The cab, turning back, crossed Trafalgar Square, and quickly sped along Whitehall, crossed Westminster Bridge, continuing to the Elephant and Castle, and afterwards proceeded along the populous Walworth Road until, suddenly, it turned into a short, quiet, obscure thoroughfare known as Wansey Street. Here all the grimy eight-roomed houses were uniform, with basements, and each with eight front-door steps.
Before one of these, a decidedly dark and dismal abode, the girl alighted, and, ascending the steps, hurriedly rang the bell. Her arrival was evidently expected. A pale-faced lad, whom she greeted as “Harry,” admitted her, and, passing in, she pushed open the door of the shabby sitting-room on the right, where a man rose slowly, his thin white hand outstretched in greeting as he cried:
“Ah, Maidee! Why, you are late—oh! so late. I really feared that you were prevented from coming. And I wanted to see you—very particularly to-night—very particularly indeed.”
“You know the terrible affair that has happened, Uncle John?” exclaimed the girl breathlessly. “How——”
“I know! I know! Poor Sir George!” interrupted the man in a low, husky voice.
And as he held her hand the light of the gas-jet falling full upon his face revealed him to be a thin, fragile-looking old gentleman, with a white beard and dark, penetrating eyes—an old man, wearing a faded, old, dark blue dressing-gown—the exact counterpart of the mysterious Richard Goodrick, the eccentric collector now lying dead in that narrow room in a back street in Pimlico.
“Sit down, Maidee,” he said in a low, intense voice, closing the door and locking it carefully behind her. “Sit down,” and he drew a chair to the fire. “I must have a very serious talk with you, my dear child. I—I want to tell you something—something very strange.”
CHAPTER V.
IS ABOUT UNCLE JOHN
Maidee Lambton, loosening her rich furs, seated herself in the frowsy old arm-chair before the fire, while the quick-eyed old man before her stood upon the hearthrug regarding her long and earnestly, as though hesitating to place confidence in her.
The room, very cheaply furnished, bore the unmistakable air of “weekly payments.” The furniture, covered with embossed red velvet, had once been gaudy, but was now faded and rickety. The recesses each side of the fireplace were filled with dwarf cupboards, upon which were displayed cheap ornaments reposing upon wool mats, while the post of honour was occupied by a case of stuffed birds, much moth-eaten and decayed.
Suddenly the old man turned with a start, saying: “This light is too strong for my eyes to-night,” and crossing to the gas-jet beside the fireplace, he lowered it, apologising for doing so, and adding: “Of late my sight is growing very bad. The glare of these incandescent gas mantles tries them terribly.”
Maidee was surprised. It was the first time through all the years they had been acquainted that old Mr. Ambrose—for that was the name by which he was known to her—had complained of his eyesight.
Left an orphan at the age of three, Lady Ravenscourt had adopted her, and she had lived with Sir George and his wife as their niece, for she usually called them uncle and aunt. After a series of governesses, she had been sent to Eastbourne to school, and afterwards to Versailles and Dresden, concluding with a year in Rome and Florence. It was only about nine months before that she had returned to make her début, and to live permanently at Carlton House Terrace. She had been presented at the last Court, and had a great many admirers, some of them most eligible young men, while on coming of age she would become entitled to nearly eight thousand a year from her late father.
Her acquaintance with old Mr. Ambrose, whom she always called “Uncle John,” was certainly a very romantic one, and began fully twelve years before.
Seated with Miss Denman, her governess, one spring afternoon in Kensington Gardens, the old gentleman had sat upon the same seat, and entered into conversation with them. At first Miss Denman, the very soul of discretion, was disinclined to talk, but, finding him to be quite a harmless and benevolent old gentleman, they chatted. He seemed much struck with little Maidee, who in those days wore her hair tied at the sides with white ribbons, and promised that if they came there next day he would bring her some chocolates.
At first the governess was reluctant, but Miss Maidee, child-like, was anxious for a present, and finally persuaded Miss Denman to take her to keep the appointment.
To the child’s great delight the chocolates proved to be a most beautiful and expensive box, so that Miss Denman marvelled that an old gentleman so meanly dressed could afford to give such elaborate presents. But he seemed infatuated with the child, and thus there commenced Maidee’s curious friendship with an old and somewhat eccentric man who was a perfect stranger.
At first Miss Denman was always with her when they met, and was nothing loath to receive now and then a little present for herself, but as Maidee grew older, and was allowed to go about alone, she grew into the habit of meeting him in secret at various places, and sitting at his side, chattering as a young girl will chatter.
He seemed never tired of hearing all about her home life—of Sir George and his wife, of the brilliant dinners and dances at Carlton House Terrace, and of the visitors who called there.
Sometimes she would notice an expression of sadness, as a deep sigh would escape him when she told him of various people and described their idiosyncrasies. She, petted by everyone who called at her adopted father’s house, already knew half the great ones of London.
And as she grew up she often wondered who the strange old man could really be, and who were his friends.
Once, when she was about fourteen, he had said to her in reply to a question:
“Ah! yes, child. Once I had very many friends, just as you have; but that was long ago. To-day I—I have only you.”
“Only me!” she had echoed, opening her big eyes widely.
And he had smiled at her, and taken her small hand in his own.
“Yes, Maidee,” he had said. “Of course, you don’t know all. You will, perhaps, some day—after I am gone.”
She had not understood him, and sat puzzled. His clothes were old and shabby, his hat frayed and worn, and his old ebony stick, with an ivory ball for handle, was a relic of an age bygone.
They generally met in one or other of the parks, but most frequently in Kensington Gardens, for it was more rural and quieter there.
At rare intervals he would bend and print a fervent kiss upon her white, childish brow; and to her the knowledge that such clandestine meetings, if ever discovered, would result in much trouble at home only added zest to the adventures.
Then she went away to school, and the meetings became few and infrequent. Yet they exchanged letters regularly. Indeed, never through all the years until that night had they been out of touch with one another.
As Maidee grew older she realised that her devoted friend was not so penurious as she had once imagined. True, he lived in cheap lodgings, and changed his abode very frequently; yet he never seemed to be in want of funds. Many little trifles he had given her as souvenirs, but on her eighteenth birthday he had met her at the lodgings he then occupied off the Old Kent Road, and presented her with a beautiful diamond necklet, which he desired her to wear beneath her dress as a token of his esteem and regard.
She wore it always. Even as she sat there in that shabby chair near the fire it was clasped about her white neck and concealed beneath her bodice. Sir George and his wife, of course, knew nothing of all this, for she was always careful to hide the valuable ornament, as she was also to conceal her strange friendship with the old fellow who seemed to lead such a lonely and erratic life.
“Maidee,” he said, crossing the half-darkened room, and seating himself on the opposite side of the fireplace, “I want you to tell me all about the terrible affair at home—all as far as you know. How was the murder discovered?”
She looked at him in surprise, for it suddenly occurred to her that the papers, though hinting at suicide, had not suggested murder.
“How do you know, Uncle John, that Sir George was murdered?” she asked him, looking across at his face hidden in the shadow. Her voice told him that she was greatly surprised at his question.
He started perceptibly and, fidgeting slightly in his chair, replied:
“Er—well—I—I, of course, saw what was in the papers, child, and jumped to a conclusion. Perhaps I’m wrong—eh?” And he cursed himself for his foolishness. The girl was no longer a child; he had forgotten that fact.
His remark had aroused faint suspicions within her mind. Always, through all these years, he had been deeply interested in Sir George’s sayings and doings. Was he now in possession of some secret knowledge concerning the tragedy? Or had he actually guessed the truth?
“Ah!” she replied, “you are not wrong. Sir George was no doubt killed while in the act of writing in his library.”
“By whom?”
“The police have not yet ascertained,” was her response. “He seemed to have written a record of some extraordinary character, for when Burgess discovered him he was still conscious, and begged him with his last breath to destroy what he had penned.”
“He desired to conceal it from the police—eh?”
“Yes.”
“And was it destroyed?”
“No; Burgess gave it to the police.”
“What was its nature?”
“I do not exactly know. Burgess showed it to my aunt, who ordered it to be given to the police. She told me that it gave the name of some man who lived in Pimlico.”
Ambrose started in his chair, and, bending forward towards her in sudden eagerness, asked in that curious husky voice of his:
“What did he write concerning him? Tell me. It is important that I should know—most important. Don’t conceal anything from me, child. Some day you will know the reason I ask this.”
“My aunt told me nothing—except that my uncle had put on record the fact that on the evening before his death he had visited the person in question, and made some extraordinary discovery.”
“A discovery!” gasped the old man, with a strange, haunted look. “Of what nature?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you must at once find out for me,” he said anxiously. “You say Burgess read what Sir George wrote before his death. Then he would tell you, if you asked him! The original you will not see, now that the police have possession of it. Burgess was a fool—an infernal fool!”
“Why?” asked the girl in surprise.
“He should have carried out his master’s wish, and destroyed it.”
“The reason he failed to do so was quite natural. It mentioned a man’s name.”
“A name Sir George evidently wished to conceal,” snapped the old man.
“Apparently so. And the reason of his eagerness has greatly puzzled the detectives.”
A grim smile crossed the old fellow’s features—a smile of cunning.
“No doubt they are puzzled,” he remarked, with a short, harsh laugh. “But, surely, Burgess should have carried out his master’s dying wish. You say he urged the butler to destroy what he had written?”
“Yes. And Burgess promised.”
“Then the man should have kept his promise. A promise to the dying should always be held sacred.”
“Save in such an event as occurred early this morning. For aught the police know, this man living in Pimlico may be the assassin! Perhaps he killed Sir George in order to prevent some secret of his being betrayed!”
“Who suggests that?” asked Ambrose quickly, again leaning forward in eagerness. “Do the police suspect it?”
“I am entirely unaware of their suspicions,” replied the girl. “During to-day Burgess has been submitted to the closest examination by one detective after another. The police informed my aunt this afternoon that they intended to presume suicide at the inquest, in order to be allowed a clear ground in which to hunt for the assassin.”
“Hardly fair to the dead man—is it?”
“Perhaps not, Uncle John; but if the murderer be brought to justice, then it is surely permissible. The truth will be cleared up afterwards,” Maidee said. “Inspector Medland apologised to me for the course they had decided upon at Scotland Yard, and assured me that, even in face of the verdict of suicide, every effort would be made to solve the mystery.”
“But they have no suspicion—eh?” asked the old man in a low, hard voice, scarce above a whisper.
“How can I tell?”
“The inspector did not mention this mysterious person living in Pimlico?” he asked anxiously.
“Well, yes—he did.”
“What did he say?”
“Only that Sir George had evidently made some remarkable discovery which he intended to place on record for the eyes of his executors only, and they, in turn, were to preserve the secret for ten years after his death.”
“Then, no doubt, the record upon which he was engaged when he was so swiftly and silently done to death revealed his discovery!” gasped the old man hoarsely.
His nails pressed themselves into his palms, for next instant he saw by the girl’s manner that, notwithstanding all the precautions he had taken, he had betrayed himself by his suggestion that Sir George’s death was not a case of suicide.
He had been a blundering idiot, a chattering fool—and had aroused her suspicions.
A hard, sinister light shone in the old man’s eyes. If the girl suspected, then she must be silenced! He could not afford to run any further risks.
CHAPTER VI.
SUSPICION!
John Ambrose was a very evasive old man. Age begets cunning. He was often garrulous and reminiscent, yet his abnormal brain was as clear, as retentive, and as shrewd as it had been in the mid-Victorian days of his prime.
His curious mannerisms, his sharp snappishness, his clever witticisms, and his withering sarcasm had held Maidee in awe ever since she had worn short frocks. One side of the crafty old fellow’s nature was hard and unbending, while the other was curiously sweet and sympathetic.
Instinctively she had known for years that the old gentleman was not exactly what he had represented himself to be. He was a man of mystery, and yet an obscure unit in the life of London. He was a born leader of men. His speech, his gesture, his refinement, and his manner, all betrayed that, though he might be shabby, even slovenly in his dress, yet he was a person apart, a man over whose words his fellow-men must ponder. Shrewd, tactful to evasiveness, and possessed of a devilish cunning, his was a unique personality.
He had a slow, deliberate, but extremely convincing way. If he gave utterance to a fact or made a declaration, his hearers believed it to be true. Men who knew him put faith in him—were hypnotised by his remarkable presence and by his clearness of expression, following him blindly whither he led them, for good or for evil.
Yet, with all this, he knew within himself that he had committed a fatal faux pas. Maidee Lambton had had her suspicions aroused! The suspicions of a girl of her age are not easily removed. He had been a fool—an arrant fool.
The girl sat silent. She was filled with wonder at the apparent slip the old man had made. And yet he had always been so kind and attached to her through all these years of their somewhat curious friendship.
He was eccentric, it was true, but eccentricity could not account for that intimate knowledge of the exact circumstances of Sir George’s death.
Through her mind ran reminiscences of how he had petted and spoiled her in her childhood; of their secret meetings; of his calm and good advice, and his apparent happiness whenever she was nigh.
Yes, there had been some strong yet inexplicable reason for his attachment. A thousand times in the pensive hours of her youth had she sat and wondered who could be this strange, shabby old gentleman who had taken such a deep and continued interest in her, and who had, one day about two years before, introduced her to a kindly old Italian priest, Don Mario.
Whenever she saw a Roman Catholic priest, she always recollected that calm, ascetic, soft-spoken old man who, on that well-remembered summer’s afternoon, had sat beside her in Kensington Gardens and chatted so quietly and yet with such thoroughness of heart.
Often she recollected his words—words of wise counsel. He openly expressed admiration of her beauty, yet at the same time warned her, in his soft, broken English, against the sins of the world and of society. “Love, my child,” he had said, “but be careful whom you love. This world of ours is so full of human wickedness, and nothing really is what it appears to be.”
Several times afterwards, when she met Uncle John, old Don Mario had been with him, and they had grown quite friendly. She had learned Italian at school, and she delighted to talk with the grave old priest in his own tongue.
For the past year, however, she had not seen him. He had returned to Italy, Uncle John had told her; returned without a word of farewell to her.
Though no longer in her teens, Ambrose still treated her with the same exquisite tenderness as he had done when she had worn her hair tied with ribbons.
“Maidee,” he said at last, in a low voice, after they had been silent for some time, “Sir George has fallen by an assassin’s hand, and we—you and I—must endeavour to fathom the mystery and bring the murderer to justice.”
“I am only too anxious, Uncle John,” replied the girl, her manner changing. “If I can help in any way I will certainly do so. How can I assist?”
“By carrying out certain instructions which I shall give you,” replied the old man. “Answer me a question: Have you ever spoken to your lover, Gordon Cunningham, regarding me?”
“Never. You have always imposed upon me a promise to keep our friendship a strict secret.”
The old fellow breathed a sigh of distinct relief.
“Yes,” he said; “it is best that we keep to ourselves the fact that we are acquainted. Your station in life is different from my own, you know. People would regard it as very strange if they knew that you, one of the smartest young girls in society, should come here to this obscure lodging in order to visit me.”
“Why should they? You have always been my good friend, Uncle John. Whenever I’ve been unhappy at home through my aunt’s uneven temper, I’ve always come to you, and you have kissed my tears away and cheered me up. How many times, when I was a little girl, have I shed tears and told you all my childish troubles?”
“And I have sympathised with you, dear,” said the old man, with a slight catch in his husky voice. “But all that is of the past. You’ve grown into womanhood—and you have a lover, an honest, strong-hearted fellow in young Gordon Cunningham.”
“You know him, then!” cried the girl, her face brightening, and yet remarking within herself that the old man’s voice sounded a little unnatural.
“Well, certain inquiries I made entirely satisfied me.”
“And you are really interested in my love affairs, Uncle John!” the girl laughed. She had always been used to calling him “Uncle John,” though, of course, he was a mere friend—a chance acquaintance, indeed.
“I am always interested in your well-being, Maidee. Ah!” he exclaimed, with a slight sigh, “you don’t know how very deeply you have entered into my poor lonely old heart. In the past your pretty face has cheered me, your sweet girlish smile has been as sunshine to me, and your chatter has roused me out of my dull, melancholy self. You are my own dear Maidee.”
“But why are you so lonely?” she asked, looking at him seriously in the dim light.
“You have asked me that question a thousand times before, child. Have I not always told you that my present life is of my own seeking? Once, long ago, I lost at a single blow all that made existence worth living, and I therefore cut adrift from it. I would fain forget every memory of it—if I only could. And in those early days of my disappointment and sorrow I found you—a wee child; and ever since I have regarded you as my dearest little friend.”
“Yes, Uncle John,” said the girl, not without a touch of deep emotion. “You have been more to me than any other friend I have ever had. And I have always kept sacred the pledge of secrecy you imposed upon me.”
“Never break that, child, for if you did—well”—he added in a low, changed voice—“if you did it might go very hard with me.”
“Hard with you!” she echoed, opening her fine eyes widely. “How?”
But the old fellow did not reply. He was ever evasive when she asked him any point-blank question.
“You suggested that we should combine together to endeavour to solve the mystery of my uncle’s death,” she said a few moments later.
“Yes. The police have yet to discover some very remarkable facts—facts which will, I know, greatly puzzle them,” he said. “The murder of Sir George was, as you surmise, no ordinary vulgar crime, but the work of a master hand. It was carefully planned and carried out with a deliberate attention to the most minute detail. The assassin ran no risk. He was too clever for that.”
“How do you know all this? You seem to possess a wider knowledge of the tragic affair than even the police themselves.”
“Do I?” he ejaculated, with a start. “I—I don’t think I do. The police have misled the Press—misled them purposely, of course. But, Maidee,” he added quickly, “you will ere long learn something else which will cause you great astonishment.”
“What?”
“You spoke of a man living in Pimlico.”
“The person mentioned in the statement which my uncle wrote immediately prior to his death?”
“Yes,” said the old gentleman, with a slight tremor in his thin voice. “Well, that man has also died!”
“Died!” she cried in surprise. “The police told me nothing of that.”
“Yes,” he too has been murdered. “Oh, don’t betray undue alarm,” he added quickly. “As I have told you, this affair is no ordinary crime. It is a mystery which the police will find impossible of solution. All the combined talent of Scotland Yard will fail to elucidate it if only——”
“If what?” asked the girl anxiously.
“If I make my own inquiries—and hold my tongue,” he said slowly.
“Then you know the truth, Uncle John!” she cried eagerly. “Tell me—do you know who it was who killed poor Sir George?”
“If I knew I should at once denounce the assassin,” was his severe rebuke. “Have I not suggested that you should assist me in carefully seeking a solution of the problem?”
“But you said that as long as you remained silent the police would be powerless to learn the truth,” the girl remarked.
“And I repeat it. It is for you and me to know the truth first—to establish the identity of the assassin, and we can then denounce him to the authorities. Already Scotland Yard recognises the perplexity of the case in the absence of any direct clues. Two men between whom some mysterious friendship existed, and who lived in different spheres of life, have been done to death without any apparent motive and in a manner utterly astounding. Sir George wrote something—some statement of fact, it would seem. You, on your part, must question Burgess regarding it, and let me know; if not the whole, then the gist of it. It is most important that I should know this at once. Will you commence by doing this for me?”
“Most certainly,” she replied eagerly. “I’ll question him to-morrow morning. When shall I see you?”
“At any hour you like to-morrow. I shall await you here all day. Learn all you can of Medland’s movements and the direction of his inquiries. Make pretence of assisting the police, and at the same time keep me well informed of all their actions.”
“But why?”
“Because I want to avenge Sir George’s death. The police must inevitably fail, because they lack certain knowledge which I possess. They will fail—and we shall triumph!” he added, with a keen, crafty expression in his intense dark eyes. “Remember,” he added, “that not a word is to be told to Gordon. He will, no doubt, question you closely regarding your uncle’s death, but to him you must carry out the fiction of the police—that it was suicide. To-morrow the inquest will be held. You will attend at the coroner’s court, for you may perhaps be called as a witness. Take careful note of all that transpires there, and detail it to me afterwards.”
“But you say that the man in Pimlico has also been murdered!” the girl said. “How have you learnt that? There is nothing in the papers concerning it.”
“I have no certain knowledge, except that as Sir George was killed there was every reason why the other man should be killed also.”
“In order, I suppose, to conceal some secret or other—eh?” asked Miss Lambton.
“Exactly. The secret is now in the hands of one person only—myself.”
“And, if divulged, it would account for this double crime?”
“Exactly. But before I tell the truth I desire, with your aid, child, to make quite certain of the identity of the assassin. Act as I direct you, I beg of you. Seek no reason for my actions, and do not trouble yourself regarding the many mysterious circumstances which must inevitably ensue in the course of our difficult inquiry—for it will be very difficult. Assist me, and leave all to me, and depend upon it we will together bring the murderer of poor Sir George to justice.”
“Very well,” she said. “I will question Burgess in the morning, and find out what was in that statement left by my uncle. Then I will come over here, and tell you all that I have ascertained.”
“Yes; but further,” said the old man, whose craft and cunning were unsurpassed, “when next you see Gordon he will probably question you very closely, for I anticipate that he may have learnt something—that he may have had his suspicions aroused. You must keep him in entire ignorance of everything—everything, remember! Though he may be your lover and devoted to you, as I know, yet he, by indiscretion, might spoil all our plans.”
“Am I to tell him nothing, then?” she asked, with a touch of disappointment, for she confided everything to her lover.
“Nothing—absolutely nothing. If you do, it will wreck all the plans I am now forming for the elucidation of the mystery. Gordon must remain in ignorance—just as the public must be kept ignorant of the amazing facts.”
“Did you happen to possess any knowledge of that mysterious man in Pimlico?” she asked, looking her friend straight in the face.
“Well, no,” he replied, not without a slight hesitancy, which she noticed. “I knew of his existence, it is true, and—and I know of his mysterious death.”
“Which is not yet recorded in the papers,” she added.
“I have already told you, child, that I am in possession of certain facts of which the police are unaware,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “How I became possessed of them does not concern you. It is only for you to remain absolutely silent, keep your own counsel, and assist me in avenging the death of your unfortunate uncle.”
“That I promise most faithfully to do.”
“Then be very careful not to reveal my existence to Gordon Cunningham,” he urged. “He must suspect nothing—absolutely nothing, you understand!”
The girl had risen, buttoned up her rich fur coat to the throat, and taken up her muff.
“Very well, Uncle John,” she said. “If that is your decision, I will carry it out. I shall return to-morrow—about noon, I hope. I must get back now, for it is growing late,” she added anxiously.
He bent and, as was his habit, imprinted a kiss upon the girl’s white brow; then, taking her hand, with final injunctions, he unlocked the door and showed her out to the taxi which had been awaiting her.
John Ambrose stood upon the step for a few moments watching the tail-lamp of the taxi until it disappeared around the corner into the brilliantly-lit Walworth Road. Then the cunning old man turned, and, re-entering, closed the door, and passed back into his room.
Casting himself into the arm-chair which the girl had vacated, a grim smile crossed his thin, hard features, and, removing his white beard, he slowly smoothed his chin as he sat staring into the fire, thinking deeply.
“I wonder—I wonder if she really suspects me as an impostor and a fraud?” he muttered to himself, pulling his old dressing-gown around him. “I sincerely hope she did not detect anything unusual. It was foolish—very foolish of me to have the light full on; there is danger on every side. To-morrow I must pretend weakness of the eyes, and commence to wear spectacles. My eagerness to discover the assassin will mislead her. Yet how I wish I could get sight of that foolish record which George Ravenscourt left. Just like him—so fond of putting things down in black and white. Ah!” he sighed, “if I only knew exactly what it was he wrote I should be so much easier in mind. If perchance he has told them the truth—what then?”
And, holding his breath, his countenance blanched at the very thought.
Motionless he sat, his dark eyes fixed upon the dying embers, ignorant of the fact that in a deep doorway on the opposite side of the street a spare, ill-dressed man in a dark overcoat had been standing hidden for the past couple of hours intently watching the house, or that soon after the departure of his visitor the watcher had emerged from the shadow and, with a low chuckle, had walked leisurely up the quiet, dismal street and, like the taxi, had disappeared round the corner into the bustling main thoroughfare, where the bright street-lamps shone through the mist.
CHAPTER VII.
WITHHELD FROM THE PUBLIC
When at noon next day Maidee Lambton again called at Wansey Street she found Uncle John wearing dark spectacles and complaining of his eyes.
“I had to go to the doctor this morning,” he told her, “and he ordered me to wear these ugly things.”
“Only for a time, I hope,” exclaimed the girl anxiously.
“For a month or two, at least,” he said. “See! I have to have the blinds half-down. It is so annoying not to be able to read. Books were my only pleasure, and now even they are debarred me,” added the old fellow dolefully.
Then the girl explained how she had questioned Burgess, but he had refused to satisfy her curiosity. The faithful servant had told her that it had been his master’s dying wish that the record should be destroyed, which meant that he desired to preserve his secret. At her ladyship’s orders he had handed the paper to the police, who would, no doubt, regard it as confidential.
She had rebuked Burgess for his silence, but the latter had declared it to be his duty, at the same time expressing regret at being unable to comply with her request.
“Then the fellow would tell you nothing—eh?” growled the old man, a mysterious figure in his dark, steel-rimmed spectacles.
“He refused. I argued with him, but he remained obdurate. He merely said that the paper contained a clue to the assassin.”
John Ambrose started perceptibly.
“Did he actually say that?” he gasped. “What else did he tell you?”
“Nothing more, except that the man in Pimlico was a secret friend of my uncle.”
“Did he tell you anything concerning the man in question—anything contained in your uncle’s statement?”
“No. Whatever he knows he is keeping strictly to himself.”
“He has a motive in doing so.”
“Oh, yes! He believes he is serving his master’s interests.”
“Bosh!” cried the old fellow impatiently. “He must be made to speak. You must compel him to tell you what that record contained. Use your powers of persuasion.”
“I have done so all I could—but he refused. He was devoted to Sir George.”
“I know—I know that. And if we could but let him see that we are working in the interests of justice, he would tell us everything.”
“But how can we?” asked the girl. “How can we, when we are working in such secrecy?”
For a moment the old man was silent.
“Yes,” he repeated at last; “we are working in secret. But, until we know what revelations Sir George made before his death, we are, unfortunately, unable to move.”
“How can we learn?”
“You alone can induce Burgess to speak,” said the old man seriously. “You must use all your woman’s tact. Approach him again this evening—after you have returned from the inquest. Come back again to me to-night, and tell me what you have discovered.”
Then, after a further conversation, the old man giving the girl certain directions, she re-entered the taxi, and returned to Carlton House Terrace.
At three o’clock the narrow, gloomy coroner’s court at Westminster was crowded, for, owing to the hints of suicide, considerable public interest had been aroused by the death of Sir George Ravenscourt. An eager crowd of reporters and their messengers were present, while, mixing with the general public, were several famous police officers.
Evidence of identification having been given by Miss Irene Lambton, the butler Burgess, in his best black suit, went into the witness-box, and described how he had discovered his master dying. No mention was made of the baronet’s last wish or of the unfinished manuscript left upon the writing-table. The brief evidence had been carefully prepared by the police.
In answer to the foreman of the jury—a little, bald-headed man—the butler stated that he had heard the front door close, and as his master did not ring, he entered the library to see if he required anything. On making the tragic discovery, he alarmed the household and telephoned to the police.
The next witness was Inspector Medland, who told the court that he had been summoned by telephone, and, on proceeding to the house, found the deceased lying dead in his library.
“There was evidence that he had fallen from the chair at the writing-table,” he added. “At first we could find no reason, but my assistant, Detective-Sergeant Wagner, will give further evidence.”
Wagner, on going into the box, produced a hypodermic syringe, which, he stated, had been found behind a chair, and had probably been used by the deceased to put an end to his life.
The syringe having been duly identified by Burgess as one missing from a case in his master’s dressing-room, the coroner asked the expectant jury if they had any questions to put.
“I would like to know, sir, whether the police have ascertained whether there was any motive which might lead Sir George to take his own life—any financial trouble, for instance?” asked one of them.
“I’m afraid we are not here to discover motives,” the coroner replied quickly. “We have merely to decide the cause of death—whether by natural causes, accident, wilful murder, or suicide. Call the divisional surgeon.”
The doctor, sharp-eyed, dapper man, who held his silk hat in his hand, stepped into the box, and, taking the oath with a professional air, stated that he was called by the police, and found Sir George dead.
“He had been dead about half an hour—not more,” added the doctor.
“And, in your opinion, what was the cause of death?”
“I made a post-mortem. Death was due to poison—injected.”
“Could a syringe such as the one just shown have produced death?” asked the coroner, looking up from the depositions he had been carefully writing on sheets of blue official foolscap.
“Certainly. I understand that Sir George was, unfortunately, in the habit of having recourse to drugs. It was probably an overdose, wilfully taken.”
“Any questions to ask the doctor?” inquired the coroner sharply of the jury. “The deceased seems to have taken a double dose of morphia.”
There was no response. The twelve respectable tradesmen of the city of Westminster were apparently quite satisfied.
“I will ask you, gentlemen of the jury,” said the coroner, addressing them, “having heard the evidence available, to return what verdict you honestly believe to be the true one. I might, perhaps, point out that we have had evidence of a hypodermic syringe being found in Sir George’s library—an unusual place for it—and that, as you have seen, it undoubtedly contained a deadly drug. If you consider this, in conjunction with what you have heard, sufficient proof that deceased died by his own hand, then you will return a verdict to that effect—wilful or accidental. If, on the contrary, you do not accept the evidence, then perhaps you may wish to adjourn the inquiry. For my own part,” he added, carelessly placing down his pen, “I have no hesitation in deciding at what verdict I, as a juryman, would arrive.”
“Neither have we, I think, sir,” remarked the foreman, glancing inquiringly along the line of his colleagues. “There can be no doubt that the unfortunate case is one of suicide while temporarily insane.”
“Then may I take that as your verdict, gentlemen?” asked the coroner, with a brisk, businesslike air. The jury agreed without a single dissentient.
Then, five minutes later, the court of inquiry rose, and everyone filed out into the street.
Two hours afterwards, in that same sombre room, where the gas was now lit, and where another jury had been empanelled, the same coroner held an inquiry into the death of Richard Goodrick, late of 78, Charlwood Street, Pimlico.
Only two reporters were present, and the attendance of the general public was small. There had been no mention of the death in the papers; indeed, the only notice given of it to the public was upon the formal baize-covered notice-board hanging in the coroner’s office in Victoria Street, whereon the hours of inquests are recorded for the information of all who care to attend.
But the same police officers who had attended the inquest upon Sir George Ravenscourt were present, several of them seated upon the benches with the public.
Not more than thirty persons were present; but among them, sitting alone at the extreme back of the court, half in the shadow, was an elderly, clean-shaven man in neat brown overcoat and velvet collar. He wore dog-skin gloves, and his hair was parted down the back in the dandified fashion of the early ’sixties. Apparently he had dropped in out of mere curiosity, and quickly became intensely attracted by the seriousness of the investigation.
Yet in his eyes was a crafty, sinister expression, about his mouth a strange hardness, while his gloved fingers twitched nervously as he sat impatiently awaiting the opening of the inquiry.
None—perhaps not even Maidee herself—would have recognised in that smartly-dressed old gentleman the shabby and negligent Uncle John, the man who lived in that meagre, obscure lodging off the Walworth Road. And yet it was he!
He had actually come there, boldly and openly, to listen to the curious story of Richard Goodrick’s decease!
Unnoticed he sat while the formalities of swearing in the jury were proceeded with. Yet a close observer might have detected his keen apprehension of what might be forthcoming.
Inspector Medland, brisk and active as before, was present, and was the first witness after the jury had viewed the body of the eccentric recluse of Pimlico.
“From information received,” he deposed, “I went, on the morning of the eighteenth, to 78, Charlwood Street, Pimlico, where I saw the deceased lying in a back room on the ground floor. He was dead. I searched the room, and on making inquiry found that he was a person of somewhat eccentric habits. He had lived as lodger in the house in question for eighteen years, but, according to information I have gathered, he has of late experienced some difficulty in paying his rent.”
“Ah! financial difficulties!” exclaimed the coroner. “The old story—eh?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Poison, I understand?” remarked the coroner casually.
“Yes, sir. I produce a bottle,” and he handed in a small phial. “It has contained chloral.”
Old John Ambrose sat breathless and open-mouthed. How much did the police really know?
Mrs. Ayres then gave some details regarding her lodger’s idiosyncrasies, telling the jury how, on the evening of the tragic affair, he was absent—which was quite unusual.
“I suppose you’ve seen that bottle before—eh?” asked the coroner, to which the talkative woman replied in the affirmative, chattering on with many reminiscences of “poor Mr. Goodrick.”
The coroner, however, cut her short, and asked for the medical evidence, which was to the effect that death had been due to chloral.
“Suicide, I suppose?” asked the coroner in his dry, matter-of-fact way.
In reply to this the doctor merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Apparently this old man became reduced in circumstances,” remarked the coroner, turning to the jury. “We have it in evidence that he was proud and independent, and extremely punctilious regarding his payments. His poverty probably preyed upon his mind, as it does on some men. But, of course, it is for you, gentlemen, to say how deceased came by his death—whether accidentally, or by his own hand.”
The divisional surgeon had left the witness-box, and the evidence had been concluded. An obscure, unknown man, living in a back street in Pimlico, had been found dead. The affair was devoid of any public interest, for the police had allowed no word to leak out regarding the strange connection between the two crimes. They were carefully concealing the facts so as not to arouse the suspicion of the real culprit.
The worthy jury, ignorant of the truth, therefore, without hesitation, returned a verdict of suicide, little dreaming that they were investigating as strange a tragedy as ever puzzled the Metropolitan Police.
The reporters rose, and left in disappointment that the case had furnished no “copy” to take the eye of a news-editor. The neat, clean-shaven old man in the corner breathed more freely and rose with a low chuckle, making his way out into the street.
“Goodrick’s secret is still safe—still safe!” he murmured to himself as he made his way through the darkness and falling rain in the direction of Westminster Bridge. “Yet I must still be careful—very careful, or I may betray myself to Maidee. Woman’s intuition is far keener than man’s. I may be able to fool the police, to trick them, and to evade them. But Maidee is a far more difficult problem. Yet, fortunately for me, the only man who spoke with Richard Goodrick—the only man who knew his secret—is dead—dead!”
And he laughed aloud in intense satisfaction as, approaching the bridge, he bent his head to the tearing, winter wind sweeping up the Thames.
“I wonder whether she suspects anything,” he added between his teeth. “I wonder—I wonder if I am acting the part sufficiently well?”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MAN OF THE MOMENT
A tall, slim, dark-haired, athletic-looking young man of twenty-six was lounging in a big arm-chair in the saloon of Boodle’s, idly smoking a cigarette and gazing out into the winter gloom of St James’s Street.
His clean-shaven, aquiline face showed shrewdness and cleverness, but his knit brows betrayed a deep seriousness somewhat alien to his nature. He was a merry, easy-going, good-looking fellow, very popular in the clubs and in society, for he was hailed on every hand as a coming man.
The younger son of Gilbert Cunningham, of Cunningham, in Devonshire, who had held office as an Under-Secretary of State, he had, on coming of age, inherited an ample income from his aunt, old Lady Lindley-Bruce. In addition to his brilliant University career, he had distinguished himself by travelling in the Near East, more especially in Albania and the disturbed districts of Macedonia, and writing the most thorough and comprehensive account ever published of the tangle of politics concerning those distressful countries.
In Parliament a Cabinet Minister had quoted the young man’s words and declared them to be a solemn warning to England, hence the Press had taken up the book, and in a week Gordon Cunningham found himself famous.
From that moment he had never remained idle, and had steadily progressed. He was constantly travelling, constantly writing, and constantly being interviewed. At the last General Election he had stood successfully for the Kingsbridge Division of Devonshire, and in the House had given a maiden speech upon the Turkish maladministration in Macedonia which had been listened to with great interest and had been the subject of a leader in the Times next day.
Both parties had declared Gordon Cunningham to be a very brilliant young man whose political career was assured. At Kingsbridge he had, by dint of sheer hard work and constant speaking, turned a minority into a big majority, and had received the hearty congratulations of the Prime Minister himself.
He had followed in his father’s footsteps, for Gilbert Cunningham had distinguished himself in the House, and afterwards at the Foreign Office. Like father, like son, was vividly illustrated in his case, for as he sat there idling at Boodle’s, his face was almost the exact replica of the picture of his dead father which hung in the long gallery at Cunning ham Court overlooking Dartmoor.
The short winter’s day was fading. Outside, in the street, passers-by hurried along beneath streaming umbrellas, and already the gas-lamps were being lit everywhere. Yet the young man still sat, his eyes fixed before him moodily, taking no notice of the group of men who were gossiping by the fire on the other side of the great, old-fashioned room; taking no notice either of the fact that a shabby, ill-dressed old Roman Catholic priest had taken shelter from the rain in a doorway opposite.
He had just returned from the funeral of Sir George Ravenscourt, which had taken place in the village churchyard at Pyrton, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, where the Baronet had a pretty week-end house on the hill above Cuxham.
It had been a very solemn and depressing ceremony. A special train had been run from Paddington to Watlington, the nearest station, and by it a large assembly of the dead man’s personal and political friends had travelled, among them many whose names were as household words.
No ladies had been present, and the ceremony in the old village church had been as brief and quiet as possible. The whole neighbourhood was in mourning, and the church had been filled by the country-folk in their Sunday black, for Sir George was greatly respected and esteemed in the district.
Lady Ravenscourt and Maidee had remained in London, plunged in grief, and the wet, dismal day seemed to add gloom to the tragic circumstance.
Before the arrival of the special train at Watlington several persons, mostly connected with the funeral arrangements, had arrived by the first train from London, due at nine-eighteen, with the luggage-van full of great square boxes containing floral tributes from all parts of the country.
Among the early arrivals who were strangers in Watlington was a tall, well-dressed old gentleman with a reddish, narrow, rather bony face, clean shaven, erect, and spruce in his neat black and silk hat, with its broad mourning band.
He apparently knew his way, for on leaving the station he turned to the left along the county road leading into the town, instead of taking the right-hand road to Pyrton. The special was not due till noon, the funeral being fixed for one o’clock. Therefore the stranger, having plenty of time at his disposal, walked through the mud into Watlington and entered the old Bell Hotel.
In the coffee-room he ordered some breakfast, and as he ate his meal he chatted with the waiter, who guessed his errand by his garments.
The rain having ceased, he later on retraced his steps to the station, and as the special came in took up a position where he could watch the mourners as they passed the porter who was collecting tickets.
When all had entered the carriages which stood awaiting them, the stranger was still apparently uncertain, for hiring a closed fly, he followed them to the picturesque little church in Pyrton village, seating himself alone in a pew at the back and watching the service conducted with due solemnity by the white-haired rector.
Upon the coffin were some of the magnificent wreaths, and the quaint little Early-English church was nearly filled by mourners.
The stranger who had come down from London had a pair of keen, dark eyes which, though his head was apparently bent in prayer, searched everywhere. His hard, thin lips bore a distinctly evil expression, as now and then they moved, though no sound escaped them.
Bending forward, his elbows on the ledge before him, he buried his face in his hands, and as he did so his features slowly relaxed into a grin of satisfaction.
Apparently he had recognised among the mourners the person of whom he had been in search.
Presently, when the first portion of the service had been concluded, and the coffin was borne forth into the churchyard, he rose and slowly followed the mourners out.
“I wonder,” he murmured to himself as he passed out into the gravelled walk; “I wonder if there will be equal mourning for poor old Richard Goodrick! Hardly—for he was a nobody—and yet what would these men here think, how would they act—if only they knew the truth!”
He stepped aside to allow a Parliamentary Under-Secretary and the First Lord of the Treasury to pass by slowly together hat-in-hand towards the open grave. “Fools!” he laughed to himself as he turned away from them. “It is hard upon Sir George to condemn him as a suicide, yet the police, no doubt, believe it to be a very clever move—that by it they have allayed any suspicion held by the assassin. But they have not. Oh, dear no! The man who struck down George Ravenscourt is too clever, too evasive for them. He left nothing to chance.”
Standing aside some distance from the silent, bare-headed crowd around the open grave, the stranger seemed both watchful and exultant. His presence there seemed to indicate that he desired to witness the actual burial, rather than mourn the loss of the noteworthy politician.
His appearance was entirely different from when he had sat in the coroner’s court and heard the fictitious story of old Mr. Goodrick’s death, yet he was the same—the man John Ambrose.
During the ceremony of lowering the coffin and the casting of earth upon it, he edged his way close to Gordon Cunningham, who stood, silk hat in hand, beside Edward Ravenscourt, British Consul at Malmö, the late Baronet’s brother, who had succeeded to the title. The old man contrived to look long and intently into Gordon’s face, as though photographing every line of its contour upon his memory.
His keen eyes had narrowed, and the exultant, sinister expression had given way to a look of distinct malice.
Then, suddenly, as the young man stepped back before turning to leave the graveside, he swung round upon his heel, the wind blowing his scanty grey hair, and with an imprecation muttered to himself:
“Fancy you, Gordon Cunningham, mourning that man’s death—you of all men! For years—ah! till the day of your death, my fine young fellow, you will be haunted by memories of this dismal, depressing scene! You who are hailed as a remarkable young man of unusual talent—a man bound to make his mark in the world, they say. Well—you will leave it upon the annals of crime—or my name is not John Ambrose!”
He halted, pretending to read a half-effaced epitaph, until the young man, walking slowly beside a well-known member of the Opposition, had passed him by.
Then he followed leisurely, dogging Cunningham’s footsteps with pertinacious resolution, though the young man was all unconscious of the attraction he possessed for the stranger.
“That man just laid to his long rest was my enemy, just as he was my friend,” he went on, muttering to himself. “He was always indiscreet—his only failing. Had he lived his indiscretion would have cost me my secret—aye, perhaps my life. Yet probably, even now, he has been sufficiently indiscreet to betray me. Ah! If I only knew—if that fool Burgess would only speak and tell Maidee the truth!”
He saw Gordon speaking slowly and earnestly with his companion, emphasising each word with his clenched hand.
“Ah! yes!” he said, his sharp, penetrating gaze fixed upon Maidee’s lover. “You are a very fine person in your own estimation! The public acclaims you as a leader in embryo, and so exceedingly shrewd and clever are you that you believe yourself quite secure. Your presence here is sufficient evidence of your amazing unscrupulousness and daring. The police have no suspicion. You are quite assured of that. I alone know the truth—the astounding truth!”
The carriages were quickly filled, and John Ambrose, returning to the station in his fly, purposely entered the same compartment as the young member for Kingsbridge.
Only two other men, Gordon’s friends, were seated in the corners of the first-class compartment, and on the journey up to London the stranger, sitting huddled in his corner, managed to join in their conversation.
“Ah!” he exclaimed presently, “the police have made a great error in believing our poor friend Sir George’s death was self-sought.”
“Why?” asked Cunningham quickly, a trifle pale. “What leads you to believe otherwise, sir?” The stranger bore a noticeable likeness to one of his friends—and yet it was only a likeness.
“Well, I happen to be a very old and intimate friend of the man we have just buried,” Ambrose replied, fixing the young man with those remarkable eyes of his. “And I know him to be one who would never take drugs. Had he been in any trouble, he would have faced the music like a man. George Ravenscourt was never a coward—never a drug-slave.”
“Even the bravest of men have ended their lives in order to conceal some family skeleton,” remarked one of his fellow travellers, a fat man of forty-five.
“I admit that, sir,” replied Ambrose; “but George Ravenscourt, though he held a secret, was the victim of foul play. Of that I, as one of his oldest and most intimate friends, am convinced,” he said, never taking his gaze for an instant off Gordon Cunningham.
“What circumstance has convinced you?” asked the fat man with curiosity.
“Circumstances within my own knowledge,” exclaimed the old gentleman quietly, yet firmly, his calm, intense gaze still full upon the face of Maidee’s lover. “George Ravenscourt was murdered—cruelly murdered by one who vainly endeavoured to learn his secret.”
“Murdered!” cried the other man, also the dead man’s friend. “Do you know this positively?”
“Yes,” replied Ambrose in that same hard, earnest tone. “I know it positively. He was wilfully poisoned, I tell you!”
He watched the young man seated silent in the corner grow pale as death, for he had uttered that home-thrust in order to observe the effect it had upon him.
His two companions noticed Cunningham’s silence and pallor, but in their ignorance put it down to fatigue. They were inclined to disagree with the stranger’s declaration.
Yet it was upon that direct allegation uttered by the well-dressed old man that Gordon Cunningham, two hours later, sat in Boodle’s, brooding and wondering.
Who could the old fellow be? he asked himself.
What did he know? Was he in possession of the truth?
CHAPTER IX.
SOME CONFIDENCES
For fully a quarter of an hour Gordon Cunningham had sat immovable, heedless of the fact that he was peering out into the darkness, and that the grave-faced waiter had not lowered the blind because he sat facing the night.
Out in the rain and darkness the old priest stood motionless.
“Hulloa, Gordon! Good heavens! Why, what’s up? You look uncommonly glum, old chap!” cried a voice suddenly causing him to start and turn.
It was Price-Williams, a barrister well known at the Old Bailey for his able prosecutions on behalf of the Treasury. “This weather is certainly enough to make anyone glum,” the smooth, round-faced lawyer went on. “I’m off to Monte to-morrow for a fortnight. Why don’t you come with me? It would buck you up for the spring.”
“Can’t, old chap—the House.”
“Why don’t you pair? These past two days I’ve noticed you looking absolutely wretched. You politicians are always so full of the nation’s worries.”
“In my case it’s generally the worries of other nations,” Cunningham laughed faintly as he stretched out his legs.
“I suppose it is. But you’ve got a special knowledge of your friends the Turks. By the way,” added the lawyer, “I presume by your clothes you’ve been down to poor Ravenscourt’s funeral—eh?”
The young man nodded an affirmative.
“Sad affair—very sad,” remarked the other. “A queer bit of business altogether, that’s my opinion.”
“What do you mean?” asked the young man in a low, rather strained voice.
“Well, the fact is, I’m hardly convinced that it was suicide, notwithstanding the verdict of the coroner’s jury.”
“Why not?” inquired the other.
“Intuition, perhaps. I believe there was foul play.”
“But surely, there’s no getting away from the verdict at the inquest!”
“Not at present. But tell me, what does Miss Lambton say? Her opinion would be of interest.”
“Nothing. I’ve scarcely seen her since the sad affair. And the subject was, of course, far too painful for discussion.”
“Well, my dear fellow,” remarked the barrister, “you’ll find later that I’m not alone in my suspicions that Sir George was deliberately done to death. The police may have secured that verdict for their own purposes, you know.”
“What?” cried the young man, almost gasping. “Is that sometimes done?”
“Of course—in order to mislead. It was done in the Hammond case at Hornsey about a year ago, and again, more recently, in the affair of Ethel Burns down at Croydon. I afterwards appeared for the prosecution.”
“Then you think that—well that——”
“That he was murdered. There’s no doubt in my mind. Sir George wasn’t the man to take his own life—especially at such a moment when his party was so sore in need of him. My own opinion is that the police will discover something—that there will be a sensational development ere long. As Counsel for the Treasury, I happen to know some of their methods.”
“Do they suspect anyone?” asked Gordon eagerly.
“Ah! That I can’t tell you, my dear fellow. But depend upon it, Ravenscourt never died by his own hand.”
“Don’t let’s discuss it,” exclaimed the young man as he rose abruptly, and a few moments later he put on his hat and coat and took a taxi down to the House. Then, and only then, did the shabby priest move from the dark doorway in St. James’s Street.
Gordon had to meet a deputation of his constituents from Kingsbridge, and was engaged with them until the dinner hour. Then, after a hasty meal, he took part in an important division, and later on drove over to Carlton House Terrace, where Burgess admitted him to the house of mourning.
The widow was keeping her room, but very soon Maidee, dainty in her sombre black gown, entered the big blue-and-white drawing-room on the first floor and raised her sweet face to receive her lover’s fond caress.
“I’m awfully sorry I had to rush away yesterday, darling,” the young man exclaimed; “but I was due to speak at Highgate on the Macedonian Question and the Roumanian interference.”
“Yes. I saw the account of your splendid speech in the Times this morning. It read most excellently,” she said with enthusiasm.
“I’m so glad you liked it,” he went on, still holding her in his arms. “The public and Parliament are, alas! very ignorant of the actual causes of the internal strife in the Balkans.”
“The Times, in a leader the other day, said that nobody, not even Gladstone, had ever obtained such a mastery over the intricate complications of the Near Eastern Question as you, Gordon,” the girl remarked.
“Mere flattery, dearest—just because I happen, I suppose, to be a man of the moment. But the man which the papers praise to-day will be condemned by them in six months’ time. The public are so very fickle. The Press nowadays, unfortunately, does not lead public opinion; it finds it more advantageous to follow it. Ah! if the public would only realise how men’s reputations are manufactured by photographs being sown broadcast in the daily pictorial Press, and how many men, struggling for notoriety, keep a Press agent specially to ‘boom’ them! To-day one’s reputation is all a matter of self-advertisement. Why, you can pay a fee to a certain telegraphic agency and, wherever you may be, in any city in the world, your doings will be chronicled throughout Europe almost as though you were a crowned head. Is it therefore any wonder that the public are unable to discriminate or value a man at his actual worth?”
“Poor uncle often said the very same thing, Gordon,” the girl exclaimed, her soft, white hand upon his arm as she looked up lovingly into his countenance. “But you, at least, are not one of those who have obtained a fictitious reputation.”
“Ah!” he said with a slight sigh. “Perhaps I have, Maidee. Perhaps, after all, I am not worth all the praise bestowed upon me.”
She gazed at him full of admiration, for she was devoted to him.
“You are, dear—why, you know you are!” she cried. “Why, you are one of the most popular men in London to-day, and my uncle said many times that some time you will be given a seat in the Cabinet.”
Gordon Cunningham slowly shook his head. “No, Maidee,” he said quietly. “But what shall we do now we’ve lost Sir George? There is no one to take his place.”
“Except you.”
“Me!” he echoed with a dry laugh. “Whoever has suggested such a thing?”
“I’ve heard a whisper of it to-day,” the girl replied, her dark eyes fixed upon her lover’s pale, serious face. They were perfectly happy in each other’s love.
“Never!” he said quickly. “I would rather resign—rather withdraw from politics altogether than take your uncle’s place.”
“Why?”
But he only pressed his pale lips together and turned away his face in order to hide its expression.
A silence fell between the young people in that big, well-lit, richly decorated room, the scene of so many brilliant political gatherings—a silence broken only by the low honk of a taxicab speeding along the Mall.
Gordon Cunningham gazed around. The delicate pale blue carpet, the gilt furniture, the dead white walls, the fine oval portraits of seventeenth-century beauties by Lely and other masters, and the old-fashioned china cabinets all brought back to him memories of smart gatherings held there when he had been lionised by the great ones of England.
But all that was now of the past. That day the quiet, good-natured master of the house had been laid to his last rest, and that room would no longer be one of the centres of political life in London.
Maidee, a frail little figure, looked up into her lover’s eyes, and reading his thoughts, sighed in silence.
He asked her how her ladyship was bearing the blow, while she, in return, inquired for details of the funeral down in Oxfordshire.
“Quite a number of people went down, including three Cabinet Ministers as well as the Leader of the Opposition and deputations from Sir George’s constituency and several public bodies. The day was the most dismal I have ever spent, Maidee.”
“Yes, I fully expected it would be,” she sighed. “It has been very wretched here, too. Telegrams have been arriving all day. The King sent a message of condolence to auntie yesterday.”
He released her and walked slowly across to the big fireplace. He seemed unusually pensive, and she thought she detected a look upon his face such as she had never hitherto seen there.
It had been on the tip of her tongue on both the brief occasions when they had seen each other since the tragic affair, to tell him the truth that her uncle had been assassinated after writing that strange record. On the first occasion she was plunged in grief, and on the second she had recollected the strict injunctions of the friend of her youth, old Mr. Ambrose.
And now again the queer old fellow’s words recurred to her as she crossed to a cosy arm-chair and sank into it wearily. Her beautiful face, usually so cheerful, wore an expression of profound and touching dejection. She raised her eyes to the man standing before her with mingled love and melancholy.
He seemed agitated, while upon his pale countenance was a look of intense anxiety as, suddenly, he asked:
“Tell me, Maidee, after the discovery downstairs in the library, were the police busy making inquiries? I mean did they appear suspicious that it was not a case of suicide?”
“Why?” she asked, opening her eyes widely. “Why do you ask such a question, Gordon?”
Again those injunctions of the strange old man who was her intimate friend flashed across her mind. He had told her most distinctly that her lover must know nothing save what appeared in the papers. She was now glad that she had told him nothing when he had called early in the morning after the tragedy.