Kitabı oku: «The Wiles of the Wicked», sayfa 8
“Then you can heartily congratulate yourself,” he said, “I’m the reverse. I generally lose. Do you believe in any system at roulette?”
“No; they are all frauds,” I answered promptly. “Except one,” he interposed. “There’s one based on the law of averages, which must turn up in your favour if you’re only patient enough. The reason why it is so difficult is because it’s such a long and tedious affair.”
“Explain it,” I urged, for a new system that was infallible was, to me, of greatest interest. I had, in the days before my blindness, made a study of the chances at roulette, and had played carefully upon principles which had, to me, appeared most natural. The result had been that with care I had won – not much, it was true – but it was better than leaving one’s money to swell the company’s dividends.
“The system,” he said, tossing off his glass of curaçoa at one gulp, “is not at all a complicated one. If you study the permanences of any table – you can get them from the Gazette Rose– you’ll find that each day the largest number of times either colour comes up in succession is nine. Now, all you have to do is to go to a table at the opening of the play, and taking one colour, red or black it makes no difference, stake upon it, and allow your money to accumulate until it is swept away. If the colour you stake upon comes up eight times in succession, and you have originally staked twenty francs, your gains lying on the table will amount to two thousand five hundred and sixty francs. Even then, don’t touch it. The colour must, in the law of averages, come up nine times in succession each day, taking the week through. If it comes up, you’ll win five thousand and twenty francs for the louis you staked, and then at once leave the table, for it will not come up nine times again that day. Of course, this may occur almost at the opening of the play, or not until the table is near closing, therefore it requires great patience and constant attendance. To-day it may not come up nine times, but it will probably come up nine times on two occasions to-morrow, and so the average always rights itself.”
His theory was certainly a novel one, and impressed me. There might, I thought, be something in it. He had never had patience to try it, he admitted, but he had gone through a whole year’s “permanences,” and found that only on three or four occasions had it failed.
For half an hour or so he sat lucidly explaining the results of his studies of the game with the air of a practised gambler. In these I became at once interested – as every man is who believes he has found the secret of how to get the right side of the bank; but we were at length compelled to put down our cigars, and he led the way into the drawing-room, where the ladies awaited us.
The room was a large, handsome one, elegantly furnished, and lit by two great lamps, which shed a soft, subdued light from beneath their huge shades of silk and lace. Mabel was sitting at the open grand piano, the shaded candlelight causing the beautiful diamond star in the coils of her dark-brown hair to flash with a dazzling iridescence, and as I entered she turned and gave me a sweet smile of welcome.
A second time I glanced around that spacious apartment, then next instant stood breathless – transfixed.
I could not believe my own eyes. It seemed absolutely incredible. Yet the truth was beyond all doubt.
In the disposition of the furniture, and in the general appointments of that handsome salon, the home of the woman I so dearly loved, I recognised the very room which I had once explored with my keen sense of touch – the room in which had been committed that ghastly, mysterious, midnight crime!
Chapter Fifteen
What I Saw
“How you men gossip!” Mabel exclaimed, tingling upon the piano-stool, and laughing merrily.
“I wasn’t aware that we had been very long,” I answered, sinking into a low armchair near her. “If so, I’m sure I apologise. The fact is, that Mr Hickman was explaining a new system of how to break the bank at Monte Carlo.”
“Oh, Mr Hickman!” she cried, turning at once to him. “Do explain it, and I’ll try it when we go to the Riviera.”
“Mabel, my dear,” exclaimed her mother, scandalised, “you’ll do nothing of the kind. You know I don’t approve of gambling.”
“Oh, I think it’s awfully good fun,” her daughter declared.
“If you win,” I added.
“Of course,” she added; then, turning again to Hickman, she induced him to explain his new and infallible system just as he had explained it to me.
The trend of the conversation was, however, lost to me. My ears were closed to all sound, and now that I reflect I am surprised that I succeeded in retaining my self-possession. I know I sat there rigid, as one held motionless in terror; I only replied in monosyllables to any remark addressed to me, and I knew instinctively that the colour had left my countenance. The discovery was as bewildering as it was unexpected.
Every detail of that handsome room was exactly as I had pictured it. The blind, with their keen sense of touch, are quick to form mental impressions of places and things, and the general character of this apartment I had riveted upon my mind with the fidelity of a photograph.
The furniture was of gilt, just as I had detected from its smoothness, and covered with a rich brocade in wide stripes of art green and dull red-brown – an extremely handsome pattern; the carpet was dark, with a pile so thick that one’s feet fell noiselessly; the three long windows, covered by heavy curtains of brocade to match the furniture, reached from the high-painted ceiling to the ground, exactly as I had found them in my blind gropings. About the room were two or three tables with glass tops, in trays beneath which were collections of choice bric-à-brac, including some wonderful Chinese carvings in ivory, while before the fireplace was spread the great tiger-skin, with paws and head preserved, which I so well remembered.
I sat there speechless, breathless. Not a single detail was there wanting. Never before, in all my life, had amazement held me so absolutely dumbfounded.
Close to where I saw was a spacious couch, over the centre of which was thrown an antimacassar of silken crochet-work. It was covered with the same brocade as the rest of the furniture, and I stretched forth my hand, with feigned carelessness and touched it. Its contact was the same, its shape exact; its position in the room identical.
Upon that very couch I had reclined while the foul tragedy had been enacted in that room. My head swam; I closed my eyes. The great gilt clock, with its pendulum representing the figure of a girl swinging beneath the trees, standing on the mantelshelf, ticked out low and musically, just as it had done on that fateful night. In an instant, as I sat with head turned from my companions and my eyes shut, the whole of that tragic scene was re-enacted. I heard the crash, the woman’s scream, the awe-stricken exclamation that followed in the inner room. I heard, too, the low swish of a woman’s skirts, the heavy blow struck by an assassin’s hand, and in horror felt the warm life-blood of the unknown victim as it trickled upon my hand.
Mabel suddenly ran her white fingers over the keys, and the music brought me back to a realisation of my true position. I had at length discovered the actual house in which the mysterious tragedy had been enacted, and it became impressed upon me that by the exercise of greatest care I might further be enabled to prosecute secret investigations to a successful issue, and at length solve the enigma.
My eyes fixed themselves upon the couch. It was the very spot where I had rested, sightless, helpless, while those strange events had taken place about me. Was it any wonder that I became filled with apprehensions, or that I sat there petrified as one turned to stone?
The square, dark-green antimacassar had been placed in the exact centre of the couch, and sewed down in order to keep it in its place. Where I was sitting was fortunately in the shadow, and when Mabel commenced playing I rose – unsteadily I think – and reseated myself upon the couch, as being more comfortable. Then, while the woman who held me entranced played a selection from the “Trovatore,” I, unnoticed by the others, succeeded in breaking the stitches which tacked the antimacassar to the brocade. The feat was a difficult one, for one does not care to be detected tearing the furniture of one’s hostess. Nevertheless, after ten minutes or so I succeeded in loosening it, and then, as if by the natural movement of my body, commenced to work aside.
The music ceased, and even though all my attention was now centred upon my investigations, I congratulated Mabel upon her accurate execution. Hickman was standing beside her, and together they began to search for some piece he had requested her to play, while Miss Wells, with her hearts and elephants jingling, turned to me and commenced to talk. By this I was, of course, interrupted; nevertheless, some ten minutes later, I rose, and naturally turned back to straighten the rumpled antimacassar. In doing so I managed to lift it and glance beneath.
In an instant the truth was plain. Concealed beneath that square of green crochet-work was a large dark-brown stain upon the brocade. It was the mark of the life-blood of that thin, well-dressed, unknown victim, who had, in an instant, been struck to the heart!
The shock at its discovery caused me to start, but next instant I smoothed out the antimacassar into its former place without attracting any attention, and passed across the room with the motive of inspecting an object which I well remembered discovering when I had made my blind search. Upon a pedestal of black marble stood an exquisite little statuette of a Neapolitan dancing-woman, undoubtedly the work of some Italian master. Without pausing to examine it, I took in its every detail as I passed. It was exactly as I had felt it, and in the self-same spot as on that fatal night.
Beside the couch, as I turned again to look, I saw that a large skin rug had been thrown down. Without doubt it had been placed there to conceal the ugly stain of blood upon the carpet.
And yet there, on the scene of one of the foulest and most cowardly assassinations, we were actually spending the evening quietly, as became a respectable household. The thing seemed absolutely incredible. A dozen times I endeavoured to persuade myself that the whole discovery was but a chimera, arising from my disordered imagination. Nevertheless, it was impossible to disguise from myself the fact that in every detail the truth was borne out. In that very room the unknown man had been struck dead. The marks of his blood still remained as evidence of the truth.
I saw that beside the high lamps at that moment in use, there was a magnificent candelabra suspended from the ceiling, and in this were electric lamps. Then, at the door, I noticed the switch, and knew that it was the same which I had heard turned off by the assassin before leaving the house.
At the end of the room, too, were the folding doors, now concealed by curtains. It was through those very doors that Edna, my mysterious protectress, had passed and repassed to that inner room whence had come the sound of champagne being uncorked and the woman’s piercing scream.
Mabel leaned over and spoke to me, whereupon I sank again into the chair I had previously occupied. She began to chat, but although her beautiful eyes held me fixed, and her face seemed more handsome than any I had ever seen, the diamonds in her hair dazzled my eyes, and I fear that my responses were scarcely intelligible.
“You are not quite yourself to-night, I think,” she remarked at last, rising from the piano, and taking the low chair that I drew up for her. “Are you unwell?”
“Why?” I asked, laughing.
“Because you look rather pale. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I answered, as carelessly as I could. “A slight headache. But it has passed now.”
My eyes wandered to those curtains of green plush. How I longed to enter that room beyond!
At that moment she took out her handkerchief. Even that action added to the completion of the mental picture I had formed. Her tiny square of lawn and lace exhaled a sweet odour. It was that of peau d’Espagne, the same subtle perfume used by the mysterious Edna! It filled my nostrils until I seemed intoxicated by its fragrance combined with her beauty.
Her dress was discreetly decolleté, and as she sat chatting to me with that bright vivaciousness which was so charming, her white neck slowly heaved and fell. She had, it seemed, been striving all the evening to get a tête-à-tête chat with me, but the chatter of that dreadful Irritating Woman and the requests made by Hickman had prevented her.
As she gossiped with me, now and then waving her big feather fan, she conveyed to my mind an impression of extreme simplicity in the midst of the most wonderful complexity. She seemed to take the peculiar traits from many characters, and so mingle them that, like the combination of hues in a sunbeam, the effect was as one to the eye. I had studied her carefully each time we had met, and had found that she had something of the romantic enthusiasm of a Juliet, of the truth and constancy of a Helen, of the dignified purity of an Isabel, of the tender sweetness of a Viola, of the self-possession and intellect of a Portia – combined together so equally and so harmoniously that I could scarcely say that one quality predominated over the other. Her dignity was imposing, and stood rather upon the defensive; her submission, though unbounded, was not passive, and thus she stood wholly distinct in her sweetness from any woman I had ever met.
The following day was one on which she was due to take her music-lesson, and I inquired whether I might, as usual, meet her and escort her across the Park.
“You are really very kind,” she responded; “but I fear I take up far too much of your time.”
“Not at all,” I hastened to assure her. “I always enjoy our walks together.”
She smiled, but a moment later said —
“I fear that I shall be prevented from going to Hanover Square to-morrow, as I shall be making calls with mother. We’ve been neglecting to call of late, and have such a host to make.”
“Then I shan’t see you at all to-morrow?” I said in deep disappointment.
“No, I fear not,” she answered. “As a matter of fact, my movements for the next few days are rather uncertain.”
“But you’ll write and tell me when you are free?” I urged earnestly.
“If you wish,” she responded, smiling sweetly. Apparently she was in no wise averse to my companionship, a fact which had become to me more apparent now that she had induced her mother to invite me to their table.
I endeavoured to extract from her some appointment, but she only whispered —
“Remember that our meetings are clandestine. Don’t let them overhear us. Let’s change the subject.” And then she began to discuss several of the latest novels.
She had apparently a wide knowledge of French fiction, for she explained how a friend of hers, an old schoolfellow, who had married a French baron and lived in Paris, sent her regularly all the notable novels. Of English fiction, too, she was evidently a constant reader, for she told me much about recent novels that I was unaware of, and criticised style in a manner which betrayed a deep knowledge of her subject.
“One would almost think you were a lady novelist, or a book-reviewer,” I remarked, in response to a sweeping condemnation which she made regarding the style of a much-belauded writer.
“Well, personally, I like books with some grit in them,” she declared. “I can’t stand either the so-called problem novel, or a story interlarded with dialect. If any one wants nasty problems, let them spend a few shillings in the works of certain French writers, who turn out books on the most unwholesome themes they can imagine, and fondly believe themselves realists. We don’t want these queue-de-siècle works in England. Let us stick to the old-fashioned story of love, adventure, or romance. English writers are now beginning to see the mistake they once made in trying to follow the French style, and are turning to the real legitimate novel of action – the one that interests and grips from the first page to the last.”
She spoke sensibly, and I expressed my entire accord with her opinion. But this discussion was only in order to hide our exchange of confidences uttered in an undertone while Hickman and the two ladies were chatting at the further end of the room.
All the time I was longing to get a sight of the interior of the adjoining apartment, the room whence had burst forth that woman’s agonised cry in the stillness of the night. I racked my brain to find some means of entering there, but could devise none. A guest can hardly wander over his hostess’s house on the first occasion he receives an invitation. Besides, to betray any interest in the house might, I reflected, arouse some suspicion. To be successful in these inquiries would necessitate the most extreme caution.
The fragrant odour of peau d’Espagne exhaled by her chiffons seemed to hold me powerless.
The gilt clock with its swinging girl had already struck eleven on its silver bell, and been re-echoed by another clock in the hall playing the Westminster chimes, when suddenly Mrs Anson, with a book in her hand, looked across to her daughter, saying —
“Mabel, dear, I’ve left my glasses on the table in the library. Will you kindly fetch them for me?”
In an instant I saw my chance, and, jumping to my feet, offered to obtain them. At first she objected, but finding me determined, said —
“The library is the next room, there. You’ll find them on the writing-table. Mother always leaves them there. It’s really too bad to thus make a servant of you. I’ll ring for Arnold.”
“No, no,” I protested, and at once went eagerly in search of them.
Chapter Sixteen
The Inner Room
The adjoining room was, I found, in the front part of the house – a rather small one, lined on one side with books, but furnished more as a boudoir than a library, for there were several easy-chairs, a work-table, and a piano in a corner. At this instrument the mysterious player had on that night sat executing Chopin’s “Andante-Spinato” the moment before it became interrupted by some tragic and unexpected spectacle. I glanced around and noted that the furniture and carpet were worn and faded, that the books were dusty and evidently unused, and that the whole place presented an air of neglect, and had nothing whatever in keeping with the gorgeousness of the other handsome apartments.
The glasses were, as Mrs Anson had said, lying beside the blotting-pad upon a small rosewood writing-table. I took them up, and, having made a tour of inspection, was about to leave the place, when suddenly, on the top of some books upon a shelf close to the door, I espied a small volume.
The curious incident of the birthday book occurred to me; therefore I took down the little volume and found that it really was a birthday book. No name was inscribed on the title-page as owner, but there were many names scribbled therein. In swift eagerness I turned to the page of my own birthday – the 2nd of July. It was blank.
I stood pondering with the book still in my hand. The absence of my name there proved one or two things, either I had not signed a birthday book at all, or, if I had, it was not the one I had discovered. Now, there are frequently two birthday-books in one house, therefore I resolved, ere I gave the matter reflection, to prosecute my investigations further and ascertain whether there was not a second book.
With this object I made a second tour around the room, noting the position of every article of furniture. Some music lay scattered beside the piano, and, on turning it over, I found the actual copy of Chopin’s “Andante” which had been played on the night of the tragedy. The cover had been half torn away, but, on examining it closely beneath the light, I detected plainly a small smear of blood upon it.
Truly the house was one of mystery. In that room several persons had drunk champagne on that memorable night when blind Fate led me thither; in that room a woman had, according to the man’s shout of alarm, been foully done to death, although of this latter fact I was not altogether sure. At any rate, however, it was plain that some tragic event had previously taken place there, as well as in that room beyond where I had reclined blind and helpless. It was strange also that the apartment should remain neglected and undusted, as though the occupants entertained some dislike to it. But I had been absent long enough, and, returning to the drawing-room with the missing glasses, handed them to Mrs Anson.
Hickman had, in my absence, crossed to Mabel, and was sitting beside her in earnest conversation, therefore I was compelled to seat myself with my hostess and the Irritating Woman and chat with them. But ere long I contrived again to reach the side of the woman whom I adored, and to again press her for an appointment.
“It is far better forme to write to you,” she answered, beneath her breath. “As I’ve told you, we have so many calls to make and cards to leave.”
“Your mother tells me that you have a box for the Prince of Wales’s on Saturday night, and has asked me to join you,” I said. Her eyes brightened, and I saw that she was delighted at the prospect. But she expressed a hope that I wouldn’t be bored.
“Bored!” I echoed. “Why, I’m never bored when in your company. I fear that it’s the other way about – that I bore you.”
“Certainly not,” she responded decisively. “I very soon contrive to give persons who are bores their congé. Mother accuses me of rudeness to them sometimes, but I assure you I really can’t help being positively insulting. Has mother asked you to dine on Saturday?”
“Yes,” I answered. “But shan’t I see you before then?”
“No; I think it is very unlikely. We’ll have a jolly evening on Saturday.”
“But I enjoy immensely those walks across the Park,” I blurted forth in desperation.
“And I also,” she admitted with a sweet frankness. “But this week it is utterly impossible to make any arrangements.”
Mention of the theatre afforded me an opportunity of putting to her a question upon which, during the past couple of hours, I had reflected deeply.
“You’ve, of course, been to the Exhibition at Earl’s Court, living here in the immediate vicinity,” I said.
“I’ve only been once,” she answered. “Although we’ve had this house nearly two years, exhibitions don’t appeal to me very much. I was there at night, and the gardens were prettily illuminated, I thought.”
“Yes,” I said. “With the exception of the gardens, there is far too much pasteboard scenic effect. I suppose you noticed that serrated line of mountains over which the eternal switchback runs? Those self-same mountains, repainted blue, grey, or purple, with tips of snow, have, within my personal knowledge, done duty as the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rockies, and the Atlas, not counting half a dozen other notable ranges.”
She laughed, slowly fanning herself the while.
By her reply I had obtained from her own lips a most important fact in the inquiry I intended now to prosecute, namely, that this house had been her home for nearly two years. Therefore it had been in Mrs Anson’s possession at the time of the tragedy.
Since the moment when I had first recognised that; room as the one in which I had been present on the night of the mysterious assassination, the possibility had more than once occurred to me that Mrs Anson might have; unwittingly taken it ready furnished after the committal of the crime. Such, however, was not the fact. Mabel had asserted that for nearly two years she had lived, there.
Again, even as I sat there at her side, deep in admiration of her magnificent figure in that striking toilette of coral-pink, with its soft garniture of lace and chiffons, I could not help reflecting upon the curious fact that she should have recognised the dead man’s pencil-case. And she had, by her silence, assented to my suggestion that he had been her lover. That little gold pencil-case that I had found in his pocket when he lay dead at that very spot where we were now sitting had been one of her love-gifts to him.
The mystery hourly grew more puzzling and bewildering. Yet so also each hour that I was at her side I fell deeper and deeper in love with her, longing always for opportunity to declare to her the secret of my heart, yet ever fearing to do so lest she should turn from me.
Our unexpected meeting at Grosvenor Gate, after I had received that letter from my anonymous correspondent, combined with the startling discovery that it was actually in her house that the mysterious tragedy had been enacted; that in that very room the smart, refined young man who had been her lover had fought so fiercely for life, and had yet been struck down so unerringly, formed an enigma inscrutable and perplexing.
The mystery, however, did not for one moment cause me to waver in my affection for her. I had grown to love her fondly and devotedly; to adore her as my idol, as the one who held my whole future in her hands, therefore whatever suspicion arose within my mind – and I admit that grave suspicion did arise on many occasions – I cast it aside and fell down to worship at the shrine of her incomparable beauty.
Miss Wells’s carriage was announced at last, and the Irritating Woman, tinkling and jingling, rose with a wearied sigh and took her leave, expressing her thanks for “a most delightful evening, my dear.”
Mabel, mischievous as a school-girl, pulled a grimace when the music of the bangles had faded in the hall outside, at which we laughed in merry chorus.
With Hickman I remained ten minutes or so longer, then rose, also declaring that it was time we left. The grave man-servant Arnold served us with whiskies and sodas in the dining-room, and, Mabel having helped me on with my covert-coat, we shook hands with our hostess and her daughter, and left in company.
The night was bright and starlit, and the air refreshing. Turning to the left after leaving the house, we came immediately to a road which gave entrance to that secluded oval called The Boltons. I looked at the name-plate, and saw it was named Gilston Road. It must have been at this corner that I had been knocked down by a passing cab when, on my first adventurous journey alone, I had wandered so far westward.
I turned to look back, and noticed that from the dining-room window of the house we had just left any occurrence at the corner in question could be distinctly seen. Edna had explained that she had witnessed my accident from that window, and in this particular had apparently told me the truth.
The remarkable and unexpected discoveries of that evening had produced a veritable tumult of thoughts within my brain, and as I walked with Hickman I took no note of his merry, irresponsible gossip, until he remarked —
“You’re a bit preoccupied, I think. You’re pondering over Mabel’s good looks, I suppose?”
“No,” I answered, starting at this remark. Then, to excuse myself, I added, “I was thinking of other things. I really beg your pardon.”
“I was asking your opinion of Mabel. Don’t you consider her extremely handsome?”
“Of course,” I answered, trying to suppress my enthusiasm. “She’s charming.”
“A splendid pianist, too.”
“Excellent.”
“It has always been a wonder to me that she has never become engaged,” he remarked. “A girl with her personal charms ought to make an excellent match.”
“Has she never been engaged?” I inquired quickly, eager to learn the truth about her from this man, who was evidently an old friend of the family.
“Never actually engaged. There have been one or two little love-affairs, I’ve heard, but none of them was really serious.”
“He’d be a lucky fellow who married her,” I remarked, still striving to conceal the intense interest I felt.
“Lucky!” he echoed. “I should rather think so, in many ways. It is impossible for a girl of her beauty and nobility of character to go about without lots of fellows falling in love with her. Yet I happen to know that she holds them all aloof, without even a flirtation.”
I smiled at this assertion of his, and congratulated myself that I was the only exception; for had she not expressed pleasure at my companionship on her walks? But recollecting her admission that the victim of the assassin’s knife had been her lover, I returned to the subject, in order to learn further facts.
“Who were the men with whom she had the minor love-affairs – any one I know?” I inquired.
“I think not, because it all occurred before they returned to live in England,” he answered.
“Then you knew them abroad?”
“Slightly. We met in a casual sort of way at Pau, on the Riviera, and elsewhere.”
“Both mother and daughter are alike extremely pleasant,” I said. “In high spirits Mrs Anson is sometimes almost as juvenile as Mabel.”
“Quite so,” he laughed. “One would never believe that she’s nearly sixty. She’s as vivacious and merry as a woman half her age. I’ve myself been surprised at her sprightliness often and often.”
Again and again I endeavoured to turn the conversation back to the identity of Mabel’s former lover, but he either did not know or purposely refused to tell me. He spoke now and then with an intentional vagueness, as though his loyalty to the Ansons prevented him from betraying any confidences reposed in him as a friend of the family. Indeed, this cautiousness showed him to be a trustworthy man, and his character became thereby strengthened in my estimation. On first acquaintance I had instantly experienced a violent aversion to him, but now, on this walk together along the Fulham Road, I felt that we should probably end by becoming friends.
He walked with long strides and a swinging, easy gait that seemed almost military, while his air of careless merriment as he laughed and joked, smoking the choice cigar which the man had handed to him in the hall just before our departure, gave him the aspect of an easy-going man-about-town.
