CHAPTER XIV.
REVEALS A FURTHER DECEPTION
My love paused. She remained silent for a long time. Then, with her head bowed, she faltered:
"Yes. I – I am compelled to refuse."
"Why compelled?" I demanded.
"I – I cannot tell you," she whispered hoarsely. "I dare not."
"Dare not? Is your secret so terrible, then?"
"Yes. It is all a mystery. I do not know the truth myself," she replied. "I only know that I – that I love you, and that now, because that woman has spoken, I have lost you and am left to face the world – the police – alone!"
"Have I not told you, dearest, that I will do my best to protect and defend you if you will only reveal the truth to me," I said.
"But I can't."
"You still wish to shield this blackguard who has held you in secret in his hands?" I cried in anger.
"No, I don't," she cried in despair. "I tell you, Teddy, now – even if this is the last time we ever meet – that I love you and you alone. I have fallen the victim of a clever and dastardly plot, believe me, or believe me not. What I tell you is the truth."
"I do believe you," I replied fervently. "But if you love me, Phrida, as you declare, you will surely reveal to me the perfidy of this man I have trusted!"
"I – I can't now," she said in a voice of excuse. "It is impossible. But you may know some day."
"You knew that I visited him on that fatal night. Answer me?"
She hesitated. Then presently, in a low tone, replied —
"Yes, Teddy, I knew. Ah!" she went on, her face white and haggard. "You cannot know the torture I have undergone – fearing that you might be aware of my presence there. Each time I met you I feared to look you in the face."
"Because your secret is a guilty one – eh?"
"I fell into a trap, and I cannot extricate myself," she declared hoarsely. "Now that the police know, there is only one way out for me," she added, in a tone of blank despair. "I cannot face it – no – I – now that I have lost your love, dear. I care for naught more. My enemies will hound me to my death!"
And she burst into a torrent of bitter tears.
"No, no," I answered her, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder. "Reveal the truth to me, and I will protect you and shield you from them. At present, though the police are in possession of your finger-prints, as being those of a person who had entered the flat on that night, they have no knowledge of your identity, therefore, dear, have no fear."
"Ah! but I am in peril!" she cried, and I felt her shudder beneath my touch. "That woman – ah! – she may tell the police!"
"What woman?"
"Mrs. Petre, the woman who has already betrayed me to you."
"Then she knows – she knows your secret?" I gasped.
She bent her head slowly in the affirmative.
I saw in her eyes a look of terror and despair, such as I had never before seen in the eyes of any person before – a haunted, agonised expression that caused my heart to go out in sympathy for her – for even though she might be guilty – guilty of that crime of vengeance, yet, after all, she was mine and she possessed my heart.
"Is there no way of closing that woman's lips?" I asked very slowly.
She was silent, for, apparently, the suggestion had not before occurred to her. Of a sudden, she looked up into my face earnestly, and asked:
"Tell me, Teddy. Will you promise me – promise not to prejudge me?"
"I do not prejudge you at all, dearest," I declared with a smile. "My annoyance is due to your refusal to reveal to me anything concerning the man who has falsely posed as my friend."
"I would tell you all, dearest," she assured me, "but it is impossible. If I spoke I should only further arouse your suspicions, for you would never believe that I spoke the truth."
"Then you prefer that I should remain in ignorance, and by doing so your own peril becomes increased!" I remarked, rather harshly.
"Alas! my silence is imperative," was all she would reply.
Again and again I pressed her to tell me the reason of the evil influence held over her by the man who was now a fugitive, but with the greatest ingenuity she evaded my questions, afterwards declaring that all my inquiries were futile. The secret was hers.
"And so you intend to shield this man, Phrida," I remarked at last, in bitter reproach.
"I am not silent for his sake!" my love cried, starting up in quick resentment. "I hate him too much. No, I refuse to reveal the truth because I am compelled."
"But supposing you were compelled to clear yourself in a criminal court," I said. "Supposing that this woman went to the police! What then? You would be compelled to speak the truth."
"No. I – I'd rather kill myself!" she declared, in frantic despair. "Indeed, that is what I intend to do – now that I know I have lost you!"
"No, no," I cried. "You have not lost me, Phrida. I still believe in your purity and honesty," I went on, clasping her passionately to my heart, she sobbing bitterly the while. "I love you and I still believe in you," I whispered into her ear.
She heaved a great sigh.
"Ah! I wonder if you really speak the truth?" she murmured. "If I thought you still believed in me, how happy I should be. I would face my enemies, and defy them."
"I repeat, Phrida, that notwithstanding this suspicion upon you, I love you," I said very earnestly.
"Then you will not prejudge me!" she asked, raising her tear-stained eyes to mine. "You will not believe evil of me until – until I can prove to you the contrary. You will not believe what Mrs. Petre has told you?" she implored.
"I promise, dearest, that I will believe nothing against you," I said fervently, kissing her cold, hard lips. "But cannot you, in return, assist me in solving the mystery of Harrington Gardens. Who was the girl found there? Surely you know?"
"No, I don't. I swear I don't," was her quick reply, though her face was blanched to the lips.
"But Mrs. Petre gave me to understand that you knew her," I said.
"Yes – that woman!" she cried in anger. "She has lied to you, as to the others. Have I not told you that she is my most deadly enemy?"
"Then she may go to the police – who knows! How can we close her mouth?"
My love drew a long breath and shook her head. The light had faded, and only the fitful flames of the fire illuminated the sombre room. In the dark shadows she presented a pale, pathetic little figure, her face white as death, her thin, delicate hands clasped before her in dismay and despair.
"Have you any idea where Digby is at this moment?" I asked her slowly, wondering whether if he were an intimate friend he had let her know his hiding-place.
"No. I have not the slightest idea," was her faint reply.
"Ah! If only I could discover him I would wring the truth from him," I exclaimed between my teeth.
"And if you did so, I myself would be imperilled," she remarked. "No, Teddy, you must not do that if – if you love me and would protect me."
"Why?"
"If you went to him he would know that I had spoken, and then he would fulfil the threats he has so often made. No, you must not utter a single word. You must, for my sake, still remain his friend. Will you, dear?"
"After what you have told me!" I cried. "Never!"
"But you must," she implored, grasping both my hands in hers. "If he had the slightest suspicion that I had admitted my friendship with him, he would act as he has always declared he would."
"How would he act?"
"He would reveal something – he would bring proofs that even you would consider irrefutable," she answered in a low, hard whisper. "No, dear," and her grip upon my hands tightened. "In any case there only remains to me one course – to end it all, for in any case, I must lose you. Your confidence and love can never be restored."
"You must not speak like that," I said very gravely. "I have not yet lost confidence in you, Phrida. I – "
"Ah! I know how generous you are, dear," she interrupted, "but how can I conceal from myself the true position? You have discovered that I visited that man's flat clandestinely, that – that we were friends – and that – "
She paused, not concluding her sentence, and bursting again into tears, rushed from the room before I could grasp and detain her.
I stood silent, utterly dumbfounded.
Were those words an admission of her guilt?
Was it by her hand, as that woman had insinuated, the unknown girl's life had been taken?
I recollected the nature of the wound, as revealed by the medical evidence, and I recalled that knife which was lying upon the table in the drawing-room above.
Why did Phrida so carefully conceal from me the exact truth concerning her friendship with the man I had trusted? What secret power did he exercise over her? And why did she fear to reveal anything to me – even though I had assured her that my confidence in her remained unshaken.
Was not guilt written upon that hard, white face?
I stood staring out of the window in blank indecision. What I had all along half feared had been proved. Between my love and the man of whom I had never had the slightest suspicion, some secret – some guilty secret – existed.
And even now, even at risk of losing my affection, she was seeking to shield him!
My blood boiled within me, and I clenched my fists as I strode angrily up and down that dark room.
All her admissions came back to me – her frantic appeal to me not to prejudge her, and her final and out-spoken decision to take her own life rather than reveal the truth.
What could it mean? What was the real solution of that strange problem of crime in which, quite unwittingly, I had become so deeply implicated?
I was passing the grate in pacing the room, as I had already done several times, when my eyes fell upon a piece of paper which had been screwed up and flung there. Curiosity prompted me to pick it out of the cinders, for it struck me that it must have been thrown there by Phrida before I had entered the room.
To my surprise I saw the moment I held it in my hand that it was a telegram. Opening it carefully I found that it was addressed to her, therefore she had no doubt cast it upon the fire when I had so suddenly entered.
I read it, and stood open-mouthed and amazed.
By it the perfidy of the woman I loved, alas! became revealed.
She had deceived me!
CHAPTER XV.
AN EFFACED IDENTITY
The telegram was signed with the initial "D." – Digby!
The words I read were – "Have discovered T suspects. Exercise greatest care, and remember your promise. We shall meet again soon."
The message showed that it had been handed in at Brussels at one o'clock that afternoon.
Brussels! So he was hiding there. Yes, I would lose no time in crossing to the gay little Belgian capital and search him out.
Before giving him up to the police I would meet him face to face and demand the truth. I would compel him to speak.
Should I retain possession of the message? I reflected. But, on consideration, I saw that when I had left, Phrida might return to recover it. If I replaced it where I had found it she would remain in ignorance of the knowledge I had gained.
So I screwed it up again and put it back among the cinders in the grate, afterwards leaving the house.
Next morning I stepped out upon the platform of the great Gare du Nord in Brussels – a city I knew well, as I had often been there on business – and drove in a taxi along the busy, bustling Boulevard Auspach to the Grand Hotel.
In the courtyard, as I got out, the frock-coated and urbane manager welcomed me warmly, for I had frequently been his guest, and I was shown to a large room overlooking the Boulevard where I had a wash and changed.
Then descending, I called a taxi and immediately began a tour of the various hotels where I thought it most likely that the man I sought might be.
The morning was crisp and cold, with a perfect sky and brilliant sunshine, bright and cheerful indeed after the mist and gloom of January in London.
Somehow the aspect, even in winter, is always brighter across the channel than in our much maligned little island. They know not the "pea-souper" on the other side of the Straits of Dover, and the light, invigorating atmosphere is markedly apparent directly one enters France or Belgium.
The business boulevards, the Boulevarde Auspach, and the Boulevard du Nord, with their smart shops, their big cafés, and their hustling crowds, were bright and gay as my taxi sped on, first to the Métropole, in the Place de Brouckere.
The name of Kemsley was unknown there. The old concierge glanced at his book, shook his head, and elevating his shoulders, replied:
"Non, m'sieur."
Thence I went to the Palace, in front of the station, the great new hotel and one of the finest in Europe, a huge, garish place of gilt and luxury. But there I met with equal success.
Then I made the tour of the tree-lined outer boulevards, up past the Botanical Gardens and along the Rue Royale, first to the Hotel de France, then to the Europe, the Belle Vue, the Carlton in the Avenue Louise, the new Wiltscher's a few doors away, and a very noted English house from the Boulevard Waterloo, as well as a dozen other houses in various parts of the town – the Cecil in the Boulevard du Nord, the Astoria in the Rue Royale, and even one or two of the cheaper pensions – the Dufour, De Boek's, and Nettell's, but all to no purpose.
Though I spent the whole of that day making investigations I met with no success.
Though I administered judicious tips to concierge after concierge, I could not stir the memory of a single one that within the past ten days any English gentleman answering the description I gave had stayed at their establishment.
Until the day faded, and the street lamps were lit, I continued my search, my taxi-driver having entered into the spirit of my quest, and from time to time suggesting other and more obscure hotels of which I had never heard.
But the reply was the same – a regretful "Non, m'sieur."
It had, of course, occurred to me that if the fugitive was hiding from the Belgian police, who no doubt had received his description from Scotland Yard, he would most certainly assume a false name.
But I hoped by my minute description to be able to stir the memory of one or other of the dozens of uniformed hall-porters whom I interviewed. The majority of such men have a remarkably retentive memory for a face, due to long cultivation, just as that possessed by one's club hall-porter, who can at once address any of the thousand or so members by name.
I confess, however, when at five o'clock, I sat in the huge, noisy Café Métropole over a glass of coffee and a liqueur of cognac, I began to realise the utter hopelessness of my search.
Digby Kemsley was ever an evasive person – a past master in avoiding observation, as I well knew. It had always been a hobby of his, he had told me, of watching persons without himself being seen.
Once he had remarked to me while we had been smoking together in that well-remembered room wherein the tragedy had taken place:
"I should make a really successful detective, Royle. I've had at certain periods of my life to efface myself and watch unseen. Now I've brought it to a fine art. If ever circumstances make it imperative for me to disappear – which I hope not," he laughed, "well – nobody will ever find me, I'm positive."
These words of his now came back to me as I sat there pensively smoking, and wondering if, after all, I had better not return again to London and remain patient for the additional police evidence which would no doubt be forthcoming at the adjourned inquest in a week's time.
I thought of the clever cunning exercised by the girl whom I so dearly loved and in whose innocence I had so confidently believed, of her blank refusal to satisfy me, and alas! of her avowed determination to shield the scoundrel who had posed as my friend, and whom the police had declared to be only a vulgar impostor.
My bitter reflection maddened me.
The jingle and chatter of that noisy café, full to overflowing at that hour, for rain had commenced to fall outside in the boulevard, irritated me. From where I sat in the window I could see the crowds of business people, hurrying through the rain to their trams and trains – the neat-waisted little modistes, the felt-hatted young clerks, the obese and over-dressed and whiskered men from their offices on the Bourse, the hawkers crying the "Soir," and the "Dernière Heure," with strident voices, the poor girls with rusty shawls and pinched faces, selling flowers, and the gaping, idling Cookites who seem to eternally pass and re-pass the Métropole at all hours of the day and the night.
Before my eyes was there presented the whole phantasmagoria of the life of the thrifty, hard-working Bruxellois, that active, energetic race which the French have so sarcastically designated "the brave Belgians."
After a lonely dinner in the big, glaring salle-à-manger, at the Grand, I went forth again upon my quest. That the fugitive had been in Brussels on the previous day was proved by his telegram, yet evasive as he was, he might have already left. Yet I hoped he still remained in the capital, and if so he would, I anticipated, probably go to one of the music-halls or variety theatres. Therefore I set out upon another round.
I strolled eagerly through the crowded promenade of the chief music-hall of Brussels – the Pole Nord, the lounge wherein men and women were promenading, laughing, and drinking, but I saw nothing of the man of whom I was in search.
I knew that he had shaved off his beard and otherwise altered his appearance. Therefore my attention upon those about me was compelled to be most acute.
I surveyed both stalls and boxes, but amid that gay, well-dressed crowd I could discover nobody the least resembling him.
From the Pole Nord I went to the Scala, where I watched part of an amusing revue; but my search there was likewise in vain, as it was also at Olympia, the Capucines, and the Folies Bergères, which I visited in turn. Then, at midnight, I turned my attention to the big cafés, wandering from the Bourse along the Boulevard Auspach, entering each café and glancing around, until at two o'clock in the morning I returned to the Grand, utterly fagged out by my long vigil of over fifteen hours.
In my room I threw off my overcoat and flung myself upon the bed in utter despair.
Until I met that man face to face I could not, I saw, learn the truth concerning my love's friendship with him.
Mrs. Petre had made foul insinuations, and now that my suspicions had been aroused that Phrida might actually be guilty of that terrible crime at Harrington Gardens, the whole attitude of my well-beloved seemed to prove that my suspicions were well grounded.
Indeed, her last unfinished sentence as she had rushed from the room seemed conclusive proof of the guilty secret by which her mind was now overburdened.
She had never dreamed that I held the slightest suspicion. It was only when she knew that the woman Petre had met me and had talked with me that she saw herself betrayed. Then, when I had spoken frankly, and told her what the woman had said, she saw that to further conceal her friendship with Digby was impossible.
Every word she had spoken, every evasive sentence, every protest that she was compelled to remain silent, recurred to me as I lay there staring blankly at the painted ceiling.
She had told me that she was unaware of the fugitive's whereabouts, and yet not half an hour before she had received a telegram from him.
Yes, Phrida – the woman I trusted and loved with such a fierce, passionate affection, had lied to me deliberately and barefacedly.
But I was on the fellow's track, and cost what it might in time, or in money, I did not intend to relinquish my search until I came face to face with him.
That night, as I tossed restlessly in bed, it occurred to me that even though he might be in Brussels, it was most probable in the circumstances that he would exercise every precaution in his movements, and knowing that the police were in search of him, would perhaps not go forth in the daytime.
Many are the Englishmen living "under a cloud" in Brussels, as well as in Paris, and there is not a Continental city of note which does not contain one or more of those who have "gone under" at home.
Seedy and down-at-heel, they lounge about the cafés and hotels frequented by English travellers. Sometimes they sit apart, pretend to sip their cup of coffee and read a newspaper, but in reality they are listening with avidity to their own language being spoken by their own people – poor, lonely, solitary exiles.
Every man who knows the by-ways of the Continent has met them often in far-off, obscure towns, where they bury themselves in the lonely wilderness of a drab back street and live high-up for the sake of fresh air and that single streak of sunshine which is the sole pleasure of their broken, blighted lives.
Yes, the more I reflected, the more apparent did it become that if the man whom Inspector Edwards had declared to be a gross impostor was still in the Belgian capital, he would most probably be in safe concealment in one or other of the cheaper suburbs.
But how could I trace him?
To go to the bureau of police and make a statement would only defeat my own ends.
No; if I intended to learn the truth I must act upon my own initiative. Official interference would only thwart my own endeavours.
I knew Digby Kemsley. He was as shrewd and cunning as any of the famous detectives, whether in real life or in fiction. Therefore, to be a match for him, I would, I already realised, be compelled to fight him with his own weapons.
I did not intend that he should escape me before he told me, with his own lips, the secret of my well-beloved.