Chapter XV: The House of Shadows

I made a movement to dash forward and enter the house to the rescue of my well-beloved, but Whitlock placed a quick, firm hand upon my arm whispering--

"Wait--we may discover something further!" and he drew me back into the shadow.

"But----"

My words were cut short by the sound of movement within. We were close to the back entrance to the house, a short flight of steps leading from the old-fashioned garden into one of the rooms.

I listened for the cry of distress to be repeated, but there was no further scream.

"I wonder what is happening?" I gasped eagerly to the man at my side.

"Hark!" he cried. "Listen!"

I could hear voices within--voices in serious and deliberate conversation. I held my breath, with ears strained to catch the words. But all was an indistinct mumbling. As I stood there, inactive and apprehensive, my impulse was to rush forward and face the pair.

Of a sudden, without warning, the door opened, and they both came down the steps, the man closing the door noiselessly behind him. Surely their visit there was a bold step, having in view the fact that the police had, until the previous day, remained in possession of the premises. It almost seemed as though they had some inside knowledge of the action of the authorities.

"You are convinced now, are you not?" asked the man, as he came down the steps behind my sweetheart.

"How can I doubt further?" she said hoarsely, evidently much impressed by something she had either seen or heard in that house of shadows.

"You disbelieved me when I told you the truth. But you've now seen with your own eyes," he remarked in a gruff, off-hand way.

"Please do not mention it further," she urged as she passed close by us, fortunately without detecting our presence, for we were standing back in the darkness beneath the high wall. "It is as terrible as it is incomprehensible. I never dreamed that!"

"And you still believe in--in him, eh?" he sneered.

I pricked up my ears at mention of myself.

"I will not disbelieve until I have proof to the contrary," was her bold response.

"But you surely have had that to-night?" he said.

What proof was there, I wondered. Was there a plot against myself?

She made no answer, but walked to the gate, the well-dressed young stranger following closely at her heels.

We wondered where they were going, for they had dismissed their cab, and conveyances at that late hour there were none.

I could see that Whitlock's wish was to enter the house and ascertain what had caused the young lady such fright. The incident had struck us both as utterly mysterious and incomprehensible. Yet, on the other hand, he was anxious to ascertain the destination of the pair.

At the gate the man hesitated for a second, and then turned in the direction of Hammersmith Bridge.

"Good!" remarked Whitlock. "I gave the cabman instructions, and told him who I was. Finding the cab there, they will most probably take it; therefore the man will report to me at the Yard in the morning. I'll watch--you remain here."

He left my side and, passing along to the front gate, disappeared.

Alone in the dark garden, where, beneath that great old tree to my left, we had dug up the box containing those curiously-preserved articles, I stood calmly reviewing the occurrences of that eventful night.

Was it possible that Daisy--my own Daisy--could be out until that late hour without serious inquiry on the part of "Joyous Jimmy" and his wife? Her companion had spoken of some man sneeringly, and his remarks in themselves showed some serious conspiracy against me--a conspiracy formed, perhaps, by himself. What, I wondered, could be its nature? True, her little keepsake had been concealed in that upstairs cupboard, but, on the other hand, had not that man's birth-certificate, buried in the garden, been recovered by means of the forged telegram of the Central News?

I glanced up at the great old-fashioned house, which, in the silence of that night-hour, seemed so full of forbidding shadows. Truly it was a house of mystery and of tragedy.

By whose hand had its lonely but beautiful occupant fallen? At whose instigation had that second woman killed herself rather than face inquiry?

My thoughts wandered far away to Julian Little, my old and trusted friend. What could he know of the affair? If innocent of it, then why had he fled beyond the Danube?

Could we only discover who had despatched that extraordinary Press message to Plymouth, then we should certainly understand its motive. Whitlock had promised that next morning would establish or deny the identity of Daisy's companion with the man whose birth-certificate we recovered in such remarkable circumstances. But how? After all, why was my friend so anxious about Little if he did not suspect him?

Standing there in silence, awaiting Whitlock's return, I reviewed the whole of those amazing circumstances, and the more I reflected upon them the more hopeless became the solution of the astounding problem.

In my profession as journalist--or "murder-monger," as I was known in the office of the _Evening Herald_--I had assisted the police in investigating many strange and apparently motiveless crimes. Yet none had presented such incomprehensible features as this affair; none were so full of clues that seemed to lead nowhere.

Was this visit the first Daisy had paid to the house? On calm reflection I concluded that it was not. I recollected how, without sign of fear, she had boldly accompanied her companion there, and how, in descending the steps, she had, without hesitation, taken the pathway leading to the front entrance. Her every movement was now photographed upon my memory, while her shriek of terror still rang in my ears.

That cry! Why had she uttered it? Certain it was that she was in no way afraid of her companion. Therefore, she had undoubtedly seen something within that house which had utterly unnerved her. But what? Aye, that was the question!

Standing there in the damp darkness of the night I awaited Whitlock's return. Then we might, perchance, discover the cause of that loud shriek from those lips that had so often met mine in fond and passionate caress.

Was she playing me false? I put it to you. Place yourself in my position--and answer if you can!

It seemed as though Whitlock would never return, and I began wondering whether the pair had not found another cab, and under necessity my friend had been compelled to follow them.

The silence of the night was suddenly broken by the slow tread of the constable returning along the pavement. Fortunately Whitlock--always full of forethought--had closed the gate behind him, so the man in uniform passed on without noticing that the padlock and chain had been removed.

A motor car came along, its whirr being heard a considerable distance away, and its head-light shedding a bright streak of brilliance upon the road quite a long time before its approach. Then, with a flash, it went by, and the beat of its engines was quickly lost in the distance.

Still I waited, though full of impatience. That inactivity was galling. I wanted to enter the house and ascertain what had so terrified my well-beloved.

At last Whitlock's dark, burly figure appeared in the gateway, and he exclaimed in a low voice--

"It's all right, Keene. They've taken our cab! We shall know more in the morning."

Daisy--my own sweet love, whom I had believed so true to me--had driven away with that dressed-up young club-lounger, who seemed for an unaccountable reason to hold some occult influence over her! Whither had they gone?

I bit my lip in the darkness. To-morrow I should know--but not until then. And to-morrow was a long time.

"Come along," exclaimed Whitlock, in his cheery, bustling manner. "I have a bit of candle in my pocket. Seldom go out at night without it, you know!" he laughed. "Let's have a peep inside and see if we can find out the reason of the girl's scream. That strikes me as peculiar--very peculiar. Do you know, Keene," he added, "I'm not quite sure that I'm not mistaken, after all."

"In what?"

"In believing that that man is really Drayton."

"But you said you will know in the morning."

"Yes. I shall know positively," was his reply. "I leave little to luck, as you know. I generally look ahead, and have done so in this case."

"How?"

"Never mind how. If you come to my office at noon to-morrow I will be able to tell you definitely whether my surmise was correct, or whether, after all, I'm on the wrong track."

"Which at this moment you think you are--eh?"

"Well, I fear that I've formed a wrong conclusion, that's all."

"Why?"

"Because that girl loves the fellow. If he were actually Drayton, there are reasons why she would not do so."

"I don't understand you."

"No. I expect you don't. You see, you are not in possession of very many of the facts."

"No. But I want to be. All that I know constitutes a complicated and amazing enigma, which the more I try to solve the more difficult it becomes."

Whitlock laughed lightly.

"You're a good journalist, Keene; but you'd never be a good detective. You take things far too seriously."

Little did he dream that we were discussing the woman who was all in all to me.

I had never known love until I met her, and I had foolishly flattered myself that she was only mine. But now, in the discovery of her double-dealing, my brain was aflame. I saw how heartlessly she had misled and deceived me; and now discerned how, in order to meet this man, she had always declared to me that I must never come near the stage-doors after her performance.

You who have once been undeceived, and whose tender love has been tossed recklessly aside in favour of that of another, know what I mean when I say that the madness of jealousy was upon me. You who have never experienced it can never know what torments I suffered in those moments.

Whitlock noticed the strangeness of my manner, I think, for he said--

"Come along. Let's have a glance around inside."

Together we ascended the steps, and when he had lit his piece of candle-end, which he always kept in a little tin box, we passed on through the dark passage, until we reached the room where the tragedy had so recently occurred, and there we lit the gas.

Nothing, as far as we could discern, had been disturbed. All remained exactly as we had left it, except that three empty lager bottles stood upon the table, having been bought by the telegraph clerk who, until the previous day, had been there on duty. But he had been withdrawn, and a surveillance placed upon the telegrams on that line received or despatched at the chief office in London.

From room to room we proceeded, Whitlock holding the candle aloft, but we could discern nothing unusual. The place was exactly as we had left it.

Presently, returning to the room where the telegraph instrument still remained, my companion walked to the table and pointed out that a quantity of tape had come out. Upon it were dashes which we could not read.

"I wonder if that man could decipher any of this?" he said. "I wonder, too, if there is any message here the text of which we ought to know?"

"There may be," I said, at once adopting his suggestion.

"Then we'll have it all read," he decided, and, tearing off the tape, he twisted up the many yards of paper ribbon and wrapped it in an old newspaper that lay upon the table.

And with the packet in his hand we together left that house of grim shadows.