Whatsoever a Man Soweth
- -
- 100%
- +
How I longed to open that letter that lay so tantalisingly before me. But what could I do? Such a thing was not to be thought of. Therefore, I had to watch the woman gather the correspondence together and replace them in the cupboard.
I rose and thanked her, saying, —
“I’m delighted to think that Charlie will escape a very disagreeable affair. It’s fortunate he wasn’t here to receive that letter.”
“And I’m glad, too. When he returns I’ll tell him how you came here, and what you said. What name shall I give him?”
“Williams – Harry Williams,” I answered. “He will know.”
Then as I walked round to the window I examined the room quickly, but to my disappointment saw that there were no photographs. He might, I thought, keep the portraits of some of his friends upon the mantelshelf, as so many men do. Was this Denton one of the conspirators, I wondered? His absence without an address for four months caused me to suspect that he was.
Just as I had given her my assumed name, somebody knocked at the door, and she went to open it.
Next instant a thought flashed across to me. Should I take that letter? It was a theft – that I recognised, yet was it not in the interests of justice? By that communication I might be able to establish the dead man’s identity.
There was not a second to lose. I decided at once. I heard the woman open the door and speak to someone, then swift as thought I opened the cupboard, glanced at the packet of letters, and with quickly-beating heart took the one which bore the Blandford post-mark.
In a moment it was in my pocket. I re-closed the cupboard, and sprang to the opposite side of the room just as the good woman re-entered.
Then, with profuse thanks and leaving kind messages to the man of whom I spoke so familiarly as “Charlie,” I took my leave and hurried along the broad road into Salford, where I jumped upon a tram going to the Exchange.
I was in the train alone, in a third-class compartment, travelling north to Carlisle, before I dared to break open the letter.
When I did so I found within a scribbled note in cipher written on the paper of the Bear Hotel, at Devizes. After some difficulty, with the aid of the key which the writer had evidently used in penning it, I deciphered it as follows: —
“Dear Denton, – I saw you in the smoking-room of the Midland at Bradford, but for reasons which you know, I could not speak. I went out, and on my return you had gone. I searched, but could not find you. I wanted to tell you my opinion about Ellice and his friend. They are not playing a straight game. I know their intentions. They mean to give us away if they can. Sybil fears me, and will pay. I pretend to know a lot. Meet me in Chichester at the Dolphin next Sunday. I shall put up there, because I intend that she shall see me. Come and help me, for I shall have a good thing on, in which you can share. She can always raise money from her sister or her mother, so don’t fail to keep the appointment. Ellice has already touched a good deal of the Scarcliffs’ money from young Jack, and I now mean myself to have a bit. She’ll do anything to avoid scandal. It’s a soft thing – so come. – Yours, —
“R.W.”
The dead man was, as I had suspected, one of the gang, and he was a blackmailer. He had compelled her to meet him and had made demands which she had resisted. Yes – the letter was the letter of a barefaced scoundrel.
I clenched my hands and set my teeth.
Surely I had done right to endeavour to protect Sybil from such a band of ruffians. Once I had pitied the dead man, but now my sympathy was turned to hatred. He had written this letter to his friend Denton, suggesting that the latter should assist him in his nefarious scheme of blackmail.
He confessed that he “pretended” to know a lot. What did he pretend to know, I wondered? Ah! if only Sybil would speak – if only she would reveal to me the truth.
Yet, after all, how could she when that man, the fellow who had written that letter, had fallen by her hand?
The letter at least showed that her enemies had been and were still unscrupulous. Winsloe, even now, was ready to send her to her grave, just as I had been sent – because I had dared to come between the conspirators and their victim. And yet she trusted Nello – whoever the fellow was.
Who was the man Denton, I wondered? A friend of the mysterious “R.W.,” without a doubt, and a malefactor like himself.
I placed my finger within the linen-lined envelope, and to my surprise found a second piece of thin blue paper folded in half. Eagerly I opened it and saw that it was a letter written in plain English, in bad ink, and so faint that with difficulty I read the lines.
It was in the scoundrel’s handwriting – the same calligraphy as that upon the envelope.
I read the lines, and so extraordinary were they that I sat back upon the seat utterly bewildered.
What was written there complicated the affair more than ever. The problem admitted of no solution, for the mystery was by those written lines rendered deeper and more inscrutable than before.
Was Sybil, after all, playing me false?
I held my breath as the grave peril of the situation came vividly home to me.
Yes – I had trusted her; I had believed her.
She had fooled me!
Chapter Twenty Three.
Places Matters in a New Light
The words upon the second slip of paper were, —
“Ellice believes that Sybil still loves Wilfrid Hughes. This is incorrect. Tell him so. The girl is merely using Hughes for her own purposes. She loves Arthur Rumbold. I have just learnt the truth – something that will astonish you.”
Rumbold! Who was Arthur Rumbold? I had never heard mention of him. This was certainly a new feature of the affair. Sybil had a secret lover of whom I was in ignorance. She was no doubt still in communication with him, and through him had learnt of Eric’s whereabouts and other facts that had surprised me.
I read and re-read the letter, much puzzled. She was only using me for her own purposes – or in plain English she was fooling me!
I was angry with myself for not being more wary.
The train stopped at Preston, and then rushed north again as I sat alone in the corner of the carriage thinking deeply, and wondering who was this man Rumbold.
At Carlisle another surprise was in store for me, for I found a hurried note from Sybil saying that she had unfortunately been recognised by a friend and compelled to leave. She had gone on to Glasgow, and would await me there at the Central Station Hotel. Therefore, by the Scotch express at two o’clock that morning I travelled up to Glasgow, and on arrival found to my chagrin that she had stayed there one night, and again left. There was a note for me, saying that she had gone to Dumfries, but that it would be best for me not to follow.
“Return to Newcastle and await me,” she wrote. “My quick movements are imperative for my own safety. I cannot tell you in a letter what has happened, but will explain all when we meet.”
“By what train did the lady leave?” I inquired of the hall-porter who had handed me the letter.
“The six-twenty last night, sir,” was the man’s answer. “I got her ticket – a first-class one to Fort William.”
“Then she went north – not south,” I exclaimed, surprised.
“Of course.”
Sybil had misled me in her letter by saying that she had gone to Dumfries, when really she had travelled in the opposite direction. She had purposely misled me.
“The lady left hurriedly, it would appear.”
“Yes, sir. About five o’clock a gentleman called to see her, and she met him in the hall. She was very pale, I noticed, as though she was surprised at his visit, or rather upset. But they went out together. She returned an hour later, wrote this letter, which she told me to give to you if you called, and then left for Fort William.”
“And did the man call again?”
“Yes. She said he would, and she told me to tell him that she had gone to Edinburgh. I told him that, and he seemed very surprised, but went away. He was in evening dress, and it seemed as though they had intended dining together. She seemed,” added the man rather sneeringly, “to be more like a lady’s-maid than a lady.”
“But the gentleman, describe him to me.”
“Oh! he was a rather short, podgy man, fair, with a baldish head.”
Was it Parham? the description suited him.
“He gave no card?”
“No. He met the young lady here in the hall. My idea was that his presence was very unwelcome, as she seemed in great fear lest he should return before she could get away.”
“Has the man left Glasgow?”
“I think so. I saw him on the platform about nine, just before the Edinburgh express left. He’s probably gone on there. He seemed quite a gentleman.”
“They appeared to be friendly?”
“Perfectly. Only she evidently did not expect to meet him. She asked the name of a hotel at Fort William, and I told her to go to the Station.”
“Then she’s there!” I exclaimed quickly.
“Probably. She arrived there this morning.”
I tipped the man, and after idling in Glasgow some hours, left for Fort William, determined to disobey Sybil’s order to go back to Newcastle.
It was a long but picturesque journey. When I arrived I went at once to the hotel to inquire if Mrs Morton were there.
The manageress shook her head, saying, —
“There was a Mrs Morton, a young woman like a lady’s-maid, who arrived here yesterday morning, and left here last evening. A lady was awaiting her – her mistress, I think.”
“What was her name?”
“Mrs Rumbold,” was the answer, after referring to the visitors’ book.
“Rumbold!” The name of the secret lover.
“Was she old or young?”
“Elderly, with grey hair. A rather stiff, formal kind of person.”
“Where have they gone?”
“I heard Mrs Rumbold say that she wanted to go to Oban. So perhaps they’ve gone there.”
There was a boat down to Oban in three hours’ time, therefore I took it, passed down the beautiful Loch and by the island of Lismore, places too well known to the traveller in Scotland to need any description, and that same evening found myself in Oban, the Charing Cross of the Highlands. I had been there several times before, and always stayed at the Great Western. Therefore I took the hotel omnibus, and on alighting asked if a Mrs Rumbold was staying there.
The reply was a negative one, therefore I went round to several other hotels, finding at last that she and “her maid” had taken a room at the Alexandra that morning, but had suddenly changed their plans, and had left at two o’clock by train for the south, but whether for Glasgow or Edinburgh was not known.
I therefore lost track of them. Sybil had apparently successfully escaped from her male visitor at Glasgow, while at the same time Mrs Rumbold – probably the mother of the man she loved in secret – had awaited her up at Fort William.
For what reason? Why was she now masquerading as maid of the mother of her lover?
Again, if her visitor in Glasgow was really Parham, he must have very quickly obtained knowledge of her whereabouts, for only a few days before I had watched him arrange that ingenious plot against her in Dean’s Yard – a plot which would have no doubt been carried into execution if Sybil had been present.
I hesitated how to act.
If they had gone south, it was useless for me to remain in Oban. Her appointment with me was in Newcastle, and it seemed certain that she would sooner or later seek me there. But at that moment my curiosity was aroused regarding this Mrs Rumbold, as to who and what she was, and further, as to the identity of Arthur, about whom the dead man had known so much.
I left Oban and went back to Glasgow. My friend, the hall-porter at the Central Station, was talkative, but had not seen the lady again. It struck me that as the bald-headed man had met her in Glasgow, and as she had left a message for him that she had gone to Edinburgh, she would naturally avoid both places, or at any rate not halt there.
Had she gone on to Dumfries? She had left a message for me that she was there. Would she now go there in order to see if I were awaiting her instead of at Newcastle?
Dumfries, the town of Burns, was on my way down to Carlisle, therefore I resolved to make a halt there for an hour or two to inquire.
I remained the night in Glasgow, for I was fagged out by so much travelling, and next day, just before twelve, I alighted at Dumfries. I had never been there before, but outside the station I saw the Railway Hotel, and entering, asked whether Mrs Rumbold was staying there.
Yes, she was. Did I wish to see her? asked the lady clerk in the bureau.
I replied in the affirmative, and sent her my name, “Mr Morton,” written on a slip of paper.
The waiter returned with a curious look upon his face. I saw in an instant that something had occurred and was not surprised when he said, —
“Mrs Rumbold has a bad headache, sir, and would be glad if you’d call again about five or six. The chambermaid says she’s lying down.”
“Is there another person with her?” I inquired. “Her own maid, I mean.”
“No, sir. She’s alone.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Quite. I took her name when she arrived in the hotel. She has no maid.”
“And no lady friend?”
“No. She’s entirely alone.”
That surprised me. Had Sybil parted from her and gone straight on to Newcastle in order to find me? There was nothing to be done but to wait till half-past five, and call again on Mrs Rumbold. I therefore took a room at the hotel, and lunched in the coffee-room.
The woman’s excuse made me suspicious that she wished to avoid meeting me, and that when I returned at six I should find her gone.
So I passed the time in writing letters, and remained in patience until half-past five, when I sent up again to know if she would receive me. The answer came back that she was still too unwell, and I sent word to her that I could wait, as I wished to see her upon a very important matter.
My determination showed her that I did not intend that she should escape; therefore, just before the dinner gong rang the waiter came to me and said that the lady was in the small drawing-room upstairs and would see me.
I ascended the stairs wondering what would be the outcome of my interview. I wanted to ascertain who the woman was and the nature of the relations between her and Sybil.
When I entered the room a rather elderly lady with whitish hair severely brushed back and attired in deep black rose to meet me, bowing stiffly and saying —
“I have not the honour of your acquaintance, Mr Morton, and am rather curious to know what you want with me.”
“Well, madam,” I replied, “the fact is I want to ask you a question. The Honourable Sybil Burnet has been travelling with you dressed as a lady’s-maid, and I am here to learn where she has now gone.”
The woman started in surprise, and glared at me. She probably, from my disguise as a working-man, put me down as a detective.
“And my reply to you, sir, is that Miss Sybil’s destination is her own affair. We parted, and she has gone south. That is all I know.”
“But you also know the reason why she is masquerading as a maid; why at Fort William and at Oban you made people believe she was your maid. You had a motive, and I think you may as well admit it.”
“I do not see your right to question me about my private affairs!” she exclaimed angrily. “This is monstrous!”
“I have no desire to pry into your affairs, madam,” I answered, quite coolly. “The Honourable Sybil is a friend of mine, and I am anxious to know her whereabouts,” I said.
“But I cannot tell you what I don’t know myself. She went on to Carlisle – that’s all I know.”
“She parted from you suddenly. Why?” I asked. “Shall I tell you? Because she is in fear of being followed,” I exclaimed, and, smiling, added, “I think, madam, that I hold greater knowledge of the family than perhaps even you do yourself. I have known the Scarcliffs all my life. Old Lady Scarcliff is greatly upset regarding Sybil’s protracted absence. They are beginning to think that something has happened to her. I can now tell her that she has been with you, masquerading as your maid, and that you refuse all information concerning her. You know, I daresay, that the police are actively trying to find her on the application of her brother, Lord Scarcliff?”
My threat caused her some consternation. I could see that from the way she fumed and fidgeted.
“To tell Lady Scarcliff such a thing would only be to throw a blame upon myself of which I am entirely innocent,” she protested. “I assure you that if I knew where she had gone, I would tell you.”
“No, pardon me, madam. You would not. You believe that I’m a detective.”
“Your actions certainly betray you,” she exclaimed resentfully. “You’ve been watching us closely – for what reason?”
“Well,” I replied slowly. “The fact is, I am fully aware of the secret love existing between Sybil Burnet and Arthur Rumbold.”
“Sybil and Arthur?” she cried, turning pale and looking me straight in the face. “What do you mean? Arthur – my boy, Arthur!”
I nodded in the affirmative.
“Who are you?” she exclaimed, starting up breathlessly from her chair. She was in fear of me, I saw. “Who are you that you should know this?” she gasped.
“William Morton,” was my cool reply. “I thought I sent my name up to you this morning!”
Chapter Twenty Four.
Complications and Confessions
Next morning, after a night journey, I called at the Douglas Hotel, in Newcastle, and was informed that Mrs Morton had arrived on the previous evening.
At last I had run her to earth.
She sent word that she would see me in half an hour, therefore I idled along Grainger Street West, killing time until she made her appearance. She approached me in the hall of the hotel smiling merrily and putting out her hand in welcome. Her black dress seemed slightly the worse for wear owing to her constant travelling, yet she was as neat and dainty as ever, a woman whose striking beauty caused every head to be turned as she passed.
We went out, turning to walk towards Blackett Street, and then amid the bustle of the traffic began to talk. She asked me when I had arrived, and how I had fared in London.
I told her nothing of the success of my advertisements, or the discovery of the plot so ingeniously formed against her, and allowed her to believe that I had only just arrived from London. I was waiting to see whether she would explain her journey to Scotland, and her companionship with Mrs Rumbold.
But she said nothing. We walked on together through Albion Place, and presently found ourselves in Leazes Park, that pretty promenade, gay in summer, but somewhat cheerless on that grey wintry morning.
“You were recognised in Carlisle,” I exclaimed after we had been chatting some time. “Tell me about it. I was surprised to get your note, and I confess I was also somewhat alarmed. Was the person who recognised you an enemy or a friend?”
“A friend,” was her prompt reply. “But his very friendliness would, I knew, be fatal to my interests, so I had to fly. He recognised me, even in this dress, stopped me in the street, raised his hat and spoke. But I discerned his intention, therefore I passed on with affected indignation and without answering. Had I opened my mouth my voice might have betrayed me. I went on to Glasgow.”
“And there? What happened?”
She glanced at me in quick suspicion. I saw she was embarrassed by my question.
“Happened?” she echoed, nervously. “What do you mean?”
We were in the Park, and quite alone, therefore I halted, and looking her straight in the face exclaimed, —
“Something happened there, Sybil. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Sybil,” she said in a tone of reproach. “Am I no longer Tibbie to you, as of old? You are changed, Wilfrid – changed towards me. There is something in your manner so very unusual. What is it?”
“I desire to know the truth,” I said in a hard voice. “You are trying to keep back things from me which I ought to know. I trust you, and yet you do not trust me in return. Indeed, it seems very much as though you are trying to deceive me.”
“I am not,” she protested. “You still misjudge me, Wilfrid, and merely because there are certain things which it would be against my own interests to explain at this moment. Every woman is permitted to have secrets; surely I may have mine. If you were in reality my husband, then it would be different. Hitherto, you have been generosity itself towards me. Why withdraw it now, at the critical moment when I most require your aid and protection.”
“Why?”
“Because in Glasgow I was recognised by one of my enemies,” she said. “Ah! you don’t know what a narrow escape I had. He traced me – and came from London to hunt me down and denounce me. Yet I managed to meet him with such careless ease that he was disarmed, and hesitated. And while he hesitated I escaped. He is still following me. He may be here, in Newcastle, for all I know. It we meet again, Wilfrid,” she added in a hoarse, determined voice, “if we meet again it will all be hopeless. My doom will be sealed. I shall kill myself.”
“No, no,” I urged. “Come, don’t contemplate such a step as that!”
“I fear to face him. I can never face him.”
“You mean John Parham.”
“Who told you?” she started quickly. “How did you know his name?”
“I guessed it. They told me at the hotel that you had had a visitor, and that you had soon afterwards escaped to the north.”
“Do you actually know Parham?”
“I met him once,” was my reply, but I did not mention the fellow’s connection with the house with the fatal stairs.
“Does he know that we are friends?”
“How can I tell? But why do you fear him?”
“Ah, it is a long story. I dare not face that man, Wilfrid. Surely that is sufficient.”
“No. It is not sufficient,” I replied. “You managed to escape and get up to Fort William.”
“Ah! The man at the hotel told you so, I suppose,” she said. “Yes, I did escape, and narrowly. I was betrayed.”
“By whom?”
“Unwittingly betrayed by a friend, I think,” she replied, as we walked on together towards the lake. On a winter’s morning there are few people in Leazes Park, therefore we had the place to ourselves, save for the keeper strolling idly some distance away.
“Sybil,” I exclaimed presently, halting again, and laying my hand upon her shoulder, “why are you not straightforward and outspoken with me?”
I recollected the postscript of the dead man’s letter which I had secured in Manchester – the allegation that she was playing me false.
Her eyes were cast down in confusion at my plain question, yet the next instant she assumed a boldness that was truly surprising.
“I don’t understand you,” she declared with a light nervous little laugh.
“Then I suppose I must speak more plainly,” I said. “It is a pity, Sybil, that you did not tell me the truth from your own lips.”
She went pale as her eyes met mine in quick anxiety.
“The truth – about what?”
“About your love for Arthur Rumbold,” I said very gravely, my gaze still fixed steadily upon hers.
In an instant her gloved hands clenched themselves, her lips twitched nervously, and she placed her hand upon her heart as though to stop its wild beating.
“My love?” she gasped blankly – “my love for Arthur Rumbold?”
“Yes, your love for him.”
“Ah! Surely you are cruel, Wilfrid, to speak of him – after – after all that has lately happened,” she burst forth in a choking voice. “You cannot know the true facts – you cannot dream the truth, or that man’s name would never pass your lips.”
“No,” I said gravely. “I do not know the truth. I am in utter ignorance. I only know that you met Mrs Rumbold at Fort William and travelled back with her to Dumfries.”
“That is quite true,” she answered. “I have no wish to conceal it.”
“But your love for her son – you have concealed that!”
“A woman who loves truly does not always proclaim it to the world,” was the reply.
“Then if you love him why are you in hiding? Why are you masquerading as my wife?” I demanded seriously. I was, I admit, piqued by her attitude, which I perhaps misjudged as defiant.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but met my gaze unflinchingly.
“You promised me your assistance,” she sighed. “If you now regret your promise I willingly release you from it.”