Chapter XX: A Woman’s Honour

London. London—the giant metropolis of the universe—in the month of May.

London, the ever-moving, ever-extending, the smiling paradise of the rich, the pitiless wilderness of the poor, the desolate world of misfortune and disappointment of the struggling middle-class; the city of broken hopes and of sudden fortunes, the shameless, wanton city of blazing wealth, of sinful waste, and, alas! at the same time the stony-hearted city of abject suffering, of pathetic self-sacrifice, and of slow starvation. The city of sharp contrasts, where to retain life one must possess money, where men purchase titles and honours as easily as they do their dinners, where blackguards loll in the windows of the best clubs, where notorious women cover their misdeeds by their titles, and laugh behind their fans at the common world—the City of the Great Sin.

It was seven o’clock. A bright, pleasant evening, as Dick Jervoise drove out of Charing Cross Station in an open taxicab, along Pall Mall, and up St. James’s Street, where he called at his club for his letters. Then he drove along Piccadilly and Knightsbridge to his flat at Barnes.

He wore a grey travelling coat, and before him was a well-worn and much-labelled suit-case, for he had just arrived from the Continent, and was in haste to get home. As he went along he read the letters he had just received, tearing them, one after the other, into fragments which he cast to the winds.

Carter, who opened the door to him, said:

“Doctor Odd rang up an hour ago, and asked if you were home, sir. I told him I would ask you to ring up when you came in.”

“Very well, Carter. Anyone else rung or called?”

“No one particular, sir. Only that young French lady. She came last Tuesday week, I think it was, expecting that you had returned. She left a note for you. It’s on your desk.”

Dick, without removing hat or coat, entered his sitting-room and, tearing open the note, read it. His face fell. For a second he hesitated, then, tearing it up, dropped it into the waste-paper basket.

“Carter, tell the doctor I’m back, and would like to see him if he can run across,” he said. “I’m going to have a wash—for, by Jove! I want one after three days and nights in that confounded wagon-lit!”

The man went to the telephone as he was bid, while his master passed into his dressing-room.

A quarter of an hour later Owen Odd entered, greeted his friend, and sank into the armchair beside the fireplace.

“Well?” asked Dick, standing on the hearthrug with his hands deep in his trousers pockets.

“Well?” said the doctor, blinking at his friend through his pince-nez. “What’s the result?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve had a fruitless errand, eh?”

“Entirely. I’ve been on the move these last six weeks, travelling almost incessantly, but all, alas! to no purpose,” he sighed.

“Sundt is back at the Ritz,” Owen remarked. “They arrived from Ragusa a week ago. The captain and Thyra are at their old quarters in Bayswater. I called there three days ago—to congratulate her.”

“Well, what did she say? How did she look?” inquired Jervoise listlessly.

“She looked as bright as ever, but said very little regarding her engagement, except that she was busy, ordering dresses and hats and other fittings. I suppose you’ll call?” he added, watching him.

“No, Owen; I don’t think I shall.”

“She will expect to see you, surely?”

“She won’t know I’m back in town.”

“I told old Sundt of your impending arrival. I saw him yesterday.”

“I wish you had left me out of the question, old chap,” exclaimed Dick.

“He invited me to the Ritz—on purpose to inquire your whereabouts, it seemed to me.”

“Why, what do my movements concern him, pray?”

“How should I know? He seems, however, to take an unusual interest in you,” Owen answered. “Perhaps—perhaps he has guessed your affection for Thyra.”

“The old man can know nothing.”

“Unless she has told him.”

“Why should she tell him anything?”

“Well,” said Owen, “whether she has made any statement to him or not, he is in possession of some facts which are—well, to say the least, extraordinary, and I tell you frankly, Dick, they have caused me considerable surprise and misgiving.”

Jervoise, for the first time, noticed the curious expression upon his friend’s face.

“Why? What has he been telling you?”

“He has been questioning me again—concerning that afternoon when you were absent from the hotel in Christiania.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“What could I tell him—except the truth? Look here, Dick,” added the man in pince-nez, “I may as well tell you openly, and at once, that he, and others too, apparently, entertain a grave suspicion of you.”

“Of what?”

Owen Odd was silent. At last, with an effort, he said:

“Of being the murderer of Paul Grinevitch.”

Dick’s face was blanched, his brows narrowed, and he bit his lip.

“And you share that suspicion, eh?” he asked hoarsely.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“Come,” his friend said, “you may just as well admit it. We are friends, therefore I give you leave to speak quite frankly.”

“Well, Dick, to be perfectly open, I do not consider your explanations have been at all satisfactory. You’ve more than once contradicted yourself, remember.”

“I admit it,” was the other’s rather lame answer; “but I regret if you, my friend, entertain any doubt concerning me.”

“You declared to me on the morning of the wedding that Paul Grinevitch was a scoundrel. Yet later, when I asked you if you had known him before you met in Vardo, you evaded the question.”

“I did so with an object.”

“The object of revenge, it seems,” retorted his friend bitterly.

“My dear fellow, both you and that man Sundt may make what allegations you wish; charge me with being the assassin, if you will. I know well that in your heart you believe me to be the murderer. Ever since our return from the north you’ve shunned me, and made excuses for not calling. Yet I am powerless to defend myself from such attacks.”

“Why powerless? An innocent man can always prove his innocence!”

“Except when the guilt cannot be established,” replied Dick boldly, looking his friend straight in the face.

“But surely you can make explanation, man, when this fellow Sundt is working so diligently to bring you to justice?”

“Justice!” he echoed, with a short laugh. “Let the man who has robbed me of my love rob me of my liberty—my life, if he wishes; but he cannot rob me of my honour, or my own self-respect.”

“To tell you the truth, Dick, I fail to discern any motive in this indefatigable inquiry which Peter Sundt has instituted. It seems that he has sent detectives over half Russia to try to find out the truth concerning the dead man’s past.”

“I know. I, too, have just been over the same ground.”

“What’s his motive?”

“Hatred of me, no doubt,” he answered. “He probably knows that Thyra loves me.”

“She does love you, then?” asked his friend anxiously.

“Of that there is no doubt. And I love her in return. Why should I conceal the truth from you, my friend?”

“From his conversation with me he has, it seems, established a point which in any event is unfortunate, both for Thyra and for you. He has discovered that on the fatal afternoon you met her in secret in the Slotsparken, and were seen walking with her in the direction of the Oscars Gade.”

He started perceptibly.

“Well,” he asked, “and what else?” He held his breath, as though in sudden terror of what was to follow.

“He reserves the full extent of his knowledge to himself, knowing that I am your friend. Indeed, he tried to extract from me a promise to make no mention of this matter to you.”

“H’m! And he called you to the Ritz in order to try and ascertain exactly where I was, eh?”

“He called me to tell me that, in consequence of certain admissions made by Thyra, he had caused further inquiries to be made in Christiania, the result of which practically established your guilt.”

Dick’s chin had fallen upon his chest, as he stood in silence before the man who had been his friend. He made no remark. He neither sought justification, nor did he make explanation.

“And now,” Owen went on, “it surely is for you to relate the true facts of what occurred that afternoon—or—or else I fear that this fresh information will be placed before the police.”

“My dear fellow, all these secret inquiries on the part of Peter Sundt only go to prove one thing—how bitter is his hatred of myself.”

“Admitted. Thyra may, I fear, have been slightly indiscreet,” he replied. “Yet if she loves you, as you appear to think, is it not very strange that she should consent to marriage with this coarse old parvenu?”

“I alone am aware of the reason, Owen,” he said very seriously. “On the night she became engaged she wrote and told me all. I do not blame her,” he cried bitterly. “Ah! I only pity her!”

“Peter has apparently been employing someone to watch your movements,” the doctor went on. “He asked me if I knew anything concerning your little friend, Alza Dresler.”

“You—you told him the truth, of course?”

“I told him nothing; but he admitted to me that he had asked Thyra if she knew her.”

“He has asked Thyra!” gasped the unhappy man. “He has told Thyra of my friendship with Alza!” he cried, white to the lips.

“It seems so.”

“Then she will believe——”

“Believe what?”

“Why, she will believe that I have lied to her—that I’ve betrayed her!”

“Why don’t you make a clean breast of the whole affair, Dick? Surely it would be best!” urged his friend, looking straight at him.

“Owen,” he said, fixing his dark, serious eyes upon the doctor, “my secret is hers. Cannot you see that in this a woman’s honour is at stake—the honour of the woman I love!”