Chapter Seventeen. The Ears of the Blind.

The discovery of the watcher at Willowden was most disconcerting to Gray and his accomplices.

They recognised the stranger as a person who had once kept observation upon them in London two years before, and now saw to their dismay that their headquarters had been discovered.

So that night Gray and Claribut worked hard in frantic haste and dismantled the wireless installation, which they packed in boxes, while Freda eagerly collected her own belongings. Then making sure that they were not still being watched they stowed the boxes in the car, and creeping forth sped rapidly away along the Great North Road.

“I don’t like the look of things?” Gray muttered to Freda, who sat beside him. “We’ve only got away in the nick of time. The police might have been upon us before morning. We’ll have to be extremely careful.”

And then a silence fell between them as they drove through the pelting rain. Once again they had wriggled out of an awkward situation.

At a first-floor window of an ancient half-timbered house in a narrow, dingy street behind the cathedral in quaint old Bayeux, in Normandy, a pretty, fair-haired young girl was silting in the sunshine, her hands lying idly in her lap.

It was noon. The ill-paved street below—a street of sixteenth-century houses with heavy carved woodwork and quaint gables—was deserted, as the great bell of the magnificent old cathedral, built by Odo, the bishop, after the Norman Conquest of Britain, boomed forth the hour of twelve.

The girl did not move or speak. She seldom did, because first, her blue eyes were fixed and sightless, and, secondly, she was always strange of manner.

Jean Nicole, the boot-repairer, and his wife, with whom the girl lived, were honest country folk of Normandy. Both came from Vaubadon, a remote little village on the road to St. Lô. After the war they had moved to Bayeux, when one day they chanced to see an advertisement in the Ouest Éclair, an advertisement inviting a trustworthy married couple to take charge of a young lady who was slightly mentally deficient, and offering a good recompense.

They answered the advertisement, with the result that they were invited to the Hôtel de l’Univers at St. Malo, where the worthy pair were shown up to a private sitting-room wherein sat a well-dressed Englishman and a smartly-attired woman, his wife.

They explained that they had been left in charge of the young lady in question, who was unfortunately blind. Her father’s sudden death, by accident, had so preyed upon her mind that it had become deranged.

The man, who gave the name of Mr Hugh Ford, explained that he and his wife were sailing from Havre to New York on business on the following Saturday, and they required someone to look after the unfortunate young lady during their absence. Would Monsieur and Madame Nicole do so?

The boot-repairer and his stout spouse, eager to increase their income, expressed their readiness, and within an hour arrangements were made, an agreement drawn up by which the pair were to receive from a bank in Paris a certain monthly sum for mademoiselle’s maintenance, and the young lady was introduced to them.

Her affliction of blindness was pitiable. Her eyes seemed fixed as she groped her way across the room, and it was with difficulty that her guardian made her understand that she was going to live with new friends.

At last she uttered two words only in English.

“I understand.”

The middle-aged Frenchman and his wife knew no English, while it seemed that the young lady knew no French.

“Her name is Betty Grayson,” explained Mr Ford, speaking in French. “She seldom speaks. Yet at times she will, perhaps, become talkative, and will probably tell you in English some absurd story or other, always highly dramatic, about some terrible crime. But, as I tell you, Monsieur Nicole, her mind is unhinged, poor girl! So take no notice of her fantastic imagination.”

“Très bien, monsieur,” replied the dark-faced boot-repairer. “I quite follow. Poor mademoiselle!”

“Yes. Her affliction is terribly unfortunate. You see her condition—quite hopeless, alas! She must have complete mental rest. To be in the presence of people unduly excites her, therefore it is best to keep her indoors as much as possible. And when she goes out, let it be at night when nobody is about.”

“I understand, monsieur.”

“The best London specialists on mental diseases have already examined her. Poor Betty! They have told me her condition, therefore, if she gets worse it will be useless to call in a doctor. And she may get worse,” he added meaningly, after a pause.

“And when will monsieur and madame be back?” inquired Madame Nicole.

“It is quite impossible to tell how long my business will take,” was Mr Ford’s reply. “We shall leave Havre by the Homeric on Saturday, and I hope we shall be back by November. But your monthly payments will be remitted to you by the Crédit Lyonnais until our return.”

So the pair had gone back by train from St. Malo to quiet old Bayeux, to that dingy, ramshackle old house a few doors from that ancient mansion, now the museum in which is preserved in long glass cases the wonderful strip of linen cloth worked in outline by Queen Matilda and her ladies, representing the Conquest of England by her husband, William of Normandy, and the overthrow of Harold—one of the treasures of our modern world. On the way there they found that Miss Grayson could speak French.

The rooms to which they brought the poor sightless English mademoiselle were small and frowsy. The atmosphere was close, and pervaded by the odour of a stack of old boots which Monsieur Nicole kept in the small back room, in which he cut leather and hammered tacks from early morn till nightfall.

From the front window at which the girl sat daily, inert and uninterested, a statuesque figure, silent and sightless, a good view could be obtained of the wonderful west façade of the magnificent Gothic Cathedral, the bells of which rang forth their sweet musical carillon four times each hour.

Summer sightseers who, with guide-book in hand, passed up the old Rue des Chanoines to the door of the Cathedral, she heard, but she could not see. Americans, of whom there were many, and a sprinkling of English, chattered and laughed upon their pilgrimage to the magnificent masterpiece of the Conqueror’s half-brother, and some of them glanced up and wondered at the motionless figure seated staring out straight before her.

It is curious how very few English travellers ever go to Bayeux, the cradle of their race, and yet how many Americans are interested in the famous tapestries and the marvellous monument in stone.

On that warm noon as Betty Grayson sat back in the window, silent and motionless, her brain suddenly became stirred, as it was on occasions, by recollections, weird, horrible and fantastic.

Madame Nicole, in her full black dress and the curious muslin cap of the shape that has been worn for centuries by the villagers of Vaubadon—for each village in Normandy has its own fashion in women’s caps so that the denizens of one village can, in the markets, be distinguished from those of another—crossed the room from the heavy, old oak sideboard, laying the midday meal. In the room beyond Jean, her husband, was earning his daily bread tapping, and ever tapping upon the boots.

“Madame,” exclaimed the girl, rising with a suddenness which caused the boot-repairer’s wife to start. “There is a strange man below. He keeps passing and re-passing and looking up at me.”

The stout, stolid Frenchwoman in her neat and spotless cap started, and smiled good-humouredly.

“Then you can see at last—eh?” she cried. “Perhaps he is only some sightseer from the Agence Cook.” The woman was astounded at the sudden recovery of the girl’s sight.

“No. I do not think so. He looks like an English business man. Come and see,” said the girl.

Madame crossed to the window, but only two women were in sight, neighbours who lived across the way, and with them was old Abbé Laugée who had just left his confessional and was on his way home to déjeuner.

“Ah! He’s gone!” the girl said in French. “I saw him passing along last evening, and he seemed to be greatly interested in this house.”

“He may perhaps have a friend living above us,” suggested Madame Nicole.

Scarcely had she replied, however, when a knock was heard at the outside door, which, on being opened, revealed the figure of a rather tall, spruce-looking Englishman, well-dressed in a dark grey suit.

“I beg pardon, madame,” he said in good French, “but I believe you have a Mademoiselle Grayson living with you?”

Ere the woman could speak the girl rushed forward, and staring straight into the face of the man, cried:

“Why! It’s—it’s actually Mr Porter!”

The man laughed rather uneasily, though he well concealed his chagrin. He had believed that she was blind.

“I fear you have mistaken me for somebody else,” he said. Then, turning to the woman, he remarked: “This is Miss Grayson, I suppose?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Ah! Then she imagines me to be somebody named Porter—eh?” he remarked in a tone of pity.

“I imagine nothing,” declared the girl vehemently. “I used to, but I am now growing much better, and I begin to recollect. I recognise you as Mr Arthur Porter, whom I last saw at Willowden, near Welwyn. And you know it is the truth.”

The man shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Madame Nicole said in French:

“I have heard that mademoiselle is suffering from—well, from hallucinations.”

“Yes, monsieur, she does. For days she will scarcely speak. Her memory comes and goes quite suddenly. And she has to-day recovered her sight.”

“That is true,” replied the pretty blue-eyed girl. “I recognise this gentleman as Mr Arthur Porter,” she cried again. “I recollect many things—that night at Farncombe when—when I learnt the truth, and then lost my reason.”

“Take no notice, monsieur,” the woman urged. “Poor mademoiselle! She tells us some very odd stories sometimes—about a young man whom she calls Monsieur Willard. She says he was murdered.”

“And so he was!” declared the girl in English. “Mr Homfray can bear me out! He can prove it!” she said determinedly.

Their visitor was silent for a moment. Then he asked:

“What is this strange story?”

“You know it as well as I do, Mr Porter,” she replied bitterly. But the stranger only smiled again as though in pity.

“My name is not Porter,” he assured her. “I am a doctor, and my name is George Crowe, a friend of your guardian, Mr Ford. He called upon me in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and as I was travelling to Paris he asked me to come here and see you.”

“What?” shrieked the girl. “Dare you stand there and deny that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of that woman, Freda Crisp!”

“I certainly do deny it! And further, I have not the pleasure of knowing your friend.”

Betty Grayson drew a long breath as her blue eyes narrowed and her brow knit in anger.

“I know that because of my lapses of memory and my muddled brain I am not believed,” she said. “But I tell you that poor Mr Willard was killed—murdered, and that the identity of the culprits is known to me as well as to old Mr Homfray, the rector of Little Farncombe.”

“Ah! That is most interesting,” remarked the doctor, humouring her as he would a child. “And who, pray, was this Mr Willard?”

“Mr Willard was engaged to be married to me!” she said in a hard voice. “He lived in a house in Hyde Park Square, in London, a house which his father had left him, and he also had a pretty seaside house near Cromer. But he was blackmailed by that adventuress, your friend, Mrs Crisp, and when at last he decided to unmask and prosecute the woman and her friends he was one morning found dead in very mysterious circumstances. At first it was believed that he had committed suicide, but on investigation it was found that such was not the case. He had been killed by some secret and subtle means which puzzled and baffled the police. The murder is still an unsolved mystery.”

“And you know the identity of the person whom you allege killed your lover—eh?” asked the doctor with interest.

“Yes, I do. And so does Mr Homfray.”

“Then why have neither of you given information to the police?” asked the visitor seriously.

“Because of certain reasons—reasons known to old Mr Homfray.”

“This Mr Homfray is your friend, I take it?”

“He is a clergyman, and he is my friend,” was her reply. Then suddenly she added: “But why should I tell you this when you yourself are a friend of the woman Crisp, and of Gordon Gray?”

“My dear young lady,” he exclaimed, laughing, “you are really making a very great error. To my knowledge I have never seen you before I passed this house last evening, and as for this Mrs Crisp, I have never even heard of her! Yet what you tell me concerning Hugh Willard is certainly of great interest.”

“Hugh Willard!” she cried. “You betray yourself, Mr Porter! How do you know his Christian name? Tell me that!”

“Because you have just mentioned it,” replied the man, not in the least perturbed.

“I certainly have not!” she declared, while Madame Nicole, not understanding English, stood aside trying to gather the drift of the conversation.

The man’s assertion that his name was Crowe, and that he was a doctor when she had recognised him as an intimate friend of the woman who had blackmailed her lover, aroused the girl’s anger and indignation. Why was he there in Bayeux?

“I tell you that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of Gordon Gray and his unscrupulous circle of friends!” cried the girl, who, turning to the stout Frenchwoman, went on in French: “This man is an impostor! He calls himself a doctor, yet I recognise him as a man named Porter, the friend of the woman who victimised the man I loved! Do not believe him?”

“Madame!” exclaimed the visitor with a benign smile, as he bowed slightly. “I think we can dismiss all these dramatic allegations made by poor mademoiselle—can we not? Your own observations have,” he said, speaking in French, “shown you the abnormal state of the young lady’s mind. She is, I understand, prone to imagining tragic events, and making statements that are quite unfounded. For that reason Mr Ford asked me to call and see her, because—to be frank—I am a specialist on mental diseases.”

“Ah! Doctor! I fear that mademoiselle’s mind is much unbalanced by her poor father’s death,” said the woman. “Monsieur Ford explained it all to me, and urged me to take no notice of her wild statements. When is Mr Ford returning to France?”

“In about three months, I believe. Then he will no doubt relieve you of your charge—which, I fear, must be a heavy one.”

“Sometimes, yes. But mademoiselle has never been so talkative and vehement as she is to-day.”

“Because I, perhaps, bear some slight resemblance to some man she once knew—the man named Porter, I suppose.”

“You are Arthur Porter!” declared the girl in French. “When I first saw you hazily last night I thought that you resembled him, but now I see you closer and plainly I know that you are! I would recognise you by your eyes among a thousand men!”

But the visitor only shrugged his shoulders again and declared to madame that mademoiselle’s hallucinations were, alas! pitiable.

Then he questioned the woman about her charge, and when he left he handed her a five-hundred-franc note which he said Mr Ford had sent to her.

But a few moments later when on his way down the narrow, old-world street with its overhanging houses, he muttered ominously to himself in English:

“I must get back to Gordon as soon as possible. That girl is more dangerous than we ever contemplated. As we believed, she knows too much—far too much! And if Sandys finds her then all will be lost. It was a false step of Gordon’s to leave her over here. She is recovering. The situation is distinctly dangerous. Therefore we must act—without delay!”