Chapter Five.
Which Puzzles both of us
Holding our breath in our eagerness, we turned over the letters and hastily scanned them through, save where the writing was obliterated by those dark stains.
They were a revelation to us both. They told a story which utterly amazed us.
Within the flat circular locket were engraved the words: “From Sybil – August 14th,” but there was no year. It was a love token which the unknown had worn around his neck, a beautiful miniature signed by one of the most fashionable modern miniaturists.
The letters were, for the most part, in a woman’s large, rather sprawling hand, which I at once recognised as Sybil’s, and signed either by her Christian name or by her initials, “S.B.”
The first we read was written on the notepaper of Hethe Hall, in Cumberland, a country house near Keswick, where she often visited. Undated, it ran: —
“I do wish, Ralph, you would be more careful. Your actions every day betray the truth, and I fear somebody may suspect. You know how carefully I am watched and how my every action is noted. Every hour I live in dread. Think what exposure would mean to me. I shall walk down to Braithwaite Station to-morrow evening about 5:30. Do not write to me, as I fear Mason may get hold of one of your letters. She is so very curious. If you are free to-morrow evening perhaps I shall meet you ‘accidentally.’ But I do warn you to be careful for my sake. Till to morrow. – S.”
What was meant by the “truth?” Was that ill-dressed, low-born fellow actually her secret lover? The love token showed that such was actually the case. Yet who was he?
Another note, written hurriedly upon a plain sheet of common notepaper, was as follows: —
“I don’t know if I can escape them. If so, I shall try and get hold of one of Mason’s dresses and hats and meet you in Serle Street, outside Lincoln’s Inn. But it is very risky. Do be careful that you are not followed.”
The next was upon pale green notepaper, bearing in gold the heading, “S.Y. Regina,” with the added words, “Off the Faroe Islands: —
“I am longing to be back again in town, but it cannot be for another four or five weeks. We have decided to do the Fiords. Do not write, as your letter must go through so many hands before it reaches me. What you tell me makes me suspicious. Why should they ask you that question if there had not been some whisper? Find out. Remember I have enemies – very bitter ones. It was hazardous of you to come to Glasgow. I saw you on the quay when we sailed. But you may have been recognised. If so, think of my position. Again I do beg of you to be as cautious as I am. From me the world shall never know the truth. I can keep a secret. See if you cannot do so, for my sake.”
Apparently the fellow had preserved all her letters, either because he was so deeply in love with her, or with that ulterior motive of which she had so openly accused him.
“Why did you speak to me on the stairs last night?” she asked, reproachfully, in another hastily-written note upon plain paper. “You imperil me at every moment. You may love me as fervently as you declare you do, but surely you should do nothing that may imperil my good name!”
In another, evidently of more recent date, she wrote:
“I cannot understand you. Our love has been a very foolish romance. Let us part and agree to forget it. I have been injudicious, and so have you. Let us agree to be friends, and I will, I assure you, do all I can for your interests in the future. Sometimes I think that Mason suspects. She may have seen you speak to me, or overheard you. She looks at me so very strangely sometimes, and I’m sure she watches me.”
Again in another communication, which was besmirched by the dead man’s blood, writing from the Hotel Ritz, in Paris, she said: —
“We are in deadly peril, both of us – but you more especially. E – knows the truth. Avoid him. He intends to betray you. I met J – in the Bois to-day, and he asked if you were in Paris. I pretended to be ignorant of your very existence, but he told me that E – had explained certain things, and he promised to keep my secret. I send you fifty pounds enclosed. Don’t acknowledge it. Burn this letter.”
The longest, written on thin blue foreign paper, was even more enigmatical. It was dated from her sister’s place up in Durham, and read: —
“You are right when you declared last night that I am very fond of Wilfrid Hughes. It is a pity, perhaps, that I did not marry him three years ago. If I had I should have been spared this awful anxiety and double life that I am now forced to lead. You say that I am giddy and heartless, thoughtless and reckless. Yes. I am all that, I admit. And yet I am only like many women who are seeking to forget. Some take morphia, others drink brandy, and I – well, I try and amuse myself as far as my remnant of a conscience will allow me. Ah! when I look back upon my quiet girlhood down at Ryhall I recollect how happy I was, how easily satisfied, how high were my ideals when I loved Wilfrid Hughes. And now? But will you not give me back my freedom? I ask, I beg, I implore of you to give me liberty – and save my life. You have always said that you loved me, therefore you surely will not continue this cruel persecution of a woman who is defenceless and powerless. I feel that your heart is too noble, and that when we meet to-morrow you will release me from my bond. Up to the present I have been able to close the lips of your enemies, yet how have you repaid me? But I do not reproach you. No. I only crave humbly at your feet.”
The last, written from Ryhall, and dated three days before, was brief but to the point: —
“If you are absolutely determined that I should see you then, I will keep your appointment. Recollect, however, that I have no fear of you. I have kept my mouth closed until to-day, and it will remain closed unless you compel me to open it. – S.”
The other papers, of which we made methodical examination, were mysterious and puzzling. Upon a sheet of ruled sermon paper was drawn in red ink a geometrical device – the plan of a house we took it to be – while another piece of paper was covered with long lists of letters, words and phrases in a masculine but almost microscopic hand, together with their cipher equivalents.
Was this the cipher used by the dead man to communicate with Sybil?
“This will assist us, no doubt,” remarked Eric, scrutinising it beneath the light. “Probably she sent him cipher messages from time to time.”
There was also a man’s visiting card, bearing the name, —
“Mr John Parham, Keymer, Sydenham Hill, S.E.” As I turned it over I remarked, “This also may tell us something. This Mr Parham is perhaps his friend.” The card-case was empty, but a couple of pawn tickets for a watch and ring, showing them to be pawned at a shop in the Fulham Road in the name of Green, completed the miscellaneous collection that I had filched from the dead man’s pockets, and showed that, at any rate, he had been in want of money, even though he had a few shillings upon him at the time of his death.
To say the least, it was a strange, gruesome collection as it lay spread upon the table. To my chagrin one of the blood-stained letters made an ugly mark upon the long hem-stitched linen toilet-cover.
Eric took up letter after letter, and with knit brows re-read them, although he vouchsafed no remark.
Who was the man? That was the one question which now occupied our minds.
“How fortunate we’ve been able to possess ourselves of these!” I remarked. “Think, if they had fallen into the hands of the police!”
“Yes,” answered my friend, “you acted boldly – more boldly than I dare act. I only hope that the person who saw us will not gossip. If he does – well, then it will be decidedly awkward.”
“If he does, then we must put the best face upon matters. He probably didn’t see us take anything from the body.”
“He may have followed and watched. Most likely.”
“We’ve more to fear from somebody having seen Sybil go to the spot this afternoon. At that hour people would be at work in the fields, and anybody crossing those turnips must have been seen half a mile off.”
“Unless they made a détour and came through the wood from the opposite side, as I expect she did. She would never risk discovery by going there openly.”
“But what shall we do with all this?” I asked.
“Burn the lot; that’s my advice.”
“And if we’ve been discovered. What then? It would be awkward if the police came to us for these letters and we had burnt them. No,” I declared. “Let us keep them under lock and key – at least for the present.”
“Very well, as you like. All I hope is that nobody will identify the fellow,” my friend said. “If they do, then his connection with Sybil may be known. Recollect what the letters say about the maid Mason. She suspects.”
“That’s so,” I said, seriously. “Mason must be sent to London on some pretence the first thing in the morning. She must not be allowed to see the body.”
“It seems that Sybil held some secret of the dead man’s, and yet was loyal to him throughout. I wonder what it was?”
“The fellow was an outsider, without a doubt. Sybil foolishly fell in love with him, and he sought to profit by it. He was an adventurer, most certainly. I don’t like that cipher. It’s suspicious,” I declared.
“Then you’ll keep all these things in your possession. Better seal them up and put them in your bank or somewhere safe.”
“Yes,” I said, “I’ll take them to my bank. At any rate, they’ll be put away from prying eyes there.”
“And how shall we face her?” Eric asked.
“How will she face us, that’s the question?” I said, in a low voice.
Then almost at the same moment we were both startled by hearing a low tapping upon my door.
Eric and I turned and looked inquiringly at each other.
“It’s Budd, your man, I expect,” he whispered. “He must not see me. Perhaps he’s heard of the affair and come to tell you. Look, I’ll get in there,” and springing across to a big old-fashioned oak wardrobe he slipped inside and I closed the door noiselessly.
Then, quick as thought, I swept up the letters and other articles upon the table, placed them in one of the drawers, and stood awaiting a further summons.
In a moment the low tapping was repeated.
“Who’s there?” I inquired, crossing and drawing aside the heavy portière.
“Wilfrid!” whispered a low voice. “Can you see me? I must speak with you at once.”
I started as though I had received a blow. It was Sybil herself!
Chapter Six.
Contains a Curious Confession
I unlocked the door, and opening it, met the love of my youth standing there in the darkness.
“Wilfrid!” she gasped, in a low whisper, “I – I want to speak to you. Forgive me, but it is very urgent. Come along here – into the blue room. Come, there is no time to lose.”
Thus impelled, I followed her along the corridor to the small sitting-room at the end, where she had apparently left her candle.
By its light I saw that she was dressed in a black tailor-made gown, and that her face was white and haggard. She closed the door, and noticing that I was still dressed, said, —
“Have you only just come up to bed?”
“Yes,” was my answer. “Eric and I have been gossiping. The others went up long ago, but he began telling me some of his African yarns.”
“But everyone is in bed now?” she inquired, quickly.
“Of course,” I answered, wondering why she had come to me thus, in the middle of the night. She had changed her dinner-gown for a walking dress, but there was still the bow of blue velvet in her gold-brown hair which she had apparently forgotten to remove.
“Wilfrid!” she said, in a low, hard voice, suddenly grasping both my hands. “Although you refused to marry me you are still my friend, are you not?”
“Your friend! Of course I am,” I answered rather hoarsely. “Did I not tell you so before dinner?”
“I know you did, but – ” and she dropped her fine eyes, still holding my hands in hers. Her own hands trembled, and apparently she dared not look me full in the face.
“But what – ?” I asked. “What troubles you? Why are you dressed like this?”
“I – I have been very foolish,” she whispered. “I am, after all, a woman, and very weak. Ah! Wilfrid – if I only dare tell you the truth – if I only dare?” she gasped, and I saw how terribly agitated she was.
“Why not? Why not confide in me?” I urged, seriously. “I can keep a secret, you know.”
“No, no,” she cried. “How can I? No, I only beg and implore of you to help me, and not to misjudge me.”
“Misjudge you, why? I don’t understand,” I said, in pretence of ignorance.
“Ah! of course not. But to-morrow you will know everything, and – ” but she did not conclude her sentence.
There was a change in her countenance, and I saw that she was fainting. I drew her to a big armchair, and a second later she sank into it unconscious.
Next instant I dashed along to my room for the water-bottle, whispered to Eric what had taken place and ran back to assist my little friend.
Ten minutes later she opened her eyes again and gazed steadily at the candle. Then, finding me at her side, she whispered, —
“Yes, ah – yes, I remember. How very foolish I have been. Forgive me, Wilfrid, won’t you? I miscalculated my strength. I thought myself stronger,” and her soft hand again sought mine, and she looked into my eyes steadily, with a long, earnest gaze.
“You are in distress, Tibbie,” I said, as kindly as I could. “What is it? How can I help you?”
“You can save me,” she said in an intense, earnest voice. “You can save my life if you will.”
“If I will? Why, of course I will,” was my quick response.
“Then you will really help me?”
“Only tell me what you wish me to do and I’ll do it at once,” I replied.
“You will have no fear?”
“Fear of what?”
“Well,” she exclaimed, hesitating, “suppose you were suspected of something – that the police believed you to be guilty of a crime?”
“Guilty of a crime?” I echoed, with a forced smile. “Well, they might suspect whatever they like, so long as I was innocent.”
“Then you are really prepared to bear any suspicion if it would be for my salvation?”
“Have I not already said that I am quite ready to help you, Tibbie?”
“Ah, yes, because you do not yet realise your grave peril,” she said. “If only I dare be frank with you – if only I dare tell you the awful, bitter truth! Yet I can’t, and you must remain in ignorance. Your very ignorance will cause you to court danger, and at the same time to misjudge me.”
“I shall not misjudge you,” I assured her. “But at the present I am, as you say, entirely in the dark. What is it you want me to do?”
For a moment she was silent, apparently fearing to make the suggestion lest I should refuse. At last she looked straight into my face and said, —
“What I ask you to do is to make a great sacrifice in order to save me. I am in peril, Wilfrid, in a grave, terrible peril. The sword of fate hangs over me, and may fall at any instant. I must fly from here – I must fly to-night and hide – I – ”
She hesitated again. Her words were an admission of her guilt. She was a murderess. That unknown man that I had left lying cold and dead beneath the trees had fallen by her hand.
“Well?” I asked, rather coldly, I fear.
“I must hide. I must efface my identity, and for certain reasons – indeed to obtain greater security I must marry.”
“Marry!” I echoed. “Well, really, Sybil, I don’t understand you in the least. Why?”
“Because I can, I hope, save myself by marrying,” she went on quickly. “To-night I am going into hiding, and not a soul must know of my whereabouts. The place best of all in which to hide oneself is London, in one of the populous working districts. They would never search for me there. As the wife of an industrious working-man I should be safe. To go abroad would be useless.”
“But why should you leave so hurriedly?” I asked her.
“Ah! you will know in due course,” was her answer. “Ask me no questions now, only help me to escape.”
“How?”
“Listen, and I will tell you of the plans I have formed. To-night I have thought it all out, and have made resolve. The car is in the shed over against the kennels. I backed it in yesterday, therefore it will run down the hill along the avenue, and right out through the lodge gates without petrol and noiselessly. Once in the Chichester road, I can drive it away without awakening either the house or the Grants who keep the gate. You’ll come with me.”
“Where?”
“To London.”
“And what would people say when it was known that you and I left together in the middle of the night?”
“Oh! they’d only say it was one of Tibbie’s mad freaks. It is useful sometimes,” she added, “to have a reputation for eccentricity. It saves so many explanations.”
“Yes, that’s all very well, but it is not a judicious course in any way.”
Suddenly I recollected the woman Mason whom I saw at all costs must be got out of the way. As a servant she might get a view of the dead man out of curiosity and identify him as her mistress’s lover.
“No,” I added, after a moment’s reflection. “If you really want to escape to London go in exactly the opposite direction. Run across the New Forest to Bournemouth, for instance. Take Mason with you. Go to the Bath Hotel, and then slip away by train say up to Birmingham, and from there to London.”
“Yes, but I can’t take Mason. She must remain in ignorance. She knows far too much of my affairs already.”
“Well, I can’t go with you. It would be madness. And you cannot go alone.”
She was silent, her lips pressed together, her brows knit. Her countenance was hard and troubled, and there was a look of unmistakable terror in those wonderful eyes of hers.
“And if I act on your advice, Wilfrid, will you meet me in secret in London to-morrow or the next day?”
“Certainly. I will do all I can to help you – only accept my advice and take Mason with you. Mislead her, just as you are misleading everyone.”
“You will not think ill of me if I ask you something?” she said, seriously, looking very earnestly up into my face.
“Certainly not. You can be perfectly open and straightforward with me, surely.”
“Then I want you to do something – although I’m almost afraid to ask you.”
“And what’s that?”
“I have no one else I can trust, Wilfrid, as I trust you. You are a man of honour and I am an honest woman, even though my enemies have whispered their calumnies regarding me. You are my friend; if you were not I surely dare not ask you to help me in this,” and her voice faltered as she averted her gaze. “I want you – I want you to pretend that you are my husband.”
“Your husband,” I exclaimed, staring at her.
“Yes,” she cried quickly. “To place myself in a position of safety I must first live in a crowded part of London where I can efface my identity; and secondly, for appearances’ sake, as well as for another and much stronger motive, I must have a husband. Will you, Wilfrid, pretend to be mine?”
Her request utterly nonplussed me, and she noticed my hesitation.
“If you will only consent to go into hiding with me I can escape,” she urged, quickly. “You can easily contrive to live in Bolton Street and pose as my husband in another part of the world; while I – well, I simply disappear. There will be a loud hue and cry after me, of course, but when I’m not found, the mater and the others will simply put my disappearance down to my eccentricity. They will never connect us, for you will take good care to be seen in London leading your usual life, and indeed seriously troubled over my disappearance. They will never suspect.”
“But why must you appear to have a husband?” I asked, extremely puzzled.
“I have a reason – a strong one,” she answered, earnestly. “I have enemies, and my hand will be strengthened against them the instant they believe that I have married.”
“That may be so,” I said, dubiously. “But where do you suggest taking up your abode?”
“Camberwell would be a good quarter,” she responded. “There is a large working-class population there. We could take furnished apartments with some quiet landlady. You are a compositor on one of the morning newspapers, and are out at work all night. Sometimes, too, you have to work overtime – I think they call it – and then you are away the greater part of the day also. I don’t want you to tie yourself to me too much, you see,” she added, smiling. “We shall give out that we’ve been married a year, and by your being a compositor, your absence won’t be remarked. So you see you can live in Bolton Street just the same, and pay me a daily visit to Camberwell, just to cheer me up.”
“But surely you could never bear life in a back street, Tibbie,” I said, looking at her utterly bewildered at her suggestion. “You would have to wear print dresses, cook, and clean up your rooms.”
“And don’t you think I know how to do that?” she asked. “Just see whether I can’t act the working-man’s wife if you will only help to save me from – from the awful fate that threatens me. Say you will, Wilfrid,” she gasped, taking my hand again. “You will not desert me now, will you? Remember you are the only friend I dare go to in my present trouble. You will not refuse to be known in Camberwell as my husband – will you?”
I was silent. Was any living man ever placed in dilemma more difficult? What could I reply? That she was in real deep earnest I saw from her white, drawn countenance. The dark rings around her eyes told their own tale. She was desperate, and she declared that by acting as she suggested I could save her.
The dead, staring, clean-shaven countenance of that man in the wood arose before me, and I held my breath, my eyes fixed upon hers.
She saw that I hesitated to compromise her and implicate myself.
Then slowly she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, saying in a strange voice, so low that I hardly caught the words, —
“Wilfrid, I – I can tell you no more. My life is entirely in your hands. Save me, or – or I will kill myself. I dare not face the truth. Give me my life. Do whatever you will. Suspect me; hate me; spurn me as I deserve, but I crave mercy of you – I crave of you life – life!”
And releasing me she stood motionless, her hands clasped in supplication, her head bent, not daring to look me again in the face.
What could I think? What, reader, would you have thought? How would you have acted in such circumstances?