"If I antic.i.p.ated any risk I would not allow you to undertake it," I said. "We will go this evening by the 5:45 from King"s Cross--`Oswin"s train," as they call it, because he is the caterer for the dining-car."
"Very well," she answered. "As you wish. But before we go will you do me a favour? Go to the _Daily Telegraph_ office and put in an advertis.e.m.e.nt for me."
"An advertis.e.m.e.nt!" I exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes," she laughed, rather nervously. "I want to--I mean it is necessary that I should communicate with a friend."
I said nothing, but stood watching her as she took out half a sheet of notepaper and commenced to print three lines of jumbled capitals and numerals--an advertis.e.m.e.nt apparently in the cipher which I had taken from the dead unknown.
Her action astounded me, but I managed to remain as though interested but ignorant.
"Why in this cipher?" I asked, when she handed it to me, requesting me to go to Fleet Street after our midday dinner.
"Because--well, because I don"t wish it to be read by other people. It is for the eye of one person only."
I placed it in my pocket without further comment, and after we had eaten together I went out to do her bidding.
While seated in the tram-car in the Old Kent Road I took out the mystic message she had written, and with the key which I had fortunately carried away with me from Bolton Street I deciphered the words she had penned.
They read,--
"To Nello.--Will make appointment when safe for us to meet. Note that Eric is in Paris. I still trust you.--S."
I sat staring at the paper like a man in a dream.
Was Tibbie, the woman I had promised to save and for whose sake I was sacrificing everything, reputation, honour, even my life, actually playing me false?
How did she know that Eric was in Paris? Was that really true?
And who was Nello to whom she sent that message of trust?
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
GIVES A MESSAGE TO NELLO.
A little after ten o"clock that same evening, in our guise as working people, we walked along the Briggate, in Leeds, and presently found a small eating-house, where Tibbie obtained accommodation for the night.
Dressed as we were, Tibbie"s trunk at the station, and a small bag in my hand, I was unable to go to any of the larger hotels. Therefore, after supping off a chop and tomatoes, washed down with a tankard of ale, I bade her good-night and went off to find a bed round in Commercial Street.
Next day, in the dull grey morning, we walked the busy streets of Leeds--Kirkgate, Bond Street, Albion Street, and the neighbouring thoroughfares--and took counsel with each other. Her advertis.e.m.e.nt, which I saw printed in that morning"s _Telegraph_ puzzled me. Yet I could not admit knowledge of the cipher without also admitting that I was in possession of the key.
I showed it to her in the paper, but she only smiled and thanked me, saying,--
"I suppose you suspect that I am communicating with some lover--eh?"
"Well, Tibbie," I remarked, in as calm a voice as I could command, "I must admit that I"m much surprised. You seem, somehow, to be misleading me."
"Because I am compelled to do so," was her frank, outspoken answer.
I longed to ask right out who was the man Nello--brief for Lionel--the man to whom she sent a secret message of trust.
We were pa.s.sing St John"s Churchyard towards North Street, and had been discussing the advisability of her taking a furnished room in one of the respectable houses in Roundhay Road, where we had seen "Apartments to let: Furnished," when, catching her countenance, I suddenly said,--
"Eric has disappeared. He left Bolton Street some days ago, and I"ve heard nothing of him. I"m getting very anxious."
"Eric!" she echoed. "Well, he"s hardly the kind of a man to disappear, is he? I"ve often heard from his friends that he goes away abroad frequently and forgets to write. Perhaps he"s abroad now."
She did not tell me that he was in Paris, the statement which she made in secret to the man she called Nello.
I discussed the subject further, but she steadfastly refused to admit that she knew of his whereabouts. By her att.i.tude I was much mystified.
Neither the Suss.e.x Constabulary nor the Scarcliffs themselves entertained the slightest suspicion that the sudden departure of the Honourable Sybil from Ryhall had any connection with the mysterious affair in Charlton Wood. I had made careful inquiry when I had visited old Lady Scarcliff at Grosvenor Street, and young Lady Wydcombe, visits which I had purposely made in town in order to allay any suspicion that I was aware of Tibbie"s place of hiding.
The whole family were, of course, extremely anxious, and I was compelled to play a double game, pretending to make every inquiry in those quarters in London where she was so well known. I had even invented stories as to her having been seen at Oddenino"s at supper, with two other ladies, and accompanied by both ladies on the departure platform at St Pancras, stories concocted with a dual purpose, to rea.s.sure Jack and his mother that she was well, and also to mislead those who were so eagerly in search of her.
As we walked side by side through that busy centre of commercial life, all of which was so strange to her, I expressed regret that she could tell me nothing further.
"If I knew the truth," I said, "it would enable me to steer clear of pitfalls, and render your life happier and brighter."
"You are posing as my husband," she said, looking straight into my face with those wonderful eyes of hers. "Your self-sacrifice is surely great, Wilfrid, for one who entertains no affection. When a man loves he will do anything--he will ruin himself for the sake of a woman, as so many do. But when love is absent it is all so different."
And she sighed and turned her head away. She was a neat, demure little figure in her cheap black dress, her small toque, and her black cotton gloves, with the false badge of matrimony underneath.
"I cannot for the life of me imagine what safeguard I am to you-- pretending to be your husband."
"Ah?" she said. "You will know everything some day--some day you will realise my awful peril," and her mouth closed tightly as tears welled in her eyes. Did she refer to the crime in Charlton Wood? That afternoon we engaged apartments in what seemed to be a pleasant little house in Roundhay Road, kept by an honest old Yorkshire woman, who spoke broadly and welcomed us warmly. Therefore Tibbie obtained her trunk from the cloak-room, and took up her abode there, while I explained my enforced absence from my wife, saying that I was compelled to go to Bradford.
Instead of that, however, I returned to my quarters in Commercial Street, and met her in Kirkgate at eleven o"clock next morning.
Ours was a strange, adventurous life in the days that followed, and were it not for the veil of mystery upon everything, and the grave suspicion which I still entertained of my dainty little companion, it would have all been very pleasant.
In order to kill time, as well as to avoid being met in Leeds together by our landlady, we visited the various outlying places of interest, Kirkstall with its ruined abbey and its umbrageous landscapes, the old church of Adel with the pretty glen, _par excellence_ a walk for lovers, Cookridge Hall, Chapeltown, the village on the Great North Road where one obtains such magnificent views, and lastly the splendid old mansion of Temple Newsham, where walking in the park one sunny, afternoon Tibbie halted, and looking away to the distant Tudor mansion, said,--
"How strange life is, Wilfrid. Only two years ago I was staying here with Cynthia, and now you and I come here as working-cla.s.s holiday makers. Ah!" she sighed, bitterly, "I was happy then, before--" and she did not conclude her sentence.
"Before what?" I asked, standing at her side beneath the great old elm with the sheep grazing quietly around.
"Before evil fell upon me," she said, hoa.r.s.ely, with poignant bitterness.
We remained in Leeds a week, and although I had given Budd my address at the post-office I received no word from him concerning Eric.
Day by day I watched the columns of the _Telegraph_ until one morning there came an answer to Tibbie"s cipher advertis.e.m.e.nt, a reply which I read as,--
"To S.--You have been betrayed! Exercise caution, and escape at once, the instant you see this.--Your Friend."
I lost no time in seeking her, and with affected carelessness handed her the paper, making a casual remark upon the news of the day. I watched her, however, and saw that she at once turned to the column which held the greatest interest for her.
Her eyes fell upon the reply to her secret message. In a few moments she had deciphered it, and sat with the journal still in her hand, staring straight before her.
"Wilfrid!" she exclaimed, in a low, strained voice when she at length found tongue, "I must leave here at once. Every moment"s delay increases my peril. I must escape."