“Will you therefore sit nearer to the window, at your writing place? If the telephone rings you will not answer.”
So they sat, he on one side of the table and she on the other, his eyes roving to the sidewalk, and from the sidewalk to his prisoner. She saw the limousines stream past on their way to the theatres, and wondered if, on any stage in London, there would be enacted a drama quite as improbable as this in which she played a leading part.
After a long interval of silence:
“I suppose you realize that, when I do not arrive at Mr. Coldwell’s house, he will either telephone or come back for me?”
He nodded.
“We have already made provision,” he said simply. “We have sent him a telegram in your name, saying that you have been called away to”—he hesitated—“I cannot remember the town; it is in the west and is on the sea.”
“Plymouth?” she asked quickly.
“Plymouth,” he said. “The telegram also told him your hotel. Plymouth is very far, and by the time he discovers you have not arrived”—a pause—“by that time you will not be here.”
“Where shall I be?” she asked.
But the only answer was a strange, solemn glance.
CHAPTER XX.
A SILK SHAWL
Children—little Elizabeth and that unseen boy of his! Peter Dawlish walked up and down his cramped room, his hands in his pockets, an unlighted cigarette between his lips. The hopelessness of it all! Where and how could he begin his search? That baby of his belonged to the world of unreality, to the mists of dreams. Elizabeth was real. He could see those wide, frightened eyes of hers, the transparent pallor of her face. He shut his eyes and there she was again, frail, delicate, pleading for help he was powerless to give.
He was alone in the house. Through the thin partition walls which separated one jerry-built cottage from the other he heard the sound of a man and a wife quarrelling. In the street a boy was whistling flatly a popular tune. If Mrs. Inglethorne were here he would have the truth though he had to choke it from her. Who else would know but she?
He had been such a short time in the lodging that he was not even acquainted with her friends; the slinking little thieves who came to barter and haggle over the property they had stolen knew no more of her than that she was a mean and grinding bargainer. She had no cronies to come and spend the evening with her; by very reason of her peculiar business, she could not risk the giving or taking of confidences.
The police had been to the house and made a perfunctory search, their object being to discover other evidence against her. But they had looked only for articles of value which she might have purchased; lengths of cloth and silk—she specialized in this trade—and they were not particularly concerned about Elizabeth. Nobody cared very much about Elizabeth, except Leslie and he.
This thought occurred to him as he walked to and fro—and thought breeds thought. Might he not, searching with another object, discover what they had overlooked—one fragment of a clue that would bring him to the child? Why should he be concerned? What legal or moral right had he to detach Mrs. Inglethorne’s daughter from her legal guardian? He considered this matter, only to brush it aside. Presently he carried the lamp downstairs, with the faintly pleasurable hope which comes to all who engage in secret searches.
The woman’s room was accessible. The lock he had broken had not been repaired. He went in, put the lamp on the mantelpiece and looked around. Search parties usually leave chaos behind them, but the police in their investigation had, if anything, tidied the room. There were a number of dresses, obviously the woman’s, stacked on the bed. Two oleographs that once decorated the wall had been lifted down—clean squares on the wall paper marked their old position. By the side of the clothes was a square wooden box, of the kind that soldiers use for the transportation of their possessions. This had been opened and was unlocked. The lid had jammed upon a wedge of cloth as it had been closed, and there was a gap of an inch.
Where would a woman like Mrs. Inglethorne keep papers? Or did she keep papers at all? He tried to remember the habits of her type, acquired at second hand from his fortuitous acquaintances in Dartmoor Prison. Under her bed? But the police had obviously rolled up the mattress and made that elementary examination. There was nothing here—nothing. He opened the big black box, disparagingly. And then he saw, with a quickening interest, that the inside of the lid was almost covered by newspaper cuttings which had been pasted on the wood. Here was revealed Mrs. Inglethorne’s “scrap-book,” and incidentally her favourite daydream. A headline caught his eye.
HEIRESS TRACED BY HER BABY SOCK
Another headline ran:
CHILD’S MOTHER TRACKED BY INITIAL ON
INFANT’S GOWN
He carried the lamp to a little table and read the cuttings carefully. They all dealt with one subject: The identification of unknown children that had brought fabulous fortunes to the lucky person who had traced their descent. Some of the cuttings were very old, yellow with age, and scarcely decipherable. Evidently Mrs. Inglethorne’s collection covered a long period.
He supposed the police had searched the box, which was nearly filled with little cylinder-shaped bundles tied around with tape. Linen, coarse calico, cotton—diving into the mass, his fingers touched silk. The bundles had once been white, but constant fingering and dust had left them an indescribable hue. He untied a bundle and opened it. It consisted of a child’s cotton nightdress, a little pair of woollen shoes, and a small knitted shawl. Pinned to the shoes was a scrap of paper on which was written in an illiterate hand the words: “Mrs. Larse, boy, ten days old, measles, nine months.” Here then was the beginning and end of Mrs. Larse’s boy. “Measles, nine months” was his epitaph.
She was a baby farmer; he had guessed that. He opened another bundle hopefully. Somewhere here would be a reference to Elizabeth. The second package had nothing but a coarse calico robe and a penned inscription: “Young girl named Leavey, five days, whooping cough, six weeks.” One by one he unrolled these little tragedies, and few indeed were they who had not their death certificates inscribed laconically at the end. Some had two papers, identically inscribed. He supposed that the repetition was due to Mrs. Inglethorne’s careless and haphazard system of “bookkeeping.”
He had examined twelve and took out the thirteenth, wondering what potency there was in that lucky or unlucky number. The nightdress he unrolled was of the finest linen, the most expensive of all he had examined. The shawl was of heavy silk, and the microscopic shirt of the most delicate flannel. For some time he could not find the inscription, but eventually it was discovered inside the shawl. Only three words, but they set his heart beating.
“Miss Martha’s girl.”
The bundle dropped from his nerveless hands. “Miss Martha’s girl!”
He took the letter out of his pocket. “I have found a home for your son and——” He read again the pencilled words “Martha’s servant.” And Martha’s servant was—Mrs. Inglethorne!
Miss Martha’s girl. This woman could not have made a mistake. One by one he examined the clothes separately, and then, pinned to the inside of the dress, near the collar, he found a second paper written in the same hand, and, reading it, he uttered a hoarse cry.
“Miss Martha’s girl Elizabeth.”
Feverishly he untied the other bundles but found no further clue. His knees were trembling as he mounted the stairs, the precious garments close to his heart. Putting down the lamp on the table, he examined again these pitiful souvenirs. He must see Leslie at once. Not daring to leave the clothes behind, he folded them and put them into his pocket. He used the silk shawl as a neckcloth under his thin overcoat; the night was bitterly cold, but it was not the warmth of the soft fabric which brought a glow to his heart.
The windows of the flat were in darkness, but he remembered that they had heavy velvet curtains, and possibly they were drawn. Ringing the bell, he waited. There was no answer. He rang again. And then a man appeared from a near-by doorway and strolled up to him.
“Who do you want?” he asked, in a tone of authority. Peter guessed that he was a detective.
“I want Miss Maughan. My name is Dawlish.”
“Oh, Dawlish, yes. Miss Maughan isn’t in. She is staying at Inspector Coldwell’s house in Finchley. There is nobody in the flat.”
He did not hide his disappointment; he was so full of his discovery that he had to tell somebody. He had to see her. The detective gave him the inspector’s address and he walked across the Charing Cross Road, intending to make his way to the tube station. He reached the other side of the road, and then something made him look back at the windows of her apartments. And in that instant he saw a quick flicker of light, as though somebody had turned on an electric hand lamp for the fraction of a second and had extinguished it immediately.
Peter stopped. Somebody was in Leslie’s room. He walked slowly across the road. The detective had disappeared; was, in point of fact, walking to the back of the block to visit his fellow watcher. As Peter stood, hesitating, he saw the street door move slightly, and, acting on an impulse, he pushed it wide open and took one step into the darkness.
“Who’s there?” he said, and that was all that he remembered.
Something soft and heavy fell with a thud on his head, crushing his soft hat as though it were paper. He stumbled on to his knees, and a second blow laid him prostrate, the blood trickling down his face and staining the soft silk that had once enwrapped his child.
There were no loiterers in Charing Cross Road that bitter night, when a chill northwest wind sent people hurrying to the shelter of their homes. There was no lounger to tell the detective of three people who had walked hurriedly across the sidewalk into the car which was drawing to the curb at the very moment Peter pushed open the door.
CHAPTER XXI.
ANITA’S CARDS
As the car moved off a man came running across the road, stepped lightly on to the foot-board and wriggled his way to a place beside the driver. The car was held up outside the Hippodrome but only for a few seconds, and then, turning, it sped wheezily along Coventry Street. They had a good crossing of Piccadilly Circus, and a few seconds later they had struck the gloom of lower Piccadilly and had turned into Hyde Park.
Leslie had a glimpse now of the faces of her captors: yellow, with that Oriental slant of the eye which is common to the Chinese and Japanese. Here the likeness ended; their faces lacked the intelligence of the people of the island kingdoms.
Javanese, of course! How stupid she had been not to have realized that from the first! Anita Bellini had lived in Java for many years. And then she remembered Peter’s words. She understood the chained door because of the attack that had been made on her flat. Anita’s bodyguard had been engaged elsewhere; she had need of chains to protect her house in their absence.
The car slipped across Hammersmith Bridge, and after a few minutes she could identify the spot where the body of Druze had been found. They were going to Wimbledon, then—to Anita’s grisly house.
The machine came to a stop before the door of May Towers and she hurried up the steps. She had not reached the top before the door was opened. No light showed in the hall, and she heard the door clang behind her and a chain rattle as it was fastened, and her courage almost deserted her. Somebody flashed the light of a hand lamp; she saw the wide, heavily carpeted stairs.
“Go up,” said her conductor, his hand still on her arm, and she obeyed.
The stairs turned and they reached a wide landing. Somebody knocked at a door, and a voice which she recognized as Anita’s said:
“Come in.”
The man who had knocked pushed the door open wide. She had a glimpse of a lofty wall, hidden by a black curtain which was covered with curious designs in gold threadwork. The room was filled with an unearthly greenish light; the hand of the jailer fell from her arm; she walked into the room alone, and the door closed behind her.
It was a long and ill-proportioned salon. With the exception of a divan at the far end and a low table near by, it was bare of furniture. The carpet underfoot was either purple or black; in the queer light of two green lamps that burned on either side of the settee it was impossible to distinguish its colour.
Anita Bellini sat cross-legged on the divan, horribly suggestive of some repellent and grotesque idol in her golden frock. Her massive arms were smothered from wrist to elbow with glittering bracelets. Three ropes of pearls hung about her strong neck, and every time her hands moved they sparkled and scintillated brilliantly. A long ebony cigarette holder was between her lips; that immovable monocle of hers gleamed greenly.
“Come along, Maughan; sit here.” She pointed to the floor, and, black against black, invisible from where she had paused when she had entered the room, Leslie saw a heap of cushions.
She sat obediently, looking up into the coarse face. So they sat surveying one another for a space, and then, flicking the ash from her cigarette, Anita Bellini spoke.
“You have brains, I suppose?”
“I suppose so,” said Leslie coolly.
“Sufficient brains to know that I wouldn’t take the risk of bringing you here—abducting is the word, I think—unless my position was rather desperate. I’d have killed you last night, but that would have been a fatal mistake. You are much more useful to me alive.”
Leslie smiled faintly.
“Which sounds like a line from a melodrama!” she said.
“The Javanese are a gentle, kindly people,” Anita said slowly, “but in some ways—they are not nice.”
“I understand this is a threat as to what will happen to me if I do not do something you wish?”
“You’re a sensible girl,” said Anita Bellini, and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She was very much like a fishwife in that attitude; there was something inexpressibly common about her, in spite of her monocle and her Parisian gown, and the luxury of her surroundings. “This afternoon”—she was still speaking very slowly and distinctly—“Coldwell applied to the Bow Street magistrate for a warrant—a warrant for my arrest and a search of this house. Did you know that?”
Leslie was genuinely astonished and shook her head.
“I had no idea, and I can’t think that what you say is true,” she said. “Mr. Coldwell made no mention of any such arrest; in fact, I was spending the night at his house, and I know he had arranged——”
Anita broke into her explanation.
“He applied. Whether the warrant was granted or not, I do not know. That is one point. Another is this: you visited Greta Gurden to-night, and she told you the one thing in the world I wished that she should not tell—I know because I saw you go in and come out of her flat, and I have seen Greta since,” she added grimly. “It isn’t necessary for me to tell you the vital information you discovered.”
“It isn’t,” said Leslie. “But I might have found that out anyway. In fact, I should, if I’d had the sense to go straight to Doctor Wesley and ask him how long before Donald Dawlish’s death he was unconscious. I’ve always suspected that the alteration of that will was a forgery. I saw a copy of it, and I have compared it with the signature of Donald Dawlish. It would not have been very difficult to prove that the new will which gave Mrs. Dawlish the whole of her husband’s fortune and which disinherited Peter, was a forgery from beginning to end. The doctor will, of course, prove that beyond any question. On the day he was supposed to have made the new will, Mr. Dawlish did not recover consciousness. Surely, Princess, you don’t imagine that you will get away with that! Mr. Dawlish’s lawyers have always been dissatisfied with the will that was made without consultation, and which was only proved because they could not induce Peter Dawlish to contest its validity.”
Anita Bellini made no answer to this.
“I’m chiefly concerned with myself and my own safety,” she said at last. “You’ve got to help me, and Martha must look after herself. You’ve got to help clear me. I’m going to make you a very good offer—a hundred thousand pounds.”
Leslie shook her head.
“Not all the money in the world will influence me, Princess,” she said. “How could I clear you? You talk as though I were the chief of the Detective Bureau and had authority to divert the processes of the law! The person you must see is Lady Raytham, whom you have blackmailed for years, and even if she were agreeable, the law requires that you shall explain the death of Annie Druze.”
“It was an accident.”
Leslie nodded.
“I know—or rather, I guessed. But that has got to come into the light, and it cannot come into the light unless the story of the blackmail is revealed. I am willing to do this: let me walk out of your door unharmed, and the little adventure of to-night will be forgotten. I will forget your Javanese, I will forget what happened last night. Tell me where I can find”—she paused—“Elizabeth Dawlish.”
“There is no such person,” said Anita harshly.
“Elizabeth Dawlish,” repeated Leslie, “Peter’s daughter.”
Princess Anita Bellini was not smoking now. She had the holder in her hand, turning it over and over and examining it critically as though she were looking for some defect.
“You’ve got to get me out of this mess, Leslie Maughan.”
Leslie rose to her feet.
“I thought you were clever!” she said, with a note of contempt in her voice. “Nothing can get you out—nothing!”
“Is that so?” Anita’s voice was soft and silky. “Do you realize, my good woman, that if I can’t get out, who has put me in—you! You’ve been prying into the history of the Druzes, have you? Ah, ha!” She laughed harshly. “I know a great deal more than you imagine. And you’ve been putting the little pieces together to trap Anita—poor old Anita, eh?” She showed her big white teeth in a mirthless smile, and suddenly slipped from the divan and drew near to the girl. She clapped her hands twice.
The room was seemingly empty; yet at that signal half a dozen little men appeared as if by magic from behind the long curtains. Anita, her face swollen with rage, spluttered something and the squat shapes came shuffling toward her.
Leslie did not move. She stood erect, her hands by her sides, her pale face turned to the woman. Even when they seized her, she did not resist, but allowed herself to be hurried behind the fold of a curtain and through a door into a stuffy little room into which she was thrust. The door was closed on her, a lock snapped; from the other side of the door a mocking voice called to her.
“Now I will be avenged.”
Leslie stooped, pulled up her skirt, and unstrapped an appendage from a garter. It was a small-calibre weapon. She slipped back the jacket, forced in a cartridge, and brought the catch to safety. Then she began to explore.
The furniture of the room was a little tawdry. The divan, which seemed an indispensable adjunct to every room, was old and worn; a shaded light hung from the ceiling; there were two brass dishes attached to the wall. It appeared to be the apartment of a highly favoured upper servant, and this she confirmed when she turned over the coverings of the divan and saw what was apparently a suit of native clothing.
There was a second door to the room and this she tried. Then, to her surprise and delight, she saw that there was a key on the outside. She turned this, and to her relief it opened, and she found herself in a very conventional bedroom, the type of apartment she would have expected to discover in any of the houses on Wimbledon Common. No lights were burning and it was inadvisable to switch them on. Softly she closed the door of the room she had left, and tiptoeing across the floor, felt her way to the bedroom door. She turned the handle softly and looked out.
Happily, the two men who stood on the landing had their backs turned to her. She closed the door again, in an agony of fear lest she should make a sound. Running quickly across the bedroom, she tried the windows. They were not only fastened and barred, but, as a further barrier to egress, the bars were covered with a stout wire screen. Perhaps there was a bathroom, she thought, and groped along the wall. After a while she felt the handle of a door and opened it gingerly. She must risk putting on the light for a second, and this she did.
It was evidently used as a dressing room, and there was another door which, she guessed, led to a second bedroom. She turned out the lights; the door was locked, and again the key was on the outside. For a moment she suspected a trap and hesitated, but after a moment turned the key and entered the room, only to draw back instantly. Somebody was there; she heard the sound of breathing, and a tiny creak as though a body was turning in bed. And then:
“Who is it, please?” asked a voice, and Leslie nearly dropped.
For the child who spoke from the darkness was Elizabeth!
“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered, and, taking out the key, closed the door and locked it on the inside.
Only then did she feel for the light switch. The room was a small one and apparently there was no other way out than that by which she had come. The small window was barred and wired; the window itself was of opaque glass. She looked round at Elizabeth; she was sitting up in a small bed, looking with astonishment at this unexpected vision. Then suddenly she leaped out of bed and came running toward the girl, and Leslie caught her in her arms.
“Are you going to take me away? I’m so frightened. These little men frighten me. I told you about them. One came and left the pistol with Mother. Oh, take me away, please, please!”
Leslie gathered the frail form in her arms and kissed her.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said, but without any great conviction. “Tell me quickly, Elizabeth! Is there another way out of this room?”
To her surprise, the child pointed to a plain wardrobe which stood against the wall.
“She comes through there sometimes,” she whispered. “A terrible woman—with an eyeglass. She told me that if I made any trouble, one of the black men would kill me.” The child shuddered.
Putting her gently away, Leslie went to the wardrobe and pulled open the door. The wardrobe was empty and reached from the floor to the height of her head. The back was undoubtedly a door; there was no disguise about it. There was neither keyhole nor handle. Using all her strength, she pushed, and the door swung open; it had been fastened by a very simple spring catch.
She returned to Elizabeth and wrapped a bedspread round her thin shoulders.
“You’re to be very brave and very quiet,” she whispered. “Come with me.”
The child hesitated.
“She told me I must never go through there,” she began, but Leslie reassured her, and they passed through into an apartment which was also a bedroom though apparently out of use. The bed was not made, and some of the furniture was shrouded in Holland covers.
Again Leslie opened the main door, this time to find herself on another landing. There was nobody in sight. Down below, at the foot of a narrow flight of stairs, a light burned dimly.
“You’ve got a pistol, too,” whispered the child in wonder, and Leslie smiled.
“Don’t talk,” she whispered into Elizabeth’s ear, and led the way down the stairs.
They terminated in a small passage, paved with tiles. As she reached the foot of the stairs she heard the sound of voices, and, looking round cautiously, she saw that under the stairs was a door, and it was open. At the far end of the passage was another, and this obviously led to the outside of the house, for it was chained and bolted.
As she stood, debating what she should do, the voices grew fainter, and the patch of light on the wall which marked the open door disappeared. It was her chance. Grasping the child by the arm, she slipped off her shoes and hurried noiselessly along the passage in her stockinged feet.
She had reached the door, and with fingers which, in spite of her will, trembled, moved first one chain and then another. The top and bottom bolts were drawn; her hand was on the key, when from somewhere above came an outcry. A bell rang, a door under the stairs was flung open and three men ran out. The first two did not see her, but made for the stairs. The third caught sight of her over his shoulder and yelled a warning. In an instant the three men were flying toward her. Twice the little pistol banged, and one man slid to the ground with a yell, grasping his knee. And then they were on her and she was fighting desperately for life.
She heard the scream of the child and called out to her to open the door and escape. But Elizabeth was too petrified with terror to make any movement.
They carried Leslie Maughan, trussed and bound, into the purple salon and laid her at Anita’s feet. And then the man who spoke English lifted his hand.
“Lady,” he said, “here is the woman. What shall be done?”
Anita pointed to him with her thick jewelled finger.
“This night you shall have the privilege of torturing her,” she said, in her grating voice.
CHAPTER XXII.
A REAL FATHER
It seemed to Peter Dawlish that he had been unconscious for an eternity when he turned over on his back with a groan and carefully felt his damaged head. His face was wet and sticky, and when he essayed to rise to his feet, it seemed that the whole of the building was oscillating violently. Presently, however, he was up, keeping to the wall for support, and, grasping the handle of the door, he jerked it open and was instantly gripped with hands of steel.
“Hullo, who are you?” asked a stern voice.
“I don’t know—Dawlish—something happened. I saw a light and came over—and then the door opened and I don’t remember much more.”
The detective recognized him.
“The door opened?” he said anxiously. “Was somebody in the flat?”
Peter nodded and winced.
“Give me a drink,” he said, and the detective guided him by the arm and led him upstairs to Leslie’s room.
A glass of ice-cold water revived him and he was able to tell a coherent story of his experience.
“It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes ago,” said the detective. “I went round to see my opposite number and I’ll swear I wasn’t gone for more than that time.”
Suddenly he stooped to the floor and took up something. It was a loose native slipper that had slipped from the foot of Leslie’s captor in the hurry of departure. The light he had shown when he searched for this was the light that Peter saw.
“Just wait! I’ll call Mr. Coldwell.”
Inspector Coldwell was at dinner when the message came.
“Hang on, I’ll come down,” he said. “I’ve had a wire from Miss Maughan that she’s going to Plymouth, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
He was in the flat twenty minutes later. By this time Peter’s wound had been roughly dressed, and he had washed the stains from his face. Save for the throb of the wound, he was little the worse for his experience.
“They coshed you with a rubber club; it is rather a good method,” said Coldwell callously.
He looked round the room with pursed lips and a frown.
“It doesn’t follow that because those birds were here, she was here,” he said, and glanced at his watch. “Too early for Miss Maughan to have arrived at Plymouth. Just wait! I want to make sure.”
He drove to the telegraph office from which the message had been sent, and was fortunate to find the postmaster just leaving his office.
“I want to see the telegram that was sent from here about five o’clock to-night addressed to me.”
“You want to see the original telegram, I suppose? That won’t be difficult.”
It was more difficult than he supposed, and half an hour’s precious time was wasted before the pencilled form was produced. Coldwell had only to glance at the writing to know that it was not in Leslie’s hand. Yet a woman had written it; that was obvious from the characteristic writing.
He returned to the flat and sent the detective in a cab to Scotland Yard and Peter employed this interval to tell him of what he had found in Mrs. Inglethorne’s box.
“I pretty well guess that,” said Inspector Coldwell. “So did Leslie—Miss Maughan. ‘The son’ meant nothing. This unfortunate lady had intended to keep the child with her if it was a girl, and that was not the wish of the gang who were bleeding her. They told her she had a son. But I’m going to make sure about that before we go any further. Somehow I’m not so scared about Leslie Maughan as I ought to be perhaps. She’s got a sort of gun.”
A quarter of an hour later, his cab drew up before the gloomy doors of Holloway Prison and after a strict scrutiny of his credentials he was admitted and conducted to one of the main halls of the jail, where the remand prisoners were housed. The chief wardress opened the door and went in. Presently she came out and beckoned him into the cell.
Mrs. Inglethorne was sitting, a scowl on her face, her big, raw hands clasped before her. She knew Coldwell, and lifted her lip in a grin of rage.
“Don’t you come in here!” she said shrilly. “I’m not going to talk to you. If you want to find that kid, you go and find her! And that’ll take you some time, I’ll bet!”
“Listen!” Coldwell had a very direct way with criminals. “Whether you’ll get a nine-month or more depends on the answer you give me, Mrs. Inglethorne. There’s just a chance that you may get something worse.”
She scowled up at him.
“What do you mean?”
Very deliberately he sketched a portion of her life: told her where she had lived, and how long she had stayed in her various places of abode. She made no comment or correction, looking down at her hands, and only when he paused did she meet his eyes.
“Is that all?” she asked insolently.
“Not quite all. You have been engaged in baby farming for the past twenty years. In 1916, in the month of July, you received from one called Arthur Druze a baby boy of a few days old. Where is that child?”
“You’d better find out,” she said.
The detective’s eyes narrowed.
“It is for you to find out,” he said, in that hard, metallic voice which he adopted on occasions. “You have to prove to me that that child is alive or there’s another charge against you.”
“Eh?” She was startled. The big mouth trembled. “You can’t charge me——”
“I’ll charge you with murder, and I’ll dig up the garden of every house you’ve occupied in the past six years to find evidence.”
Mrs. Inglethorne’s many-chinned jaw dropped; her eyes stared wildly, and in their depths Coldwell read the very terror of death.
“I’ve done nothing—like that!” She almost screamed.
“You were Martha’s servant, weren’t you?”
She nodded dumbly, and then, throwing herself on the couch, she writhed like a woman demented. And in her dementia she broke the habit of a lifetime and told the truth.
A policeman was standing outside the door of Leslie’s flat when Coldwell came back, and a dozen men stood about on the sidewalk. He beckoned Peter to him.
“You had better come along,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“To Wimbledon. Do you feel fit enough? There may not be a scrap, but I rather imagine that her supreme and exalted highness will die fighting.”
“Is Leslie there?”
Coldwell nodded.
A hundred yards short of May Towers the policemen stopped and the little army of men got down. On the journey Coldwell had made his arrangements. Four of the detectives were to make their way to the back of the house; the remainder were to force the entrance. It was Coldwell who rang the bell. In his right hand he gripped an ax, ready to strike at the chain the moment the door was opened.
Standing behind him, Peter saw him stoop his head.
“Can you hear anything?” he whispered.
“No, sir.”
“Thought I heard a scream.”
He waited a few seconds longer, and then:
“Give me the crowbar.”
Somebody passed him up the long steel bar, and with a swing he drove the clawed ends between door and lintel. Again he struck, and this time he succeeded. Pulling back with all his strength, the door cracked open. Two blows from the ax broke the chain, and they streamed into the dark hall and up the stairs.
The squat Javanese stooped and lifted the girl without an effort, and as he did so the little men who stood around clapped their hands rhythmically. Leslie heard and set her teeth, as she felt herself raised in the strong hands of this hideous little man.
She had a glimpse of Anita Bellini. The hate in her eyes made her shudder in spite of herself.
“Good-bye, little Maughan!” she mocked. “You are going to your death.”
And then she stopped, her eyes glaring toward the door.
“Stand fast, everybody! Tell these fellows not to move, Bellini!”
It was Coldwell’s voice. Leslie felt herself slipping from the encircling arms. Then, suddenly, somebody caught her, and she looked round into the haggard face of Peter Dawlish.
“No gun play,” said Coldwell gently, “and there will be no trouble. I want you, Bellini! I suppose you are prepared for that?”
“I am called Princess Bellini,” she said.
“Whether you’re Princess Bellini or Annie Druze or Alice Druze is a matter of supreme indifference to me,” said Coldwell, as he caught her wrist. “But you have the distinction of being the first woman I’ve ever handcuffed.” He snapped the cold circle about her wrist. “But then, you see, most of the ladies I’ve pinched have been gentle little souls compared to you.”
She made no reply. That old look had come into her face again which Leslie had seen before.
Then Anita Bellini did an unexpectedly generous thing. She nodded to the wondering group of natives, shepherded behind three armed detectives.
“These men have done no harm,” she said. “They have merely carried out my instructions in ignorance of the law.”
She said something in Javanese to the man who had held Leslie, and he grinned and answered in the same language.
“My head boy here”—she nodded to him—“will accept responsibility for the other natives.”
And then, with a sidewise jerk of her head and a hard smile, she said:
“Well, here is the very end of the Druzes.”
“Not quite.” Leslie’s quiet voice interrupted her. “Martha has still to be disposed of.”
There was anger, but there was fear also in Anita Bellini’s grimace.
“Martha? What do you mean—Martha?” she asked sharply. “I have not seen her for years.”
Leslie smiled.
“I saw her two days ago, so I have the advantage of you,” she said.
They waited only long enough for Leslie to gather a change of dress and a coat for the prisoner, and thereafter Anita Bellini went out of her life forever, except for the day when Leslie stood in the witness box and testified against the monocled prisoner, who did not look at her but sat staring straight ahead at the scarlet-robed judge.
Before she collected the clothes, she went in search of Elizabeth, and found her weeping in her bed in the little dressing room, and persuaded her to dress. By the time the princess was out of the house and on her way to Wimbledon police station, the child was arrayed in her rags. Leslie stood in the doorway looking at her, and she was very near to tears.
“Elizabeth, do you remember how you used to pretend you had all sorts of nice fathers?”
The child nodded and smiled.
“Well, I’m going to introduce you to a real one.”
“A real father?” asked the girl breathlessly. “My father?”
“And you’ll never guess who he is.”
Suddenly the child was clinging to her, her arms locked about her neck. Thus Peter found them, weeping together.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AND A MOTHER
It was not often that Mrs. Donald Dawlish made a call at any hour of the day. The appearance in Berkeley Square of her big car at eleven o’clock at night was something of an event.
“Mrs. Dawlish?” said Jane in wonder, when the footman came to her with the news. She had not seen the woman for two years. Indeed, Mrs. Dawlish’s attitude of late had been frankly antagonistic. “Ask her to come up, please.”
The woman strode into the room, patting her mop of untidy white hair into place. She wore the black which suited her better than any more vivid shade, and on her bosom blazed a diamond star which was just a little too large to be altogether ornamental.
“I suppose you’re surprised at my coming at this hour?” She dropped her shawl on the settee, and, walking to the fire, held out her hands to the blaze.
“I am a little,” said Jane, wondering what was coming next. Nothing short of a catastrophe could have brought Peter’s mother in such circumstances.
“I’ve been a good friend of yours, Jane, in the past,” she began, and her look asked for confirmation; but Jane was silent. “There’s trouble, bad trouble, over that will of the old man’s,” she went on. “I’ve had a letter from his lawyer to-night, asking me to give them all sorts of information that I am not prepared to give. The will was proved six weeks ago. They can do nothing now, but they nag and nag and I’m getting tired of it all. They may be acting for Peter, but I doubt it. But Peter can stop this persecution.”
It was the first news that Jane Raytham had had of any trouble in connection with the will, but the request was one which she could not pass unchallenged.
“I know nothing about the matter,” she said. “Peter of course must do as he wishes. I have no influence there.”
“You have a big influence,” said Mrs. Dawlish emphatically. “Peter has found out about the child: I suppose you know that?”
Jane nodded.
“The man is crazy to find it, and he——”
She met the gray eyes and stopped.
“I am crazy to find it, too,” said Jane Raytham in a low voice.
“Are you?” Mrs. Dawlish was honestly surprised. “I didn’t think you were that kind—to worry about—things. Well, that’s all the better from my point of view. I can give you the child. You can tell Peter that I’ll give you the child and make him a handsome allowance if he will stop his lawyers from worrying me.”
“You can give me the child? You know where he is?” Jane’s voice shook.
“Well—yes, I do. It wasn’t a boy, Jane.”
Jane Raytham shrank back as if she had been struck.
“Not a boy? A girl? And you promised me——”
“There’s no sense in talking about promises, or what happened eight years ago,” said Margaret Dawlish coldly, “I’m talking about the present. Yes, it was a girl. Druze took her to an old servant of mine—Martha’s servant!”
Jane could only stare at her, speechless with amazement.
“You—you’re Martha?”
Mrs. Dawlish nodded.
“Martha Druze?”
“Martha Dawlish. I am entitled to that name; not even Peter can take it from me. I married old Dawlish a fortnight after his wife died in childbirth. Anita bullied him into it, if you want to know the truth. She would have married him herself, but Bellini was alive. I was her favourite sister and she always wanted me to make a good marriage. I don’t know what she had been to my husband and I don’t very much care, but she was an attractive woman in those days, before she let herself go; at any rate she had enough influence to make him marry me.”
Jane passed her hands before her eyes, as though she were trying to sweep away the mist which still obscured a clear view.
“You’re Martha?” she said again. “Of course, I knew you were a nurse. Then Peter——”
“No, Peter isn’t my son, if that is what you’re going to say. I insisted that he shouldn’t be told. I felt it would weaken my position and authority. Mr. Dawlish was rather an easy-going man and he agreed. If Peter had had the brains of a gnat he wouldn’t have needed telling. He had only to see the registration of his birth and compare it with my marriage certificate to know as much as you know now. Jane, will you help me with him? I don’t care how large the allowance I make him is——”
Jane shook her head helplessly.
“I don’t know what I can do. I can’t think very clearly, only—I want the child—my girl.”
The hard face of Mrs. Dawlish creased in a rare smile.
“Is there nobody else who wants her?” she asked significantly. “Has Peter no rights? You haven’t thought of that, I suppose?”
“I have thought of it,” said Jane in a low voice. “But I know Peter. And whether I or he have her, she will be free to us both. We’re going very swiftly down the slope, and the slope is getting steeper and Heaven knows where we shall land at the bottom. I’ve been just as wicked as a woman can be. I’m a bigamist—don’t interrupt me, please—I’m a bigamist and my husband must know. I don’t think it will worry him as much as it worries me, and in a way he’ll be rather glad to get rid of me. But I can face all that if I have my baby! I’ll do what I can,” she went on quickly, recovering the lost balance, “if it doesn’t hurt Peter. I’ve hurt him enough. He is too good a man to be wounded any further. I cannot see him to-night; I will write to him and ask if I may see him to-morrow, and then——”
The door was opening slowly and a man came in whose head was bandaged. At first she did not recognize him, and then:
“Why—why, Peter!” she faltered.
He was leading by the hand a little girl in a worn, stained ulster. The golden head was hatless. Jane Raytham looked down into that beautiful child face, saw the clear eyes looking at her wonderingly, solemnly, and put up her hand to her throat, hardly daring to speak. She opened her lips; no sound came. She made yet another effort.
“Who is this, Peter?”
It was not like her own voice.
“This is Elizabeth,” said Peter gently. “Elizabeth”—he stooped and looked into the child’s face—“Elizabeth, this is your mother!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
THESE WOMEN
“I’m sorry to have brought you down to this very unpretentious little flat of mine,” said Leslie, “but I have discovered in myself some of the qualities of a showman, and really and truly, most of the documents and proofs I have are here.”
And then she laughed, rocking from side to side in her chair.
“What is the joke?” asked Coldwell suspiciously.
“You look so like Christy minstrels, all sitting round in a circle with your hands on your knees, and it’s three o’clock in the morning, and—there are a dozen reasons why I should laugh. I’ll begin at the beginning; shall I?
“I suppose everybody knows how I worked up an interest in this case, through finding a book of poems in a little Cumberland farmhouse, and how I put two and several together, made them four, guessed them six, and finally proved their real quantity beyond doubt.
“There was a family living in Devonshire named Druze.”
Briefly she retailed all that the clergyman had told her, and all she had learned from subsequent inquiries.
“Annie Druze was in reality Anita. Alice was Arthur Druze, and Martha, the younger of the two, eventually became Mrs. Dawlish. The three girls were very staunch friends. They had made some sort of compact in their childhood to stand together through thick and thin and that is the only creditable aspect of their subsequent careers. Annie went abroad as a lady’s maid, and scraped an acquaintance in some way with an impecunious scion of an Italian family and married him. Martha had a training in a hospital, became a maternity nurse, and was subsequently called in to nurse Peter’s mother with her first child.
“Alice, the middle sister, joined her sister in Java, where the prince had taken some minor position. I have had a long talk with Martha, and she tells me that Alice Druze became Arthur Druze as the result of a masquerade. She went one night to a fancy-dress ball dressed as a man, and nobody guessed her identity. The possibility may have occurred to Anita, as she had become, that in this guise her sister would be of use to her, for there is little question that even so long ago Anita was engaged in blackmail.
“There is proof that she blackmailed a government official of Java, and there is the record of a complaint made to the English police in ’89 when she returned to this country, from the wife of one of her victims. And she did not stop at blackmail. Martha—who, to save her own skin, has betrayed everybody—says that she had forged three bills of exchange to her knowledge. It is established that it was Anita who forged Lord Everreed’s signature, and, taking advantage of Peter being out of the way, got Druze to cash the check, the proceeds of which were divided between the two sisters. Whether she did this out of sheer wickedness and with Martha’s knowledge in order to ruin Peter, or whether she was in low water, I cannot discover. Martha suggests the latter reason and swears that she knew nothing about the forgery until later. I have my own opinion.
“Anita was distantly acquainted with Jane before Peter knew her, but she did not become interested in her until after her marriage and return to England. The arrest of Peter coincided with Anita’s learning that Lord Raytham, a very rich man, was anxious to marry Jane, who in some mysterious fashion had disappeared. Anita guessed the cause and went in search of and found her. She learned of Jane’s condition and kept by her, her object being to persuade her to marry Raytham, so that she might profitably exploit the new Lady Raytham. She tried to persuade Jane that her marriage wasn’t legal, hoping that the girl in her desperation would commit bigamy and be under her thumb for the rest of her life. But Jane made one desperate attempt to free herself from the marriage. She went to Reno, applied for a divorce, and that divorce was granted.”
“Granted?” Jane’s voice was shrill, almost a scream. “It was not granted, Leslie; it was refused!”
“It was granted. Your decree was made absolute. I have a cablegram from the clerk of the court to that effect; it arrived last night. Naturally, Anita did her best to prevent the divorce, because, if it were given, she had practically no hold except the child, which was subsequently taken away by her sister and handed to Mrs. Inglethorne, who for four years was in Martha’s employment. When she found she couldn’t stop the divorce, she induced Jane to go out of court while the judge was giving his decision. Her car was waiting at the door of the court, and Jane was sitting in it, waiting for the verdict. It was not until Anita came out of court and joined her in the car that Jane learned that the divorce had been refused. She married Raytham, believing that she was a bigamist, and yet finding poor sort of comfort in the belief that there had been some sort of irregularity in her marriage which made it invalid.
“For seven years Jane Raytham has been paying toll to the blackmailer, supposedly the man who had charge of the child, in reality to Anita Bellini and her sister.
“Immediately after her return from America, Jane went to Appledore, her time being very near at hand. It was then that Martha was called in, and the poor girl learned that her white-aproned nurse was the terrible Mrs. Dawlish whom Peter hated and feared. This was the beginning of Jane’s time of torment which endured until a week ago. Then Druze, as I will call her, got scared. I think I was the person responsible. My inquiries about the twenty thousand pounds that had been drawn from Jane’s bank, information which came to Scotland Yard in quite a normal way, frightened her and she decided to go abroad, getting as much money as she possibly could before she left.
“Jane gave her her emerald chain, and with this Druze went off to interview her sister. There was some little quarrel as to the division of the spoils. Anita, who was the stronger of the two, snatched the chain from her sister’s hands, never expecting that the woman, infuriated with drink and anger, carried a pistol. In the struggle which followed, Druze was shot, but in some miraculous fashion still retained her hold of the square emerald. I can only imagine that Anita was so beside herself with grief that she did not make a search. In a panic she had the body put in the car and taken to the lonely spot and left there. But new clues were coming to light every day. Mrs. Inglethorne reported the presence of Peter Dawlish in her house and his interest in the child. Imagining that he suspected who Elizabeth was, and that his coming to Severall Street was designed, she had the little girl taken to Wimbledon, and concentrated all her mind upon getting rid of my unworthy self. For in me she thought she saw her chief enemy, and I think she was right.
“And that,” said Leslie simply, “is that!”
Mr. Coldwell got up stiffly and stretched himself.
“I’m going home to bed. It’s very unlikely that you will be troubled by the little yellow boys, and I think I can leave you and your Lucretia here without any misgivings. I don’t know how this is going to look in court, or who will be brought into the case and who will not, but those things are the little unpleasantnesses which you will have to live through and live down.”
Jane knew he was addressing her and smiled.
“I can live everything down,” she said, “and live through everything, if somebody will let that little yellow head sleep on my pillow now and again.”
She walked across to Peter and held out her hand.
“I don’t know whether I’m glad about the divorce,” she said. “I think I am. And I hope you are, Peter.”
She cast a swift sidelong glance toward Leslie, who was arranging her papers at the desk, and dropped her voice still lower.
“Do you think somebody else is glad?” she asked.
“I hope so,” said Peter, and for the first and last time Jane Raytham felt a little twinge that had a remote resemblance to jealousy.
It was gone in a second.
“Come and see me to-morrow; I want to arrange things for—our family.”
And when his lips twitched, she said:
“That smile was almost paternal.”
They were all gone at last except Peter and Leslie, and Lucretia, washing up noisily in the scullery, her door half open to insure the proprieties.
“Well?” asked Leslie.
“Very well—bewilderingly well.”
“I told you about Mrs. Dawlish and what she intends to do?”
He nodded.
“You can, of course, charge her with being privy to the forgery, but I think it was Anita’s work. It will be so much better if you allow her to pass the property to you by deed of gift. That makes you a very rich man, Peter. What are you going to do with it? Buy a house in Park Lane?”
“Would you like a house in Park Lane?” he asked.
“I’d like almost any kind of house, Peter,” she said quietly.
Lucretia, looking through the half-opened door, saw the brown head of her mistress pillowed on Peter’s shabby jacket, saw him bend his head and kiss her.
Lucretia sneered.
“My stars!” she said, addressing nobody in particular. “These women!”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. drawing-room/drawing room, motor-car/motor car, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Punctuation: fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings, and some missing/invisible periods.
[Chapter XXI]
Change “The back was undoubted y a door” to undoubtedly.
[Chapter XXIV]
“When she found she couldn t stop… court wh le the judge” to couldn’t and while, respectively.
[End of text]