"Then will you do this for me? I repeat that you shall never have any reason to regret it."
"I will if you"ll accept all responsibility."
"I"ll do that with the greatest pleasure."
Bellingham looked at his watch.
"It"s about twenty minutes to nine. The train"s scheduled for Basingstoke at 9.6. If we wire to Basingstoke at once they ought to be ready for them when they come."
"Good!"
The wire was sent.
We were shown into Bellingham"s office to await results Lessingham paced agitatedly to and fro; he seemed to have reached the limits of his self-control, and to be in a condition in which movement of some sort was an absolute necessity. The mercurial Sydney, on the contrary, leaned back in a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, and stared at Lessingham, as if he found relief to his feelings in watching his companion"s restlessness. I, for my part, drew up as full a precis of the case as I deemed advisable, and as time permitted, which I despatched by one of the company"s police to Scotland Yard.
Then I turned to my a.s.sociates.
"Now, gentlemen, it"s past dinner time. We may have a journey in front of us. If you take my advice you"ll have something to eat."
Lessingham shook his head.
"I want nothing."
"Nor I," echoed Sydney.
I started up.
"You must pardon my saying nonsense, but surely you of all men, Mr Lessingham, should be aware that you will not improve the situation by rendering yourself incapable of seeing it through.
Come and dine."
I haled them off with me, w.i.l.l.y nilly, to the refreshment room, I dined,-after a fashion; Mr Lessingham swallowed with difficulty, a plate of soup; Sydney nibbled at a plate of the most unpromising looking "chicken and ham,"-he proved, indeed, more intractable than Lessingham, and was not to be persuaded to tackle anything easier of digestion.
I was just about to take cheese after chop when Bellingham came hastening in, in his hand an open telegram.
"The birds have flown," he cried.
"Flown!-How?"
In reply he gave me the telegram. I glanced at it. It ran:
"Persons described not in the train. Guard says they got out at Vauxhall. Have wired Vauxhall to advise you."
"That"s a level-headed chap," said Bellingham. "The man who sent that telegram. His wiring to Vauxhall should save us a lot of time,-we ought to hear from there directly. Hollo! what"s this? I shouldn"t be surprised if this is it."
As he spoke a porter entered,-he handed an envelope to Bellingham. We all three kept our eyes fixed on the inspector"s face as he opened it. When he perceived the contents he gave an exclamation of surprise.
"This Arab of yours, and his two friends, seem rather a curious lot, Mr Champnell."
He pa.s.sed the paper on to me. It took the form of a report. Lessingham and Sydney, regardless of forms and ceremonies, leaned over my shoulder as I read it.
"Pa.s.sengers by 7.30 Southampton, on arrival of train, complained of noises coming from a compartment in coach 8964. Stated that there had been shrieks and yells ever since the train left Waterloo, as if someone was being murdered. An Arab and two Englishmen got out of the compartment in question, apparently the party referred to in wire just to hand from Basingstoke. All three declared that there was nothing the matter. That they had been shouting for fun. Arab gave up three third singles for Southampton, saying, in reply to questions, that they had changed their minds, and did not want to go any farther. As there were no signs of a struggle or of violence, nor, apparently, any definite cause for detention, they were allowed to pa.s.s. They took a four- wheeler, No. 09435. The Arab and one man went inside, and the other man on the box. They asked to be driven to Commercial Road, Limehouse. The cab has since returned. Driver says he put the three men down, at their request, in Commercial Road, at the corner of Sutcliffe Street, near the East India Docks. They walked up Sutcliffe Street, the Englishmen in front, and the Arab behind, took the first turning to the right, and after that he saw nothing of them. The driver further states that all the way the Englishman inside, who was so ragged and dirty that he was reluctant to carry him, kept up a sort of wailing noise which so attracted his attention that he twice got off his box to see what was the matter, and each time he said it was nothing. The cabman is of opinion that both the Englishmen were of weak intellect. We were of the same impression here. They said nothing, except at the seeming instigation of the Arab, but when spoken to stared and gaped like lunatics.
"It may be mentioned that the Arab had with him an enormous bundle, which he persisted, in spite of all remonstrances, on taking with him inside the cab."
As soon as I had mastered the contents of the report, and perceived what I believed to be-unknown to the writer himself- its hideous inner meaning, I turned to Bellingham.
"With your permission, Mr Bellingham, I will keep this communication,-it will be safe in my hands, you will be able to get a copy, and it may be necessary that I should have the original to show to the police. If any inquiries are made for me from Scotland Yard, tell them that I have gone to the Commercial Road, and that I will report my movements from Limehouse Police Station."
In another minute we were once more traversing the streets of London,-three in a hansom cab.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE MURDER AT MRS "ENDERSON"S
It is something of a drive from Waterloo to Limehouse,-it seems longer when all your nerves are tingling with anxiety to reach your journey"s end; and the cab I had hit upon proved to be not the fastest I might have chosen. For some time after our start, we were silent. Each was occupied with his own thoughts.
Then Lessingham, who was sitting at my side, said to me,
"Mr Champnell, you have that report."
"I have."
"Will you let me see it once more?"
I gave it to him. He read it once, twice,-and I fancy yet again. I purposely avoided looking at him as he did so. Yet all the while I was conscious of his pallid cheeks, the twitched muscles of his mouth, the feverish glitter of his eyes,-this Leader of Men, whose predominate characteristic in the House of Commons was immobility, was rapidly approximating to the condition of a hysterical woman. The mental strain which he had been recently undergoing was proving too much for his physical strength. This disappearance of the woman he loved bade fair to be the final straw. I felt convinced that unless something was done quickly to relieve the strain upon his mind he was nearer to a state of complete mental and moral collapse than he himself imagined. Had he been under my orders I should have commanded him to at once return home, and not to think; but conscious that, as things were, such a direction would be simply futile, I decided to do something else instead. Feeling that suspense was for him the worst possible form of suffering I resolved to explain, so far as I was able, precisely what it was I feared, and how I proposed to prevent it.
Presently there came the question for which I had been waiting, in a harsh, broken voice which no one who had heard him speak on a public platform, or in the House of Commons, would have recognised as his.
"Mr Champnell,-who do you think this person is of whom the report from Vauxhall Station speaks as being all in rags and tatters?"
He knew perfectly well,-but I understood the mental att.i.tude which induced him to prefer that the information should seem to come from me.
"I hope that it will prove to be Miss Lindon."
"Hope!" He gave a sort of gasp.
"Yes, hope,-because if it is I think it possible, nay probable, that within a few hours you will have her again enfolded in your arms."
"Pray G.o.d that it may be so! pray G.o.d!-pray the good G.o.d!"
I did not dare to look round for, from the tremor which was in his tone, I was persuaded that in the speaker"s eyes were tears. Atherton continued silent. He was leaning half out of the cab, staring straight ahead, as if he saw in front a young girl"s face, from which he could not remove his glance, and which beckoned him on.
After a while Lessingham spoke again, as if half to himself and half to me.
"This mention of the shrieks on the railway, and of the wailing noise in the cab,-what must this wretch have done to her? How my darling must have suffered!"
That was a theme on which I myself scarcely ventured to allow my thoughts to rest. The notion of a gently-nurtured girl being at the mercy of that fiend incarnate, possessed-as I believed that so-called Arab to be possessed-of all the paraphernalia of horror and of dread, was one which caused me tangible shrinkings of the body. Whence had come those shrieks and yells, of which the writer of the report spoke, which had caused the Arab"s fellow-pa.s.sengers to think that murder was being done? What unimaginable agony had caused them? what speechless torture? And the "wailing noise," which had induced the prosaic, indurated London cabman to get twice off his box to see what was the matter, what anguish had been provocative of that? The helpless girl who had already endured so much, endured, perhaps, that to which death would have been preferred!-shut up in that rattling, jolting box on wheels, alone with that diabolical Asiatic, with the enormous bundle, which was but the lurking place of nameless terrors,-what might she not, while being borne through the heart of civilised London, have been made to suffer? What had she not been made to suffer to have kept up that continued "wailing noise"?