Without a second’s hesitation I rushed up the steps after Boyd, but on gaining the platform found that a train had just gone out, and was at that moment disappearing across the bridge over the Thames. The detective, known to the ticket-collector as a police-officer, had been allowed to pass the barrier, and had evidently caught the same train as Blain.
There was certainly an element of deepest mystery in the fact that the unknown man who had kept the appointment in St. James’s Park, and had afterwards taken such elaborate precautions against being followed, should be revealed to be none other than the once purse-proud proprietor of Shenley. Quite apparent it was, too, that the object of Eva’s visit to the park was to meet him clandestinely, for what reason was a profound enigma. The more I revolved the strange events within my mind, the more absolutely bewildering they become.
True, I had made certain discoveries — discoveries which, rather than tending to throw light on the real author of the crime or its motive, only, however, increased the enigma and enveloped the woman whom I had grown to love so fondly in an impenetrable veil of suspicion.
Thoughts such as these filled my mind as, turning from the station in despair, I went back into the dust and turmoil of Fleet Street, crowded at that hour by tired thousands hurrying homeward. I loved Eva. Even though every proof I had obtained pointed to her complicity in the dastardly affair, she was still my idol. I thought daily, hourly, only of her, refusing always to suspect her, and endeavouring to convince myself that the truths I had elicited had no foundation in fact.
Love is blind. When a man loves a woman as I loved Eva Glaslyn at that moment, nothing can turn aside his passion. I verily believe that if at that hour I had stood by and seen her in the dock at the Old Bailey, condemned as a murderess, my affection for her would have been none the less. I lived for her alone. She was all that was dearest in the world to me. Mary Blain had, no doubt, noticed my infatuation, yet she had said nothing, she herself being, I believed, in love with Dick. At least I could congratulate myself that we had mutually agreed to allow the past to fade from our remembrance.
Nevertheless, when I thought of Eva, and told myself how passionate was my affection and how ardent my feelings towards her, the ogre of suspicion would sometimes arise and cause me to pause in my ecstatic dreamings. Had she not stiffened strangely, and refused to reciprocate my love? Had she not point-blank told me that we could never be more than friends? Had she not, indeed, herself hinted at her own guilt in that strange sentence which had fallen from her lips?
As I passed up Fleet Street that evening, jostling with the crowd, I thought of these things, and was plunged into gloom and uncertainty. The statement of old Lowry was one of which I felt in duty bound to obtain proof. Yet how? He had declared that a woman exactly resembling her had purchased a certain drug which could be required for one purpose alone, while a secret attempt had been made to take my life — by whom I knew not. Sometimes, in moments of despair, I entertained deep suspicions of her, but always I found my love in the ascendancy, and ended by refusing to believe the evidence which I had so diligently and patiently collected.
For months Scotland Yard had had the matter in hand, but discovering nothing, had allowed it to drop. Of course, in face of the statement made by the landlord of the house in Phillimore Place, Boyd was ever anxious to question Mrs Blain, but had wisely left this to me. And how had I succeeded? Only in making discoveries which, although startling in themselves, increased the mystery rather than solved it.
Even at that moment the identity of the victims remained still unknown. They were lying in nameless graves in Abney Park Cemetery, having been buried by the parish. The Blains alone could give us information as to who they were and who was the unnamed scientist whose discovery was now creating such a stir throughout Europe. Curious it was that he did not come forward and claim the discovery as his own, for he must have read accounts of it in the papers. My own theory in this matter was that he was unable to communicate with the Royal Institution for one simple reason, namely, that he was dead — that he was the man whom we found lying lifeless with that strange mascot, the penny wrapped in paper, in his pocket.
I walked along to Wellington Street, where I called in to see my friend Crutchley, one of the sub-editors of the Morning Post, who had just come on duty and was preparing for his night’s work. In the offices of the morning papers activity begins when tired London takes her ease, for their night is as day, until at dawn the staff, weary after hours of work by electric light in stifling rooms, go forth chilled and jaded to their homes to sleep while the world works. For half an hour I sat in his den, where the table was already piled with telegrams and flimsy, while he, with coat off, shirt-cuffs turned up, and a cigarette in his mouth, sighed, sharpened his big blue pencil, and, as he chatted, commenced to “slaughter” wordy descriptions by too eloquent reporters. The world wants news, not “gas,” is the motto of every working sub-editor. The public prefer facts without “padding,” and to cut out the latter is the duty of the man who, from the sub-editorial chair, decides upon what shall appear and what shall be omitted, a duty which requires the greatest care and judgment. When I left him I recollected that Dick had gone to some place down in Essex for the Comet, and would not return to eat the diurnal steak in company. Therefore I wandered aimlessly along the Strand, and turned into a restaurant, afterwards spending the evening at the theatre.
Nearly three weeks went by and I heard nothing of Boyd, although I had written to him. At nearly ten o’clock one night, however, when I had returned to Gray’s Inn alone, I found the detective standing in the half-light against the mantelpiece.
“Bad luck the other night,” he said, after we had exchanged greetings.
“What, didn’t you follow him?” I cried, surprised.
“No, that’s the devil of it,” he exclaimed in a tone of bitter disappointment, sinking into a chair. “You’ll remember that that platform at Ludgate Hill is an island one, and just as I got through the barrier a train on the other side was moving off to Snow Hill and Moorgate Street, while one to Blackheath was just on the point of starting in the opposite direction. I, of course, jumped into the latter, feeling sure he’d be going out of town.”
“And you found out your mistake too late?”
“I examined all the carriages at Loughborough Junction, but there was no sign of him. He evidently took the other train.”
“Unfortunate,” I answered, then sat for a few moments in calm reflection.
“Unfortunate!” he echoed. “It’s more than that. We seem foredoomed to failure in this affair. I’ve had three men on the job ever since, but with no result. Even the ‘narks’ know nothing. But,” he added, “when I pointed him out you seemed to know him. Am I right?”
I hesitated, wondering whether to tell him all the facts as I knew them and obtain his assistance in my further inquiries. It struck me that he, a professional investigator of crime, shrewd, clear-headed and acquainted with all the methods and subterfuges of evil-doers, might suggest some other means which had not occurred to me. I had hitherto been deterred from making any explanation of my discoveries and suspicions on account of my strong love for Eva, but now the idea took possession of me that if I explained the whole to Boyd and told him of my deep affection for her, we might work together, and perhaps at length obtain some solution of this most intricate of problems. I was sick with the giddiness of one who falls from some great height. I had lost my hold upon the dreams and hopes of life.
“You’re quite right, Boyd,” I said, handing him the cigarettes. “I know that man.”
“Who is he? He looks rather gentlemanly. That shabby get-up of his was a fake, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” I responded. “He’s a man pretty well-to-do. His name is Blain, and he is the husband of Mrs Blain, whom, you recollect, is supposed to have taken the house in Phillimore Place.”
The detective gave vent to an unwritable exclamation.
“Blain!” he echoed, his face betraying a look of amazement, and pausing with a lighted vesta in his hand. “Well, that’s indeed a facer!” Then he added: “He must, in that case, know something of the matter as well as his wife.”
At that moment there was a tap at the door of the sitting-room, and old Mrs Joad entered with a letter which, she said, had come by the last post and she had forgotten to give it to me.
By the writing I saw it was from Eva, and eagerly read it. It was a brief note to say that her mother had been called away to her brother in Inverness, who was seriously ill, that The Hollies was closed, and that she had accepted an invitation to remain the guest of the Blains until Lady Glaslyn’s return.
I handed the note to the detective without comment.
“Well,” he exclaimed, looking up at me when he had read it, “there’s nothing very fishy about that, is there?”
Then I recollected that he was in ignorance of my suspicions. Yet I loved Eva with all my soul and held back from placing any facts in the hands of this man who, with ruthless disregard for my affection or my feelings, would perhaps arrest her for complicity in the crime. And yet as I sat before him, watching his face through the blue haze of cigarette smoke, I felt impelled to seek his aid, for this tangled chain of recent events had utterly bewildered and unnerved me. I was not yet strong again after the strange seizure which had so puzzled the doctor, and a sense of gloom and despair had since overwhelmed me, arising perhaps from the constant suspicion that a secret attempt had been made upon my life.
To remain longer in that state of uncertainty was impossible. I felt I should go mad if I did not make some further determined effort to ascertain the truth. Some one, whom I knew not, had attempted to kill me. And why? There could be but one reason. Because I had succeeded in placing myself upon the actual track of the assassin. An attempt, cowardly and dastardly, had been made upon me, therefore I had every right to seek the aid of the police to discover its author.
This argument decided me, and casting my cigarette into the grate, I asked Boyd to give me his attention while I related to him all that I had discovered.
In an instant his free-and-easy manner changed, and as I spoke he sat leaning towards me, attentively listening to every word, but hazarding no remark. Without attempting to conceal anything, I explained to him first of all my great love for the woman who was under such terrible suspicion, and then as I narrated our conversation when alone on the river, and repeated her curious response to my declaration of love, he knit his dark brows seriously and gave vent to a grunt indicative of doubt. He was no blunderer, this detective. Unlike the majority he was well-educated, speaking French and Italian fluently, an adept in the art of disguise, a man who formed very careful theories, and whose appearance was never that of an agent of police. One would rather have taken him for a well-to-do Jew, or perhaps some prosperous City man of foreign extraction, for his dark complexion and aquiline features gave him an un-English appearance, and his invariable spruceness in dress accounted for his success in following criminals, who never dreamed that the smart, well-dressed gentleman of perfect manner was actually an emissary from Scotland Yard. His knowledge of foreign languages had caused him to be entrusted with numbers of very important inquiries political and criminal, and in tracking the guilty he had paid flying visits to nearly all the Continental capitals.
In his sharp eyes there was a strange glitter, I thought, as without interruption I told him what I knew. I advanced no theories whatever, but merely laid before him the plain unvarnished truth. Then, when I had finished, I said —
“Now, first of all, recollect that whatever may be the result of our inquiries I will do no harm whatever to the woman I love. Understand that entirely.”
“I quite understand,” he said gravely, speaking for the first time. “That’s only natural. But the difficulties in our way appear almost insurmountable.”
“Well?” I asked anxiously, “what is your opinion, now that I have told you everything?”
He shook his head, puffed thoughtfully at the fresh cigarette he had just lit, and then contemplated it thoughtfully.
“I have no opinion at present,” he responded. “One might form half a dozen theories upon these facts, all equally wide of the mark.”
“Then how are we to act?” I asked in dismay.
He raised his dark eyebrow’s in gesture of bewilderment. Then he gazed gravely in my face.
“Look here, Boyd,” I continued, “I love Eva Glaslyn, and to you I make no secret of it whatsoever. But at all hazards I mean to ascertain the truth.”
“Even at the risk of convicting her?” he inquired, looking across at me quickly.
“Convicting her!” I echoed. “Then you really entertain the same suspicion as myself?”
“We may have suspicions without forming any theories,” he responded calmly. Then he added, in a tone of regret, “It’s certainly a thousand pities that you love her.”
“Why?”
“Upon your own showing she appears to have very little regard for you.”
“How?”
“Well,” he answered slowly, “there’s no doubt that the other day an attempt was made upon your life.”
“And you suspect her?”
“We can suspect no one else,” he answered.
“According to that old herbalist’s statement she had purchased a certain drug of him. What could an innocent young lady require with this unnamed drug if not to administer it to some one she wanted to get rid of?”
“But she has no object in ridding herself of me,” I urged.
“Of that I’m not quite so sure, my dear fellow,” he observed, after a brief pause. “Recollect that on the morning when she went to St. James’s Park in order to meet, for some mysterious purpose, the man whom we now know was old Mr Blain, she met you face to face. We have no idea what her actions were previously, but she may have believed that you had been spying upon her; therefore, on recognising you when you were formally introduced at Riverdene, she conceived a plan for getting you out of the way. It was with that object very possibly that she made the secret purchase at the herbalist’s.”
“No, Boyd, I can’t believe it of her,” I said quickly. “I won’t believe it!”
“Very well,” he said in the same calm tone as before. “But there’s still another fact extremely puzzling, and that is why this man Lowry should have left in such a hurry. I must inquire at the Carter Street Police-Station, the district wherein he lived, and see whether there was anything against him. By the way,” he added, “does your friend Cleugh know the whole of these facts you’ve explained to me?”
“No, not the whole — only some.”
“Does he know that you’ve declared your love to Lady Glaslyn’s daughter and been refused?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell him,” said the detective.
“I believe that the reason of his sudden weariness of Lily Lowry’s society is due to the fact that he loves Mary Blain.”
“All the more reason, then, why he should in future remain in entire ignorance of whatever facts we may elicit.”
Then he paused, furiously consuming his cigarette and taking a long draught of the whisky-and-soda I had mixed and placed at his elbow.
“This is really a most remarkable mystery, Urwin,” he exclaimed at length, twisting the plain gold ring upon his finger, a habit of his when pondering deeply. “There seem a thousand complications. It’s absolutely the most astounding case that I’ve ever had in hand. Even Shaw, our superintendent at the Yard, a man whose deep-rooted conviction is that we never need fail if we really take an interest in an inquiry, acknowledged to me the other day that he could see no way to a clue. Of course, we might question Mrs Blain, or even arrest Blain himself on suspicion if we could find him again. But whoever is guilty has taken such careful precautions to obliterate every trace of a clue that both the superintendent and myself are agreed that the interrogation of either of the Blains would only result in defeating our ends.” That was exactly my own opinion. I had many times wondered why the police had not made inquiries of Mrs Blain on account of the statement by the landlord at Kensington, but it was now plain that the Director of Criminal Investigations, the greyheaded, loud-voiced, old gentleman whom I knew quite well at Scotland Yard, had decided otherwise.
“But why are you so anxious that my friend Cleugh should remain in ignorance of our movements?” I inquired.
“You say that he loves Mary Blain,” answered Boyd. “He might in that case drop some unintentional hint to her of the direction of our inquiries. This matter, to be successful, must be entirely a secret between ourselves — you understand? To-day we’ve made a discovery — the identity of the man who threw some object into the lake — and it puts a rather fresh complexion upon the affair, even though it further complicates it considerably. You said that his wife has all along told you that her husband was in Paris — I think?”
“Yes,” I responded. “She said he was there in connexion with some company which he was trying to promote.”
“And all along he has been in London — in hiding.”
“He may have just returned from Paris,” I suggested. “Recollect that I’ve not been to Riverdene for some little time.”
“No, my dear fellow,” Boyd said. “His ingenuity in eluding us in Ebury Street showed that he had already prepared a snug hiding-place for himself before that tragedy at Phillimore Place. Besides, the other evening his clothes showed an attempt at disguise — didn’t they?”
“Certainly. He’s very smartly dressed always; indeed, rather a fop in his way.”
“Depend upon it that he’s never dared to set foot outside London all this time. He knows well enough that the Metropolis is the safest place in the whole world in which a criminal may conceal himself. Only a bungler attempts to get away abroad.”
Silence again fell between us. The quiet was unbroken save for the slow ticking of the clock upon the mantelshelf. Of a sudden, with a rather curious glance, he bent forward to me, eagerly saying —
“Now in this affair we must be perfectly candid with each other. You must conceal nothing from me.”
“I have concealed nothing,” I protested, surprised at his curious attitude, as though he held me in some suspicion.
“I don’t allege that you have,” he answered. “But I want you to answer truthfully a question which is of highest importance. I want you to tell me whether, on the afternoon of the day you were called by Patterson to Kensington, your friend Cleugh was here, at home.”
“No, he certainly wasn’t. I arrived home first, and he came in perhaps ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later than usual,” I answered, wondering what connexion this could have with the inquiry.
“And after you made the discovery you did not telegraph or communicate with him in any way? I take it that you were surprised to meet him in that house.”
“Certainly I was,” I responded. “But he had an appointment with Lily Lowry, and finding that she could not keep it, he came along to Kensington to ascertain the nature of the event about which Patterson had wired to me.”
The detective’s features relaxed into a strange smile.
“Would you be surprised then to know that your friend never called at the Police-Station on that evening, but went straight to Phillimore Place and there joined me while you were absent inquiring of the neighbours? That very evening I inquired of the constable on duty at the door of the station, and of others, all of whom told me that no one had called to inquire for Patterson except yourself.”
“That’s certainly extraordinary,” I said in wonderment.
“Yes,” he observed mechanically. “It’s a very curious fact; one which appears to prove that he knew something more of the mysterious occurrence than he has admitted — in fact, that he was aware of it long before we were.”
“What!” I gasped, gazing at my companion in alarm. “Surely you don’t mean that you suspect Dick of having had any hand in the affair?”
Then, at that instant, I recollected how, when I had received the telegram on that memorable evening, his face had suddenly changed, and his hand had trembled.