Chapter I

Vernon's door was opened, hastily, from within, just as I had my hand upon the knocker. Someone came dashing out into the street. It was not until he had almost knocked me backwards into the gutter that I perceived that the man rushing out of Vernon's house was Crampton.

"My dear Arthur!" I exclaimed. "Whither away so fast?"

He stood and stared at me, the breath coming from him with great palpitations. Never had I seen him so seriously disturbed.

"Benham," he gasped, "our friend, Vernon, is a scoundrel."

I did not doubt it. I had had no reason to suppose the contrary. But I did not say so. I held my tongue. Crampton went on, gesticulating, as he spoke, with both fists clenched; dilating on the cause of his disorder with as much freedom as if the place had been as private as the matters of which he treated; apparently forgetful that, all the time, he stood at the man's street door.

"You know he stole from me my Lilian--promised she should be his wife! They were to have been married in a month. And now he's jilted her--thrown her over--as if she were a thing of no account. Made her the laughing stock of all the town! And for whom do you think, of all the women in the world? Mary Hartopp--a widow that should know better! It's not an hour since I was told. I came here straight. And now Mr. Vernon knows something of my mind."

I could not help but think, as he went striding away, as if he were beside himself with rage--without giving me a chance to say a word--that all the world would quickly learn something of it too.

The moment seemed scarcely to be a propitious one for interviewing Decimus Vernon. He would hardly be in a mood to receive a visitor. But, as the matter of which I wished to speak to him was of pressing importance, and another opportunity might not immediately occur, I decided to approach him as if unconscious of anything untoward having happened.

As I began to mount the stairs there came stealing, rather than walking down them, Vernon's man, John Parkes. At sight of me, the fellow started.

"Oh, Mr. Benham, sir, it's you! I thought it was Mr. Crampton back again."

I looked at Parkes, who seemed sufficiently upset. I had known the fellow for years.

"There's been a little argument, eh, Parkes?"

Parkes raised both his hands.

"A little argument, sir! There's been the most dreadful quarrel I ever heard."

"Where is Mr. Vernon?"

"He's in the library, sir, where Mr. Crampton left him. Shall I go and tell him that you would wish to see him?"

Parkes eyed me in a manner which plainly suggested that, if he were in my place, he should wish to do nothing of the kind. I declined his unspoken suggestion, preferring, also, to announce myself.

I rapped with my knuckles at the library door. There was no answer. I rapped again. As there was still no response, I opened the door and entered.

"Vernon?" I cried.

I perceived at a glance that the room was empty. I was aware that, adjoining this apartment was a room which he fitted up as a bedroom, and in which he often slept. I saw that the door of this inner room was open. Concluding that he had gone in there, I went to the threshold and called "Vernon!"

My call remained unanswered. A little wondering where the man could he, I peeped inside. My first impression was that this room, like the other, was untenanted. A second glance, however, revealed a booted foot, toe upwards, which was thrust out from the other side of the bed. Thinking that he might be in one of his wild moods, and was playing me some trick, I called out to him again.

"Vernon, what little game are you up to now?"

Silence. And in the silence there was, as it were, a quality which set my heart in a flutter. I became conscious of there being, in the air, something strange. I went right into the room, and I looked down on Decimus Vernon.

I thought that I had never seen him look more handsome than he did then, as he lay on his back on the floor, his right arm raised above his head, his left lying lightly across his breast, an expression on his face which was almost like a smile, looking, for all the world as if he were asleep. But I was enough of a physician to feel sure that he was dead.

For a moment or two I hesitated. I glanced quickly about the room. What had been his occupation when death had overtaken him seemed plain. On the dressing table was an open case of rings. Three or four of them lay in a little heap upon the table. He had, apparently, been trying them on. I called out, with unintentional loudness--indeed, so loudly, that, in that presence, I was startled by the sound of my own voice.

"Parkes?"

Parkes came hurrying in.

"Did you call, sir?"

He knew I had called. The muscles of the fellow's face were trembling.

"Mr. Vernon's dead."

"Dead!"

Parkes' jaw dropped open. He staggered backwards.

"Come and look at him."

He did as I told him, unwillingly enough. He stood beside me, looking down at his master as he lay upon the floor. Words dropped from his lips.

"Mr. Crampton didn't do it."

I caught the words up quickly.

"Of course he didn't, but--how do you know?"

"I heard Mr. Vernon shout 'Go to the devil' to him as he went downstairs. Besides, I heard Mr. Vernon moving about the room after Mr. Crampton had gone."

I gave a sigh of relief. I had wondered. I knelt at Vernon's side. He was quite warm, but I could detect no pulsation.

"Perhaps, Mr. Benham, sir," suggested Parkes, "Mr. Vernon has fainted, or had a fit, or something."

"Hurry and fetch a doctor. We shall see."

Parkes vanished. Although my pretensions to medical knowledge are but scanty, I had no doubt whatever that a doctor would pronounce that Decimus Vernon was no longer to be numbered with the living. How he had come by his death was another matter. His expression was so tranquil, his attitude, as of a man lying asleep upon his back, so natural; that it almost seemed as if death had come to him in one of those commonplace forms in which it comes to all of us. And yet----

I looked about me to see if there was anything unusual which might catch the eye. A scrap of paper, a bottle, a phial, a syringe--something which might have been used as a weapon. I could detect no sign of injury on Vernon's person; no bruise upon his head or face; no flow of blood. Stooping over him, I smelt his lips. There are certain poisons the scent of which is unmistakable, the odour of some of those whose effect is the most rapid lingers long after death has intervened. I have a keen sense of smell, but about the neighbourhood of Decimus Vernon's mouth there was no odour of any sort or kind. As I rose, there was the sound of some one entering the room beyond.

"Decimus?"

The voice was a woman's. I turned. Lilian Trowbridge was standing at the bedroom door. We exchanged stares, apparently startled by each other's appearance into momentary speechlessness. She seemed to be in a tremor of excitement. Her lips were parted. Her big, black eyes seemed to scorch my countenance. She leaned with one hand against the side of the door, as if seeking for support to enable her to stand while she regained her breath.

"Mr. Benham--You! Where is Decimus? I wish to speak to him."

Her unexpected entry had caused me to lose my presence of mind. The violence of her manner did not assist me in regaining it. I stumbled in my speech.

"If you will come with me into the other room, I will give you an explanation."

I made an awkward movement forward, my impulse being to conceal from her what was lying on the floor. She detecting my uneasiness, perceiving there was something which I would conceal, swept into the room, straight to where Vernon lay.

"Decimus! Decimus!"

She called to him. Had the tone in which she spoke, then, been in her voice when she enacted her parts in the dramas of the mimic stage, her audiences would have had no cause to complain that she was wooden. She turned to me, as if at a loss to comprehend her lover's silence.

"Is he sleeping?" I was silent. Then, with a little gasp, "Is he dead?" I still made no reply. She read my meaning rightly. Even from where I was standing, I could see her bosom rise and fall. She threw out both her arms in front of her. "I am glad!" she cried, "I am glad that he is dead!"

She took me, to say the least of it, aback.

"Why should you be glad?"

"Why? Because, now, she will not have him!"

I had forgotten, for the instant, what Crampton had spluttered out upon the doorstep. Her words recalled it to my mind. "Don't you know that he lied to me, and I believed his lies."

She turned to Vernon with a gesture of scorn so frenzied, so intense, that it might almost have made the dead man writhe.

"Now, at any rate, if he does not marry me, he will marry no one else."

Her vehemence staggered me. Her imperial presence, her sonorous voice, always were, theatrically, among her finest attributes. I had not supposed that she had it in her to display them to such terrible advantage. Feeling, as I did feel, that I shared my manhood with the man who had wronged her, the almost personal application of her fury I found to be more than a trifle overwhelming. It struck me, even then, that, perhaps, after all, it was just as well for Vernon that he had died before he had been compelled to confront, and have it out with, this latest illustration of a woman scorned.

Suddenly, her mood changed. She knelt beside the body of the man who so recently had been her lover. She lavished on him terms of even fulsome endearment.

"My loved one! My darling! My sweet! My all in all!"

She showered kisses on his lips and cheeks, and eyes, and brow. When the paroxysm had passed--it was a paroxysm--she again stood up.

"What shall I have of his, for my very own? I will have something to keep his memory green. The things which he gave me--the things which he called the tokens of his love--I will grind into powder, and consume with flame."

In spite of herself, her language smacked of the theatre. She looked round the room, as if searching for something portable, which it might be worth her while to capture. Her glance fell upon the open case of rings. With eager eyes she scanned the dead man's person. Kneeling down again, she snatched at the left hand, which lay lightly on his breast. On one of the fingers was a cameo ring. On this her glances fastened. She tore, rather than took it from its place.

"I'll have that! Yes! That!"

She broke into laughter. Rising she held out the ring towards me. I regarded it intently. At the time, I scarcely knew why. It was, as I have said, a cameo ring. There was a woman's head cut in white relief, on a cream ground. It reminded me of Italian work which I had seen, of about the sixteenth century. The cameo was in a plain, and somewhat clumsy, gold setting. The whole affair was rather a curio, not the sort of ring which a gentleman of the present day would be likely to care to wear.

"Look at it. Observe it closely! Keep it in your mind, so that you may be sure to know it should you ever chance on it again. Isn't it a pretty ring--the prettiest ring you ever saw? In memory of him"--she pointed to what was on the floor behind her--"I will keep it till I die!"

Again she burst into that hideous, and, as it seemed to me, wholly meaningless laughter. Her bearing, her whole behaviour, was rather that of a mad woman, than a sane one. She affected me most unpleasantly. It was with feelings of unalloyed relief that I heard footsteps entering the library, and turning, perceived that Parkes had arrived with the doctor.