Chapter Nine. Strictly in Secret.

Thursday night was wet and dismal in London as I stood outside the underground railway station at King’s Cross at eight o’clock, keeping my appointment with the Honourable Sybil.

There was a good deal of traffic and bustle in the Pentonville Road; the shops were still open, and the working-class population, notwithstanding the rain, were out with their baskets, making their purchases after their day’s labour.

At that spot in the evening one sees a veritable panorama of London life, its humours and its tragedies, for there five of the great arteries of traffic converge, while every two minutes the subterranean railway belches forth its hurrying, breathless crowds to swell the number of passers-by.

The station front towards the King’s Cross Road is somewhat in the shadow, and there I stood in patience and in wonder.

What Eric and had discovered in Winsloe’s kitbag had rendered the mystery the more tantalising, it being a cheap carte-de-visite photograph of the dead stranger—a picture which showed him in a dark tweed suit and golf-cap stuck slightly askew, as many young men of the working-class wear their caps.

We were both greatly puzzled. How came the portrait in Ellice’s possession? And why, if he were not in fear of some secret being divulged, did he not identify the stranger?

Again I recollected well how Sybil had declared her intention to marry Ellice. For what reason? Was it in order to prevent her own secret being exposed?

We had replaced the photograph—which, unfortunately, bore no photographer’s name—re-locked the bag, and left the room utterly confounded.

During the two days that followed both of us had watched Winsloe carefully, and had seen his ill-concealed anxiety lest the dead man should be identified by Jack. Once or twice, as was but natural, at table or in the billiard-room, Scarcliff had referred to the strange affair and declared,—

“I’m sure I’ve seen the poor chap before, but where, I can’t for the life of me recollect.”

The face was constantly puzzling him, and thus Winsloe remained anxious and agitated.

In order to watch and learn what I could, I remained Jack’s guest until after the inquest. The inquiry was duly held at the Spread Eagle at Midhurst, with the usual twelve respectable tradesmen as Jurymen, and created great excitement in the little town. Ellice went out shooting with Wydcombe on that day, while Jack, Eric and myself drove over to hear the evidence.

There was very little to hear. The affair was still a complete mystery. According to the two doctors who had made the examination the stranger had been shot through the heart about eight hours prior to his discovery—murdered by an unknown hand, for although the police had made a strict search the weapon had not been discovered.

The fact that not a scrap of anything remained to lead to the dead man’s identity puzzled the police, more especially the absence of the tab from the back of the coat. The two detectives from London sat beside us and listened to the evidence with dissatisfaction. Booth made his statement, and then the inquiry was formally adjourned.

There was nothing else. Both police and public were puzzled and the coroner remarked to the jury that he hoped when they next met some information would be forthcoming which might lead to the stranger’s identity.

We drove back in the dog-cart, and on the way Jack turned to me, saying,—

“I’d give worlds to know the real truth of that affair. I’m quite positive I’ve seen the face somewhere, but where, I can’t fix.”

“That’s a pity,” Eric remarked. “One day, however, it’ll come to you, and when it does we may hope to discover the guilty person.”

That night in the billiard-room Winsloe asked us what had taken place at the inquest, endeavouring to put his question unconcernedly. Eric and I could, however, see how anxious he was.

“Nobody knows yet who he is,” Jack answered, as he chalked his cue preparatory to making a shot. “The police have discovered nothing—except that a woman was seen coming from the wood just about four o’clock.”

“A woman!” I cried, staring at him. “Who said so? It was not given in evidence.”

“No,” he replied. “Booth told me just as we came out that somebody had said so, but that he did not give it in evidence, as he considered it wiser to say nothing.”

I held my breath.

“Who was the woman?” asked Winsloe, apparently as surprised as myself.

“He didn’t tell me. In fact, I don’t think she was recognised. If she had been, he would, of course, have interrogated her by this time.”

Ellice Winsloe was silent. I saw as he stood back in the shadow from the table that his brows had contracted and that he was pensive and puzzled. And yet upstairs in his bag he had a portrait of the dead man, and was, therefore, well aware of his identity.

Now that we reflected we agreed that we really knew very little of Ellice Winsloe. He was Jack’s friend rather than ours. The son of a Cornishman whose income was derived from his interest in certain tin mines, he had, on his father’s death, been left well off. Jack had known him at Magdalen, but had lost sight of him for some years, when of a sudden they met again one night while at supper at the Savoy, and their old friendship had been renewed. Ellice, it appeared, was well known in a certain set in town, and up to the present moment we had both voted him as a good all-round sportsman, a good fellow and a gentleman. But this secret knowledge which he refused to betray, and his evident fear lest the dead man be identified, aroused our serious suspicions.

“I wonder,” suggested Eric, when we were alone in my room on the night of the inquest, “I wonder whether Ellice was in hiding in those bushes watching us search the body? Do you know, the idea has been in my mind all day,” he added.

“If he was, then we are placed in a very awkward position,” I said. “He may make a statement to the police.”

“No. I don’t think he’ll do that. If he did he would betray his own knowledge,” was my friend’s answer.

The next day passed uneventfully, and beyond the general surprise at Tibbie’s continued absence there was nothing unusual in the household at Ryhall Place.

Late that night Mason returned, saying that her mistress had driven the car to the Bath Hotel, at Bournemouth, and put it into the garage. Three hours later she left the hotel to go for a walk, but did not return. After she had gone the maid had, it seemed, found a letter in which her mistress ordered her to remain there until Wednesday, and telling her that if she did not return then she was to go back to Ryhall and send the chauffeur to Bournemouth for the car.

Mason, used to Tibbie’s erratic ways, thought little of it. Her mistress travelled a great deal, had a very large circle of friends, and besides, was entirely unconventional and knew well how to take care of herself. Therefore the maid had remained until midday on Wednesday and then returned to Ryhall.

“I’m getting a little anxious about Tibbie,” remarked old Lady Scarcliff in the drawing-room that evening. “This kind of thing is not at all proper—flying about the country alone.”

Jack laughed.

“No good worrying about Tibbie, mater. She’ll turn up all right to-morrow, or you’ll get a wire from her. You remember that time she met the Hursts in Nice and went off yachting with them down the Mediterranean, and we didn’t know where she was for three weeks. And then she calmly said she’d quite forgotten to tell us where she was going.”

“Ah, I remember,” said the viscountess, a kind-faced old lady whom I liked immensely. “I do wish she would consider my feelings a little more.”

With that the subject dropped.

Next morning I took leave of them all, and promising to meet Eric a few days later, took the train up to town to keep the secret tryst with my little friend who had so suddenly disappeared.

As I stood at the kerb looking up and down the wet pavement with its busy, hurrying crowd carrying umbrellas, I knew that I had commenced a very dangerous game. Would she keep her appointment? Did she really intend to go into voluntary exile in some mean street in one of the dismal southern suburbs? Was it possible that she who had from her birth been used to every luxury and extravagance could pose successfully as the wife of a compositor with forty shillings a week?

Ah! would not her very voice, her smart expressions, betray her as a lady?

I heard the rumbling of a train below, and once again up the grimy stairs came a long string of eager men and women returning from the City to their homes, tumbling over each other in their anxiety to get back after the day’s toil. They swept past me along the Pentonville Road, and then I stood again, reflecting and watching, until suddenly a figure in neat black halted before me, and I found myself face to face with the fugitive.

“Tibbie!” I cried. “Then you’ve really come, after all?”

“Of course,” was her answer in a low, half-frightened tone. “When I make an appointment I keep it. Where shall we go? We can’t talk here, can we?”

A hansom was passing, and hailing it we got in hurriedly. I told the man to drive across Waterloo Bridge to the Elephant and Castle, a neighbourhood where we would be both quite unknown. Then, as I sank beside her, she asked, with a pretty, mischievous smile,—

“Well, Wilfrid, and how do you like me as your wife?”

“My wife!” I echoed. “By Jove, yes. I forgot that,” and I recollected the strange game I was playing.

“Don’t Mason’s things fit me well? She’s just my figure. I took this dress, jacket and hat from her box and put them into mine when I left Ryhall in the car. I thought they’d come in useful.”

I looked at her, and saw that with her brown hair brushed severely from her forehead, her small close-fitting hat and slightly shabby black jacket she was quite a demure little figure. The exact prototype of the newly-married wife of a working-man.

“It’s really quite a suitable get-up, I think,” I said, laughing.

“Yes. I’ve decided to explain to the curious that I was a lady’s-maid, and that we’ve been married nearly a year. Recollect that—in order to tell the same story. Where’s the ring? Did you think of that?” Yes, I had thought of it. I felt in my vest pocket, and taking out the plain little band of gold that I had bought in a shop in Regent Street that afternoon, placed it upon the finger, she laughing heartily, and then bending to examine it more closely in the uncertain light of the gas-lamps in Gray’s Inn Road.

“If I told you the truth, Wilfrid, you’d be horribly annoyed,” she said, looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers.

“No. What is it?” I asked.

“Well—only—only that I wish you were my real husband,” she answered frankly. “If you were, then I should fear nothing. But it cannot be—I know that.”

“What do you fear, Tibbie?” I asked, very seriously. “Tell me—do tell me.”

“I—I can’t—I can’t now,” was her nervous response in a harder voice, turning her gaze away from mine. “If I did, you would withdraw your help—you would not dare to risk your own reputation and mine, as you are now doing, just because we are old boy-and-girl friends.”

On we went through the streaming downpour along Chancery Lane and the Strand, the driver lowering the window, for the rain and mud were beating into our faces.

“Well,” I said, “and what do you suggest doing?”

“To-night I must disappear. I shall sleep in some obscure hotel across the water, and to-morrow you must call for me, and we’ll go together to fix upon our future ‘home.’” Then she inquired eagerly what impression her absence had produced at Ryhall, and I told her.

For a time she remained serious and thoughtful. Her countenance had changed.

“Then Mason came back, as I ordered her?”

“Yes,” I answered, “but won’t she miss those things of hers you are now wearing?”

“No. Because they were in a trunk that she had packed ready to send up to town. She won’t discover they’ve gone for some weeks, I feel sure.”

She described her night run from Chichester to Bournemouth, how she had escaped from Mason, taken train direct up to Birmingham, remained that night at the Grand, then went on to Leicester, where she had spent a day, arriving in London that evening at seven o’clock. In Bull Street, Birmingham, she had been recognised by a friend, the wife of an alderman, and had some difficulty in explaining why she was there alone.

Our present position was not without its embarrassments. I looked at the pretty woman who was about to pose as my wife, and asked,—

“And what name shall we adopt? Have you thought of one?”

“No. Let’s see,” she said. “How about Morton—Mr and Mrs William Morton?”

“All right, then after to-morrow I shall be known as William Morton, compositor?”

“And I shall be your very loving and devoted wife,” she laughed, her eyes dancing. “In any case, life in Camberwell will be an entirely new experience.”

“Yes,” I said. “I only hope we sha’n’t be discovered. I must be careful—for I shall be compelled to lead a double life. I may be followed one day.”

“Yes, but it is for my sake, Wilfrid,” she exclaimed, placing her small trembling hand upon my arm. “Remember that by doing this you are saving my life. Had it not been for you I should have been dead three days ago. My life is entirely in your hands. I am in deadly peril,” she added, in a low, desperate whisper. “You have promised to save me—and you will, Wilfrid—I know you will!”

And she gripped my arm tightly, and looked into my face.

Notwithstanding her assumed gaiety of manner, she was in terror.

Was that dead, white face still haunting her—the face of the stranger who had, in secret, fallen by her hand?