"How can you if they make allegations against me and bring up witnesses who will commit perjury--who will swear anything in order that the guilt shall be placed upon my head," she asked in despair.
"Though the justice often dispensed by country magistrates is a disgraceful travesty of right and wrong, yet we still have in England justice in the criminal courts," I said. "Rest a.s.sured that no jury will convict an innocent woman of the crime of murder."
She stood slightly away from me, staring blankly straight before her.
Then suddenly she pressed both hands upon her brow and cried in a low, intense voice:
"May G.o.d have pity on me!"
"Yes," I said very earnestly. "Trust in Him, dearest, and He will help you."
"Ah!" she cried. "You don"t know how I suffer--of all the terror--all the dread that haunts me night and day. Each ring at the door I fear may be the police--every man who pa.s.ses the house I fear may be a detective watching. This torture is too awful. I feel I shall go mad--_mad_!"
And she paced the room in her despair, while I stood watching her, unable to still the wild, frantic terror that had gripped her young heart.
What could I do? What could I think?
"This cannot go on, Phrida!" I cried at last in desperation. "I will search out this man. I"ll grip him by the throat and force the truth from him," I declared, setting my teeth hard. "I love you, and I will not stand by and see you suffer like this!"
"Ah, no!" she implored, suddenly approaching me, flinging herself upon her knees and gripping my hands. "No, I beg of you not to do that!" she cried hoa.r.s.ely.
"But why?" I demanded. "Surely you can tell me the reason of your fear!"
I went on--"the man is a rank impostor. That has been proved already by the police."
"Do you know that?" she asked, in an instant grave. "Are you quite certain of that? Remember, you have all along believed him to be the real Sir Digby."
"What is your belief, Phrida?" I asked her very earnestly.
She drew a long breath and hesitated.
"Truth to tell, dear, I don"t know what to think. Sometimes I believe he must be the real person--and at other times I am filled with doubt."
"But now tell me," I urged, a.s.sisting her to rise to her feet and then placing my arm about her neck, so that her pretty head fell upon my shoulder. "Answer me truthfully this one question, for all depends upon it. How is it that this man has secured such a hold upon you--how is it that with you his word is law--that though he is a fugitive from justice you refuse to say a single word against him or to give me one clue to the solution of this mystery?"
Her face was blanched to the lips, she trembled in my embrace, drawing a long breath.
"I--I"m sorry, dear--but I--I can"t tell you. I--I dare not. Can"t you understand?" she asked with despair in her great, wide-open eyes. "_I dare not!_"
CHAPTER XXIV.
OFFICIAL SECRECY.
The following evening was damp, grey, and dull, as I stood shivering at the corner of the narrow Rue de l"Eveque and the broad Place de la Monnie in Brussels. The lamps were lit, and around me everywhere was the bustle of business.
I had crossed by the morning service by way of Ostend, and had arrived again at the Grand only half an hour before.
The woman Petre had sent a letter to Digby Kemsley to the Poste Restante in Brussels under the name of Bryant. If this were so, the fugitive must be in the habit of calling for his letters, and it was the great black facade of the chief post-office in Brussels that I was watching.
The business-day was just drawing to a close, the streets were thronged, the traffic rattled noisily over the uneven granite paving of the big square. Opposite the Post Office the arc lamps were shedding a bright light outside the theatre, while all the shops around were a blaze of light, while on every side the streets were agog with life.
Up and down the broad flight of steps which led to the entrance of the Post Office hundreds of people ascended and descended, pa.s.sing and re-pa.s.sing the four swing-doors which gave entrance to the huge hall with its dozens of departments ranged around and its part.i.tioned desks for writing.
The mails from France and England were just in, and dozens of men came with their keys to obtain their correspondence from the range of private boxes, and as I watched, the whole bustle of business life pa.s.sed before me.
I was keeping a sharp eye upon all who pa.s.sed up and down that long flight of granite steps, but at that hour of the evening, and in that crowd, it was no easy matter.
Would I be successful? That was the one thought which filled my mind.
As I stood there, my eager gaze upon that endless stream of people, I felt wearied and f.a.gged. The Channel crossing had been a bad one, as it so often is in January, and I had not yet recovered from my weird experience at Colchester. The heavy overcoat I wore was, I found, not proof against the cutting east wind which swept around the corner from the Boulevard Aus.p.a.ch, hence I was compelled to change my position and seek shelter in a doorway opposite the point where I expected the man I sought would enter.
I had already surveyed the interior and presented the card of a friend to an official at the Poste Restante, though I knew there was no letter for him. I uttered some words of politeness to the man in order to make his acquaintance, as he might, perhaps, be of use to me ere my quest was at an end.
At the Poste Restante were two windows, one distributing correspondence for people whose surname began with the letters A to L, and the other from M to Z.
It was at the first window I inquired, the clerk there being a pleasant, fair-haired, middle-aged man in a holland coat as worn by postal employees. I longed to ask him if he had any letters for the name of Bryant, or if any Englishman of that name had called, but I dared not do so. He would, no doubt, snub me and tell me to mind my own business.
So instead, I was extremely polite, regretted to have troubled him, and, raising my hat, withdrew.
I saw that to remain within the big office for hours was impossible. The uniformed doorkeeper who sat upon a high desk overlooking everything, would quickly demand my business, and expel me.
No, my only place was out in the open street. Not a pleasant prospect in winter, and for how many days I could not tell.
For aught I knew, the fugitive had called for the woman"s letter and left the capital. But he, being aware that the police were in search of him, would, I thought, if he called at the post office at all for letters, come there after dark. Hence, I had lost no time in mounting guard.
My thoughts, as I stood there, were, indeed, bitter and confused.
The woman Petre had not, as far as I could make out, made any incriminating statement to the police. Yet she undoubtedly believed me to be dead, and I reflected in triumph upon the unpleasant surprise in store for her when we met--as meet we undoubtedly would.
The amazing problem, viewed briefly, stood thus: The girl, Marie Bracq, had been killed by a knife with a three-cornered blade, such knife having been and being still in the possession of Phrida, my well-beloved, whose finger-prints were found in the room near the body of the poor girl. The grave and terrible suspicion resting upon Phrida was increased and even corroborated by her firm resolve to preserve secrecy, her admissions, and her avowed determination to take her own life rather than face accusation.
On the other hand, there was the mystery of the ident.i.ty of Marie Bracq, the mystery of the ident.i.ty of the man who had pa.s.sed as Sir Digby Kemsley, the reason of his flight, if Phrida were guilty, and the mystery of the woman Petre, and her accomplices.
Yes. The whole affair was one great and complete problem, the extent of which even Edwards, expert as he was, had, as yet, failed to discover.
The more I tried to solve it the more hopelessly complicated did it become.
I could see no light through the veil of mystery and suspicion in which my well-beloved had become enveloped.
Why had that man--the man I now hated with so fierce an hatred--held her in the hollow of his unscrupulous hands? She had admitted that, whenever he ordered her to do any action, she was bound to obey.
Yes. My love was that man"s slave! I ground my teeth when the bitter thought flashed across my perturbed mind.
Ah! what a poor, ignorant fool I had been! And how that scoundrel must have laughed at me!
I was anxious to meet him face to face--to force from his lips the truth, to compel him to answer to me.
And with that object I waited--waited in the cold and rain for three long hours, until at last the great doors were closed and locked for the night, and people ascended those steps no longer.