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de Bercy Affair

<h2>CHAPTER VIII AT THE SUN-DIAL</h2> The messenger of evil had waited twenty minutes by the side of the sun-dial, when he saw a lady come round the corner from the front of the house, and saunter towards him. Moonlight lay weltering on the white walks of the terrace, on the whiter slabs of stone, on the water of the basin, on the surface of the lake eastward where the lowest of the terraces curved into the parkland that the wavelets lapped on. It weltered, too, on the lady's hair, deftly coiled and twisted into the coiffure of a Greek statue. It shimmered on the powdered blue of her gown that made her coming a little ghostly in that light, on the rows of pearls around her throat, and on the satin gloss of her shoes. She made straight for the dial; and then, all at once, finding some unknown man keeping the tryst, half halted. He ran out to her, touched his cap, saying "Miss Marsh," handed her the note, touched his cap again, and was going. "From whom?" she called after him in some astonishment. "Lady at the Swan, miss"—and he hurried off [pg 127] even more swiftly, for this was a question which he had answered against orders. She stood a little, looking at the envelope, her breathing labored, an apprehension in her heart. Then, hearing the coming of footsteps which she knew, she broke it open, and ran her eye over the few words. Bending slightly, with the flood of the moon on the paper, she could easily read the plainly written, message. <blockquote> ... The Mr. Glyn whom you know is no other than the Mr. Rupert Osborne who is in everyone's mouth in connection with the Feldisham Mansions Murder.... </blockquote> Now she laughed with a sudden catch of the breath, gasping "Oh!" with a sharp impatience of all anonymous scandalizers. But as her head rather swam and span, she walked on quickly to the basin, and there found it necessary to sit down on the marble. The stab of pain passed in a few seconds, and again she sprang up and laughed as lightly as one of the little fountains in the basin that tossed its tinted drops to the moonbeams. Not twenty yards away was Osborne coming to her. She looked at him steadily—her marvelous eyes self-searching for sure remembrance of the earnestness with which he had pleaded in favor of the lover of Rose de Bercy—how he had said that Osborne had already loved again; and how she, Rosalind—oh, [pg 128] how blind and deaf!—heedlessly had brushed aside his words, saying that a man of that mood was below being a topic.... "Is it half an hour?" Osborne came whispering, with a bending of the body that was like an act of worship. She smiled. In the moonlight he could not perceive how ethereally white was her face. "It is one half-minute!... It was rather quixotic of you to have proposed, and of me to have accepted, such a meeting. But I felt sure that by this hour others would be strolling about the terraces. As it is, you see, we are pioneers without followers. So, till we meet again——" She seemed to be about to hurry away without another word; he stood aghast. "But, Rosalind——" "What? How dare you call me Rosalind?" Now her eyes flashed upon him like sudden lightning from a dark blue sky, and the scorn in her voice blighted him. "I—I—don't understand," he stammered, trying to come nearer. She drew her skirts aside with a disdain that was terrifying. Then she laughed softly again; and was gone. He looked after her as after treasure that one sees sinking into the sea, flashing in its descent to the depths. For one mad instant he had an impulse to run in vain pursuit, but instead he gave way, sank down upon the edge of the marble basin, just where [pg 129] she had dropped a few brief seconds earlier, covered his face, and a groan that was half a sob broke so loudly from his throat that she heard it. She hesitated, nearly stopped, did not look round, scourged herself into resolution, and in another moment had turned the corner of the house and was lost to sight. What had happened to change his Rosalind into this unapproachable empress Osborne was too stunned to ask himself explicitly. He knew he was banned, and that was enough. Deep in his subconsciousness he understood that somehow she had found out his wretched secret—found out that he was not the happy Glyn reeling through an insecure dream in fairyland, but the unhappy Osborne, heavily tangled in the sordid and the commonplace. And, because he was unhappy and troubled, she left him without pity, turned her back eternally upon him. That hurt. As he stood up to walk away toward Tormouth, a fierce anger and a gush of self-pity battled in his eyes. He had no more hope. He wandered on through the night, unseeing, stricken as never before. At last he reached the hotel, and, as soon as he could summon the energy, began to pack his portmanteau to go back to London. The day of the postponed inquest now loomed near, and he cared not a jot what became of him, only asking dumbly to be taken far from Tormouth. As he was packing the smaller of the bags, he [pg 130] saw the scrap of blood-stained lace that Furneaux had already seen, had taken out, and had replaced. Osborne, with that same feeling of repulsion with which Furneaux had thrust it away from him, held it up to the light. What was it? How could it have got into his bag? he asked himself—a bit of lace stained with blood! His amazement knew no bounds—and would have been still more profound, if possible, had he seen Furneaux's singular act in replacing it in the bag after finding it. He threw the horrible thing from him out of the window, and his very fingers tingled with disgust of it. But then came the disturbing thought—suppose it had been put into his bag as a trap? by the police, perhaps? And suppose any apparent eagerness of his to rid himself of it should be regarded as compromising? He was beginning to be circumspect now, timorous, ostentatious of that innocence in which a whole world disbelieved. So he glanced out of the window, saw where the lace had dropped upon a sloping spread of turf in the hotel grounds, and ran down to get it. When he arrived at the spot where he had just seen it, the lace had disappeared. He stood utterly mystified, looking down at the spot where the lace should be and was not; then looked around in a maze, to discover on a rustic seat that surrounded an oak tree an elderly lady and a bent old man sitting there in the shadow. Some distance off, lounging among the flower beds in the [pg 131] moonlight, was the figure of a tall man. Osborne was about to inquire of the two nearest him if they had seen the lace, when the old gentleman hurried nimbly forward out of the tree's shadow and asked if he was seeking a piece of something that had dropped from above. "Yes," answered Osborne, "have you seen it?" "That gentleman walking yonder was just under your window when it dropped, and I saw him stoop to pick it up," said the other. Osborne thanked him, and made for "the gentleman," who turned out to be a jauntily-dressed Italian, bony-faced, square in the jaw, his hair clipped convict-short, but dandily brushed up at the corner of the forehead. To the question: "Did you by chance pick up a bit of lace just now?" he at once bowed, and showing his teeth in a grin, said: "He dropped right to my feet from the sky; here he is"—and he presented the lace with much ceremony. "I am obliged," said Osborne. "Do not say it," answered the other politely, and they parted, Osborne hurrying back to his room, with the intent to catch a midnight train from Tormouth. As he entered the house again, the older man, incredibly quick on his uncertain feet, overtook him, and, touching him on the arm, asked if he intended to catch the train that night. [pg 132] "That is my desire," answered Osborne. "It is mine, too," said the other; "now, could you give me a seat in your conveyance?" Osborne said, "With pleasure," and they entered the hotel to prepare to go. At the same moment the Italian sauntered up to the oak tree beneath which sat Hylda Prout in her Tormouth make-up. Seating himself without seeking her permission, he lit a cigarette. "Good-evening," he said, after enveloping himself in a cloud of smoke. She did not answer, but evidently he was not one to be rebuffed. "Your friend, Mistare Pooh, he is sharp! My! he see all," he said affably. This drew a reply. "You are quite right," she said. "He sees all, or nearly all. Do you mean because he saw you pick up the lace?" "Now—how you know it was lace?" asked the Italian, turning full upon her. "You sitting here, you couldn't see it was lace so far—no eyes could see that." This frankness confused the lady a moment; then she laughed a little, for he had supplied her with a retort. "Perhaps I see all, too, like my friend." There was a silence, but the Italian was apparently waiting only to rehearse his English. "You know Mr. Glyn—yes?" he said. "No." [pg 133] "Oh, don't say 'no'!" Reproach was in his ogle, his voice. His tone was almost wheedling. "Why not?" "The way I find you spying after him this morning tell me that you know him. And I know that you know him before that." "What concern is it of yours?" she asked, looking at him with a lowering of the lids in a quick scrutiny that was almost startled. "What is your interest in Mr. Glyn?" "Say 'Osborne' and be done," he said. "Well, say 'Osborne,'" she responded. "Good. We are going to understand the one the other, I can see. But if you want to know what is 'my interest' in the man, you on your part will tell me first if you are friend or enemy of Osborne." In one second she had reflected, and said: "Enemy." His hand shot out in silence to her, and she shook it. The mere action drew them closer on the seat. "I believe you," he whispered, "and I knew it, too, for if you had been a friend you would not be in a disguise from him." "How do you know that I am in a disguise?" "Since yesterday morning I know," he answered, "when I see you raise your blind yonder, not an old woman, but a young and charming lady not yet fully dressed, for I was here in the garden, looking out for what I could see, and my poor heart was pierced by the vision at the window." [pg 134] He pressed his palm dramatically on his breast. "Yes, of course, it is on the left, as usual," said Hylda Prout saucily. "But let us confine ourselves to business for the moment. I don't quite understand your object. As to the bit of lace——" "How you know it was lace?" She looked cautiously all round before answering. "I know because I searched Mr. Osborne's room, and saw it." "Good! Before long we understand the one the other. You be frank, I be frank. You spied into the bag, and I put it in the bag." "I know you did." "Now, how you know?" "There was no one else to do it!" "No? Might not Osborne put it there himself? You know where that bit of lace come from?" "I guess." "What you guess?" "I guess that it is from the dress of the dead actress, for it has blood on it." "You guess good—very good. And Osborne killed her—yes?" She pondered a little. This attack had come on her from a moonlit sky. "That I don't know. He may have, and he may not," she murmured. "Which is more likely? That he killed her, or that I killed her?" [pg 135] "I don't know. I should say it is more likely that you killed her." "What! You pay me that compliment? Why so?" "Well, you are in possession of a portion of the dress she wore when she was killed, and you put it into someone's belongings to make it seem that he killed her, an act which looks a little black against you." "Ah, ma bella, now you jest," said the Italian, laughing. "The fact that I am so frank with you as to say you all this is proof that I not kill her." "Yes, I see that," she agreed. "I was only joking. But since you did not kill her, how on earth did you get hold of that piece of her dress?" "That you are going to know when I have received better proof that you are as much as I the enemy of Osborne. Did I not guess good, on seeing you yesterday morning at the window, that you are the same young lady who is Osborne's secretary in London, where I see you before?" Hylda Prout admitted that she was the secretary. "Good, then," said the Italian; "you staying in the house with him have every opportunity to find proof of his guilt of the murder; until which is proved, the necks of those I am working for are in danger." With the impulsive gesture of his race he drew his forefinger in ghastly mimicry across his throat. "So bad as that?" asked the woman coolly. "Unfortunately, [pg 136] I don't know who 'those' are you are working for. The——?" "Yes." "The Anarchists?" "If you call them so." "Did they kill her?" "Not they!" "Did they intend to?" "Not they!" "Then, where did you get that bit of lace? And where is the dagger?" "Dagger! What about dagger now?" He asked it with a guilty start. At last the talk was taking a turn which left Hylda Prout in command. "If you have that lace, you have the dagger, too. And if you have the dagger, what help do you want from me? Produce that, and Osborne is done for." Her voice sank to a whisper. If Furneaux could have been present he must have felt proud of her. "Dagger!" muttered the Italian again in a hushed tone. "You seem to know much more——" "Stay, let us get up and walk. It is not quite safe here.... There are too many trees." The man, who had lost his air of self-confidence, seemed to be unable to decide what to do for the best. But Hylda Prout had risen, and he, too, stood up. He was compelled to follow her. Together they passed through the grounds toward the cliffs. [pg 137] The same moonlight that saw them strolling there, saw at the same time Furneaux and Osborne racing in a trap along the road to Sedgecombe Junction to catch the late train on the main line. Furneaux was inclined to be chatty, but Osborne answered only in monosyllables, till his companion's talk turned upon the murder of the actress, when Osborne, with a sudden access of fury, assured him in very emphatic language that his ears were weary of that dreadful business, and prayed to be spared it. The old gentleman seemed to be shocked, but Osborne only glanced at his watch, muttering that they would have to be smart to catch the train; and as he put back the watch in its pocket, the other dropped his bag over the side of the vehicle. There was nothing to be done but to stop, and the delinquent, with the stiffness and slowness of age, descended to pick it up. Thus some precious minutes were wasted. Furneaux, in fact, did not wish Osborne to start for London that night at that late hour, since he wanted to apprise Winter of Osborne's departure. Hence he had begged a seat in the conveyance, and had already lost time at the hotel. A little later, when Osborne again glanced at his watch, it was to say: "Oh, well, there is no use in going on," and he called to the driver to turn back. Indeed, the whistle of the departing train was heard at the station half a mile away. "Well, yes," said Furneaux, curiously pertinacious, when the dog-cart was on the homeward road, [pg 138] "one is weary of hearing this murder discussed. I only spoke of it to express to you my feeling of disapproval of the lover—of the man Osborne. Is it credible to you that he was not even at her funeral? No doubt he was advised not to be—no doubt it was wise from a certain point of view. But nothing should have prevented him, if he had had any affection for her. But he had none—he was a liar. Talk of her deceiving him! It was he—it was he—who deceived her, I say!" "Have a cigar," said Osborne, presenting his case; "these are rather good ones; you will find them soothing." His hospitality was declined, but there was no more talk, and the trap trotted back into Tormouth. Up at "St. Briavels" that same moment the same moonlight, shining on a balcony, illumined yet another scene in the network of events. Rosalind Marsh was sitting there alone, her head bent between her clenched hands. She had returned home early from the Abbey, and Mrs. Marsh, who had silently wondered, presently came out with the softness of a shadow upon her, and touched her shoulder. "What is the matter?" she asked in a murmur of sympathy. "My head aches a little, mother dear." "I am sorry. You look tired." "Well, yes, dear. There are moments of infinite weariness in life. One cannot avoid them." "Did you dance?" [pg 139] "Only a little." "Weary of emotions, then?" The old lady smiled faintly. "Mother!" whispered Rosalind, and pressed her mother's hand to her forehead. There was silence for a while. When Mrs. Marsh spoke again it was to change the subject. "You have been too long at Tormouth this time. I think you need a change. Suppose we took a little of London now? Society might brighten you." "Oh, yes! Let us go from this place!" said Rosalind under her breath, her fingers tightly clenched together. "Well, then, the sooner the better," said Mrs. Marsh. "Let it be to-morrow." Rosalind looked up with gratitude and the moonlight in her eyes. "Thank you, dear one," she said. "You are always skilled in divining, and never fail in being right." And so it was done. The next forenoon saw the mother and daughter driving in an open landau past the Swan to Tormouth station, and, as they rolled by in state, Hylda Prout, who was peeping from a window after the figure of Osborne on his way to the station, saw them. A glitter came into her eyes, and the unspoken thought was voiced in eloquent gesture: "What, following him so soon?"—for she knew that they could only be going by the London train, which had but [pg 140] one stopping-place after Tormouth. At once she rushed in a frenzy of haste to prepare to travel by that very train. Some wild ringing of bells and promise of reward brought chambermaid and "boots" to her aid. In her descent to the office to pay her bill she was encountered by her new friend, the Italian, who, surprised at her haste, said to her, "What, you go?"—to which she, hardly stopping, answered: "Yes—we will meet when we said—in two days' time." "But me, too, I go," he cried, and ran to get ready, the antics of the pair creating some stir of interest in the bar parlor. At this time Furneaux was already at the station, awaiting the train, having already wired to Winter in London to meet him at Waterloo. And so the same train carried all their various thoughts and purposes and secrets in its different compartments on the Londonward journey. Furneaux, who chose to sit in the compartment with Rosalind and Mrs. Marsh, listened to every sigh and syllable of Rosalind, and, with the privilege of the aged, addressed some remarks to his fellow-travelers. Hylda Prout and the Italian were together—a singular bond of intimacy having suddenly forged itself between these two. They were alone, and Hylda, who left Tormouth old and iron-gray, arrived at London red-headed and young, freckle-splashed and pretty. But as for Osborne, he traveled in the dull company of his black thoughts. [pg 141] The first to alight at Waterloo, before the train stopped, was Furneaux. His searching eyes at once discovered Winter waiting on the platform. In a moment the Chief Inspector had a wizened old man at his ear, saying: "Winter—I'm here. Came with the crowd." "Hallo," said Winter, and from old-time habit of friendship his hand half went out. Furneaux, however, seemed not to notice the action, and Winter's hand drew back. "Osborne is in the train," whispered Furneaux. "I telegraphed because there is an object in his smaller bag that I want you to see—as a witness, instantly. There he comes; ask him into the first-class waiting-room. It is usually empty." Furneaux himself went straight into the waiting-room and sat in a corner behind a newspaper. Soon in came Winter, talking to Osborne with a marked deference: "You will forgive me, I am sure, for this apparent lack of confidence, but in an affair of this sort one leaves no stone unturned." "Do not mention it," said Osborne, who was rather pale. "I think I can guess what it is that you wish to see...." A porter, who had followed them, put the two portmanteaux on a table, and went out. Osborne opened the smaller one, and Winter promptly had the blood-stained bit of lace in his hand. "What is it, sir?" asked Winter. [pg 142] "Heaven knows," came the weary answer. "It was not in my possession when I left London, and was put into one of my bags by someone at Tormouth. When I found it, I threw it out of the window, as that gentleman there can prove," for he had seen Furneaux, but was too jaded to give the least thought to his unaccountable presence. "Afterwards I ran down and recovered it. He was in the garden...." The unhappy young man's glance wandered out of the door to see Rosalind and her mother go past towards a waiting cab. He cared not a jot if all Scotland Yard were dogging his footsteps now. "Is that so, sir?" asked Winter of Furneaux. "Exactly as Mr. Glyn says," answered Furneaux, looking at them furtively, and darting one very curious glance at Winter's face. "And who, Mr.—Glyn, was about the place whom you could possibly suspect of having placed this object in your bag—someone with a wicked motive for throwing suspicion upon you?" Winter's lips whitened and dwelt with venom upon the word "wicked." "There was absolutely no one," answered Osborne. "The hotel was rather empty. Of course, there was this gentleman——" "Yes," said Winter after him, "this gentleman." "An elderly lady, a Mrs. Forbes, I believe, as I happened to read her name, a foreigner who probably [pg 143] never saw me before, an invalid girl and her sister—all absolutely unconnected with me." Furneaux's eyes were now glued on Winter's face. They seemed to have a queer meaning in them, a meaning not wholly devoid of spite and malice. "Well, Mr.—Glyn," said Winter, "let me tell you, if you do not know, that this bit of lace was certainly part of the dress in which Miss de Bercy was murdered. Therefore the man—or woman—who put it into your bag was there—on the spot—when the deed was done." Osborne did then exhibit some perplexed interest in a strange discovery. "How can you be certain that it was part of her dress?" he asked. "Because a fragment of lace of this size was torn from the wrap she was wearing at the time of the murder—I noticed it at my first sight of the body. This piece would just fit into it. So, whoever put it into your bag——" "In that case I may have put it in myself!" said Osborne with a nervous laugh, "since I may be the murderer." Apparently the careless comment annoyed Winter. "I don't think I need detain you any longer, sir," he said coldly. "As for the lace, I'll keep it. I feel very confident that this part of the mystery will not baffle me for more than a day or two." And ever the eyes of Furneaux dwelt upon Winter's [pg 144] face with that queer meaning reveling in their underlook. Osborne turned to go. He did not trouble to call another porter, but carried his own luggage. He was about to enter a cab when he caught sight of the back of a woman's head among the crowd hurrying to an exit, a head which seemed singularly familiar to him. The next moment it was gone from his sight, which was a pity, since the head belonged to Hylda Prout, who had not anticipated that Osborne would be delayed on the platform, and had had to steal past the waiting-room door at a rush, since she was no longer an old lady, but herself. She could not wait in the train till he was well away, for she thought it well to ascertain the whereabouts of Rosalind Marsh in London, and wished to shadow her. Mrs. Marsh and her daughter carried the usual mountain of ladies' luggage, which demanded time and care in stowing safely on the roof of a four-wheeler, so Hylda Prout was in time to call a hansom and follow them. After her went the Italian, who made off hastily when the train arrived, but lurked about until he could follow the girl unseen, for she had frightened him. Now, at the station that day, keeping well in the background, was a third detective beside Winter and Furneaux. Clarke, with his interest in Anarchists, knew that this particular Italian was coming from Tormouth [pg 145] either that day or the day after. Two nights before, while on a visit to the Fraternal Club in Soho, he had overheard the whispered word that "Antonio" would "be back" on the Wednesday or the Thursday. Clarke did not know Antonio's particular retreat in London, and had strong reasons for wishing to know it. He, therefore, followed in a cab the cab that followed Rosalind's cab. In any other city in the world than London such a procession would excite comment—if it passed through street after street, that is. But not so in cab-using London, where a string of a hundred taxis, hansoms, and four-wheelers may all be going in the same direction simultaneously. As Clarke went westward down the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, he was full of meditations. "What is Antonio doing with Osborne's lady secretary?" he asked himself. "For that is the young woman he is after, I'll swear. By Jove, there's more in this tangle than meets the eye. It's a case for keeping both eyes, and a third, if I had it, wide, wide open!" Rosalind's and Mrs. Marsh's cab drew up before a house in Porchester Gardens. As they got out and went up the steps, the cabs containing Antonio and Hylda Prout almost stopped, but each went on again. "Now, what in the world is the matter?" mused Clarke. "Why are those two shadowing a couple of ladies, and sneaking on each other as well?" [pg 146] He told his own driver to pass the house slowly, as he wished to note its number, and the vehicle was exactly opposite the front door when it was opened by a girl with a cap on her head to let in Mrs. Marsh and Rosalind; Clarke's eye rested on her, and lit with a strange fire. A cry of discovery leapt to his lips, but was not uttered. A moment after the door had closed upon the two travelers, Clarke's hand was at the trap-door in the roof of the hansom, and, careless whether or not he was seen, he leaped out, ran up the steps, and rang. A moment more and the door was opened to him by the same girl, whom he had recognized instantly as Pauline Dessaulx, the late lady's-maid of Rose de Bercy—a girl for whom he had ransacked London in vain. And not he alone, for Pauline had very effectively buried herself from the afternoon after the murder, when Clarke had seen her once, and she him, to this moment. And there now they stood, Clarke and Pauline, face to face. He, for his part, never saw such a change in a human countenance as now took place in this girl's. Her pretty brown cheeks at once, as her eyes fell on him, assumed the whiteness of death itself. Her lips, the very rims of her eyelids even, looked ghastly. She seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and her whole frame trembled in an agony of fear. Why? What caused these deadly tremors? Instantly Clarke saw guilt in this excess of emotion, and by one of those inspirations vouchsafed sometimes even [pg 147] to men of his coarse fiber he did the cleverest act of his life. Putting out his hand, he said quietly, but roughly: "Come now, no nonsense! Give it to me!" What "it" meant he himself had no more notion than the man in the moon. His real motive was to set the terrified girl speaking, and thus lead her on to yield some chance clew on which his wits might work. But at once, like one hypnotized, Pauline Dessaulx, still keeping her eyes fixed on his face, slowly moved her right hand to a pocket, slowly drew out a little book, and slowly handed it to him. "All right—you are wise," he said. "I'll see you again." The door slammed, and he ran down the steps, his blood tingling with the sense that he had blundered upon some tremendous discovery. Nor was he far wrong. When in the cab he opened the book, he saw it was Rose de Bercy's diary. He did not know her handwriting, but he happened to open the book at the last written page, and the very first words his staring eyes devoured were these: <blockquote> If I am killed this night, it will be by —— or by C. E. F. </blockquote> Where the blank occurred it was evident that some name had been written, and heavily scratched through with pen and ink. But the alternative suggested by the initials! C. E. F.! How grotesque, how exquisitely ludicrous! Clarke, gazing at the enigma, was suddenly shaken with a spasm of hysterical laughter. <hr class="hr2" /> [pg 148] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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