sometimes,” I remarked humorously.

“Yes, dear,” she responded, with the final word accentuated. “And I shall call you William—my dear Willie.”

“And what am I to call you?”

“Oh! Molly would be a good name. Yes. Call me Molly,” and she held her new wedding ring before my eyes with a tantalising laugh.

“We shall have to be very careful to keep up the fiction,” I said. “These people will, no doubt, watch us at first.”

“I shall soon make friends of Mrs Williams,” she said. “Leave that to me. I can be circumspect enough when occasion requires. But—oh—I’d so love to smoke a cigarette.”

“A cigarette!” I cried, horrified; “women don’t smoke in this neighbourhood. Whatever you do, don’t smoke when I’m not here, they’ll smell it at once.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “The ideas of the poor people are quite different to ours, aren’t they?” she reflected.

At that moment there was a tap at the door, and the landlady begged leave to introduce her husband, a rather tall, well-set-up man with a closely-cropped dark beard.

He greeted me pleasantly, and expressed a hope that we should be comfortable.

“The missis will do all she can for Mrs Morton, I’m sure,” she said. “I hear you’re on night-work.”

“Yes, unfortunately,” I said, “our work is mostly at night, you know—getting ready the next day’s paper.”

He was affable from the first, and apparently entirely unsuspicious, for he sent his wife downstairs for a jug of ale, and I was compelled to take a glass with him in order to cement our acquaintanceship, after which he and his wife discreetly withdrew with, I hope, the opinion that we were “a very nice, quiet couple.”

At eight o’clock I took leave of Tibbie after we had had a supper of cold meat. She rather missed her dinner, but assured me that she would soon get used to dining in the middle of the day. Then, after seeing that she was quite comfortable, and that the locks on the doors acted, I shook hands with her.

“Good-bye, Willie dear,” she laughed. “Come home early, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I replied, echoing her laugh, and then as William Morton I went out to my work.

Walking through Trafalgar Road I found myself in the Old Kent Road, and presently hailing a hansom I drove as far as Piccadilly Circus, where I alighted and went on foot to my rooms.

As I entered Eric Domville came to the door of my sitting-room to meet me. He had been awaiting my return.

I saw from his face that something had occurred.

“Why, Eric—you?” I gasped. “What has happened?”

He placed his forefinger to his lips, indicative of silence, and glanced behind me along the hall to the room wherein Budd had disappeared. Then, when I had passed into my own cosy den, he closed the door carefully.

“Yes,” he said, in a low, strained voice, “something has happened, old fellow—something serious. I’ve discovered a fact that puts an entirely new complexion upon the affair. You are both in gravest peril. Listen, and I’ll explain.”

Chapter Eleven.

Shows a Woman’s Weakness.

Eric, standing with his back to the mantelshelf, revealed to me a fact that was both extraordinary and startling.

“After you’d left Ryhall yesterday,” he said, “I was walking across the park to meet Cynthia, who’d gone out to pay a visit to that thin old parson’s wife over at Waltham, when, quite unexpectedly, I came across Ellice standing talking to a rather badly-dressed young woman. She was in shabby black, with a brown straw hat trimmed with violets, and an old fur tippet around her neck. They were under a tree a little aside from the by-path that leads across to Waltham, and were speaking excitedly. I was walking on the grass and they did not hear me approach. Suddenly she made some statement which caused him to hesitate and think. Then he gave her some money hurriedly from his pocket, and after a further conversation they parted, she proceeding towards the high road, while Winsloe went in the direction of the house. I followed at a respectable distance, and that afternoon, when we assembled in the hall for tea, he announced that he had been suddenly recalled to town. In this I suspected something, so when he left by the seven-thirty-five express I followed him here.”

“Well?” I asked, looking straight into his face.

“Well, he’s in search of Tibbie.”

“Of Tibbie! What does he know?”

“That woman who met him in the park told him something. She probably knew of your appointment.”

“Why?”

“Because this morning he went to Harker’s Hotel in Waterloo Road, and inquired for her. But you had very fortunately taken her away.”

“Then if he knows of our appointment he will certainly follow me!” I said, in utter amazement.

“Most certainly he will. You recognise the grave peril of the situation?”

“I do,” I said, for I saw that Sybil must at once be seriously compromised. “But who could have known our secret? Who was the woman?”

“I’ve never seen her before. She’s an entire stranger. But that she is aware of Tibbie’s movements is beyond doubt. You were evidently seen together when you met last night—or how would he know that she slept at Harker’s Hotel?”

I was silent. I saw the very serious danger that now lay before us. Yet why was this man in search of Tibbie? He had proposed to her, she had said, and had been refused.

I recalled to my companion the fact of the photograph of the dead man being found in his bag.

“Yes,” Eric said. “He has recognised the victim but has some secret motive in remaining silent. Is it, I wonder, a motive of revenge?”

“Against whom?”

For a few moments he did not speak. Then he answered—

“Against Tibbie.”

I pursed my lips, for I discerned his meaning. Was it possible that Ellice Winsloe knew the truth?

“Therefore, what are we to do? What do you suggest?” I asked.

“You must not risk going to see Sybil to-morrow. Where is she?”

I briefly explained all that we had done that day, and how and where she had gone into hiding.

“Then you must send her an express letter in the morning. We must not go to see her. You are certainly watched.”

“But think of her,” I said. “I am posing as her husband, and she will require my presence there to-morrow in order to complete the fiction.”

“It’s too risky—far too risky,” Eric declared, shaking his head dubiously.

“The only way is for you to keep watch upon Winsloe,” I suggested, “and warn me of his movements.”

“But the woman—the woman who met him by appointment in the park? She may be in his employ as spy.”

“Did Mason overhear anything that night when Sybil came to my room, I wonder,” I said.

“Never mind how they got to know,” he exclaimed. “I tell you that you mustn’t go near Tibbie. It’s far too dangerous at this moment.”

His words caused me considerable apprehension. How could I leave Sybil there alone? Would not Mrs Williams and her husband think it very strange? No. She had craved my assistance, and I had promised it. Therefore, at all risks I intended to fulfil my promise.

To allay Eric’s fears, however, I pretended to agree with him, and made him promise to still keep watch upon Winsloe. Eric was my guest whenever in London; therefore I ordered Budd to prepare his room, and after a snack over at the club we sat smoking and talking until far into the night.

Next morning my companion was early astir. He was in fear of Winsloe ascertaining the whereabouts of Sybil, and went forth to keep watch upon him, promising to return again that same evening. Winsloe had well-furnished rooms in King Street, St. James’s Square, was one of a go-ahead set of men about town, and a member of several of the gayest clubs frequented by the jeunesse dorée.

It was both risky and difficult for me to get down to Neate Street, Camberwell, in my dress as a printer; yet against Eric’s advice I succeeded, travelling by a circuitous route to South Bermondsey Station and along the Rotherhithe New Road, in reaching Mr Williams’ a little after eleven o’clock.

Sybil, looking fresh and neat, was eagerly awaiting me at the window, and when I entered the room she flew across to me, saying in a voice loud enough for the landlady to overhear,—

“Oh! Willie, how very late you are. Been working overtime, I suppose?”

“Yes, dear,” was my response; and we grinned at each other as we closed the door.

“The time passes here awfully slowly,” she declared in a low voice. “I thought you were never coming. I shall have to get a few books to read.”

“I was delayed,” I said, taking off my cloth cap and flinging it upon the sofa. “I found Eric Domville awaiting me. He came up from Ryhall to-day and told me some strange news.”

“Strange news!” she gasped, turning deathly pale and clutching at the back of a chair in order to steady herself. “What—what news?”

The truth was instantly plain. Her fear was that the mystery of the unknown had been discovered.

I had quite inadvertently struck terror into her heart, for upon her countenance was that same haunted look as on that night when she had left Ryhall in secret.

“What Eric has told me concerns Ellice Winsloe,” I said, much surprised, and yet allowing her agitation to pass unnoticed.

“Ellice Winsloe. Is he—has he come to London?” she gasped, staring at me and starting.

“Yes, and more. He knows that you slept the night before last at Harker’s. He called to see you an hour after we had left yesterday.”

“He knows!” she cried in a low, terrified voice.

“Ellice knows that I was there! Then he has followed me—he—he means to carry out his threat!”

“What threat?”

“Ah, no. I—I’m mad, Wilfrid. I—I don’t know what I’m saying!” she cried, pushing her hair from her brow with both her hands and pacing up and down the room. “But you will help me—won’t you?” she implored, halting before me and looking me straight in the face.

“Help you—of course,” I said. “But I confess I can’t understand. This man only proposed marriage to you a fortnight ago.”

“I know. I know. And I refused him. Ah! Wilfrid. I would rather kill myself than marry that man!”

“Then you know something concerning him that is not in his favour?”

“I know a great deal. I often wonder why Jack and he are such intimate friends.”

“He’s rich, you said, and Lady Scarcliff approved of him.”

“That is so,” she answered thoughtfully. “But the mater is ignorant of it all. Ah! if I only dare tell you. It would astound and stagger you.”

“He is in search of you, that’s very clear,” I said, hoping to induce her to tell me something further.

“But he must not find me,” she declared. “The day he discovers me I shall take my life,” she added in a hard, desperate voice.

“Why? Do you fear him?”

She made no answer, but her chin sank upon her breast.

“Then tell me the truth, Tibbie,” I said. “He tried to compel you to marry him because he held some secret of yours that you do not wish to be known. Am I not right?”

She nodded in the affirmative, and I saw that tears were in her fine eyes.

What was the secret, I wondered? Was it the existence of that low-born lover, a photograph of whom he had carried in his bag? Did he hold over her a threat of exposure because he had become seized by a desire that she should be his wife? Many a woman has been forced into an odious marriage in order to preserve her secret.

I looked into her pale haggard face and wondered. How beautiful she was in her terror and distress. She was in fear of that man, whose life was, when viewed in the plain light of day, somewhat mysterious. But what did she fear? Who was the man who had fallen by her hand?

We had arranged that Mrs Williams should cook for us, and presently she came smilingly to lay the table, simply, but cleanly. Thus, our conversation was interrupted, but when alone again I returned to the subject, and she said, with a serious look,—

“Wilfrid, he must not discover me. If he does—if he does, then all is at an end. Even you cannot save me.”

“But I fear I may be followed here,” I said. “He knew that we met last night, or he would not have been aware that you slept at Harker’s. He, or someone employed by him, is watching me. I must remain away from you.”

“Yes,” she remarked. “I quite foresee the danger, yet I shall be very lonely. And besides, what can I say to Mrs Williams?”

“We’ll have to make an excuse that I’ve been sent into the country to work,” I said. “If I come daily here I’m quite certain Winsloe will discover you. This knowledge of his regarding our meeting the day before yesterday makes me suspicious.”

“You are right,” she declared sadly. “He has means of knowing everything. No secret seems safe from that man, Wilfrid. I sometimes think—sometimes I think that—” and she hesitated.

“That what?”

But she did not reply. She was standing at the window gazing fixedly down into the grey, dismal street. The words she had uttered mechanically, just as though she were speaking to herself.

“You told me, Tibbie, that if I pretended to be your husband that I might save you,” I remarked presently.

“And so you may, providing Ellice Winsloe does not discover me. If he does—then all is useless—quite useless. I shall have compromised myself and placed you in an invidious position, all to no purpose.”

“But by discretion—by my remaining away from you, and only coming here by stealth when I know that Winsloe is not watchful, I may still remain your husband in the eyes of these people.”

“Yes, yes, Wilfrid,” she said eagerly, placing her nervous hand upon my shoulder and looking deeply into my eyes. “That is the only way. I must live here alone—in hiding. They must not find me. Let us have patience—patience always—and we may foil that man’s evil intentions. Ah! If you knew everything you would pity me. But you do not. You believe that I hold some guilty secret. Yes,” she added hoarsely, “it is a guilty secret, and how can I sufficiently thank you for trusting me as blindly as you do? I am very unworthy. You are the best friend, Wilfrid, that woman ever had. Can you wonder at the suggestion I made to you in the Long Gallery the other day?” Then she hesitated, still looking me straight in the face. “But you have forgiven me,” she went on with a sigh. “I thought that you loved me still—yes—I was very foolish. All women are so sometimes—all women who are terrified and unhappy, as I am!”

And the tears again stood in her eyes as she bowed her beautiful head before me.

Chapter Twelve.

In the House of the Parhams.

That evening, when I returned to Bolton Street, I found Eric awaiting me.

Unseen, he had followed Winsloe to various places during the afternoon, but his movements were in no way suspicious. At Harker’s Hotel he had, it appeared, lost all trace of Sybil, and had probably employed a private detective to watch my movements.

The adjourned inquest had been held at Midhurst, for in the Globe there appeared a four-line paragraph saying that in the case of an unknown man found shot in Charlton Wood, a verdict of wilful murder had been returned, and the matter had been left in the hands of the police. A village tragedy attracts but little notice in London, and all the papers dismissed it in a paragraph of practically the same wording.

That night we dined with two friends at the Trocadero, and next morning I set forth again upon my inquiries, leaving Eric to act as he thought best. My only promise to him was not to go near my pseudo wife.

My first visit was to the pawnbroker’s in the Fulham Road, to whom I presented the vouchers I had found upon the dead man, and received on redeeming them a cheap silver Geneva watch and heavy antique gold ring, in which a single ruby was set.

“You don’t recollect the gentleman who pledged these, I suppose?” I asked of the assistant.

The young man, a smart, shrewd fellow, reflected a moment, and answered,—

“Well, yes, I do remember something of him. We had an argument about the ring. He wanted five pounds on it, and I wouldn’t give it.”

“What kind of fellow was he?” I asked, explaining that I had bought the tickets from a third person.

“Oh, youngish—with a short brown beard. Evidently a gentleman who was hard up. We get lots of them in here.”

A brown beard! Had he shaved and disguised himself before his interview with Tibbie?

“Tall?” I asked.

“No. Not very.”

The description did not answer to that of the dead unknown.

“A stranger?”

“Quite. I’d never seen him before. But the truth is I recollect him because that ruby there is a valuable one. I had my doubts at the moment as to its genuineness, and as there were a lot of people waiting I had no time to examine it. So I lent him only a couple o’ quid on it.”

“Then it’s worth more?”

“Yes. If you bought the ticket cheap you’ve got a bargain. The guv’nor here would give you eighty quid for it, and be pleased.”

I looked at it, and saw that it was a very fine stone. To me it seemed evident that the man who had pawned the watch and ring was not the man who had lost his life in Charlton Wood.

“You think he was a gentleman?”

“Well, he spoke like one, and seemed very much afraid of being seen. He hesitated when I asked him his name, so I wrote down the usual one—Green.”

“And the address?”

“I put that in also.”

So finding I could discover nothing further, I carried away both watch and ring to add to the strange collection of objects which the dead man’s pockets had contained.

Close to the corner of Park Lane I came face to face with Winsloe, dressed sprucely as usual in silk hat and frock coat, and he at once stopped and offered me his hand. Then, after greeting me, he turned on his heel and walked by my side, saying,—

“I’m just strolling back to the Burlington. I’ll come with you.”

“You left the Scarcliffs earlier than you expected, didn’t you?” I remarked.

“Yes. I had some business in town,” was his brief response.

“I see from the papers that they’ve discovered nothing regarding that affair in Charlton Wood.”

“No,” he remarked in a mechanical tone. “And I don’t expect they ever will. The assassin, whoever he was, got away without leaving a trace,” and then he cleverly diverted our conversation into a different channel.

I feared to discuss it further. The man was Sybil’s enemy, and therefore mine. He evidently knew that we had met on that evening of her arrival in London, and was actively at work to trace her.

Indeed, when I afterwards reflected, I saw that in all probability he had watched me that morning, and had purposely encountered me.

To each other we were outwardly still extremely friendly. Indeed I invited him to my rooms that evening to smoke, and he accepted, for he had a motive in so doing, while I, on my part, had resolved to watch him carefully.

I lunched at the Bachelors’, and though anxious to go and see Sybil, I was compelled to content myself with sending her a telegram, saying that I had been ordered by my foreman to go up to Manchester in connection with some new linotype machinery, and must therefore be absent two or three days. I sent the message so that she might show it to Mrs Williams.

Soon after four o’clock I set forth upon another expedition, namely, by train from Victoria to Upper Sydenham Station. The autumn dusk was falling when I turned into Sydenham Hill, the wide winding road of large detached houses leading from Forest Hill up to the Crystal Palace. Essentially the residence of the wealthy City man, and an eminently respectable district, the houses stand in their own grounds with big old trees around, commanding fine views of South London. I was in search of Keymer, and being directed by a postman, found it a little way higher up than the turning known as Rock Hill, a large old-fashioned red brick place, with fine old elms standing in the grounds. An oak fence divided it from the footway, and as I passed I saw that the pink-shaded electric lamps in the drawing-room were alight, while at the grand piano was sitting a neat female figure in black.

A servant in a smart French cap was letting down the Venetian blinds, and as I watched through the gate I saw that the lady had stopped playing and turned upon the stool to speak to her.

At the same instant the figure of a man stole across the room, a tall, shadowy figure, and came up behind the woman, causing her to start from her seat, while at that moment the blind was lowered, and the artistic interior was suddenly shut out from my view.

One thing caused me to remain there in wonder. Perhaps my eyes had deceived me, but I could not help thinking that when that vague male figure crossed the room the woman started up with a look of terror. From where I stood I could not see distinctly, yet I felt certain that the person who had entered was unwelcome and unexpected.

The other blinds had already been lowered, for it was now nearly dark, and beneath the wide portico a light shone above the door. The grounds were well kept, and the greenhouse beside the drawing-room showed careful attention, while on the gravelled drive were the wheel-marks of carriages. Mr John Parham was evidently well off, in all probability a City man, like most of his neighbours. I sauntered past, wondering by what means I could ascertain something about him.

The doleful sound of the muffin-bell rang in the distance, and far up the road I saw the lamplighter going his round, the street lamps springing up from the darkness at regular intervals. I went towards him, and stopping him, made inquiries regarding the tenant of Keymer.

“’E’s a very nice gentleman, sir,” replied the man. “Always gives good Christmas-boxes.”

“Married?”

“Yes, sir. But ’e has no children. They keep a carriage—one o’ them there open ones.”

“Now I want to know something about him,” I said, slipping a coin into the man’s hand. “Do you happen to know anybody who could tell me?”

The man looked at me suspiciously, and asked,—“Pardon me, sir, but you’re a detective, p’r’aps?”

“No,” I laughed. “Not at all. It is merely private curiosity—over—well, over a little matter of business. I’m a business man—not a policeman.”

“Well,” he said, “there’s ’Arry Laking, what keeps the gate of the Crystal Palace grounds in Palace Park Road. ’E’s their cook’s brother. ’E’d tell you something, for ’e often goes there when the family are out.”

“Where’s Palace Park Road?”

“Go up to the front of the Palace and keep round to the left till you come to the gate. It’s almost the other side of the grounds.”

I acted upon his suggestion, and after walking some distance I came to the turnstile in the wall dividing the Palace grounds from the road, and there I found a middle-aged man in uniform idling over the evening paper, for that gate was little used, save by season-ticket holders.

On inquiry I discovered that he was the man of whom I was in search, and after a little judicious greasing of the palm I induced him to tell me what he knew of his sister’s master and mistress.

“Mr Parham is a wholesale jeweller in the city,” he said. “He often goes abroad for weeks at a time to buy. His wife is young, but Annie tells me she leads a very lonely life. They’re a wealthy, but an unhappy pair, that’s my opinion. Yet they know all the best people in Sydenham, and Mr Parham gives grand at-homes and dinner-parties.”

“She’s unhappy, you say,” I ventured, recollecting the curious scene I had witnessed at the instant of lowering the blinds.

“Yes. Annie has overheard their quarrels. The master, she says, has such a hold over the mistress that she dare not call her soul her own. There was a scene between them about three weeks ago. They quarrelled at the dinner-table, and Mrs Parham left the room, went upstairs, wrote a letter and tried to commit suicide by drinking some sublimate. Her maid got hold of the letter, and then succeeded in saving her mistress’s life, for fortunately the solution wasn’t strong enough. But it made her very ill, and she was in bed a week, while her husband took himself off, and never inquired after her. The servants all pity poor little Mrs Parham, and say that her husband’s a brute to her. There was another terrible row once, when her brother called and overheard Mr Parham threaten her in the next room. They say that the two men came to blows, and that he gave Parham a thorough good hiding, which he richly deserved. Mrs Parham’s brother is not a fellow to be trifled with, they say, for Parham had to plead for his life. Afterwards, the beaten dog vowed vengeance, and the poor wife had a terrible time of it.”

“A rather unhappy household,” I remarked.

“Very. Annie tells me a lot. She wouldn’t stay there—nor would any of the servants—only the wages are so good.”

I saw that the man knew more than he cared to divulge. He was no friend of Parham’s, and was certainly on the side of the ill-used wife.

“Is Parham young or old?”

“Not very old—fat, fairish, rather bald, with a round face and a long nose. Mrs Parham is quite young, about twenty-six, and people call her good-lookin’, but myself I’m no judge o’ women. I’ve my missus, and she’s the best-lookin’ of ’em all in my eyes. Of course, Mrs Parham dresses smartly, and drives in a fine carriage. She comes to the Saturday concerts sometimes.”

“You don’t like Parham,” I said. “Come, tell the truth.”

“No, I don’t,” he declared, after a slight hesitation. “He’s a wrong ’un—I know that. Only, of course, that’s strictly between you and me,” he added in confidence.

“I’d like to know your sister,” I said, quite frankly. “I’ll make it worth her while if she’ll ask me in and let me see the house. She might do it when her mistress is out.”

He shook his head dubiously.

“I don’t think she’d let a stranger see inside, sir.”

“Well, there’s no harm in trying. Will you take me and introduce me?” I asked. “Take me this evening. When do you go off duty?”

“In about half an hour.”

“Then we’ll walk down there and call,” I suggested. “Here’s my card,” and I handed him the card of a barrister friend of mine which bore an address in the Temple.

He hesitated, but when he found another half-sovereign in his palm he consented, not, however, without a good deal of curiosity as to my real object.

What he had told me regarding the Parhams, in addition to that strange scene I had witnessed from the roadway, aroused my suspicion. I somehow felt confident that there was some connection between this man who ill-treated his wife so brutally and the unfortunate victim of the tragedy in rural Sussex I waited in a neighbouring bar until Laking came off duty, and then we walked together down Sydenham Hill to the house called Keymer.

My companion entered by the tradesmen’s lych-gate, and going up to the kitchen door, rapped at it, whereupon a big buxom woman in an apron opened it, and recognising him, gasped,—

“Oh! ’Arry, I’m so glad you’ve come! They told you about it, I suppose?”

“About what? I don’t know anything,” he replied, surprised at her white, scared face and the terrified look of one of the maids who stood behind her.

“Then go into the drawin’-room and look! It’s awful. There’s a curse on this ’ouse. Go and see for yourself.”

Startled, he hurried quickly through the kitchen and along the big, well-furnished hall, I following closely behind him, eager and bewildered.

And what we saw was amazing.

Chapter Thirteen.

Tells of Another Mystery.

In the drawing-room a startling scene presented itself.

Lying in a heap across the blue silk-covered sofa lay the figure of the lady whom I had seen from without, seated at the piano, while beside her were the gardener and a scared female servant bending over her, and trying to restore her to consciousness.

A short distance away a second female figure was lying face downwards upon the carpet near the window—a young woman in cap and apron whom I recognised as the maid who had lowered the Venetian blinds. Around her face a long black scarf had been twisted tightly, and she lay there motionless.

“Oh! Mr Taking!” gasped the woman, bending over her mistress, “I’m so glad you’re here. There’s been men in the house!”

“Men!” he cried, amazed. “What’s happened to Mrs Parham?”

“We don’t knew. We’ve sent for the doctor and the perlice.”

“But look at Jane!” he exclaimed, crossing to her. “She’ll be suffocated;” and falling on his knees he quickly untied the slip-knot by which the black scarf—a long narrow one with coloured stripes at the ends like an Italian santuzza—had been secured around the girl’s face.

As we turned her over we saw that her drawn countenance was white to the lips. There was no movement that either of us could discover.

I stood gazing at the startling scene, wondering what had occurred.

Mrs Parham was, I saw, a brown-haired, good-looking young lady of about twenty-six. Her black silk blouse was fastened at the throat by a beautiful diamond brooch—one from her husband’s stock perhaps—but she wore no other ring except the badge of matrimony.

Her eyes were closed, and it appeared as though she had fainted, yet across her left cheek from mouth to ear was a deep livid ridge. A scarf somewhat similar to that used to stifle the cries of the maid had been used upon her.

“Tell us what’s happened?” inquired Laking, eagerly. “Who’s done this?”

The housemaid, turning from her mistress, replied,—

“Jane went to pull down the blinds about three-quarters of an hour ago, and I heard the mistress playing the piano in here. Then she suddenly stopped, but knowing that Jane was here I thought she was talking to her. Then I didn’t think any more about it till I found that the hot water hadn’t been put in the mistress’s bedroom, and that the blinds were still up. I went down to the kitchen, but cook said that Jane was still with the mistress. I said she’d been there a long time, and cook said perhaps she was getting a blowing up. It was ’er night out last night, and she was a half-hour late, and Mrs Parham is very particular, as you know.”

“And didn’t you hear anything?” I asked, surprised.

“Not a sound. It was the quietness of the place that first aroused my suspicion,” said the girl. “I crept along the hall and listened at the door to hear what the mistress was saying to Jane. But there was no sound. Then I went back and told cook, and we thought that they’d both gone upstairs perhaps. Presently I went back and tapped at the door, for it was nearly an hour since Jane had gone into the room. Nobody answered, so I pushed the door open, and there, to my horror, saw ’em both lying on the floor with these black things round their faces.”

“And you rushed out and gave the alarm?”

“I called in Lane, who’d just finished work and was going home. Then we hailed a telegraph boy who was passing and sent him for the doctor and the police. At first we thought the poor mistress was dead, but, you see, she’s still breathing, although very slightly. Look!” she added, holding up the scarf, “there’s a funny smell about it.”

“Chloroform!” declared the gardener, Lane. “I ’ad it when I ’ad my operation in the ’orspital. I know that smell well enough.”

“But what was the motive?” I asked, puzzled, glancing around the room and noticing that beyond a chair having been overturned and an antimacassar lying on the floor there was no sign of disorder.

The electric bell rang sharply, the cook went to answer the door, and a few moments later a constable in uniform entered.

To him I briefly explained the circumstances, without, however, telling him of the strange scene I had witnessed when I halted outside the gate. Then after the housemaid and gardener had told their stories, he bent over the prostrate lady, listening intently.

“She’s still alive, that’s quite certain,” was his remark, then crossing over to the girl he knelt beside her.

He made a cursory examination and shook his head dubiously. Like ourselves, he had doubts whether she still breathed. I had placed my hand upon her heart, but could discover no palpitation. There was a rigidity about the body, too, that caused me to suspect that the scarf had been around her mouth too long, and that she had expired under the effects of the drug.

We explained to the constable that a doctor in the vicinity had been called, and while we awaited his arrival I made a tour of the room with the officer.

It was a beautifully furnished apartment in the Louis Quinze style, with massive gold-framed mirrors and consoles, and furniture in gilt and pale blue, a room which betrayed everywhere the hand of a woman of culture and artistic taste.

Upon the wall was a large velvet-lined frame, on which were a number of beautiful old miniatures, and behind the grand piano stood a huge palm that reached nearly to the ceiling. Suddenly as I advanced to the window, close to where the maid had been lying—for the gardener and the cook’s brother had now lifted her on to a small couch—I noticed that there was a little glass-topped table in which were displayed some fine pieces of antique silver, and standing upon it was a cabinet portrait in a dark red leather frame.

The picture caught my eye and caused me to start. I stood glaring at it in utter bewilderment, scarce believing my own eyes.

Was I mistaken in those features? No. It was the same face—undoubtedly the same face!

The portrait was exactly similar, but somewhat larger, than that which Eric and I had discovered in Winsloe’s kitbag—the picture of the dead unknown!

A sudden suggestion occurred to me to obtain possession of it. It might be of the greatest use to us in establishing the unfortunate man’s identity. I therefore took it up, glanced at it, and in an abstracted manner placed it upon a side table near a curtain, intending later on to transfer it to the pocket of my overcoat—even at the risk of committing the offence of theft. In this I saw no harm. I was seeking to solve a mystery; and surely every mode was fair, now that a man had been done to death.

I recollected Eric’s terrible accusation, and held my breath.

Yes, he was Sybil’s secret lover without a doubt. Those letters were sufficient proof of that.

And yet was it not strange that Mrs Parham should place the portrait in her room in a position so conspicuous?

The constable was as much puzzled as myself regarding the motive of the attack.

My own theory was that there had been two men lurking in the house, and hearing Mrs Parham playing the piano, they managed to enter the room unobserved, for there was a large Japanese screen before the door. An instant afterwards the maid entered, switched on the light, and let down the blinds, but while doing so, the men so suddenly discovered made a bold attack upon both, deftly twisting the scarves about their faces ere either of them could call for assistance.

The maid had evidently been attacked from behind by one of the men concealed at the back of the curtain at the moment when she had lowered the last blind. From this fact I suspected that the girl knew them and they feared recognition.

Yet the reason of that bold, desperate attack was surely an entire mystery.

Subsequent examination showed that they must have entered the front door with a duplicate key, probably almost immediately before, otherwise the gardener or Mrs Parham herself must have seen them approaching the house.

But when they had so successfully silenced both mistress and maid, what had been their next action? That was the mystery.

At first my impulse was to explain what I had seen from the pavement, yet I saw, on due reflection, that it was far better to keep that knowledge to myself, more especially if I could manage to obtain possession of that very valuable piece of evidence, the dead man’s photograph.

Laking went into the other rooms on the ground floor, and switched on the light in all of them, while the constable and myself made a careful examination in order to see whether any robbery had taken place. As far as we could ascertain, however, nothing had been disturbed. No drawer stood open, and although in both dining-room and library were large glass cases filled with valuable antiques, china, enamels, miniatures and old glass, nothing had apparently been touched.

“I wonder if the men are in the ’ouse now?” suggested the maid-servant suddenly, the word “man” being always very expressive in the vocabulary of the kitchen.

“Not likely,” declared the constable. “They’ve gone long ago. I wonder who they were?”

“Perhaps they thought that only Mrs Parham and Jane were at home,” remarked the cook’s brother. “And then, when they found Lane, my sister and Emily they got frightened, and cleared out.”

“Most probably,” was the policeman’s reply. “They were disturbed by something; that’s very evident. They intended to have the silver, because it’s easy got rid of. Perhaps it’s the gang what worked Norwood a couple of months ago. Two of ’em got five years at the Old Bailey last week.”

“They were a desperate pair, whoever they were,” I said. “Men don’t carry scarves like these and chloroform all ready if they don’t mean to do some big piece of business. The affair, whatever it was, must have been well planned.”

“They had their pals outside this house, no doubt. Men like those don’t work without spies watching the house to give alarm.”

His words caused me to ponder.

If one of the gang had been outside, then I had certainly been noted, for I had stood before the gate for quite a minute. I had been noticed, without a doubt! They knew that I had seen that thin, tall figure crossing the room so stealthily!

Perhaps I had quite unintentionally frightened them and prevented them from fully carrying out their object! When I had gone the spy outside might have given the signal which caused them to make their escape.

Now that I recollected, I remembered most distinctly that while I had spoken to the lamplighter, somebody a little distance down the road was whistling gaily a music-hall air.

There was a muffin-man, too, who had suddenly commenced to ring his bell as I had stopped to speak and was balancing his tray upon his head as he passed by us, glancing into my face.

Was he the spy?

I was in the study, discussing the affair with the constable, when the doctor was announced.

I followed him into the drawing-room and noted his surprise when he saw Mrs Parham lying there.

Quickly he made his examination and relieved our minds by declaring that she would before long return to consciousness.

Then he crossed to the maid Jane, placed his hand upon her heart, opened her eyes, felt her hands, and bent the fingers.

For a long time he scrutinised her very carefully, taking up a small mirror and holding it close to her mouth, while we stood anxiously awaiting his verdict.

At last he turned to us, shook his grey head, and said,—

“The poor girl is dead?”

Chapter Fourteen.

Relates what we Discovered.

While the doctor occupied himself with restoring the mistress of the house to consciousness, I stood by watching, and then turned to the window abstractedly, and awaiting my opportunity, succeeded in transferring the photograph of the dead unknown to my overcoat pocket.

Suddenly the housemaid, on returning to the room with some water, pointed to a corner, exclaiming,—

“Why? Look there, sir!”

We all glanced in the direction she indicated, and noticed that from the corner of the room the blue carpet had been torn up, and lay back disclosing about a foot of flooring.

Quickly I bent down to examine it, and found to my surprise that one of the boards had been cut across about nine inches from the wainscoting, and was hinged, so that it could be pulled up. There had evidently been a strong fastening which had been forced, for the wood was newly splintered.

After some little difficulty I pulled it up, revealing a small box-like cavity lined with sheet-iron, well designed in order to hide plate or valuables secretly and securely. I placed my hand down, but could feel nothing. It was empty. The men, whoever they were, knew of that secret hiding-place, and had taken whatever it had contained.

I struck a vesta in order to examine the place more closely, and the others grouped eagerly around me, when I distinguished at the bottom of the box a further flap, which I lifted, and saw something concealed in the false bottom. It was a small red morocco jewel-case about four inches square, which I opened very carefully.

Next instant those around me with one breath gave vent to exclamations of surprise and horror. And well they might.

The object which the jewel-case contained was truly startling. I stood staring at it amazed. Since that moment when I had stood with Sybil in the Long Gallery at Ryhall every hour seemed to bring with it some fresh mystery, or some gruesome problem.

That jewel-case contained a most curious and uncommon object, a dark and somewhat shrivelled, but yet well-preserved, human eye!

The doctor, leaving the unconscious woman’s side, took it from me, and putting on his pince-nez examined it long and carefully beneath the light.

It was a horrid thing, the white bloodshot, and the pupil a dark leaden grey.

“It’s a man’s eye,” declared the doctor, after long and very careful scrutiny. “It was removed by somebody unskilled in anatomy, and has been treated with some preservative. There’s mystery here,” he added, looking round at the scared faces of those grouped around him.

“I wonder if the men wanted to get hold of that?” the constable suggested, a theory which Lane and the housemaid at once declared to be a sound one. “At any rate,” he added, “I think I’d better report the affair at the station. They’ll certainly want to make some inquiry about that eye.”

“For the present I’ll take possession of it,” said the doctor, replacing the ghastly-looking little object in the velvet-lined case, and closing it with a snap.

Then he returned to Mrs Parham, who a few minutes afterwards stirred slightly, while her eyelids quivered. It was a good sign, as he pointed out, and ten minutes later the poor lady opened her eyes and looked wonderingly around.

“Remain quiet, madam,” the doctor urged in a gentle voice. “You are not very well.”

“No,” she gasped faintly. “I—I don’t think I—”

Then her jaws became fixed. She could not conclude the sentence, and lapsed again into unconsciousness.

The constable had sent Lane round to the police station, and an inspector, entering the room, was told what had occurred, and was shown the human eye.

When he saw it he knit his brows. Like ourselves, he scented tragedy, especially as the poor girl Jane was lying dead.

The inspector was also shown the secret cavity beneath the carpet. He examined the windows of all the rooms on the ground floor, made a tour of the exterior of the house, and closely questioned all the servants.

The absence of the master of the house somewhat puzzled him, for the cook explained that Mr Parham returned from the country two days before and remained at home all the afternoon, packed another big travelling bag and left again about seven o’clock, telling his wife that he had to go to Birmingham.

When, a little later, we returned to the drawing-room we found Mrs Parham propped up with pillows and attended by the doctor and the housemaid. She was talking with them, and looked at me inquiringly as I entered with the inspector. She probably took me for a police officer in plain clothes.

“I was sitting at the piano playing when Jane entered and drew down one of the blinds,” she said, in a low voice, speaking with some difficulty. “Then she switched on the light and drew down the other blind. At that instant I heard a movement behind me, and turning I saw a man, but next moment something was slipped over my head and eyes. I struggled and at the same time heard Jane cry out. While my assailant held me tightly I heard Jane struggling, therefore there must have been two men in the room at least. A few moments later I lost consciousness and know nothing else until I found you all here standing around me. What has happened?” she inquired, in a refined voice, looking from the doctor across to me.

“We don’t quite know yet, mum,” answered the police inspector. “It seems as though the men were thieves who being disturbed slipped away.”

“Thieves!” she gasped, open-mouthed. “Have they taken anything?”

“We can’t make out. When you feel a little better you must come round the house with us.”

“They’ve opened a place under the floor, across there,” explained the doctor, pointing to the corner where the carpet was still laid back from the boards.

She raised herself quickly upon her elbow and glanced in the direction indicated, staring straight at the spot with a look of terror in her eyes. No word escaped her lips. Her jaws seemed again fixed, her breath held, her fingers clenched into the palms.

She realised that the secret hiding-place had been discovered.

“What have they taken?” she gasped, in a low, terrified tone, when at last she found tongue.

“Apparently everything,” I replied. “The place is empty.”

“Empty!” she echoed, raising herself to her feet with an effort, but reeling unsteadily back to the couch, for her head was still swimming after the effects of the chloroform. “The fiends!” she cried.

“And poor Jane. How is she?”

“I much regret, madam, that the chloroform administered to her has had a fatal effect,” said the doctor, gravely.

“Dead! Jane dead?”

“Yes. They’ve killed her,” declared the inspector. “It’s wilful murder, that’s what it is, mum. Therefore, if you can give us any information as to who these ruffians may be we’ll be very glad. We must arrest them at all costs. Who do you think they might be?”

But Mrs Parham, although a strange look crossed her white, haggard features, made no response to the officer’s question.

“Poor Jane! Poor Jane—the brutes!” she kept on repeating, her wild eyes staring across to where the body of the dead maid-servant was lying.

From her manner I felt convinced that she suspected who the intruders were, now that she knew that their motive had been to search in that secret cavity beneath the floor of the drawing-room, and possess themselves of something concealed there.

Would she denounce them?

The inspector again questioned her, but her answers were evasive.

“My husband is in the country,” she explained. “He is very often away, for his business often takes him on the Continent, to Paris and Amsterdam.”

“But how do you think these men got into the house?” the officer asked. “I notice that the inner glass door of the hall closes with a latch which can only be opened from the inside. Therefore, if they had entered the front door with a false key they could not have passed the inner door.”

This fact was interesting, and one which I had entirely overlooked.

“I have no idea how they could have entered. Perhaps by a window.”

“Or perhaps by the servants’ entrance,” Lane suggested.

“They couldn’t have got in that way, mum, because they’d have to pass through the kitchen, and cook was there all the time. Besides, we’re always very careful that that door is never left ajar.”

“It’s evident that they were concealed in the house,” I remarked, recollecting that tall shadowy figure that had crossed the room on tip-toe at the instant that the blind had been lowered.

“Of course,” agreed the inspector. “But what we want to know is whether this lady has any suspicion of anyone to whose advantage it would be to obtain possession of what was concealed there.”

“I don’t know what was in there,” she declared, in a weak, nervous voice. “My husband made the place himself a few months ago, as he often has valuable jewellery here. In the City he has a strong room, of course, but here he deemed it best to make a secret hiding-place rather than have a fire-proof safe, which is always discussed by servants, and the knowledge of which in a private house so soon becomes common property.”

“Then he used to keep valuables there?” asked the inspector.

“I believe so, but I never looked inside. It opened with a spring, the secret of which he alone knew.”

“Who made it? The man who constructed it knew the secret, no doubt. He may be one of those implicated.”

“The piece of board with the spring he brought home with him from Paris one day. It was made there, he said. The steel box was made somewhere in Chelsea.”

“And who fitted the board so evenly?”

“He did himself. He is an amateur cabinetmaker, and at one time used to make furniture. He made that table over there,” she added, pointing to a small round table standing near the corner where was the secret cavity.

“Then no workman was actually employed in fitting it up?” remarked the inspector, disappointedly.

“No. He did it himself, so that nobody should know. And he would not even let me know the secret of the spring.”

“Which showed some distrust,” remarked the inspector. “He evidently possessed something there which he did not wish you to see.”

“Yes. That, however, is not surprising,” she remarked. “Many husbands have secrets—family affairs and such like—with which they hesitate to trouble their wives.”

“Certainly,” he said, glancing dubiously at me, and no doubt recollecting that gruesome object now in the doctor’s pocket. “But it seems very strange that thieves should come here so boldly, attack both you and the maid-servant, and go straight to that secret hiding-place if there was not some very strong motive. They evidently knew there was something there—something of which they desired to obtain possession.”

“But they didn’t know the secret of the spring, for they prised it open.”

I placed my hand in my overcoat pocket, and it came in contact with the portrait which I had succeeded in taking—the picture of the dead unknown.

Why had it been kept in such a prominent position in her room? I longed to question her, but at that moment was unable.

The mystery of the murderous attack in which the maid had lost her life; the mystery of that tall, thin man who crept across the apartment; the mystery of the theft; the mystery of the human eye, were all enigmas utterly beyond solution.

I took Laking aside and obtained a promise from him not to explain the circumstances under which we had met. Then to Mrs Parham I introduced myself later as a casual passer-by who had been alarmed by the startling discovery. I did this because I intended to call again and make the acquaintance of her husband.

Half an hour later, after all inquiry of Mrs Parham had failed to elicit a single fact regarding any person who might have a motive for the outrage and robbery, I left the house, and walked down the dark, deserted suburban thoroughfare accompanied by the police inspector, who was on his way back to the station to telegraph the curious facts to Scotland Yard.

“Well?” I asked, when we were out in the roadway, “and what do you make of the affair?”

“What do I think? Why, the lady is lying. She knows who did it, but fears to tell us the truth. There was something hidden under the floor which those people intended to get, and got it. Mark me! She dare not speak, otherwise she’ll ruin her own reputation. When we fathom the mystery of to-night it will be found to be a very interesting one, depend upon it.”

“Then you really suspect her?” I remarked. “Yes, I suspect her. She has some secret from her husband—and she fears that through this robbery he may learn the truth.”

“You know Mr Parham, perhaps—I mean you know something about him?”

“Well, yes,” he answered, smiling curiously. “We happen to know Mr Parham—and if what I suspect is true, then the affair of to-night is not surprising. Wait and see. The real facts, when they come to light, will very probably amaze you.”

Chapter Fifteen.

By which Sybil Explains Something.

Three weeks went by—dull, dreary weeks of constant anxiety. With the assistance of Eric—to whom I had, of course, explained the tragic incident in the home of John Parham—I was ever on the alert, compelled to go down to Neate Street at infrequent intervals in secret from Eric and pose for a few hours in the daytime as the husband of little Mrs Morton.

Poor Tibbie led a dreary life in that drab mean street. Mrs Williams was kind and pleasant, pitying the young wife so constantly separated from her husband. But if my work took me away, well, she ought not to grumble, the good woman declared. There were lots of compositors out of work she had heard, now that those linotypes were so universally adopted. And so she cheered Tibbie up, and the latter sought distraction by doing fancy needlework.

Each time I visited her I ran the risk of being followed by some person in the employ of Winsloe, who was, we knew, ever active in his efforts to discover her whereabouts. Her mother had raised a terrible hue-and-cry after a week had passed without news of her. Jack had unfortunately gone to Scotland Yard and given his sister’s description, as Cynthia had begun to express a fear that she had met with foul play.

As soon as I heard of this I persuaded Tibbie to write a letter to her mother, assuring her that she was quite well and happy, that she was with friends, and that she would return in the course of a few days. This letter I sent to a friend in Glasgow, and it was posted from there.

Time after time I looked in wonder at the photograph of the dead unknown which I had abstracted from Mr Parham’s drawing-room. And time after time I reflected whether it would be wise to suddenly confront Tibbie with it and demand the truth. Sometimes I was sorry that I had not left the portrait where I had found it, for I might, when calling upon Mrs Parham, have made casual inquiry regarding the original. Now that it was in my possession, however, I was unable to approach the subject. Undoubtedly she had missed it, and perhaps believed that in the confusion of that memorable evening it had been stolen, perhaps for the value of its frame.

One night about ten o’clock, while Eric and I sat by the fire in my chambers, my friend cast aside the Pall Mall Gazette which he had been reading, exclaiming,—

“So the Parham affair seems to have concluded to-day. At the adjourned inquest they’ve returned the usual verdict—wilful murder against someone unknown. Poor girl! She was an entirely innocent victim.”

“Yes,” I remarked, smoking my pipe reflectively, “strange that the police haven’t a scrap of a clue as to who did it.”

“We have the only clue that exists,” was his answer. “You saw one of the men.”

“Yes, but I doubt if I’d recognise him again. It was only like a shadow passing across the room. He was tall and thin, but I was too far away to distinguish his features.”

“Mrs Parham has apparently made no statement to the police of any value, and Parham himself is still absent. He fears, I suppose, certain inquiries regarding the possession of that gruesome object which we found in the false bottom of the secret hiding-place.”

“I’d like to meet this man Parham,” I said. “Recollect that he undoubtedly knew the man who was killed in Charlton Wood.”

“Yes,” remarked Eric, slowly. “It certainly seems strange that he doesn’t turn up again. He may, of course, be travelling abroad, as his wife seems to think he is. She has told the police that he’s often abroad, and she frequently does not hear from him for a fortnight or three weeks. It appears that only a short time ago he remarked that he might be compelled to go out to India on business connected with some jewels which an Indian prince has for sale. Perhaps he has gone, and will write to her from Port Said. That is what the police believe.”

“And if he does?”

“Well, I should think it most probable that he’ll be detained at Bombay and asked to return at once to London, to explain how the human eye came into his possession.”

“I wish we could get sight of a photograph of Parham,” I said. “It would help us so much.”

“He’s never had his portrait taken—objects to it, I hear. The police told me so. They always look with suspicion upon a man who objects to being photographed.”

I entertained the same suspicions regarding Parham as did the police, and resolved to revisit his wife and endeavour to discover something further.

Next day, however, receiving an urgent express letter from Tibbie, I was compelled to assume the guise of William Morton and travel by a circuitous route down to Camberwell. She had the midday dinner of roast sirloin and vegetables ready prepared for me, cooked by herself, and looked a thoroughly capable housewife in her cheap black gown and white apron. The clothes she had bought were well fitted to the station she had assumed, and beyond a smart saying or two which now and then escaped her, she passed well as the lady’s-maid married to an honest, hard-working compositor.

“The only thing I can’t do,” she confided to me, as we sat together at the clean little dinner-table, “is the washing. I put it out, and I fear that the landlady thinks me horribly extravagant. But the truth is I don’t know how to wash, and if I tried I’d at once betray my ignorance,” she laughed.

I glanced at her hands, now rather red and rough by unaccustomed work, and smiled.