THE
THREE GLASS EYES

A Story of To-day

BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF “THE GAMBLERS,” “THE UNDER-SECRETARY,”
“HER MAJESTY’S MINISTER,” ETC.

London
ANTHONY TREHERNE & CO., Ltd.
3 Agar Street, Strand, W.C.

FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

Many readers of newspapers who have been accustomed to follow the reports of those magnificent proceedings of Ventris Blake, the noted American financier, in London, may be surprised to find so vivid a searchlight as the following thrown on the private life of a millionaire who, in his time, has made several British industries tremble.

Most public men, however, have two, if not more, selves—the self they shew to the world at large, which is generally fair and clean to look upon, and the self which in secret they hide from their best friends, and, if possible, keep out of their tell-tale features.

It is, therefore, good sometimes for the public to get away from the phantasmagoria of a princely residence in Park Lane and the brilliant evolution of the descriptive reporter, and, in the privacy of their own rooms, to take as it were, one of these creatures of Fortune to pieces—to see the stuff he is made of, to follow the effect of wealth upon his humanity, and to learn whether the beautiful principles he espouses with so much unwelcome vocal violence in the open are really in use in his every-day existence, or, are like the carpet he rolls across the pavement when giving some stately dinner party—often on show, but seldom trodden on!

This, of course, in another sense, is only a simple love story—the story of Winifred Pontifex and of her mysterious vicissitudes, temptations and dangers, but in as much as it unmasks men of the stamp of Ventris Blake it must always stand for something more than fiction, and may well serve to explore but little-known regions of crooked London life. Some cynics assert that every man has a skeleton in his cupboard. Certainly Ventris Blake had—and hence this narrative of “The Three Glass Eyes.”

WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. WHICH RECORDS AN ODD TRANSACTION

CHAPTER II. CONCERNS A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE

CHAPTER III. REVEALS A SECRET

CHAPTER IV. EXPLAINS WHAT VERA LEARNED

CHAPTER V. RECORDS THE APPEARANCE OF THREE GLASS EYES

CHAPTER VI. CONCERNS THE HOLE IN THE WALL

CHAPTER VII. RECOUNTS A STRANGE SCENE IN CHURCH

CHAPTER VIII. WHICH TELLS OF AN EVENTFUL NIGHT

CHAPTER IX. WHY THEY WORE A DISGUISE

CHAPTER X. WHEREIN VENTRIS BLAKE FAILS

CHAPTER XI. AGAIN—IN PARK LANE

CHAPTER XII. WHAT THE SERGEANT KNEW

CHAPTER XIII. CERTAIN LOVE LETTERS

CHAPTER XIV. TURNS ON THE LETTER “K”

CHAPTER XV. RECOUNTS PAUL’S DEFEAT

CHAPTER XVI. “OH! GREAT IS THE POWER OF WEALTH!”

CHAPTER XVII. THE STRANGE HOUSE AT SCALBY

CHAPTER XVIII. ALL ABOUT THOSE GLASS EYES

CHAPTER XIX. THE PARTING OF THE CLOUDS

CONCLUSION

THE THREE GLASS EYES

CHAPTER I.
WHICH RECORDS AN ODD TRANSACTION

“That strange-looking gentleman has called again, sir. He will not be put off with any excuse. What had I better say to him?”

Arthur Hudson, who had been busily writing at his desk in his solidly-furnished office in Cheapside, looked up, a slight expression of annoyance on his handsome clear-cut features. The clerk who had thus addressed him, a slight, middle-aged man of fifty, with a bald head, and grey moustache, and a nervous, furtive manner, coughed, and began to move his feet uneasily, for he knew he had exceeded his instructions.

“This isn’t business, Perkins,” his employer answered impatiently, laying down his pen and rising from his chair. “Don’t you see it only wants a few minutes to post-time, and I’ve not finished my letter?”

“Yes, sir,” said Perkins submissively, “but he would not take any refusal. He is so persistent; he kind of compelled me to come to you, and to ask you whether you would not see him.”

Hudson looked at the weak vapid chin and watery blue eyes of his inquiry clerk, and unconsciously sighed. He could well understand any man of strong resolute pulse making Perkins, even against his feeble flabby nature, do something which he had been distinctly ordered by his superior to refuse.

None the less, he, too, had a curious instinctive aversion from meeting and talking to this mysterious millionaire who for the past three weeks had been the torment of all the principal house and office agents in the City and the West End of London. He could not, however, just then analyse the reason of his reluctance; hence his own illogical position made him the more readily annoyed.

“But didn’t you tell him,” he proceeded as he picked up the poker and, in the last sad refuge of the average man, began to poke vigorously at the fire, “that we have searched our books, and have sent round one of our inspectors, and that we have nothing whatever to suit him?”

“Certainly. I even assured him that we had lost, at least, five pounds in trouble over our enquiries, but the only thing he did was to hand me a £5 note and say he knew how to repay trouble. Then it was he declared he must see you.”

“Well, all right,” said Hudson desperately, realising that it might save more time to see this man than to nerve Perkins to dismiss him. “If he must see me, he must, I suppose. Shew him in!” And he threw down the poker and drew forward a chair for this unwelcome client who, truth to tell, he had hitherto always done his best to avoid.

A moment later a brisk step was heard in the passage, and there entered a man about thirty-eight years of age, clad in the ordinary frock coat and light trousers of City life, and carrying a black silk hat and umbrella. At first sight one would have regarded him as a sharp, shrewd, successful, but not unkind broker. Then, as his features came to be examined in detail it would have been seen that there was some good reason why he wore those long black but obviously dyed whiskers of his—they concealed a cruel-looking jaw and mouth. His habit of frowning, too, was not unstudied. It served to take away that certain resolute look in his eyes that somehow made men and women against whom it was directed feel that they would rather brave any unseen terror than fail him in what he had commanded them to do. In the way also he took the chair which Hudson had placed for him he shewed that, in spite of all his apparent courtesy, there was deadly deliberation behind him—a deliberation that any day would have worn down better opposition than Perkins, and now made even Hudson shrink, for it seemed to suggest to him that this was a man who would not stick at any crime to extricate himself from a difficult or a dangerous position.

“Let me see,” began the house agent slowly, pretending to search his papers for a certain description of premises which he had long since learned by heart, “you are Mr. Ventris Blake, the American financier, of Park Lane, I believe.”

The stranger nodded, and waited. At times his supreme gift was silence.

“You are anxious, I understand to get a small room, twenty feet wide by twenty-five, with a sloping roof, a single casement window, with a north aspect, and certain traverse beams which you have set out in your specifications. Well, we have gone over all the property in our care, and although of course you offer an absolutely ridiculously high rent, we are sorry to say we can find nothing suitable for you. We have many vacant offices, it is true, but none that fulfils exactly your demands.”

“That is a pity,” the newcomer observed vaguely. “Luckily, the search has not been so fruitless as you think!”

For an instant there was an awkward pause—and then, as the stranger intended, Hudson himself was compelled to go on. “Ah then,” said he with an uneasy little laugh. “I must congratulate you. Of course, I heard you had been to all the principal house agents in London; for, with the help of the telephone, there is considerable freemasonry amongst us. Your requirements are so odd—so fantastic it is thought. Still, what is the good of being a millionaire if you can’t get even a room to suit you?” And he smiled again and rose, but Ventris Blake did not stir.

“Quite so,” observed the financier, now looking steadily at Hudson. “Happily I have found exactly the kind of place that I want—in Queen Victoria Street, No. 375, right at the top of the premises. I have spoken to the care-taker who now occupies the room, and he has agreed to give up its possession to me, if you will permit him, at the rent I have offered everywhere else—£250 a year.”

Again there was a pause.

Curiously enough, although the amount was preposterous, Arthur Hudson’s first impulse was to refuse the offer, although he could not exactly define the reason. Somehow the idea had slowly formed itself in his mind that trouble would come to him from this transaction. Yet all the while Ventris Blake’s eyes were fixed on his with that strong compelling look which so few could resist; and Hudson found himself, almost magnetised, muttering formal words of promise to send on the agreement, of hope that the place would answer all his client’s purposes, although he had really intended only to temporize, to gain time.

Ventris Blake now rose in his slow powerful way, and buttoned his gloves. “Thanks,” he replied. “I am certain that the room will suit me, Mr. Palamountain, and I have made a note that the matter is settled. Good-day;” and he held out his hand.

“Good-day,” repeated Hudson, somehow pleased that the interview was at length over. “Only I am not Mr. Palamountain, who died last year as a matter of fact. My name is Hudson—Arthur Hudson—”

The millionaire gave a slight start. “Hudson?” he returned reflectively as though he were seeking some forgotten mental note. “Arthur Hudson! Surely not the Arthur Hudson who goes to the flat of my old friend Russell Langford at Emperor’s Gate, and is betrothed to Miss Winifred Pontifex?”

“The same,” answered Arthur, with a boyish blush now looking down, with the result that he did not see the sudden but cruel set of the millionaire’s mouth.

“Ah! then we are destined to see a lot of each other, and I am glad to make your acquaintance!” And Ventris Blake gripped his fingers in a grasp like iron, but there was no friendliness in his touch, no cordiality in his tone, no sympathy in his glance, and the young lover saw him stride out of the office with a feeling of relief, which, try as he would, he could not account for.

“Bah! he assumes a good deal if he thinks I am going out of my way to meet him,” muttered Hudson, with an impatient shrug of the shoulders, as he now resumed his place at his desk, and once again took up his letters. “I don’t like the fellow, and I am sure Winifred won’t like him, for there is something almost satanic about those cold eyes of his—they seem to go to the bottom of all your nature, to read all your thoughts, all hopes, all secrets, all emotions, and yet to betray no kind of soul in return.

“Odd though,” he mused, “I never heard Russell Langford mention him! I thought I knew all the friends of the family at 99a Emperor’s Gate, yet, here is one who speaks as though he has the entrée of the place every day of his life. Oh! confound it, I am making another mystery about this wretched business already. It will turn me quite stupid if I go on and—and I must work.”

And setting his lips firmly, he bent over his desk and for the next quarter of an hour contrived to be so busy with his correspondence that he did not bestow another thought on this strange and irritating client.

As a matter of fact, Palamountain, Limited, was the finest estate agency in the city of London, and as the man on whom the entire burden of the business had fallen through the unexpected death of his uncle, Allen Palamountain, Hudson’s work was difficult and arduous. Eventually, however, the last letter for the night mail was finished, and then, following his usual custom, he hastened to a private dressing-room upstairs where he put on evening clothes and took the next hansom to Emperor’s Gate, to dine with Russell Langford and his daughter Vera and niece, Winifred, who lived in the same flat with them, and to whom, as Blake had remarked, he was engaged.

Half way through Fleet Street, however, Arthur suddenly recollected that he had promised to bring a friend of his to dine with them, and he turned the cab in a new direction. As a matter of fact, the man in question, Paul Renishaw, was his most intimate companion. They had gone from the same public school—Oundle—to Oxford; and they had both started life together in London, almost the same week—the one in the old and respected business of Palamountain, Limited, the other in the stormy waters of cheap chambers in the Temple and a precarious livelihood extracted from unattached journalism.

After a longer period of storm and stress than falls to the lot of most poor but ambitious ’Varsity men, Hudson had secured a firm footing in his career by a partnership in his uncle’s firm, while Renishaw had finally climbed into one of the sub-editorial chairs in a new London evening paper known as The Moon, famous for the excellent salaries it paid to its staff. None the less, different though their careers were, they still retained their old and deep comradeship which even Hudson’s engagement to Winifred Pontifex had been powerless to determine; and the result was that Renishaw now was almost as popular a guest with Russell Langford and his daughter as their future relative, hence the invitation.

Hudson, too, was well known to the sturdy old soldier who guarded the editorial precincts of The Moon, and no sooner had he sprung out of the hansom, than, with a bright nod, he slipped up past the inquiry box at the foot of the stairs, and bounded to the top, heedless of the printers in aprons and shirt sleeves and troops of messenger and telegraph boys who were clattering noisily up and down.

Outside a door marked “Sub-Editors,” however, he paused and knocked. A cheery call to “come in” followed, and, pushing open this entrance, he found himself in a large, bare, white-washed apartment. In the middle stood a table laden with letters, manuscripts, newspapers, and telegrams, which two men were sitting busily revising under green shaded lights from a gas pendant in the centre. One of them was Paul Renishaw—and he looked up and smiled.

“Just let me put the finishing touch to this murder yarn,” he said. “It’s got to appear in full in our last edition, and has only just come through by wire from Scarborough. Everywhere they could possibly spell the name of the victim differently they have done, as is their custom. Thus I’ve got Black—Block—Bleak—Blink—everything they could think of except the proper name with which they started.”

“And what’s that?” queried Hudson with a pleasant nod to Paul’s table companion, who was also trying to make sense out of some “liner’s” verbose nonsense, and, irritated by the task, cordially wished Hudson at Jericho, or further.

“Oh! Blake, of course,” retorted Renishaw, without looking up.

“Blake,” repeated Hudson, vaguely thinking of his recent visitor. “No relative—I mean—nobody of consequence.”

“Oh, isn’t it though,” said Renishaw, dashing off to a corner where stood a little box attached to a wire, into which receptacle he thrust his telegrams. Then he touched an electric-bell, and in an instant the box shot upward to the compositors. “Why, it’s no less a personage than the wife of Ventris Blake, the great American financier—”

“Never!” cried Hudson, falling back in amazement.

“Indeed it is, I can tell you. The Moon, never had such a ‘scoop’ as this. I’ll tell you how it occurred. One of our reporters happened to be on sick leave near the spot where the poor soul was found, three miles out of Scarborough; and, like a sensible man, he got up the facts, and rode off promptly to the post-office, and wired the exclusive information through to us. Then he went to the nearest local daily paper office, and, on consideration that they didn’t let the news go out of the office for two hours at least, he gave them the same yarn as he sent to us. As a consequence, we have now the start of all the other London evening journals and of the rival press agencies, and must sell this edition like wildfire, for next to the King and Pierpoint Morgan I doubt if any man is more in the public eye just now than Ventris Blake!”

“And yet,” said Hudson slowly, mechanically, almost unconsciously repeating his own secret thoughts; “only half-an-hour ago that man came to me—came to my office—and did business with me in the most ordinary fashion.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Renishaw and the other sub-editor in unison.

“Why this is most important,” proceeded the former. “You must let me interview you. Do you mean to say that the police haven’t communicated with the husband yet? By George, another police scandal too.” And with the zeal and promptitude of the born journalist, he drew a chair towards the table and, seating himself therein, began to write rapidly:—

A TRAGEDY INDEED!
WEALTH POWERLESS AGAINST DEATH!
THE POOR HUSBAND KNOWS NOTHING AT PRESENT
BUT WANDERS ABOUT THE CITY INTENT ONLY ON
BUSINESS—AND GOLD.

By this time, however, Hudson had recovered his composure, and, advancing towards Renishaw, he said quickly: “No, no, you must not write that. In the first place, I may get dragged into it and accused of wanting to advertise myself and my business by methods which neither I nor indeed any public-spirited citizen could approve of. In the second—” he paused and reflected, and the importance of the mysterious information he possessed rose up like a phantom in front of him. Then he added lamely, “in the second you must not.”

“Well! What is the second?” demanded Paul, keenly. “I see your point and will just say Mr. Ventris Blake was in the City this afternoon, and we have private information to the effect that at 4.45 this evening he knew nothing about the shocking occurrence.”

“In the second,” said Hudson slowly after a moment’s consideration, “if you like to do a bit of private detective business with me I think I can put you on the track of something really astounding that will make The Moon boom again like mad.”

“About Ventris Blake,” cried both sub-editors, most excited.

“About Blake of course,” affirmed Hudson, although why he said this so positively he could not for the life of him imagine.

“Good,” answered Renishaw, adding the few lines he had mentioned and again hurrying his message up the lift. “You see,” he went on excitedly, “this tragedy will be the talk of London for the next week at least. I’m good for any crime business you like. You and I, old chap, have worked up murder specials before, haven’t we?” And in a few rapid but graphic sentences he recalled how they had spent whole nights and troublous days ferreting out theories and facts about some of London’s most sensational crimes in those hard times when the extra guineas meant something more than comfort—they meant rent and food.

Luckily, by the time Renishaw had finished, a boy had arrived with his suit-case, and he had to leave to change while the other sub-editor went down to the machine-room and brought back one of the first papers printed so that Hudson could read for himself how Aimée Blake had been done to death on a lonely road between Filey and Scarborough.

The murderer, it seemed, from the report to hand, must have sprung at her as she passed and felled her with a great hedge stake that had been purchased close to the scene of the crime. How she got to the spot it was impossible to explain. All the porter of the chief hotel in Scarborough, where she had had a magnificent suite of rooms, could inform the reporter was that she received a telegram late the previous night, told him she must go out even at that hour to see a relative, and never came back, although her maid sat up all the night.

As usual, too, the police had “a clue” but as it led them in the direction of the railway, and a junction with easy access to Leeds and York and Hull and King’s Cross, The Moon man evidently didn’t believe much in it, for he hinted at blackmail, secret tragedies in the lives of all considered fortune’s favourites, and other endless possibilities of intrigue and romance calculated to set the public imagination feverishly ablaze.

Unfortunately, Arthur had barely time to digest the facts in the story of the crime, which was written with a good deal of literary power and effect, before Renishaw returned ready to accompany him. Anxious not to be late, both men hurried to the hansom that was waiting for them, and were soon quickly bowling westward, in happy ignorance of the terrible surprise in store for them.

Indeed their one topic of conversation was Ventris Blake’s strange renting of the peculiarly-shaped room, but as their plan of attack on this mystery will be fully explained in subsequent chapters, we had perhaps better go on in advance of them to the flat at Emperor’s Gate where they were momentarily expected.

CHAPTER II.
CONCERNS A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE

By many readers of the present narrative, of course, the name of Russell Langford must still be regarded with a large amount of respect and gratitude. For some years, it is true, he was, like thousands of other men in the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane, nothing better than a briefless and a hungry barrister, but, unlike most of his rivals, he got his chance suddenly one day in a theatrical breach of promise case in which a certain noble lord had been more literary than discreet, and from that time work was showered upon him from all directions—and he now boasted of one of the biggest common-law practices in London.

Unkind critics, of course, said that this success was in no sense due to his merits. One set of them, the really weak and helpless and hopeless, contended that he had been the victim of luck, and owed everything he had to nothing lower than the stars which seemed to fight in their courses for him. The other set, the die-hards of legal life they might be called, contended that just before the Gaiety action came to a hearing he had inherited a fortune which had been spent largely amongst solicitors in need of pecuniary assistance in the most crafty yet effective fashion with the result that these debtors had been compelled to send all their business to him, and with the success seen.

At all events, it is tolerably clear that Russell Langford was in no sense a real popular favourite. His face was against him in that respect, for he had small beady black eyes that might, and did, often look cunning enough but never shone with any frankness or enthusiasm. His dark hair had turned to grey early in his career, but his bearing and words never suggested the man of character, only a certain set legal kind of cleverness that might have been picked up in the Hall of the Middle Temple as he dined with other and more resourceful companions.

In time his wife, who had been the daughter of the rector of a small village in Berkshire, died, and left him with a girl Vera, who now presided over the magnificent flat he had taken in Emperor’s Gate. At first sight Vera Langford suggested the wild vengeful kind of Jewish beauty, for her movements were quick and tempestuous, and her brown eyes and raven tresses shone with a fire that only gathered a glow from contrast with the slow carefully-calculated looks of her father.

In age she was just twenty-three, whereas her cousin, Winifred Pontifex, who had come to reside with her father when Colonel Pontifex of the Guards died and left his girl whom he had always loved most devotedly, most unexpectedly unprovided for, was only just twenty-one. Winifred, however, was a tall, stately-looking girl with golden hair and eyes of the most wonderful blue, sometimes soft and elusive like the most delicate forget-me-nots, at other times large and lustrous like the blue sky above them, and often as unfathomable.

Arthur Hudson who was dark, of middle height, with a long moustache, and, in many ways, a strong contrast to her in looks, had met her first of all at the Hunt Ball in Stamford, and had promptly fallen in love with her. Happily, in this instance, the course of true affection ran quite smoothly; on both sides the match was considered very suitable; and a formal engagement had been entered on, with the result that the date fixed for the marriage was now only three months distant—in the week after Easter.

Altogether it was a charming picture which Winifred presented that night as Arthur and Paul crossed the drawing-room to greet her, clad as she was in a soft girlish gown of dove-grey with black ribbon, and bending playfully over a King Charles spaniel, the pet of the household. Her voice, too, was low and soft, and yet so clear that it seemed instinct with sincerity, purity and truth.

Accustomed as he was to these meetings, even Paul turned away his head as he saw the fervent hand clasp of the two lovers, and the great affection that shone so proudly from the eyes of both. Something in his own heart seemed to stand still just then; almost a feeling of awe came upon him; and then a knowledge of his own desolation so keen, so poignant that, as Winifred turned to him, his boyish features became suddenly quite haggard and drawn.

Another moment, and he was again the smooth-spoken, careless, cynical man of the world, rallying Russell Langford about a case in which he had that day vainly tried to get £1,000 damages against a newspaper for a man who admitted he had done “a bit of dog stealing,” but didn’t see “any call” for anybody to mention it in public!

Vera came in soon afterwards, and a move was made to the dining-room, but not until the three men sat together over their wine did Arthur mention his strange visitor, and then he did it like this:

“By the way, Langford,” he said raising his glass and slowly sipping his port, “I had a curious client to-day, a man who has searched all London over for a particularly shaped room, and has got one at last in Queen Victoria Street of all places in the world, practically a garret for which he will pay nearly £5 a week rent. Says he knows you too, and is coming to see you!”

“Indeed,” observed Langford also lifting his glass; “is it on business, for which a meeting with a madman like that will be rather novel, or on friendship?”

“Oh, on friendship. True to tell, he rather boasted of his intimacy with you.”

“Well, he needn’t. I have no intimates, not one,” retorted the barrister rather pompously. “A man in my position, the repository of a thousand secrets affecting the good names of a thousand persons, cannot afford the luxury of an intimate.”

“Well, at all events, Ventris Blake thinks he’s on those terms with you. Indeed, he is coming to see you!”

To Arthur and Paul’s intense astonishment, the wine-glass fell from the lawyer’s hand with a crash, and he rose from the table, his face deathly white.

“That company promoter Ventris Blake coming to see me as a friend,” he muttered. “Oh! nonsense! nonsense!”

Then catching the look of surprise on his guests’ faces, he tried to recover himself. “I mean,” he added lamely, “I don’t want him to come. It—it must be a mistake. We knew each other once—yes, but we agreed that we would never meet again. We have killed the past. Friendship now is impossible!” And, as though to assure himself of the truth of his own words, he lifted the brandy-decanter, poured out a stiff dose and, without waiting to add any water, gulped the fiery draught down.

“Well, perhaps, he spoke in jest,” said Arthur flushing, for all this mystery had begun to weigh rather heavily upon him. “He may have done it to get my good opinion. I knew he was very anxious that I should do as he wanted.”

“Then don’t,” said Langford sharply. “I can tell you this from five years’ hard and bitter and cruel experience of this man, that nobody ever did him a favour who did not regret it most bitterly. Everything he touches is fortunate for himself; for all others it spells ruin, stark, staring ruin.”

“It certainly did for his wife,” cut in Paul quietly, “for we had a telegram at The Moon offices this afternoon to say that she had been murdered on an open road midway between Filey and Scarborough.”

Russell Langford’s face now was a study in horror. He tried to speak—but the shock had been too much. He could not articulate. Luckily just then a tap on the door made itself heard, and a servant entered, and with a great effort he recovered the semblance of his composure.

“A gentleman, sir, to see you,” the maid announced, “most important. He apologises, but says the affair is so urgent he can’t wait,” and she handed her master a card on which Arthur and Paul saw at a glance was inscribed the hated name of Ventris Blake.

“Tell him I won’t see him,” gasped the lawyer, livid with rage and astonishment. “Tell him we have killed the past, friendship is impossible,” and he pushed out his hands helplessly—as though he would save himself from a meeting he much dreaded by the mere repetition of that mystic formula.

“Very good, sir,” said the maid, and she turned to leave, but just then the door was thrust open and Ventris Blake himself marched in.

“I heard what you said, Langford,” he said coldly, “but you know well enough it’s all no use. A trifle like that won’t stop me. I have need of you, and you have got to answer me fairly and help me frankly.

“No doubt,” he went on calmly, “these gentlemen here have told you that my wife has been found murdered. It is quite true. The police have been to me already, and have made of me all manner of impertinent enquiries, not as to a possible criminal but as to what I do, and have done, so much so, in fact, that I took one of them by the scruff of the neck, and shot him through the window into the area.

“Now you’ve got to stand up for me,” Blake concluded. “The fact is, I want you to go down with me to-night by the late train to York to attend the inquest at Scarborough to-morrow to represent me and other relatives of the deceased, and to show these official ruffians that I am a citizen of a great Republic and they must treat me with respect.”

“Oh that’s absurd. It’s a solicitor’s work. The entire legal profession would laugh at me,” spluttered Langford as he motioned the servant to leave. “It’s—it’s like taking a Nasmyth hammer to crack a walnut. I really can’t do it.”

“Well, you must,” persisted Blake, fixing two cold dark scrutinising eyes on his. “I have decided you must—and you must!”

“That’s hardly the way to talk to a gentleman of the legal eminence of Mr. Langford, is it?” chivalrously struck in Arthur Hudson, who saw that for some utterly inexplicable reason his betrothed’s uncle was now absolutely frightened and nerveless. “Believe me, barristers are not to be approached even by financial magnates like yourself in the rough and ready fashion of the miners’ camp.”

“Indeed!” said Ventris Blake, with an open sneer. “However the business is between Mr. Langford and myself, and it calls for no outside interference.”

“Yes, yes, it does,” eagerly interposed the lawyer. “Hudson explain to him that his demand is preposterous. Shew him out.” And he attempted to slip past the financier, but the man turned swiftly and barred his way to the door.

“No, no, Russell Langford,” he said in those full, deep, decisive tones of his. “You musn’t go until I have finished. No doubt this young man Hudson doesn’t want you to hear my story, but you shall: you must, for it affects him quite as much as it does myself!”

“What the deuce do you mean, Blake?” put in Paul, who had often interviewed the magnate for The Moon, and knew him exceedingly well. “Has your trouble turned your head? Have you gone mad? Why you know you have never seen Hudson in your life prior to this afternoon.”

“I admit I haven’t seen him before this day,” returned Ventris Blake meaningly, “but somebody else has—my wife!”

“Your wife,” stammered Arthur, crushing down the horror that had again risen unbidden in his heart. “Never! Never, I swear!”

“Then look at that, Russell Langford,” said the millionaire, quietly placing a hand in an inner pocket and producing a carefully-sealed document which Renishaw took and unfolded and then passed to the lawyer. “Read it, and let me explain to you how I found it. At the request of the police and with their assistance I have just searched my wife’s private desks and boxes, including her jewel case. In a secret drawer of the last I have discovered that,” and he pointed significantly to the paper.

“What is it?” muttered Hudson hoarsely. “Tell me quickly—how can it concern me, a stranger.”

“I am afraid it does though,” said Paul Renishaw gently, yet he too was sorely stricken, “for it is a copy of a certificate of a marriage between you, Arthur Hudson, house and estate agent of Cheapside and of 7a Kensington Gore, where you live, and Aimée Lucille Fausta Burgoyne of Meissonier Studios, Peterborough, artist, which was celebrated at the Registry Office in Peterborough five years ago!”

“But who was this Aimée Lucille Fausta Burgoyne?” gasped Langford, with a great effort recovering himself.

“That lady was the one who has just been killed,” replied Ventris Blake. “I thought she was my wife but clearly she was the wife of the man in front of me, your bosom friend, Arthur Hudson.”

“The whole business is an abominable lie,” Hudson cried, throwing back his shoulders and boldly facing his persecutor. “I swear by all that I hold most sacred that I have never spoken to, never even seen, this Aimée Blake or Burgoyne. Some cruel fiend must have personated me.”

“Prove it,” said Ventris Blake coldly, but his tones exhibited all the scorn and incredulity of a man who had no doubt of his guiltiness.

“Yes, prove it,” repeated Russell Langford, like all weak men turning on the friend who had made a fruitless effort to save him to divert all attack from himself. “Remember I owe a duty to society and to my own household, and until you have clearly established your innocence it will be impossible for you to have further communication with my niece Winifred Pontifex.”

Winifred Pontifex! The mere sound of that dearly-loved name brought back to Arthur’s mind all the charm and the magic of the sweet intercourse he had held with her since that fateful ball at Stamford, and with a great groan he could not stifle, he suddenly realised how terrible a barrier would be raised between them now Ventris Blake had produced this document and dragged him right into the centre of a most squalid murder mystery.

For a minute even doubts of Winifred—or her faith in him in this terrible hour of perplexity and shame and darkness, of her love, aye, even of her constancy under this cloud of misunderstanding and suspicion—caught his heart in a grip like iron, and made his lips white and his cheeks tremble.

“Oh Langford,” he wailed, in a voice broken in emotion, “you cannot mean that! Think for an instant. It suggests I am a villain!”

“And if he does,” quietly cut in Paul Renishaw who had not hitherto spoken, “I can inform him that, although you and I, dear old chap, will soon make him eat his words, he is still a mean cur!”

“Enough of this,” retorted Langford hotly. “I am not to be brow-beaten. I have said what I have said, and I am not the man to depart from it.”

“No, you’re not,” sneered Paul, moving towards the door, “unless Ventris Blake wants it. Still, I tell you flatly Arthur Hudson is not going under whatever the pair of you may contrive to fix upon him at the inquest on that poor creature at Scarborough. He has got a straight life and a clear conscience on his side, and it will be odd to me if those don’t win, even in a wretched commercial Yankee driven country like this!

“Come Arthur,” he went on more gently, stretching out a hand and drawing his old friend towards him. “I believe in you. I know that all this business is some put-up job on somebody’s part which only needs time and patience to unravel. At first, I admit, even my stout and clear faith in you was shaken—but a moment’s reflection told me that the charge was absurd.”

“Even though I know the two witnesses to the ceremony, and can put my hands on them any day I like,” taunted Ventris Blake.

“Aye, even though you do know the two witnesses,” snapped Paul, “for that is just the reason why I should not believe a thing they uttered.”

Without a word, however, Arthur turned and marched out of the drawing-room. The shock of this awful accusation seemed to have left him cold and numb, so that he did not perceive how Paul slipped into the drawing-room and beckoned Winifred out, and finally got the poor girl (who was still unconscious of the dreadful blow that was to be dealt at her happiness) to put on a shawl and to follow him into the square in front of the flats. Then however he brought the two of them face to face, and with something uncommonly like a muttered prayer for their good understanding and happiness, he slipped behind some bushes and was instantly lost to sight.

Then, and only then—did Arthur rally under the weight of the accusation that had been aimed against his reputation so swiftly and so mysteriously, and, pressing Winifred’s arm in his, he told her bravely and simply of this foul treacherous thing that had risen up out of the unknown to ruin him. When, however, he first mentioned Ventris Blake’s name, he felt Winifred start and tremble and then she tried to speak, then checked herself, obviously to wait until he had drawn to an end.

Marvelling, but now quite self-contained, he went on with the terrible disclosures of the millionaire, and he did not stop once until he had faithfully repeated to her all that had passed between them up to the point of his following Paul out of the room.

Still who can measure the capacity of a woman’s heart for suffering, and for sympathy, and for a brave unswerving loyalty that not even a charge that strikes at the root of their own honour can pierce or soften? Surely it is a special gift of the Divine to men, to help them bear the burden and the anguish of the day’s task, and fail not under their own load! Certainly even Arthur, who knew Winifred so well, expected that his tale would momentarily shake her faith in him, and that, for some good and sweet and gracious reason, it might be necessary to submit himself for a time to some gentle cross-examination on her part as to the past, and the possibilities of error.

Only, as it was, nothing of the sort happened. In some extraordinary, even miraculous fashion, Winifred seemed to divine the truth of his position, and to appreciate points that he had only dimly indicated in his hot and eager and impetuous account of the terrible interview which he had just had with the barrister and the financier.

“Indeed, darling,” said she slowly and simply. “I quite understand that this marriage never took place, that you have never met this poor creature, Aimée Burgoyne, and that it is all some hideous error which will have to be disentangled in God’s own good time. Truth to tell, that is not giving me any real concern in the matter, except that my whole heart goes in sympathy to you for what you have suffered this night, and may still have to suffer before you stand out before the world as a most sorely-tried and wronged man. No, my mind runs in another direction. Why has this plot been put upon you at all? I have thought and thought whilst you have spoken, and it has just occurred to me that perhaps I can supply the reason!”

“I would to heaven that you could, dearest,” replied Arthur earnestly, but his voice shewed no real belief in her words for, bachelor like, he had yet to learn the wonderful spaces to be bridged by a woman’s intuition.

“Arthur,” proceeded Winifred slowly, “did I ever tell you that I too have met this man Ventris Blake?”

“By Jove, you didn’t,” he cried, instantly all eagerness.

“Well, I did—that time I saw you first at the Hunt Ball at Stamford you must know that a lot of private dances were given during that fortnight, and at one of them, given by Lady Desborough at The Towers, Ventris Blake was present, and paid me so much odious attention that I went to my uncle, Russell Langford, who was present, and complained of being ill and so was promptly driven home.”

“But the brute was married!” exclaimed Arthur, clenching his hands tightly to keep down his rage and excitement. “He had no right to pay you any attention.”

“I know, dearest,” said Winifred sadly. “Unfortunately, men of the stamp of Ventris Blake don’t trouble about sacred obligations like those. They are rich, and they fancy with wealth they can do anything they like. There are too many men of that stamp in the ball rooms of England.

“As it turned out though,” she proceeded swiftly, “he was not content with the snubbing I gave him during the dance. He ventured to call at the Stamford Hotel where we were staying, and asked to see me on the plea that he was an old friend of my father, and then, when I refused, he actually sent me a lot of flowers which I took to my uncle who returned them at once!”

“I should think so! I wonder he didn’t give him a horse-whipping in the bargain,” hotly ejaculated Arthur. Then all at once he remembered Russell Langford’s own craven fear of this adventurer, and bit his lip.

“He took more stringent measures than those even,” added poor Winifred, who little knew the extent of the intrigue into which both of them had fallen. “He gave orders for us all to pack at once, and so we came straight away to Emperor’s Gate. My cousin Vera, I remember, was horribly annoyed at this, and that reminds me of another thing I ought to confide to you. Do you know that this man Ventris Blake and Vera are very intimate friends?”

“Intimate friends!” repeated Arthur incredulously. “Are you quite certain?”

“Quite,” persisted Winifred with a grave inclination of the head. “They meet very often at Lady Desborough’s town house in Prince’s Gate, and once when Vera wanted to make quite a lot of money on the Stock Exchange he helped her to do so, for she shewed me the cheque; it was for £3,500.”

“But he has not troubled you again?”

“Not personally,” said Winifred reluctantly, “but indirectly. You see with Vera such a staunch champion of his, I am bound to hear a lot about him, and indeed she has done her best to make me go round to Lady Desborough’s to meet him again on the plea that he is ‘such fun,’ but I have always stoutly refused to encounter him. Then when he sent me a diamond bracelet worth quite a lot of money with a card ‘From an old friend of Colonel Pontifex,’ I wrote him the sharpest letter I could pen, and told him that you as my future husband could provide me with all or any jewellery I might need. But Vera has been very nasty since, and,” with something uncommonly like a sob, “I have—have looked forward eagerly to the time when I was no longer dependent on her and could leave Emperor’s Gate in peace!”

“Please God the time won’t be long now,” returned Arthur gravely, bending over her hand and pressing it, for this news of Ventris Blake’s villainy had steadied him like nothing else, and now he saw stretched out before him a conflict in which no quarter of any kind could be given. “For the present I fear I must obey your uncle’s command and hold no communication with you until my good name is quite clear, for if I do, injury may be inflicted on you.

“None the less, dear heart,” he added quickly, “it cannot be long before this scoundrel will be unmasked. Let us both be brave and patient, and I am certain all will come right in the end. Now, run in before your absence is discovered. Good-bye! Good-bye!”

And so with a quick embrace they parted—Winifred to hide her grief in the seclusion of her bedroom, Arthur to find Paul, and to drive rapidly homeward to concert plans to meet the scheme that now, alas! threatened to ruin very quickly and completely the happiness and good name of both lovers.

CHAPTER III.
REVEALS A SECRET

An hour later Vera Langford sat alone in her father’s study.

At first, it is true, the lawyer had made a very stout fight with Ventris Blake, declaring that no power on earth would compel him to make himself so ridiculous in the eyes of his colleagues as to attend the opening of an inquest in the north of Yorkshire; but, suddenly, the millionaire had bent down and whispered something threatening in his ear, and, all at once, the barrister had collapsed like a pricked balloon, and, in a comparatively few minutes afterwards, had got his bag packed and taken Blake’s own carriage to catch the late train down to York and Scarborough.

In doing this, he had only made one stipulation:

“If you, Blake,” said he, “are going to come out of this scandal with any degree of propriety you must not shew yourself in public like this. Go home to your place in Park Lane, and play the part of the bereaved and distracted widower to the life. To-morrow you will not be required at the inquest at all, or you would have been warned by the police. As a matter of fact, only evidence of identification of this poor creature will be given, and that can well be supplied by one of her maids. Just wait. At the right dramatic moment we’ll produce the certificate of her marriage with Hudson, and, if necessary, we’ll bring up the witnesses of the ceremony, but if you put in the document before, the public will not believe that you only discovered it by accident the night of the murder, but will fancy that you have known about it all the time and have preferred to blind your eyes to it for some wicked or sinister purpose of your own. Therefore be persuaded by me—and just for a day or two let things go on as they were before the crime.”

“I will,” Blake had answered. “You know more about the British character no doubt than I do. Half my life has been spent in the rough mining life of Australia and the Transvaal, and there, when we had to hit a man between the eyes, we got up and did so, and afterwards picked up and reckoned the pieces. Here, it seems to me, one can do all the same kind of hammering and get all the public sympathy right enough, only one musn’t be in a hurry, musn’t strike before the ground has been well baited, and even then must observe all the old snug conventions with which our grand-mothers used to delude themselves.”

“And a jolly good thing too,” interposed Langford, who was above all things a stickler for the proprieties, and also a rank opportunist. “It gives the men who know the game their right advantage. Otherwise everybody would be equally matched, and then what would the poor lawyers do?” And, with this cheap piece of cynicism, he had made his exit, closely followed by Blake, who, when he had found Vera was not in the drawing-room, had taken his way home on foot.

At that precise moment, as a matter of fact, Vera herself was with Winifred who was telling her frankly and simply the terrible blow that had fallen on her happiness. The lawyer’s daughter, however, was obviously distracted by other thoughts, and so had contented herself with a vague expression of her sorrow, and then had quickly slipped away to the study and, carefully locking the door, had gone to her father’s telephone, the bell of which communicating with the public exchange she had rung sharply.

“59769a Gerrard,” she told the operator, and, as the lines were fairly clear at that late hour, she soon got the answer she sought.

“Is that the Belsize Theatre?” she queried, and on receiving the reply in the desired affirmative she went on:—“Has Mr. Jules Prendergast come off the stage yet? No? The curtain not run down yet? Well, directly it is, ask him to come round and see Mr. Russell Langford, will you? Tell him not to delay though. He is wanted on a matter of business;” and, with a quick impatient shrug, she replaced the receiver and sat down at her father’s writing table to await with all the fortitude she could command the arrival of the man who, truth to tell, she loved better than honour itself.

How slowly the minutes crept by after that! At first she tried to occupy her mind by thinking of Winifred, but her mind would not fix itself on any troubles but her own. Then she started drawing grotesque forms and faces on the blotting paper in front of her but somehow nothing seemed to go right—the lines, the pen, or the figures; and soon, with a deep exclamation of disgust, she threw the quill aside, and began to pace impatiently up and down the room.

Once again her wild gipsy blood appeared in the ascendant. Indeed, there was something almost panther-like in her movements as she stepped backward and forward, backward and forward in a costume of black and gold that, emblazoned as it was with diamonds, showed every line of her superb figure to advantage.

At one time, as she stopped to listen to the bell of an approaching hansom, she reminded one almost irresistibly of Cleopatra. And then, as the soft tinkle died away in the distance, her features and her bearing changed, and she was just a woman racked by jealousy, torn by emotion, with mouth distorted, and fingers pressed cruelly into the palms of her hand to save herself from rushing into the street to see for herself why he did not come.

Nobody, unfortunately, who knew Jules Prendergast at all well would have thought that he was worth this attention.

Two years ago he had been an obscure but tolerated member of a well-known touring Shakesperean Company that had an earnest, a gifted, and a painstaking actor at its head. By chance, it happened that they had come to town, to do a brief season at one of the least-known West-End theatres; and Vera had gone to one of their performances with Lady Desborough, who rather tried to play the part of the Lady Bountiful to the crowd in question. Quite unexpectedly Vera had fallen passionately in love with this tall, dark, and romantic-looking actor, Prendergast. He had quickly, with Lady Desborough’s help, followed up this advantage, and, as Vera had a small fortune of her own from an aunt long since deceased, nobody who knows the way plays are financed in London will be surprised to hear that after this Jules Prendergast quickly became a welcome performer in some uncommonly “fat” parts at the best houses—and finally blossomed out as an actor-manager himself at the Belsize Theatre.

His first appearance in his own house, of course, had been as “Hamlet,” and, strange to say, he had scored quite a success with this, and yet, in a way, it was not strange, for he had simply taken all the ideas and study of his old chief in the touring company and had passed them off on the fashionable crowd that had flocked to the Belsize as his own.

“A new reading of ‘Hamlet’,” cried the mob and the critics, and yet if one of them had gone to the small theatres in towns like Leeds, or York, or Sheffield, or Plymouth, they would have found that Prendergast’s conception was not new—was not original—but, on the contrary, was much better done by in the provinces.

Luckily or unluckily, the West End knows little or nothing of theatrical things outside the metropolis, and so Prendergast flourished until the time came for him to change the bill, and he invoked the assistance of a “star” actress named Flora Kaufmann, and put on “with a scale of magnificence never hitherto seen on any stage,” etc., etc., the old but eternally young “Romeo and Juliet.”

For that time certainly Shakespeare lived up to his name in the dramatic world and spelt “ruin” to Jules Prendergast and his financier. In vain were the public coaxed and cajoled and derided. In vain were the old press notices served in a style as hot as any that had come from the theatrical press. The public literally would not look at Flora Kaufmann as “Juliet,” and, had not Ventris Blake thought fit, for his own private reasons, to allow Vera to make that £3,500 out of him in the most childish way after she had unbosomed herself of her real difficulties, Jules Prendergast’s season would, certainly, long ago have ended.

As it was, things had again come to a very bad financial pass owing to the heavy expenditure necessary for Jules’ next mammoth production of “Othello,” and this, too, was complicated by Vera’s insane jealousy of Flora Kaufmann, who had got a very strictly drawn contract with Jules and could not be easily got rid of.

Beset by difficulties on all sides, Prendergast himself had that day made another appeal for money to Vera, and had been repulsed with some scorn and a good deal of quite unnecessary bitterness. As a consequence, the girl was not at all sure he would obey her summons, which, by custom, had been couched in her father’s name, and yet she felt she must see him that night, if only to assure herself that he was as true to her as he had sworn to be in the old days when he had neither position nor reputation, and they had never had squalid squabbles like the one of that afternoon.

At last, however, she heard a hansom stop outside the flats; a moment later an electric bell sounded, and, in accordance with her directions, the actor, who was clad in an opera cloak and carried a crush-hat, with the make-up still thick upon his features, hastened into the room.

For some reason, for the first time in her experience, his manner was openly sulky and inwardly defiant. No sooner, indeed, had he thrown off his cloak than he turned on her almost with a snarl.

“Well, and what is the matter now, Vera?” he demanded. “Haven’t we said sufficient hideous things to each other to-day without you ringing me up and sending for me unexpectedly like this, and wanting to go over them again and count them?”

“Yes. That is not my reason. How was business to-night?”

“Bad, deuced bad. There wasn’t a ten pound note in all parts.”

“Then you must get rid of Kaufmann. She is ruining you!”

The man paused and pretended to feel in his pockets for a cigarette. Instinctively he knew that he was on dangerous ground.

“I can’t,” he declared with a pitiful attempt at being light and airy. “The lawyers forbid it. Pressed too far, she might even shut up the shop altogether by an injunction.”

“Then let her,” cried Vera fiercely, sweeping forward and facing the actor. “I am sick of her airs, her graces, her tricks to ensnare your affections,” and then playing her trump card she went on:

“Let the whole thing go, and let us be married as we had arranged next week. My father is, as lawyers go, a very wealthy man. He could easily spare us twenty-five thousand pounds to run a season at the Lyceum, or the Haymarket, or even the Garrick. If he saw we were man and wife he could not refuse us! He really loves me with all the force of his nature. He has never refused me a thing in my life.”

“Oh, couldn’t he though,” snapped Jules. “That’s all you know. He might be delighted at what you had done, disown you, and marry again!”

Vera’s eyes blazed. “That is untrue, Jules,” she gasped, “and you know it’s untrue! more than that, it is rude—it is cruel to me. You speak now under that woman’s influence. I see it in every word—look—gesture. You never dreamt of talking to me like this before you met her. I demand that you shall never act with her again!”

The man swung round with a smothered oath, and for a second it looked as though he would repay her defiance with defiance, scorn by scorn. Then a crafty avaricious look came into his face, and his tone changed.

“Come, Vera,” he said gently, trying to put an arm round her waist, “don’t drive me in a corner like this! Just be reasonable. I simply can’t damn myself and my whole career to please you or anybody else. Just now it’s money I want and must have. If you can’t get it—”

“Flora Kaufmann will, I suppose!” exclaimed Vera passionately, although she didn’t believe her words for an instant.

“Yes,” said the hypocrite, snatching at so good a pretext. “You have guessed it. Flora Kaufmann believes in me and my future, and has offered to finance me!”

For a moment Vera looked as though she would kill him. A bottle marked “Chloroform; Poison,” which she had been using earlier in the day for toothache stood on the mantelpiece, and gripping this she made a movement as though she would pour the spirit on her handkerchief and smother him.

Then her mood changed. A reckless laugh broke from her lips, and, with the strange fatuity of many women in love, she set out deliberately to hoodwink herself.

“I—I am glad you have told me,” she stammered. “As a matter of fact, I was only testing you. Never mind about Flora Kaufmann or her finances. I—I can assist you to-morrow to the extent of five thousand pounds if you like!”

“You angel!” cried the actor ecstatically, dropping on one knee and theatrically pressing the hem of her garment to his lips; and the fervour of his movement was not lessened by the fact that he knew Flora Kaufmann was a most extravagant, if fascinating woman, and had nothing to her name except some £1,500 worth of debts. “Tell me how you have managed it?”

“Ah, that is my secret,” said Vera archly, now bending down and kissing him passionately on the forehead. “Just meet me at the Bond Street tea room as usual about half past three to-morrow and you shall have the money easily enough!”

“And you will keep its source from me,” said the humbug reproachfully. “Surely you do not feel now you cannot trust me!”

“Perhaps,” said Vera evasively; “but, of course, I shall stipulate Flora Kaufmann must go!”

“Even if it costs a bribe of £1,000!”

“Even if we have to pay her £2,000 to tear up her agreement,” repeated the girl firmly; and to support her she raised the bottle of chloroform, the contents of which she inhaled.

“Very well,” declared Jules pretending to assent, and rising he kissed Vera with a great show of fervour. Then having pulled out his watch and declared the hour was disgracefully late, he drew his cloak over his shoulders and seized his hat.

Vera accompanied him to the door of the flat, but just as he was going to leave he remembered something he had previously forgotten and his face clouded.

“Oh! by the way, Vera,” said he. “I told them at the theatre to send on here a certain telegram which I expected. I won’t wait for it now but directly it comes I want you to ask the boy to bring it on to me to the Green Room Club in Leicester Square!”

“All right!” Vera replied, and waving him adieu, she hurried back to the study to be alone and to think.

Now, however, she was seated alone in her father’s room, she had more than scope to recollect what she had promised in a moment of intense mental anguish. £5,000 to-morrow afternoon at 3.30! And her account at Coutts’ was already over-drawn to the extent of £250! Where—where was so big a sum to come from?

Her father, she knew, was away in Scarborough. He could not possibly return before mid-night the next day, and, even if she knelt in front of him and begged this favour from him, she had no reason to believe he would grant it. He did not like actors or the theatres. He had only seen Jules Prendergast once—and then he called him “a forcibly-feeble copyist!”

As for having any idea that in about seven days’ time this man would be—for better or worse—his son-in-law and that no power on earth could keep him out of the position, he had none, absolutely none. Had he any suspicion of the truth Vera now was certain that his rage would be terrible and his obstinacy insurmountable. Looked at from whatever point she chose, there was no hope of £5,000 from him.

Lady Desborough was equally impossible. True, she was rich, but she was also very mean, and would cheerfully spend £500 in hospitality to get the run of a theatre for three months for nothing. No, there only remained one chance of success, the one chance she had clutched at when she saw it was, in sober truth, but the toss of a coin whether she or Flora Kaufmann would triumph in that insane undignified struggle for the affection of Jules Prendergast. That chance personified itself in Ventris Blake—and even Vera shivered at the awful alternative which passion and fate had combined together to force her to take.

For, as a matter of fact, Vera knew well enough why Ventris Blake went out of his way to make her indebted to him. It wasn’t from kindness—respect—or affection. It was simply because he had become the victim of a wild devouring passion for Winifred Pontifex, and she perfectly understood that if he advanced her this sum, it would be only on terribly harsh conditions—that she would assist him in his schemes to make her poor tortured cousin his—to any extent he chose to dictate.

Was it worth it?

To be quite fair to her—Vera recognised it was not. True, she had no real affection for Winifred. The girl had often caused her acute pangs of jealousy, and in nature and habit and outlook was totally opposed to herself. Still, she also knew Ventris Blake—and she could not conceive a worse fate than to fall into the power of so desperate and resourceful a scoundrel who indeed she knew, from Winifred’s confidences of that night, had already spread his net of treachery and lies in front of her and her sweetheart.

And then again, would it answer?

All at once her jealousy broke into flame again and she thought of her rival Flora Kaufmann. Suppose, after all, Jules broke his word to her, and let that creature remain in the company and assume the part of “Desdemona”? Why the piece might even succeed—might even make a very big hit. It would be in vain for her to storm or to threaten then. Jules would be free from his financial embarrassments, and would certainly pursue a selfish line of his own, for had he not often told her that art had no room for old-fashioned principles, but was ever a law unto itself—and its followers?

Then, as the torture increased, she asked herself, what was the mystery behind the telegram which the actor had said must go on to him at once? Why couldn’t it wait until the morning when business would be resumed, or until the afternoon when she could have the childish pleasure of bringing it with her, and of handing it to him herself?

After all, by one method or another, she decided suddenly she must see that telegram. Horrible though the suspicion was, it might even be from some feminine friend of Jules whom she had never heard him mention; and she leaped to her feet as though a red hot cinder had darted out of the fire against her breast, and scorched her close to the heart.

Then came the expected ring at the bell—the sound of voices—and Vera clasped her medicine-bottle tightly to suppress all traces of her anguish.

A servant entered. “A telegraph boy has come with a telegram for Mr. Jules Prendergast,” he said. “Did he leave any message?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Shew the lad in!”

A bright-looking lad clad in the regulation uniform entered, closed the door behind him and touched his cap.

“I have a message for Mr. Prendergast, Miss,” he said. “They sent me on here from the Belsize Theatre. Is he in?”

“No,” said Vera sweetly. “He asked me to take it up for him. Please give it to me!” and she held out her hand.

The boy’s face clouded. “I am afraid, miss, I can’t do that,” he muttered. “It’s against the regulations.”

“Nonsense,” persisted Vera lightly, treating the affair as one of small concern. “Give the telegram to me, I tell you. Nobody will know a word about it. And look here, here’s a shilling for your trouble!” And she took a coin off her father’s desk and displaying it temptingly before the youngster’s gaze.

“I can’t, miss, indeed I can’t. It’s more than my place is worth I—I should have to go to prison if I did,” he stammered, his cheeks going white with fear. “Please let me go and report the matter to my superintendent.”

“And betray me,” hissed Vera, now all at once realising her own peril. “Oh, you viper. You shall not do it,” and her eye catching sight of the chloroform bottle a fiendish idea took possession of her.

With one bound she caught the boy by the throat. Then in a flash she smashed the bottle against the desk even as the lad kicked and struggled to free himself, and, pouring the chloroform on her handkerchief she stuffed the spirit into the poor boy’s face until with a moan he sank to the floor utterly senseless.