William Le Queux (continued 3)

“Let them think what they may,” I said. “You play your part far better than I ever thought you would.”

“Oh, sometimes I find it quite amusing,” she declared. “One sees more of the realities of life in Camberwell than in Mayfair. Here I see how the poor live, and I pity them. I was ignorant of how hard are the lives of the working people; how they have to struggle to keep the wolf from the door, or of the long hours of work, and the cutting down, of wages. Do you know, Wilfrid, I sometimes hear stories of poverty and distress that make my heart bleed. I want to help them, but how can I? To give them money would be to arouse suspicion against myself. I’ve found a method, however. I send them groceries and meat from certain shops in the Old Kent Road and Camberwell Road, and pay for it myself. They don’t then know where it comes from.”

I was somewhat surprised to discover this sympathetic trait in her character. I had never believed that, gay butterfly of fashion as she was, she entertained any thought of the poor seamstress who worked all night upon her ball-dress, or the consumptive shop-girl who danced attendance upon her, compelled to indulge her every whim. The Scarcliffs, if a wild race, were a proud one. They regarded “the people” as being different from themselves and treated all their underlings, save grave old Adams at Ryhall, without thought or consideration.

Yes, the few weeks that Tibbie had lived estranged from her fast, exotic set, and with the example of the workaday world before her eyes, had wrought a great change in her.

Yet, was this really so? To what cause could I attribute this sudden outburst of charitable feeling?

I held my breath as one suggestion occurred to me.

Was it repentance?

I had told her nothing concerning the strange occurrence at Sydenham Hill. The name of Parham had been found in the dead man’s pocket, therefore, connected as the two crimes seemed to be, I made no explanation. Without doubt, however, she had read the details in the paper which she took daily, and had that morning seen the verdict given at the adjourned inquest.

How I longed to show her the photograph and to ask her to tell me the truth.

One afternoon, a fortnight ago, she had casually remarked to me that she had seen in the paper the report of a man being found in Charlton Wood, whereupon I merely replied that I, too, had heard the details, and that I supposed the victim was some unfortunate tramp who had been killed by an enemy.

“He may have been shot accidentally by one of the keepers, who fears to tell the truth,” she suggested.

But I remained silent. I remembered Eric’s terrible denunciation.

I passed that afternoon with her in the cheaply-furnished little sitting-room, smoking and chatting. After she had removed the cloth she threw aside her apron, and sat in the low wicker armchair with a cigarette. Only when I was present dared she smoke, and I saw how thoroughly she enjoyed it.

“You, Wilfrid, seem like a visitor from the other world—the world which nowadays exists only in my dreams,” she said, throwing her head lazily back and blowing a cloud of smoke from her pursed-up lips. “As I sit here alone hour after hour, I wonder how it is that I have lived the life I have. Our foibles and follies and false appearances are, after all, wretchedly insincere, and surely the enemies of a smart woman are the bitterest in the world. Cynthia taught me to believe that our set was the world, but I now know different, for I see that there is happiness, yes, far greater happiness in the poor struggling homes about me here than in our own world of pleasure. Happiness?” she repeated to herself, looking blankly across the room and sighing, “I wonder if I shall ever know what real happiness means?”

“I hope so,” I exclaimed quickly. “Surely there is no reason why you should be unhappy. You are young, wealthy, courted, flattered, and one of the best-looking women in London. You are well aware of that, Tibbie.”

“Aware of it!” she exclaimed hoarsely, in a low, broken voice. “Everyone tells me so. Yes,” she added bitterly, “I have everything except the one thing debarred me—happiness.”

“And why not that?”

“Can one be happy if one does not possess peace of mind? That, alas! I do not possess.”

“Because you hold a secret,” I remarked slowly, looking into her eyes as they suddenly met mine. “Will you never reveal it to me, Tibbie?” I asked. “I could surely assist you.”

But she shook her head, replying,—

“No. The error is mine, and I must bear the punishment. Ah!” she cried, suddenly starting up, placing both palms to her brow, and pacing up and down the little room. “Ah! you don’t know what I suffer. Day and night I sit here and think and think, and wonder, and fear. Yes!” she cried, her eyes starting as she glared at me in her desperation. “I fear! I fear lest I may be discovered by those enemies who have sworn to effect my ruin! But—but you will save me, Wilfrid,” she gasped, suddenly advancing, turning her white face to mine, and clutching my hand. “You will protect me from them, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I answered, greatly surprised at her sudden terror, when only a few moments before she had been so calm in the enjoyment of her cigarette.

“But who are these enemies of whom you are in such fear? Tell me, and I may then act accordingly. Surely it is only just that I should be aware of their identity?” I urged.

“No. I—I—I mean I can’t explain. If I did, I should lose even you, Wilfrid—the only true friend I have in the whole world.”

Her hand holding mine trembled as I looked straight into her white, frightened countenance.

A silence fell between us. I gazed into those wonderful eyes of hers and noted her marvellous beauty now accentuated by her distress.

“Tibbie.” I exclaimed at last in a low, soft voice, scarcely above a whisper, “you are in deadly fear of the man with whom only the other day you contemplated marriage—Ellice Winsloe—the man who now intends to denounce you!”

“Who told you so?” she gasped, drawing back in an instant, and turning paler. “Who—who has betrayed my secret?”

Chapter Sixteen.

Friends and Foes.

At seven o’clock that evening I took the train from Camberwell Gate to Westminster Bridge, like the industrious compositor that I represented myself to be.

In order to assert myself more prominently in the neighbourhood I had accepted the invitation of Williams, the mineral-water foreman, who was my landlord, to have a glass of ale at the neighbouring public-house; and in the bar was introduced by him to several other working-men as his tenant. They seemed a sober, good-humoured set, all having their glass after the thirst of the day’s labour.

My landlord remarked that my wife saw little of me, but I explained how my employers sent me to various parts of the country in connection with a new patent type-composing machine in which they were interested.

“Well, my missus does ’er best for Mrs Morton and cheers her up,” the man said. “Only it ’ud be more pleasant for ’er if you were at ’ome a bit more. The poor young lady mopes dreadfully sometimes. You needn’t say anything, you know, but my old woman has found her a-cryin’ to herself lots of times.”

I recollected his words as I sat on the top of the tram passing up those long broad roads lit by the flare of costermongers’ lights and rendered noisy by the strident cries of the butchers and greengrocers shouting their wares. In South London commercial life seems to commence with the sundown, for thrifty working-class housewives go out shopping after dark.

And Tibbie, the woman whom all smart London knew, who was so brilliant a figure at receptions, balls and weddings, and of whose beauty the ladies’ papers so constantly spoke, was living amid that poverty and squalor alone, terrified and crying her heart out.

For what? Had remorse seized her? Was it the awful recollection of that fatal moment in Charlton Wood, combined with the constant fear that Ellice Winsloe, whom she had now acknowledged as her enemy, would discover her and bring against her the terrible charge?

That night, after I had slipped unrecognised into my chambers, I changed quickly into my own clothes and went along to the Wellington Club to find Domville. The hall-porter had not, however, seen him that day; therefore, after strolling through the rooms, I was just on the point of leaving when, in the hall, I encountered Ellice Winsloe.

“Hulloa! old fellow!” he cried cheerily. “What are you doing to-night? Come along and dine with me at Boodle’s.”

I hesitated. I had no wish for the company of the man who was Tibbie’s secret enemy. Once I had distrusted him; now I hated him, for I saw how ingeniously he had kept observation upon my movements, and how his invitation, so warmly given, was with the ulterior object of ascertaining my movements.

In an instant it occurred to me that I might fight him with his own weapons. I could be as alert as he was. Therefore, I laughed and declared that I had no prior engagement.

“Come along, then,” he said; and we both went out and crossed Hyde Park corner together.

“I was at the Wydcombes this afternoon. It was Lady Wydcombe’s day. They’re till most anxious about Tibbie. Nobody knows where she is,” he added, with a covert glance at my countenance to watch the effect of his words.

“Yes,” I said, “she’s certainly a bit erratic. I hear, however, that she has written to her mother saying that she’s all right.”

“The police think the letter was written under compulsion. Jack took it to Scotland Yard, with the result that the Criminal Investigation Department have redoubled their efforts to trace her. What’s your opinion?”

I shrugged my shoulders. The fellow’s object was to get me to talk; but I knew how to be silent when it suited me, and was determined to tell him nothing.

“Old Lady Scarcliff is very upset, I hear,” he went on as we walked along Piccadilly to St. James’s Street.

“It is really too bad of Tibbie, don’t you think so? She ought to draw the line at disappearing like this. She may have met with foul play for all one knows. It seems, according to Mason, that she took a lot of her jewellery with her on the night she left Ryhall in the car.”

“Does Mason know or suspect anything?” I asked quite innocently.

“Nothing, as far as I’m aware. The detectives have made every inquiry, but discovered nothing.” Then he added, in a voice which sounded to me to convey a distinct hidden meaning, “They’ve been just as successful regarding Tibbie as they have been in the case of the mystery up in Charlton Wood.”

I said nothing. My object was to allow him to do all the talking.

At Boodle’s we sat down to an excellent dinner, though it was rather late.

As he sat before me, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped as he chatted, I looked into his face and wondered what were the inner workings of his ingenious mind. He made no mention of his call at that obscure hotel in Lambeth in search of Tibbie, but merely expressed a fervent hope that the jewellery which she had carried with her when she left on her midnight motor-drive had not been the cause of any attempt upon her by malefactors.

In order to watch his attitude I suddenly exclaimed,—

“That affair in Charlton Wood seems still a mystery. And yet I hear,” I added, making a bold shot, “that the police have at last found a clue.”

His countenance remained perfectly unchanged. He merely responded,—

“I hope they have. It was a dastardly thing. The poor fellow must have been shot treacherously—murdered in cold blood. Jack is most anxious to find the culprit, and I don’t wonder. It isn’t nice to have a murder committed upon one’s own estate.”

“It’s curious that the man has not yet been identified,” I said, regarding him keenly.

“And has it not also struck you as strange that Tibbie should suddenly disappear on the night of the murder?” he asked, his eyes fixed upon mine.

“No,” I replied, quite unconcernedly. “I had never given that a thought. It is curious, now that you recall it. A mere coincidence, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, pouring me out a glass of still Moselle. His air of refinement was irritating.

Then, after a brief silence, he said,—

“Do you know, Hughes, I can’t help thinking that something serious has happened to Tibbie. The letter Lady Scarcliff received was posted in Glasgow, but of course that was only a blind. She’s in London somewhere. I told Wydcombe to-day that they ought to advertise and offer a reward for her.”

His suggestion suddenly gave me an idea. In the pockets of the unknown man in Charlton Wood I had found the key to a cipher which he had evidently used to correspond with his friends. Why should I not through the medium of the papers open up some correspondence? Would anyone reply?

“You know how erratic Tibbie always is,” I remarked. “I’ve perhaps known her longer than you have. She was always the same, even as a girl—the despair of the old viscount.”

“And yet she is very charming, don’t you think so?” asked the man whom she declared to be one of her bitterest enemies.

“Delightfully amusing,” I agreed. “The set she mixes with spoils her. If she could only sever herself entirely from Cynthia’s friends she would be a very different woman.”

“Oh, she’ll marry some day and settle down,” laughed Winsloe. “I used at one time to hear that you were likely to be the lucky man.”

“I think not,” was my quick reply, somewhat annoyed at his remark. “I can’t afford to marry,” whereat he laughed, as though in disbelief of my poverty.

He questioned me with a subtle ingenuity worthy of a counsel at the criminal bar, but my replies were all of them empty ones, while at the same time I was watching him narrowly, noting that this warm friendliness was merely assumed, and that beneath that veneer of good fellowship was a fierce and bitter antagonism that I had never before suspected. Ever since Scarcliff had introduced us eighteen months ago we had been very good friends, and had seen quite a good deal of each other on the Riviera the previous season. I was staying at the Métropole at Monte Carlo, while he was at the Hermitage.

He seemed to have many friends there, well-dressed men whom I did not know. But one’s acquaintances on the Riviera are generally somewhat doubtful, and need not be recognised beyond the confines of the Principality. He became one of Jack’s most intimate friends. They often went over to Paris together, and on such occasions it was believed that young Lord Scarcliff played baccarat at a certain private house in the Avenue Kleber and lost considerable sums. Tibbie had told me so in confidence, but Jack naturally never mentioned his losses. If this were true, then it looked very much as though Ellice Winsloe was a shark, as my friend Domville declared him to be.

In a London club a white shirt and well-cut evening clothes enables many a scoundrel to pass himself off as a gentleman. Few young men who come into their inheritance and lead the fevered life of the West End escape the traps laid for them by those well-dressed blackguards who pose as friends and advisers, and at the same time cleverly contrive to pluck the pigeon. By some clever ruse or other they get him into their power, threatening exposure or the police for some fancied offence, and then the question of hush-money is mooted and the rest is so very easy. The fly is caught in the net, and the spiders grow fat at their leisure.

Ask any official at Scotland Yard, and what he will reveal to you regarding this will surely astound you.

Sitting with Winsloe and listening to his clever chatter I was rather amused than otherwise. Inwardly I laughed at his shrewd but futile efforts to obtain from me something concerning Tibbie.

We smoked a cigar, and about ten o’clock strolled along to the Empire, where we took a turn round the crowded grand circle. Variety performances, however, possess but little attraction for me, and we soon went out again. In the vestibule a fair-moustached, bald-headed man in evening dress greeted my companion effusively, exclaiming,—

“Why, Ellice—actually! My dear old fellow, how are you?—how are you?” and he wrung his hand in warmest greeting.

“And you, Sidney! Who’d ever thought of finding you in town again? Why, I thought you were still somewhere up the Zambesi.”

“Got back yesterday, my dear fellow. And not sorry either, I can tell you. The surveying for the new railroad was a far tougher job than I anticipated. I went down with fever, so they sent me home on six months’ leave.”

“But you’re all right now,” Winsloe said, and then introduced his friend as Sidney Humphreys who, he explained, had been out in Africa in connection with the Cape to Cairo railway.

“Where are you fellows going?” asked the newcomer.

“Home, I think,” Winsloe replied. “Hughes doesn’t care for ballets.”

“Come round to my rooms and see the curios I’ve brought back,” he urged. “I’ve still kept on the old chambers. The things I’ve got were mostly dug out of the ruins of an ancient city—relics of the time of King Solomon, I believe. You’re fond of antiques, Ellice, so come and spend an hour and have a look at them. You’ll be interested, I promise you, and I’d like to know your opinion.”

Winsloe hesitated for a moment, then, turning to me, said,—

“You’ll come too, won’t you?”

At first I excused myself, for I was anxious to find Eric, but presently I allowed myself to be persuaded, for truth to tell, I, too, was very fond of antiquities, and was therefore anxious to see this latest find.

We drove in a hansom along Regent Street, and then through several side streets, until presently we alighted before the door of a dark, respectable-looking house, into which Humphreys let us with his latchkey.

“Go on up,” he exclaimed, when we were in the hall. “You know your way, Ellice—the old rooms, second floor.”

And so while he held back in the hall looking at some cards that had been left, I climbed the broad old-fashioned stairs with Winsloe.

At the first landing my companion held back for me to go on before, laughing, and saying,—

“Go straight on—the room right before you,” and compelling me to ascend first, he followed.

Suddenly I heard men’s voices raised in angry altercation, apparently proceeding from another room, and what was more, I was struck by a distinct belief that one voice was Eric’s. Yet surely that could not be possible.

“I defy you!” I heard the voice cry. “Say no more. You hear! You may kill me, but I defy you!”

I halted, startled. The voice was so very like Eric’s that I could have sworn it was his.

A sharp cry of pain—a man’s cry—rang out from behind a closed door on the landing I was approaching. Then there followed a long-drawn-out groan, ending almost in a sigh.

A tragedy was being enacted there!

I clapped my hand upon the revolver I always carried in my hip-pocket, and went forward quickly, eager and puzzled, but just as I placed my feet upon the last steps to gain the landing where the man’s chambers were, four or five of the stairs suddenly gave way beneath me, and I fell feet foremost into the great yawning opening there revealed. I was the victim of a dastardly treachery!

I know that I clutched wildly at air when I felt myself falling down, down to what seemed an unfathomable depth. I held my breath, for at that instant a man’s wild shriek rang in my ears. Then next second I felt my skull crushed, and with it all consciousness became blotted out.

I was entrapped—helpless in the hands of quondam friends who were really my bitterest and most unscrupulous enemies.

Chapter Seventeen.

Is Extraordinary.

The agony was excruciating. A burning bubbling seethed in my brain, as though my skull were filled with molten metal. My mouth was parched, my neck stiff, and my jaws were fixed when I opened my eyes and found myself in a great chasm of cavernous darkness.

How long I had lain there I have no idea.

The thunder of rolling, roaring waters deafened me, and my lower limbs were so benumbed that at first I was unable to move them. I felt my leg, and then discovered the reason. Wet to the skin, I was lying half in water, my head alone being on some slightly higher ground—a fortunate circumstance that had certainly saved me from being drowned.

Where was I?

For fully ten minutes—minutes that seemed hours, I was utterly unable to move, but presently I managed, by dint of supreme effort, to struggle to my feet and grope about me unsteadily, at last finding a smooth arched wall. I lifted my hand above my head and found that I could touch the roof.

In that pitch darkness, with the roaring torrent at my side, I dare not move two paces lest I might lose my foothold.

I felt frantically in my pocket, and my heart leapt when I found that I still possessed a box of wax vestas. The silver box was water-tight. One of these I struck quickly, but its light was lost in that cavernous blackness.

It only showed me the bricked walls, high to the roof, wet and slimy, and revealed to me that I was in one of the main sewers of London! At my side the great black torrent flowed on towards the outfall with deafening roar in that long, interminable tunnel beneath the Metropolis.

Rats, hundreds of them, grey and scuttling, ran helter-skelter on seeing the fickle light; but I stood motionless leaning against the wall and gazing around at my weird surroundings until the match went out. My head reeled, I feared to walk lest I should stagger into the Stygian stream.

Knowledge of where I was gave me courage, however. My head was very painful with strange fancies dancing through my imagination. I think that the blow had unbalanced my brain.

Which way should I turn? To right or left? Was mortal man ever in such a predicament? I recognised the truth. I remembered one appalling fact. The scoundrels had sent me through into that deadly place, knowing that even if the fall did not kill me outright, I must be drowned when, at regular intervals, the sewer was automatically flushed, and my body washed out to the Thames estuary.

I had seen the walls still wet to the roof from the last flushing, and as I recognised my awful peril, my blood ran cold. At any moment might come that gigantic flood to sweep me away into eternity in an instant. Somewhere, higher up, was that mechanism which at certain hours of day and night automatically let loose the great sweeping wave through the long, black tunnel sweeping to the sea, the cleansing of London.

My only hope was to find safety somewhere, therefore in frantic haste, all forgetful of the pain I was suffering, I turned to the right and groped along the wall by aid of a match, the light of which was not sufficient to show the true dimensions of the sewer.

On, on, I went, how far I have no idea. It seemed to be miles. My matches burned only dimly, so bad was the air. Time after time I came to side channels, small arches belching forth their black stream into the roaring torrent like tributaries of a river, until I suddenly saw something white upon the wall, and, raising my match, discerned the painted words: “Poland Street.”

Then I knew that I was beneath Poland Street, close to Oxford Street.

I was in search of a manhole by which to ascend to the roadway, but, alas! could not discover one. A great terror seized me lest the flush should come before I could gain a place of safety.

I was in the act of striking another match, in order to proceed more quickly, when I felt my head reeling, and in clutching at the wall for support the matchbox fell from my nerveless fingers into the water.

My disaster was thus complete. Without light how could I find a place in which to raise myself above the level of the flood?

My heart stood still. In that moment the recollection of all the sequence of strange and startling events of the past few weeks passed in rapid review before me. My enemies had entrapped me, and I now knew that I was doomed.

Eric’s shout of defiance, followed by that groan and shriek, still rang in my ears, but, most tantalising of all, I had no idea where the house to which I had been enticed was situated. It was somewhere off Regent Street, but further than that I had no knowledge.

I saw how cleverly the whole affair had been arranged; how the man introduced to me as Humphreys had met us by appointment in the vestibule of the Empire, and how, knowing my interest in antiques, the bait had been so cleverly placed.

I had now no doubt that Ellice Winsloe was an adventurer, therefore my eager desire was to reveal to Scarcliff the astounding truth.

And yet this was actually the man who had the audacity to propose marriage to Sybil, and she had contemplated accepting him!

To old Lady Scarcliff the fellow had posed as a gentleman of means, and had so ingratiated himself with Jack that the pair had become inseparable. The situation was monstrous.

In sheer desperation I groped forward slowly and carefully, my face to the black, slimy wall, feeling it forward with my hands. If I stumbled the force of the torrent would, I knew, take me off my feet and I should most probably meet with an awful death. Cautiously I crept along, how far I cannot tell. Each moment seemed an hour, and each step a mile, until of a sudden the wall ended!

Only the black swiftly-flowing flood lay before me. I put out my hand in the darkness, but only grasped the air.

Next moment, however, I discovered that the sewer took a sudden turn, almost at right angles, and that I had come to the corner. Yes. The wall continued! So I groped on and on, my hands travelling over bricks worn smooth by the action of the cleansing flood.

I hoped to encounter one of those men whom I had often seen descend from the street in high boots and carrying a miner’s lamp, but I was, alas! alone. The very absence of the workmen told me the terrible truth. It was the time for the automatic flushing!

On I groped in frantic haste, the rats scuttling from my path, the darkness complete; the noise of the black waters deafening. I recollected that as we had driven from the Empire it had commenced to rain, and thus was the torrent accounted for.

Of a sudden, I discerned before me something. What it was I could not distinguish. I crept on, and saw that it was like a small patch of faint grey. Then, approaching nearer, I found that it was a single ray of faint daylight which, penetrating from far above, fell upon the black waters. It was day. I had been in that gruesome place all night.

My heart leapt within me as I went forward to it, finding that above was a round, well-like shaft, which led to the surface, while in the wall were iron footholds.

I gained the bottom, and grasping the small, rusted iron rails commenced a slow and difficult ascent.

Not an instant too soon, however, for ere I had placed my foot upon the first rung of the ladder a noise like thunder sounded from the tunnel, and the black waters rose angrily to meet me, washing about my legs as I climbed higher up, and filling the sewer to its roof.

For a few moments the water remained at that level, and then the torrent slowly receded to its original height as the flushing wave rushed on towards the outfall.

A cold perspiration broke out upon me. I saw how I had been within an ace of death, and shuddered as I glanced below.

Then, ascending as quickly as my shattered nerves and swimming head would allow, I found above me a closed grating, through which I could hear the roar of the London traffic above.

I shouted, but could attract no attention.

To push up the iron was impossible, for I saw that it was locked.

A woman passed close by, and I shouted to her. She turned and looked in an opposite direction, surprised to see no one. She never suspected anyone being beneath the roadway.

An omnibus rumbled over me, and I saw that it was a green “Bayswater,” from which I concluded that I must be beneath Oxford Street.

Again and again I shouted for help, but could attract no notice. My position was far from secure, compelled to cling on to those iron footholds in the brickwork.

At last I saw a newsboy close to me. My shout startled him, but when he discerned my face beneath the bars he came closer, and asked,—

“’Alloa, guv’nor! What’s up?”

“I’m a prisoner here,” I explained. “Go and fetch a policeman.”

“My gum!” exclaimed the urchin in his surprise. “It’s the first time I’ve ever ’eard of a bloke gettin’ locked down the sewer.” And he went off at once to call a constable.

The officer came quickly, and after a brief explanation he sent the lad somewhere to the house of one of the sewermen, I think, for the key.

Meanwhile, a small crowd quickly collected around the grating, and I was subjected to a good deal of good-humoured banter until the man came with the key, and I once again found myself at the surface, a dirty, dishevelled, pitiable-looking object in evening dress. I was in Oxford Street, at the corner of Hart Street, Bloomsbury.

Both constable and sewer-man were curious to know how I got in, whereupon I explained that I had been the victim of a plot in some house, of the exact situation of which I was unaware.

The two men exchanged glances—meaning glances I saw them to be.

“Was it anywhere near Portland Place?” asked the big fellow in blue jersey and sea-boots.

“I don’t know. I saw Poland Street written up. Why?”

“Well, because there’s something mysterious goes on in a house somewhere near here. Only a month ago we found the body of a young woman drowned in the main sewer at the corner of Charing Cross Road, and the affair is a mystery. The police ’ave kept it out of the papers while they make inquiries. We’re trying to find out what house has direct communication with the sewer, but up to the present we’ve not been successful. It’s a good job,” he added, “that you weren’t caught by the flush, for it must just be going down at this time.”

I explained how narrowly I had escaped death, and then in reply to the constable described the dastardly plot of which I had been the victim.

“Of course, sir, you won’t mind making a full statement at the police station, will you?” the officer said. “The discovery of the poor woman in the sewer the other day has shown that there is some house in which people mysteriously disappear. It is evidently to that house you were invited. You will be able to assist us to identify it.”

I shook my head, saying: “I fear that I’ll never be able to recognise it again, for I really took no notice of its exterior. It lies somewhere east of Regent Street, that is all I know.”

“Depend upon it that more than one person has been swept down by the flush,” declared the sewer-man. “A man’s body was found down at the outfall at Beckton about three months ago. He was in evening dress, and evidently a gentleman, our foreman said, but where he came from was a complete mystery. My own idea is that the house has no direct communication with the sewer, for if it had, we should have discovered it. You say, sir, that you fell through a hole in the stairs?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“Exactly. You dropped down into a cellar or somewhere in the basement, and then, while you were insensible, they put you into the sewer—through some manhole, perhaps, of which they have a duplicate key. The house must be near a manhole. That’s my belief.”

“Then you don’t think that I fell plumb into the sewer?”

“Certainly not. You were thrown into the sewer while insensible down a manhole, without a doubt. It’s lucky you just escaped the flush. The villain evidently knew that the flush is at eight o’clock in the morning, and that we don’t go down till afterwards. And when we go, well, the victim has, of course, disappeared. By Jove! sir,” added the big muscular man, standing astride in his big, high boots, “you’ve had a narrow shave, and no mistake.”

I admitted I had. I was forced to repeat my explanation to a brown-bearded, good-humoured inspector who came up, and who afterwards gave me his name as Pickering. The officer was most interested, therefore promising to call at the Tottenham Court Road police station later I gave him a card and took a hansom back to Bolton Street.

Chapter Eighteen.

Arouses Suspicions Regarding Sybil.

Ellice Winsloe believed me dead.

There was no doubt about that. And knowing what I now did, I intended that he should remain secure in that belief.

Domville had not returned, a fact which caused me the gravest apprehensions. I recollected that defiant voice in the night. Had he also fallen a victim?

Budd called in my doctor, who dressed the wound in my head and carefully bandaged it. He was curious to know the cause, but I merely explained that I had sustained a rather bad fall. Perhaps he attributed it to too much wine on the previous night—probably he did.

“You’ll have to rest for a day or two,” he said, “you had a nasty blow.”

But I was uncommunicative, therefore he soon afterwards left.

Budd was, of course, inquisitive, but my explanation was that I had had an accident, and had fallen in the mud. My clothes were, of course, ruined, my hands grazed and torn, and across my eye was a nasty gash where I must have struck a sharp stone.

My brain was awhirl, and after the doctor’s departure I swallowed some brandy and lay down on the bed awaiting Eric.

Had he shared the same fate? If so, to try and find him in the sewer was useless. The flush had passed, and would sweep him away to his death.

Of course, I had no real proof that he had been in that house other than overhearing his voice. I recalled every word, and now more than ever was I convinced that he had been behind that closed door, held by enemies.

From Budd I learned that my friend had gone out about two o’clock, and had not returned. He had, however, left me a message to say that I was not to be alarmed by his absence. He was still making inquiries, I supposed. What I had related regarding the strange affair at Sydenham Hill had puzzled him greatly. Perhaps he had gone down there.

I gave my man strict instructions to say to everyone that I too was absent from home.

“Tell everybody that I went out to dinner last night and have not yet returned,” I said. “Express surprise and anxiety. I want to pretend to be missing—you understand, Budd?”

“Yes, sir,” was the man’s prompt response. “You expect somebody will call and inquire, and to everyone I am to know nothing.”

“I went out to the club last night and haven’t been seen since.”

“I quite understand, sir. But what about the doctor?”

“He doesn’t matter. The person whom I wish to believe in my absence does not know the doctor. I shall remain indoors for a day or two. Mind nobody knows I’m here.”

“I shall take good care of that, sir,” was the man’s reply; and I knew that I could trust him.

I scribbled a line to Inspector Pickering explaining my inability to make the statement on account of my injured head, but promising to call in a few days. I urged him not to send to me, as my chambers were probably watched. This note I sent by express messenger.

Then thoroughly exhausted I dropped off to sleep.

It was evening when I awoke, but Eric had not made his appearance. I was now thoroughly alarmed. Who were the men whom he had defied in that house of mystery?

He always carried a revolver, and was a dead shot; but what is a weapon against such black treachery as that to which I had been subjected? He was fearless, and would fight to the last; yet after my experience in that house I was apprehensive lest he should, like myself, have fallen a victim.

Many a man and woman disappears in this roaring metropolis of ours and is never again heard of; many an undiscovered crime takes place within a stone’s-throw of the great London thoroughfares; and many a death-cry is unheard in the hum of traffic and unheeded in the bustle of our everyday life. The London sewers hold many a secret, and the London chimneys have smoked with the cremated remains of many an innocent victim.

I wrote to Tibbie an affectionate letter explaining that my absence was due to the fact that I had fallen and met with a slight accident to the head, and signed it “Willie” in order that, if necessary, she might show it to her landlady. It was strange to write to her with so much affection when inwardly I was aware of her terrible secret. Yet had I not promised to save her? Had I not given her that foolish pledge which had been the cause of all my exciting adventures and my narrow escape from death?

Night came. I sat alone in the armchair before the fire listening for my old friend’s footstep, but all in vain. Something had happened, but what the something was I feared to contemplate.

I unlocked a drawer in my old-fashioned bureau, a quaint old piece of Queen Anne furniture from Netherdene, and took out the paper with the cabalistic jumble of figures and letters which I had found on the body of the dead man in Charlton Wood.

For a long while I sat and studied the cipher and its key, finding it very ingeniously contrived—evidently a secret code established for some evil purpose, a code that had been given to the dead man to enable him to have secret communication with some persons who desired to remain unseen and unknown.

My curiosity aroused, my eye chanced to fall upon the morning’s paper and I took it up and turned to the “agony column,” where I saw several cipher advertisements. One of them I endeavoured to read by the aid of the dead man’s key, but was unable. Therefore I tried the second, and afterwards the third. The latter only consisted of two lines of a meaningless jumble of letters and numerals, but taking a pencil I commenced to write down the equivalent of the cipher in plain English.

In a few moments my heart gave a bound.

I had deciphered the first word of the message, namely, “White.”

Very carefully, and after considerable search and calculation, I presently transcribed the secret message thus:—

“White Feather reports W.H. gone home. Nothing to fear.”

That was all. But was it not very significant? The initials were my own, and did not the announcement that I had “gone home” mean that I had gone to my death. There was nothing to fear, it was plainly stated.

They therefore had feared us, and that was the motive of their ingenious crime.

For whose eyes was that curious advertisement intended, I wondered. Who was “White Feather?”

Ah! If I could only discover, then I should obtain a clue to the mystery that was now puzzling me and driving me to despair.

At two o’clock Eric was still absent, therefore I turned in. My head troubled me. It was very painful, and the horrors of that past night ever rose before me, while my unbalanced brain was distracted by wonder at the reason of that desperate attempt upon my life. Man of the world that I was, I knew well enough that there was some deep motive. They feared me—but why?

Next morning, there being no word from Eric, my anxiety was greatly increased. My friend might have shared the same fate as myself and remained unconscious till the flood had overwhelmed him. If so, then all trace of him might have disappeared and his body was now floating slowly out to sea.

Those hard defiant words of his still rang in my ears. What did he mean? Who were the persons who held him in their power?

To remain inactive was impossible. Every moment I remained increased the danger of my discovery by Winsloe and his companions. I could, of course, have gone forth to King Street with a constable and given him in charge for the attempt upon me. Indeed, that was my first impulse, yet on reflection I saw that by adopting such a course I might imperil Sybil. Without a doubt the fellow knew her secret, and for that reason was in such active search of her.

Therefore I decided to remain patient and watchful. Winsloe believed that I was dead, and perhaps it was as well, for I should now be afforded an opportunity of watching his movements.

For three whole days I was compelled to remain a prisoner on account of my annoying bandages, which were too conspicuous to allow me to go forth. I had several callers, including Jack and Lord Wydcombe, but to everyone Budd replied that both his master and Mr Domville were absent, where, he had no idea.

My anxiety for Eric increased hourly, yet what could I do?

The doctor, at my request, removed the bandages so that my wound was hidden when I wore a golf-cap, and about eleven o’clock that same night, dressed in my working clothes, I crept forth into Bolton Street unseen, and in Piccadilly mingled with the crowd homeward bound from the theatre.

I went into Regent Street confident in my excellent disguise, and taking one of the streets to the right, wandered on and on in search of the house with the fatal stairs. On that disastrous night the villainous pair had engaged me deeply in conversation as we drove along, in order to take my attention off the route we were traversing, therefore I own that I was absolutely without any landmark. All I knew was that we had turned off Regent Street about half-way up and that the house was situated in a quiet, rather dark street, an old-fashioned house of three storeys.

Eagerly in search of the place from which I had so narrowly escaped with my life I wandered in the night up and down those narrow thoroughfares, that puzzling maze of streets that lie between Regent Street and Soho Square—Brewer Street, Bridle Lane, Lexington Street, Poland Street and Berwick Street. I could not, however, find any house answering to the very vague impression I retained of it, though I went on and on until far into the night.

Fearing to return to Bolton Street, I took a bed at an obscure hotel in the Euston Road, and next morning went over to Camberwell, where Tibbie warmly welcomed me. I attributed the cut on my head to a fall on the kerb, and when we sat together I saw how thoroughly resigned she had become to her strange surroundings.

With womanly enthusiasm she told me of the kindness of the landlady, who would not allow her to mope there alone. She had taken her out to see her friends, wives of working-men like herself, and they had gossiped, had high tea and discussed the affairs of the neighbourhood.

“Tibbie,” I said, presently, after we had been chatting some time, “I am compelled to leave London, and I confess I am very apprehensive on your behalf.”

“Leave London!” she exclaimed. “Why?”

“It is imperative. Winsloe is watching me, and is doing all he can to discover you. Every time I come here I run a great risk.”

“I know,” she said, frowning. “His spies are no doubt dogging your footsteps everywhere.”

“Then your position here is unsafe. You would do better to escape from London now, and hide in the country—say in one of the larger towns in the north.”

“Yes; but the police are in search of me, remember. The mater and Jack have raised a hue and cry. They think I’ve met with foul play.”

“Then all the more reason why you should slip out of London. The country police are slower, and you will stand less chance of recognition.”

She sighed, exclaiming,—

“Ah, Wilfrid! It is cruel—cruel of them to hunt me down as they are now doing. Where shall I go? Where do you intend going?”

“Anywhere—out of London. What about Leeds? Neither of us know anyone there.”

She was silent a moment. Then said, “I am in your hands entirely, Wilfrid, and will go to Leeds if you think I can travel without being recognised.”

“If I anticipated any risk I would not allow you to undertake it,” I said. “We will go this evening by the 5:45 from King’s Cross—‘Oswin’s train,’ as they call it, because he is the caterer for the dining-car.”

“Very well,” she answered. “As you wish. But before we go will you do me a favour? Go to the Daily Telegraph office and put in an advertisement for me.”

“An advertisement!” I exclaimed, in surprise.

“Yes,” she laughed, rather nervously. “I want to—I mean it is necessary that I should communicate with a friend.”

I said nothing, but stood watching her as she took out half a sheet of notepaper and commenced to print three lines of jumbled capitals and numerals—an advertisement apparently in the cipher which I had taken from the dead unknown.

Her action astounded me, but I managed to remain as though interested but ignorant.

“Why in this cipher?” I asked, when she handed it to me, requesting me to go to Fleet Street after our midday dinner.

“Because—well, because I don’t wish it to be read by other people. It is for the eye of one person only.”

I placed it in my pocket without further comment, and after we had eaten together I went out to do her bidding.

While seated in the tram-car in the Old Kent Road I took out the mystic message she had written, and with the key which I had fortunately carried away with me from Bolton Street I deciphered the words she had penned.

They read,—

“To Nello.—Will make appointment when safe for us to meet. Note that Eric is in Paris. I still trust you.—S.”

I sat staring at the paper like a man in a dream.

Was Tibbie, the woman I had promised to save and for whose sake I was sacrificing everything, reputation, honour, even my life, actually playing me false?

How did she know that Eric was in Paris? Was that really true?

And who was Nello to whom she sent that message of trust?

Chapter Nineteen.

Gives a Message to Nello.

A little after ten o’clock that same evening, in our guise as working people, we walked along the Briggate, in Leeds, and presently found a small eating-house, where Tibbie obtained accommodation for the night.

Dressed as we were, Tibbie’s trunk at the station, and a small bag in my hand, I was unable to go to any of the larger hotels. Therefore, after supping off a chop and tomatoes, washed down with a tankard of ale, I bade her good-night and went off to find a bed round in Commercial Street.

Next day, in the dull grey morning, we walked the busy streets of Leeds—Kirkgate, Bond Street, Albion Street, and the neighbouring thoroughfares—and took counsel with each other. Her advertisement, which I saw printed in that morning’s Telegraph puzzled me. Yet I could not admit knowledge of the cipher without also admitting that I was in possession of the key.

I showed it to her in the paper, but she only smiled and thanked me, saying,—

“I suppose you suspect that I am communicating with some lover—eh?”

“Well, Tibbie,” I remarked, in as calm a voice as I could command, “I must admit that I’m much surprised. You seem, somehow, to be misleading me.”

“Because I am compelled to do so,” was her frank, outspoken answer.

I longed to ask right out who was the man Nello—brief for Lionel—the man to whom she sent a secret message of trust.

We were passing St. John’s Churchyard towards North Street, and had been discussing the advisability of her taking a furnished room in one of the respectable houses in Roundhay Road, where we had seen “Apartments to let: Furnished,” when, catching her countenance, I suddenly said,—

“Eric has disappeared. He left Bolton Street some days ago, and I’ve heard nothing of him. I’m getting very anxious.”

“Eric!” she echoed. “Well, he’s hardly the kind of a man to disappear, is he? I’ve often heard from his friends that he goes away abroad frequently and forgets to write. Perhaps he’s abroad now.”

She did not tell me that he was in Paris, the statement which she made in secret to the man she called Nello.

I discussed the subject further, but she steadfastly refused to admit that she knew of his whereabouts. By her attitude I was much mystified.

Neither the Sussex Constabulary nor the Scarcliffs themselves entertained the slightest suspicion that the sudden departure of the Honourable Sybil from Ryhall had any connection with the mysterious affair in Charlton Wood. I had made careful inquiry when I had visited old Lady Scarcliff at Grosvenor Street, and young Lady Wydcombe, visits which I had purposely made in town in order to allay any suspicion that I was aware of Tibbie’s place of hiding.

The whole family were, of course, extremely anxious, and I was compelled to play a double game, pretending to make every inquiry in those quarters in London where she was so well known. I had even invented stories as to her having been seen at Oddenino’s at supper, with two other ladies, and accompanied by both ladies on the departure platform at St. Pancras, stories concocted with a dual purpose, to reassure Jack and his mother that she was well, and also to mislead those who were so eagerly in search of her.

As we walked side by side through that busy centre of commercial life, all of which was so strange to her, I expressed regret that she could tell me nothing further.

“If I knew the truth,” I said, “it would enable me to steer clear of pitfalls, and render your life happier and brighter.”

“You are posing as my husband,” she said, looking straight into my face with those wonderful eyes of hers. “Your self-sacrifice is surely great, Wilfrid, for one who entertains no affection. When a man loves he will do anything—he will ruin himself for the sake of a woman, as so many do. But when love is absent it is all so different.”

And she sighed and turned her head away. She was a neat, demure little figure in her cheap black dress, her small toque, and her black cotton gloves, with the false badge of matrimony underneath.

“I cannot for the life of me imagine what safeguard I am to you—pretending to be your husband.”

“Ah?” she said. “You will know everything some day—some day you will realise my awful peril,” and her mouth closed tightly as tears welled in her eyes. Did she refer to the crime in Charlton Wood? That afternoon we engaged apartments in what seemed to be a pleasant little house in Roundhay Road, kept by an honest old Yorkshire woman, who spoke broadly and welcomed us warmly. Therefore Tibbie obtained her trunk from the cloak-room, and took up her abode there, while I explained my enforced absence from my wife, saying that I was compelled to go to Bradford. Instead of that, however, I returned to my quarters in Commercial Street, and met her in Kirkgate at eleven o’clock next morning.

Ours was a strange, adventurous life in the days that followed, and were it not for the veil of mystery upon everything, and the grave suspicion which I still entertained of my dainty little companion, it would have all been very pleasant.

In order to kill time, as well as to avoid being met in Leeds together by our landlady, we visited the various outlying places of interest, Kirkstall with its ruined abbey and its umbrageous landscapes, the old church of Adel with the pretty glen, par excellence a walk for lovers, Cookridge Hall, Chapeltown, the village on the Great North Road where one obtains such magnificent views, and lastly the splendid old mansion of Temple Newsham, where walking in the park one sunny, afternoon Tibbie halted, and looking away to the distant Tudor mansion, said,—

“How strange life is, Wilfrid. Only two years ago I was staying here with Cynthia, and now you and I come here as working-class holiday makers. Ah!” she sighed, bitterly, “I was happy then, before—” and she did not conclude her sentence.

“Before what?” I asked, standing at her side beneath the great old elm with the sheep grazing quietly around.

“Before evil fell upon me,” she said, hoarsely, with poignant bitterness.

We remained in Leeds a week, and although I had given Budd my address at the post-office I received no word from him concerning Eric.

Day by day I watched the columns of the Telegraph until one morning there came an answer to Tibbie’s cipher advertisement, a reply which I read as,—

“To S.—You have been betrayed! Exercise caution, and escape at once, the instant you see this.—Your Friend.”

I lost no time in seeking her, and with affected carelessness handed her the paper, making a casual remark upon the news of the day. I watched her, however, and saw that she at once turned to the column which held the greatest interest for her.

Her eyes fell upon the reply to her secret message. In a few moments she had deciphered it, and sat with the journal still in her hand, staring straight before her.

“Wilfrid!” she exclaimed, in a low, strained voice when she at length found tongue, “I must leave here at once. Every moment’s delay increases my peril. I must escape.”

“Why?”

But again she refused any explanation, merely saying that her departure from Leeds was imperative, and expressing despair that her enemies would never relinquish their hot pursuit. They were hounding her down, she said in despair, and they must sooner or later triumph over her.

“No,” I exclaimed. “Hope on, Tibbie. You must escape—you will escape. They shall never harm you as long as I have strength to be your protector.”

“Ah!” she cried. “How can I thank you, Wilfrid. To you I owe my very life. Without you I should have ended it all long ago.”

“Never mind that now,” I urged. “You must escape. Where shall you go?”

“Anywhere. It is just the same to me,” was her answer.

“Then I suggest you take the midday train up to Newcastle. There’s a quiet hotel where you may live comfortably and unnoticed, the Douglas, in Grainger Street West. Remain there a few days, and then move on across to Carlisle.”

“I know Carlisle,” she said. “I’ve broken the journey there often when going to Scotland.”

“But you are not known there?”

“Only at the County Hotel. I can go somewhere else, of course. But are you not coming?” she asked, quickly. “Remember my whole future depends upon you passing yourself off as my husband, William Morton.”

“For the next few days I think it would be as well for us to remain apart,” I replied, for truth to tell I had suddenly formed a plan, and was now anxious to make a flying visit up to London in order to put it into execution.

Her face fell.

“But you will return to me?” she asked, very anxiously.

“Yes—I will meet you in Carlisle in a week’s time. Go to Newcastle for four days, and thence to Carlisle. Indeed, change your address constantly. In Newcastle assume another name, and in Carlisle another. Do not go in the name of Morton again until we meet. I shall write to you at the post-office in Carlisle. To-day is Tuesday. Next Tuesday you shall hear from me.”

“Why do you leave me alone?” she pouted. “How can I spend a whole week wandering about without a companion?”

“Don’t you see, Tibbie, that it is very necessary that I should show up to your mother and Jack in order to still pretend to make an effort to find traces of you?” I asked.

“Ah! yes,” she sighed. “I suppose you are right. You do all you can in my interests, so I ought not to complain.”

“I am glad you are convinced that my return to London is with the object of averting suspicion,” I said. “Go up to Newcastle and escape these enemies of yours—whoever they are. Travel constantly if possible. You have money. If not I can give you some.”

“Thanks—I have plenty,” was her reply; and then she reluctantly commenced packing her trunk preparatory to her hurried departure.

And at noon we had grasped hands on the platform and I had seen her into a third-class compartment of the express bound for Newcastle.

“Au revoir,” she said, bending to me from the carriage window. “Remember, next Tuesday in Carlisle. You are my friend—promise you will not desert me.”

“Next Tuesday,” I repeated, lifting my cloth cap. “I promise. Till then, adieu.”

And she smiled sadly as the express glided out of the station.

Half an hour later I was on my way to London again, and a little after five o’clock entered the offices of the Daily Telegraph and handed in a cipher advertisement, which read,—

“To Nello.—Meet me outside Baker Street Station to-night at eight. Very urgent. Nothing to fear.—S.”

I was convinced that the mysterious Nello lived in London, and therefore would see the paper next morning. I was determined to ascertain who it was in whom Tibbie placed such implicit trust.

I feared to approach Bolton Street; therefore I took a room at the Caledonian Hotel on Adelphi Terrace and sent a note to Budd to come and see me.

In an hour my man stood before me, telling me of the eager inquiries made for me by Mr Ellice Winsloe, and the message he had left, asking me to call and see him as soon as ever I returned.

The scoundrel never believed that I would return. He expected that my body was far out to sea by this time, just as other bodies had been despatched from that house of mystery.

Budd brought me some clean linen and my letters, but I still retained my guise as a working-man, for I had yet a very difficult and delicate task before me, namely, the watching of the man whom Tibbie addressed as Nello.

At noon next day I received a telegram from the woman upon whom rested the dark shadow of a secret crime, telling me of her safe arrival in Newcastle, and reminding me of my promise to return. Then I went forth and lounged about the Burlington in the hope of catching a glimpse of the man who was her enemy as well as mine.

He generally strolled through the Arcade about five o’clock, for he went daily to old General Taylor, in the Albany. I knew his haunts well, therefore, keeping away from his path, I watched until I saw him pass in deep conversation with a man of his own age, whose sharp, clean-shaved face gave me the impression that he was a barrister. Winsloe looked more refined, more fashionably dressed, with his frock coat cleanly brushed and his glossy silk hat apparently only that moment out of the ironer’s hands.

I pretended to be deeply interested in a hosier’s window as he passed. But even had we met face to face I doubt if he would have recognised me in the disguise of a working-man.

His face was harder and more evil-looking and his shifty eyes were everywhere. From the way the pair were talking, I could not resist the conviction that the clean-shaven fellow was one of his associates or accomplices.

To that elegant man who passed as a gentleman, and was invited to half the best houses in London, I owed all my present distress and anxiety, while at the same time he was Sybil’s enemy, the man who held her future in his merciless hands.

I watched him out of sight, and then turning upon my heel went back citywards.

That night, just before eight, I strolled along the Marylebone Road, and slowly passed Baker Street Station and along by Madame Tussaud’s, without, however, seeing traces of anyone. A couple of newsboys were idling on the kerb gossiping, but all else was bustle, and there were no lingerers.

I could not well remain there fearing lest Winsloe or any of his associates who knew me might recognise me. Therefore I was compelled to stroll up and down on the opposite side of the way, my eyes eager to discern any man who halted there in expectation.

One man dressed like a City clerk came to a sudden standstill just after eight, looked at his watch and peered inside the station. But I was disappointed, for a few moments later a young woman, in brown, probably his sweetheart, met him, and they both walked away in company. Again a second man emerged from the station and stood for a long time in indecision. He, too, was keeping an appointment, for he was joined presently by a much older man, and they went into a neighbouring saloon-bar.

Half-past eight struck; even nine o’clock. But the appointment was not kept. Perhaps the mysterious Nello had not seen the message?

I was beginning to fear that such was the case, or that my ruse had failed, when a dark-eyed rather handsome young girl, dressed plainly, like a shop assistant, alighted from a hansom about a hundred yards from the station, paid the driver, and hurriedly approached the spot where I stood.

She took no notice of my presence, but crossing the roadway entered the station and searched eagerly everywhere as though she were late for her appointment.

She came forth again upon the pavement, looked up and down, and then strolled patiently along the kerb.

She never gave me a single glance. This fact I noted, causing me to wonder if she were not waiting for a woman.

Was she awaiting Sybil? Could she be a messenger from the mysterious Nello, in whom my dainty little friend seemed to place such implicit trust?

I crossed the road and idled past her in order to get a good look at her face.

Then I sauntered on, wondering and perplexed.

Chapter Twenty.

Contains Another Surprise.

For some twenty minutes or so I watched her, undecided whether she were actually the representative of the mysterious Nello, or whether she was merely a shop-girl in the vicinity who expected to meet a friend.

Time after time, although she was ignorant of the constant observation I kept upon her, I managed to get close sight of her, and after a time began to doubt whether she really was a shop assistant. Her black coat and skirt was of some cheap but effective material, and the boa about her neck was of the type usually worn by the employees of Westbourne Grove; yet once as she passed, my eyes caught a gleam beneath the sleeve of her coat, and I saw that she wore, only half-concealed, one of those curious New Zealand bracelets of pale green stone which are so shaped upon the wrist that they can never be removed. Solid and circular, it was a strange, almost barbarous-looking ornament and yet very striking, for in one part was a small band of gold, wherein was set a single diamond, the gleam of which had attracted my attention.

Now if she were a shop assistant, I argued, she could not sell ribbons and laces with such an ornament upon her wrist. No employer would allow such personal adornment. And as she could not remove it there was doubt that she really was what she appeared to be.

It commenced to rain and she put up her umbrella. It was old, and in it were several slits.

I was in half a mind to raise my hat, wish her good-evening, and inquire if she were there in response to the advertisement addressed to Nello, yet on reflection I saw that such a movement would be very indiscreet, and that if she were really there as Nello’s representative then I could gain more by watching her. So, unnoticed, I stood within the station, my back turned to her, and my head buried in an evening paper. To her I was, I suppose, only an ordinary working-man, and if I had approached her she would have at once snubbed me.

Fortunately I so constantly changed my position that she never gave me a look, and was entirely unconscious of being watched. Greater part of the time I stood apart some distance, on the opposite side of the street at the corner of York Place.

From the eager way in which she watched every female approaching, I knew that she was waiting for a woman.

At last she became convinced that her vigil was in vain. The rain had ceased, she closed her umbrella and entered an omnibus which had pulled up before the station, and an instant afterwards moved on towards the Edgware Road.

It passed close to where I was standing on the kerb, and a few moments afterwards I was in a hansom following it at a respectable distance, my head again hidden in a newspaper. Down Edgware Road, past the Marble Arch and along Park Lane we went to Victoria Station, where the dark-eyed girl alighted, and entering the Chatham and Dover terminus passed through the barrier with the return half of a first-class ticket.

Without reflection I went to the booking-office, obtained a third for Loughborough Junction, a station through which most trains passed, and five minutes later was seated in a compartment near her. If she had really responded to my invitation, then it was my duty to discover her destination and learn something concerning her.

For half an hour I sat in the train looking out at every stopping-place, but seeing nothing of her.

At last, at a half-lit suburban station she descended and hurried out. I followed quickly, handing the collector a two-shilling piece as excess fare.

I glanced at the name on the station lamp. It was Lordship Lane.

Outside was the foot of Sydenham Hill.

I allowed her to get on well in front and then followed her along the silent ill-lit suburban road for half a mile up the steep hill, flanked on either side by large detached houses. For some reason best known to herself she had not gone on to the next station, Upper Sydenham. Perhaps she was too well known there.

Half-way up the hill I walked more quickly and gained upon her, so that I saw into which gateway she went.

She disappeared through the gate of the house called Keymer—the house of the mysterious John Parham!

Then I was, of course, convinced that she had kept the appointment on behalf of the unknown Nello.

I had not called upon Mrs Parham since that tragic incident which I had witnessed from the pavement, and longed now to follow the dark-eyed girl and learn the reason of her presence at Baker Street. But a visit at that hour was entirely out of the question. Besides, my disguise as a working-man would arouse suspicion.

Therefore I was compelled to retrace my steps, return to my hotel in Adelphi Terrace, and send a line to Budd, ordering him to bring me a hat and a decent suit of clothes in a kitbag.

Eric’s complete silence now alarmed me. How did Tibbie know that he was in Paris? Surely she possessed some means of communication with certain persons of which I was in entire ignorance. There might be other advertisements in other journals which I had not seen—by pre-arrangement in some obscure country journal possibly.

Jack and Lord Wydcombe were now anxious regarding the absence of both of us from London, and must, of course, regard our silence as curious. Yet so far as I could gather they never for one moment connected my absence with Tibbie’s disappearance. Tibbie they regarded as erratic and utterly uncontrollable, just as she had ever been from the time she was expelled from her school at Versailles for defying the principal, and causing the other pupils to revolt over some fancied grievance.

Next day about twelve, risking recognition by any person who might know me, I assumed my frock coat, silk hat and gloves and visited Keymer.

Mrs Parham was in the drawing-room, arranging some flowers in a vase, and turned to me quickly when I was announced.

“Forgive me for calling, madam, but you will, of course, recollect me,” I said. “I was in this neighbourhood and thought I would pay my respects and ascertain how you were.”

“Ah! of course,” she exclaimed. “I remember you perfectly—on that night—that night when they came here,” she faltered, rather tamely, I thought, and she motioned me to a chair and seated herself.

“The poor girl has, of course, been buried,” I said. “I saw accounts of the inquest in the papers.”

“Yes. They brought in a verdict of murder, but up to the present the police have discovered nothing, it appears. Ah!” she sighed. “They are so very slow. It’s monstrous that such a thing could happen here, in the centre of a populated district. Out in the lonely country it would be quite another thing. I should have left the house at once, only I feared that my husband would be annoyed. He is abroad, you know.”

“And have you had no word from him?”

“Not a line. I’m expecting a letter from India by every mail. He is in India, I know, as he told one of his City friends that he was going. He sailed on the Caledonia from Marseilles nearly five weeks ago. He may have written me from Paris and the letter miscarried. That’s the only explanation I can think of.”

I recollected that I had never given her a card, therefore she very fortunately did not know my name, and I did not intend that she should, if concealment were at all possible.

There was a mystery about that house and its occupants which caused me to act with circumspection.

I looked around the room. Nothing had been altered save that the couch upon which they had laid the dead girl was now gone, and the corner of the carpet which had been torn up had been re-nailed down. The piano at which my hostess had sat when attacked was still in its place, and the table whereon had stood the photograph which I had stolen still contained that same silver and bric-à-brac.

As Mrs Parham was speaking the door suddenly opened, and the dark-eyed young girl whom I had watched on the previous night came gaily into the room. The instant I saw her I recognised that she was a lady. In a clean, fresh cotton blouse and neat tailor-made skirt she presented a much smarter appearance them in that cheap black coat and skirt as she stood in the muddy roadway. The green stone bracelet was still upon her wrist, the one object which alone had showed me that she was no shop assistant.

“This is Miss O’Hara,” my hostess exclaimed, introducing us; “she has kindly come to stay with me until my husband’s return.”

And as we bowed to each other I saw that the newcomer had no previous knowledge of me.

“I was present at the unfortunate affair,” I said. “Mrs Parham must have been very upset by it.”

“She was,” declared the girl, in a quiet, refined voice. “But she’s getting over it now. The worst shock was the maid’s death. It was a most dastardly piece of business, and moreover, no one knows with what motive it was done.”

“To get possession of something which Mr Parham had concealed here,” I said.

“That may be, but as far as Mrs Parham is aware they took nothing beyond a few of her husband’s private papers.”

“Nothing except a photograph that stood on the table over there,” remarked my hostess.

“A photograph!” I exclaimed, in pretended surprise. “Of whom?”

“Of a friend,” was the vague response, and I saw that the two women looked at each other meaningly.

They intended to keep the identity of the original of the stolen portrait a secret. Yet they were in utter ignorance that it was in my possession.

Why had this Miss O’Hara gone to meet Sybil in Nello’s place? I wondered.

I chatted with them both for a long time, but without being able to discover any additional fact. They were both clever women, and knew how to hold their tongues.

Presently Mrs Parham said suddenly,—

“I’m sure my husband will feel very indebted to you when he knows all the facts. I have not the pleasure of your name.”

“Morton,” I said, “William Morton,” and feeling in my pocket expressed regret that I had forgotten my card-case.

A quarter of an hour later I took my leave and was walking down Sydenham Hill when I suddenly encountered my friend the police inspector of the night of the strange affair at Keymer.

He glanced at me, and our recognition was mutual.

Then when he had greeted me he turned on his heel and walked in my direction. After some conversation regarding the mysterious attempt and its fatal termination, he said in a hard voice,—

“Our people are rather surprised at your attitude, you know.”

“My attitude! What do you mean?” I exclaimed, looking at him in surprise.

“Well. You might have given information when you knew that we wanted to question that man Parham.”

“Information of what?”

“Of his whereabouts. You were seen one evening not long ago talking to him.”

“Where?”

“In the entrance to the Empire,” replied the inspector. “One of our plain-clothes men saw you with Parham and another man. But the fellow managed to get away, as he always does.”

I stood aghast.

“Was he a fair bald-headed man?”

“Of course.”

I was silent. The truth was plain, the revelation a staggering one. Winsloe had introduced his accomplice, John Parham, to me as the traveller and engineer named Humphreys!

It was in John Parham’s house that the dastardly attempt had been made upon my life—in his house that other persons had met with mysterious and untimely ends.

Chapter Twenty One.

What Occurred in Dean’s Yard, Westminster.

That same evening, attired in my working clothes, I watched Winsloe’s chambers in King Street at the hour when I knew his habit was to return to dress for dinner.

From five o’clock till half-past seven I lingered in the vicinity; then returning to my hotel in the Adelphi I there met Budd, whom I sent round to the man’s chambers to inquire when he would be in.

Half an hour later my valet returned with the information that Mr Winsloe was out of town, and was not expected back for several days. He had gone to the north, his man believed, but he had no instructions to forward letters.

Gone north! Had he discovered Tibbie’s whereabouts and gone after her?

Mine was a tantalising position, unable to return to my own rooms for fear that Winsloe and Parham should discover that I was still alive. They believed me to be dead—that I had “gone home,” as “White Feather” reported.

That night I spent several hours wandering through those streets behind Regent Street, trying to recognise the house with the fatal stairs. All, however, was to no purpose. I had, I think, mistaken the direction which we had taken. Tired and worn out, I ate supper about ten o’clock in a small and rather uncleanly little foreign restaurant in Dean Street, and then returned to the Adelphi, where I sat a long time in my room overlooking the Embankment and the Thames, lost in the mazes of mystery that now presented themselves.

Where was Eric Domville? Where was Ellice Winsloe? Where was John Parham, alias Humphreys?

Tibbie evidently knew a great deal more than she would admit. She had told me that my friend was in Paris. How could she know if she held no communication with anyone?

No—the more I reflected the more evident did it become that she was playing a double game.

As I sat at the window with the dark deserted gardens below me, the row of gas-lamps and the wide river before me, I tried to analyse my real feelings towards the dainty little love of my youth.

She was a woman guilty of the terrible crime of murder, and yet I had promised to shield her because she had declared that her enemies intended to crush her. Had I really acted rightly? I asked myself. Truly, I was endeavouring to defeat the ends of justice. Nevertheless, I recollected her wild earnest appeal to me, how she had fallen upon her knees and implored my help and protection. I remembered, too, that in her desperation she would have taken her own life rather than face her enemies.

What did it all mean?

So extraordinary had been the sequence of amazing events that my mind failed to grasp the true significance of all the facts.

Of one truth, however, I was well aware, namely, that the dull life of workaday Camberwell had worked a wonderful change in my little friend. She was more sedate, more composed, more womanly, while her calmness accentuated her sweetness of manner. Yet why did she wish to pose as a married woman? What did she fear beyond the exposure of her crime?

She was fascinating, I own that. But upon her beauty and grace was resting that dark, gruesome shadow, the shadow of the sword of retribution, which hung over her, and from which she, alas! would never escape.

What did the family think of her prolonged absence? What did the police think?

I knew well that both old Lady Scarcliff and Jack were leaving no stone unturned to try to discover her, while Wydcombe had left word with Budd that as soon as ever I returned he wished to see me. I would dearly have liked to have gone round to Curzon Street, but by doing so, I saw that Jack would know I had been there, and he might mention my visit to Winsloe, who, without doubt, was still his friend.

My cipher advertisement had been so successful that, after due consideration, I resolved to try and draw “White Feather,” and ascertain the identity of that mysterious person.

Therefore I sat at the table, and after half an hour had reduced to the cipher the following announcement,—

“To White Feather.—Must see you. Very urgent. Meet me to-night at entrance to Dean’s Yard, Westminster, at nine, without fail.—S.”

If “White Feather” was in London he or she would certainly keep the appointment with Sybil. My only fear was that she might see the paper up in Newcastle, and detect the forgery.

Before midnight I handed in the advertisement at the newspaper office in Fleet Street, and next morning had the satisfaction of seeing it in print.

The day I spent in comparative idleness. Budd, to whom I explained my strange conduct by saying that I was still engaged in watching someone, called with my letters and executed several commissions for me. I wrote to “Mrs William Morton” at the post-office at Carlisle, and spent the afternoon reading in the hotel. Budd had instructions to let me know immediately anything was heard of Eric, and was now acting as my secret agent, eager to serve me in every particular.

It was a wet, unpleasant night, as, a little before nine, I alighted from an omnibus in Victoria Street, and passing up Great Smith Street, approached Dean’s Yard from the Great College Street side, the opposite entrance to the spot where the appointment was to be kept.

Dean’s Yard is a quiet square of ancient smoke-blackened houses, a cloister of the abbey in the old days, quiet and secluded even in these modern go-ahead times. In all Westminster there is no quieter, old-world spot, frequented in the daytime only by the few persons who use it as a short cut to Tufton Street and Horseferry Road, and at night quiet and deserted.

Entering the small secluded square from the opposite side, I slipped along half-way on the south side to a position where I could have a good view of the great arched gate communicating with Victoria Street, and there found a deep, dark doorway which afforded me admirable concealment.

I stood and waited. Scarcely had I settled myself there when the chimes of Big Ben rang out the hour, and then I strained my eyes towards the great ill-lit Gothic gateway.

Not a soul was in the place, not even a policeman. Presently a poor woman with a shawl over her head hurried past in the falling rain, and afterwards came the postman, who, very fortunately, had no letters for the door where I stood concealed in the shadow. The place seemed dark, mysterious, almost ghostly, in the dead silence of the night.

The quarter chimed, but no person lingered at the gateway. Perhaps the advertisement had not been seen; or, more likely, “White Feather” was absent from London.

At last, however, I heard the rattle of a four-wheeled cab outside the gateway. I saw it stop, and a man alighted. Then the vehicle moved on slowly, and again stopped, as though awaiting him. A dark figure in black overcoat and low felt hat loomed up in the darkness of the gateway, and entering the Yard glanced eagerly around.

Next moment another person, a rather taller man, entered and passed him by, but without speaking. Indeed, they passed as strangers, the second man strolling slowly along the pavement in the direction of where I was in hiding. He passed by me, and as the street lamp shone upon his face I saw that he was young and his features were aquiline, dark and evil-looking. I had never to my knowledge seen him before. He seemed well-dressed, for his overcoat did not conceal the fact that he was wearing evening clothes. His collar was turned up, but he went on heedless of the rain, his sharp eyes searching everywhere. My hiding-place was a most excellent one, however, and he failed to detect my presence.

A few minutes later a third man entered the Yard, a youngish man with the air of the Cockney from the East End. He wore a hard hat of the usual costermonger type, a red woollen comforter about his neck, and his trousers were bell-bottomed and adorned with pearl buttons. He, however, gave no sign to either of the other two, although it was apparent that they were acquainted, for sorely three men could not be keeping appointments at that unfrequented spot at the same moment.

The first comer still stood in the gateway, but too far away to allow me to clearly distinguish his features. He stood back in the shadow, his face turned expectantly out to the open roadway, where ever and anon I saw the lights of cabs passing and re-passing. Meanwhile, the two men in the quiet little square had walked to the opposite gateway, and there halted, though at a respectable distance from each other.

The man who had arrived in a cab stood for a long time in patience, the other two giving no sign whatever of their presence. At first I was half inclined to think that the trio were strangers to each other, but on watching their movements I saw that something was premeditated—but what it was I could not gather.

While the man dressed as a costermonger—or perhaps he was a real costermonger—remained near the exit to the Yard ready to give warning of anyone approaching, the man in evening clothes slowly re-passed me, while at the same time the watcher at the gate came forward in his direction.

When not far from me he halted and struck a vesta in order to light a cigarette. The fickle flame betrayed his countenance.

It was the man John Parham, the person believed by his wife to be in India.

What was contemplated? The four-wheeled cab was still in waiting in the little open space which divides Dean’s Yard from Victoria Street, while the exit to Great College Street was being watched, and the thin-faced man lurked there ready for Sybil’s arrival.

Within myself I smiled to think that all their elaborate arrangements were futile, and wondered if Parham was the man who signed himself “White Feather?” In that fellow’s house were the fatal stairs, therefore if I followed him I should now be enabled to fix the actual place to which I had, on that never-to-be-forgotten night, been enticed.

While the costermonger remained on vigil, Parham and his companion passed and re-passed, but still without acknowledging each other.

Once the costermonger suddenly began to whistle a popular music-hall air, and turning I saw that it was a preconcerted signal. A man had entered the Yard from Great College Street and was crossing to where Parham was standing.

For fully three-quarters of an hour they waited patiently until ten o’clock struck. Then Parham approached his companion, and they stood in earnest conversation.

Almost at the same moment a female figure in deep black came swiftly through the gateway into the Yard, causing both to start quickly and draw back. Next instant, however, Parham started off briskly, walking past me to where the costermonger was standing, while his thin-faced accomplice slipped past the newcomer and disappeared into Victoria Street.

It was evident that the woman’s appearance had instantly upset all their calculations.

The newcomer stopped, glanced around and strained her eyes into the darkness. She wore a close black hat, a long mackintosh, and carried an umbrella, yet so swiftly had Parham disappeared that she had not noticed his presence in the Yard, while the other man had so cleverly slipped past her and out through the gateway that she had not seen his face.

For a few moments she stood expectant. I could see that she had hurried, in fear of being too late.

Then, as she approached me, I discerned that she was the girl O’Hara.

And of her, Parham and his lurking accomplices were evidently in fear, as they separated and disappeared.

I watched her standing there and wondered why she had come. Was it in order to save Sybil from some plot that had been prepared for her?

Was it their intention to take her to that dark, mysterious house with the fatal stairs?

I felt convinced that it was. The truth was plain. There was a plot against Sybil. The cab had been in waiting there to convey the victim to her grave!

Chapter Twenty Two.

Is an Echo from Charlton Wood.

My bitterest regret was that I had not been able to follow Parham and trace him to the house of doom, but at the moment of his disappearance I had been unable to emerge from my hiding-place, otherwise the girl O’Hara would have seen me. Perhaps, indeed, she might have recognised me. So, by sheer force of adverse circumstances, I was compelled to remain there and see the trio escape under my very nose.

I had learnt one important fact, however, namely, that a deep conspiracy was afoot against Sybil.

It was beyond comprehension how Tibbie, daughter of the noble and patrician house of Scarcliff, could be so intimately associated with what appealed to me to be a daring gang of malefactors. The treatment I had received at their hands showed me their utter unscrupulousness. I wondered whether what the police suspected was really true, that others had lost their lives in that house wherein I had so nearly lost mine. What was the story of Tibbie’s association with them—a romance no doubt, that had had its tragic ending in the death of the unknown in Charlton Wood.

To me, it seemed plain that he was a member of the gang, for had he not their secret cipher upon him, and did not both Winsloe and Parham possess his photograph?

I recollected the receipt for a registered letter which I had found among the letters in the dead man’s pocket, and next morning told Budd to go and unlock the drawer in my writing-table and bring it to me. He did so, and I saw that the receipt was for a letter handed in at the post-office at Blandford in Dorset, addressed to: “Charles Denton, 16b Bolton Road, Pendleton, Manchester.”

I turned over the receipt in my hand, wondering whether the slip of paper would reveal anything to me. Then, after some reflection, I resolved to break my journey in Manchester on my return to Tibbie in Carlisle, and ascertain who was this man to whom the dead unknown had sent a letter registered.

Next afternoon I passed through Salford in a tram-car, along by Peel Park, and up the Broad Street to Pendleton, alighting at the junction of those two thoroughfares, the one leading to aristocratic Eccles and Patricroft, and the other out to bustling Bolton.

The Bolton road is one over which much heavy traffic passes, and is lined with small houses, a working-class district, for there are many mills and factories in the vicinity. I found the house of which I was in search, a small, rather clean-looking place, and as I passed a homely-looking woman was taking in the milk from the milkman.

Without hesitation I stopped, and addressing her, exclaimed,—

“Excuse me, mum, but do you happen to know a Mr Charles Denton?”

The woman scanned me quickly with some suspicion, I thought, but noticing, I supposed, that although a working-man I seemed highly respectable, replied bluntly, in a pronounced Lancashire dialect,—

“Yes, I do. What may you want with him?”

“I want to see him on some important business,” was my vague reply. “Is he at home?”

“No, he ain’t,” was the woman’s response. “Mr Denton lodges with me, but ’e’s up in London just now, and ’e’s been there this four months.”

“In London!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, but I don’t know his address. When he goes away ’e never leaves it. He’s lodged with me this two years, but I don’t think ’e’s been here more than six months altogether the whole time.”

“Then you have a lot of letters for him, I suppose?”

“Yes, quite a lot,” answered the good woman. The letter sent by the dead man might be among them!

“It was about a letter that I wanted to see Mr Denton—about a registered letter. I’ve come from London on purpose.”

“From London!” ejaculated the woman, a stout, good-humoured person.

“Yes. I wonder whether you’d mind me looking at the letters, if it is among them I’d know he had not received it. The fact is,” I added in confidence, “there’s a big lawsuit pending, and if he hasn’t got the letter then the other side can’t take any action against him.”

“Then you’re on his side?” she asked shrewdly.

“Of course I am. I came down to explain matters to him. If I can ascertain that he didn’t get the letter then that’s all I want. I’m a stranger, I know,” I added, “but as it is in Mr Denton’s interest I don’t think you’ll refuse.”

She hesitated, saying she thought she ought to ask her husband when he returned from the mill. But by assuring her of her lodger’s peril, and that I had to catch the six-thirty train back to London, I at last induced her to admit me to the house, and there in the small, clean, front parlour which was given over to her lodger when he was there, she took a quantity of letters from a cupboard and placed them before me.

Among the accumulated correspondence were quite a number of registered letters, and several little packets which most likely contained articles of value.

While I chatted with the woman with affected carelessness, pretending to be on very friendly terms with her lodger, I quickly fixed upon the letter in question, a registered envelope directed in a man’s educated hand, and bearing the Blandford post-mark.

In order, however, to divert her attention, I took up another letter, declaring that to be the important one, and that the fact of his not having received it was sufficient to prevent the action being brought.

“I’m very glad of that,” she declared in satisfaction. “Mr Denton is such a quiet gentleman. When he’s here he hardly ever goes out, but sits here reading and writing all day.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “he’s very studious—always was—but a very excellent friend. One of the very best.”

“So my husband always says. We only wish he was here more.”

“I saw him in London about a month ago,” I remarked, in order to sustain the fiction.

How I longed to open that letter that lay so tantalisingly before me. But what could I do? Such a thing was not to be thought of. Therefore, I had to watch the woman gather the correspondence together and replace them in the cupboard.