Chapter III: In the Glare of Publicity

"I was passing this way and thought I'd accept your kind invitation, Mr Keene," Whitlock said. "You've so often asked me to look in."

And I saw that his gaze was fixed upon the man seated in the armchair.

"Delighted, I'm sure," I said, pouring out a drink and pulling forward a chair for him. He would not take off his overcoat, for he declared that he must be going in a few minutes.

He was about forty-eight, dark-haired, with a mobile, pock-marked face, broad-shouldered and muscular--a man who had risen from the rank of constable in the T Division of the Metropolitan Police, to be one of the most renowned officers of the Criminal Investigation Department.

We had been friendly for several years, and he had on one occasion told me the story of his career; how when he was a constable he one night entered a coal-cellar beneath the pavement in Chiswick and captured an armed burglar, who fired at him twice with a revolver, and how, by dint of his watchfulness and ingenuity, he had received promotion and transfer to Scotland Yard.

The public know John Whitlock well by repute. His name figures in the papers in connection with most murder mysteries that occur in London. A dozen or so assassins have received their well-merited punishment on the scaffold as the result of his energy, untiring inquiries, and tenacious ingenuity. There were many men at "the Yard" in higher positions, but not one was a better officer than he. For three years or so I had known him intimately, and often met him in that cosy little bar in Parliament Street, where he and his fellow-officers congregate every evening about seven to have a friendly drink before setting forth upon nocturnal vigils in various parts of the Metropolis. Sometimes I had been his guest at his modest little flat at Battersea, where he lived so happily with his wife, but he had never before honoured me with a visit, though I had often invited him.

In many of the celebrated cases of modern times he had figured. It was he who followed Charles Spencer, the well-known promoter of bogus companies, half over the world and arrested him in Vancouver; he who solved the mystery of the Leytonstone murder and the remarkable Greatorex forgery, recovering the greater part of the proceeds from a house out at Harlesden. Readers of the newspapers will recollect the recent Parsons case, where a woman's body was found in a trunk in the cloak-room at Paddington Station, and how the culprit was cleverly detected and arrested by him. They will also remember the seizure of bombs at a house off Tottenham Court Road, and how the maker of them, a Russian revolutionist, took one of them in his hand and threatened him that, if arrested, he would dash it down and blow the whole place to atoms. Yet, in face of death, he had rushed forward and secured his man, whose extradition had been applied for by the Government of the Czar. For his personal bravery the emperor had sent him a fine gold watch with an inscription, and this he carried always, but without a chain. He one day told me, with a grim smile, that if he wore an albert he would probably not have the watch another week, such queer company did he often keep.

Such, then, was the man who flung himself into my chair, lit his cigar, and smiled across at the world-famous correspondent, who sat pale and nervous in his presence.

"I've seen the _Herald_ to-night," he said to me, when he had got his cigar well under way. "You haven't given them too much, eh? I suppose you'll publish the rest to-morrow? And when you do, by Jove! it'll cause a sensation, won't it?"

"No doubt," I said. "I've just been explaining the facts to Mr Little. We were talking of it when you came in."

"Extraordinary, isn't it?" remarked Whitlock, turning to Julian with affected carelessness.

"Absolutely amazing," he declared. "Have you discovered anything further?"

"Nothing of real importance," was the response.

"Then it is still a complete mystery?"

"Absolutely."

Julian Little was palpably relieved at Whitlock's confession of ignorance; while the latter was, I could see, equally astute in placing him off his guard. He had not failed to notice his nervousness when introduced.

"Keene has been telling me the details which he has not yet published--the telegraph instrument, and the woman who committed suicide after arrest," remarked the famous correspondent. "It certainly looks as though there has been some gigantic conspiracy in progress."

"Yes," replied Whitlock, rubbing his smooth chin with his hand and raising his glass to his lips, his keen eyes on the other's face. "We hope to discover it. But, with both women dead, it will be a difficult matter, I fear."

"But there must have been others connected with the affair," argued Little.

"Of course. That's what we shall discover later on," he answered. "A woman never tapped that wire, depend upon it."

"But the two women must have quarrelled, and the one shot the other," Little suggested.

Whitlock was silent. He advanced no theory upon that point.

"Isn't that your opinion?" Julian went on.

"Well, to tell the truth, I haven't formed any opinion yet," answered the man from Scotland Yard, who, turning to me, said: "The real reason why I called, Mr Keene, was because I thought you'd like to be down at the house to-morrow. I shall be there at nine-thirty to make some further investigations, if you'd care to come."

"I'd be delighted," I said eagerly. "I'll meet you at the house."

"All right. But," he added, "I think it would be as well not to publish anything further--until I see you. Publicity may negative all our efforts in this affair."

"Then I'd better hold back all the additional facts, you really think?" I said, somewhat disappointed, and fearing lest one of the rival journals might, by bribing an indiscreet constable, get hold of intelligence which, up to the present, was entirely my own.

"Yes; it will be best."

"Inquiries are still being made?" asked Julian, rather anxiously.

"Of course. In such a case as this we don't let the grass grow beneath our feet," Whitlock said. "And if my suspicions are realised the truth will create a profound sensation."

"In what manner?" asked Little, with a start.

The other shrugged his shoulders, answering--

"At present I can say nothing."

"Ah!" laughed Little, uneasily. "You people are like ambassadors, always mysterious."

"Secrecy is highly necessary in my profession," declared the officer, "just as necessary, indeed, as it is in diplomacy. We are not fond of making statements to the Press. Our friend here," he added, indicating me, "is, however, usually in our confidence."

Then Whitlock expressed pleasure at meeting a man so popular and famous as my fellow-tenant of those rooms, declaring that he often read his articles in the _Daily Herald_, and had long desired to make his acquaintance. Their conversation then turned upon travel, adventure, and the Boer Campaign--through the whole of which Julian had been--until at last the detective rose, shook our hands, and left, promising to meet me at Barnes at half-past nine in the morning.

Why he intended to further investigate that dismal empty house, I could not guess. Yet the fact that he had invited me to be present showed that he held some fresh theory and anticipated interesting developments.

"I don't like that man," declared Julian, when I returned to the sitting-room. "There's something false and egotistical about him that arouses my instinctive dislike."

I recollected his surprise and fear when I had introduced him, and, suspicious at his declaration, said--

"My dear Julian, he's one of the best fellows in the world. Police officers are supposed to have neither heart nor conscience, but he has both. When down the East End together I've seen him myself give money to known thieves who have been starving."

"I don't care. I don't like the fellow," Little repeated, causing my wonder to increase. "He'd play you false if ever he had the chance."

"Well, we'll agree to differ," I laughed lightly. "He's done me many a good turn. Why, half the 'scoops' I've made for the past two years are due to information he's given me in secret."

"And you've paid him accordingly, I suppose?" he remarked with a covert sneer.

"Oh, he's received odd cheques now and then from Jennings, the cashier," I admitted.

"Well, that's all the same. He wouldn't help you if he were not paid for it. He knows full well that the _Herald_ scale of payment is higher than that of any other paper in London."

"Yes. But he's also my friend," I declared.

"Friend be hanged!" he cried. "It's past midnight. Let's go to bed, Keene."

And so we parted.

But through that night I slept very little. My mind was full of the strange and incomprehensible affair. I could not put away from myself Julian's palpable fear when he met Whitlock, nor the latter's curious attitude towards him. That the whole situation was one of doubt and suspicion was apparent. My own opinion was that Whitlock had called especially to meet Julian Little, and that the appointment for the morrow was a mere excuse.

Yet, after all, what connection could my friend possibly have with this mysterious affair?

The more I calmly reflected and argued with myself, the more puzzled I became. I had anticipated launching upon the public the remainder of the sensational story in the first edition on the morrow, but Whitlock had prohibited this--prohibited it for some distinct purpose--a purpose which he had refused to state.

Hour after hour I lay, listening to the chiming church clocks of London as they counted the long night, and trying to form some theory regarding the tragic affair which had so entirely possessed me.

Before my vision arose those two dead but beautiful faces, as they lay cold and still, side by side, in the silent chamber of death; the one, the younger and more beautiful, foully murdered, the other with her secret safely concealed for ever.

Upon the white, lifeless countenance of the former was a cold, hard look, as though she had seen and recognised the assassin whose hand had fired the fatal shot, while upon the other's face the white curled lip smiled defiance at all the world.

In the dull grey of the damp dawn those two dead faces haunted me. If I tried to sleep I saw them. Sometimes they seemed to open their eyes and gaze out at me. The murdered girl with the fair, child-like hair seemed in my imagination to appeal to me mutely for protection, as though urging me to assist in bringing the assassin to justice. Yet was not the assassin that black-haired woman with the white face and curled lip--the woman who, when arrested, had met death without flinching?

I had assisted the police in investigating dozens of murder mysteries, and had looked upon many a victim, but never had a dead face held me in such strange, almost magnetic attraction as that of the unknown telegraphist; never had the details of a mystery puzzled me to such a tantalising point, and never had I been filled with such a strange feeling of suspicion and dread as on that long and memorable night.

The feeling was as though I had become suddenly overshadowed by some mysterious evil--some sinister influence which threatened, at any moment, to bear me down and engulf me in a vortex of disaster.

An obsession was upon me that was irresistible. The shadow of a great crime had suddenly darkened my life.