William Le Queux (continued 4)

I rose and thanked her, saying,—

“I’m delighted to think that Charlie will escape a very disagreeable affair. It’s fortunate he wasn’t here to receive that letter.”

“And I’m glad, too. When he returns I’ll tell him how you came here, and what you said. What name shall I give him?”

“Williams—Harry Williams,” I answered. “He will know.”

Then as I walked round to the window I examined the room quickly, but to my disappointment saw that there were no photographs. He might, I thought, keep the portraits of some of his friends upon the mantelshelf, as so many men do. Was this Denton one of the conspirators, I wondered? His absence without an address for four months caused me to suspect that he was.

Just as I had given her my assumed name, somebody knocked at the door, and she went to open it.

Next instant a thought flashed across to me. Should I take that letter? It was a theft—that I recognised, yet was it not in the interests of justice? By that communication I might be able to establish the dead man’s identity.

There was not a second to lose. I decided at once. I heard the woman open the door and speak to someone, then swift as thought I opened the cupboard, glanced at the packet of letters, and with quickly-beating heart took the one which bore the Blandford post-mark.

In a moment it was in my pocket. I re-closed the cupboard, and sprang to the opposite side of the room just as the good woman re-entered.

Then, with profuse thanks and leaving kind messages to the man of whom I spoke so familiarly as “Charlie,” I took my leave and hurried along the broad road into Salford, where I jumped upon a tram going to the Exchange.

I was in the train alone, in a third-class compartment, travelling north to Carlisle, before I dared to break open the letter.

When I did so I found within a scribbled note in cipher written on the paper of the Bear Hotel, at Devizes. After some difficulty, with the aid of the key which the writer had evidently used in penning it, I deciphered it as follows:—

“Dear Denton,—I saw you in the smoking-room of the Midland at Bradford, but for reasons which you know, I could not speak. I went out, and on my return you had gone. I searched, but could not find you. I wanted to tell you my opinion about Ellice and his friend. They are not playing a straight game. I know their intentions. They mean to give us away if they can. Sybil fears me, and will pay. I pretend to know a lot. Meet me in Chichester at the Dolphin next Sunday. I shall put up there, because I intend that she shall see me. Come and help me, for I shall have a good thing on, in which you can share. She can always raise money from her sister or her mother, so don’t fail to keep the appointment. Ellice has already touched a good deal of the Scarcliffs’ money from young Jack, and I now mean myself to have a bit. She’ll do anything to avoid scandal. It’s a soft thing—so come.—Yours,—

“R.W.”

The dead man was, as I had suspected, one of the gang, and he was a blackmailer. He had compelled her to meet him and had made demands which she had resisted. Yes—the letter was the letter of a barefaced scoundrel.

I clenched my hands and set my teeth.

Surely I had done right to endeavour to protect Sybil from such a band of ruffians. Once I had pitied the dead man, but now my sympathy was turned to hatred. He had written this letter to his friend Denton, suggesting that the latter should assist him in his nefarious scheme of blackmail.

He confessed that he “pretended” to know a lot. What did he pretend to know, I wondered? Ah! if only Sybil would speak—if only she would reveal to me the truth.

Yet, after all, how could she when that man, the fellow who had written that letter, had fallen by her hand?

The letter at least showed that her enemies had been and were still unscrupulous. Winsloe, even now, was ready to send her to her grave, just as I had been sent—because I had dared to come between the conspirators and their victim. And yet she trusted Nello—whoever the fellow was.

Who was the man Denton, I wondered? A friend of the mysterious “R.W.,” without a doubt, and a malefactor like himself.

I placed my finger within the linen-lined envelope, and to my surprise found a second piece of thin blue paper folded in half. Eagerly I opened it and saw that it was a letter written in plain English, in bad ink, and so faint that with difficulty I read the lines.

It was in the scoundrel’s handwriting—the same calligraphy as that upon the envelope.

I read the lines, and so extraordinary were they that I sat back upon the seat utterly bewildered.

What was written there complicated the affair more than ever. The problem admitted of no solution, for the mystery was by those written lines rendered deeper and more inscrutable than before.

Was Sybil, after all, playing me false?

I held my breath as the grave peril of the situation came vividly home to me.

Yes—I had trusted her; I had believed her.

She had fooled me!

Chapter Twenty Three.

Places Matters in a New Light.

The words upon the second slip of paper were,—

“Ellice believes that Sybil still loves Wilfrid Hughes. This is incorrect. Tell him so. The girl is merely using Hughes for her own purposes. She loves Arthur Rumbold. I have just learnt the truth—something that will astonish you.”

Rumbold! Who was Arthur Rumbold? I had never heard mention of him. This was certainly a new feature of the affair. Sybil had a secret lover of whom I was in ignorance. She was no doubt still in communication with him, and through him had learnt of Eric’s whereabouts and other facts that had surprised me.

I read and re-read the letter, much puzzled. She was only using me for her own purposes—or in plain English she was fooling me!

I was angry with myself for not being more wary.

The train stopped at Preston, and then rushed north again as I sat alone in the corner of the carriage thinking deeply, and wondering who was this man Rumbold.

At Carlisle another surprise was in store for me, for I found a hurried note from Sybil saying that she had unfortunately been recognised by a friend and compelled to leave. She had gone on to Glasgow, and would await me there at the Central Station Hotel. Therefore, by the Scotch express at two o’clock that morning I travelled up to Glasgow, and on arrival found to my chagrin that she had stayed there one night, and again left. There was a note for me, saying that she had gone to Dumfries, but that it would be best for me not to follow.

“Return to Newcastle and await me,” she wrote. “My quick movements are imperative for my own safety. I cannot tell you in a letter what has happened, but will explain all when we meet.”

“By what train did the lady leave?” I inquired of the hall-porter who had handed me the letter.

“The six-twenty last night, sir,” was the man’s answer. “I got her ticket—a first-class one to Fort William.”

“Then she went north—not south,” I exclaimed, surprised.

“Of course.”

Sybil had misled me in her letter by saying that she had gone to Dumfries, when really she had travelled in the opposite direction. She had purposely misled me.

“The lady left hurriedly, it would appear.”

“Yes, sir. About five o’clock a gentleman called to see her, and she met him in the hall. She was very pale, I noticed, as though she was surprised at his visit, or rather upset. But they went out together. She returned an hour later, wrote this letter, which she told me to give to you if you called, and then left for Fort William.”

“And did the man call again?”

“Yes. She said he would, and she told me to tell him that she had gone to Edinburgh. I told him that, and he seemed very surprised, but went away. He was in evening dress, and it seemed as though they had intended dining together. She seemed,” added the man rather sneeringly, “to be more like a lady’s-maid than a lady.”

“But the gentleman, describe him to me.”

“Oh! he was a rather short, podgy man, fair, with a baldish head.”

Was it Parham? the description suited him.

“He gave no card?”

“No. He met the young lady here in the hall. My idea was that his presence was very unwelcome, as she seemed in great fear lest he should return before she could get away.”

“Has the man left Glasgow?”

“I think so. I saw him on the platform about nine, just before the Edinburgh express left. He’s probably gone on there. He seemed quite a gentleman.”

“They appeared to be friendly?”

“Perfectly. Only she evidently did not expect to meet him. She asked the name of a hotel at Fort William, and I told her to go to the Station.”

“Then she’s there!” I exclaimed quickly.

“Probably. She arrived there this morning.”

I tipped the man, and after idling in Glasgow some hours, left for Fort William, determined to disobey Sybil’s order to go back to Newcastle.

It was a long but picturesque journey. When I arrived I went at once to the hotel to inquire if Mrs Morton were there.

The manageress shook her head, saying,—

“There was a Mrs Morton, a young woman like a lady’s-maid, who arrived here yesterday morning, and left here last evening. A lady was awaiting her—her mistress, I think.”

“What was her name?”

“Mrs Rumbold,” was the answer, after referring to the visitors’ book.

“Rumbold!” The name of the secret lover.

“Was she old or young?”

“Elderly, with grey hair. A rather stiff, formal kind of person.”

“Where have they gone?”

“I heard Mrs Rumbold say that she wanted to go to Oban. So perhaps they’ve gone there.”

There was a boat down to Oban in three hours’ time, therefore I took it, passed down the beautiful Loch and by the island of Lismore, places too well known to the traveller in Scotland to need any description, and that same evening found myself in Oban, the Charing Cross of the Highlands. I had been there several times before, and always stayed at the Great Western. Therefore I took the hotel omnibus, and on alighting asked if a Mrs Rumbold was staying there.

The reply was a negative one, therefore I went round to several other hotels, finding at last that she and “her maid” had taken a room at the Alexandra that morning, but had suddenly changed their plans, and had left at two o’clock by train for the south, but whether for Glasgow or Edinburgh was not known.

I therefore lost track of them. Sybil had apparently successfully escaped from her male visitor at Glasgow, while at the same time Mrs Rumbold—probably the mother of the man she loved in secret—had awaited her up at Fort William.

For what reason? Why was she now masquerading as maid of the mother of her lover?

Again, if her visitor in Glasgow was really Parham, he must have very quickly obtained knowledge of her whereabouts, for only a few days before I had watched him arrange that ingenious plot against her in Dean’s Yard—a plot which would have no doubt been carried into execution if Sybil had been present.

I hesitated how to act.

If they had gone south, it was useless for me to remain in Oban. Her appointment with me was in Newcastle, and it seemed certain that she would sooner or later seek me there. But at that moment my curiosity was aroused regarding this Mrs Rumbold, as to who and what she was, and further, as to the identity of Arthur, about whom the dead man had known so much.

I left Oban and went back to Glasgow. My friend, the hall-porter at the Central Station, was talkative, but had not seen the lady again. It struck me that as the bald-headed man had met her in Glasgow, and as she had left a message for him that she had gone to Edinburgh, she would naturally avoid both places, or at any rate not halt there.

Had she gone on to Dumfries? She had left a message for me that she was there. Would she now go there in order to see if I were awaiting her instead of at Newcastle?

Dumfries, the town of Burns, was on my way down to Carlisle, therefore I resolved to make a halt there for an hour or two to inquire.

I remained the night in Glasgow, for I was fagged out by so much travelling, and next day, just before twelve, I alighted at Dumfries. I had never been there before, but outside the station I saw the Railway Hotel, and entering, asked whether Mrs Rumbold was staying there.

Yes, she was. Did I wish to see her? asked the lady clerk in the bureau.

I replied in the affirmative, and sent her my name, “Mr Morton,” written on a slip of paper.

The waiter returned with a curious look upon his face. I saw in an instant that something had occurred and was not surprised when he said,—

“Mrs Rumbold has a bad headache, sir, and would be glad if you’d call again about five or six. The chambermaid says she’s lying down.”

“Is there another person with her?” I inquired. “Her own maid, I mean.”

“No, sir. She’s alone.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Quite. I took her name when she arrived in the hotel. She has no maid.”

“And no lady friend?”

“No. She’s entirely alone.”

That surprised me. Had Sybil parted from her and gone straight on to Newcastle in order to find me? There was nothing to be done but to wait till half-past five, and call again on Mrs Rumbold. I therefore took a room at the hotel, and lunched in the coffee-room.

The woman’s excuse made me suspicious that she wished to avoid meeting me, and that when I returned at six I should find her gone.

So I passed the time in writing letters, and remained in patience until half-past five, when I sent up again to know if she would receive me. The answer came back that she was still too unwell, and I sent word to her that I could wait, as I wished to see her upon a very important matter.

My determination showed her that I did not intend that she should escape; therefore, just before the dinner gong rang the waiter came to me and said that the lady was in the small drawing-room upstairs and would see me.

I ascended the stairs wondering what would be the outcome of my interview. I wanted to ascertain who the woman was and the nature of the relations between her and Sybil.

When I entered the room a rather elderly lady with whitish hair severely brushed back and attired in deep black rose to meet me, bowing stiffly and saying—

“I have not the honour of your acquaintance, Mr Morton, and am rather curious to know what you want with me.”

“Well, madam,” I replied, “the fact is I want to ask you a question. The Honourable Sybil Burnet has been travelling with you dressed as a lady’s-maid, and I am here to learn where she has now gone.”

The woman started in surprise, and glared at me. She probably, from my disguise as a working-man, put me down as a detective.

“And my reply to you, sir, is that Miss Sybil’s destination is her own affair. We parted, and she has gone south. That is all I know.”

“But you also know the reason why she is masquerading as a maid; why at Fort William and at Oban you made people believe she was your maid. You had a motive, and I think you may as well admit it.”

“I do not see your right to question me about my private affairs!” she exclaimed angrily. “This is monstrous!”

“I have no desire to pry into your affairs, madam,” I answered, quite coolly. “The Honourable Sybil is a friend of mine, and I am anxious to know her whereabouts,” I said.

“But I cannot tell you what I don’t know myself. She went on to Carlisle—that’s all I know.”

“She parted from you suddenly. Why?” I asked. “Shall I tell you? Because she is in fear of being followed,” I exclaimed, and, smiling, added, “I think, madam, that I hold greater knowledge of the family than perhaps even you do yourself. I have known the Scarcliffs all my life. Old Lady Scarcliff is greatly upset regarding Sybil’s protracted absence. They are beginning to think that something has happened to her. I can now tell her that she has been with you, masquerading as your maid, and that you refuse all information concerning her. You know, I daresay, that the police are actively trying to find her on the application of her brother, Lord Scarcliff?”

My threat caused her some consternation. I could see that from the way she fumed and fidgeted.

“To tell Lady Scarcliff such a thing would only be to throw a blame upon myself of which I am entirely innocent,” she protested. “I assure you that if I knew where she had gone, I would tell you.”

“No, pardon me, madam. You would not. You believe that I’m a detective.”

“Your actions certainly betray you,” she exclaimed resentfully. “You’ve been watching us closely—for what reason?”

“Well,” I replied slowly. “The fact is, I am fully aware of the secret love existing between Sybil Burnet and Arthur Rumbold.”

“Sybil and Arthur?” she cried, turning pale and looking me straight in the face. “What do you mean? Arthur—my boy, Arthur!”

I nodded in the affirmative.

“Who are you?” she exclaimed, starting up breathlessly from her chair. She was in fear of me, I saw. “Who are you that you should know this?” she gasped.

“William Morton,” was my cool reply. “I thought I sent my name up to you this morning!”

Chapter Twenty Four.

Complications and Confessions.

Next morning, after a night journey, I called at the Douglas Hotel, in Newcastle, and was informed that Mrs Morton had arrived on the previous evening.

At last I had run her to earth.

She sent word that she would see me in half an hour, therefore I idled along Grainger Street West, killing time until she made her appearance. She approached me in the hall of the hotel smiling merrily and putting out her hand in welcome. Her black dress seemed slightly the worse for wear owing to her constant travelling, yet she was as neat and dainty as ever, a woman whose striking beauty caused every head to be turned as she passed.

We went out, turning to walk towards Blackett Street, and then amid the bustle of the traffic began to talk. She asked me when I had arrived, and how I had fared in London.

I told her nothing of the success of my advertisements, or the discovery of the plot so ingeniously formed against her, and allowed her to believe that I had only just arrived from London. I was waiting to see whether she would explain her journey to Scotland, and her companionship with Mrs Rumbold.

But she said nothing. We walked on together through Albion Place, and presently found ourselves in Leazes Park, that pretty promenade, gay in summer, but somewhat cheerless on that grey wintry morning.

“You were recognised in Carlisle,” I exclaimed after we had been chatting some time. “Tell me about it. I was surprised to get your note, and I confess I was also somewhat alarmed. Was the person who recognised you an enemy or a friend?”

“A friend,” was her prompt reply. “But his very friendliness would, I knew, be fatal to my interests, so I had to fly. He recognised me, even in this dress, stopped me in the street, raised his hat and spoke. But I discerned his intention, therefore I passed on with affected indignation and without answering. Had I opened my mouth my voice might have betrayed me. I went on to Glasgow.”

“And there? What happened?”

She glanced at me in quick suspicion. I saw she was embarrassed by my question.

“Happened?” she echoed, nervously. “What do you mean?”

We were in the Park, and quite alone, therefore I halted, and looking her straight in the face exclaimed,—

“Something happened there, Sybil. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Sybil,” she said in a tone of reproach. “Am I no longer Tibbie to you, as of old? You are changed, Wilfrid—changed towards me. There is something in your manner so very unusual. What is it?”

“I desire to know the truth,” I said in a hard voice. “You are trying to keep back things from me which I ought to know. I trust you, and yet you do not trust me in return. Indeed, it seems very much as though you are trying to deceive me.”

“I am not,” she protested. “You still misjudge me, Wilfrid, and merely because there are certain things which it would be against my own interests to explain at this moment. Every woman is permitted to have secrets; surely I may have mine. If you were in reality my husband, then it would be different. Hitherto, you have been generosity itself towards me. Why withdraw it now, at the critical moment when I most require your aid and protection.”

“Why?”

“Because in Glasgow I was recognised by one of my enemies,” she said. “Ah! you don’t know what a narrow escape I had. He traced me—and came from London to hunt me down and denounce me. Yet I managed to meet him with such careless ease that he was disarmed, and hesitated. And while he hesitated I escaped. He is still following me. He may be here, in Newcastle, for all I know. It we meet again, Wilfrid,” she added in a hoarse, determined voice, “if we meet again it will all be hopeless. My doom will be sealed. I shall kill myself.”

“No, no,” I urged. “Come, don’t contemplate such a step as that!”

“I fear to face him. I can never face him.”

“You mean John Parham.”

“Who told you?” she started quickly. “How did you know his name?”

“I guessed it. They told me at the hotel that you had had a visitor, and that you had soon afterwards escaped to the north.”

“Do you actually know Parham?”

“I met him once,” was my reply, but I did not mention the fellow’s connection with the house with the fatal stairs.

“Does he know that we are friends?”

“How can I tell? But why do you fear him?”

“Ah, it is a long story. I dare not face that man, Wilfrid. Surely that is sufficient.”

“No. It is not sufficient,” I replied. “You managed to escape and get up to Fort William.”

“Ah! The man at the hotel told you so, I suppose,” she said. “Yes, I did escape, and narrowly. I was betrayed.”

“By whom?”

“Unwittingly betrayed by a friend, I think,” she replied, as we walked on together towards the lake. On a winter’s morning there are few people in Leazes Park, therefore we had the place to ourselves, save for the keeper strolling idly some distance away.

“Sybil,” I exclaimed presently, halting again, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, “why are you not straightforward and outspoken with me?”

I recollected the postscript of the dead man’s letter which I had secured in Manchester—the allegation that she was playing me false.

Her eyes were cast down in confusion at my plain question, yet the next instant she assumed a boldness that was truly surprising.

“I don’t understand you,” she declared with a light nervous little laugh.

“Then I suppose I must speak more plainly,” I said. “It is a pity, Sybil, that you did not tell me the truth from your own lips.”

She went pale as her eyes met mine in quick anxiety.

“The truth—about what?”

“About your love for Arthur Rumbold,” I said very gravely, my gaze still fixed steadily upon hers.

In an instant her gloved hands clenched themselves, her lips twitched nervously, and she placed her hand upon her heart as though to stop its wild beating.

“My love?” she gasped blankly—“my love for Arthur Rumbold?”

“Yes, your love for him.”

“Ah! Surely you are cruel, Wilfrid, to speak of him—after—after all that has lately happened,” she burst forth in a choking voice. “You cannot know the true facts—you cannot dream the truth, or that man’s name would never pass your lips.”

“No,” I said gravely. “I do not know the truth. I am in utter ignorance. I only know that you met Mrs Rumbold at Fort William and travelled back with her to Dumfries.”

“That is quite true,” she answered. “I have no wish to conceal it.”

“But your love for her son—you have concealed that!”

“A woman who loves truly does not always proclaim it to the world,” was the reply.

“Then if you love him why are you in hiding? Why are you masquerading as my wife?” I demanded seriously. I was, I admit, piqued by her attitude, which I perhaps misjudged as defiant.

She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but met my gaze unflinchingly.

“You promised me your assistance,” she sighed. “If you now regret your promise I willingly release you from it.”

“I have no wish to be released,” I answered. “I only desire to know the truth. By a fortunate circumstance, Sybil, I have discovered your secret love for Arthur Rumbold—and yet at Ryhall you said you had decided to marry Ellice Winsloe.”

“A woman does not always marry the man she really loves,” she argued. “It is a regrettable fact, but horribly true.”

“Then you love this man, Arthur Rumbold? Come, do not tell me an untruth. We are old enough friends to be frank with each other.”

“Yes, we are. I am frank with you, and tell you that you have blamed yourself for assisting me, now that you have discovered my folly.”

“Folly of what?”

“Of my love. Is it not folly to love a man whom one can never marry?”

“Then he is already married, perhaps?”

She was silent, and glancing at her I saw that tears stood in her magnificent eyes. She was thinking of him, without a doubt.

I recollected those words penned by the dead man; that allegation that she was fooling me. Yes. What he said was correct. The scales had now fallen from my eyes. I read the truth in her white countenance, that face so very beautiful, but, alas! so false.

Who was Nello, the man with whom she corresponded by means of that cipher—the man she trusted so implicitly? Was he identical with Arthur Rumbold? Had she killed the writer of that extraordinary letter because he knew the truth—because she was in terror of exposure and ruin?

My knowledge of Rumbold had entirely upset all her calculations. In those moments of her hesitancy and confusion she became a changed woman. Her admission had been accompanied by a firm defiance that utterly astounded me.

I noticed how agitated she had become. Her small hands were trembling; and she was now white to the lips. Yet she was still determined not to reveal her secret.

“Ah! you can never know, Wilfrid, what I have suffered—what I am suffering now,” she said in a deep intense voice, as we stood there together in the gardens. “You have thought me gay and careless, and you’ve often told me that I was like a butterfly. Yes, I admit it—I admit all my defects. When I was old enough to leave the schoolroom, society attracted me. I saw Cynthia, the centre of a smart set, courted, flattered, and admired, and like every other girl, I was envious. I vied with her successes, until I, too, became popular. And yet what did popularity and smartness mean? Ah! I can only think of the past with disgust.” Then, with a sigh, she added, “You, of course, cannot believe it, Wilfrid, but I am now a changed woman.”

“I do believe you, Tibbie,” was my blank reply, for want of something else to say.

“Yes,” she went on, “I see the folly of it all now, the emptiness, the soul-killing wear and tear, the disgraceful shams and mean subterfuges. The woman who has success in our set stands alone, friendless, with a dozen others constantly trying to hurl her from her pedestal, and ever ready with bitter tongues to propagate grave insinuations and scandal. It is woman to woman; and the feuds are always deadly. I’m tired of it all, and have left it, I hope, for ever.”

“Then it was some adventure in that gay circle, I take it, that is responsible for your present position?” I said slowly.

“Ah!” she sighed in a low, hoarse voice, “I—I never dreamed of the pitfalls set for me, and in my inexperience believed in the honesty of everyone. But surely I was not alone! Beneath a dress shirt beats the heart of many a blackguard, and in our London drawing-rooms are to be found persons whose careers, if exposed, would startle the world. There are men with world-famous names who ought to be in the criminal dock, but whose very social position is their safeguard; and women with titles who pose as charity patrons, but are mere adventuresses. Our little world, Wilfrid, is, indeed, a strange one, a circle of class and criminality utterly inconceivable by the public who only know of us through the newspapers. I had success because, I suppose, of what people are pleased to call my good looks, but—but, alas! I fell a victim—I fell into a trap ingeniously set for me, and when I struggled to set myself free I only fell deeper and deeper into the blackguardly intrigue. You see me now!” she cried after a brief pause, “a desperate woman who cares nought for life, only for her good name. I live to defend that before the world, for my poor mother’s sake. Daily I am goaded on to kill myself and end it all. I should have done so had not Providence sent you to me, Wilfrid, to aid and counsel me. Yet the blow has again fallen, and I now see no way to vindicate myself. The net has closed around me—and—and—I must die!”

And she burst into a sudden torrent of tears.

Were they tears of remorse, or of heart-broken bitterness?

“There is no other way!” she added in a faint, desperate voice, her trembling hand closing upon my wrist. “You must leave me to myself. Go back to London and remain silent. And when they discover me dead you will still remain in ignorance—but sometimes you will think of me—think of me, Wilfrid,” she sobbed, “as an unhappy woman who has fallen among unscrupulous enemies.”

“But this is madness!” I cried. “You surely will not admit yourself vanquished now?”

“No, not madness, only foresight. You, too, are in deadly peril, and must leave me. With me, hope is now dead—there is only the grave.”

She spoke those last words so calmly and determinedly that I was thoroughly alarmed. I refused to leave her. The fact that Parham had discovered her showed that all hope of escape was now cut off. This she admitted to me. Standing before me, her countenance white and haggard, I saw how terribly desperate she was. Her chin then sank upon her breast and she sobbed bitterly.

I placed my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, full of sympathy.

“The story of your unhappiness, Tibbie, is the story of your love. Is it not?” I asked, slowly.

Her chest rose and fell slowly as she raised her tearful eyes to mine, and in reply, said in a low, faltering voice,—

“Listen, and I will tell you. Before I die it is only right that you should know the truth—you who are my only friend.”

And she burst again into a flood of tears, stirred by the painful remembrance of the past.

I stood there holding her for the first time in my arms. And she buried her face upon my shoulder, trembling and sobbing as our two hearts beat in unison.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Makes Plain a Woman’s Fear.

“Tell me,” I said at last, full of sympathy for her in her dire unhappiness, “tell me, Tibbie, about this man Rumbold.”

For some moments she was silent. Her pale lips trembled.

“What is there to tell?” she exclaimed hoarsely. “There was nothing extraordinary in our meeting. We met at a country house, as I met a hundred other men. Together we passed some idle summer days, and at last discovered that we loved each other.”

“Well?”

“Well—that is all,” she answered in a strange, bitter voice. “It is all at an end now.”

“I never recollect meeting him,” I remarked, reflectively.

“No—you never have,” she said. “But please do not let us discuss him further,” she urged. “The memories of it all are too painful. I was a fool!”

“A fool for loving him?” I asked, for so platonic were our relations that I could speak to her with the same frankness as her own brother.

“For loving him!” she echoed, looking straight at me. “No—no. I was a fool because I allowed myself to be misled, and believed what I was told without demanding proof.”

“Why do you fear the man who found you in Glasgow?”

“Ah! That is quite another matter,” she exclaimed quickly. “I warn you to be careful of John Parham. A word from me would place him under arrest; but, alas! I dare not speak. They have successfully closed my lips!”

Was she referring, I wondered, to that house with the fatal stairs?

“He is married, I suppose?”

“Yes—and his wife is in utter ignorance of who and what he is. She lives at Sydenham, and believes him to be something in the City. I know the poor woman quite well.”

It was upon the tip of my tongue to make inquiry about Miss O’Hara, but by so doing I saw I should admit having acted the spy. I longed to put some leading questions to her concerning the dead unknown in Charlton Wood, but in view of Eric’s terrible denunciation how could I?

Where was Eric? I asked her, but she declared that she was in ignorance.

“Some time ago,” she said, “I heard that he was in Paris. He left England suddenly, I believe.”

“Why?”

“The real reason I don’t know. I only know from a friend who saw him one day sitting before a café in the Boulevard des Italiens.”

“Your friend did not speak to him?” I inquired quickly.

“No.”

“Then it might have been a mistake. The person might, I mean, have merely resembled Eric Domville. Was your informant an intimate friend?”

“A friend—and also an enemy.”

“Ah! Many of us have friends of that sort!” I remarked, whereat she sighed, recollecting, no doubt, the many friends who had played her false.

The wild, irresponsible worldliness, the thoughtless vices of the smart woman, the slangy conversation and the loudness of voice that was one of the hall-marks of her go-ahead circle, had now all given place to a quietness of manner and a thoughtful seriousness that utterly amazed me. In her peril, whatever it was, the stern realities of life had risen before her. She no longer looked at men and things through rose-coloured spectacles, she frankly admitted to me, but now saw the grim seriousness of life around her.

Dull drab Camberwell had been to her an object-lesson, showing her that there were other peoples and other spheres beside that gay world around Grosvenor Square, or bridge parties at country houses. Yet she had, alas! learned the lesson too late. Misfortune had fallen upon her, and now she was crushed, hopeless, actually seriously contemplating suicide.

This latter fact caused me the most intense anxiety.

Apparently her interview with Arthur Rumbold’s mother had caused her to decide to take her life. The fact of Parham having found her in Glasgow was, of course, a serious contretemps, but the real reason of her decision to die was the outcome of her meeting with Mrs Rumbold.

What had passed between the two women? Was their meeting at Fort William a pre-arranged one, or was it accidental? It must have been pre-arranged, or she would scarcely have gone in the opposite direction to that of which she left word for me.

The situation was now growing more serious every moment. As we stood together there I asked her to release me from my imposture as her husband, but at the mere suggestion she cried,—

“Ah! no, Wilfrid! You surely will not desert me now—just at the moment when I most need your protection.”

“But in what way can this pretence of our marriage assist you?”

“It does—it will,” she assured me. “You do not know the truth, or my motive would be quite plain to you. I have trusted you, and I still trust in you that you will not desert or betray me.”

“Betray you? Why, Tibbie, what are you saying?” I asked, surprised. Could I betray her? I admired her, but I did not love her. How could I love her when I recollected the awful charge against her?

“Do you suspect that I would play you false, as some of your friends have done?” I asked, looking steadily into her fine eyes.

“No, no; forgive me, Wilfrid,” she exclaimed earnestly, returning my gaze. “I sometimes don’t know what I am saying. I only mean that—you will not leave me.”

“And yet you asked me to go back to London only a few minutes ago!” I said in a voice of reproach.

“I think I’m mad!” she cried. “This mystery is so puzzling, so inscrutable, and so full of horror that it is driving me insane.”

“Then to you also it is a mystery!” I cried, utterly amazed at her words. “I thought you were fully aware of the whole truth.”

“I only wish I knew it. If so, I might perhaps escape my enemies. But they are much too ingenious. They have laid their plans far too well.”

She referred, I supposed, to the way in which those scoundrels had forced money from her by threats. She was surely not alone in her terrible thraldom. The profession of the blackmailer in London is perhaps one of the most lucrative of criminal callings, and also one of the safest for the criminal. A demand can cleverly insinuate without making any absolute threat, and the blackmailer is generally a perfect past-master of his art. The general public can conceive no idea of the widespread operations of the thousands of these blackguards in all grades of society. When secrets cannot be discovered, cunning traps are set for the unwary, and many an honest man and woman is at this moment at the mercy of unscrupulous villains, compelled to pay in order to hush up some affair of which they are in reality entirely innocent. No one is safe. From the poor squalid homes of Whitechapel to the big mansions of Belgravia, from garish City offices to the snug villadom of Norwood, from fickle Finchley to weary Wandsworth, the blackmailer takes his toll, while it is calculated that nearly half the suicides reported annually in London are of those who take their own lives rather than face exposure. The “unsound mind” verdict in many instances merely covers the grim fact that the pockets of the victim have been drained dry by those human vampires who, dressed smugly and passing as gentlemen, rub shoulders with us in society of every grade.

I looked at Sybil, and wondered what was the strange secret which she had been compelled to hush up. Those letters I had filched from the dead man were all sufficient proof that she was a victim. But what was the story? Would she ever tell me? I looked at her sweet, beautiful face, and wondered. We moved on again, slowly skirting the picturesque lake. She would not allow me to release myself from my bond, declaring that I must still pose as William Morton, compositor.

“But everyone knows we are not married,” I said. “Mrs Rumbold, for instance!”

“Not everyone. There are some who believe it, or they would not hesitate to attack me,” was her vague and mysterious response.

“For my own part, Tibbie, I think we’ve carried the masquerade on quite long enough. I’m beginning to fear that Jack, or some of his friends, may discover us. Your description is circulated by the police, remember; besides, my prolonged absence has already been commented upon by your people. Jack and Wydcombe have been to my rooms half a dozen times, so Budd says.”

“No. They will not discover us,” she exclaimed, quite confidently.

“But walking here openly, and travelling up and down the country is really inviting recognition,” I declared. “You were recognised, you’ll remember, in Carlisle, and again in Glasgow. To-morrow you may be seen by one of your friends who will wire to Jack. And if we are found together—what then?”

“What then?” she echoed. “Why, I should be found with the man who is my best—my only friend.”

“But a scandal would be created. You can’t afford to risk that, you know.”

“No,” she answered slowly in a low, hard voice, “I suppose you are right, I can’t. Neither can you, for the matter of that. Yes,” she added, with a deep sigh, “it would be far better for me, as well as for you, if I were dead.”

I did not reply. What could I say? She seemed filled by a dark foreboding of evil, and her thoughts now naturally reverted to the action over which she had perhaps for weeks or months been brooding.

I had endeavoured to assist her for the sake of our passionate idyllic love of long ago, but all was in vain, I said. I recognised that sooner or later she must be discovered, and the blow—the exposure of her terrible crime—must fall. And then?

She had killed the man who had held her in thraldom. That was an undoubted fact. Eric had fully explained it, and could testify to the deed, although he would, I knew, never appear as witness against her. The unknown blackguard scorning her defiance had goaded her to a frenzy of madness, and she had taken her revenge upon the cowardly scoundrel.

Could she be blamed? In taking a life she had committed a crime before God and man, most certainly. The crime of murder can never be pardoned, yet in such circumstances surely the reader will bear with me for regarding her action with some slight degree of leniency—with what our French neighbours would call extenuating circumstances.

And the more so when I recollected what the dead unknown had written to his accomplice in Manchester. The fellow had laid a plot, but he had failed. The woman alone, unprotected and desperate, had defended herself, and he had fallen dead by her hand.

In my innermost heart I decided that he deserved the death.

Why Ellice Winsloe had recognised the body was plain enough now. The two men were friends—and enemies of Sybil Burnet.

I clenched my fingers when I thought of the dangerous man who was still posing as the chum of young Lord Scarcliff, and I vowed that I would live to avenge the wrong done to the poor trembling girl at my side.

She burst into hot tears again when I declared that it would be better for us to return again to the obscurity of Camberwell.

“Yes,” she sobbed. “Act as you think best, Wilfrid. I am entirely in your hands. I am yours, indeed, for you saved my life on—on that night when I fled from Ryhall.”

We turned into the town again through Gallowgate when she had dried her eyes, and had lunch at a small eating-house in New Bridge Street, she afterwards returning to her hotel to pack, for we had decided to take the afternoon train up to King’s Cross.

She was to meet me at the station at half-past three, and just before that hour, while idling up and down Neville Street awaiting the arrival of her cab, of a sudden I saw the figure of a man in a dark travelling ulster and soft felt hat emerge from the station and cross the road to Grainger Street West.

He was hurrying along, but in an instant something about his figure and gait struck me as familiar; therefore, walking quickly after him at an angle before he could enter Grainger Street, I caught a glimpse of his countenance.

It was John Parham! And he was going in the direction of the Douglas Hotel.

He had again tracked her down with an intention which I knew, alas! too well could only be a distinctly evil one.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Takes me a Step Further.

We were back again in Neate Street, Camberwell.

In Newcastle we had a very narrow escape. As Parham had walked towards the hotel, Sybil had fortunately passed him in a closed cab. On her arrival at the station she was in entire ignorance of the fellow’s presence, and as the train was already in waiting we entered and were quickly on our way to London, wondering by what means Parham could possibly have known of her whereabouts.

Was she watched? Was some secret agent, of whom we were in ignorance, keeping constant observations upon us and reporting our movements to the enemy? That theory was Sybil’s.

“Those men are utterly unscrupulous,” she declared as we sat together in the little upstairs room in Camberwell. “No secret is safe from them, and their spies are far better watchers than the most skilled detectives of Scotland Yard.”

At that moment Mrs Williams entered, delighted to see us back again, for when we had left, Tibbie had, at my suggestion, paid rent for the rooms for a month in advance and explained that we were returning.

“Two gentlemen came to inquire for you a week ago, Mr Morton,” she exclaimed, addressing me. “They first asked whether Mrs Morton was at home, and I explained that she was away. They then inquired for you, and appeared to be most inquisitive.”

“Inquisitive? About what?” asked my pseudo wife.

“Oh! all about your private affairs, mum. But I told them I didn’t know anything, of course. One of the men was a foreigner.”

“What did they ask you?” I inquired in some alarm.

“Oh, how long you’d been with me, where you worked, how long you’d been married—and all that. Most impudent, I call it. Especially as they were strangers.”

“How did you know they were strangers?”

“Because they took the photograph of my poor brother Harry to be yours—so they couldn’t have known you.”

“Impostors, I expect,” I remarked, in order to allay the good woman’s suspicions. “No doubt they were trying to get some information from you in order to use it for their own purposes. Perhaps to use my wife’s name, or mine, as an introduction somewhere.”

“Well, they didn’t get much change out of me, I can tell you,” she laughed. “I told them I didn’t know them and very soon showed them the door. I don’t like foreigners. When I asked them to leave their names they looked at each other and appeared confused. They asked where you were, and I told them you were in Ireland.”

“That’s right,” I said, smiling. “If they want me they can come here again and find me.”

Then, after the landlady had gone downstairs, I asked Tibbie her opinion.

“Did I not tell you that inquiries would be made to ascertain whether I were married?” she said. “The woman evidently satisfied them, for she has no suspicion of the true state of affairs.”

“Then you are safe?”

“Safe only for the present. I may be in increased peril to-morrow.”

“And how long do you anticipate this danger to last?” I asked her seriously, as she sat there gazing into the meagre fire.

“Last! Until my life’s end,” she answered very sadly. Then turning her wonderful eyes to mine she added, “I know you cannot sacrifice your life for me in this way much longer, Wilfrid. Therefore it must end. Yet life, after all, is very sweet. When I am alone I constantly look back upon my past and recognise how wasted it has been; how I discarded the benefits of Providence and how from the first, when I came out, I was dazzled by the glitter, gaiety, and extravagance of our circle. It has all ended now, and I actually believe I am a changed woman. But it is, alas! too late—too late.”

Those words of hers concealed some extraordinary romance—the romance of a broken heart. She admitted as much. Why were these men so persistently hunting her down if they were in no fear of her? It could only be some desperate vendetta—perhaps a life for a life!

What she had said was correct. Mine was now a most invidious position, for while posing as William Morton, I was unable to go to Bolton Street or even call upon Scarcliff or Wydcombe for fear that Winsloe and his accomplices should learn that I was still alive. Therefore I was compelled to return to the Caledonian Hotel in the Adelphi, where Budd met me in secret each evening with my letters and necessaries.

Another week thus went by. The greater part of the day I usually spent with Tibbie in that dull little room in Neate Street, and sometimes, when the weather was fine, we went to get a breath of air in Greenwich Park or to Lewisham or Dulwich, those resorts of the working-class of South London. At night, ostensibly going to work, I left her and spent hours and hours carefully watching the movements of Ellice Winsloe.

To Lord Wydcombe’s, in Curzon Street, I followed him on several occasions, for he had suddenly become very intimate with Wydcombe it appeared, and while I stood on the pavement outside that house I knew so well my thoughts wandered back to those brilliant festivities which Cynthia so often gave. One night, after Winsloe had dined there, I saw the brougham come round, and he and Cynthia drove off to the theatre, followed by Jack and Wydcombe in a hansom. On another afternoon I followed Winsloe to the Scarcliffs in Grosvenor Place, and later on saw him laughing with old Lady Scarcliff at the drawing-room window that overlooked Hyde Park Corner. He presented a sleek, well-to-do appearance, essentially that of a gentleman. His frock coat was immaculate, his overcoat of the latest cut, and his silk hat always ironed to the highest perfection of glossiness.

Tibbie, of course, knew nothing of my patient watchfulness. I never went near my chambers, therefore Ellice and Parham certainly believed me dead, while as to Domville’s hiding in Paris, I confess I doubted the truth of the statement of Tibbie’s friend. If the poor fellow still lived he would most certainly have written to me. No! He was dead—without a doubt. He had fallen a victim in that grim house of doom.

Again and again I tried to find the gruesome place, but in vain. Not a street nor an alley in the neighbourhood of Regent Street I left unexplored, yet for the life of me I could not again recognise the house. The only plan, I decided, was to follow Parham, who would one day go there, without a doubt.

I called on Mrs Parham at Sydenham Hill, and found that her husband was still absent—in India, she believed. Miss O’Hara, however, remained with her. What connection had the girl with those malefactors? I tried to discern. At all events, she knew their cipher, and they also feared her, as shown by their actions on that dark night in Dean’s Yard.

My own idea was that Parham was still away in the country. Or, if he were in London, he never went near Winsloe. The police were in search of him, as admitted by the inspector at Sydenham, therefore he might at any moment be arrested. But before he fell into the hands of the police I was determined to fathom the secret of that house of mystery wherein I had so nearly lost my life.

For Tibbie’s personal safety I was now in constant and deep anxiety. They were desperate and would hesitate at nothing in order to secure their own ends. The ingenuity of the plot to seize her in Dean’s Yard was sufficient evidence of that. Fortunately, however, Tibbie had not seen my cipher advertisements.

Another week passed, and my pretended wife had quite settled down again amid her humble surroundings. It amused me sometimes to see the girl, of whose beauty half London had raved, with the sleeves of her cotton blouse turned up, making a pudding, or kneeling before the grate and applying blacklead with a brush. I, too, helped her to do the housework, and more than once scrubbed down the table or cleaned the windows. Frequently we worked in all seriousness, but at times we were compelled to laugh at each other’s unusual occupation.

And when I looked steadily into those fine, wide-open eyes, I wondered what great secret was hidden there.

Time after time I tried to learn more of Arthur Rumbold, but she would tell me nothing.

In fear that the fact of her disappearance might find its way into the papers, she wrote another reassuring letter to her mother, telling her that she was well and that one day ere long she would return. This I sent to a friend, a college chum, who was wintering in Cairo, and it was posted from there. Jack naturally sent out a man to Egypt to try and find her; and in the meantime we allayed all fears that she had met with foul play.

Days and weeks went on. In the security of those obscure apartments in Neate Street, that mean thoroughfare which by day resounded with the cries of itinerant costermongers, and at evening was the playground of crowds of children, Sybil remained patient, yet anxious. Mrs Williams—who, by the way, had a habit of speaking of her husband as her “old man”—was a kind, motherly soul, who did her best to keep her company during my absences, and who performed little services for her without thought of payment or reward. The occupation of compositor accounted not only for my absence each night during the week, but on Sunday nights also—to prepare Monday morning’s paper, I explained.

I told everybody that I worked in Fleet Street, but never satisfied them as to which office employed me. There were hundreds of compositors living in the neighbourhood, and if I made a false statement it would at once be detected. With Williams I was friendly, and we often had a glass together and a pipe.

Our life in Camberwell was surely the strangest ever led by man and woman. Before those who knew us I was compelled to call her “Molly,” while she addressed me as “Willie,” just as though I were her husband.

A thousand times I asked her the real reason of that masquerade, but she steadfastly declined to tell me.

“You may be able to save me,” was all the information she would vouchsafe.

Darkness fell early, for it was early in February, and each night I stole forth from the Caledonian Hotel on my tour of vigilance. The hotel people did not think it strange that I was a working-man. It was a quiet, comfortable place. I paid well, and was friendly with the hall-porter.

With the faithful Budd’s assistance—for he was friendly with Winsloe’s valet—I knew almost as much of the fellow’s movements as he did himself. I dogged his footsteps everywhere. Once he went down to Sydenham Hill, called upon Mrs Parham, and remained there about an hour while I waited outside in the quiet suburban road. When he emerged he was carrying a square parcel packed in brown paper, and this he conveyed back to Victoria, and afterwards took a cab to his own chambers.

He had not been there more than a quarter of an hour, when along King Street came a figure that I at once recognised as that of the man I most wanted to meet—John Parham himself.

I drew back and crossed the road, watching him enter Winsloe’s chambers, of which he apparently had a latchkey.

Then I waited, for I meant, at all hazards, to track the fellow to his hiding-place, and to discover the true identity of the house where I had been so ingeniously entrapped.

At last he emerged carrying the square packet which his friend had obtained at Sydenham, and behind him also came Winsloe. They walked across St. James’s Square and up York Street to the Trocadero, where, after having a drink together, they parted, Winsloe going along Coventry Street, while his companion, with the packet in his hand, remained on the pavement in Shaftesbury Avenue, apparently undecided which direction to take.

I was standing in the doorway of the Café Monico opposite, watching him keenly, and saw that he was evidently well known at the Trocadero, for the gold-laced hall-porter saluted him and wished him good-evening.

A few moments later he got into a cab and drove away, while in a few seconds I had entered another cab and was following him. We went up Shaftesbury Avenue, turning into Dean Street and thus reaching Oxford Street opposite Rathbone Place, where he alighted, looked around as though to satisfy himself that he was not followed, and walked on at a rapid pace up Rathbone Place, afterwards turning into many smaller thoroughfares with which I was unacquainted. Once he turned, and I feared that he had detected me, therefore I crossed the road and ascended the steps of a house, where I pretended to ring the door-bell.

He glanced back again, and finding that he was not being followed increased his pace and turned the corner. I was after him in an instant, and still followed him at a respectable distance until after he had turned several corners and was walking up a quiet, rather ill-lit street of dark old-fashioned houses, he glanced up and down and then suddenly disappeared into one of the door-ways. My quick eyes noted the house and then, five minutes afterwards, I walked quickly past the place.

In a moment I recognised the doorway as that of the house with the fatal stairs!

Returning, on the opposite side of the road, I saw that the place was in total darkness, yet outwardly it was in no way different to its neighbours, with the usual flight of steps leading to the front door, the deep basement, and the high iron railings still bearing before the door the old extinguishers used by the ink-men in the early days of last century. I recognised the house by those extinguishers. The blinds had not been lowered, therefore I conjectured that the place was unoccupied.

The street was, I found, called Clipstone Street, and it lay between Cleveland Street and Great Portland Street, in quite a different direction than that in which I had imagined it to be.

After a quarter of an hour Parham emerged without his parcel, closed the door behind him, and walked on to Portland Place, where, from the stand outside the Langham, he took a cab to Lyric Chambers, in Whitcomb Street, opposite Leicester Square, where I discovered he had his abode.

My heart beat wildly, for I knew that I was now on the verge of a discovery. I had gained knowledge that placed the assassins of Eric Domville in my hands.

I lost not a moment. At the Tottenham Court Road Police Station I was fortunate in finding Inspector Pickering on duty, and he at once recognised me as the hero of that strange subterranean adventure.

As soon as I told him I had discovered the mysterious house he was, in an instant, on the alert, and calling two plain-clothes men announced his intention of going with me at once to Clipstone Street to make investigations.

“Better take some tools with you, Edwards, to open the door, and a lantern, each of you,” he said to them. Then turning to me, he added,—

“If what we suspect is true, sir, there’s been some funny goings-on in that house. But we shall see.”

He took a revolver from his desk and placed it in his pocket, and afterwards exchanged his uniform coat for a dark tweed jacket in order not to attract attention in the neighbourhood.

Then we all four went forth to ascertain the truth.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

The House of Doom.

On arrival at Clipstone Street our first inquiry was to ascertain whether the place was inhabited.

While we waited around the corner in Great Portland Street, one of Pickering’s men approached and rang the bell, but though he repeated the summons several times, there was no response. Then, with easy agility, he climbed over the railings and disappeared into the area.

Leaving the second man to give us warning if we were noticed, Pickering and myself sauntered along to the house.

It was nearly eleven o’clock, and there were few passers-by, yet we did not wish to be discovered, for our investigations were to be made strictly in secret, prior to the police taking action.

Was I acting judiciously, I wondered? Would the revelation I had made reflect upon Sybil herself? Would those men who used that house hurl against her a terrible and relentless vendetta?

Whether wisely or unwisely, however, I had instituted the inquiry, and could not now draw back.

The inspector himself took the small bag containing a serviceable-looking housebreaker’s jemmy and other tools, and as we came to the area handed it down to the man below. Then both of us scrambled over the locked gate and descended the steps to the basement door by which it had been decided to enter.

The plain-clothes man was something of a mechanic, I could see, for he was soon at work upon the lock, yet although he tried for a full quarter of an hour to open the door, it resisted all his efforts.

“It’s bolted,” he declared at last, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “We must try the front door. That’s no doubt only on the latch. If we force this they’ll know we’ve been here, while if we force the latch we can put that right again before we leave.”

“Very well, Edwards,” was the inspector’s reply. “Go up alone and do it. It won’t do for us both to be up with you. Force the latch, and let us trust to luck to be able to put it right again. We’ll have to lay a trap here—of that I feel sure.”

The man ascended to the door above us, but scarcely had he done so when we heard the hoarse cry of “Star—extrar spe-shall!” from the further end of the street—the pre-arranged signal warning us of someone approaching.

Edwards therefore slipped down the steps and walked in the opposite direction until the two men who had entered the street had passed. Then Edwards sprang up the steps again, and after trying the lock with a number of keys we suddenly heard a low crack, and then there was silence.

“All right,” he whispered to us over the railings, and a minute later we were standing inside the dark hall of the house wherein I had so nearly lost my life. Edwards closed the door behind us noiselessly, and we were compelled to grope forward in the pitch darkness, for the inspector deemed it wise to draw down the blinds before lighting our lanterns, for fear our movements should attract notice from without.

Edwards entered the front room on the right, stumbling over some furniture, and pulled down the dark holland blind, while a moment later a rapping on the front door announced the arrival of the man who had been watching to cover our movements.

The policemen’s lanterns, when lit, revealed an old-fashioned room furnished solidly in leather—a dining-room, though there were no evidences of it having been recently used. Behind it, entered by folding doors, was another sitting-room with heavy well-worn furniture covered with old-fashioned horsehair. In the room was a modern roll-top writing-table, the drawers of which Pickering reserved for future investigation.

“Be careful of the stairs,” I said, as Edwards started to ascend them. “The dangerous ones are nearly at the top of the second storey. There’s no danger on the first floor.”

“All right, sir,” replied the man. “I’ll be wary, you bet!” and we climbed to the first floor, the rooms of which, to our surprise, were all empty, devoid of any furniture save two or three broken chairs. In one room was a cupboard, which, however, was locked.

Again we turned to the stairs, Edwards and his companion ascending each stair slowly and trying the one higher with their hands. They were covered with new carpet of art green, different to the first flight, which were covered in red.

When a little more than half-way up to the top landing, Edwards suddenly exclaimed,—

“Here it is, sir!” and instantly we ascended to his side.

Kneeling on the stairs, he pressed his hands on the step above, whereupon that portion of the stairway up to the landing swung forward upon a hinge, disclosing a black abyss beneath.

I looked into it and shuddered. Even Pickering himself could not restrain an expression of surprise and horror when he realised how cunningly planned was that death-trap. The first six stairs from the top seemed to hang upon hinges from the landing. Therefore with the weight of a person upon them they would fall forward and pitch the unfortunate victim backwards before he could grasp the handrail, causing him to fall into the pit below.

“Well,” remarked Pickering, amazed, as he pushed open the stairs and peered into the dark blackness below, “of all the devilish contrivances I’ve ever seen in my twenty-one years’ experience in London, this is one of the most simple and yet the most ingenious and most fatal?”

“No doubt there’s a secret way to render the stairs secure,” I remarked.

“No doubt, but as we don’t know it, Edwards, one of you had better go down and get something to lay over the stairs—a piece of board, a table—anything that’s long enough. We don’t want to be pitched down there ourselves.”

“No, sir,” remarked Edwards’ companion, whose name was Marvin. “I wouldn’t like to be, for one. But I daresay lots of ’em have gone down there at times.”

“Most probably,” snapped the inspector, dismissing the man at once to get the board.

“Bring up the jemmy as well,” he added, over the banisters. “We may want it.”

A few minutes later the two men brought up a long oak settle from the hall, and bridging the fatal gulf, held it in position, while we passed over, not, however, without difficulty, as the incline was so great. Then when we were over we held it while they also scrambled up.

To the left was a closed door—the room from which had come the sound of Eric’s voice on that fatal night. I recognised it in a moment, for it was pale green, picked out in a darker shade.

I opened it, and Pickering shone his lamp within. The blinds were up, but Edwards rushed and pulled them down. Then, on glancing round, I saw it was a pretty well-furnished room, another sitting-room, quite different from those below, as it was decorated in modern taste, with furniture covered with pale yellow silk and comfortable easy chairs, as though its owner were fond of luxury. The odour of stale cigars still hung in the curtains. Perhaps it was the vampire’s den, a place where he could at all events be safe from intrusion with those fatal stairs between him and the street.

I explained my theory to the inspector, and he was inclined to agree with me.

Upon the floor lay a copy of an evening paper nearly a month old, while the London dust over everything told us that at least it had not been occupied recently.

In that room poor Eric had defied his captors. I looked eagerly around for any traces of him. Yes. My eye fell upon one object—a silver cigarette-case that I had given him two years ago!

The tell-tale object was lying upon the mantelshelf unheeded, tossed there, perhaps, on the night of the crime.

I handed it to Pickering and told him the truth.

“A very valuable piece of evidence, sir,” was the inspector’s reply, placing it in his pocket. “We shall get at the bottom of the affair now, depend upon it. The only thing is, we mustn’t act too eagerly. We must have them all—or none; that’s my opinion.”

Then, with his two men, he methodically searched the room, they carefully replacing everything as they found it in a manner which showed them to be expert investigators of crime. Indeed, while Pickering was an inspector of police, the two men were sergeants of the branch of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to the station. They examined quite a heterogeneous collection of things—the usual things one finds in a man’s rooms. From a drawer in a kind of sideboard I took out a quantity of letters, beneath which I found a woman’s necklace, a magnificent antique thing in diamonds and emeralds, which had apparently been hurriedly concealed there, and perhaps forgotten.

Pickering took it in his hand and examined it close to his lamp.

“Real, without a doubt, and a costly one, too! Been taken off some rich woman, perhaps. See! the snap has been broken. Perhaps they are afraid to get rid of it at once, so are keeping it. For the present let’s put it back.”

As I replaced it I saw in the corner of the drawer a ring—a gold one with an engraved amethyst. This I at once recognised as poor Eric’s signet ring! Concealed among papers, pamphlets, string, medicine bottles and other odds and ends, were other articles of jewellery mostly costly, as well as several beautiful ropes of pearls.

Were they, we wondered, the spoils of the dead? What had been the fate of Eric Domville? Had he been entrapped there, despoiled, as others had been, and then allowed to descend those fatal stairs to his doom?

That was Pickering’s opinion, just as it was mine.

I longed to be allowed time to inspect the few letters beneath which the emerald necklace had been concealed, but Pickering urged me on, saying that we had yet much to do before morning.

So we entered the other rooms leading from the landing, but all were disappointing—all save one.

The door was opposite that wherein Eric had faced his enemies, and when we opened it we saw that it was a dirty faded place which had once been a bedroom, but there was now neither bedstead nor bedding. Upon the floor was an old drab threadbare carpet, in the centre of which was a large dark stain.

“Look!” I cried, pointing to it and bending to examine it more closely.

“Yes, I see,” remarked the inspector, directing his lamp full upon it. “That’s blood, sir—blood without the least doubt!”

“Blood!” I gasped. “Then Domville was probably invited in here and struck down by those fiends—the brutes!”

Edwards went on his knees, and by the aid of his lamp examined the stain more carefully, touching it with his fingers.

“It’s hardly quite dry, even now,” he remarked. “It’s soaked right in—through the boards, probably.”

I stood appalled at the sight of that gruesome evidence of a crime. I was not familiar with such revolting sights, as were my companions.

How, I wondered, had Eric been struck down? What motive had Sybil’s friend in reporting that he was alive and in Paris, when he was not?

Pickering, in the meanwhile, made a tour of the room. From a chair that had recently been broken he concluded that the person attacked had defended himself with it desperately, while there was a great rent in one of the dirty lace curtains that hung at the window, and it was slightly blood-stained, as though it had got caught in the struggle.

The last room we examined, which lay at the rear of the house, presented another peculiar feature, inasmuch as it was entirely bare save a table, a chair and a meagre bed, and it showed signs of rather recent occupation. Beside the grate was a cooking-pot, while on the table a dirty plate, a jug and a knife showed that its occupant had cooked his own food.

Pickering made a tour of the place, throwing the light of his lantern into every corner, examining the plate and taking up some articles of man’s clothing that lay in confusion upon the bed. Then suddenly he stopped, exclaiming,—

“Why, somebody’s been kept a prisoner here! Look at the bars before the window, and see, the door is covered with sheet-iron and strengthened. The bolts, too, show that whoever was put in here couldn’t escape. This place is a prison, that’s evident,” and taking up a piece of hard, stale bread from the table he added, “and this is the remains of the prisoner’s last meal. Where is he now, I wonder?”

“Down below,” suggested the detective Edwards.

“I fear so,” the inspector said, and taking me to the window showed me how it only looked out upon the roof of the next house and in such a position that the shouts of anyone confined there would never be heard.

“They probably kept their victims here to extort money, and then when they had drained them dry they gave them their liberty. They went downstairs,” he added grimly, “but they never gained the street.”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Brings us Face to Face.

Pickering was essentially a man of action.

“We must go down that hole and explore,” he said determinedly. “We must know the whole of the secrets of this place before we go further. Edwards, just slip round to the station and get that rope-ladder we used in the Charlotte Street affair. Bring more rope, as it may be too short. And bring P.C. Horton with you. Tell him to take his revolver. Look sharp.”

“Very well, sir,” replied the man, who clambered over the settle and down the stairs, leaving us there to await his return.

Time passed slowly in that dark, gruesome house, and at each noise we halted breathlessly in expectation of the return of Parham or one of his friends.

Returning to the room wherein Eric Domville had so gallantly defied his enemies, we resumed our search, and from beneath the couch the constable drew forth the square brown-paper parcel which Winsloe had obtained from the house called Keymer, and handed over to Parham.

Pickering, in a trice, cut the string with his pocket-knife, and within found a small square wooden box nailed down. The jemmy soon forced it open, when there was revealed a large packet of papers neatly tied with pink tape, which on being opened showed that they were a quantity of negotiable foreign securities—mostly French.

“The proceeds of some robbery, most certainly,” declared Pickering, examining one after the other and inquiring of me their true character, he being ignorant of French.

“I expect the intention is to negotiate them in the City,” I remarked after I had been through them and roughly calculated that their value was about twenty thousand pounds.

“Yes. We’ll put them back and see who returns to fetch them. There’s evidently a widespread conspiracy here, and it is fortunate, Mr Hughes, that you’ve been able at last to fix the house. By Jove!” the inspector added with a smile, “we ourselves couldn’t have done better—indeed, we couldn’t have done as well as you did.”

“I only hope that we shall discover what has become of my friend Domville,” I said. “I intend that his death shall not go unavenged. He was in this room, I’ll swear to that. I’d know his voice among ten thousand.”

“We shall see,” remarked the officer, confidently. “First let us explore and discover how they got rid of their victims. I only hope nobody will return while we are below. If they do, Horton and Marvin will arrest them. We’ll take Edwards down with us.”

While the constable Marvin repacked the precious box to replace it, Pickering and myself went to the drawer and looked over the letters. Many of them were unimportant and incomprehensible, until one I opened written upon blue-grey notepaper bearing the heading: “Harewolde Abbey, Herefordshire.” It was in the well-known handwriting of Sybil Burnet! Amazed, I read eagerly as follows:—

“Yes. Fred Kinghorne is here. He is an American, and beyond the Marstons has, I believe, no friends in England. He is an excellent bridge player and has won heavily this week. He has told me that he is engaged to a girl named Appleton, daughter of a Wall Street broker, and that she and her mother are to meet him in Naples on the twentieth, for a tour in Italy. He leaves here next Saturday, and will stay at the Cecil for ten days prior to leaving for Italy. He is evidently very well off, and one of the reasons he is in England is to buy some jewellery as a wedding present for his bride. The Marstons tell me that he is the son of old Jacob Kinghorne, the great Californian financier. I hope this information will satisfy you.—S.”

Harewolde, as all the world knows, was one of the centres of the smart set. The Marstons entertained the royalties frequently, and there were rumours of bridge parties and high stakes. Why had Sybil given this curious information? Had the young man Kinghorne been marked down as one of the victims and enticed to that fatal house?

There was no envelope, and the commencement of the letter was abrupt, as though it had been enclosed with some unsuspicious communication.

Having read it, I laid it down without comment, for it was my last desire to incriminate the poor unhappy woman, who, shorn of her brilliancy, was now leading such a strange and lowly life in that dull South London street.

Yet could it be possible that she had acted for these blackguards as their secret agent in society?

The suggestion held me stupefied.

At last Edwards ascended the stairs with Horton and another constable in plain clothes, and scrambled across the settle to where we stood. He carried in his hand a strong ladder of silken rope—which Pickering incidentally remarked had once been the property of Crisp, the notable Hampstead burglar—together with another lantern, a ball of string and a length of stout rope.

Marvin and Edwards recrossed the improvised bridge, while Pickering, Horton and myself remained upon the landing. Then, when we drew the settle away the two men pressed upon the stairs, causing the whole to move forward upon the hinges at the edge of the landing and disclosing the black abyss. As soon as the pressure was released, however, the stairs swung back into their place again, there being either a spring or a counter-balancing weight beneath.

This was the first difficulty that faced us, but it was soon overcome by inserting the settle when the stairs were pushed apart, thus keeping them open. To the stout oak pillar which formed the head of the banisters Pickering fixed the rope-ladder firmly, and with Marvin tried its strength.

“I’ll go down first, sir,” volunteered Edwards. “You’ve got the lantern. Will you light it and let it down by the string after me?”

So with all of us breathlessly excited the silken ladder was thrown across to Edwards, whose round face beamed at the project of subterranean exploration. Then, when the lamp was lit and tied upon the string, he put his foot into the ladder, swung himself over the edge of the stairs and descended into the darkness, Pickering lowering the lamp after him.

We stood peering down at his descending figure, but could discern but little save the glimmering of the light and the slow swinging of the ladder, like a pendulum.

“Great Moses!” we heard him ejaculate in amazement.

Yet down, down, down he went until it became apparent that he must have reached the end of the ladder, and now be sliding down the extra length of rope which Pickering had attached.

“All right, sir!” came up his voice, sounding cavernous from the pitch darkness. “It’s a jolly funny place down here, an’ no mistake. Will you come down? I’m releasing the lantern. Send down another, please. We’ll want it.”

Pickering hauled in the string, attached Marvin’s bull’s-eye to it, and let it down again at once. The pit was of great depth, as shown by the length of cord. Then with an agility which would have done credit to a much younger man, he swung himself over on to the ladder.

“If you’d like to come down, Mr Hughes, you can follow me,” he exclaimed, as he disappeared into the darkness. “Horton, hold your light over me. You two stay here. If anybody enters the place, arrest them quickly.”

“Very well, sir,” answered the man Horton, and the inspector went deeper down until only the trembling of the ladder betokened his presence there.

“All right, Mr Hughes. Come down, but be careful,” he cried up presently, his voice sounding far away. “You’ll have to slide down the rope for the last twelve feet or so. Cling tight, and you’ll be all right.”

I grasped the ladder, placed my foot into the first loop, and then with the light held over me, went down, down, first into a place which seemed large and cavernous, and presently down a kind of circular well with black slimy walls which seemed to descend into the very bowels of the earth.

Below I could hear the sound of rushing waters, but above them was the inspector’s encouraging voice, crying, “All right. Now then, take the rope in your legs and slip straight down.”

I did so, and a moment later found myself up to my knees in an icy cold stream, which swept and gurgled about me.

Pickering and his assistant stood at my side, their lamps shining upon the dark subterranean flood.

“Is this the place you remember?” asked the inspector, shining his bull’s-eye around and revealing that we were at the bottom of a kind of circular well which had on either side two low arches or culverts. From the right the water rushed in with a swirling current, and by the opposite culvert it rushed out, gurgling and filling the arch almost to its keystone. I saw that all the black slimy masonry was of long flat stones—a relic of ancient London it seemed to be.

“This isn’t the place where I found myself,” I said, much surprised.

“No, I suppose not,” remarked the inspector. “This is fresh water, from a spring somewhere, and through that ancient culvert there’s probably a communication with the main sewer. When you fell, you were swept down there and out into the main sewer at once—like a good many others who have come down here. It’s an awful death-trap. Look up there,” and he shone his lamp above my head.

“Don’t you see that a bar of iron has been driven into the wall—and driven there recently, too, or it would have rusted away long ago in this damp.”

“Well?” I said, not quite following him.

“That’s been put there so that the victims, in falling from the great height, should strike against it and be rendered unconscious before reaching the water. Look. There’s a bit of white stuff on it now—like silk from a lady’s evening dress!”

And sure enough I saw at the end of that iron bar a piece of white stuff fluttering in the draught, the grim relic of some unfortunate woman who had gone unconsciously to her death! The dank, gruesome place horrified me. Its terrible secrets held all three of us appalled. Even Pickering himself shuddered.

“To explore further is quite impossible,” he said. “That culvert leads into the main sewer, so we must leave its exploration to the sewermen. Lots of springs, of course, fall into the sewers, but the exact spots of their origin are unknown. They were found and connected when the sewers were constructed, and that’s all. My own opinion,” he added, “is that this place was originally the well of an ancient house, and that the blackguards discovered it in the cellar, explored it, ascertained that anything placed in it would be sucked down into that culvert, and then they opened up a way right through to the stairs.”

The inspector’s theory appeared to me to be a sound one.

I expressed fear of the rising of the water with the automatic flushing of the sewers, but he pointed out that where we stood must be on a slightly higher level, judging from the way the water rushed away down the culvert, while on the side of the well there was no recent mark of higher water, thus bearing out his idea of a spring.

Edwards swarmed up the rope and managed to detach the piece of silk from the iron bar. When he handed it to us we saw that though faded and dirty it had been a piece of rich brocade, pale blue upon a cream ground, while attached was a tiny edging of pale blue chiffon—from a woman’s corsage, Pickering declared it to be—perhaps a scrap of the dress of the owner of that emerald necklet up above!

After a minute inspection of the grim ancient walls which rose from a channel of rock worn smooth by the action of the waters of ages, Pickering swarmed up the dangling rope, gained the ladder and climbed back again, an example which I quickly followed, although my legs were so chilled to the bone by the icy water that at first I found considerable difficulty in ascending.

Having gained the landing and been followed by Edwards, we drew up the ladder, removed the settle, allowed the fatal stairs to close again, and then bridged it over as before.

While we had been below Horton, who was a practised carpenter, had mended the latch of the front door, so that there should be no suspicion of our entry. We all clambered across the settle, descended the stairs to the basement, and were soon engaged in searching the downstairs rooms and cellar. We had found that the communication between the head of the well and the top of the house was a roughly-constructed shaft of boards when, of a sudden, while standing at the foot of the kitchen stairs we were startled by hearing the sharp click of a key in the lock of the front door above.

In an instant we were silent, and stood together breathless and listening. The dark slide slipped across the bull’s-eye.

It was truly an exciting moment.

Pickering, followed by Edwards and Marvin, crept noiselessly up the stairs, and while the person entering apparently had some difficulty with the lock they waited in the darkness.

I stood behind the inspector, my heart beating quickly, listening intently. It was an exciting moment standing ready in the pitch blackness of that silent house of doom.

The latch caught, probably on account of its recent disarrangement, but at last the key lifted it, the door opened, somebody entered the hall, and quietly re-closed the door.

Next instant Pickering sprang from his hiding-place, crying,—

“I arrest you on suspicion of being implicated in certain cases of wilful murder committed in this house!”

Horton at that same moment flashed his lamp full upon the face of the person who had entered there so stealthily, and who, startled by the dread accusation, stood glaring like some wild animal brought to bay, but motionless as though turned to stone.

The lamp-flash revealed a white, haggard countenance. I saw it; I recognised it!

A loud cry of horror and amazement escaped me. Was I dreaming? No. It was no dream, but a stern, living reality—a truth that bewildered and staggered me utterly—a grim, awful truth which deprived me of the power of speech.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Lifts the Veil.

The man under arrest was not, as I had expected, John Parham—but Eric Domville!

I stood glaring at him, utterly staggered.

Then I sprang forward to greet him—to welcome him as one returned from the grave, but next instant drew back. His face was changed—the expression upon it was that of terror—and of guilt!

“You are arrested,” continued Pickering, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, adding that phrase of patter which is spoken each time a person is taken into custody, “and I warn you that whatever statement you may now make will be taken down in writing and used in evidence against you at your trial.”

“I have no statement to make. I can do that later,” faltered the unhappy man whom I had, until that moment, regarded as my warmest friend.

The revelation struck me of a heap. At first I was unable to realise that I was awake, and in my right senses, yet there Domville stood, with a detective on either side of him, crushed and resistless. He had not even denied the truth of Pickering’s awful allegation.

Certainly in no man had I been more deceived them in him. I had given him hospitality; I had confided my secrets in him because we had been friends ever since our youth. Indeed, he had assisted me to shield Sybil, and yet the police had charged him with implication in the grim tragedies that had undoubtedly been enacted within those silent walls where we now stood.

“Is this true, Domville?” I cried at last, when I found tongue. “Speak.”

“True!” he echoed, with a strange, sickly smile, but in a low, hoarse tone. “The police are fools. Let them do as they like. They’ll soon find out that they’ve got hold of the wrong man. You surely know me well enough, Wilfrid, not to believe these fellows without proof.”

“Yes,” I cried, “I do, Eric. I believe you are innocent, and I’ll help you to prove it.”

Pickering smiled, saying, “At present, Mr Hughes, we must send this gentleman round to the station. We may discuss his innocence later on.” Then turning to Edwards he said in quick, peremptory tones, “Get a cab, you and Marvin, and take him round to the station. Then come back here. Tell Inspector Nicholls that I’ll charge him myself when I come round.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the man, and ten minutes later the prisoner and the two detectives drove off in a four-wheeled cab.

“Pardon me, Mr Hughes,” said Pickering, after he had gone, “but is it not injudicious to presuppose that man’s innocence, especially when guilt is so plainly written on his face? Some men’s faces are to us as open as the columns of a newspaper. That man’s is. He is guilty—he is one of the gang. What proof have you that he is not?”

“He is my friend,” I protested.

“And may he not be a criminal at the same time? Of many of our friends we are utterly unaware what lives they lead in secret. Charles Peace, the daring burglar, as you will probably remember, taught in a Sunday-school. Therefore, never judge a man by his outward profession, either of friendship or of piety.”

“But I heard the villains threaten him in that upstairs room,” I exclaimed. “He was in peril of his life.”

“Because they had quarrelled—perhaps over the distribution of the spoils. Criminals more often than not quarrel over that, and in revenge give each other away to us. No, Mr Hughes, before you jump to any conclusion in this matter just wait a bit, wait, I mean, till we’ve concluded our inquiries. Depend upon it a very different complexion will soon be placed upon the whole affair.”

Edwards and Marvin returned half an hour after wards.

“He made no statement,” Edwards said. “He’s one of ’em, that’s certain.”

“Why?” I asked. “How are you so positive?”

“Well, sir, we can generally pretty well tell, you know. He was a bit too resigned to be innocent.”

Through the whole night, until the cold grey of the wintry dawn, we sat in the back sitting-room, with one single bull’s-eye lantern turned on, awaiting the arrival of any of the others who might make a midnight visit there. I, of course, knew the addresses of both Parham and Winsloe, and had given them to Pickering; but he preferred that night to wait, and if possible arrest them actually in that house of doom.

Just as the faint dawn began to show through the chinks of the closed shutters, and Pickering was giving his men instructions before returning to the station, we distinctly heard another key rattle in the latch.

We were all on the alert in an instant.

“We’ll let him go upstairs if that’s his intention,” whispered the inspector with satisfaction.

Again the newcomer had the same difficulty with the latch, but at length the door opened, letting in a flood of grey light into the hall, and then closed again. We had drawn back behind the half-closed door of the room wherein we had kept our night vigil, and standing there scarcely daring to breathe, we watched a dark-haired young man in a brown tweed suit ascend the stairs. He wore a thick travelling coat, a flat cloth cap, and carried a well-worn brown handbag. Evidently he had just come off a night journey, for he sighed wearily as humming to himself he ascended those fatal stairs.

Fortunately we had removed the settle back to its place, but on arrival on the first landing we heard him halt and pull a creaking lever somewhere—the mechanism by which the six stairs were held fast and secure. Then he went on up to the top and entered that well-furnished little sitting-room.

For ten minutes we allowed him to remain there undisturbed—“Just to allow him to settle himself,” as Pickering whispered grimly. Then one by one the officers crept noiselessly up until we had assembled on the landing outside the closed door.

Then, of a sudden, Pickering drew his revolver, threw open the door, and the sleek-haired newcomer was revealed.

He fell back as though he had received a blow.

“We are police officers,” explained Pickering, “and I arrest you.”