At seven o’clock that evening I took the train from Camberwell Gate to Westminster Bridge, like the industrious compositor that I represented myself to be.
In order to assert myself more prominently in the neighbourhood I had accepted the invitation of Williams, the mineral-water foreman, who was my landlord, to have a glass of ale at the neighbouring public-house; and in the bar was introduced by him to several other working-men as his tenant. They seemed a sober, good-humoured set, all having their glass after the thirst of the day’s labour.
My landlord remarked that my wife saw little of me, but I explained how my employers sent me to various parts of the country in connection with a new patent type-composing machine in which they were interested.
“Well, my missus does ’er best for Mrs Morton and cheers her up,” the man said. “Only it ’ud be more pleasant for ’er if you were at ’ome a bit more. The poor young lady mopes dreadfully sometimes. You needn’t say anything, you know, but my old woman has found her a-cryin’ to herself lots of times.”
I recollected his words as I sat on the top of the tram passing up those long broad roads lit by the flare of costermongers’ lights and rendered noisy by the strident cries of the butchers and greengrocers shouting their wares. In South London commercial life seems to commence with the sundown, for thrifty working-class housewives go out shopping after dark.
And Tibbie, the woman whom all smart London knew, who was so brilliant a figure at receptions, balls and weddings, and of whose beauty the ladies’ papers so constantly spoke, was living amid that poverty and squalor alone, terrified and crying her heart out.
For what? Had remorse seized her? Was it the awful recollection of that fatal moment in Charlton Wood, combined with the constant fear that Ellice Winsloe, whom she had now acknowledged as her enemy, would discover her and bring against her the terrible charge?
That night, after I had slipped unrecognised into my chambers, I changed quickly into my own clothes and went along to the Wellington Club to find Domville. The hall-porter had not, however, seen him that day; therefore, after strolling through the rooms, I was just on the point of leaving when, in the hall, I encountered Ellice Winsloe.
“Hulloa! old fellow!” he cried cheerily. “What are you doing to-night? Come along and dine with me at Boodle’s.”
I hesitated. I had no wish for the company of the man who was Tibbie’s secret enemy. Once I had distrusted him; now I hated him, for I saw how ingeniously he had kept observation upon my movements, and how his invitation, so warmly given, was with the ulterior object of ascertaining my movements.
In an instant it occurred to me that I might fight him with his own weapons. I could be as alert as he was. Therefore, I laughed and declared that I had no prior engagement.
“Come along, then,” he said; and we both went out and crossed Hyde Park corner together.
“I was at the Wydcombes this afternoon. It was Lady Wydcombe’s day. They’re till most anxious about Tibbie. Nobody knows where she is,” he added, with a covert glance at my countenance to watch the effect of his words.
“Yes,” I said, “she’s certainly a bit erratic. I hear, however, that she has written to her mother saying that she’s all right.”
“The police think the letter was written under compulsion. Jack took it to Scotland Yard, with the result that the Criminal Investigation Department have redoubled their efforts to trace her. What’s your opinion?”
I shrugged my shoulders. The fellow’s object was to get me to talk; but I knew how to be silent when it suited me, and was determined to tell him nothing.
“Old Lady Scarcliff is very upset, I hear,” he went on as we walked along Piccadilly to St. James’s Street.
“It is really too bad of Tibbie, don’t you think so? She ought to draw the line at disappearing like this. She may have met with foul play for all one knows. It seems, according to Mason, that she took a lot of her jewellery with her on the night she left Ryhall in the car.”
“Does Mason know or suspect anything?” I asked quite innocently.
“Nothing, as far as I’m aware. The detectives have made every inquiry, but discovered nothing.” Then he added, in a voice which sounded to me to convey a distinct hidden meaning, “They’ve been just as successful regarding Tibbie as they have been in the case of the mystery up in Charlton Wood.”
I said nothing. My object was to allow him to do all the talking.
At Boodle’s we sat down to an excellent dinner, though it was rather late.
As he sat before me, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped as he chatted, I looked into his face and wondered what were the inner workings of his ingenious mind. He made no mention of his call at that obscure hotel in Lambeth in search of Tibbie, but merely expressed a fervent hope that the jewellery which she had carried with her when she left on her midnight motor-drive had not been the cause of any attempt upon her by malefactors.
In order to watch his attitude I suddenly exclaimed,—
“That affair in Charlton Wood seems still a mystery. And yet I hear,” I added, making a bold shot, “that the police have at last found a clue.”
His countenance remained perfectly unchanged. He merely responded,—
“I hope they have. It was a dastardly thing. The poor fellow must have been shot treacherously—murdered in cold blood. Jack is most anxious to find the culprit, and I don’t wonder. It isn’t nice to have a murder committed upon one’s own estate.”
“It’s curious that the man has not yet been identified,” I said, regarding him keenly.
“And has it not also struck you as strange that Tibbie should suddenly disappear on the night of the murder?” he asked, his eyes fixed upon mine.
“No,” I replied, quite unconcernedly. “I had never given that a thought. It is curious, now that you recall it. A mere coincidence, of course.”
“Of course,” he said, pouring me out a glass of still Moselle. His air of refinement was irritating.
Then, after a brief silence, he said,—
“Do you know, Hughes, I can’t help thinking that something serious has happened to Tibbie. The letter Lady Scarcliff received was posted in Glasgow, but of course that was only a blind. She’s in London somewhere. I told Wydcombe to-day that they ought to advertise and offer a reward for her.”
His suggestion suddenly gave me an idea. In the pockets of the unknown man in Charlton Wood I had found the key to a cipher which he had evidently used to correspond with his friends. Why should I not through the medium of the papers open up some correspondence? Would anyone reply?
“You know how erratic Tibbie always is,” I remarked. “I’ve perhaps known her longer than you have. She was always the same, even as a girl—the despair of the old viscount.”
“And yet she is very charming, don’t you think so?” asked the man whom she declared to be one of her bitterest enemies.
“Delightfully amusing,” I agreed. “The set she mixes with spoils her. If she could only sever herself entirely from Cynthia’s friends she would be a very different woman.”
“Oh, she’ll marry some day and settle down,” laughed Winsloe. “I used at one time to hear that you were likely to be the lucky man.”
“I think not,” was my quick reply, somewhat annoyed at his remark. “I can’t afford to marry,” whereat he laughed, as though in disbelief of my poverty.
He questioned me with a subtle ingenuity worthy of a counsel at the criminal bar, but my replies were all of them empty ones, while at the same time I was watching him narrowly, noting that this warm friendliness was merely assumed, and that beneath that veneer of good fellowship was a fierce and bitter antagonism that I had never before suspected. Ever since Scarcliff had introduced us eighteen months ago we had been very good friends, and had seen quite a good deal of each other on the Riviera the previous season. I was staying at the Métropole at Monte Carlo, while he was at the Hermitage.
He seemed to have many friends there, well-dressed men whom I did not know. But one’s acquaintances on the Riviera are generally somewhat doubtful, and need not be recognised beyond the confines of the Principality. He became one of Jack’s most intimate friends. They often went over to Paris together, and on such occasions it was believed that young Lord Scarcliff played baccarat at a certain private house in the Avenue Kleber and lost considerable sums. Tibbie had told me so in confidence, but Jack naturally never mentioned his losses. If this were true, then it looked very much as though Ellice Winsloe was a shark, as my friend Domville declared him to be.
In a London club a white shirt and well-cut evening clothes enables many a scoundrel to pass himself off as a gentleman. Few young men who come into their inheritance and lead the fevered life of the West End escape the traps laid for them by those well-dressed blackguards who pose as friends and advisers, and at the same time cleverly contrive to pluck the pigeon. By some clever ruse or other they get him into their power, threatening exposure or the police for some fancied offence, and then the question of hush-money is mooted and the rest is so very easy. The fly is caught in the net, and the spiders grow fat at their leisure.
Ask any official at Scotland Yard, and what he will reveal to you regarding this will surely astound you.
Sitting with Winsloe and listening to his clever chatter I was rather amused than otherwise. Inwardly I laughed at his shrewd but futile efforts to obtain from me something concerning Tibbie.
We smoked a cigar, and about ten o’clock strolled along to the Empire, where we took a turn round the crowded grand circle. Variety performances, however, possess but little attraction for me, and we soon went out again. In the vestibule a fair-moustached, bald-headed man in evening dress greeted my companion effusively, exclaiming,—
“Why, Ellice—actually! My dear old fellow, how are you?—how are you?” and he wrung his hand in warmest greeting.
“And you, Sidney! Who’d ever thought of finding you in town again? Why, I thought you were still somewhere up the Zambesi.”
“Got back yesterday, my dear fellow. And not sorry either, I can tell you. The surveying for the new railroad was a far tougher job than I anticipated. I went down with fever, so they sent me home on six months’ leave.”
“But you’re all right now,” Winsloe said, and then introduced his friend as Sidney Humphreys who, he explained, had been out in Africa in connection with the Cape to Cairo railway.
“Where are you fellows going?” asked the newcomer.
“Home, I think,” Winsloe replied. “Hughes doesn’t care for ballets.”
“Come round to my rooms and see the curios I’ve brought back,” he urged. “I’ve still kept on the old chambers. The things I’ve got were mostly dug out of the ruins of an ancient city—relics of the time of King Solomon, I believe. You’re fond of antiques, Ellice, so come and spend an hour and have a look at them. You’ll be interested, I promise you, and I’d like to know your opinion.”
Winsloe hesitated for a moment, then, turning to me, said,—
“You’ll come too, won’t you?”
At first I excused myself, for I was anxious to find Eric, but presently I allowed myself to be persuaded, for truth to tell, I, too, was very fond of antiquities, and was therefore anxious to see this latest find.
We drove in a hansom along Regent Street, and then through several side streets, until presently we alighted before the door of a dark, respectable-looking house, into which Humphreys let us with his latchkey.
“Go on up,” he exclaimed, when we were in the hall. “You know your way, Ellice—the old rooms, second floor.”
And so while he held back in the hall looking at some cards that had been left, I climbed the broad old-fashioned stairs with Winsloe.
At the first landing my companion held back for me to go on before, laughing, and saying,—
“Go straight on—the room right before you,” and compelling me to ascend first, he followed.
Suddenly I heard men’s voices raised in angry altercation, apparently proceeding from another room, and what was more, I was struck by a distinct belief that one voice was Eric’s. Yet surely that could not be possible.
“I defy you!” I heard the voice cry. “Say no more. You hear! You may kill me, but I defy you!”
I halted, startled. The voice was so very like Eric’s that I could have sworn it was his.
A sharp cry of pain—a man’s cry—rang out from behind a closed door on the landing I was approaching. Then there followed a long-drawn-out groan, ending almost in a sigh.
A tragedy was being enacted there!
I clapped my hand upon the revolver I always carried in my hip-pocket, and went forward quickly, eager and puzzled, but just as I placed my feet upon the last steps to gain the landing where the man’s chambers were, four or five of the stairs suddenly gave way beneath me, and I fell feet foremost into the great yawning opening there revealed. I was the victim of a dastardly treachery!
I know that I clutched wildly at air when I felt myself falling down, down to what seemed an unfathomable depth. I held my breath, for at that instant a man’s wild shriek rang in my ears. Then next second I felt my skull crushed, and with it all consciousness became blotted out.
I was entrapped—helpless in the hands of quondam friends who were really my bitterest and most unscrupulous enemies.
The agony was excruciating. A burning bubbling seethed in my brain, as though my skull were filled with molten metal. My mouth was parched, my neck stiff, and my jaws were fixed when I opened my eyes and found myself in a great chasm of cavernous darkness.
How long I had lain there I have no idea.
The thunder of rolling, roaring waters deafened me, and my lower limbs were so benumbed that at first I was unable to move them. I felt my leg, and then discovered the reason. Wet to the skin, I was lying half in water, my head alone being on some slightly higher ground—a fortunate circumstance that had certainly saved me from being drowned.
Where was I?
For fully ten minutes—minutes that seemed hours, I was utterly unable to move, but presently I managed, by dint of supreme effort, to struggle to my feet and grope about me unsteadily, at last finding a smooth arched wall. I lifted my hand above my head and found that I could touch the roof.
In that pitch darkness, with the roaring torrent at my side, I dare not move two paces lest I might lose my foothold.
I felt frantically in my pocket, and my heart leapt when I found that I still possessed a box of wax vestas. The silver box was water-tight. One of these I struck quickly, but its light was lost in that cavernous blackness.
It only showed me the bricked walls, high to the roof, wet and slimy, and revealed to me that I was in one of the main sewers of London! At my side the great black torrent flowed on towards the outfall with deafening roar in that long, interminable tunnel beneath the Metropolis.
Rats, hundreds of them, grey and scuttling, ran helter-skelter on seeing the fickle light; but I stood motionless leaning against the wall and gazing around at my weird surroundings until the match went out. My head reeled, I feared to walk lest I should stagger into the Stygian stream.
Knowledge of where I was gave me courage, however. My head was very painful with strange fancies dancing through my imagination. I think that the blow had unbalanced my brain.
Which way should I turn? To right or left? Was mortal man ever in such a predicament? I recognised the truth. I remembered one appalling fact. The scoundrels had sent me through into that deadly place, knowing that even if the fall did not kill me outright, I must be drowned when, at regular intervals, the sewer was automatically flushed, and my body washed out to the Thames estuary.
I had seen the walls still wet to the roof from the last flushing, and as I recognised my awful peril, my blood ran cold. At any moment might come that gigantic flood to sweep me away into eternity in an instant. Somewhere, higher up, was that mechanism which at certain hours of day and night automatically let loose the great sweeping wave through the long, black tunnel sweeping to the sea, the cleansing of London.
My only hope was to find safety somewhere, therefore in frantic haste, all forgetful of the pain I was suffering, I turned to the right and groped along the wall by aid of a match, the light of which was not sufficient to show the true dimensions of the sewer.
On, on, I went, how far I have no idea. It seemed to be miles. My matches burned only dimly, so bad was the air. Time after time I came to side channels, small arches belching forth their black stream into the roaring torrent like tributaries of a river, until I suddenly saw something white upon the wall, and, raising my match, discerned the painted words: “Poland Street.”
Then I knew that I was beneath Poland Street, close to Oxford Street.
I was in search of a manhole by which to ascend to the roadway, but, alas! could not discover one. A great terror seized me lest the flush should come before I could gain a place of safety.
I was in the act of striking another match, in order to proceed more quickly, when I felt my head reeling, and in clutching at the wall for support the matchbox fell from my nerveless fingers into the water.
My disaster was thus complete. Without light how could I find a place in which to raise myself above the level of the flood?
My heart stood still. In that moment the recollection of all the sequence of strange and startling events of the past few weeks passed in rapid review before me. My enemies had entrapped me, and I now knew that I was doomed.
Eric’s shout of defiance, followed by that groan and shriek, still rang in my ears, but, most tantalising of all, I had no idea where the house to which I had been enticed was situated. It was somewhere off Regent Street, but further than that I had no knowledge.
I saw how cleverly the whole affair had been arranged; how the man introduced to me as Humphreys had met us by appointment in the vestibule of the Empire, and how, knowing my interest in antiques, the bait had been so cleverly placed.
I had now no doubt that Ellice Winsloe was an adventurer, therefore my eager desire was to reveal to Scarcliff the astounding truth.
And yet this was actually the man who had the audacity to propose marriage to Sybil, and she had contemplated accepting him!
To old Lady Scarcliff the fellow had posed as a gentleman of means, and had so ingratiated himself with Jack that the pair had become inseparable. The situation was monstrous.
In sheer desperation I groped forward slowly and carefully, my face to the black, slimy wall, feeling it forward with my hands. If I stumbled the force of the torrent would, I knew, take me off my feet and I should most probably meet with an awful death. Cautiously I crept along, how far I cannot tell. Each moment seemed an hour, and each step a mile, until of a sudden the wall ended!
Only the black swiftly-flowing flood lay before me. I put out my hand in the darkness, but only grasped the air.
Next moment, however, I discovered that the sewer took a sudden turn, almost at right angles, and that I had come to the corner. Yes. The wall continued! So I groped on and on, my hands travelling over bricks worn smooth by the action of the cleansing flood.
I hoped to encounter one of those men whom I had often seen descend from the street in high boots and carrying a miner’s lamp, but I was, alas! alone. The very absence of the workmen told me the terrible truth. It was the time for the automatic flushing!
On I groped in frantic haste, the rats scuttling from my path, the darkness complete; the noise of the black waters deafening. I recollected that as we had driven from the Empire it had commenced to rain, and thus was the torrent accounted for.
Of a sudden, I discerned before me something. What it was I could not distinguish. I crept on, and saw that it was like a small patch of faint grey. Then, approaching nearer, I found that it was a single ray of faint daylight which, penetrating from far above, fell upon the black waters. It was day. I had been in that gruesome place all night.
My heart leapt within me as I went forward to it, finding that above was a round, well-like shaft, which led to the surface, while in the wall were iron footholds.
I gained the bottom, and grasping the small, rusted iron rails commenced a slow and difficult ascent.
Not an instant too soon, however, for ere I had placed my foot upon the first rung of the ladder a noise like thunder sounded from the tunnel, and the black waters rose angrily to meet me, washing about my legs as I climbed higher up, and filling the sewer to its roof.
For a few moments the water remained at that level, and then the torrent slowly receded to its original height as the flushing wave rushed on towards the outfall.
A cold perspiration broke out upon me. I saw how I had been within an ace of death, and shuddered as I glanced below.
Then, ascending as quickly as my shattered nerves and swimming head would allow, I found above me a closed grating, through which I could hear the roar of the London traffic above.
I shouted, but could attract no attention.
To push up the iron was impossible, for I saw that it was locked.
A woman passed close by, and I shouted to her. She turned and looked in an opposite direction, surprised to see no one. She never suspected anyone being beneath the roadway.
An omnibus rumbled over me, and I saw that it was a green “Bayswater,” from which I concluded that I must be beneath Oxford Street.
Again and again I shouted for help, but could attract no notice. My position was far from secure, compelled to cling on to those iron footholds in the brickwork.
At last I saw a newsboy close to me. My shout startled him, but when he discerned my face beneath the bars he came closer, and asked,—
“’Alloa, guv’nor! What’s up?”
“I’m a prisoner here,” I explained. “Go and fetch a policeman.”
“My gum!” exclaimed the urchin in his surprise. “It’s the first time I’ve ever ’eard of a bloke gettin’ locked down the sewer.” And he went off at once to call a constable.
The officer came quickly, and after a brief explanation he sent the lad somewhere to the house of one of the sewermen, I think, for the key.
Meanwhile, a small crowd quickly collected around the grating, and I was subjected to a good deal of good-humoured banter until the man came with the key, and I once again found myself at the surface, a dirty, dishevelled, pitiable-looking object in evening dress. I was in Oxford Street, at the corner of Hart Street, Bloomsbury.
Both constable and sewer-man were curious to know how I got in, whereupon I explained that I had been the victim of a plot in some house, of the exact situation of which I was unaware.
The two men exchanged glances—meaning glances I saw them to be.
“Was it anywhere near Portland Place?” asked the big fellow in blue jersey and sea-boots.
“I don’t know. I saw Poland Street written up. Why?”
“Well, because there’s something mysterious goes on in a house somewhere near here. Only a month ago we found the body of a young woman drowned in the main sewer at the corner of Charing Cross Road, and the affair is a mystery. The police ’ave kept it out of the papers while they make inquiries. We’re trying to find out what house has direct communication with the sewer, but up to the present we’ve not been successful. It’s a good job,” he added, “that you weren’t caught by the flush, for it must just be going down at this time.”
I explained how narrowly I had escaped death, and then in reply to the constable described the dastardly plot of which I had been the victim.
“Of course, sir, you won’t mind making a full statement at the police station, will you?” the officer said. “The discovery of the poor woman in the sewer the other day has shown that there is some house in which people mysteriously disappear. It is evidently to that house you were invited. You will be able to assist us to identify it.”
I shook my head, saying: “I fear that I’ll never be able to recognise it again, for I really took no notice of its exterior. It lies somewhere east of Regent Street, that is all I know.”
“Depend upon it that more than one person has been swept down by the flush,” declared the sewer-man. “A man’s body was found down at the outfall at Beckton about three months ago. He was in evening dress, and evidently a gentleman, our foreman said, but where he came from was a complete mystery. My own idea is that the house has no direct communication with the sewer, for if it had, we should have discovered it. You say, sir, that you fell through a hole in the stairs?”
I replied in the affirmative.
“Exactly. You dropped down into a cellar or somewhere in the basement, and then, while you were insensible, they put you into the sewer—through some manhole, perhaps, of which they have a duplicate key. The house must be near a manhole. That’s my belief.”
“Then you don’t think that I fell plumb into the sewer?”
“Certainly not. You were thrown into the sewer while insensible down a manhole, without a doubt. It’s lucky you just escaped the flush. The villain evidently knew that the flush is at eight o’clock in the morning, and that we don’t go down till afterwards. And when we go, well, the victim has, of course, disappeared. By Jove! sir,” added the big muscular man, standing astride in his big, high boots, “you’ve had a narrow shave, and no mistake.”
I admitted I had. I was forced to repeat my explanation to a brown-bearded, good-humoured inspector who came up, and who afterwards gave me his name as Pickering. The officer was most interested, therefore promising to call at the Tottenham Court Road police station later I gave him a card and took a hansom back to Bolton Street.
Ellice Winsloe believed me dead.
There was no doubt about that. And knowing what I now did, I intended that he should remain secure in that belief.
Domville had not returned, a fact which caused me the gravest apprehensions. I recollected that defiant voice in the night. Had he also fallen a victim?
Budd called in my doctor, who dressed the wound in my head and carefully bandaged it. He was curious to know the cause, but I merely explained that I had sustained a rather bad fall. Perhaps he attributed it to too much wine on the previous night—probably he did.
“You’ll have to rest for a day or two,” he said, “you had a nasty blow.”
But I was uncommunicative, therefore he soon afterwards left.
Budd was, of course, inquisitive, but my explanation was that I had had an accident, and had fallen in the mud. My clothes were, of course, ruined, my hands grazed and torn, and across my eye was a nasty gash where I must have struck a sharp stone.
My brain was awhirl, and after the doctor’s departure I swallowed some brandy and lay down on the bed awaiting Eric.
Had he shared the same fate? If so, to try and find him in the sewer was useless. The flush had passed, and would sweep him away to his death.
Of course, I had no real proof that he had been in that house other than overhearing his voice. I recalled every word, and now more than ever was I convinced that he had been behind that closed door, held by enemies.
From Budd I learned that my friend had gone out about two o’clock, and had not returned. He had, however, left me a message to say that I was not to be alarmed by his absence. He was still making inquiries, I supposed. What I had related regarding the strange affair at Sydenham Hill had puzzled him greatly. Perhaps he had gone down there.
I gave my man strict instructions to say to everyone that I too was absent from home.
“Tell everybody that I went out to dinner last night and have not yet returned,” I said. “Express surprise and anxiety. I want to pretend to be missing—you understand, Budd?”
“Yes, sir,” was the man’s prompt response. “You expect somebody will call and inquire, and to everyone I am to know nothing.”
“I went out to the club last night and haven’t been seen since.”
“I quite understand, sir. But what about the doctor?”
“He doesn’t matter. The person whom I wish to believe in my absence does not know the doctor. I shall remain indoors for a day or two. Mind nobody knows I’m here.”
“I shall take good care of that, sir,” was the man’s reply; and I knew that I could trust him.
I scribbled a line to Inspector Pickering explaining my inability to make the statement on account of my injured head, but promising to call in a few days. I urged him not to send to me, as my chambers were probably watched. This note I sent by express messenger.
Then thoroughly exhausted I dropped off to sleep.
It was evening when I awoke, but Eric had not made his appearance. I was now thoroughly alarmed. Who were the men whom he had defied in that house of mystery?
He always carried a revolver, and was a dead shot; but what is a weapon against such black treachery as that to which I had been subjected? He was fearless, and would fight to the last; yet after my experience in that house I was apprehensive lest he should, like myself, have fallen a victim.
Many a man and woman disappears in this roaring metropolis of ours and is never again heard of; many an undiscovered crime takes place within a stone’s-throw of the great London thoroughfares; and many a death-cry is unheard in the hum of traffic and unheeded in the bustle of our everyday life. The London sewers hold many a secret, and the London chimneys have smoked with the cremated remains of many an innocent victim.
I wrote to Tibbie an affectionate letter explaining that my absence was due to the fact that I had fallen and met with a slight accident to the head, and signed it “Willie” in order that, if necessary, she might show it to her landlady. It was strange to write to her with so much affection when inwardly I was aware of her terrible secret. Yet had I not promised to save her? Had I not given her that foolish pledge which had been the cause of all my exciting adventures and my narrow escape from death?
Night came. I sat alone in the armchair before the fire listening for my old friend’s footstep, but all in vain. Something had happened, but what the something was I feared to contemplate.
I unlocked a drawer in my old-fashioned bureau, a quaint old piece of Queen Anne furniture from Netherdene, and took out the paper with the cabalistic jumble of figures and letters which I had found on the body of the dead man in Charlton Wood.
For a long while I sat and studied the cipher and its key, finding it very ingeniously contrived—evidently a secret code established for some evil purpose, a code that had been given to the dead man to enable him to have secret communication with some persons who desired to remain unseen and unknown.
My curiosity aroused, my eye chanced to fall upon the morning’s paper and I took it up and turned to the “agony column,” where I saw several cipher advertisements. One of them I endeavoured to read by the aid of the dead man’s key, but was unable. Therefore I tried the second, and afterwards the third. The latter only consisted of two lines of a meaningless jumble of letters and numerals, but taking a pencil I commenced to write down the equivalent of the cipher in plain English.
In a few moments my heart gave a bound.
I had deciphered the first word of the message, namely, “White.”
Very carefully, and after considerable search and calculation, I presently transcribed the secret message thus:—
“White Feather reports W.H. gone home. Nothing to fear.”
That was all. But was it not very significant? The initials were my own, and did not the announcement that I had “gone home” mean that I had gone to my death. There was nothing to fear, it was plainly stated.
They therefore had feared us, and that was the motive of their ingenious crime.
For whose eyes was that curious advertisement intended, I wondered. Who was “White Feather?”
Ah! If I could only discover, then I should obtain a clue to the mystery that was now puzzling me and driving me to despair.
At two o’clock Eric was still absent, therefore I turned in. My head troubled me. It was very painful, and the horrors of that past night ever rose before me, while my unbalanced brain was distracted by wonder at the reason of that desperate attempt upon my life. Man of the world that I was, I knew well enough that there was some deep motive. They feared me—but why?
Next morning, there being no word from Eric, my anxiety was greatly increased. My friend might have shared the same fate as myself and remained unconscious till the flood had overwhelmed him. If so, then all trace of him might have disappeared and his body was now floating slowly out to sea.
Those hard defiant words of his still rang in my ears. What did he mean? Who were the persons who held him in their power?
To remain inactive was impossible. Every moment I remained increased the danger of my discovery by Winsloe and his companions. I could, of course, have gone forth to King Street with a constable and given him in charge for the attempt upon me. Indeed, that was my first impulse, yet on reflection I saw that by adopting such a course I might imperil Sybil. Without a doubt the fellow knew her secret, and for that reason was in such active search of her.
Therefore I decided to remain patient and watchful. Winsloe believed that I was dead, and perhaps it was as well, for I should now be afforded an opportunity of watching his movements.
For three whole days I was compelled to remain a prisoner on account of my annoying bandages, which were too conspicuous to allow me to go forth. I had several callers, including Jack and Lord Wydcombe, but to everyone Budd replied that both his master and Mr Domville were absent, where, he had no idea.
My anxiety for Eric increased hourly, yet what could I do?
The doctor, at my request, removed the bandages so that my wound was hidden when I wore a golf-cap, and about eleven o’clock that same night, dressed in my working clothes, I crept forth into Bolton Street unseen, and in Piccadilly mingled with the crowd homeward bound from the theatre.
I went into Regent Street confident in my excellent disguise, and taking one of the streets to the right, wandered on and on in search of the house with the fatal stairs. On that disastrous night the villainous pair had engaged me deeply in conversation as we drove along, in order to take my attention off the route we were traversing, therefore I own that I was absolutely without any landmark. All I knew was that we had turned off Regent Street about half-way up and that the house was situated in a quiet, rather dark street, an old-fashioned house of three storeys.
Eagerly in search of the place from which I had so narrowly escaped with my life I wandered in the night up and down those narrow thoroughfares, that puzzling maze of streets that lie between Regent Street and Soho Square—Brewer Street, Bridle Lane, Lexington Street, Poland Street and Berwick Street. I could not, however, find any house answering to the very vague impression I retained of it, though I went on and on until far into the night.
Fearing to return to Bolton Street, I took a bed at an obscure hotel in the Euston Road, and next morning went over to Camberwell, where Tibbie warmly welcomed me. I attributed the cut on my head to a fall on the kerb, and when we sat together I saw how thoroughly resigned she had become to her strange surroundings.
With womanly enthusiasm she told me of the kindness of the landlady, who would not allow her to mope there alone. She had taken her out to see her friends, wives of working-men like herself, and they had gossiped, had high tea and discussed the affairs of the neighbourhood.
“Tibbie,” I said, presently, after we had been chatting some time, “I am compelled to leave London, and I confess I am very apprehensive on your behalf.”
“Leave London!” she exclaimed. “Why?”
“It is imperative. Winsloe is watching me, and is doing all he can to discover you. Every time I come here I run a great risk.”
“I know,” she said, frowning. “His spies are no doubt dogging your footsteps everywhere.”
“Then your position here is unsafe. You would do better to escape from London now, and hide in the country—say in one of the larger towns in the north.”
“Yes; but the police are in search of me, remember. The mater and Jack have raised a hue and cry. They think I’ve met with foul play.”
“Then all the more reason why you should slip out of London. The country police are slower, and you will stand less chance of recognition.”
She sighed, exclaiming,—
“Ah, Wilfrid! It is cruel—cruel of them to hunt me down as they are now doing. Where shall I go? Where do you intend going?”
“Anywhere—out of London. What about Leeds? Neither of us know anyone there.”
She was silent a moment. Then said, “I am in your hands entirely, Wilfrid, and will go to Leeds if you think I can travel without being recognised.”
“If I anticipated any risk I would not allow you to undertake it,” I said. “We will go this evening by the 5:45 from King’s Cross—‘Oswin’s train,’ as they call it, because he is the caterer for the dining-car.”
“Very well,” she answered. “As you wish. But before we go will you do me a favour? Go to the Daily Telegraph office and put in an advertisement for me.”
“An advertisement!” I exclaimed, in surprise.
“Yes,” she laughed, rather nervously. “I want to—I mean it is necessary that I should communicate with a friend.”
I said nothing, but stood watching her as she took out half a sheet of notepaper and commenced to print three lines of jumbled capitals and numerals—an advertisement apparently in the cipher which I had taken from the dead unknown.
Her action astounded me, but I managed to remain as though interested but ignorant.
“Why in this cipher?” I asked, when she handed it to me, requesting me to go to Fleet Street after our midday dinner.
“Because—well, because I don’t wish it to be read by other people. It is for the eye of one person only.”
I placed it in my pocket without further comment, and after we had eaten together I went out to do her bidding.
While seated in the tram-car in the Old Kent Road I took out the mystic message she had written, and with the key which I had fortunately carried away with me from Bolton Street I deciphered the words she had penned.
They read,—
“To Nello.—Will make appointment when safe for us to meet. Note that Eric is in Paris. I still trust you.—S.”
I sat staring at the paper like a man in a dream.
Was Tibbie, the woman I had promised to save and for whose sake I was sacrificing everything, reputation, honour, even my life, actually playing me false?
How did she know that Eric was in Paris? Was that really true?
And who was Nello to whom she sent that message of trust?
A little after ten o’clock that same evening, in our guise as working people, we walked along the Briggate, in Leeds, and presently found a small eating-house, where Tibbie obtained accommodation for the night.
Dressed as we were, Tibbie’s trunk at the station, and a small bag in my hand, I was unable to go to any of the larger hotels. Therefore, after supping off a chop and tomatoes, washed down with a tankard of ale, I bade her good-night and went off to find a bed round in Commercial Street.
Next day, in the dull grey morning, we walked the busy streets of Leeds—Kirkgate, Bond Street, Albion Street, and the neighbouring thoroughfares—and took counsel with each other. Her advertisement, which I saw printed in that morning’s Telegraph puzzled me. Yet I could not admit knowledge of the cipher without also admitting that I was in possession of the key.
I showed it to her in the paper, but she only smiled and thanked me, saying,—
“I suppose you suspect that I am communicating with some lover—eh?”
“Well, Tibbie,” I remarked, in as calm a voice as I could command, “I must admit that I’m much surprised. You seem, somehow, to be misleading me.”
“Because I am compelled to do so,” was her frank, outspoken answer.
I longed to ask right out who was the man Nello—brief for Lionel—the man to whom she sent a secret message of trust.
We were passing St. John’s Churchyard towards North Street, and had been discussing the advisability of her taking a furnished room in one of the respectable houses in Roundhay Road, where we had seen “Apartments to let: Furnished,” when, catching her countenance, I suddenly said,—
“Eric has disappeared. He left Bolton Street some days ago, and I’ve heard nothing of him. I’m getting very anxious.”
“Eric!” she echoed. “Well, he’s hardly the kind of a man to disappear, is he? I’ve often heard from his friends that he goes away abroad frequently and forgets to write. Perhaps he’s abroad now.”
She did not tell me that he was in Paris, the statement which she made in secret to the man she called Nello.
I discussed the subject further, but she steadfastly refused to admit that she knew of his whereabouts. By her attitude I was much mystified.
Neither the Sussex Constabulary nor the Scarcliffs themselves entertained the slightest suspicion that the sudden departure of the Honourable Sybil from Ryhall had any connection with the mysterious affair in Charlton Wood. I had made careful inquiry when I had visited old Lady Scarcliff at Grosvenor Street, and young Lady Wydcombe, visits which I had purposely made in town in order to allay any suspicion that I was aware of Tibbie’s place of hiding.
The whole family were, of course, extremely anxious, and I was compelled to play a double game, pretending to make every inquiry in those quarters in London where she was so well known. I had even invented stories as to her having been seen at Oddenino’s at supper, with two other ladies, and accompanied by both ladies on the departure platform at St. Pancras, stories concocted with a dual purpose, to reassure Jack and his mother that she was well, and also to mislead those who were so eagerly in search of her.
As we walked side by side through that busy centre of commercial life, all of which was so strange to her, I expressed regret that she could tell me nothing further.
“If I knew the truth,” I said, “it would enable me to steer clear of pitfalls, and render your life happier and brighter.”
“You are posing as my husband,” she said, looking straight into my face with those wonderful eyes of hers. “Your self-sacrifice is surely great, Wilfrid, for one who entertains no affection. When a man loves he will do anything—he will ruin himself for the sake of a woman, as so many do. But when love is absent it is all so different.”
And she sighed and turned her head away. She was a neat, demure little figure in her cheap black dress, her small toque, and her black cotton gloves, with the false badge of matrimony underneath.
“I cannot for the life of me imagine what safeguard I am to you—pretending to be your husband.”
“Ah?” she said. “You will know everything some day—some day you will realise my awful peril,” and her mouth closed tightly as tears welled in her eyes. Did she refer to the crime in Charlton Wood? That afternoon we engaged apartments in what seemed to be a pleasant little house in Roundhay Road, kept by an honest old Yorkshire woman, who spoke broadly and welcomed us warmly. Therefore Tibbie obtained her trunk from the cloak-room, and took up her abode there, while I explained my enforced absence from my wife, saying that I was compelled to go to Bradford. Instead of that, however, I returned to my quarters in Commercial Street, and met her in Kirkgate at eleven o’clock next morning.
Ours was a strange, adventurous life in the days that followed, and were it not for the veil of mystery upon everything, and the grave suspicion which I still entertained of my dainty little companion, it would have all been very pleasant.
In order to kill time, as well as to avoid being met in Leeds together by our landlady, we visited the various outlying places of interest, Kirkstall with its ruined abbey and its umbrageous landscapes, the old church of Adel with the pretty glen, par excellence a walk for lovers, Cookridge Hall, Chapeltown, the village on the Great North Road where one obtains such magnificent views, and lastly the splendid old mansion of Temple Newsham, where walking in the park one sunny, afternoon Tibbie halted, and looking away to the distant Tudor mansion, said,—
“How strange life is, Wilfrid. Only two years ago I was staying here with Cynthia, and now you and I come here as working-class holiday makers. Ah!” she sighed, bitterly, “I was happy then, before—” and she did not conclude her sentence.
“Before what?” I asked, standing at her side beneath the great old elm with the sheep grazing quietly around.
“Before evil fell upon me,” she said, hoarsely, with poignant bitterness.
We remained in Leeds a week, and although I had given Budd my address at the post-office I received no word from him concerning Eric.
Day by day I watched the columns of the Telegraph until one morning there came an answer to Tibbie’s cipher advertisement, a reply which I read as,—
“To S.—You have been betrayed! Exercise caution, and escape at once, the instant you see this.—Your Friend.”
I lost no time in seeking her, and with affected carelessness handed her the paper, making a casual remark upon the news of the day. I watched her, however, and saw that she at once turned to the column which held the greatest interest for her.
Her eyes fell upon the reply to her secret message. In a few moments she had deciphered it, and sat with the journal still in her hand, staring straight before her.
“Wilfrid!” she exclaimed, in a low, strained voice when she at length found tongue, “I must leave here at once. Every moment’s delay increases my peril. I must escape.”
“Why?”
But again she refused any explanation, merely saying that her departure from Leeds was imperative, and expressing despair that her enemies would never relinquish their hot pursuit. They were hounding her down, she said in despair, and they must sooner or later triumph over her.
“No,” I exclaimed. “Hope on, Tibbie. You must escape—you will escape. They shall never harm you as long as I have strength to be your protector.”
“Ah!” she cried. “How can I thank you, Wilfrid. To you I owe my very life. Without you I should have ended it all long ago.”
“Never mind that now,” I urged. “You must escape. Where shall you go?”
“Anywhere. It is just the same to me,” was her answer.
“Then I suggest you take the midday train up to Newcastle. There’s a quiet hotel where you may live comfortably and unnoticed, the Douglas, in Grainger Street West. Remain there a few days, and then move on across to Carlisle.”
“I know Carlisle,” she said. “I’ve broken the journey there often when going to Scotland.”
“But you are not known there?”
“Only at the County Hotel. I can go somewhere else, of course. But are you not coming?” she asked, quickly. “Remember my whole future depends upon you passing yourself off as my husband, William Morton.”
“For the next few days I think it would be as well for us to remain apart,” I replied, for truth to tell I had suddenly formed a plan, and was now anxious to make a flying visit up to London in order to put it into execution.
Her face fell.
“But you will return to me?” she asked, very anxiously.
“Yes—I will meet you in Carlisle in a week’s time. Go to Newcastle for four days, and thence to Carlisle. Indeed, change your address constantly. In Newcastle assume another name, and in Carlisle another. Do not go in the name of Morton again until we meet. I shall write to you at the post-office in Carlisle. To-day is Tuesday. Next Tuesday you shall hear from me.”
“Why do you leave me alone?” she pouted. “How can I spend a whole week wandering about without a companion?”
“Don’t you see, Tibbie, that it is very necessary that I should show up to your mother and Jack in order to still pretend to make an effort to find traces of you?” I asked.
“Ah! yes,” she sighed. “I suppose you are right. You do all you can in my interests, so I ought not to complain.”
“I am glad you are convinced that my return to London is with the object of averting suspicion,” I said. “Go up to Newcastle and escape these enemies of yours—whoever they are. Travel constantly if possible. You have money. If not I can give you some.”
“Thanks—I have plenty,” was her reply; and then she reluctantly commenced packing her trunk preparatory to her hurried departure.
And at noon we had grasped hands on the platform and I had seen her into a third-class compartment of the express bound for Newcastle.
“Au revoir,” she said, bending to me from the carriage window. “Remember, next Tuesday in Carlisle. You are my friend—promise you will not desert me.”
“Next Tuesday,” I repeated, lifting my cloth cap. “I promise. Till then, adieu.”
And she smiled sadly as the express glided out of the station.
Half an hour later I was on my way to London again, and a little after five o’clock entered the offices of the Daily Telegraph and handed in a cipher advertisement, which read,—
“To Nello.—Meet me outside Baker Street Station to-night at eight. Very urgent. Nothing to fear.—S.”
I was convinced that the mysterious Nello lived in London, and therefore would see the paper next morning. I was determined to ascertain who it was in whom Tibbie placed such implicit trust.
I feared to approach Bolton Street; therefore I took a room at the Caledonian Hotel on Adelphi Terrace and sent a note to Budd to come and see me.
In an hour my man stood before me, telling me of the eager inquiries made for me by Mr Ellice Winsloe, and the message he had left, asking me to call and see him as soon as ever I returned.
The scoundrel never believed that I would return. He expected that my body was far out to sea by this time, just as other bodies had been despatched from that house of mystery.
Budd brought me some clean linen and my letters, but I still retained my guise as a working-man, for I had yet a very difficult and delicate task before me, namely, the watching of the man whom Tibbie addressed as Nello.
At noon next day I received a telegram from the woman upon whom rested the dark shadow of a secret crime, telling me of her safe arrival in Newcastle, and reminding me of my promise to return. Then I went forth and lounged about the Burlington in the hope of catching a glimpse of the man who was her enemy as well as mine.
He generally strolled through the Arcade about five o’clock, for he went daily to old General Taylor, in the Albany. I knew his haunts well, therefore, keeping away from his path, I watched until I saw him pass in deep conversation with a man of his own age, whose sharp, clean-shaved face gave me the impression that he was a barrister. Winsloe looked more refined, more fashionably dressed, with his frock coat cleanly brushed and his glossy silk hat apparently only that moment out of the ironer’s hands.
I pretended to be deeply interested in a hosier’s window as he passed. But even had we met face to face I doubt if he would have recognised me in the disguise of a working-man.
His face was harder and more evil-looking and his shifty eyes were everywhere. From the way the pair were talking, I could not resist the conviction that the clean-shaven fellow was one of his associates or accomplices.
To that elegant man who passed as a gentleman, and was invited to half the best houses in London, I owed all my present distress and anxiety, while at the same time he was Sybil’s enemy, the man who held her future in his merciless hands.
I watched him out of sight, and then turning upon my heel went back citywards.
That night, just before eight, I strolled along the Marylebone Road, and slowly passed Baker Street Station and along by Madame Tussaud’s, without, however, seeing traces of anyone. A couple of newsboys were idling on the kerb gossiping, but all else was bustle, and there were no lingerers.
I could not well remain there fearing lest Winsloe or any of his associates who knew me might recognise me. Therefore I was compelled to stroll up and down on the opposite side of the way, my eyes eager to discern any man who halted there in expectation.
One man dressed like a City clerk came to a sudden standstill just after eight, looked at his watch and peered inside the station. But I was disappointed, for a few moments later a young woman, in brown, probably his sweetheart, met him, and they both walked away in company. Again a second man emerged from the station and stood for a long time in indecision. He, too, was keeping an appointment, for he was joined presently by a much older man, and they went into a neighbouring saloon-bar.
Half-past eight struck; even nine o’clock. But the appointment was not kept. Perhaps the mysterious Nello had not seen the message?
I was beginning to fear that such was the case, or that my ruse had failed, when a dark-eyed rather handsome young girl, dressed plainly, like a shop assistant, alighted from a hansom about a hundred yards from the station, paid the driver, and hurriedly approached the spot where I stood.
She took no notice of my presence, but crossing the roadway entered the station and searched eagerly everywhere as though she were late for her appointment.
She came forth again upon the pavement, looked up and down, and then strolled patiently along the kerb.
She never gave me a single glance. This fact I noted, causing me to wonder if she were not waiting for a woman.
Was she awaiting Sybil? Could she be a messenger from the mysterious Nello, in whom my dainty little friend seemed to place such implicit trust?
I crossed the road and idled past her in order to get a good look at her face.
Then I sauntered on, wondering and perplexed.