The Tinted Venus Part 35

"Yes," gasped Leander, over her unconscious shoulder; "when she goes off in one of these sleeps, she does sleep very heavy"--an explanation which, if obscure, was accepted by the other as part of the general strangeness of the case.

On the threshold the chemist stopped again. "I'd almost forgotten the ring," he said.

"_I'll_ take that!" said Leander.

"Excuse me," was the objection, "but I was to give it back to the lady herself. Had I not better put it on her finger, don't you think?"

"Are you a married man?" asked Leander, grimly.

"Yes," said the chemist.

"Then, if you'll take my advice, I wouldn't if I was you--if you're at all anxious to keep out of trouble. You'd better give the ring to me, and I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that I'll give it back to her as soon as ever she's well enough to ask for it."

The other adopted the advice, and, amidst the sympathy of the bystanders, they got the statue into the cab.

"Where to?" asked the man through the trap.

"Charing Cross," said Leander, at random; he ought the drive would give him time for reflection.

"The 'orspital, eh?" said the cabman, and drove off, leaving the mild chemist to stare open-mouthed on the pavement for a moment, and go back to his shop with a growing sense that he had had a very unusual experience.

Now that Leander was alone in the cab with the statue, whose att.i.tude required s.p.a.ce, and cramped him uncomfortably, he wondered more and more what he was to do with it. He could not afford to drive about London for ever with her; he dared not take her home; and he was afraid of being seen with her!

All at once he seemed to see a way out of his difficulty. His first step was to do what he could, in the constantly varying light, to reduce the statue to its normal state. He removed the curls which had disfigured her cla.s.sical brow, and, with his pocket-handkerchief, rubbed most of the colour from her face; then the cloak had only to be torn off, and all that could betray him was gone.

Near Charing Cross, Leander told the driver to take him down Parliament Street, and stop at the entrance to Scotland Yard; there the cabman, at Leander's request, descended, and stared to find him huddled up under the gleaming pale arms of a statue.

"Guv'nor," he remarked, "that warn't the fare I took up, I'll take my dying oath!"

"It's all right," said Leander. "Now, I tell you what I want you to do: go straight in through the archway, find a policeman, and say there's a gentleman in your cab that's found a valuable article that's been missing, and wants a.s.sistance in bringing it in. I'll take care of the cab, and here's double fare for your trouble."

"And wuth it, too," was the cabman's comment, as he departed on his mission. "I thought it was the devil I was a drivin', we was that down on the orfside!"

It was no part of Leander's programme to wait for his return; he threw the cloak over his arm, pocketed his beard, and slipped out of the cab and across the road to a spot whence he could watch unseen. And when he had seen the cabman come with two constables, he felt a.s.sured that his burden was in safe hands at last, and returned to Southampton Row as quickly as the next hansom he hailed could take him.

He entered his house by the back entrance: it was unguarded; and although he listened long at the foot of the stairs, he heard nothing.

Had the Inspector not come yet, or was there a trap? As he went on, he fancied there were sounds in his sitting-room, and went up to the door and listened nervously before entering in.

"Oh, Miss Collum, my poor dear!" a tremulous voice, which he recognised as his aunt's, was saying, "for Mercy's sake, don't lie there like that!

She's dying!--and it's my fault for letting her come here!--and what am I to say to her ma?"

Leander had heard enough; he burst in, with a white, horror-stricken face. Yes, it was too true! Matilda was lying back in his crazy armchair, her eyes fast closed, her lips parted.

"Aunt," he said with difficulty, "she's not--not _dead_?"

"If she is not," returned his aunt, "it's no thanks to you, Leandy Tweddle! Go away; you can do no good to her now!"

"Not till I've heard her speak," cried Tweddle. "Tillie, don't you hear?--it's me!"

To his immense relief, she opened her eyes at the sound of his voice, and turned away with a feeble gesture of fear and avoidance. "You have come back!" she moaned, "and with her! Oh, keep her away!... I can't bear it all over again!... I can't!"

He threw himself down by her chair, and drew down the hands in which she had hidden her face. "Matilda, my poor, hardly-used darling!" he said, "I've come back _alone_! I've got rid of her, Tillie! I'm free; and there's no one to stand between us any more!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE THREW HIMSELF DOWN BY HER CHAIR, AND DREW DOWN THE HANDS IN WHICH SHE HAD HIDDEN HER FACE.]

She pushed back her disordered fair hair, and looked at him with sweet, troubled eyes. "But you went away with her--for ever?" she said. "You said you didn't love me any longer. I heard you ... it was just before----" and she shuddered at the recollection.

"I know," said Leander, soothingly. "I was obligated to speak harsh, to deceive the--the other party, Tillie. I tried to tell you, quiet-like, that you wasn't to mind; but you wouldn't take no notice. But there, we won't talk about it any more, so long as you forgive me; and you do, don't you?"

She hid her face against his shoulder, in answer, from which he drew a favourable conclusion; but Miss Tweddle was not so easily pacified.

"And is this all the explanation you're going to give," she demanded, "for treating this poor child the way you've done, and neglecting her shameful like this? If she's satisfied, Leandy, I'm not."

"I can't help it, aunt," he said. "I've been true to Tillie all the way through, in spite of all appearances to the contrary--as she knows now.

And the more I explained, the less you'd understand about it; so we'll leave things where they are. But I've got back the ring, and now you shall see me put it on her finger."

It seemed that Leander had driven to Scotland Yard just in time to save himself, for the Inspector did not make his threatened search that evening.

Two or three days later, however, to Leander's secret alarm, he entered the shop. After all, he felt, it was hopeless to think of deceiving these sleuth-hounds of the Law: this detective had been making inquiries, and identified him as the man who had shared the hansom with that statue!

His knees trembled as he stood behind his gla.s.s-topped counter. "Come to make the search, sir?" he said, as cheerfully as he could. "You'll find us ready for you."

"Well," said Inspector Bilbow, with a queer mixture of awkwardness and complacency, "no, not exactly. Tweddle, my good fellow, circ.u.mstances have recently a.s.sumed a shape that renders a search unnecessary, as perhaps you are aware?"

He looked very hard at Tweddle as he spoke, and the hairdresser felt that this was a crucial moment--the detective was still uncertain whether he had been mixed up with the affair or not. Leander's faculty of ready wit served him better here than on past occasions.

"Aware? No, sir!" he said, with admirable simplicity. "Then that's why you didn't come the other evening! I sat up for you, sir; all night I sat up."

"The fact of the matter is, Tweddle," said Bilbow, who had become suddenly affable and condescending, "I found myself reduced, so to speak, to make use of you as a false clue, if you catch my meaning?"

"I can't say I do quite understand, sir."

"I mean--of course, I saw with half an eye, bless your soul, that you'd had nothing to do with it--it wasn't likely that a poor chap like you had any knowledge of a big plant of that description. No, no; don't you go away with that idea. I never a.s.sociated you with it for a single instant."

"I'm truly glad to hear it, Mr. Inspector," said Leander.

"It was owing to the line I took up. There were the real parties to put off their guard, and to do that, Tweddle--to do that, it was necessary to appear to suspect you. D'ye see?"

"I think it was a little hard on me, sir," he said; "for being suspected like that hurts a man's feelings, sir. I did feel wounded to have that cast up against me!"

"Well, well," said the Inspector, "we'll go into that later. But, to go on with what I was saying. My tactics, Tweddle, have been crowned with success--the famous Venus is now safe in my hands! What do you say to that?"

"Say? Why, what clever gentlemen you detective officers are, to be sure!" cried Leander.

"Well, to be candid, there's not many in the Department that would have managed the job as neatly; but, then, it was a case I'd gone into, and thoroughly got up."

"That I'm sure you must have done, sir," agreed Leander. "How ever did you come on it?" He felt a kind of curiosity to hear the answer.