Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  He was closeted for an hour next morning with the landlord of the Gamecock, from whom he received more than one direct answer to his questions.

  First, as to the link between Kate Delmaine, alias Prodgers, and Jim Bolisco ?

  Mr. Lodway, the present landlord, had been barman when Bill Prodgers had the Gamecock, and he remembered Kitty Prodgers running about, fifteen years old, a rough-headed. girl in a pinafore; but always a beauty, and always with a devil of a temper. She was an only child, and motherless. Nobody knew anything about her mother, who had died before Prodgers took the Gamecock. The girl and her father used to quarrel, and Bolisco, who lodged in the house off and on, used to stick up for her, and Prodgers and he sometimes came to blows.

  “And this,” concluded Mr. Lodway, “was the beginning of their walking about together.”

  “They were sweethearts then, Kate and Bolisco?”

  “Well, they kind of kep’ company, though she was such a kid that nobody thought it was going to lead to anything. Bolisco was a goodlooking chap then, before he got his smeller smashed in the mill with the Hammersmith nigger. They kep’ company for a year or two, off and on, for it wasn’t in Kate to go on long with anybody without quarrelling; and then, after one of her rows with her father, she walks off and gets herself engaged at the Spectacular Theatre, straight off. She was such a clipper at seventeen that she had but to show herself to a manager to get took on. He’d have engaged forty such, I reckon, at the same price. The father was drinking as much as he knew how by that time, and things were going to the bad here, and he took no more trouble about the girl than if she’d been a strayed kitten: but me and one or two more went after her, and found her in decent lodgings in Katherine Street, and as straight as a die. But six months after that she had her house in St. John’s Wood, and her brougham, as smart as a duchess: and the mug who was paying the piper was one of Bolisco’s patrons, a Yorkshire bart, very young, and as green as a spring cabbage.”

  “And Bolisco was still hanging about her?”

  “Lord! yes; he wasn’t likely to lose sight of her while she had the spending of that young softy’s rhino.”

  “Mr. Bolisco is a bit of a spendthrift, I take it.”

  “Above a bit. Never could keep his money long, and yet never was guilty of a generous action, as I know of. It’s all gone backing wrong’uns — sometimes horses, sometimes pugilists. Of course, he’s had the straight tip now and again, and has pulled off a good thing; but as a rule, Bolisco ain’t lucky. Why, to my certain knowledge he had four hundred pound spare cash less than a year ago — won it over the City and Suburban — and I don’t believe he’s got a tanner except what she gives hima.”

  “Meaning Mrs. Randall?”

  “Just so! And he owes me nine weeks’ board and lodging. I shouldn’t take it as quiet as I do, if he wasn’t a bit of a draw. The young’uns like to see him and hear him talk.”

  “And he sets a good example in the way of hard drinking?”

  “Oh, I don’t encourage any man to drinkmore than he can stand. But as long as he can carry his liquor like a gentleman — —”

  “You don’t put the skid on. But how did you come to know of this money of Bolisco’s, last March?”

  “I didn’t say anythink abou March.”

  “No, but it was about March — or April last year, that Bolisco was flush, wasn’t it?”

  “It was after Epsom Spring; and that was near the end of April.”

  “True. Did he show you the cash?”

  “He brought the notes to me to get changed for him — four fifties and two hundreds. He’d been paid short, and he wanted tenners and fivers. I paid the two hundreds to my brewer, and gave Bolisco my cheque for the lot, on the London and Provincial, Battersea Branch.”

  “Did you keep the numbers of the notes?”

  “Not me. I got the collector’s receipt for the money, and that was good enough for me. I paid the four fifties into my account at the L. and P.”

  “You hadn’t often known Bolisco as flush as that?”

  “Well, perhaps not. He’s often been able to flourish a tenner, or a twenty-pun’ note, after a race; but he didn’t use to deal in fifties and hundreds.’Why, Jim’ says I,’you’ve been getting out of your depth.’’Why, yes, mate,’ says he,’may be I’ve been a bit out of my depth.’

  CHAPTER XVII.

  “All of us sinful, all with need of grace,

  All chary of our life, — the minute more

  Or minute less of grace which saves a soul, —

  Bound to make common cause with who craves time,

  We yet protest against the exorbitance

  Of sin in this one sinner, and demand

  That his poor sole remaining piece of time

  Be plucked from out his clutch; put him to death !

  Punish him now ! As for the weal or woe

  Hereafter, God grant mercy ! Man be just,

  Nor let the felon boast he went scot-free!”

  THE sky was dull and leaden, and there was a fine rain falling — the kind of rain that means to stay — when Faunce bent his footsteps from Sloane Square to Selburne Street, Chelsea.

  “The kind of atmosphere that slackens fiddle-strings and women’s nerves,” thought Faunce. “I shall find her in the doldrums.”

  “Well, Betsy, how’s your first floor to-day?” he asked, when the little servant opened the door.

  “Oh, she’s in one of her nasty tempers — Just because the sittin’-room chimley smoked all the mornin’ — and she’s that low ! But you’ll cheer’r hup, I dessay.”

  “I don’t know about that, Betsy,” said Mr. Faunce, who did not feel himself the harbinger of joy.

  “Come in, can’t you?” Mrs. Randall said peevishly, when he knocked at the door.

  She was crouching over the fire, in a room that was grey with smoke, and she was wearing a terrible garment of soiled and crumpled plush, with a ragged bead trimming — a garment she called her tea-gown, but which on her “ low” days was breakfast, tea, and dinner gown, and sometimes served also as bed-gown, when the morphia needle had been freely used, and she flung herself upon her bed in a casual way, to dream through the long night.

  “Oh, it’s you!” she said. “Come and sit down, if you can breathe in this stifling hole. That beast of a chimney left off smoking an hour ago, but I can’t get the smoke out of the room, though I had the winder open till I got the shivers. Well, what’s your news?” she asked carelessly, by way of starting the conversation.

  “Bad,” he answered, in a grave voice. “Very bad. I have just come from Southampton.”

  It was nearly four o’clock, and the London light was waning, but it was light enough for him to see the livid change in her customary pallor.

  “Well, old chap, and what may you have been doing there?” she asked, with an attempt at sprightliness. “Been to see your sweetheart, or to offer yourself for M.P. at the next vacancy?”

  “I have been looking for a murdered man,” he said.

  Her eyes fixed themselves on his face in wondering horror.

  “That ain’t a very lively sort of occupation,” she said, after a pause, still keeping up that assumption of gay indifference. “I hope the party wasn’t a near relation.”

  “No; he was not of my blood, nor of yours; but he was bound to you by every link that should make a man’s life sacred. He was bound to you body and soul, and you helped to murder him.”

  “Oh, my God!” she cried; “oh, my God! Man alive, don’t talk to me like that. Take the poker and smash my head open; but don’t talk like that!”

  “I must. I pity you, but I can’t spare you. It is my trade to drag secret crimes into the light of day.”

  “You’re a detective,” she cried. “Oh, you paltry cad, you hypocrite, you coward, to come hanging about me and pretending to be my friend.”

  “I’ll be the best friend you ever had, if you’ll give me the chance. Come now, Mrs. Randall; your life’s been a misery to
you ever since that night by Southampton Water.”

  Her terrified gaze widened as he spoke. She looked at him as if a spirit of supernatural omniscience, a Nemesis in human form, were before her.

  “If this bad business had never come to light, if nobody had ever come to know how Colonel Rannock was murdered, if Bolisco had never been brought to book — —”

  She started at the name, but the Medusa face remained unchanged.

  “How much would your life have been worth to you? Could you have ever been a happy woman?”

  “No, no, no,” she wailed, “never again! I loved him! He was the only man I ever loved. I used him badly enough, God knows; but he was the only one, the only one. Poor old Tony was a good sort, and I made a fool of him and helped him to ruin himself, and I was sorry when he went off in a decline. Poor chap! He just chucked his life away. Too much fizz, and too much card-playing and late hours. Poor old Tony. He was only six and twenty when the doctors gave him over.”

  “But Rannock was the favourite,” said Faunce.

  “Yes, Dick was my one true love — the handsomest, the cleverest, the bravest, and always the gentleman — always the gentleman,” she repeated, sobbing, “though I don’t mean to say he was straight at cards. He had to get his money somehow, poor fellow.”

  “You loved him, and you lured him to his death. You told Bolisco where he was going, and that he was carrying his money with him, in bank-notes.”

  “My God, yes! I told him. I was always a blabbing fool.”

  “You wrote the letter that took him to the shambles, and you stood by and saw the blow struck.”

  “Great God! Do you think I knew what was coming? Do you think I’m a fiend from hell dressed up like a woman?” she cried, with wildest vehemence. “I wrote the letter — I was told to, and I had to obey. I asked him to meet me at Southampton. Jim said if he could see Rannock before he left England he could get a few pounds out of him for old sake’s sake; and Jim was as near beggary as a sporting man with a few old friends left can be. I never thought he meant harm. Dick and he had been friendly in the old days in the Abbey Road, and it seemed likely enough that Dick would give him a helping hand. I didn’t want to write that letter, mind you, but I was bullied into doing it. You don’t know what Bolisco is.”

  “Yes, I do. I know he’s a cold-blooded murderer, and that while you and Rannock were walking by the water, Bolisco crept up behind you and struck him on the back of his head with a life-preserver — a blow that fractured his skull.”

  “Did any one see?” she gasped. “ Oh, God, I’ve heard the dip of the oars as the boat crept up to the wall — I’ve heard it all through the night sometimes, in a dog’s sleep — dip — dip — dip — and then a step on the pavement behind us, and then a crash, and the dull thud when Rannock fell. And I’ve sat by this fire in the half-light, as we’re sitting now, and I’ve seen him lying on the ground, and Bolisco kneeling by his side emptying his pockets — note-case, watch, tie-pin, pulling off his rings, tearing out his shirt-studs and links, as quick as lightning — and then making me help to drag him to the boat. And I fancy I am standing alone by the river, in the darkness, hearing the dip of the oars fainter and fainter in the distance. It was like a horrible dream then; and it has been a horrible dream to me ever since, a dream that I dream over and over again, and shall go on dreaming till I die.”

  Her voice rose to a shriek. Faunce saw the fit of hysteria coming, and snatched the morphia bottle and the morphia needle from the table where his observant eye had marked them in his first survey of the room, the practice of his profession having taught him that the first thing to do on entering a room was to make a mental inventory of every object in it.

  He held Mrs. Randall’s wrist, and gave her a strong dose of her favourite sedative.

  “My poor friend, you have been hardly used,” he said. “But your duty lies straight before you. As an accessory after the fact, the law will deal lightly with you, and you will have every one’s pity. You must turn Queen’s evidence, and help us to punish Colonel Rannock’s murderer.”

  “That I’ll never do!” she said emphatically.

  “Oh, but surely, if you loved this man, you must want to avenge his murder. Think what a cruel murder it was! A strong man struck down in the prime of life. Think of that unburied corpse, lying hidden on the solitary shore, the waters rolling over it as the tide rose and fell — unknown, unhonoured. If you loved him, you must want to avenge his murder.”

  “I ain’t going to peach upon Jim Bolisco,” she said doggedly. “And if I was capable of it, my evidence would be no good.”

  “Why not?” asked Faunce, startled.

  “Because he’s my husband; and a wife can’t give away her husband. That’s law, ain’t it, Faunce?”

  “Your husband? Is that true?”

  “Gospel truth. We were married at Battersea Church when I was just turned seventeen. I didn’t care for him, and he’s been a log round my neck ever since. But he was in luck just then, and he used to give me presents — bits of jewellery, and smart hats, and such-like — and he was the first as ever took notice of me and told me I was handsome. And he said he should take a cottage at Wandsworth, with a bit of garden, and I was to be missus, and have a girl to wait upon me. But his luck turned soon after our wedding — which was on the strict q.t. — and he never took that cottage, and we never told father or anybody else. Jim said our marriage was just a bit of a lark, and we’d best forget it; but when I had a fine house and was flush of money, and might have been Lady Withernsea for good and all, but for him, he didn’t forget it. I know what blackmail means, Mr. Faunce. I have been paying it ever since I was eighteen. I had to find money for Bolisco when he wanted it, for he swore he’d claim me as his wife if I didn’t. I’ve had what’s-his-name’s sword hanging over my head all these years, and I got to hate the man worse every year; and now I hate him — I hate him, — I hate him with every drop of blood in my veins! I turn cold when I hear his step on the stair. I never look at him without remembering that night, and my poor Dick lying on the ground, and Bolisco’s wicked hands tearing open his coat and searching his pockets, like a wild beast mauling its prey.”

  “And you want to see him suffer for that brutal murder, don’t you?”

  No; I want nothing but to have done with it all. Just to be out of it, that’s what I want. Do you think if they were to hang Bolisco, it would set my mind at rest, or make me forget what a shrew I was to poor old Dick, and how he forgave me, and came back to me after I’d treated him so bad, and how I wrote the letter that lured him to his death? What do I care what becomes of Bolisco? Let him murder somebody else, and get nabbed for that. I don’t care. Nothing will stop my bad dreams, till I fall asleep for the last time; and then, who knows? there may be bad dreams underground as well as above; or one long dream of hell-fire and worms that gnaw.”

  “Come, come, Mrs. Randall, you mustn’t despair,” Faunce said kindly.

  He was sorry for her, and yet what comfort could he offer? He looked at her in her ruined beauty, and thought of her life, and the two men whose lives she had spoilt. She had sown the wind, and she was reaping the whirlwind, and he saw no hope for her in the black future.

  What was he to do? He had come to her prepared to make his coup d’état, having calculated that he could startle her into a revelation of the murder, in which he believed her to have been an unwilling accessory. He had succeeded, but his success was worth nothing if this one all-important witness could not be heard.

  He drove to Scotland Yard, put the facts of the case before the assistant-commissioner, and Bolisco was arrested late that night at the Game Cock, on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Colonel Richard Rannock. The evidence against him, excluding Kate Delmaine’s confession, was weak, but there was no time to lose, as she was likely to warn him of his danger.

  If the numbers of the notes he had changed could be identified with Chater’s list, there would be strong presumptive eviden
ce against him, and other facts might come to light on inquiry to strengthen the chain of circumstance. Faunce relinquished the case to the Public Prosecutor. It had passed beyond the region of private interests. A murder so atrocious concerned the world at large, and the conviction of the murderer was a matter of public importance.

  One most painful duty Faunce had to perform, and he set about it with a heavy heart. He had to tell Mrs. Rannock the story of her son’s death. Soften the details as he might, it was a terrible story to tell, and he decided that it would be better for her son-in-law to be the bearer of these dismal tidings.

  He called on Major Towgood, whom he found in a small house nearer Vauxhall Bridge than Eccleston Square, but by courtesy in Belgravia. The Major received him in a little den darkened by a monster pile of red brick flats, which he called the library.

  “Well, Faunce, any news of the prodigal son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bad news?”

  “Very bad news, sir. I came to you in order that you might break it to Mrs. Rannock.”

  “It will have to stand over, Faunce. Mrs. Rannock is very ill. I may say she is dangerously ill.”

  “Indeed, sir? That’s sudden, for it’s only four days since I received her instructions, and she then appeared in fair health, considering her age.”

  “Yes, she was a wonder for her age, but always delicate — a bit of porcelain that ought to have been behind glass in a cabinet. And she was eaten up by anxiety about Rannock. She took a chill, coming round here to see my wife, who is laid up, the evening after you saw her, and it developed into influenza, or congestion of the lungs — God knows what! The doctors only tell me she is old, and that her life hangs by a thread; but I’m afraid we shall lose her, Faunce.”

  “If that sweet old lady dies without hearing what I have to tell her, I think those who love her best will have cause to thank God, sir; for I believe my story would kill her.”

  “Is it as bad as that?”