The Woman with One Hand (and) Mr. Ely's Engagement Part 10

"Where did you steal that letter?"

I stood up. "Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor, you go too far. You appear to be under the, I a.s.sure you, erroneous impression that, in engaging a man to fill the honourable post of your secretary, you buy him body and soul to do as you will."

"You smooth-tongued hound! Don't think to play the hypocrite with me, or you will find yourself in custody on a charge of theft."

I looked her steadily in the face--fury seemed to have distended her naturally generous proportions.

"I fear, madam, that this morning you are suffering from ill-health.

When you are yourself again, I feel sure you will tender your apologies."

I moved towards the door. But she would not let me go. She placed herself in front of me.

"Don't think that you deceive me! Don't think that your att.i.tudinising can impose on me! If you do, you are in error. I have known you from the first--yes, before I saw you in the actual flesh. I knew Jonas Hartopp as well as you, and when he fell I swore that I would gibbet the wretch who slew him. All this time I have been watching you, the avenger of blood; I have been tracking you, step by step, playing the very sleuth-hound: It only needs a very little to enable me to prove your guilt up to the hilt; and you may be very sure of this, James Southam, that though you seek to hide yourself in the nethermost corners of the earth, I will have you brought back to hang!"

Her words were so wild, and the charge with which she sought to brand me such a monstrous birth of a diseased imagination, that the most charitable supposition could be that the woman was mentally unhinged.

I treated her with the contempt she merited.

"Possibly, madam, when at your leisure you have credited me with all the vices, you will suffer me to leave the room."

"That is the tone you take up; you sneer, and sneer, and sneer! I foresaw it. Do not suppose that this further proof of your deficiency in all sense of shame takes me by surprise. So black-hearted a villain was not likely to have a conscience which could be easily p.r.i.c.ked. You may go--still this once! It will not be for long; your wings will soon be clipped. I shall soon have you in a cage. Be sure of this: I will show you as little mercy as you showed your helpless victim when he had walked into the trap which you had set for him. You had best be careful. And never forget that wherever you go my emissaries keep you well in sight; whatever you do is known to me within the hour. I have no intention of letting the cord which holds you run too loose."

When she stopped to take breath, I bowed. "I thank you, madam, for your permission to leave the room, and do protest that I esteem myself highly honoured, in that you should take so acute an interest, as you say you do, in my humble person."

She let me go, though seemingly not a little against her will. Even at the last moment I should not have been surprised if she had a.s.sailed me with actual physical violence. But she retained sufficient vestiges of self-control to refrain from doing that. When I opened the door she caught hold of the handle to prevent my shutting it. As I went out she followed me on to the landing. I, supposing she desired to go downstairs, moved aside so as to permit of her pa.s.sage. She took no notice of my action, so I went downstairs. As I went, she stood at the head of the flight, observing me as I descended, and she said, in a tone of voice which was too audible to be pleasant for me--

"Murderer!"

CHAPTER IX

THROWN IN HER FACE

I must admit that, in spite of my efforts to keep up the outward semblance of indifference, when I reached the hall I was at a loss what next to do. A man scarcely ever has a pa.s.sage of arms with an angry woman without suffering some loss of dignity, and that no matter how much in the right he is. I had a mine sprung on me from a wholly unexpected quarter; I had been accused of being an a.s.sa.s.sin by the woman who, for at any rate one sanguine second, I had fondly fancied was about to play the part of my good fairy; and now, as I was endeavouring with the finest air of conscious rect.i.tude which I had at my command, to remove myself from the lash of her vigorous tongue, she had thrown after me in public that hideous epithet. I was aware that the maid, with eyes and ears wide open, was peeping at me from the banisters above, while standing stolidly at the foot of the stairs was that much too attentive waiter. As he moved to let me pa.s.s Mrs.

Lascelles-Trevor--I was always fond of double-barrelled names, being persuaded that they were invariably marks of birth and breeding--gave me an a.s.surance that I was still in range.

She addressed the waiter with perfect spontaneity.

"You may let him go, my man, for the present. But his course is nearly run, and he will be in the hands of the police sooner than he thinks."

I did not feel myself ent.i.tled to knock the man down because the woman insulted me, though my inclination went that way. I was still less disposed to turn and slang her back again, being convinced that in such a contest I should not be her equal. My impulse was to seek out Mrs. Barnes, as the landlady, and therefore responsible for all that took place in her establishment, and submit my grievances to her. But a glimpse that I caught of her, beating a precipitate retreat into her sanctum, directly she saw me glance in her direction, informed me that such a mode of procedure would be worse than vain. I turned into the coffee-room. Then, feeling that I must go somewhere to cool my brain, I quitted it almost immediately, to sally forth into the street.

I had brought my wares to a pretty market! Disaster seemed to be heaped upon disaster's head. Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor might be mad, but there seemed to be method in her madness, and if she really was possessed by the fixed idea that I was an a.s.sa.s.sin, though I might not stand in actual peril of my life, I could hardly be in a more awkward situation. No wonder I had felt towards her an instinctive antagonism, even when she had appeared to be most friendly. I was not sure that I had done wrong in not seeking to rebut even the wildest of her wild words with a greater show of gravity. The levity with which I had received them might be urged against me if it came to an arrest.

An arrest! At the mere thought of such a climax I involuntarily stood still. Cold sweat was on my brow.

I remembered what Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had said about her emissaries being always on my track. For some time past I had had an uneasy feeling that my footsteps were being dogged and that I was being watched. I turned to see if any one was shadowing me now: he would have a bad time of it if I found him. I noted no one whose obvious attentions I could resent. But then I was in the Strand; in that busy thoroughfare the merest tyro could ply his trade of spy without fear of premature detection.

I turned towards Waterloo Bridge, a sudden thought striking me as I did so. I would go for advice to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton: it was through them, in the first place, I had got into this sc.r.a.pe; it ought to be their business to get me out of it. I went, though I might have saved myself the trouble. They expressed their willingness to undertake my defence, if it came to that, and if funds were forthcoming. But so far from giving me the sort of advice I wanted--advice which would enable me to escape the dreadful ordeal of the prisoner's dock--I could see from their manner, if not from their words, that they thought it as likely as not that I was guilty of the crime which, as it seemed, was about to be imputed against me.

I left them, feeling very little rea.s.sured, and sick at heart returned to the hotel. On one point I was finally resolved: under that roof I would not sleep another night. After what had happened in the morning, even Mrs. Barnes would not have the hardihood to suggest that I should continue with her any longer--even as a gratuitous guest.

I went straight upstairs to my bedroom meaning to put the few things together which were mine, and then, and only then, I would have an interview and an explanation with Mrs. Barnes. This was my programme, but, like so many other programmes I had arranged, it was not destined to be carried out.

Directly I reached the bedroom door I became conscious that some one was inside. Supposing it was the maid, who was performing her necessary routine duties, I unceremoniously entered. The person within was not, however, the attendant abigail--it was a man. He lay on his stomach on the floor, with half his length beneath the bed. It was the new waiter. There could be no mistake about the nature of his occupation--I had caught him in the act. So engrossed was he with his researches, that, before he had realised my presence, I had my knee on the small of his back and a stick in my hand.

"As you wouldn't take my friendly warning, take that!"

I brought the stick down smartly on the nether portion of his frame.

He had woke to the consciousness of what was happening at last. With unlooked-for agility, twisting himself partially free, he scrambled from beneath the bed, I continuing, as he struggled, to get in my blows wherever I could.

"Stop this," he gasped, "or you'll regret it!"

"I fancy," I retorted, "that the regret will be yours."

He showed more fight than I had expected. It occurred to me that perhaps, after all, the whipping might not be confined to one side only. But my blood was up--I was not likely to allow such trifles to affect me. All at once, just as I was in the very act of bringing down on him the best blow of any, he caught my wrist and gave it a sharp wrench which numbed the muscles of my arm as if they had been attacked by temporary paralysis.

"You fool!" he said. "You don't know what it is you are doing. I am an officer of police, and I arrest you on a charge of murder."

He had taken my breath away with a vengeance. I gazed at him askance.

"It is false. You are one of that woman's spies."

"I am nothing or the kind, as a shrewd man like you ought to be aware.

I have had this case in hand from the first. I came here to play the part of a waiter with the special intention of keeping an eye on you--and I have kept an eye upon you, I fancy, to some purpose."

"It's all a lie!"

"Don't talk nonsense. The game is up, my lad, and you know it. The question is, are you going to come quietly, or am I to use the bracelets--I can get plenty of a.s.sistance, I a.s.sure you, if I choose to call."

"If you can prove to me the truth of what you say, and can show me that you really are an officer of police, I can have no objection to your doing what you conceive to be your duty, though, I declare to you, as there is a G.o.d above us, that in arresting me you are making a grievous mistake."

The fellow eyed me with what struck me as being a grin of genuine admiration.

"You're a neat hand--I never saw a chap carry a thing off neater, though it's my duty to warn you that anything which you may say will be used against you. But you've made a slight mistake, my lad--perhaps you didn't think I found it."

He picked up something from the coverlet. It was a long, thin blade, of a fas.h.i.+on which I had never seen before. It had a point of exquisite fineness. Here and there the gleaming steel was obscured by what seemed stains of rust.

"Perhaps it is owing to my stupidity that I am unable to grasp your meaning. This is not mine, nor have I seen it before."

"Haven't you? That remains to be seen. Unless I am out of my calculations, I shall not be surprised to learn that that knife killed Jonas Hartopp. Oddly enough, I found it just as you were coming into the room--inside the wainscotting, in a little slit in the wall which was not half badly concealed, and which was hidden by your bed. I rather reckon that that small bit of evidence will just round my case up nicely."

"If it is true that you found it where you say you did, I can only a.s.sert that I do not know who put it there. I certainly did not."

"No? That is a point which must be left open for further consideration. Now I am afraid that I shall have to trouble you to walk downstairs. You perfectly understand, Mr. Southam, that you are my prisoner."