“If I hadn’t turned up just at that very moment, I believe Grace would have died on the doorstep. I hope there’s not another woman in the world would have behaved so abominably as Mrs. Armitage; but it is just like her. I never could imagine how she came to have such a daughter as Grace! But of course she takes after her father—the professor’s a dear. But what a life the pair of them have had with that horrid little creature!”
Winnie Winston spoke in an emphatic undertone, for the walls of the Chelsea flat were thin, and in the adjoining room Grace was in bed, worn out and fast asleep.
Winnie had insisted on administering hot soup and a full dose of aspirin, and sat beside the exhausted girl, holding her hand, stroking her aching forehead, cherishing her with all womanly endearments, till, between them, she and Mother Nature, and the beneficent drug brought blessed sleep and oblivion to the tortured brain and heart.
Then Winnie stole away, and presently, as he so often did, Austin Starr turned up, to whom she poured out her indignation at Mrs. Armitage’s callous conduct.
“I always guessed she could be a holy terror if she chose. Though she has always been mighty civil to me,” said Austin.
“Of course. She always is to men, and most of them think she’s an angel. Why, she made a dead set at Roger when they first knew him, and was furious when she found he wasn’t taking any, and that it was Grace he was in love with. She’s been sniffy with them both ever since—mean little cat! What do you suppose she said to Grace at the very last moment before she went to the church the other day?”
“Something sweet and maternal,” suggested Austin sarcastically.
“I don’t think! She came into Grace’s room, preening herself like a canary—the first time she’d been near her to my knowledge, and I got there pretty early to help Grace dress. Mrs. Armitage just looked her up and down and said, ‘Really, Grace, you look like a corpse; white never did suit you. Hadn’t you better make up a bit?’ I could have shaken her! And when there was that dreadful delay at the church she never even came through to the vestry with us, but was only fussing and fuming because the Rawsons hadn’t come. While now, if you please, she’s made up her nasty little mind that Roger is guilty and is going to be hanged, and had the fiendish cruelty to blurt it out to Grace the moment she arrived. It was enough to kill her!”
“Sure,” conceded Austin gravely. “I’m not making any excuse for Mrs. Armitage—her conduct was just abominable—but we’ve got to face facts, Miss Winnie; and the great fact is that I’m afraid a good few people are of the same opinion.”
Winnie sprang up, a passionate figure, and pointed an accusing forefinger at him.
“Austin Starr, you don’t dare to sit there and tell me that you believe your friend Roger Carling is a murderer!”
His clever, good-tempered face—a face that inspired confidence in most people—betrayed embarrassment, distress, perplexity; his silence infuriated Winnie.
“Answer me!” she ejaculated in an imperative whisper, emphasized by a stamp of her foot.
“No, I do not,” he said slowly. “I never will. But the case is very black against him, and there’s a lot of excuse for the people who do think it.”
She gave a little sigh of relief.
“I’m glad you don’t, anyhow; for if you did I’d never willingly speak to you again.”
Austin rose, and stood beside her, looking down earnestly at her charming, animated face.
“I’d give my right hand, I’d give ten years of my life at its best—Winnie, I’d give everything dearest to me in the world except the hope of winning you—to be able to clear Roger Carling from this charge,” he said slowly.
For weeks, for months she had known in her heart that Austin Starr loved her, had known too that she loved him, but never before had he spoken like this, never had there been any sentimental passages between them, only a beautiful frank friendship, that after all is the very best foundation on which a man and a woman can build the love that lasts!
And now—though how it came about neither of them could have said—her hands were in his, he drew her, unresisting to his arms, and their lips met for the first time.
A wonderful moment for them both, when, without another word, he knew his hope was fulfilled—that he had already won her. It was excusable that, for a few moments, they almost forgot those other hapless lovers, their nearest friends, now so tragically parted. Yet they soon remembered and resumed counsel, with just one little difference that meant a lot to them—that whereas before they had sat facing each other, one each side the fire-place, they were now side by side.
“Can’t you do anything to bring light on it all, Austin?” she asked.
He passed his hand perplexedly over his sleek hair.
“I mean to do everything I can, dear, but——”
“Haven’t you any theory?”
“I’ve had quite a lot, and tried to follow them up, but they won’t wash—not one. I felt mighty uneasy when I found Lady Rawson had been to your old maestro’s flat and that Roger had followed her there.”
“Did he! When did you find that out?”
“The same night, just after Snell, the detective, came here, and asked so many questions. I went straight to the flat.”
“You never told me!”
“I never told anyone; but I soon found that Snell knew all about it too, and as he kept silence so did I. Though what I couldn’t make out was why Roger went on her track like that, when he had so little time to spare. It was an utter mystery till I got the clue when the news came through about those secret papers, and I went straight to Sir Robert and saw him. It was he who sent it; Snell must have known it all the time and suppressed it—never gave even me a hint.”
“Then you wrote the ‘interview’? I thought so. Did Sir Robert say anything else? What does he think?”
“That’s the worst of it. He is absolutely convinced that his wife was murdered by Roger, and is implacable against him. That’s not to be wondered at, with the poor thing still lying dead in that great, silent house. The funeral is to-morrow, and as I can’t go to both, I shall go there instead of to the court to hear the case opened against Roger.”
“Oh, Austin, why? It would be a comfort to him and to Grace too, to have you there!”
“Yes, but I’ve a queer sort of feeling that at the funeral I may get some clue that would be of value. I can’t explain it, but there it is. And anyhow the case will surely be adjourned to-morrow. They can’t do anything else. It was terrible to see Sir Robert to-day. He is making a wonderful recovery physically, and was sitting up in a wheel-chair, though he’s paralysed in the lower limbs, and I doubt if he’ll ever walk again. But his brain is clear enough, and his animus against Roger is simply awful. The queer thing is that he acknowledges that those papers were of such supreme importance that—well honestly, I gathered the impression that if anyone but his own wife had been murdered in order to recover them he’d have considered the crime justifiable and tried to hush it up. The things we’re most up against are that Roger undoubtedly was there on the scene, and that he was the one person concerned who knew the contents of the papers and was most interested in getting them back to Sir Robert. You and I, and poor Mrs. Carling herself, are certain he did not commit the murder—just because we know him. But the question is—Who did?”
“It’s curious that the maestro should be mixed up in it,” mused Winnie.
“Have you seen him since?”
“No, there was no reason why I should.”
“I have, and Boris Melikoff too—this afternoon. I remembered him—Melikoff—when I saw him again. I met him here some months back, in the summer.”
She nodded.
“That Sunday night, when he sang so divinely. It’s the only time I’ve seen him. A handsome boy, but there’s something queer and unbalanced about him, though I believe the maestro cares for him more than for anyone else alive. Grace was here that night, too—not Roger; it was when he was abroad with the Rawsons. Why, Austin, could it have been him, Melikoff—in jealousy? I could imagine him doing anything!”
Starr shook his head.
“No. He’s ruled out personally. He was down at Birmingham. But I’m going to cultivate him assiduously, and, if possible, his compatriots who forgather with him at Cacciola’s and elsewhere. I believe that’s the direction in which the truth will be found. Snell doesn’t. He is sure he’s got a clear, straightforward case, and that his duty’s finished!”
Winnie frowned thoughtfully.
“You think Lady Rawson and Boris were members of a secret society?”
“Sure!”
“And that one of them watched, and followed, and killed her?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why didn’t he keep the papers?”
“That’s the snag. But suppose he or she—it might have been a woman—didn’t want the papers, that it was a personal vendetta? That’s the line I mean to follow now.”
“It sounds quite likely,” she agreed. “How clever of you, Austin. But how are you going to set about it?”
“Can’t say yet, dear. I must feel my way somehow.”
“Perhaps something fresh and helpful will come out in court to-morrow,” said Winnie hopefully.
The beautiful little Russian church was filled to the very doors for the solemn and stately ceremonial of Paula Rawson’s funeral service. Many representatives of royalty were there, Lord Warrington and several of his staff, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, peers—everyone who was “anyone” in the innermost circle of London society seemed to be present, except Sir Robert Rawson himself.
And yet to Austin Starr’s acutely sympathetic and impressionable mind it seemed that there were no mourners there; that all these distinguished people had assembled as a mere conventional duty, an expression of conventional respect and sympathy for the bereaved husband; that they cared nothing for the dead woman lying there in her coffin, under the magnificent purple pall. She was even lonelier in death than she had been in life.
The impression was confirmed when at last the service was over, and the congregation emerged into the gloom and mud of the streets, for it was a damp, dark, dreary morning.
Crowds of sightseers thronged the pavements outside, waiting and watching, palpably animated by their curiosity to witness one of the acts in this sensational drama of real life that had already proved so thrilling, and that had yet to be played out.
There were more crowds outside the cemetery gates, through which only members of the funeral party were admitted; and open expressions of surprise and disappointment were exchanged at the smallness of the cortège: only a couple of motor-cars and some half-dozen taxicabs followed the flower-laden hearse.
“She doesn’t seem to have had any personal friends,” remarked Bowden, one of the reporters who had shared Austin’s taxi. “I should have thought some of the big pots—or of Sir Robert’s relatives—would have had the decency to come on. There’s Twining, the lawyer—who’s the old man beside him?”
“Sir Robert’s valet—sort of confidential attendant. His name’s Thomson,” said Austin.
Thomson, decorous and unperturbed as usual, appeared in fact to be acting as a sort of major-domo, and was giving low-voiced instructions to the undertaker’s men as they deftly removed the masses of flowers that covered the coffin. One of them handed him a large heart fashioned of purple blossoms, which he carried carefully in both hands, as he moved to a position close to the open grave, and to the priests in their imposing vestments.
“Who are the others?” whispered Starr’s companion. “Servants too? They look like foreigners. Didn’t see ’em at the church.”
He indicated two groups that had assembled each side the grave, from which the reporters stood a little apart.
“Don’t know,” Austin returned curtly, with a gesture imposing silence.
That was not entirely true; for with the group on the right, some eight or nine poorly clad men and women, with white, earnest, grief-stricken faces, was Boris Melikoff, holding in his right hand a single branch of beautiful crimson lilies.
“Russian refugees, and they are the real mourners,” Austin said to himself, and scanned each face in turn searchingly. Did any one of them know the grim secret he was determined to discover? Could any one of them, man or woman, be the actual murderer? It seemed unlikely—even impossible—as he noted their sorrow, restrained, indeed, with touching dignity, and therefore apparently the more deep and sincere.
He turned his gaze on the other group—three persons only, a man and two women. The man was Cacciola, a stately, impressive figure, his fine head bared, his long, grey locks stirred by the chill, damp breeze. His dark eyes were fixed anxiously on his beloved Boris, but he showed no other sign of emotion.
The short woman who clung weeping to his arm, her face concealed by an enormous black-bordered handkerchief, was undoubtedly his housekeeper, old Giulia.
And the third? Austin caught his breath quickly as he looked at her, just managing to check the involuntary exclamation that rose to his lips.
She was one of the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen, quite young, probably not more than seventeen, Italian certainly; no other country could produce that vivid, passionate type, that exquisite contour of cheek and throat, that delicate olive skin, birthright of daughters of the sun, those wonderful, tawny eyes shadowed by the long, black lashes.
She was dressed in deep mourning, with a voluminous black veil flung back from her face and falling nearly to the hem of her skirt, but that sombre garb was the only sign of grief about her; it seemed to enhance rather than dim her radiant youth.
There was something triumphant, almost insolent, about her, on such a scene. She stood erect, her graceful head thrown back a little, her full, curved lips slightly parted, her eyes, like those of Cacciola, fixed on Boris Melikoff with an ardent, passionate, self-revealing gaze. She seemed utterly oblivious of every one and everything else, and as he watched her Austin Starr was momentarily oblivious of every one but her.
He was only vaguely aware that the priest’s sonorous voice ceased; but a moment later he was startled by a swift change in the girl’s face. It darkened, as a summer sky sometimes darkens at the advent of a thunder-cloud; her black eyebrows contracted, so did her red lips, the love-light vanished from her eyes; he could have sworn that they flashed red. For a moment the face was transformed to that of a fiend incarnate, obsessed by anger, hatred, jealousy.
Instinctively he looked around to see what had caused this extraordinary emotion, and saw that something had happened by the grave. The Russian group had closed up around Melikoff, towards whom the priests and Mr. Twining had turned as if in shocked remonstrance, while the men who were in the very act of lowering the coffin had paused, and the great purple heart of flowers lay, face downwards, right on the margin of the moss-lined grave.
“What’s up?” he asked the man next him—he whom he had silenced a few minutes before.
“Didn’t you see? The old man laid the heart on the coffin just at the last moment, and that tall, dark, foreign chap stepped forward, chucked it aside, and put those red lilies he had on it. The others pulled him back, and—look—he’s crying or fainting or something. Queer, eh?”
Even as he spoke Thomson, who alone seemed to have retained his composure, lifted the heart and replaced it, but below the lilies, and signed to the men to proceed with their task.
The whole thing passed in a few seconds, the priest proceeded with the last sentences, and pronounced the benediction, and Starr, his brain awhirl with wild conjectures, looked once more at the girl.
She was standing with bowed head and downcast eyes, in an attitude of reverence, her hands clasped on her breast, and he wondered if his eyes had deceived him just now. Then he noticed that one of her black gloves was split right across—plain to see even at that distance, for her white hand gleamed through the rent—and knew he had not been mistaken. She had clenched her hands in that spasm of fury. The glove was evidence!
She loved Boris Melikoff; she hated that dead woman with a hatred that even the grave could not mitigate.
Was this the clue he sought? Who was she? What was her connection with Cacciola—with Melikoff? He must learn that without delay.
Cacciola was already hastening towards Boris and his friends, while the girl remained with Giulia, and Austin would have followed, but was intercepted by Mr. Twining, the lawyer, who had held a brief colloquy with Thomson, and now hurried up to the little group of journalists.
“Mr. Starr? I believe you and these gentlemen are representatives of the Press? I represent Sir Robert Rawson on this solemn occasion, and, speaking in his name, I beg of you not to give any publicity to the painful little incident you have just witnessed—I mean the incident with the flowers. It cannot be of any public interest whatever, and its publication would add to the distress of Sir Robert and—er—possibly of others. Can I rely upon you not to mention it?”
The undertaking was given, of course, and the journalists hurried off, with the exception of Austin, detained this time by Thomson.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I should like a few minutes’ conversation, and as I know you are pressed for time, would you accept the use of the car, one of Sir Robert’s that I am to return in, and permit me to accompany you? We can drive straight to your destination.”
Austin accepted with alacrity, and they entered a closed car, which had come laden with flowers, whose heavy, sickly fragrance still clung about it.
“I am sure you will excuse the liberty, sir,” said Thomson, in his precise, respectful way. “I would have liked to have a word with you yesterday when you called on Sir Robert, but it was impossible.”
Austin nodded, wondering what was coming. Somewhat to his surprise, Thomson had been present at the interview yesterday, at Sir Robert’s own request, standing silently behind his master’s chair.
“It’s about Mr. Carling, sir. I can’t think why the police should have arrested him of all people in the world—such a nice young gentleman as he is. He had no more to do with my lady’s death than you had!”
“Of course he hadn’t. But, see here, Thomson, do you know anything of his movements that morning?”
“Nothing at all, sir, beyond what every one else knows, or will know soon. But how anybody acquainted with him can believe it for a minute beats me—my master most of all. I have presumed to speak to him about it—I’ve been with Sir Robert many years, sir—but he wouldn’t hear a word, even from me. He says Mr. Carling followed and murdered my lady so as to get those papers back; he told the police so!”
“I don’t believe the papers had anything to do with it.”
Thomson, who was sitting forward on the edge of the seat, his black-gloved hands resting on his knees, turned his head slowly and looked at Austin sideways, for the first time during the colloquy.
“Nor I, sir. I hold that it was a thief, who got rid of the papers as soon as possible.”
“It might have been a vendetta!”
“I beg your pardon, sir, a what?”
“Someone who had a grudge against Lady Rawson and watched for the chance of killing her?”
“That hadn’t struck me, sir,” said Thomson after a reflective pause.
“It struck me. Do you know anything about Mr. Melikoff and his associates?”
“The young gentleman who was so upset just now? Only that he was related to my lady and they used to meet, as Sir Robert was aware,” Thomson replied, and Austin had the impression that he was lying, though why he could not imagine. “I fear there’s no light in that direction, sir. And Mr. Melikoff was not even in London at the time.”
“I wasn’t thinking of him, but whether there might be someone, who knew them both,” said Austin, with that girl’s beautiful, passionate face still vividly in remembrance. But he could not question the old man about her. Some instinct, which at the moment he did not attempt to analyse, forbade him.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked bluntly, as the swift car was nearing Fleet Street and Thomson had relapsed into silence.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I was forgetting. I took the liberty, knowing that you are a friend of Mr. Carling’s, merely to ask if you could possibly convey my respects to him, and to the poor young lady his wife, and my best wishes that they will soon be restored to each other.”
“I’ll do it with pleasure. Thank you, Thomson. Good day.”
“Queer old coon,” he thought, as he dashed up to his room. “So that was all he wanted. Very decent of him though.”
Then he concentrated on his work. He was just through when Winnie rang him up, to say that Grace and her father had returned to the flat and were anxious to see him that evening, if possible.
“I’ll come round about nine, dear—perhaps earlier; but I’ve to see someone first.”
After a minute’s cogitation he rang up Cacciola. A woman’s voice answered—a delightful voice, rich and soft—in fluent English, with a mere intonation (it was slighter than an accent) that betrayed the speaker’s nationality.
“Signor Cacciola is away from home. Will you give a message?”
A dull flush rose to Austin’s face, a queer thrill passed through him.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Who is speaking? Is it Signora Giulia?”
“No. She also is not present. I am Maddelena Cacciola. What is the message?”
“I’d rather tell it to the maestro himself. When will he be home?”
“Not till—oh, very late.”
“Then is Mr. Melikoff home?”
“No. He also is out with my uncle.”
“I see. I’m sorry to have troubled you, signorina. I’ll ring up again to-morrow.”
“Will you not tell me your name?”
“Austin Starr. But he may not remember it.”
“I will tell him, Mr. Starr. Good-bye.”
He replaced the receiver, and again sat in thought, drumming softly with his fingers on the table.
So she was Cacciola’s niece, and was living, or at least staying, with him, under the same roof as Boris Melikoff.
What a voice! Worthy of her face, her eyes. And a beautiful name too; he found himself repeating it in a whisper: “Maddelena!”
“I can’t understand it, Winnie. It seems almost as if every one—like mother—had already made up their minds that—that Roger——”
Grace broke off. She could not bring herself to utter the words “that Roger is guilty.” But Winnie understood.
“Nonsense, dear. There are you and I and George and your father and Austin on his side to begin with, and Mr. Spedding of course——”
“I don’t know about Mr. Spedding,” said Grace slowly, her hands clasped round her knees, her troubled eyes fixed on the fire. “I was with him all the afternoon, you know—there is so much to discuss and to arrange—and I thought his manner very reserved, very strange, and—and uneasy.”
“That’s only because he’s a lawyer. They’re always mysterious. What did he say?”
“Well, when I told him the simple truth as Roger told it me—as to why he followed Lady Rawson, and how it was he was so late at the church, he said, in quite an offhand way, that he knew all about that, and Roger would of course embody it in his statement at the proper time; but that his—Roger’s—unsupported account of his own movements was no use as evidence! You can’t think what a shock it gave me, Winnie; it was the way he said it. And then he explained that ‘fortunately the onus of proof rests with the prosecution, and not with the defence: it is for them to prove him guilty, not for us to prove him innocent.’ ‘Fortunately,’ mind you; and in tone that implied that it would be quite impossible to prove my darling’s innocence! Now what do you think of that?”
“That it was his silly, pompous old legal way of talking and nothing to be upset about,” said Winnie, with a fine assumption of confidence.
“Perhaps—but it hurt! He hopes to secure Cummings-Browne for the defence.”
“Of course. Austin says there’s no one to touch him.”
“For the defence,” Grace repeated drearily. “Oh, Winnie! I suppose it was foolish, but I felt quite sure when I went out this morning that it was only a matter of a few hours and Roger would be free; and now, nothing done; just adjourned till after the inquest; and then—and then—— Mr. Spedding takes it for granted that he will be committed for trial—kept in prison for weeks, months, till after Christmas, for the trial cannot come on till January. My Roger!”
She hid her face in her hands and for the moment Winnie was dumb, unable to find words of comfort.
All that long day Grace had borne herself bravely. Betimes in the morning she had gone to Spedding’s office, and thence, with the lawyer, to the police court, where, in a private room, she had a brief half-hour with Roger—only five minutes or so alone with him, for they had to consult with Mr. Spedding; but those five minutes were precious indeed.
Roger was pale, but cheery and confident; and she managed to appear the same for his sake.
“I’m staying with Winnie for the present, dearest,” she told him. “Mother was—well, a little difficult yesterday, so I thought it best. But I’m going to take possession of the flat—our flat—as soon as possible, and get it ready for you to come home to, or we’ll get it ready together if you come to-day—to-morrow.”
“Not so soon I fear, darling. The law moves cumbrously. But you can’t go to the flat alone. Why not stay with Winnie?”
“I’d rather be in—our own home,” she whispered, “getting it straight for us both, beloved. I shall be happier, and you will seem nearer. Winnie will come in and out, of course; and you’ll come soon—very soon—and all will be well again, and all this will have passed like a bad dream!”
She smiled at him and he at her, and none but themselves knew how hard it was to summon those brave smiles to their lips when their hearts were almost breaking.
Then her father arrived, the gentle, careworn, grey-haired professor, who had travelled all night to be with her; and she smiled at him, too, and sat with her hand in his, and Winnie Winston on the other side, through the ordeal of the police court; sat with her eyes fixed on Roger most of the time, utterly unconscious of the scrutiny and whispered comments of the fashionably dressed women who had literally fought their way into the court in ghoulish anticipation of sensation.
The ordeal to-day was not prolonged, for, to the manifest disappointment of the assemblage of female ghouls, only a brief statement of the charge and formal evidence of arrest were given, and an adjournment asked for and granted.
The remainder of that dark, wet day was passed in a series of conferences with her father, and with the lawyers, all more or less painful, all important; but throughout she managed to maintain an appearance of cheerfulness and confidence, telling herself the while that she must be brave and strong and clear-headed, “for Roger’s sake.”
But now, alone with Winnie in the cosy drawing-room at Chelsea, came reaction. She felt and looked utterly exhausted, unutterably anxious and sorrow-stricken.
Her father had gone home, but was to return after dinner to discuss a vital matter—how, among them, they were to raise money for the defence. Mr. Spedding had named five thousand pounds as the least amount necessary. It must be raised, but how none of them knew at present. Roger’s salary had been a generous one, but he had no private means, no near or wealthy relatives, and only a very few hundred pounds at call—which had seemed an ample reserve wherewith to start housekeeping, as they had already furnished the charming little flat in Buckingham Gate which was to be their first home.
Grace herself had a tiny income, only just over a hundred a year, a legacy from an aunt, but it was strictly tied up under a trustee, and she could not touch the principal.
Therefore this question of money was a new and terrible difficulty that must be surmounted somehow.
In any other conceivable emergency they would have had Sir Robert Rawson to back them, with his enormous wealth and influence; but now he was their enemy, able to bring all his resources against them.
“I can’t understand it all,” Grace resumed presently. “It seems as if we had become entangled, in a moment, in a great web of evil. But why? What have we done or left undone to deserve it? Roger did distrust that poor thing—disliked her in a way, simply because of the distrust. But he would never have harmed her, or any living creature. And yet they fix on him of all people, just because he happened to be near at hand, and to be concerned with those papers!”
“That’s only because, as Austin says, they’re just a lot of guys who can’t see as far as their own silly noses. And he’s on the trail anyhow, so cheer up, darling. Everything’s going to come right soon perhaps. You trust Austin!”
Grace sighed and glanced restlessly at the clock.
“I wish he’d come.”
“Here he is—that’s his ring,” said Winnie, and hurried out to answer the front door bell.
Austin it was, and she questioned him in an eager undertone as he took off his coat in the little hall.
“Any news?”
“Not yet. I’ve been on duty all day, dear. Only just free. I rang up Cacciola, but he wasn’t in, or I’d have gone around to his place instead of coming here. How’s Grace?”
“Terribly down, though she’s been so plucky all day. Come along. She’s dying to see you!”
He was shocked at the change these few days had wrought in Grace. As he had been prevented from attending the wedding he had not seen her for nearly a fortnight. Her radiant girlhood had vanished; she looked ten years older, a woman scathed by sorrow; and yet it struck him that in some subtle way she had become more beautiful, or rather that her beauty was spiritualized.
In the brief interval before he entered she had pulled herself together—only with Winnie, her closest girl-friend, would she betray any sign of weakness—and greeted him with a smile that belied the tragic intensity of her grey eyes.
They had exchanged but a few sentences when there were other arrivals—her father, and Mr. Iverson the vicar, who somehow brought with him a breezy breath of comfort. Grace gave him both her hands.
“Oh, padre, how good to see you.”
“You’d have seen me before if I’d known where to find you; but Mrs. Armitage was out when I called this afternoon, and I was just going round again when I met your father, and here we are. We’ve been talking hard all the way from the bus, and I know all about everything so far. Roger’s keeping his heart up and so are you? Good!”
“Trying to, padre.”
“You’re going to, both of you, all the time, however long or short it is. It’s a black streak, child, but the help and guidance will come day by day till you’re through it and out into the sunshine again.”
“I’ve been telling the vicar about this money trouble, darling,” interposed Mr. Armitage, “and——”
“Just so; and we shall soon get over that. The house will go into committee on ways and means, so come along. What’s the state of the exchequer?”
“Roger has just over six hundred in the bank.”
“Splendid, and your father can find another six fifty.”
“Two hundred and fifty of that’s from himself, Grace,” said her father. “He insists.”
“Now, look here, Armitage, that’s sheer breach of confidence, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Let’s be thankful I have it to spare—which wouldn’t have been the case a year or two ago.”
Then Austin after a rapid mental calculation, chimed in:
“Bully for you, padre! Put me down for the same to start, and I’ll be able to raise as much again, or more in a week or two. I’d give every dollar, every red cent I have to help clear old Roger.”
He exchanged a swift glance with Winnie, who nodded delighted approval. She knew perfectly well that his impulsive offer meant that their own wedding might have to be delayed perhaps for years, but that weighed as nothing with Roger’s life and liberty in the opposite scale.
“George and I too,” she said. “I’ve told Grace so already. I don’t know how much yet, Mr. Iverson, but I’ve lots of engagements for Christmas and after—good ones, too—so I shall be quite rich.”
The vicar beamed round at them all and rubbed the shining little bald circle on his crown in a way he had when he was pleased. That bald patch, set round with curly, iron-grey hair, was one of his innocent little vanities. It was perfectly natural, but it did look so like a real tonsure!
“Now isn’t that capital! Nearly two thousand pounds in less than five minutes. Lots to go on with; and we shall get the rest long before it’s wanted. ‘Hope for the best and prepare to meet the worst,’ is an excellent maxim.”
His incorrigible optimism was infectious; it cheered them all as no amount of conventional and lugubrious sympathy could have done; and his acceptance of Roger’s innocence as a fact that need not even be discussed, and would assuredly be established, was an unspeakable comfort to Grace, whose loyal and sensitive soul had been so cruelly tortured by the doubt of others, and by her own mother’s attitude above all.
He declared his conviction that the first theory advanced and then abandoned was the right one: that the deed had been committed by some casual miscreant, who would yet be discovered.
Austin said nothing of his own newer theory, to the secret surprise of both Winnie and Grace, who, however, followed his example, supposing he thought it best to keep silence for the present, even among themselves.
“How curious that Mr. Cacciola should be mixed up with it all, in a way,” remarked the vicar.
“Do you know him, sir?” asked Austin quickly.
“Only slightly, but I like him immensely. He’s a Catholic, of course—and a good one, I should say. I often encounter him on Sunday mornings, on his way from Mass; and we walk along and yarn in all amity so far as our road lies together. That’s as things should be, to my mind! And he’s really most generous—often comes to play and brings his pupils to our little parish concerts, as you know, Miss Winston.”
Winnie nodded.
“Yes, the maestro is the kindest old thing imaginable, and so simple—not a bit of side.”
“He’s a genius,” said the vicar. “And I think true genius always is simple. I met him this afternoon, of all places in the world in the post office itself.”
“The post office?” cried Grace. “Not where—not Mrs. Cave’s?”
“Yes. It was when I was on my way from your house, Armitage. I looked in for a chat with Mrs. Cave, and little Jessie, who really haven’t got over the shock yet. It will be a long time before they do, and they talk of giving up the shop as soon as they can find another. No wonder.”
“The telephone booth is partitioned off now, by order of the police,” said Austin.
“Yes, very necessary, of course; but awkward for the Caves, for it means that they have to go out at the shop door and in at the side one before they can get to their own rooms. I was just consoling the good lady—with the suggestion that now she would have more walks abroad and fresh air than she’s had for years; no use condoling, you know, that would only make things seem worse than they are—when in comes Mr. Cacciola and his niece, one of the loveliest girls I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“His niece! I didn’t know he had one—not in England!” exclaimed Winnie.
“Nor I till now. But I think she must have been educated here, she speaks English so well; though possibly she has not been with him all the time. I should certainly have remembered her if I’d seen her before—such a remarkably beautiful girl. She’s to make her début soon—as a violinist. And what do you suppose was their errand to-day? That young girl actually wanted to see the place where poor Lady Rawson was murdered, and worried her uncle till he brought her across and asked Mrs. Cave to show it them!”
“Morbid curiosity isn’t confined to young people,” Mr. Armitage remarked.
“Quite so, but it’s unhealthy in anyone, and very distressing in a girl like that. As a matter of fact, I went round with them myself. I offered to as Mrs. Cave was alone in the shop—Jessie was out; and I was glad of the opportunity, not from ‘morbid curiosity,’ I assure you, but simply so that I could see the place for myself. It seems so incredible that anyone could be murdered like that in a shop actually full of people, and the murderer get clean away, unless you’ve seen the place. It might have been made on purpose—a regular death-trap—for the booth is really in a narrow passage that at some time has been thrown into the shop, and the door of it opens outwards, towards the shop. Just beyond is the scullery-place, and I think it probable the murderer was lurking there when Jessie Jackson came down to help her aunt. And close at hand, on the right, is the street door, through which he simply walked out.”
“The police think he went out through the garden door,” said Austin.
“Just like ’em. But they’re wrong. Why? Because Sadler’s cab was standing outside the street door, where it was the work of an instant to throw the bag through the window. If the criminal had gone down the garden and out at that door he’d have had to come all the way back to pass the cab. And he’d never have done that; he’d have bolted down the street.”
“I guess you’re right, vicar. And then he tried to steal the cab. Some nerve!”
“Wrong again. That was a bit of boyish mischief.”
“What in thunder makes you say that?”
“Because I happen to know. It will all come out at the next hearing—inquest or police court, or both. However that’s only a detail.”
“What did the girl—the maestro’s niece—say?” asked Winnie.
“Ah! Of course, I was speaking of them. She said very little, but, do you know, her manner rather shocked me. It takes a lot to do that! She seemed positively to gloat over that horrible, tragic, dark corner. Cacciola was quite distressed, and remonstrated with her—at least I’m sure he did, though he spoke in Italian, which I don’t understand, and she answered him very briefly, in a passionate whisper, and then simply walked off, and Cacciola made a sort of incoherent apology and hurried after her. I couldn’t help thinking there was something mentally wrong—a most grievous thing, especially in one so young and beautiful and talented.”
Austin Starr sat listening intently, but neither then nor later, when the elder men had gone, did he say that he knew aught of Maddelena Cacciola, though why he kept silence he really did not know.
“Giulia, thou art a foolish old cow! I tell thee no harm will come to thee. It is but to make oath and tell the truth; that the young signor came here inquiring for Donna Paula, and went away, and that Withers brought thee later the little silver case, and thou gave it to the police. What is there in all that?”
In the beautifully appointed kitchen where usually Giulia reigned supreme Maddelena, attired in a morning wrapper of brilliant hues, was dividing her attention between preparing the breakfast coffee and alternately coaxing and scolding Giulia, who sat huddled in a chair, weeping and muttering prayers and protestations to every saint in the calendar.
She was to give evidence in the police court again that day—as she had already done at the inquest which had terminated in a verdict of wilful murder against Roger Carling—and nothing would induce the poor old woman to believe that the object of these interrogations was any other than to prove her guilty of stealing that silver cigarette case! That, she was convinced, was what “they of the police” were after, and the murder of “Donna Paula” was quite a secondary consideration.
Maddelena shrugged her pretty shoulders and went on with her task, setting a dainty breakfast-tray with a little silver service. For all her sharp words to Giulia, there was a smile on her lips, and her fine, capable white hands touched the inanimate things caressingly; for she was preparing that tray for Boris, who had not been out the other evening—as she told Austin Starr on the telephone—but ill in bed. He had collapsed after that scene at the cemetery, and they had brought him home more dead than alive. As Giulia was so foolishly upset, Maddelena and her uncle had nursed the invalid, and already he was much better.
She turned brightly to Cacciola as he came into the kitchen.
“On the instant, for behold all is ready. Tell him he is to eat every morsel, on pain of my royal displeasure! How is he?”
“Very weak still, though he says he slept well,” said Cacciola, taking up the tray. “And he insists on coming with us to-day.”
Maddelena’s expressive face darkened.
“To the court? But what folly; there is no need, and he will make himself ill again,” she cried.
“I think not. Let him have his way, carissima, and he will get over it the sooner,” said Cacciola pacifically, and retreated with the tray down the long passage that led to Melikoff’s room.
The flat was a large one—two thrown into one in fact—for the maestro liked plenty of room. That was why he had settled in a suburb.
Maddelena stood frowning for a minute or more, then shrugged her shoulders again, administered a petulant shake to the sobbing Giulia, poured out a big cup of coffee, and handed it to the old woman, sternly bidding her drink it and cease her fuss, and finally sat down to her own breakfast, breaking her roll and dabbing on butter with angry, jerky movements, and scolding Giulia between mouthfuls.
But she showed no sign of ill-humour an hour later when she greeted Boris. Her manner now was of charming, protective, almost maternal, solicitude.
She looked very beautiful too, not in the mourning garb she had worn at the funeral, but in a handsome furred coat of tawny cloth, almost the colour of her eyes, and a bewitching little hat to match.
Even Boris, worn, haggard, brooding resentfully on his tragic sorrow, summoned up a smile for her, as Cacciola, watching the pair of them, noticed with secret satisfaction.
“I ought to scold you Boris, my friend,” she said. “You are not fit to go out at all, and it will be such a trial for you. But, altro, you must have your way as usual! Give him your arm, uncle. Come, Giulia.”
Outside the court they parted from the reluctant and trembling Giulia, leaving her in charge of the kindly postmistress, Mrs. Cave, who was also to give evidence, and promised to take charge of her in the witnesses’ room.
A big crowd had assembled waiting for the public doors to open, but Cacciola and his companions were admitted through the official entrance, and given seats in the front row, just above and behind the solicitors’ table.
A few minutes later such spectators as could be accommodated swarmed in, pushing for places; and presently the body of the little court began to fill up, as solicitors, clerks, and reporters drifted in and took their places.
Boris Melikoff, on one side of Cacciola, sat with his hands in his pockets, his chin sunk on his breast, giving no heed to anyone at present; but Maddelena, on the other side, watched with lively though decorous interest, whispering many questions and comments to her uncle.
“That is Mr. Starr, a journalist,” said Cacciola as Austin appeared and betook himself to the Press table.
“He who spoke with me on the telephone? He is very good-looking. I think I like him! Ah, he sees us!”
For Austin, surveying the eager, curious faces of the crowd, again mainly composed of smart women, saw the group in front, and exchanged a nod of greeting with Cacciola. Then his eyes met Maddelena’s frank, inquiring gaze. For several seconds—that seemed longer to Austin—they looked full at each other, till she drooped her long, black lashes demurely, her lips relaxing in a faint smile. The startled admiration she thought she discerned in his glance amused and did not surprise her. She was used to creating such an impression, for, though not in the least vain, she was fully conscious of her beauty. She did not imagine that he had ever seen her before, and that his interest in her was deeper and more complex than that which an exceptionally pretty girl inspires in most men, young or old.
When she stole another glance at him he was no longer looking in her direction, but was listening with frigid courtesy to a fair-haired woman in a seal coat and expensive hat, who had just come in with a tall, thin, grey-haired man, and was looking up coquettishly into Austin’s glum face, as she spoke in a rapid undertone.
“Who is that?” demanded Maddelena.
“Mrs. Armitage and her husband—Mrs. Carling’s mother and father,” said Cacciola.
Mrs. Armitage it was, who, having realized that as a close connection of the two central figures in this poignant drama of life, she was a person of importance in the eyes of the public, had decided that it was her duty to attend the court; and already, with much complacence, had permitted herself to be “snapped” by several Press photographers lying in wait outside, and had assumed a most pathetic expression in the hope that it would “come out well.”
Maddelena noted every detail of her attire and manner, and with keen feminine intuition summed her up accurately on the instant. “So. If the daughter is like the mother then I, for one, will spare no sympathy for her,” she decided.
Cacciola touched her arm.
“Behold, here is Mrs. Carling. The poor girl, my heart bleeds for her. Miss Winston is with her. That is good.”
There was a buzz and flutter, as necks were craned in the endeavour to see Grace Carling’s face, but she kept her heavy veil down, and appeared absolutely unconscious of the presence of those inquisitive onlookers, as she gravely accepted her mother’s effusive greeting, and then seated herself with her back to the crowd, where she would have an uninterrupted view of her husband when he should be brought into the dock.
Winnie Winston became the centre of attention for the moment, as, seeing Cacciola, she made her way across to speak to him, and unashamedly every one in the vicinity tried to overhear. Only Melikoff maintained his sullen, brooding attitude. He had come there to-day to see but one person, Roger Carling, the enemy whom he hated.
“How is Mrs. Carling?” asked Cacciola.
“Very well, and wonderfully brave,” said Winnie. “They both are, as they should be, for he is innocent, maestro. But it is terrible for us all. Is this your niece? I have heard of her, but we haven’t met before.”
He introduced the girls, and Maddelena leant down over the barrier and spoke with charming courtesy.
“My uncle talks so much of you, Miss Winston. You are—oh, one of his great favourites. I wish we had met more happily. I have just returned from Milan, into all this sorrow. It is too sad!”
“Ought Mr. Melikoff to be here? He looks very ill,” said Winnie, with a glance at Boris; and Maddelena looked at him, too, her eyes softening, as they always did when they regarded him.
“Alas! he would come, though I and my uncle sought to dissuade him; but he is very obstinate, our poor Boris, and distracted with grief. But he will—he must—recover in time.”
Winnie nodded sympathetically and retreated, much to the relief of Austin Starr, who from the distance had watched the incident uneasily, though why he should be disturbed he could not have said. But thenceforth, for the greater part of that grim day, he concentrated his attention chiefly on those three, feeling more and more convinced that they presented a psychological problem which, if it could be solved, would elucidate the mystery of Paula Rawson’s murder. When Roger Carling was brought into the dock Starr saw Boris Melikoff sit up, as if galvanized into life, his white face set like a fine, stern mask, his dark eyes, feverishly brilliant, fixed relentlessly on the prisoner’s face.
So far as Austin’s observation went, Roger was quite unaware of that fierce, fanatical stare, and of all the other eyes focused upon him. With head erect he listened with grave attention as the case against him was stated by the prosecution, and later supported in nearly every detail by the many witnesses. Usually he watched each speaker in turn, and in the intervals his eyes always sought those of Grace, in silent and spiritual communion that gave strength and courage to them both. At those moments husband and wife were as unconscious of the crowded court, of the whispered glances of the spectators, as if they had been transported to another world which held none but themselves.
Maddelena could not see Grace Carling’s face, but she watched Roger as intently as Austin Starr watched her.
As he watched, Austin’s perplexity increased. At first her expressive face revealed a most curious emotion, in which there was no trace of the hatred and resentment betrayed so plainly by Boris Melikoff, or of the fury that had distorted it by Paula Rawson’s grave. On the contrary, she looked at Roger admiringly, exultantly, as women look at a hero who has done some great deed. Austin felt that he really would not have been surprised if she had clapped and cheered!
Now, why on earth should she look at Roger Carling like that?
But presently her face changed and softened, became gravely thoughtful. She sat very still, leaning forward, her elbows on the rail in front of her, her chin resting on her clasped hands, her dark brows contracted, and Austin thought he read in her wonderful eloquent eyes doubt, dismay, increasing anxiety, and a great compassion.
What was in her mind? What did she know—or conjecture?
That was what he must endeavour to discover.
Dispassionately, inexorably, the case was stated by the prosecution, based, as nearly every murder charge must be, on circumstantial evidence.
There were the undisputed facts that the prisoner had followed and endeavoured to see Lady Rawson, with the intention of recovering the stolen papers which he believed to have been—and were now known to have been—in her possession; that he had been close at hand at the moment the murder must have been committed, though none of the people who were in and out of the shop at the time, and who had all been traced and summoned as witnesses, could swear to having seen him. There was the agreement of time and place; even allowing for the delay caused by the fog, there was ample time for him to reach the church, “late and agitated” as he undoubtedly was, after committing the crime.
Above all, there, on the table, was the possible—nay, almost certainly the actual—weapon employed; one of the two pocket knives found on the prisoner at the time of his arrest. It was a flat, tortoiseshell penknife, of which the larger blade, of finely tempered steel, keen as a razor, constituted, in the opinion of the surgical experts, precisely the sort of instrument with which the wound was inflicted. The other knife—a thick blunt blade—was out of the question, part of a “motorists’s compendium,” fitted with several other small tools, none of which could inflict just such a wound.
Sadler, the taxi-driver, who had a bandage round his head and still looked shaky as a result of his smash up, identified the prisoner as the gentleman he had driven from Grosvenor Gardens to Rivercourt Mansions, having already picked him out unhesitatingly from among a number of other men.
Sadler’s further story was perfectly straightforward.
Having deposited his fare, and finding himself so close to the house of his sweetheart, Jessie Jackson, he drove slowly across to the post office, saw, through the window, Jessie in the shop with her aunt, guessed that in a few minutes she would be going up to dinner, and they would have the chance of a few words together, so pulled up in a side street, just by the house door, and out of sight from the shop, and smoked a “gasper” while he waited.
Presently he got down, had another squint into the shop, saw Mrs. Cave was now alone, so sounded his horn, “in a sort of signal we have,” and Jessie immediately came down and let him in at the side door. How long he was up in the kitchen with her he couldn’t say—not exactly—till her aunt called her down.
Then he waited for another few minutes, till he thought he heard someone “cranking up” his cab; ran downstairs, and sure enough the cab was disappearing down the street.
He went after it, and round the corner, just by the waterworks, found it standing, the engine still going, and saw a “nipper” running away.
He jumped to his seat, followed the boy, and, turning the corner, crashed right into a lorry, and that was all he knew till he came to himself in hospital.
Story corroborated by Jessie Jackson, Jim Trent—a bright faced mischievous schoolboy, who had himself owned up to the police that, seeing the cab unattended, he couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to start and drive it, but soon pulled up and “hooked it,” exactly as Sadler had said—and several people who had seen the chauffeur in wrathful pursuit of the cab.
At this stage the court rose for lunch, and Austin Starr went across for a word with Cacciola.
Already Maddelena had changed places with her uncle, and was speaking softly to Boris, who, the moment Roger Carling disappeared from sight, had sunk down in his former attitude, looking utterly exhausted.
Starr could not hear what she said, but she seemed to be remonstrating with him, tenderly and anxiously, while from her big brocaded bag she produced a thermos flask, poured out a cup of fragrant Russian tea—it smelt as if it was laced with brandy as well as lemon!—and coaxed him to drink, just as a mother might coax a sick and fretful child.
She was far too absorbed to spare a glance or a thought for anyone else at the moment, and Austin took himself off, having no time to waste, and having achieved his immediate purpose—an appointment with Cacciola at Rivercourt Mansions that evening. He was most anxious to begin a near study of that “psychological problem” of which Maddelena Cacciola was the most perplexing—yes, and the most attractive element!