CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

FRIENDS AND FOES.

At seven o'clock that evening I took the train from Camberwell Gate to Westminster Bridge, like the industrious compositor that I represented myself to be.

In order to a.s.sert myself more prominently in the neighbourhood I had accepted the invitation of Williams, the mineral-water foreman, who was my landlord, to have a gla.s.s of ale at the neighbouring public-house; and in the bar was introduced by him to several other working-men as his tenant. They seemed a sober, good-humoured set, all having their gla.s.s after the thirst of the day's labour.

My landlord remarked that my wife saw little of me, but I explained how my employers sent me to various parts of the country in connection with a new patent type-composing machine in which they were interested.

"Well, my missus does 'er best for Mrs Morton and cheers her up," the man said. "Only it 'ud be more pleasant for 'er if you were at 'ome a bit more. The poor young lady mopes dreadfully sometimes. You needn't say anything, you know, but my old woman has found her a-cryin' to herself lots of times."

I recollected his words as I sat on the top of the tram pa.s.sing up those long broad roads lit by the flare of costermongers' lights and rendered noisy by the strident cries of the butchers and greengrocers shouting their wares. In South London commercial life seems to commence with the sundown, for thrifty working-cla.s.s housewives go out shopping after dark.

And Tibbie, the woman whom all smart London knew, who was so brilliant a figure at receptions, b.a.l.l.s and weddings, and of whose beauty the ladies' papers so constantly spoke, was living amid that poverty and squalor alone, terrified and crying her heart out.

For what? Had remorse seized her? Was it the awful recollection of that fatal moment in Charlton Wood, combined with the constant fear that Ellice Winsloe, whom she had now acknowledged as her enemy, would discover her and bring against her the terrible charge?

That night, after I had slipped unrecognised into my chambers, I changed quickly into my own clothes and went along to the Wellington Club to find Domville. The hall-porter had not, however, seen him that day; therefore, after strolling through the rooms, I was just on the point of leaving when, in the hall, I encountered Ellice Winsloe.

"Hulloa! old fellow!" he cried cheerily. "What are you doing to-night?

Come along and dine with me at Boodle's."

I hesitated. I had no wish for the company of the man who was Tibbie's secret enemy. Once I had distrusted him; now I hated him, for I saw how ingeniously he had kept observation upon my movements, and how his invitation, so warmly given, was with the ulterior object of ascertaining my movements.

In an instant it occurred to me that I might fight him with his own weapons. I could be as alert as he was. Therefore, I laughed and declared that I had no prior engagement.

"Come along, then," he said; and we both went out and crossed Hyde Park corner together.

"I was at the Wydcombes this afternoon. It was Lady Wydcombe's day.

They're till most anxious about Tibbie. n.o.body knows where she is," he added, with a covert glance at my countenance to watch the effect of his words.

"Yes," I said, "she's certainly a bit erratic. I hear, however, that she has written to her mother saying that she's all right."

"The police think the letter was written under compulsion. Jack took it to Scotland Yard, with the result that the Criminal Investigation Department have redoubled their efforts to trace her. What's your opinion?"

I shrugged my shoulders. The fellow's object was to get me to talk; but I knew how to be silent when it suited me, and was determined to tell him nothing.

"Old Lady Scarcliff is very upset, I hear," he went on as we walked along Piccadilly to St James's Street.

"It is really too bad of Tibbie, don't you think so? She ought to draw the line at disappearing like this. She may have met with foul play for all one knows. It seems, according to Mason, that she took a lot of her jewellery with her on the night she left Ryhall in the car."

"Does Mason know or suspect anything?" I asked quite innocently.

"Nothing, as far as I'm aware. The detectives have made every inquiry, but discovered nothing." Then he added, in a voice which sounded to me to convey a distinct hidden meaning, "They've been just as successful regarding Tibbie as they have been in the case of the mystery up in Charlton Wood."

I said nothing. My object was to allow him to do all the talking.

At Boodle's we sat down to an excellent dinner, though it was rather late.

As he sat before me, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped as he chatted, I looked into his face and wondered what were the inner workings of his ingenious mind. He made no mention of his call at that obscure hotel in Lambeth in search of Tibbie, but merely expressed a fervent hope that the jewellery which she had carried with her when she left on her midnight motor-drive had not been the cause of any attempt upon her by malefactors.

In order to watch his att.i.tude I suddenly exclaimed,--

"That affair in Charlton Wood seems still a mystery. And yet I hear," I added, making a bold shot, "that the police have at last found a clue."

His countenance remained perfectly unchanged. He merely responded,--

"I hope they have. It was a dastardly thing. The poor fellow must have been shot treacherously--murdered in cold blood. Jack is most anxious to find the culprit, and I don't wonder. It isn't nice to have a murder committed upon one's own estate."

"It's curious that the man has not yet been identified," I said, regarding him keenly.

"And has it not also struck you as strange that Tibbie should suddenly disappear on the night of the murder?" he asked, his eyes fixed upon mine.

"No," I replied, quite unconcernedly. "I had never given that a thought. It is curious, now that you recall it. A mere coincidence, of course."

"Of course," he said, pouring me out a gla.s.s of still Moselle. His air of refinement was irritating.

Then, after a brief silence, he said,--

"Do you know, Hughes, I can't help thinking that something serious has happened to Tibbie. The letter Lady Scarcliff received was posted in Glasgow, but of course that was only a blind. She's in London somewhere. I told Wydcombe to-day that they ought to advertise and offer a reward for her."

His suggestion suddenly gave me an idea. In the pockets of the unknown man in Charlton Wood I had found the key to a cipher which he had evidently used to correspond with his friends. Why should I not through the medium of the papers open up some correspondence? Would anyone reply?

"You know how erratic Tibbie always is," I remarked. "I've perhaps known her longer than you have. She was always the same, even as a girl--the despair of the old viscount."

"And yet she is very charming, don't you think so?" asked the man whom she declared to be one of her bitterest enemies.

"Delightfully amusing," I agreed. "The set she mixes with spoils her.

If she could only sever herself entirely from Cynthia's friends she would be a very different woman."

"Oh, she'll marry some day and settle down," laughed Winsloe. "I used at one time to hear that you were likely to be the lucky man."

"I think not," was my quick reply, somewhat annoyed at his remark. "I can't afford to marry," whereat he laughed, as though in disbelief of my poverty.

He questioned me with a subtle ingenuity worthy of a counsel at the criminal bar, but my replies were all of them empty ones, while at the same time I was watching him narrowly, noting that this warm friendliness was merely a.s.sumed, and that beneath that veneer of good fellowship was a fierce and bitter antagonism that I had never before suspected. Ever since Scarcliff had introduced us eighteen months ago we had been very good friends, and had seen quite a good deal of each other on the Riviera the previous season. I was staying at the Metropole at Monte Carlo, while he was at the Hermitage.

He seemed to have many friends there, well-dressed men whom I did not know. But one's acquaintances on the Riviera are generally somewhat doubtful, and need not be recognised beyond the confines of the Princ.i.p.ality. He became one of Jack's most intimate friends. They often went over to Paris together, and on such occasions it was believed that young Lord Scarcliff played baccarat at a certain private house in the Avenue Kleber and lost considerable sums. Tibbie had told me so in confidence, but Jack naturally never mentioned his losses. If this were true, then it looked very much as though Ellice Winsloe was a shark, as my friend Domville declared him to be.

In a London club a white shirt and well-cut evening clothes enables many a scoundrel to pa.s.s himself off as a gentleman. Few young men who come into their inheritance and lead the fevered life of the West End escape the traps laid for them by those well-dressed blackguards who pose as friends and advisers, and at the same time cleverly contrive to pluck the pigeon. By some clever ruse or other they get him into their power, threatening exposure or the police for some fancied offence, and then the question of hush-money is mooted and the rest is so very easy. The fly is caught in the net, and the spiders grow fat at their leisure.

Ask any official at Scotland Yard, and what he will reveal to you regarding this will surely astound you.

Sitting with Winsloe and listening to his clever chatter I was rather amused than otherwise. Inwardly I laughed at his shrewd but futile efforts to obtain from me something concerning Tibbie.

We smoked a cigar, and about ten o'clock strolled along to the Empire, where we took a turn round the crowded grand circle. Variety performances, however, possess but little attraction for me, and we soon went out again. In the vestibule a fair-moustached, bald-headed man in evening dress greeted my companion effusively, exclaiming,--

"Why, Ellice--actually! My dear old fellow, how are you?--how are you?"

and he wrung his hand in warmest greeting.