Shortly after that he took himself away. And I wasn't sorry to see him go. Though, when he went, he left behind him as unhappy a woman as you'd find in England.

James used to tell me I was pretty. He tells me so sometimes now. I wish he'd say it oftener; because it won't be true of me much longer, and my prettiness is all I ever had. I'm not a bit clever. I'm an ignorant, common woman. That's all. My father was a small farmer over Horsham way. James came to lodge with us one summer; for we took lodgers sometimes, when we could get them. He hadn't been in the house a week before he was all the world to me. He was years and years older than I was; nigh as old as father. But that made no difference. There never was another man like him. Not all the other men put together would make his equal. I thought so then, and I think so now.

The strange thing was that he cared for me. He told me so one afternoon. And while I was half beside myself with joy they came and told me father was dead. He had been thatching the big barn, and had slipped off the roof and broken his neck. The day after father was buried, I went over with James to Horsham, and was married at the registrar's by special licence. Father was all the relation I had, and me being alone in the world, with no money, James thought it would be best.

James being as near as possible a stranger, it wasn't till after we were married that I learned anything at all about him; and then only what he chose to tell me. It wasn't long, however, before I began to find out that I'd got a queer one for a husband; but how queer I don't believe I know to this very hour. I'm not one to tell tales of my own man, the father of my children, but I could tell tales which would make some people's hair stand up on end. Some of the things he's done have made me wonder if he's not in league with the devil. Not that I wasn't happy--at least until I saw that to him a woman was just nothing at all. Though he loved me in his way. But his way was such a funny one. For a week together he'd be so nice that I'd begin to think I was in Heaven. Then he'd go out, as I'd think just for a stroll, and I'd never see him again for weeks, and sometimes months. Where he went to, or what he did, he'd never tell me. And, in time, I gave up asking; because the way he treated me when I did ask made me more miserable than ever.

I'm not old now. I've not been married six years, and I wasn't seventeen when I was married. And twenty-three isn't old compared to some. And I've two of the dearest little children. I believe they're a blessing G.o.d has given me to make up for what I have to bear from James. Jimmy, he's four and a half, and good as gold; and Pollie, she's three, the prettiest and best child that ever lived. They say that she takes after me; but I'm sure that I don't know. What I should do without them I tremble to think.

And now here was James gone off again! He'd been giving some dreadful performance--though, to my thinking, performance was not the word--at the Royal Aquarium. Actually been to sleep for thirty days on end. It made my blood run cold to think of it. What people could see in such a thing beats me. But there--you never know. Some like all kinds of things. There was once a lady who lived near me who called herself the Boneless Wonder. She was a wonder! She'd twist herself into the most horrid shapes you ever saw. Yet she seemed to like to do it, and people paid to see her. One afternoon when I was having a cup of tea with her, she did such awful things right in front of me upon the kitchen table that I was ill for a week.

There are some women who wish their husbands never would come home.

But I'm not that sort. When James has been away, how I've waited and watched for him no one knows, or ever will. And prayed too. And I've taught the children to pray for Daddy to come home. We've all three knelt down together, though they can hardly speak. And when Jimmy says 'Please, G.o.d, send Daddy soon,' it goes right through me. I wish He would--to stop. Every footfall I've hoped was his, and at a rap at the door my heart stopped beating. And then when he did come, he'd be as cool and as calm as if he'd never been away. If you ran to him, and made a fuss, he'd say something that would cut you like a knife. But if you kept yourself in as tight as you could, and waited for him to start the fussing, sometimes he'd be that nice that I'd forget all my heavy heart and weary watching, and be as happy as the day was long.

Mr. FitzHoward hadn't got used to him like I had. He hadn't been his 'business manager' for long--though what business James had that he was manager of was beyond me altogether--and the way in which James had taken himself away again seemed to worry him even more than it did me. So far as I could make out, James had bound himself to go to certain towns on certain dates; and if he didn't go Mr. FitzHoward would have to pay. He didn't like the idea of that at all. And I can't say that I blame him. He was in and out sometimes two or three times a day to know if there was news of him. What with his constant worrying, and James keeping away, it was almost more than I could stand. It was only the children kept me up. If I hadn't loved my husband it wouldn't have mattered; but I did. And though I let no one guess it, least of all Mr. FitzHoward, my heart kept crying out for him as if it would break.

One morning, two days after he'd been telling me about that mysterious Mr. Smith, he came rushing into the house without even so much as knocking. He was so excited that he made me excited too. I went up to him with my hands clenched at my sides, feeling all of a tremble.

'Well, where is he?'

His answer made me go as cold as I'd gone hot.

'I'd give a five-pound note to know; the one presented me by Mr.

Smith, with another one on top of it.'

'What's the matter with you then, if you don't know?'

He seemed to think that there was something singular in my appearance.

'I say--Mrs. Merrett--don't hit me!' As if I was going to hit him.

Though he deserved shaking for making me think such things. I went back to the roly-poly pudding I was making for the children's dinner.

'I tell you what it is, Mrs. Merrett; I'm beginning to feel uneasy.'

'Who cares what you feel?'

Disappointment had made me angry.

'Not many people, I admit. It's a solemn fact that my feelings are not of national importance; but when you've heard what I've got to say, perhaps you'll begin to feel uneasy; then it'll be my turn to make inquiries. You know that Mr. Smith I told you about?' I nodded. I had heard enough of the mysterious Smith. 'Yesterday afternoon, as I was going along Piccadilly on a 'bus, I saw him on the pavement.

'Alone?'

'He was alone right enough; though, for all I know, a ghost ought to have been walking by his side.'

'Mr. FitzHoward! What do you mean?'

'Aren't I going to tell you, if you'll wait? Even the best of women--and, Mrs. Merrett, you must pardon my saying that you are the best I ever met, and I've met some--are impatient.' I wished he'd stop his nonsense. 'I jumped off the 'bus, went up to Mr. Smith from behind, reached out my hand, and touched him on the shoulder. He gave such a jump that he made me jump too. I never saw a man so startled.

He didn't look much happier when he saw me; he knew me right enough.

"Good G.o.d!" he said. "You!" "Yes," I said. "Mr.--Mr. Smith, might I be permitted to inquire what you've done with Mr. Babbacombe?" I don't know what made me ask the question, at least in that way. It must have been a kind of inspiration. For when I did ask it, it seemed to strike him all of a heap. He gave a lurch so that I thought that he was going to fall; and if the wall of St. James's Church hadn't been handy for him to lean against, he'd have come a cropper. The sight he was took me quite aback. It made me think all sorts of things. I couldn't make it out at all. It was some time before he'd got hold of himself enough to speak; and then it was with a stammer. "What--what do you mean by--by asking me such a question?" "I asked it because I want an answer. What's become of him since you had that interview with him at the York Hotel?" "How do you know I had an interview with him?"

"That's tellings. I know one or two things, and I want to know one or two more. Mr. Smith, what have you done with Mr. Babbacombe?" "I know nothing whatever, sir, of the person to whom you refer." He tried to pull himself together, and pa.s.s things off with an air. But it wasn't altogether a success. Just as he was making as if to take himself off, a friend came rushing up to him. "Hollo, Howarth!" he cried, "you're the very man I wanted to see." I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears at this. "Excuse me, sir," I said. "Is this gentleman's name Howarth?" The friend looked me up and down; like those swells do. "Who's this?" he asked.

Mr. Smith--or Mr. Howarth--took his arm. "Some person who wishes to make himself offensive to me." And he was going to walk off. But I got in front of him. "Excuse me, Mr. Smith, or Mr. Howarth, or whatever your name is, but before you go perhaps you'll tell me what you've done with Mr. Babbacombe." He was more himself by now, and looked at me in a way I didn't like; as if I was so much dirt under his feet.

"What's he mean?" asked his friend. My gentleman beckoned to a policeman who was standing a little way off. "Officer," he said, "be so good as to prevent this person from annoying me." "Constable," I said in my turn, "I want to know what this gentleman has done with a friend of mine." However, Mr. Smith, or Mr. Howarth, called a cab; and as the bobby had as near as a toucher, planted himself on my toes, I had to let him get into it. "Who's that?" I asked the copper, as he was driving off. "That's the Honourable Douglas Howarth. What do you want with him?" "I want to know what size he takes in boots," I said.

That gentleman in blue had given me the needle. There's a Court Guide where I live. When I opened it this morning the first name I saw was Howarth. The Hon. Douglas Howarth is the third son of the late Earl of Barnes, and the uncle of the present Earl. He's a bachelor. He has a sister, Lady Violet, who's unmarried; and he lives in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. All of which sounds very different to "John Smith."'

'But why should he have called himself Smith? And what was it he was so anxious to say to James?'

'Exactly. That's what you're going to find out.'

'I! Mr. FitzHoward!'

'You--Mrs. Merrett! Who's ent.i.tled to know who killed the husband if it isn't his wife?'

'Mr. FitzHoward!'

'So this afternoon you're going to call on the Hon. Douglas Howarth, alias Mr. John Smith, at his residence in Brook Street, to make inquiries.'

CHAPTER XII

MRS. MERRETT IS OVER-PERSUADED

I sat down with the rolling-pin in my hand. He made me feel uneasy.

Though what he said was beyond me altogether. And as he stood in front of the grate he kept saying things which made me uneasier still.

'Mrs. Merrett, I'm not a romantic character. I'm without feeling; dead to emotion. It's the consequence of the professional life I've led; the profession first, the rest nowhere. You may beat against this heart for years, and yet not find entrance.' He banged his hand against his side. I should have thought it hurt him. 'I'm a man who only believes what he sees--and only about a quarter of that.

Therefore, when I tell you that I am possessed by an overwhelming, a predominating conviction that something has happened to your husband, you will know that my conviction is not a thing to be laughed at.'

'But what can have happened to him?'

'As I was going home yesterday afternoon, I slipped on a piece of orange peel; that means danger. In our street I saw three black cats; that means mourning for a friend. I found myself putting my walking-stick upside down into the stand; that means trouble. When I got upstairs, death stared me in the face out of my sitting-room fire.

As I was smoking a pipe, your husband's portrait fell from its place on the wall, and chipped a piece off one of the corners; you know what that means as well as I do. I'll say nothing about the horrid dreams which haunted me all through the night because I'm not a superst.i.tious man, and they may have had something to do with the dressed crab I had for supper. But I will say this, that I woke up this morning profoundly persuaded that there is something wrong. And that persuasion is with me now.'

'But what can be wrong?'

He came and leaned against the edge of the table.

'Mind the flour,' I said.

He waved his hand.

'What does it matter about minding the flour when we've got such facts as those to face? Mrs. Merrett, we have to put two and two together. I unhesitatingly say that the result of our doing that is to point the finger of suspicion towards the man who masqueraded as John Smith.' He rapped his knuckles so hard against the board that a piece of suet which I had left there stuck to them. 'If you don't go to Mr. John Smith, alias the Hon. Douglas Howarth, and ask him, as I asked him, what he's done with Mr. Babbacombe, you'll be neglecting your duty as a wife.'

'Mr. FitzHoward!'

'You will, Mrs. Merrett, you will! If you love your husband----'

'"If!"'