The Woman with One Hand (and) Mr. Ely's Engagement Part 9

"I have heard nothing. I do not understand what you are talking about.

Tell me everything."

I told him all that there was to tell. Evidently the whole of it was news to him. He listened greedily, gulping down, as it were, every word I uttered, as if I had been feeding him with physical food as well as mental. As I noted his demeanour, it seemed incredible that he could have been the chief actor in the tragedy to the details of which he listened with such apparently unfeigned amazement. I had been guilty of an unintentional injustice in doubting him. As I told my tale we leaned upon the parapet--he never looking at me once, but straight into the heart of the river.

When I had finished he was silent for some moment. Then he put to me a question:

"Do you mean to say that nothing has been found out to show who did it?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Unless I erred, he smiled. Had I not done him an injustice after all?

Could the man be such a consummate actor?

"And yet you almost saw him killed?"

"Had I come into the hall half a moment sooner I might have seen the murderer in the act of perpetrating his crime."

This time he laughed right out--an evil laugh.

"For goodness' sake, man, don't laugh like that--it makes me s.h.i.+ver."

He was still, with a stillness which, somehow, I did not care to break. A far-away look began to come into his face. He seemed to become lost in thought. When, after a long interval, during which I was sufficiently engaged in watching the different expressions which seem to chase each other across his face, he broke the silence, it was as though he muttered to himself, oblivious of his companion and of the place in which he was: "What a woman she is!"

That was what he said. I caught the words as he uttered them beneath his breath--uttered them, as it seemed, half in admiration, half in scorn. And he again was still.

CHAPTER VIII

"MURDERER!"

He would not go home. I spent, I daresay, an hour in seeking to persuade him. I pointed out the injury he was doing to himself, the wrong which he was doing his wife. I went further--I more than hinted at the suspicions which might fall upon him in connection with the Rothwell murder; plainly a.s.serting that it would be the part of wisdom, to speak of nothing else, for him to put in an appearance on the scene, look the business squarely in the face, and see it boldly through. But he was not to be induced. The most that I could get from him was a promise that he would come to the front, to use his own words, "when the time was ripe"--what he meant by them was more than I could tell. In return, he extracted a promise from me that I would say nothing of our meeting to his wife until he gave me leave--a promise which was only given on the strength of his solemn a.s.severation that such silence on my part would be best for his wife's sake, and for mine. He would give me no address. In reply to my fis.h.i.+ng inquiries into the mystery of his personal action he maintained an impenetrable reserve--he was not to be drawn. One thing he did condescend to do: he borrowed all the loose cash which I had in my pockets.

Mrs. Barnes had supplied me with a latchkey; I had been accustomed to let myself in with it when I was late. My surprise was therefore considerable when, directly I inserted the key in the lock, the door was opened from within, and there confronting me stood the ubiquitous new waiter, with the inevitable smile upon his face.

"What are you sitting up for at this hour of the night? You know very well that I have a key of my own."

He continued to stand in the stiff, poker-like att.i.tude which always reminded me of a soldier rather than of a waiter. Not a muscle of his countenance moved.

"I have been accustomed to act as a night porter, sir."

"Then you needn't trouble yourself to act as a night porter to me. Let me take this opportunity to speak to you a word of a sort. What is the nature of the interest you take in my proceedings, I do not know. That you do take a peculiar interest is a little too obvious. While I remain in this house I intend to come, and to go, and to do exactly as I please. The next time I have cause to suspect you of spying upon my movements you will be the recipient of the best licking you ever had in all your life. You understand? I shall keep my word, so you had better make a note of it."

The fellow said nothing in return; his lips were closely pursed together. I might have been speaking to a dummy, except that there came a gleam into his eyes which scarcely suggested that his heart was filled with the milk of human kindness.

When I had reached my bedroom, and, having undressed, was opening my night s.h.i.+rt preparatory to putting it on, there fell from one of the folds of the garment a sc.r.a.p of paper.

"What now?" I asked myself, as I watched it go fluttering to the floor. I picked it up; it only contained four words, and they were in Mrs. Barnes's writing: "You are in danger."

This, veritably, was an hotel of all the mysteries. Whether the husband or the wife was the more curious character, was, certainly, an open question. For days she had avoided me. In spite of my attempts to induce her to enter into conversation I had scarcely been able to get a word out of her edgeways. Why had she chosen this eccentric method of conveying to me such an enigmatic message? I was in danger! Of what? It struck me forcibly, and not for the first time, that if I remained much longer an inmate of Barnes's hotel I should be in distinct danger of one thing--of going mad!

I had still some papers left to copy, out of the last batch which Mrs.

Lascelles-Trevor had given me. I had been accustomed to do my work in her private sitting-room, it being my habit, as I understood it, in accordance with her wish, first to have breakfast, and then to go upstairs and ask her if she was prepared for me to commence my duties.

The next morning I followed the ordinary course of procedure, and was at her door, if anything, rather before the usual hour. But instead of vouchsafing me a courteous greeting, as it was her wont to do, she commenced to rate me soundly, asking me if I thought that her time was of no account, since I kept her waiting till it suited me to give her my attention.

I made no attempt to excuse myself, imagining that she was suffering from an attack of indigestion, or from some other complaint which female flesh is peculiarly heir to, contenting myself with repeating my inquiry as to whether she was ready to avail herself of my proffered services. The fas.h.i.+on of her rejoinder hardly suggested that the lady who made it was stamped with the stamp which is, poetically, supposed to mark the caste of Vere de Vere.

"Don't ask me such absurd questions! You don't suppose that I'm the servant, and you're the master. Sit down, and begin your work at once, and don't try any of your airs with me!"

I sat down, and began my work at once. It was not for me to argue with a lady. Beggars may not be choosers, and I could only hope that the infirmities of a feminine temper might not be too frequently in evidence as a sort of honorary addition to the charms of my salary.

That the lady meant to be disagreeable I could have no doubt as the minutes went by; and scarcely had I commenced to write than she began at me again. She found fault with my work, with what I had done, with what I had left undone, as it seemed to me, quite causelessly. I bore her reproaches as meekly as the mildest mortal could have done.

My meekness seemed to inflame rather than to appease her. She said things which were altogether uncalled for, and which beyond doubt an office boy would have resented. That I should keep my temper in face of her continued provocation evidently annoyed her. Suddenly springing out of her chair, she bounced from the room.

"I trust," I said, apostrophising her when she had gone, "that when you do return your temperature will be appreciably lower. In any case, I fancy, Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor, that you and I shall not long stand towards each other in the position of employee and employer. Even by a lady one does not care to be called over the coals--and such coals!--for nothing at all. One had almost better starve than be treated, in and out of season, as a whipping boy."

The papers which I was engaged in copying comprised all sorts of odds and ends, more worthy, I should have thought, of the rubbish heap than of transcription. They were about all sorts of things, and were in no sort of order, and why they should be deemed worthy of being enshrined in the beautiful ma.n.u.script book with which Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had supplied me was beyond my comprehension.

I had finished transcribing one paper. Laying it down, I drew towards me another. It was a letter, and was in a hand which I had not previously encountered. The caligraphy, even the paper on which the letter was written, filled me with a strange sense of familiarity.

Where had I seen that carefully crabbed, characteristic handwriting before?--every letter as plain as copperplate, yet the whole conveying the impression of coming from an unlettered man. I had had a previous acquaintance with it, and that quite recently.

I had it--it came to me in a flash of memory!

The writing was that which had come to me in the communication which had been signed Duncan Rothwell. This letter and that letter had emanated from the same scribe. I could have sworn to it. Even the paper was the same. I remembered taking particular notice of the large sheet of post, with the unusually coa.r.s.e grain; here was that sheet's twin brother!

What was a letter from Duncan Rothwell doing among Mrs.

Lascelles-Trevor's papers?

It was my duty to copy the thing. It was, therefore, necessary that I should read it. It bore no date and no address. It began:--"My dearest Amelia." Who was my dearest Amelia? A glance sufficed to show me that it was a love-letter, and a love-letter of an uncommon kind. Clearly, there had been some blunder. Such an epistle could not intentionally have been lumped with that olla podrida of sc.r.a.ps and scrawls. It was out of place in such a gallery. What was I to do?

The question was answered for me. While I still hesitated, Mrs.

Lascelles-Trevor reappeared. I said nothing, but I daresay that the expression of my features and the gingerly style in which I held the letter out in front of me, conveyed a hint that I had lighted on something out of the way. Probably, too, she recognised the letter directly she caught sight of it, even from the other side of the room. Anyhow, she came striding forward--she was a woman who could stride--and, without any sort of ceremony, leaning across the table, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it from my hand. For an instant I expected she would strike me--she was in such a pa.s.sion. The veins stood out on her brow like bands; her lips gave convulsive twitches.

Since it seemed that rage had deprived her of the faculty of speech, I endeavoured to explain the situation by feigning ignorance that there was a situation to explain.

"Do you wish me to copy this letter in the same way as the others?"

My voice was suave; hers, when it came, was not.

"You beast!" That was the epithet which she was pleased to hurl at me.

"I might have guessed you were a thief!"

"Madam!"

Her language was so atrocious, and her anger, so far as I was concerned, so unjustifiable, that I knew not what to make of her.