A Master of Deception

In that room on the second floor of the house in Kensington, Stella Austin, in her nightdress, her pretty hair hanging in two long plaits down her back, was on her knees beside her bed, seeming such a child. She was thanking God for all His goodness to her-she always began her prayers by thanking God. She thanked Him for many things, but chiefly, and beyond all else, for having given her so thoughtful, so tender, so true a lover. God knew how happy He had made her, and how full her heart was of gratitude to Him. And she prayed that God would make her worthy of the lover He had given. She knew how, in so many ways, he was above her, above anything she might ever hope to be; she prayed God that He would give her strength and grace, so that she might be at least a little more deserving. She had been unkind to-night, and-and wickedly jealous; she knew she had. Please God make her kinder and less selfish! And, when the time came, please God, make her a good wife, a good wife!

At this point articulate utterance ceased, her face fell forward on the coverlet because her eyes were streaming with tears. It was to her such a solemn and beautiful thought that she would before very long be Rodney Elmore's wife that she trembled with the very rapture of it, so that she could no longer even go on with her prayers.

* * * * *

When Mr. Elmore reached his lodgings, with the exception of the light in his sitting-room, the house was in darkness. But if that signified that the household had retired to rest, it did not follow that everyone was asleep, as he was presently to learn. He had only been in his room a couple of minutes when the door opened noiselessly-to admit Miss Joyce. Coming right in, she stood with her back to the door, which she closed behind her. She was in a state of undress which did not become her ill. As he eyed her Rodney compared her, mentally, with Stella; not to her disadvantage. She really was a good-looking girl; only-he did not like the look which was on her white face and in her eyes. He felt sure someone would notice it, and questions would be asked.

She spoke in so faint a whisper that what she said was only just audible; his voice was lowered in sympathy with hers.

"Mother's come back."

"Has she? That's good hearing. I hope she had a good time at your aunt's."

"I've got the licence."

"The-? Oh, have you? That also is good hearing."

"It cost me two pounds four and six."

"Did it? I hope you consider it to be worth the money."

"I've fixed it for Thursday at noon."

"Noon? Isn't that-rather an unfashionable hour?"

"Mind you're there! You've promised! I've got your promise."

"Am I likely to forget-the circumstances under which you got my promise?"

"If you're not there you'll be sorry."

"Honestly, Mabel, I think we shall both of us be sorry."

"You will! There's-there's another thing; I-I want to warn you."

"Warn me? Haven't you done that once or twice already?"

"I-I want to warn you against Mr. Dale."

"Against Mr. Dale? Why?"

"I believe he suspects."

"Suspects? What? About you and me?"

"About-your uncle."

"What does he suspect about my uncle?"

"He's been finding out things. Ssh! there's someone moving. Perhaps it's mother; she mustn't find me here, like this."

She flitted from the room as noiselessly as she had entered, shutting the door without its making a sound. He stood and listened. Perhaps it was her conscience which had made her fancy noises-all seemed still. If she had ascended to her room on the landing, a ghost could not have moved more silently.

CHAPTER XX

THE FIRST LINE OF AN OLD SONG

Rodney Elmore had the unusual attribute of seeming at his best in the morning, as if calm, unruffled sleep, having removed the cobwebs from his brain, returned him rested and buoyant to a world in which there were no shadows. When, on the Wednesday morning, he came downstairs with light steps and dancing eyes, he found among the letters on the breakfast table one which was addressed in a familiar hand. He gave it pride of place.

"My Dear R., – I don't know what possesses me, but I feel that I simply must write and tell you that I wish you were within kissing distance. Isn't that a ridiculous feeling to have, especially where you're concerned? Do you think that I don't know? I have been conscious of the most extraordinary sensations since Sunday. I made a mistake in asking you to come and console me. You did it so effectually that-well, I would like you to continue the treatment. There's a dreadful thing to say! Aren't I a wretch? Poor dear Tom! I know he has all the good qualities I haven't, and that he'll make me the best husband in the world, but as for his consoling me-oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! I don't like the idea at all! I'm nearly sure that, after all, the best husband in the world is not the one I'm looking for. What makes me feel so all over pins and needles when I'm with Tom, and so comfy when I'm with you? Isn't it odd? Have you any feeling of the kind where I'm concerned? I know you'll say so, but have you? You'd say anything to anyone, but, all the same, I've a feeling somewhere that, if I chose, I could have you on a little bit of string. I daren't ask you to come here again, I simply daren't; but, if you do come, mind you give me proper warning. What would you say if I ran up to town? Should I see Stella at the corner of every street? Sweet Stella! Aren't I a cat? I suppose you couldn't rob a bank or something? If you and I were starting off to-morrow together, ever so far, for ever so long-I dare not think of it, and that's the honest truth. Aren't I insane? No one but you would ever guess it. – M.

"Mind you tear this up the very moment you have read it, and you're to forget that you ever did read it!

"By the way, by which train did you go up on Sunday? You weren't sure that you could catch the Pullman, and, if you did miss it, did you go by the 9.10? In that case you must have been in the same train as your uncle. When I saw about it in the paper it gave me quite a shock. Fancy if he was in the next carriage to yours? I suppose the dear man hasn't left you a millionaire? If he only had! You would-wouldn't you?

"Tear it up!"

He had just finished reading this somewhat interjectional epistle when Miss Joyce came in, the bearer of his morning meal. He greeted her as if he were really pleased to see her.

"The top of the morning to you, Baby! How moves the world your way? Do you feel like dancing on your pink toes?"

When he called her Baby, the pet name he had for her, she glanced up at him, almost as if she were startled.

"Did you understand what I said to you last night?"

"Perfectly; I've been thinking it all over, and I've come to a decision. I think you're quite right in what you wish me to do. As this isn't Leap Year, let me regularise the position. Mabel, I would like you to be my wife. Will you take me for your husband?"

"You say that because you know you can't help yourself."

"You are mistaken. If I didn't want to be your husband, nothing you or anyone could say or do could make me, rest assured of that. I won't pretend that, if things had turned out differently, I-should have suggested it; but, as they are, please, Mabel, let me do the proposing-say you will be my wife."

"I'm going to be your wife; to-morrow, Thursday, at noon, and don't you make any mistake. There's the address of the registrar's office at which you're going to be married, and mind you're there to time."

"Baby-you are only a baby, after all-don't talk like that; don't let's enter the matrimonial state as if we wished to cut each other's throats; let's start afresh on the old terms. I hope that when we're being married you won't have those white cheeks and unhappy eyes, or the registrar will think that I'm frightening you into being my bride, and you know that will be wrong."

"Rodney, do you care for me a little bit?"

"My dear Mabel, I care for you in an altogether different fashion from that which you suppose, as I hope to be able to prove to you before very long. Come, let's be friends."

"Don't touch me-don't! Mother's waiting for me. She wants me for something; she told me not to be long. I-I want to speak to you before I go. I-I want to warn you against Mr. Dale."

"You said something to that effect last night. Is Mr. Dale so dangerous?"

"He's jealous of you."

"Well, does that constitute him dangerous?"

"He always has been throwing out nasty hints about you."

"To whom? Surely not to you? You wouldn't listen to what you yourself call nasty hints about me coming from a man like Dale?"

"It wasn't so much that I listened as that he was always at it whenever he came near me. I couldn't stop him. I suppose that my asking him about your going to Brighton on Sunday, and my going to the inquest, and such-like, made him-made him-"

"Yes? Made him what?"

"Started him thinking. Anyhow, he's-he's been finding out things, and-I don't know that he hasn't found out. You take care of him!"

"My dear Mabel, in what sense am I to take care of him? I'm inclined to think that I should rather like to have a talk with your friend Mr. Dale."

"You'll do no good by that."

"Shan't I? We'll see. Where is he to be found-in the booking office at Victoria Station?"

"One week he goes early and comes back about six; the next he has his dinner first and doesn't come back till after one-this is his late week. He hasn't had his breakfast yet; he's still up in his room."

"Is that so? I'm afraid I can't stop to talk to him just now, but I certainly will take the first chance which offers."

"Don't you say anything to him to make him nasty!"

A feminine voice was heard calling the young lady's name. "There's mother calling. She'll give me a talking to! Mind, to-morrow at noon; and there's the address upon that piece of paper."

"My dear Mabel, I'm making arrangements which will permit of my placing the whole of to-morrow at your service. I promise that you shall have something like a wedding day."

When the lady had gone the gentleman poured himself out a cup of coffee with the air of one who was in the enjoyment of an excellent joke. He propped Miss Carmichael's letter up against the coffee-pot and read it through again. The second reading seemed to add to his sense of enjoyment.

"Rob a bank? Quite as heinous crimes have been committed for the sake of a woman. I've always had a kind of fancy that you're the type of girl for whom it would be worth one's while to do such things. If I were to ask you to start upon that little trip at which you hint, I wonder what you'd say-if you knew. Hullo! what's this?"

He was staring at a sheet of paper which he had taken out of one of the three or four envelopes which were lying on the table. On it were a couple of typewritten lines:

"If you take a friend's advice you will get clean away while you have still a chance."

He regarded the words as if in doubt as to whether they were intended to convey to him an esoteric meaning.

"No signature, no address, no date; the first anonymous communication I ever have been favoured with. Postmark on the envelope, Kew, dispatched from there last night at eight o'clock, which doesn't convey much intelligence to me. So far as I'm aware I have no acquaintance who resides at Kew; and I suppose an anonymous correspondent, if he had his head screwed on, is scarcely likely to reside in the district from which he sends his letter. It's very good of a friend to make a friendly suggestion, but quite what he means I do not know; nor have I the very dimmest notion who the friend may be. Come in!"

Someone had tapped at the door. In response to his invitation a young man entered of about his own age; not tall, but sturdily built, with close-cut black hair, small dark eyes, and a somewhat voluminous moustache. There was that in his manner which hinted that he was in a state of some excitement; that, indeed, he was an excitable young man. He came right up to the table, with a billycock hat in one hand and a bamboo cane in the other. He looked at Elmore with what were scarcely friendly eyes. When he spoke it was in what evidently were lowered tones and with a curious, staccato utterance, as if he wished to throw his words into the other's face.

"You'll have to excuse my coming in like this, but I'm going out, and I want to speak to you before I do go."

"That's very good of you. I believe you are Mr. Dale."

"My name is Dale-George Dale, as you very well know."

"Pray sit down, Mr. Dale. I don't remember to have had the pleasure of being introduced to you before."

"Thanking you all the same, I won't sit down, and as to being introduced to you, I never have been. It's only for your sake I'm speaking to you now. I want to ask you a question to begin with."

"Ask it, Mr. Dale."

"What are your intentions as regards Miss Joyce?"

"Really, Mr. Dale, I don't know if you are joking in putting such a question. If you aren't I certainly don't know what you mean."

Rodney smiled at his visitor pleasantly; but the smile, instead of affording Mr. Dale gratification, not only caused his scowl to deepen, but induced him to use language of unexpected vigour.

"You're a liar! That's what you are-a liar! You're a liar, because you know quite well what I mean. I'm not afraid of you. You're a bigger man than I am, but I can use the gloves. You wouldn't knock me out so easy as you think. I'd mark you first! But I haven't come here to fight you."

"That, at least, is gratifying intelligence, Mr. Dale."

"Oh, you can sneer-you're one of the sneering sort; but sneers won't do you any good. You take my tip and get as far away from this as you can-out of England, if you can! – between now and this time to-morrow!"

Rodney regarded his visitor with an air of placid amusement, which certainly did not seem to have a soothing effect.

"Mr. Dale, am I indebted to you for this?"

He held out the sheet of paper on which were the two typewritten lines. Mr. Dale eyed it askance.

"What's that? Where did you get it from?"

"It came by this morning's post-from you?"

"That I'll swear it never did; what's more, I don't know who it does come from. That looks as if there were more than one in it. I'll commit myself to nothing. I've got myself to think of as well as you; but, although this didn't come from me, and I don't know anything at all about it, you do what it says here-get clean away while you have still a chance."

Without another word, or giving Rodney a chance to utter one, Mr. Dale bolted from, rather than left, the room; within ten seconds of his going the slamming of the front door announced that he had left the house. For some seconds Elmore sat still; then, getting up from his chair, began to fill a pipe with tobacco. Miss Joyce put her head into the room, noiselessly, unexpectedly, as she seemed to have a trick of doing.

"Was that Mr. Dale? I thought it might be you. Has he been in here?"

"He has. You come in and take away the breakfast things; I've had all I want to eat."

Coming in, she began to do as he had said, talking, as she put the things together, in a half whisper which recalled Mr. Dale's staccato undertones. It seemed to be a house of whispers.

"What did he say to you?"

"He came to offer me a tip."

"A tip?"

"He said that if I took his tip I shouldn't stand upon the order of my going, but go at once, and go as far as possible between now and to-morrow."

She put both hands to her left side, as if unconscious that she had a plate in one and a teaspoon in the other.

"Rodney! Then-then-what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"But if he tells?"

"Tells what?"

"He said to me last night that if anyone knows that-that someone has killed a person, and doesn't at once inform the police, that's being an accessory after the fact."

"Well? He was merely acquainting you with what I take is a legal truism."

"Then he said that, whatever I might choose to do, he did not mean to be an accessory, either before the fact or after. Then he looked at me in such a way-I knew what he meant-and he went right off to bed without saying another word."

"What had you been talking about?"

"About-your uncle."

"Had he introduced the subject or had you?"

"He had; he would keep talking about it. Rodney, he knows, and-he's going to tell."

"Then, in that case, it looks as if you will gain little by becoming my wife, and that I shall gain nothing."

"Rodney, I want you to get out of your head what I said the other night. I don't want to force you to marry me, and I never did."

"Then you've rather an unfortunate way of expressing yourself, don't you think so, my dear Mabel?"

"I-I didn't know how else to do what I wanted to do. It's quite true that if I'm not going to be your wife I'll kill myself; but that doesn't matter-I'd just as soon die as live. But I do want to save you, and the only way I can do it is for you to marry me."

"That may keep you from playing the tell-tale, but how is it going to affect Mr. Dale?"

"He won't tell if I'm your wife."

"Won't he? Why? I should have thought, if your story's correct, that he'd have told all the more, that disappointment would have inflamed him to madness."

Rodney, as he said this, struck a match to light his pipe, and laughed. Nothing could have seemed less like laughter than the girl's white face and haunted eyes.

"He'd tell to keep me from being your wife, but if I were your wife he'd never tell. I know him; he'd suffer anything rather than do anything which would give me pain or bring me to shame; if I were your wife he'd never tell. You're a gentleman, Rodney, and I'm not a lady, and I don't suppose I ever shall be; I'm just a girl who has let you do what you like with her, and you're cleverer than I am-much, much cleverer; but, in this, do be advised by me-do, dear, do! There is something here, something which makes me sure that the only way out of it, for you, is for you to make me your wife. I know you don't want to do it, that you never meant to do it, and I can quite understand why; but you'd better have me for your wife than-than that; don't you see, dear, that you had? I shan't be able to tell, and George Dale won't, and no one else knows, and instead of trying to find out more he'll keep others from finding out anything; he'll be on your side instead of against you, for my sake. Rodney, I implore you-for your own sake, dear, your own sake! – to do as you promised, and marry me."

She pleaded to be allowed to save his life as if she were pleading for her own life. He turned to shake the ash from his pipe into the fender, and so remained, for some moments, with his back to her; while her eyes looked as if they were crying out to him. When he turned to her again he was pressing the tobacco down into his pipe before restoring it to his lips, smiling as he looked at her.

"My dear Mabel, I'm not certain that I follow your reasoning, but do make your mind easy; I've promised to marry you to-morrow, and I will-on the stroke of noon-to the tick, for my sake as well as for yours. And, though the fates don't seem over propitious at the moment, I dare say we shall be quite as happy as the average married folk-at least, I'll marry you."

"You mean it?"

"I do-unreservedly; please understand that once more, and once for all. You shall have something like a wedding day."

"I wish-I wish it were to-day; I'm afraid-of what may happen-before to-morrow."

"Of whatever you may be afraid, I'm afraid that it couldn't be to-day. It's my uncle's funeral to-day."

"Rodney! You-you're not going!"

"I am; as chief mourner."

"Rodney, you-you can't do a thing like that! You-you mustn't!"

As she spoke an elderly woman came into the room, of a somewhat portly presence-the lady's mother. Seemingly she was in a mood to be garrulous.

"What mustn't he do? Excuse me, Mr. Elmore, for coming in like this, but really, Mabel, I don't know what you are thinking about. I'm sure Mr. Elmore wants to go to his business, and here's all the work at a standstill-"

"All right, mother; Mr. Elmore doesn't want to hear you grumbling at me, I know."

Without waiting for her mother to continue her observations, Miss Joyce bustled out of the room with the breakfast tray in her hands. Left alone with him, the landlady addressed her lodger.

"What's the matter with the girl I can't think; I never saw anything like the change that's come over her the last few days; she looks more fit for a hospital than anything else-and her temper! She never says anything to me; I suppose you don't know what's wrong?"

"Mrs. Joyce, I'm not your daughter's confidant; she certainly says nothing to me in the sense you mean. Why do you take it for granted that anything's wrong?"

"Because I've got two eyes in my head, that's why. She's not the same girl she was; that something's wrong I'm certain sure; but she snaps my nose off directly I open my mouth. I know she thinks a lot of you. I wondered if she'd said anything to you."

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then I can't understand the girl, and that's flat!"

With that somewhat cryptic utterance Mrs. Joyce went out of the room as impetuously as she had entered. Rodney stood looking at the door for a moment or two, as if in doubt whether she would return. He tore the sheet of paper on which were the two typewritten lines into tiny scraps and dropped them into the fireplace. Re-reading Miss Carmichael's epistle, he obeyed her injunctions, a little tardily, perhaps, and sent the fragments after the others, repeating to himself as he did so a line from an old song:

"Of all the girls that are so sweet!"

Then he took an oblong piece of paper out of a letter-case and studied it.

"'Steamship Cedric. – John Griffiths, passenger to New York, cabin forty-five, berth A.' I wonder if it will be occupied, or if the money's wasted. That's for to-morrow, or is it to be Buenos Ayres on Friday, or New York on Saturday?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows if it is to be either?"

He had left the house and was descending the steps when a telegraph boy approached, with a yellow envelope in his hand.

"Who's it for?" he asked.

"Rodney Elmore, sir."

"I am Rodney Elmore. Wait and see if there's an answer."

The telegram which the envelope contained was a lengthy one; it covered the whole of the pink slip of paper. He read it through once, then again. As he read it the second time he whistled, very softly, as if unconsciously, the opening bars of "Sally in Our Alley."

"There is an answer. Give me a form."

He spread the form the boy gave him out upon his letter-case, then he seemed to consider what to say; then read the telegram he had received a third time, as if in search of light and leading. Arriving at a sudden decision, he wrote on the form the name and address of the person to whom the message was to be sent, and then one word, "Right." He added nothing which would show who the sender was; evidently he took it for granted that it would be recognised that the message came from him. As he watched the lad mount his bicycle and pedal away, he said to himself, always with that characteristic air of his, as of one who appreciates a capital jest:

"That settles it! Now the plot does begin to thicken."

CHAPTER XXI

THE DEAD MAN'S LETTER

The final understanding had been that those who were to go to the bank, in order that arrangements might be made which would give them immediate access to the funds of the late Graham Patterson, were to meet at the office in St. Paul's Churchyard. On the way to the City Rodney paid two or three calls. When he entered the office the outer rooms were empty; there was a notice on the outer door to the effect that business was suspended on account of Mr. Patterson's funeral. Mr. Andrews came out of what had been the late proprietor's own sanctum to greet him.

"Mr. Wilkes is here, Mr. Elmore, and particularly wishes to see you."

Rodney said nothing, but his look suggested that he resented something which he noticed in the other's manner, as well as the fact that he had come out of that particular room. Passing on in silence to the private office, he found Mr. Wilkes seated, not in his uncle's own chair, as he had been on Monday, but in one close to it. He did not rise as the young man entered, but contented himself with nodding slightly. Rodney, scenting something antagonistic in the other's presence there as well as in his attitude, did not even nod. He marched straight to the chair behind the writing-table, which he chose now to regard as his own, and which was within a yard of that on which the other was seated, and, remaining standing himself, looked down on the lawyer.