Indeed, she did not realize how adroitly the old solicitor had evaded that question until she was too far away to return and put it afresh, even if that had seemed worth while; for her attention was occupied by the other issue that he had so artfully raised. She had overlooked the presumable existence of the second transposed letter, the one that should have been in Mr. Penfield’s envelope. It ought to have been returned at once. Possibly it was even now waiting at Sennen to be forwarded. If it arrived, it would probably disclose the identity of the mysterious correspondent. On the other hand, it might not; and if it were not returned at all, that would confirm the suspicion that there was something gravely wrong. And it was at this point that Margaret became conscious of Mr. Penfield’s last evasion.
Its effect was to confirm the generally disagreeable impression that she had received from the interview. She was a little resentful of the lawyer’s elaborate reticence, which, coupled with the strange precautionary terms of his letter to her, convinced her that her husband had embarked on some questionable transaction, and that Mr. Penfield knew it and knew the nature of that transaction. His instant rejection of the suggestion that an accident might have occurred and that the police should be notified seemed to imply that he had some inkling of Purcell’s proceedings, and his final evasion of her question strongly suggested that the letter, or the enclosures, or both, contained some clue to the disappearance.
Thus, as she took her way home, Margaret turned over again and again the puzzling elements of the mystery, and at each reshuffling of the scanty facts the same conclusion emerged: her husband had absconded, and he had not absconded alone. The secret that Mr. Penfield was guarding was such a secret as might, if divulged, have pointed the way to the divorce court. And with this conclusion and a frown of disgust, she turned into the entry of her flat and ascended the stairs.
As she let herself in, the maid met her in the hall. "Mr. Varney is in the drawing-room, ma’am," she said. "He came about ten minutes ago. I am getting tea for him."
"Thank you, Nellie," said Margaret, "and you might get me some, too."
She passed on to her bedroom for a hasty wash and change, and then joined her visitor in time to pour out the tea.
"How good of you, Mr. Varney," she said warmly, as they shook hands, "to come to me so quickly! You must have only just arrived."
"Yes," he replied, "I came straight on from the station. I thought you would be anxious to know if I had heard anything."
"And have you?"
"Well," Varney replied, hesitatingly, "I’m rather afraid not. I seem to have drawn a blank."
Margaret looked at him critically. There was something in his manner suggestive of doubt and reservation.
"Do you mean an absolute blank? Did you find out nothing at all?"
Again Varney seemed to hesitate, and Margaret’s attention sharpened.
"There isn’t much use in making guesses," said he. "I found no definite traces of Dan. He hadn’t been at the ‘Ship,’ where I put up and where he used to stay when he went to Falmouth, and of course I couldn’t go round the other hotels making inquiries. But I went down the quay-side and asked a few discreet questions about the craft that had left the port since Monday, especially the odd craft, bound for small ports. I felt that if Dan had any reason for slipping off quietly he wouldn’t go by a passenger boat to a regular passenger port. He would go on a cargo boat bound to some out-of-the-way place. So I found out what I could about the cargo boats that had put out of Falmouth; but I didn’t have much luck."
Again he paused irresolutely, and Margaret asked, with a shade of impatience:
"Did you find out anything at all?"
"Well, no; I can’t say that I did," Varney replied, in the same slow, inconclusive manner. "It’s disappointing in a way, especially as I really thought at one time that I had got on his track. But that turned out a mistake after all."
"You are sure it was a mistake," said Margaret eagerly. "Tell me about it."
"I picked up the clue when I was asking about a Swedish steamer that had put out on Tuesday morning. She had a lading of china clay and was bound for Malmo, but she was calling at Ipswich to pick up some other cargo. I learned that she took one or two passengers on board, and one of them was described to me as a big red-faced man of about forty, who looked like a pilot or a ship’s officer. That sounded rather like Dan, and when I heard that he was carrying a biggish suitcase and had a yellow oilskin coat on his arm, I made pretty sure that it was."
"And how do you know that it was not Dan?"
"Why," replied Varney, "it turned out that this man had a woman with him."
"I see," said Margaret hastily, flushing scarlet and turning her head away. For a while she could think of nothing further to say. To her, of course, the alleged disproof of the passenger’s identity was "confirmation strong as Holy Writ." But her pride would not allow her to confess this—at any rate to Varney—and she was in difficulties as to how to pursue the inquiry without making the admission. At length she ventured: "Do you think that is quite conclusive? I mean, is it certain that the woman belonged to the man? There is the possibility that she may have been merely a fellow-passenger whom he had casually accompanied to the ship. Or did you ascertain that they were actually—er—companions?"
"No, by Jove!" exclaimed Varney. "I never thought of any other possibilities. I heard that the man went on board with a woman, and at once decided that he couldn’t be Dan. But you are quite right. They may have just met at the hotel or elsewhere and walked down to the ship together. I wonder if it’s worth while to make any further inquiries about the ship—I mean at Ipswich, or, if necessary, at Malmo."
"Do you remember the ship’s name?"
"Yes; the Hedwig of Hernosand. She left Falmouth early on Tuesday morning, so she will probably have got to Ipswich some time yesterday. She may be there now, or, of course, she may have picked up her stuff and gone to sea the same day. Would you like me to run down to Ipswich and see if I can find out anything?"
Margaret turned on him with a look that set his heart thumping and his pulses throbbing.
"Mr. Varney," she said, in a low, unsteady voice, "you make me ashamed and proud—proud to have such a loyal, devoted friend, and ashamed to be such a tax on him."
Not at all," he replied. "After all "—here his voice, too, became a little unsteady—"Dan was my pal, is my pal still," he added huskily. He paused for a moment, and then concluded: "I’ll go down to-night and try to pick up the scent while it is fresh."
"It is good of you!" she exclaimed; and as she spoke her eyes filled, but she still looked at him frankly as she continued: "Your faithful friendship is no little compensation for "—she was going to say "his unfaithfulness," but altered the words to "the worry and anxiety of this horrid mystery. But I am ashamed to let you take so much trouble, though I must confess that it would be an immense relief to me to get some news of Dan. I don’t hope for good news, but it is terrible to be so completely in the dark."
"Yes, that is the worst part of it," Varney agreed; and then, setting his cup on the table, he rose. "I had better be getting along now," he said, "so that I can catch the earliest possible train. Good-bye, Mrs. Purcell, and good luck to us both."
The leave-taking almost shattered Varney‘s self possession, for Margaret, in the excess of her gratitude, impulsively grasped both his hands and pressed them warmly as she poured out her thanks. Her touch made him tingle to the finger-ends. Heavens! how beautiful she looked, this lovely, unconscious young widow! And to think that she might in time be his own! A wild impulse surged through him to clasp her in his arms, to tell her that she was free and that he worshipped her. Of course, that was a mere impulse that interfered not at all with his decorous, deferential manner. And yet a sudden, almost insensible change in her made him suspect that his eyes had told her more than he had meant to disclose. Nevertheless, she followed him to the lobby to speed him on his errand, and when he looked back from the foot of the stairs, sh
e was standing at the open door, smiling down on him.
The thoughts of these two persons, when each was alone, were strangely different. In Margaret’s mind there was no doubt that the man on the steamer was her unworthy husband. But what did Varney think? That a man of the world should have failed to perceive that an unexplained disappearance was most probably an elopement seemed to her incredible. Varney could not be such an innocent as that. The only alternative was that he, like Mr. Penfield, was trying to shield Dan; to hush up the disreputable elements of the escapade. But whereas the lawyer’s obstinate reticence had aroused some slight resentment, she felt no resentment towards Varney. For he was Dan’s friend first of all, and it was proper that he should try to shield his "pal." And he was really serving husband and wife equally. To hush things up would be the best for both. She wanted no scandal. Loyal and faithful wife as she had been, her feelings towards her husband were of that some what tepid quality that would have allowed her to receive him back without reproaches, and to accept the lamest explanations without question or comment. Varney’s assumed policy was as much to her interest as to Dan’s, and he was certainly playing the part of a devoted friend to them both.
One thing did, indeed, rather puzzle her. Her marriage had been, on her husband’s side, undoubtedly a love-match. It was for no mercenary reasons that he had forced the marriage on her and her father, and up to the last he had seemed to be, in his rather brutal way, genuinely in love with her. Why, then, had he suddenly gone off with another woman? To her constant, faithful nature the thing was inexplicable.
Varney’s reflections were more complex. A vague consciousness of the cumulative effects of actions was beginning to steal into his mind, a faint perception that he was being borne along on the current of circumstance. He had gone to Falmouth with the express purpose of losing Purcell. But it seemed necessary to pick up some trace of the imaginary fugitive; for the one essential to Varney’s safety was that Purcell’s disappearance must appear to date from the landing at Penzance. That landing must be taken as an established fact. There must be no inquiry into or discussion of the incidents of that tragic voyage. But to that end it was necessary that Purcell should make some reappearance on shore, must leave some traces for possible pursuers to follow. So Varney had gone to Falmouth to find such traces—and to lose them. That was to have been the end of the business so far as he was concerned.
But it was not the end; and as he noted this, he noted, too, with a curious interest unmixed with any uneasiness, how one event generates others. He had invented Purcell’s proposed visit to Falmouth to give a plausible colour to the disappearance and to carry the field of inquiry beyond the landing at Penzance. Then the Falmouth story had seemed to commit him to a visit to Falmouth to confirm it. That visit had committed him to the fabrication of the required confirmatory traces, which were to be found and then lost. But he had not quite succeeded in losing them. Margaret’s question had seemed to commit him to tracing them further, and now he had got to find and lose Purcell at Ipswich. That, however, would be the end. From Ipswich Purcell would have to disappear for good.
The account that he had given Margaret was founded on facts. The ship that he had described was a real ship, which had sailed when he had said that she sailed and for the ports that he had named. Moreover, she had carried one or two passengers. But the red-faced man with the suitcase and his female companion were creatures of Varney’s imagination.
Thus we see Varney already treading the well-worn trail left by multitudes of wrong-doers; weaving around him a defensive web of illusory appearances, laying down false tracks that lead always away from himself, never suspecting that the web may at last become as the fowler’s snare, that the false tracks may point the way to the hounds of destiny. It is true that, as he fared on his way to Ipswich, he was conscious that the tide of circumstance was bearing him farther than he had meant to travel; but not yet did he recognize in this hardly perceived compulsion the abiding menace of accumulating consequences that encompasses the murderer.
IV. In which Margaret confers with Dr. Thorndyke
The sun was shining pleasantly on the trees of King’s Bench Walk, Inner Temple, when Margaret approached the handsome brick portico of No. 5A and read upon the jamb of the doorway the name of Dr. John Thorndyke under the explanatory heading "First Pair." She was a little nervous of the coming interview, partly because she had met the famous criminal lawyer only twice before, but more especially by reason of a vague fear that her uneasy suspicions of her husband might presently be turned into something more definite and disagreeable. Her nervousness on the first score was soon dispelled, for her gentle summons on the little brass knocker of the inner door—the "oak" was open—was answered by Dr. Thorndyke himself, who greeted her as an old friend and led her into the sitting-room, where tea-things were set out on a small table between two armchairs. The homely informality of the reception, so different from the official stiffness of Mr. Penfield, instantly put her at her ease; and when the teapot arrived in the custody of a small gentleman of archidiaconal aspect and surprising crinkliness of feature, she felt as if she were merely paying some rather unusual kind of afternoon call.
Dr. Thorndyke had what would, in his medical capacity, have been called a fine bedside manner—pleasant, genial, sympathetic, but never losing touch with the business on hand. Insensibly a conversation of pleasing generality slipped into a consultation, and Margaret found herself stating her case, apparently of her own initiative. Having described her interview with Mr. Penfield and commented on the old lawyer’s very unhelpful attitude, she continued:
"It was Mr. Rodney who advised me to consult you. As a civil lawyer with no experience of criminal practice, he felt hardly competent to deal with the case. That was what he said. It sounds rather ominous—as if he thought there might be some criminal element in the affair."
"Not necessarily," said Thorndyke. "But your husband is missing, and a missing man is certainly more in my province than in Rodney’s. What did he suggest that you should ask me to do?"
"I should wish, of course," replied Margaret, "to get into communication with my husband. But if that is not possible, I should at least like to know what has become of him. Matters can’t be left in their present uncertain state. There is the future to think of."
"Precisely," agreed Thorndyke, "and as the future must be based upon the present and the past, we had better begin by setting out what we actually know and can prove. First, I understand that on the 23rd of June your husband left Sennen, and was seen by several persons to leave, on a yacht in company with Mr. Varney, and that there was no one else on board. The yacht reached Penzance at about half-past two in the afternoon, and your husband went ashore at once. He was seen by Mr. Varney to land on the pier and go towards the town. Did anyone besides Mr. Varney see him go ashore?"
"No—at least, I have not heard of anyone. Of course, he may have been seen by some fishermen or strangers on the pier. But does it matter? Mr. Varney saw him land, and he certainly was not on the yacht when Mr. Rodney arrived half an hour later. There can’t be any possible doubt that he did land at Penzance."
"No," Thorndyke agreed; "but as that is the last time that he was certainly seen alive, and as the fact that he landed may have to be proved in a court of law, additional evidence would be worth securing."
"But that was not the last time that he was seen alive," said Margaret; and here she gave him an account of Varney’s expedition to Falmouth, explaining why he went and giving full particulars respecting the steamer, all of which Thorndyke noted down on the note-block which lay by his side on the table.
"This is very important," said he, when she had finished. "But you see that it is on a different plane of certainty. It is hearsay at the best, and there is no real identification. What luck did Mr. Varney have at Ipswich?"
"He went down there on the evening of the 27th, the day after his visit to Falmouth. He went straight to the quay-side and made inquiries about the steamer
Hedwig, which he learned had left about noon, having come in about nine o’clock on the previous night. He talked to various quay-loafers, and from one of them ascertained that a single passenger had landed—a big man, carrying a large bag or portmanteau in his hand and a coat of some kind on his arm. The passenger landed alone. Nothing was seen of any woman."
"Did Mr. Varney take the name and address of his informant at Ipswich or the one at Falmouth?"
"I am afraid not. He said nothing about it."
"That is unfortunate," said Thorndyke, "because these witnesses may be wanted, as they might be able to identify a photograph of your husband. We must find out from Mr. Varney what he did in the matter."
Margaret looked at Dr. Thorndyke with a slightly puzzled expression. "You speak of witnesses and evidence," said she, "as if you had something definite in your mind. Some legal proceedings, I mean."
"I have," he replied. "If your husband makes no sign and if he does not presently appear, certain legal proceedings will become inevitable." He paused for a few moments and then continued:
"You must understand, Mrs. Purcell, that when a man of any position—and especially a married man—disappears from ‘his usual places of resort,’ as the phrase goes, he upsets all the social adjustments that connect him with his surroundings, and, sooner or later, those adjustments have to be made good. If he disappears completely, it becomes uncertain whether he is alive or dead, and this uncertainty communicates itself to his property and to his dependents and relatives. If he is alive, his property is vested in himself; if he is dead, it is vested in his executors or in his heirs or next of kin. Should he be named as a beneficiary in a will, and the person who has made that will die after his disappearance, the question immediately arises whether he was dead or alive at the time of the testator’s death—a vitally important question, since it affects not only himself and his heirs, but also the other persons who benefit under the will. And then there is the status of the wife, if the missing man is married: the question whether she is a married woman or a widow has, in justice to her, to be settled if and when possible. So you see that the disappearance of a man like your husband sets going a process that generates all sorts of legal problems. You cannot simply write him off and treat him as non existent. His life must be properly wound up so that his estate may be disposed of, and this will involve the necessity of presuming his death; and presumption of death may raise difficult questions of survivorship, although these may arise at any moment."
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