EPISODE V
THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
I was bringing my journal up to date one day at my Long Island hotel, when a page-boy brought me a card engraved with the very last name I should ever have guessed: "Lady Allendale."
"Is the lady downstairs?" I asked, dazed.
"The lady is here!" answered a once familiar voice at the half-open door of my sitting-room; and I jumped up to face a tall, slim figure in widow's weeds. "I hope you don't mind my surprising you?" went on the charming voice. "I wanted to see how you looked, when you saw my name."
"How do you do?" I greeted her, as we shook hands, and the page melted away and was forgotten. I tried to sound sincerely welcoming, for here she was, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. But I wasn't as glad as some men would have been to see a celebrated beauty and charmer.
She explained that she had found herself in need of rest after her war work (the last time I had seen her was the day when I fled from the private hospital in London of my sister-in-law, Lady Haslemere), and she had thought a sea voyage might be beneficial. She added, with an air of beautiful boldness, that perhaps she'd come partly to meet me again. "I read that you were at the Belmont in New York; so I went there. But they said you were staying on Long Island. Country air will be as good for a tired nurse of wounded officers as it is for the wounded officers themselves, n'est ce pas? And it will be nice hearing your news, for we were rather pals!"
"Don was my best friend," I reminded her. "Here's his picture." And I took from the flat top of the desk where I had been writing, one of several framed photographs. A flush sprang to her cheeks as the husband's eyes looked into hers, and snatching the frame she dashed it down so violently that the glass smashed on the parquet floor.
"How cruel of you!" she cried. "He was a thief! He threw away my love and made me hate him. I thank Heaven he died!"
An impulse of anger shook me. If she had been a man I should have struck her. I'm not sure I didn't want to, as it was, in spite of her beauty – or even because of it, so did it flaunt itself like an enemy flag.
"It's you who are cruel," I said. "Not to me, but to Don's memory. I could never believe he did what you thought. There may have been some horrible mistake. And his death has never been proved – "
"He's dead to me; and the proof's incontestable, or I shouldn't wear these things," she almost sobbed, indicating with a gesture her black dress and veil.
In my secret heart I had thought in London, and continued to think, that the motive for draping herself in black might be more complex than she admitted. Sir Donald Allendale had sailed for America on strange circumstances months ago; had disappeared, and a body found floating in the East River had been (superficially, I thought) identified as his. If widow's weeds hadn't been an effective frame for Irene Allendale's dazzling beauty, I wondered if she would have mourned in so many yards of crape for a husband she professed to hate?
"Oh, well," I said, controlling myself, and realising that she had some excuse to execrate Donald's memory, "let's not discuss Don now. There were faults on both sides. He was jealous, and you made him miserable. You were the greatest flirt as well as the greatest beauty in India that year, and – but come to think of it, we needn't discuss that either. The present's enough. You've arrived on this side, and – "
"You're not glad to see me. No use pretending. I know, and – here's the reason!" She darted forward and seized from the desk, close to my open journal, the greatest treasure I had in the world – Maida Odell's picture.
Roger had given it to me, knowing how I felt towards Maida. It was a miniature painted on ivory, and almost – though of course not quite – did Maida justice, as no photograph could do. I kept it in a gold, jewelled frame with doors like the doors of a shrine which could shut the angel face out of sight. Usually the doors of the frame were not only shut but locked. When I sat at the desk, however, and expected no visitors, I opened and put it where each time I glanced up from my writing I could look straight into Maida's eyes. Lady Allendale, however, had come as a bolt from the blue, and for once I neglected to shut the shrine.
If I had been angry before, I was doubly angry now; but I said not a word. Gently I took the frame, closed, and placed it in a drawer of the desk.
"Did you say you thought of spending a few days on Long Island?" I asked, when I could control my voice.
"I've engaged a suite at this hotel," Lady Allendale answered sharply. "My maid's putting my things in order now. I do think, Jack, you're being horrid to me, and if it weren't too late to change without making gossip I should give up the rooms and go somewhere else."
I didn't want a scene, so I reminded myself how sweet she had been when Don had brought her as a bride to India, and I had always been welcome at their bungalow. I soothed her as well as I could; refused to talk personalities, and when she decided that her visit to my sitting-room had better end, I took her to the door. At that moment a face almost as familiar as hers appeared at a door opposite – the face of Irene Allendale's French maid who had come with her to India four years ago. This woman (Pauline, I remembered hearing her called) was receiving big trunks with White Star labels on them; and I realised not only that the lady's new quarters were close to mine, but that she was provided for a long stay in them!
When she had gone, and the door of her sitting-room had been shut by Pauline (whose personality I disliked) I picked up Don's photograph, and sat down to look at it, reviewing old times.
Poor Don! Whatever his failings might have been, fate had been hard on him!
He was among the smartest officers my regiment ever had, one of the most popular – despite his hot temper – and the best looking. Everyone said when Irene Grey came to India to be married, chaperoned on the voyage by a dragon of a maid, that she and Donald were the handsomest couple ever seen. The trouble was – for trouble began at once – that Irene was too pretty. She was a flirt too; and her success as the beauty went to her head. She ought to have understood Don well enough to know that he was stupidly jealous. Perhaps she did know, and thought it "fun." But the fun soon turned to fighting. They quarrelled openly. She would do nothing that Don wanted her to do. In black rage, he told her to live her own life, and he would live his. Both were miserable, for she had loved him and he – had adored her. She flirted more than ever, and Don tried to forget his wretchedness by drinking too much and playing too high. So passed several years. I left the regiment and India, and took up flying. Then came the outbreak of war. Don was ordered to England. Irene sailed on the same ship, though by that time they were scarcely civil to each other. Don used influence and got ordered to America to buy horses for the army, he being a polo man and a judge of horseflesh.
I was in France then, but running over to England on leave, Irene sent for me to tell the astounding news that Don had taken with him all her jewellery. She had money of her own – not a great fortune; but her jewels, left her by a rich aunt, were magnificent and even famous. This scene between Irene and me, when she accused Don and I defended him, lingered in my memory as one of the most disagreeable of my life: and the maid Pauline was associated with it in my mind, as Irene had called her, to describe certain suspicious circumstances. Later I couldn't help admitting to myself, if not to Irene, that Don's disappearance on reaching New York, before he had begun to carry out his mission, did look queer. Search was made by the police of New York in vain, until a body past recognition, but wearing a watch and identification papers belonging to Captain Sir Donald Allendale, was found in the East River. I induced Irene to give Don the benefit of the doubt, not to blacken his memory by connecting him with the loss of her jewels; and she seemed to think that yielding to my persuasions was a proof of friendship for me.
"Well," I said to myself, extracting bits of broken glass from the frame of Don's portrait, "better let sleeping dogs lie. Irene'll get tired of this quiet place before long, and be off to New York – or home."
I felt that it would be a relief to have her go; but I had no idea that it was in her power, even if she wished it, to do me harm.
But while I was thinking of her presence in the hotel as a harmless bore, the lady had instructed Pauline to make inquiries concerning me. This I learned later: but had I guessed, I should have supposed there would be nothing to find out. I had no idea that gossip about me and my affairs was a dining-room amusement among the maids and valets of the hotel guests: that all Lady Allendale's femme de chambre need do was to ask "What's the name of the girl Lord John Hasle's in love with?" in order to have my heart bared to her eyes. That first day she heard all about Maida – with embellishments: the beautiful Miss Odell, adopted sister of a well-known millionaire who had lately married and gone abroad with his bride: girl not fond of society: pledged to the Grey Sisterhood for a year: the Sisterhood House being near Pine Cliff, Lord John's reason for living in the one hotel of the neighbourhood.
That was enough for Irene. Her anger having brought "to the scratch" all the cat in her nature, she made herself acquainted with the visiting days and hours of the Grey Sisterhood. Though men were not received, ladies interested in the alleged charitable work of the Sisterhood were welcomed twice a week, between three and five in the afternoon. Maida was a valuable asset to the Head Sister, as a young hostess on these reception days, for she believed in the genuineness of the mission, and was enthusiastic on the subject of "saving" women and children. In her innocence she could not have been aware that most of those "saved" were hardened thieves protected in the old house at Pine Cliff till their "services" should be needed in New York. It was a splendid advertisement for the Sisterhood that so important a girl as Miss Odell should be a member, and she was always bidden to show visitors about, even if the veiled Head Sister were able to receive them.
So it fell out, while I was assuring myself of Irene's harmlessness, that she was making acquaintance with the original of the portrait in the gold frame. She wore, it seems, an open-faced locket containing a photograph of me, painted to look like an ivory miniature: and seeing Maida glance at it she asked if Miss Odell had ever met Lord John Hasle.
The girl admitted that she had; whereupon Lady Allendale said, "We are very good friends," and purposely said it in such a way as to convey a false impression. I had told Maida that I loved her, but she had given me no answer except that, if I cared, I must care enough to wait. Many weeks had passed since then, and it was long since we had set eyes upon each other. Lady Allendale was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen; and the miniature in the locket, the meaning of the smile which went with the words, were too much for the girl's faith in my constancy. She thought, "Why should he go on loving me when I've given him no real hope? No wonder he forgets me for such a dream of beauty!"
Perhaps no girl as lovely as Maida ever thought less of her own charm. She believed that the one interest which had held her to the world and given her strength to resist the Head Sister's persuasions was a false star. It came into her mind that the best way to forget would be to promise, as her friend the grey lady had begged her to do, that she would become a life member of the Sisterhood.
Maida made no irrevocable decision that day: but when the Head Sister said next time (there were many of these times), "Dear child, how happy I should be if I could count upon you in the future!" she answered, "Perhaps you may. I don't feel the same wish to go out into the world that I have had."
She was praised for this concession: and it seems to me probable that the grey lady set her intelligence to work at discovering the motive for the change. She had seen Irene, and had without doubt noticed the locket. She was aware that the visitor and the youngest, sweetest member of the Sisterhood had talked in the garden. She must have put "two and two together": and the thing that happened later proves that she reported all she knew and all she guessed to that "great philanthropist" Doctor Rameses. It was certain that, soon after Lady Allendale arrived, he was informed of her presence at my hotel. There were ways in which he could ascertain that my friendship had been for Donald Allendale and not his wife: therefore the theatrical effect of the locket would have been lost upon him.
Irene and I were on friendly terms, but I manoeuvred to keep her out of the way. This was comparatively simple, as I had a lot of work to do; but I invented extra engagements, and was never free to go anywhere with her. I even tried to take such meals as I ate in my hotel, at hours when she wasn't likely to be in the restaurant: but one evening, as I stepped out of my sitting-room dressed for dinner, she appeared at her door. It was almost as if she had been on the watch!
It was early, and I intended motoring to New York, for Carr Price and his bride were there for a day or two. I had my overcoat on my arm, and a hat in my hand, which advertised the fact that I was not dining in the hotel. Lady Allendale also was dressed for the evening, and Pauline was giving her a sable cloak.
"How do you do, stranger?" Irene exclaimed, with a kind of spurious gaiety, more bitter than merry. "I've been here a week, and this is the fourth time we've met."
As she spoke, and I composed a suitable answer, two messengers came along the corridor. One was a seedy-looking individual who might, I thought, be a messenger from Teano, and the other was a boy employed by the Grey Sisterhood to run errands. My heart leaped at sight of an envelope in his hand. It was of the peculiar dove grey used by the Sisters: and I know now that it was recognised by Lady Allendale. She'd sent money for the Sisterhood's charities, and had received their thanks written on this paper.
"No answer, sir," said the boy, giving me the letter, pocketing a "tip," and passing out of the way to let the shabby man advance, directed by a page. He, too, put a letter in my hand, with a mumble of "This is pressing."
Irene could not hide her curiosity; but she dared not stand staring in the hall. She went on, as if to go to the lift: but I learned later that she took refuge in the maid's room, to see (without being seen) what I might do next.
What I did do was to return for a moment to my own room. And there, despite the alleged "pressing" importance of the second letter, I opened Maida's first.
"Please don't feel in any way bound to me," she wrote. "Indeed, there's no real reason why you should: but lest there should be the slightest shadow over your happiness, I wish to tell you that most probably I shall become a life member of the Sisterhood. I must write Roger before deciding, but when he knows that after these many weeks I have less longing than ever for the world, I think he will withdraw his objections. – Yours ever sincerely, M.O."
This was a blow over the heart. I had hoped so much, since the wonderful night when she had let me take her home to Roger! True, she had gone back next day to the Sisterhood House, but I had thought I might read between the lines of the message left for me, and other messages since then.
I did not think of any connection between Irene Allendale and Maida's change of mind, but attributed the adverse influence wholly to the Head Sister. I determined to see Maida somehow: and then remembered the letter which I had not yet opened. Envelope and paper were of the cheapest, and the handwriting was crude, most of the words being absurdly spelt.
"If yu haven't furgot yur old friend Donald Allendale and wud like to help him in grate truble cum at wuns with the messenger and dont wate a secund or it may be tu late."
Nothing else could have taken me out of myself in a moment of deep depression, as did this cry from the grave of a lost friend. I had said to Irene "we have no proof of his death," yet I had hardly doubted it: and it was now as if I heard the voice of a dead man. If I had stopped to reflect I might have reasoned that the letter was more than likely a trick of the "enemy," as I named the Egyptian doctor to myself and Teano: but even if I had, I should have chanced it, for the call was too urgent to admit of delays – such as telephoning Teano to meet me, for instance. I ought to have seen (and perhaps did sub-consciously see) that the appeal for haste was in itself suspicious, framed in the hope of inducing me to do precisely what I did do, rush off on the instant without taking any companion or leaving word in the hotel that I was bound for an errand that might be dangerous.
The man who had brought the letter had prudently gone to wait outside, where, if needful, he could make a quick "getaway." This detail seemed of small importance at the time, but its influence on the fate of two others besides myself was great. If Lady Allendale had seen me starting with the messenger, she would have known that I was not going out in answer to the letter written on grey paper – the letter she believed to be from Maida Odell. Pauline's window overlooked the noisy front entrance of the otherwise quiet hotel. From behind the curtains Irene could see anyone coming or going. If the messenger had waited outside my door, she would have seen us together: but as he stood close against the wall, she could see only that I stopped to speak with someone. She could not hear the man explaining that he had been directed to travel back to New York in the taxi which had brought him to Long Island, and that instead of accompanying, I was to trail him. "Somebody's afraid I might get something out of you – what?" said I. Since argument with such a person was useless, Irene must have heard me order a taxi, and have telephoned down for one herself. If I'd suspected the interest she still felt in my movements, I might have been more on the alert, and have noticed a taxi always pursuing mine: but my eyes were for the one ahead.
When my leader's taxi drew up at last, it was the signal agreed upon for me to do the same. The neighbourhood was unfamiliar, but as I followed the man on foot I soon saw that we were in the heart of Chinatown. It was agreed that I should not try to speak with him again, but simply to go where I saw him go. He entered a Chinese restaurant which made no pretence at picturesqueness for the attraction of sightseers. I, close upon his heels, entered also, and had scarcely an instant to take in the scene, so promptly did the man make for a row of doors at the back of a large, smoke-dimmed room. Determined not to be left behind, I too made for the little low-browed door he chose in the row, and saw a private dining-room just comfortably big enough for two.
"This is where you're to wait," my man announced, "and where my part of the business is done. Good night. I expect you won't be kept long."
I offered him money, which he refused. "I've been paid, thank you," he said; and touching his shabby cap with an attempt at a military salute, returned to the main restaurant. He shut the door behind him, but not quickly enough to prevent my recognising a face in the room outside: the face of Donald Allendale's valet.
"By Jove!" I heard myself say half aloud. I remembered now that the man – Hanson or some name like that – had left his master in England, not wishing, he explained, to go to America. Yet here he was; and I sprang to the rash conclusion that it was he who had sent for me with this mysterious ceremony.
The door was shut in my face before I could even jump up from the chair into which I had subsided; and when I threw the door open again to look out, the face had vanished. A number of Europeans of middle-class and a few Chinese, apparently respectable merchants, were dining at little tables. Some were already going: others were coming in: and I saw at the street door a tall woman in a long dark cloak and a kind of motor bonnet covered with a thick blue veil. She had the air of peering about through the veil, to find someone she expected to meet: and if I had ever happened to see Lady Allendale's maid Pauline in automobile get-up, when motoring with her mistress, my thoughts might possibly have flashed to Irene. They did not, however, and I should have passed the woman without remark if she had not darted at a man just making his exit. I didn't recall Don's valet well enough from Indian days to be as sure of his back as of his face, but I wondered if it were Hanson whom the veiled woman sought. I was half inclined to step out and accost him: but I knew by experience what errors arise from a change in the programme when an appointment has been planned. Possibly Hanson was not the person who should meet me here, and in following the valet I might miss my aim. After a few seconds' hesitation I went back into the tiny room and reluctantly closed the door.
It was a dull little hole, though clean. The walls or partitions which divided the place from others of its kind seemed to be of thin wood, papered with red and hung with cheap Chinese banners. Even the back wall was of wood, and boasted as decoration a large, ugly picture of a Chinese hunter, in a bamboo frame. The only furniture consisted of two chairs, and a small table laid for two persons. In one of these chairs I sat, staring at the door, hoping that it might soon open for Hanson or another.
Hanson, I learned afterwards, had never intended to meet me or be seen by me. His business in the restaurant concerned me, to be sure, but only indirectly: and catching sight of my face in the door of the private room, he had made a dash for the door of the street, to be stopped by the veiled woman on the threshold. The veil was impenetrable, but recognising the voice that spoke his name, he tried to shove her aside and escape. She seized his arms, however, obliging him to stop inside the restaurant or risk a street scene. She inquired why he had come to America, and if he had been with Sir Donald.
"No, your ladyship," the man stolidly answered to both questions, doubtless longing to ask some of his own in return. He mumbled that he had come to New York after his master died, for no object connected with Sir Donald – merely wishing to "find a good job with some rich American," a wish not yet realised. When asked if he had seen and recognised in the restaurant his master's old friend Lord John Hasle, at first he said, "No, he hadn't noticed anyone like him." But the next words, following swiftly and excitedly, for some reason quickened his memory as if by magic.
"Well, he is there. I saw him go in!" the veiled Lady Allendale insisted. "I believe you know he is there. I'm sure there's a woman in the case!"
On this, Hanson admitted that he had seen "a man who looked a bit like his lordship," and there was a woman with him, not the kind of woman her ladyship would want to know.
"I've got to get somewhere in a hurry," he added, "but if I might advise, the best thing for your ladyship is to do the same – go somewhere else, most anywhere else, in a hurry too."
With this, he took advantage of a relaxed hold on his arm, and was off like a frightened rabbit, old custom forcing him to touch his hat as he fled.
He doubtless hoped that Lady Allendale would be terrified into abandoning her project, whatever it might be: and intended to disclaim responsibility if she lingered. As it happened she did linger, summoning courage to enter the restaurant and take a table close to the door where, for an instant, she had seen me appear.
"He was looking for her!" Irene said to herself; and as no woman had passed in while she talked to Hanson in the street, she determined to wait close to the door. It was almost incredible that Maida Odell should come from the house of the Grey Sisterhood to such a place as this, but Lady Allendale was in a mood when anything seemed possible. Anyhow, if it were not Maida, it was some other – some other about whose existence she might let Maida know – since Maida continued to write letters to the guilty one! Irene ordered food as an excuse to keep the table; but when it came she did little more than pretend to eat. Alternately she consulted her wrist-watch and frowned at the closed door.
All this time she supposed me to be sitting alone, fuming with impatience for the arrival of an unexpected woman: but as a matter of fact while she questioned Hanson the door had quickly opened and shut. It had admitted a man: and that man was with me when Lady Allendale sat down at her table near by to watch.
In appearance he was a Chinaman, a very tall, respectably dressed Chinaman with a flat-brimmed hat shading his eyes, and a generous pigtail whipping his back. But his long dark eyes were not Chinese eyes, though Eastern they might be. He was magnificently made up, so well that my impression of his falseness came by instinct rather than by reason. I would have given much if my brain had carried away a clearer picture of the "man with the scar" from the theatre, on the first night of the play. If I could have got nearer to him then, the difficulty of identifying him with Doctor Rameses might have disappeared altogether, despite the Egyptian's genius for establishing an alibi whenever I clamoured to the police. Now, in trying to pierce the surface calm of the dark eyes I should have had certainty to go upon, one way or the other. As it was I could only ask myself, "Is this the everlasting enemy? Or – am I a monomaniac on that subject?"
If it were Rameses, I could hardly help admiring his impudence in sending for and meeting face to face – even in disguise – the man whose business in life it had become to ruin him.
"Good evening, sir," he began politely, with the accent of an educated man and a suggestion of Chinese lisp – or a good imitation. "I am part owner of this place. I have come to know through my partner a sad case of a client of his, a poor man who was a friend of yours in another country. My partner is a good man but he is hard. He would have put this fellow out and not cared; but I said, keep him and I will send word to that friend he talks about, that Lord John Hasle. Maybe something can be done to help. My partner did not wish me to do this thing, because there might be danger for him, from the police. If you go further, you will soon understand why. But I have been years in England. I know Englishmen. I said to my partner, if this lord is asked to come alone, in a hurry, for the sake of his friend, he will not be a traitor. That is why I had to do things in a prudent way. I was right. You are here. But this is not all you have to do. You give me your word you will make no noise if I show you the secret of our place?"
"As to that, I give you my word," I said, curious, but far from trustful. "The message I received hints that Sir Donald Allendale didn't die. Is he here?"
"He is downstairs," replied the alleged Asiatic.
As he spoke, he touched one of the big, brass-headed tacks which appeared crudely to keep in place the bamboo frame of the Chinese Hunter. Instantly the picture moved out of the frame, like a sliding panel, and showed an opening or door in the wooden wall at the back of the room.
I felt that the long eyes watched to see if I "funked," but I think my features remained as noncommittal as those of Buddha himself. As a matter of fact I was scarcely surprised to find myself in one of those secret rabbit warrens of which I had read. I guessed that each of the private dining-rooms in the row I had seen, possessed a concealed door leading down to a hidden "opium den" underneath. I guessed, too, that only certain trusted habitués of the restaurant were allowed to learn the secret. Whether my being let into it were a compliment, or a sign that I shouldn't get a chance to betray it, I was not sure. But I wished that I had looked to the loading of my revolver which, so far as I remembered, held no more than one cartridge. I fancied that my Chinese friend was Rameses himself, and that he might indeed be a financial "power behind the throne" in the business of this house. Deliberately I went to the table and selected a steel knife which lay beside one of the plates. The tall Chinaman watched me pocket it, with a benevolent smile, such as he might have bestowed upon a child arming itself with a tin sword to fight a shadow. As he stood statue-like beside the aperture in the wall, two men in Chinese costume, dressed like the waiters of the restaurant, came through the panel-door from the mysterious dusk on the other side. Each had a small tray in his hand, as if to serve at a meal. With a bow for my companion and an extra one for me they moved along the wall, one on either side of the room, passing behind us both, and ranging themselves to right and left of the exit to the restaurant.
It was obvious that they were ready to prevent my making a dash if I were inclined to do so. They were big fellows, regular "chuckers out" in size; and my host himself was more than my equal in height. All the same, if I'd wanted to escape, I thought I could have downed the three, unless they were experts in ju jitsu, where I was an amateur. No such intention, however, was in my mind. I determined to see the adventure to the end, in the hope of finding Allendale. He might have fallen into such hands as these, and be held for some reason which I hoped to learn.
"After you!" I said politely to my guide who would have let me go ahead. We bowed like Chinese mandarins, and then, as if to prove that he meant no harm, he passed before me through the panel-door. Whether the two men closed it again in case of a police raid (which must always be dreaded in such a place) I don't know; but I guessed that they were under orders to follow at a distance.