Chapter XIV: Concerns the Stranger

Hardly had the stranger left the kerb when another crawling hansom was stopped a little distance off, and a man sprang in and drove after the first vehicle.

For an instant I saw his face and recognised it. It was Kennedy, who, finding the pair had left the café, had hurried on, finally overtaking us. He had seen that observation must be kept upon the queer little old man and his identity established.

Daisy, as soon as the old man had left, turned along Charing Cross Road towards the station, where it was so often her habit to meet old Annie prior to proceeding home. Her companion, however, seemed to have suddenly grown very excited over something which the old man had so swiftly related. He seemed to be speaking angrily, assuming a threatening manner, not towards her, but towards some person not present.

Little did he dream that the breathless old fellow was being closely followed in his rapid flight westward, or that he himself was being watched by three keen pairs of eyes.

A second vendor of evening papers approached the first, but, receiving a sign, slunk away. He knew that his fellow-hawker had "got a job on," for, looking across, he at once recognised Inspector Whitlock. The public little guess how much information of great value to the police those paper-men and cab touts pick up, or how clever they are in discovering secrets and putting the authorities upon the right track. Whenever I walked in the West End with Whitlock at night--and it was often--there were frequently hasty words whispered in the dark in passing by dirty, forbidding, ruffianly-looking men who were acting as his "eyes" and "ears" in various matters.

Truly the West End is a strange and complex world of pleasure and crime, poverty and wealth, delight and despair; the concentration of all the vices but few of the virtues of our modern Babylon; the greatest, most extravagant, and at the same time most poverty-stricken city the world has ever seen.

Whitlock sauntered on, narrowly watching Daisy, and still wondering who she might be.

How would he act, I reflected, when he knew the truth, as he must ere long.

The pair strolled to the corner of Trafalgar Square, halting in front of St Martin's Church. As I watched, I saw that the young man was speaking earnestly with her, his hand linked again in her arm. What he was saying had evidently created a great impression upon her, for she stood staring before her as though utterly dazed.

Suddenly her mind seemed made up, and her companion hailing a cab, she entered, and they drove away along Pall Mall.

"We must follow," Whitlock said, quickly; "but it is difficult now there's so very little traffic." He signed to the news-vendor to leave us, and calling a cab, which at that moment approached, we entered and followed.

Whither was this man taking my well-beloved? What was the object of this midnight adventure? I sat back in the vehicle watching in anger the two red lights of the cab in front.

Up St James's Street, along Piccadilly and Knightsbridge we went, towards Kensington. She was going in the opposite direction to her own home--she who had so cleverly and so cruelly deceived me!

Fortunate it was, perhaps, that Whitlock was with me, or I would have faced the pair boldly long before, and demanded of her an explanation on the spot.

And yet, as I reflected, I could not disguise that there was about her manner something which showed her to have fallen completely beneath that man's influence. She was acting involuntarily. Old Annie was most probably waiting for her somewhere, and waiting in apprehension. To travel about in a cab at night with a stranger was certainly not like Daisy Marvin. But was he such a stranger? Was not this man, so strongly suspected by the police, her secret lover?

That last hour had been a complete revelation to me. Daisy, so full of wild abandon in her stage-dancing, so _piquante_, _chic_, and full of fun before the footlights, was, in her private life, an entirely different girl, modest, sweet, and full of a girlish charm that was as indescribable as it was delightful. Had I been told that she loved another I would never have believed it. But I had seen with my own eyes, and even now, at that moment, was following them to an unknown destination.

"I'd like to know who the girl is," Whitlock remarked presently to me. "If the man is the same that I believe him to be, then the whole affair assumes the form of a problem a hundred times more complicated than before."

"How?"

"That man, though not old, has had a past--a remarkable past."

"Of crime?"

"Well--not exactly. Rather of mystery."

"But is not the finding of that birth-certificate very extraordinary?" I asked, quickly reviewing in my own mind all the curious features of the astounding affair.

"Very. I can't, for the life of me, explain--first, why it was concealed there, and, secondly, why the sender of the anonymous telegram should wish to direct our attention to the spot."

"Motives of revenge, perhaps."

"That certainly seems more than likely--revenge upon the person named Drayton."

"The man in front of us?"

"It may be him--or it may not."

"And if he should turn out to be another man?" I suggested.

Whitlock shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course, I may be mistaken. But in any case we shall know definitely to-morrow."

"How?"

"Wait, and I will show you in due course. I wonder," he added, "who that old man was? Kennedy will, I hope, have something to tell us in the morning. The old chap gave our friend in front some information, and was apparently in a tremendous hurry to get out of the way. Kennedy won't leave him till he's found out who and what he is, depend upon it."

The cab we were following had already passed Kensington Church, and was now on its way along the broad, deserted Phillimore Terrace, going still westward towards Addison Road. Whitlock had given directions to our man to keep a respectable distance behind, in order that the pair should not suspect us of following.

"They seem to be going a long way!" I remarked, impatient to ascertain their destination.

"Yes. There's some trickery in progress--that's my firm opinion. And I tell you what, Keene; I don't think that girl is the kind of companion for Francis Drayton. She seems far too genteel, modest and ladylike."

I agreed, and perhaps my hot words aroused wonder within him. But he only remarked--

"If that girl knew as much as I know, she wouldn't be seen about with him, that's very certain."

"Can't you tell me more, Whitlock?" I urged. "You've been speaking in enigmas all the evening."

"It's judicious to do so sometimes," he answered, turning his face towards mine in the darkness. The tone of his voice struck me as curious. He was, I knew, thinking of that small portrait of myself. Little did he dream that the picture was the one I had given to the girl travelling in the cab before us.

Along the Hammersmith Road we went, down Bridge Road, and across the bridge.

"I wonder whether they are daring enough to go to the house at Barnes!" exclaimed Whitlock, as we crossed the suspension-bridge.

It seemed very much as though the house of mystery was actually their destination. Our expectations were soon afterwards realised, when about half-way along Castelnau the cab before us pulled up and the pair descended. The suspected man must have paid well, for the driver without protest, turned his horse round and came in our direction.

We had already stopped and Whitlock, ordering our man to return to the foot of the bridge and there wait, walked straight into the front garden of the house before which we had pulled up, I, of course, following. It was a ruse of his in order that if the man or the woman glanced back they would not detect us.

If, indeed, they had noticed us it would seem as though we had alighted before our own door.

My companion informed me that he had withdrawn the telegraph clerk, and that the house was tenantless, as before.

As we watched, we saw the stranger fumbling at the padlock upon the gate--a lock which the police had placed upon it--and while the girl stood eagerly watching up and down the road, in case someone might approach, he succeeded in opening it, probably with a false key.

From where we stood we could plainly see them standing together, as she covered his suspicious movements. The long, broad road was deserted, and the silence unbroken, save for the distant footfall of a constable.

Quickly, however, the pair opened the gate and slipped within the garden, while a few moments later the constable passed by, all unconscious of what was in progress.

What could possibly induce Daisy to visit that house? She knew quite well by the papers of the strange happenings there. Was it only her woman's curiosity that led her to accompany her companion on that midnight visit, or were they there for some entirely different purpose?

Had she been there before? That was the great question exercising my mind at that moment. When I recollected how my portrait had been concealed in that upstairs cupboard my heart sank within me. I remembered, too, her surprise when she had read the report of the inquest upon the two unfortunate women. In that report she had discovered something--what it was I knew not--which had caused her the greatest apprehension. Was she, therefore, cognisant of the real facts? To me it seemed very much as though she knew much more about the affair than she had admitted.

She had disappeared within, together with her companion.

"They have to get the door unlocked yet," Whitlock whispered to me, after the constable had passed. "We'll give them a little time longer. Then we'll just watch and ascertain the reason of this visit."

As I stood there I could hear my own heart beating, so excited was I. What were we about to discover? What link was there which connected the woman I so dearly loved and adored with that most amazing and motiveless crime and suicide?

Daisy was alone in that empty house with the man whom Whitlock had himself declared was unfitted to be her friend! I could hardly restrain myself from dashing forth to her protection. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell the truth to the man standing so patiently at my side. Yet on reflection, I saw that any word from me might be misconstrued into a shadow of guilt which would fall upon her unblemished reputation. No; silence was best--for my sake, as well as for hers.

For ten minutes or so we remained in that garden, hidden in the dark shadows. To me, those anxious moments seemed hours, until at last Whitlock motioned to me, and we crept as quietly as we could along the pavement to the big iron gate, which I now knew so well.

Pushing it open, we slipped in, walking over the grass to avoid our feet making a noise upon the gravel, and, in the deep shadow of the bushes, approached along the side of the house to its rear.

Suddenly, just as we reached it, a sound broke upon our ears, causing both of us to halt and hold our breath.

The sound came from within that dark, silent house of mystery--a woman's shrill, piercing scream.

I listened again. The cry for help was from the lips of my own love--my own sweet Daisy!

For a second I stood there petrified.