CHAPTER III.

REVEALS A SECRET

An hour later Vera Langford sat alone in her father’s study.

At first, it is true, the lawyer had made a very stout fight with Ventris Blake, declaring that no power on earth would compel him to make himself so ridiculous in the eyes of his colleagues as to attend the opening of an inquest in the north of Yorkshire; but, suddenly, the millionaire had bent down and whispered something threatening in his ear, and, all at once, the barrister had collapsed like a pricked balloon, and, in a comparatively few minutes afterwards, had got his bag packed and taken Blake’s own carriage to catch the late train down to York and Scarborough.

In doing this, he had only made one stipulation:

“If you, Blake,” said he, “are going to come out of this scandal with any degree of propriety you must not shew yourself in public like this. Go home to your place in Park Lane, and play the part of the bereaved and distracted widower to the life. To-morrow you will not be required at the inquest at all, or you would have been warned by the police. As a matter of fact, only evidence of identification of this poor creature will be given, and that can well be supplied by one of her maids. Just wait. At the right dramatic moment we’ll produce the certificate of her marriage with Hudson, and, if necessary, we’ll bring up the witnesses of the ceremony, but if you put in the document before, the public will not believe that you only discovered it by accident the night of the murder, but will fancy that you have known about it all the time and have preferred to blind your eyes to it for some wicked or sinister purpose of your own. Therefore be persuaded by me--and just for a day or two let things go on as they were before the crime.”

“I will,” Blake had answered. “You know more about the British character no doubt than I do. Half my life has been spent in the rough mining life of Australia and the Transvaal, and there, when we had to hit a man between the eyes, we got up and did so, and afterwards picked up and reckoned the pieces. Here, it seems to me, one can do all the same kind of hammering and get all the public sympathy right enough, only one musn’t be in a hurry, musn’t strike before the ground has been well baited, and even then must observe all the old snug conventions with which our grand-mothers used to delude themselves.”

“And a jolly good thing too,” interposed Langford, who was above all things a stickler for the proprieties, and also a rank opportunist. “It gives the men who know the game their right advantage. Otherwise everybody would be equally matched, and then what would the poor lawyers do?” And, with this cheap piece of cynicism, he had made his exit, closely followed by Blake, who, when he had found Vera was not in the drawing-room, had taken his way home on foot.

At that precise moment, as a matter of fact, Vera herself was with Winifred who was telling her frankly and simply the terrible blow that had fallen on her happiness. The lawyer’s daughter, however, was obviously distracted by other thoughts, and so had contented herself with a vague expression of her sorrow, and then had quickly slipped away to the study and, carefully locking the door, had gone to her father’s telephone, the bell of which communicating with the public exchange she had rung sharply.

“59769a Gerrard,” she told the operator, and, as the lines were fairly clear at that late hour, she soon got the answer she sought.

“Is that the Belsize Theatre?” she queried, and on receiving the reply in the desired affirmative she went on:--“Has Mr. Jules Prendergast come off the stage yet? No? The curtain not run down yet? Well, directly it is, ask him to come round and see Mr. Russell Langford, will you? Tell him not to delay though. He is wanted on a matter of business;” and, with a quick impatient shrug, she replaced the receiver and sat down at her father’s writing table to await with all the fortitude she could command the arrival of the man who, truth to tell, she loved better than honour itself.

How slowly the minutes crept by after that! At first she tried to occupy her mind by thinking of Winifred, but her mind would not fix itself on any troubles but her own. Then she started drawing grotesque forms and faces on the blotting paper in front of her but somehow nothing seemed to go right--the lines, the pen, or the figures; and soon, with a deep exclamation of disgust, she threw the quill aside, and began to pace impatiently up and down the room.

Once again her wild gipsy blood appeared in the ascendant. Indeed, there was something almost panther-like in her movements as she stepped backward and forward, backward and forward in a costume of black and gold that, emblazoned as it was with diamonds, showed every line of her superb figure to advantage.

At one time, as she stopped to listen to the bell of an approaching hansom, she reminded one almost irresistibly of Cleopatra. And then, as the soft tinkle died away in the distance, her features and her bearing changed, and she was just a woman racked by jealousy, torn by emotion, with mouth distorted, and fingers pressed cruelly into the palms of her hand to save herself from rushing into the street to see for herself why he did not come.

Nobody, unfortunately, who knew Jules Prendergast at all well would have thought that he was worth this attention.

Two years ago he had been an obscure but tolerated member of a well-known touring Shakesperean Company that had an earnest, a gifted, and a painstaking actor at its head. By chance, it happened that they had come to town, to do a brief season at one of the least-known West-End theatres; and Vera had gone to one of their performances with Lady Desborough, who rather tried to play the part of the Lady Bountiful to the crowd in question. Quite unexpectedly Vera had fallen passionately in love with this tall, dark, and romantic-looking actor, Prendergast. He had quickly, with Lady Desborough’s help, followed up this advantage, and, as Vera had a small fortune of her own from an aunt long since deceased, nobody who knows the way plays are financed in London will be surprised to hear that after this Jules Prendergast quickly became a welcome performer in some uncommonly “fat” parts at the best houses--and finally blossomed out as an actor-manager himself at the Belsize Theatre.

His first appearance in his own house, of course, had been as “Hamlet,” and, strange to say, he had scored quite a success with this, and yet, in a way, it was not strange, for he had simply taken all the ideas and study of his old chief in the touring company and had passed them off on the fashionable crowd that had flocked to the Belsize as his own.

“A new reading of ‘Hamlet’,” cried the mob and the critics, and yet if one of them had gone to the small theatres in towns like Leeds, or York, or Sheffield, or Plymouth, they would have found that Prendergast’s conception was not new--was not original--but, on the contrary, was much better done by in the provinces.

Luckily or unluckily, the West End knows little or nothing of theatrical things outside the metropolis, and so Prendergast flourished until the time came for him to change the bill, and he invoked the assistance of a “star” actress named Flora Kaufmann, and put on “with a scale of magnificence never hitherto seen on any stage,” etc., etc., the old but eternally young “Romeo and Juliet.”

For that time certainly Shakespeare lived up to his name in the dramatic world and spelt “ruin” to Jules Prendergast and his financier. In vain were the public coaxed and cajoled and derided. In vain were the old press notices served in a style as hot as any that had come from the theatrical press. The public literally would not look at Flora Kaufmann as “Juliet,” and, had not Ventris Blake thought fit, for his own private reasons, to allow Vera to make that £3,500 out of him in the most childish way after she had unbosomed herself of her real difficulties, Jules Prendergast’s season would, certainly, long ago have ended.

As it was, things had again come to a very bad financial pass owing to the heavy expenditure necessary for Jules’ next mammoth production of “Othello,” and this, too, was complicated by Vera’s insane jealousy of Flora Kaufmann, who had got a very strictly drawn contract with Jules and could not be easily got rid of.

Beset by difficulties on all sides, Prendergast himself had that day made another appeal for money to Vera, and had been repulsed with some scorn and a good deal of quite unnecessary bitterness. As a consequence, the girl was not at all sure he would obey her summons, which, by custom, had been couched in her father’s name, and yet she felt she must see him that night, if only to assure herself that he was as true to her as he had sworn to be in the old days when he had neither position nor reputation, and they had never had squalid squabbles like the one of that afternoon.

At last, however, she heard a hansom stop outside the flats; a moment later an electric bell sounded, and, in accordance with her directions, the actor, who was clad in an opera cloak and carried a crush-hat, with the make-up still thick upon his features, hastened into the room.

For some reason, for the first time in her experience, his manner was openly sulky and inwardly defiant. No sooner, indeed, had he thrown off his cloak than he turned on her almost with a snarl.

“Well, and what is the matter now, Vera?” he demanded. “Haven’t we said sufficient hideous things to each other to-day without you ringing me up and sending for me unexpectedly like this, and wanting to go over them again and count them?”

“Yes. That is not my reason. How was business to-night?”

“Bad, deuced bad. There wasn’t a ten pound note in all parts.”

“Then you must get rid of Kaufmann. She is ruining you!”

The man paused and pretended to feel in his pockets for a cigarette. Instinctively he knew that he was on dangerous ground.

“I can’t,” he declared with a pitiful attempt at being light and airy. “The lawyers forbid it. Pressed too far, she might even shut up the shop altogether by an injunction.”

“Then let her,” cried Vera fiercely, sweeping forward and facing the actor. “I am sick of her airs, her graces, her tricks to ensnare your affections,” and then playing her trump card she went on:

“Let the whole thing go, and let us be married as we had arranged next week. My father is, as lawyers go, a very wealthy man. He could easily spare us twenty-five thousand pounds to run a season at the Lyceum, or the Haymarket, or even the Garrick. If he saw we were man and wife he could not refuse us! He really loves me with all the force of his nature. He has never refused me a thing in my life.”

“Oh, couldn’t he though,” snapped Jules. “That’s all you know. He might be delighted at what you had done, disown you, and marry again!”

Vera’s eyes blazed. “That is untrue, Jules,” she gasped, “and you know it’s untrue! more than that, it is rude--it is cruel to me. You speak now under that woman’s influence. I see it in every word--look--gesture. You never dreamt of talking to me like this before you met her. I demand that you shall never act with her again!”

The man swung round with a smothered oath, and for a second it looked as though he would repay her defiance with defiance, scorn by scorn. Then a crafty avaricious look came into his face, and his tone changed.

“Come, Vera,” he said gently, trying to put an arm round her waist, “don’t drive me in a corner like this! Just be reasonable. I simply can’t damn myself and my whole career to please you or anybody else. Just now it’s money I want and must have. If you can’t get it--”

“Flora Kaufmann will, I suppose!” exclaimed Vera passionately, although she didn’t believe her words for an instant.

“Yes,” said the hypocrite, snatching at so good a pretext. “You have guessed it. Flora Kaufmann believes in me and my future, and has offered to finance me!”

For a moment Vera looked as though she would kill him. A bottle marked “Chloroform; Poison,” which she had been using earlier in the day for toothache stood on the mantelpiece, and gripping this she made a movement as though she would pour the spirit on her handkerchief and smother him.

Then her mood changed. A reckless laugh broke from her lips, and, with the strange fatuity of many women in love, she set out deliberately to hoodwink herself.

“I--I am glad you have told me,” she stammered. “As a matter of fact, I was only testing you. Never mind about Flora Kaufmann or her finances. I--I can assist you to-morrow to the extent of five thousand pounds if you like!”

“You angel!” cried the actor ecstatically, dropping on one knee and theatrically pressing the hem of her garment to his lips; and the fervour of his movement was not lessened by the fact that he knew Flora Kaufmann was a most extravagant, if fascinating woman, and had nothing to her name except some £1,500 worth of debts. “Tell me how you have managed it?”

“Ah, that is my secret,” said Vera archly, now bending down and kissing him passionately on the forehead. “Just meet me at the Bond Street tea room as usual about half past three to-morrow and you shall have the money easily enough!”

“And you will keep its source from me,” said the humbug reproachfully. “Surely you do not feel now you cannot trust me!”

“Perhaps,” said Vera evasively; “but, of course, I shall stipulate Flora Kaufmann must go!”

“Even if it costs a bribe of £1,000!”

“Even if we have to pay her £2,000 to tear up her agreement,” repeated the girl firmly; and to support her she raised the bottle of chloroform, the contents of which she inhaled.

“Very well,” declared Jules pretending to assent, and rising he kissed Vera with a great show of fervour. Then having pulled out his watch and declared the hour was disgracefully late, he drew his cloak over his shoulders and seized his hat.

Vera accompanied him to the door of the flat, but just as he was going to leave he remembered something he had previously forgotten and his face clouded.

“Oh! by the way, Vera,” said he. “I told them at the theatre to send on here a certain telegram which I expected. I won’t wait for it now but directly it comes I want you to ask the boy to bring it on to me to the Green Room Club in Leicester Square!”

“All right!” Vera replied, and waving him adieu, she hurried back to the study to be alone and to think.

Now, however, she was seated alone in her father’s room, she had more than scope to recollect what she had promised in a moment of intense mental anguish. £5,000 to-morrow afternoon at 3.30! And her account at Coutts’ was already over-drawn to the extent of £250! Where--where was so big a sum to come from?

Her father, she knew, was away in Scarborough. He could not possibly return before mid-night the next day, and, even if she knelt in front of him and begged this favour from him, she had no reason to believe he would grant it. He did not like actors or the theatres. He had only seen Jules Prendergast once--and then he called him “a forcibly-feeble copyist!”

As for having any idea that in about seven days’ time this man would be--for better or worse--his son-in-law and that no power on earth could keep him out of the position, he had none, absolutely none. Had he any suspicion of the truth Vera now was certain that his rage would be terrible and his obstinacy insurmountable. Looked at from whatever point she chose, there was no hope of £5,000 from him.

Lady Desborough was equally impossible. True, she was rich, but she was also very mean, and would cheerfully spend £500 in hospitality to get the run of a theatre for three months for nothing. No, there only remained one chance of success, the one chance she had clutched at when she saw it was, in sober truth, but the toss of a coin whether she or Flora Kaufmann would triumph in that insane undignified struggle for the affection of Jules Prendergast. That chance personified itself in Ventris Blake--and even Vera shivered at the awful alternative which passion and fate had combined together to force her to take.

For, as a matter of fact, Vera knew well enough why Ventris Blake went out of his way to make her indebted to him. It wasn’t from kindness--respect--or affection. It was simply because he had become the victim of a wild devouring passion for Winifred Pontifex, and she perfectly understood that if he advanced her this sum, it would be only on terribly harsh conditions--that she would assist him in his schemes to make her poor tortured cousin his--to any extent he chose to dictate.

Was it worth it?

To be quite fair to her--Vera recognised it was not. True, she had no real affection for Winifred. The girl had often caused her acute pangs of jealousy, and in nature and habit and outlook was totally opposed to herself. Still, she also knew Ventris Blake--and she could not conceive a worse fate than to fall into the power of so desperate and resourceful a scoundrel who indeed she knew, from Winifred’s confidences of that night, had already spread his net of treachery and lies in front of her and her sweetheart.

And then again, would it answer?

All at once her jealousy broke into flame again and she thought of her rival Flora Kaufmann. Suppose, after all, Jules broke his word to her, and let that creature remain in the company and assume the part of “Desdemona”? Why the piece might even succeed--might even make a very big hit. It would be in vain for her to storm or to threaten then. Jules would be free from his financial embarrassments, and would certainly pursue a selfish line of his own, for had he not often told her that art had no room for old-fashioned principles, but was ever a law unto itself--and its followers?

Then, as the torture increased, she asked herself, what was the mystery behind the telegram which the actor had said must go on to him at once? Why couldn’t it wait until the morning when business would be resumed, or until the afternoon when she could have the childish pleasure of bringing it with her, and of handing it to him herself?

After all, by one method or another, she decided suddenly she must see that telegram. Horrible though the suspicion was, it might even be from some feminine friend of Jules whom she had never heard him mention; and she leaped to her feet as though a red hot cinder had darted out of the fire against her breast, and scorched her close to the heart.

Then came the expected ring at the bell--the sound of voices--and Vera clasped her medicine-bottle tightly to suppress all traces of her anguish.

A servant entered. “A telegraph boy has come with a telegram for Mr. Jules Prendergast,” he said. “Did he leave any message?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Shew the lad in!”

A bright-looking lad clad in the regulation uniform entered, closed the door behind him and touched his cap.

“I have a message for Mr. Prendergast, Miss,” he said. “They sent me on here from the Belsize Theatre. Is he in?”

“No,” said Vera sweetly. “He asked me to take it up for him. Please give it to me!” and she held out her hand.

The boy’s face clouded. “I am afraid, miss, I can’t do that,” he muttered. “It’s against the regulations.”

“Nonsense,” persisted Vera lightly, treating the affair as one of small concern. “Give the telegram to me, I tell you. Nobody will know a word about it. And look here, here’s a shilling for your trouble!” And she took a coin off her father’s desk and displaying it temptingly before the youngster’s gaze.

“I can’t, miss, indeed I can’t. It’s more than my place is worth I--I should have to go to prison if I did,” he stammered, his cheeks going white with fear. “Please let me go and report the matter to my superintendent.”

“And betray me,” hissed Vera, now all at once realising her own peril. “Oh, you viper. You shall not do it,” and her eye catching sight of the chloroform bottle a fiendish idea took possession of her.

With one bound she caught the boy by the throat. Then in a flash she smashed the bottle against the desk even as the lad kicked and struggled to free himself, and, pouring the chloroform on her handkerchief she stuffed the spirit into the poor boy’s face until with a moan he sank to the floor utterly senseless.