"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 washing. 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?"

"No, it was not," I answered quickly. "A lady? Can you remember what she was like?"

"I can. She was, I think, really the most beautiful lady I have ever seen. She was quite tall, as tall as a man, and she had a lovely figure.

It did seem to set off her beautiful clothes so well. Then her face was lovely too--long, dark eyebrows she had, if I remember rightly, and her eyes were large. Oh, and she had a lot of auburn hair--red you might almost call it--I don't know which it was really, but I never saw such hair."

"Good!" I exclaimed.

I turned to the policeman.

"She has described beyond doubt a woman I know; a woman you will probably soon know something about too."

"Indeed, sir?" he said, interested.

"But about this signature," I went on, again addressing the operator.

"How does this telegram you sent off come to be signed if the original was not signed?"

"It was signed, sir. It must have been. Otherwise the name wouldn't have been telegraphed. Ah--I remember!"

"Remember what?"

"The signature was in pencil. Just after the telegram had been despatched, the lady came in again and asked if she might see the message again just for a moment--she was not sure if she had said something she had meant to say, she said. I got it and gave it to her, and a moment or two afterwards she gave it back to me, thanking me very much for having let her see it. She must have rubbed off the signature then. She could do it easy with a damp finger. Of course, I ought to have looked, but I didn't think to."

"I think we have now solved the mystery--in part," I exclaimed triumphantly. "This is some abominable conspiracy, and I am going to get to the bottom of it. My name was evidently signed, telegraphed, and then purposely obliterated."

After thanking the postmaster for his extreme courtesy and for the trouble he had taken, and impressing upon him that under no circ.u.mstances was the bright-eyed little operator to be censured, or allowed to get into any trouble, I returned with the policeman, who was now quite apologetic, to the house in Grafton Street. The door was locked. A constable standing by, however, told us that Osborne and Easterton had driven away together in a car--"his lordship's car, which his lordship had telephoned for," he said, and that "the two ladies had gone to the Ritz for tea"--he had heard them say, as they walked away, that they were going there.

Alone I followed them. I know my way about the Ritz as though I lived there, being there so often with friends, and I soon found Aunt Hannah and Dulcie. They were alone in a cosy private tea-room leading out of one of the large rooms which is but seldom used, having tea.

I saw Aunt Hannah stiffen as I approached. I saw too--and this disturbed me far more--that Dulcie had been weeping. Her eyes were still quite moist.

"What do you wish, Mr. Berrington?" Aunt Hannah inquired starchily, sitting bolt upright in her chair as I approached.

I detest the use of the word "wish" in place of "want"; I don't know why, but I always a.s.sociate it with prim, prudish, highly-conventional old ladies.

"I have come to explain everything, and to set your mind at rest," I said, trying to speak lightly, and intentionally saying "mind" instead of "minds," for I did not want Dulcie to suppose that I thought she shared her aunt's grotesque belief in this matter--the belief that I actually had sent that hateful telegram.

"I hope you will succeed," Aunt Hannah observed, then shut her lips tightly.

She did not offer me a cup of tea, but I feigned not to notice this paltry affront, and proceeded briefly to relate what had just taken place at the post office. At last, when I had, as I thought, completely cleared my character, I stopped speaking. To my surprise the old lady remained as unbending as ever.

"I don't know why I've gone to the trouble of telling you all this," I said, hiding the mortification I felt, "but you see, at any rate, that I _had_ an explanation to offer, though I grant you that at present it can only be a partial one. That is no fault of mine, however."

"'Partial'--yes, it certainly is that," muttered the old lady.

Aunt Hannah has small green eyes, and they seemed to snap. She still sat up stiffly, her entire aspect rigid.

"This," I thought, "is the limit. Decidedly the moment of battle has arrived"--indeed, the initial encounter had already taken place. I don't mind confessing that my spirit quailed--for an instant. Then, realizing that I was "up against it," my courage returned. My engagement to Dulcie hung in the balance. I must face the music.