Chapter Fifteen. What I Saw.

“How you men gossip!” Mabel exclaimed, tingling upon the piano-stool, and laughing merrily.

“I wasn’t aware that we had been very long,” I answered, sinking into a low armchair near her. “If so, I’m sure I apologise. The fact is, that Mr Hickman was explaining a new system of how to break the bank at Monte Carlo.”

“Oh, Mr Hickman!” she cried, turning at once to him. “Do explain it, and I’ll try it when we go to the Riviera.”

“Mabel, my dear,” exclaimed her mother, scandalised, “you’ll do nothing of the kind. You know I don’t approve of gambling.”

“Oh, I think it’s awfully good fun,” her daughter declared.

“If you win,” I added.

“Of course,” she added; then, turning again to Hickman, she induced him to explain his new and infallible system just as he had explained it to me.

The trend of the conversation was, however, lost to me. My ears were closed to all sound, and now that I reflect I am surprised that I succeeded in retaining my self-possession. I know I sat there rigid, as one held motionless in terror; I only replied in monosyllables to any remark addressed to me, and I knew instinctively that the colour had left my countenance. The discovery was as bewildering as it was unexpected.

Every detail of that handsome room was exactly as I had pictured it. The blind, with their keen sense of touch, are quick to form mental impressions of places and things, and the general character of this apartment I had riveted upon my mind with the fidelity of a photograph.

The furniture was of gilt, just as I had detected from its smoothness, and covered with a rich brocade in wide stripes of art green and dull red-brown—an extremely handsome pattern; the carpet was dark, with a pile so thick that one’s feet fell noiselessly; the three long windows, covered by heavy curtains of brocade to match the furniture, reached from the high-painted ceiling to the ground, exactly as I had found them in my blind gropings. About the room were two or three tables with glass tops, in trays beneath which were collections of choice bric-à-brac, including some wonderful Chinese carvings in ivory, while before the fireplace was spread the great tiger-skin, with paws and head preserved, which I so well remembered.

I sat there speechless, breathless. Not a single detail was there wanting. Never before, in all my life, had amazement held me so absolutely dumbfounded.

Close to where I saw was a spacious couch, over the centre of which was thrown an antimacassar of silken crochet-work. It was covered with the same brocade as the rest of the furniture, and I stretched forth my hand, with feigned carelessness and touched it. Its contact was the same, its shape exact; its position in the room identical.

Upon that very couch I had reclined while the foul tragedy had been enacted in that room. My head swam; I closed my eyes. The great gilt clock, with its pendulum representing the figure of a girl swinging beneath the trees, standing on the mantelshelf, ticked out low and musically, just as it had done on that fateful night. In an instant, as I sat with head turned from my companions and my eyes shut, the whole of that tragic scene was re-enacted. I heard the crash, the woman’s scream, the awe-stricken exclamation that followed in the inner room. I heard, too, the low swish of a woman’s skirts, the heavy blow struck by an assassin’s hand, and in horror felt the warm life-blood of the unknown victim as it trickled upon my hand.

Mabel suddenly ran her white fingers over the keys, and the music brought me back to a realisation of my true position. I had at length discovered the actual house in which the mysterious tragedy had been enacted, and it became impressed upon me that by the exercise of greatest care I might further be enabled to prosecute secret investigations to a successful issue, and at length solve the enigma.

My eyes fixed themselves upon the couch. It was the very spot where I had rested, sightless, helpless, while those strange events had taken place about me. Was it any wonder that I became filled with apprehensions, or that I sat there petrified as one turned to stone?

The square, dark-green antimacassar had been placed in the exact centre of the couch, and sewed down in order to keep it in its place. Where I was sitting was fortunately in the shadow, and when Mabel commenced playing I rose—unsteadily I think—and reseated myself upon the couch, as being more comfortable. Then, while the woman who held me entranced played a selection from the “Trovatore,” I, unnoticed by the others, succeeded in breaking the stitches which tacked the antimacassar to the brocade. The feat was a difficult one, for one does not care to be detected tearing the furniture of one’s hostess. Nevertheless, after ten minutes or so I succeeded in loosening it, and then, as if by the natural movement of my body, commenced to work aside.

The music ceased, and even though all my attention was now centred upon my investigations, I congratulated Mabel upon her accurate execution. Hickman was standing beside her, and together they began to search for some piece he had requested her to play, while Miss Wells, with her hearts and elephants jingling, turned to me and commenced to talk. By this I was, of course, interrupted; nevertheless, some ten minutes later, I rose, and naturally turned back to straighten the rumpled antimacassar. In doing so I managed to lift it and glance beneath.

In an instant the truth was plain. Concealed beneath that square of green crochet-work was a large dark-brown stain upon the brocade. It was the mark of the life-blood of that thin, well-dressed, unknown victim, who had, in an instant, been struck to the heart!

The shock at its discovery caused me to start, but next instant I smoothed out the antimacassar into its former place without attracting any attention, and passed across the room with the motive of inspecting an object which I well remembered discovering when I had made my blind search. Upon a pedestal of black marble stood an exquisite little statuette of a Neapolitan dancing-woman, undoubtedly the work of some Italian master. Without pausing to examine it, I took in its every detail as I passed. It was exactly as I had felt it, and in the self-same spot as on that fatal night.

Beside the couch, as I turned again to look, I saw that a large skin rug had been thrown down. Without doubt it had been placed there to conceal the ugly stain of blood upon the carpet.

And yet there, on the scene of one of the foulest and most cowardly assassinations, we were actually spending the evening quietly, as became a respectable household. The thing seemed absolutely incredible. A dozen times I endeavoured to persuade myself that the whole discovery was but a chimera, arising from my disordered imagination. Nevertheless, it was impossible to disguise from myself the fact that in every detail the truth was borne out. In that very room the unknown man had been struck dead. The marks of his blood still remained as evidence of the truth.

I saw that beside the high lamps at that moment in use, there was a magnificent candelabra suspended from the ceiling, and in this were electric lamps. Then, at the door, I noticed the switch, and knew that it was the same which I had heard turned off by the assassin before leaving the house.

At the end of the room, too, were the folding doors, now concealed by curtains. It was through those very doors that Edna, my mysterious protectress, had passed and repassed to that inner room whence had come the sound of champagne being uncorked and the woman’s piercing scream.

Mabel leaned over and spoke to me, whereupon I sank again into the chair I had previously occupied. She began to chat, but although her beautiful eyes held me fixed, and her face seemed more handsome than any I had ever seen, the diamonds in her hair dazzled my eyes, and I fear that my responses were scarcely intelligible.

“You are not quite yourself to-night, I think,” she remarked at last, rising from the piano, and taking the low chair that I drew up for her. “Are you unwell?”

“Why?” I asked, laughing.

“Because you look rather pale. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I answered, as carelessly as I could. “A slight headache. But it has passed now.”

My eyes wandered to those curtains of green plush. How I longed to enter that room beyond!

At that moment she took out her handkerchief. Even that action added to the completion of the mental picture I had formed. Her tiny square of lawn and lace exhaled a sweet odour. It was that of peau d’Espagne, the same subtle perfume used by the mysterious Edna! It filled my nostrils until I seemed intoxicated by its fragrance combined with her beauty.

Her dress was discreetly decolleté, and as she sat chatting to me with that bright vivaciousness which was so charming, her white neck slowly heaved and fell. She had, it seemed, been striving all the evening to get a tête-à-tête chat with me, but the chatter of that dreadful Irritating Woman and the requests made by Hickman had prevented her.

As she gossiped with me, now and then waving her big feather fan, she conveyed to my mind an impression of extreme simplicity in the midst of the most wonderful complexity. She seemed to take the peculiar traits from many characters, and so mingle them that, like the combination of hues in a sunbeam, the effect was as one to the eye. I had studied her carefully each time we had met, and had found that she had something of the romantic enthusiasm of a Juliet, of the truth and constancy of a Helen, of the dignified purity of an Isabel, of the tender sweetness of a Viola, of the self-possession and intellect of a Portia—combined together so equally and so harmoniously that I could scarcely say that one quality predominated over the other. Her dignity was imposing, and stood rather upon the defensive; her submission, though unbounded, was not passive, and thus she stood wholly distinct in her sweetness from any woman I had ever met.

The following day was one on which she was due to take her music-lesson, and I inquired whether I might, as usual, meet her and escort her across the Park.

“You are really very kind,” she responded; “but I fear I take up far too much of your time.”

“Not at all,” I hastened to assure her. “I always enjoy our walks together.”

She smiled, but a moment later said—

“I fear that I shall be prevented from going to Hanover Square to-morrow, as I shall be making calls with mother. We’ve been neglecting to call of late, and have such a host to make.”

“Then I shan’t see you at all to-morrow?” I said in deep disappointment.

“No, I fear not,” she answered. “As a matter of fact, my movements for the next few days are rather uncertain.”

“But you’ll write and tell me when you are free?” I urged earnestly.

“If you wish,” she responded, smiling sweetly. Apparently she was in no wise averse to my companionship, a fact which had become to me more apparent now that she had induced her mother to invite me to their table.

I endeavoured to extract from her some appointment, but she only whispered—

“Remember that our meetings are clandestine. Don’t let them overhear us. Let’s change the subject.” And then she began to discuss several of the latest novels.

She had apparently a wide knowledge of French fiction, for she explained how a friend of hers, an old schoolfellow, who had married a French baron and lived in Paris, sent her regularly all the notable novels. Of English fiction, too, she was evidently a constant reader, for she told me much about recent novels that I was unaware of, and criticised style in a manner which betrayed a deep knowledge of her subject.

“One would almost think you were a lady novelist, or a book-reviewer,” I remarked, in response to a sweeping condemnation which she made regarding the style of a much-belauded writer.

“Well, personally, I like books with some grit in them,” she declared. “I can’t stand either the so-called problem novel, or a story interlarded with dialect. If any one wants nasty problems, let them spend a few shillings in the works of certain French writers, who turn out books on the most unwholesome themes they can imagine, and fondly believe themselves realists. We don’t want these queue-de-siècle works in England. Let us stick to the old-fashioned story of love, adventure, or romance. English writers are now beginning to see the mistake they once made in trying to follow the French style, and are turning to the real legitimate novel of action—the one that interests and grips from the first page to the last.”

She spoke sensibly, and I expressed my entire accord with her opinion. But this discussion was only in order to hide our exchange of confidences uttered in an undertone while Hickman and the two ladies were chatting at the further end of the room.

All the time I was longing to get a sight of the interior of the adjoining apartment, the room whence had burst forth that woman’s agonised cry in the stillness of the night. I racked my brain to find some means of entering there, but could devise none. A guest can hardly wander over his hostess’s house on the first occasion he receives an invitation. Besides, to betray any interest in the house might, I reflected, arouse some suspicion. To be successful in these inquiries would necessitate the most extreme caution.

The fragrant odour of peau d’Espagne exhaled by her chiffons seemed to hold me powerless.

The gilt clock with its swinging girl had already struck eleven on its silver bell, and been re-echoed by another clock in the hall playing the Westminster chimes, when suddenly Mrs Anson, with a book in her hand, looked across to her daughter, saying—

“Mabel, dear, I’ve left my glasses on the table in the library. Will you kindly fetch them for me?”

In an instant I saw my chance, and, jumping to my feet, offered to obtain them. At first she objected, but finding me determined, said—

“The library is the next room, there. You’ll find them on the writing-table. Mother always leaves them there. It’s really too bad to thus make a servant of you. I’ll ring for Arnold.”

“No, no,” I protested, and at once went eagerly in search of them.