In White Raiment

With the greatest caution I crept on, walking noiselessly over the grass in the direction of the house.

As soon as the old mansion came into view I saw that lights burned in many of the windows, and from the drawing-rooms, where the open doors led on to the lawn, came the living strains of dance music.

From where I stood I could see the high lamps with their shades of yellow silk, and now and then bright dresses flashed past the long windows. A couple of figures were strolling up and down before the house. I could see their white shirt-fronts in the darkness, and knew that they were men smoking and enjoying the night air.

The two men at last tossed away their cigar ends and entered the house: thus I became encouraged to approach closer, cross the lawn, and peep through one of the side windows of the drawing-room. Fully a dozen people were there, but as I gazed around I was disappointed not to see my love. I had risked discovery and detection to obtain sight of her, but she was not present, neither was her cousin Nora. Most of the guests seemed smart people, judging from the women’s toilettes, and all were lolling about with the air of laziness which overcomes one after a good dinner. Dancing had ended, and, as I watched, a young dark-haired girl approached the piano and commenced to sing a song by which I knew that she was French.

I peered in through those windows eager for a glimpse of Beryl. Surely she was not like those others? No, I recollected her calm dignity and sweet grace when I had spoken to her. She, at least, was high-minded and womanly. I was glad she was not there to hear that song.

The singer sat down, having finished, amid roars of applause, and then the conversation was resumed; but at that instant I became conscious of some one passing near me, and had only just time to draw back into the shadow and thus escape observation. It was one of the guests, a man who lounged slowly along, the glowing end of his cigar shining in the darkness, alone; he was apparently full of recollections, for he passed slowly and mechanically onward without noticing me. Unable to see his face, I could only detect that he was rather above the average height, and, by his silhouette, I saw that he stooped slightly.

The encounter, however, caused me to recede from the house, for I had no desire to be detected there and compelled to give an account of myself. I was in shabby clothes, and if found in the vicinity might be suspected of an intention to commit a theft.

Where was the Major? He had certainly entered there, but had escaped my vigilance by passing through the thicket. I had been there nearly half an hour, yet had not been able to re-discover him. The lawn on one side was bounded by a light iron fencing, beyond which was a thick wood, and upon this fencing I mounted, and sat to rest in full view of the house and the long window of the drawing-room. In the deep shadow of the trees I waited there, safe from detection, listening to the music, which had recommenced, and wondering what had become of the man whom I had tried to follow. He seemed to have avoided the house and gone to the opposite side of the park.

Although I could actually see into the circle of assembled guests, yet I was so far off that I could only distinguish the women by the colour of their gowns. Had Beryl returned to join them? I wondered. I was longing for a single glance at her dear face – that face sweeter than any other in the world.

A woman in a cream dress, cut low at the neck, came suddenly to the doorway and peered forth into the night as though in search of some one, but a moment later had disappeared; and again the piano broke forth with the pretty minuet from Manon.

I had, I felt certain, been there almost, if not quite, an hour; therefore I was resolved to make a tour of the park in an endeavour to find the man whose suspicious movements had so interested me earlier in the evening. With that object in view I leaped down upon the lawn, crossed it until I reached the edge of the lake, which I skirted until I gained a rustic bridge which crossed the tiny brook that rippled over the stones and fell into the pool.

Of a sudden I heard a sound. It was quite distinct, like a half-suppressed cough. I halted in surprise, but no other sound reached my ear. Could I have been mistaken? The noise seemed very human, yet I knew that in the darkness of night the most usual sound becomes exaggerated and distorted. Therefore reassured I continued my way by the narrow, unfrequented path, which, leaving the lakeside, struck across the park and led me across a stile into a dark belt of wood.

Scarcely had I entered it, however, when I heard human voices distinctly. I halted and listened. An owl hooted weirdly, and there was a dead silence.

I wondered whether the persons I had surprised had detected my presence. I stood upon the narrow path holding my breath so that I could catch every sound.

A couple of minutes passed. To me they seemed as hours. Then, again, the voices sounded away to the left, apparently on the edge of the wood. Noiselessly I retraced my steps to the stile, and then found that from it there ran a path beside the iron railing, whither I knew not. But somewhere down that path two persons were in consultation.

Treading carefully, so that my footsteps should not be overheard, I crept down the path until, of a sudden, I caught sight of a woman’s white dress in the gloom. Then, sufficiently close to overhear, I halted with strained ears.

I was hidden behind a high hazel bush, but could just distinguish against that reddish glare which shines in the sky of the outskirts of London on a summer’s night, two silhouettes, those of a man and a woman. The former had halted, and was leaning against the railing, while the latter, with a shawl twisted about her shoulders, stood facing him.

“If you had wished you could certainly have met me before this,” the man was grumbling. “I’ve waited at the stile there a solid hour. Besides, it was a risky business with so many people about.”

“I told you not to come here,” she answered; and in an instant I recognised the voice. They were the sweet, musical tones of the woman who was my wife.

“Of course,” laughed her companion sardonically. “But, you see, I prefer the risk.” And I knew by the deep note that the man who stood by her was the Major.

“Why?” she inquired. “The risk is surely mine in coming out to meet you?”

“Bah! women can always make excuses,” he laughed. “I should not have made this appointment if it were not imperative that we should meet.”

“Well?” she sighed. “What do you want of me now?”

“I want to talk to you seriously.”

“With the usual request to follow,” she observed wearily. “You want money – eh?”

“Money? Oh no,” he said, with bitter sarcasm. “I can do without it. I can live on air, you know.”

“That’s better than prison fare, I should have thought,” she answered grimly.

“Ah, now, my dear, you’re sarcastic,” he said, with a touch of irony. “That doesn’t become you.”

“Well, tell me quickly what you want, and let me get back, or they will miss me.”

“You mean that your young lover will want to know with whom you’ve been flirting, eh? Well, you can mislead him again, as you’ve done many times before. What a fine thing it is to be an accomplished liar. I always envy people who can lie well, for they get through life so easily.” He spoke in a familiar tone, as though he held her beneath an influence that was irresistible.

“I am no liar,” she protested quickly. “The lies I have been compelled to tell have been at your own instigation.”

“And to save yourself,” he added, with a dry, harsh laugh. “But I didn’t bring you here for an exchange of compliments.”

Chapter Twelve

The Morning After

“Then why have you compelled me to meet you again?” she demanded fiercely, in a tone which showed her abhorrence of him. “The last time we met you told me that you were going abroad. Why haven’t you gone?”

“I’ve been and come back again.”

“Where?”

“That’s my business,” he answered very calmly. “Your welcome home is not a very warm one, to say the least.”

“I have no welcome for my enemies.”

“Oh! I’m an enemy – eh? Well,” he added, “I have always considered myself your friend.”

“Friend!” she echoed. “You show your friendliness in a rather curious manner. You conceive these dastardly plots, and then compel me to do your bidding – to act as your decoy!”

“Come, come,” he laughed, his temper quite unruffled by her accusation, “you know that in all my actions I am guided by your interests as well as my own.”

“I was certainly not aware of it,” she responded. “It cannot be to my interest that you compel me to meet you here like this, at the risk of discovery. Would it not have been better if our meeting had taken place in London, as before?”

“Necessity has driven me to make this appointment,” he responded. “To write to you is dangerous, and I wanted to give you warning so that you can place yourself in a position of security.”

“A warning! – of what?” she asked breathlessly.

“La Gioia is here.”

“La Gioia!” she gasped. “Here? Impossible!” La Gioia! It was the name I had found written upon the piece of paper beneath her pillow.

“Unfortunately, it is the truth,” he responded in an earnest voice. “The contretemps is serious.”

“Serious!” she cried in alarm. “Yes, it is serious; and through you I am thus placed in peril!”

“How do you intend to act?”

“I have no idea,” she responded, in a hoarse tone. “I am tired of it all, and driven to despair – I am sick to death of this eternal scheming, this perpetual fear lest the terrible truth should become known. God knows how I have suffered during this past year. Ah, how a woman can suffer and still live! I tell you,” she cried, with sudden desperation, “this dread that haunts me continually will drive me to take my life!”

“Rubbish!” he laughed. “Keep up your pluck. With a little ingenuity a woman can deceive the very devil himself.”

“I tell you,” she said. “I am tired of life – of you – of everything. I have nothing to live for – nothing to gain by living!”

Her voice was the voice of a woman driven to desperation by the fear that her secret should become known.

“Well,” he laughed brutally, “you’ve certainly nothing to gain by dying, my dear.”

“You taunt me!” she cried in anger. “You who hold me irrevocably in this bond of guilt – you who compel me to act as your accomplice in these vile schemes! I hate you!”

“Without a doubt,” he responded, with a short laugh. “And yet I have done nothing to arouse this feeling of antagonism.”

“Nothing! Do you then think so lightly of all the past?”

“My dear girl,” he said, “one should never think of what has gone by. It’s a bad habit. Look to your own safety, and to the future.”

“La Gioia is here!” she repeated in a low voice, as though unable to fully realise all that the terrible announcement meant. “Well, how do you intend to act?”

“My actions will be guided by circumstances,” he replied. “And you?”

She was silent. The stillness of the night was broken only by the dismal cry of a night-bird down near the lake.

“I think it is best that I should die and end it all,” she replied, in a hard, strained voice.

“Don’t talk such nonsense!” he said impatiently. “You are young, graceful, smart, with one of the prettiest faces in London. And you would commit suicide. The thing is utterly absurd!”

“What have I to gain by living?” she inquired again, that question being apparently uppermost in her mind.

“You love young Chetwode. You may yet marry him.”

“No,” she answered with a sigh; “I fear that can never be. Happiness can never be mine – never.”

“Does he love you?” inquired the Major, with a note of sympathy in his voice.

“Love me? Why, of course he does.”

“You have never doubted him?”

“Never.”

“And he has asked you to marry him?”

“Yes, a dozen times.”

“When was the last occasion?”

“To-night – an hour ago.”

“And you, of course, refused?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because of the barrier which prevents my marriage with him.”

“And you will allow that to stand in the way of your safety?”

“My safety!” she echoed. “I don’t understand.”

“Cannot you see that if you married Cyril Chetwode at once, La Gioia would be powerless?”

“Ah!” she exclaimed suddenly, impressed by the suggestion. “I had never thought of that?”

“Well,” he went on, “if you take my advice, you’ll lose no time in becoming Chetwode’s wife. Then you can defy your enemies, and snap your fingers at La Gioia.”

A deep silence fell. The woman who was my wife was reflecting.

“You say that by marriage I could defy my enemies; but that is incorrect. I could not cut myself free of all of them.”

“Why? Whom would you fear?”

“You yourself,” she answered bluntly.

“You have no confidence in me,” he protested with a dissatisfied air.

“I can have no confidence in one who holds me enslaved as you do.”

“And yet I have come here at considerable risk and personal inconvenience to give you warning.”

“Because you fear discovery yourself.”

“No,” he laughed; “I’m quite safe. I merely came here to make two suggestions to you. One I have already made, namely, that you should marry Chetwode without delay. And the other – ”

He paused, as though to accurately gauge the extent of his power over her.

“Well? Go on. I am all attention.”

“The other is that you should, as before, render me a trifling assistance in a little matter I have in hand which, if successfully carried out, will place both of us for ever beyond the reach of La Gioia’s vengeance.”

“Another scheme?” she cried wearily. “Well, what is it? Some further dastardly plot or other, no doubt. Explain it.”

“No; you are under a misapprehension,” he responded quickly. “The affair is no dastardly plot, but merely a little piece of ingenuity by which we may outwit La Gioia.”

“Outwit her!” she cried. “The very devil himself could not outwit La Gioia.”

“Ah!” he laughed; “you women are always so ready to jump to ill-formed conclusions. She has one weak point.”

“And you have discovered it?”

“Yes; I have discovered it.”

“How?”

“That is my affair. It is sufficient to be aware that she, the invincible, is nevertheless vulnerable.”

There was another pause; but at last the woman I loved responded in a firm, determined tone —

“Then, if that is true, I leave it to you. You declare you are my friend, therefore I can, at least, rely on you for protection, especially as we have so many interests in common.”

“But you must assist me,” he observed.

“No,” she answered, “I refuse to do that. You are quite capable of carrying out any villainy without my assistance.”

“Need we use the term villainy where La Gioia is concerned?” he asked. “You know her well enough to be aware that if she finds you she will be merciless, and will gloat over your downfall.”

“I would kill myself before she discovers me,” my wife declared.

“But you might not have time,” he suggested. “To die willingly demands considerable resolution. Women’s nerve usually fails them at the extreme moment.”

“Mine will not, you may rest assured of that,” she answered.

“You don’t seem capable of listening to reason to-night,” he protested.

“I am capable of listening to reason, but not to conspiracy,” she replied with some hauteur. “I know well what is passing in your mind. You would plot to take her life – to murder La Gioia!”

He laughed outright, as though there was something humorous in her words.

“No, no, my dear,” he answered quickly. “You quite misunderstood my intention.”

“I misunderstood your intention on a previous occasion,” she said meaningly.

“But in this affair our interests are entirely mutual,” he pointed out. “You must assist me.”

“I shall not.”

“But you must. We have everything to gain by securing her silence.”

“And everything to lose by meeting her.”

“But when we meet her it will be in defiance. I have thought out a plan.”

“Then carry it out,” she said. “I will have nothing whatever to do with it.”

“I may compel you,” he said, with slow distinctness. “You have already compelled me to act as your accomplice, but you have strained my bonds until they can resist no longer. I intend to break them.”

“That is indeed very interesting!” He laughed, treating her as though she were a spoilt child.

“Yes,” she cried furiously, “I will kill myself!”

“And leave me to make a scandalous explanation.”

“Then you would besmirch my good name after my death?” she said, turning upon him quickly. “Ah, yes! You show yourself in your true colours. You would even weave about me a web of infamy, so as to prevent me taking my life. I hate and detest you!”

“That’s not the first time you have informed me of that fact, my dear,” he responded, perfectly coolly.

“If it were not for you I should now be a happy girl. Thanks to you I am, however, one of the most wretched of all God’s creatures.”

“You need not be. You are petted in your own circle of friends, and your reputation remains unsullied.”

“I occupy a false position,” she declared. “What would Cyril say if he knew the truth?”

“A woman should never study the man who is to be her husband. It makes him far too conceited; and, moreover, she is sure to regret it in after-life.”

He was at times shrewdly philosophical, this scoundrel who held my wife beneath his thrall.

“I have you – only you – to thank for my present position. Believed by the world to be an honest, innocent girl, and accepted as such, I nevertheless fear from hour to hour that the truth may be revealed, and that I may find myself in the hands of the police. Death is preferable to this constant, all-consuming dread.”

“The unreasonableness and pertinacity of woman is extraordinary!” he exclaimed in a tone of impatience.

“What good can possibly result from this duel between us? Why not let us unite in defeating La Gioia?”

“That I refuse to do.”

“But our position is serious – most serious,” he pointed out. “Suppose that she discovers you!”

“Well, what then?”

“You must be entirely at her mercy,” he said in a deep voice. “And you know the fiendishness of her vengeance.”

“I know,” she responded in a voice scarcely above at whisper, the voice of a woman driven to desperation.

“But you must arm yourself against her,” he urged.

“Together we are strong enough to defeat any attack that she may make.”

“Tell me plainly,” she asked, dropping her voice until it was scarcely above a whisper, “do you, yourself, fear her?”

“Yes. She is the only person who, besides ourselves, knows the truth,” he responded in a low tone.

“And you would set a trap into which she will fall?” she went on, still in a whisper. “Come, do not let us prevaricate longer. You intend to kill her?”

There was dead silence. At last her companion spoke.

“Well,” he answered, “and if your surmise is correct?”

“Then, once and for all,” she said, raising her voice, “I tell you I’ll have no hand whatsoever in it?”

He was apparently taken aback by the suddenness of her decision.

“And you prefer to be left unprotected against the vengeance of La Gioia!” he said harshly.

“Yes, I do,” she said determinedly. “And recollect that from to-night I refuse to be further associated with these vile schemes of yours. You deceived me once; you shall never do so again!”

He laughed aloud.

“And you think you can break from me as easily as this. Your action to-night is foolish – suicidal. You will repent it.”

“I shall never repent. My hatred of you is too strong!”

“We shall see,” he laughed.

“Let me pass!” she cried, and leaving him, walked quickly down the path, and in a few moments the flutter of her light dress was lost in the darkness.

Her companion hurried after her.

I emerged quickly from my hiding-place, and followed them as far as the stile. He had overtaken her, and was striding by her side, bending and talking earnestly as they crossed the open grassland.

To follow sufficiently close to overhear what he said was impossible without detection, therefore I was compelled to remain and watch the receding figures until they became swallowed up in the darkness. Then, turning, I passed through the belt of wood again, and, scaling a wall, gained the high-road, which, after a walk of half an hour, took me back to Hounslow.

That night I slept but little. The discovery I had made was extraordinary! Who was this woman with the strange name? “La Gioia” meant in Italian “The Jewel,” or “The Joy.” Why did they fear her vengeance?

In the morning, as I descended to breakfast, the landlord of the inn, standing in his shirt-sleeves, met me at the foot of the stairs.

“Have you heard the terrible news, sir?” he inquired.

“No,” I said in surprise. “What news?”

“There was murder committed last night over in Whitton Park!”

“Murder?” I gasped. “Who has been murdered?”

Chapter Thirteen

I Practise a New Profession

“Why, the Colonel – Colonel Chetwode!” the man answered excitedly.

“Colonel Chetwode!” I gasped. “Impossible!”

“It’s a fact,” he declared. “The whole thing’s a deep mystery. They found him at five o’clock this morning.”

“Tell me all about it,” I urged.

“Mr Plummer, sergeant of police, was in here half an hour ago, and he told me all about it. According to what he says, it seems that a workman going across the park to Twickenham early this morning, saw the body of a man on the edge of the lake, half in the water. He rushed forward, and to his horror found it was the Colonel, quite dead.”

“Drowned?”

“No; he wasn’t drowned. That’s the curious part of it. He was murdered.”

“How?”

“By a blow on the head, the police believe. Plummer says that there are lots of marks near the edge of the lake as though a struggle took place.”

“Extraordinary!” I ejaculated. “You say he was quite dead when discovered. Was a doctor called?”

“Yes; the police surgeon, Doctor Douglas. He declared that the poor Colonel had been murdered, and had been dead several hours.”

“Is there no suspicion of the assassin?” I inquired, as the thought of the man whom I had watched in the Park dashed through my brain.

“None whatever,” he answered. “The Colonel was very popular everywhere, and was always good to the poor. It’s his wife who isn’t liked; she’s a rum un’, they say.”

“Where was the body found?” I inquired, when I had seated myself at the table while he had taken up a position before the empty fireplace to continue gossiping.

“Ah!” he said, “you wouldn’t, of course, know the spot, for you’ve never been in the park. There’s a path which leads across the grass at the back of the house through some thickets, and, skirting the lake, crosses the brook by a little bridge. It was just by that bridge that the poor fellow was found. They think that just as he had crossed the bridge he was struck down, and then fell backwards into the lake.”

“Ah! I understand,” I said. “Let’s hope that the detectives will discover something when they arrive. It was evidently a most dastardly bit of work.”

The man’s remark that I had no knowledge of the spot where the body was found aroused me to a sense of my own position. If it were known that I had entered the park that night, might not a serious suspicion fall upon me?

I recollected how, as I had crossed the bridge, I had heard distinctly a short cough. The murderer was, without doubt, lurking there when I had passed.

“Every one is talking of it. Lots of people are going down to see the spot. I shall go down presently. Do you care to come?” the landlord asked.

I acceded willingly, for I wished to see the place in daylight, and, as one of a crowd of sightseers, I should escape observation.

While I ate my breakfast, the man, full of the mystery, continued discussing it in all its phases. I allowed him to run on, for every word he spoke was, to me, of intense interest.

“The poor Colonel was the very last man to have an enemy who would take his life,” he said.

“But his second wife?”

“Ah!” he said with a knowing air, “he was never quite the same after he married again. They say that she flirted indiscriminately with every man she came across, no matter who he was.”