The Woman with One Hand, and Mr. Ely's Engagement

  CHAPTER IX

  THROWN IN HER FACE

  I must admit that, in spite of my efforts to keep up the outwardsemblance of indifference, when I reached the hall I was at a losswhat next to do. A man scarcely ever has a passage of arms with anangry woman without suffering some loss of dignity, and that no matterhow much in the right he is. I had a mine sprung on me from a whollyunexpected quarter; I had been accused of being an assassin by thewoman who, for at any rate one sanguine second, I had fondly fanciedwas about to play the part of my good fairy; and now, as I wasendeavouring with the finest air of conscious rectitude which I had atmy command, to remove myself from the lash of her vigorous tongue, shehad thrown after me in public that hideous epithet. I was aware thatthe maid, with eyes and ears wide open, was peeping at me from thebanisters above, while standing stolidly at the foot of the stairs wasthat much too attentive waiter. As he moved to let me pass Mrs.Lascelles-Trevor--I was always fond of double-barrelled names, beingpersuaded that they were invariably marks of birth and breeding--gaveme an assurance that I was still in range.

  She addressed the waiter with perfect spontaneity.

  "You may let him go, my man, for the present. But his course is nearlyrun, and he will be in the hands of the police sooner than he thinks."

  I did not feel myself entitled to knock the man down because the womaninsulted me, though my inclination went that way. I was still lessdisposed to turn and slang her back again, being convinced that insuch a contest I should not be her equal. My impulse was to seek outMrs. Barnes, as the landlady, and therefore responsible for all thattook place in her establishment, and submit my grievances to her. Buta glimpse that I caught of her, beating a precipitate retreat into hersanctum, directly she saw me glance in her direction, informed me thatsuch a mode of procedure would be worse than vain. I turned into thecoffee-room. Then, feeling that I must go somewhere to cool my brain,I quitted it almost immediately, to sally forth into the street.

  I had brought my wares to a pretty market! Disaster seemed to beheaped upon disaster's head. Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor might be mad, butthere seemed to be method in her madness, and if she really waspossessed by the fixed idea that I was an assassin, though I might notstand in actual peril of my life, I could hardly be in a more awkwardsituation. No wonder I had felt towards her an instinctive antagonism,even when she had appeared to be most friendly. I was not sure that Ihad done wrong in not seeking to rebut even the wildest of her wildwords with a greater show of gravity. The levity with which I hadreceived them might be urged against me if it came to an arrest.

  An arrest! At the mere thought of such a climax I involuntarily stoodstill. Cold sweat was on my brow.

  I remembered what Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had said about her emissariesbeing always on my track. For some time past I had had an uneasyfeeling that my footsteps were being dogged and that I was beingwatched. I turned to see if any one was shadowing me now: he wouldhave a bad time of it if I found him. I noted no one whose obviousattentions I could resent. But then I was in the Strand; in that busythoroughfare the merest tyro could ply his trade of spy without fearof premature detection.

  I turned towards Waterloo Bridge, a sudden thought striking me as Idid so. I would go for advice to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton: it wasthrough them, in the first place, I had got into this scrape; it oughtto be their business to get me out of it. I went, though I might havesaved myself the trouble. They expressed their willingness toundertake my defence, if it came to that, and if funds wereforthcoming. But so far from giving me the sort of advice Iwanted--advice which would enable me to escape the dreadful ordeal ofthe prisoner's dock--I could see from their manner, if not from theirwords, that they thought it as likely as not that I was guilty of thecrime which, as it seemed, was about to be imputed against me.

  I left them, feeling very little reassured, and sick at heart returnedto the hotel. On one point I was finally resolved: under that roof Iwould not sleep another night. After what had happened in the morning,even Mrs. Barnes would not have the hardihood to suggest that I shouldcontinue with her any longer--even as a gratuitous guest.

  I went straight upstairs to my bedroom meaning to put the few thingstogether which were mine, and then, and only then, I would have aninterview and an explanation with Mrs. Barnes. This was my programme,but, like so many other programmes I had arranged, it was not destinedto be carried out.

  Directly I reached the bedroom door I became conscious that some onewas inside. Supposing it was the maid, who was performing hernecessary routine duties, I unceremoniously entered. The person withinwas not, however, the attendant abigail--it was a man. He lay on hisstomach on the floor, with half his length beneath the bed. It was thenew waiter. There could be no mistake about the nature of hisoccupation--I had caught him in the act. So engrossed was he with hisresearches, that, before he had realised my presence, I had my knee onthe small of his back and a stick in my hand.

  "As you wouldn't take my friendly warning, take that!"

  I brought the stick down smartly on the nether portion of his frame.He had woke to the consciousness of what was happening at last. Withunlooked-for agility, twisting himself partially free, he scrambledfrom beneath the bed, I continuing, as he struggled, to get in myblows wherever I could.

  "Stop this," he gasped, "or you'll regret it!"

  "I fancy," I retorted, "that the regret will be yours."

  He showed more fight than I had expected. It occurred to me thatperhaps, after all, the whipping might not be confined to one sideonly. But my blood was up--I was not likely to allow such trifles toaffect me. All at once, just as I was in the very act of bringing downon him the best blow of any, he caught my wrist and gave it a sharpwrench which numbed the muscles of my arm as if they had been attackedby temporary paralysis.

  "You fool!" he said. "You don't know what it is you are doing. I am anofficer of police, and I arrest you on a charge of murder."

  He had taken my breath away with a vengeance. I gazed at him askance.

  "It is false. You are one of that woman's spies."

  "I am nothing or the kind, as a shrewd man like you ought to be aware.I have had this case in hand from the first. I came here to play thepart of a waiter with the special intention of keeping an eye onyou--and I have kept an eye upon you, I fancy, to some purpose."

  "It's all a lie!"

  "Don't talk nonsense. The game is up, my lad, and you know it. Thequestion is, are you going to come quietly, or am I to use thebracelets--I can get plenty of assistance, I assure you, if I chooseto call."

  "If you can prove to me the truth of what you say, and can show methat you really are an officer of police, I can have no objection toyour doing what you conceive to be your duty, though, I declare toyou, as there is a God above us, that in arresting me you are making agrievous mistake."

  The fellow eyed me with what struck me as being a grin of genuineadmiration.

  "You're a neat hand--I never saw a chap carry a thing off neater,though it's my duty to warn you that anything which you may say willbe used against you. But you've made a slight mistake, my lad--perhapsyou didn't think I found it."

  He picked up something from the coverlet. It was a long, thin blade,of a fashion which I had never seen before. It had a point ofexquisite fineness. Here and there the gleaming steel was obscured bywhat seemed stains of rust.

  "Perhaps it is owing to my stupidity that I am unable to grasp yourmeaning. This is not mine, nor have I seen it before."

  "Haven't you? That remains to be seen. Unless I am out of mycalculations, I shall not be surprised to learn that that knife killedJonas Hartopp. Oddly enough, I found it just as you were coming intothe room--inside the wainscotting, in a little slit in the wall whichwas not half badly concealed, and which was hidden by your bed. Irather reckon that that small bit of evidence will just round my caseup nicely."

  "If it is true that you found it where you say you did, I can onlyassert that I do not kno
w who put it there. I certainly did not."

  "No? That is a point which must be left open for furtherconsideration. Now I am afraid that I shall have to trouble you towalk downstairs. You perfectly understand, Mr. Southam, that you aremy prisoner."

  The bedroom door, in the hurry of my entrance, had been left wideopen. Turning, I perceived that Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor was staring inat us.

  "Your prisoner!" She echoed the fellow's words. "Mr. Southam is yourprisoner? Who, then, are you?" She put her hand to her breast as if tocontrol her agitation.

  "I am a detective."

  "And you have arrested Mr. Southam--for what?"

  "For the murder of Jonas Hartopp."

  She clasped her hands together in a kind of ecstasy. "I am so glad! soglad! I congratulate you, sir, on having brought the crime home to thereal criminal at last." She addressed me with an air of triumph whichwas wholly unconcealed. "Did I not tell you that your course wasnearly run? It was nearer its close even than I thought."

  "I am obliged to you for your prognostication, madam, but I may assureyou that though I am not the first person who has been wrongfullyaccused of a crime of which he was completely innocent, I do ventureto indulge in a hope that this is the first occasion on which a womanhas permitted herself to gloat over the misfortunes of a man who,without having wronged a living creature, is himself friendless,helpless, and injured."

  So far from my words succeeding in reaching the sympathetic side ofher--if she had one--she glared at me, if it were possible, moremalignantly than before.

  "You hypocrite!" she hissed.

  My captor placed his hand upon my shoulder. "Come," he said, in a tonewhich was unmistakably official. "It is no use staying here to bandywords. Downstairs, Mr. Southam, if you please, and mind, no tricksupon the way."

  I told him that he need not apprehend anything in the nature of whathe called tricks from me. We went downstairs, Mrs. Lascelles-Trevorclose at our heels.

  "Step into the coffee-room, Mr. Southam, if you please. I am going tosend for a cab. Mrs. Barnes!" That lady appeared. "I have effectedthis man's capture, as I told you that I probably should do."

  So she had known all along who he was, and in concealing the fact, ina sense, had betrayed me. And this was the meaning of her futile,eleventh-hour attempt at warning of the night before.

  "Let me have a cab at once. And allow no one to enter this man'sbedroom until I have had an opportunity of examining all that itcontains. I shall hold you responsible."

  I saw that Mrs. Barnes's head was nodding like a Chinese mandarin's,and that it was set in motion evidently by the agitated condition ofher nerves. The detective perceived that it would be as well for himto repeat his instructions if he wished them to be acted on.

  "Now then, Mrs. Barnes, pull yourself together! Let me have that cab."

  As Mrs. Barnes moved aside, with the possible intention of takingsteps to execute the officer's commands, I observed that some one wasstanding at her back. It was her husband. He stood just inside thehall door as if he had just come in, and was wondering what was takingplace. He was as shabbily and as poorly dressed as he very well couldhave been. But there was something in his face and in his bearingwhich, for some reason which I will not stay to fathom, brought goodhope into my heart.

  "It's you? Thank God!" I cried. "They have arrested me for murder! Ihope you have come to help me!"

  At the sound of my voice they turned to see to whom it was I wasspeaking. When Mrs. Barnes saw her husband, without any sort of noticeshe broke into a fit of hysterics, laughing and screaming and kickingall at once so that the maid had to hold her tightly round the waistto prevent her making an untimely descent to the ground.

  But there was one person on whom his sudden appearance seemed to havean even greater effect than it had on Mrs. Barnes, and that was Mrs.Lascelles-Trevor. When she realised who it was who had come sounexpectedly on the scene, she began to stare at him as if heexercised over her the fabulous fascination of the snake. She shrankfrom before his glance, crouching closer and closer to the wall. Sheseemed to actually diminish in size. "You!--you!" she gasped."No!--no!--not you!"

  She put up her hands as if to ward him off her. As he made a forwardmovement, one could see that she shivered, as if in mortal terror.

  "And you!" he said, with an intensity of meaning in his voice of whichI had not thought it capable. "And you!" He turned to me, pointing anaccusatory finger at the woman in whose bearing so strange ametamorphosis had taken place. "If you had told me last night that shewas here, I would have solved the mystery for you there and then. Herpresence here makes the thing as clear as daylight. It was she whokilled Duncan Rothwell. Acknowledge it, you woman with the blood-redhand!"

  He addressed her with a gesture of terrible denunciation. His statureseemed to have magnified, even as the woman seemed to have decreased.His face and eyes were blazing. I understood then how it came aboutthat he had mesmerised poor, weak-minded, nerveless Mrs. Barnes.

  "No!" wailed Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor. "No! I never touched him!"

  "You dare to deny it!" In the man's voice there seemed to be awonderful resonance, in his bearing a singular air of command. He tookfrom his pocket a box, and from wrappings in the box the ghastlyrelics which still haunted Mrs. Barnes in dreams. "Here are the fourfingers and the thumb, and the palm of your right hand, woman, withwhich you would have made an end of me. Clearly, therefore, it waswith your left hand that you murdered Duncan Rothwell. Deny it if youdare!"

  As he spoke he threw at her the dreadful fragments. They struck herfull in the face.

  "I did it! I own it! Don't touch me--not that!" she screamed.

  She fell to the ground--as with amazement and, so far as I wasconcerned, with horror, we stared at her--in what proved to be anepileptic fit.