CHAPTER VIII.

WHICH TELLS OF AN EVENTFUL NIGHT

Left alone in a police-station cell the night but one following his arrest, Arthur Hudson fell a victim to the most profound dejection. It was all very well to keep up a brave face before Paul Renishaw, the detective, and the two inspectors, when the charge was new, had been suddenly sprung upon him, and he did not realise its dire importance; but here, in the silence of the gloomy white-washed corridor, in a bare apartment only eight or nine feet square, in which a single gas-jet burned but feebly, the horror of it all smote him with a sense of insufferable shame.

In vain he forced himself to sit upon the narrow truckle bed that had been allotted to him, and to affect an interest in the dull-looking objects with which his cell was furnished--the iron toilet set, the tiny mirror, the roughly used brush and comb, and a copy of the police-station regulations, that had been glued upon a card, glazed and hung upon the blue-washed wall. All the forces of his manhood seemed to rise in hot rebellion against a calm acquiescence in these indignities, and finally, he sought relief in pacing up and down the narrow cell, a prey to a thousand grave terrors.

Now and then, however, the deathly silence would be disturbed by the advent of some fresh prisoner,--once a boy sobbing piteously; next, a drunken woman, shouting snatches of ribald songs, alternated with bursts of frightful blasphemies; and occasionally, some strong man, who sternly resisted capture and who seemed to fight every inch of the way from the street to the cell. The clang of the iron doors upon these poor wretches had, however, a curiously soothing effect upon them. Once or twice, it is true, they tried to plead for release, or to beg piteously that some relative or friend should be sent for, but the gruff voices of their gaolers soon put an end to their appeals, and as hour after hour boomed from the great clock of St. Paul’s, great silence took possession of the building.

Then it was indeed, that poor Arthur’s brain gave him the most poignant torture. In spite of his strong will, it would travel back to the memories of happier times, would recall how only yesterday all the world seemed to smile upon him and his fortunes, and not a trouble threatened him. With a deep groan, which he could not repress, he recalled how he loved one of noblest and sweetest of girls, and how everything was hastening gaily forward to his marriage--hastening like the sunny days of summer, when they rush pell-mell to the rosy fulfilment of a gorgeous autumn--and then it seemed impossible that any blow should affect his heart’s best happiness.

How strangely, how softly, and yet, how irresistibly the change had come about! Somehow, it seemed that in one tiny hour at the office in Cheapside, the whole face of life had changed for him. Somehow, all his plans and hopes had seemed to get out of joint from that particular moment on which Ventris Blake had crossed his threshold. To all outward appearances, it was only a plain matter of business on which the millionaire had called--the transaction had been concluded without any hitch--the usual friendly courtesies had been exchanged at the close,--and yet, look what a terrible network of crime, intrigue and bitterness had thrown its folds around him ever since!

Winifred had been forced to flee from her home. Mrs. Blake had been found beaten to death on a lonely road near Scarborough. Russell Langford had been reduced to a state of abject terror. He, Arthur, had been branded as a man who had secretly married a woman in a far off town in Northamptonshire, and then deserted her, and then posed as a single man to win another young girl’s affection. Even that was not sufficient to satisfy the malignity of the unscrupulous fate that had attacked them, for now, to crown all, he had been seized on this awful charge of murder--the murder of a woman he had never seen, of a woman he had never even heard of, yet who would be held out to the world as his own distracted and deserted wife.

At first it seemed impossible to believe that all these things could follow from an hour’s association with one man, even such a man as Ventris Blake. With a touch of childish ingenuity he tried to imagine that all this catalogue of trouble was so much imagination, and that he had simply to rub his eyes to wake up again in the dear old flat at Emperor’s Gate, to see Winifred in her favourite attitude, nestling by the side of the fire. He did shut his eyes, and he did open them, but it was not to the bright homelike scene his memory had painted: it was to the four bare walls of a police-station cell, and to the moan of some drunken ruffian turning uneasily in his sleep.

Finally, worn out with the horror of it all, the futility, the ever deepening sense of tragedy that seemed to mock all his puny efforts to free himself from the march of ironic circumstances, he felt it was useless to struggle further.

“I can’t escape this awful thing that has fastened its poisonous fangs about me,” he moaned, as worn out with the night’s terrors, he flung himself on to his narrow bedstead, and buried his face in his hot and feverish hands. “The whole world seems arrayed in force against me; everywhere I turn I see some pit dug for my feet. Why need I go to any more anxiety or worry in the matter? I am marked for ruin; now let ruin come.” And his frame shook with a storm of dry impetuous sobs.

A few minutes later his brave, reliant nature asserted itself, and throwing back his shoulders, he rose once again to his feet--maybe a little ashamed of his previous weakness.

“Bah! what a coward I am,” he told himself, with well simulated fierceness. “Here am I, wasting hours of pity and anguish over my own wretched fortunes, whereas I ought not to think of myself at all--all my mind ought to be fixed on the terrible trouble this last blow will prove to poor driven, distracted Winifred.”

Throwing out his arms with a gesture of infinite weariness, he recommenced to promenade the cell. Somehow, the mere thought of Winifred brought back to him all his early faith and courage. His eyes too, caught a glimpse of the day-light breaking over the distant buildings, now dull and leaden, as though fearful of breaking entirely through the blackness, and, anon, white and clear, as though the true victorious forces of life must always be the forces of light.

This, it is true, was only one of nature’s simple object lessons, and perhaps, only those who have spent long hours of heartbreaking misery in the deep, dull silence of a black winter night, can ever fully understand all that it meant to Arthur at this particular moment. Certainly, it brought back to him hopes that had long vanished, and a belief that, although his path was so dark he saw nowhere an avenue of escape, there still remained to him a faith he had too long forgotten; and, throwing himself on his knees, his overcharged heart found refuge in a deep and impassioned prayer.

A few minutes later, he had crept into his bed and slept so soundly that it needed the constable in charge to come and shake him by the shoulder, before he could be brought back to a sense of the dull threatening realities that awaited him. Then, with a merry laugh, he sprang up and threw on his clothes, and soon found himself busily discussing a breakfast of ham and eggs, and steaming hot coffee, which the officials, at his request, had thoughtfully provided for him out of the money they took from him when they searched him.

Shortly afterwards, there was a sound of a well-remembered tread in the corridor, and Paul Renishaw bustled into the cell, accompanied by one of the smartest solicitors he had been able to secure at such short notice. For at least an hour, these three men engaged in a long and earnest conversation, and, accustomed as he was to all manner of cases and defences, even the solicitor, Mr. Spencer Holmes, was forced to admit this charge against Arthur was one of the most extraordinary he had ever heard in his experience.

Time moved forward very quickly after this, and long before he expected the summons, Arthur found a constable call to him to follow him into the presence of a magistrate, who had undertaken to deal with the formal evidence of the case, prior to the removal of the prisoner to Scarborough.

With a bright step and confident air, poor Arthur marched off in the wake of his guide, along a series of corridors, and up two or three flights of stairs, until at length he reached the yard of the police station, where he found an old and dingy four wheeled cab in waiting for him. Into this he was thrust, with two or three pleasant jests and much good humour, and finally driven off to Bow Street, in the company of his acquaintances of the previous night--Inspector Lawton and the Detective, an officer named Dawson.

Unfortunately, the news of his arrest had been published in the morning papers, and a seething, excited mob had gathered in the vicinity of Drury Lane, so that although the cab was driven with remarkable swiftness, Arthur did not fail to hear the storm of hisses and coarse oaths with which the mob greeted his appearance. At first, indeed, he could hardly believe that this loathsome demonstration was specially intended for him, but as the officers in plain clothes formed a cordon round the vehicle, and constables in uniform pressed forward to their comrades’ assistance, he realised, with an awful sense of desolation, that at one bound, as it were, he had reached the position of a notorious suspect.

The scene, when he reached the police court itself, was also in no sense designed to restore his lost dignity and pride. True, there, seated at the solicitor’s table, right in front of him, was his own advocate, Mr. Spencer Holmes and Paul Renishaw, but the rest of the court was filled by a mob of curious sight-seers and press-men and artists, who fixed their eyes upon him, as though he were some extraordinary wild beast just let loose from a cage.

The crowning indignity came, when a road was cleared through a gangway, and before he actually realised what had happened, he found himself thrust into the dock.

The dock! Never never would he have believed that such a horrible degradation as this would have been his, and as the door closed upon him with a thud, he reeled and for a moment might have fallen, had not a sturdy warder caught him roughly by the arm, and thinking he had stumbled over a step, told him roughly to stand up. Those hundreds of eyes that watched him so pitilessly, so curiously, so relentlessly, however, brought him quickly back to his senses, and setting his teeth tightly together, he advanced to the front of the dock and bowed courteously to the magistrate.

Almost immediately after this the proceeding began, and Inspector Lawton went into the box and told how he had arrested the prisoner the previous night in New Bridge Street, on instructions received by telegraph from the Scarborough police, and how one of their detectives had come down from the North to take the prisoner back with him on a charge of having murdered his wife.

Hereupon Mr. Spencer Holmes got up and protested against this course of action. He declared the arrest was some hideous blunder on the part of the Scarborough police, and that it would be monstrous for the magistrate, simply on the mere word of some country officer, to take one of the most prominent men in the City of London, and to send him half across England to meet a charge which he did not hesitate to describe as some most preposterous hallucination on the part of some demented eye-witness.

Just then a faint rustle was heard at the far end of the court, and all at once appeared the well-known figure of Russell Langford, who hastened as quickly as he could, clad in barrister’s wig and gown, and bearing a huge brief, in the direction of the seat specially reserved for Counsel.

“Excuse me, your Worship,” said he, “but I have an important application to make to you in this matter.

“I am sorry to appear so late before your Worship,” he began with a low bow to the presiding magistrate, but keeping his eyes steadily all the while out of the way of the hot and scornful glances Arthur shot at him from the dock. “The fact is, I have only just been instructed to appear in this case on behalf of the relatives of the deceased, including her supposed husband, Ventris Blake, who unfortunately cannot be here to-day as he is simply prostrated with grief by this tragic end of what he always regarded as a perfect life of married confidence and happiness.”

For a moment, the eminent advocate paused, and, pulling out his handkerchief, pretended to blow his nose vigorously, as though he himself felt a little overcome by this contemplation of a poor martyred husband’s sufferings.

“What an infernal humbug you are,” Paul muttered sotto voce. “You know you are talking the veriest piffle.” But, although Langford distinctly caught every word his friend said, he did not think it wise to take any notice of it. Then the journalist, too, shrugged his shoulders. “After all,” he reasoned swiftly, “this shoddy emotionalism is not the only humbug in public life.”

“Luckily,” proceeded Langford, fixing his eyes upon the magistrate, “I was in time, just now, to catch the gist of the speech of my learned friend, Mr. Spencer Holmes, who appears, I take it, on behalf of the accused. From it, I gather, he has taken practically a unique line in defending the case at the outset, and has even gone so far as to suggest that these proceedings are an absolute travesty of justice. In those circumstances, and as the Treasury have not yet had time to be fully communicated with, I trust you will allow me to step a little out of the usual course, so that we can avoid any appearance of a miscarriage of justice in this matter. The concession I suggest is not a very important one: it is merely to call two or three witnesses who have just arrived from Scarborough, but who can, I venture to think, put a totally different complexion to that indicated by my learned friend.”

“That would certainly give me satisfaction,” replied the magistrate, slowly. “I own that I too was considerably startled at the line the prisoner’s advocate thought fit to adopt.”

“Well,” proceeded Langford, “I will first of all call Martha Shacklock.”

An old country woman of about sixty, clad in a rusty black silk dress, a shawl, and a bonnet that had probably done duty for the last half century, now stepped forward, and with a low curtsey to the magistrate, the solicitors, and even poor Arthur himself, she entered the witness box and was duly sworn. Her evidence was clear, and certainly not a little astounding to all the friends of the accused. She deposed that she kept a small refreshment house in a small hamlet, about one mile distant from Scarborough. When the town was crowded, it was quite a common thing for her to let beds to visitors, which she was able to do at a very cheap rate. As a consequence, she was not surprised when a man whom she deliberately swore was no other than the man standing in the dock, came to her house the night before the murder, and arranged to take a room, which he promptly took possession of and did not leave until the following evening about six. His behaviour was so curious, she admitted, that even if he had not gone then, she would have turned him out. He had nothing to eat all the time he was in the house, and so far as she knew, he was not seen by a single person belonging to her household, except herself.

It was in vain that Mr. Spencer Holmes cross-examined her very closely on this question of the identity of Arthur and the man who stayed at her house. Her evidence remained unshaken, while even poor Arthur was left wondering whether, after all, something extraordinary had not happened to him, and he had really temporarily lost his memory and his senses.

This sense of confusion was only deepened by the next witness, a bright, intelligent lad of fifteen, who gave the name of Peter Brian, and said that he was employed as errand boy at a gardener’s and florist’s, on some land and greenhouses adjoining the house occupied by the last witness. He took up the tale of the prosecution at a point an hour later than the murder was alleged to have been committed. He explained that he was stopping late that night to bank up some fires in a distant portion of his employer’s grounds, when he was startled to see a man run hurriedly through the gloom, in the direction of a greenhouse that stood by itself, and was, as a rule, not used for any purpose at all. A moment later, a bright light appeared in the interior of this place, and creeping stealthily towards it, he reached the end farthest from the door, and peered through the glass. There he saw a man bending over a sink, washing some blood off his hands and waistcoat. That man, he would swear positively, was the prisoner in the dock, Arthur Hudson. He saw his face distinctly by the light of a candle that had been fixed in a beer bottle on one of the ledges.

A candle by the way, that was subsequently proved to have been removed from Mrs. Shacklock’s. For nearly ten minutes, the witness declared that he watched this man remove traces of his guilt. Amongst other things, he said, the man changed his clothes, and put on a suit which he had brought in a bundle in an old copy of a Scarborough paper, “_The Scarborough Daily Post_.”

Finally, the boy asserted, just as he had finished putting on a fresh suit, the prisoner happened to turn round and catch sight of his face peering through the glass, closely watching his movements. With a savage oath, the man made one wild grab at the candle and the beer-bottle, and without a moment’s hesitation, he flung it full smash at the glass, at the point where he stood.

Witness ducked level with the stonework, and the splinters of glass and the bottle passed harmlessly over his back, but terrified, he did not stay in that position any longer, but ran as hard as he could, in the direction of some apple trees, one of which he climbed, but was so terrified at what had happened, that he dared not come down again until his master appeared in the garden the next morning, at eight o’clock, when he told him about the murder.

Together they searched the garden, but of course, they got no sign of the prisoner. Later, they entered the greenhouse, and took up the clothes that had been cast aside by the man, after he had washed the bloodstains off his hands. These bore the name of Arthur Hudson, Esq., on a small label, on the band of the trousers, and the inside pocket of the jacket. Also a number, and the name and address of a firm of tailors in Bond Street, London.

Unfortunately, cross-examination failed to shake the testimony of this witness--and with something like an expression of despair, Arthur heard the next witness called. This proved to be a cattle-drover of the name of Benjamin Smearthwaite, who swore that he was a cattle-drover, employed on a farm on the far side of Filey. He remembered the day of the murder exceedingly well. He was engaged in driving sheep to a market at Scarborough.

About two miles out of that town, he found the flock rather troublesome, and his dog rather lazy, so he pulled up a great stake, out of the hedge, and made use of that, particularly when the sheep were frightened by the passage through their midst of several exceedingly noisy motor cars. Finally, the flock quieted down, and the dog took up his work as usual, and he was just about to throw the stick away, when a man, he would swear positively was the prisoner, appeared over a hedge and asked him if he would mind selling him the stake he was carrying.

He admitted he thought the request was an odd one, but thinking he might as well get a pot of beer for nothing, as well as anybody else, he took threepence for the stake, and wishing the stranger good-night, he went on his way rapidly towards Scarborough. Not until he saw a report of the murder in the Scarborough paper did he think any more of the occurrence. Then he made a point of getting to see the stick with which the woman had been beaten, and he could swear most solemnly that that stick was the one he had sold to the prisoner for threepence.

“There is only one more witness, your worship,” now explained Russell Langford, bending down, and turning over the pages of his brief, very quickly, “that is, Mr. Israel Sawdry:” and he beckoned to a smart-looking man of about thirty-five, with a strong, Hebrew cast of countenance, who had been seated on one of the benches reserved for witnesses, and who now stepped eagerly into the box.

“You are,” said Langford, addressing the witness, “the private secretary of Mr. Ventris Blake, who was usually considered the husband of the dead woman.”

“I am,” returned Sawdry, “I have been so for the last forty-eight months.”

“Look at that photograph,” proceeded Langford, handing the Jew a beautifully executed cabinet photograph of the murdered woman. “Do you recognise it?”

“Yes,” said the witness, after a careful inspection of the portrait, which was subsequently handed to the magistrate. “I do recognise it. I recognise it as the portrait of a girl I knew very well when I was employed at Peterborough as clerk in the offices of a large firm of brickmakers. For a time, she tried to make a living painting portraits and selling pictures, but it was a very up-hill fight, and I was not surprised when one day she came to me and told me that she was going to be married to a Mr. Arthur Hudson, who was very well off, and was in business with his uncle, a house-agent, in Cheapside. As a matter of fact, I congratulated her very warmly, and then it was she asked me to be a witness of her marriage the next morning before the Superintendent Registrar of Marriages in Peterborough. To this I consented, and the next morning I attended, as she had requested, and saw her wedded in true legal form to this Mr. Arthur Hudson, who I will swear is positively the same man as the man in the dock.”

“That, I think,” said Russell Langford triumphantly, “will dispose of any question as to whether the deceased was really married to the prisoner or not.”

“Indeed it won’t,” suddenly exclaimed a woman’s voice at the back of the court, “you wait. At the right moment you will see as this will prove to be one of the wickedest conspiracies ever engineered against an innocent man.”

Unfortunately, although the court was searched high and low by the officers connected with the case, not a trace of the woman who had made that startling declaration could be found. Everybody, it is true, heard the voice. Everybody was agreed as to the exact words she had made use of when she shouted that Arthur was innocent and that the case was founded on a diabolical conspiracy: but nobody in the whole of that crowded assembly could turn and say definitely that the words had been spoken by any woman or girl who happened to be standing near them.

Indeed, after several minutes’ quick and vigilant search, the only satisfactory piece of evidence on the point that proved to be forthcoming was that of a constable; and curiously enough, this man had not been in the court at the time the interruption had occurred. On the contrary, he had been stationed outside the door by which the general public were admitted to a kind of rough pen at the back of the building, but he was able to explain, that just when he caught the hum of suppressed excitement that followed this extraordinary interruption, the door of the public gallery was suddenly snatched open, and a woman in black stepped hurriedly out of the court, and with a muttered explanation that she had suddenly turned faint, stepped swiftly out of sight, down the corridor. He could not, however, give any description of her features or her clothes.

“She was just a woman in black,” he mumbled confusedly when he was pressed rather closely by the magistrate. “In age, she might have been anything between twenty-five and thirty-five. The impression she gave me was that she was an actress who had just lost her husband, but I was really so interested in getting to hear what was going on inside the court to cause all that hub-bub, that I didn’t really take much notice of her. I am sure I couldn’t identify her if she were put before me this very moment.” And, with this final shot, the poor badgered officer was permitted to leave the box.

The magistrate, however, looked exceedingly grave, “I feel it my duty,” he said with great seriousness, “to complain that there has been a good deal of improper matter introduced into this case at this early stage. I do not, of course, know what facts are in possession of my friend, Mr. Spencer Holmes, but he has certainly taken a most singular line in proceedings that are only formal, and can have no more bearing on the actual result of the case than the merest formalities connected with the arrest of any prisoner, even on a simple charge of being drunk.

“As for that interruption, to which we have just listened with so much grief and astonishment, I can only say, that I regard it as most improper. Never in the whole of my judicial experience have I known anybody dare to make so odious a reflection in an open court. English justice is not the travesty of justice one sees in other civilised countries; it is pure, it is fair, it is free to all. The prosecution of this man in the dock will not be conducted by any partizan of the murdered woman, or by any secret enemy of his, but by that most impartial body, the Treasury, who will have no interest in securing his conviction, or in the triumph of false evidence, but who will approach the matter from an absolutely impartial stand-point, anxious only that a very brutal crime, which has been committed in our midst should be traced to the wrong-doer.

“As for that wretched woman who spoke hysterically of conspiracy and so forth,” added the magistrate, shaking a warning finger in the direction of the public, “I can only assure her that the Treasury will welcome any evidence she may give to prove her own most amazing contention. She need not fear that any blame will be attached to her in connection with the contempt of court she has shown this afternoon. I am quite willing to overlook that gross breach of decorum, if she will make the only amend for it that is in her power--that is, by going secretly to the law officers of the Crown, and telling them, in plain and unmistakable terms what she knows that has induced her to make so amazing a declaration.”

He stopped, and turning to his note-book again, he motioned to Arthur’s solicitor, Mr. Spencer Holmes, to make any observations he felt necessary, before the proceedings terminated.

There was a pause, during which the advocate held a quick but animated discussion with his client in the dock, and then the lawyer turned and briefly addressed the magistrate. He said that he had to admit quite frankly that he could not resist such an overwhelming flood of sworn testimony as that which had been presented that day, to prove that his client had been in Scarborough at the time of the crime; had taken a bed in the neighbourhood; had purchased the bludgeon with which the murder had been committed; and had been finally observed to wash his hands free from some fatally incriminating blood-stains, and to leave behind him a suit of clothes, plainly marked with his name.

“None the less,” he proceeded, “I shall, I believe, at the right moment, be prepared with a perfect alibi. Strange as it may sound, I could at this moment, offer equally overwhelming testimony that my client at the time he has been sworn to have been in Scarborough was actually here in London, indeed, at the very house occupied by the learned counsel for the prosecution. More than that, I could at this very moment put into the box this distinguished journalist who is sitting by my side and instructing me Mr. Paul Renishaw, who was actually with the prisoner here in town when the man was supposed to be lurking about some lonely roads and gardens near Scarborough.

“The matter, however, is one that is bound to be thrashed out in a superior court to this, and so I will not occupy any further time, except to say with all the impressiveness I can, that this is in truth one of the most extraordinary cases ever heard at Bow Street, and that it will prove to be either one of the most shameless attempts to evade a well-merited punishment, or,” and here his voice sank into a low whisper, “as that woman has just told us, one of the foulest conspiracies ever engineered against an honest and upright man on either side of the Atlantic.”

The magistrate looked up and frowned, but made no further protest. “The prisoner will be remanded to the care of the Scarborough police,” he said gruffly. “The next case, please.” And the next moment, Arthur found himself caught by the arm, and conducted by the warder who was seated next to him, to the cells beneath, where, as a special favour, he was quickly joined by Paul and his solicitor.

“There is nothing to be done,” the latter said, “until the case comes up before the bench in Yorkshire. I think I possess now all the main features of the defence, and I will get to work on them at once. Meanwhile, you must keep up a stout heart,” and with a bright nod, he hurried off and left the two friends alone.

Directly he did so, Arthur turned impetuously to Paul. “There is one thing, old chap,” he said very earnestly, “that has worried me during those proceedings in the court, more than anything I can tell you. It isn’t a matter that concerns myself at all, as it happens. It is just the safety of poor Winifred. Who, for instance, has told her that I have been seized by the police, and forced to take my trial on the most awful charge that can be preferred against any man, that of wife murder? And, is it not rather curious, that ever since she visited me at my office in Cheapside, and told me that she was going to take that situation at St. Sepulchre’s Vicarage, I have not heard a word from her? Remember, that there she is under none of the restrictions she was when she was staying with the Langfords’. Practically any hour she could send a message to me, or a telegram, and yet, I have had nothing from her, not even one hurriedly penned little note.”

“It is indeed most curious,” agreed Paul, commencing to stride up and down the cell. “I confess, I can’t make it out. I certainly expected that when the news of your arrest leaked out, she would have got leave of absence from Mrs. Kilroy, and would have insisted on coming down here and comforting you herself, and would certainly have strained every nerve to be present at the proceedings in court. I forgot though, to tell you, that I went myself to St. Sepulchre’s Vicarage, when you were arrested to break the news to her.”

“And what did she say?” cried Arthur eagerly. “Wasn’t she sure it was all some hideous trap of Ventris Blake?”

“Alas! I didn’t see her. I rang several times at the door, and finally a disagreeable housemaid came and told me sharply that Miss Pontifex was engaged in the nursery, and had left word that she must on no account be interrupted.”

“That sounds odd,” remarked Arthur, rather startled.

“Very odd,” echoed Paul, and the strange character of his reception assumed a much more unfavourable aspect than it had done when he had turned and left Mr. Kilroy’s house.

“Well, at all events, our duty is quite clear,” proceeded Arthur firmly. “We must make a point of seeing her for ourselves, and telling her precisely how black everything looks, but none the less, she has got to keep up a stout heart. Somehow, I have got a terrible feeling that some danger is threatening her. I can’t explain it--I can’t understand it--no, I can’t even realise it myself, but there it is, hanging on my mind with a weight like lead, and I am sure I shall never rest until I find out it is groundless, or you help me to take steps to get this sense of calamity removed.

“As you know, Ventris Blake has set his mind on marrying Winifred. He is not the man to have any nice sense of honour, to feel that because his wife is only just three or four days dead he should have his mind set on thoughts other than marrying and giving in marriage again. No, he is just that cold, determined brute that he will set to work at once to force the poor girl to repudiate me and to accept him. Indeed, he is not likely to let anything stand in his way to accomplish this almost at once, particularly as he has now got me safe under lock and key, and he feels that Winifred herself has not a friend in the world.”

“Don’t worry, old chap,” said Paul, warmly. “I quite appreciate all the difficulties of her position, and of yours; and I can quite understand what a grave, ever-increasing load of anxiety this ominous silence of hers must prove to you. Never mind, I will go and see her myself, directly I leave Bow Street.

“For the time, let me beg you not to harass yourself about it, but to think very seriously for the next few days how it has come about that the Scarborough police have been able to present so concise, so complete, and withal so utterly damning a case against you. Surely, if you will only get your mind free of its present troubles, you will be able to pierce the heart of this mystery, and will be able to find out who it is that has got some extraordinary grudge against you, or who it is that so nearly resembles you, that without much effort, he can make up to deceive ninety-nine people out of a hundred that he is not the man he really is but none other person than yourself.”

“I will try,” said Arthur, now looking very grave. “I will try very hard, indeed. But like every other man in my position, I have made dozens of friends and acquaintances during the last few years--and maybe, dozens of enemies.” Then, somehow, a sudden light seemed to break upon him.

“By Jove,” he said quickly, “I had forgotten one man, who just five years ago warned me he would do me the ugliest turn that ever one man did to another, and yes, now I come to think of it, he is a brother of the very man poor Winifred is staying with at St. Sepulchre’s Vicarage.”