In order to see her I used frequently to run down from London to my home on Saturdays and remain till Mondays. With her mother she sat in her seat in front of the Rectory pew, and as she walked down the aisle her face would be illumined by a glad light of welcome. How restful were those Sundays after the wear and tear of London life! How peaceful the days in that sleepy little village hidden away in a leafy hollow three miles from the Great Western line! After we had parted, however, I did not go home for six months. Then, on inquiry, I found that the Blains had sold their place, presumably because they were in want of money, for it was said that they had taken a smaller house facing the Thames, near Laleham, that village a little beyond Shepperton, where in the churchyard lies Matthew Arnold. From all accounts old Blain had lost heavily in speculation and had been compelled to sell his carriages and horses, dispose of many of his pictures, and even part with some of the Louis Seize furniture at Shenley Court, where they had lived. This was, of course, indicative of a very severe reverse of fortune.
Since those hours of Mary’s love and her subsequent falseness, my life had been a queer series of ups and downs, as it must ever be in journalistic London. Many dreary days of changeful care had come and gone since then.
I sat silent, thinking, with her letter still open in my hand.
“Why are you so confoundedly glum, old man?” Dick asked. “What’s your screed about? Duns in the offing?”
“No. It’s nothing,” I answered evasively, smiling.
“Then don’t look so down in the mouth,” he urged. “Have a peg, and pull yourself together.” He had been in India, and consequently termed a whisky-and-soda a “peg.” The origin of that expression is a little abstruse, but is supposed to refer pointedly to the pegs in one’s coffin.
I thrust the letter into my pocket, helped myself to a drink, and lit a cigarette.
“It’s a really first-class sensation,” Dick said, again referring to the curious affair. “Pity I can’t publish something of it to-morrow. It’s a good thing chucked away.”
“Yes,” I replied. “But Patterson has some object in imposing secrecy on us.”
“Of course,” he answered thoughtfully.
There was a pause. We both smoked on. Not a sound penetrated there save the solemn ticking of the clock and the distant strains of a piano in some man’s rooms across the square.
“Do you know, Frank,” my companion said after some reflection, and looking at me with a rather curious expression – “do you know that I have some strange misgivings?”
“Misgivings!” I echoed. “Of what?”
“Well,” he said, “did anything strike you as strange in Patterson’s manner?”
“To tell the truth,” I answered, “something did. His attitude was unusual – quite unusual, to-night.”
“He’s a funny Johnnie. That story of the snake on the pavement – isn’t it rather too strange to be believed?”
“At first sight it appears extraordinary, but remember that in the laboratory upstairs we found other snakes. The occupier of the house evidently went in for the reptiles as pets.”
“I quite agree with you there,” he said. “But there are certain circumstances in the case which have aroused my suspicion, old chap. Of all the curious cases I’ve ever investigated while I’ve been on the Comet, this is the most astounding from every point of view, and I, for one, shan’t rest until we’ve fully solved the problem.”
“In that you’ll have my heartiest assistance,” I said. “All the time I can spare away from the office I’ll devote to helping you.”
“Good,” Dick exclaimed heartily, refilling his pipe. “Between us we ought to find out something, for you and I can get at the bottom of things as soon as most people.”
“The two strangest features of this case,” I pointed out, “are first the telephonic message, and secondly, the disappearance of the first woman we found.”
“And those cards!”
“And that penny wrapped so carefully in paper!” I added. “Yes, there are fully a dozen extraordinary features connected with the affair. The whole business is an absolute puzzle.”
“Tell me, old chap,” Dick said, after a pause, “what causes you to suspect Patterson?”
“I don’t suspect him,” I answered quickly. “No. I merely think that he has not told the exact truth of the first discovery of the crime, that’s all.”
“Exactly my own opinion,” responded Dick. “He’s concealing some very important fact from us – for what purpose we can’t yet tell. There’s more in this than we surmise. Of that I feel absolutely confident.”
“The snake story is a little too good,” I said, rather surprised that his suspicions should have been aroused, for I had not related to him my conversation with Patterson and his very lame excuse for not making a report of the discovery at the police-station. What had aroused Dick’s suspicions I was extremely puzzled to know. But he was a shrewd, clever fellow, whose greatest delight was the investigation of crime and the obtaining of those “revelations” which middle-class London so eagerly devours.
“A very happy invention of an ingenious mind, my dear fellow,” exclaimed the Mystery-monger. “Depend upon it, Patterson, being already aware that there were snakes in that house, invented the story, knowing that when the place was searched it would appear quite circumstantial.”
“Then you think that he’s not in absolute ignorance of who lived there?” I exclaimed, surprised at my friend’s startling theory.
Dick nodded.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if it be proved that he knew all along who the dead man is.”
“Why?”
“Well, I noticed that he never once looked at that man’s face. It was he who covered it with a handkerchief, as though the sight of the white countenance appalled him.”
“Come come,” I said, “proceed. You’ll say that he’s the guilty one next.”
“Ah! no, my dear fellow,” he hastened to reassure me. “You quite misunderstand my meaning. I hold the theory that in life these people were friends of Patterson’s, that’s all.”
“What makes you suspect such a thing?”
“Well, I watched our friend very closely this evening, and that’s the conclusion I’ve arrived at.”
“You really think that he is concealing facts which might throw light on the affair?” I exclaimed, much surprised.
“Yes,” he answered, “I feel certain of it – absolutely certain.”
Chapter Six
What I Saw in the Park
For a long time, sitting by the open window and looking out upon the starry night, we discussed the grim affair in all its details. The piano had stopped its tinkling, a dead silence had fallen upon the old-world square, one of the relics of bygone London, and the clock upon the hall had struck one o’clock with that solemnity which does not fail to impress even the most dissipated resident of Gray’s. As a bachelor abode Gray’s Inn is as comfortable and convenient a spot as there is in London, for there is always a quiet, restful air within; the grey, smoke-stained houses open on airy squares, and until a couple of years ago, quite a large colony of rooks made their home in the great old trees. It is an oasis of peace and repose in the very centre of that gigantic fevered city, where the whirl of daily life is unceasing, where in the east and south toiling millions struggle fiercely for their bread, while in the west is greater wealth and extravagance than in all the world besides.
“I think,” said Dick at last, after he had put forth one or two theories, “that if we manage to get to the bottom of this affair we shall discover some very startling facts.”
“That’s absolutely certain,” I answered. “The disappearance of the fair girl, and the substitution of the other, is in itself a fact absolutely unique in the annals of crime. Whoever effected that change must have been indeed a bold person.”
“Didn’t the people next door see any taxi drive up, or notice anything being brought up to the house?”
“No. That’s the strangest part of it,” I responded. “Nothing was seen of any cab or conveyance, although, of course, there must have been one.”
“And that inquiry by telephone was a remarkable incident,” Dick went on. “You say that the inquirer was popping about to various call-rooms ringing up his confederates. That shows that there were two or three in the secret. It hardly seems feasible that the man who rang up from the Minories was the same as the one with whom you spoke at Putney.”
“No; but the arrangement to meet in St. James’s Park to-morrow is extraordinary, to say the least.”
“Ah, my dear fellow,” observed my friend, with a smile, “I very much fear that that appointment won’t be kept. Men such as they evidently are will hardly risk a meeting. On reflection, the individual, whoever he is, will see that he has given himself away, and his natural caution will prevent him from going near St. James’s Park.”
“Well, I only hope he does meet me,” I observed.
“So do I. But to my mind such a circumstance is entirely out of the question. You see he went to call-boxes in order to avoid detection.”
“The curious thing is, that if it were the same man who rang up each time he must have travelled from one place to another in an amazingly rapid manner.”
“There might be two persons,” he suggested.
“Of course there might,” I answered. “But I think not. The girl at the exchange evidently recognised the voice of the persistent inquirer.”
“I’m glad I came down – very glad,” he said. “I went over to see Lily, but she’s gone to Ipswich with her aunt, an old lady who feared to travel alone. It appears she wrote to me this morning, but the letter has missed the post, I suppose. It will come to-morrow morning.”
“You had your journey to Peckham for nothing, then?”
“Yes,” he answered. “She ought to have sent me a wire. Just like a woman.”
I knew Lily Lowry, the pretty friend of Dick Cleugh, very well indeed. I did not know that he actually loved her. There was undoubtedly a mutual friendship between them, but nevertheless he often would go for a month and see nothing of her. The daughter of a struggling shopkeeper near the Elephant and Castle, she had been compelled to seek her own living, and was at present assistant at a large cheap draper’s in Rye Lane, Peckham. Setting the convenances at naught, as became a London girl of the present decade, she had many times visited our dingy abode. I had always suspected that the love was on her side, for she was always giving him various little things – embroidered pouches, handkerchiefs and those semi-useful articles with which girls delight the men they love.
But Dick did not seem in the least concerned at not having seen her. He was annoyed that he had had a journey on the Chatham and Dover for nothing, and thought a great deed more of the mystery of Phillimore Place than of Lily’s well-being. He was a pessimist in every sense of the word. Once he had told me the story of his first love, a strange tragedy of his life that had occurred in his days at Jesus. It was this, I always suspected, that had evoked from him the real ardent affection which a man should have for a woman who is to be his companion through life. Man loves but once, it is true, but the love of youth is in the generality of cases a mere heart-beating caused by a fantasy begotten of inexperience. The woman we love at sixteen – too often some kind-hearted housewife, whose soft speech we mistake for affection – we flout when we are twenty. The woman who was angelic in our eyes when in our teens, is old, fat and ugly when, four years later, the glamour has fallen from our eyes and we begin to find a foothold in the world. Wisdom comes with the moustache.
So it was with Dick. He had lost the woman he had loved in his college days, yet, as far as I could judge, none other had ever taken her place in his heart.
Two o’clock had struck ere we turned in, and both of us were up at seven, our usual hour, for evening papers, issued as they are at noon, are prepared early in the morning. We were always at our respective offices at half-past seven.
My first thought was of the meeting I had arranged in St. James’s Park, and of my friend’s misgivings regarding it. Full of anxiety, I worked on till eleven o’clock, when Boyd was shown into my room, greeting me merrily. His appearance was in no way that of a police-officer, for he wore a shabby suit of tweed, a soiled collar, and an old silk hat much frayed at the brim, presenting the appearance of the typical beery Fleet Street lounger.
“I’ve come to see you, Mr Urwin, regarding this meeting in the park,” he said. “Do you intend going?”
“Of course,” I answered, surprised that he should ask such a question. “Why?”
“Well, because I think it would be best to leave it entirely to us. You might be indiscreet and queer the whole thing.”
“I don’t think you’ll find me guilty of any indiscretion,” I said, somewhat piqued.
“I don’t apprehend that,” he said. “But on seeing you at the spot appointed, the mysterious person who made the inquiry last night will at once get away, for he will know that the secret is out. We must, as you know, act with greatest caution in this affair, so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion that the keeping of this appointment is in the hands of the police.”
“Then what, in your opinion, is the best course to pursue?” I inquired.
“First, your friend Mr Cleugh must not go near the park. I’ve already written him a note to that effect. Secondly, you must act exactly as I direct. A single slip will mean that the individual will escape, and in this we must not court failure by any indiscreet move.”
“And how do you intend that I should act?” I asked, sitting back in my writing-chair and looking at the shrewd detective who was known throughout London as one of the cleverest unravellers of crime, and who had been successful in so many cases wherein human life had been involved.
“Well,” he said, hesitating, “truth to tell, I would rather that you didn’t go to the park at all.”
“Why?”
“Because you could not wait about in the vicinity of the spot indicated without betraying a sign that you were in expectation of some one,” he answered. “Remember, you are not a detective.”
“No,” I answered, “I’m not a detective, but I’ve had a few years’ training in investigations. I think I could disguise my anxiety sufficiently.”
I was extremely anxious to keep the appointment, and his suggestion that I should not go caused me disappointment and annoyance.
“But if you were seen waiting about, the man we want would certainly not make his appearance. He’d scent danger at once. We’ve evidently got to deal with a very cunning scoundrel.”
“I could conceal myself,” I declared. “I promise you I will act with greatest discretion.”
“Well,” he said at length, after some further demur, “I suppose, then, you must have your own way. Personally, I don’t think the man will be such a fool as to run his neck into a noose. There’s been some clever work in connexion with this matter, and men capable of such ingenuity must be veritable artists in crime and not given to the committal of any indiscretion. The voice in the telephone was a squeaky one, I think you said?”
“Yes, weak and thin, like an old man’s.”
Boyd glanced at his watch – a gold hunter with an inscription. It had been given him by public subscription in Hampstead in recognition of his bravery in capturing two armed burglars in Fitzjohn’s Avenue.
“It’s time we went,” he exclaimed; but as we rose Dick entered in hot haste. He had just received Boyd’s note and had run round to my office.
“I’ve been out making an inquiry,” he said, having greeted us and expressed disappointment at Boyd’s decision. “I thought, in order to satisfy myself, and so that I could use the information later on, I would go round to Professor Braithwaite at the Royal Institution and ask his opinion of the scientific apparatus found in the laboratory. I went down to Patterson, got permission to remove it from the house, and took the whole affair in a cab to the Royal Institution.”
“Well, what’s the result?” I inquired breathlessly.
“The result?” he answered. “Why, the old Johnnie, when he saw the paraphernalia, stood dumbfounded, and when he put it together and commenced experimenting seemed speechless in amazement. The discovery, he declared, was among the greatest and most important of those made within the last twenty years. He sent messengers for a dozen other scientific men, who, when they saw the arrangement, examined it with great care and were equally amazed with old Braithwaite. All were extremely anxious as to the identity of the discoverer of this mode of liquefying almost the last of the refractory gases, but I, of course, held my tongue for a most excellent reason – I did not myself know. I merely explained that the apparatus had fallen into my hands accidentally and I wished to ascertain its use.”
“Then quite a flutter has been caused among these dry-as-dust old fossils,” I observed, laughing.
“A flutter!” Dick echoed. “Why, the whole of the scientific world will be in a state of highest excitement to-morrow when the truth becomes known. Old Braithwaite declared that the discoverer deserves an immediate knighthood.”
“Let’s be off,” Boyd said. He took no interest in the discovery. Like myself, his only object was to solve the mystery.
“Then I’m not to go?” Dick said inquiringly.
“No,” the detective replied. “I’m sorry, but a crowd of us will queer the thing. You shall have all the details later. Patterson has promised that you shall publish first news of the affair.”
Dick was sorely disappointed, I saw it in his face; nevertheless, with a light laugh he wished us goodbye when we emerged into Fleet Street, and hurried away back to the offices of the Comet, while Boyd and myself jumped into a hansom outside St. Dunstan’s Church, and drove along Pall Mall as far as St. James’s Palace, where we alighted and entered the park. The detective explained his tactics during the drive. They were that we should separate immediately on entering the park, and that he should go alone to the spot indicated by the mysterious voice, while I idled in the vicinity. I was to act just as I pleased, but we were not to recognise one another either by look or sign.
I own, therefore, that it was with considerable trepidation that I left the detective on entering the Mall and wandered slowly along beneath the trees, while he crossed and entered the park himself. In that thoroughfare, which forms a short and pleasant cut for taxis going eastward from Victoria station, there was considerable traffic at that hour. The sky was blue, and the June sun shone warmly through the trees, giving the Londoner a foretaste of summer, and causing him to think of straw hats, flannels and holiday diversions. A bright day in a London park at once arouses thoughts of the country or the sea. With my face set towards the long, regular façade of Buckingham Palace – a grey picture with little artistic touches of red, the scarlet coats of the Guards – I wondered what would be the outcome of this attempt to obtain a clue. That thin squeaky voice sounded in my ear as distinctly at that moment as it had done on the previous night, a weird summons from one unknown.
At last, just as Big Ben, showing high across the trees, chimed and boomed forth the hour of noon, I entered one of the small gates of the park and strolled along the grave: led walk down to the edge of the ornamental water, where, for some minutes, I stood watching a group of children feeding the water-fowl.
Though trying to look unconcerned, my eyes were ever on the alert. I had expected to see Boyd, but there was no sign of him, therefore I strolled along, passing the end of the water, the exact spot indicated. There was no one there beyond half a dozen school children feeding the birds with portions of dinners brought with them from distant homes.
Undecided whether to halt there, I kept my attention fixed upon the children, then, fearing to annoy Boyd by remaining at that point, I strolled slowly along the shore in the direction of Birdcage Walk. The detective had certainly concealed himself successfully, for although I kept my eyes on the watch I could discover no sign of him.
The hour of the appointment had passed, but, not daring to turn back to look, I kept straight on, until, at some distance beyond, I came to a seat beside the path and there I rested, drawing a newspaper from my pocket and pretending to read. Unfortunately, from where I sat, at a point opposite the Wellington Barracks, I could obtain no view of the meeting-place, and although Big Ben struck the quarter I was compelled to remain there inactive, watching furtively the few passers-by.
With a diligence perhaps unworthy of a journalist I read and re-read my newspaper for nearly half an hour, and in the course of that time the people who went along did not number a dozen. Of none of these did I entertain any suspicion. They included a couple of soldiers, two or three old women, a lady with a small child, a couple of nurses with children, a park-keeper, and a bank clerk with his wallet chained to his belt.
Secreted somewhere in the vicinity, Boyd was watching, but where I knew not. His surmise had unfortunately proved correct, I reflected, as the half-hour chimed. The man, whoever he was, was no fool.
For five minutes longer I remained, when a sudden impatience seized me, and I folded my paper and rose.
As I did so there came round the bend of the path, from the direction of the spot the mysterious voice had indicated, a slim figure in deep mourning, evidently a lady. She walked with an even swinging gait, not as one who was idling there, but as though with some fixed purpose. On her approach I saw that she was attired entirely in black, wearing a dress of the latest mode, the wide skirt of which rustled as she walked; a large hat with swaying feathers which at that moment struck me as somewhat funereal, and a thick spotted veil. Her black silk sunshade she carried on her arm, and as she came nearer I could not help being struck by her neatness of figure, her small waist, wide hips and well-moulded bust.
I lingered at the seat to brush the dust from my coat, so that she might pass and allow me a glance of her face.
She went by with a loud frou-frou of silken underskirt, and at that same instant I turned my gaze upon her and looked into her face.
Next second I drew back, startled and aghast.
Her hair was fair, her eyes large and blue, her features familiar. Even that thick veil could not conceal her marvellous beauty.
I looked again, believing it to be some chimera of my disordered imagination.
No. There was no mistake. It was an astounding, inexplicable truth.
She was the woman I had discovered cold and dead in that house in Kensington on the previous night – the woman whose body had so strangely disappeared.
For a few moments I stood rooted to the spot. The discovery held me petrified.
Then, with sudden resolve, I moved forward and followed her.