This House to Let

“I know that is the general opinion, but I have always been very doubtful as to whether it is a true one.”

She spoke lightly, but it seemed to him her tone was not quite so assured as it had been a moment ago. Anyway, she was evidently intensely interested in the forthcoming narrative.

“At Blankfield I happened to make the acquaintance of a very charming young woman, who was not received in the Society of the place, for the reason that nothing was known about her. The acquaintance was made in the most unconventional fashion. She asked me to call upon her and her brother. I told all this to Pomfret, who knew the girl by sight, and he asked me to take him along with me. He had met her very often in the High Street, and was immensely attracted by her appearance.”

“And were you attracted, too, by this formidable young lady, Major Murchison?” interrupted Stella.

“In a way. But, honestly, more curious than attracted. Well, to cut my story as short as I can, Pomfret soon arrived at an understanding with the young woman, to a great extent without my knowledge. They were married secretly; there were family reasons why he could not marry her openly.”

“But this – but this,” – was she speaking a little nervously, or was it only his fancy? – “was quite romantic and charming. No doubt they were deeply in love with each other. Surely there was no tragedy to follow such a delightful wooing?”

“But there was. This innocent-faced, charming girl was an adventuress of the first water. She was the accomplice of her criminal brother, if brother he was. A day or two after the wedding, Pomfret and I went to dine with this wretched pair. Before we sat down to dinner, two detectives entered the room and arrested the so-called brother on a charge of forgery.” Mrs Spencer shuddered. “How horrible, how appalling! And what happened to the girl? Was she arrested, too?”

“No; she fainted, and I dragged my friend away. At the time I did not know he had married her. When I got him back to the barracks, he told me his miserable story. That same night, or some time in the next morning, he shot himself. It was perhaps a cowardly way in which to avoid the consequences of his folly, but then he was always rash and impulsive.”

Mrs Spencer spoke, and there was a far-away look in her eyes. “Your poor friend! No wonder that memory haunts you. And yet, he was not very wise. This poor adventuress might have been easy to deal with; she might not have troubled him any further if he had made her some small allowance; would, so to speak, have slunk out of his life. And she might have been innocent herself, unable to break away from this wretched criminal of a brother.”

“You are very charitable, Mrs Spencer,” said Hugh coldly. “But I fear I cannot agree with you. If the girl had been naturally and innately honest, she would rather have swept a crossing than have lived upon the gains of that creature – brother, or lover, or whatever he was.”

Stella spoke with dignity. “You are, I see, very much moved, Major Murchison, and you can judge better than I. I cannot pretend to understand the mentality of adventuresses and their criminal associates,” she added with a light laugh, “but I should say that sweeping a crossing is a most uncongenial occupation, especially in the cold weather.”

“In other words, if you had been in her place, you would have preferred to live on the earnings of a rogue?” queried Hugh, perhaps a little too warmly. As soon as he spoke, he regretted his words. He had given her an advantage, of which she was not slow to avail herself.

She drew herself up proudly. “Major Murchison, are you not saying a little too much in presuming to place me on the level of the adventuress you have spoken of? I think it will be more consistent with my self-respect to leave your question unanswered.”

And then suddenly her proud mood vanished, and a softer one took its place. Her voice trembled as she spoke; there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes.

“I see that I was very wrong when I suffered Guy to persuade me to marry him. I have alienated him from his friends and family, and, alas! I have none of my own to bring him in exchange. His uncle loathes me; Lady Nina is polite and tolerates me. And you – you, his old friend, who have known him from boyhood – you dislike me also. But,” – and here her voice swelled into a proud note – “my husband loves and trusts me. While he does that, Major Murchison, I can snap my fingers at the rest of the world.”

Murchison bowed respectfully; he felt he had got to recover a good deal of lost ground. So far the woman had the advantage, but he did not fail to notice the vulgarity of the last phrase, “snap my fingers.”

“I am very sorry if I have offended you, Mrs Spencer, by my indiscreet remarks. If you are secure in Guy’s love, as I am sure you are, you have a very happy possession.”

She sank back on the sofa, and in a second recovered the composure which had been momentarily disturbed.

“Forgive me if I have spoken a little warmly,” she said, “but I could not overlook what you said just now.”

And then Hugh shot at her his last bolt. “I have not yet told you the name of the girl who drove my poor young friend Pomfret to his death.”

“Tell it me, if you please, but I shall be no more likely to know it than the name of your friend, Mr Pomfret. As I told you, I am a member of the respectable middle-class; I cannot boast that I am acquainted with the aristocracy, except through my husband.”

“And yet your father, you told me just now, was an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers. Those officers were all recruited from the aristocracy, or at worst the upper middle-class.”

“Oh, you are trying to cross-examine me and trap me,” she cried bitterly.

But Hugh was inexorable. “The name of that woman was Norah Burton; her accomplice, her brother as she called him, was George Burton; he had other aliases,” he thundered.

He had shot his last bolt, but Stella was not shaken. She rose up, quivering a little. He noticed that, but it might be due to the agitation of wronged innocence.

“The name conveys nothing to me. Your attitude during these few minutes has been very strange. You have insinuated that I am an adventuress on the same level with your Miss Norah something. Well, so far, poor dear Guy has not shot himself, and I will take good care he doesn’t.”

“You have much to gain by his living, if you love him – the title and everything. I have no doubt he has made his will. You would gain a good deal by his death. I cannot say, at the moment, which alternative would suit you better.”

“You are intolerable, you are insulting. If I tell my husband this when he comes down, he will kick you out of the house.”

“But I don’t think you will tell your husband,” retorted Hugh coolly.

“And why not? My word will outweigh yours. I have only to tell him that you brand me as an adventuress, of the same class as this Miss Nora Burton, and you will see what he will say.”

“But you will not tell him,” repeated Hugh. “Mrs Spencer, I did not think we should go so far as we have done. But I will put my cards on the table at once, and I do so from certain indications in your demeanour to-night. I will not say all I have in my mind; I am going to collect further evidence first. But I will say this: you are not what you seem.” He had touched her now. Her calm had gone, her breast was heaving, her hands were moving more restlessly.

“Put your cards on the table and have done. I was Stella Keane when I married my husband. I defy you to disprove that.”

“At present, no. You are the same Stella Keane who saw Tommie Esmond, a discovered card-sharper, off at the Charing Cross Station, and kissed him an affectionate farewell. If you were on such intimate terms with that man, you are no fit wife for my friend Guy Spencer.”

He had touched her at last. “How did you find that out?” she gasped, and her face for a second went livid. She was surprised beyond the point of denial.

And at that moment the door opened and Guy Spencer entered. She recovered herself immediately; went up to her husband and laid a caressing hand on his shoulder.

“A perfect tie, dearest; it was worth the time. Your friend, Major Murchison, has been distressing me with a terrible story of some tragedy that happened when he was quartered at Blankfield.”

Guy Spencer smiled cheerfully. “Dear old Hugh is good at stories. He must tell it me after dinner.”

As she looked up into her husband’s face, Hugh noticed the tender light in her eyes. Lady Nina had said that if she was not devotedly in love with Guy, she must be the most consummate actress off the stage. Loving wife or consummate actress, which was she?

Chapter Eighteen

When Hugh reflected over that interview in the drawing-room before dinner, he came to the conclusion that he had not played his cards very well, that he had been a little too precipitate. Whether she was Norah Burton or not, she was a very clever young woman, and he had just put her on her guard by that rather indiscreet allusion to Tommy Esmond. If he had no further evidence to go on than that incident, she would give her husband a plausible explanation of it. And Hugh believed his old friend Guy was still deeply in love enough with his wife to believe anything she told him.

He could imagine her telling that convincing story to Guy, probably with her arms round his neck, and her pretty eyes looking up to his with the love-light in them. Esmond had been a kind friend to her, had done her many a good turn. Much as she deplored his baseness, she could not bear the thought of his slinking out of the country, a branded fugitive, without a forgiving hand stretched out to him.

Backwards and forwards he revolved the matter in his mind, till he came to the conclusion that the problem was one he could not solve himself. And then he suddenly thought of his old acquaintance, Davidson of Scotland Yard, the tall man of military aspect who had arrested George Burton on that memorable night at Rosemount.

He went round to Scotland Yard, presented his card, and inquired for Mr Davidson. His old acquaintance was dead; a man named Bryant had taken his place. Would Major Murchison care to see him?

In a few seconds Hugh was ushered into Bryant’s room. To his surprise and relief Bryant was the man who had accompanied Davidson to Blankfield. It was pretty certain he would recall to the minutest detail the circumstances of that visit.

“Good-day, Mr Bryant. You know my name by my card, of course, but I am not so sure you remember anything of the time and place where we last met.”

But the detective was able to reassure him on this point.

“In our profession, sir, we remember everything and everybody, and we never forget a face. It is some years ago, it is true, but I recall the incidents of our meeting as if they had happened yesterday. Poor Davidson and I came down to collar that slim rascal George Burton, who, by the way, got off with a light sentence. Davidson saw you in the afternoon and gave you the option of staying away. You talked it over, and came to the conclusion that, for certain reasons, you would rather be in at the finish. Those reasons were connected with your young friend Mr Pomfret, who was infatuated with the young woman.”

“You remember everything as well as I do, Mr Bryant. I must congratulate you on your marvellous memory, for I suppose this is only one out of hundreds of cases.”

Mr Bryant smiled, well pleased at this tribute to his capacity.

“We cultivate our small gifts, sir, in this direction. Well, we took the slim George. The girl fainted. You dragged Mr Pomfret out of the house, and he shot himself in the small hours of the morning. It came out that he had married the young woman a day or two before, and could not face the exposure.” Hugh paid a second tribute to the detective’s marvellous memory. “And now, Mr Bryant, have you any knowledge of what has become of them? People like that are never quite submerged: some day or another, like the scum they are, they will be found floating on the top again.”

Bryant shook his head. “No, sir, I cannot say I have. They have not come under our observation again. Probably they are abroad under assumed names, engaged in rascally business, of course, but doing it very much sub rosa.”

“Mind you, at present I have very little to go on,” said Hugh. “I may have been deceived by a chance resemblance. But I have a strong intuition I am on their track.”

Bryant’s attitude became alert at once. “You say you have no evidence. Well, tell me your suspicions, and I will tell you what weight I attach to them.”

“First of all, before I do that, let me know if you would recognise Norah Burton and George Burton again, in spite of the passage of years. Norah had fair hair; the one I am on the track of has dark hair. The man I have not seen; this time he is a cousin, not a brother.”

“Ah!” Mr Bryant drew a deep breath. “If they are the people you think, sir, and I once saw them, no disguises would take me in. Now tell me all you know.”

Thus exhorted, Murchison launched into a copious narrative. He explained that on the night of the dinner with the Southleighs at Carlton House Terrace, he had met for the first time the wife of his old friend Guy Spencer, that he had detected in her an extraordinary likeness to Norah Burton. The marriage had been hastily contracted; next to nothing wap known about the young woman’s antecedents, apart from the very vague details with which she furnished them.

In the background was a cousin, by all accounts a very common fellow, who had never visited the house since the marriage. Then there was the episode of Tommy Esmond being found cheating at cards at the L’Estrange flat, and Stella Keane’s farewell meeting with him at Charing Cross Station.

Mr Bryant made copious notes. When the narrative was finished he made his comments.

“There are, of course, coincidences that may mean nothing or a great deal, Major Murchison. However, assuming that the lady in question is not our old friend Norah Burton, she is evidently not a very estimable member of society. She was in a shady set at Mrs L’Estrange’s, and Tommy Esmond must have been a pretty close pal.”

“Well, I want you to take this case on for me, and find out what you can.”

But Bryant shook his head. “Sorry, sir, but in my position I can’t take on private business. It is not a public matter, you see, unless you can accuse them of anything.” Hugh’s face fell. “I forgot that. What am I to do? Can you recommend me to a private detective?”

“Half a dozen, sir, all keen fellows. But you can’t stir very much without me, in the first instance. You want me to identify them. Well, I will go so far as that, in memory of the time when we were together in the original job. Mrs Spencer, you say, lives in Eaton Place. I will keep a watch on that house till I see her coming out or going in. If I agree that she was Norah Burton, we have got the first step. Now, what do you know about this cousin, Dutton?”

“Only that he is an outside stockbroker, with an office, or offices, in the City.”

“Good.” Mr Bryant opened a telephone book and rapidly turned over the pages. “Here he is, right enough – George Dutton – George, mark you – share- and stockbroker, Bartholomew Court. Well, sir, to oblige you, I will run down to the City and get a peep at Mr George Dutton. If my recollection agrees with yours, I will put you on to one of my friends, and you can have the precious pair watched. If they are the persons you think they are, you may depend upon it they won’t keep long apart; they will make opportunities of meeting each other. Anyway, they must be pretty thick together, or he would not put up with being excluded from the house.”

Hugh left with a great sense of relief. He felt that the matter was in very capable hands. If Bryant told him that he was following a will-o’-the-wisp, then the whole matter could drop. The fact of Mrs Spencer’s relations with Tommy Esmond were hardly important enough to justify him in disturbing his friend’s domestic felicity.

At the end of three days the detective rang him up. The message was brief: “Come and see me.”

Bryant received him in his room. “Well, Major Murchison, your suspicions are quite correct. I have been very close to the interesting pair. Mrs Spencer has camouflaged herself very well, but beyond doubt she is Norah Burton. Our gaol-bird, George Burton, has been less particular. He has not disguised himself at all; the few years have made little or no impression on him. He has hid himself in the City, trusting that nobody he ever knew would come across him.”

“Then I was right, after all, Mr Bryant. And now what would you advise me to do? This woman is the worst type of adventuress card-sharper all through – at least a confederate, in Paris with Burton, in London with Tommy Esmond. To be fair, we cannot say how much or how little she knew of his forgery business.”

“Your idea is to turn her out of her husband’s house, with or without scandal?” queried the detective.

“Without scandal, if possible. I would prefer that. I suppose you would back me up by saying that you have recognised her and this scoundrel who was yesterday her brother and is to-day her cousin?”

“If you push me to it, I will, Major Murchison, for the sake of our old acquaintance. But, for reasons which I stated last time we met, I don’t want to mix myself up in a purely private affair. The woman caught hold of a fool in your friend Pomfret; she has caught hold of another equally silly fool in your friend Mr Spencer. Please forgive my blunt language, but it is so, is it not?”

“You are quite right, Bryant,” groaned poor Hugh. “I seem fated to be mixed up in these matters. At the present moment I have a little stunt on, in which I don’t require any help. A younger brother of mine has got mixed up with a young harpy in the chorus of a third-rate theatre. The young fool has written compromising letters to her. I am trying to buy these letters. I need hardly tell you she is asking a high price. I can’t see her at my own place, for fear of my brother popping in. I have taken rooms in a suburb where I see her to carry on the bargaining.”

Mr Bryant raised his hands. “Well, sir, when a woman once begins to twist a man round her little finger there is no knowing to what length he will go.”

“Profoundly true, Mr Bryant. Well, what do you advise me to do?”

“For the moment, nothing. Get a little more evidence. When I watched this couple, I took my old friend Parkinson with me. He knows them now. Get him to watch them. He will tell you where they meet, and how often. Here is his card. He will wait on you at your convenience.”

“I quite see,” said Hugh, as he took the proffered card. “If I can prove that they are meeting on the sly it will strengthen my hands, eh?”

“That is the idea. Of course, at the moment, I don’t know which you are going to tackle first, the husband or the wife.”

“I can’t say myself, my mind is in such a whirl. But I feel I must avenge poor Jack Pomfret’s death.”

Mr Bryant rose. “You will excuse me, Major Murchison, but I have a very busy day. Make use of Parkinson; he is as keen as mustard. And if it comes to this, that you want me for purposes of identification, I am at your disposal, in Eaton Place or elsewhere.”

Murchison left, but not before he had pressed a substantial cheque into Bryant’s somewhat reluctant hand.

The next day he interviewed Parkinson, a lean, ascetic-looking man of the true sleuth-hound breed. He took his instructions.

“Give me a fortnight, if you please, sir; a week is hardly long enough. I’ll warrant, from what our friend Bryant has hinted to me, I will have something to report.”

And he had. At the end of the fortnight he appeared. He produced a small pocket-book.

“I’m glad you didn’t stipulate for only a week, sir; it was rather a blank one – only one meeting. I expect the lady couldn’t get away comfortably. But the week after I was rewarded. Three meetings in that second week.”

“Ah! Where do they meet?”

“At quite humble little restaurants and queer places in the City. I fancy the bucket-shop business is not very flourishing just now. For on the last two occasions when I followed them in, and sat at a table where I could observe them, I saw Mrs Spencer slip an envelope into his hand.”

“Good Heavens!” cried Murchison in a tone of disgust. “She is keeping this criminal with her husband’s money.”

Mr Parkinson shrugged his shoulders. “A common enough case, sir, if you had seen as much of life as I have.”

Hugh shuddered. The woman was depraved to the core. She could leave her house in Eaton Place, where she had been installed by her devoted and trustful husband, and journey down to some obscure eating-house in the City to meet this criminal who lived upon her bounty.

Well, the chain of evidence was complete. Bryant would swear to the identification, and Parkinson would swear that Mrs Guy Spencer, once Norah Burton, had met George Burton clandestinely four times in a fortnight, and had supplied him with money.

Chapter Nineteen

It was in his blackest and most grim mood that Hugh Murchison walked to Eaton Place, for the purpose of paying an afternoon call upon Mrs Spencer. He had not been near her since the night of the dinner, had only left cards. And, very fortunately, he had not come across Guy in the interval.

On that particular night he had reproached himself with indiscretion. He had availed himself of Fairfax’s information to tax her with meeting Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station on the morning of his flight to the Continent.

And at the moment that he had made that dramatic announcement, the drawing-room door had opened to admit the unsuspecting husband. Hugh had left shortly after dinner, on the plea of another engagement. Had Mrs Spencer tried to take the wind out of his sails by volunteering some plausible explanation about her meeting with Esmond? She was a clever young woman; she might try to forestall him. On the other hand, she might sit tight till he forced her hand. Anyway, he was going to force it to-day, armed with the new evidence that had been furnished to him.

Mrs Spencer was not looking well. Her eyes had lost their brightness, her once charming smile was forced and mechanical.

She rose as he was announced, and advanced to him with outstretched hands, with an exaggerated air of cordiality.

“I thought you had forgotten us.” She seated herself on the Chesterfield and motioned him to sit beside her. “Major Murchison, I fear I was a little rude to you the other night, you remember, just before Guy came in.” She clasped her hands nervously together. “I do trust we are going to be friends.”

Hugh looked at her grimly. He had no compassion for this shameless adventuress who had driven the poor foolish Pomfret to his grave, who had ensnared Guy Spencer, a man of stronger fibre, but equally powerless in the hands of an unscrupulous woman.

“Mrs Spencer – to call you by one of the many names by which you are known – we were not friends the last time I was at this house. To-day we are bitter enemies.”

“What do you mean?” she faltered. “You are speaking in riddles. Why should you, the old friend of my husband, be the bitter enemy of his innocent wife?”

“His innocent wife!” repeated Hugh sternly. “Dare you look me in the face and say that my name, even if you fail to recognise me after these years, does not recall to you certain tragic episodes at Blankfield?”

“I know nothing of Blankfield.” The voice was low but very unsteady. “You put that question to me the other night in a roundabout sort of way. My answer is the same – I know nothing of Blankfield.”

There was a long pause. Hugh continued to look at her with his steady and disconcerting gaze. Suddenly she rose, and paced restlessly up and down the long drawing-room.

“Major Murchison, put your cards on the table. You have come into this house, an old friend of my husband’s; I have done my best to make you welcome. But you have some spite against me. Of what do you accuse me?”

“I will put my cards on the table,” answered Hugh in his inflexible voice. “On the night I met you at Carlton House Terrace I had my suspicions; no two women could be so exactly alike. Since that night I have been picking up information here and there. I have now got a complete chain of evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” she gasped, still pursuing her restless walk up and down the room. “Of my having met Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station? Would you like to hear the true history of that?”