Читать книгу: «The Woman with One Hand, and Mr. Ely's Engagement», страница 3

CHAPTER V
THE NEW GUEST,

Oddly enough it was not until I was smarting under the feelings occasioned by the reflection that I had come out of the inquiry with a smirch upon my character that it occurred to me what a fool I had been, when I was in the witness-box, in not going even out of my way to transfer suspicion from myself to the scamp whom Mrs. Barnes had assured me was her husband. I arrived, then and there, at a resolution. I would play, on lines of my own, that favourite part in fiction-the role of the amateur detective. I would trace to their sources the various threads which had become complicated in such a tangled web of crime. I would unravel them, one by one. Single-handed, if necessary, I would make the whole thing plain.

In theory, an excellent resolution; situated as I was, not an easy one to put into practice. Before the end of the coroner's inquest Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton informed me that their guarantee to provide for the expenses of my sojourn at Mrs. Barnes's establishment thenceforward was withdrawn. Of the four banknotes which had come to me in Duncan Rothwell's letter about fifteen pounds remained. If that sum might be credited to my account, on the debit side of the column was the injury which my connection with the affair had, at least temporarily, done my character. If before I had found it difficult to obtain remunerative employment, I should find it now still harder.

On the morning after the close of the inquiry I was meditating taking an immediate departure from the house in which I had met with experiences which had been to anything but my advantage, when Mrs. Barnes came into the room. Her worries had worn her almost to a shadow. I felt that, if she continued to diminish at the same rate long, she soon, literally, would entirely waste away. Her nervous tricks seemed to have become accentuated. She stood rubbing her hands together, apparently for the moment at a loss for something to say.

"I hope, sir, that you are not going?"

"Then you hope wrong, Mrs. Barnes. I certainly am going, and that at once."

"You mustn't sir-you really mustn't."

"You are wrong again, Mrs. Barnes, for I really must, if on one account only-that I am not in a position to pay your terms."

She gave a sudden movement forward, coming to lean with both her hands upon the table. Her voice dropped to that odd, palpitating whisper of which she seemed to be so fond.

"You needn't let that trouble you. You can live board and lodging free, and you'll be welcome."

I observed her closely. In her face there was something which was positively uncanny. If ever a person had a haunted look it was Mrs. Barnes.

"Why do you make to me such a proposition? Do you consider that I am the sort of person who would be willing to snatch at anybody's charity, or are you in the habit of giving strangers board and lodging free?"

"Indeed, no; but it's different with you. If you leave me now I shall not dare to stay in the house, and that's the truth. I feel as if you were guarding me; as if hungry eyes were on the house, seeking for a chance to work me evil, but that the hidden watchers dare not come in to do that to me which they desire while my roof still shelters you. Sir, do you think that 'he' did it?"

"Do I think that who did what?"

"Do you think that my husband killed that man?"

"To be frank with you, I think it extremely possible that he knows as much of the business as may altogether be good for him-more, for instance, than you or I. I have been reproaching myself for having done as you requested, and not having at least alluded to the gentleman in question when giving my evidence before the coroner."

My words set her trembling.

"You did quite right. You would have been sorry for it afterwards. I cannot tell you why or how, but I am certain that my husband had no more to do with that deed of blood than you or I."

The woman's intense earnestness made me stare.

"I can only say, Mrs. Barnes, that I regret that I am unable to share your certainty."

"That is one reason why I ask you-why I implore you to stay. There is a cloud hanging over you and over me-it is the same cloud! If you stay I feel that it may be lifted; but, if you leave, it may rest on us for ever."

What she said was nonsense pure and simple. Still, I suffered myself to be persuaded. I agreed to stay on-at any rate, for a time. The satisfaction with which she received my decision was so pronounced that one might have thought that I had done her the greatest service in the world.

I went out in the afternoon. When I came back in the evening, not a little to my surprise, my food was brought me by a man. I stared at him askance. Hitherto the whole service of the house, in which I had been the only guest, had been done by the maid. Now I found myself confronted by a quite irreproachable-looking waiter, attired in the orthodox costume of his kind. His presence was so unexpected that I found it impossible to conceal my astonishment.

"Who the deuce are you?" I blurted out.

The fellow began to smirk in reply. "New waiter, sir-only came this afternoon, sir!"

"I had no notion that Mrs. Barnes contemplated making such an addition to her establishment."

"No, sir; perhaps not, sir. Business is very slack just now, but the season is coming on, and the house will very soon be full."

This was emphatically a lie. So far from the season just coming on, in an hotel-keeper's sense, it was rapidly drawing to an end; and so far as Mrs. Barnes was personally concerned, apparently a bitter one, too. What she wanted, circumstanced as she was, with such a gorgeous individual as this about the place, or what she could find for him to do, surpassed my comprehension.

The fellow bustled about the room, pretending to busy himself, in accordance with a trick of his trade, with nothing at all.

"Been here long, sir?"

"You know very well how long I have been here."

"Beg pardon, sir, how's that?"

"You have read it in the papers. Don't feign ignorance with me, my man."

The fellow turned away. He was industriously polishing an already spotless glass.

"You allude to the recent unfortunate occurrence, sir? I believe that I did see something about it."

"You believe! Is that all? You are perfectly aware that you are as well up in what you call the recent occurrence as I am. You know all about me; how I came into the house, when I came, my name, and everything."

I do not know why I said this, but I did say it, and I felt that it was true. The man seemed taken aback.

"Mrs. Barnes did mention your name," he murmured.

"You knew it without her mentioning it. You can leave the room. When I want you I will ring."

I was glad to be rid of him. His presence seemed to chafe me. I knew not why. He was not ill-looking. His bearing was wholly respectful; and yet some instinct had seemed to warn me that while I was in his near neighbourhood it would be just as well that I should be upon my guard.

When I had eaten I sallied forth in quest of Mrs. Barnes. Her nervous system had not improved since the morning; even the sight of me seemed to fill her with terror. Her eyes looked at everything except at me. I wondered if some disaster had been added to the sum of her already over-numerous troubles.

"You have a new waiter," I began.

"Yes." She spoke in a stammering whisper. Her features were agitated with the former reminiscence of St. Vitus's Dance. "Yes; a new waiter."

"I hope very sincerely, for your sake, Mrs. Barnes, that he may ere long have other guests to wait upon besides myself."

"Yes." The same irresolute muttering. "Yes; I hope he may."

"I had no idea that you thought of making an engagement of the kind just now."

"No-I don't think-I told you."

What was the matter with the woman? Why did she persist in speaking in that tone of voice, as if she was fearful of being overheard! And why did she apparently not dare to allow her eyes to rest, even for a moment, on my face? She had been so effusive in the morning. Now, on a sudden, she had returned to the condition of almost doddering terror which had marked her bearing during the time we had a policeman quartered in the house.

"Where did you get the man? What is his name? And what do you know of him?"

As I put my questions I thought for a moment that she was going to favour me with one of her frenzied bursts of confidence. But while I waited for her to speak, all at once her frame became rigid. I seemed to see the unspoken words lying on her lips. Turning to discover the cause of the obvious change in her manner, I found that the new waiter had opened the door and, unannounced, had entered the room. At sight of him her agitation again assumed the upper hand.

"I-I must ask you to excuse me, sir. I have something which I must do."

I did excuse her; but when I had left her I decided in my own mind that my instinct had been right, and that there was more in the new waiter than met the eye. It seemed scarcely likely that even a landlady of such an eccentric type as Mrs. Barnes would increase her staff when the only guest which her house contained was such an emphatically unprofitable one as I bade fair to be.

However, in one respect the position of affairs was destined to be speedily changed. The house received not only another guest, but also one who bade fair to be as profitable a one as a landlady's heart could wish. It was on the day immediately following that Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor arrived. I had been out all the morning and afternoon, renewing the weary search for employment which might provide me with the means for obtaining my daily bread. The first intimation I had of her arrival was when, having dined, I was thinking of a quiet pipe, and of an early retirement to bed.

CHAPTER VI
THE WOMAN WITH ONE HAND

"Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor's compliments, sir, and would you mind stepping upstairs?"

I had a lighted match in my hand, and was in the very act of applying it to the bowl of my pipe when the latest importation in waiters brought me the message.

"Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor?" I let the match go out. "And pray who may Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor be?"

"The lady who arrived to-day, sir, and who has taken a private sitting-room-No. 8."

"Indeed! And what does Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor want with me?"

"I don't know, sir; she asked me to give you her compliments, and would you be so kind as to step upstairs."

I stepped upstairs, wondering. I was received by a tall and somewhat ponderous woman, who was dressed in a dark-blue silk costume, almost as if she were going to a ball. She half rose from the couch as I came in, inclining her head in my direction with what struck me as a slightly patronising smile. She spoke in a loud, hearty tone of voice, which was marked by what struck me as being a Yorkshire twang.

"It is so good of you to come to see me, Mr. Southam. I was really more than half afraid to ask you. As it is, I beg ten thousand pardons, but I do so want you to write me a letter."

"To write you a letter? I am afraid I am a little slow of comprehension."

"I have lost my hand." She stretched out her right arm. Both arms were bare to the shoulder. I could not but notice how beautifully they were moulded, their massive contours, their snowy whiteness. She wore gloves which reached nearly to her elbows. So far as I could judge there appeared to be a hand inside of both. She seemed to read my thoughts, still continuing to hold her right arm out in front of her.

"You think my hand is gloved? I always wear it so. But the glove conceals a dummy. Come and feel it." I bowed. I was content to take her at her word; I had no wish to put her to the actual test. "I have never been able to gain complete control over my left hand-to use it as if it were my right. I suppose it is because I am not clever enough. I can scribble with it, but only scribble. When I desire to have a letter properly written I am dependent upon outsiders' help. Will you write one for me now?"

It was an odd request for a new-comer at an hotel to address to a perfect stranger, but I complied. The letter she dictated, and which I wrote at her dictation, seemed to me the merest triviality-a scribble would have served the purpose just as well. She chattered all the time that I was writing, and, when I had finished, she went on chattering still. All at once she broke into a theme to which I ought to have become accustomed, but had not.

"Do you know, Mr. Southam, that I have been reading about this dreadful murder case? How the papers have all been full of it! And I don't mind telling you, as a matter of fact, that in a sort of a way it was that which has brought me to this hotel."

If that were so, I retorted, then her tastes were individual; she perceived attractions where the average man saw none. She laughed.

"I don't know that it was exactly that, but the truth is, Mr. Southam, I was interested in you." The way in which she emphasised the pronoun a little startled me. "I made up my mind that I would ferret you out directly I got to the hotel, and that then, if I liked the look of you, would make you an offer. You see how frank I am."

She certainly was frank to a fault, in one sense. And yet I wondered. As I replied to her my tone was grim.

"It is very good of you. And now that, as I take it for granted that you do like the look of me-as you can scarcely fail to do-may I inquire what is the nature of the offer you propose to make?"

She laughed again. Possibly my perceptions were unusually keen, but, all the time, it occurred to me that there was about her a something-an atmosphere, if you will-which was not exactly suggestive of laughter. Unless I was mistaken, her faculties were as much on the alert as mine were. She was engaged in summing me up when she feigned to be least observant.

"You must understand, Mr. Southam, that I know all about you which the papers had to tell, and that was not a little! So we are not exactly strangers. At least, that is, you are not wholly a stranger to me. Besides which, I myself once knew a person whose name was Southam."

I started. The woman's eyes were fixed on me, although she pretended to be trifling with her dress.

"You knew a person whose name was Southam. Indeed! Who was it, a man or a woman?"

She ignored my question.

"Have you any relatives of your own name?

"Not that I am aware of, though there seems to be more than one Southam about in the world. What Southam was it you knew?"

Her tone was ostentatiously indifferent. "Oh, it doesn't matter. It was a long time ago, and, as you say, I suppose there are heaps of Southams about in the world. I only wanted to explain to you that you were not so absolutely unknown to me as the fact that this is our first actual meeting might lead you to imagine. Will you allow me to ask if you are still seeking employment? I thought, from what I read in the papers, that it was just possible you might be."

"You have supposed correctly. I am."

"Would you like to fill the post of secretary?"

"Of secretary?" I paused for a moment to consider-not the suggestion of such a post, but the source from whence the suggestion came. "To whom?"

"To me."

"It is very kind of you, but do you clearly understand, madam, that you are speaking to a person whose character is under a cloud?"

"Because you were suspected of having murdered that man?"

Her question was brutal in its candour.

"Precisely. Because I was suspected, and, for all I know, still am."

"The people who suspected you were fools. I will back my capacity as a judge of character, even at sight, against their suspicions. You are not of the stuff of which murderers are made."

Her tone was short and sharp-I had almost written sarcastic-as if she thought it a shame to a man not to be made of the stuff of which murderers are. She went on, speaking quickly, even brusquely.

"I will trust you, if you, on your part, will trust me. As I have told you, and as I will prove to you, if-as I almost believe-you doubt me, I have lost my hand. See!" Hastily, before I could stop her, she began to unbutton her right glove. She only unloosed a button or two, when the whole thing, glove, hand and all, came clean away, and she held out towards me her handless arm. I stared, at a loss for words, not a little shocked-the disfigurement was so dreadful, and seemed to have been so recent. Her voice grew bitter. "I lost that hand under circumstances which impressed its loss upon my memory. As it were, I seem to be losing it anew, every hour of every day. It has left me impotent. Will you relieve my impotence? Will you become my secretary? There will not be much for you to do, but there will be something; the salary which I shall pay you will not be a large one, but it will, perhaps, suffice till something better offers; I will give you a hundred pounds a year, and, as they say in the advertisements, all found. Do not give me your answer at once. It may be that I shall stay in the hotel some time, and, at any rate, while I am here, possibly you will not refuse to act as my amanuensis. You can see with your own eyes how much I am in want of one."

Again she drew my attention to her mangled arm. As she suggested, I neither accepted nor declined her offer there and then; it was one which needed consideration from more points than one. For instance, while she did know something of me-if what she had read in the newspaper reports could be called knowledge-I knew literally nothing of her; for all I could tell, she might be an adventuress lately freed from the purlieus of a gaol. I did consent to do any secretarial work she might require during her stay in the hotel. By the time she left it I might be able to see my way more clearly than I did just then.

I saw a good deal of Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor during the few days which followed, and the more I saw of her the less I could make her out. There was a good deal of work for me to do, such as it was. I wondered if she had brought it with her in order to furnish her with an excuse to give me occupation. There were papers for me to copy-papers which seemed to be of the very slightest importance. While I was supposed to be engaged in copying them, she interrupted me without remorse, and talked and talked and talked. During those conversations she learned a great deal of my history, while I ascertained nothing at all of hers. I found that she was a woman of quick and imperious temper: to fence with one of her interminable questions annoyed her; to have declined point-blank to answer one would have involved an immediate breach. If I took service with her, it would be with my eyes open; I should have to be prepared for squalls. Though she gave me employment as if she were bestowing charity, she would expect and require perfect obedience from me in return.

I do not think that, as a rule, I am quick in taking dislike at a person, but there did, in spite of myself, grow up in my mind a sense of antipathy towards Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor. I felt as if she were watching me; pumping me, turning me inside out, as if I were some old glove; playing with me with that cruel sort of enjoyment with which a cat plays with a mouse, and I did not find the feeling an agreeable one.

To add to my comfort, I had an uneasy consciousness that the new waiter had an attentive eye upon my movements in a non-waiterial sense. It was an eye for which I did not thank him; I almost suspected that he was playing the part of a sleepless spy. I half believed that, not infrequently, he was an unseen auditor of my interviews with Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor-I should like to have caught him in the act! One night I could not sleep, I found that I had left my pipe downstairs. I started off to get it; I had scarcely got outside the bedroom door when I all but stumbled over the new waiter. Before I had discovered who it was, I had pinned him to the floor. He was profuse in his apologies, but I do not think that he could altogether have liked the way in which I handled him.

CHAPTER VII
THE SECOND ENCOUNTER

I began, as the days went by, to be more and more a prey to unhealthy, and apparently unreasonable doubts and fears-fears which, in truth, were so intangible that they were without form and void, but which were very real for all that. I began to feel as if a net were being drawn tighter and tighter round me, and as if every step I took was beset by hidden dangers. Such a mental condition was as I have said, an unhealthy one. I realised that well enough, and I had been wandering one evening to and fro on the Embankment, striving to free myself, if only for a time, from the imaginary mists and shadows which seemed to compass me about, when as I was turning into the street in which stood Mrs. Barnes's hotel, I saw a man crouching in the darkness of the wall. What was the man's purpose I had no doubt: he was seeking for concealment. He had seen me before I saw him, and was endeavouring to escape my scrutiny.

I took him to be the new waiter. I supposed that I had caught him in the act of spying on me at last. I turned swiftly on him, and before he could retreat I had him by the shoulders.

"Before I let you go, my friend, you will be so good as to tell me, now and here, what is the cause of the extreme interest which you evidently take in my proceedings."

That was what I said to him; but already, before I had said my say right out, I perceived that I was wrong: that the man I had hold of was not the man I thought he was. This man was shorter and of slighter build, and he showed more signs of fight than, within my experience, the other had evinced. He wriggled in my grasp like an eel, but, holding tightly on to him, I dragged him a little into the light.

When I succeeded in getting a glimpse at him there came from between my lips a series of interjections: -

"You! – James Southam! – Mr. Barnes! Good God!"

I had hardly spoken when he knocked me down. I was so taken by surprise that I was unable to offer the least resistance; he felled me again, as he had felled me before, as if I had been a ninepin. By the time I had realised what had happened I was lying on my back on the pavement. His hand was on my throat, and his knee was on my chest. He was peering closely into my face-so closely that I could feel his breath upon my cheeks.

"It's you again, is it? I thought it was. Don't you make a noise, or I'll choke the life right out of you. You tell me, straight out, what it is you want with me-do you hear?"

As if to drive his question well home, he gave my head a sharp tap against the pavement. His strength must have been prodigious. I was conscious that, with him above me thus and with that iron grasp upon my throat, I was wholly at his mercy. The hour was late. Although almost within a stone's throw of the Strand, the place was solitary; not a creature might pass just where we were the whole night through.

"Take your hand from my windpipe-I cannot speak-you are choking me," I gasped.

"Give me your word you will make no noise if I do. See here!"

He was clutching a knife-as ugly a looking knife as ever I saw. He brandished it before my eyes.

"I give my word," I managed to utter.

He relaxed his hold. It was a comfort to be again able to freely inflate my lungs, though the continued presence of his knee on my chest was none too pleasant. With the point of his knife he actually pricked my nose.

"Don't you try to move, or I will cut your throat as if you were a pig. Lie still and answer my questions-and straight, mind, or you'll be sorry. What is it you want with me?"

"I want nothing from you-I have never wanted anything. You have been under an entire misapprehension throughout."

Once more, with gruesome sportiveness, he tickled my nose with his knife.

"Stow that, my lad! It's no good trying to catch this bird with salt. How did you come to know that my name was James Southam?"

"I never did know it. The simple truth is that that name happened to be mine."

"What's that?"

"I say that that name happens to be mine-I am James Southam."

Bending down he glared at me with eyes which seemed to glow like burning coal.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean precisely what I say. If you choose to examine the contents of my pockets-they are at your mercy-you will find ample proof of the truth of what I say. Besides, I take it that you have had truth of this proof from the contents of the papers."

"The contents of the papers-what papers?"

I looked at him to see if his seeming ignorance of what I meant was real. It appeared to be.

"You and I, Mr. Southam, or Mr. Barnes, or whatever your name is, have been, and it would seem still are, at cross purposes. I take no more interest in your affairs than you take in mine-perhaps not so much. The mention of my name seems to have awoke uncomfortable echoes in your breast, which fact is of the nature of an odd coincidence."

"You are not a policeman, or a detective, or a private inquiry agent, or anything of that kind-you swear it?"

"Very willingly. I am simply a poor devil of a clerk out of a situation. Why you should object to me, or, still more, why you should fear me, I have not the faintest notion."

He hesitated before he spoke again-then his tone was sullen.

"I don't know if you are lying: I expect you are: but anyhow, I'll chance it. I fancy that I'm about your match, if it's tricks you're after. If I let you get up, can I trust you?"

"You can: again I give you my word for it."

He let me rise. When I had done so, and was brushing the dust off my clothes, I took his measure. Even by the imperfect light I could see how shabby he was, and how hollow his cheeks were. He seemed to have shrunk to half his size since that first short interview I had had with him.

"You will excuse my saying you don't look as if you have been living in clover."

"I haven't. I am nearly starving. It is that which has brought me back."

"Why did you ever go? Mrs. Barnes tells me that you are her husband. I should imagine that you had a pretty comfortable birth of it."

He glowered at me with renewed suspicion. "Oh, she has told you so much, has she? What has she told you more?"

"Very little. She has been half beside herself trying to think what has become of you, especially since this affair of Duncan Rothwell."

We had crossed the road and were on the Embankment, walking towards the City side by side. Although I had made the allusion of set purpose, I was scarcely prepared for the effect which it had on him. Plainly, he was a person of ungovernable impulses. He stopped, swung, round, again the knife was gleaming in his grasp, and his hand was at my throat. But this time I succeeded in warding him off.

"What is the matter with you, man? Are you stark mad?"

He was breathing in great gasps. "What name-was that-you said?"

"Surely the name must be a familiar one to you by now. It has been to the front enough in all the papers."

"The paper! What papers?"

"The newspapers, man, of course!"

"How do I know what is in the newspapers? I never look at them. There is nothing in them which is of interest to me. What name was that you said? Tell me if you dare!"

He made a threatening gesture with his knife, seeming to be half frenzied with excitement.

"Duncan Rothwell-the man who was murdered at your wife's front door."

"Duncan Rothwell! Murdered-at my wife's-front door!"

The knife fell from his hand. He gave such a backward lurch that I half expected to see him fall down after it. In an instant, stooping, I had the knife in my grasp. I felt strongly that such a weapon was safer in my possession than in his. He did not seem for the moment to be conscious of what it was which he had lost and I had gained. He stood staring in front of him with an air of stupefaction. He repeated his own words over to himself, stammeringly, as if he were unable to catch their meaning: "Murdered-at my wife's-front door!"

"Where have you been living not to have heard of it? It has been the topic of every tongue."

I could see that he was struggling to collect his scattered senses. He spoke at last as if he were waking from a dream.

"I have heard nothing. I do not understand what you are talking about. Tell me everything."

I told him all that there was to tell. Evidently the whole of it was news to him. He listened greedily, gulping down, as it were, every word I uttered, as if I had been feeding him with physical food as well as mental. As I noted his demeanour, it seemed incredible that he could have been the chief actor in the tragedy to the details of which he listened with such apparently unfeigned amazement. I had been guilty of an unintentional injustice in doubting him. As I told my tale we leaned upon the parapet-he never looking at me once, but straight into the heart of the river.

When I had finished he was silent for some moment. Then he put to me a question:

"Do you mean to say that nothing has been found out to show who did it?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Unless I erred, he smiled. Had I not done him an injustice after all? Could the man be such a consummate actor?

"And yet you almost saw him killed?"

"Had I come into the hall half a moment sooner I might have seen the murderer in the act of perpetrating his crime."

This time he laughed right out-an evil laugh.

"For goodness' sake, man, don't laugh like that-it makes me shiver."

He was still, with a stillness which, somehow, I did not care to break. A far-away look began to come into his face. He seemed to become lost in thought. When, after a long interval, during which I was sufficiently engaged in watching the different expressions which seem to chase each other across his face, he broke the silence, it was as though he muttered to himself, oblivious of his companion and of the place in which he was: "What a woman she is!"

That was what he said. I caught the words as he uttered them beneath his breath-uttered them, as it seemed, half in admiration, half in scorn. And he again was still.