I handed the note to the detective without comment.
"Well," he exclaimed, looking up at me when he had read it, "there"s nothing very fishy about that, is there?"
Then I recollected that he was in ignorance of my suspicions. Yet I loved Eva with all my soul and held back from placing any facts in the hands of this man who, with ruthless disregard for my affection or my feelings, would perhaps arrest her for complicity in the crime. And yet as I sat before him, watching his face through the blue haze of cigarette smoke, I felt impelled to seek his aid, for this tangled chain of recent events had utterly bewildered and unnerved me. I was not yet strong again after the strange seizure which had so puzzled the doctor, and a sense of gloom and despair had since overwhelmed me, arising perhaps from the constant suspicion that a secret attempt had been made upon my life.
To remain longer in that state of uncertainty was impossible. I felt I should go mad if I did not make some further determined effort to ascertain the truth. Some one, whom I knew not, had attempted to kill me. And why? There could be but one reason. Because I had succeeded in placing myself upon the actual track of the a.s.sa.s.sin. An attempt, cowardly and dastardly, had been made upon me, therefore I had every right to seek the aid of the police to discover its author.
This argument decided me, and casting my cigarette into the grate, I asked Boyd to give me his attention while I related to him all that I had discovered.
In an instant his free-and-easy manner changed, and as I spoke he sat leaning towards me, attentively listening to every word, but hazarding no remark. Without attempting to conceal anything, I explained to him first of all my great love for the woman who was under such terrible suspicion, and then as I narrated our conversation when alone on the river, and repeated her curious response to my declaration of love, he knit his dark brows seriously and gave vent to a grunt indicative of doubt. He was no blunderer, this detective. Unlike the majority he was well-educated, speaking French and Italian fluently, an adept in the art of disguise, a man who formed very careful theories, and whose appearance was never that of an agent of police. One would rather have taken him for a well-to-do Jew, or perhaps some prosperous City man of foreign extraction, for his dark complexion and aquiline features gave him an un-English appearance, and his invariable spruceness in dress accounted for his success in following criminals, who never dreamed that the smart, well-dressed gentleman of perfect manner was actually an emissary from Scotland Yard. His knowledge of foreign languages had caused him to be entrusted with numbers of very important inquiries political and criminal, and in tracking the guilty he had paid flying visits to nearly all the Continental capitals.
In his sharp eyes there was a strange glitter, I thought, as without interruption I told him what I knew. I advanced no theories whatever, but merely laid before him the plain unvarnished truth. Then, when I had finished, I said--
"Now, first of all, recollect that whatever may be the result of our inquiries I will do no harm whatever to the woman I love. Understand that entirely."
"I quite understand," he said gravely, speaking for the first time.
"That"s only natural. But the difficulties in our way appear almost insurmountable."
"Well?" I asked anxiously, "what is your opinion, now that I have told you everything?"
He shook his head, puffed thoughtfully at the fresh cigarette he had just lit, and then contemplated it thoughtfully.
"I have no opinion at present," he responded. "One might form half a dozen theories upon these facts, all equally wide of the mark."
"Then how are we to act?" I asked in dismay.
He raised his dark eyebrow"s in gesture of bewilderment. Then he gazed gravely in my face.
"Look here, Boyd," I continued, "I love Eva Glaslyn, and to you I make no secret of it whatsoever. But at all hazards I mean to ascertain the truth."
"Even at the risk of convicting her?" he inquired, looking across at me quickly.
"Convicting her!" I echoed. "Then you really entertain the same suspicion as myself?"
"We may have suspicions without forming any theories," he responded calmly. Then he added, in a tone of regret, "It"s certainly a thousand pities that you love her."
"Why?"
"Upon your own showing she appears to have very little regard for you."
"How?"
"Well," he answered slowly, "there"s no doubt that the other day an attempt was made upon your life."
"And you suspect her?"
"We can suspect no one else," he answered.
"According to that old herbalist"s statement she had purchased a certain drug of him. What could an innocent young lady require with this unnamed drug if not to administer it to some one she wanted to get rid of?"
"But she has no object in ridding herself of me," I urged.
"Of that I"m not quite so sure, my dear fellow," he observed, after a brief pause. "Recollect that on the morning when she went to St.
James"s Park in order to meet, for some mysterious purpose, the man whom we now know was old Mr. Blain, she met you face to face. We have no idea what her actions were previously, but she may have believed that you had been spying upon her; therefore, on recognising you when you were formally introduced at Riverdene, she conceived a plan for getting you out of the way. It was with that object very possibly that she made the secret purchase at the herbalist"s."
"No, Boyd, I can"t believe it of her," I said quickly. "I won"t believe it!"
"Very well," he said in the same calm tone as before. "But there"s still another fact extremely puzzling, and that is why this man Lowry should have left in such a hurry. I must inquire at the Carter Street Police-Station, the district wherein he lived, and see whether there was anything against him. By the way," he added, "does your friend Cleugh know the whole of these facts you"ve explained to me?"
"No, not the whole--only some."
"Does he know that you"ve declared your love to Lady Glaslyn"s daughter and been refused?"
"No."
"Then don"t tell him," said the detective.
"I believe that the reason of his sudden weariness of Lily Lowry"s society is due to the fact that he loves Mary Blain."
"All the more reason, then, why he should in future remain in entire ignorance of whatever facts we may elicit."
Then he paused, furiously consuming his cigarette and taking a long draught of the whisky-and-soda I had mixed and placed at his elbow.
"This is really a most remarkable mystery, Urwin," he exclaimed at length, twisting the plain gold ring upon his finger, a habit of his when pondering deeply. "There seem a thousand complications. It"s absolutely the most astounding case that I"ve ever had in hand. Even Shaw, our superintendent at the Yard, a man whose deep-rooted conviction is that we never need fail if we really take an interest in an inquiry, acknowledged to me the other day that he could see no way to a clue. Of course, we might question Mrs. Blain, or even arrest Blain himself on suspicion if we could find him again. But whoever is guilty has taken such careful precautions to obliterate every trace of a clue that both the superintendent and myself are agreed that the interrogation of either of the Blains would only result in defeating our ends." That was exactly my own opinion. I had many times wondered why the police had not made inquiries of Mrs. Blain on account of the statement by the landlord at Kensington, but it was now plain that the Director of Criminal Investigations, the greyheaded, loud-voiced, old gentleman whom I knew quite well at Scotland Yard, had decided otherwise.
"But why are you so anxious that my friend Cleugh should remain in ignorance of our movements?" I inquired.
"You say that he loves Mary Blain," answered Boyd. "He might in that case drop some unintentional hint to her of the direction of our inquiries. This matter, to be successful, must be entirely a secret between ourselves--you understand? To-day we"ve made a discovery--the ident.i.ty of the man who threw some object into the lake--and it puts a rather fresh complexion upon the affair, even though it further complicates it considerably. You said that his wife has all along told you that her husband was in Paris--I think?"
"Yes," I responded. "She said he was there in connexion with some company which he was trying to promote."
"And all along he has been in London--in hiding."
"He may have just returned from Paris," I suggested. "Recollect that I"ve not been to Riverdene for some little time."
"No, my dear fellow," Boyd said. "His ingenuity in eluding us in Ebury Street showed that he had already prepared a snug hiding-place for himself before that tragedy at Phillimore Place. Besides, the other evening his clothes showed an attempt at disguise--didn"t they?"
"Certainly. He"s very smartly dressed always; indeed, rather a fop in his way."
"Depend upon it that he"s never dared to set foot outside London all this time. He knows well enough that the Metropolis is the safest place in the whole world in which a criminal may conceal himself. Only a bungler attempts to get away abroad."
Silence again fell between us. The quiet was unbroken save for the slow ticking of the clock upon the mantelshelf. Of a sudden, with a rather curious glance, he bent forward to me, eagerly saying--
"Now in this affair we must be perfectly candid with each other. You must conceal nothing from me."
"I have concealed nothing," I protested, surprised at his curious att.i.tude, as though he held me in some suspicion.
"I don"t allege that you have," he answered. "But I want you to answer truthfully a question which is of highest importance. I want you to tell me whether, on the afternoon of the day you were called by Patterson to Kensington, your friend Cleugh was here, at home."