CHAPTER XIII.

CERTAIN LOVE LETTERS

For a time, however, we must leave Paul hard at work on his investigations in that tiny hamlet outside Scarborough. True, important results are to follow his labours, although those results are not precisely of the kind he had expected when he had decided so rapidly that Ventris Blake, and nobody else, was responsible for the death of that poor woman on the Filey Road. Unfortunately, the tide of events will not stand still for any of us. We may be the principal actors in the little pitiable tragedies that are enacted in our midst, or we may play quite second-rate insignificant parts. The moment comes when we must all step forward and bear our share, great or little--and so it happened to Winifred and Vera the day after the former returned to the shelter of her uncle’s roof in Emperor’s Gate.

Bold, unscrupulous scoundrels of the type of Ventris Blake strike quickly and deeply when once they see a chance of success has come. Indeed, no sooner did one of his spies report to him that Winifred was safe again in Russell Langford’s flat than he despatched his secretary, Israel Sawdry, to remind Vera of her promise to bring the girl to Park Lane, and at the same time he delicately forwarded a cutting from that evening’s papers, which set out:

“A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place, between Mr. Jules Prendergast, the popular and gifted actor manager of the Belsize Theatre, and The Lady Desborough of Prince’s Gate, W., Illowen, Stamford, and Breakly, Co. Galway. The approach of this happy event, it need, perhaps, hardly be added, has caused quite a flutter in those smart circles where both Mr. Prendergast and Lady Desborough are interesting and inevitable figures.”

As the millionaire had guessed, this cruel goad, although not very delicate, was certainly highly effective; and with heart aflame with rage, Vera made her way to the morning room, and had her first long talk with Winifred since her cousin’s return. Winifred herself chanced to be seated writing at a small table that stood within a recess close to the window, but she rose quickly as the girl entered, some subtle feminine instinct warning her that fresh trouble was astir.

“I want to talk to you seriously, Winnie,” Vera began, as she dragged an arm chair to the fire and seated herself in it. “Do sit down yourself and listen to me, or you will get upon my nerves. First of all, I suppose you have heard that all is over between Jules Prendergast and myself.”

“Yes,” said Winifred, dropping into a chair opposite to her cousin. “I have. Your father told me about it at dinner last night!”

“That is just the mischief. Father has heard of it, and I doubt if he will ever speak kindly to me again. I don’t,” she went on with a gulp and a convulsive twist of the handkerchief she was toying with, “mind about the break with Jules. It’s the pater I am worrying about.”

“Why should you?” queried Winifred, kindly. “He’s not really an ogre. Only give him time and a little thoughtful consideration, and he will come round fast enough, you will find!”

“If it were only the matter between Jules and myself no doubt he would. That, unfortunately, is not the worst aspect of the business. You see Mr. Blake is in it too.”

“But how?” questioned Winnie sternly, with a sudden tightening of the heart strings. “I know, of course, you let him do a little speculation for you--but what of that? You fairly risked your money and won. That’s all, and that’s an end of it. He can’t blame you for it.”

“No, but there are other transactions,” proceeded Vera, who thought the time had now come for a few crocodile tears to drop unchecked from her eyes, and accordingly she made no effort to suppress any sign of emotion: “you don’t know about them, of course, but they occurred when Jules was absolutely on the point of bankruptcy, when his production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ had been a most ghastly failure, and he was at his wits’ end to find cash to produce ‘Othello.’”

“And you took money from a man of such an awful reputation as Blake’s, took it as a gift,” cried Winnie, startled and disgusted. “Oh, Vera! how could you?”

“Not exactly a gift,” the girl returned guiltily, “but to do things I ought not to have promised I would. One promise was--that I should use my influence with you on his behalf.”

“That is useless, quite. I consider the man a most diabolical mischief maker, thief and rogue.”

“I know,” answered Vera, eagerly. “I told him so--but he would make me give my word to do all that he asked. He has a great idea that, if he could only see you, he could make you think better of him. As a consequence, he induced me to enter into another bond with him--that I should bring you to his house in Park Lane to stay for a few days there at the same time as I did.”

“Never,” cried Winifred, springing to her feet, her eyes flashing with anger. “Never, understand that. I know this Ventris Blake better than you think! I know it is he who has brought all this cruel, dreadful trouble on Arthur and on myself. I know what his reason is, to separate me from the man I love, and to make me his; but he shall never do it--never. Therefore you can return to him and tell him the truth, and warn him that his persecution of me had better cease before it is too late. Of course, he thinks that, with his millions behind him, he can do anything in London. So alas! he can up to a point, but only to a point. Heaven won’t desert Arthur or myself, you see--”

“I do, I do,” put in Vera soothingly, artfully realising that after an outburst like this Winifred would be spent and broken, and emotionally all the easier to manage. “Indeed, I don’t think I should have shown you the ghastly skeleton in my cup-board at all, but would have borne it all had I not thought one good thing might come of the visit both to Arthur and yourself.”

“And what good thing could come from Ventris Blake!” queried Winifred scornfully.

“What you yourself suggested,” said her treacherous cousin. “The absolute stoppage of his persecution of Arthur Hudson and yourself.”

“I will make no terms with him,” retorted Winifred hotly. “That would be treachery to Arthur and to my better self.”

“For my sake!” pleaded Vera sinking to her knees in front of her cousin and looking at her with streaming eyes.

“No, not even for your sake.”

“But you don’t realise how terribly harsh your decision will prove to me,” Vera wailed, now genuinely alarmed lest her strategy should fail, and determined to stop at no falsehood to effect her purpose; “after all, you have not yet heard the whole of my wretched plight. I would have spared you if I could, but I see I must drain my cup of bitterness before you to the very dregs before you will be melted. Oh! you can’t have any soft place in your heart to humiliate me like this! You must almost hate me, not to be content with a hint but to probe and probe until you bring out to the light of day the terror that haunts me every hour I live!”

“Vera,” cried Winifred bewildered and astounded; “never have I known you talk wildly like this! What can have happened to you?” And she flung her arms impulsively around the girl and pressed her tightly to her breast. “Don’t tell me a thing more if you don’t want,” she went on soothingly. “I am sure you can’t mean any of the terrible things you suggest. After all, I know you better than you know yourself, and I am sure you have never done a thing you have really and truly cause to bewail in so grievous a fashion as this.”

“I haven’t,” whispered Vera, “but Jules has.”

“Jules,” repeated Winifred. “Again--I don’t understand.”

“Oh, it’s easy enough,” returned her cousin in hard and bitter tones. “Jules Prendergast never cared for me you see--but only for the money I could find for him. When my little fortune ran out, and he had squandered the sum I had got from Ventris Blake he was still in financial difficulties--and so, like the cad he is, he too went to the Park Lane millionaire, and sold all my love letters to him!”

“Sold your love letters,” repeated Winifred too horrified to move. “But they were yours. He should have returned them. What use can Ventris Blake make of them!”

“Ah, you don’t know London, I see,” recklessly proceeded Vera who had no feeling of modesty or compunction now that she had once started on a career of falsehood, and only thought of frightening her cousin and of achieving a great emotional triumph. “There are scores of ways in which a man of wealth and fashion can make use of a packet of a well known girl’s love letters, particularly if they are so full of silly girlish outpourings of sentiment and jealousy as mine are! He can, for instance, shew them his friends at the club. He can publish them in a novel, with the identity only thinly veiled. He can even hand them to some scurrilous Society paper which he has financed himself, and which would dish them up as the latest scandal and sensation under some catch-penny title like ‘An English Girl’s Love Letters to a Popular Actor-Manager; Puzzle: Why was the match broken off!’” And the better to heighten the effect Vera flung her cousin from her and began to move hysterically up and down the room.

For a moment Winifred did not know what to do, but stood with hands clenched and face blanched with horror. “Oh! it’s monstrous!” she murmured half to herself and half to Vera. “Oh, that we had some man now who would go to this creature Blake and horse-whip him--horse-whip him within an inch of his life, and literally force him to disgorge love letters that should have been sacred from all sickening barter such as this!” And then, as she realised her own bereavement, her eyes filled, and she too gave way to tears.

“Don’t cry,” said Vera savagely, stopping suddenly and banging the table. “Don’t! I can’t stand it! Just listen to me. Now you understand why I want you to go with me to Ventris Blake’s--to find out where those letters are and to take them. Now, will you be a true cousin to me, and go with me and help me to get them?”

“I will,” cried Winifred, holding out her hands impetuously.

So it came about the very next day that visit was paid to that luxurious home of Ventris Blake in Park Lane. Indeed it all happened precisely as the millionaire had arranged. In some miraculous fashion, not perhaps wholly unconnected with the mystery of The Three Glass Eyes, the permission of Russell Langford was obtained for the experiment--and, in order to satisfy the proprieties, Blake produced a venerable aunt of his, with the sweet name of Prudence Gordon, who duly wrote the two girls and begged them “to give a lonely old woman the pleasure of their young, bright, cheering society for a week.”

Of course, it would be folly to pretend that Winifred had no misgivings about the effect of her visit. As a matter of fact, the very night she had acquiesced in her cousin’s scheme to obtain possession of the stolen love-letters, she was haunted by doubts as to the wisdom of the course she had agreed on, and beset by suspicions--but Vera herself seemed so hopeful as to the result of the experiment, so buoyant that the danger which threatened would now pass over, that Winifred felt it would be cruel to put any new obstacles in her path.

Thus, indeed, it is that most good women are turned to base account by bad. It is really never hard for any evilly-disposed person to appeal to, and to traffic in, the higher motives that dominate feminine nature--and so long as the good fear to give pain, are slow to think evil, and believe that perfection comes from the sacrifice of self, such wicked triumphs as this of Vera Langford’s will not only be possible but also frequent.

If, however, Winifred had been more suspicious, an incident that occurred just as the Langford’s carriage drew up outside Ventris Blake’s home, would have certainly placed her on her guard. It chanced that, just as the brougham drew to a standstill, the door suddenly opened, and no less a personage than her old much-disliked employer, the Reverend Duncan Kilroy, the vicar of St. Sepulchre’s Church, Piccadilly, came quickly down the steps. Apparently he was labouring under considerable excitement, for his face looked hot and flushed and his movements were spasmodic and anxious. When, however, he caught sight of Winifred he drew himself together, and in place of returning her quiet stare of contempt, his face broke into an insolent grin.

“Ah, Miss Pontifex,” he cried with a wave of his soft-brimmed hat. “So we meet again, do we? Well it is not for the last occasion. Next time though, let us hope we can have a little explanation, and a little chance of clearing up a lot of disagreeable differences. For the present I can only assure you I look forward to a tête-à-tête with you with considerable eagerness!” And, with another wave of the hat, he, still smiling, turned and disappeared down the street.

Was that an apology, or a threat?

For some seconds, indeed, Winifred sat like a statue of stone, beset by a chain of perplexing conjectures, Had she only listened to that inward monitor that had never ceased to strive with her ever since she had resolved on this rash venture, she would have, even at that eleventh hour, broken away from Vera’s sophistries. As it was, however, she argued with herself that she must have grown very selfish since her engagement, that all her impulses were to think of Arthur and herself, and not at all of her cousin who, if she had had more of her time and love, might never have landed herself in this trouble--and thus goading herself on to the wrong path, she permitted Vera to lead her into Ventris Blake’s presence without a word of protest.

Blake himself received them in his drawing room, but to all appearances, his manner was cold, quiet and dignified. He apologised for the absence of Mrs. Gordon, who, he said, was detained in her room by a sick headache, but who would appear shortly and pour tea for them. He went on to explain that he had placed an entire wing at the disposal of them both, and he trusted that if they didn’t find everything quite satisfactory they would speak quite plainly to his aunt, who was most anxious to make their stay in Park Lane happy and memorable.

“Miss Pontifex won’t believe me, I know,” he went on with an added touch of pathos, “but we men who are reputed to be wealthy, have few people about us we dare really rely on. I don’t know how it is, but if you ever want to find anybody who is really lonely, cut off from the best unselfish friendship, and doomed to battle with his worse self daily, because, being rich, he has the means of gratifying his worst instincts, take the present-day millionaire. Really, when you come to see us as we are, you will say with me, we are a depressed, spiritless lot. Most of us have drained life’s pleasures to the dregs, and realised they are but the lees of the best vintages that can never be ours. Many of us who have sprung from the ranks, as it were, would be glad to be poor again with the honest joy of a day’s toil if--if we were sure we should never come to see the inside of a work-house.”

With a pensive smile he rose and opened the door wide for his aunt--Prudence Gordon, a dainty little figure in black silk and lace, who came rustling in, all aglow with excitement at the girls’ arrival. A moment later he had vanished--but all the good impression he had made was obliterated as he walked off, by his treatment of a cat that came purring towards him on the edge of an ottoman.

“What a nuisance these domestic animals are,” he said half to himself and half to his companions, and before even he could realise the significance of his own act, he shot out an arm and knocked it headlong to the floor.

Winifred and Vera exchanged glances--but no words. Vera, however, was now on her best behaviour, and the message she telegraphed was plain enough:--“I know the man is a brute, but remember he has those love letters, and we must put up with him until we have got them, lest worse may happen to us.” With this, Winifred had perforce to be content, but she was unaffectedly glad when night came, and that when she had retired to her room, Vera was able to tell her she had discovered where the precious package was hidden, through some unguarded words of Blake’s, and that all they had to do was to slip down when everybody had retired to rest, and to seize them.

“You are quite sure you have hit on the right spot?” asked Winifred anxiously. “Remember, we don’t want to figure as common thieves in this matter.”

“Of course not,” answered Vera reassuringly. “I am too keen on the recovery of the letters to make any error about their whereabouts. I lured Ventris Blake on to talk about them, and, in the excitement of a discussion as to the ethics of his retaining them, he actually pointed to the place where they were--in a small safe behind a picture of a Florentine monk, and assured me that if I didn’t annoy him, they would never see the light of day again.

“Ugh! of course, I pretended to be satisfied by his promise, but I know exactly what his word is worth, and so later, I came down to him in a panic and pretended I had lost the key of my jewel case, and got him to lend me the master key of all his doors and safes, which he carried on his watch chain. Luckily too, I had a key very like his, and so, when I returned it, I substituted his master key for mine, with the result that unless he has occasion to try it to-night, he will never ‘spot’ the difference. If he does, I shall say I suddenly found mine, and in my excitement, I muddled the two up together!” And she held out the stolen key for Winifred to inspect.

Winifred, however, was too sick at heart to take much heed of her preparations, and only waited feverishly for the time to come when they both might make the attempt to recover the fatal love-letters. One--two--three hours thus crept on with feet of lead. They heard doors slam in the distance. They noted the steps of the servants as, one after another, they straggled past the end of the corridor up to their quarters at the top of the mansion. Finally a profound silence seemed to sink over the household--and taking advantage of this, the girls stealthily opened the bedroom door, and each carrying a candle (the flame of which they covered with a hand), they started to descend the darkened staircase, treading as softly as though they had previously bared their feet.

At first Vera took the lead of the expedition, and piloted the way towards the millionaire’s study with an almost unerring instinct. Even the precise picture of the monk of Florence, which marked the safe from the public gaze, she indicated almost as soon as they crept noiselessly into the apartment, but when this panel had been swung backwards on its secret hinges and the master key had been fitted into the lock, she gave a convulsive little start.

“Oh! Winnie,” she cried, “this excitement is too much for me. I feel I can’t breathe. I’m afraid I’m going to faint!”

“Never mind, dear,” replied the unsuspicious and generous Winifred. “Be brave. We are nearly through our task. Another minute--”

“And I shall drop,” the girl declared. “Oh! do excuse me. I really can’t stand this. You bring the letters to me to my room. I know they will be safe with you!” And without waiting to hear her cousin’s permission, she snatched up her candle and raced back as hard as she could to her own apartment.

“Poor girl!” commented Winifred trustful as ever, in spite of what looked now what it really was, a most obvious trick. “No wonder she is a bit upset. Success or failure in this quest means so much to her. Well, I, at least, won’t fail her. I will strike for her letters for her,” and twisting round the key, she drew back the door of the safe, which was in diameter about two feet square, but was also in interior quite four or five feet deep.

Right at the end she espied a small bundle tied with red tape, that looked like a bundle of a girl’s correspondence--and, baring her arm to the elbow, she thrust her hand forward to seize this when she found herself caught in a trap--by iron bracelets inside the safe that pinned her where she stood and instantly set ringing a score of electric burglar alarms all over the house.