The Ashiel mystery Part 5

"I have told you before to-day, Gimblet, of all that has happened since. How I took pa.s.sionately to books as a refuge from my sorrow; how, at my grandfather's suggestion, I had been by way of working for the Diplomatic Service; of how I now worked in good earnest, and in course of time, and after my grandfather's death, found myself attached to our emba.s.sy at Petersburg. During the two years I spent there I made the acquaintance of Countess Romaninov. One day when I was talking to her she happened to mention that she had once known an English lady, Mrs. Meredith, and I came to the conclusion that the little girl who lived with her must be none other than my own child. As you know, I could not stand living in the same town as she did, and for that, and for other reasons, I left the Diplomatic Service and returned to England, where I have lived a quiet life on my place in Scotland ever since. Eight years ago, as you know, I married for the second time, and after a few years of comparative happiness, found myself again a widower, my second wife and her child dying within a few months of each other, when my boy was only four years old.

"It is more than a year, now," continued Lord As.h.i.+el, after a pause, "since the girl Julia Romaninov came to my sister in London, with a letter of introduction from our amba.s.sador in Russia. It was not until my sister invited her down to Scotland that I heard anything about her. Not, in fact, till the day before she arrived, for I always tell my sister to ask any girls she pleases to Inveras.h.i.+el, and she very seldom bothers me about it. You can imagine my feelings when I heard that Julia Romaninov was expected within a few hours, and had indeed already started from London. It was too late to try and stop her, and my first impulse was flight. But on second thoughts I changed my mind, and stayed. Time had dulled the feelings with which I had contemplated her share in the tragedy that attended her birth, and I was not without a certain curiosity to see this young creature for whose existence I was responsible.

"I waited; she came; she stayed six weeks. You know the result. My sister liked her; my nephews, my other guests, every one, except myself, was charmed with her. And I, for some reason, could never stand the girl. I told myself over and over again that it was mere prejudice; the remains of the violent opposition I felt towards her when she was unknown to me; a survival, unconscious and unwilling, of the hatred I had allowed myself to nourish for the baby of a day old, which had made it impossible that she and I should inhabit the same town when she was no more than a child in pinafores. But I could not reason myself out of my dislike, and it culminated a few weeks ago when I found that my sister was anxious to have her with us in the North again this autumn. As you remember, I came to you, and told you the facts. I made you understand how repulsive it was to me to think that this girl might be my child, and begged you to sift the matter as far as was possible, and to find out if there were not a chance that I was mistaken in thinking it was Countess Romaninov who had been Lena Meredith's friend."

"Yes," said Gimblet, "and all I could discover at first was that the two ladies had indeed been acquainted. It is difficult to get at the truth when both of them have been dead for so many years, and when you will not allow me so much as to hint that you feel any interest in the matter. People are shy of answering questions relating to the private affairs of their friends when they think they are prompted by idle curiosity, and in this case it seems very doubtful whether anyone even knows the answers. But in the course of my inquiries I soon discovered the fact that Mrs. Meredith herself had adopted a child, and it certainly seems more than possible that it may have been yours and her friend's. As far as I can find out, both these young ladies are of about the same age, but no one seems to know exactly when either of them first appeared on the scene. If we can only get hold of the nurses! But at present I can find no trace of them, and you won't let me advertise."

"Gimblet, I shall be ever grateful to you," repeated Lord As.h.i.+el. "I had no idea that Mrs. Meredith had adopted a child. I never saw her again, as I have told you, and only heard vaguely that she had married and was living abroad. I purposely avoided asking for news of her. I wished to forget everything that was past. As if that had been possible!"

"I hoped," said Gimblet, "that you would have seen some strong likeness in this young lady to yourself, or to your first wife. That would have clinched the matter to all intents and purposes. But, as things are, I shouldn't build too much on the hope that she is your daughter. It may turn out to be the girl adopted by Countess Romaninov."

"I hope not, I hope not," said Lord As.h.i.+el earnestly. "I have got her to promise to come to Scotland, and in a few days I may get some definite clue as to which of them it is. It is a very odd coincidence that both the girls bear names so much like that of my poor wife's." He paused reflectively, and then added, "In the meantime you will go on with your inquiries, will you not?"

"I will," said Gimblet. "And I hope for better luck."

A silence followed. Lord As.h.i.+el half rose to go, then sat down again. Evidently he had something more to say, but hesitated to say it. At last he spoke:

"When I was at St. Petersburg, twenty years ago, I was aroused to a state of excitement and indignation by the social and political evils which were then so much in evidence to the foreigner who sojourned in the country of the Czars. I was young and impressionable, impulsive and unbalanced in my judgments, I am afraid; at all events I resented certain seeming injustices which came to my notice, and my resentment took a practical and most foolish form. To be short, I was so ill-advised as to join a secret society, and have done nothing but regret it ever since."

"I can well understand your regretting it," said the detective. "People who join those societies are apt to find themselves let in for a good deal more than they bargained for."

"It was so, at all events so far as I am concerned," said Lord As.h.i.+el, "I had, you may be sure, only the wildest idea of what serious and extremely unpleasant consequences my unreflecting action would entail. Withdrawal from these political brotherhoods is to all intents and purposes a practical impossibility; but, in a sense, I withdrew from all partic.i.p.ation in its affairs as soon as I realized to what an extent the theories of its leaders, as to the best means to adopt by which to rectify the injustices we all agreed in deploring, differed from my own ideas on the subject. And I should not have been able to withdraw, even in the negative way I did, if accident had not put into my hand a weapon of defence against the tyranny of the Society."

Lord As.h.i.+el paused hesitatingly, and Gimblet murmured encouragingly:

"And that was?"

"No," said Lord As.h.i.+el, after a moment's silence, "I must not tell you more. We are, I know, to all appearances, safe from eavesdroppers or interruption; but, if a word of what I know were to leak out by some incredible agency, my life would not be worth a day's purchase. As it is, I am alarmed; I believe these people wish for my death. In fact, there is no doubt on that subject. But they dare not attempt it openly. I have told them that if I should die under suspicious circ.u.mstances of any sort, the weapon I spoke of will inevitably be used to avenge my death, and they know me to be a man of my word. For all these years that threat has been my safeguard, but now I am beginning to think that they are trying other means of getting me out of the way."

"It is a pity," said Gimblet, "that you do not speak to me more openly. I think it is highly probable, from what I know of the methods resorted to by Nihilists in general, that you may be in very grave danger. Indeed, I strongly advise you to report the whole matter to the police."

"I wish I could tell you everything," said Lord As.h.i.+el, "but even if I dared, you must remember that I am sworn to secrecy, and I cannot see that because I have, by doing so, placed myself in some peril, that on that account I am ent.i.tled to break my word. No, I cannot tell you any more, but in spite of that, I want you to do me a service."

"I am afraid I can't help you without fuller knowledge," said Gimblet.

"What do you think I can do?"

"You can do this," said Lord As.h.i.+el. He put his hand in his pocket and Gimblet heard a crackling of paper. "I am thinking out a hiding-place for some valuable doc.u.ments that are in my possession, and when I have decided on it I will write to you and explain where I have put them, using a cipher of which the key is enclosed in an envelope I have here in my pocket, and which I will leave with you when I go. Take charge of it for me, and in the course of the next week or so I will send you a cipher letter describing where the papers are concealed. Do not read it unless the occasion arises. I can trust you not to give way to curiosity, but if anything happens to me, if I die a violent death, or equally if I die under the most apparently natural circ.u.mstances, I want you to promise you will investigate those circ.u.mstances; and, if anything should strike you as suspicious in connection with what I have told you, you will be able to interpret my cipher letter, find the doc.u.ment I have referred to, and act on the information it contains. Will you undertake to do this for me?"

"I will, certainly," Gimblet answered readily, "but I hope the occasion will not arise. I beg you to break a vow which was extorted from you by false representations and which cannot be binding on you. Do confide fully in me; I do not at all like the look of this business."

"No, no," replied Lord As.h.i.+el, smiling. "You must let me be the judge of whether my word is binding on me or not. As you say, I hope nothing will happen to justify my perhaps uncalled-for nervousness. In any case it will be a great comfort and relief to me to know that, if it does, the scoundrels will not go unpunished."

"They shall not do that," said Gimblet fervently. "You can make your mind easy on that score, at least. But I advise you to send your doc.u.ments to the bank. They will be safer there than in any hiding-place you can contrive."

"I might want to lay my hand upon them at any moment," said Lord As.h.i.+el, "and I admit I don't like parting with my only weapon of defence. Still, I dare say you are right really, and I will think it over. But mind, I don't want you to take any steps unless, you can satisfy yourself that these people have a hand in my death. Please be very careful to make certain of that. My health is not good, and grows worse. I may easily die without their interference; but I suspect that, if they do get me, they will manage the affair so that it has all the look of having been caused by the purest misadventure. That is what I fear. Not exactly murder; certainly no violent open a.s.sault. But we are all liable to suffer from accidents, and what is to prevent my meeting with a fatal one? That is more the line they will adopt, if, as I imagine, they have decided on my death."

"If ever there were a case in which prevention is better than cure," said Gimblet, "I think you will own that we have it here. If I had some hint of the quarter from which you expect danger, I might at least suggest some rudimentary precautions. What kind of 'accident' do you imagine likely to occur?"

"That I can't tell," replied Lord As.h.i.+el. "I only know that these enemies of mine are resourceful people, who are apt to make short work of anyone whose existence threatens their safety or the success of their designs. I am, by your help, taking a precaution to ensure that I shall not die unavenged. They must be taught that murder cannot be committed in this country with impunity. And I am very careful not to trust myself out of England. If I crossed the Channel it would be to go to my certain death. Otherwise I should have gone myself to see Sir Arthur Byrne. But in this island the man who kills even so unpopular a person as a member of the House of Lords does not get off with a few years' imprisonment, as he may in some of the continental countries; and the Nihilists, for the most part, know that as well as I do."

Gimblet followed Lord As.h.i.+el into the hall with the intention of showing him out of the flat, but the sudden sound of the door bell ringing made him abandon this courtesy and retreat to shelter.

He did not wish to be denied all possibility of refusing an interview to some one he might not want to see.

So it was Higgs who opened the door and ushered out the last visitor, at the same time admitting the newcomer.

This proved to be a small, slight woman dressed in deepest black and wearing the long veil of a widow, who was standing with her back to the door, apparently watching the rapid descent of the lift which had brought her to the landing of No. 7.

She did not move when the door behind her opened, and Lord As.h.i.+el, emerging from it in a hurry to catch the lift before it vanished, nearly knocked her down. She gave a startled gasp and stepped hastily to one side into the dark shadows of the pa.s.sage as he, muttering an apology, darted forward to the iron gateway and applied his finger heavily to the electric bell-push. But the liftboy had caught sight of him with the tail of his eye, and was already reascending.

His anxiety allayed, Lord As.h.i.+el turned again to express his regrets to the lady he had inadvertently collided with, but she had disappeared into the flat, of which Higgs was even then closing the door.

As.h.i.+el stepped into the lift and sat down rather wearily on the leather-covered seat.

Although, to some extent, the relief of having unburdened his mind of secrets that had weighed upon it for so many years produced in him a certain lightness of heart to which he had long been a stranger, yet the very charm of the impression made upon him by Juliet Byrne, during his first meeting with her that morning, led him to suspect uneasily that his hopes of her proving to be his child were due rather to the pleasure it gave him to antic.i.p.ate such a possibility than to any more logical reason.

He was so entirely engrossed in an honest endeavour to adjust correctly the balance of probabilities, as to remain unconscious that the lift had stopped at the ground floor, and it was not until the boy who was in charge had twice informed him of the fact, that he roused himself with an effort and left the building.

Still absorbed in his speculations and anxieties, he walked rapidly away, and, having narrowly escaped destruction beneath the wheels of more than one taxi, wandered down Northumberland Avenue on to the Embankment. He crossed to the farther side, turned mechanically to the right and walked obliviously on.

It was not until he came nearly to Westminster Bridge that he remembered the cipher that he had prepared for Gimblet, and that he had, after all, finally left without giving it to him. It was still in his pocket, and the discovery roused him from his abstraction.

He took a taxi and drove back to the flats. A motor which had been standing before the door when he had come out was still there when he returned; so that, thinking it probably belonged to the lady he had met on the landing, and guessing that if so the detective was still occupied with her, he did not ask to see him again, but handed the envelope over to Higgs when he opened the door, with strict injunctions to take it immediately to his master.

CHAPTER V

The lady, whose visit to Gimblet dovetailed so neatly with the departure of his other client on that summer afternoon, was unknown to him.

He had scarcely re-entered the room and resumed his accustomed seat by the window when Higgs announced her.

"A lady to see you, sir."

The lady was already in the doorway. She must have followed Higgs from the hall, and now stood, hesitating, on the threshold.

"What name?" breathed Gimblet; but Higgs only shook his head.

The detective went forward and spoke to his visitor.

"Please come in," he said. "Won't you sit down?"

And he pushed a chair towards her.

"Thank you," said the lady, taking the seat he offered. "I hope I do not disturb you; but I have come on business," she added, as the door closed behind Higgs.

"Yes?" said Gimblet interrogatively. "You will forgive me, but I didn't catch your name when my man announced you."

"He didn't say it," she replied. "I had not told him. I am sure you would not remember my name, and it is of no consequence at present."