Part 36 (2/2)
Why Ellice Winsloe had recognised the body was plain enough now. The two men were friends--and enemies of Sybil Burnet.
I clenched my fingers when I thought of the dangerous man who was still posing as the chum of young Lord Scarcliff, and I vowed that I would live to avenge the wrong done to the poor trembling girl at my side.
She burst into hot tears again when I declared that it would be better for us to return again to the obscurity of Camberwell.
”Yes,” she sobbed. ”Act as you think best, Wilfrid. I am entirely in your hands. I am yours, indeed, for you saved my life on--on that night when I fled from Ryhall.”
We turned into the town again through Gallowgate when she had dried her eyes, and had lunch at a small eating-house in New Bridge Street, she afterwards returning to her hotel to pack, for we had decided to take the afternoon train up to King's Cross.
She was to meet me at the station at half-past three, and just before that hour, while idling up and down Neville Street awaiting the arrival of her cab, of a sudden I saw the figure of a man in a dark travelling ulster and soft felt hat emerge from the station and cross the road to Grainger Street West.
He was hurrying along, but in an instant something about his figure and gait struck me as familiar; therefore, walking quickly after him at an angle before he could enter Grainger Street, I caught a glimpse of his countenance.
It was John Parham! And he was going in the direction of the Douglas Hotel.
He had again tracked her down with an intention which I knew, alas! too well could only be a distinctly evil one.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
TAKES ME A STEP FURTHER.
We were back again in Neate Street, Camberwell.
In Newcastle we had a very narrow escape. As Parham had walked towards the hotel, Sybil had fortunately pa.s.sed him in a closed cab. On her arrival at the station she was in entire ignorance of the fellow's presence, and as the train was already in waiting we entered and were quickly on our way to London, wondering by what means Parham could possibly have known of her whereabouts.
Was she watched? Was some secret agent, of whom we were in ignorance, keeping constant observations upon us and reporting our movements to the enemy? That theory was Sybil's.
”Those men are utterly unscrupulous,” she declared as we sat together in the little upstairs room in Camberwell. ”No secret is safe from them, and their spies are far better watchers than the most skilled detectives of Scotland Yard.”
At that moment Mrs Williams entered, delighted to see us back again, for when we had left, Tibbie had, at my suggestion, paid rent for the rooms for a month in advance and explained that we were returning.
”Two gentlemen came to inquire for you a week ago, Mr Morton,” she exclaimed, addressing me. ”They first asked whether Mrs Morton was at home, and I explained that she was away. They then inquired for you, and appeared to be most inquisitive.”
”Inquisitive? About what?” asked my pseudo wife.
”Oh! all about your private affairs, mum. But I told them I didn't know anything, of course. One of the men was a foreigner.”
”What did they ask you?” I inquired in some alarm.
”Oh, how long you'd been with me, where you worked, how long you'd been married--and all that. Most impudent, I call it. Especially as they were strangers.”
”How did you know they were strangers?”
”Because they took the photograph of my poor brother Harry to be yours-- so they couldn't have known you.”
”Impostors, I expect,” I remarked, in order to allay the good woman's suspicions. ”No doubt they were trying to get some information from you in order to use it for their own purposes. Perhaps to use my wife's name, or mine, as an introduction somewhere.”
”Well, they didn't get much change out of me, I can tell you,” she laughed. ”I told them I didn't know them and very soon showed them the door. I don't like foreigners. When I asked them to leave their names they looked at each other and appeared confused. They asked where you were, and I told them you were in Ireland.”
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