Chapter Twelve. Love and Lolita.

To press her further was out of the question. I had sufficiently explained that I held the knowledge to myself, and that I did not intend to divulge to the police what I had discovered.

That she had been fully aware of the unknown’s death was quite plain and equally so that she feared lest the inquiries might lead the police in her direction.

The silent manner in which she had changed her mud-bedraggled dress was in itself sufficient to show that she was well aware that I suspected her of being implicated in the young man’s death, and her mute thankfulness was also very marked.

In silence we walked on through the forest gloom where the damp smell of the moss and dead leaves was welcome after the dry August heat outside, until presently, after debating within myself whether it were wise to place her upon her guard, I suddenly put my hand upon my love’s arm, saying—

“Lolita, you know that your interests in every particular are mine, therefore it is, I think, but right that you should know that the police have already made a discovery in connexion with the—the unfortunate affair in the park. They have found at the spot the marks of small shoes with French heels. Casts have been taken of those imprints, and it is suspected that they are of your shoes!”

“My footprints!” she gasped, turning and glaring at me with wide-open frightened eyes. “Ah! I—I never thought of that! It never occurred to me!” And then I saw how she trembled visibly from head to foot. She had striven to remain calm, but had now utterly broken down.

“The situation is perilous,” I said quite quietly, “inasmuch as the man Redway has taken casts, and knowing that only you in this district are in the habit of wearing such shoes, I fear he suspects. He will, no doubt, seek some secret means, probably through the servants, to compare his cast with the boots you are in the habit of wearing.”

“Ah! I see,” she remarked thoughtfully. “Then I must either hide or destroy them all, unknown to Weston.”

“That is best. I will help you,” I said. “We will do it as soon as we return. If you will collect them all I’ll pack them in my suit-case and send them up to the cloak-room at St. Pancras. They’ll be safe enough there for a few months.”

“An excellent idea,” she said. “I must get rid of them at all costs. I’ll order some others from Francis—shoes with flat heels, although I hate them.”

I could not, however, help noticing that she had actually admitted being present at the spot where the dead man was discovered, yet she had made no mention of him. My object was to learn his name and who he really was, but with a woman’s cleverness she vouchsafed no information. I think she saw that I suspected her of the crime, although my intense love for her prevented me withdrawing from her in loathing as would otherwise have been the case.

That strange cipher that I had found secreted in the dead man’s waistcoat occurred to me, and I longed to be in possession of its key. I knew a man who often amused himself in deciphering such things, and counted himself something of an expert in such matters, but I had not yet had time to submit it to him and obtain his opinion.

As we continued our way she expressed a hope that the man Redway would not make investigations in her wardrobe during her absence.

“He may bribe Weston, you know,” she suggested in an apprehensive tone. “And if he found that his cast corresponded with my foot, the result would surely be fatal. I could not live to face it, Willoughby. How could I?”

“Don’t let us anticipate such a thing. Redway will not be able to enter the Hall without some very good excuse, that’s very certain. Up to the present only two persons are aware that you were out in the Park all night—the man whom I afterwards found with the Frenchwoman, and myself.”

“Ah! yes, thanks to you I succeeded in returning home as though I had only been out for an early walk. The manner in which you accomplished it was most ingenious. It has freed me from suspicion. Yet in the footmarks has arisen another and much more serious matter.”

“The boots you must leave to me. I will get rid of them, never fear,” I assured her; and she pressed the gloved hand I held, as though to confirm her trust in me.

Yet was I acting as accessory to a foul and dastardly crime. A man, unarmed and unsuspecting, had been cruelly and secretly done to death, and I, because I loved her, was seeking by all means in my power to throw the police off the scent and dispel even those grave suspicions that were so strongly increasing in my own mind daily, nay hourly.

Walking at her side I tried to argue with myself. But I was too loyal to her. That face drawn and haggard, the paleness of which even her veil failed to hide, was the countenance of a woman whose heart was torn with conflicting emotions—one whose enemies had triumphed, leaving her friendless, crushed—and guilty before the face of the world.

We went on, past the smithy, into Stanion village, an old-world place with its grey church-spire the most prominent figure in the landscape. The sun was setting, and our long shadows lay in front of us upon the dusty highway.

Young Sampson, the squire of Ashton, over near Oundle, whirled past us in his ten-horse Panhard, enveloping us in a cloud of dust, passing before he became aware of who we were. Then we turned into the rectory, where in the cool little drawing-room Lolita had a brief conversation with the worthy rector’s wife concerning a forthcoming sale of work. Oh! those everlasting jumble sales and sales of work.

As she sat there, her veil raised, coolly discussing such things as stalls, stall-holders, fancy needlework and church expenses, she smiled sweetly and certainly did not in the least present the woeful picture that she had done as we passed through the Chase. They even discussed the tragic discovery in the park. With the well-bred woman’s natural tact she could control her outward appearance marvellously. The wife of the estimable rector would certainly never have dreamed the subject of our conversation a quarter of an hour before. They strolled across the tennis lawn together, and her neat figure and graceful swinging carriage was surely not that of a woman suspected of a heartless and brutal assassination.

Yet when I argued coldly and methodically with myself; when I recollected her admission, and her eager anxiety to get rid of those boots with the small high heels, I could not disguise from myself the hard fact that if she were not the actual assassin she was, at any rate, an accessory.

There had been some strong motive why that young man should die. That was plain, and without the slightest shadow of doubt.

I strolled beside the pair in the garden until my love took leave of her hostess, and then we walked home in the calm golden glow of the sundown.

Before the dressing-bell rang I surreptitiously carried my old suit-case, empty, up to her room, and half-an-hour later fetched it down. It was packed full of all her French boots, and having locked it securely I tied upon it an address-label inscribed to myself to be left at St. Pancras cloak-room “till called for.” Then I rang for a servant, and dispatched it to Kettering station.

The blazing August days went slowly by. The body of the nameless victim had been laid in its grave in Sibberton churchyard, and the inquiries conducted by the obsequious Redway resulted in nothing. As was to be expected, he and his assistants haunted the village continually, endeavouring to gather all they could, but fortunately no suspicion was cast upon the sweet woman whom I loved. An active search was made for the boots with the Louis XV heels, in which Pink, the doctor, joined, but it never once occurred to them that they had belonged to Lolita. Or, if it did, the theory had no doubt been dismissed as a wild and unfounded one.

Eager to escape from the place which was undoubtedly so full of tragic memory, Lolita, in the early days of September, went up to Strathpeffer to stay with her aunt, Lady Clayton, as was her habit each year.

On the morning just before she left, however, she came to my room ready dressed for her departure, and again, for the first time since our walk to Stanion, referred to the tragedy.

“Recollect, Willoughby, I am now entirely in your hands,” she said, standing at the window with her eyes fixed aimlessly across the broad level park. “I cannot bear to remain here now, for I feel every moment that I am being watched, suspected—that one day that awful person Redway will enter my room with—perhaps a warrant for my arrest.”

“There is no evidence,” I pointed out, first ascertaining that there were no eavesdroppers in the corridor outside. “We have been able to efface everything. The police are utterly puzzled.”

“Thanks to you,” she said, turning her great blue eyes sweetly upon me. Surely she did not at the moment present the appearance of a murderess, and yet the circumstances all pointed to one fact—that there was a motive in the death of that young man who had remained unidentified. “You told me the other day,” she went on, “that the necklet had been pawned. My connexion with the poor young fellow may be established through that. You see I do not conceal my fears from you, Willoughby—my only friend,” she added.

“You need fear nothing in that direction,” I responded. “I purchased the necklet, and I have it at this moment safely at home.”

“You have!” she cried, a great weight lifted from her mind. “Ah! you seem to have left nothing undone to secure my safety.”

“For the reason I explained to you on the night of the unfortunate affair,” I responded, taking her small soft hand in mine and raising it slowly to my lips. She did not attempt to withdraw it. She only sighed, and a slight shiver ran through her as my lips came in contact with her fingers. What did that shudder mean?

Was it that I was actually kissing the hand that had committed murder?

“Lolita!” I said a moment later when I had crushed from my heart the gradually increasing suspicion. “You have received from the innkeeper, Warr, a letter left for you by a rough uncouth stranger.”

“Ah,” she sighed, “I have. Richard Keene has returned! You don’t know what that means to me.”

“The letter contained news that has filled you with serious apprehension, then?”

“It contained certain information that is utterly astonishing!”

I explained how I had seen the stranger and overheard his conversation with Warr, whereupon she said—

“I expected that he would return, but it seems that he does not intend to do so. He fears, perhaps, to call upon me—just as I fear that he may reveal the truth.”

For some time I was silent, pretending to occupy myself with some papers, but truth to tell I was considering whether the question I wished to put to her was really a judicious one. At last I decided to speak and make a bold demand. Therefore I said—

“And now, Lolita, that I have rendered you all the assistance I can, I want to ask you one single plain question—I want you to answer me truthfully, because what you tell me may in the future be of greatest assistance to me. Recollect that in this affair I am combating the efforts of the police, therefore I wish to know the name of the man who is dead.”

“His name!” she exclaimed, looking straight at me. “His name—why do you wish to ascertain that?”

“First, because of curiosity, and, secondly, because in dealing with your enemies it will give me advantage if I am aware of facts of which they are in ignorance.”

But she shook her head, while her brows knit slightly, by which I knew that she was firm.

“Your knowledge of the affair is surely sufficient, Willoughby,” was her answer. “You see in me a miserable woman, haunted by the shadow of a crime, a woman whom the world holds in high esteem but who merits only disgrace and death. You pity me—you say that you love me! Well, if that is so—if you pity me, and your love is really sincere, you will at least have compassion upon me and allow me to retain one secret, even from you—the secret of that man’s name!”

“Then you refuse to satisfy me,” I exclaimed in bitter disappointment.

“Is it a proof of love and confidence to wring from a woman a name which is her secret alone?” she asked reprovingly.

“But I am trying to act as your protector,” I argued.

“Then have patience,” she urged. “His name does not concern you. He is dead, and his secret—which was also my secret—has gone with him to the grave.” Then, almost in the same breath, she bade me farewell, and a few moments later I saw the station-brougham receding down the long avenue.