The Crime and the Criminal

CHAPTER XXXVII

"CALL ME DORA."

Mr. Townsend's rooms were at Albert Gate. Miss Jardine's home was in Sloane Gardens. From Albert Gate to Sloane Gardens is not very far. It was a clear, brisk morning. Mr. Townsend decided to walk.

Just as he had crossed the road some one touched his arm from behind, and a voice said-

"Excuse me-might I speak to you for a moment?"

Mr. Townsend turned. He supposed it was a beggar. The speaker looked like one. The man-it was a man-had on a top hat which was battered and bruised out of all semblance of its original shape. His overcoat, which was trimmed with imitation astrachan, was torn in half a dozen places and covered with mud, as if it had been rolled in the gutter with its owner inside it, but it was buttoned right up to his chin in a manner which suggested a not unnatural anxiety to conceal material deficiencies in the rest of his attire. His countenance bore evidence of having been recently subjected to serious ill-usage. One eye was ornamented by a purple patch, the skin of his right cheek was bruised and broken as by a blow from a fist, and his mouth was so badly cut as to say, the least, to render it highly inconvenient for him to be compelled to open his lips.

The sorry spectacle was Stewart Trevannion, alias Alexander Taunton, alias Mr. Arthur Stewart, alias a dozen other names-the immaculate Mr. Townsend's brother. A striking contrast the two brothers presented as they stood there.

Alexander was rubbing his hands over each other. He seemed to experience a difficulty in holding himself straight up. He shivered as if in pain.

"Reginald," he muttered.

Possibly Alexander was in a sensitive frame of mind. He seemed to shrink from the look of mingled amusement and scorn with which his brother regarded him.

"You!" Mr. Townsend's voice rang with laughter. "Well, my man, what do you want with me-charity?"

Alexander put up his hand, as if to hide his injured mouth.

"It isn't only that."

"No? What else is it then?"

"It's a word I want to say to you-a word of warning."

"Of warning? Against what?"

"Do you know a man named Haines-an American?"

"Haines?" Mr. Townsend reflected. "Well, what of Mr. Haines?"

"You've been doing something to his daughter-you best know what. He's found it out, and he's looking for you. If he gets a chance he'll kill you. He's almost done for me."

Mr. Townsend made a significant gesture in the direction of his brother.

"Is this his handiwork?"

"It's no laughing matter. I tell you he means murder. If you take my advice you'll clear. He left me as good as dead last night. He wouldn't have cared if he had left me quite. I don't believe I've a whole bone in my body. It's as much as I can do to stand." Alexander put his hand to his back and groaned. His tone became a whine. "You couldn't oblige me with the loan of a shilling or two?"

"With pleasure. I'll oblige you with the loan of a whole sovereign. If you take my advice you'll spend part of it on plaster. I'll think of what you've said. Good-day."

As he walked away Mr. Townsend swung his cane. He seemed amused. Alexander, clutching the sovereign tightly in his hand, stared after him. He did not seem to be at all amused.

"You may laugh now, but you won't laugh then. You've been up to some devil's trick, and this time you've caught the devil. If he does find you, one of you'll be missing."

As he pursued his way down Sloane Street, Mr. Townsend did not appear himself to regard his situation in such a serious light. The idea that there could be anything serious about it appeared to afford him nothing but amusement.

"Haines? Haines? I fancy that that's the name of Mrs. Carruth's Yankee friend. The dissenting parson sort of looking individual. I take it that Alexander, as usual, has the wrong end of the stick-from the look of him he appears to have felt both ends of it, and the middle too. If Mr. Haines has done me the honour to object to my behaviour, I imagine that it is because he supposes that I have poached on his preserve. I assure him he need be under no apprehension. If he only knew!"

Mr. Townsend laughed-then checked himself. He struck the ferrule of his stick against the pavement.

"Now, what am I to say to Dora? Its awkward-very!"

It was awkward. Especially as he had not made up his mind what to say to Dora, even when he found himself at Sir Haselton Jardine's.

He was shown at once into Miss Jardine's own sitting-room, and there he found the lady.

Miss Jardine was short and slight. Although she was not handsome, she certainly was not bad-looking. Her appearance, her bearing, her movements suggested buoyancy, activity, health. Her eyes were her most characteristic possession. They affected different people in different ways. They were blue eyes. Their chief peculiarity was that they were light-some people said unnaturally light. But, as also they were beautiful eyes, that saying may be set down to malice. Somehow one felt as one looked at Miss Jardine that she would never cry.

She held out her hand to Mr. Townsend.

"Reggie!"

Mr. Townsend made no attempt to touch the outstretched hand. He merely bowed.

"Miss Jardine!"

Miss Jardine was not at all disconcerted. She laughed.

"So it's that way!" She assumed an air of mock dignity, which became her very well. "Mr. Townsend, may I offer you a chair?"

"With your permission I will stand."

Mr. Townsend spoke with an air of decorous propriety which approached the severe. The lady did not fall into his mood at all. She looked up at him with her sunny eyes.

"Stand! Why stand?"

Mr. Townsend returned the young lady's smiling glance, without evincing any inclination to smile in return.

"You have sent for me. I have come."

Going to the fireplace, Miss Jardine stood with one foot upon the kerb. Her hands were behind her back. Her face was inclined a little upwards. She reminded one somehow of a bird-a resemblance which owed something, perhaps, to the brightness of her eyes.

"I have one or two questions which I wish to ask you. You must answer them. First, Do you love me?"

"You must forgive my suggesting that that is scarcely the first question which you should ask me. The man in the street may love you. It does not follow that he is worthy."

"But if I love him?"

Mr. Townsend made a slight movement with his hands. He was standing in what, to the average Englishman, is a rather trying position-in the centre of the room, away from any article of furniture, with his arms hanging loosely at his sides; and yet he looked well.

"He may love you. You may love him. And yet any connection with him may bring you, at the best, unhappiness."

"You have not answered my question. Do you love me?"

"You know that I do."

"As you say, I know that you do. You know also that I love you. My second question, Are you married?"

"I am not."

"Then why should you not marry me? Stay! Let me explain my position."

His eyes became, if anything, brighter. Something came over her which made one forget how physically small she was. One realised that the girl, like the man she was addressing, had a magnetic personality of her own.

"I am, in a measure, Reggie-I am going to call you Reggie-what it is the fashion to call a pessimist. It is my father's dower. I am afraid that, in a sense, from the men of my acquaintance, I always expect the worst. I believe most of them do, in their youth, many things which they ought not to do-and for which, in their age, they are sorry. I take this for granted. And I believe that, in spite of this being so, some of them make good husbands and good fathers. I think it possible that your temptations have been greater than is the case with the average man, and that, therefore, your misdoings have been more. But I am convinced that, as regards real strength, you are stronger than the average man, and that you can, if you like, put these things behind you for ever-and, on the stepping-stones of your dead self, rise to higher things. And I believe that you will like, because you love me-and because, also, I love you."

"Unfortunately, Miss Jardine-"

She made an imperious gesture with her hand.

"Call me Dora. With you, now, it shall not be Miss Jardine."

"Unfortunately" – there was an almost imperceptible pause, and then there came very softly the Christian name-"Dora, there are things which, when they are once done, we cannot put away. They meet us at Philippi."

"If in your life there are such ghosts, why did you ask me to marry you?"

"I ought not to have done. When I did I hoped that I should be able to lay the ghosts, and that for me there would be no Philippi."

"But is there no hope now?" He seemed to hesitate. She went on with, in her voice, a sudden tremor. "Consider! Think well before you speak! Reggie, I wonder if you know how much the spoiling of your life will mean the spoiling of mine?"

Her voice, or her manner, or her words-or all three combined-affected Mr. Townsend strangely. There seemed to be something in her glance which he found himself unable to encounter. He turned away. Going to him, she touched him softly on the arm. A shudder went all over him. The muscles of his face seemed to stiffen; his expression became a little set. His voice also became, as it were, a little rigid.

"There may be hope."

"There may be? Reggie!" She paused-as if breathless. "Of laying the ghosts-for ever?"

"For ever."

She was still again. Her articulation seemed to be actually impeded.

"When will you know-for sure?"

"This afternoon, at five."

"Reggie!" His words appeared to take her by surprise. "Do you mean it-really?"

"I do."

He turned and looked at her. Their glances met. She shrank away from him. The hot blood flowed into her cheeks. Her emotion was so great, it made her beautiful. His name came from her lips, with a catching of her breath, and in a whisper. She was visibly trembling.

"Reggie!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

ON THE THRESHOLD

It was plain that Mrs. Carruth was impatient. Nor was the thing made less evident by her attempts to conceal it from herself. She lounged on a couch. A pile of books and magazines was at her side. She pretended to read-or, rather, it would be more correct to write that she tried not to pretend to read. But it would not do. It was nothing but pretence. And she knew that it was nothing but pretence. She took up a book. She turned a page or two. She put it down again. She exchanged it for a magazine-a magazine with pictures. She tried to look at the pictures. The pictures palled. She essayed a magazine without pictures.

That was as great a failure as the other. In her present mood the ministrations of print and pictures alike were ineffectual.

No wonder she had become impatient. She had been on tenterhooks all day-waiting! waiting! All the morning she had expected to receive some sort of communication-some acknowledgment of the expressive line or two which she had sent. But when lunch came, and there still was nothing, she was quite sure that, during the afternoon the gentleman would come himself.

She was ready for him by two. She did not think it likely that he would come quite so early. Still, it would be well that she should not be taken unawares. So she made herself even unwontedly charming. She put on a brand-new dress, which suited her to perfection. It really did make her look uncommonly nice! It fitted her so well that it displayed her long, lithe, and yet by no means unbecomingly bony figure, to the best advantage. She took astonishing pains with her hair. She even went in for unusual splendour in the way of shoes and stockings. And the effect produced by the few touches which she bestowed upon her countenance was wonderful.

In spite of all she was ready by two. And still-he cometh not, she said. The silvery chimes of the exquisite little clock which stood on the top of the overmantel announced that it was three-quarters after three. She looked at her own watch to see if it really was so late. The thing was true enough. Her watch was in complete agreement with the clock-it was a quarter to four.

She put down the last of the magazines with, in her manner, an appearance of finality. She rose from the couch. She went to the window. She stood there with her fingertips drumming idly and noiselessly against the pane. The only creature in sight was a milkman, who, by way of killing two birds with one stone, was serving a customer across the road, and flirting with the maid. Mrs. Carruth watched the flirtation proceed to its conclusion, and, when the milkman, springing into his cart, had disappeared with the inevitable clatter, Mrs. Carruth, turning away from the window, came back into the room.

She stood at a little centre table. She laughed to herself.

"If, after all, he shouldn't come-what fun it would be!"

She was very far from being an ill-looking woman, as she stood there, with smiles puckering her lips and peeping from her eyes.

"If he should suppose that I am not in earnest! His experience may teach him that many women never are in earnest. If he should imagine that I am one of the many!"

Raising her right hand, she began daintily pinching her lower lip between her finger and her thumb.

"It would be a pity for both of us." She made a little impatient movement with her head. "And yet, I can't believe that a man with his experience could suppose that I am one of the many. If he did, it would be his fault-not mine."

The little clock struck four.

"An hour more, my friend-an hour more. And then-well, I do hope you'll come before the hour's out, for your sake, as well as mine. I wonder if, in this little matter, I've been counting my chickens before they're hatched. I, of all women, should have known better. And, with such a hand faced on the board, one might be excused for supposing that it would take the pool. A straight flush cannot be beaten."

She laughed again, this time not quite so lightly.

"It reminds me of some of the games which I have seen played. You can't show a hand to beat a straight, but you can fight to save the pool. I wonder if he means fighting. If he does, it'll be against all the odds. He has neither gun nor bow. When I start shooting, he's bound to drop. Sure."

The merriment passed from her face, the laughter from her eyes-an expression of anxiety came into them instead; a look which suggested hunger, a something which made her, all at once, seem actually old.

"Perhaps he takes it that a victory, on these lines, may mean more than a defeat. And he counts on that. It would, too. It would mean farewell-a long farewell, an actual farewell-to another of my dreams. And the brightest of them all. But I don't care. It would mean death to him. Death! And such a death! And, after all, it would only mean a stumble to me. From the practice I have had, I have become so used to stumbles that surely one other wouldn't count."

She began moving about the room restlessly, touching here a table, there a chair, to the window, and back again, as if a spirit possessed her which made her not know what it was she wanted to be at. She approached a corner of the room, as if she were about to take refuge in it, like some naughty child. As she went, clenching her fists, as if she were pressing her finger-nails into her palms, she gave a little cry.

"Oh, I'd give-I'd give, what wouldn't I give? – if he'd come into the room, now-without keeping me waiting any longer, now! – and speak to me as I would have him speak! Why doesn't he come? He has everything to gain, he has nothing to lose!"

She swept right round, with a swish of her skirts, in a sort of frenzy, echoing her own question as she swung out her arms in front of her.

"Why doesn't he come?"

Even as the words were on her lips, at the hall door there came a knocking. She went red and white, despite the aids of beauty! She caught at a chair, as if desirous of having something to lean against.

"Thank God!"

Then, as if conscious of the incongruity of such words upon her lips, she put her hands up to her face.

"Oh, I'm so glad he's come!"

Some one outside had hold of the handle of the door. She uncovered her face. She touched her hair. She touched the bosom of her dress. She dropped into the chair by which she was standing. In an instant she was the picture of composure.

The door opened to admit Mr. Haines.

His appearance was a shock to Mrs. Carruth. She looked negligently round, as if indifferent who the new-comer might be, and then-she stared.

"You!"

There was something in the lady's intonation which was very far from being complimentary. She stood up, quivering with disappointment and with rage.

"I thought I gave instructions that this afternoon I was not at home to visitors."

Mr. Haines did not seem to be at all nonplussed.

"That's what the young lady who opened the door told me. I said I would wait until you were. I will."

Mr. Haines sat down-with every appearance of having come to stay. Mrs. Carruth looked at the clock, then at her watch, then at the gentleman upon the chair. The gentleman in question, with his head thrown back, was staring at the ceiling, as if quite unconscious of her neighbourhood. It seemed to be as much as the lady could do to retain her self-control.

"I am sure, Mr. Haines, that you cannot wish to be rude. I have an appointment this afternoon which I regret will prevent my having the pleasure of receiving you."

"I'm going to have my say. I'll say it afterwards, or I'll say it now. It's all the same to me."

"What do you mean by you're going to have your say?"

"If you're ready, I'll let it out. But don't mind me. Don't let me spoil your appointment. Keep anything you've got to keep."

Mrs. Carruth seemed to be at a loss to know what to do. Her looks were eloquent witnesses as to what she would have done if she could. But, apparently, she did not see her way to do it. She temporised.

"If there is anything of importance, Mr. Haines, which you wished to say to me, perhaps you will be so good as to say it as briefly as you can, now. Possibly it will not detain you, at the utmost, more than a quarter of an hour."

"Possibly it will not. I rather reckon you'll have a word to say in that. It won't all be for me." Mr. Haines brought his eyes down to the level of the lady's face. He spread out his hands upon his knees. He looked at her very straight. "What I have to say may be said in about two words. It's just this-I've found my girl."

Mrs. Carruth did not display any great amount of interest, but she did seem to be surprised.

"Indeed! I am glad to hear it. I hope that she is well."

"She is well. She's better than many of us ever will be. She's at rest."

"At rest? How?"

"As it was told to me. She is dead."

"Dead! Mr. Haines?"

"Yes, murdered. As I saw it in the vision, so it is."

Mrs. Carruth looked at Mr. Haines as if she felt that he had a somewhat singular method of imparting information-especially of such a peculiar kind.