Chapter XVII

"All of us sinful, all with need of grace, All chary of our life,--the minute more Or minute less of grace which saves a soul,-- Bound to make common cause with who craves time, We yet protest against the exorbitance Of sin in this one sinner, and demand That his poor sole remaining piece of time Be plucked from out his clutch: put him to death! Punish him now! As for the weal or woe Hereafter, God grant mercy! Man be just, Nor let the felon boast he went scot-free!"

The sky was dull and leaden, and there was a fine rain falling--the kind of rain that means to stay--when Faunce bent his footsteps from Sloane Square to Selburne Street, Chelsea.

"The kind of atmosphere that slackens fiddle-strings and women's nerves," thought Faunce. "I shall find her in the doldrums."

"Well, Betsy, how's your first floor to-day?" he asked, when the little servant opened the door.

"Oh, she's in one of her nasty tempers--just because the sittin'-room chimley smoked all the mornin'--and she's that low! But you'll cheer 'er hup, I dessay."

"I don't know about that, Betsy," said Mr. Faunce, who did not feel himself the harbinger of joy.

"Come in, can't you?" Mrs. Randall said peevishly, when he knocked at the door.

She was crouching over the fire, in a room that was grey with smoke, and she was wearing a terrible garment of soiled and crumpled plush, with a ragged bead trimming--a garment she called her tea-gown, but which on her "low" days was breakfast, tea, and dinner gown, and sometimes served also as bed-gown, when the morphia needle had been freely used, and she flung herself upon her bed in a casual way, to dream through the long night.

"Oh, it's you!" she said. "Come and sit down, if you can breathe in this stifling hole. That beast of a chimney left off smoking an hour ago, but I can't get the smoke out of the room, though I had the winder open till I got the shivers. Well, what's your news?" she asked carelessly, by way of starting the conversation.

"Bad," he answered, in a grave voice. "Very bad. I have just come from Southampton."

It was nearly four o'clock, and the London light was waning, but it was light enough for him to see the livid change in her customary pallor.

"Well, old chap, and what may you have been doing there?" she asked, with an attempt at sprightliness. "Been to see your sweetheart, or to offer yourself for M.P. at the next vacancy?"

"I have been looking for a murdered man," he said.

Her eyes fixed themselves on his face in wondering horror.

"That ain't a very lively sort of occupation," she said, after a pause, still keeping up that assumption of gay indifference. "I hope the party wasn't a near relation."

"No; he was not of my blood, nor of yours; but he was bound to you by every link that should make a man's life sacred. He was bound to you body and soul, and you helped to murder him."

"Oh, my God!" she cried; "oh, my God! Man alive, don't talk to me like that. Take the poker and smash my head open; but don't talk like that!"

"I must. I pity you, but I can't spare you. It is my trade to drag secret crimes into the light of day."

"You're a detective," she cried. "Oh, you paltry cad, you hypocrite, you coward, to come hanging about me and pretending to be my friend."

"I'll be the best friend you ever had, if you'll give me the chance. Come now, Mrs. Randall; your life's been a misery to you ever since that night by Southampton Water."

Her terrified gaze widened as he spoke. She looked at him as if a spirit of supernatural omniscience, a Nemesis in human form, were before her.

"If this bad business had never come to light, if nobody had ever come to know how Colonel Rannock was murdered, if Bolisco had never been brought to book----"

She started at the name, but the Medusa face remained unchanged.

"How much would your life have been worth to you? Could you have ever been a happy woman?"

"No, no, no," she wailed, "never again! I loved him! He was the only man I ever loved. I used him badly enough, God knows; but he was the only one, the only one. Poor old Tony was a good sort, and I made a fool of him and helped him to ruin himself, and I was sorry when he went off in a decline. Poor chap! He just chucked his life away. Too much fizz, and too much card-playing and late hours. Poor old Tony. He was only six and twenty when the doctors gave him over."

"But Rannock was the favourite," said Faunce.

"Yes, Dick was my one true love--the handsomest, the cleverest, the bravest, and always the gentleman--always the gentleman," she repeated, sobbing, "though I don't mean to say he was straight at cards. He had to get his money somehow, poor fellow."

"You loved him, and you lured him to his death. You told Bolisco where he was going, and that he was carrying his money with him, in bank-notes."

"My God, yes! I told him. I was always a blabbing fool."

"You wrote the letter that took him to the shambles, and you stood by and saw the blow struck."

"Great God! Do you think I knew what was coming? Do you think I'm a fiend from hell dressed up like a woman?" she cried, with wildest vehemence. "I wrote the letter--I was told to, and I had to obey. I asked him to meet me at Southampton. Jim said if he could see Rannock before he left England he could get a few pounds out of him for old sake's sake; and Jim was as near beggary as a sporting man with a few old friends left can be. I never thought he meant harm. Dick and he had been friendly in the old days in the Abbey Road, and it seemed likely enough that Dick would give him a helping hand. I didn't want to write that letter, mind you, but I was bullied into doing it. You don't know what Bolisco is."

"Yes, I do. I know he's a cold-blooded murderer, and that while you and Rannock were walking by the water, Bolisco crept up behind you and struck him on the back of his head with a life-preserver--a blow that fractured his skull."

"Did any one see?" she gasped. "Oh, God, I've heard the dip of the oars as the boat crept up to the wall--I've heard it all through the night sometimes, in a dog's sleep--dip--dip--dip--and then a step on the pavement behind us, and then a crash, and the dull thud when Rannock fell. And I've sat by this fire in the half-light, as we're sitting now, and I've seen him lying on the ground, and Bolisco kneeling by his side emptying his pockets--note-case, watch, tie-pin, pulling off his rings, tearing out his shirt-studs and links, as quick as lightning--and then making me help to drag him to the boat. And I fancy I am standing alone by the river, in the darkness, hearing the dip of the oars fainter and fainter in the distance. It was like a horrible dream then; and it has been a horrible dream to me ever since, a dream that I dream over and over again, and shall go on dreaming till I die."

Her voice rose to a shriek. Faunce saw the fit of hysteria coming, and snatched the morphia bottle and the morphia needle from the table where his observant eye had marked them in his first survey of the room, the practice of his profession having taught him that the first thing to do on entering a room was to make a mental inventory of every object in it.

He held Mrs. Randall's wrist, and gave her a strong dose of her favourite sedative.

"My poor friend, you have been hardly used," he said. "But your duty lies straight before you. As an accessory after the fact, the law will deal lightly with you, and you will have every one's pity. You must turn Queen's evidence, and help us to punish Colonel Rannock's murderer."

"That I'll never do!" she said emphatically.

"Oh, but surely, if you loved this man, you must want to avenge his murder. Think what a cruel murder it was! A strong man struck down in the prime of life. Think of that unburied corpse, lying hidden on the solitary shore, the waters rolling over it as the tide rose and fell--unknown, unhonoured. If you loved him, you must want to avenge his murder."

"I ain't going to peach upon Jim Bolisco," she said doggedly. "And if I was capable of it, my evidence would be no good."

"Why not?" asked Faunce, startled.

"Because he's my husband; and a wife can't give away her husband. That's law, ain't it, Faunce?"

"Your husband? Is that true?"

"Gospel truth. We were married at Battersea Church when I was just turned seventeen. I didn't care for him, and he's been a log round my neck ever since. But he was in luck just then, and he used to give me presents--bits of jewellery, and smart hats, and such-like--and he was the first as ever took notice of me and told me I was handsome. And he said he should take a cottage at Wandsworth, with a bit of garden, and I was to be missus, and have a girl to wait upon me. But his luck turned soon after our wedding--which was on the strict q.t.--and he never took that cottage, and we never told father or anybody else. Jim said our marriage was just a bit of a lark, and we'd best forget it; but when I had a fine house and was flush of money, and might have been Lady Withernsea for good and all, but for him, he didn't forget it. I know what blackmail means, Mr. Faunce. I have been paying it ever since I was eighteen. I had to find money for Bolisco when he wanted it, for he swore he'd claim me as his wife if I didn't. I've had what's-his-name's sword hanging over my head all these years, and I got to hate the man worse every year; and now I hate him--I hate him,--I hate him with every drop of blood in my veins! I turn cold when I hear his step on the stair. I never look at him without remembering that night, and my poor Dick lying on the ground, and Bolisco's wicked hands tearing open his coat and searching his pockets, like a wild beast mauling its prey."

"And you want to see him suffer for that brutal murder, don't you?"

"No; I want nothing but to have done with it all. Just to be out of it, that's what I want. Do you think if they were to hang Bolisco, it would set my mind at rest, or make me forget what a shrew I was to poor old Dick, and how he forgave me, and came back to me after I'd treated him so bad, and how I wrote the letter that lured him to his death? What do I care what becomes of Bolisco? Let him murder somebody else, and get nabbed for that. I don't care. Nothing will stop my bad dreams, till I fall asleep for the last time: and then, who knows? There may be bad dreams underground as well as above; or one long dream of hell-fire and worms that gnaw."

"Come, come, Mrs. Randall, you mustn't despair," Faunce said kindly.

He was sorry for her, and yet what comfort could he offer? He looked at her in her ruined beauty, and thought of her life, and the two men whose lives she had spoilt. She had sown the wind, and she was reaping the whirlwind, and he saw no hope for her in the black future.

What was he to do? He had come to her prepared to make his _coup d'état_, having calculated that he could startle her into a revelation of the murder, in which he believed her to have been an unwilling accessory. He had succeeded, but his success was worth nothing if this one all-important witness could not be heard.

He drove to Scotland Yard, put the facts of the case before the assistant-commissioner, and Bolisco was arrested late that night at the Game Cock, on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Colonel Richard Rannock. The evidence against him, excluding Kate Delmaine's confession, was weak, but there was no time to lose, as she was likely to warn him of his danger.

If the numbers of the notes he had changed could be identified with Chater's list, there would be strong presumptive evidence against him, and other facts might come to light on inquiry to strengthen the chain of circumstance. Faunce relinquished the case to the Public Prosecutor. It had passed beyond the region of private interests. A murder so atrocious concerned the world at large, and the conviction of the murderer was a matter of public importance.

One most painful duty Faunce had to perform, and he set about it with a heavy heart. He had to tell Mrs. Rannock the story of her son's death. Soften the details as he might, it was a terrible story to tell, and he decided that it would be better for her son-in-law to be the bearer of these dismal tidings.

He called on Major Towgood, whom he found in a small house nearer Vauxhall Bridge than Eccleston Square, but by courtesy in Belgravia. The Major received him in a little den darkened by a monster pile of red brick flats, which he called the library.

"Well, Faunce, any news of the prodigal son?"

"Yes, sir."

"Bad news?"

"Very bad news, sir. I came to you in order that you might break it to Mrs. Rannock."

"It will have to stand over, Faunce. Mrs. Rannock is very ill. I may say she is dangerously ill."

"Indeed, sir? That's sudden, for it's only four days since I received her instructions, and she then appeared in fair health, considering her age."

"Yes, she was a wonder for her age, but always delicate--a bit of porcelain that ought to have been behind glass in a cabinet. And she was eaten up by anxiety about Rannock. She took a chill, coming round here to see my wife, who is laid up, the evening after you saw her, and it developed into influenza, or congestion of the lungs--God knows what! The doctors only tell me she is old, and that her life hangs by a thread; but I'm afraid we shall lose her, Faunce."

"If that sweet old lady dies without hearing what I have to tell her, I think those who love her best will have cause to thank God, sir; for I believe my story would kill her."

"Is it as bad as that?"

"It couldn't be worse, sir."

Faunce related his discoveries, and Major Towgood agreed that at all cost the truth must be kept from the murdered man's mother. In her intervals of consciousness she had repeatedly asked about Faunce and the progress of his inquiry. And there had been hours of delirium in which she thought the fondly-loved son was at her bedside. She had taken a strange doctor for him, and had talked to him as to her son.

No, she must not know while the knowledge could possibly be kept from her. But should she recover, and leave her room, the newspapers would tell her of Bolisco's arrest, and the inquiry before the magistrate at Southampton, where he was to be taken on the following day. And it would not be possible to keep the newspapers from her. For her to recover, and know her son's tragic fate, would mean a broken heart that death alone could cure.

"Perhaps you're right, Faunce. Even my wife would hardly wish the dear old lady to struggle back to life to suffer such a crushing blow. Poor Dick! We always knew that woman would be his ruin. His sin has found him out."

* * * * *

The Rannock murder was the _cause célèbre_ of the next few months. The inquiry before the Southampton magistrate was adjourned from week to week, and the case against James Bolisco gradually developed, till the chain of evidence became as strong as circumstantial evidence well can be. The numbers of the notes paid to the Wandsworth brewer by the landlord of the Game Cock were traced, and proved identical with the numbers in Chater's list. Bolisco was sworn to by the boatman as the man who hired his boat on the date of Colonel Rannock's journey to Southampton, and whom he never saw after the hiring. Bolisco was also identified by the landlord of a humble little inn on the road between Redbridge and Southampton, as having come to his house after midnight, on that same date, in a strange condition, his boots and trousers smothered in river mud, and one of his hands torn and bleeding. He had hurt it with a hammer, he said. He ate a heavy supper, drank half a bottle of brandy, paid his bill before he went to bed, and left next morning before anybody in the house was astir.

Another link in the chain was a life-preserver which a Redbridge boy had picked up in a lane leading from the river to the village street, and on which were found minute splinters of bone, and tufts of human hair, adhering to the heavy leaden knob. Chater pronounced the hair to be of the colour and texture of his master's, while the surgeon, who had given his evidence before the coroner, considered this formidable weapon the kind of instrument calculated to cause the fracture he had described at the inquest.

The victim's watch and tie pin, a valuable ruby, had been pawned by the murderer late in the year, and a West-end pawnbroker swore to Bolisco as the man from whom he received them. Watch and pin were identified by Major Towgood.

Bolisco had carried out his design with a kind of brutal carelessness of consequences which might have seemed more natural in one of Nero's gladiators, a half-tamed savage from Dalmatian forests, than in a son of the London streets. He had presumed upon the consciousness of brute force, and when the inquest was over, and his victim's identity unsuspected, he had considered himself safe for life. He stared at the witnesses in a blank surprise, as one fact after another was marshalled against him, and stood with bent brows, in a sullen apathy, at the end of the proceedings, when he heard himself committed for trial at the next assizes.

In the dock at Winchester, and in the condemned cell at Newgate, he had time to reflect upon his mistakes, and to think how he might have done the thing better.

That was James Bolisco's repentance.

* * * * *

Mrs. Rannock did not live to know of her son's ghastly fate. Her frail life ended peacefully before Faunce's discovery was a week old. Her last breath expired in words of love, her last movement was a feeble motion of her hand towards the beloved figure which her fancy had conjured out of thin air, the figure of her son, standing by her bedside, as she had seen him again and again in delirious dreams.

* * * * *

Faunce did all that compassionate kindness could do for Bolisco's wretched wife. The impression of her letter in the blotting-book had been one of the links in the chain of circumstance, for, taken in conjunction with Chater's evidence, it showed why Rannock had gone to Southampton the day before the American steamer started. Her position as Bolisco's wife made her impossible as a witness; but her letter was evidence, and her relations with the murderer became as notorious as every other detail in the story of the crime.

"It can't hurt me," she told Faunce, the night after the death sentence at Winchester. "I'm past hurting. Bolisco's better out of the world, for he'd never stop doing harm as long as he was in it--and the sooner I follow him the better for me."

Faunce proved a kind friend to the unhappy woman whose days and nights were haunted by the image of her murdered lover. Broken in spirits, all the evil ways of her dissipated youth wreaking their revenge upon health and beauty, the physician to whom Faunce took her pronounced her doom. The hand of death was upon her. It was only a question of time.

"If she stays in London she will hardly last through the winter," he told Faunce. "I should recommend Bournemouth or Ventnor--Ventnor for choice. And she may rub along through next summer. But you must stop the morphia habit."

"I'll do what I can," said Faunce; "but I am a busy man. She is not of my kith and kin. Only I don't want her to die like a dog without a friend near her."

"She has been a very beautiful woman," said the doctor pityingly. "One must be sorry for such a life thrown away."

Faunce engaged Betsy, the good-natured lodging-house drudge, to take care of Mrs. Randall, and took them to cottage lodgings at Ventnor, not far from the Consumption Hospital; and in that lovely spot, facing the blue water, Kate Delmaine lived through the summer and autumn after Bolisco's execution. Faunce looking in at the cottage now and then--a flying visitor from Portsmouth or Southampton--to see that she was being properly cared for.

He had found her almost penniless in her Chelsea lodgings after the trial at Winchester, her last five-pound note having been sent to the lawyer who had undertaken Bolisco's defence. It was Lady Perivale's generous gift upon which he was now drawing for Kate Delmaine's comfort.

"After all I owe it to her that I was able to pull the business through so easily," he told himself, "and it's only fair that she should profit by my client's liberality."

The end came when November mists were rolling up the Channel, and the late roses were beginning to droop in the cottage garden. The end came peacefully, and not without the consolations of religion, for Mrs. Randall's landlady was a good Church-woman, and in touch with her parish priest, who was kindly and sympathetic, and able to understand a broken heart, even in a difficult subject, like this woman, whose life had been a stranger to all good influences.

"You've been a fast friend to me, Faunce," she said, when she was dying, and he had been summoned hastily for the last farewell; "and if I'd known a hard-headed, kind-hearted chap like you ten years ago I might have been a better woman. Well, I had my fling. There's not many women have had more of their own way or been more looked up to than I was in poor old Tony's time: there's not many women that ever had a truer lover than Dick Rannock, with all his faults. He couldn't keep straight with the cards," she murmured, beginning to wander; "but he was every inch a gentleman. Christ have mercy on his soul!"