Ричард Марш
The Crime and the Criminal

CHAPTER XXXVIII
ON THE THRESHOLD

It was plain that Mrs. Carruth was impatient. Nor was the thing made less evident by her attempts to conceal it from herself. She lounged on a couch. A pile of books and magazines was at her side. She pretended to read-or, rather, it would be more correct to write that she tried not to pretend to read. But it would not do. It was nothing but pretence. And she knew that it was nothing but pretence. She took up a book. She turned a page or two. She put it down again. She exchanged it for a magazine-a magazine with pictures. She tried to look at the pictures. The pictures palled. She essayed a magazine without pictures.

That was as great a failure as the other. In her present mood the ministrations of print and pictures alike were ineffectual.

No wonder she had become impatient. She had been on tenterhooks all day-waiting! waiting! All the morning she had expected to receive some sort of communication-some acknowledgment of the expressive line or two which she had sent. But when lunch came, and there still was nothing, she was quite sure that, during the afternoon the gentleman would come himself.

She was ready for him by two. She did not think it likely that he would come quite so early. Still, it would be well that she should not be taken unawares. So she made herself even unwontedly charming. She put on a brand-new dress, which suited her to perfection. It really did make her look uncommonly nice! It fitted her so well that it displayed her long, lithe, and yet by no means unbecomingly bony figure, to the best advantage. She took astonishing pains with her hair. She even went in for unusual splendour in the way of shoes and stockings. And the effect produced by the few touches which she bestowed upon her countenance was wonderful.

In spite of all she was ready by two. And still-he cometh not, she said. The silvery chimes of the exquisite little clock which stood on the top of the overmantel announced that it was three-quarters after three. She looked at her own watch to see if it really was so late. The thing was true enough. Her watch was in complete agreement with the clock-it was a quarter to four.

She put down the last of the magazines with, in her manner, an appearance of finality. She rose from the couch. She went to the window. She stood there with her fingertips drumming idly and noiselessly against the pane. The only creature in sight was a milkman, who, by way of killing two birds with one stone, was serving a customer across the road, and flirting with the maid. Mrs. Carruth watched the flirtation proceed to its conclusion, and, when the milkman, springing into his cart, had disappeared with the inevitable clatter, Mrs. Carruth, turning away from the window, came back into the room.

She stood at a little centre table. She laughed to herself.

"If, after all, he shouldn't come-what fun it would be!"

She was very far from being an ill-looking woman, as she stood there, with smiles puckering her lips and peeping from her eyes.

"If he should suppose that I am not in earnest! His experience may teach him that many women never are in earnest. If he should imagine that I am one of the many!"

Raising her right hand, she began daintily pinching her lower lip between her finger and her thumb.

"It would be a pity for both of us." She made a little impatient movement with her head. "And yet, I can't believe that a man with his experience could suppose that I am one of the many. If he did, it would be his fault-not mine."

The little clock struck four.

"An hour more, my friend-an hour more. And then-well, I do hope you'll come before the hour's out, for your sake, as well as mine. I wonder if, in this little matter, I've been counting my chickens before they're hatched. I, of all women, should have known better. And, with such a hand faced on the board, one might be excused for supposing that it would take the pool. A straight flush cannot be beaten."

She laughed again, this time not quite so lightly.

"It reminds me of some of the games which I have seen played. You can't show a hand to beat a straight, but you can fight to save the pool. I wonder if he means fighting. If he does, it'll be against all the odds. He has neither gun nor bow. When I start shooting, he's bound to drop. Sure."

The merriment passed from her face, the laughter from her eyes-an expression of anxiety came into them instead; a look which suggested hunger, a something which made her, all at once, seem actually old.

"Perhaps he takes it that a victory, on these lines, may mean more than a defeat. And he counts on that. It would, too. It would mean farewell-a long farewell, an actual farewell-to another of my dreams. And the brightest of them all. But I don't care. It would mean death to him. Death! And such a death! And, after all, it would only mean a stumble to me. From the practice I have had, I have become so used to stumbles that surely one other wouldn't count."

She began moving about the room restlessly, touching here a table, there a chair, to the window, and back again, as if a spirit possessed her which made her not know what it was she wanted to be at. She approached a corner of the room, as if she were about to take refuge in it, like some naughty child. As she went, clenching her fists, as if she were pressing her finger-nails into her palms, she gave a little cry.

"Oh, I'd give-I'd give, what wouldn't I give? – if he'd come into the room, now-without keeping me waiting any longer, now! – and speak to me as I would have him speak! Why doesn't he come? He has everything to gain, he has nothing to lose!"

She swept right round, with a swish of her skirts, in a sort of frenzy, echoing her own question as she swung out her arms in front of her.

"Why doesn't he come?"

Even as the words were on her lips, at the hall door there came a knocking. She went red and white, despite the aids of beauty! She caught at a chair, as if desirous of having something to lean against.

"Thank God!"

Then, as if conscious of the incongruity of such words upon her lips, she put her hands up to her face.

"Oh, I'm so glad he's come!"

Some one outside had hold of the handle of the door. She uncovered her face. She touched her hair. She touched the bosom of her dress. She dropped into the chair by which she was standing. In an instant she was the picture of composure.

The door opened to admit Mr. Haines.

His appearance was a shock to Mrs. Carruth. She looked negligently round, as if indifferent who the new-comer might be, and then-she stared.

"You!"

There was something in the lady's intonation which was very far from being complimentary. She stood up, quivering with disappointment and with rage.

"I thought I gave instructions that this afternoon I was not at home to visitors."

Mr. Haines did not seem to be at all nonplussed.

"That's what the young lady who opened the door told me. I said I would wait until you were. I will."

Mr. Haines sat down-with every appearance of having come to stay. Mrs. Carruth looked at the clock, then at her watch, then at the gentleman upon the chair. The gentleman in question, with his head thrown back, was staring at the ceiling, as if quite unconscious of her neighbourhood. It seemed to be as much as the lady could do to retain her self-control.

"I am sure, Mr. Haines, that you cannot wish to be rude. I have an appointment this afternoon which I regret will prevent my having the pleasure of receiving you."

"I'm going to have my say. I'll say it afterwards, or I'll say it now. It's all the same to me."

"What do you mean by you're going to have your say?"

"If you're ready, I'll let it out. But don't mind me. Don't let me spoil your appointment. Keep anything you've got to keep."

Mrs. Carruth seemed to be at a loss to know what to do. Her looks were eloquent witnesses as to what she would have done if she could. But, apparently, she did not see her way to do it. She temporised.

"If there is anything of importance, Mr. Haines, which you wished to say to me, perhaps you will be so good as to say it as briefly as you can, now. Possibly it will not detain you, at the utmost, more than a quarter of an hour."

"Possibly it will not. I rather reckon you'll have a word to say in that. It won't all be for me." Mr. Haines brought his eyes down to the level of the lady's face. He spread out his hands upon his knees. He looked at her very straight. "What I have to say may be said in about two words. It's just this-I've found my girl."

Mrs. Carruth did not display any great amount of interest, but she did seem to be surprised.

"Indeed! I am glad to hear it. I hope that she is well."

"She is well. She's better than many of us ever will be. She's at rest."

"At rest? How?"

"As it was told to me. She is dead."

"Dead! Mr. Haines?"

"Yes, murdered. As I saw it in the vision, so it is."

Mrs. Carruth looked at Mr. Haines as if she felt that he had a somewhat singular method of imparting information-especially of such a peculiar kind.

"If what you say is correct, you have such a queer way of putting things. I never can quite make you out. I need not tell you how sorry I am."

"You have cause for sorrow. The grief is about half yours."

"Half mine? What do you mean?"

"I have loved you, true and faithful, since the first time I set eyes on you. Before ever Daniel did."

The sudden change of subject seemed, not unnaturally, to take the lady aback.

"What nonsense are you talking? What did you mean by saying the grief's half mine?"

"I'm coming to it, in time. I want to put to you this question. Will you have me, now, just as I am?"

"I will not; neither now or ever. How many more times am I to tell you that? Jack Haines, I do believe you're more than half insane."

"I may be. So'll you be before I'm through." Raising the big forefinger of his right hand, he wagged it at her solemnly. "There's some one come between us. Yes. That aristocrat."

"Aristocrat? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Yes. The blood-stained Townsend. I knew he was stained with blood when first I saw him inside this room. But I did not know with whose blood he was stained, or I would have called him to his account right there and then. I did not know he was stained with the blood of my girl."

"Jack!"

The name came from her with an unconscious recurrence to the days which were gone.

"Yes. This is the man who has stolen what ought by rights to have been mine-the slayer of my girl."

"It's not true! You coward! You know you lie!"

"I do not lie."

"You do lie! What proof have you?"

"Enough and to spare-for him, for me, and for you."

"Out with it, then. Let's hear what some of it's like."

Mrs. Carruth was standing by the little centre table. Rising from his chair, Mr. Haines went and stood at the other side of it. Resting his hands on the edges, he leaned over it towards her.

"Have you heard of the Three Bridges tragedy?"

She looked at him just once. In that one look she saw something, on his face or in his eyes, which, to use an expressive idiom, seemed to take the stiffening all out of her. She dropped into a chair as if he had knocked her into it. She caught at the arms. Her complexion assumed a curious tinge of yellow. There was a moment's pause. Then, from between her rigid lips, there came one word.

"Yes."

"The woman who was killed was Loo-my Loo."

She shuddered, as if attacked by sudden ague.

"It's a lie!"

"It's not a lie. It's gospel truth. And Townsend killed her."

Her rejoinder, under ordinary circumstances, might have struck him as an odd one.

"You can't prove it."

"I can prove it. And the police can prove it, too."

Half rising from her chair, she turned to him, every muscle in her body seemed to be quivering with excitement.

"The police? Do they know it?"

"They do. To-morrow the whole world will know it. They've laid hold of the wrong man. They've found it out just before it's a bit too late. They hope to have hold of your friend Townsend soon. They're hoping wrong. His first reckoning will be with me. When that is through, neither he nor I will care who has what's left. Since I have loved you, true and faithful, all these years, I calculated I would come and ask you if, when all is done, you'd give me my reward. We might make a happy ending of it, you and me together, over on the other side. But if you won't, you won't. So I'm through. I've only one word left-good-bye."

He held out his hand to her. So far as she was concerned, it went unheeded. Indeed, it would seem, from the eager question which she asked, that most of what he had been saying had gone unheeded too.

"Are you sure the police are after him? Are you sure?"

He looked at her from under the shadow of his bushy, overhanging eyebrows, in silence, for a moment. Then he said, more in sorrow than in anger-

"So your last thought is of him? Well, I'm sorry!"

Without anymore elaborate leave-taking than was comprised in these few words. Mr. Haines went from the room and from the house.

Mrs. Carruth seemed scarcely conscious of the fact of his departure. All her faculties and all her thoughts seemed far away. Indeed, it was only after a lapse of some seconds that, looking about her, with a start, she appeared to recognise that she was alone. Getting up, she began to pace feverishly about the room, as if only rapid movement could enable her to control the fires which were mounting in her blood.

"I wonder if it's true! I wonder if it is! Perhaps that explains why it is he hasn't come. I may have been misjudging him. Perhaps he can't come. Suppose he is arrested. Perhaps he doesn't know what it is the police have discovered. He's nearly certain not to know. Who's to tell him? I will go and tell him! This instant! Now! I will warn him against the police and against Jack Haines. I will save him yet, yet. He shall owe it all to me."

With her hands she brushed her hair from her brow-the hair which she had so carefully arranged.

"After all I have longed for, after all I have lived through, I do believe that for him I should esteem the world well lost."

She ran upstairs-literally ran. She put on a coat and hat in a space of time which, for shortness, considering that a pretty woman was concerned, was simply marvellous. And having put them on, she ran down the stairs. She hurried through the hall. She opened the hall door.

And as she did so something or some one bounded up the steps-rather than mounted them in an ordinary fashion. There was a flash of something in the air. Mrs. Carruth was borne backwards.

A second afterwards she was lying half on her face, with the lifeblood streaming from her on to the floor.

CHAPTER XXXIX
THE LAST MEETING OF THE CLUB

Horseferry Road. A hazy though a cloudless night. A house, the windows of which showed no lights. Up two flights of stairs.

The rendezvous of that agreeable social institution, the Murder Club.

The Club was to hold a session. The gentleman who, if he was not the actual source of inspiration, was, at any rate, the founder, the promoter, the organiser, the backbone of the Club, was making ready for the members coming. A man about the middle height, somewhat slightly built, in evening dress, with an orchid in his buttonhole-Mr. Cecil Pendarvon. Mr. Pendarvon was not bad-looking. He had a long, fair beard, which he had a trick of pulling with both his hands. His eyes were certainly not ugly, but to the close observer they conveyed an odd impression. As one watched them, one began to wonder if they were the man's real eyes which one saw, or if the real eyes were behind them. Perhaps one had this feeling of wonder, because, although there always was the light of laughter in Mr. Pendarvon's eyes, their real expression was one of such cold, passionless, unrelenting cruelty.

For some reason Mr. Pendarvon seemed ill at ease. One hand was resting on the large oval table which occupied the greater portion of the room, with the other he tugged at his beard, while he stared at a manuscript volume, bound in a beautiful scarlet binding, which lay open in front of him. A cackling sound was emitted from his throat, which was, possibly, intended for a chuckle.

"His signature! His sign manual! An elegant example, too! With his own hand-tied tight. If I remember rightly, he did say something about his practically committing suicide by affixing his signature to such a declaration. How often is truth spoken in a jest. What fools men are!"

His statement-which was very far from being an original statement-of the folly of humanity, seemed to afford him a large amount of satisfaction. He combed his beard with the fingers of both his hands. He kept on chuckling to himself as if he had given utterance to one of the best jokes that ever was heard.

"What's that?"

It was queer to notice how, in an instant, all signs of amusement fled. He gripped the rim of the massive table, as if seeking its support. He cast a stealthy glance about him. He stood and listened, seeming to hold his breath to enable him to do it better. The man's real self peeped from his eyes. His whole bearing suggested fear.

There was a perfect silence for some moments. Then he drew a long breath.

"It's nothing." He began again to tug at his beard, as if mechanically. "What a little upsets a man if he is in the mood." He glanced at his watch, seeming, as he did so, to make a mental calculation. "It's time that some of them were here." He paused, the remainder of his speech apparently referring to some other theme. "I hope that one can rely upon them sometimes-that one may take it that the guardians of law and order do not always blunder. I suppose that we are shadowed. I suppose, too, that they will make no movement until they have received ocular demonstration of the fact that all of them are here. What's that?"

Again there was a sudden, startling change in Mr. Pendarvon's outward bearing. Obviously his every faculty was strained in the act of listening. So far as an ordinary observer would have been able to judge there did not appear to be a sound. Yet it is not improbable that something had made itself audible to Mr. Pendarvon's unusually keen sense of hearing, because presently a slight click was heard, as it seemed, within the wall itself upon his right.

"Number one!"

Mr. Pendarvon's state of tension seemed to slightly decrease. The wall upon his right was panelled from floor to ceiling. One of the panels Mr. Pendarvon slipped aside, and, in doing so, revealed a dial-plate of peculiar construction, which apparently had some connection with electricity. On it was a prominent figure 2. Beneath it a needle made three separate strokes. A large 1 appeared. Then three more separate strokes. Then another prominent 2. On the appearance of the second 2, on Mr. Pendarvon's touching an ivory button, the whole thing performed a complete revolution, and a sound as of a gong was heard.

While the gong still continued to vibrate, a voice was heard outside the door exclaiming "Reginald!"

The announcement of the name seemed to precipitate Mr. Pendarvon back into his former condition of uneasiness.

"The man himself," he muttered. Then, by way of an afterthought, with a smile which by no means suggested mirth, "I wonder if they saw him come."

He seemed to hesitate, then, with an effort, to pull himself together.

"The honourable member should not be kept waiting."

As he made this observation to himself, with another mirthless grin, he pressed a second button, which was on the other side of the dial. Immediately the door without swung open.

In another moment Mr. Reginald Townsend appeared upon the threshold of the door.

"A trifle slow to-night, Pendarvon-eh?"

Mr. Pendarvon admitted the soft impeachment.

"I'm afraid that this time, perhaps, I am. You've caught me napping. I was just putting the things in order when you came."

"Putting the things in order! I see. The things want putting in order, Pendarvon-eh?"

"There is a certain amount of work which has to be done, which, of course, by virtue of my office" – this with a sneer which, perhaps, the speaker found it impossible to suppress-"I have to do."

"By virtue of your office; yes." Mr. Pendarvon looked up at Mr. Townsend, only, as it were, by accident and for a moment; then his glance went back again. "It would be a fine night if it were not for the mist which is in the air. One now and then can get peeps at the stars beyond. But this mist gives me a chill."

"It's warm enough in here."

"Oh, yes, it's sufficiently warm in here."

In each man's manner there was something which was distinctly out of the ordinary, and the strangest part of it was that, though each was, as a rule, as keen an observer as one might easily meet, neither seemed to realise that there was anything unusual in the bearing of the other. Mr. Pendarvon was restless, fidgety, fussy, continually on the watch for something to happen, not in the room, but out of it. He was like a person who has an appointment of the first importance, and who is devoured with anxiety lest the individual with whom he has the appointment should fail to keep it. Mr. Townsend's mood, on the other hand, seemed almost transcendental. His physical beauty, uncommon both in type and in degree, seemed to-night to have positively increased. It was almost startling. He seemed, too, to have increased in height. He bore himself with an unconscious grace which displayed his splendid figure to singular advantage. His head was thrown a little back from his shoulders, and in his eyes and in the whole expression of his face there was something which suggested rapturous calm. One felt that, whatever happened, this man's mind would be at ease. He recalled the soldier who, having volunteered for a forlorn hope, advances to meet death, and worse than death, with a smile.

It is probably when our soldiers have been in just that mood that they have done the deeds which have seemed to the world to be miracles of valour. It is when one cares for nothing that, sometimes, one can do anything.

Each of these men, however, seemed to be so preoccupied in his affairs that he noticed nothing uncommon in the other. Mr. Pendarvon fidgeted about the room. He set the chairs straight, the decanters on the table. He occupied himself with a dozen trifling things which scarcely seemed to stand in need of his attention. Mr. Townsend stood in front of the huge, old-fashioned fireplace paying no sort of heed to the other's fussiness, seeming indeed to be in a condition of mind which, psychologically, approximated to a waking dream.

Although he took no notice of the fit of fidgets with which Mr. Pendarvon seemed to be afflicted, his very calmness caused that gentleman to seem still more ill at ease. More than once he seemed to be on the point of saying something and then to stop short as if for want of being able to find something appropriate to say.

At last he did hit upon a sufficiently apposite remark.

"They're late to-night."

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse Mr. Townsend to the fact of Mr. Pendarvon's presence.

"They are a little late to-night, Pendarvon." He looked at his watch. "Indeed! Is it possible that they may have neglected to make a note of the occasion?"

Mr. Pendarvon laughed-again not merrily.

"I don't think there is much fear of that. They're sure to come, if only for their own safety's sake." Again the cheerless grin. "Possibly they're trying to get their spirits up by putting the spirits down upon the way. Hark! there's some one coming now."

There was a silence as the two men listened, with their eyes upon the dial-plate which Mr. Pendarvon had left exposed. It repeated the performance with which it had announced Mr. Townsend's arrival.

"You have good ears, Pendarvon. I heard nothing."

Mr. Pendarvon admitted that it was so.

"I have good ears."

He spoke with a dryness which seemed to be unnecessarily significant. He sounded the gong. There was a voice without.

"Henry!"

"Dear Mr. Shepherd. You may let him in."

The door swung open. There entered a tall man, with long grey hair, clad in the attire of a superior mechanic. He had a silent face-the face of a man who can be silent in very many tongues-and the eyes of a man who sees visions. He vouchsafed no sort of greeting, but at once sat down on one of the chairs which stood around the table.

Mr. Townsend looked at him as one looks at an object which one finds an interesting study.

"I trust, Mr. Shepherd, that you may have fortune in drawing the lot to-night."

Mr. Shepherd opened his lips, which hitherto he had kept hermetically closed. He spoke with a nasal twang which suggested a certain type of prayer-meeting.

"Not to-night: my hour is not yet."

"Indeed! May I ask when your hour is likely to be?"

"I seek not to inquire."

The hint which Mr. Shepherd intended to convey was unmistakable. Mr. Pendarvon laughed. Mr. Townsend stared. Before the latter could speak again the dial-plate repeated its previous performances. This time two voices answered to the summons of the gong.

The door opened to admit Mr. Teddy Hibbard and his inseparable friend, Mr. Eugene Silvester.

They were both of them boys, rather than men, and were obviously members of that class which, in a more advanced stage of social organisation, will probably, during its salad days, be detained in some kindly institution, the inmates of which will be gently, yet firmly, persuaded to do themselves as little injury as they conveniently can. They grow out of it, some of these young men, in time. But one had only to look at this particular two to see that, with them, that time was scarcely yet.

The bell, being started, was kept rolling. One after the other the members of the Club came in. A heterogeneous gathering they were. One wondered what some of them did in such a galley. They seemed to be so oddly out of place.

At last, with two exceptions, all the members were assembled. One of the exceptions was Lord Archibald Beaupré. His absence was the cause, not only of comment, but, as time went on, and still he did not come, of obvious uneasiness to some of those who had arrived. Tell-tale looks came on their faces. They eyed each other, as it were, askance. They not only inquired of one another why it was he did not come, but they made the same inquiry of themselves with still more emphasis. The appearance of indifference with which, at first, they had treated the absent member's tardiness became less and less convincing. It was he who last had drawn the lot. It was he who had to do something for the Honour of the Club.

What was it which had detained him?

Mr. Pendarvon, who, plainly, was not the least uneasy of those who were present in the room, addressed an inquiry to Mr. Townsend.

"You are Beaupré's fidus achates, Townsend. When did you see him last?"

Mr. Townsend had evidently shown an indifference to the fact of Lord Archibald Beaupré's non-arrival which evidently in his case was not assumed. He looked at Mr. Pendarvon a moment before he answered, and when he did answer his manner, although completely courteous, was hardly genial.

"For information of Lord Archibald Beaupré I must refer you-to Lord Archibald Beaupré."

Mr. Pendarvon seemed to relish neither the look with which he had been favoured nor the answer. Indeed, Mr. Townsend's manner, even more than his answer, seemed to increase the general feeling of uneasiness which was beginning to dominate the room.

Suddenly there was the sound of a click. With a rapidity which, in its way, was comic, all eyes were fixed upon the dial-plate. Its mechanism had been set in motion. The familiar movements followed.

"There he is!" exclaimed a voice.

Mr. Silvester added, with a show of hilarity which was slightly forced, "Better late than never!"

Mr. Pendarvon sounded the gong, seemingly in a state of fevered agitation.

"Stephen!" exclaimed a voice.

A blank look came on some of the faces.

"It isn't Beaupré; it's Kendrick!"

Colonel Kendrick was the other member who had not yet put in an appearance. His absence had gone almost unnoticed. He had to do nothing for the Honour of the Club-as yet.

Colonel Kendrick came into the room. He was a thickset, soldierly-looking man, with a slight grey moustache and a pair of bold, unflinching eyes. He bowed as he came in, speaking in that short, crisp, staccato tone of voice which is apt to mark the man who has been accustomed to command.

"Gentlemen, I have to apologise to you for my delay." He turned to Mr. Townsend. "I have to inform you, Mr. Townsend, that Mr. Pendarvon has set the police upon your track."