Chapter XXX Through the Darkness
Events happened apace.
The criminal dovecot in Pont Street was now seriously disturbed.
Even Boyne, usually so calm and unruffled in face of any peril or difficulty, saw that matters had grown very serious. He was in complete ignorance of the return of Gerald Durrant. Nor did he know that at Wimbledon Park the doctor, on calling again late that afternoon, had pronounced that the serum was doing its work, and that Marigold was decidedly better.
It had been just a toss-up. According to his judgment, the serum injected to fight the germs of disease had been administered a few hours too late. The human machine is, however, a curious thing, and the throw of the dice with Death is always weighted upon the side of the living.
Gerald, pale, anxious, and emaciated after all the hardships he had gone through, sat by the bedside of his well-beloved, watching her eagerly.
To his delight, she was slowly recovering. It is one of the features of the malady from which Marigold was suffering—thanks to the brutal plot to kill her—that after a certain fixed period, death supervenes or recovery comes very quickly.
In her case the doctor himself was agreeably surprised. She was recovering, he had said! She would yet live to cheat her enemies!
Gerald, realising this, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He was, of course, in ignorance of what had transpired at Pont Street, or of the suspicion of Charles Emery, the man who had made the actual assignment of Mrs. Morrison’s insurance.
On the following morning, after hearing the doctor’s good news, he sat beside Marigold’s bed, and by slow degrees the girl recognised her lover as he bent over her and tenderly kissed her upon the brow.
The light of recognition suddenly shone in her eyes, and smiling, she gripped his hand.
“Yes, darling, I am home again!” he said in a soft voice. “Home—to find that you are getting better. You’ve been very ill. But you’ll soon be well again, thank God!”
For some moments the girl was too overcome by emotion to speak, but at last her lips moved, and in a voice scarcely audible she pronounced his name.
“Gerald!” she articulated with difficulty, raising her hand until it rested against his cheek. “Gerald! My Gerald!”
“Yes, darling! I am here with you!” he assured her soothingly, for they were alone together, the doctor having just left. “You have been very, very ill.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “very ill.”
Then she closed her eyes for fully five minutes, as though the strain of speaking had been too much for her, while he sat at her bedside watching breathlessly the white countenance of the girl who was all in all to him.
At last she again opened her eyes, and in a voice scarce above a whisper, asked:
“Where have you been all this long, long time?”
“Abroad, dear. But don’t worry about that! I’m back,” he said cheerfully. “Back with you. Rest, and you will soon be quite well again.”
Again she closed her eyes and turned her head slightly upon the pillow. And as she did this, Gerald again kissed her upon the brow.
About two hours later her condition showed a marked improvement, but Gerald had not left her side for a moment.
At noon she seemed so much better that he decided to go over to Ealing and obtain a suit of his own clothes, so as to make himself more presentable. This he did.
His sister was naturally delighted to see him, but save for a brief explanation of his absence he did not enter into any details concerning it. His anxiety was to return to Wimbledon Park. He had at first contemplated going to Mincing Lane to explain his absence, but had now decided to postpone that until the morrow.
So about three o’clock he was back again at Marigold’s bedside, delighted to find the great improvement which had taken place during the past few hours. The serum was doing its work, and slowly she was returning to her old self again.
When they were alone, and Gerald was once more seated beside her, she turned to him, and in a low, intense voice asked if her sister had told him of the fire in Bridge Place.
“Yes, dearest,” he answered. “I know all about it. I’ve seen the ruin, and I’ve talked to your aunt. You both had narrow escapes!”
“Mr. Boyne—set—it—on—fire—Gerald,” she said weakly, “so as to get rid of what was in that upstairs room!”
“Without a doubt.”
“I—I tried to learn more about it. That’s—well, that’s why I dined with Mr. Boyne.”
“You dined with him?” echoed her lover.
“Yes—in order to try and learn something more. Did we not agree to keep a watchful eye upon him?”
“We did. But I fell into a cunningly devised trap on the night I disappeared,” he said. “I will describe it to you later. Well, when you dined with the fellow, did you discover why he spends his evenings among those smart people in the West End?”
“No, Gerald; but I came to the conclusion that he is a very remarkable crook.”
“Of that I’m certain, dear. We’ve both had proof of it. He knew we were watching him, and his intention, no doubt, was to get rid of both of us.”
“Yes, I quite agree,” replied the girl faintly, yet smiling into his face. Then she added: “Do you know, Gerald, that—that ever since I dined with Mr. Boyne I haven’t been the same. I felt ill next morning, and gradually the illness increased, until I had to go to bed and the doctor came to see me.”
Gerald Durrant knit his brows.
“By Gad!” he gasped. “I—I never thought of that! He invited you to dinner—eh?”
In reply to his question, Marigold described the chance meeting near the bank and the invitation that followed.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, after a pause. “He had got rid of me, and intended that you should die—truly a most diabolical plot! I see it all! But we will be even with him yet, darling—never fear!”
Assuring the girl that he would return very soon, Gerald Durrant left the house determined to take direct action. His failure to convince the police at Hammersmith that “Busy” Boyne, the pious insurance agent, was a master-criminal, had irritated and angered him. Probably if he went direct to Scotland Yard and re-told the story, laying stress upon the plots against Marigold and himself, they would hear him and make some investigation.
The mystery of that upstairs room and its weird occupant was ever uppermost in his mind. And now that it was destroyed, it made it plainer than ever that there had been some guilty secret hidden there.
He went to Charing Cross, and presently entered the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, where he was courteously received by Detective-Inspector Shaw in one of the cold, bare, official waiting-rooms.
The inspector, a short, stout, brusque man, listened very patiently to the strange story related to him, and once or twice jotted down notes. But his countenance was imperturbable, and Gerald’s heart had already sunk within him, for he saw that he was quite unimpressed.
At last Shaw stirred himself, and said:
“Well, Mr. Durrant, all that you’ve just told me is extremely interesting. Will you wait a few moments?” and rising, he left the room. On his return five minutes later, he asked Gerald to accompany him. They went together down a long corridor, where the young man was ushered into a comfortable office. A well-dressed man of rather dapper appearance was seated at a table, and Gerald was invited to a chair, when he was closely questioned, more especially regarding his observations and those of Marigold upon the houses in Pont Street and Upper Brook Street, and also concerning the trap into which he himself had fallen, and Marigold’s inexplicable illness.
“Is the young lady yet fit to see anyone, do you think?” asked the superintendent. “Is she well enough to make a statement?”
“Not to-day, I fear. Perhaps she will be to-morrow.”
His interrogator reflected for a few moments.
“When is that appointment due with Mr. Macdonald and the Frenchman—Galtier is his name, isn’t it?” he asked his secretary, who was seated at a table on the opposite side of the room.
“They are due here now,” was the latter’s reply as he glanced at the clock.
“Mr. Emery is also to be here, is he not, Mr. Francis?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the secretary.
Five minutes later there assembled in that room five other persons. Charles Emery was shown in with the inquisitive little man, Alexander Macdonald, who had arrived in Ardlui, and, giving his name as John Greig, had watched the Red Widow by orders from the detective office in Glasgow, and had gone back down Loch Lomond only half convinced that he was on the wrong track, and that she was not the notorious woman, Sarah Slade, for whom he was in search.
Alexander Macdonald was, however, a very shrewd person, and when the first suspicion of a new case was aroused against Ena Pollen, as she now called herself, he saw that he had been sadly misled. Therefore, unknown to Scotland Yard, the Glasgow police had been doing underground work in order to fix the identity of the lady of Upper Brook Street.
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the two men there came Céline and Galtier, together with a well-dressed elderly man, the manager of the insurance company in which the false Mrs. Morrison had taken out a policy.
For a full hour they sat with the superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, who, with a shorthand writer at his elbow, heard the further statement of each in turn. At last, turning to Inspector Shaw, he said:
“There is certainly sufficient evidence to justify the immediate arrest of the two women and the man Boyne. We must get the statements of Miss Ramsay and her aunt later.”
Then, taking a sheet of pale-yellow official paper, he scribbled one or two lines, signed them, and handed it to Shaw.
“I think that is all we can do at the moment,” he said, addressing the party. “It is quite evident that a great insurance conspiracy has been attempted, and not for the first time. Apparently the late Mr. Martin was a victim, together with other persons, whose names and circumstances we shall later on discover. To me it seems that great credit is due to the intelligence of Miss Ramsay and of Mr. Durrant, who watched the man Boyne so ingeniously until they must have somehow betrayed themselves, and thus have placed their lives in jeopardy.”
“I think,” said the Manchester solicitor, “that if Mrs. Braybourne had pretended to remain in ignorance for a month or so, and not sought to establish her claim, the company would have, no doubt, paid the sum without question.”
“Yes,” laughed the superintendent. “But criminals always betray themselves by overdue anxiety. But we have here to deal with a very dangerous gang. and it only shows to the insurance world how easily they may be defrauded by a well-established organisation.”
Shaw had left the room, and already the telephone was at work to ensure the arrest of the criminals.
“It will certainly be highly interesting to discover how many innocent people have actually been the victims of this desperate and relentless trio who dealt secret death in order to enrich themselves,” remarked the superintendent.
“There was a grave suspicion of the woman Pollen in another case about two years ago,” said Macdonald. “Therefore, on a report from Ardlui, I ran up from Glasgow, but I failed to identify her as the woman who had called herself Slade, though I had very strong suspicions. Her social standing deceived me, I admit. Poor Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn!” exclaimed Macdonald in his strong Glasgow accent. “She was a good lady—a very good lady!”
“Well,” said the superintendent, rising from his chair. “We have to thank you all for your combined efforts, and especially Mademoiselle and Mr. Durrant. Let’s hope we shall get the guilty ones, and then we shall all meet again as witnesses at the Old Bailey.”
And thus, just after five o’clock, he dismissed them, Gerald, excitedly and with all haste, making his way back to the bedside of his loved one in order to tell her the intentions of the police.
At last the devilish crimes of the Red Widow and her accomplices were to be exposed, and the trio of death-dealers punished.