Chapter VIII

I MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF GEORGE CARTON'S GUARDIAN, MR. KENNETH DOWSETT.

I heard something certainly which by this time, unhappily, was neither new nor strange. It was the voice of a newsboy calling out the last edition of a newspaper which, he asserted with stentorian lungs, contained further particulars of the awful murder in Victoria Park. Amid all the jargon he was bawling out, there were really only three words clearly distinguishable. "Murder! Awful murder! Discoveries! Awful discoveries!"

"Are you alarmed, Fanny," I asked, "by what that boy is calling out?"

"Yes," she replied in a whisper, "it is that, it is that!"

"But you must be familiar with the cry," I observed. "There isn't a street in London that was not ringing with it all yesterday."

"It don't matter, it don't matter!" she gasped, in the most inexplicable state of agitation I had ever beheld. "Lemon never stirred out of the house. I'll take my solemn oath of it--my solemn oath."

I released myself from her grasp, and, running into the square, caught up with the newsvendor and bought a paper. Before I returned to the house I satisfied myself that the paper contained nothing new in the shape of intelligence relating to the murder of my friend Melladew's daughter. What the man had bawled out was merely a trick to dispose of his wares. I had reached the doorstep of Fanny's house when my attention was arrested by the figures of two men on the opposite side of the road. One was a man of middle age, and was a stranger to me. In his companion I immediately recognised George Carton. The elder man appeared to be endeavouring to prevail upon George Carton to leave the square, but his arguments had no effect upon Carton, who, shaking him off, hurried across the road to speak to me. His companion followed him.

"Any news, sir?" cried George Carton. "Have you discovered anything?"

"Nothing," I replied, not pausing to inquire why he should put a question so direct to me.

"Nothing!" he muttered. "Nothing! But it shall be brought to light--it shall, or I will not live!"

"Come, come, my dear boy," said the elder man. "What is the use of going on in this frantic manner? It won't better things."

"How am I to be sure of that?" retorted Carton. "It won't better things to stand idly aside, and think and think about it without ever moving a step."

"My ward knows you, sir," said Carton's friend, "and I confess I was endeavouring to persuade him to come home with me when you were running after the newspaper boy. He insisted that your sudden appearance in this square was a strange and eventful coincidence."

"A strange and eventful coincidence!" I exclaimed, and thought, without giving my thought expression, that there was something strange in the circumstance of my being in Fanny Lemon's house, about to listen to a revelation which was not unlikely to have some bearing upon the tragic event, and in being thus unexpectedly confronted by the young man who was to have been married to the murdered girl.

"Yes, that is his idea," said Carton's friend; "but I am really forgetting my manners. Allow me to introduce myself. You are acquainted with my ward, George Carton, the dearest, most generous-hearted, most magnanimous young fellow in the world. I have the happiness to be his guardian. My name is Kenneth Dowsett."

He was a smiling, fair-faced man, with blue, dreamy eyes, and his voice and manners were most agreeable. I murmured that I was very pleased to make his acquaintance.

"My ward," continued Mr. Dowsett, laying his hand affectionately on Carton's shoulder, "has also an odd idea in reference to this dreadful affair, that something significant and pregnant will be discovered in an odd and unaccountable fashion. Heaven knows, I don't want to deprive him of any consolation he can derive from his imaginings. I have too sincere a love for him; but I am a man of the world, and it grieves me to see him indulge in fancies which can lead to no good result. To tell you the honest truth," Mr. Dowsett whispered to me, "I am afraid to let him out of my sight for fear he should do violence to himself."

"My dear guardian," said Carton, "who should know better than I how kind and good you are to me? Who should be better able to appreciate the tenderness and consideration I have always received at your hands? I may be wilful, headstrong, but I am not ungrateful. Indeed, sir"--turning to me--"I am wild with grief and despair, and my guardian has the best of reasons for chiding me. He has only my good at heart, and I am truly sorry to distress him; but I have my ideas--call them fancies if you like--and I must have something to cling to. I will not abandon my pursuit till the murderer is brought to justice, or till I kill him with my own hands!"

"That is how he has been going on," said Mr. Dowsett, "all day yesterday, and the whole live-long night. He hasn't had a moment's sleep."

"Sleep!" cried Carton. "Who could sleep under such agony as I am suffering?"

"But," I said to the young man, whose intense earnestness deepened my sympathy for him, "sleep is necessary. It isn't possible to work without it. There are limits to human strength, and if you wish to be of any service in the clearing up of this mystery, you must conduct yourself with some kind of human wisdom."

"There, my dear lad," said Mr. Dowsett, "doesn't that tally with my advice? I tried to prevail upon him last night to take an opiate----"

"And I wouldn't," interrupted Carton, "and I said I would never forgive you if you administered it to me without my knowledge. Never, never will I take another!" Mr. Dowsett looked at him reproachfully, and the young man added, "There--I beg your pardon. I did not mean to refer to it again."

"If I have erred at all in my behaviour towards you, my dear lad, it is on the side of indulgence. Still," said Mr. Dowsett, addressing me, "that does not mean that I shall give up endeavouring to persuade George to do what is sensible. As matters stand, who is the better judge, he or I? Just look at the state he is in now, and tell me whether he is fit to be trusted alone. My fear is that he will break down entirely."

"I agree with your guardian," I said to Carton; "he is your best adviser."

"I know, I know," said the young man, "and I ought to be ashamed of myself for causing him so much uneasiness. But, after all, sir, I am not altogether in the wrong. I saw Mr. Portland last night, and he said that you and he had had an important interview about this dreadful occurrence."

"I was not aware," I observed, "that you were acquainted with any of the elder members of your poor Lizzie's family."

"I was not," rejoined Carton, "till last night. I introduced myself to Mr. Portland, and told him all that had passed between poor Lizzie and me. I did not have courage enough to go and see Mr. and Mrs. Melladew, but Mr. Portland was very kind to me, and he said that you had undertaken to unravel the mystery."

I did not contradict this unauthorised statement on the part of Mr. Portland, not wishing to get into an argument and prolong the conversation unnecessarily; indeed, it would have been disingenuous to say anything to the contrary, for it really seemed to me in some dim way that I was on the threshold of a discovery in connection with the murder.

"Hearing this welcome news from Mr. Portland," continued Carton, "you would not have me believe that my meeting with you now in a square I never remember to have passed through in my life is accidental? No, there is more in it than you or I can explain."

"What brought you here, then?" I inquired. "Were you aware I was in this neighbourhood?"

"No," replied Carton, "I had not the slightest idea of it."

"He followed the newsboy," explained Mr. Dowsett, "of whom you bought a paper just now. These people, crying out the dreadful news, excercise a kind of fascination over my dear George. I give you my word, he seems to be in a waking dream as he follows in their footsteps."

"I am in no dream," said Carton. "I am on the alert, on the watch. I gaze at the face of every man and woman I pass for signs of guilt. Where is the murderer, the monster who took the life of my poor girl? Not in hiding! It would draw suspicion upon him. He is in the streets, and I may meet him. If I do, if I do----"

"You see," whispered Mr. Dowsett to me, "how easy it would be for him to get into serious trouble if he had not a friend at his elbow."

"What good," I said, addressing Carton, "can you, in reason, expect to accomplish by wearing yourself out in the way you are doing?"

"It will lead me to the end," replied Carton, putting his hand to his forehead; and there was in his tone, despite his denial, a dreaminess which confirmed Mr. Dowsett's remark, "and then I do not care what becomes of me!"

Mr. Dowsett gazed at his ward solicitously, and passed his arm around him sympathisingly.

"Would it be a liberty, sir," said Carton, "to ask what brings you here?"

"I came on a visit to an old friend," I replied evasively, "whom I have not seen for years, and who wished to consult me upon her private affairs."

"Pardon me for my rudeness," he said, with a pitiful, deprecatory movement of his shoulders. "In what you have undertaken for Mr. Portland, will you accept my assistance?"

"If I see that it is likely to be of any service, yes, most certainly."

"Give me something to do," he said in a husky tone, "give me some clue to follow. This suspense is maddening."

"I will do what I can. And now I must leave you. My friend will wonder what is detaining me."

"But one word more, sir. Have you heard any news of Mary?"

"None. So far as I know, she is still missing. If we could find her we should, perhaps, learn the truth."

"Should you need me," said Carton, "you know my address. I gave you my card yesterday, but you may have mislaid it. Here is another. I live with my guardian. It is a good thing for me that I am not left alone. But, good God! what am I saying? I _am_ alone--alone! My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie, is dead!"

As I turned into the house I caught a last sight of him standing irresolutely on the pavement, his guardian in the kindest and tenderest manner striving to draw him away.

Fanny was waiting for me at the door of her little parlour. There was a wild apprehensive look in her eyes as they rested on my face.

"What has kep you so long, sir?" she asked in a low tone of fear.

"I came across an acquaintance accidentally," I replied.

"A policeman, sir, or a detective?"

"Good heavens, neither!" I exclaimed.

A sigh of relief escaped her, but immediately afterwards she became anxious again.

"You was talking a long time, sir."

"It was not my fault, Fanny."

"Was--was Lemon's name mentioned, sir?"

"No."

"Was there nothing said about him?"

"Not a word."

This assurance plainly took a weight from her mind. She glanced at the paper I held in my hand, and said:

"Is there anything new in it, sir? Is the murderer caught?"

"No," I replied; "the paper contains nothing that has not appeared in a hundred other newspapers yesterday and to-day. Fanny, I am about to speak to you now very seriously."

"I'm listening, sir."

"Has Mr. Lemon, your husband, anything to do with this dreadful deed?"

"He had no hand in it, sir, as I hope for mercy! I'll tell you everything I know, as I said I would; but it must be in my own way, and you mustn't interrupt me."

I decided that it would be useless to put any further questions to her, and that I had best listen patiently to what she was about to impart. I told her that I would give her my best attention, and I solemnly impressed upon her the necessity of concealing nothing from me. She nodded, and pouring out a glass of water, drank it off. A silence of two or three minutes intervened before she had sufficiently composed herself to commence, and during that silence the feeling grew strong within me that Providence had directed my steps to her house.

The tale she related I now set down in her own words as nearly as I can recall them. Of all the stories I had ever heard or read, this which she now imparted to me was the most fantastic and weird, and it led directly to a result which to the last hour of my life I shall think of with wonder and amazement.