Great Porter Square: A Mystery. Volume 3

“You are growing bold, my love,” she said.

“You are mistaken again,” I said. “If I were bold, I should order you immediately from this room. If I were bold, I should set the lawyers at work without an hour’s delay. But recrimination is useless, and can lead to no good result. Why do you conduct yourself like an actress when we two are alone, and there are no witnesses to be misled or deceived? We know each other. No argument could convince you that I am anything but a weak, old man, who in an unhappy moment entrusted his honour to one who brought shame and misery to his heart and home, or could convince me that you are a good and virtuous woman. Why, then, should we prolong this interview? I made you a most generous offer. You asked me for three days to consider it, and now you come, and for some purpose – not a wise one, I judge – introduce propositions to which you can never induce me to agree.”

“I am fighting for my rights,” she said sullenly, and I knew that I had made an impression upon her. “You have ruined my life; I might have married a richer man than you. Why did you spoil my chances? It would be a million times better for me if you were dead, for then your property would all be mine, instead of the miserable allowance you offer me.”

She suddenly paused, conscious that she had made a mistake. It is likely that she was apprised of her error by an expression in my face produced by her words, for it is a fact that up to this moment I had forgotten that I had made a Will by which everything I possessed was left to her, solely and unconditionally. I had made this Will in haste, after I had broken with my son, who at that time was my heir. It was a proof of my confidence in the woman who betrayed me – one of those foolish acts of which angry men are often guilty, done in haste, to be repented of in leisure unless timefully atoned for. Thank God there is time to repair this error!

I gave no expression to my thoughts; it was necessary to be careful in the presence of such a woman as my wife. But so anxious was she to assure herself of the exact position in which she stood that she over-reached herself in her cunning.

“Have you made another Will?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “There is time before me; I am not yet quite broken-down.”

She breathed more freely, and said meekly, “Yes, there is time before you in which you can dispossess me and my child. When this dreadful dispute is over, I shall have no further claim upon you. Are you really determined not to be a little more generous to me? Will you not give me fifteen hundred a year?”

I was not to be deceived by her mock humility; heaven only knows what was hidden beneath it.

“I am not to be moved,” I said, “and there must be an end at once to prevarication. Your answer must be ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ and it must be given quickly.”

“To-day?” she asked.

“If not to-day, at least within the next three or four days,” I replied. “I will no longer be kept in a state of suspense.”

She looked at me with a sad expression, which might have deceived another man.

“On Wednesday, then,” she said, “at two o’clock, I will give you my final answer. It must be ‘Yes,’ of course, for you are strong and I am weak, but I will wait till then. I am bound to consult my friend before I commit myself.”

All her gaiety appeared to have deserted her. In silence she put on her hat and shawl, and bade me good morning, saying she would come at two o’clock on Wednesday.

I mistrust her; I will delay no longer. On Monday I will draw out another Will, making my son my heir, and in case of his not being alive – which God forbid! – leaving my money to charitable purposes.

It is a relief to reflect that my anxiety regarding my wife will soon be at an end. She cannot but consent to my proposal, and then I shall be free from her for ever. Would to God I had never seen her!

Sunday, 6th July.– This has been truly a Sabbath Day, a day of prayer, to me, and has been passed in contemplation of my past life, and in supplications for the future. If a man could but see the consequences of his errors before he was committed to them, how much misery to himself, how much injustice to others, would be avoided! It is almost incredible that, blessed in the memory of a wife with a pure heart and mind, I should have been led into a second marriage with such a woman as Lydia Wilson. The fault was more mine than hers. She had led a life of shame and duplicity, and it was not to be expected that the simple forming of an acquaintanceship with me would change her character. I should have been wiser, or at least more prudent. I ought certainly to have made an inquiry into the truth or falsehood of the story she told me, or I might have considered that the union of a man of my age with a woman of hers could not be a happy one. It is too late now to repent of an act which has brought its own just and bitter punishment. The only reparation I can make is to endeavour to repair the evil consequences which have ensued. The one aim of my life, after the settlement with my wife is accomplished, will be to find my son. I will advertise for him in the English and American newspapers, and this surely will bring me news of him. But it may not be necessary; he may be with me any time this week. If a father’s prayers could bring him to my side he would be here at this moment.

Monday, 7th July.– I have been employed during a great part of the day in preparing and writing a new Will. Not wishing to consult a lawyer and so to make known my presence in London, and fearful also of delay, I purchased at a stationer’s shop, at some distance from Great Porter Square, printed forms of Wills from which I drew out a testamentary disposition of my property. This task occupied me until four o’clock in the afternoon, and the next task was to obtain witnesses to my signature. These could have been obtained in the house, but if I had attempted it I should have destroyed my incognito. I went to the shop of the stationer of whom I purchased the printed forms, and I returned them to him, and made some small purchases, to the amount of a couple of sovereigns. I then asked the shopkeeper whether he would have any objection to witnessing my signature to a Will, and to allowing an assistant who was serving in the shop also to witness it. He consented, and I signed without giving him a clear opportunity of distinguishing my name; the names of the witnesses followed, and the Will was complete. In payment of the service rendered to me I left in the man’s shop the goods I had bought and paid for; I had no use for them.

The Will is before me now, and I have read it carefully over. Everything appears to be stated in proper legal form, and I have no doubt that it sets my last Will completely aside. What I have done myself without the aid of lawyers has been simply a measure of precaution for the next few days. Wednesday, I hope, will be the last day of my enforced retirement.

Wednesday, 8th July.– It is now four o’clock. My wife entered my room at one o’clock, an hour before that appointed for our meeting. I did not hear her step on the stairs or in the passage, and not expecting her I was looking over the Will I made yesterday and the pages of the diary I have kept since I became a lodger in this house. As she entered, suddenly and unexpectedly, I threw a newspaper over my writing, not wishing to excite her suspicions or to arouse her curiosity; but, as I soon discovered, I was not successful. She was in her usual gay mood, and came in with smiles and bright looks.

“Well, my dear,” she said, “here I am, punctual to the minute.”

“You are an hour too early,” I replied, “our appointment was for two o’clock.”

“One o’clock, my dear,” she said, correcting me.

“It is immaterial,” I said, “and if it bring our business to a speedier conclusion, the mistake of an hour will be agreeable to me.”

She nodded pleasantly, and, as in our previous interviews, took off her hat and mantle, and placed them aside.

“You have been busy,” she said, pointing to the newspaper which covered my papers. “Are you writing a book?” I did not answer her, and she continued, still preserving her light tone. “Make me your heroine, my love, but do not be too hard to me. Say something good of me if you can. You may say that, after all, I showed my good sense, and agreed to your proposals.”

“Am I to accept this as an acquiescence in the arrangement I have proposed?”

“Yes, my dear; I have grown sensible. I give in to all your terms. I will go away from England, and will never, never return. I will give up the name of Holdfast; I will even forget the name of Lydia, and will go out into the world a new woman. A better one, I hope. There is but one thing I insist upon. Now that I have made up my mind, and that nothing can alter it – nothing, my dear; I would not live with you again if you were to entreat me on your knees – I want this business matter settled at once, this very day.”

“How can that be done?” I asked.

“Easily,” she replied. “Draw up a paper for me to sign, and another for you to sign. I will take them away with me, and will show them to my lawyer. Yes, my love, I have consulted a lawyer, and he has advised me to agree to all you propose. If he says the papers are properly drawn out, I will come again to-night, at ten o’clock, and will bring my lawyer with me, to see that they are regularly signed. I will keep my agreement, and you will keep yours, and to-morrow morning I will leave your house, and you can go home and take possession. Nobody but ourselves will be the wiser, and your secret and mine will never be known to the world.”

“I am no lawyer,” I said; “I do not know whether I can draw up the agreement in legal form.”

“Try, my love,” she said; “you are fond of writing, and have had great experience. You can put anything you please in the paper you wish me to sign. You can make it, if you like, a confession from me that I have been a faithless wife, and that my child is not yours. I will sign it. That will suit you, will it not? And it will give you such a hold upon me that, if I break my word, you can release yourself from me, without ever paying me a shilling. That is fair, I am sure, and afterwards, if you are not satisfied with the agreements, your lawyer can draw up others more binding on both of us. I am so sick of you, my love, that nothing else will satisfy me but an immediate break between us. Do I not put myself entirely in your power? If you refuse now, I shall leave you to take any steps against me you choose.”

I considered a few moments, and then consented. To go to law, to sue for a divorce, was a matter of months. The plan she proposed was all in my favour, and it would leave me free to recommence immediately the search for my son. I would draw up such a paper as would bind her beyond hope of appeal, and all danger of publicity would be avoided.

“Who is your lawyer?” I asked.

She produced a letter from a lawyer in Buckingham Palace Road replying to certain points she had submitted to him. I was satisfied, and said that I would endeavour to draw up the agreements.

It was a work of time – of quite two hours – and while I was employed over the papers she sat down before the piano in my room, which I had never opened, and played the sweetest melodies with which she was familiar. She betrayed no impatience; only once did she rise from the piano, and disarranged the papers on the table, in pretended search of her handkerchief.

“Quite an author,” she remarked as her eyes fell upon the pages of my diary, among which was my new Will.

Nothing of greater importance occurred. The agreements being ready, she read them over slowly, and simply said:

“You have protected yourself, my love.”

“I have stated the truth,” I replied, “and your signature will verify it.”

She remained with me some short time after this, making frivolous remarks, to which I returned but brief answers. Then she left me, on the understanding that she would come to the house at ten o’clock to sign the papers, which she took with her.

On reflection, I think it will be wise even now to be on my guard against her. She saw the pages of my diary, and might have seen the Will. I will put them out of her reach. The room next to this is empty, and the door is unlocked. I will go and see if I can secrete them there… There is in that room, in an old-fashioned table, an empty drawer which might easily escape observation. There is a small key in the lock. I will deposit these pages at once in the drawer, where they will be safe for a few hours.

My long agony is approaching its end. Impatiently I wait for the night.

CHAPTER XLIV

CAGED

WITH those words the diary ended.

In breathless silence, oblivious for the time of every surrounding circumstance, Frederick Holdfast perused the record of his father’s last hours. What followed, after his father had secreted the papers, was clear to his mind. Mrs. Holdfast had kept her appointment at ten o’clock, accompanied by her “lawyer,” who could have been no other than the villain Pelham. By a hapless fatality, the house, No. 119 Great Porter Square, had on that night but one inmate – the man who was never to see another rising sun. The landlady and her lodgers were at a wedding feast; the servant was enjoying the glories of the Alhambra, in the company of her sweetheart. Only Mr. Holdfast remained, and thus his murderers were enabled to enter and leave the house without being observed. Most likely he himself opened the street door for them. In the privacy of his room, with no witnesses near, the mask was thrown off by Mrs. Holdfast and her associate, and demands were made upon Mr. Holdfast with which he refused to comply. Whether the purpose of his visitors was murder would never now be known, but murder was accomplished before they departed, and the unhappy man was left by the wretched pair in the agonies of death. It was necessary, thereafter, for their own safety that they should not be seen in the neighbourhood of Great Porter Square, and it would have excited suspicion had they exhibited the slightest interest in the mysterious murder of a man whose body had not been identified. Before leaving their victim they had taken the precaution to empty his pockets of papers, and to remove from the room everything in writing which might have led to the identification of the body. Having made themselves safe, they left the house, and kept out of sight. But some time afterwards Mrs. Holdfast must have recalled, in conversation with Pelham, the memory of the sheets of paper covered with her husband’s writing which she had seen upon the table when she had visited him; these pages were not found in his room, and they were then tormented by the idea that the writing was still in existence, and might one day be discovered to criminate and bring their guilt home to them. It became, therefore, vital to their safety that the papers should not fall into other hands, and for the purpose of searching for them and obtaining possession of them, Pelham had disguised himself as Richard Manx, and had taken an attic in No. 118 Great Porter Square, from which room he could gain easy access to the house in which the murder had been committed.

The circumstantial evidence of guilt was complete, but direct evidence, in his father’s own writing, now lay in Frederick Holdfast’s hands. What remained to be done was to bring the murderer to the bar of justice.

Not a moment was to be lost. It was now late in the night, and Pelham was doubtless upstairs, busily engaged in his last search.

Frederick placed the papers carefully in his breast pocket. His honour was established, his name was returned to him, he was absolved from his oath. He could resume his position in the world, and could offer to the woman he loved an honourable position in society. It was she who had led him to this discovery; had it not been for her courage, the wretches would have escaped, and his father’s murder remained unavenged.

“I myself,” said Frederick, “will deliver the murderer into the hands of justice. Tonight he shall sleep in a felon’s cell.”

He had no fear. Single-handed he would arrest Pelham; it was but man to man, and he was armed, and his cause was just.

He listened for a moment. It was a wild night, and the rain was pouring down heavily. The detective and his assistants were in the Square, waiting upon his summons. Nothing but the plashing of the rain was to be heard; no other sound fell upon his ears from within or without. The murderer was working warily in the room above; he himself would be as wary. Cunning for cunning, silence for silence, a life for a life.

“You murderous villain!” murmured Frederick. “Were it not that I dare not stain my soul with a crime, you should not live another hour!”

In his stocking-feet he crept from the kitchen, and stepped noiselessly up-stairs. In his hushed movements was typified the retribution which waits upon the man who sheds the blood of a human being.

As he ascended the stairs which led to the first floor he was made aware, by the sound of a man moving softly in the room in which his father had been murdered, that Pelham was at work. In a few moments Frederick Holdfast was at the door, listening.

Before he turned the handle, he looked through the key-hole to mark the exact spot upon which Pelham stood, so that he might seize him the instant he entered the room. To his surprise he saw two persons in the room – Pelham bending over the floor boards he had torn up, and the form of a man lying on the bed.

He could not see the face of the recumbent man; the face of Pelham was clearly visible.

It was not, then, man to man. There were two to one. Justice might be defeated were he to risk the unequal encounter. He determined to call in the assistance of the officers in the Square.

But before he left the house, which was being watched from the front and the back, it would be as well to make sure of the murderer and his companion, so that they should have no possible means of escape. He took from his pocket the key of the room, which he had picked up a few hours ago; with a steady hand he inserted it in the lock, and gently turned it, being unable to prevent the sound of a slight click. Then he crept noiselessly down stairs, opened the street door, closed it softly behind him, and stepping into the road, put a whistle to his lips.

The summons was not instantly obeyed, and he blew the whistle again, and looked anxiously around. The faint sound of another whistle presently answered him, and in two or three minutes the detective was by his side.

“I was at the back of the house, sir,” said the detective, in apology, “giving directions to one of my men, Parrock, a sharp fellow. You have discovered something,” he added, noting Frederick’s agitation.

“I have found my father’s diary,” said Frederick, speaking rapidly, “and a Will he made two or three days before he was murdered.”

“Making you all right, I hope,” said the detective.

“Yes – but that is of no consequence. The diary, which I have read, leaves no room to doubt that my father was murdered by his wife’s accomplice, Pelham. The evidence is conclusive, and he cannot escape the law, once we have him safe. He must be arrested this moment. He is in my father’s room. I would have secured him myself, but he has another man with him, and I did not care to run the chance of two against one.”

“He has a woman with him, you mean,” said the detective, “not a man.”

“A man, I mean,” replied Frederick; “I saw him with my own eyes.”

“And I, with my own eyes,” rejoined the detective, “saw Mrs. Holdfast enter No. 118 this evening, in company of Richard Manx, otherwise Pelham. Attend to me a moment, sir. I see through it all. Mrs. Holdfast accompanied him to-night into the house. Never mind the motive – a woman’s motive, say – curiosity, wilfulness, anything will serve. Pelham does not want her company – she forces it on him. What does he do then? He dresses her in a suit of his clothes, so that they may not attract attention when they leave Great Porter Square to-night for good. She is a noticeable woman, sir, and has a style about her which one can’t help remarking. The person you saw was Mrs. Holdfast, dressed in man’s clothes. They are both, you say, in the room your father occupied?”

“Yes, and I have locked them in, so that they cannot easily get out of it.”

“Did they hear the key turn?” asked the detective, anxiously.

“I was very quiet, and I think they did not hear the movement. If you are right in your conjecture, they have thrown themselves into our hands; their being together in that room is an additional proof of their guilt.”

“Undoubtedly. They are trapped. What’s that?” cried the detective, suddenly.

“What?” asked Frederick, following the detective’s startled glance, which was directed towards the first-floor window of No. 119.

“A flash! There! Another! Do you see it? By God, sir! they have set fire to the house! Ah, here is Parrock,” he said, turning to the man who had run quickly to his side. “What news?”

“The house is on fire,” said the man, who was out of breath with fast running.

“Any fool can see that. Get to the back of the house instantly. Take another man with you, and arrest every person who attempts to escape.” Parrock disappeared. By this time the flames were rushing out of the front window of the first floor. “Fire! Fire!” cried the detective. “The neighbourhood is roused already. Stand close by the street door, sir, and don’t let Pelham slip you. He has set fire to the house, and hopes to escape in the confusion. Leave all the rest to me. There is the door of 118 opening, and there is your young lady, sir, safe and sound. I wish you joy. Waste as little time as possible on her. Your first thought must be for your father’s murderers.”

As Frederick passed to the street door of 119 he caught Blanche’s hand, and she accompanied him. He stooped and kissed her.

“Thank God, you are safe,” he said. “Our troubles are over. I have found my father’s Will and diary. Pelham is the murderer; he is in this house now – hunted down.”

“Hark!” cried Blanche, clinging to him. “There is some one else in the house. That is a woman’s scream!”

It was a scream of terrible anguish, uttered by a woman in a moment of supreme despair. Every face turned white as that awful cry floated from the burning building.

CHAPTER XLV

RETRIBUTION

WHEN Frederick Holdfast turned the key in the lock, Pelham raised his head, and looked in alarm at Mrs. Holdfast. She, also, hearing the sound, slightly raised herself from the bed upon which she was reclining and looked into Pelham’s face. Dazed with fear, they remained thus, transfixed, gazing at each other, and did not speak for full a minute. Then Pelham, with his finger on his lips, looked upward to the ceiling, in the supposition that the sound had proceeded from above. For full another minute neither of them moved.

“Did you hear anything?” asked Pelham, in a whisper. “Speak low.”

“Yes,” she replied, trembling with fear.

“What do you think it was?”

“God knows,” said the terrified woman. “You told me no person was in the house.”

“Nor has there been,” he said, “nor is there, I believe. But there may be rats. We will give up the house to them. What are you staring at, you fool?” he cried, turning swiftly round.

“I thought I saw a shadow moving behind you,” she whispered.

“There’s nothing here.”

“No, it’s gone. It was my fancy. Pelham, I am frightened.”

“What did you come here for? I advised you to go home, but you had the devil in you, and would have your way. Let us make an end of this. In mischief’s name, what’s the matter with you now?”

“Hush!” she exclaimed, seizing his hand.

“Well, what is it?” he demanded roughly.

“I heard a whistle outside.”

“What of that? Boys whistling in the streets are common enough.”

“It was not a boy whistling. It was a shrill sound, as though some one was calling men about him.”

“Or calling a cab.”

“Hark! there it is again.”

These were the two whistles by which Frederick summoned the detective.

“It is not a boy whistling a tune,” said Pelham, “nor a summons for a cab. I don’t suppose it concerns us, but you have succeeded in putting a stop to my work. I’ll do no more. Your dead husband’s Will, if he made one, and anything else he wrote, will soon be out of reach of living man. Now for the finishing touches.”