Chapter Seven.
In which I Play a Dangerous Game
Well – I agreed.
Yes – I agreed to pose as the hard-working compositor upon a daily newspaper and husband of the Honourable Sybil Burnet, the woman by whose hand the unknown man had fallen.
At first I hesitated, refusing to compromise her, yet she had fallen upon her knees imploring me to help her, and I was bound to fulfil the promise I had so injudiciously made.
There was no love between us now, she had declared. The flame had flickered and died out long ago.
“If you will only consent to act as though I were your wife, then I may be able to save myself,” she urged. “You will do so, will you not?”
“But why?” I had asked. “I cannot see how our pretended marriage can assist you?”
“Leave it all to me,” was her confident reply. “One day you will discern the reason.”
And then, with tears in her beautiful eyes, and kneeling at my feet, she begged again of me to act as she suggested and thus save her life.
So I consented. Yes – you may say that I was foolish, that I was injudicious, that I was still beneath the spell of her exquisite grace and matchless beauty. Perhaps I was: yet I tell you that at the moment so stunned was I by the tragedy, by what Eric had revealed, and by her midnight visit, that I hardly knew what I did.
“Very well, Sybil,” I said at last. “Let it be so. I will help you to escape, and I will act as though I were your husband. For your sake I will do this, although I tell you plainly that I see in it a grave and deadly peril.”
“There is a far greater peril if I remain unmarried,” she answered. “You recollect my question this afternoon. I asked whether you would not really marry me. I asked because I feared that the blow might fall, and that I should have to seek protection.”
“And the blow has fallen?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered, in a low, desperate voice. “And were it not for you I – I should go to my room now and kill myself, Wilfrid! You, however, have promised to save me. There is no time to lose. I must get away at once. You will help me to get out the car?”
“Of course. And you will take Mason? You must take her,” I added.
“Why?”
“Because it is dangerous for her to remain here. She may raise the alarm,” I said, rather lamely. “Take my advice and carry her with you down to Bournemouth.”
“Very well,” she answered, hurriedly, and raising my hand to her soft lips, kissed it before I could prevent her, and said, “Wilfrid, let me thank you. You have given me back my life. An hour ago I was in my room and made preparations to bid adieu to everything. But I thought of you – my last and only chance of salvation. Ah! you do not know – no, no – I – I can never tell you! I can only give you the thanks of a desperate and grateful woman!” And then she slipped out, promising to meet me again there with Mason in a quarter of an hour.
I crept back to my room, and when I had closed the door Eric stepped from his hiding-place.
“She intends to fly,” I explained. “She is going away on the car, and I have persuaded her to take Mason.”
“On the car? At this hour?”
In brief I explained all that had taken place between us, and he listened to me in silence till the end.
“What?” he cried. “You are actually going to make people believe that you’re her husband?”
“I’m going to make people in Camberwell believe it,” I answered.
“But isn’t that a very dangerous bit of business?” he queried. “Suppose any of her people knew it. What would be said?”
I only shrugged my shoulders.
“Well,” he remarked at last, “please yourself, old chap, but I can’t help thinking that it’s very unwise. I can’t see either how being married protects her in the least.”
“Nor can I. Yet I’ve resolved to shield her, and at the same time to try and solve the mysterious affair, therefore, I’m bound to adopt her suggestions. She must get away at once, and we must get Mason out of the neighbourhood – those two facts are plain. The motor will run down the avenue without any noise, so she’ll be miles away when the household awake.”
“Where’s she going?”
I told him, and he agreed that my suggestion had been a good one.
Leaving him in my room, I crept again down the corridor, and presently both she and Mason came noiselessly along in the dark. My little friend had on a thick box-cloth motor coat with fur collar, a motor-cap and her goggles hanging round her neck, while Mason, who often went in the car with her, had also a thick black coat, close cap and veil.
“I hope we sha’n’t get a break-down,” Tibbie said, with a laugh. “I really ought to take Webber with me,” she added, referring to her smart chauffeur. “But how can I?”
“No,” I said. “Drive yourself and risk it. I know you can change a tyre or mend a puncture as well as any man.” Whereat she laughed.
“Very well,” she said, “let us go,” and we crossed the Long Gallery and descended the wide oak stairs, Mason carrying the candle, which she afterwards blew out.
Upon my suggestion, we made our exit by that same window through which Eric and I had passed earlier in the night. Mistress and maid scrambled through, and I assisted them down upon the grass.
Then we slipped across to where the car was, opened the door, and after Sybil had mounted into her place Mason and I pushed the fine “Mercedes” slowly out, while she steered it down the incline to the avenue.
She let it run twenty yards or so, and afterwards put on the brake to allow her maid to mount beside her. Then after I had tucked the rug round her legs, she gripped my hand tightly and meaningly, saying in a low voice, —
“Thanks so much, Mr Hughes. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I whispered. “Bon voyage.”
And slowly the long powerful car glided off almost noiselessly down the incline, and was a moment later lost in the darkness of the great avenue.
I stood peering into the blackness, but in a few moments could hear no further sound. She had escaped, leaving me utterly mystified and wondering.
When, ten minutes later, I returned to Eric and described her silent departure, he said, —
“So you’re going to meet her in town – eh?”
“Yes, in secret, on Thursday night. She has made an appointment. She will leave Mason in Bournemouth, and then simply disappear. By the time Mason returns here the dead man will be in his coffin, therefore she won’t have any opportunity of identifying him.”
“But there’ll be a hue and cry after her. The police will think that something has happened to her.”
“Let them think. We shall pretend to make inquiries and assist them. In the meantime, with all these letters and things in our hands, we hold the trump cards.”
“If Tibbie knew that we had her letters, I wonder what she would say – how she would act?”
“She no doubt fears that they may fall into the hands of the police. That is why she is disappearing.”
“Of course. And for the present she must be allowed to remain in that belief,” Eric replied. “I wonder who the man Parham is? We must inquire. On Sydenham Hill are some rather nice houses. I once knew a rather pretty girl who lived in that neighbourhood, and used to take her for evening walks up the hill to the Crystal Palace.”
“Yes,” I said. “We must discover all we can about the dead man’s friends. We must also call and see the pawnbroker in the Fulham Road. He may be able to tell us who pledged the watch and ring. Indeed, we might get them out of pawn and see whether there are any remarks or inscription that will tell us anything.”
With my suggestion he entirely agreed, and for a second time we re-read those curious letters of the woman who was now flying into hiding, and whom I had promised to meet and assist.
I had placed myself in a very difficult and dangerous position. Of that I was well aware. I hoped, however, to save her. Too well I knew that she was in desperation, that she had seriously contemplated suicide until she had resolved to make her appeal for my sympathy and help.
Yet she was under the impression that I was as yet in ignorance of this tragedy, although in her white, terrified countenance I saw guilt distinctly written.
I took counsel with Eric. He was entirely against the very dangerous part that I had now promised to play, saying, – “I can’t for the life of me see what motive she can have. To hide is all very well – to bury herself in a working-class suburb and pretend to be poor is certainly a much safer plan than endeavouring to slip across to the Continent. But why does she want you to act as her husband? Not for appearances’ sake, surely! And yet if she hadn’t a very strong motive she would not thus run the very great risk of compromising herself. She respects you, too, therefore all the stronger reason why she would never ask you to place yourself in that awkward position. No, old fellow,” he declared, seating himself upon the edge of my bed, “I can’t make it out at all.”
“Of course, it has to do with the affair of yesterday,” I remarked.
“Undoubtedly. It has some connection with it, but what it is we can’t yet discern.”
“I can only act as she suggests,” I remarked.
“I fear you can’t do anything else,” he said, after a pause. “Only you’ll have to be most careful and circumspect, for I can foresee danger ahead. Tibbie’s clever enough, but she is erratic sometimes, and one untimely word of hers may upset everything. I hardly like the idea of you posing as her husband, Wilfrid. I tell you plainly that I have some distinct premonition of evil – forgive me for saying so.”
“I hope not. I’m only consenting to it for her sake.”
“Because you are still just a little bit fond of her, old fellow. Now, confess it.”
“I’m not, Eric. I swear to you I’m not. We could never marry. We are no longer lovers.”
“I hope not,” he said in an altered tone. “But pretended love-making is always dangerous, you know.”
“Well,” I said, pacing up the old tapestried room and down again, “let’s leave love out of the question. What I intend to do is to save Tibbie, and at the same time find out the truth. You, Eric, will help me, won’t you?”
“With all my heart, my dear chap,” he said. “But – well, somehow I have had lately a very faint suspicion of one thing; and that is, I believe Ellice Winsloe is deeply in love with her. I’ve seen it in his face. If so, you and I have to reckon with him.”
“How?”
“Because as soon as she disappears he’ll commence making eager inquiries and trying to trace her. His inquiries may lead him in our direction, don’t you see. Besides, it would be awkward if he found you down at Camberwell.”
I was silent. There was a good deal of truth in what he said. Eric Domville always had a knack of looking far ahead. He was what is vulgarly known as “a far-seeing man.”
“But don’t you think that when I’m a compositor in a well-worn tweed suit and a threadbare overcoat with wages of two pounds a week I’ll be beyond the pale and safe from recognition?”
“That’s all very well, but the working-class are intelligent. They’ll easily see through a gentleman’s disguise.”
“I quite agree,” I said. “There is no more intelligent class than the working-class in London, or indeed in any of the big cities of the North. It is the working-man who is the back-bone of England, after all. The capitalist may direct and public companies may manoeuvre, but it is the skilled labourer who has made England what she is. Yes, I’m quite with you there. I shall have to exert all my tact if I’m to pass as a printer among working-men. Yet Tibbie’s idea that I should be on a morning paper and be out at work at night is an ingenious one, isn’t it?”
“Ingenious? Why, isn’t she one of the very cleverest women in England?” he asked. “I say that she is as unequalled for her ingenuity as for her beauty. Therefore, Wilfrid, have a care. I’ll help you – unknown to Tibbie, of course – but I beg of you to be careful. And now let’s turn in for an hour or so. We must be astir and alert to-morrow, for our work of fathoming the mystery must commence at once. We must be all ears and eyes. We already hold the honours in our hand, it is true; but much very difficult and dangerous work lies before us.”
“Never mind,” I said. “We must save her, Eric. We must save her at all hazards!”
Chapter Eight.
Mainly about the Stranger
When next morning the tragedy in the wood became known the whole household was agog.
It was discussed at the breakfast-table, and Scarcliff, Wydcombe, Ellice Winsloe and myself agreed to walk down to the village and ascertain the facts. Eric remained behind to drive Lady Wydcombe into Chichester as he had arranged on the previous evening.
About half-past ten we four men walked down the avenue into the village, where we found the constable with two other officers in plain clothes. Great consternation had, of course, been created by the startling news, and the whole village seemed to be gossiping at the doors, and forming wild theories concerning the death of the unfortunate unknown.
After making inquiries of the constables, and hearing details of which I, of course, was already aware, Scarcliff asked leave to view the body.
“Certainly, m’lord,” was Booth’s prompt reply, and we moved off together.
My great fear was that the village constable should remark upon my previous visit to him, therefore I walked with him, keeping him a considerable distance behind the others as we went up the street.
“The superintendent is not here now?” I remarked casually, in order that he should recall our meeting up in the wood while we were alone, and not before my friends.
“No, sir. The guv’nor went back to Chichester about an hour ago,” was his answer, and a few minutes later we turned into a farmyard, where in a barn, the door of which was unlocked by one of the men, we saw the body lying face upwards upon a plank on trestles.
Booth drew the handkerchief from the dead face that seemed to stare at us so grimly in the semi-darkness of the barn, and from my companions escaped exclamations of surprise and horror.
“Awful!” gasped the young viscount – who was known as “The Scrambler” to his intimates – a name given to him at Eton; “I wonder who murdered him?”
“I wonder!” echoed Ellice Winsloe in a hard, hushed voice.
His strange tone attracted me, and my eyes fell upon his countenance. It had, I was amazed to see, blanched in an instant, and was as white as that of the dead man himself.
The sudden impression produced upon the others was such that they failed to notice the change in Ellice. I, however, saw it distinctly.
I was confident of one thing – that he had identified the victim.
Yet he said nothing beyond agreeing with his companions that a dastardly crime had been committed, and expressing a hope that the assassin would be arrested.
“He’s a stranger,” declared Scarcliff.
“Yes – an entire stranger,” said Winsloe, emphatically, and at the same time he bent forward to get a better view of the lifeless countenance. Standing behind, I watched him closely.
The sight of the body had produced a remarkable change in him. His face was wild and terrified, and I saw that his lips trembled.
Nevertheless he braced himself up with a great effort, and said, —
“Then it’s a complete mystery. He was found by Harris, the keeper, last night?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Booth. “He’d been dead then some hours. Dr Richards says it’s murder. He’s goin’ to make the post-mortem this afternoon.”
“Has the revolver been found?” he asked.
“No, sir. We’ve been searching all the morning, but can find nothing.”
“And what was in his pockets?” inquired Winsloe, his anxiety well disguised.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” he demanded.
“Oh! a knife, a piece of pencil, a little money and a few odds and ends. But nothing of any use to us.”
“Then you can’t identify him?”
“Unfortunately we can’t, sir,” was the man’s reply.
“We hope to find out who he is, but from all appearances he’s a total stranger in these parts.”
“It’s very evident that the murderer searched the poor fellow’s pockets,” Jack said. “He was afraid lest his victim might be identified.”
“That’s what we think, m’lord,” remarked one of Booth’s companions. “The tab off the back of his jacket, which bore the maker’s name, has been cut out.”
“By the murderer?” asked Wydcombe.
“Probably so, m’lord.”
“Then whoever killed him took good care to remove every scrap of evidence which might lead to his victim’s identification,” Ellice Winsloe remarked, standing with his eyes fixed steadily upon the dead face.
“That’s what our superintendent thinks. He believes that if we establish who the poor fellow is, that we shall have no difficulty in putting our hand upon the guilty person.”
“But did no one hear the shot?” Winsloe inquired.
“Nobody. The doctor thinks the affair took place late in the afternoon,” answered Booth.
Winsloe pursed his white lips, and turned away. For an instant a haggard, fearsome look crossed his hard countenance – the look of a man haunted by a guilty secret – but a moment later, when Wydcombe turned to join him, his face changed, and he exclaimed lightly, —
“Let’s get out of this. The thing’s a complete mystery, and we must leave it to the police to puzzle it all out. Of course, there’ll be an inquest, and then we may hear something further.”
“At present the affair is a complete enigma,” Jack remarked. Then, bending again towards the dead man’s face, he added, “Do you know, Ellice, I can’t help thinking that I’ve seen him before somewhere, but where, I can’t for the life of me recollect.”
I saw that Winsloe started, and he turned again. “I don’t recognise him in the least,” he said quickly. “A face is always altered by death. He now resembles, perhaps, somebody you’ve known.”
“Ah, perhaps so,” remarked the young viscount. “Yet I certainly have a faint impression of having seen him somewhere before – or somebody very like him.”
“I hope your lordship will try and remember,” urged the village constable. “It would be of the greatest assistance to us.”
“I’ll try and think, Booth. If I recollect I’ll send for you,” he answered.
“Thank you, m’lord,” the constable replied, and as I glanced covertly at Winsloe I saw that his face had fallen.
Would Scarcliff recall who he really was?
“To identify a dead person is always most difficult,” Winsloe remarked with assumed disinterestedness. “I’ve heard of cases where half a dozen different families have laid claim to one dead body – wives, mothers, children and intimate friends. No doubt lots of people are buried from time to time under names that are not their own. Richards, of any doctor, will tell you that a countenance when drawn by death is most difficult to recognise.”
By those remarks I saw that he was trying very ingeniously to arouse doubt within Jack’s mind, in order to prevent him making any statement. His attitude increased the mystery a hundredfold.
I recollected the secret Sybil had revealed to me on the previous afternoon when we had stood together in the Long Gallery – how she had told me that she intended to many Winsloe. What he had said now aroused my suspicions.
Winsloe knew the victim. That he had identified him I was fully convinced, and yet he held his tongue. What motive had he in that? Was he, I wondered, aware of the terrible truth?
Fortunately, I held in my possession those injudicious letters of Sybil’s, and that miniature; fortunately, too, I knew the real facts, and was thus enabled to watch the impression produced upon Winsloe by sight of the victim.
As we left the barn I walked by his side.
“A queer affair, isn’t it?” I remarked. “Strange that a man could be murdered here, close to the village in broad daylight, and nobody hear the shot!”
“But we were shooting until late yesterday afternoon, remember,” he said quickly. “The villagers thought it was one of our shots, I expect.”
“I wonder who he is?” I exclaimed.
“Ah! I wonder,” he said. “He walked a long way, evidently. He’s probably some tramp or other. He might have quarrelled with his companion – who knows? Perhaps the police will find out all about him.”
“It will be interesting to see if they discover anything,” I said, glancing at him at the same instant.
“Yes,” he said, “it will,” and then he turned to speak with Wydcombe, who was walking at Booth’s side.
Whatever his knowledge, his self-command was marvellous. The others, who had not seen that expression on his face when he had first gazed upon the dead countenance, had no suspicion of the truth.
Yes. Ellice Winsloe was playing a double game; therefore I resolved to wait and to watch.
Together we walked up through the park again, discussing the strange affair. Jack advanced more than one theory.
“Charlton Wood doesn’t lead to anywhere,” he pointed out. “Therefore the dead man kept an appointment there. Perhaps he was lured to his death,” he added. “There may have been two or more assassins.”
“No, I rather disagree,” said Wydcombe. “If there had been a plot to kill him they wouldn’t have risked firing a revolver, as it would attract too much attention. No, depend upon it that the affair was not a premeditated one. Did you notice his boots? Although dusty and badly worn they were evidently by a good maker. Besides, I felt his hand. It was as soft as a woman’s.”
“But you surely don’t believe that he was a gentleman, do you?” asked Winsloe. “To me the fellow was more like a tramp.”
“I hardly know what to think, Ellice,” was his lordship’s reply as he lit a cigarette. “It’s a mystery, and that’s all one can say. Whoever killed him was a confoundedly good shot.”
“You don’t think it was suicide?” Winsloe asked slowly, looking the speaker straight in the face.
“Suicide! Of course not. Why don’t you hear? They haven’t found a revolver.”
And with such remarks as these we went back to the house for lunch.
When we had all assembled at table, Eric and Lady Wydcombe alone being absent, old Lady Scarcliff exclaimed suddenly, —
“Tibbie has broken out again. She took Mason and went off in the car early this morning without telling anyone where she was going. Did anybody hear the car go off?” she inquired, looking around the table.
But all expressed surprise at Tibbie’s absence, and of course nobody had heard her departure. Where had she gone, and why, we all asked. Whereupon her ladyship merely replied, —
“I’m sure I can’t tell you anything. Simmons brought me a scribbled note at nine o’clock this morning, saying that she had found it in her room. It was from Tibbie to say that as she couldn’t sleep she had got up and gone out with Mason. ‘Perhaps I shall be back to-morrow,’ she says, ‘but if I am not, please don’t worry after me. I shall be all right and will write.’”
“Gone to see Aunt Clara down at Hove, perhaps,” remarked Jack. “She said something about running down there a few days ago.”
“But it isn’t proper for a young girl tearing about the country by herself and driving her own car,” protested the old lady. “She knows that I most strongly disapprove of it.”
“And therefore does it all the more,” laughed the man who had identified the victim in Charlton Wood.
“Tibbie is really quite incorrigible.”
“Quite, Mr Winsloe,” declared her ladyship. “My only fear is that one day something terrible may happen to her. The driving of a big car is, I always say, not a proper occupation for a girl. She’ll come to grief some day – depend upon it!”
Ellice looked straight at the old lady, without uttering any word of reply. What did he know, I wondered? Was he, too, aware of her secret?
But the others were chattering gaily, and next moment he turned from me and joined in their merry gossip.
That afternoon I remained at home, but he drove out with two ladies of the party to make a call on some people about five miles away.
After he had gone Eric returned, and I told him all that I had seen, and of my suspicions.
He stood at the end of the grey old terrace, and heard me through to the end, then said, —
“This puts an entirely new complexion upon matters, old fellow. You suspect him of knowing something. If so, then we must act at once, and fearlessly – just as we did last night.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“He’s out. Therefore we must go to his room and see whether he has anything there – any letters, for instance. To me, it seems plain that he was in expectation of the tragedy, and that he fears lest the dead man should be identified.”
“Then your suggestion is to search his belongings?”
“Certainly. Let’s go up there. There’s no time to lose. He may be back at any moment.”
And so we crossed the great hall and quickly ascended to his room unseen by the servants. Then after looking rapidly through the drawers we found that one of Eric’s keys fitted the strong brown kitbag at the foot of the bed.
In a moment it was open, and a few seconds later its contents were out upon the floor.
Among them we saw something lying which caused us to stare blankly at each other in utter amazement. The sight of it staggered us completely.
Again the mystery was still further increased. It was inexplicable.
I recognised my own grave peril if I dared to carry out Tibbie’s bold and astounding suggestion.