CHAPTER XXVII
There was no sleep for him that morning, and he felt wretchedly ill andexhausted when the time came to go to the office. Mr. Ennidge, alwayskind, remarked sympathetically upon his looks, and he replied that hehad been kept awake all night by the storm. The day passed without theexpected appearance of the policeman, though he saw in the papers thefirst allusion to the disappearance of Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner,and felt a horrified sinking at the heart when he read that search wasbeing made, even though he had of course known all along that there mustbe a hue and cry.
He could not find any reference to his exploit in Regent's Park, and hewas afraid this meant that the girl had survived, for if he had killedher surely there would have been some mention of it. Yet if she werealive it was strange that Miss Turner should still be thought to bemissing. Perhaps it was a dodge of the police to fill him with falseconfidence. He could not guess what it meant, anyhow, and at all eventshe was thankful for one thing: that he had cleared up and finished withScholefield Avenue. If they thought they would catch him there againthey were jolly well wrong. He would never set foot in the place again,so help him!
He supposed that his confederate had got clear away, and after his workwas over he went to see Julie, to make sure that everything had gonewell.
He found her in despair at her mother's departure, or, rather, at themanner of it; and it was with the utmost horror and indignation that helearned that Julie--as she afterwards admitted to Gimblet--had been leftabsolutely penniless. All his savings had been willingly given to MadameQuerterot to help her flight, but he had things which could be pawned,and he pressed Julie to accept his assistance. This she would not do.
Then she showed him the string of pearls, and he recognised it at onceas the necklace Mrs. Vanderstein had worn. He had seen since, in thenewspapers, that these enormous pearls were well known to every jewellerin Europe, and there had not been wanting forecasts to the effect that,if they had been stolen, an attempt to sell them would lead to thearrest of the thieves. He had wondered if Madame Querterot knew this,and reassured himself by thinking that, if she did not, the friends shewas to consult certainly would. But now, with passionate resentment,he realised that she had known it very well and had left the necklaceto Julie, careless of the suspicion that might fall on her daughter ifshe should be tempted to try and sell it. Nay, it seemed even possiblethat she deliberately wished to cast suspicion upon Julie; her actionwas otherwise unaccountable. But was it possible that she would risk notonly his safety but her own, in order to gratify her spite against herdaughter?
Before he had fully grasped the meaning of this last manoeuvre on thepart of the woman he hoped to call his mother-in-law, Julie was tellinghim of the clothes her mother had given her, and which she had alreadysold to a second-hand dealer. In hoarse tones he demanded a descriptionof the garments, and, when he had received it, burst forth into suchraging comments on the girl's folly in selling them, and such furiousimprecations at the wickedness and stupidity of her mother, that Julietook offence, and in a fit of anger as hot as his own, though lessjustly provoked, told him to leave the house.
He was all penitence in a moment, and she ended by accepting hisgrovelling apologies. All the same, the fire of his wrath was notextinguished, but smouldered with a dull red heat in his heart, ready atany moment to leap into a fierce flame, burning to consume and devour.
When the night came he could not sleep, in spite, or perhaps because, ofhis extreme fatigue and harassed nerves. Not till daylight did he dropat last into an uneasy slumber, from which a nightmare sent him leapingup in bed, disturbing the house with his cries. His irate landladyappeared in his room, in extreme deshabille, and her scathing referencesto delirium tremens gave him the idea of the brandy bottle. He boughtone at the nearest public-house the moment he was dressed, and drank agood wineglassful before he opened the daily paper that he procured atthe same time.
There was nothing new in it, however. Though it contained plenty ofallusions to the missing ladies there was nothing about a girl beingknocked on the head in Regent's Park; and to Bert's fears this silenceappeared ominous as a denunciation. He found the brandy very comforting,and took it to the office with him. There his appearance--renderedstill more ghastly by want of sleep than it had been on the precedingdays--moved Mr. Ennidge to such genuine concern that, Mr. Pring beingaway and not returning till Monday, he told Bert he had better take aholiday on the next day, which would be Friday.
In the afternoon he was beginning to feel a little better and to hopethat after all things were going right for him somehow, when at theeleventh hour Mr. Gimblet made his appearance upon the scene. From themoment when Bert understood who he was and what was his business, hegave himself up for lost. Some unsuspected gleam of courage came to hisaid now, however--a sort of phantom of the real thing, found, it may beimagined, in the brandy bottle--and he made up his mind that, if he mustbe taken, it should not be due, at all events, to any revelation of hisown.
The agony of mind endured during the hours which followed is not tobe described in mere words. The dread, the suspense, the feelingof physical weakness which nearly overcame him as he witnessed thedetective's search, and the final horrible moment when he saw the bodyof the poor lady drawn from the grave where he had thought it hidden forever from his own, if not from every other eye, would have strained thenerve of any man. It was, indeed, a heaping of horror upon horror.
What unthinkable clairvoyance, what supernatural omniscience had ledGimblet to pick out that house, of all the dwellings in the great cityand its suburbs, for his investigations, was as much beyond Bert'simagination as the means by which he himself succeeded in refrainingfrom revealing, then and there, the part he had taken in the ghastlybusiness.
To his almost incredulous astonishment no one seemed to suspect him, andinstead of being removed in irons, as he expected, he found himself freeto return to his lodgings, there to recuperate from the shocks he hadsustained, in a deep, brandy induced sleep.
The next morning he was out early, and the first poster gave him thenews that Mrs. Vanderstein was found, and staying at Boulogne. He boughtthe paper, and, even as he read the paragraph in which the news wasrelated, made up his mind to spend the holiday given him by Mr. Ennidgein running over to Boulogne to see Madame Querterot. He had no definiteidea in doing so. But his rage at her treatment of her daughter wasstill red-hot, and now was added to it a furious resentment at herdeparture from the conduct they had agreed she should observe. Whatpossessed her not to stay quietly in her room? It was madness to havegone out; yes, actually to have gone to the Casino, the place of allothers where she was most likely to be seen by some acquaintances ofMrs. Vanderstein's. Did she want to lose them all by her folly andrecklessness?
And in any case he could not rest till he had told her what he thoughtof her.
He went out to a pawnbroker's, and by pawning his watch and some oddsand ends of jewellery that had belonged to his mother collected enoughmoney for the return journey. Then he took a taxi for the first time inhis life, and drove to Whitehall. He had seen Gimblet's address on thecard he sent in to Mr. Ennidge.
Higgs told him, in answer to his inquiries, that the inquest would notbe till the next day, so that there was nothing to prevent him fromtaking the ten o'clock train from Charing Cross. There was time beforeit started to put on his false beard, in an empty waiting-room, and togulp down a strong dose of brandy at the bar of the refreshment-room. Hefelt safer when he had taken these precautions, for he had been hauntedby an uneasy feeling that Higgs might have followed him from the flat.
The journey was uneventful, the sea as smooth as a pond. He hardly knewhow the time passed before they arrived at Boulogne pier.
He walked round the harbour, asking the way by the simple repetition ofthe words "Hotel de Douvres," and following the direction in which thefingers of those who answered him were pointed.
Soon he came upon the hotel on the Digue, facing the sea. The name ingolden letters a ya
rd long danced before his eyes, but with a greateffort of the will he steadied himself, and passed through the door intothe hall.
As luck would have it there was no one about, and the only person tocome forward at his entrance was a small page or lift boy.
Yes, Madame Vanderstein was in her room. Would Monsieur go up?
Certainly Monsieur would; and he was ushered into the lift and carriedaloft.
He heard Madame Querterot's voice say "Come in" in response to the boy'sknock, and in another minute he was in the room, with the door closingbehind him.
For a moment he thought there must be some mistake, and, if she had notspoken, would have turned and fled. Surely he had never seen before thebeautifully dressed, dark-haired lady who was bending over a box at theend of the room.
But at the sound of her voice he knew her again, though the differencein her appearance caused by her dyed hair and painted complexion wastruly marvellous. She wore her elaborate dress with quiet assurance, andjewels sparkled at her throat, in her ears, on her fingers, her wrists.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she said, in a tone of thedeepest disapproval.
Bert's voice shook as he took the paper from his pocket and held it outto her.
"Have you seen this?" he asked. "Every one in London knows you are here.It is madness to stay."
"Of course I have seen it," she answered coolly. "And of course I shallnot stay. I do but finish my packing. In ten minutes I shall ring tohave my luggage taken downstairs. There is a train in half an hour."
"You will never escape now," he said gloomily. "Do you know, too, thatthey have found the body of Mrs. Vanderstein?"
This time she was startled.
"What do you say?" she cried. "What _betise_ is this?"
"It is true," he said. "They found it last night. I was there."
"You were there? Last night?" she repeated. "And you were not arrested,not suspected? Why, then, our star is indeed guarding us."
"No, I wasn't arrested," he said, watching her, "and Joolie hasn't beenarrested yet, either."
She started, and for a moment her eyes shone with the hatred and spiteshe cherished for her daughter. Then they fell before his. "Julie," shesaid; "why should Julie be arrested?"
"Don't you know?" he asked. "How is she to account for the pearls, andfor the dresses and opera cloaks?"
"Oh, the dresses. Hasn't she burnt them? I told her to. If she has notshe must do so at once."
"And the pearls--was she to burn them too?" said Bert quietly.
"They looked so well round her neck, the dear child. I left them as mywedding gift to you both."
"You left them because you knew you couldn't get rid of them. My God!I believe you meant to keep the whole lot for yourself. But the pearlswere too dangerous, so you gave them to Joolie! You must have meantsuspicion to fall upon her!"
"My dear Bert, you are absurd. Come and help me to fasten thisportmanteau. I shall register the luggage to Paris, and leave the trainmyself at Amiens. From there I can go off in another direction, and youwill never hear of me again."
"Nor of the jewels either, no doubt."
"Oh, don't be afraid, you shall have the money for the jewels!"
Madame Querterot began to go on with her packing, which for the momentshe had abandoned. As she bent over the trunk, filling up corners withcrumpled newspapers, she hummed a merry little tune, and the implieddisregard of his reproaches exasperated Bert beyond endurance. He stoodquite still, making a violent effort at self-control, and looking abouthim in an unconscious attempt to regain his balance by a concentrationof his attention upon some everyday object.
The fresh breeze off the water was fluttering the white muslin blinds bythe open window and, as Bert passed his tongue over his parched lips, hetasted the salt taste of the sea. The tide was up, and the room full ofthe noise of the breaking waves, so that the rattle of a cart passing onthe road beneath was merged and lost in the continuous volume of sound.
On the table were several outspread pieces of blue paper, and he readthe typed messages from where he stood. They were the telegrams whichSir Gregory, Gimblet, and Sidney had dispatched that morning to Mrs.Vanderstein.
"Have you answered those?" he said, pointing to them.
"I answered Mr. Sidney's, and I sent one to the servants in GrosvenorStreet," Madame Querterot broke off her tune to reply.
"I don't know who Aberhyn Jones is," she added, "nor where he lives,so I can't answer him; and I haven't quite decided what to say to thedetective."
She went on packing, and resumed her humming. Bert did not speak for aminute, then he said very quietly:
"I took the girl to Regent's Park, to the very edge of the water; andthen a policeman came up and prevented me doing as we arranged."
"What!" Madame Querterot almost screamed.
She stood erect and gazed at Bert in incredulous dismay.
"I hit her and ran," he went on. "I don't suppose I did her much damageor I should have seen it mentioned in the papers, and there has beennothing about it."
"If she is alive I don't understand how it is they still believe Mrs.Vanderstein is here. But never mind that now. The point is, the girl, ifshe lives, will put them on my track. I shall not be able to escape nowso easily. Perhaps the best thing to do is to go back and face it out.Better get my story in before they have time to puzzle out the truth."
She spoke musingly, more to herself than to her companion.
"Your story!" Bert repeated, speaking only a little above a whisper. Hisvoice would not come out somehow; he felt as if he were choking. "Youmean you will say that I did it! Why not say that you have been hidingfrom me in fear of your own life, all these days? That would round itoff well!"
"Not a bad suggestion, Bert," she said. "I must look after myself, youknow. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, for people to say that Julie'smother was hanged?"
She spoke with a sneer. She had not forgotten that Bert had used thosewords to her, nor forgiven him. She was not afraid to let him see thathis guess at her intentions was a good one; she felt for him a contempttoo complete and profound to dread anything he might say or do.
It is a common failing among clever rascals to despise their dupes,but they often learn to their cost that danger may come from the mostunlikely quarter.
The derisive note in her voice was the last straw on Bert's frayednerves. His rage took hold of him so that he no longer knew what he wasabout; he became a tool in other hands than Madame Querterot's.
"Oh you fiend, you fiend!" he cried, and his voice was high and cracked,"hanging would be too good for a devil like you! You needn't be afraid,people never shall say that of Joolie's mother. You would have let herbe hanged, you devil! Her and me, both of us. Oh--oh----"
The air was full of the murmur of the sea. It mingled with a maddeningnoise that buzzed in his ears and made thought impossible. A mistgathered before his eyes--a dreadful red mist in which everything swamand danced.
He bounded upon the woman, holding his hands outstretched before hisface as though to fend off something unspeakably hideous and terrifying.Then they closed upon her throat and, with a sob, he shook her to andfro as a dog shakes a rat that has bitten it badly.
At last his rage spent itself. As it passed he became conscious of whathe was doing, and with an exclamation of disgust loosened his grip.
She fell backwards, with a crash, across the open lid of the box she hadbeen packing. The hinges snapped under the impact and the lid broke offand dropped to the floor with her. There she lay, head downwards, in anuntidy heap, one arm twisted at a curious angle under her body.
Bert never doubted that she was dead, and he felt a glow of satisfactionstealing over him at the knowledge. There were great livid marks on herneck where his convulsive fingers had clutched at it, and he stoopedover her and looked at them with a gratified smile. They were alreadyturning black.
A slight noise in the next room brought him to his senses.
He crept on tiptoe to t
he door and listened intently with his ear to it.The sounds in the next room continued, some one seemed to be opening andshutting drawers; but there was no movement in the passage, and after amoment he opened the door cautiously and went out.
No one was in sight, and as an afterthought he went back, and removingthe key locked the door on the outside, as silently as he had openedit. Then putting the key in his pocket he ran down the stairs. Thepage who had shown him up was idling in the hall, but no one else wasabout, though he caught a glimpse of a seated figure in the bureau as hepassed. Forcing himself to pause as he passed the page, he said to him:
"Mrs. Vanderstein has asked me to tell you that she has a headache, anddoes not wish to be disturbed again to-day. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. I will give the message at the bureau. They will tell thewaiter and chambermaid."
The page spoke English perfectly, and Bert felt assured that he would dohis errand. To make sure, he repeated his injunction and gave the boy ashilling to impress it on his memory. Then he walked down the steps withevery outward appearance of calm.
His impulse was to go back towards the harbour, but as a precaution hestarted off in the opposite direction and only approached the docksafter several turnings separated him from the sea-front. There was noboat back to England, however, till past seven, and he hung about theport for three whole hours that seemed like three centuries. In a quietcorner behind some empty trucks he got rid of his black beard, andapplying a match to it saw it frizzle up and disappear in two or threeseconds. He ground the ashes into the earth with his heel, and with arecklessness which surprised himself walked back past the doorway ofthe Hotel de Douvres, to see if he would be known. The page was stilllolling in the doorway, and, to Bert's satisfaction, stared at him as hepassed with a vacant eye. He felt certain he had not been recognised,and went back to the harbour with a lighter heart.
There he watched the steamer from Folkestone arrive and disembark herpassengers, among whom--though he did not know it--was the man sent bythe London police to interview Mrs. Vanderstein; and a few minutes laterit was time to go on board the boat, which took him back to England.
The next morning found him back in his place at the house agents'office, and as the day passed without event he began to feel a senseof security to which he had lately been a stranger. After all, he hadpassed hours in the company of London's greatest detective withoutarousing any suspicion; and every hour, he believed, added to hissafety.
He was comparatively cheerful when he went down to Pimlico that eveningto see Julie.
But he found her in a harder mood than usual; and when, with exceedingwant of discretion, he chose that most unpropitious moment to urge hissuit, she told him very plainly that she would never consent to be hiswife.
She had no intention of marrying, she said; she was going to enter theconvent as she had always wished. But, she added, with unnecessarycruelty--for she was still angry with him for his behaviour a day or twobefore--in no case would she have married him. She did not reciprocatehis feelings, and she considered that he and she were quite unsuited toeach other; he had much better never think of her again.
Thus it happened that he went away in the blackest depths of misery anddespair, so that when the police rapped at his door an hour later theyfound a man broken and unstrung to such a point as to hail their comingwith something like relief.
Such was the gist of Albert Tremmels' story; and, as it never varied inthe smallest detail in the course of its many repetitions, it may beimagined that it was true in substance.
Whether this would have been the opinion expressed by a jury cannotnow be known, for Bert died in prison while awaiting his trial. Hisconstitution, always frail, had not been able to withstand the bodilyfatigues, and more especially those torments of the mind which he hadendured during that week of stress, and a latent tendency to diseasewas not slow to take advantage of his weakened condition. Its rapiddevelopment was perhaps due, in part, to the fact that he made littleeffort to get well, and seemed to have no wish to live. What, indeed, ashe said, had he to live for?
He showed no repentance for his attack on Miss Turner, beyond sayingthat it would have been unnecessary if he had had the sense to killMadame Querterot first, but he maintained with his last breath thatthe idea was not his, any more than the thought of murdering Mrs.Vanderstein, which he persisted in affirming had never crossed his mind.He gloried in the death of his confederate, however, nor could all theefforts of the prison chaplain move him to a better frame of mind withregard to his deed. On the contrary, he did not cease to gloat over theremembrance of it. Not even when he heard that Julie piously refused himher forgiveness, in spite of her mother's designs upon herself, wouldBert admit that he regretted that which he had done. It is a cynicalfreak of circumstance that his love for the girl, which was pure andunselfish and the only creditable part of his whole nature, should fromfirst to last have been the inspiring source from which his crimesproceeded.
Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels Page 27
