The Bond of Black

“What I told you was the truth,” she replied. “I was present when he took his own life.”

“At Monte Carlo?”

“At Monte Carlo!”

“Well, how do you account for the fact that for six or seven months afterwards he was here, in London, occupying his seat in the House of Commons, and mixing with his friends, when, if what you say is truth, he was then lying in a grave in the suicides’ cemetery at La Turbie?”

“I do not attempt to reason,” she responded, in a voice which sounded so strange that it appeared far distant, while the cup she still held was shaken by a slight tremor. “I only tell you the true facts. It was myself who identified your friend, and gave his name to the Administration of the Casino.”

“And you say he killed himself because he lost everything?”

“That is what I surmise. Those who have good fortune at the tables do not generally seek the last extremity.”

“But I knew nothing of his visit there. Even his man was in ignorance,” I said. “I cannot help thinking that there must be some mistake. It must have been a man who resembled him.”

“I know that he went to the Riviera secretly.”

“Why?”

“Because he had devised some system which, like many others before him, he felt certain must result in large winnings, and he did not tell his friends his intentions lest they might jeer at him. He went; he lost; and he killed himself!”

“But he lived in London afterwards!” I protested. “I saw him dozens of times – dined with him, played billiards with him, and was visited here by him. He could not possibly have been dead at the time!”

“But he was dead!” she declared. “Strange though it may seem, I am ready to swear in any court of law that I was present when Roderick Morgan, the member for South-West Sussex, committed suicide in the Salle Mauresque at Monte Carlo. That fact can no doubt be established in two ways: first, by the register of deaths, and secondly, by exhumation of the body.”

“But when Roddy was here in London, dining, smoking, and talking with me, how can I believe that he was already dead?”

“It was for a brief space that he came back to his own home,” she responded, in that same far-away voice, turning her eyes full upon me. “And did not life leave him suddenly, in a manner which has since remained a mystery?”

“No,” I answered determinedly, my mind fully made up. “Not altogether a mystery. The police have discovered many things.”

“The police!” she gasped. “What have they discovered?”

“They do not generally tell the public the result of their investigations,” I answered. “But they have found out that he received a visitor clandestinely half an hour before his death, and further, that he was murdered.”

“Murdered!” she exclaimed, with an uneasy glance and stirring in her chair. “Do they suspect any one?”

“Yes,” I replied. “They suspect his visitor; and they have discovered that this mysterious person who came to see him immediately before his death was a woman!”

Her lips compressed until they became white and bloodless, and the light died from her countenance. She tried to speak, but her tongue refused to utter sound, and she covered her confusion by placing her teacup upon the table.

“Have they found out who it was who called upon him?” she inquired at last, in a low, faltering voice.

“They have a strong suspicion,” I said firmly. “And they are resolved that the one responsible for his death shall be brought to justice.”

“There is no proof that he was murdered,” she declared quickly.

“Neither is there any proof that he died from natural causes,” I argued. Then I added, “Was it not strange, Aline, that you should actually have told me of my friend’s death on the very morning that he died?”

“It was certainly a very remarkable coincidence,” she faltered; after a pause adding: “If he has been murdered, as you suspect, I hope the police will not fail to discover the author of the crime.”

“But you declared that Roddy was already dead!” I cried, dumbfounded.

“Certainly!” she answered. “I still maintain the truth of my statement.”

“Then you do not believe he was murdered?”

She shrugged her shoulders without replying.

For an instant I gazed into those eyes which had once held me spell-bound, and said —

“The truth is already known to the police. Roddy Morgan was murdered by a woman, swiftly, silently, and in a manner which showed firm determination and devilish cunning. You may rest assured that she will not escape.”

She started. Her face was blanched to the lips, and she sat before me rigid, open-mouthed, speechless.

Chapter Sixteen

Rocks among Pebbles

Her attitude convinced me of her guilt, yet what conclusive proof had I? None – absolutely none.

“Your photograph was found in his rooms. I found it myself,” I said.

“Does that prove that I am untruthful?” she inquired, raising her eyebrows quickly.

I recollected the glove-button. But the gloves she wore were new ones, and all the buttons were intact.

There was a ring of truth in her denials, yet I was unconvinced. I saw in her answers careful evasion of my questions. First, I myself had found poor Roddy dead, and that he had committed suicide six months before seemed to me but a silly tale. Secondly, her strange actions were suspicious. Thirdly, her curious association with Muriel seemed coupled with the latter’s disappearance, and her clandestine visit to Jack Yelverton intensified the mystery in its every detail.

“Of course, the mere finding of a photograph is no proof that you had met Roddy for six months,” I admitted, recollecting Ash’s statement that he had never seen her visit his master.

“Then why suspect me?” she asked, in a tone of reproach.

“I have expressed no suspicion,” I said, as calmly as I could. “My surprise and doubt are surely pardonable under these curious circumstances – are they not?”

“Certainly!” she responded. “Nevertheless during our acquaintance I have, you must admit, been as open with you as I have dared. You professed your love for me,” she went on ruthlessly, “but I urged you to hesitate. Was I not frank with you when I told you plainly that we could never be lovers?”

I nodded in the affirmative, and sighed when I recollected my lost Muriel.

“Then why do you charge me with deception?” she asked, stretching out her tiny foot neat in its suède shoe, and contemplating it. She seemed nervous and hasty, yet determined to get to the bottom of my suspicions and so ascertain the depth of my knowledge of the truth.

Detecting this, I resolved to act with discretion and diplomacy. Only by the exercise of consummate tact could I solve this enigma.

“Deception!” I said. “You must admit that you are deceiving me by concealing the truth of who and what you are!”

“That is scarcely a polite speech,” she observed, toying with the lorgnette suspended from her neck by a long chain of gold with turquoises set at intervals. “What do you suspect me to be?” and she laughed lightly.

“According to your own confession,” I responded, “you are possessed of an influence which is baneful; you are a worker of mysterious evil; a woman whose contact is as venom, whose touch is blasting as fire!”

“No! no!” she cried, starting up wildly and putting out her hands in imploring attitude. “I have done you no wrong – I swear I have not! Spare me your reproaches. A guilt is upon me – a terrible guilt, I admit – but I have at least spared you. I warned you in time, and you escaped!”

“Then you are guilty!” I cried quickly, half-surprised at her sudden confession. But, turning her eyes upon me as she stood, she answered —

“Yes, I am guilty of a deadly sin – a sin that is terrible, awful, and unforgivable before God – yet, it is not what you suspect. I swear I had no hand in the death of your friend.”

“But you can reveal the truth to me!” I cried. “You shall tell me!” I added fiercely, as I approached her.

“No,” she panted, drawing back, “it is impossible. I – I cannot.”

She was confused, pale and flushed by turns, and terribly agitated. I saw by her attitude she was not speaking the truth. I was convinced that, even then, she lied to me. Because of that I grew furious.

“If you were innocent you would not fear to explain all you know,” I cried in anger. “In every detail you attempt to baffle me, but you shall do so no longer.”

She smiled a strange, tantalising smile, and leaning against the edge of the table assumed an easy attitude.

“Is it not the truth that you are a mystery to every one?” I went on heedlessly, at that instant recollecting the conversation between herself and the stranger in Hyde Park. “Is it not the truth that your character is such that, if the people of London knew its true estimate, you would be mobbed and torn limb from limb?”

She started, glaring at me quickly in fear.

“This denunciation is very amusing,” she said, with a forced laugh.

“Amusing!” I cried. “I have not forgotten how your presence here had the effect of reducing sacred objects to ashes; I have not forgotten your own confession to me that you were a worker of iniquity, a woman endowed with an irresistible devastating force – the force of hell itself!”

“And even though I confessed to you, you now charge me with deception,” she answered in a strained tone. “You offered me your love, but I was self-denying, and urged you to forget me and love Muriel Moore, who was as pure and upright as I am wanton and sinful. Did you take my advice?”

“Yes,” I answered, a trifle more calmly. “But she is now lost to me.”

“I am aware of that,” she responded. “You tarried too long ere you declared your affection.”

“Then you know her whereabouts?” I cried eagerly. “Tell me.”

But she shook her head, answering —

“No, we are no longer friends after this denunciation you have to-day uttered. You suspect me of being a murderess; therefore I leave you to assist yourself.”

“Do you actually know where she is and refuse to tell me?” I cried.

“Certainly,” she responded. “There is no reason why her happiness should be again disturbed.”

In an instant a fierce vengeance swept through my brain. This woman was of the flesh, for she stood there before me, her beauty heightened by the flush that had risen to her cheeks, her pale lips quivering with an uncontrollable anxiety which had taken possession of her, yet she was more cruel, more relentless, more ingenious in the working of evil, more resistless and invincible in her diabolical power, than any other person on the earth. All the strength, all the influence, all the ruling power possessed by Satan himself was centred within her.

I looked at the evil light in her eyes. She was, indeed, the incarnation of the Evil One.

“You hold the secret of Muriel’s hiding-place and refuse to tell me; you openly defy me; therefore I am at liberty to act in whatever manner pleases me – am I not?”

“Certainly,” she answered, slowly twisting her rings around her finger.

“Then listen,” I said. “You told me once that you could not love me because you loved another. You spoke the truth, for since then that fact has been proved. Some time ago a man, honest and upright, who on account of his religious convictions had resolved to give himself up to labour in the interests of the poor, accepted a curacy in a poor London parish. He worked there, striving night and day, denying himself rest and the comforts he could well afford in order that the sufferings of a few might be alleviated. Into foul dens where people slept on mouldy mattresses upon the floor, where ofttimes a paraffin lamp was placed in the empty grate in place of a fire, and where hunger and dirt bred disease, this man penetrated and distributed food and money, endearing himself to those dregs of humanity, often the scum of the gaols, by his untiring efforts, his justice, and his kindness of heart. Men who were known to the police as desperate characters welcomed him and were tractable enough beneath his influence. He never sought to cram religion down their throats, for he knew that at first they would have none of it. So he went to work to first gain their hearts, and succeeded so completely that many a confession of crime was in the silence of those bare rooms whispered into his ear by one who was repentant.”

I paused and glanced at her. Her arms had fallen to her sides; she was standing motionless as a statue.

“While pursuing this good work – work undertaken without any thought of the laudation of his fellow-men – there came into that man’s life a woman. She came to tempt him from the path of righteousness, to dazzle his eyes with her beauty, and to absorb his love. He saw himself on the verge of a fatal fascination, an entrancement which would inevitably cause him to break his vow to God; and relinquishing his work for a time, he fled from her secretly. He wished to avoid her; for although he loved her, he knew that she had been sent into his life by the Tempter to rend and destroy him, for he, alas! knew too well that the evil influences in the world are far more potent than the good, and that the godly are as rocks among the pebbles of the sea.”

I paused. Again our eyes met.

“And the rest?” she asked hoarsely, in a low voice.

“You know the rest, Aline,” I said. “You know that the name of that man was John Yelverton, and that the woman of evil was yourself, Aline Cloud. You have no need to inquire of me.”

“How did you know?” she gasped, trembling.

“That matters not,” I replied, in as calm a tone as I could. “Suffice it to know that I have knowledge of the truth.”

“And you know my lover?”

“He is one of my oldest friends,” I answered. “He fled from you, but by your devilish ingenuity you discovered him and sought him out in the remote village where he had hidden himself. You travelled from London, and he was compelled to meet you clandestinely out upon the high road. By the evil spell you have cast upon him you are now hoping that he will return to London.”

“And if I am?” she inquired, with a sudden boldness.

“If you are, then you may at once give up all hope that he will still remain your lover,” I answered firmly. “When I have told him of the truth he will hate you with the same hatred in which he holds the Evil One.”

“What, then, do you intend telling him?” she inquired.

“He is my friend, as Roddy Morgan was,” I answered. “The latter died mysteriously under circumstances which were undoubtedly known to you, and I have resolved that John Yelverton shall not suffer at your hands.”

“I do not intend that he should suffer!” she cried quickly. “I love him. I will be his helpmate, his adviser, his protector. I confess to you that I love him with as great an affection as I can love anything on earth.”

“Did you not tell me once that even though you might love, your influence must nevertheless necessarily be that of evil?”

“Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “The baneful power I possess is not of my own seeking. I suppress it so that it may not injure him.”

“This mysterious power of yours injured poor Roddy. You cannot deny that,” I cried.

She sighed, but made no answer. Her thin hands were clenched; she was desperate.

“Yelverton knows nothing of your inexplicable potency for the working of evil. But he must – he shall know.”

“He will not believe you!” she cried defiantly. “You may tell him what you choose, but it cannot alter the love between us.”

“Not if I prove that you were responsible for Roddy Morgan’s death – that it was you who visited him during his valet’s absence?”

In an instant she grew pale as death, and stood there quivering in fear. Her defiance had given place to abject terror, and she dared not utter a word lest she should betray herself. Holding her in suspicion, as I did, I was quick to note the slightest wavering, to detect the least fear as expressed in her flawlessly beautiful countenance.

“You may make whatever allegation you think fit,” she responded, in a harsh tone. “It makes no difference. The man who loves me will not heed you.”

“But he shall!” I cried, in anger. “I will not allow him to be victimised as poor Roddy was. Your very words betray you!” I burst forth again. “When you allege that he committed suicide six months before he died in London you lie!”

“I have spoken the truth,” she answered, meeting my gaze with a calmness which seemed incredible. “Some day, perhaps, you will have proof.”

“Why may not proof be given me now?” I demanded. “Why cannot you explain all, and end this mystery?”

“It is impossible.”

“Impossible!” I cried. “Nonsense! You seek to conceal your evil deeds beneath a cloak of improbabilities, and fancy I am sufficiently credulous to believe them!”

“Surely heated argument is useless,” she observed. “I love a man who is your friend, and you love a woman who is mine. Plainly speaking, our interests are identical, are they not? Your love is in hiding. She had a reason for fleeing from you, just as my lover’s religious views caused him to endeavour to escape me. He knew me not, or he would not have endeavoured to hide himself from me. You, who know me better, are aware that from me there is no escape; that I spare not my enemies nor those who hate me. Before my touch men and things wither as grass cast into an oven.”

“True, I love Muriel,” I said. “She is in hiding, and you, if you will, can direct me to where she is.” Aline, the mysterious handmaiden of evil, paused. Her full breast rose beneath her thin summer bodice and fell slowly, and for an instant her well-arched brows were knit as she thought deeply.

“Yes,” she answered at length. “Your surmise is correct. I am aware where your love has concealed herself.”

“Little escapes you,” I observed, a strange feeling of terror creeping over me. “Sin is always more powerful than righteousness, and cunning more invincible than honesty of purpose. Why will you not impart to me the knowledge that I seek, and tell me where I may find Muriel? As you have very truly said, our interests are identical. I am ready to make any compact with you, in return for your assistance.”

“Very well,” she answered quickly, with a little undue eagerness, I thought. Then, fixing me again with her eyes, she said: “Once you gave yourself to me body and soul and implored me to love you. But I spurned you – not because I entertained any affection for you, but for the sake of the one woman who loved you – Muriel Moore.”

“Then you knew Muriel?” I interrupted quickly, in an endeavour to at least clear up that single fact.

“No,” she answered, “I did not know her. A reader of the heart, I was, however, aware that she was madly enamoured of you, therefore I was frank enough to urge you to reciprocate her love, and thus obtain felicity. Well, she has hidden herself from you, but you shall find her on one condition – namely, that you render yourself passive in my hands – that you give yourself entirely to me.”

“What do you mean?” I gasped, holding back instinctively and glaring at her. “Are you the Devil himself that you should make this proposal which in the mediaeval legend Mephistopheles made to Faust?”

“My intentions are of no concern,” she responded, in a strange voice like one speaking afar off. “Will you, or will you not accept my conditions?”

“But to give myself to you when I love another is impossible!” I protested.

“I make this demand not in any spirit of coquetry,” she replied. “That you should be mine, body and soul, is necessary, in order that you should preserve the silence which is imperative.”

“To put it plainly you desire, in return for the service you will render me, that I should utter no word to your lover of my suspicions?” I said, gradually grasping her meaning.

Again the glint of evil seemed to shine from those blue eyes, which changed their hue with every humour.

“Exactly,” she answered, her slim fingers nervously twisting the golden chain of her lorgnette. “But you must become mine, to do as I bid and act entirely as I direct,” she declared. “Unless you give me your word of honour to do this there can be no agreement between us. Remember that your silence will be for our mutual benefit, for I shall remain happy while you will gain the woman you love.”

For a single moment only I hesitated. But one thought was in my mind, that of Muriel. At all costs I felt that I must discover her, for her disappearance had driven me to distraction. Never before had I known what it really was to love, or the blankness that falls upon a man when the woman he adores has suddenly gone out of his life. I may have been foolish, nay, I knew I was; nevertheless, in the sudden helplessness that was upon me, I turned and answered —

“I am ready to do as you wish.”

Next instant I held my breath, and the perspiration broke forth upon my brow when I realised that my great love for Muriel had led me into an abyss of evil. Heedless of the dire consequences which must follow, I had flung myself into the toils of this mysterious woman whom I held in fear; a woman whose very touch was sacrilegious, and who was more fiendish than human in her delights and hates.

“Then it is agreed,” she said in that strange voice which had several times impressed me so. “Henceforth you are mine, to do my bidding. Recollect that passive obedience is absolutely essential. If I command you will obey passively, without seeking to inquire the reason, without heed of the difference between good and evil. Do you agree to such conditions?” she inquired in deep earnestness.

“Yes,” I responded, my mouth dry and parched. This speech of hers convinced me that she was possessed of some superhuman power which was as subtle as it was mysterious.

“Then having entered into the compact with me, first seek not to discover who or what I am. Secondly, say no word to my lover of the things you have seen or of your suspicions regarding me; and thirdly, rest confident that what I have told you regarding your friend Morgan’s suicide is the absolute truth. Seek not to argue,” she went on, noticing my intention to interrupt; “remain in patience.”

“But where shall I discover Muriel?”

She hesitated in thought.

“You wish to see her to-night – eh?” she inquired. Then, after a pause, she added: “Well, to-night if you go to Aldersgate Street Station, and remain in the booking-office, you will meet her there at nine o’clock.”

“How do you know her movements so intimately?”

I asked in wonderment.

But she only smiled mysteriously. If it were the truth, as I now felt convinced, that she was possessor of a power supernatural, there was surely nothing strange in her knowledge of the actions of those beyond her range of vision. Had she not already told me that she was “a reader of hearts?”

Suddenly she glanced at the clock, declaring that it was time she went, drew on her gloves and re-arranged her veil.

As she stood ready to go I asked her for her address. But she only said that such knowledge was unnecessary, and if she wished to see me she would call.

Thus she left, and I stood again unmanned and undecided, just as I had been when she had left me on the last occasion, only I had now rendered myself helpless and passive in her hands.

I tried to shake off the gruesome thoughts which crept over me, but found myself unable. Already I seemed pervaded by a spirit of evil. The miasma of Hell was upon me.

That night I went eagerly forth to the Aldersgate Street Station of the Underground Railway. Time after time I passed through the booking-office, and out upon the long balcony whence the stairs lead down to the platform, until, almost on the stroke of nine, I caught sight of the woman I loved, neatly dressed, but a trifle worn and pale.

I dashed up to greet her, but next second drew back.

She was not alone. A man was with her, and in an instant I recognised him.

It was the thin, shabby-genteel man whom I had seen with Aline in the Park – the man who had urged her to commit some crime the reason of which was a mystery.

She was laughing at some words her companion had uttered, and brushing past me unnoticed took his arm as she descended the stairs, worn slippery by the tramp of the million wearied feet.

I hesitated in amazement. This shabby scoundrel was her lover. She had preferred him to me. A great jealousy arose within me, and next moment I rushed after them down the stairs.

Chapter Seventeen

After Business Hours