CHAPTER XXV
SOUTHBOURNE'S SUSPICIONS
"You! What had you to do with it?" I ejaculated.
"Well, Freeman was hunting on a cold scent; yearning to arrest some one,as they always do in a murder case. He'd thought of you, of course.Considering that you were on the spot at the time, I wonder he didn'tarrest you right off; but he had formed his own theory, as detectivesalways do, and in nine cases out of ten they're utterly wrong!"
"Do you know what the theory was?" I asked.
"Yes. He believed that the murder was committed by a woman; simplybecause a woman must have helped to ransack the rooms duringCassavetti's absence."
"How did he know that?"
"How did you know it?" he counter-queried.
"Because he told me at the time that a woman had been in the rooms,but he wouldn't say any more, except that she was red-haired, orfair-haired, and well dressed. I wondered how he knew that, but hewouldn't tell me."
"He has never told me," Southbourne said complacently. "Though I guessedit, all the same, and he couldn't deny it, when I asked him. She droppedhairpins about, or a hairpin rather,--women always do when they'reagitated,--an expensive gilt hairpin. That's how he knew she wascertainly fair-haired, and probably well dressed."
I remembered how, more than once, I had picked up and restored to Annea hairpin that had fallen from her glorious hair. Jim and Mary Cayleyhad often chaffed her about the way she shed her hairpins around.
"What sort of hairpins?" I asked.
"A curved thing. He showed it me when I bowled him out about them. Iknow the sort. My wife wears them,--patent things, warranted not to fallout, so they always do. They cost half a crown a packet in thatquality."
I knew the sort, too, and knew also that my former suspicion was now acertainty. Anne had been to Cassavetti's rooms that night; thoughnothing would ever induce me to believe she was his murderess.
"Well, I fail to see how that clue could have led him to me," I said,forcing a laugh. I didn't mean to let Southbourne, or any one else,guess that I knew who that hairpin had belonged to.
"It didn't; it led him nowhere; though I believe he spent several daysgoing round the West End hairdressers' shops. There's only one of them,a shop in the Haymarket, keeps that particular kind of hairpin, and theysnubbed him; they weren't going to give away their clients' names. Andthere was nothing in the rooms to give him a clue. All Cassavetti'sprivate papers had been carried off, as you know. Then there was theold Russian you told about at the inquest. He seems to have vanished offthe face of the earth; for nothing has been seen or heard of him. So,as I said, Freeman was on a cold scent, and thought of you again. Hecame to me, ostensibly on other business. I'd just got the wire fromPetersburg--Nolan of _The Thunderer_ sent it--saying you'd walked out ofyour hotel three nights before, and hadn't been seen or heard of since.It struck me that the quickest way to trace you, if you were still aboveground, was to set Freeman on your track straight away. So I told him atonce of your disappearance; and he started cross-questioning me, withthe result,--well--he went off eventually with the fixed idea that youwere more implicated in the murder than had appeared possible at thetime, and that your disappearance was in some way connected with it.Wait a bit,--let me finish! The next I heard was that he was off to St.Petersburg with an extradition warrant; and, from what he told me justnow, he was just in time. Yes, it was the quickest way; they'd neverhave released you on any other consideration!"
"No, I guess they wouldn't," I responded. "You've certainly done me agood turn, Lord Southbourne,--saved my life, in fact. But what aboutthis murder charge? Is it a farce, or what? You don't believe I murderedthe man, do you?"
"I? Good heavens, no! If I had I shouldn't have troubled to set Freemanon you," he answered languidly. I've met some baffling individuals, butnever one more baffling than Southbourne.
"As far as we are concerned it is a farce,--though he doesn't think itone. He imagines he's got a case after his own heart. To snatch a manout of the jaws of death, nurse him back to life, and hand him over tobe hanged; that's his idea of a neat piece of business. But it will beall right, of course. I doubt if you'll even be sent for trial; but ifyou are, no jury would convict you. Anyhow, I've sent for Sir GeorgeLucas,--he ought to be here directly,--and I've given him _carteblanche_, at my expense, of course; so if a defence is needed you'd havethe best that's to be got."
I began to stammer my thanks and protestations. I should never havedreamed of engaging the famous lawyer, who, if the matter did not proveas insignificant as Southbourne seemed to anticipate, and I had to standmy trial, would, in his turn, secure an equally famous K. C.,--a luxuryfar beyond my own means.
But Southbourne checked me at the outset.
"That's all right," he said in his lazy way. "I can't afford to lose agood man,--when there's a chance of saving him. I hadn't the chance withCarson; he was a good man, too, though he was a fool,--as you are! But,after all, it's the fools who rush in where angels fear to tread;therefore they're a lot more valuable in modern journalism than anyangel could be, when they survive their folly, as you have so far! andnow I want to know just what you were up to from the time you left yourhotel till you were handed over by the Russian authorities; that is, ifyou feel equal to it. If not, another time will do, of course."
I told him just as much--or as little--as I had already told Freeman. Hewatched me intently all the time from under his heavy lids, and noddedas I came to the end of my brief recital.
"You'll be able to do a good series; even if you're committed for trialyou'll have plenty of time, for the case can't come on till September.'The Red Terror in Russia' will do for the title; we'll publish it inAugust, and you must pile it on thick about the prison. It's always abit difficult to rake up sufficient horrors to satisfy the public in theholidays; what gluttons they are! But, look here, didn't I tell you notto meddle with this sort of thing?"
I had been expecting this all along, and was ready for it now.
"You did. But, as you've just said, 'Fools rush in,' etcetera. And I'mquite willing to acknowledge that there's a lot more of fool than angelin me."
"You're not fool enough to disobey orders without some strong motive,"he retorted. "So now,--why did you go to that meeting?"
I was determined not to tell him. Anne might be dead, or in a Russianprison, which was worse than death; at any rate nearly two thousandmiles of sea and land separated us, and I was powerless to aid her,--aspowerless as I had been while I lay in the prison of Peter and Paul. Butthere was one thing I could still do; I could guard her name, her fame.It would have been a desecration to mention her to this man Southbourne.True, he had proved himself my good and generous friend; but I knew himfor a man of sordid mind, a man devoid of ideals, a man who judgedeverything by one standard,--the amount of effective "copy" it wouldproduce. He would regard her career, even the little of it that wasknown to me, as "excellent material" for a sensational serial, which hewould commission one of his hacks to write. No, neither he nor any oneelse should ever learn aught of her from me; her name should never, if Icould help it, be touched and smirched by "the world's coarse thumb andfinger."
So I answered his question with a repetition of my first statement.
"I got wind of the meeting, and thought I'd see what it was like."
"Although I had expressly warned you not to do anything of the kind?"
"Well, yes; but still you usually give one a free hand."
"I didn't this time. Was the woman at the meeting?"
"What woman?" I asked.
"The woman whose portrait I showed you,--the portrait Von Eckhardt foundin Carson's pocket. Why didn't you tell me at the time that you knewher?"
"Simply because I don't know her," I answered, bracing up boldly for thelie.
"And yet she sat next to Cassavetti at the Savage Club dinner, an houror two before he was murdered; and you talked to her ratherconfidentially,--under the portico."
I tried bluff once more, though it doesn't c
ome easily to me. I lookedhim straight in the face and said deliberately:
"I don't quite understand you, Lord Southbourne. That lady at the HotelCecil was Miss Anne Pendennis, a friend of my cousin, Mrs. Cayley. Doyou know her?"
"Well--no."
"Then who on earth made you think she was the original of thatportrait?"
"Cayley the dramatist; he's your cousin's husband, isn't he? I showedthe portrait to him, and he recognized it at once."
This was rather a facer, and I felt angry with Jim!
"Oh, Jim!" I said carelessly. "He's almost as blind as a mole, and he'sno judge of likenesses. Why he always declares that Gertie Millar's theliving image of Edna May, and he can't tell a portrait of one from theother without looking at the name (this was quite true, and we had oftenchipped Jim about it). There was a superficial likeness of course; I sawit myself at the time."
"You didn't mention it."
"Why, no, I didn't think it necessary."
"And the initials?"
"A mere coincidence. They stand for Anna Petrovna. Von Eckhardt told methat. I saw him in Berlin. She's a well-known Nihilist, and the policeare after her in Russia. So you see, if you or any others are imaginingthere's any connection between her and Miss Pendennis, you're quitewrong."
"H'm," he said enigmatically, and I was immensely relieved that a warderopened the door at that moment and showed in Sir George Lucas.
"Oh, here you are, Lucas," said Southbourne, rising and shaking handswith him. "This is your client, Mr. Wynn. I'll be off now. See you againbefore long, but I'll give you a bit of advice, with Sir George'spermission. Never prevaricate to your lawyer; tell him everything rightout. That's all."
"Thanks; I guess that's excellent advice, and I'll take it," I said.
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