"Let us go to the drawing-room, but remember, not a word to her. She must not know that you have told me," and he led the way to where his wife awaited us.
He entered the room jovial and smiling as if no care weighed upon his mind, and throughout the evening preserved a pleasant demeanour, that seemed to bring full happiness to Mabel"s heart.
I knew she longed to declare her contentment, now that a public scandal was avoided and they were reconciled, and although she was unable, I recognised in her warm hand-shake when I departed an expression of thanks for my promise to conceal the truth.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
ONE THOUSAND POUNDS.
The enigma was maddening; I felt that sooner or later its puzzling intricacies must induce mania in some form or other. Insomnia had seized me, and I had heard that insomnia was one of the most certain signs of approaching madness. In vain I had striven to penetrate the mystery of my union and its tragic sequel, at the same time leaving undisturbed that cold, emotionless mask which I had schooled myself to wear before the world.
Days had pa.s.sed since my visit to Eaton Square, and through all my pain the one thought had been dominant--I must obtain from Dora the revelation she had promised. It seemed that blindly, willingly I had resigned every hope, joy, and sentiment that made life precious; I had, like Faust, given my soul to the Torturer in exchange for a few sunny days of bliss and fleeting love-dreams.
Wearied, despondent, and anxious I lived through those stifling hours with but one thought, clinging tenaciously to one hope; yet after all, what could I expect of a woman whose mind was affected, and whose lover accused of a capital offence? In this distracted mood I was wandering one evening along the Strand and arriving at Charing Cross Station turned in mechanically to purchase a paper at the bookstall. The hands of the great clock pointed to half-past eight, and the continental train stood ready to start. Porters who had wheeled mountains of luggage stood, wiped their brows and pocketed the tips of bustling tourists about to commence their summer holiday. City clerks in suits of cheap check and bearing knapsacks and alpenstocks were hurrying hither and thither, excited over the prospect of a fortnight in Switzerland for a ten-pound note, while constant travellers of the commercial cla.s.s strode leisurely to their carriages smoking, and ladies already seated peered out anxiously for their husbands. The scene is of nightly occurrence after the London season, when everyone is leaving town, and I had witnessed it many times when I, too, had been a pa.s.senger by the night mail. As I stood for a moment watching I heard two men behind me engaged in excited conversation in French.
"I tell you it"s impossible," exclaimed one in a decisive tone.
"Very well, then, you shall not leave London," the other said, and as I turned I was surprised to find that one of them was Markwick, the other a short, rather elderly, shabbily-dressed little Frenchman, whose grey beard and moustache were unkempt, whose silk hat was sadly rubbed and whose dark eyes were keen and small. In an att.i.tude of firm determination he held Markwick by the arms and glared for a moment threateningly into his face. The latter, too occupied to notice my presence, retorted angrily--
"Let me go, you fool. You must be mad to act like this, when you know what we both have at stake."
"No, no," the irate Frenchman cried. "No, I am not mad. You desire to escape, but I tell you that you shall not unless you give me the money now, before you go."
"How much, pray?" Markwick asked with a dark, severe look.
"What you promised. One thousand pounds. Surely it is not a great price."
"You shall have it to-morrow--I"ll send it to you from Paris."
"Ah! no, m"sieur, you do not evade me like that! You are playing a deep game, but you omitted me from your reckoning. The ticket you bought this morning was not for Paris, but for New York via Havre."
"How--how do you know my intentions?" Markwick demanded, starting.
"You confounded skunk, you"ve been spying upon me again!"
But the little Frenchman only grinned, exhibited his palms, and with a slight shrug of his shoulders, said:
"I was not at the police bureau in Paris for fifteen years without learning a few tricks. You are clever, M"sieur, shrewd indeed, but if you attempt to leave to-night without settling with me, then you will be arrested on arrival at Dover. Choose--money and liberty; no money and arrest."
"Curse you! Then this is the way you"d blackmail me?" Markwick cried, his face livid with rage. "I secured your services for a certain fixed sum, which I paid honourably, together with three further demands."
"In order to secure my silence," the Frenchman interrupted. "Because you were well aware of your future if I gave information."
"But you will not--you shall not," answered the man who had met me in the garden at Richmond on that memorable night. His face wore a murderous look such as I had never before seen. It was the face of an unscrupulous malefactor, a countenance in which evil was portrayed in every line. "If it were not that we are here, in a public place, I"d wring your neck like a rat."
"Brave words! brave words!" exclaimed the other, laughing contemptuously. "A sign from me and the prison doors would close behind you for ever. But see! The train will leave in a few moments. Will you pay, or do you desire to stay and meet your accusers?"
Markwick glanced at the train wherein all the pa.s.sengers had taken their scats. The guards were noisily slamming the doors, and the ticket-examiners, pa.s.sing from end to end, had now finished their work.
He bit his lips, glanced swiftly up at the dock, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his small bag said, with a muttered imprecation:
"I care nothing for your threats. I shall go."
Shaking off the Frenchman"s hand he moved towards the barrier, but his opponent, too quick for him, sprang with agility before him, barring his path.
This action attracted the attention of several bystanders, who paused in surprise, while at the same moment the engine gave vent to a whistle of warning and next second the train slowly moved away. Markwick, seeing himself thus thwarted and the centre of attraction, turned to the little foreigner, and cursing him audibly strode quickly out of the station, while his irate companion walked away in the opposite direction.
In the yard Markwick jumped into a hansom and was driven rapidly away, and as I watched I saw almost at the same moment a tall, well-dressed man spring into another cab, give the driver rapid directions, and then follow the conveyance Markwick had taken.
As the stranger had mounted into the cab and conversed with the man his face was turned full towards me, and in that instant I recognised him.
It was Grindlay! He, too, had evidently watched unseen.
That this ex-detective held Markwick"s secret was evident, and as Grindlay--whom I had imagined far away in Germany--was taking such a keen interest in the doings of the man I hated, the thought occurred to me that by following the Frenchman I might be of some a.s.sistance. I therefore turned suddenly on my heel, crossed the station-yard, and hurried along the Strand citywards in the direction he had taken.
Before long I had the satisfaction of seeing him walking rapidly before me muttering imprecations as he went. By his own admissions he was a blackmailer and had had no doubt a hand in Markwick"s schemes, yet it occurred to me that if judiciously approached he might possibly throw some light upon the events of the past few months. Markwick, himself an adventurer, was not the kind of man to submit to blackmail unless his enemy held him beneath his thumb. The scene I had witnessed proved conclusively that he went in mortal fear of this Frenchman, otherwise he would have treated his importunities with contempt, and left in the train by which he apparently had intended to escape by a roundabout route to America. Therefore, in order to learn more of this latest denunciation of the man whose presence always filled me with hatred and loathing, I kept close behind the angry foreigner. The Strand was crowded with theatre-goers at that hour, but this facilitated my movements, for according to his own statement he had had experience in Paris as an officer of police, and I saw it might be somewhat difficult to follow him without attracting his attention. I had a strong desire to accost him then and there, but on reflection felt certain that it would be best to find out where he went, and afterwards leave him to the tactful Grindlay. A single impolitic question might arrest any revelation that he could make; or if he found himself followed his suspicions might be aroused, and he himself might fly ere I could communicate with my friend the detective. So, exercising every caution, I carefully dogged his footsteps. It was not yet dark and I was therefore enabled to keep him well in view, although at a respectable distance. At the same rapid pace he pa.s.sed along the Strand, up Bow Street and Endell Street to Oxford Street, which he crossed, continuing up Gower Street. When near the Euston Road he turned into a short dismal thoroughfare bearing the name of University Street, and there entered one of the rather dingy blackened houses by means of a latch key. When he had disappeared I pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the house several times, taking careful note of its number and of the appearance of its exterior, then, determined to communicate as early as possible with Grindlay, I returned home and wrote him a note which I sent to Scotland Yard by Saunders.
Shortly before eleven o"clock that night a messenger brought me a hastily-scribbled note from him asking me to come round to his office at once. I went, was ushered into his presence without delay, and related what I had witnessed at the railway station, and what I had overheard.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "their altercation when I arrived had almost ended.
I had been keeping close observation on Markwick all the afternoon, but he had eluded me, and it was only by the merest chance that I went along to Charing Cross to see if his intention was to decamp. So you tracked down that wild little Frenchman, did you? Excellent. Why, you are a born detective yourself," he added, enthusiastically. "Nothing could be better. Now we shall know something."
"Did Markwick elude you again?" I inquired.
He smiled. "Scarcely," he answered. "But his acquaintance with Jules De Vries is quite unexpected, and puts an entirely different complexion on affairs."
"You know the Frenchman then?"
"Yes. He was, before his retirement last year, one of the smartest men in the Paris detective force. During eighteen months before he was pensioned he was head of the section charged with the inquiries into the anarchist outrages."
"But he was apparently endeavouring to levy blackmail!" I observed.
"Oh! there"s a good deal of corruption among the French police," he answered, laughing. "Perhaps, living retired, he is seeking to make money out of the secrets entrusted to him in his professional capacity.
That is often the case."
Our conversation then turned upon the inquest upon the body of Gilbert Sternroyd, which had now been fixed, and to which I was summoned to give evidence regarding the discovery of the body at Gloucester Square.
Grindlay, in answer to my question, admitted that Jack had not yet been arrested, but that as soon as certain inquiries then in active progress were complete the German police would detain him for extradition.
"Then you still believe him guilty," I observed with sadness.
"Can anyone doubt it?" he asked. "I ought to say nothing about the matter, but as you are a witness I may as well tell you that our inquiries show conclusively that your friend Bethune committed the murder, although the circ.u.mstances under which the fatal shot was fired were of such an astounding character that I leave you to hear them officially. It is sufficient for me to say that the murder of young Sternroyd is the strangest and most complicated crime that in the course of my twenty-four years" experience I have ever been called upon to deal with. But I must be off. I am due at eleven-thirty at Shepherd"s Bush, so you must excuse me. We will meet again soon. Good-bye."
A moment later we parted, and I returned to my chambers.
Soon after eleven o"clock next morning Saunders entered my sitting-room and announced a visitor. I took the card. It was Dora"s!
Rushing forward I greeted her gladly, and bringing her in, enthroned her in my big arm-chair, the same in which she had sat on a previous occasion when she had called upon me.
She was dressed simply but with taste in light grey alpaca with a large black hat and veil, but the face which was disclosed when the veil was raised was pale as death, lit by two large l.u.s.trous eyes. For a moment she regarded me with a sad, wistful expression, as if imploring me not to reproach but to pity her. Then a sad, quiet smile slowly dawned upon her countenance, and she stretched forth her hand towards me.
"Stuart," she murmured, in a low voice like the subdued wail of an aching heart. "Stuart, are you displeased with me? Are you angry that I should come to you?"
"Displeased! Angry!" I exclaimed, quickly grasping her extended hand between my own. "No, no! Dora. I only hope you have recovered, that you are now strong and well again."