The words she had uttered were completely confounding. She was apparently possessed of attainments which were supernatural; indeed, she seemed to me as a visitant from the Unknown, so strangely had she spoken; so mysterious had been her allegations regarding Roddy.

For nearly an hour I remained deep in thought, plunged in abject despair. Aline the beautiful had left me, urging me to transfer my affections. The situation was extraordinary. She had, it seemed, gone out of my life for ever.

Suddenly I roused myself. Her extraordinary statement that Roddy had committed suicide at Monte Carlo oppressed me. If she really knew Muriel's innermost thoughts, then it was quite feasible that she knew more of my friend than I had imagined. Besides, had he not left the theatre hurriedly on catching sight of her? There was a mystery which should be elucidated. Therefore I a.s.sumed my hat and coat and went round to Roddy's chambers in Dover Street, Piccadilly, to endeavour to obtain some explanation of her amazing statement.

He lived in one of those smoke-blackened, old-fashioned houses with deep areas, residences which were occupied by families fifty years ago, but now mostly let out as suites of chambers. The front door with its inner swing-door was, as usual, open, and I pa.s.sed through and up the stairs to the second floor, where upon the door was a small bra.s.s plate bearing my friend's name.

The door was ajar, and pushing it open I walked in, exclaiming cheerily as was my habit--

"Anybody at home?"

There was no response. Roddy was out, and his man had evidently gone downstairs to obtain something. I walked straight on into the sitting-room, a good-sized, comfortable apartment, which smelt eternally of cigars, for its owner was an inveterate smoker; but as I entered I was surprised to discover Roddy in his old velvet lounge-coat, sitting alone in his chair beside the fire.

"Morning, old chap!" I cried. But he was asleep and did not move.

I crossed the room and shook him by the shoulder to awaken him, at the same moment looking into his face.

It was unusually pale.

In an instant a terrible thought flashed across my mind, and I bent eagerly towards him. He was not asleep, for his eyes were still wide-open, although his chin had sunk upon his breast.

I placed my hand quickly upon his heart, but could detect no movement.

I touched his cheek. It was still warm. But his eyes told the appalling truth. They were bloodshot, stony, discoloured, and already glazing. The hideous, astounding fact could not be disguised.

Roddy Morgan was dead!

CHAPTER SEVEN.

WHAT ASH KNEW.

The shock caused me by this discovery was indescribable.

My first action on recovering was to alarm those in the house, but it was found that Ash, Roddy's man, was absent.

The three occupants of the other chambers, men I knew, entered, and endeavoured to restore their friend to consciousness. But all efforts were in vain. A doctor from Burlington Street was quickly fetched, and after a brief examination p.r.o.nounced that life had been extinct about half an hour, but there being no sign of violence he could make no surmise as to the cause of death without a post-mortem.

Roddy had evidently been sitting beside the fire reading the newspaper and smoking when he expired, for at his side his cigar had dropped and burned a hole in the carpet, while the newspaper was still between his stiffening fingers.

A detective and a constable were very soon on the scene, but as the doctor expressed an opinion that it was a case of sudden death, most probably from syncope, the appearance of the body leading to that conclusion, the plain-clothes officer merely made a few notes, and awaited with me the return of the man Ash, in order to question him.

In the meantime the others left the presence of the dead, and I had an opportunity of glancing round the place. I was well acquainted with Roddy's chambers, for I often smoked with him of an evening, therefore I knew their arrangement almost as well as I knew that of my own. But this discovery was to me a staggering blow. Over the mantel-shelf was a mirror, and stuck in its frame were a truly miscellaneous collection of cards of invitation for all sorts and descriptions of festivities. One card, however, attracted my attention as being unusual, and I took it down to examine it. It was not a card of invitation, but a small, oblong piece of pasteboard ruled in parallel squares, each column being headed by the letter "N," alternate with the letter "R." In the squares were hurriedly scribbled a curious collection of numbers.

At first I could not recollect where I had seen a similar card before, but it suddenly dawned upon me that it was one of those used by professional gamblers at Monte Carlo, to record the numbers which come up at the roulette-table, the "R" standing for Rouge, and the "N" for Noir. The discovery was interesting. I carefully examined the pencilled figures, and saw they were in Roddy's own hand.

Did not this bear out Aline's allegation that he had been to Monte Carlo?

I said nothing to the detective, but replaced the card in the frame of the mirror.

The detective strolled around the other rooms in an aimless sort of way, and when he returned I asked--

"What is your opinion of this affair?"

"I really don't know, sir," he answered in a puzzled tone. "It may be suicide."

"Suicide!" I gasped, recollecting Aline's declaration. "What causes you to surmise that?"

"From the fact that the valet is absent," he answered. "The gentleman, if he desired to take his own life, would naturally send his servant out on an errand."

"But the cigar on the carpet? How do you account for that?" I inquired. "If he meant to deliberately take his life he would instinctively cast his lighted cigar into the fire."

The officer was silent. He was a keen, shrewd, clean-shaven man of about forty, whose name I afterwards learnt was Priestly.

"Your argument is a sound one," he answered after a long pause. "But when a man is suffering from temporary insanity, there is no accounting for his actions. Of course, it's by no means evident that your friend has committed suicide, because there is absolutely no trace of such a thing. Nevertheless, I merely tell you my suspicion. We shall know the truth to-morrow, when the doctor has made his post-mortem. At the station, when I go back, I'll give orders for the removal of the body to the mortuary. I presume that you will communicate the news to his friends. You said, I think, that his uncle was the Duke of Chester, and that he was a Member of Parliament. Are his parents alive?"

"No. Both are dead," I answered, glancing again around the room, bewildered because of Aline's strange statements only an hour before.

Could she, I wondered, have known of this? Yet when I remembered the doctor's a.s.sertion that poor Roddy had not been dead half an hour, it seemed plain that at the time she had alleged he had committed suicide at Monte Carlo he was still alive and well.

The room was undisturbed. Nothing appeared out of place. In the window looking down into Duke Street, that quiet thoroughfare so near the noisy bustle of Piccadilly, and yet so secluded and eminently respectable, stood the writing-table, which he set up after his election, in order to attend to his correspondence. "I must send some letters to my const.i.tuents and to the local papers now and then," he laughingly explained when I chaffed him about it. "Scarcely a day goes past but what I have to write, excusing myself from being present at some local tea-fight or distribution of school-prizes. To every sixpenny m.u.f.fin-tussle I'm expected to give my patronage, so that they can stick my name in red letters on the bill announcing the event. Politics are a hollow farce."

His words all came back to me now as I glanced at that table. I recollected how merry and light-hearted he had been then, careless of everybody, without a single thought of the morrow. Yet of late a change had certainly come upon him. In my ignorance I had attributed it to the weight of his Parliamentary honours, knowing that he cared nothing about politics, and had been forced into them by his uncle. Yet there might have been an ulterior cause, I reflected. Aline herself might have been the cause of his recent melancholy and despair.

She had evidently known him better than I had imagined.

Upon the table I noticed lying a large blue envelope, somewhat soiled, as if it had been carried in his pocket for a long time. It was linen-lined, and had therefore resisted friction, and instead of wearing out had become almost black.

I took it up and drew out the contents, a cabinet photograph and a sheet of blank paper.

I turned the picture over and glanced at it. It was a portrait of Aline!

She had been taken in a _decollete_ dress, a handsome evening costume, which gave her an entirely different character from the plain dress she had worn when we had first met. It was a handsome bodice, beautifully trimmed; and her face, still childlike in its innocence, peered out upon me with a tantalising smile. Around her slim throat was a necklet consisting of half a dozen rows of seed-pearls, from which some thirty amethysts of graduated sizes were suspended, a delicate necklet probably of Indian workmanship. The photograph was beautifully taken by the first of the Paris photographers.

There was no address on the envelope; the sheet of note-paper was quite plain. Without doubt this picture had been in his possession some considerable time.

The detective, who had covered the dead man's face with a handkerchief, had pa.s.sed into the bedroom and was searching the chest of drawers, merely out of curiosity, I suppose, when my eyes caught sight of a sc.r.a.p of paper in the fireplace, and I picked it up. It was half-charred, but I smoothed it out, and then found it to be a portion of a torn letter.

Three words only remained; but they were words which were exceedingly curious. They were "_expose her true_..." The letter had been torn in fragments and carefully burned even to this fragment, but it had only half consumed, and probably fallen from the bars.

At first I was prompted to hand it to the detective; but on reflection resolved to retain it. I alone held a key to the mystery, and was resolved to act independently with care and caution in an endeavour to elucidate the extraordinary affair.

In a few moments the officer made his re-appearance, saying--

"It's strange, very strange, that the valet doesn't come back. If he's not here very soon, I shall commence to suspect him of having some hand in the affair." Then, after a pause, during which his eyes were fixed upon the man whose face was hidden, he added, "I wonder whether, after all, a crime has been committed?"

"That remains for you to discover," I replied. "There seems no outward sign of such a thing. The doctor has found no mark of violence."

"True," he said shrewdly. Then, with his eyes fixed upon the carpet, he suddenly exclaimed, "Ah! what's this?" and bending, picked up something which he placed in the hollow of his hand, exposing it to my view.

It was a purely feminine object. A tiny pearl b.u.t.ton from a woman's glove.