CHAPTER XVII "NEWS" FROM LANCASTER GATE

Marigold was naturally much puzzled.

What had her lover discovered? What did he know?

By the varying forms of the telegrams she saw that he had excused himself from the office upon a plea of illness, while really he was working in secret to elucidate the mystery of the hooded man of Hammersmith.

The fact that Boyne had been absent that night and had not yet returned, did not arouse her curiosity, for she concluded that Gerry had been following him ever since the previous evening.

She relied upon her lover's cleverness and ingenuity. The changing of his clothes showed her that he was resourceful. She admired him for it.

So she took her tea with her aunt, and afterwards laid Mr. Boyne's table in eager readiness for his return.

He came in and greeted her as cheerily as usual.

"Tell Mrs. Felmore that I expect she's been wondering where I've been all this time. But I went out to Loughton, in Essex, to see a friend last night, and I stayed there. Tell her so, Miss Marigold, will you? And now for my supper! I'm horribly hungry!"

He ate his meal, yet not by any means in the manner of a hungry man. He only toyed with it, for, a matter of fact, he had left Pont Street half an hour before, having taken leave of the Red Widow and his wife, whose faces had borne grim smiles of complete satisfaction.

That night as Marigold lay awake, unable to sleep, she became obsessed by the one idea that she ought to leave the house of mystery and return to Wimbledon Park.

Gerald, by his mysterious message to her, had evidently got upon the track of something, therefore it was useless for her to remain any longer in that strange atmosphere of doubt and fear.

Boyne had retired, and though she remained on the alert until the first streak of dawn shone through the blinds, she heard no movement to arouse her suspicion.

Next day, when she came down into the kitchen, she told her aunt that she was returning home. So, taking her blouse-case, she left before Mr. Boyne came downstairs.

"Marigold has gone to the bank, sir," said Mrs. Felmore when she placed Boyne's coffee and kippers upon the table. "She left word that she thanks you very much for allowing her to stay here, but she couldn't encroach on your kind hospitality any longer."

"Oh!" exclaimed Boyne in surprise. "She's gone—eh?"

"Yes, sir. She went out a quarter of an hour ago. She waited to see if you came down—but she had to go."

Boyne grunted, and remarked something beneath his breath—words that the deaf woman, even with her expert lip-reading eyes, could not understand.

Marigold had slipped safely out of the way. The fact filled him with intense chagrin. What did it portend?

"At least Durrant's activity is at an end!" he growled deeply to himself. "Now we have to deal with this girl. For the present nobody can know of the whereabouts of Gerald Durrant. When they do—I hope the peril will be over!"

And he swallowed his coffee with the gusto and satisfaction of a man who had made a most complete coup, and from whose mind some great weight had been lifted.

An hour later he entered the Hammersmith Post Office and telephoned to the Red Widow.

"Any news, Ena?" he asked as he sat in one of the boxes.

"Yes. Augusta spoke to me half an hour ago. I'm going round to Lancaster Gate at eleven. She's taken ill. A pity, isn't it?"

"Sorry to hear that!" he replied in a grim voice. "I'll see you at Pont Street at seven—eh?"

"Yes. I'll run round," Ena answered. "I've just been through to Lilla. I wonder what can be the matter with poor Augusta? A chill, perhaps—eh? Poor lady! But I hope it isn't serious."

"I hope not. Good-bye for the present."

And then the honest, hard-working collector of insurance premiums of the poor of Hammersmith went forth upon his daily round, trudging from street to street, knocking or ringing at the doors of the insured.

He made a call in Dalling Road, just beyond the railway arch, and then, proceeding up the thoroughfare, consulted his pocket account-book. Close to Chiswick High Road he made a further call, where he signed the book for the weekly premium.

Presently he halted at a small and very poor-looking house in the Devonport Road, a turning off the Goldhawk Road, where he rang at the door. At the windows were curtains blackened by the London smoke, for the whole neighbourhood was one of genteel poverty, but of despair.

An ugly, but cleanly dressed old woman answered, and, seeing him, knit her brows.

"Ah! Come in, Mr. Boyne!" she said, and the collector of premiums entered.

Five minutes later he came out, the old woman following him. He was evidently not himself, for usually his was a kindly nature towards the poor. But that day his manner was rough and uncouth. Something had upset him.

"Well, I'm sorry, Mrs. Pentreath," he said in a loud voice. "But, you see, it isn't in my hands. I'm only a humble servant of the company—an ill-paid servant who gets just a living wage upon the premiums he collects. You've had time to pay, you know, and if you can't pay up this week—well, the policy must lapse. You've been given notice of it for six weeks. The company has been very lenient with you. Other companies wouldn't have been so lenient."

"But my poor Bertha! She's come home from service, and is in bed with consumption. I have to look after her and try to give her the nourishment Doctor James orders. It isn't my fault that I haven't paid you. It really isn't."

"I can't help that," replied Boyne roughly. "Your insurance policy must lapse—that's all.

"And after fifteen years that I've paid regularly each week!" exclaimed the poor woman in dismay.

"Well, it isn't my fault, I tell you. I'm not the company," was his harsh reply.

"And my poor Bertha so ill. It's cruel—it's inhuman, I say!" she shouted in a shrill voice.

Boyne only smiled grimly. He was not the kindly man of other days.

"It probably is so," he replied, turning away from the door. "But it's our insurance business; and business is business, after all!

"Yes!" retorted the poor woman. "You people are robbing the poor—that's what it is! And after fifteen years! Why, I've paid your company more in that time than what they would have paid to bury my Bertha!"

At a small house in the Loftus Road he knocked three times, and a dwarfed, red-eyed girl at last opened the door.

"Poor mother's dead, Mr. Boyne! Didn't you see the blinds?" she asked.

"Dead!" he exclaimed, looking at the little window of the sitting-room. "Get your book."

"I'll go and get it," was the girl's reply. "Mother died late last night. The doctor says it's heart disease."

"All right. Give me the book," he said brutally. "I suppose we'll have to pay. You paid up last week, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir, I paid you—and you'll find it down," the girl said, and, disappearing, she presently returned with the insurance book.

The house-to-house visits of the insurance collector of those fat dividend paying companies who insure the lives of the lower classes are truly fraught with many strange dramas and stirring tales of poverty and misfortune.

While Bernard Boyne was on his weary round, Ena Pollen alighted from a taxi at the private hotel in Lancaster Gate, a big, old-fashioned house which for years had been known to country visitors to London as a quiet and excellent place in which to stay.

The young man-servant who opened the door told her that Mrs. Morrison was upstairs. The proprietor's wife met her in the hall, and, in response to the Red Widow's inquiry, said:

"Mrs. Morrison hasn't been very well for a couple of days. She was taken ill last night, so I called my doctor—Doctor Tressider—and he came to see her. He seems puzzled. He can't make out at present what's the matter with her. He's calling again to-night. She came over very ill when she returned from Brighton."

"I'll go upstairs," said Mrs. Pollen. "It is most unfortunate, isn't it? She's only here in town for a short time, and now she's taken ill like this. I do hope it's nothing serious."

"Oh, no. I asked Doctor Tressider, and he thinks it is simply a little stomach trouble. To-morrow she'll be better," was the woman's reply.

So Ena ascended the stairs, and, after tapping at the door, entered the neat little bedroom on the second floor.

"Well, dear!" she exclaimed cheerily as she entered. "I couldn't let the day pass without coming to see you. Whatever is the matter?"

"I really don't know, Ena," replied Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn. "I felt so ill in the train coming up to Victoria that I had great difficulty in getting back here."

"But the doctor says you'll be all right to-morrow," said Ena.

"I feel awfully ill," replied the other feebly. "I seem so feverish—hot at one moment and cold at another."

"No, no," said Mrs. Pollen cheerily. "You'll be all right, never fear. When one feels feverish one's temperature is generally below normal. I do hope these people are looking after you all right?"

"Oh, yes, they do. I have no complaint to make on that score. You recommended me here, and I must say that I'm most comfortable. But what worries me is my visit up North."

"Don't bother about that," laughed the other. "Get well first. Write and tell them you can't come."

"I wish you would do it for me. Pen and paper are over there," said the sick woman, whose eyes glistened strangely.

"No; you must do it," replied Ena quickly. She had a reason. "If I were to write to them they might think it strange. You are not too ill to write. I'll get you the pad."

And, carrying it to her on the bed, she induced Mrs. Morrison to write two letters to her friends—letters which she duly posted when she got outside.

"The doctor doesn't seem to know what is the matter with me," the invalid said in a weak voice after she had laid down her fountain pen. "My head is so terribly bad—and my throat too."

"What time is he coming again?"

"To-night, I think. I hope so."

"My dear, it's only a chill," Ena said with comforting cheerfulness. "You'll be all right in a day or two. You've been in a draught, perhaps."

"Ah! but my head! It seems as though it must burst. At times I can't think. All my senses seem blurred."

"Did you tell the doctor that?"

"Yes. And it seemed to puzzle him more than ever. I hope I'm not going to have a bad illness."

"Of course not," laughed Ena. "You'll be better in a day or so. Remain quiet, and I'll run in to-morrow morning to see how you are. If you're worse, tell them to ring me up. I'm just going round to the Davidsons. They will be most distressed to hear of your sudden illness."

The widow of Carsphairn turned over on her pillow and moaned slightly. Her face was flushed, and it was evident to Ena that the last words she had uttered the sick woman had not understood.

So she took her leave, and on descending the stairs to the wide hall, again encountered the proprietor's wife.

"My friend Mrs. Morrison seems very unwell," said Ena. "I can't make it out at all. I do hope the doctor will discover what is the matter with her."

"Doctor Tressider is my own doctor," replied the woman. "He'll be here again before dinner time, and I hope he won't find anything really very wrong."

"Well, whatever he says, would you mind letting me know over the 'phone?" asked Ena, taking out her visiting-card, upon which was printed her telephone number.

"Certainly I will," was the reply.

"And if there is anything serious I'll come round at once," she said.

So they parted, and Ena hailed a taxi outside, and returned to Upper Brook Street well satisfied with her morning's work.