Part 13 (1/2)
”Answer them? Why, of course--all of 'em. I didn't want to remain here in durance vile an hour longer than I could help, I can a.s.sure you. But naturally my answers were--well, 'inaccurate,' to say the least. I had to word them very carefully, though, or the fellow would have caught me out. He suspected that I might be misleading him, I think, for once or twice he put questions which might have unmasked me if I had not been on my guard when answering them. Really we pitted our brains and cunning against each other's all the time, and, if I may say so without boasting, I think my cunning won.”
”Then why were you not released?” I said.
”I was to have been, to-night--_so he said_. Do you think, though, he would, whoever he was, have let me go after questioning me like that? He said not a word about my not giving information to the police, or warning the people he had questioned me about. Do you think he would have let me go? I don't.
”Every day food and drink were left by me--set on a table within reach of me, while the room was in inky blackness, for the man who had touched me in the dark had also released my right arm and left it so. Several times I tried to free my other arm, and my feet, but I couldn't manage it. I have been lying here with both feet and one arm bound for four nights and three days, to my knowledge, without seeing anybody, and, of course, without shaving or was.h.i.+ng. I can't tell you what these days and nights have been like--they have been like a long, awful nightmare; even the house has all the time been as still as death. My G.o.d, what a relief it was to hear the door bell ringing this afternoon, and the knocker going as though the place was on fire!
”And when the police did force an entrance it seems they found n.o.body but me!”
CHAPTER VIII
MORE SUSPICIONS
Women are extraordinary--a plat.i.tude, of course, for everybody who has mixed with women and who possesses a gleam of intelligence knows that they are extraordinary, just as he knows, or ought to know, that if they were not _bizarre_ and mystifying, complex and erratic, they would be less insidiously captivating than they are.
There are, however, exceptions to most rules--some misguided _savant_ of a bygone epoch formulated a maxim which says that ”the exception proves the rule,” obviously an absurd statement, for if one man has no nose on his face it is no proof that all other men have noses on theirs. Aunt Hannah const.i.tuted an exception to the rule that women are rendered additionally attractive through being extraordinary. Had she been less extraordinary she would have been more lovable. As it was she came near, at this time, to being the reverse of lovable, or so it struck me when, upon my endeavour to talk calmly and rationally to her after hearing all that Jack Osborne had just told us, and striving to induce her to listen to reason, she remained prejudiced, illogical.
I should not have cared a b.u.t.ton, naturally, had it not been for Dulcie and the estrangement between us that the foolish old lady's behaviour created. Dulcie thought no end of her aunt, respected her views and sentiments--she had been brought up to do so, poor child--and, I knew, really loved her. ”Well,” I said to myself tartly, ”she will now have to choose between Aunt Hannah and me,” and feeling c.o.c.k-sure, after all that had occurred between us, that I should be the favoured one and that Aunt Hannah would be metaphorically relegated to the sc.r.a.p-heap, I decided to approach Dulcie at once.
No, first I must see the original of that telegram, I reflected.
Accompanied, therefore, by the police officer, I made my way to the post office in Regent Street. Having explained that I wanted to see the original of the telegram ”because,” as I said, ”I think a mistake has been made in transcribing it,” I was presently confronted by the postmaster, a most courteous, obliging person.
”Why, certainly,” he said, when I had repeated my untruth. ”You shall see it at once.”
I waited in anxious expectancy, chatting lightly with the policeman, while the postmaster looked through the file of the day's messages.
”This is it, I think,” he said presently--we were in his private room.
”But,” he went on, glancing from the message that had been sent to the original, ”your original message is unsigned. Is that the alleged mistake of which you complain?”
”Unsigned!” I exclaimed, taking both papers from him. ”Why yes, so it is! Then how does that message that was sent off come to be signed?”
The original message was type-written. The wording was exactly the same as that in the telegram received, with this exception--the telegram received was signed ”Michael Berrington,” the typed message had no signature.
”How do you account for this discrepancy?” I asked quickly.
”If you will kindly wait a moment,” he answered, ”I will inquire into this.”
He left the room. The policeman, to whom I had handed both messages, was still contemplating them with a look of perplexity in his round eyes, when the postmaster returned, bringing with him an intelligent-looking girl.
”This,” he said, ”is the young lady who transmitted the message.”
I am afraid I smiled. How long, I wonder, will post-office a.s.sistants, and shop girls, bar tenders, and others continue to be ”young ladies,”
while ladies in the correct sense of the word never think, when talking of one another, of using terms more distinctive and dignified than ”girl” and ”woman”?
”Do you remember my sending this telegram this morning?” I asked, looking her full in the eyes.
”I remember taking in the message, but I'm afraid I don't remember your face, sir,” she answered nervously, evidently afraid that I was about to get her into trouble. ”You see, we see so many people, and most of them only for a few moments. I recall rather clearly taking in that message, because it was typed, which most telegrams are not. And--and I thought it was handed in by a lady, and not by a gentleman. In fact I feel sure it was. Was it really you who gave it to me to send off?”