Chapter XVII: Contains Mrs Davis's Story

The mystery was increasing.

Whitlock decided that no further action could be taken at that hour of the morning, and that we must wait for daylight.

By this time the whole of the gigantic machinery in the basement of the _Daily Herald_ building was roaring, while the street outside was blocked by carts and waggons being rapidly loaded up with great bundles of papers and driven rapidly away to Paddington. Shouting men and boys ran hither and thither, packing away the bundles into vans, and thus the morning paper for the West of England was being despatched from Fleet Street to far-off breakfast-tables in rural Devon and Cornwall.

Wakeley, in his shirt-sleeves, came hurrying along the corridor with a late and important tape telegram in his hand. "Good-night, Keene," he cried. "I suppose you'll be off abroad soon? I'd quite forgotten that you'd been transferred to us. I'll give you something to do near home before very long."

Even while we were speaking the roar of machinery had suddenly stopped. Before he had left his chair he had telephoned the order to the machine-room to stop the presses, and the men on the "plates" were making ready for a "stop-press"--the few lines of type set in a box in the curved stereotype-plate.

"Anything startling?" I asked him.

"Only sudden death of an M.P.--vacancy in a Lancashire borough," was his quick reply, and he hurried on, again wishing us "good-night."

For a few moments I looked in at the quiet reference library, now deserted, and then, as we descended in the lift, the machines suddenly began to roar again, pouring out their great bundles of papers containing the very latest "stop-press" intelligence.

Soon after three o'clock I entered my silent chambers and switched on the light. At that hour, not even a cat was stirring in Gray's Inn. I was not sleepy, for all the excitement of the night had kept me wide awake. Therefore, I flung myself into my pet armchair, and took a cigarette from the box.

As I lit it my eyes caught sight of an unusual brand upon it, and next second I recognised that it was Greek--identical with the remains of that cigarette which we had found in the empty grate at Barnes! It was evidently one of Julian Little's, which, perhaps found by the old woman who "did" for us, had been placed in my own box.

I extinguished it, and, holding it between my fingers, pondered deeply.

I remembered quite well how Julian, at half an hour's notice, had left for Athens to interview the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs upon the question of the Greek bands in Macedonia, and his attitude towards the Sublime Porte, and I also recollected his remark about having brought back some very special cigarettes which were made only in Patras. But he was a great connoisseur of cigarettes, and was always bringing back weird brands from out-of-the-way places on the Continent. Therefore, at the time, I had not thought of trying one.

But this discovery now caused me much suspicion, especially as he had, at his own request, left so suddenly for Servia, yet Whitlock's energies seemed to be directed in quite another direction--towards that mysterious man who had accompanied Daisy to the empty house at Barnes, the man whose identity he had expressed confidence of establishing in a few hours.

Like many another mystery of the giant heart of London, the public were only aware of a few of the facts. The remainder--the details of the tantalising puzzle--were withheld from them by the police for obvious reasons. The public often read in the newspapers the three or four lines of dry, matter-of-fact evidence given by a detective at the Old Bailey or the Sessions, but are in total ignorance of all the excitement, all the patient inquiry, and all the romance that lies behind that bald but convicting statement.

Until the grey dawn showed between the window-sash and the blind I sat there, calmly reviewing the amazing situation, and reflecting upon the attitude of my beloved towards the man suspected to be Francis Drayton.

Was that man her lover?

That was the great and all-important question which occupied my whole soul. I loved Daisy Marvin--yes, loved her with that whole-hearted and devoted affection which constitutes a passion. True, we were latter-day Bohemians, both of us--she an actress and I a journalist. Both her mother and father, actress and journalist themselves, were Bohemians. They had indulged Daisy ever since she had been a child, and though they allowed her to follow her inborn penchant for the stage, they did not altogether view it with satisfaction.

Mrs Marvin had once openly condemned it before me. She knew the disappointments, the pitfalls, and temptations of professional life too well, she had said. The variety stage was an over-crowded profession, too, and yet huge salaries were paid to those with real talent, many popular comedians earning as much as Cabinet Ministers. Managers were ever in search of something fresh, but, alas! seldom found it. When they did, however, they paid well. Daisy, because of her dainty _chic_, her refined voice and her graceful dancing, was already a popular favourite, earning a very respectable income, which her father regularly banked for her. So quickly had she sprung into notoriety, and so high already was her standing in the profession, that "Joyful Jimmy's" suggestion that she should retire from the stage had been met with a negative by his wife. Yet, truth to tell, both were secretly delighted with Daisy's success--the mother that she should have a daughter so popular in her own profession, and the father because he foresaw the possibility of her marrying some wealthy young aristocrat.

Other girls had done so, he argued; why should not she?

Therefore every man who cast eyes upon the dainty Daisy was promptly warned off by old Annie, and my love and I in secret had smiled at "Joyful Jimmy's" complete ignorance of the situation.

But there were many facts which now puzzled me beyond measure.

How was it possible that Daisy could be out till three o'clock in the morning without inquiry on the part of her parents? Where was the faithful Annie? Was it possible that she was enabled to take the woman into her confidence when she wished to meet her secret lover? If so, why did she not meet me? I saw that I had been all along deceived by her soft kisses and whispered declarations of affection--that, while she had declared it impossible to meet me, she had nevertheless been constantly in the company of that man whom Whitlock had so openly condemned.

Her confidential manner towards him was, in itself, sufficient to convince me of the bitter truth.

And why, too, had she gone willingly to that house of tragedy in Barnes, if she were not in some way or other implicated or connected with it?

Again, why, on reading that curious message on the tape, should she have uttered that scream of dismay? Yes, the whole affair had now assumed proportions that were hourly growing more extraordinary and more inscrutable.

Already it was dawn--a chilly, grey, dispiriting morning. Beside myself with grief at the discovery of the perfidy of the woman I loved so dearly and devotedly, I had risen, and was pacing the sitting-room, when for the first time my eyes caught sight of a note addressed to me, lying on my blotting-pad.

Old Mrs Davis must have come in after I had gone out on the previous evening, and, finding it lying on the floor of our tiny hall, placed it there for me.

The envelope was a pale-blue one, and the superscription in Daisy's handwriting.

Tearing it open, I found a few lines hurriedly scribbled in pencil, telling me that on the morrow she would be at four o'clock at a certain seat in Kensington Gardens where we had met secretly on several previous occasions.

"Do not fail to come," she urged, "as I wish to see you very
particularly. I shall be rehearsing my new dance at Allen's until
half-past three, and can remain with you till six.--Love from your
own DAISY."

Were those final words meant in earnest, or were they merely feigned? Again and again I read them in wonder and disbelief, recollecting how deeply in earnest she had spoken to her companion, and how on one occasion, as they bent to each other over that table in the Gambrinus, he had held her slim gloved wrist with all the tenderness of a lover.

And she had looked straight into the fellow's eyes and smiled!

Was she "my own"? That was the question.

I placed her note in my pocket, with the satisfaction that very soon I should be afforded an opportunity of ascertaining the truth.

As money is nowadays a form of religious worship, so a saint is a man with a past, and a sinner a gentleman with a future. Daisy's companion was, I felt convinced, one of the last-named fraternity. I longed for afternoon to come, so that I could see and speak with her, without, of course, betraying the fact that I had watched them.

Old Mrs Davis entered at seven by means of her latchkey, and was surprised to find that I had not been to bed.

"May I come in, sir?" inquired her rasping voice from the hall, and on permission being given she entered, a short, grey-haired old body in a shawl once black, but now green with age, and a mourning bonnet in the same stage of decay. For eighteen years she had "done for" several gentlemen in chambers in the same building, and was a clean, homely old person who was everlastingly talking of her Emmie, who, "thank God! had married well--one of the best and kindest-hearted gentlemen in the world. 'E lived in these 'ere rooms for two years, an' now they have a beautiful place over in Ireland."

I fully expected her to impart to me the latest news concerning the immaculate Emmie, whom I had never seen, but to my surprise she said--

"Oh, sir, I 'ad such a orful fright 'ere larst night."

"A fright?" I laughed. "Well, I expect it takes a bit to frighten you, Mrs Davis! They say the staircase is haunted, don't they?"

"Yes, sir; that's just it," she replied. "As the story goes, there wor a young gentleman down below about a 'underd years ago, a-studyin' the law. 'E'd come up from Norfolk, where 'e'd fallen in love with the daughter of a squire. She, devoted to 'im, followed 'im up to town, and was one evening in 'is rooms when an old man, who was jealous of 'er, shot 'er. She died in 'er lover's arms--like they do in the plays wot used to be on at the Adelphi. An' ever since then, they say, 'er ghost 'ornts these 'ere stairs. It seems she wor comin' out o' the door o' the chambers when the murderer, standin' up in the dark, shot 'er. 'E was 'ung, an' serve 'im right, says I. The young lady was devoted to 'er lover, or she wouldn't ha' come up to London and forsaken 'er friends."

"But you've never seen this interesting young lady?" I suggested.

"Never. I fancy it's all a fairy tale, like those you reads of in the papers. They calls 'em serial stories. I always read it in my Sunday paper, but it usually leaves off just in an interestin' part, and then I 'ave to wait a week for the next. But, as I was sayin', I 'ad a fright last night. It gave me such a turn that I 'ad to go out into 'Oborn an' 'ave a nip of gin afterwards--a thing I never do, sir, as you know."

The old lady liked her little drop as well as anyone--a fact proved by our whisky mysteriously disappearing. Yet, like all her class, she usually made declamatory protest that she was a total abstainer.

"Yes, sir, an' do you know what it was?" she went on. "Well, I came up 'ere about nine o'clock to shut the windows because there was a shower. I 'ad my old 'ouse boots on, wot don't make any noise, an' when I turned the corner o' the staircase I saw, to my astonishment, two gentlemen bent down to this 'ere door a-tryin' to open it. They were burglars, sir!"

"Burglars!" I echoed. "What did you do?"

"I screamed out, of course, but before you could say 'knife' they'd both bolted down the stairs an' out quicker than they'd come. They left this 'ere in the lock," and from beneath her shawl she produced a skeleton key, which she handed to me.

"I thought, sir," she went on, "as 'ow you'd like to tell the perlice about it. If I 'adn't 'a' come up in the very nick o' time they'd certainly 'ave been in 'ere."

"What kind of men were they?" I inquired.

"One was a low-lookin' fellow, an' the other was a gentleman--in an evenin' 'at--one o' those crush-up ones like yours. 'E 'ad on a black overcoat an' a white muffler round 'is neck. Quite the gentleman, I can tell you."

I was silent.

"Had he a little dark moustache?" I inquired.

"Yes; 'e 'ad, sir. 'E was about twenty-five to thirty, I should say."

Her curious story caused me to reflect and wonder.

The description was exactly that of Daisy's mysterious companion!