*CHAPTER XXX*
*THROUGH THE DARKNESS*
Events happened apace.
The criminal dovecot in Pont Street was now seriously disturbed.
Even Boyne, usually so calm and unruffled in face of any peril ordifficulty, saw that matters had grown very serious. He was in completeignorance of the return of Gerald Durrant. Nor did he know that atWimbledon Park the doctor, on calling again late that afternoon, hadpronounced that the serum was doing its work, and that Marigold wasdecidedly better.
It had been just a toss-up. According to his judgment, the seruminjected to fight the germs of disease had been administered a few hourstoo late. The human machine is, however, a curious thing, and the throwof the dice with Death is always weighted upon the side of the living.
Gerald, pale, anxious, and emaciated after all the hardships he had gonethrough, sat by the bedside of his well-beloved, watching her eagerly.
To his delight, she was slowly recovering. It is one of the features ofthe malady from which Marigold was suffering--thanks to the brutal plotto kill her--that after a certain fixed period, death supervenes orrecovery comes very quickly.
In her case the doctor himself was agreeably surprised. She wasrecovering, he had said! She would yet live to cheat her enemies!
Gerald, realising this, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He was,of course, in ignorance of what had transpired at Pont Street, or of thesuspicion of Charles Emery, the man who had made the actual assignmentof Mrs. Morrison's insurance.
On the following morning, after hearing the doctor's good news, he satbeside Marigold's bed, and by slow degrees the girl recognised her loveras he bent over her and tenderly kissed her upon the brow.
The light of recognition suddenly shone in her eyes, and smiling, shegripped his hand.
"Yes, darling, I am home again!" he said in a soft voice. "Home--tofind that you are getting better. You've been very ill. But you'llsoon be well again, thank God!"
For some moments the girl was too overcome by emotion to speak, but atlast her lips moved, and in a voice scarcely audible she pronounced hisname.
"Gerald!" she articulated with difficulty, raising her hand until itrested against his cheek. "Gerald! _My Gerald_!"
"Yes, darling! I am here with you!" he assured her soothingly, for theywere alone together, the doctor having just left. "You have been very,very ill."
"Yes," she whispered, "very ill."
Then she closed her eyes for fully five minutes, as though the strain ofspeaking had been too much for her, while he sat at her bedside watchingbreathlessly the white countenance of the girl who was all in all tohim.
At last she again opened her eyes, and in a voice scarce above awhisper, asked:
"Where have you been all this long, long time?"
"Abroad, dear. But don't worry about that! I'm back," he saidcheerfully. "Back with you. Rest, and you will soon be quite wellagain."
Again she closed her eyes and turned her head slightly upon the pillow.And as she did this, Gerald again kissed her upon the brow.
About two hours later her condition showed a marked improvement, butGerald had not left her side for a moment.
At noon she seemed so much better that he decided to go over to Ealingand obtain a suit of his own clothes, so as to make himself morepresentable. This he did.
His sister was naturally delighted to see him, but save for a briefexplanation of his absence he did not enter into any details concerningit. His anxiety was to return to Wimbledon Park. He had at firstcontemplated going to Mincing Lane to explain his absence, but had nowdecided to postpone that until the morrow.
So about three o'clock he was back again at Marigold's bedside,delighted to find the great improvement which had taken place during thepast few hours. The serum was doing its work, and slowly she wasreturning to her old self again.
When they were alone, and Gerald was once more seated beside her, sheturned to him, and in a low, intense voice asked if her sister had toldhim of the fire in Bridge Place.
"Yes, dearest," he answered. "I know all about it. I've seen the ruin,and I've talked to your aunt. You both had narrow escapes!"
"Mr. Boyne--set--it--on--fire--Gerald," she said weakly, "so as to getrid of what was in that upstairs room!"
"Without a doubt."
"I--I tried to learn more about it. That's--well, that's why I dinedwith Mr. Boyne."
"You dined with him?" echoed her lover.
"Yes--in order to try and learn something more. Did we not agree to keepa watchful eye upon him?"
"We did. But I fell into a cunningly devised trap on the night Idisappeared," he said. "I will describe it to you later. Well, whenyou dined with the fellow, did you discover why he spends his eveningsamong those smart people in the West End?"
"No, Gerald; but I came to the conclusion that he is a very remarkablecrook."
"Of that I'm certain, dear. We've both had proof of it. He knew wewere watching him, and his intention, no doubt, was to get rid of bothof us."
"Yes, I quite agree," replied the girl faintly, yet smiling into hisface. Then she added: "Do you know, Gerald, that--that ever since Idined with Mr. Boyne I haven't been the same. I felt ill next morning,and gradually the illness increased, until I had to go to bed and thedoctor came to see me."
Gerald Durrant knit his brows.
"By Gad!" he gasped. "I--I never thought of that! He invited you todinner--eh?"
In reply to his question, Marigold described the chance meeting near thebank and the invitation that followed.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, after a pause. "He had got rid of me, and intendedthat you should die--truly a most diabolical plot! I see it all! Butwe will be even with him yet, darling--never fear!"
Assuring the girl that he would return very soon, Gerald Durrant leftthe house determined to take direct action. His failure to convince thepolice at Hammersmith that "Busy" Boyne, the pious insurance agent, wasa master-criminal, had irritated and angered him. Probably if he wentdirect to Scotland Yard and re-told the story, laying stress upon theplots against Marigold and himself, they would hear him and make someinvestigation.
The mystery of that upstairs room and its weird occupant was everuppermost in his mind. And now that it was destroyed, it made itplainer than ever that there had been some guilty secret hidden there.
He went to Charing Cross, and presently entered the headquarters of theCriminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, where he wascourteously received by Detective-Inspector Shaw in one of the cold,bare, official waiting-rooms.
The inspector, a short, stout, brusque man, listened very patiently tothe strange story related to him, and once or twice jotted down notes.But his countenance was imperturbable, and Gerald's heart had alreadysunk within him, for he saw that he was quite unimpressed.
At last Shaw stirred himself, and said:
"Well, Mr. Durrant, all that you've just told me is extremelyinteresting. Will you wait a few moments?" and rising, he left theroom. On his return five minutes later, he asked Gerald to accompanyhim. They went together down a long corridor, where the young man wasushered into a comfortable office. A well-dressed man of rather dapperappearance was seated at a table, and Gerald was invited to a chair,when he was closely questioned, more especially regarding hisobservations and those of Marigold upon the houses in Pont Street andUpper Brook Street, and also concerning the trap into which he himselfhad fallen, and Marigold's inexplicable illness.
"Is the young lady yet fit to see anyone, do you think?" asked thesuperintendent. "Is she well enough to make a statement?"
"Not to-day, I fear. Perhaps she will be to-morrow."
His interrogator reflected for a few moments.
"When is that appointment due with Mr. Macdonald and theFrenchman--Galtier is his name, isn't it?" he asked his secretary, whowas seated at a table on the opposite side of the room.
"They are due
here now," was the latter's reply as he glanced at theclock.
"Mr. Emery is also to be here, is he not, Mr. Francis?"
"Yes, sir," replied the secretary.
Five minutes later there assembled in that room five other persons.Charles Emery was shown in with the inquisitive little man, AlexanderMacdonald, who had arrived in Ardlui, and, giving his name as JohnGreig, had watched the Red Widow by orders from the detective office inGlasgow, and had gone back down Loch Lomond only half convinced that hewas on the wrong track, and that she was not the notorious woman, SarahSlade, for whom he was in search.
Alexander Macdonald was, however, a very shrewd person, and when thefirst suspicion of a new case was aroused against Ena Pollen, as she nowcalled herself, he saw that he had been sadly misled. Therefore, unknownto Scotland Yard, the Glasgow police had been doing underground work inorder to fix the identity of the lady of Upper Brook Street.
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the two men there came Celineand Galtier, together with a well-dressed elderly man, the manager ofthe insurance company in which the false Mrs. Morrison had taken out apolicy.
For a full hour they sat with the superintendent of the CriminalInvestigation Department, who, with a shorthand writer at his elbow,heard the further statement of each in turn. At last, turning toInspector Shaw, he said:
"There is certainly sufficient evidence to justify the immediate arrestof the two women and the man Boyne. We must get the statements of MissRamsay and her aunt later."
Then, taking a sheet of pale-yellow official paper, he scribbled one ortwo lines, signed them, and handed it to Shaw.
"I think that is all we can do at the moment," he said, addressing theparty. "It is quite evident that a great insurance conspiracy has beenattempted, and not for the first time. Apparently the late Mr. Martinwas a victim, together with other persons, whose names and circumstanceswe shall later on discover. To me it seems that great credit is due tothe intelligence of Miss Ramsay and of Mr. Durrant, who watched the manBoyne so ingeniously until they must have somehow betrayed themselves,and thus have placed their lives in jeopardy."
"I think," said the Manchester solicitor, "that if Mrs. Braybourne hadpretended to remain in ignorance for a month or so, and not sought toestablish her claim, the company would have, no doubt, paid the sumwithout question."
"Yes," laughed the superintendent. "But criminals always betraythemselves by overdue anxiety. But we have here to deal with a verydangerous gang. and it only shows to the insurance world how easily theymay be defrauded by a well-established organisation."
Shaw had left the room, and already the telephone was at work to ensurethe arrest of the criminals.
"It will certainly be highly interesting to discover how many innocentpeople have actually been the victims of this desperate and relentlesstrio who dealt secret death in order to enrich themselves," remarked thesuperintendent.
"There was a grave suspicion of the woman Pollen in another case abouttwo years ago," said Macdonald. "Therefore, on a report from Ardlui, Iran up from Glasgow, but I failed to identify her as the woman who hadcalled herself Slade, though I had very strong suspicions. Her socialstanding deceived me, I admit. Poor Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn!"exclaimed Macdonald in his strong Glasgow accent. "She was a goodlady--a very good lady!"
"Well," said the superintendent, rising from his chair. "We have tothank you all for your combined efforts, and especially Mademoiselle andMr. Durrant. Let's hope we shall get the guilty ones, and then we shallall meet again as witnesses at the Old Bailey."
And thus, just after five o'clock, he dismissed them, Gerald, excitedlyand with all haste, making his way back to the bedside of his loved onein order to tell her the intentions of the police.
At last the devilish crimes of the Red Widow and her accomplices were tobe exposed, and the trio of death-dealers punished.