Chapter Twenty Six. The Fugitive.

In my own room I sat for a long time silent in deep reverie. Saunders glided in and out, brought me a brandy-and-soda that went flat, untasted, and placed at my elbow my letters, with a deferential suggestion that some of them might be important. Glancing at their superscriptions, I tossed them aside, in no mood to be bothered with cards of invitation or tradesmen’s circulars.

Two hours passed, and the ever-watchful Saunders retired for the night. Then, after pacing the room for a long time in hesitation, I at last determined to write to Jack, who had returned home, warning him of his peril. I knew that by shielding a murderer from justice I accepted a great moral responsibility; nevertheless, I had formed a plan which I meant at any hazard to pursue. It was, I felt certain, my last chance of obtaining the knowledge I had so long and vainly sought, therefore I sat down, wrote a hurried note to him, in which I urged him to fly and hide himself for a time; but, after obtaining a hiding-place, to telegraph to me, using the name of a mutual friend, as I desired to see him at the earliest possible moment. This note I took across to the Club, and gave it to the commissionaire, with strict injunctions to deliver it personally.

Three-quarters of an hour later the old pensioner returned, saying that he had placed the letter in Captain Bethune’s hand, and as I strolled again homeward I pondered over the serious responsibility of my action. In my heart I felt convinced that my friend had killed Sternroyd. Indeed, every fact was plain. I knew that he was a murderer, and my previous esteem had now been transformed into a deep-rooted repugnance. If he were innocent he could never have been so suspicious of me as he had been since that memorable night when he found me in his chambers. Within myself I admitted that I had no right in his rooms; nevertheless the old adage, “Murder will out,” forcibly occurred to me. If there was one witness who could bring Captain Bethune to the gallows it was myself.

Ah, how quickly things had changed! A few brief weeks ago Jack was the popular soldier and brilliant writer hailed by the Press as one of the greatest living novelists; while Dora, charming and radiant, was courted, flattered, and admired at home, in the Park, in the ballroom—everywhere. Now the one was a murderer, hounded by the police; and the other, alas! demented.

Patience and discretion. It was Grindlay’s motto, and I would take it as mine. Already, as I walked through the silent, deserted streets, Bethune was, I knew, preparing for hurried flight somewhere out of reach. I alone had frustrated Grindlay’s plans, but only as a means to attain my own end.

Next day passed, and in the evening Saunders brought in the Inspector’s card. When Grindlay entered his first words were:

“Your friend Bethune has returned and again bolted.”

I feigned surprise, but in the course of the conversation that ensued he sought my advice on the most likely places to find him. I suggested Hounslow, but the detective had already made inquiries there, and could glean nothing.

“The curious part of the affair is that he should, after his recent extraordinary show of bravado in returning to England, suddenly become suspicious just at the moment when we meant to take him,” he said, after we had been discussing the matter. “I suppose you have no further suggestions to offer as to any likelihood of his whereabouts?”

“None. I should not expect him to try and escape abroad again after his last futile attempt to elude you.”

“No. The ports are watched, and he might as well walk into the Yard at once as to attempt to cross the Channel,” remarked the detective, smiling. “But I must be going. If you hear anything let me know at the Yard at once.”

I promised, and the inspector, taking one of my cigars, lit it and left.

A week went by, but no word of the discovery of the ghastly evidence of the crime found its way into the papers. For reasons of their own the police obtained the postponement of the inquest, although the body had been removed to the mortuary, and the house still remained in the possession of a plain-clothes’ man. The theory of the Criminal Investigation Department was that the house would be visited by someone who, unaware of the discoveries that had been made, would walk straight into the arms of an officer of the law.

But it proved a waiting game. Another week passed. Several times I called at Lady Stretton’s, only to learn, alas! that Dora had not improved in the slightest degree. She recognised no one—not even her mother. Her ladyship was prostrate, while Mabel, whom I met one morning when I called, seemed haggard and particularly anxious regarding her sister.

The thought did not escape me that Mabel herself had, at least on one occasion, most probably visited that strange house that had its entrance in Radnor Place, and I was on the point of mentioning it to her, but decided to wait and see whether she alluded to it. She, however, did not. When I asked her for news of Fyneshade she replied, snappishly, that she neither knew nor cared where he was. In fact, she treated me with a frigid reserve quite unusual to her.

About noon one day Saunders brought me a telegram. Opening it, I found the words:

“Tell Boyd to sell Tintos.—Roland. Post, Alf, Moselle.”

It was from Bethune. Roland was the name we had arranged. So he had, notwithstanding all the precautions taken by the police, succeeded in again escaping to the Continent, and was now in hiding at the post-house of the little riparian village of Alf. I knew the place. It was far in the heart of the beautiful Moselle country on the bank of the broad river that wound through its vine-clad ruin-crested hills, altogether a quaint Arcadian place, quiet, restful, and unknown to the felt-hatted horde of tourists who swarm over the sunny Rhineland like clouds of locusts.

Three days after receiving the telegram I alighted from a dusty, lumbering fly at the door of the building, half post-house, half inn, and was greeted heartily by my friend, who spoke in French and wore as a disguise the loose blue blouse so much affected by all classes of Belgians. Alone in the little dining-room he whispered briefly that he was going under the name of Roland, representing himself to be a land-owner from Chaudfontaine, near Liège. None of the people in the inn knew French; therefore, his faulty accent passed unnoticed. When there were listeners we spoke in French to preserve the deception, and I am fain to admit that his disguise and manner were alike excellent.

Together we ate our evening meal with the post-house keeper and his buxom, fair-haired wife; then, while the crimson sunset still reflected upon the broad river, we strolled out along the bank to talk.

All the land around on this south side is orchard—great pear and cherry trees linked together by low-growing vines, and in the spring months they make a sea of blossom stretching to the river’s edge. The noise of the weir is loud, but the song of the myriad birds can be heard above it. Away eastward, down the widening, curving stream, above the vines there arise, two miles off, the blackened, crumbling towers of mediaeval strongholds. To the north lies the Eifel, that mysterious volcanic district penetrated by few; to the south the Marienburg and the ever-busy Rhine. The vale of the Moselle on that brilliant evening was a serene and sylvan scene, glorious in the blaze of blood-red sunset, and when we had walked beyond the village, cigar in mouth, with affected indifference, Bethune turned to me abruptly, saying:

“Well, now, after all this infernal secrecy, what in the name of Heaven do you want with me?”

“You apparently reproach me for acting in your interests rather than in my own,” I answered brusquely.

“I acted upon your so-called warning and left England—”

“Without seeing Dora?” I inquired.

“She’s away in the country somewhere,” he snapped. It was evident that he was entirely ignorant of the dire misfortune that had befallen her.

“My warning was justified,” I said quietly. “That a warrant is out for your arrest I am in a position to affirm, and—”

“A warrant issued on your own information, I presume,” he interrupted with a sneer.

“I have given no information,” I replied. “I obtained the truth from the detective who held the warrant, and sent word to you immediately.”

“Extremely kind, I’m sure. You’ve done all you can to prejudice me, and now it seems that for some unaccountable reason you have altered your tactics and are looking after my interests. I place no faith in such friends.”

“My tactics, as you are pleased to term them, are at least legitimate,” I answered, annoyed. “I deny, however, that I have ever acted in opposition to your interests. During these past weeks of anxiety and suspicion I have always defended you, and show my readiness to still do so by contriving your escape thus far.”

“Bah! What have I to fear?” he exclaimed, turning on me defiantly.

I looked straight into his face, and with sternness said—“You fear arrest for the murder of Gilbert Sternroyd.” He frowned, and his eyes were downcast. There was a long silence, but no answer passed his tight-drawn lips. Presently I spoke again, saying—

“Now listen, Bethune. We have been friends, and I regret to the bottom of my heart that it is no longer possible under these circumstances to again extend to you the hand of friendship.”

“I don’t want it,” he growled. “I tell you plainly that you are my enemy—not my friend.”

“I have never been your enemy. It is true that the police of Europe are searching for you; that your description is in the hands of every official charged with criminal investigation from Christiania to Gibraltar, and that the charge against you is that you murdered a young millionaire. It is true also that it lays in my power to shield or to denounce you. Think, think for a moment the nature of the evidence against you. One night I entered your flat with my key, stumbled across something, and discovered to my horror that it was the body of Sternroyd, who had been shot.”

“You lie!” he cried, turning upon me fiercely, with clenched fists. “You lie! you never saw the body!”

“I tell you I did,” I replied quite calmly, as in the same tone I went on to describe the exact position in which it lay.

My words fell upon him as a thunderbolt. He had entertained no suspicion that the body had been actually discovered before its removal, and never before dreamed that I had entered his flat on that fatal night and witnessed the evidence of the crime. By this knowledge that I held he was visibly crushed and cowed.

“Well, go on,” he said mechanically, in a hoarse tone. “I suppose you want to drive me to take my life to avoid arrest—eh?”

“Think of the nature of my evidence,” I continued. “I entered your flat again on the following night to find you present, the body removed, and you met my request to search one of the rooms by quickly locking the door and pocketing the key. I ask you whether there is not sufficient circumstantial evidence in that to convict you of the crime?”

He remained silent, his chin almost resting upon his breast.

“Again,” I said, “in addition to this, I may as well tell you that the body you sought to hide has been discovered.”

“Discovered!” he gasped. “Have they found it?”

“Yes. It was carefully hidden, but traces of murder are always difficult to hide.”

“Who searched? Who discovered it?”

“The police.”

“And they therefore obtained a warrant for me?”

I nodded. We walked slowly on, both silent and full of bitter thoughts. Now that I had convinced myself of his guilt I felt certain of the success of my next move.

Turning to him presently, I said: “I have a confession to make, Bethune. On the night of the tragedy I found that you had torn up and destroyed a number of letters before leaving, and among them I discovered one from a woman named Sybil. Now tell me frankly who and what she was. I have no wish that you should reveal to me anything regarding her relations with you that you desire to keep secret, but I merely ask you to act openly and tell me what you know of her.”

“I know nothing—nothing,” he answered, in a low tone.

“That’s a lie!” I exclaimed angrily. “She wrote to you on apparently the most intimate terms, yet you declare you are not acquainted with her.”

“Well, I was acquainted with her.”

“And with Sternroyd?”

“And with Sternroyd.”

“Then you can tell me something of her parentage, her social position, and why the police desired her arrest?”

“No; I cannot tell you that,” he answered firmly. “Why?”

“Because I refuse.”

“You know that I hold your liberty in my hand, and you fear to tell the truth because it would incense me?”

“I do not fear to tell the truth,” he retorted.

“Then why do you decline?”

“Because I respect the confidences she made to me, and in preserving silence I am but obeying the command contained in that letter.”

His reply nonplussed me. I remembered the puzzling, disjointed words I had read a hundred times before. They were: ”...desire that your friend, Stuart Ridgeway, should remain in ignorance of the fact.” Yes; he was correct. By refusing, he was obeying her injunctions.

“Will you tell me nothing regarding her?” I asked persuasively.

“I am not at liberty to say anything.”

“Remember, Bethune, I was married to her. Surely if any man has a right to know who and what she was, I have,” I urged.

“I’m well aware of your strange marriage. You were fascinated by her extraordinary beauty, as other men had been, and—”

“Is that meant as an insinuation against her good name?” I cried fiercely.

“Take it as you please, the truth is the same,” he answered, with a sneering smile. “You fell in love with her, and were caught, like a fly in a trap.” And he laughed harshly at my discomfiture.

“Then you will tell me nothing about her?” I exclaimed angrily. “You refuse to assist me in recognition of the service I have done you in avoiding your arrest. Help me, and I will help you. If not, well—there is already within hail one into whose hands if you once fall you will never extricate yourself.”

“Death?”

“No; an officer of police.”

“Bah! I fear the former no more than the latter,” he cried, in a tone of banter. “Denounce me—let them arrest me. I am ready to face my traducers; but even in exchange for my liberty, I will tell you nothing of Sybil.”

“Very well,” I said. “Then the warrant shall be executed without delay.”

And I turned and left him.

What his blank refusal portended I had yet to learn.