A Master of Deception

"Dear Mrs. Joyce, – I'm off, to another world-the world beyond the grave. I'm more of a coward than I thought; and yet I don't know that it's quite that. I have tried to cut my throat in bed-your bed; but my hand bungled. I have made rather a mess-and then I stopped. It seemed rather a pity to spoil your bedclothes, and I did not like to feel the razor. I am going to do it another way-outside your house, in a place I know of, where I hope no one will ever find me. I want no coroner to sit upon my body, and I want no jury to make me the subject of their silly verdicts.

"I have heaps of reasons-I dare say you'll hear enough about them before long. I'd rather you heard of them than other people heard of them, when I am not here. It is because I am so anxious that the hearing should take place behind my back that I am going. I don't quite know what I owe you, but I believe I'm a little in arrears. You'll find ten pounds on the table; it should more than pay you, and even make up for the week's notice which I have not given. All my possessions that I leave behind-and there are quite a number of decent suits of clothes-are yours. Do as you like with them. If you sell them, and get the price you ought to get, you should not do badly.

"Tell everybody what I have told you, and, if you like, show them this letter. You have not been a bad landlady; I don't suppose I shall be better suited where I am going; nor have I been a bad lodger; if you get a better you'll be in luck.

"Say good-bye to Mabel. There is a portrait of a kind in the locket which you will find near this envelope. I think I should like her to have it, as one to whom I am indebted for many favours. – Your one-time lodger,

"Rodney Elmore.

"Do you think I shall find it lonely where I am going? I wonder!"

The girl, having read this letter to the end, caught up an old-fashioned locket; doubtless the one referred to. Opening it, there looked out at her the young man's face-a miniature, not ill-done. She pressed it to her lips, not once, nor twice, but again and again and again. Then, shutting it, slipped it inside her blouse. She gave another rapid glance about the room, moved hither and thither as if to make sure that there was nothing left which might tell more than need be told; then, passing hastily from the room, went not downstairs to her mother but upstairs to the lodger overhead. At his door she also knocked. Response was instant.

"Who's there? Come in!"

She went in. Mr. Dale was sitting up in bed She stayed close to the door.

"He's gone!" she said.

Mr. Dale, although he seemed but recently roused from sleep, seemed to grasp her meaning in a moment.

"Gone where?"

"He's left this."

She tossed the letter she had been reading so dexterously that it fell just before him on the bed. He caught it up and read.

"What's it mean?" he asked. She seemed to consider for a moment.

"You know as well as I do."

"I suppose I do-when you come to think of it. He's a beauty-a shining star!" He stared at the letter. "What does he mean?"

"At any rate, he means one thing-he's gone." Mr. Dale leaned back, looking at the girl as if he were endeavouring to find something on her face which should give him a hint what to say next. When he spoke again it was slowly, as if he measured his words; yet bitterly, as if behind them was a meaning which scarcely jumped to the eye.

"Look here, Mabel, this isn't going to be an easy thing to do. I'm going to have all my work cut out if it's to be managed. You know what I mean by managed. And, as I'm alive, I don't want to do it for nothing-and I don't mean to."

"What do you mean?"

"If the tale's not to be told-you know what tale-it must be on terms. I won't ask what this chap's been to you, because I believe I know. He's been-a blackguard; that's what he's been to you; and, on my word I believe you women like a man who's a blackguard. But I don't want to talk about that now."

"I shouldn't, especially as I expect mother will be calling me before you've done."

The shade of sarcasm in the girl's tone made the man regard her with knitted brows.

"Never you mind about your mother; I know all about her. For once in your life you'll just listen to me. Mr. Rodney Elmore has gone, vanished from the scene-he's dead; here's this letter to prove it to anyone who doubts it." The speaker grinned. "I'm not dead; I'm alive-very much alive; and I want you to take a particular note of that."

"Do you think I don't know that you're alive?"

Mr. Dale's tone grew suddenly fierce.

"I haven't got Mr. Rodney Elmore's pretty tone, nor his pretty manners, nor his pretty words; but I do care for you." He laughed. "Care for you! Why, I'd eat the dirt you walk on; and you've made me do it more than once. Mabel, if I keep my mouth shut, and get others to keep theirs shut, will you stop treating me as if I were dirt, and treat me as if I were a man?"

"I'll treat you as you like; I'll do whatever you like; I'll be your slave, if-if you do that."

She stood close up against the door, with both hands pressed against her breast, and her words seemed to come from her in gasps. As he saw that in very truth she suffered, his whole bearing underwent a sudden change. He all at once grew tender.

"Mabel, I'll make no bargain; I'll do it-for your sake; and-I'll trust to you for my reward."

With odd suddenness she turned right round, so that her back was towards him, and her face pressed against the panel of the door. Her pain seemed to hurt him.

"For God's sake don't-don't do that! I'd rather-do what he's only pretended to do than give you pain. Cheer up-just try hard to cheer up, if it's only just enough to help you to know what ought to be done next."

The suggestion affected her in a fashion which perhaps took him a little aback. She turned again as suddenly as she had done before, this time towards him. Her eyes blazed; the words came swiftly from her lips.

"Do you think that I don't know what I'm going to do next? Do you think it hasn't been in my mind all night? Why, I've got it all cut, and planned, and dried. Leave that to me; all I want is for you to see" – her voice fell-"the tale's not told."

"It sha'n't be if I can help it; and I think I can."

The words still came swiftly from her.

"Say nothing to mother, say nothing to anyone; leave me to do all the telling-you know nothing; that's all you've got to know. You understand?"

His voice as he replied was grim.

"Oh, yes, I understand."

"Then, for the present, it's good-bye."

She opened the door. He checked her.

"I shall see you to-night when I come in."

"You shall; if-if nothing's been told."

She went from the room to her own on the landing below, put on her hat, her coat, and her gloves, and went quickly down the stairs. Seldom was a pretty girl ready more quickly for the street. She already had the front door open when her mother called to her.

"Mabel, what to goodness is the matter with you? Where are you going?"

The girl seemed for a moment to be in doubt whether or not to let her mother's question go unheeded; then decided to vouchsafe her at least some scraps of information.

"Mother, I believe Mr. Elmore's gone."

"Gone? Mr. Elmore? What's the girl talking about?"

"His bedroom's empty, and there's ten pounds on the dressing-table, and I'm going straight off to the City to see."

"To the City!"

The astonishment of the lady's voice was justified; she came quickly along the passage as if to learn what might be the significance of the mystery which she felt was in the air. But her daughter did not wait for her approach; she was through the door, had shut it with a bang, before her mother had realised what it was she meant to do.

Miss Joyce did not go to the City; she went instead to No. 90, Russell Square. There she inquired for Miss Patterson. She was told the lady was at breakfast.

"Tell her-tell her that I'm Miss Joyce, and that I must see her-at once."

She was in the hall, and looked so strange as she leaned against the wall, with her white face and frightened eyes, that the maid looked at her as if she could not make her out at all.

"Miss Joyce, did you say the name was?"

"Yes-Joyce-Mabel Joyce; tell Miss Patterson that Miss Joyce must see her at once."

The maid went into a room upon the right-the dining-room-presently reappeared, with Miss Patterson behind her. Gladys came out into the hall.

"Miss Joyce! You wish to see me? On what business?"

"Somewhere-somewhere where we'll be private."

Gladys observed her with curious eyes; then she held open the dining-room door.

"I'm at breakfast; but, if you don't mind, you'd better come in here."

Mabel went in, Gladys followed. The stranger, now that they were alone, presented such a woebegone picture that, in spite of herself, Gladys was moved.

"You don't seem well-are you ill? Hadn't you better sit down? – here's a chair."

She pushed the chair towards her visitor, but Mabel would none of it.

"No, it doesn't matter, I'd-I'd rather stand. My mother was Mr. Elmore's-landlady."

"Joyce? Oh, yes, of course, I thought I knew the name; I remember." Perhaps unconsciously to herself, Gladys's tone hardened; she drew herself a little straighter, she even moved a little away. In spite of her obvious trouble, Mabel noticed.

"You needn't be afraid of me-I shan't bite."

"I was not afraid that you would bite. What is it you wish with me, Miss Joyce?"

"That."

She stretched out towards the other a letter. Gladys eyed it askance, almost, one might have thought from her demeanour, that she feared that it might bite.

"What's that?"

"If you take it-you'll see. You're right this time in being afraid; you've cause to be more afraid of that than of me. But it's written by somebody you know well, and-you'd better read it."

Still doubtfully, as if she really were in awe of what the sheet of paper might portend, she took it gingerly from the other's fingers. Then she read it. And as she read, a curious change came over, not only her countenance, but her whole bearing. When she had reached the end her hands dropped to her side, she stared at the girl in front of her as she might have done at a visitant from another sphere.

"What-does this letter mean?"

For answer, Mabel took another piece of paper from that woman's universal pocket-her blouse. She held it out to Gladys, and, even more cautiously than before, Gladys took it with unwilling fingers. This time, as she read it, it was with an obvious lack of comprehension.

"What on earth is this?"

"Can't you see? Isn't it plain enough? It's a marriage licence-now can you see?"

Gladys seemed to make an effort to achieve steadiness, not with entire success. As if to hide her partial failure, she went down the room to the seat which she had been occupying at the other end of the table. Resting her hand on the top of the chair, raising the paper again, she re-read it. Her back was towards Mabel, her face could not have been more eloquent, one saw a spasm pass right across it. She was still; there was a perceptible interval; she turned towards her visitor. Her face seemed to have aged; one saw that as she grew older she would not grow better-looking.

"I see that this purports to be a licence of marriage-I don't know much about these things, but I take it that the marriage was to be before a registrar-between Rodney Elmore, who, I presume, is my cousin-"

"He's your cousin right enough."

"And-Mabel Joyce. Are you the Mabel Joyce referred to?"

"I am; we were to have been married to-day-at noon sharp; the registrar-he'll be waiting for us, but he'll have to wait. Mr. Rodney Elmore, that's your cousin and my husband that was to be, he's bolted."

"Bolted? I see. Is that what this letter means?"

"That's just exactly what it means."

"It doesn't mean that-he's-he's killed himself?"

"Not much it doesn't; I know the gentleman. It simply means that, for reasons of his own-I'm one of them and I daresay you're another-he's cut and run."

Gladys's tone could scarcely have been more frigid or her bearing more outwardly calm; unfortunately both the frigidity and the calmness were a little overdone.

"I see. I'm much obliged to you for bringing me-this very interesting piece of news. I believe this is yours. I scarcely think I need detain you longer."

She returned to Mabel both the licence and the letter. Enclosing them one in the other, the girl passed from the room out of the house. Gladys stood staring at the door through which she had left, exactly, if she could only have known it, as Rodney had stared when she had vanished the afternoon before. Then she clenched her fists and shook them in the air.

"To think that I should ever have been such a fool! That I should ever have let him-soil me with his touch! Dad was right; what a fool he must have thought me! If I'd only listened, what might not-have been saved!"

Shortly afterwards she entered the office at St. Paul's Churchyard. Andrews advanced to greet her.

"Mr. Elmore has not yet arrived."

"I know he hasn't; I wish to speak to you."

She led the way towards her father's private room; as he followed Andrews seemed to recognise something in her carriage which recalled his master. There could be no doubt that this was his daughter. When they were in the room and the door was closed, Miss Patterson seated herself in her father's chair. She looked the managing man in the face, with something in her glance which again recalled her sire. "Andrews, I suppose you can observe a confidence?"

Andrews smiled; he rubbed his hands together; one felt that he could not make out the lady's mood, still less achieve a satisfactory guess at what was in the air.

"I hope so, Miss Patterson, I'm sure. Your father reposed many and many a confidence in me, and I never betrayed one of them-I'm not likely now to betray yours."

"Right, Andrews, I believe you. I believe my father knew the kind of man who may be trusted; he trusted you, and I will. Shake hands." She offered him her hand. As if doubtful whether or not he was taking a liberty, he took it in his. They gravely shook hands.

"It's very good of you, Miss Patterson, I'm sure, to say so; but what you do say is true-your father trusted me, and so can you."

She eyed him for some seconds as if debating in her mind what to say to him and just how to say it. Then it came from her, as it were, all of a sudden.

"Andrews, I told you that my cousin, Rodney Elmore, and I were engaged to be married. I was mistaken-we are not. Stop! I don't want you to ask any questions; that's the confidence I'm reposing in you, I want you to ask none, I simply tell you we're not. Another thing. You told me when I came in just now that Mr. Elmore had not come yet. Andrews, he never will come again-to this office."

"Indeed, miss! Is that so, miss?"

The girl smiled-gravely.

"There, again, Andrews-my confidence! You are to ask no questions. Neither you nor I will see Mr. Elmore again-ever. Still one other thing. You remember what my father said in his will about leaving the conduct of his business in your hands? I echo my father's words; I want you to manage it for me on my father's lines."

The old man was evidently confused. He stood staring at the girl and rubbing his hands, as if he found himself in a quandary from which he sought a way out.

"I'm sure, Miss Patterson, that I'm very gratified by the confidence you place in me, and I want to do my best to ask no questions, but-but there's one remark I ought to make." He bent over the table as if he wished the remark in question to reach her ear alone. "I don't know, Miss Patterson, if you are aware that yesterday morning Mr. Elmore drew a thousand pounds from the bank."

"Yesterday morning? When did he do that? Not when we were there?"

"It appears that he returned directly after we had left, and cashed a cheque for a thousand pounds across the counter, took it in tens and fives and gold-rather a funny way of taking a cheque like that."

The girl said nothing; just possible she thought the more-it is still more possible that hers was disagreeable thinking. It came back to her; she understood; the letter-case which had been left behind; her sitting in the cab while he had gone into the bank to fetch it. Letter-case? So the letter-case was a cheque for a thousand pounds; and while she'd been sitting in the cab he had been putting her money into his pocket. What a pretty fellow this cousin was, this lover of-how many ages ago? Could she ever have cared, to say nothing of loved, a thing like this? This girl had a sense of humour which was her own; at the thought of it she smiled-indeed, suddenly she leaned back in her chair and laughed outright.

"Cashed a cheque for a thousand pounds, did he? Well, Andrews, dad left him nothing in his will-I wonder why. How funny! Then there's still another thing to tell you, Andrews. Let them understand at the bank, as quickly as you can, that they're not to cash any more of Mr. Elmore's cheques which are drawn on my account. Now, Andrews, will you be so very good as to send someone to Mr. Wilkes, and give him my most respectful compliments, and say, if he can possibly spare a moment, I should like very much indeed to see him here at once."

When Miss Joyce got home she found, waiting in the sitting-room which had so recently been Rodney's, Mr. Austin. The gentleman regarded her as she came in with an air of grave disapprobation.

"You are, I believe, the landlady's daughter."

Mabel nodded.

"I have just had a few words with your mother, who appears to be an extraordinary woman, and who has told me an extraordinary tale."

"My mother's not in the habit of telling extraordinary tales to anyone."

"Then, what does she mean by-by talking stuff and nonsense about Mr. Elmore's having gone, and-and I don't know what besides?"

Miss Joyce drew a long breath, and seemed to nerve herself for an effort. She had had a good deal to bear that morning, and to retain even a vestige of self-command needed all her efforts.

"Mr. Austin, Mr. Elmore has gone, and he's left a letter behind him in which he pretends that he has committed suicide; but he hasn't, I know better. But here's the letter; you might like to look at it."

He read the letter with which we are already familiar; and it had a very similar effect on him to that which it had had on others, only in his case he read it over and over again, as if to make sure that its meaning had not escaped him, yet that its meaning had escaped him his words made plain.

"You-you may understand this letter, young woman, but I certainly do not. What-what does this most extraordinary, and, as it seems to me, inconsequent, letter mean?"

"I'll tell you just as shortly as I can exactly what it means. And, perhaps, when I have told you you won't ask any more questions than you can conveniently help, because-I've had just about as much to bear as I can manage. Rodney Elmore-I'm not going to call him Mr. Elmore, I've as much right to call him Rodney as anybody in this world; he's got himself into a mess, and I'm one of them. Why, he promised to marry me to-day at twelve o'clock."

"He-promised! Young woman!"

"Here's the licence to prove it; but-I suppose he daren't face it; so he's gone, and he's done me, and I'm not the only one he's done. Has he done your daughter?"

"Your question, put in such a form, I entirely decline to answer."

"You needn't; I know. And, mind you, I don't believe he's gone alone either, wherever it is he has gone to. What's the name of that girl down at Brighton that he was so thick with, and your son's sweetheart?"

Mr. Austin started as if something had stung him. He stared at the girl with growing apprehension.

"You can't mean-?"

"Yes, I can. Wasn't her first name Mary? I have heard the other-it's a queer one-and I forget it. But you ask your son, if he cares for the girl, to make inquiries, and if she's missing, and he wants her new address, to find out Rodney Elmore's, and-he'll find hers."

CHAPTER XXVIII

A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

There are few worse half-hours in life than that in which a man finds that the one person whom he has liked, and respected, and trusted, and believed in before all others, is a scamp, a liar, and a cur. As Mr. Austin sat cowering in the corner of his cab it was to him almost as if he had been these things, instead of Rodney Elmore. He ascended the steps of the Kensington house a little stiffly, a little bowed, a little shorn of his full height; he bore himself, indeed, as if he were ashamed; it was with a sense of shame that he spoke to his son, who was apparently just about to go out as he went in.

"Tom, I want to speak to you."

The lad looked at his father with a look of surprise.

"Why, pater; what's wrong?"

The father closed the door of the room into which he had preceded his son. There was something shifty in his bearing; he seemed unwilling to meet the youngster's glances.

"Tom, what was that you were saying about-about Mary Carmichael?"

The lad smiled, ruefully enough; there was an awkwardness about his manner. He turned away, as if on his side he had no wish to meet his father's eyes.

"All I can make out is that she has gone. It seems that while that old aunt of hers was out yesterday afternoon-she vanished. She just left a note behind her to say that she was going, and that they weren't to bother, because she wasn't coming back; but they'd hear from her some day-she couldn't say just when."

"Tom, she's gone with Rodney Elmore."

The lad swung round as on a pivot.

"Pater! What do you mean?"

The father told the story as he knew it, the lad listening-first as one in a dream, and then as one in a rage. Then, with a gasp as of astonishment, he blurted out:

"But what about Stella?"

"Yes; what about Stella? Stella's here, and-why, where's Rodney? I thought, father, he'd come with you."

Miss Austin had come running into the room eagerly, happily, laughingly, taking it for granted that her lover was within. As she looked from her father to her brother, and noted the oddity of their manner, her eyes grew wider open.

"Father, where-where is Rodney?"

Then the father told the tale to her; it was the hardest task he had ever had to perform. The girl first scorned him, then laughed, then doubted, and then, in a fit of what was very like fury, announced her intention of going in search of Rodney, whom she declared she believed to be cruelly aspersed, and learning the truth from his own lips. It was with difficulty she was stayed. When she, at last, was brought to understand, she was already another Stella to the one her father had known. She was not to be comforted. And when her mother came, and heard the story, too, she put her arm about her daughter's waist and led her to her room, and there remained alone with her an hour or more. When she came out she also was another woman; and her daughter was in her room, alone.

And that, to all intents and purposes, so far as it is known, is the end of the story, though the real end is not yet. Such stories take a long time ending. Sometimes they are continued in the generation which comes after, and never end. Mr. Philip Walter Augustus Parker was tried for the murder of Graham Patterson, and, apparently to his complete satisfaction, was found guilty. The law plays such pranks oftener than is commonly supposed. The story he told was so well put together, all the joints fitted so well. As the judge instructed the jury they really had no option; on the evidence there was only one possible verdict; and that was returned. Mr. Parker earned his credentials; he was sent, as he desired, on a lengthy visit to Broadmoor. The whole story might have fallen to pieces and his visit to Broadmoor indefinitely postponed had the platform inspector at Brighton station-Edward Giles-given his evidence in another way. A few questions would have changed the whole face of affairs, but they were not asked. He told that it was he who had helped Graham Patterson into the carriage, and also that there already was someone in it when the dead man entered. At that point the questions which were put to him went awry. He was asked if the prisoner was that other person; he replied that he did not recognise him, but as, when the witness had entered the box, Mr. Parker had greeted him with that unpleasant little chuckle of his, and had proclaimed that he recognised him, even before he opened his mouth, as the porter, as he put it, who had been of assistance to Mr. Patterson, for the judge, as for the jury, that was sufficient. Giles himself was evidently taken aback, and while he declared that he did not recognise the prisoner, he admitted that if Parker had not been the man in the carriage, he could not understand how he recognised him. So Mr. Parker had his wish.