Kitabı oku: «The White Lie», sayfa 4
They straightened their backs, and, for a second, looked at each other in alarm.
Next instant a big, burly night-watchman dashed in upon them, crying:
“What do you fellows want ’ere – eh?”
“Nothing. Take that!” replied Ansell, as he raised his hand and dashed something into the man’s face.
But too late. The man raised his revolver and fired.
Though the bullet went wide, the report was deafening in that small inner room, and both intruders knew that the alarm was raised. Not a second was to be lost. The police-constable on duty outside would hear it!
Without hesitation, Ralph Ansell raised his arm and instantly fired, point blank, at the man defending the property of his master.
A second report rang out, and the unfortunate night-watchman fell back into the darkness. There was a sound of muffled footsteps.
Then all was silence.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DOWNWARD PATH
A year had gone by.
Since that memorable night when Ansell and Carlier had so narrowly escaped capture in Bond Street, and had been compelled to fly and leave their booty behind, things had gone badly with both of them.
With Bonnemain executed, and their other companions in penal servitude at Cayenne, a cloud of misfortune seemed to have settled upon them.
Of the tragedy on the Norwich road no more had been heard. The police had relinquished their inquiries, the affair had been placed upon the long list of unsolved mysteries, and it had passed out of the public mind. Only to the British Cabinet had the matter caused great suspense and serious consideration, while it had cost the Earl of Bracondale, as Foreign Minister, the greatest efforts of the most delicate diplomacy to hold his own in defiance to the German intentions. For two whole months the Foreign Office had lived in daily expectation of sudden hostilities. In the Wilhelmstrasse the advisability of a raid upon our shores had been seriously discussed, and the War Council were nearly unanimous in favour of crossing swords with England.
Only by the clever and ingenious efforts of British secret agents in Berlin, who kept Darnborough informed of all in progress, was Lord Bracondale able to stem the tide and guide the ship of state into the smooth waters of peace.
And of all this the British public had remained in blissful ignorance. The reader of the morning paper was assured that never in this decade had the European outlook been so peaceful, and that our relations with our friends in Berlin were of the most cordial nature. Indeed, there was some talk of an entente.
The reader was, however, in ignorance that for weeks on end the British fleet had been kept in the vicinity of the North Sea, and that the destroyer flotillas were lying in the East Coast harbours with steam up, ready to proceed to sea at a moment’s notice.
Nevertheless, the peril had passed once again, thanks to the firm, fearless attitude adopted by Lord Bracondale, and though the secret of England’s weakness was known and freely commented upon in Government circles in Berlin, yet the clamorous demands of the war party were not acceded to. The British lion had shown his teeth, and Germany had again hesitated.
Ralph Ansell and Adolphe Carlier, after the failure of their plot to rob Matheson and Wilson’s, in Bond Street, had fled next day to Belgium, and thence had returned to France.
Ralph had seen Jean for a few moments before his flight, explaining that his sudden departure was due to the death of his uncle, a landowner near Valence, in whose estate he was interested, and she, of course, believed him.
So cleverly, indeed, did he deceive her that it was not surprising that old Libert and his daughter should meet the young adventurer at the Hotel Terminus at Lyons one day in November, and that three days later Ralph and Jean were married at the Mairie. Then while the old restaurateur returned to London, the happy pair went South to Nice for their honeymoon.
While there Adolphe Carlier called one day at their hotel – a modest one near the station – and was introduced to Jean.
From the first moment they met, Adolphe’s heart went forth to her in pity and sympathy. Though a thief bred and born, and the son of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in prison, Carlier was ever chivalrous, even considerate, towards a woman. He was coarser, and outwardly more brutal than Ralph Ansell, whose veneer of polish she, in her ignorance of life, found so attractive, yet at heart, though an expert burglar, and utterly unscrupulous towards his fellows, he was, nevertheless, always honourable towards a woman.
When their hands clasped and their eyes met upon their introduction, she instantly lowered hers, for, with a woman’s intuition, she knew that in this companion of her husband’s she had a true friend. And he, on his part, became filled with admiration of her great beauty, her wonderful eyes, and her soft, musical voice.
And he turned away, affecting unconcern, although in secret he sighed for her and for her future. She was far too good to be the wife of such a man as Ralph Ansell.
Months went on, and to Jean the mystery surrounding Ralph became more and more obscure.
At first they had lived quietly near Bordeaux, now and then receiving visits from Adolphe. On such occasions the two men would be closeted together for hours, talking confidentially in undertones. Then, two months after their marriage, came a telegram one day, stating that her father had died suddenly. Both went at once to London, only to find that poor old Libert had died deeply in debt. Indeed, there remained insufficient money to pay for the funeral.
Therefore, having seen her father buried at Highgate, Jean returned with Ralph to Paris, where they first took a small, cosy apartment of five rooms in the Austerlitz quarter; but as funds decreased, they were forced to economise and sink lower in the social scale – to the Montmartre.
To Jean, who had believed Ralph to be possessed of ample means, all this came as a gradual disillusionment. Her husband began quickly to neglect her, to spend his days in the cafés, often in Adolphe’s company, while the men he brought to their rooms were, though well-dressed, of a very different class to those with whom she had been in the habit of associating in London.
But the girl never complained. She loved Ralph with a fond, silent passion, and even the poor circumstances in which already, after ten months of married life, she now found herself, did not trouble her so long as her husband treated her with consideration.
As regards Adolphe, she rather avoided than encouraged him. Her woman’s keenness of observation showed her that he sympathised with her and admired her – in fact, that he was deeply in love with her, though he strenuously endeavoured not to betray his affection.
Thus, within a year of the tragic end of Dick Harborne, Jean found herself living in a second-floor flat in a secluded house in the Boulogne quarter, not far from the Seine, a poor, working-class neighbourhood. The rooms, four in number, were furnished in the usual cheap and gaudy French style, the floor of bare, varnished boards, save where strips of Japanese matting were placed.
On that warm August evening, Jean, in a plain, neatly-made black dress, with a little white collar of Swiss embroidery, and wearing a little apron of spotted print – for their circumstances did not permit the keeping of a “bonne” – was seated in her small living-room, sewing, and awaiting the return of her husband.
She had, alas! met with sad disillusionment. Instead of the happy, affluent circumstances which she had fondly imagined would be hers, she had found herself sinking lower and lower. Her parents were now both dead, and she had no one in whom to confide her suspicions or fears. Besides, day after day, Ralph went out in the morning after his café-au-lait, and only returned at eight o’clock to eat the dinner which she prepared – alas! often to grumble at it. Slowly – ah! so very slowly – the hideousness and mockery of her marriage was being forced upon her.
Gradually, as she sat at the open window waiting his coming, and annoyed because the evening meal which she had so carefully cooked was spoilt by his tardiness, the dusk faded and darkness crept on.
She felt stifled, and longed again for the fresh air of the country. Before her, as she sat with her hands idle in her lap, there arose memories of that warm afternoon when, in that charming little fishing village in England, she had met her good friend Richard Harborne, the man who that very same evening fell beneath an assassin’s knife.
Her thoughts were stirred from the fact that, while out that morning, Mme. Garnier, from whom she purchased her vegetables daily, had given her a marguerite. This she wore in the breast of her gown, and its sight caused her to reflect that on that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon at Mundesley, when she had walked with Harborne, he, too, had given her a similar flower. Perfumes and flowers always stir our memories of the past!
She sat gazing out into the little moss-grown courtyard below, watching for Ralph’s coming. That quarter of Paris was a poor one, inhabited mainly by artisans, yet the house was somewhat secluded, situated as it was in a big square courtyard away from the main thoroughfare. Because it was quiet, Ralph had taken it, and further, because Mme. Brouet, the concierge, a sharp-faced, middle-aged woman, wife of a cobbler, who habitually wore a small black knitted shawl, happened to be an acquaintance of his.
But, alas! the place was dismal enough. The outlook was upon a high, blank, dirty wall, while below, among the stones, grass and rank weeds grew everywhere.
The living room in which the girl sat was poor and comfortless, though she industriously kept the place clean. It was papered gaudily with broad stripes, while the furniture consisted of a cheap little walnut sideboard, upon which stood a photograph in a frame, a decanter, a china sugar-bowl, and some plates, while near it was a painted, movable cupboard on which stood a paraffin lamp with green cardboard shade, and a small fancy timepiece, which was out of order and had stopped.
In the centre of the room was a round table, upon which was a white cloth with blue border and places laid for two, and four rush-bottomed chairs placed upon the square of Japanese matting covering the centre of the room completed the picture.
Jean laid aside her needlework – mending one of Ralph’s shirts – and sighed over the might-have-been.
“I wonder what it all means?” she asked herself aloud. “I wonder what mysterious business Ralph has so constantly with Adolphe? And why does Mme. Brouet inquire so anxiously after Ralph every day?”
For the past fortnight her husband, whose clothes had now become very shabby, had given her only a few francs each day, just sufficient with which to buy food. Hitherto he had taken her out for walks after dusk, and sometimes they had gone to a cinema or to one of the cheaper music-halls. But, alas! nowadays he never invited her to go with him. Usually he rose at noon, after smoking many cigarettes in bed, ate his luncheon, and went out, returning at any time between six and eight, ate his dinner, often sulkily, and then at nine Carlier would call for him, and the pair would be out till midnight.
She little guessed in what a queer, disreputable set the pair moved, and that her husband was known in the Montmartre as “The American.” She was in ignorance, too, how Ralph, finding himself without funds, had gone to the Belgian Baron – the secret agent of Germany – and offered him further services, which had, however, been declined.
At first Ansell had been defiant and threatening, declaring that he would expose the Baron to the police as a foreign spy. But the stout, fair-moustached man who lived in the fine house standing in its own spacious grounds out at Neuilly, on the other side of the Bois de Boulogne, had merely smiled and invited him to carry out his threat.
“Do so, my friend,” he laughed, “and you will quickly find yourself arrested and extradited to England charged with murder. So if you value your neck, it will, I think, be best for you to keep a still tongue. There is the door. Bon soir.”
And he had shown his visitor out.
At first Ansell, who took a walk alone in the Bois, vowed vengeance, but a few hours later, after reflecting upon the whole of the grim circumstances, had come to the conclusion that silence would be best.
Though he had endeavoured not to show it, he was already regretting deeply that he had married. Had he been in better circumstances, Jean might, he thought, have been induced to assist him in some of his swindling operations, just as the wives of other men he knew had done. A woman can so often succeed where a man fails. But as he was almost without a sou, what could he do?
Truth to tell, both he and Carlier were in desperate straits.
Jean had been quick to notice the change in both men, but she had remained in patience, making no remark, though the whole circumstances puzzled her, and often she recollected how happy she had been at the Maison Collette when she had lived at home, and Ralph, so smart and gentlemanly, had called to see her each evening.
These and similar thoughts were passing through her mind, when suddenly she was recalled to her present surroundings by Ralph’s sudden entrance.
“Halloa!” he cried roughly. “Dinner ready?”
“It has been ready more than an hour, dear,” she replied, in French, jumping to her feet and passing at once into the tiny kitchen beyond.
CHAPTER VIII.
REVEALS THE GRIM TRUTH
Though Ralph Ansell’s clean-shaven face was strong, and his eyes keen and searching, in the dress he wore he presented anything but the appearance of the gentleman he did when, twelve months before, he had lived in the cosy little bachelor flat in Shaftesbury Avenue.
His clothes were black, striped with grey, the coat edged with braid in the foreign manner, his neck was encircled by a soft collar tied with a loose, black cravat. His waistcoat was open, displaying his soft, white shirt and the leather belt around his waist, while on his head was a cloth cap with an unusually large peak.
He looked the true Parisian loafer, as indeed he was. Yet love is blind, and as yet Jean would believe nothing to his discredit, crushing out any suspicion that had arisen within her.
Having discarded his cap and tossed it across upon a chair, revealing his high, square forehead, he threw off his coat, and in his shirt-sleeves sat down at the table, exclaiming:
“Now, then, girl, I hope you’ve got something eatable to-night. I shall want something to keep me going before to-morrow morning.”
“Why?” asked the girl, putting down the tureen of pot-au-feu and seating herself.
“I’ve got a little business on, that’s all,” he snapped, taking his soup, commencing it, and grumbling that it was badly made.
“I do my best, Ralph,” she protested. “You know I’ve had no money for three days now.”
“And if you had, the soup would be just the same,” he declared. “You may be all very well to make hats, but you’re no good as a man’s wife. I’ve discovered that long ago. I – ”
His words were interrupted by a loud rap at the door.
He started in alarm, but the next second sprang up and welcomed his visitor warmly.
“You, Adolphe, old fellow!” he cried. “Why, you gave me quite a start. Come in and have a bit of dinner. I want to talk to you. I was coming to find you as soon as I’d finished. Jean, another plate for Adolphe.”
So the man who had entered laid his hard-felt hat on the sideboard, as was his habit, and sat down at the table in the chair that his friend had placed for him.
Then Ansell, having carefully closed the window, went back to the table and, bending towards his friend, said:
“Listen. I’m going to tell you something important. I’ve got a good thing on for us both to-night. You know the Baron’s out at Neuilly? Well, to-night, it quite – ”
“Hush, Ralph! Madame – ” his companion cried, glancing at Jean, apprehensively.
“Oh, she may just as well know the truth at first as at last,” laughed Ansell roughly. Then, turning to his wife, he exclaimed, with a sinister grin: “Perhaps, Jean, you may wonder how we live – how I have got my money in the past. Well, I may as well tell you, for one day you will surely discover our secret. We are burglars.”
The girl started, staring blankly at her husband, and uttered a low scream.
“Burglars!” she gasped, astounded.
“Yes. And now you know the truth, take care that you never blab out a word to anyone, or, by Heaven, it will be the worse for you! If you say a word,” he added, fiercely, with knit brows and glaring eyes, “if you let drop a hint to anybody, I’ll break every bone in your body.”
“Ralph!” she cried, starting up in horror. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Enough!” protested Adolphe, angrily. “I won’t stand by and hear such threats, Ralph.”
“What, pray, is it to do with you?” asked Ansell, fiercely. “She’s my wife, and I can speak to her. I can tell her what home-truths I like without your interference.”
“I should have deemed it more prudent to have said nothing, Ralph,” answered the other quietly.
Though Carlier was dressed also in a striped jacket and waistcoat and black trousers, he wore no collar, and looked even a greater blackguard than his friend.
His eyes met Jean’s, and in them he saw an expression of silent thanks for taking her part.
Then she turned and, covering her face with her hands, burst into bitter, blinding tears, and disappeared into the little kitchen.
“Sit down,” Ansell urged. “Now that little fool has gone, we can talk.”
“You are a perfect idiot,” declared the other, in disgust.
“That’s my affair. She’ll have to be brought to her senses and know the truth.”
“It has upset her.”
“I can’t help that,” he laughed. “She must get over it. If she wants fine dresses and a good time she must help us. And I mean that she shall before long. Look at Tavernier’s wife.”
“She is of a different type to madame.”
“Rubbish!” he laughed. “Wait and see what I’ll do. She’ll be a valuable asset to us before long.”
Adolphe leaned his elbows upon the table and shrugged his shoulders.
“Bien!” he said. “Let me hear the proposition.”
“It is quite simple,” the young adventurer said. “I know the interior of the Baron’s house. There is a lot of good stuff there – some jewellery, too, and even enough table silver to make the job worth while. In his safe he keeps a lot of papers. If we could only get them they would fetch something in certain quarters – enough to make us both rich; but the worst of it is that we left our jet in London, and we cannot get it without.” And he took a caporal from the packet before him and slowly lit it. Then he resumed, saying: “Now, I propose that we leave the safe out of the question, and go for the plate in the salle-à-manger. We have no tools for a really artistic job, so we must be content this time with the Baron’s embroideries. His papers may come later – at least, that’s my project. I’ve been out at Neuilly all day, and have had a good look around, and decided on the way we shall get in. It is perfectly easy – all save the watchdog. But a bit of doctored meat will do the trick. I got a little dose for him from old Père Lebrun on my way home,” and from his pocket he produced a small bottle.
“Is the Baron at home?” asked his accomplice, to whom, of course, Ansell had never spoken about the failure of his plot for blackmail.
“Of course,” was the reply. “But what does that matter? He’ll be sound asleep, and to-morrow we shall be a couple of thousand francs the richer. It is childishly easy, my dear friend, I assure you.”
“And if we meet the Baron, who, if all I hear be true, is an extremely shrewd person, what shall we do?”
“Well, if we meet anybody, we must act as we have always acted.”
“Shoot, eh?”
Ansell nodded and grinned.
“We had bad luck in London, remember,” said “The Eel.”
“Yes; but it is easy out at Neuilly,” the other declared. “I’ve been in the salle-à-manger, remember. Every bit of plate in use is solid silver. Much of it is kept in drawers in the room. Besides, there were a lot of knick-knacks about in the large salon. Levy will buy them in a moment. We are on a soft thing, I can assure you. I was an ass not to have thought of it long ago. Once the dog is silenced the rest is quite easy.”
Carlier, who had only two francs in his pocket, reflected deeply. He was silent for fully three minutes, while his companion watched his face narrowly.
“When do you propose starting?”
“Say at eleven. We’ll get your things from your place, and I’ll take my flash-lamp, keys, and a few other necessaries.”
“No, you’ll not, Ralph!” cried Jean, as she rushed out from the kitchen, where behind the half-closed door she had been listening to the plot.
“Shut up, girl, will you?” her husband commanded roughly. “We want no woman’s advice in our business.”
And rising from his chair, he unlocked the drawer in the movable cupboard wherein he kept certain of his private belongings, and took therefrom a serviceable-looking revolver, which he examined and saw was fully loaded.
He also drew forth some skeleton keys, a burglar’s jemmy in two sections, a pair of india-rubber gloves, a small, thin saw, and an electric pocket-lamp, all of which he carefully stowed away in his pockets.
The contents of that drawer were a startling revelation to Jean. He had always kept it locked, and she had often wondered what it contained.
Now that she knew she stood staggered.
She looked in horror at the revolver he held in his hand, and then with a sudden movement she flung herself upon him and grasped his arms, appealing to him for the sake of her love to desist from such an adventure.
Quick and passionate came the words, the full, fervent appeal of a woman deeply and honestly in love. But he heeded not either her tears or her words, and only cast her from him with a rough malediction, declaring her to be an encumbrance.
“But think!” she cried. “Now that I know what you are I am in deadly fear that – that one day they may come, Ralph, and take you away from me.”
And she stood pale-faced and trembling before him.
“Ah, never fear, my girl,” replied her husband. “They’ll never have me. They’ve tried a good many times, haven’t they Adolphe?” and he laughed defiantly. “The police! Zut! I do not fear them!” and he snapped his thin, long fingers in contempt.
“But one day, dear – one day they may be successful. And – and what should I do?”
“Do?” he asked. “Well, if I were put away I suppose you’d have to do as a good many other women have done.”
She looked at him very straight in deep reproach, but uttered no word.
Disillusionment had fallen upon her, and utterly crushed her. Ralph – her Ralph – the man in whom all her love, all her thoughts, all her sympathies were centred, was a thief, and, further, he had cursed her as an encumbrance.
The poor girl drew her hand across her brow as though unable to actually realise the astounding facts. She was stunned by the hideous truth which had that evening been revealed. The blow had in an instant crushed all the light out of her life.
She now realised the reason of those many secret conferences with Carlier, and certain other rather disreputable-looking companions, jail-birds, without a doubt. She knew why he was sometimes absent all night, why he had stolen in, weary and worn, in the early hours of the morning, and why, on one occasion, he had remained in the house for two whole weeks and had never once gone out.
“Well, now you know the truth, girl, I hope you won’t ask any more inquisitive questions,” Ralph said, noticing how strangely she had stared at him. “Our business concerns nobody but ourselves – you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” she replied, slowly, in a strange, hard voice. “I understand, too, Ralph, that you no longer love me, or you would never have spoken to me as you have to-night.”
And she burst into tears.
“Ralph, Ralph, this is too bad!” protested his friend. “You ought to have a little pity for poor madame – you really ought.”
“I tell you I don’t want any interference in my domestic affairs, so shut up, or you and I won’t agree. Do you hear that – once and for all?” replied Ansell determinedly, thrusting his bony face into that of this companion.
The latter shrugged his shoulders, and merely remarked:
“Well, you surprise me greatly.”
Of a sudden, however, Jean, with a quick movement, sprang towards her husband, who had already put on his coat and cap, and placed the revolver in his pocket preparatory to departing upon his midnight adventure. She seized him by both wrists and, throwing herself wildly upon her knees, begged and implored him not to go.
“For my sake, Ralph, don’t go!” she urged. “Don’t go! Give up the project! Work and lead an honest life, I beg of you.”
“Honest life!” he laughed with a sneer. “Can you imagine me sitting in an office all day, adding up figures, or writing letters for some other thief with a brass plate on his office door? No, I’m not cut out for that, I assure you,” he added.
“But for my sake, don’t go,” she urged again, his hands still in hers, for she held them firmly, and placed them to her lips.
His confession that he was a thief had fallen upon her, and for the first few moments had held her speechless, but now she had found tongue, and even though the disgraceful truth was out, her first thought was for his safety.
“You’re a confounded little fool!” he declared, roughly. “Let me go. Come on, Adolphe! We haven’t any use for women’s tears.”
And he twisted her hands roughly so that she was compelled to relinquish her hold.
He was leaving the room, but again she caught him, clinging to him resolutely, and beseeching him to heed her word.
This angered him. His face was pale, his eyes flashed quickly and, gripping her by the right hand, he raised his fist to strike her.
In a flash, however, Carlier, who stood with his hat on ready to depart, sprang in from behind, and gripped the brute’s arm, shouting:
“No, you shall not strike her – not while I am present! Come away, you infernal coward!”
Jean gave vent to a hysterical shriek, and shook herself free, but ere she could realise what had actually happened, the two men, without further word, had left the room, her husband slamming the door after him with a fierce imprecation.
Then she stood alone, white-faced, terrified, heart-broken.
Ralph Ansell had at last shown himself in his true colours – a thief, a bully, a coward, and a blackguard.
And yet she had loved him until that hour – loved him with all the strength of her being – loved him as she had loved no other man in her whole life.
She had lived only for him, and she would have willingly died for him had he not raised his hand against her.
But she stood in the centre of that meagre little room, staring straight before her, her countenance white to the lips, her big, dark eyes fixed like one in a dream.
Poor Jean! Even then her brain was awhirl. She could scarcely realise the grim, terrible truth.
For a few moments she stood there motionless as a statue, then suddenly she staggered, reeled, and collapsed, inert and senseless, upon the floor.
