The Crime and the Criminal Part 14

He brought his knight out. I fancy that I brought mine. But I am not sure. I found that, after all, I was not sufficiently recovered to do myself justice over a chessboard. I am more than his match as a rule. I have played him three weeks in succession--one night a week--without his ever winning a game. But on that occasion I was not a foeman worthy of his steel. He beat me with even ridiculous ease. And directly he had won he began again.

"You're fond of murders, aren't you?"

"Fond of murders, Keeley! What do you mean?"

"I've heard you say more than once that you like a first-cla.s.s murder."

"I don't remember ever having said anything of the sort. It seems incredible that I could have done. It would have been in direct opposition to all my principles."

"Come!--I say!" He looked at me as if to see if I was joking. I emphatically was not. "I've heard you say that you'd like to be in the position of a murderer yourself, just for the sake of a new sensation."

"Keeley!"

"I have! And when the Putney mystery was on you took as much interest in it as if it had been a personal matter. Why, you have even talked about starting as an amateur detective to see if you couldn't ferret out the business yourself. You used to declare that the fellow who did it deserved flaying alive; and, when I suggested that there might be extenuating circ.u.mstances, you used to get quite mad with me."

"My dear Keeley, the Putney mystery belongs to ancient history. Won't you have another game?"

"But it seems to me that this Three Bridges business is quite as pretty a puzzle. What did he kill her for? They talk about getting up a sweepstake in the office. The possible reasons to be put down on pieces of paper, and whoever draws what proves to be the right one when the fellow comes to be tried and hung, to take the sweep. Now, what should you say he killed her for?"

"Would you mind changing the subject, Keeley. You forget that I have been ill, and still am very far from well, and that the topic is hardly one which is likely to appeal to an invalid's brain. I think I'll have a little whisky, Lucy."

I had a little whisky. In fact I had a fairish quant.i.ty; I had to, since I had to bear the burden of Keeley's conversation. That particular topic seemed to be the only one he had inside his head. He harked back to it nearly every time he opened his mouth. Had I not known the man I should have concluded that he was doing it out of sheer malignancy. But I did know him. I knew he was thick-headed. Lucy was not of the slightest use. She went on sewing in silence, as if all subjects were indifferent to her.

I was glad when Keeley rose to go. I went with him to the front door to see him off the premises. After he had gone I remained standing on the steps to get a mouthful of fresh air. It was a dark night; there was no wind, and there was a suspicion of fog in the air. I was standing on the bottom step but one. The nearest lamp-post was some distance down the road. What with the darkness and the mist I could not see any of the lamps on the hall doors on the other side of the street. It was very quiet. There was not a sound of footsteps nor of any sort of traffic.

Suddenly, while I was thinking of nothing in particular, except that Keeley had been making rather a greater a.s.s of himself than he generally did, I saw something begin to shape itself in the air in front of me. It did not come all at once, but by degrees. First a dim outline, then feature after feature, until the whole was there. It began to take the shape of a face. It was a face--a woman's face--her face--Ellen Howth's. For the second time it had come to me, unwatched for, undreamed of, unawares, a visitant from the dead--come to me with its awful, staring eyes. There could be no question this time about my having drunk too much. I was as sober as I ever was in my life. I can give no adequate conception of the havoc with which I realised that this was so, and that the face was there. It came slowly towards me.

The idea of a closer contact was more than I could endure. As it advanced, I retreated, backwards, up the steps. Still the face came on.

I got into the house, and banged the door, as it seemed to me, just in time to shut it out. I staggered against the wall. Lucy came to me, as I stood there trembling.

"I was coming to tell you to come in. You will catch a cold." Then, perceiving my state of agitation, "Tom! What is the matter?"

"Lucy, I have seen a ghost."

"A ghost?"

"As I live and breathe, I have seen a ghost. Oh, my G.o.d!"

"Tom!"

"This is the second time I have seen it. I have a premonition that the third time will mean death."

There came a knocking at the door. Lucy looked at me.

"It is Mr. Keeley back again. The servants have gone to bed. I will open and see."

It was not Keeley. It was a short, broadly-built man, with a bushy beard. Other men were with him, though I could only just see them standing in the shadow at the foot of the steps. The bearded man addressed himself to me--

"Are you Thomas Tennant?"

"That is my name."

"I am a detective. You are my prisoner. I arrest you for wilful murder."

Then I saw that the men who had been standing at the foot of the steps, and who now, uninvited, were entering the house, were constables.

BOOK II.--THE CLUB.

(_The Tale is told by Reginald Townsend, Esq_.)

CHAPTER X.

THE HONOUR OF THE CLUB.

I had not a notion that it would be Louise, that evening at the club--not the very faintest! How could I have? I did not know that the lot would fall to me. I was the first to draw. When I saw that the card which I had drawn was black, and that on it were inscribed, in gleaming crimson letters, the words, "The Honour of the Club," it gave me quite a start. Of course I knew that the odds were equal. But, somehow or other, I had never expected to draw the thing. I held it up in front of me.

"Gentlemen, the Honour of the Club is mine."

Pendarvon, in the chair, stood up. The others all rose with him.

"Gentlemen of the Murder Club, charge your gla.s.ses to the brim." They filled them with neat brandy. Pendarvon turned to me, holding his tumbler above his head.

"Mr. Townsend, we offer you our most sincere congratulations."

The others all chimed in--

"We do!"

They emptied their gla.s.ses, with inclinations of their heads towards me. I don't fancy that, ordinarily, they would all of them have been quite equal to drinking half a pint of brandy at one swallow, neat.

Some of them did not like it even then. As young Rasper-Stenning, who was in front of me, put down his gla.s.s, he pulled a face, and caught at the table. I thought he was going to be ill.

Pendarvon went on--

"The Honour of the Club, Mr. Townsend, rests with you. We do not doubt that, this day month, you will return it to us, as untarnished as when it came into your keeping." They sat down. I rose.

"Gentlemen, I thank you. I give you my word that, with me, the Honour of the Club is safe. I will wear it next my heart. At our next meeting I will return it to you with its crimson of a still more vivid hue. I will show you that it is possible to paint even scarlet red."

I put the Honour of the Club into my pocket-book. I went away with Archie Beaupre. He wanted to know if I had any one in my mind's eye.

"Not any one--unless it's you."

He was lighting a cigarette. He laughed.