Part 37 (1/2)
”That's right,” I said, smiling. ”If they want me they can come here again and find me.”
Then, after the landlady had gone downstairs, I asked Tibbie her opinion.
”Did I not tell you that inquiries would be made to ascertain whether I were married?” she said. ”The woman evidently satisfied them, for she has no suspicion of the true state of affairs.”
”Then you are safe?”
”Safe only for the present. I may be in increased peril to-morrow.”
”And how long do you antic.i.p.ate this danger to last?” I asked her seriously, as she sat there gazing into the meagre fire.
”Last! Until my life's end,” she answered very sadly. Then turning her wonderful eyes to mine she added, ”I know you cannot sacrifice your life for me in this way much longer, Wilfrid. Therefore it must end. Yet life, after all, is very sweet. When I am alone I constantly look back upon my past and recognise how wasted it has been; how I discarded the benefits of Providence and how from the first, when I came out, I was dazzled by the glitter, gaiety, and extravagance of our circle. It has all ended now, and I actually believe I am a changed woman. But it is, alas! too late--too late.”
Those words of hers concealed some extraordinary romance--the romance of a broken heart. She admitted as much. Why were these men so persistently hunting her down if they were in no fear of her? It could only be some desperate vendetta--perhaps a life for a life!
What she had said was correct. Mine was now a most invidious position, for while posing as William Morton, I was unable to go to Bolton Street or even call upon Scarcliff or Wydcombe for fear that Winsloe and his accomplices should learn that I was still alive. Therefore I was compelled to return to the Caledonian Hotel in the Adelphi, where Budd met me in secret each evening with my letters and necessaries.
Another week thus went by. The greater part of the day I usually spent with Tibbie in that dull little room in Neate Street, and sometimes, when the weather was fine, we went to get a breath of air in Greenwich Park or to Lewisham or Dulwich, those resorts of the working-cla.s.s of South London. At night, ostensibly going to work, I left her and spent hours and hours carefully watching the movements of Ellice Winsloe.
To Lord Wydcombe's, in Curzon Street, I followed him on several occasions, for he had suddenly become very intimate with Wydcombe it appeared, and while I stood on the pavement outside that house I knew so well my thoughts wandered back to those brilliant festivities which Cynthia so often gave. One night, after Winsloe had dined there, I saw the brougham come round, and he and Cynthia drove off to the theatre, followed by Jack and Wydcombe in a hansom. On another afternoon I followed Winsloe to the Scarcliffs in Grosvenor Place, and later on saw him laughing with old Lady Scarcliff at the drawing-room window that overlooked Hyde Park Corner. He presented a sleek, well-to-do appearance, essentially that of a gentleman. His frock coat was immaculate, his overcoat of the latest cut, and his silk hat always ironed to the highest perfection of glossiness.
Tibbie, of course, knew nothing of my patient watchfulness. I never went near my chambers, therefore Ellice and Parham certainly believed me dead, while as to Domville's hiding in Paris, I confess I doubted the truth of the statement of Tibbie's friend. If the poor fellow still lived he would most certainly have written to me. No! He was dead-- without a doubt. He had fallen a victim in that grim house of doom.
Again and again I tried to find the gruesome place, but in vain. Not a street nor an alley in the neighbourhood of Regent Street I left unexplored, yet for the life of me I could not again recognise the house. The only plan, I decided, was to follow Parham, who would one day go there, without a doubt.
I called on Mrs Parham at Sydenham Hill, and found that her husband was still absent--in India, she believed. Miss O'Hara, however, remained with her. What connection had the girl with those malefactors? I tried to discern. At all events, she knew their cipher, and they also feared her, as shown by their actions on that dark night in Dean's Yard.
My own idea was that Parham was still away in the country. Or, if he were in London, he never went near Winsloe. The police were in search of him, as admitted by the inspector at Sydenham, therefore he might at any moment be arrested. But before he fell into the hands of the police I was determined to fathom the secret of that house of mystery wherein I had so nearly lost my life.
For Tibbie's personal safety I was now in constant and deep anxiety.
They were desperate and would hesitate at nothing in order to secure their own ends. The ingenuity of the plot to seize her in Dean's Yard was sufficient evidence of that. Fortunately, however, Tibbie had not seen my cipher advertis.e.m.e.nts.
Another week pa.s.sed, and my pretended wife had quite settled down again amid her humble surroundings. It amused me sometimes to see the girl, of whose beauty half London had raved, with the sleeves of her cotton blouse turned up, making a pudding, or kneeling before the grate and applying blacklead with a brush. I, too, helped her to do the housework, and more than once scrubbed down the table or cleaned the windows. Frequently we worked in all seriousness, but at times we were compelled to laugh at each other's unusual occupation.
And when I looked steadily into those fine, wide-open eyes, I wondered what great secret was hidden there.
Time after time I tried to learn more of Arthur Rumbold, but she would tell me nothing.
In fear that the fact of her disappearance might find its way into the papers, she wrote another rea.s.suring letter to her mother, telling her that she was well and that one day ere long she would return. This I sent to a friend, a college chum, who was wintering in Cairo, and it was posted from there. Jack naturally sent out a man to Egypt to try and find her; and in the meantime we allayed all fears that she had met with foul play.
Days and weeks went on. In the security of those obscure apartments in Neate Street, that mean thoroughfare which by day resounded with the cries of itinerant costermongers, and at evening was the playground of crowds of children, Sybil remained patient, yet anxious. Mrs Williams--who, by the way, had a habit of speaking of her husband as her ”old man”--was a kind, motherly soul, who did her best to keep her company during my absences, and who performed little services for her without thought of payment or reward. The occupation of compositor accounted not only for my absence each night during the week, but on Sunday nights also--to prepare Monday morning's paper, I explained.
I told everybody that I worked in Fleet Street, but never satisfied them as to which office employed me. There were hundreds of compositors living in the neighbourhood, and if I made a false statement it would at once be detected. With Williams I was friendly, and we often had a gla.s.s together and a pipe.
Our life in Camberwell was surely the strangest ever led by man and woman. Before those who knew us I was compelled to call her ”Molly,”
while she addressed me as ”Willie,” just as though I were her husband.
A thousand times I asked her the real reason of that masquerade, but she steadfastly declined to tell me.