Chapter Eighteen. Arouses Suspicions Regarding Sybil.

Ellice Winsloe believed me dead.

There was no doubt about that. And knowing what I now did, I intended that he should remain secure in that belief.

Domville had not returned, a fact which caused me the gravest apprehensions. I recollected that defiant voice in the night. Had he also fallen a victim?

Budd called in my doctor, who dressed the wound in my head and carefully bandaged it. He was curious to know the cause, but I merely explained that I had sustained a rather bad fall. Perhaps he attributed it to too much wine on the previous night—probably he did.

“You’ll have to rest for a day or two,” he said, “you had a nasty blow.”

But I was uncommunicative, therefore he soon afterwards left.

Budd was, of course, inquisitive, but my explanation was that I had had an accident, and had fallen in the mud. My clothes were, of course, ruined, my hands grazed and torn, and across my eye was a nasty gash where I must have struck a sharp stone.

My brain was awhirl, and after the doctor’s departure I swallowed some brandy and lay down on the bed awaiting Eric.

Had he shared the same fate? If so, to try and find him in the sewer was useless. The flush had passed, and would sweep him away to his death.

Of course, I had no real proof that he had been in that house other than overhearing his voice. I recalled every word, and now more than ever was I convinced that he had been behind that closed door, held by enemies.

From Budd I learned that my friend had gone out about two o’clock, and had not returned. He had, however, left me a message to say that I was not to be alarmed by his absence. He was still making inquiries, I supposed. What I had related regarding the strange affair at Sydenham Hill had puzzled him greatly. Perhaps he had gone down there.

I gave my man strict instructions to say to everyone that I too was absent from home.

“Tell everybody that I went out to dinner last night and have not yet returned,” I said. “Express surprise and anxiety. I want to pretend to be missing—you understand, Budd?”

“Yes, sir,” was the man’s prompt response. “You expect somebody will call and inquire, and to everyone I am to know nothing.”

“I went out to the club last night and haven’t been seen since.”

“I quite understand, sir. But what about the doctor?”

“He doesn’t matter. The person whom I wish to believe in my absence does not know the doctor. I shall remain indoors for a day or two. Mind nobody knows I’m here.”

“I shall take good care of that, sir,” was the man’s reply; and I knew that I could trust him.

I scribbled a line to Inspector Pickering explaining my inability to make the statement on account of my injured head, but promising to call in a few days. I urged him not to send to me, as my chambers were probably watched. This note I sent by express messenger.

Then thoroughly exhausted I dropped off to sleep.

It was evening when I awoke, but Eric had not made his appearance. I was now thoroughly alarmed. Who were the men whom he had defied in that house of mystery?

He always carried a revolver, and was a dead shot; but what is a weapon against such black treachery as that to which I had been subjected? He was fearless, and would fight to the last; yet after my experience in that house I was apprehensive lest he should, like myself, have fallen a victim.

Many a man and woman disappears in this roaring metropolis of ours and is never again heard of; many an undiscovered crime takes place within a stone’s-throw of the great London thoroughfares; and many a death-cry is unheard in the hum of traffic and unheeded in the bustle of our everyday life. The London sewers hold many a secret, and the London chimneys have smoked with the cremated remains of many an innocent victim.

I wrote to Tibbie an affectionate letter explaining that my absence was due to the fact that I had fallen and met with a slight accident to the head, and signed it “Willie” in order that, if necessary, she might show it to her landlady. It was strange to write to her with so much affection when inwardly I was aware of her terrible secret. Yet had I not promised to save her? Had I not given her that foolish pledge which had been the cause of all my exciting adventures and my narrow escape from death?

Night came. I sat alone in the armchair before the fire listening for my old friend’s footstep, but all in vain. Something had happened, but what the something was I feared to contemplate.

I unlocked a drawer in my old-fashioned bureau, a quaint old piece of Queen Anne furniture from Netherdene, and took out the paper with the cabalistic jumble of figures and letters which I had found on the body of the dead man in Charlton Wood.

For a long while I sat and studied the cipher and its key, finding it very ingeniously contrived—evidently a secret code established for some evil purpose, a code that had been given to the dead man to enable him to have secret communication with some persons who desired to remain unseen and unknown.

My curiosity aroused, my eye chanced to fall upon the morning’s paper and I took it up and turned to the “agony column,” where I saw several cipher advertisements. One of them I endeavoured to read by the aid of the dead man’s key, but was unable. Therefore I tried the second, and afterwards the third. The latter only consisted of two lines of a meaningless jumble of letters and numerals, but taking a pencil I commenced to write down the equivalent of the cipher in plain English.

In a few moments my heart gave a bound.

I had deciphered the first word of the message, namely, “White.”

Very carefully, and after considerable search and calculation, I presently transcribed the secret message thus:—

“White Feather reports W.H. gone home. Nothing to fear.”

That was all. But was it not very significant? The initials were my own, and did not the announcement that I had “gone home” mean that I had gone to my death. There was nothing to fear, it was plainly stated.

They therefore had feared us, and that was the motive of their ingenious crime.

For whose eyes was that curious advertisement intended, I wondered. Who was “White Feather?”

Ah! If I could only discover, then I should obtain a clue to the mystery that was now puzzling me and driving me to despair.

At two o’clock Eric was still absent, therefore I turned in. My head troubled me. It was very painful, and the horrors of that past night ever rose before me, while my unbalanced brain was distracted by wonder at the reason of that desperate attempt upon my life. Man of the world that I was, I knew well enough that there was some deep motive. They feared me—but why?

Next morning, there being no word from Eric, my anxiety was greatly increased. My friend might have shared the same fate as myself and remained unconscious till the flood had overwhelmed him. If so, then all trace of him might have disappeared and his body was now floating slowly out to sea.

Those hard defiant words of his still rang in my ears. What did he mean? Who were the persons who held him in their power?

To remain inactive was impossible. Every moment I remained increased the danger of my discovery by Winsloe and his companions. I could, of course, have gone forth to King Street with a constable and given him in charge for the attempt upon me. Indeed, that was my first impulse, yet on reflection I saw that by adopting such a course I might imperil Sybil. Without a doubt the fellow knew her secret, and for that reason was in such active search of her.

Therefore I decided to remain patient and watchful. Winsloe believed that I was dead, and perhaps it was as well, for I should now be afforded an opportunity of watching his movements.

For three whole days I was compelled to remain a prisoner on account of my annoying bandages, which were too conspicuous to allow me to go forth. I had several callers, including Jack and Lord Wydcombe, but to everyone Budd replied that both his master and Mr Domville were absent, where, he had no idea.

My anxiety for Eric increased hourly, yet what could I do?

The doctor, at my request, removed the bandages so that my wound was hidden when I wore a golf-cap, and about eleven o’clock that same night, dressed in my working clothes, I crept forth into Bolton Street unseen, and in Piccadilly mingled with the crowd homeward bound from the theatre.

I went into Regent Street confident in my excellent disguise, and taking one of the streets to the right, wandered on and on in search of the house with the fatal stairs. On that disastrous night the villainous pair had engaged me deeply in conversation as we drove along, in order to take my attention off the route we were traversing, therefore I own that I was absolutely without any landmark. All I knew was that we had turned off Regent Street about half-way up and that the house was situated in a quiet, rather dark street, an old-fashioned house of three storeys.

Eagerly in search of the place from which I had so narrowly escaped with my life I wandered in the night up and down those narrow thoroughfares, that puzzling maze of streets that lie between Regent Street and Soho Square—Brewer Street, Bridle Lane, Lexington Street, Poland Street and Berwick Street. I could not, however, find any house answering to the very vague impression I retained of it, though I went on and on until far into the night.

Fearing to return to Bolton Street, I took a bed at an obscure hotel in the Euston Road, and next morning went over to Camberwell, where Tibbie warmly welcomed me. I attributed the cut on my head to a fall on the kerb, and when we sat together I saw how thoroughly resigned she had become to her strange surroundings.

With womanly enthusiasm she told me of the kindness of the landlady, who would not allow her to mope there alone. She had taken her out to see her friends, wives of working-men like herself, and they had gossiped, had high tea and discussed the affairs of the neighbourhood.

“Tibbie,” I said, presently, after we had been chatting some time, “I am compelled to leave London, and I confess I am very apprehensive on your behalf.”

“Leave London!” she exclaimed. “Why?”

“It is imperative. Winsloe is watching me, and is doing all he can to discover you. Every time I come here I run a great risk.”

“I know,” she said, frowning. “His spies are no doubt dogging your footsteps everywhere.”

“Then your position here is unsafe. You would do better to escape from London now, and hide in the country—say in one of the larger towns in the north.”

“Yes; but the police are in search of me, remember. The mater and Jack have raised a hue and cry. They think I’ve met with foul play.”

“Then all the more reason why you should slip out of London. The country police are slower, and you will stand less chance of recognition.”

She sighed, exclaiming,—

“Ah, Wilfrid! It is cruel—cruel of them to hunt me down as they are now doing. Where shall I go? Where do you intend going?”

“Anywhere—out of London. What about Leeds? Neither of us know anyone there.”

She was silent a moment. Then said, “I am in your hands entirely, Wilfrid, and will go to Leeds if you think I can travel without being recognised.”

“If I anticipated any risk I would not allow you to undertake it,” I said. “We will go this evening by the 5:45 from King’s Cross—‘Oswin’s train,’ as they call it, because he is the caterer for the dining-car.”

“Very well,” she answered. “As you wish. But before we go will you do me a favour? Go to the Daily Telegraph office and put in an advertisement for me.”

“An advertisement!” I exclaimed, in surprise.

“Yes,” she laughed, rather nervously. “I want to—I mean it is necessary that I should communicate with a friend.”

I said nothing, but stood watching her as she took out half a sheet of notepaper and commenced to print three lines of jumbled capitals and numerals—an advertisement apparently in the cipher which I had taken from the dead unknown.

Her action astounded me, but I managed to remain as though interested but ignorant.

“Why in this cipher?” I asked, when she handed it to me, requesting me to go to Fleet Street after our midday dinner.

“Because—well, because I don’t wish it to be read by other people. It is for the eye of one person only.”

I placed it in my pocket without further comment, and after we had eaten together I went out to do her bidding.

While seated in the tram-car in the Old Kent Road I took out the mystic message she had written, and with the key which I had fortunately carried away with me from Bolton Street I deciphered the words she had penned.

They read,—

“To Nello.—Will make appointment when safe for us to meet. Note that Eric is in Paris. I still trust you.—S.”

I sat staring at the paper like a man in a dream.

Was Tibbie, the woman I had promised to save and for whose sake I was sacrificing everything, reputation, honour, even my life, actually playing me false?

How did she know that Eric was in Paris? Was that really true?

And who was Nello to whom she sent that message of trust?