The Crime and the Criminal Part 75

"I was afraid, my dear Archie, that you might be a quarter of an hour too late." Mr. Townsend paused, looking at, without seeming to notice, the other's ashen countenance. "Is she dead?"

"No."

"Will she die?"

"No."

There was silence. Then Lord Archibald went on, rendered almost voiceless by contending emotions, "I was there in time; you should have waited."

"As I tell you, my dear Archie, it was a question of a quarter of an hour."

"When I got there the house was in commotion. They had found her lying in the hall, as you had left her. She was regaining consciousness as I arrived. When she saw me she made me stoop down and she whispered to me. She told me that it was you who had done it, and that you did it just as she was starting to save you."

"She has, perhaps, her own notions of salvation."

"I think she meant it. She said she was coming to warn you against a man named Haines."

"Haines? Indeed! That is the second time I have been warned against a man named Haines. By the way, I have just come from Horseferry Road.

Pendarvon has given the show away."

"Pendarvon?"

"Yes, Pendarvon. He has, what I believe old-fas.h.i.+oned thieves used to call, blown the gaff. The place is in the hands of the police. I escaped up the chimney. I expect that the gentlemen in blue will soon be here. I have no doubt that already they have missed me and are hot upon my trail."

"Reggie!"

In Lord Archibald's voice there was something which sounded very like a sob.

"Don't worry about me, dear boy. For me, anyhow, all things are over.

You'll be all right. After all, it was lucky for you that I was first upon the scene." Having paused, he added, "Tell her, when she is all right again, as you seem to think she will be, that I am sorry I did it. She should have left me a wider option."

"I don't believe she means to give you away. When the policemen asked her who had done it she said that the man was a stranger to her. She had never seen him in her life before."

"Did she, indeed? How very odd! They tell you not to trust a woman. My experience teaches me not to trust a man. One thing I do regret. I should have liked to have killed Pendarvon. Archie, I want you to do me a favour--to take a message."

"To whom?"

"To Miss Jardine. Will you do it?"

"Yes."

The speaker's voice was even more husky than before.

Mr. Townsend scribbled a few words on a page of his pocket-book.

Tearing out the leaf, he handed it to Lord Archibald Beaupre.

"Give her that. Not necessarily at once, but some time when the thing's all over. And tell her----" He stopped; then, with a smile, went on, "Yes, tell her that I loved her, but that already, when my love for her was born, it was too late."

"I'll tell her. What are you going to do yourself?"

"Do? Wait; they'll soon be here. I have one or two matters which will occupy me till they come. Good-bye."

He held out his hand. The other grasped it in his own.

"By ----, Reggie, I had almost sooner that it had been I."

"Don't be an a.s.s, dear boy. Slip across the water till the wind has blown a little of the dust away."

He nodded, moved quickly across the pavement, and disappeared into the house. Lord Archibald Beaupre was left standing in the street, clutching the sheet of paper tightly in his hand.

As Mr. Townsend entered a woman came forward to greet him. She wore an air of considerable concern.

"Oh, Mr. Townsend, sir, I'm so glad it's you. Burton's out, and something has happened which has quite upset me.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Lane, that you should have been upset. What has upset you?"

"There's been a man who wanted to see you--leastways, he didn't look as if he was a gentleman, and he didn't behave like one. I told him you weren't in, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He pushed right past me and marched straight into your room, and said he'd wait until you came. He's been there an hour or more; and I just went in to say that I really didn't think it was any use his waiting when I was taken quite aback to find that the room was empty and that he wasn't there."

"That, probably, was because he had gone. Let us trust that the spoons have not gone too!"

"Oh, sir, I do trust they haven't. But what makes it seem so queer to me is that I have been watching all the time, and haven't seen a creature leave the room."

"Possibly, Mrs. Lane, he has vanished into air."

Laughing at her as he pa.s.sed, Mr. Townsend went into his room.

CHAPTER XLI.

TAKING LEAVE.

It was a handsome room, that in which Mr. Townsend, when at home, pa.s.sed the larger portion of his waking hours--large, lofty, well-proportioned. The walls were wainscoted. Here and there was a piece of tapestry. Curtains suggested, rather than screened, an occasional recess. Veiled, too, were entrances to rooms beyond. A window, running from floor to ceiling, extended on one side of the room, almost from wall to wall. Had it been daytime, one would have seen that it overlooked Hyde Park.

On his entrance Mr. Townsend went immediately to the portrait of the girl which stood up on his mantelboard. He looked at it long and earnestly. He took it out of its frame. He kissed it, not once or twice, but a dozen times at least. He regarded it with something of the veneration which the religious Russian peasant regards his Icon.

"Dora!" he murmured. "Dora!" Then, with a smile, "What might have been!"

Gripping the portrait with both his hands, he began to tear it into two; then stopped.

"It seems almost like sacrilege." He kissed the face again. "It would be a sacrilege to let it fall into their hands as evidence that she had endured the contamination of my acquaintance."

He tore the portrait, not only into halves, but into fragments, and the fragments he cast upon the fire. As the flames consumed them he made a little gesture towards them with his hands.

"Good-bye!"

He picked up several knick-knacks which were about the room and examined them, as if he were considering what ought to be their fate.