It was Jean Libert.
She had been reading an account of the evidence given at the inquest, devouring it eagerly, with pale face and bated breath. And as she read her chest rose and fell quickly, her dark eyes were filled with horror, and her lips were ashen grey. The light had faded from her pretty face, her cheeks were sunken, her face haggard and drawn, and about her mouth were hard lines, an expression of bitter grief, remorse, despair.
A quarter of an hour ago, while in the small, cheap French restaurant below, kept by her father--a long, narrow place with red-plush seats along the white walls and small tables set before them--an urchin had pa.s.sed, selling the "extra special." On the contents bill he carried in front of him were the words, in bold type: "Norfolk Mystery--Verdict."
She had rushed out into the street, bought a paper, and hastily concealing it, had ascended to her room, and there locked herself in.
Then she sank upon her bed and read it. Three times had she carefully read every word, for the report was a rather full one. Afterwards she sat, the paper still in her white hand, staring straight at the old mahogany chest of drawers before her.
"Poor d.i.c.k!" she murmured. "Ah! Heaven! Who could have done it? Why--why was he killed on that evening? If he had not gone to Mundesley to meet me he would not have lost his life. And yet----"
She paused, startled at the sound of her own voice, so nervous had she now become.
She glanced at the mirror, and started at sight of her own white, drawn countenance.
She placed both hands upon her eyes, as though striving to recall something, and in that position she remained, bent and pensive, for some moments.
Her lips moved at last.
"I wonder," she exclaimed, very faintly, speaking to herself, "I wonder whether Ralph will ever know that I met d.i.c.k? Ah! yes," she sighed; "I was foolish--mad--to dare to go to Mundesley that afternoon. If only I could have foreseen the consequence of our secret meeting--ah! if only I had known what I know now!"
Again she was silent, her face pale, with a fixed, intense look, when at last she rose, unlocked one of the small top drawers of the chest, and, taking the drawer entirely out, extracted something that had been concealed beneath it.
She held it in her hand. There were two halves of one of d.i.c.k Harborne"s visiting-cards--signed and torn across in a similar manner to those pieces which had been handed for the coroner"s inspection. Each half bore a number on its back, while on the front, as she placed them together, was Harborne"s name, both printed and written.
For a long time she had her eyes fixed upon it. Her brows narrowed, and in her eyes showed a distinct expression of terror.
"Yes," she whispered; "I was a fool--a great fool to have dared so much--to have listened, and to have consented to go across to Bremen.
But no one knows, except d.i.c.k--and he, alas!--he"s dead! Therefore who can possibly know?--no one."
She held the halves of the torn card between her fingers for some moments, looking at them. Then, sighing deeply, she rose with sudden impulse and, crossing the room, took up a box of matches. Striking one, she applied it to the corners of the half cards and held the latter until the blue flame crept upwards and consumed them.
Then she cast them from her into the grate.
It was the end of her romance with that man who had been struck that cowardly blow in secret--Richard Harborne.
She stood gazing upon the tiny piece of tinder in the fender, immovable as a statue. Her dark brows slowly narrowed, her white, even teeth were set, her small hands clenched, as, beneath her breath, she uttered a fierce vow--a hard, bitter vow of vengeance.
Before her arose the vision of her good-looking lover, the man with the dark, intense eyes--Ralph Ansell. And then the memory of the dead d.i.c.k Harborne instantly faded from her mind.
Her romance with d.i.c.k had been but a pa.s.sing fancy. She had never really loved him. Indeed, he had never spoken to her of love. Yet he had fascinated her, and in his presence she had found herself impelled by his charm and his easy-going cosmopolitanism, so that she had listened to him and obeyed, even against her own will.
She recollected vividly that adventurous journey to Bremen--recalled it all as some half-forgotten, misty dream. She could feel now the crisp crackling of those Bank of England notes which she had carried secreted in her cheap little dressing-case with its electro-plated fittings. She remembered, too, the face of the stranger, the fat, sandy-haired German, whom she had met by appointment upon a flat country road a mile distant from the city towards Ottersberg--how he had given her, as credential, one of those pieces of visiting-card, together with a bulky letter, and how, in return, she had handed him the English bank-notes.
Then there was the mysterious packet she had subsequently given to d.i.c.k, when she had met him one evening and dined with him at the Trocadero.
Then he had thanked her, and declared his great indebtedness.
From that night, until the day of the tragedy, she had not seen him.
Indeed, she had made up her mind never to do so. Yet he had persuaded her to meet him at Mundesley, and she had consented, even though she knew what risk of detection by Ralph she must run.
Was it possible that Ralph knew?
The thought held her breathless.
Ralph Ansell loved her. He had sworn many times that no other man should love her. What if d.i.c.k"s death had been due to Ralph"s fierce jealousy!
The very suspicion staggered her.
Again she sank upon her little white bed, gripping the coverlet in her nervous fingers and burying her face in the pillow.
She examined her own heart, a.n.a.lysing her feelings as only a woman can a.n.a.lyse them.
Yes. She loved Ralph Ansell--loved him sincerely and well. Eighteen months ago he had casually entered the little restaurant one evening and ordered some supper from Pierre, the shabby, bald-headed waiter, who had been for so many years in her father"s service. At that moment Jean--who was employed in the daytime at the Maison Collette, the well-known milliners in Conduit Street--happened to be in the cash-desk of her father"s little establishment where one-and-sixpenny four-course luncheons and two-shilling six-course dinners were served.
From behind the bra.s.s grille she had gazed out upon the lonely, good-looking, well-dressed young fellow whom she saw was very nervous and agitated. Their eyes met, when he had instantly become calm, and had smiled at her.
He came the next night and the next, with eyes only for her, until he summed up courage to speak to her, with the result that they had become acquainted.
A young man of French birth, though his father had been an American domiciled in Paris, he was possessed of independent means, and lived in a cosy little bachelor flat half-way up Shaftesbury Avenue on the right-hand side. Far more French than English, in spite of his English name, he quickly introduced himself into the good graces of Jean"s father--the short, dapper old _restaurateur_, Louis Libert, a Provencal from the remote little town of Aix, a Frenchman whom many years"
residence in London had failed to anglicise.
For nearly twenty years old Louis Libert had kept the Restaurant Provence, in Oxford Street, yet Mme. Libert, on account of the English climate, had preferred to live with her mother in Paris, and for fully half the period had had her daughter Jean with her. In consequence, Jean, though she spoke English well, was, nevertheless, a true Parisienne.
Since her mother"s death, four years previously, she had lived in London, and was at present engaged as modiste at the Maison Collette, where many of the "creations" of that world-famous house were due to her own artistic taste and originality.
At first, her father had looked askance at the well-dressed young stranger who so constantly had dinner or supper at the restaurant, but ere long, in consequence of secret inquiries he had made of the hall porter of the flats in Shaftesbury Avenue, he had accepted the young man, and had even been gratified by the proposal of marriage which Ralph had placed before him.
Thus the pair had become engaged, the wedding being fixed to take place in the middle of November. Even as Jean stood there, a faint tap was heard at the door, and the maid-of-all-work announced:
"Mr. Ansell is downstairs, miss."
Jean responded, and after washing her hands and patting her hair before the gla.s.s, put on her hat and descended to the rather dingy, old-fashioned drawing-room over the shop, where stood her lover alone at the open window, looking down upon the traffic in the broad, brilliantly-lit London thoroughfare.
Very neat and dainty she looked in her well-cut, dark skirt, and blouse of white crepe de Chine, which she wore with a distinctly foreign _chic_, and as she entered, her pretty face was bright and happy: different, indeed, to the heavy, troubled expression upon it ten minutes before.
"Ah, Ralph!" she cried, in warm welcome, as she sprang into his ready arms, and he bent till his lips touched hers. "You are earlier than you expected," she added in French. "I hardly thought you would be able to get back from the country in time to-night."
"Well, you see, dearest, I made an effort, and here I am," replied the young man with the strong, clean-shaven features and the large, round, penetrating eyes. "I"ve been travelling ever since three o"clock, and it"s now nearly ten."
Though he, too, spoke in French, his appearance was very English. No one would have taken him for anything else but an honest, upright, thorough-going young Englishman. He was of that strong, manly, well-set-up type, the kind of level-headed, steady young man, with whom no father would hesitate to entrust his daughter"s future. As he stood in his smart, blue serge suit with well-ironed trousers, and a fine diamond in his cravat, holding her in his arms and kissing her fondly, he looked the true lover, and a.s.suredly their hearts beat in unison.
Jean Libert loved him with a great, all-consuming affection, a blind pa.s.sion which obliterated any defects which she might have observed, and which endowed him in her eyes with all the qualities of a hero of romance.
They were, indeed, a handsome pair. Her dark head was resting upon his shoulder, while his strong right arm was about her slim waist.
Since her return, three days ago, from her summer holiday by the sea at Cromer they had not met. That morning, being Monday, she had resumed her daily labours in the big, long workroom of the Jewish firm who traded under the name of the Maison Collette, and she had, as is usual with girls, related to her friends many of the incidents of what she declared to be "a ripping holiday."
As she stood with her white hand tenderly upon his shoulder, looking lovingly into his eyes, she was describing her return to business, and how she regretted that the long summer seaside days were no more, whereupon he said, cheerfully, in English: