The Crime and the Criminal

  CHAPTER XXXV.

  THE WOMAN OF THE PORTRAIT.

  The detective easily avoided the man's blind rush, the result of whichwas that Mr. Haines all but cannoned into Mr. Holman's niece.

  Miss Hetty Johnson, however--the young lady's name was Johnson--seemedin no way disconcerted.

  "That's right. Knock me down and trample on me. I don't mind. I've donenothing to nobody. But it's all the same as if I had."

  Brought back by the young lady's words to a sense of reality, Mr.Haines spluttered out an apology.

  "I beg your pardon. It was an accident." Then he raved at Mr. Holman."You--you devil! You've been having me, tricking me, doing me. Youcursed slippery British hound, I feel like killing you!"

  He looked as he said he felt. His tall figure was drawn upright, hislong arms were stretched out in front of him, his fists were clenchedas in a paroxysm of rage.

  Mr. Holman stared at him with stolid imperturbability.

  "Perhaps, when you've quite finished, you'll tell us what's wrong."

  "You know. Don't you try to play it any more off on to me, or thepresence of a woman shan't save you."

  "What's the matter with the man?" asked Mrs. Holman.

  "Don't you hear me asking him?" chimed in her lord. "But it doesn'tseem as if he cared to tell us."

  As if one was not sufficient, Mr. Haines began shaking both his fistsat the detective.

  "You said you knew nothing about her; you told me you could not helpme; you advised me to go back by the next ship. I could not make itout. Now I do catch on. You had her portrait all the time."

  "Whose portrait?"

  "Loo's!"

  "Who's Loo?"

  "My girl!"

  The words came from Mr. Haines with a roar.

  The detective looked at him as if he was beginning to suspect that,after all, there might be some method in his madness.

  "See here, Mr. Haines, I don't know if you are or are not mad, but justtry to behave as if you weren't. I've no notion what you're talkingabout. I tell you I know no more about your girl than I know about theman in the moon."

  "You tell me that, and expect me to believe it, when you have herportrait?"

  "I have her portrait! Where?"

  "Here!" Striding forward, he snatched up one of the two portraits whichwere lying on the table. As he did so, he perceived the second. "Why,here's another! There are two! You have two portraits of my girl, andyou tell me that you know nothing of her."

  Although the detective's face remained impassive, a speck of lightseemed all at once to come into his eyes. The pupils dilated. There wassomething in them which suggested that the whole man had become, upon asudden, alert and eager.

  "I would ask you, Mr. Haines, to consider carefully what you aresaying. More may depend upon your words than you imagine. Do Iunderstand you to say that you know the original of that photograph?"

  "Know the original! Of course I do. It's my girl, my Loo!"

  "Are you prepared to swear it?"

  "I am, before God and man."

  "May I ask if there is anything in particular in which the likenessconsists?"

  "Don't you think a father knows his daughter when he sees her in apicture? Don't talk back to me. I tell you it's my girl, my Loo! Whereis she?"

  "I will tell you everything in a moment, Mr. Haines. Look at thosephotographs closely. Don't you notice anything about them which ispeculiar?"

  Mr. Haines did as he was told. He peered closely at the portraits.

  "She is looking pretty sick."

  "Well she might do. Those photographs were taken after death?"

  "After death?"

  "Have you heard of the Three Bridges Tragedy?"

  "The Three Bridges Tragedy? Yes."

  "That is the portrait of the victim."

  "The victim? So! She is dead. She was done to death. I knew it."

  "The man who has been found guilty of the crime is now lying in gaolunder sentence of death."

  "They shan't hang him?"

  "It looks uncommonly as if they would."

  "I say they shan't. Not if I have to tear down the prison walls with myhands and nails to get at him. Do you think I've come all thesethousands of miles to let them strangers pay the man that killed mygirl? You bet I've not!"

  Mr. Haines glanced at the detective as if he defied his contradiction.

  The detective looked at him, in return, as if he doubted what to makeof him.

  While the two men were thus, as it were, taking each other's measure,Miss Hetty Johnson advanced to the table on which Mr. Haines had,perhaps unconsciously, replaced the photographs. She picked them up.

  "Is this the poor girl who was murdered?" She glanced at them. As shedid so she uttered a startled exclamation, "Why, it--it's Milly!" Sheturned to Mr. Holman all in a tremor of excitement. "Uncle, this isMilly!"

  Her uncle turned to her with what almost amounted to a savage start.

  "Who do you say it is? You don't mean to say that you know theoriginal? Hanged if I don't believe everybody does except me. And here,all this time, we've been hunting the whole world to find out."

  Miss Johnson was not at all affected by her uncle's display of temper.She repeated her previous assertion, and that with more emphasis thanbefore.

  "This is Milly Carroll who was with me at the theatre. I am sure of it.Aunt, you've heard me talk of Milly Carroll?"

  "Often," said her aunt. "Now, Hetty, don't you let your fancy run awaywith you. It may be like her, and yet it mayn't be her. Remember themischief you might do. You think before you speak."

  "My dear aunt, there is not the slightest necessity for you to talk tome like that. I am sure that this is Milly Carroll. Heaps of girls atthe theatre will tell you so if you ask them. It doesn't do herjustice, and she looks as if she were dead, but it's her." She droppedher hand to her side, as if a startling reflection had all at onceoccurred to her. "I wonder if that explains it?"

  "Explains what?"

  "Her silence. I wondered why she had never replied to my last letter.All the time, perhaps, she was dead. And I was telling every one howunkind she was. To think of it!"

  "Do you know where she lived?"

  "When I last heard from her she was living at Brighton."

  "Brighton? Then he did do it. What an artistic liar that man must be!"

  "She left the stage for good. She was going to be married."

  "Going to be married, was she? Then it's her. What was her futurehusband's name?"

  "I never heard his name. We always took him for some big swell, shekept his name so close. She used to call him Reggie."

  "Reggie? Oh! Not Tommy?"

  "No, Reggie. I knew him very well by sight."

  "What do you mean--you knew him very well by sight?"

  "Well, I spoke to him two or three times, and, of course, he spoke tome. And I used often to see her with him. And then he was always at thetheatre. He used to give her everything she wanted, and made no end ofa fuss of her. The girls all envied her good luck."

  "It looks as if they had cause to. What sort of party was this swell ofhers to look at?"

  "He was tall, and dark, and very handsome, and he had most beautifulhands, and one of the nicest-speaking voices I ever heard--and such asmile! And he dressed awfully well--he was an awful swell. Milly toldme he was awfully rich, but I could see that without her telling me."

  Mr. Holman had listened to the girl's description with some appearanceof surprise.

  "Of course you could. You girls can see anything. That's how it is somany of you come to grief--you think you see so much. You're sure youhaven't made a mistake about this swell of hers? You're sure he wasn'tshort, and plump, and rosy?"

  "He wasn't a scrap like that. He was exactly as I've told you. Short,and plump, and rosy? Indeed! I should think he wasn't."

  "Would you recognise him if you saw him again?"

  "Rather! I should think I should. I should know him any
where. If yousaw him once, you would never be likely to forget him, he was toogood-looking."

  "Was he indeed? You seem to have been more than half in love with himyourself. You girls always do fall in love with the right sort of men.Have you any of this young woman's writing?"

  "I've some of her letters which she sent me."

  Mr. Haines, advancing, laid his hand gently on Miss Johnson's arm.

  "Will you let me see her letters--my girl's, my Loo's?"

  "Of course I will. You can come round and look at them now if you like.There's time before I'm due at the theatre." The young girl looked upat the old man with a curious interest. "She was an American. She usedto talk to me about a place called Colorado."

  "She was raised in Colorado. And that is where she left me. So you wereher friend--my girl's friend?"

  "Well, we were pals."

  "Pals? Yes. You were pals."

  Mr. Haines looked at Miss Johnson inquiringly, searchingly, as if hewas endeavouring to ascertain, by force of visual inspection, what sortof girl she was.

  Mr. Holman interposed.

  "When you two have done palavering, perhaps Miss Hetty Johnson will begood enough to tell me what was this young woman's address atBrighton--that is, if she happens to remember it."

  "I remember it perfectly."

  Miss Hetty proved that she did by unhesitatingly furnishing her unclewith the information required. Her uncle entered the address she gavehim in his pocket-book. He looked at his watch.

  "It's twenty minutes past seven. There's a train from Victoria toBrighton at 7.50. If I got a decent cab I ought to have time to catchit, and to spare. If I do catch it, I ought to be able to get all theinformation I want in time to catch the last train back to town. If Idon't, I'll wire." This was to his wife. He turned to his niece. "Youkeep a still tongue in your head, if you can, and don't go chatteringat the theatre. And don't let anything that was that young woman's passout of your hands to any one--do you hear?"

  "I hear. But, uncle, I don't, and I can't, believe that Milly'ssweetheart had anything to do with killing her."

  "No one asks you for what you believe. I've been asking you for whatyou know. And that's all I'm likely to ask you for. You mark what Isay, and don't you give a scrap of her writing to any one. I'm off."

  He was off, catching up the portraits from the table as he went.

  As soon as her uncle had gone Miss Johnson turned to Mr. Haines.

  "If you want to see those letters, you'll have to come now. I have tobe at the theatre soon after eight."

  The young girl and the old man went away together. Miss Johnson led theway through Coventry Street. Suddenly stopping, she caught Mr. Hainesby the arm.

  "Oh! There he is!"

  "Who?"

  "Milly's sweetheart."

  "Where?"

  Miss Johnson pointed to a tall man who was standing on the pavementtalking to the driver of a hansom cab. Mr. Haines started. Hiscompanion felt that he was trembling. He spoke as if he were short ofbreath.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Quite sure--certain."

  Mr. Haines went forward without a word. Miss Johnson stood still andwatched, fearing she knew not what.

  But she need have feared nothing, for nothing happened.

  By the time that Mr. Haines had reached the cab the man in question hadseated himself inside. Mr. Haines had a good look at him before the cabmoved off.

  "It's he! Her aristocrat! I knew that he smelt of blood first time Isaw him, but if I'd known that the blood was hers----"

  He raised his hands above his head, as if by way of a wind-up to hisunfinished sentence.

  The passers-by stared at the old man talking to himself andgesticulating on the pavement, wondering, perhaps, if he was drunk orif he was merely mad.