Kitabı oku: «The Wiles of the Wicked», sayfa 13

Chapter Twenty Four
The Master Hand

A man-servant answered my summons.

“Mrs Anson?” I inquired.

“Mrs Anson is out of town, sir,” answered the man. “The house is let.”

“Furnished?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is your mistress at home?” I inquired.

“I don’t know, sir,” answered the man, diplomatically.

“Oh, of course!” I exclaimed, taking out a card. It was the first I found within my cigarette-case, and was intentionally not my own. “Will you take this to your mistress, and ask her if she will kindly spare me a few moments. I am a friend of Mrs Anson’s.”

“I’ll see if she’s at home, sir,” said the man, dubiously; and then, asking me into the entrance-hall, he left me standing while he went in search of his mistress.

That hall was the same down which I had groped my way when blind. I saw the closed door of the drawing-room, and knew that within that room the young man whose name I knew not had been foully done to death. There was the very umbrella stand from which I had taken the walking-stick, and the door of the little-used library, which I had examined on that night when I had dined there at Mrs Anson’s invitation – the last night of my existence as my real self.

The man returned in a few moments and invited me into a room on the left – the morning-room, I supposed it to be – saying:

“My mistress is at home, sir, and will see you.”

I had not remained there more than a couple of minutes before a youngish woman of perhaps thirty or so entered, with a rather distant bow. She was severely dressed in black; dark-haired, and not very prepossessing. Her lips were too thick to be beautiful, and her top row of teeth seemed too much in evidence. Her face was not exactly ugly, but she was by no means good-looking.

“I have to apologise,” I said, rising and bowing. “I understand that Mrs Anson has let her house, and I thought you would kindly give me her address. I wish to see her on a most pressing personal matter.”

She regarded me with some suspicion, I thought.

“If you are a friend of Mrs Anson’s, would it not be better if you wrote to her and addressed the letter here? Her letters are always forwarded,” she answered.

She was evidently a rather shrewd and superior person.

“Well, to tell the truth,” I said, “I have reasons for not writing.”

“Then I must regret, sir, that I am unable to furnish you with her address,” she responded, somewhat stiffly.

“I have been absent from London for six years,” I exclaimed. “It is because of that long absence that I prefer not to write.”

“I fear that I cannot assist you,” she replied briefly.

There was a strange, determined look in her dark-grey eyes. She did not seem a person amenable to argument.

“But it is regarding an urgent and purely private affair that I wish to see Mrs Anson,” I said.

“I have nothing whatever to do with the private affairs of Mrs Anson,” she replied. “I merely rent this house from her, and, in justice to her, it is not likely that I give the address to every chance caller.”

“I am no chance caller,” I responded. “During her residence here six years ago I was a welcome guest at her table.”

“Six years ago is a long time. You may, for aught I know, not be so welcome now.”

Did she, I wondered, speak the truth?

“You certainly speak very plainly, madam,” I answered, rising stiffly. “If I have put you to any inconvenience I regret it. I can, no doubt, obtain from some other person the information I require.”

“Most probably you can, sir,” she answered, in a manner quite unruffled. “I tell you that if you write I shall at once forward your letter to her. More than that I cannot do.”

“I presume you are acquainted with Miss Mabel Anson?” I inquired.

She smiled with some sarcasm.

“The Anson family do not concern me in the least, sir,” she replied, also rising as sign that my unfruitful interview was at an end. Mention of Mabel seemed to have irritated her, and although I plied her with further questions, she would tell me absolutely nothing.

When I bowed and took my leave I fear that I did not show her very much politeness.

In my eagerness for information, her hesitation to give me Mrs Anson’s address never struck me as perfectly natural. She, of course, did not know me, and her offer to forward a letter was all that she could do in such circumstances. Yet at the time I did not view it in that light, but regarded the tenant of that house of mystery as an ill-mannered and extremely disagreeable person.

In despair I returned to St. James’s Street and entered my club, the Devonshire. Several men whom I did not know greeted me warmly in the smoking-room, and, from their manner, I saw that in my lost years I had evidently not abandoned that institution. They chatted to me about politics and stocks, two subjects upon which I was perfectly ignorant, and I was compelled to exercise considerable tact and ingenuity in order to avoid betraying the astounding blank in my mind.

After a restless hour I drove back westward and called at old Channing’s in Cornwall Gardens in an endeavour to learn Mabel’s address. The colonel was out, but I saw Mrs Channing, and she could, alas! tell me nothing beyond the fact that Mrs Anson and her daughter had been abroad for three years past – where, she knew not. They had drifted apart, she said, and never now exchanged letters.

“Is Mabel married?” I inquired as carelessly as I could, although in breathless eagerness.

“I really don’t know,” she responded. “I have heard some talk of the likelihood of her marrying, but whether she has done so I am unaware.”

“And the man whom rumour designated as her husband? Who was he?” I inquired quickly.

“A young nobleman, I believe.”

“You don’t know his name?”

“No. It was mentioned at the time, but it has slipped my memory. One takes no particular notice of teacup gossip.”

“Well, Mrs Channing,” I said confidently, “I am extremely desirous of discovering the whereabouts of Mabel Anson. I want to see her upon a rather curious matter which closely concerns herself. Can you tell me of any one who is intimate with them?”

“Unfortunately, I know of no one,” she answered. “The truth is, that they left London quite suddenly; and, indeed, it was a matter for surprise that they neither paid farewell visits nor told any of their friends where they were going.”

“Curious,” I remarked – “very curious!”

Then there was, I reflected, apparently some reason for the present tenant at The Boltons refusing the address.

“Yes,” Mrs Channing went on, “it was all very mysterious. Nobody knows the real truth why they went abroad so suddenly and secretly. It was between three and four years ago now, and nothing, to my knowledge, has since been heard of them.”

“Very mysterious,” I responded. “It would seem almost as though they had some reason for concealing their whereabouts.”

“That’s just what lots of people have said. You may depend upon it that there is something very mysterious in it all. We were such very close friends for years, and it is certainly strange that Mrs Anson has never confided in me the secret of her whereabouts.”

I remembered the old colonel’s strange warning on that evening long ago, when I had first met Mabel at his table. What, I wondered, could he know of them to their detriment?

I remained for a quarter of an hour longer. The colonel’s wife was full of the latest tittle-tattle, as the wife of an ex-attaché always is. It is part of the diplomatic training to be always well-informed in the sayings and doings of our neighbours; and as I allowed her to gossip on she revealed to me many things of which I was in ignorance. Nellie, her daughter, had, it appeared, married the son of a Newcastle shipowner a couple of years before, and now lived near Berwick-on-Tweed.

Suddenly a thought occurred to me, and I asked whether she knew Miss Wells or the man Hickman, who had been my fellow-guests on that night when I had dined at The Boltons.

“I knew a Miss Wells – a very pronounced old maid, who was a friend of hers,” answered Mrs Channing. “But she caught influenza about a year ago, and died of it. She lived in Edith Villas, Kensington.”

“And Hickman, a fair man, of middle age, with a very ugly face?”

She reflected.

“I have no recollection of ever having met him, or of hearing of him,” she answered. “Was he an intimate friend?”

“I believe so,” I said. Then, finding that she could explain nothing more, I took my leave.

Next day and the next I wandered about London aimlessly and without hope. Mabel and her mother had, for some unaccountable reason, gone abroad and carefully concealed their whereabouts. Had this fact any connexion with the mysterious tragedy that had been enacted at The Boltons? That one thought was ever uppermost in my mind.

A week passed, and I still remained at the Grand, going forth each day, wandering hither and thither, but never entering the club or going to places where I thought it likely that I might be recognised. I could not return to the life at Denbury with that angular woman at the head of my table – the woman who called herself my wife. If I returned I felt that the mystery of it all must drive me to despair, and I should, in a fit of desperation, commit suicide.

I ask any of those who read this strange history of my life, whether they consider themselves capable of remaining calm and tranquil in such circumstances, or of carefully going over all the events in their sequence and considering them with logical reasoning. I tried to do so, but in vain. For hours I sat within the hotel smoking and thinking. I was living an entirely false life, existing in the fear of recognition by unknown friends, and the constant dread that sooner or later I must return to that hated life in Devonshire.

That a hue-and-cry had been raised regarding my disappearance was plain from a paragraph which I read in one of the morning papers about ten days after my departure from Denbury. In the paragraph I was designated as “a financier well known in the City,” and it was there stated that I had left my home suddenly “after betraying signs of insanity,” and had not since been heard of.

“Insanity!” I laughed bitterly as I read those lines supplied by the Exeter correspondent of the Central News. The police had, no doubt, received my description, and were actively on the watch to trace me and restore me to my “friends.”

For nearly a fortnight I had been in hiding, and was now on the verge of desperation. By means of one of the cheques I had taken from Denbury I succeeded in drawing a good round sum without my bankers being aware of my address, and was contemplating going abroad in order to avoid the possibility of being put under restraint as a lunatic, when one evening, in the dusky, sunset, I went forth and wandered down Northumberland Avenue to the Victoria Embankment. In comparison with the life and bustle of the Strand and Trafalgar Square, the wide roadway beside the Thames is always quiet and reposeful. Upon that same pavement over which I now strolled in the direction of the Temple I had, in the days of my blindness, taken my lessons in walking alone. That pavement had been my practice-ground on summer evenings under the tender guidance of poor old Parker, the faithful servant now lost to me. My eyesight had now grown as strong as that of other men. The great blank in my mind was all that distinguished me from my fellows. During those past fourteen days I had been probing a period which I had not lived, and ascertaining by slow degrees the events of my unknown past.

And as I strolled along beneath the plane trees over that broad pavement I recollected that the last occasion I had been there was on that memorable evening when I had lost myself, and was subsequently present at the midnight tragedy in that house of mystery. I gazed around.

In the ornamental gardens, bright with geraniums, some tired Londoners were taking their ease upon the seats provided by that most paternal of all metropolitan institutions, the London County Council; children were shouting as they played at ball and hopscotch, that narrow strip of green being, alas! all they knew of Nature’s beauty outside their world of bricks and mortar. The slight wind stirred the dusty foliage of the trees beneath which I walked, while to the left river-steamers belched forth volumes of black smoke, and barges slowly floated down with the tide. On either side were great buildings, and straight before the dome of St. Paul’s. Over all was that golden, uncertain haze which in central London is called sunset, the light which so quickly turns to cold grey, without any of those glories of crimson and gold which those in the country associate with the summer sun’s decline.

That walk induced within me melancholy thoughts of a wasted life. I loved Mabel Anson – I loved her with all my soul. Now that marriage with her was no longer within the range of possibility I was inert and despairing, utterly heedless of everything. I had, if truth be told, no further desire for life. All joy within me was now blotted out.

At length, at Blackfriars Bridge, I retraced my steps, and some twenty minutes later, as I took my key from the hotel bureau, the clerk handed me a note, addressed to “Burton Lawrence, Esquire,” the fictitious name I had given. It had been delivered by boy-messenger.

Then I was discovered! My heart leapt into my mouth.

I tore open the envelope, and read its contents. They were brief and to the point.

“The undersigned will be obliged,” it ran, “if Mr Burton Lawrence will be present this evening at eight o’clock, in the main-line booking-office of the Brighton Railway, at Victoria Station. An interview is of very pressing importance.”

The note was signed, by that single word which had always possessed such mysterious signification, the word “Avel.”

Hitherto, in my old life long ago, receipt of communications from that mysterious correspondent had caused me much anxiety of mind. I had always feared their advent; now, however, I actually welcomed it, even though it were strange and unaccountable that the unknown writer should know my whereabouts and the name beneath which I had sought to conceal my identity.

I made a hasty dinner in the coffee-room, and went forthwith to Victoria, wondering whom I should meet. The last time I had kept one of those strange appointments on that summer evening long ago in Hyde Park, I had come face to face with the woman I loved. Would that I could meet her now!

I entered the booking-office, searching it with eager eyes. Two lines of persons were taking tickets at the pigeon-holes, while a number of loungers were, like myself, awaiting friends. Beyond, upon the platform, all was bustle as is usual at that hour, when the belated portion of business London is bound for the southern suburbs. From that busy terminus of the West End trains were arriving and departing each minute.

The big illumined clock showed that it was yet five minutes to the hour. Therefore I strolled out upon the platform, lounged around the bookstalls, and presently returned to the spot indicated in the letter.

As I re-entered the booking-office my eager eyes fell upon a figure standing before me – a well-dressed figure, with a face that smiled upon me.

An involuntary cry of surprise escaped my lips. The encounter was sudden and astounding; but in that instant, as I rushed forward to greet the new-comer, I knew myself to be on the verge of a startling and remarkable discovery.

Chapter Twenty Five
The Person who Knew

The encounter was a startling one.

At the moment when my eyes first fell upon the figure standing patiently in the booking-office awaiting me, I halted for a second in uncertainty. The silhouette before me was that of a youngish, brown-haired, and rather good-looking woman, neatly dressed in dead black, wearing a large hat and a feather boa round her neck.

By the expression of her face I saw that she had recognised me. I had, of course, never seen her before, yet her personal appearance – the grey eyes and brown hair – were exactly similar to those described so minutely on several occasions by West, the cab-driver. I regarded her for a moment in silent wonder, then advanced to meet her.

She was none other than the unknown woman who had saved my life on that fateful night at The Boltons – the mysterious Edna!

As I raised my hat she bowed gracefully, and with a merry smile, said: “I fear that, to you, I am a stranger. I recognise you, however, as Mr Heaton.”

“That is certainly my name,” I responded, still puzzled. “And you – well, our recognition is, I believe, mutual – you are Edna.”

She glanced at me quickly, as though suspicious. “How did you know that?” she inquired. “You have never seen me before. You were totally blind on the last occasion we met.”

“I recognised you from your description,” I answered with a light laugh.

“My description!” she echoed in a tone of distinct alarm.

“Yes, the description given of you by the cabman who drove me home on that memorable morning.”

“Ah! Of course,” she ejaculated in sudden remembrance. Then, for a few seconds, she remained in silence. It seemed as though the fact that I had recognised her had somewhat confused her.

“But I am extremely glad that we have met at last,” I assured her. “I have, times without number, hoped to have an opportunity of thanking you for the great services you once rendered me.”

“I find with satisfaction that although six years have gone by you have not forgotten your promise made to me,” she said, her large serious eyes fixed upon mine.

“I gave you that promise in exchange for my life,” I remarked, as, at her suggestion, we turned and walked out of the station.

“And as acknowledgement of the service you rendered by preserving secret your knowledge of the events of that terrible night I was enabled to render you a small service in return,” she said. “Your sight was restored to you.”

“For that, how can I sufficiently thank you?” I exclaimed. “I owe it all to you, and rest assured that, although we have not met until this evening, I have never forgotten – nor shall I ever forget.”

She smiled pleasantly, while I strolled slowly at her side across the station-yard.

To me those moments were like a dream. Edna, the woman who had hitherto been but a strange ghost of the past, was now actually beside me in the flesh.

“I have received other notes making appointments – the last, I think, a couple of years ago,” I observed after a pause. “Did you not meet me then?”

She glanced at me with a puzzled expression. Of course she knew nothing of those lost years of my life.

“Meet you?” she repeated. “Certainly not.”

“Who met me, then?”

“I really don’t know,” she answered. “This is the first time I have approached you, and I only come to you now in order to ask you to grant me a favour – a very great favour.”

“A favour! What is it?”

“I cannot explain here, in the street,” she said quickly. “If you will come to my hotel I will place the facts before you.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Bath Hotel, in Arlington Street.”

I knew the place well. It stood at the corner of Arlington Street and Piccadilly, and was an eminently respectable, old-fashioned place, patronised by a high-class clientèle.

“And you are alone?” I inquired, thinking it strange that she should thus ask me to her hotel.

“Of course. I have come to London expressly to see you,” she responded. “I went down to Budleigh-Salterton two days ago, but I ascertained at Denbury that you had left suddenly.”

“Whom did you see there?” I inquired, much interested.

“Your butler. He told me some absurd story, how that you had become temporarily irresponsible for your actions, and had disappeared, leaving no address.”

“And you came to London?”

“Of course.”

“And how did you find out where I was hidden, and my assumed name?”

She smiled mysteriously.

“It was easy enough, I assure you. A man of your influence in the City, and as well known as you are, has considerable difficulty in effectively concealing his identity.”

“But who told you where I was staying?” I demanded.

“Nobody. I discovered it for myself.”

“And yet the police have been searching for me everywhere, and have not yet discovered me!” I remarked, surprised.

“The police have one method,” she said. “I have an entirely different one.”

“Tell me one thing,” I said, halting in our walk, for we were already at the commencement of Victoria Street – that street down which I had wandered blindly on that night long ago when I had lost myself – “tell me for what reason those previous appointments were made with me at Grosvenor Gate, at King’s Cross, at Eastbourne, and elsewhere?”

“You kept them,” she replied. “You surely know.”

“No, that’s just it,” I said. “Of course, I don’t expect you to give credence to what I say – it sounds too absurd – but I have absolutely no knowledge of keeping those appointments except the one at Grosvenor Gate, and I am totally ignorant of having met anybody.” She paused, looking me full in the face with those grey eyes so full of mystery.

“I begin to think that what the butler told me contains some truth,” she observed bluntly.

“No,” I protested. “My mind is in no way unhinged. I am fully aware of all that transpired at The Boltons, of – ”

“At The Boltons?” she interrupted, turning a trifle pale. “What do you mean?”

“Of the crime enacted at that house – in The Boltons.” She held her breath. Plainly she was not before aware that I had discovered the spot where the tragedy had taken place. My words had taken her by surprise, and it was evident that she was utterly confounded. My discovery I had kept a profound secret unto myself, and now, for the first time, had revealed it.

Her face showed how utterly taken aback she was. “There is some mistake, I think,” she said lamely, apparently for want of something other to say.

“Surely your memory carries you back to that midnight tragedy!” I exclaimed rather hastily, for I saw she would even now mislead me, if she could. “I have discovered where it took place – I have since re-entered that room?”

“You have!” she gasped in the low, hoarse voice of one fearful lest her secret should be discovered. “You have actually re-discovered the house – even though you were stone blind?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“How did you accomplish it?”

I shrugged my shoulders, answering: “There is an old saying – a very true one – that ‘murder will out.’”

“But tell me more. Explain more fully,” she urged in an earnest tone.

I hesitated. Next instant, however, I decided to keep my own counsel in the matter. Her readiness to deny that the events occurred in that house had re-aroused within me a distinct suspicion.

“It is a long story, and cannot be told here,” I answered evasively.

“Then come along to the hotel,” she suggested. “I, too, have much to say to you.”

I do not know that I should have obeyed her were it not for the mystery which had hitherto, veiled her identity. She had saved my life, it is true, and I supposed that I ought to consider her as a friend, yet in those few minutes during which I had gazed upon her a curious dislike of her had arisen within me. She was, I felt certain, not the straightforward person I had once believed her to be.

Not that there was anything in her appearance against her. On the contrary, she was a pleasant, smiling, rather pretty woman of perhaps thirty-five, who spoke with the air and manner of a lady, and who carried herself well, with the grace of one in a higher social circle.

After a few moments’ hesitation my curiosity got the better of my natural caution, and I determined to hear what she had to say. Therefore we drove together to the Bath Hotel.

In her own private sitting-room, a cosy little apartment overlooking Piccadilly, opposite Dover Street, she removed her big black hat, drew off her gloves, and having invited me to a chair, took one herself on the opposite side of the fireplace. Her maid was there when we entered, but retired at word from her mistress.

“You, of course, regard it as very curious, Mr Heaton, that after these six years I should again seek you,” she commenced, leaning her arm lightly upon the little table, and gazing straight into my face without flinching. “It is true that once I was enabled to render you a service, and now in return I ask you also to render me one. Of course, it is useless to deny that a secret exists between us – a secret which, if revealed, would be disastrous.”

“To whom?”

“To certain persons whose names need not be mentioned.”

“Why not?”

“Think,” she said, very gravely. “Did you not promise that, in return for your life when you were blind and helpless, you would make no effort to learn the true facts? It seems that you have already learnt at least one – the spot where the crime was committed.”

“I consider it my duty to learn what I can of this affair,” I answered determinedly.

She raised her eyebrows with an expression of surprise, for she saw that I was in earnest.

“After your vow to me?” she asked. “Remember that, to acknowledge my indebtedness for that vow, I searched for the one specialist who could restore your sight. To my efforts, Mr Heaton, you are now in possession of that sense that was lost to you.”

“I acknowledge that freely,” I answered. “Yet, even in that you have sought to deceive me.”

“How?”

“You told me you were not the writer of those letters signed with a pseudonym.”

“And that is true. I was not the actual writer, even though I may have caused them to be written.”

“Having thus deceived me, how can you hope that I can be free with you?”

“I regret,” she answered, “that slight deception has been necessary to preserve the secret?”

“The secret of the crime?”

She nodded.

“Well, and what do you wish to tell me this evening?” She was silent for a moment, toying with her rings.

“I want to appeal to your generosity. I want you to assist me.”

“In what manner?”

“As before.”

“As before!” I repeated, greatly surprised. “I have no knowledge of having assisted you before.”

“What?” she cried. “Is your memory so defective that you do not recollect your transactions with those who waited upon you – those who kept the previous appointments of which you have spoken?”

“I assure you, madam,” I said, quite calmly, “I have not the least idea of what you mean.”

“Mr Heaton!” she cried. “Have you really taken leave of your senses? Is it actually true what your butler has said of you – that on the day you left Denbury you behaved like a madman?”

“I am no madman!” I cried with considerable warmth. “The truth is that I remember nothing since one evening, nearly six years ago, when I was smoking with – with a friend – in Chelsea, until that day to which my servant has referred.”

“You remember nothing? That is most extraordinary.”

“If strange to you, madam, how much more strange to me? I have told you the truth, therefore kindly proceed to explain the object of these previous visits of persons you have apparently sent to me.”

“I really think that you must be joking,” she said. “It seems impossible that you should actually be unaware.”

“I tell you that I have no knowledge whatsoever of their business with me.”

“Then if such is really the case, let me explain,” she said. “First, I think you will admit that your financial transactions with our Government have brought you very handsome profits.”

“I am not aware of having had any transactions with the British Government,” I answered.

“I refer to that of Bulgaria,” she explained. “Surely you are aware that through my intermediary you have obtained great concessions – the docks at Varna, the electric trams at Sofia, the railway from Timova to the Servian frontier, not to mention other great undertakings which have been floated as companies, all of which are now earning handsome profits. You cannot be ignorant of that!”

I remembered that Gedge had shown me some official parchment which he had explained were concessions obtained from Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria. That this woman had been the means of securing to me the greater part of the enormous profits which I had apparently made within the past five years was certainly surprising.

“On the day I recovered consciousness – the day of my departure from Denbury – I was shown some documents, but took but little heed of them,” I said.

“You admit, however, that the employment of British capital in Bulgaria has realised a very handsome profit, and that the greater part of it has gone into your own pockets?”

“I suppose that is so,” I responded. “Is it to you that I am indebted for those concessions?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you, then, an ambassadress of the Principality of Bulgaria?”

“Well, yes – if you choose to put it so.”

“Then, as I understand, it is with some further financial object that you have sought me this evening?”

“Exactly.”

This latest development of the affair was certainly most remarkable. I had never dreamed that to this hitherto unknown woman I had been indebted for the unparalleled success which had attended my career during those past six years. Yet, from the facts she subsequently placed before me, it would seem that it was at her instigation that I first dabbled in finance. She, or rather her agents, had obtained for me the negotiation of a substantial loan to Prince Ferdinand, and this had been followed by all sorts of concessions, not one of which had tuned out badly.

The mysterious Edna, whom I had always believed to be a typical blouse-and-bicycle girl of the true Kensington type, was actually a political agent of that most turbulent of all the European States.

I sat looking at her in wonderment. She possessed a superb carriage, a smart, well-dressed figure, a smiling, intelligent face, white, even teeth, a complexion just a trifle dark, but betraying no trace of foreign birth. Her English was perfect, her manner purely that of the patrician, while her surprising tact possessed all the finesse of an accomplished diplomatist.

“I confess that I have all along been in entire ignorance of my indebtedness to you,” I said, after listening to her while she explained how obediently I had followed the instructions contained in the letters signed “Avel,” and how I had so materially advanced the interests of the Principality that the thanks of the Bulgarian Parliament, or Sobranje had been tendered to me, and the Prince himself had a couple of years ago conferred upon me the highest distinction within his power.