The Wiles of the Wicked Part 17

The face of Mabel Anson, my new-found friend and idyll, had in that instant changed. Her countenance was pale as death, while the hand holding the small pencil trembled.

"Whence did you obtain this?" she demanded in an awe-stricken tone, which showed plainly that she recognised it. She held her breath in expectancy.

What could I reply? To explain the truth was impossible, for I had pledged my honour to Edna to preserve the secret. Besides, I had no wish to horrify her by the strange story of my midnight adventure.

Hence a lie arose involuntarily to my lips.

"I found it," I stammered.

"Found it? Where?"

"I found it when groping about during the time I was blind, and I've carried it ever since, wondering whether one day I should discover its owner."

"It is extraordinary?" she gasped--"most extraordinary."

"You appear to recognise it," I observed, much puzzled at her att.i.tude.

"If you can tell me to whom it belongs I will return it."

She hesitated, and with a quick effort regained her self-control.

"I mean it possesses an extraordinary resemblance to one I have seen many times before--but I suppose there are lots of pencil-cases of the same shape," she added with affected carelessness.

"But there is a curious, unintelligible cypher engraved upon it," I said. "Did you notice it?"

"Yes. It is the engraving which makes me doubt that I know its owner.

His initials were not those."

"You speak in the past tense," I observed. "Why!"

"Because--well, because we are no longer friends--if you desire to know the truth;" and she handed me back the object, which, with the dress-stud, formed the only clue I had to the ident.i.ty of the unfortunate victim of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

There was something in her manner which was to me the reverse of convincing. I felt absolutely certain that this unimportant object had, in reality, been identified by her, and that with some hidden motive she was now intentionally misleading me.

"Then you do not believe that this really belonged to your friend?" I asked, holding it up to her gaze.

"No," she answered quickly, averting her face as though the sight of it were obnoxious. "I feel certain that it did not. Its resemblance is striking--that's all."

"It would have been a remarkable coincidence if it really were the property of your friend," I said.

"Very remarkable," she admitted, still regarding me strangely. "Yet the trite saying that `The world is small' is nevertheless very true. When I first saw it I felt certain it belonged to a gentleman I knew, but on closer examination I find it is older, more battered, and bears initials which have evidently been engraved several years."

"Where did your friend lose his?" I inquired, reflecting upon the lameness of her story. The mere recognition of a lost pencil-case would never have affected her in the manner that sight of this one had if there were not some deeper meaning attached to it.

"I have no idea. Indeed, I am not at all sure that it is not still in his possession."

"And how came you to be so well acquainted with its aspect?" I asked, in eagerness to ascertain the truth.

She hesitated for a few moments. "Because," she faltered--"because it was a present from me."

"To an admirer?"

She did not answer, but even in that dim lamplight I detected the tell-tale flush mounting to her cheeks.

Then, in order, apparently, to cover her confusion, she added--

"I must really go. I shall be late for dinner, and my mother hates to wait for me. Good-bye."

Our hands clasped, our eyes met, and I saw in hers a look of deep mystery, as though she held me in suspicion. Her manner and her identification of that object extracted from the pocket of the dead man were very puzzling.

"Good-bye," I said. "I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you again. I have enjoyed this walk of ours immensely."

"When we meet--if ever we do," she answered with a mischievous smile, "remember that I have promised to wear the mask. Good-bye." And she twisted her skirts gracefully, entered the cab, and a moment later was driven off, leaving me alone on the kerb.

I hesitated whether to return home by 'bus or Underground Railway, but, deciding on the latter, continued along the High Street to the station, and journeyed to the Temple by that sulphurous region of dirt and darkness known as the "Inner Circle."

The reader may readily imagine how filled with conflicting thoughts was my mind on that homeward journey. Although I adored Mabel Anson with a love beyond all bounds, and would on that evening have declared my pa.s.sion for her had I dared, yet I could not disguise from myself that sight of the pencil-case I had taken from the dead unknown had wrought an instant and extraordinary change in her.

She had identified it. Of that fact there was no doubt. Her lame explanation that it bore a resemblance to the one she had given to her friend was too palpably an afterthought. I was vexed that she should have thus attempted a deception. It was certainly true that one gold pencil-case is very like another, and that a Birmingham maker may turn out a thousand of similar pattern, yet the intricate cypher engraved on the one in question was sufficient by which to identify it. It was these very initials which had caused her to deny that it was really the one she had purchased and presented; yet I felt convinced that what she had told me was untrue, and that those very initials had been placed upon it by her order.

Again, had she not spoken of its owner in the past tense? This, in itself, was a very suspicious circ.u.mstance, and led me to the belief that she was aware of his death. If he were dead, then certainly he would no longer be her friend.

Her sudden and abject amazement at seeing the pencil in my hand; her exclamation of surprise; her eagerness to examine it; all were facts which showed plainly that she knew that it remained no longer in his possession, and was yet dumbfounded to find it in my hand. Had she not also regarded me with evident suspicion? Perhaps, having identified her present, she suspected me of foul play?

The thought held me petrified. For aught I knew she might be well aware of that man's tragic end, and the discovery of part of his property in my possession was to her evidence that I had committed murder.

My position was certainly growing serious. I detected in the rather formal manner in which she took leave of me a disinclination to shake my hand. Perhaps she believed it to be the hand of the murderer. Indeed, my declaration that I had found that incriminating object was in itself sufficient to strengthen her suspicion if, as seemed quite probable, she was aware of her friend's tragic end. Yet I had really found it. It was no lie. I had found it in his pocket, and taken it as a clue by which afterwards to identify him.

Now, if it were true that the man who had been struck dead at my side was actually Mabel's friend, then I was within measurable distance of elucidating the mystery of that fateful night and ascertaining the ident.i.ty of the mysterious Edna, and also of that ruler of my destiny, who corresponded with me under the pseudonym of "Avel."

This thought caused me to revert to that hour when I had sat upon the seat in the Park, keeping a tryst with some person unknown. Seated in the corner of the railway-carriage I calmly reflected. More than a coincidence it seemed that at the moment my patience became exhausted, and I rose to leave the spot my mysterious correspondent had appointed for the meeting, I should have come face to face with the woman whose grace and beauty held me beneath their spell. For some purpose--what I knew not--I had been sent to that particular seat to wait. I had remained there in vain, smoking a dozen cigarettes, reading through my paper even to the advertis.e.m.e.nts, or impatiently watching every person who approached, yet the moment I rose I encountered the very person for whom I had for days past been in active search.

Had Mabel's presence there any connexion with the mysterious order which I had obeyed? Upon this point I was filled with indecision. First, what possible connecting link could there be between her natural movements and the letter from that unknown hand? As far as I could discern there was absolutely none, I tried to form theories, but failed.

I knew that Mabel attended at the Royal Academy of Music, and what was more natural than that she should cross the Park on her way home? Her way did not lie along the path where I had kept such a watchful vigil, and had I not risen and pa.s.sed towards Grosvenor Gate at that moment we should not have met. There, indeed, seemed no possible combination between the request I had received from my unknown correspondent and her presence there. In my wild imaginings I wondered whether she were actually the woman whom in my blindness I had known as Edna, but next instant flouted the idea.

The voice, the touch, the hand, all were different. Again, her personal appearance was not at all that of the woman described by West, the cabman who had driven me home after my strange adventures.

No; she could not be Edna.

As the train roared through the stifling tunnels City-wards, I strove to arrive at some decision. Puzzled and perplexed at the various phases presented by the enigma which ever grew more and more complicated, I found any decision an extremely difficult matter. I am not a man given to forming theories upon insufficient evidence, nor jumping to immature conclusions, therefore I calmly and carefully considered each fact in its sequence as related in this narrative. The absence of motives in several instances prevented any logical deduction. Nevertheless, I could not somehow prevent a suspicion arising within me that the appointment made by my anonymous correspondent had some remote connexion with my meeting with the woman who had so suddenly come into my life--a mere suspicion, it is true, but the fact that no one had appeared to keep the appointment strengthened it considerably.

Whenever I thought of Mabel, recollections of Channing's strange admonition arose within me. Why had he uttered that warning ere I had been acquainted with her a few hours? To say the least, it was extraordinary. And more especially so as he refused to give any explanation of his reasons.

The one dark spot in my life, now that I had recovered my sight, was the ever-present recollection of that midnight tragedy. Its remembrance held me appalled when I thought of it. And when I reflected upon my own culpability in not giving information to the police, and that in all probability this neglect of mine had allowed the a.s.sa.s.sin to escape scot free, I was beside myself with vexation and regret. My thoughts for ever tortured me, being rendered the more bitter by the reflection that I had placed myself in the power of one who had remained concealed, and whose ident.i.ty was inviolable.

As I declared in the opening of the narrative, it seems almost incredible that in these end-of-the-century-days a man could find himself in such a plight, surrounded by mysterious enemies, and held in bondage by one unknown and unrevealed. Laboriously I tried to unravel the tangled skein of events and so extricate myself, but, tired with the overtask, I found that the mystery grew only more inscrutable.

The woman I loved--the woman to whom I had fondly hoped some day ere long to make the declaration of the secret of my heart--had discovered in my possession an object which might well be viewed as evidence of a foul and cowardly crime. I feared--indeed, I felt a.s.sured--that her sweet sympathy had, in an instant, been turned to hatred.

I loved her. I adored her with all the strength of my being, and I knew that without her my life, in the future must only be an aimless blank.

In the sweetest natures there can be no completeness and consistency without moral energy, and that Mabel possessed it was plainly shown. In her confidences with me as we traversed the Park and Kensington Gardens she had shown, with the most perfect artfulness, that she had that instinctive unconscious address of her s.e.x which always renders a woman doubly charming. Persons who unite great sensibility and lively fancy possess unconsciously the power of placing themselves in the position of another and imagining rather than perceiving what is in their hearts. A few women possess this faculty, but men never. It is not inconsistent with extreme simplicity of character, and quite distinct from that kind of art which is the result of natural acuteness and habits of observation--quick to perceive the foibles of others, and as quick to turn them to its own purpose; which is always conscious of itself, and if united with strong intellect, seldom perceptible to others.