Chapter Sixteen.
As Murchison thought over matters in the cold, clear light of the morning, when the brain is at its freshest, he cursed the fate that ever seemed to mix him up in the private affairs of his friends. First had been that unhappy episode of poor Jack Pomfret, who had not strength of mind to survive the disgrace he had brought upon himself by his impetuous folly.
Now there was this affair of Guy Spencer’s, which he felt he must go through with and prove to the bottom. He must find out definitely whether the likeness to Norah Burton was accidental, or whether that scheming adventuress had, for the second time, ensnared a trusting and unsuspicious man.
On Tuesday night when he dined in Eaton Place with the Spencers, he would seize an opportunity of putting to her a few leading questions. They would be of such a nature, that if his suspicions were correct, they would shake her self-possession.
Certainly, she had betrayed no embarrassment at the sight of him, and that was a point in her favour. For, assuming that she was Norah Burton, the name of Murchison would be quite familiar to her, even if she had forgotten his appearance after the lapse of those six years.
In the meantime he would get as much information about Stella Keane as he could before the date of the dinner. There was a man at his club, Gregory Fairfax, a middle-aged gossip, who was to be found in the smoking-room every day at a certain hour.
Fairfax was a man of leisure and means, who had the reputation of knowing more people, and all about them, than anybody in town. He mixed in a dozen different sets: smart, fast, and Bohemian. He was equally at home in Belgravia, Mayfair, South Kensington, and several other quarters. He belonged to most of the best clubs, and many more that had no pretensions to social distinction. His knowledge of the various phases of London life was wide and extensive. He had also a marvellous memory. He never forgot a face or the minutest details of a scandal.
To this gentleman, with whom he was on quite intimate terms, having known him from his first introduction to the London world, Hugh repaired, in the hope of getting to know all there was to know about this mysterious young woman who had so suddenly and clandestinely projected herself into the Southleigh family.
After a few casual remarks, he opened the ball. It was an easy task, for there was nothing pleased Fairfax more than to place his extensive social knowledge at the service of any friend or acquaintance who was in search of details.
“I say, Fairfax, I think you can help me in a little matter, because you have the reputation of knowing everything about everybody.”
Mr Fairfax smiled genially. He was very proud of his profound social knowledge, and nothing pleased him more than to have his well-earned reputation alluded to in flattering terms.
“Fire away, my young friend. I think I have picked up a bit in my twenty-five years of London life. Who is it you want to ask me about?”
“I dined last night with my old friends the Southleighs; and there, for the first time, I met Mrs Guy Spencer. I had heard of the marriage, of course, but no particulars of the young lady until I came to town a little while ago. All I have learned is that she was a Miss Stella Keane, and that she gives no very detailed account of her family history. I gather the general impression is that there is a mystery about her, which she refuses to allow anybody to penetrate. Do you know anything about her yourself?”
Fairfax assumed an air of great gravity and importance. He was now in his element, about to pour out his stores of knowledge to an interested and grateful listener.
“There may be one or two people who know as much as I know—always remembering that there is no first-hand knowledge, but the chances are a hundred to one you would not come across them. It happens that I was a good deal in that rather queer set which frequented Mrs L’Estrange’s flat.”
“She was supposed to be a well-bred woman, was she not?”
“Oh, certainly, so far as family went. But, judging in the light of subsequent events, there is no doubt she was a wrong ’un. The place, from the start, was simply a gambling-saloon. Sometimes, the play was very moderate. I am fond of a bit of a flutter myself, but I must own that I never lost very much, and for a long time I never had any suspicions of foul play.”
“Ah, but you had later on?” interrupted Hugh.
“I’ll come to that before we get on to Miss Stella Keane. Then one night something happened. Do you remember a little chap named Esmond, who used to go about everywhere?”
Yes, Hugh remembered Tommy Esmond, although his acquaintance with him had been of the slightest.
“He was a funny little man, very genial and popular with everybody. Like myself, he didn’t stick to any one particular set, but went into a dozen different ones. One night he would be dining at a swagger club with a peer, the next he would be hobnobbing at a pot-house sort of a place with a fifth-rate actor. Very eclectic was Tommy, and nobody ever knew where the deuce he came from. He had been so long about that people forgot to inquire, and looked upon him as a sort of institution, and took him for granted, as it were.
“Well, one night, one dreadful night, Tommy was discovered cheating by a couple of chaps who were too sharp for him. They were common sort of fellows, might have been crooks themselves for all I know, and kicked up a deuce of a row. They went so far as to insinuate that Mrs L’Estrange was not altogether innocent, and had a hand in the plunder. Result, Tommy had to make a bolt of it.”
“What was your own opinion about it? Was it an accident?”
“I might not have believed it, but a similar thing took place about a couple of months later. Another man was found cheating, and this time Mrs L’Estrange refused to face the music. She closed down, and disappeared from London. I have never met anybody who has seen or heard anything of her since. I expect she’s to be found on the Continent like her friend Tommy.”
“And Miss Keane was an inmate of this suspicious household?”
“Yes, ever since I went to the house, up to a few days after Tommy bolted. She left suddenly, and Mrs L’Estrange was very reticent as to where she had gone to. The next I heard was that she had been married quietly to Guy Spencer.”
“Did any suspicions attach to her?”
“No, it would not be fair to say that they did. She never played herself, but she had a great knack of hovering about the tables. And after the Esmond episode one or two men whispered that she had been hovering about them too much, and that Mrs L’Estrange thought she had better get rid of her. It might be so or not.”
“Did you ever come across a cousin of hers there, a man named Dutton?”
“Oh yes, a dozen or more times, for I went to the flat pretty frequently. A common, under-bred fellow, not in the least like her, for in addition to being remarkably good-looking, her manners and appearance were those of a lady.”
“Do you know what has become of him?”
“Yes, he’s an outside stockbroker, with a small office in the City. I ran against him only last week. I don’t know whether he recognised me or not, but I looked the other way. With one or two exceptions, the L’Estrange clientèle was not one that you cared to recognise when outside the flat.”
Fairfax had finished his narrative. Hugh thanked him warmly. Still, he had not learned anything really of importance. There was no evidence that Miss Keane had cheated, or helped others to cheat. The hovering round the card-table was not a particularly suspicious action if taken by itself. She might be signalling to her confederates, of course, but there was no evidence on which to convict her.
A sudden thought struck Murchison which prompted him to put a question to Fairfax.
“She might have been a decoy, to lure rich men to this gambling place, in order that they might be rooked by her accomplices.” The middle-aged man shook his head. “I don’t think so. She had no scope for that sort of game. Mrs L’Estrange hardly knew any body in her own world, for reasons which I daresay could be very satisfactorily explained, I should guess a not too clean or reputable past. She could not get the girl into houses where she would pick up rich men.”
“But you say some men came there who played heavily.”
“A few,” answered Fairfax. “But I always had a notion that Dutton picked those up, in the course of his shady business, a mug here, a mug there, who had a few thousands to throw away either on the Stock Exchange or in gambling. If the flat was run on the crook, and it is even betting it was, I should say the proprietors—or the syndicate, call it what you like—were contented with quite small profits. I daresay a couple of thousand a year would keep Mrs L’Estrange in luxury, and I suppose she must have had a bit of money of her own.”
“And, assuming that they were all in league, Tommy Esmond and others would want their bit,” suggested Hugh.
“Certainly,” assented Fairfax; “but always granting that the show was run on the crook, it wouldn’t be difficult to romp in thirty or forty pounds a night, with even the small players and the occasional mugs who were well-lined. Quite a decent amount to divide at the end of the week.”
“Well, I am awfully obliged for all you have told me, Fairfax.”
“But it doesn’t help you much, eh?” queried the elder man, who detected a certain note of disappointment in his companion’s tone.
“Well, candidly, it doesn’t, but of course, that is no fault of yours. We may dismiss the L’Estrange business, there is no evidence there. She might have signalled to her confederates or not. It might have been a perfectly innocent action. She didn’t play herself, she just hovered round the tables to kill the time.”
“Of course, either theory will fit,” remarked the shrewd man of the world, who had picked up so much knowledge of life in his forty-five strenuous years.
He paused for a few moments before he spoke again.
“Now look here, Murchison, I can read you like a book. I haven’t told you very much more than you know yourself, or could have pieced together. You are disappointed because I couldn’t tell you anything of her history prior to her appearance in the L’Estrange household. Well, there, I am at fault. And you have a particular reason for wanting to know. In other words, you have some suspicions of your own.”
Hugh felt he must be cautious. In connecting Mrs Spencer with Norah Burton he might be on the wrong track altogether, have been deceived by a striking, but purely accidental, resemblance. He could not be too frank with a man of Fairfax’s temperament. Rumour had it that he would always respect a confidence, but his general reputation was that of a chatterbox. He spoke guardedly.
“Yes, certain undefined ones, quite undefined, please understand that.” Then, speaking a little more frankly, “What I dearly want to know is, was she a straight woman before she charmed my friend Guy Spencer into marrying her.”
Fairfax smiled his slow, wise smile: “I am glad you have put your cards on the table. Of course I guessed from the beginning that it was what you were after. Well, I shan’t breathe a word of this to anybody; I can hold my tongue when I have a mind. You have a deep interest in the matter for the sake of the Southleigh family, eh?”
Hugh had to admit that it was so.
“Well, I am going to tell you something that, up to the present, I have not told to anybody else, and, to tell you the truth, I was not in the least interested in Guy Spencer’s marriage. If he chose to marry a girl without a past, that was his affair. But I see you are keen.”
“Yes, I am very keen.”
“Good! Well, I will give you a little information, from which you can draw your own inferences. They are as open to you as to me, and I shall just state the bare facts. As you know, Esmond had to bolt to the Continent. On a certain morning I came up from the country by an early train, landing at Charing Cross. I went to the bookstall to buy a few papers. I must tell you that I am one of those persons who have eyes at the back of their head, and see everything going on around them.”
Yes, Hugh knew that Fairfax had a wonderful gift of observation, in addition to his many other gifts.
“As I turned away, I saw Esmond slink into the station, glancing furtively from right to left, as fearful of being seen. Of course, I had not heard the news, and I was not present at the débâcle, but I guessed something was up from his furtive appearance. As he slunk along, a young woman heavily-veiled walked swiftly forward, and laid her hand upon his arm. They were only together for a few seconds, Esmond was evidently urging her to leave him for fear of recognition. When they parted, she kissed him affectionately. In spite of the heavy veiling, I recognised her.”
“Stella Keane, of course,” cried Hugh.
“Stella Keane. Fortunately, neither of them saw me, I expect they were both too agitated. Well, there is the fact; as I said just now, you can draw your own inferences, and perhaps answer the question whether she was a good woman before she married your friend.”
“It is answered,” said Hugh sternly. “A good woman would not trouble to go to the station to say good-bye to a derelict card-sharper, and kiss him affectionately, unless there had been some close and dishonourable relationship between them.”
Chapter Seventeen.
Murchison arrived at Eaton Place about twenty minutes before the dinner hour. His expectation was that he would find Mrs Spencer alone in the drawing-room, and in this hope he was not disappointed.
Stella, beautifully gowned, was seated in a luxurious easy-chair, reading. As he was announced, she rose and threw her novel down. She advanced to him with outstretched hand and that ever-charming smile.
“Oh, how sweet of you to come in good time, not rush in just a moment before dinner is served. We can have a comfortable chat before Guy comes. He takes an awful time to dress, you know. His ties bother him really; he discards about half a dozen before he gets the proper bow. Isn’t it silly?”
She was very girlish to-night, quite different from what she had been at the Southleigh party, staid, demure, a little resentful, and averse from conversation.
Murchison’s thoughts flew back to that day at Blankfield when he had met a certain girl by chance at the tea-shop. Norah Burton had been just as girlish then as Mrs Spencer was now, allowing for the six years’ interval.
She crossed over to a Chesterfield, and motioned him to a seat beside her. Hugh obeyed her invitation, but he felt sure that she had done this with a motive. She was about to exercise her subtle fascination on her husband’s friend.
“Now, please tell me all about yourself,” she said. “You are Guy’s friend, and I have a right to know. His friends are mine. I know what you have done in the War: you have suffered very terribly. But before that; please enlighten me.”
It was a challenge. Did she desire to know as much of his past as he desired to know of hers? He looked at her very steadily.
“You know, Mrs Spencer, it is a little difficult to go back to anything before those awful years of war. But I remember, as in a sort of dream, that, quite as a young man, I was gazetted to the Twenty-fifth Lancers.”
“A crack regiment, was it not?” queried Mrs Spencer. “My dear father was in the Twenty-fourth.”
She was keeping it up bravely, he thought. He remembered Fairfax’s story. The woman who had said good-bye to a fugitive card-sharper at Charing Cross Station, and kissed him affectionately, was hardly likely to be the daughter of an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers. He was not sure of very much, but of this one incident he was absolutely positive: Fairfax was a man who was always certain of his facts.
“I can’t remember much about the early years; I expect I went through the usual trials and troubles of a young subaltern, was subjected to a good deal of ragging. Well, somehow, promotion came: I was Captain at quite a youthful age. The one thing that sticks in my mind, in those pre-war days, is the fact that we were quartered at Blankfield.”
Mrs Spencer lifted calm, inquiring eyes. “At Blankfield! And where is that?”
“You don’t mean to say you haven’t heard of Blankfield?”
Mrs Spencer shook her dark head. “No; I dare say it shows great ignorance, but I was never good at geography. I was brought up so quietly; I have never travelled. I know next to nothing of my own country, and nothing of any other.”
She uttered these remarks with a disarming and appealing smile, as if asking pardon from a man of the world for having led such an uneventful and sequestered life—she, as he thought sardonically, the mysterious cousin of Mrs L’Estrange, the affectionate friend of the card-sharper Tommie Esmond.
“Blankfield is rather a well-known town in Yorkshire; it is also a garrison town. As I said, it was my lot to be quartered there.”
“Was it a nice place?” queried Mrs Spencer with an air of polite interest.
“In a way, yes; we had a good time. But my recollections of it are distinctly unpleasant. For I had the misfortune to assist at a tragedy—nay, more, to play a part in it—which has left an ineffaceable record upon my memory.” Stella Spencer leaned forward. There was no momentary change of expression upon the clear-cut, charming face; her eyes met his own with a calm, steady gaze. But he thought—and after all that might be fancy—he detected a restless movement of her hands.
“I shall like to hear about that tragedy, if it is not too painful for you to recall it,” she said softly. If she were really what he believed her to be, she was playing the rôle of sympathetic listener to perfection.
“I had a young chum of the name of Pomfret, a mere boy, impulsive, high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious, little versed in the ways of the world, absolutely unversed in the ways of women. I had promised his family to look after him. Looking back at this distance of years, I realise how badly I fulfilled my trust; how, in a sense, I was unwittingly the cause of the tragedy that befell him. I wonder if you ever came across my friend, Jack Pomfret.”
“Never; but, of course, I have met so few people. And you know the truth, as well as everybody else, I was not brought up in my husband’s world, in your world and that of the Southleighs. I could never claim to be more than respectable middle-class. I take it, your friend was a member of some old family.”
The voice was steady, but he thought he noticed an increased restlessness in the movements of the hands. And the admission that she was a member of the respectable middle-class struck him as conveying a false note intentionally. If what she alleged was true, that her father had been an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers, she was a grade higher than the respectable middle-class. Clever as she was, she had made a false step there.
“You want to hear the history of that tragedy, of the terrible circumstances which cut short the life of my poor young friend. Well, it is hardly necessary to say that a woman was the cause. Women, I suppose, have been at the bottom of most of the tragedies that have happened to men ever since the days of Eve.”
“I know that is the general opinion, but I have always been very doubtful as to whether it is a true one.”
She spoke lightly, but it seemed to him her tone was not quite so assured as it had been a moment ago. Anyway, she was evidently intensely interested in the forthcoming narrative.
“At Blankfield I happened to make the acquaintance of a very charming young woman, who was not received in the Society of the place, for the reason that nothing was known about her. The acquaintance was made in the most unconventional fashion. She asked me to call upon her and her brother. I told all this to Pomfret, who knew the girl by sight, and he asked me to take him along with me. He had met her very often in the High Street, and was immensely attracted by her appearance.”
“And were you attracted, too, by this formidable young lady, Major Murchison?” interrupted Stella.
“In a way. But, honestly, more curious than attracted. Well, to cut my story as short as I can, Pomfret soon arrived at an understanding with the young woman, to a great extent without my knowledge. They were married secretly; there were family reasons why he could not marry her openly.”
“But this—but this,”—was she speaking a little nervously, or was it only his fancy?—“was quite romantic and charming. No doubt they were deeply in love with each other. Surely there was no tragedy to follow such a delightful wooing?”
“But there was. This innocent-faced, charming girl was an adventuress of the first water. She was the accomplice of her criminal brother, if brother he was. A day or two after the wedding, Pomfret and I went to dine with this wretched pair. Before we sat down to dinner, two detectives entered the room and arrested the so-called brother on a charge of forgery.” Mrs Spencer shuddered. “How horrible, how appalling! And what happened to the girl? Was she arrested, too?”
“No; she fainted, and I dragged my friend away. At the time I did not know he had married her. When I got him back to the barracks, he told me his miserable story. That same night, or some time in the next morning, he shot himself. It was perhaps a cowardly way in which to avoid the consequences of his folly, but then he was always rash and impulsive.”
Mrs Spencer spoke, and there was a far-away look in her eyes. “Your poor friend! No wonder that memory haunts you. And yet, he was not very wise. This poor adventuress might have been easy to deal with; she might not have troubled him any further if he had made her some small allowance; would, so to speak, have slunk out of his life. And she might have been innocent herself, unable to break away from this wretched criminal of a brother.”
“You are very charitable, Mrs Spencer,” said Hugh coldly. “But I fear I cannot agree with you. If the girl had been naturally and innately honest, she would rather have swept a crossing than have lived upon the gains of that creature—brother, or lover, or whatever he was.”
Stella spoke with dignity. “You are, I see, very much moved, Major Murchison, and you can judge better than I. I cannot pretend to understand the mentality of adventuresses and their criminal associates,” she added with a light laugh, “but I should say that sweeping a crossing is a most uncongenial occupation, especially in the cold weather.”
“In other words, if you had been in her place, you would have preferred to live on the earnings of a rogue?” queried Hugh, perhaps a little too warmly. As soon as he spoke, he regretted his words. He had given her an advantage, of which she was not slow to avail herself.
She drew herself up proudly. “Major Murchison, are you not saying a little too much in presuming to place me on the level of the adventuress you have spoken of? I think it will be more consistent with my self-respect to leave your question unanswered.”
And then suddenly her proud mood vanished, and a softer one took its place. Her voice trembled as she spoke; there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes.
“I see that I was very wrong when I suffered Guy to persuade me to marry him. I have alienated him from his friends and family, and, alas! I have none of my own to bring him in exchange. His uncle loathes me; Lady Nina is polite and tolerates me. And you—you, his old friend, who have known him from boyhood—you dislike me also. But,”—and here her voice swelled into a proud note—“my husband loves and trusts me. While he does that, Major Murchison, I can snap my fingers at the rest of the world.”
Murchison bowed respectfully; he felt he had got to recover a good deal of lost ground. So far the woman had the advantage, but he did not fail to notice the vulgarity of the last phrase, “snap my fingers.”
“I am very sorry if I have offended you, Mrs Spencer, by my indiscreet remarks. If you are secure in Guy’s love, as I am sure you are, you have a very happy possession.”
She sank back on the sofa, and in a second recovered the composure which had been momentarily disturbed.
“Forgive me if I have spoken a little warmly,” she said, “but I could not overlook what you said just now.”
And then Hugh shot at her his last bolt. “I have not yet told you the name of the girl who drove my poor young friend Pomfret to his death.”
“Tell it me, if you please, but I shall be no more likely to know it than the name of your friend, Mr Pomfret. As I told you, I am a member of the respectable middle-class; I cannot boast that I am acquainted with the aristocracy, except through my husband.”
“And yet your father, you told me just now, was an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers. Those officers were all recruited from the aristocracy, or at worst the upper middle-class.”
“Oh, you are trying to cross-examine me and trap me,” she cried bitterly.
But Hugh was inexorable. “The name of that woman was Norah Burton; her accomplice, her brother as she called him, was George Burton; he had other aliases,” he thundered.
He had shot his last bolt, but Stella was not shaken. She rose up, quivering a little. He noticed that, but it might be due to the agitation of wronged innocence.
“The name conveys nothing to me. Your attitude during these few minutes has been very strange. You have insinuated that I am an adventuress on the same level with your Miss Norah something. Well, so far, poor dear Guy has not shot himself, and I will take good care he doesn’t.”
“You have much to gain by his living, if you love him—the title and everything. I have no doubt he has made his will. You would gain a good deal by his death. I cannot say, at the moment, which alternative would suit you better.”
“You are intolerable, you are insulting. If I tell my husband this when he comes down, he will kick you out of the house.”
“But I don’t think you will tell your husband,” retorted Hugh coolly.
“And why not? My word will outweigh yours. I have only to tell him that you brand me as an adventuress, of the same class as this Miss Nora Burton, and you will see what he will say.”
“But you will not tell him,” repeated Hugh. “Mrs Spencer, I did not think we should go so far as we have done. But I will put my cards on the table at once, and I do so from certain indications in your demeanour to-night. I will not say all I have in my mind; I am going to collect further evidence first. But I will say this: you are not what you seem.” He had touched her now. Her calm had gone, her breast was heaving, her hands were moving more restlessly.
“Put your cards on the table and have done. I was Stella Keane when I married my husband. I defy you to disprove that.”
“At present, no. You are the same Stella Keane who saw Tommie Esmond, a discovered card-sharper, off at the Charing Cross Station, and kissed him an affectionate farewell. If you were on such intimate terms with that man, you are no fit wife for my friend Guy Spencer.”
He had touched her at last. “How did you find that out?” she gasped, and her face for a second went livid. She was surprised beyond the point of denial.
And at that moment the door opened and Guy Spencer entered. She recovered herself immediately; went up to her husband and laid a caressing hand on his shoulder.
“A perfect tie, dearest; it was worth the time. Your friend, Major Murchison, has been distressing me with a terrible story of some tragedy that happened when he was quartered at Blankfield.”
Guy Spencer smiled cheerfully. “Dear old Hugh is good at stories. He must tell it me after dinner.”
As she looked up into her husband’s face, Hugh noticed the tender light in her eyes. Lady Nina had said that if she was not devotedly in love with Guy, she must be the most consummate actress off the stage. Loving wife or consummate actress, which was she?
Chapter Eighteen.
When Hugh reflected over that interview in the drawing-room before dinner, he came to the conclusion that he had not played his cards very well, that he had been a little too precipitate. Whether she was Norah Burton or not, she was a very clever young woman, and he had just put her on her guard by that rather indiscreet allusion to Tommy Esmond. If he had no further evidence to go on than that incident, she would give her husband a plausible explanation of it. And Hugh believed his old friend Guy was still deeply in love enough with his wife to believe anything she told him.
He could imagine her telling that convincing story to Guy, probably with her arms round his neck, and her pretty eyes looking up to his with the love-light in them. Esmond had been a kind friend to her, had done her many a good turn. Much as she deplored his baseness, she could not bear the thought of his slinking out of the country, a branded fugitive, without a forgiving hand stretched out to him.
Backwards and forwards he revolved the matter in his mind, till he came to the conclusion that the problem was one he could not solve himself. And then he suddenly thought of his old acquaintance, Davidson of Scotland Yard, the tall man of military aspect who had arrested George Burton on that memorable night at Rosemount.
He went round to Scotland Yard, presented his card, and inquired for Mr Davidson. His old acquaintance was dead; a man named Bryant had taken his place. Would Major Murchison care to see him?
In a few seconds Hugh was ushered into Bryant’s room. To his surprise and relief Bryant was the man who had accompanied Davidson to Blankfield. It was pretty certain he would recall to the minutest detail the circumstances of that visit.
“Good-day, Mr Bryant. You know my name by my card, of course, but I am not so sure you remember anything of the time and place where we last met.”
But the detective was able to reassure him on this point.
“In our profession, sir, we remember everything and everybody, and we never forget a face. It is some years ago, it is true, but I recall the incidents of our meeting as if they had happened yesterday. Poor Davidson and I came down to collar that slim rascal George Burton, who, by the way, got off with a light sentence. Davidson saw you in the afternoon and gave you the option of staying away. You talked it over, and came to the conclusion that, for certain reasons, you would rather be in at the finish. Those reasons were connected with your young friend Mr Pomfret, who was infatuated with the young woman.”
“You remember everything as well as I do, Mr Bryant. I must congratulate you on your marvellous memory, for I suppose this is only one out of hundreds of cases.”
Mr Bryant smiled, well pleased at this tribute to his capacity.
“We cultivate our small gifts, sir, in this direction. Well, we took the slim George. The girl fainted. You dragged Mr Pomfret out of the house, and he shot himself in the small hours of the morning. It came out that he had married the young woman a day or two before, and could not face the exposure.” Hugh paid a second tribute to the detective’s marvellous memory. “And now, Mr Bryant, have you any knowledge of what has become of them? People like that are never quite submerged: some day or another, like the scum they are, they will be found floating on the top again.”
Bryant shook his head. “No, sir, I cannot say I have. They have not come under our observation again. Probably they are abroad under assumed names, engaged in rascally business, of course, but doing it very much sub rosa.”
“Mind you, at present I have very little to go on,” said Hugh. “I may have been deceived by a chance resemblance. But I have a strong intuition I am on their track.”
Bryant’s attitude became alert at once. “You say you have no evidence. Well, tell me your suspicions, and I will tell you what weight I attach to them.”
“First of all, before I do that, let me know if you would recognise Norah Burton and George Burton again, in spite of the passage of years. Norah had fair hair; the one I am on the track of has dark hair. The man I have not seen; this time he is a cousin, not a brother.”
“Ah!” Mr Bryant drew a deep breath. “If they are the people you think, sir, and I once saw them, no disguises would take me in. Now tell me all you know.”
Thus exhorted, Murchison launched into a copious narrative. He explained that on the night of the dinner with the Southleighs at Carlton House Terrace, he had met for the first time the wife of his old friend Guy Spencer, that he had detected in her an extraordinary likeness to Norah Burton. The marriage had been hastily contracted; next to nothing wap known about the young woman’s antecedents, apart from the very vague details with which she furnished them.
In the background was a cousin, by all accounts a very common fellow, who had never visited the house since the marriage. Then there was the episode of Tommy Esmond being found cheating at cards at the L’Estrange flat, and Stella Keane’s farewell meeting with him at Charing Cross Station.
Mr Bryant made copious notes. When the narrative was finished he made his comments.
“There are, of course, coincidences that may mean nothing or a great deal, Major Murchison. However, assuming that the lady in question is not our old friend Norah Burton, she is evidently not a very estimable member of society. She was in a shady set at Mrs L’Estrange’s, and Tommy Esmond must have been a pretty close pal.”
“Well, I want you to take this case on for me, and find out what you can.”
But Bryant shook his head. “Sorry, sir, but in my position I can’t take on private business. It is not a public matter, you see, unless you can accuse them of anything.” Hugh’s face fell. “I forgot that. What am I to do? Can you recommend me to a private detective?”
“Half a dozen, sir, all keen fellows. But you can’t stir very much without me, in the first instance. You want me to identify them. Well, I will go so far as that, in memory of the time when we were together in the original job. Mrs Spencer, you say, lives in Eaton Place. I will keep a watch on that house till I see her coming out or going in. If I agree that she was Norah Burton, we have got the first step. Now, what do you know about this cousin, Dutton?”
“Only that he is an outside stockbroker, with an office, or offices, in the City.”
“Good.” Mr Bryant opened a telephone book and rapidly turned over the pages. “Here he is, right enough—George Dutton—George, mark you—share- and stockbroker, Bartholomew Court. Well, sir, to oblige you, I will run down to the City and get a peep at Mr George Dutton. If my recollection agrees with yours, I will put you on to one of my friends, and you can have the precious pair watched. If they are the persons you think they are, you may depend upon it they won’t keep long apart; they will make opportunities of meeting each other. Anyway, they must be pretty thick together, or he would not put up with being excluded from the house.”
Hugh left with a great sense of relief. He felt that the matter was in very capable hands. If Bryant told him that he was following a will-o’-the-wisp, then the whole matter could drop. The fact of Mrs Spencer’s relations with Tommy Esmond were hardly important enough to justify him in disturbing his friend’s domestic felicity.
At the end of three days the detective rang him up. The message was brief: “Come and see me.”
Bryant received him in his room. “Well, Major Murchison, your suspicions are quite correct. I have been very close to the interesting pair. Mrs Spencer has camouflaged herself very well, but beyond doubt she is Norah Burton. Our gaol-bird, George Burton, has been less particular. He has not disguised himself at all; the few years have made little or no impression on him. He has hid himself in the City, trusting that nobody he ever knew would come across him.”
“Then I was right, after all, Mr Bryant. And now what would you advise me to do? This woman is the worst type of adventuress card-sharper all through—at least a confederate, in Paris with Burton, in London with Tommy Esmond. To be fair, we cannot say how much or how little she knew of his forgery business.”
“Your idea is to turn her out of her husband’s house, with or without scandal?” queried the detective.
“Without scandal, if possible. I would prefer that. I suppose you would back me up by saying that you have recognised her and this scoundrel who was yesterday her brother and is to-day her cousin?”
“If you push me to it, I will, Major Murchison, for the sake of our old acquaintance. But, for reasons which I stated last time we met, I don’t want to mix myself up in a purely private affair. The woman caught hold of a fool in your friend Pomfret; she has caught hold of another equally silly fool in your friend Mr Spencer. Please forgive my blunt language, but it is so, is it not?”
“You are quite right, Bryant,” groaned poor Hugh. “I seem fated to be mixed up in these matters. At the present moment I have a little stunt on, in which I don’t require any help. A younger brother of mine has got mixed up with a young harpy in the chorus of a third-rate theatre. The young fool has written compromising letters to her. I am trying to buy these letters. I need hardly tell you she is asking a high price. I can’t see her at my own place, for fear of my brother popping in. I have taken rooms in a suburb where I see her to carry on the bargaining.”
Mr Bryant raised his hands. “Well, sir, when a woman once begins to twist a man round her little finger there is no knowing to what length he will go.”
“Profoundly true, Mr Bryant. Well, what do you advise me to do?”
“For the moment, nothing. Get a little more evidence. When I watched this couple, I took my old friend Parkinson with me. He knows them now. Get him to watch them. He will tell you where they meet, and how often. Here is his card. He will wait on you at your convenience.”
“I quite see,” said Hugh, as he took the proffered card. “If I can prove that they are meeting on the sly it will strengthen my hands, eh?”
“That is the idea. Of course, at the moment, I don’t know which you are going to tackle first, the husband or the wife.”
“I can’t say myself, my mind is in such a whirl. But I feel I must avenge poor Jack Pomfret’s death.”
Mr Bryant rose. “You will excuse me, Major Murchison, but I have a very busy day. Make use of Parkinson; he is as keen as mustard. And if it comes to this, that you want me for purposes of identification, I am at your disposal, in Eaton Place or elsewhere.”
Murchison left, but not before he had pressed a substantial cheque into Bryant’s somewhat reluctant hand.
The next day he interviewed Parkinson, a lean, ascetic-looking man of the true sleuth-hound breed. He took his instructions.
“Give me a fortnight, if you please, sir; a week is hardly long enough. I’ll warrant, from what our friend Bryant has hinted to me, I will have something to report.”
And he had. At the end of the fortnight he appeared. He produced a small pocket-book.
“I’m glad you didn’t stipulate for only a week, sir; it was rather a blank one—only one meeting. I expect the lady couldn’t get away comfortably. But the week after I was rewarded. Three meetings in that second week.”
“Ah! Where do they meet?”
“At quite humble little restaurants and queer places in the City. I fancy the bucket-shop business is not very flourishing just now. For on the last two occasions when I followed them in, and sat at a table where I could observe them, I saw Mrs Spencer slip an envelope into his hand.”
“Good Heavens!” cried Murchison in a tone of disgust. “She is keeping this criminal with her husband’s money.”
Mr Parkinson shrugged his shoulders. “A common enough case, sir, if you had seen as much of life as I have.”
Hugh shuddered. The woman was depraved to the core. She could leave her house in Eaton Place, where she had been installed by her devoted and trustful husband, and journey down to some obscure eating-house in the City to meet this criminal who lived upon her bounty.
Well, the chain of evidence was complete. Bryant would swear to the identification, and Parkinson would swear that Mrs Guy Spencer, once Norah Burton, had met George Burton clandestinely four times in a fortnight, and had supplied him with money.
Chapter Nineteen.
It was in his blackest and most grim mood that Hugh Murchison walked to Eaton Place, for the purpose of paying an afternoon call upon Mrs Spencer. He had not been near her since the night of the dinner, had only left cards. And, very fortunately, he had not come across Guy in the interval.
On that particular night he had reproached himself with indiscretion. He had availed himself of Fairfax’s information to tax her with meeting Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station on the morning of his flight to the Continent.
And at the moment that he had made that dramatic announcement, the drawing-room door had opened to admit the unsuspecting husband. Hugh had left shortly after dinner, on the plea of another engagement. Had Mrs Spencer tried to take the wind out of his sails by volunteering some plausible explanation about her meeting with Esmond? She was a clever young woman; she might try to forestall him. On the other hand, she might sit tight till he forced her hand. Anyway, he was going to force it to-day, armed with the new evidence that had been furnished to him.
Mrs Spencer was not looking well. Her eyes had lost their brightness, her once charming smile was forced and mechanical.
She rose as he was announced, and advanced to him with outstretched hands, with an exaggerated air of cordiality.
“I thought you had forgotten us.” She seated herself on the Chesterfield and motioned him to sit beside her. “Major Murchison, I fear I was a little rude to you the other night, you remember, just before Guy came in.” She clasped her hands nervously together. “I do trust we are going to be friends.”
Hugh looked at her grimly. He had no compassion for this shameless adventuress who had driven the poor foolish Pomfret to his grave, who had ensnared Guy Spencer, a man of stronger fibre, but equally powerless in the hands of an unscrupulous woman.
“Mrs Spencer—to call you by one of the many names by which you are known—we were not friends the last time I was at this house. To-day we are bitter enemies.”
“What do you mean?” she faltered. “You are speaking in riddles. Why should you, the old friend of my husband, be the bitter enemy of his innocent wife?”
“His innocent wife!” repeated Hugh sternly. “Dare you look me in the face and say that my name, even if you fail to recognise me after these years, does not recall to you certain tragic episodes at Blankfield?”
“I know nothing of Blankfield.” The voice was low but very unsteady. “You put that question to me the other night in a roundabout sort of way. My answer is the same—I know nothing of Blankfield.”
There was a long pause. Hugh continued to look at her with his steady and disconcerting gaze. Suddenly she rose, and paced restlessly up and down the long drawing-room.
“Major Murchison, put your cards on the table. You have come into this house, an old friend of my husband’s; I have done my best to make you welcome. But you have some spite against me. Of what do you accuse me?”
“I will put my cards on the table,” answered Hugh in his inflexible voice. “On the night I met you at Carlton House Terrace I had my suspicions; no two women could be so exactly alike. Since that night I have been picking up information here and there. I have now got a complete chain of evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” she gasped, still pursuing her restless walk up and down the room. “Of my having met Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station? Would you like to hear the true history of that?”
“I shall be pleased to hear any explanation you like to offer, with the reservation that I must please myself as to whether I accept it or not.”
“You are very hard, Major Murchison. As you are not prepared to believe me, perhaps it would be better if I did not embark on this history. But Tommie Esmond is really my uncle, my mother’s brother. When I was in low water he was very kind to me. I could not turn my back on him in his distress.” She spoke with sudden passion. “Of course, you, with your pharisaical way of looking at things, would say I should have forgotten all his previous kindness.”
“The Tommie Esmond affair is, comparatively, a trivial one, Mrs Spencer. I am coming in a moment to graver issues. You still say that the name of Murchison conveys nothing to you. Oh, think well before you answer! Remember, I have told you I have overwhelming evidence. And, believe me, the task I have set out upon is far from a welcome one.”
“I still say that the name of Murchison conveys nothing to me.” She spoke with a certain air of assurance, but he could see that she was quivering all over.
“Carry your memory back to that night at Blankfield when your so-called brother, George Burton, was arrested on a charge of forgery. You had been his decoy and accomplice in a gambling-saloon in Paris. You had inveigled my poor friend, Jack Pomfret, into a clandestine marriage a few days before. Jack, unable to survive his folly and disgrace, blew his brains out. If not in the eyes of the law, you were, morally, a murderess.”
“You are mad, raving mad!” she cried, but her voice seemed strangled as she made the bold denial.
“Not mad, Mrs Spencer, but very sane, as I will show you in a few seconds. As I told you, I recognised you that night at the Southleigh dinner-party, in spite of the pains you had taken to camouflage yourself. But I waited for corroborative evidence. The detective who arrested your so-called brother, George Burton, has seen you and is prepared to swear to your identity as Norah Burton.”
Then suddenly she gave way, fell on her knees before him, and stretched out appealing hands.
“Oh, you are very clever; I see you have found it all out. But you will be merciful, you will not drive an unhappy woman to despair, just when she has got into safe harbour. Will you be kind enough to listen to my miserable history?”
“I will listen to anything you have got to say.”
“My childhood and girlhood were most wretched and unhappy. At a time when most girls are tasting the sweets and joys of life, I had to live by my wits. I fell under the influence of a good-natured, but very wicked man.”
“In other words, George Burton?” queried Hugh.
“In other words, George Burton,” she repeated in the low, strangled voice that did not move Hugh very much. “I was starving when he met me and took me up. He was genuinely sorry for me. Mind you, I knew nothing of his nefarious schemes. He hid those very carefully away from me.”
“But you were his decoy, if not his confederate, in the gambling-saloon in Paris?”
“His decoy, perhaps, unconsciously, but never his confederate.”
“And when did Tommie Esmond appear on the scene?” queried Hugh.
“Oh, much later. George got into low water and had not enough for himself. I then hunted up my uncle, who received me with open arms.”
Hugh was developing the instincts of a cross-examiner. “And Tommie Esmond, I suppose, introduced you to the card-sharping crew at the Elsinore flat, and you were launched as the cousin of Mrs L’Estrange, who presided over this delectable establishment?”
“I was a distant cousin of Mrs L’Estrange on my dear mother’s side,” was the answer.
She was lying terribly, he felt assured. But he had a card or two up his sleeve yet. Still, it was wise to see how far she would go.
“And when did you part with the so-called brother, George Burton?”
“Oh, very shortly after he came out of prison. I had one interview with him; I could not do less after his kindness to me. And in the meantime I had hunted up poor old Tommie Esmond.”
“And what did you do after that night at Blankfield? I think you cleared out the next day. I heard you had paid everything up.”
“Thank Heaven, yes. There was just a little money left. My life after that was a nightmare. Amongst other humiliations, I was a waitress in a tea-shop.” A smile of vanity broke over the charming face. “The wages were very small, but I got a lot of tips.” Perhaps in this particular instance she was not lying, if it was true that she had been in a tea-shop at all.
There was a little pause, and then Murchison spoke in his stern, inflexible voice:
“And how long is it since you saw George Burton?”
She had answered the question before, but he was hoping to entrap her into some unguarded admission. He could see that she was considerably thrown off her balance, clever and ready as she was, by the extent of his knowledge.
“I told you just now, soon after he came out of prison.”
And then Hugh rose in his wrath. And then she, seeing in his face that he had another and a stronger card to play, got up from her kneeling position and watched him with an agonised countenance.
“I am sorry to use such harsh words to a woman, even such a woman as you are, Mrs Spencer. But when you say that you are lying miserably, and you know it as well as I do.” Her face went livid. She assumed a tone of indignation, but her voice died away in a sob. “How dare you say that?”
“I am not the sort of man to make a statement unless I can prove it up to the hilt. Your so-called cousin, George Dutton, keeps a bucket-shop in the City; from certain evidence in my possession, I should say it was not a very paying business.”
Stella did not attempt to reply to this last shot, but she recognised that he had gone about the business very thoroughly.
“George Dutton, the bucket-shop keeper, is George Burton, the forger, come to life again, still, I take it, on the same criminal tack, perhaps in a lesser degree. Do you admit,” he cried vehemently, “that George Burton and George Dutton are one and the same?”
“Yes, since you seem to have proof, I admit it,” was the somewhat sullen answer.
“That is as well; it clears the ground, up to a certain point. You say you parted from Burton soon after his release from prison, and have not seen him since. When was that—how long ago? You met him frequently as George Dutton at Elsinore Gardens.”
The courage of despair seemed to come to her, and she ceased to tremble. “I will answer no more questions. Tell me what you allege and I will admit or deny. Of course, you have employed a detective; you have had me watched.”
“Of course. I should not presume to cope single-handed with a clever woman like yourself. You have met George Dutton, alias George Burton, four times within the last fortnight at obscure restaurants in the City, and there is a strong presumption that you were handing to him envelopes containing money.” She seemed now to recognise that the game was up. Her self-possession returned to her. She sat down, and motioned to him to seat himself.
“You are much too clever for me, Major Murchison. You have handled the matter very well, so well that you have turned your vague suspicions into absolute certainty. Well, what action are you going to take? As a matter of course, you intend to turn me out of my husband’s house?”
“If not at the moment, very speedily. You will admit, I think, with your clever brain, that you should not remain under the roof of such an honourable English, gentleman as he is a day longer than necessary.”
“I will admit it, from your point of view, if you like. Oh, believe me, I can see your side,” replied this remarkable young woman. “But you will forgive me, Major Murchison, if I say that, from my point of view, I would have preferred that you had never been born. Guy is very happy; he believes in me and trusts me. It will be a great blow to him as to me.”
“I know. I wish it were in my power to spare him this misery. But, in common honesty, I cannot.”
“And have you thought of what is to become of me when I am turned out of my husband’s house?” she inquired in a composed voice. Her adroit mind had evidently adapted itself to the altered circumstances, and was now busied in turning them, as far as possible, to her own advantage.
“You have George Dutton to fall back upon, also Tommie Esmond,” was Murchison’s retort.
She snapped her fingers in a fashion that was almost vulgar, and she was so free from vulgar actions.
“George is thankful that I can, from time to time, fling him a ten-pound note; his luck has deserted him. Tommie Esmond, I believe, saved a bit out of the wreck, but he has not more than enough to keep body and soul together.”
“Guy is not a man to behave ungenerously, however deeply he has been wronged,” said Hugh, after he had reflected a few moments. He added more hesitatingly, “And if Guy should take an obdurate attitude, it is possible I might come to your assistance. I have hunted you down, but I do not want to drive you into the gutter.”
“But a man must support his wife, even if her past has not been quite so respectable as it might have been,” she cried defiantly.
Hugh directed upon her a searching look. “Mrs Spencer, it is in my mind that you may not be Guy’s wife after all. If I probed a little deeper, I might get at your real relations with this George Dutton, or rather Burton.”
“Oh, this time you are really pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp, I assure you. George has never been anything to me but brother or cousin, as the occasion demanded.”
She paused a second, and there was a terrified look in her eyes as she added, “But even if your suspicions were correct, which they are not, you would not go back from your own promise. If Guy proved obdurate, you would not drive me to the gutter. You promised me that.”
“I shall keep my promise, Mrs Spencer, and I will give it you in writing, if you wish.”
“It would be as well. And you will want something from me in writing also, I expect,” she concluded shrewdly.
“Certainly I shall,” said Hugh steadily. “I shall draw up a full confession for you to sign, to prevent you from ever troubling your husband again—if, as I suggested just now, he is your husband.”
Mrs Spencer rose. It seemed that there was a sense of relief in the fact that the interview was ending so amicably.
“I would have preferred to remain as I am, but, on the whole, the life doesn’t suit me, luxurious as it is. I am very fond of Guy really, he has been so good to me, but I have alienated him from his friends. And I have to sit here hour after hour by myself, with only my thoughts for company.”
“Let us say one week from now I will have that confession ready to sign.”
“And you will bring it here?” suggested Stella.
“I think not. It will take some time to read through, and we might be interrupted,” was Hugh’s answer.
“At your hotel, then, I suppose?” was the young woman’s next suggestion.
“The same objection applies.”
He scribbled down an address on a piece of paper. “Meet me there this day week at the hour I have appointed. Nobody will interrupt us, I will take care of that.”
And Mrs Spencer lay awake half the night, working out a problem that had suggested itself to her in a flash.
The next day she lunched with George Dutton in the City. The detective might be watching her, but did it matter? Whatever happened at the end of the week, she had burned her boats.