"if you only knew the life that man has led--the misery he hascaused, the horrors that are traceable to his vile diabolical plots. Myfather and mother are only two of his many victims. He is a man Idread. I am not a coward, no one can call me that, but--but I fear DagoPaulton--I fear him terribly." She was trembling in my arms, thoughwhether through fear, or only from emotion, I could not say. Nor couldI think of any apt words which might soothe her, except to say--
"Leave him to me, dearest. Yet from what you tell me," I said after apause, "I can only suppose that some one is--how shall I put it?--goingto encompass Paulton's death."
"Who knows?" she asked vaguely, looking up into my eyes.
I shrugged my shoulders, but said nothing. There was nothing I couldsay. This much I had suspected at any rate--Paulton had beenresponsible for the chauffeur's death--or Vera believed him to havebeen.
When I left my beloved late that night, and returned to King Street, Iwas not satisfied with my discoveries. So many mysteries still remainedunsolved. What was the danger that had threatened her when she had rungme up at my flat, and begged me to help her? Where had she beenstaying? What danger threatened her now? What hold had the man Paultonover her, and why did she fear to disobey him? Most perplexing of all--what was her father's secret, and why had he fled from Houghton?
There were many minor problems, too, which still needed solution. Whowas Davies; what was his true name, and why was he so intimate with SirCharles?
Again I seemed to see that curious stain on the ceiling of the room inBelgrave Street, and once more I wondered what had caused it. It mightbe, of course, merely a stain caused by some leaking pipe, and yet--
I thought of that remarkable conversation I had heard in the hall of theunoccupied house. What had they meant when they said they must "bringVera to her senses"? Also, why had they seemed averse from calling in adoctor to see the old man Taylor, and to--
Taylor! I had been so much engrossed with Vera and her bondage ofterror for the past few hours that I had forgotten all about him.Taylor. Had he recovered consciousness, I wondered, or had he--
A cold shiver ran through me as this last thought occurred to me.
It must have been quite two o'clock in the morning before I fell asleep.I am not an early riser, and my first feeling when I was awakened byJohn shaking me rather roughly, was one of annoyance. With difficulty Iroused myself thoroughly. My servant was standing by the bedside,looking very pale.
"There are two police-officers downstairs," he said huskily. "They havecome--they say they have come, sir--"
"Well, out with it," I exclaimed wrathfully, as he checked himselfabruptly. "What have they come for? Do they want to see me?"
He braced himself with an effort--
"They say, sir," he answered, "that--that they've come to arrest you!It is something to do, I think, with some old man who's been found deadin an unoccupied 'ouse."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
CONTAINS SOME STRANGE NEWS.
My heart seemed to stop beating. Old Taylor, then, was dead, and I satup in bed, staring straight before me.
For nearly a minute I did not speak. All the time I felt John's calmgaze, puzzled, inquisitive, fixed upon me. I had gone through enoughunhappiness during these past weeks to last me a lifetime, but all thatI had endured would be as nothing by comparison with this. I could notblind myself to one fact--I had poisoned old Taylor deliberately. HadI, by some hideous miscalculation, the result of ignorance, overdosedhim, and brought his poor old life to a premature end? I might becharged with manslaughter. Or worse!
Why! I might be convicted of murder. I might even be hanged! The grimthought held me breathless.
And Vera--my thoughts fled to her at once--what would become of Vera?Even if I were only imprisoned, and only for a short spell, Vera wouldhave none to look to for help, none to defend her. She would be at themercy of her persecutors! I think that thought appalled me even morethan the thought that I might be tried for manslaughter or murder.
"Oh," I said at last to John, "it's some mistake. The police have madesome grotesque blunder. You had better show them up, and I will talk tothem."
No blunder had been made, and I knew it.
I must say that I was surprised at the officers' extreme courtesy.Seeing they were about to arrest me on suspicion of having caused aman's death, their politeness, their consideration for my feelings, hada touch of irony.
They waited while I had my bath and dressed. Then we all drove togetherto the police-station, chatting quite pleasantly on topics of passinginterest. At the police-station my name and address and many otherparticulars, were taken down in writing. With the utmost gravity apompous inspector asked me "what birthmarks I possessed, if any," andvarious other questions ending with "if any." I wondered whether,before he had done, he would ask me my sex--if any.
Nearly a month dragged on--days of anxiety, which seemed years, and Ihad had no word from Vera!
I shall never forget that trial--never.
My opinion of legal procedure, never high, sank to zero before the trialat the London Sessions ended. The absurdity of some of the questionsasked by counsel; the impossible inferences drawn from quite ordinaryoccurrences; the endless repetitions of the same questions, but indifferent sets of words; the verbal quibbling and juggling; thetransposing of statements made in evidence and conveying a meaningobvious to the lowest intelligence; the pathos indulged in when the oldman's end came to be described; the judge's weak attempts at beingwitty; the red-tapeism; the unpardonable waste of time--and of publicmoney. No, I shall never forget those days.
It lasted from Monday till Thursday, and during those four days I spenteleven hours in the witness-box. Ah! what a tragic farce. I receivedanonymous letters of encouragement, and, of course, some offensiveletters. I even received a proposal of marriage from a forward minx,who admitted that though still at school, in Blackheath, she had "readevery word of the trial," that she "kept a dear portrait" of me, cut outof the _Daily Mirror_, under her pillow at night. I felt I must indeedhave reached the depths of ignominy when my hand was sought in matrimonyby an emotional Blackheath flapper. A pretty flapper, I admit. Shesent me five cabinet portraits of herself, in addition to a miniature ofherself as a baby. Phew! What are our young people coming to?
Well, in the end I was acquitted, and told that I might leave the Courtwithout a stain upon my character.
Certainly that was in a sense gratifying. In the face of acrobaticverbal feats Counsel representing the Director of Public Prosecutionshad indulged in during the trial, I felt that anything might havehappened, and was fully prepared to be branded a felon for life. Thedrug, the jury decided, had been administered without any intentionwhatever to do more than send the old man to sleep for an hour or so,and an analysis of the tea left in the cup proved beyond a doubt, thatthis tea could not possibly have caused death, which had been due toheart-failure. I had been traced, it seemed, by my gloves and umbrellaleft in the old man's room. Other details--long-winded ones--I need notdescribe.
The problem now was, what to do next. My name, Richard Ashton, hadbecome a sort of butt. Everybody knew it, had seen it in print twentytimes during the past week. Mentioned by the comedian in a music-hall,it at once created laughter. I laughed myself--not uproariously, Iadmit--when a comedian at the Alhambra compared me to an albatross,thereby causing the entire audience to shake with merriment, and astranger to turn to me with the remark--
"Richard Ashton! What a Nut, eh?"
Now the vulgar term "Nut" was in its infancy then, and new to me. Ipawed the air in a vain endeavour to grasp the point of comparing mefirst to an albatross, and then to a nut. Nuts don't grow on ash trees,or I might have thought the "ash" of "Ashton" bore some kind ofrelationship to a nut. Finally I gave it up, convinced that I must bedeficient in a sense of humour.
Meanwhile, my beloved had disappeared. To my chagrin I ascertained atthe hotel at Hampstead that a man had called on the day fol
lowing myarrest, and that she had gone away with him, taking all her luggage.
A description of the man failed to help me to identify him. From it Idecided, however, that it was not Sir Charles who had called for Vera,nor yet the mysterious Smithson. My natural inference, therefore, wasthat the fellow Paulton had discovered her hiding-place, and compelledher to go away with him.
I tried hard to put into practice my theory that it is useless to worryabout anything, and for some days I remained passive, watching, however,the advertisement columns in the principal daily newspapers, for duringour evening at the hotel, Vera had incidentally remarked that she had,while at Brighton, advertised for a bracelet she had lost, and by thatmeans recovered it. I advertised for news of her. But there was noresponse.
On the Sunday, having nothing particular to do, I looked in
The Mysterious Three Page 13