CHAPTER XIV.

UNCLEAN HANDS

Notwithstanding the verdict of the Hampton Coroner, the police, whose interest was aroused by the curious reports of strange happenings at the Guest House, commenced to make inquiries regarding the deceased man’s strange visitor.

The record of the romance and history of the place, as published in the Richmond newspaper, had drawn their attention to it, inasmuch as Mr. Gray was questioned by the Richmond police and reluctantly admitted his strange attack and narrow escape.

The Criminal Investigation Department explored all sorts of channels to discover the old man Bettinson, who had been fairly clearly described to the doctor by his patient. There were two well-known collectors of antique furniture of that name, it was found--one a dealer having a shop in Chester, who was a man of thirty-five who had recently succeeded to the business of his dead father; a second was a solicitor in Plymouth, who was well-known and of ample means, but in no way resembled the odd old fellow who had appeared at the Guest House; while a third, a man living near Harwich, was reported to have purchased some old furniture for an ancient house he had bought outside Ipswich.

The search was, after all, only a half-hearted one, for on the face of it the dead man’s statement was rather too fantastic to be credited by many, while it seemed certain that if the old man had actually paid a visit to the house of mystery with any evil intent he would hardly have given his real name.

When Etta Wyndcliffe had been shown the telegram by her niece, she had merely shrugged her shoulders, and said:

“That house is evidently a house of evil, my dear! I can’t see how you can possibly live in it.”

She had been watching with critical eyes the enjoyment of the happy pair at winter sports. Thanks to the expert tuition of John, the guide, they were now able to ski quite well, and do “stem turns” and “telemarks” in very fair fashion. Indeed, they had both passed their third-class test, and now each morning they took the yellow automobile up to the Seelibühl peak, and then ran down over the powdery snow through the Happy Valley back to the hotel, a spin of wild delight as the snow hissed beneath their skis.

Etta Wyndcliffe was not at all pleased at the turn which events were taking. She remembered those parting words of Albert Ashe, her exemplary butler, the man who held such a strange influence over her. She remembered, too, old Routh’s declaration that Sibell must marry Gussie Gretton, and did not fail to foresee that such a union would bring them both a handsome profit.

Etta Wyndcliffe was out for money always. Smart, clever, and utterly unscrupulous from the time she was at school, she took the fat checks from the mothers of the girls she chaperoned, and was hawk-like in her efforts to get them married, with further pecuniary profit to herself. In this she was not unique in London society. There were fully a dozen like her, hard-up women with old titles and without money, ready to do any dirty, underhand action, or to sell a girl, body and soul, in the marriage market so long as it brought them a substantial check which would most certainly be frittered away at baccarat and “chemmy.”

That afternoon, as she sat at tea in the big hall with the young North London doctor and her pretty niece, her active mind reverted to that parting with Ashe in West Halkin Street, when in secret the man had whispered to her, “I’ll meet you again soon, Etta. We’re out for a big stake. And we’ll win--never fear.”

She glanced through her cigarette smoke at the handsome, happy pair at the table before her and wondered. Would they win? She doubted it.

The check which she knew Gussie Gretton would slip into her hand, on the day of his marriage to Sibell, was daily disappearing into the ether. Time after time she had tried by most subtle means to sow dissension between the pair, but all to no purpose. Their affection was complete; and, to her fear, it would be lasting.

Brinsley Otway was always charming to her, though instinctively he knew that she was no friend of his. He studiously gave her every attention, dancing with her each night, and never failing to behave with the acme of courtesy and charm.

Etta Wyndcliffe had written to old Gordon Routh a long letter in which she realized the hopelessness of parting the pair, and asked his advice and suggestions. On the other hand, Ashe, after his vague threat on the last occasion they had met, had entirely disappeared. She had written him on the second day of their arrival at Gurnigel, but had had no acknowledgment.

This fact caused her great apprehension. Was he really playing the game? She knew his hard, bitter nature, his unreliability, his quick resentment, and his ready shiftiness. She had trusted him for several years, and he knew certain secrets of hers. But of late she had slowly realized that he would hesitate at nothing, or even sacrifice her, in order to gain his own despicable ends. And his estimate of her was a very similar one.

That night she sent a marconigram to him, addressed to an obscure sporting club in the Adelphi, where he went every day for his letters. Next day at noon she received a reply which ran:

“Meet me at the Schweizerhof Hotel in Berne on Thursday at noon. Important.”

Hence, on the Wednesday evening, pleading to the happy couple that she had some shopping to do in Berne and also had to make a call upon an English lady friend who was married to a Swiss doctor, she took the car down the sixteen miles of winding, snowy road to the capital and put up at the Schweizerhof, that big hotel facing the railway station. She engaged a private sitting-room and bedroom, so that their interview should be a secret one. That night, as she ate her dinner alone, she wondered with what object he was travelling so suddenly out to see her.

Wyndcliffe had arrived in New York a week before, and she hoped he would remain there, for there was not the slightest spark of affection between them. When in London he was only an incubus. True, he meandered around with her to the drawing-rooms of Mayfair and Belgravia, just for the appearance of the thing, but he was always pestering her for money and deploring the cost of everything.

Money had come to her niece, it was true, but how could she profit by the sudden turn of fortune?

Impatiently she awaited from her window the arrival of the Oberland express from Boulogne, until at last she descried Ashe’s tall, burly figure in a dark overcoat, followed by a hotel porter carrying his suitcase, crossing the wide square to the hotel.

Five minutes later he entered her sitting-room, and, throwing off his travelling-coat, cast himself into a chair.

He explained that he had breakfasted on the train after passing the frontier at Delle, and then lit a cigarette.

“Well?” she asked, leaning against the table and facing him. “What’s the matter?”

“A lot,” he snapped. “Lock the door and speak in whispers.”

When she had crossed the room and bolted the door, he looked straight into her face, and said in a low, serious voice:

“We’re in an infernally tight corner, Etta!”

“How?” she asked apprehensively.

“Rupert is in London!”

“Rupert!” she gasped, and in an instant her lips blanched as a look of terror overspread her face.

“Yes,” he whispered. “And he knows a lot--a damned lot more than is good for us!”

“You’ve seen him, eh?” she gasped.

“I’ve seen him. But he hasn’t seen me.”

“That’s good. What are we to do?”

“I’ve come here to talk the matter over with you, my dear Etta,” said the ex-butler. “We’ve got to face the music. That’s plain.”

“How?”

Her visitor paused for some moments, his dark, narrow eyes set upon hers.

“For God’s sake,” she cried, “don’t look at me like that, Albert!”

“Do you forget how we parted in that little hotel in Norfolk Street?” he asked, still gazing at her intently.

“You threatened to--to----” And she paused.

“I simply pointed out to you the only way in which we could save ourselves if Rupert came to London,” he said quietly. “Well--he’s come! It’s now up to us to take the initiative. You know what I mean, don’t you?” And he looked steadily into her eyes.

“You mean what you hinted at when we last met!” she cried suddenly, covering her face with her white, bejewelled hands.

“You defied me! You told me that you forbade it, Etta,” he said quite quietly. “Well, if you wish to have the whole sordid story exposed in a criminal court and go to prison perhaps for the remainder of your life, you can do so,” he went on, with an air of nonchalance. “Personally, I intend to save myself, whatever your decision may be.”

“No, Albert, don’t desert me; no, I beg of you,” cried the unhappy peeress. “I’ve always stuck to you.”

“Except when you grow chicken-hearted, as you did at Norfolk Street, and--and once when you thought you could feather your nest without my help.”

“What do you mean?” she asked in instant defiance.

“Oh, nothing,” he said sneeringly.

“I demand to know what is passing through your mind!” she cried, her fists clenched as she stood before him.

“Only one simple little incident,” he answered, with a faint smile. “The tragic death of that poor little American girl Heula Murray on board the Nile boat an hour before it was moored at Assouan. She died of pneumonia, didn’t she?”

“You swine!” she cried, striking him full in the face with her fist. “I know what you insinuate,” she cried. “But it’s a lie--a damned lie, and you shall prove it. You’ve hinted at that before. You were with me!”

“I was--as your servant. But, my dear Etta, don’t get excited,” he said, his face reddened where she had struck him. “I don’t intend to give you away, even though I have retained a certain little capsule which was hermetically sealed before you broke it open. No, my dear girl, don’t worry. It isn’t worth while. Please understand that we’re both sailing in the same boat, and if you go on the rocks I’ll go with you. But we are going to steer clear, into smooth waters, or I’m much mistaken.”

“How?” asked Lady Wyndcliffe, with frantic effort to calm herself.

“By taking matters in our own hands. You will have to meet Rupert.”

“Meet him! Never!” she cried, horrified at the mere thought.

“He’s in search of you; let him find you, and become friendly with him. Disarm his suspicion, and then----” And he paused.

“And then? Ah! I know what you mean.”

“Well, that’s the only way, my dear Etta. Believe me, it is.”

“I can’t. It would be impossible. I couldn’t do it, Albert,” she declared decisively.

“Very well. Then I fear you’ll have to face the consequences, if you don’t make up the quarrel,” Ashe said. “He’s in London in search of you, and he’ll send you to penal servitude. You’ll go there as sure as my name’s Albert, if you don’t try and save yourself. Just think!” he went on. “Aren’t we both on the brink of disaster? You’ve allowed young Otway to carry off our only decent asset, the girl Sibell. If Gussie Gretton had married her you’d have got a fat commission out of it. But, as it is, there’s nothing for us.”

“But there may be,” said Lady Wyndcliffe. “If a quarrel arose between the pair and they parted, Gussie might easily step into the breach and console her for the falsity of this young medico. And Gussie, on marrying a rich wife, would double his commission to us. Don’t forget that.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Ashe. “I never thought of that. You’re darned clever, Etta--one of the cleverest women I know. The worst of it is that after the affair of that little American girl in Egypt, which reaped you in a full five thousand pounds, you are so very punctilious over dealing with an enemy.”

“Because I now trust nobody,” she snapped. “Once I trusted you, but I have ever since had occasion to regret it.”

“Thanks, my dear girl, you are really most polite,” he laughed, with mock courtesy. “But, you see, I, too, don’t put any faith in you. Nevertheless, if you don’t stick by me, you can do the reverse. I shall leave Berne to-night, and I sha’n’t care for you, or for the future. I know how to save myself. I prepared my channel of escape long ago.”

The Countess of Wyndcliffe took her gold cigarette-case from her bag, and, opening it, slowly selected a cigarette. She tapped it quietly and then lit it, first going to the window to gaze out on the trams passing across the square before the station.

When she had repassed across the room she suddenly halted before the man who, though posing as her obsequious butler in West Halkin Street, seemed now to be her master, and said:

“Well, Albert. Let me hear your suggestions.”

“I have two. The one carries with it the other. The first is that you must resume your relations with Rupert--in pretence of courage. The second is that Sibell and young Otway must be parted at all hazards--by you.”

“Then the girl must be part of the sacrifice, eh?” asked her aunt, with knit brows.

“It can’t be helped. There’s no money for us if they marry. And old Routh is also out for profit. I saw him in London the other day, and he’s dead against the marriage and Sibell’s money slipping away from us all.”

“But about Rupert? Do you think he can be kept quiet, after all that’s happened?”

“Only by you,” he said, with a sudden change in his voice from defiance to softness. “You know what a seductive little devil you can be when you like, Etta. God! you can charm any man of any age.”

“And without--without a tragedy. Assure me of that?” she said eagerly.

Albert Ashe remained silent for a few moments. He was asked for an assurance which he had not expected he would be called upon to give.

“Well,” he said evasively at last, “if you call the parting of Sibell from her lover a tragedy, that can’t be avoided. The girl is rich, and she’ll soon console herself with the smart and popular Gussie, who is such a splendid dancer, so good-looking, and with whom dozens of girls are madly in love. He’s essentially a lady’s man, not like that big-headed, big-eyed, thoughtful doctor out at Golder’s Green. All that I leave to you,” he went on. “But time presses. Leave the turtledoves at Gurnigel for the present, and slip back to London to meet Rupert and make it up with him. We can deal with the lovers later on. It will only be a question of a week or two.”

“But, Albert, I--I really don’t know how to act--what to do--how I can possibly----”

“Rot!” he cried angrily. “Let me guide you, and let’s both climb out of the soup as soon as possible with a nice little bank balance to the credit of both of us--instead of appearing side by side at the Old Bailey, as we will certainly do if you act the fool any longer. Don’t you agree?”

She hesitated for a moment.

“Yes,” she said in a low, hoarse whisper. “I do agree, Albert. I see that I must. Sibell must be parted from Brinsley.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I’m glad you at last see reason. So go to work with your clever woman’s wiles as soon as you possibly can. Get back to London at once and meet dear Rupert, and greet him with regret as his long-lost friend. He must never suspect that I’m in England. But I will be behind you to advise you and bring you to triumph.”

And he put out his well-manicured hand, which the Countess of Wyndcliffe grasped in an unholy contract for the sale of an innocent girl’s soul.