Ричард Марш
The Crime and the Criminal

CHAPTER XL
MR. TOWNSEND REACHES HOME

The members, for the most part, stared at the Colonel. Then they stared at one another. They did not seem to understand. Mr. Townsend looked at the Colonel, then at Mr. Pendarvon. Mr. Pendarvon, with twitching lips and dilated eyes, was leaning, as if for support, against the dial-plate.

"Pendarvon, I am waiting for you to contradict what Kendrick has said."

Mr. Pendarvon was making an effort to control his faculty of speech.

"It's false."

Mr. Townsend turned to the Colonel.

"You hear what he says?"

The Colonel pointed at Mr. Pendarvon.

"And you see how he says it." They did see. The disclosure of his treachery, being premature, had taken Mr. Pendarvon unawares. It had, unfortunately, caused him to lose his nerve. He stood crouching against the wall, trembling, like a cur, in terror of what might be to come.

The man's guilt was self-confessed. They perceived that it was so with a stupefaction which made them dumb.

Colonel Kendrick went on.

"I have a cousin at Scotland Yard. He has just now told me that, this morning, they received information of the existence of an organisation called the Murder Club. They had been told that the individual who was actually responsible for the Three Bridges Tragedy was a member of the Club. His name was Reginald Townsend. I asked who was their informant. I was told that it was a man named Cecil Pendarvon. So, gentlemen, the person who is responsible for the position in which we find ourselves is the one who has given us away."

One or two of the members made a half-unconscious movement forward. Mr. Pendarvon seemed to endeavour to huddle himself closer to the dial-plate.

"My cousin informed me that the club was to meet tonight, and that a coup was to be made while the members were in actual assembly. I have hurried straight from my cousin here. I have some acquaintance with the personnel of Scotland Yard. As I approached these premises I recognised one or two individuals whom I knew by sight. Mr. Townsend, the police are at the door waiting to receive the signal to effect your capture."

Of all those present Mr. Townsend seemed the least affected by the Colonel's communication. It was the humorous side of the situation which seemed to strike him first.

"It is the unexpected happens, my dear Kendrick. I do believe that all the wisdom of the world is contained in that one phrase. The blow has come from the quarter from which I least expected it. Mr. Pendarvon, I presume that you are acquainted with the rule which you yourself framed, and which lays down the measure which is to be meted out to traitors."

Mr. Townsend moved towards Mr. Pendarvon. Snatching a revolver from his pocket, Mr. Pendarvon pointed it in the face of the man he had betrayed. In an instant Colonel Kendrick had struck it from his hand. One barrel was discharged harmlessly as it fell. Immediately a dozen weapons were in a dozen hands. Mr. Townsend retained his appearance of perfect ease. Standing in front of Mr. Pendarvon, he regarded that gentleman with courteous contempt which caused him, literally, to seem to wither.

"Well done!"

The tranquil scorn of Mr. Townsend's tone seemed to affect Mr. Pendarvon as if it had been vitriol. He writhed.

"You-you hound!" he spluttered.

Mr. Townsend merely repeated his former commendation, which the other received as if it had been a scorpion's lash.

"Well done!"

There was a click. Mr. Pendarvon's body was obscuring the dial-plate. With scant ceremony, the Colonel thrust him aside. The dial had made a new departure. It displayed the figure 3.

The Colonel spoke.

"I fancy we may take it that that is the signal which Mr. Pendarvon has arranged with his policemen friends. It is they who have given it, being now outside the door. I imagine, gentlemen, that, so far as we are concerned, we have but little to fear. Be so good, some one, as to tear that book and to burn it."

The Colonel pointed to the manuscript book in the beautiful crimson cover. Some one snatched it up. In a moment it was in pieces and the pieces were in flames. Mr. Pendarvon made a movement as if he would have done something to check the destruction of so important a witness. The Colonel checked him with a word.

"Stand still!" And Mr. Pendarvon was still. The Colonel turned to Mr. Townsend. "It is you who have most to fear. Can you suggest how you may be able to effect your escape?"

"Unless Mr. Pendarvon has romanced, he has not only provided the trap, but also the means of escape from the trap which he has baited-unless, I say, he has romanced. We shall see. Good-bye, Pendarvon."

With a gesture of careless insolence, with his open palm, Mr. Townsend struck Mr. Pendarvon lightly across the face. That was too much even for Mr. Pendarvon. He sprang at Mr. Townsend. Mr. Townsend knocked him down. Being down, he seemed to deem it wiser, on the whole, to stay there.

A voice was heard without-a peremptory voice, an official voice.

"Open this door immediately, or we shall break it down!"

Mr. Townsend gave a mocking rejoinder.

"Break it down; by all means, break it down!" He went to the fireplace; he stood within it. He turned to the assembled company. "We shall meet again-at Philippi!"

He grasped the first two stanchions and was immediately out of sight.

"Count twelve," he told himself as he climbed. "This is the twelfth. Put out your hand to the right, and you will feel a bolt. This does feel like a bolt, and a door. After all, Pendarvon, you're not such a liar as you might have been."

Scrambling through the door which he had thrust open, Mr. Townsend found himself standing on what was evidently thereof. It was flat just there. In front of him was a high brick wall, which served as a base for a stack of chimneys.

He stood for some seconds listening. He could distinctly hear voices ascending from the room below.

"I wonder what they will do to our friend Pendarvon, and how long they will keep those dear policemen out-if I shall have time to do what I have to do. Keep moving, sir! The moments are all that you can call your own."

He went forward, keeping the stack of chimneys on his left.

"Hallo! There's the edge of the roof! Yes, and here's a rail and a bridge-all spoken of by our friend Pendarvon. To essay the great act of crossing the bridge!"

He stepped on to the plank. It quivered beneath his weight.

"This bridge is of somewhat rickety construction and the rail unsteady."

When about half-way across he paused. The plank seemed to be bending double. He peered into the depths below.

"It occurs to me that it would not be a difficult business to smash this bridge into two clean halves as I stand here. That might be an easy way to end it all. But it will not serve. There is that which I must do."

He moved on more rapidly. The frail planking shuddered and shook; it swung in the air. More than once it seemed as if the tall, quickly-moving figure was supported upon nothing. But the bridge became firmer as he approached the opposite side. He put out his hand to the left, feeling for what Mr. Pendarvon told him he would find there.

"The ladder! As he said, straight against the wall. Bravo! Now, if the house is only empty, the thing is done!"

The house was empty, and the thing was done. It all happened as Mr. Pendarvon had said it would. He ascended the ladder, raised the unlatched window frame, struck a light, passed through the empty house, and into the street beyond. He found a cab, and, ere long, he was at Albert Gate.

As he stepped out of the cab some one touched him on the shoulder from behind. He turned sharply round, thinking, perhaps, that he had but escaped from one pitfall to fall at once into another.

But it was not so. The person whom he found himself confronting was that recalcitrant member of the Murder Club, Lord Archibald Beaupré.

"You! Well?"

This was Mr. Townsend's greeting. Lord Archibald's response was a little delayed. When it did come it came in a hoarse whisper from between tremulous lips.

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

Lord Archibald, leaning forward, whispered something into Mr. Townsend's ear.

"I was afraid, my dear Archie, that you might be a quarter of an hour too late." Mr. Townsend paused, looking at, without seeming to notice, the other's ashen countenance. "Is she dead?"

"No."

"Will she die?"

"No."

There was silence. Then Lord Archibald went on, rendered almost voiceless by contending emotions, "I was there in time; you should have waited."

"As I tell you, my dear Archie, it was a question of a quarter of an hour."

"When I got there the house was in commotion. They had found her lying in the hall, as you had left her. She was regaining consciousness as I arrived. When she saw me she made me stoop down and she whispered to me. She told me that it was you who had done it, and that you did it just as she was starting to save you."

"She has, perhaps, her own notions of salvation."

"I think she meant it. She said she was coming to warn you against a man named Haines."

"Haines? Indeed! That is the second time I have been warned against a man named Haines. By the way, I have just come from Horseferry Road. Pendarvon has given the show away."

"Pendarvon?"

"Yes, Pendarvon. He has, what I believe old-fashioned thieves used to call, blown the gaff. The place is in the hands of the police. I escaped up the chimney. I expect that the gentlemen in blue will soon be here. I have no doubt that already they have missed me and are hot upon my trail."

"Reggie!"

In Lord Archibald's voice there was something which sounded very like a sob.

"Don't worry about me, dear boy. For me, anyhow, all things are over. You'll be all right. After all, it was lucky for you that I was first upon the scene." Having paused, he added, "Tell her, when she is all right again, as you seem to think she will be, that I am sorry I did it. She should have left me a wider option."

"I don't believe she means to give you away. When the policemen asked her who had done it she said that the man was a stranger to her. She had never seen him in her life before."

"Did she, indeed? How very odd! They tell you not to trust a woman. My experience teaches me not to trust a man. One thing I do regret. I should have liked to have killed Pendarvon. Archie, I want you to do me a favour-to take a message."

"To whom?"

"To Miss Jardine. Will you do it?"

"Yes."

The speaker's voice was even more husky than before.

Mr. Townsend scribbled a few words on a page of his pocket-book. Tearing out the leaf, he handed it to Lord Archibald Beaupré.

"Give her that. Not necessarily at once, but some time when the thing's all over. And tell her-" He stopped; then, with a smile, went on, "Yes, tell her that I loved her, but that already, when my love for her was born, it was too late."

"I'll tell her. What are you going to do yourself?"

"Do? Wait; they'll soon be here. I have one or two matters which will occupy me till they come. Good-bye."

He held out his hand. The other grasped it in his own.

"By – , Reggie, I had almost sooner that it had been I."

"Don't be an ass, dear boy. Slip across the water till the wind has blown a little of the dust away."

He nodded, moved quickly across the pavement, and disappeared into the house. Lord Archibald Beaupré was left standing in the street, clutching the sheet of paper tightly in his hand.

As Mr. Townsend entered a woman came forward to greet him. She wore an air of considerable concern.

"Oh, Mr. Townsend, sir, I'm so glad it's you. Burton's out, and something has happened which has quite upset me.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Lane, that you should have been upset. What has upset you?"

"There's been a man who wanted to see you-leastways, he didn't look as if he was a gentleman, and he didn't behave like one. I told him you weren't in, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He pushed right past me and marched straight into your room, and said he'd wait until you came. He's been there an hour or more; and I just went in to say that I really didn't think it was any use his waiting when I was taken quite aback to find that the room was empty and that he wasn't there."

"That, probably, was because he had gone. Let us trust that the spoons have not gone too!"

"Oh, sir, I do trust they haven't. But what makes it seem so queer to me is that I have been watching all the time, and haven't seen a creature leave the room."

"Possibly, Mrs. Lane, he has vanished into air."

Laughing at her as he passed, Mr. Townsend went into his room.

CHAPTER XLI
TAKING LEAVE

It was a handsome room, that in which Mr. Townsend, when at home, passed the larger portion of his waking hours-large, lofty, well-proportioned. The walls were wainscoted. Here and there was a piece of tapestry. Curtains suggested, rather than screened, an occasional recess. Veiled, too, were entrances to rooms beyond. A window, running from floor to ceiling, extended on one side of the room, almost from wall to wall. Had it been daytime, one would have seen that it overlooked Hyde Park.

On his entrance Mr. Townsend went immediately to the portrait of the girl which stood up on his mantelboard. He looked at it long and earnestly. He took it out of its frame. He kissed it, not once or twice, but a dozen times at least. He regarded it with something of the veneration which the religious Russian peasant regards his Icon.

"Dora!" he murmured. "Dora!" Then, with a smile, "What might have been!"

Gripping the portrait with both his hands, he began to tear it into two; then stopped.

"It seems almost like sacrilege." He kissed the face again. "It would be a sacrilege to let it fall into their hands as evidence that she had endured the contamination of my acquaintance."

He tore the portrait, not only into halves, but into fragments, and the fragments he cast upon the fire. As the flames consumed them he made a little gesture towards them with his hands.

"Good-bye!"

He picked up several knick-knacks which were about the room and examined them, as if he were considering what ought to be their fate. Some of them, which bore unmistakable traces of feminine handiwork and taste, he threw, after the portrait, into the fire. He opened a large despatch-box which stood upon a table at one side. From among its varied contents he took all sorts of things-a glove, a knot of ribbon, a menu card, some programmes of dances, a chocolate bonbon, a variety of trivial impedimenta with which one would hardly have thought such a man would have cared to be troubled. Last of all he took out four or five envelopes addressed to himself in what was evidently a woman's hand.

"My love letters! – love letters! I doubt if there was a word of love in one of them, except that which came to me this morning. In our courtship hitherto love letters have scarcely entered. There has been no opportunity. It is another case of what might have been-and yet these are my love letters, for they were written by her hand, and these are my love tokens, because they are tokens of certain passages which she has had with me. Nor must they become their spoil. These sort of tales find their way into so many sorts of papers that, for her sake, it is well that I have had time enough to destroy what might tend to show that I ever was engaged-save the mark! – to marry Miss Jardine."

He threw the letters and the various trivialities together into the fire, breaking up the coals to enable them to burn the faster. He stood watching their destruction. When they were entirely consumed he turned away, the finger of his right hand in his waistcoat pocket, apparently feeling for something which was there.

"I think that that is all; now I'm ready."

"That, young man, is just as well, because so am I."

The voice came from behind his back. Mr. Townsend showed no sign of being startled, nor did he evince any anxiety to turn and inquire into the speaker's personality. He stood, for a moment, as if he was endeavouring to recall to his memory the tones of the speaker's voice. He turned at last, at his leisure, and with a smile-

"Mr. Haines?"

It was Mr. Haines. His sudden appearance was explained by the fact that he had obviously just stepped from behind a pair of curtains which concealed the entrance to an inner room. He still held one of the curtains in his hand. He eyed Mr. Townsend in silence, one hand being in suggestive proximity to the hip pocket in his trousers in which the Westerner is apt to keep his gun.

"Yes, I am Mr. Haines."

"I am glad to have the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Haines. Might I ask you to be good enough to select your own chair?"

Mr. Haines took no notice of Mr. Townsend's gesture of almost exaggerated courtesy. Manner and tone alike were dogged.

"I've been watching you."

"I am gratified to think that any action of mine should have been esteemed worthy your attention."

"The woman said that you weren't in. I said I'd wait. I knew you'd come. She fidgeted. So I stepped behind the curtains. I thought trouble might be saved."

"It was very thoughtful, Mr. Haines, of you, indeed."

Mr. Haines moved away from the curtains. He came farther into the room, his hand still in the neighbourhood of his pistol pocket, his eyes never wandering from Mr. Townsend's face.

"Last night I reckoned with your brother."

"My brother?"

"He says he is your brother. He let it out as I was laying into him. And he's about your style all over. He calls himself Stewart Trevannion, and he's a thief, but not near such a thief as you."

"Is that so? May I inquire, Mr. Haines, what I have done that you should say I am a thief?"

"You've stole my girl."

"Your girl?" Mr. Townsend raised his eyebrows slightly, but still sufficiently for the movement to be perceptible. "Are you alluding to Mrs. Carruth?"

"Mrs. Carruth? No, young man, I am not alluding, as you call it, to Mrs. Carruth."

"I thought that Mrs. Carruth could hardly be adequately described as a girl."

"Is it sneering at Mrs. Carruth you are?"

Mr. Haines's idiom, on the sudden, became flavoured with, as it were, a reminiscence of Ireland.

"I trust that I never, Mr. Haines, shall be guilty of so heinous a crime as sneering at a lady. I believe that I am merely asserting a fact in venturing to express an opinion that Mrs. Carruth can hardly be adequately described as a girl."

Mr. Townsend's exaggeration of courtesy, suggesting more than it expressed, seemed to be something for which Mr. Haines was unprepared. He hesitated, as if in doubt; then repeated his previous assertion.

"You've stole my girl, and I've come to call you to account."

"I am unconscious of having conveyed from you any property of the kind. Of whom are you speaking as your girl?"

"My Loo."

"Your-" Mr. Townsend obviously started, regaining his self-possession only after a momentary pause. "I am still, Mr. Haines, so unfortunate as to be unable to follow you."

"Whether she was known to you as Louisa Haines, or Louise O'Donnel, or Milly Carroll, she was my girl. You stole her. You killed her. I am here to kill you for it."

There was silence. The two men eyed each other. Mr. Haines with that sullen, dogged look upon his face which it was used to wear; Mr. Townsend with the natural expression of the man who has just been told a sudden startling, wholly unexpected piece of news. He seemed to find it so startling a piece of news as to be almost incredible.

"Is it possible, Mr. Haines, that the lady whom I knew as Louise O'Donnel was your child?"

"She was: my only child-my one ewe lamb. You took her life. What have you to say why I shouldn't have your life for hers?"

"Only that it is the unexpected happens. I may tell you, twice I have been advised to beware of you. I had no notion what was your cause of quarrel. Now that I do know, I admit its perfect justice."

"Put up your hands."

Mr. Haines flashed a revolver in the air. Mr. Townsend remained unmoved; he simply looked at Mr. Haines and smiled.

"I am afraid that I must decline to obey you, literally, Mr. Haines. We do not do it quite that way this side. To an English taste the method seems a little bizarre. But I will undertake to offer no resistance. Nor to move. So far as I am concerned, you may shoot. I'm ready."

Mr. Haines moved a step or two forward. He pointed his revolver at Mr. Townsend's head, pointed it with a hand which did not tremble. There was an interval of silence. They steadfastly regarded each other, neither moving so much as an eyelash.

"You've grit. Which is what your brother'd like to swallow."

"It pleases you to say so. I would not wish to put you to inconvenience, but if you will permit me to advise you you will shoot and waste no time. Time is precious. I happen to know that, if you waste it, others may cheat you of your prey."

Mr. Haines lowered his revolver.

"I reckoned to shoot you on sight. It's not because you've grit I don't. Don't you think it. I've seen men like you before. A few. Some of them with grit enough to dare the devil to do his level worst when he gets them down to hell. Grit's just an accident. It don't count with me neither one way nor the other. Young man, I'm going to make you an offer."

"Make it."

"There are two things I've had to live for. Just two. No more. You've robbed me of them both. My girl, and the heart which I reckoned to have one day for mine."

"If, as I presume, this time it is Mrs. Carruth to whom you are referring, I do protest with all my heart that you are welcome to her heart, Mr. Haines."

"It's not your consent I should be asking. No. It's hers. I've asked for it. In vain. I reckon that with nothing to live for living isn't worth it. I've another gun in here." Mr. Haines produced a second revolver from one of his tail pockets. Mr. Townsend smiled. "What are you laughing at, young man?"

"You must forgive me. You reminded me for a moment of a pirate king of whom I used to read in my boyish days, whose habit it was to carry an arsenal about with him wherever he might go."

"Laugh on. One of these guns is for you, the other gun's for me. We are going to shoot each other."

"Excuse me, we are not."

"I say we are." Mr. Townsend slightly shrugged his shoulders. The gesture seemed to anger Mr. Haines. He went still closer to him. "You are going to put the muzzle of one gun to my forehead, and I'm going to put the muzzle of the other gun to yours, and we're going to fire together on the word."

"I beg ten thousand pardons for being constrained to contradict you, but-we are not."

"I say we are." Again the only response was a movement of Mr. Townsend's shoulders. "Take hold of the gun."

Mr. Haines endeavoured to thrust one of the revolvers into Mr. Townsend's hand.

"Not I."

"Take hold of the gun!"

Mr. Haines, on Mr. Townsend's betraying an inclination to remove himself from too near neighbourhood, caught him by the shoulder.

"Remove your hand, sir. I have no objection to your shooting me. But to your touching me while I am still alive I have."

"You hearken to what I say, young man. Take hold of this gun!"

Mr. Haines endeavoured to subject Mr. Townsend to what, in the nursery, is called a shaking.

"If you attempt to do that again, Mr. Haines, I shall be under the disagreeable necessity of knocking you down-before the shooting."

Mr. Haines attempted to do it again. Mr. Townsend tried to knock Mr. Haines down. Mr. Haines was not to be easily felled. Bursting into sudden passion, he seized Mr. Townsend by both shoulders. His two "guns" fell, unnoticed, to the ground. With commendable promptness Mr. Townsend returned the compliment which had been accorded him by clutching Mr. Haines. They clenched, struggled, and together fell to the floor.

On the floor they continued to discuss to the best of their ability the side issue which Mr. Haines had raised.

So engrossed were they with their own proceedings that they failed to notice the sudden opening of the door, followed by the unannounced entrance into the room of four or five men. One of them moved quickly to where the two combatants were contending on the floor. He placed his hand on Mr. Townsend's shoulder.

"You are my prisoner, Mr. Townsend. I arrest you on the charge of murder."

The sound of Mr. Holman's voice-for Matthew Holman was the speaker-did produce a diversion of the interest. The two men ceased to struggle. Then, being suffered to do so by Mr. Haines, Mr. Townsend rose to his feet. As he did so, some one who had come into the room with the police broke into laughter as he pointed at him with his finger. It was Mr. Pendarvon.

"Yes, officer, that's your man. That's Townsend, the Three Bridges murderer."

Mr. Pendarvon's merriment seemed out of place. He had cause to exchange it for something else a moment afterwards.

Mr. Townsend turned to Mr. Holman.

"As this person says, I am the man you want. And-" He paused; before they had a notion of what it was he intended to do, rushing forward, he had caught Mr. Pendarvon in his arms and borne him completely from his feet. "You are just the man I want."

Mr. Townsend's movements were so rapid that, before they could do anything to stop him, he had carried his victim right across the room, and, brushing aside the curtains, with a tremendous splintering of glass, had crashed with him through the closed windows into the night beyond.

"All right," cried Mr. Holman, as, too late to check his progress, the constables rushed after him. "There are some of the other chaps out there. They'll have him."

From Mr. Holman's point of view it proved to be all right. The drop from the window was only six or seven feet. By the time Mr. Holman had reached it Mr. Townsend was already again in the hands of the police. The detective shouted his instructions through the shattered pane.

"Put the handcuffs on him."

A voice replied from below-

"They are on him. He has almost killed this other man."

Mr. Townsend was heard speaking with a most pronounced drawl.

"Almost! Not quite! That's a pity. Still, 'twill serve. Officer, will you allow me to use my handkerchief; my mouth is bleeding?"

He succeeded, in spite of his handcuffed wrists, in withdrawing a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his coat. He pressed it, for a moment, to his lips. When he removed it, he tossed something into the air.

"Done you!" he cried. "Hurrah!"

There was an exclamation from the officer who was in charge of him.

"He has taken something. I can smell it."

"Yes," said Mr. Townsend, "I have taken leave." There was a small commotion. Mr. Townsend, reeling, would have fallen to the ground had he not been supported by the sergeant's arms. The man leaned over him to smell his breath. He, probably, was something of a chemist. "Hydrocyanic acid!" he exclaimed. "He is dead."