CHAPTER XXVII.

BY WIRELESS

A month had gone by--for Sibell a month of dark anxiety, shattered hopes, a terrible blank despair, which had shattered her nerves, poor child.

Constant appeals made to Brinsley had exacted nought, for he had refused to see her; all her explanatory letters had been returned unopened, which added to her despondency. A dozen times she had been to Golder’s Green, but he had always been “out”; frantic telegrams had had no effect in inducing him to grant her even a moment’s interview. He had cut her out of his life.

Moyna Lascelles, sniggering and artificial after expressions of regret, had gone to Yorkshire on a visit to a mythical cousin, while Gussie Gretton, to whom Sibell wrote telling him of the tragic _dénouement_ of the incident of the ring, had come quickly to her side, apologizing most deeply, and trying to console her.

Old Gordon Routh, in whom his ward was compelled to confide, extended to her his deepest sympathy, and made pretence of writing himself strongly to Otway.

The girl’s lover, who had been so devoted, remained obdurate. He had heeded that secret warning sent to him anonymously by one of Etta’s friends. He had watched the girl enter Gretton’s room, and, with the hotel valet, had stood concealed outside for over half-an-hour, when he had caught her creeping back in her nightdress. What further proof of her infidelity was wanted? He had watched with his own eyes, and, consumed by most intense hatred for his rival, he would listen to no extenuating circumstance or excuse.

Little did the poor fellow know of the deep and dastardly conspiracy on the part of Etta Wyndcliffe and the man Ashe, or that long ago Gussie Gretton had made the ex-decoy of trans-Atlantic card sharpers a firm offer of five thousand or more on the day he married Sibell.

The girl had come into money, but that made the sensuous man-about-town all the more keen, and he had increased his commission. Therefore it was not surprising that old Routh, suspecting the truth of the secret arrangement with Etta, welcomed him to Cookham in order that he should make pretence of sympathy and perhaps bring off the coup.

Sibell hated the fellow the more she saw of him. Her dire position was entirely due to him. One afternoon, as he sat in the little cottage drawing-room, she told him so. Coward that he was, he at once placed the onus upon her, declaring that it was her fault alone that she had gone to his room at that hour, when she might have so easily waited till the morning.

“By the way,” he asked suddenly, “how long have you known that gay young friend of yours, Moyna?”

“Marigold Ibbetson, an old schoolfellow of mine at Cheltenham, introduced her to me at Cannes. She was with a friend of Brinsley’s--an air-pilot named Cranston.”

The tall man, who sat back in the easy-chair with his long legs crossed before the fire, grunted. A strange thought had arisen in his mind. He had never told Sibell the truth, that on the day he had met her at the Cecil he had received a mysterious telegram signed “Richard,” telling him that if he stayed at the hotel in question that night he would meet Sibell and a girl friend who were both at a loose end.

Upon that message he had acted. He was now wondering who his friend “Richard” might be. He knew many men by that name, and one day he would no doubt discover the identity of the giver of such welcome news.

“Why do you ask about Moyna?” inquired the girl, noticing that he seemed very preoccupied.

Then, of a sudden, and for the first time, those words of the masked cavalier at Gurnigel, who had uttered that strange warning, recurred to her.

“Nothing,” he replied. “I merely wondered whether you knew her very well.”

“It was all a sinister plot!” cried Sibell next moment, starting to her feet wildly and pushing back her fair hair. “I see it all, now!--a plot to part Brinsley from me! I was warned--and yet, I never heeded it. I’ve been an absolute fool!”

“A plot, my dear Sibell! How could it be?” he asked in surprise, also springing to his feet.

“It was--my God, it was! I was ignorant, but my enemies took advantage of my innocence, and have brought all this to me! That man who warned me,” she added. “Oh, if I only could know who he is!” And she wrung her hands in desperation.

“What man? Dear child, do tell me. Even if you hate me, confide in me. We’ve been friends for a good many years, haven’t we?”

“A--a man who warned me of the plot. And I’ve been blind to it--blind until this moment.”

“Well, at least tell me how you received the warning,” Gretton begged of her.

She stood against a chair, swaying to and fro, for at that moment she had become half hysterical, and in a few brief sentences related to him what had happened at the gay masked ball at the winter sports, and the sudden disappearance of her gallant cavalier.

Gretton questioned her closely, but she knew nothing more than what has already been related in these pages.

“But if there was a plot, how could that stranger possibly know?” queried Gretton reflectively. “And, further, why should there be any plot? If you fell in love with young Otway, that is surely your own affair, and his. I admit, my dearest Sibell, that for a long time I’ve been very fond of you, and I am still, but surely you don’t suspect me of having any hand in any plot?”

“Oh, I can’t think! I can’t act--now that I have lost Brin!” cried the white-faced girl in despair. “I have come into an inheritance which is accursed. Yes, trebly accursed! Of that I am now confident!”

“How?” he asked.

“Is there not a curse placed upon the Guest House--a curse of many years ago, probably in the days of Cardinal Wolsey? I am doomed to live there, and my life wrecked! I hate the very name of the place after all the terrible things that have happened there. And yet--yet, if I do not live in that awful place, I lose my inheritance!”

Augustus Gretton, his countenance heavy and thoughtful, crossed the room and looked gloomily out upon the small garden, with its early spring flowers discernible in the dusk, and the grey chill river beyond.

He was bewildered, perhaps for the first time in his hectic life. He was indeed quiet, seeing light through the cloud of mystery, for he recollected that Satanic bargain he had made with Sibell’s aunt, the dance fiend who was a peeress, the bargain which had been raised to twenty thousand pounds if he married her. He had offered a price for the girl’s body, as an Arab sheik would offer, because he was wealthy, and his money could buy all that he desired in the wealth-eager world of London, wherein religion is to-day surely a mockery, and morals a ridiculous farce with the curtains drawn down.

“I--I can’t bear you any more, Gussie--please forgive me,” the frantic girl said, suddenly putting her hands upon his shoulder. “Do go. I beg of you. If you were a girl you’d know. You are my friend, so you’ll go and leave me to think. My God! I’d rather drown myself in the river down there beyond the lawn than carry on any further. I--I’m desperate! Don’t you see? We were both of us fools, Gussie--idiotic fools. But I mean to discover who engineered us both into this plight of which that mysterious man, the cavalier, warned me, a thousand miles away,” she added determinedly.

“Then you will really forgive me?” said the man, with a true expression of sympathy. “Do regard me, Sibell, not as the horrible hog you think me. I’m sorry, awfully sorry that I kissed you in my room, but--but really you were so sweet and charming that you were irresistible. And, after all, you never kissed me--you never have.”

“What can I say?” replied the distracted girl, who stood before him in her smart golfing kit.

“Only say, Sibell, that you forgive me, and let’s cry quits,” the man said earnestly in a low, persuasive voice.

“Quits! And then?” asked the girl, for she was of strong and determined will, a fact that her aunt, Etta Wyndcliffe, the seller of souls, had never realized. The woman, adventuress as she was, had merely regarded her as a very pretty, fair-haired débutante, to be sold in the marriage market to the highest bidder, with of course big profit to herself, just as she had sold others, and as she had decided with the old hunchback guardian, Routh, beside that calm sea upon those Belgian dunes in the previous summer.

That same afternoon, as Sibell, in the fast-falling dusk, sat with the rich, thick-lipped sensualist who coveted her, a strange, tragic scene was in progress in mid-Atlantic, where in the aftermath of a sudden storm the sea ran high, causing the great liner on its way from Southampton to New York to roll heavily.

The captain, a thick-set, round-faced, cheery man, was having his tea alone in his cabin, as was his wont, when the ship’s doctor suddenly entered.

“Have a cup, Dayne?” asked the well-known Atlantic commander. “We’re in for another spell, I think.”

The doctor, a sharp-featured, narrow-faced, black-moustached man, who had been on the _Ciceronic_ for five years, sank into the other chintz-covered chair set before the fire and, with a word of thanks, said:

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid there’s to be a death on board.”

“A death! That’s unfortunate. A passenger?”

“Yes, sir. A Mr. Rupert Kimball, United States subject of St. Louis. He was quite well on the first day out. Has a lady friend on board--a Mrs. Wilcox. Took ill last night with heart, and I’m afraid he won’t last very long.”

“Any relatives to wireless to?” asked the captain sharply, pouring out the doctor’s tea.

“I believe the lady is sending a message.”

“Will he last till we get over?” asked the captain, who, like all seafaring men, hated a death on the voyage. He had a caul on board in secret, as all men do who go down to the sea in ships. The secret caul is supposed to give sailors immunity from disaster, even though a corpse be carried to port. Yet they never speak about it.

“I don’t know. The poor chap seems to be in the last stage of angina, and of course in such condition one can never tell.”

“Bad luck, doc,” said the captain, filling his big briar pipe, for at that hour he always indulged in a smoke privately. It was the one hour of the whole long day which he held sacred to himself, sacred from passengers, worries, or official complaints. In that daily tea-hour he became master of himself, as well as of the great thirty-thousand tonner which carried the mails so regularly between Southampton and New York. That was his one hour’s leisure in the day’s run.

Both he and the doctor were near neighbors and lived with their wives in Southampton, and naturally began to chat about home affairs, when of a sudden there came a knock at the cabin door, and the head purser entered, saying:

“Sorry, sir. May I speak a moment with you, doctor?”

Dayne rose instantly, swallowed the tea the captain had poured out, and walked unsteadily outside, for the ship was rolling heavily.

“I’m afraid that gentleman, Mr. Kimball, is very bad,” said the man in uniform with a strong American accent. “The lady has just sent for you. She says he’s dying!”

The ship’s doctor, hurrying along the deck, swiftly descended to the sick man’s stateroom, where he found the dark-eyed, well-dressed woman standing beside her sick friend’s bed, as she had done for the past forty hours.

“I believe poor Rupert is dead!” she whispered, her face blanched and staring. “A few moments ago he raised himself with a great effort and insisted upon kissing me. Then fell back--and I’m afraid he’s gone!”

And, unable to control herself, she burst into a torrent of tears.

It did not take Dr. Dayne long to ascertain the truth. Rupert Kimball was dead. He had succumbed to heart disease!

Tenderly, after making certain that life no longer existed, he drew the sheet across the dead man’s face, and then led the deceased’s friend silently from that little white enamelled stateroom, with its narrow brass bed.

The woman staggered away, but he, turning the other way, did not observe that the look on her face was more of horror than of distress.

Half an hour later the wireless operator tapped out a message to an address at St. Louis in the United States, announcing the sudden death of the passenger, but the truth was kept from everyone on board at the captain’s request to Mrs. Wilcox, therefore dinner and dancing proceeded, with the usual nightly gaiety, as it ever does on a trans-Atlantic liner.

Etta Wyndcliffe dared not venture into the saloon, but commanded her meal to be brought to her in her cabin, where alone she sat, her mouth half-open, staring at her closed porthole, in front of which that little silken curtain of pale-green swayed with the ship’s roll.

“I wonder! I wonder!” she whispered to herself in a low voice, scarce above a whisper. She had not dressed for dinner, and passed the tempting dishes untouched. The man who had come between herself and fortune lay dead in the stateroom above.

Albert Ashe was anxiously awaiting news. She knew he was waiting for the result of their clever scheme, the removal of their enemy by means which should leave no trace.

She pretended to eat, and then at last, after the sweets were served, she rose and placed both hands into her hair in desperation.

“Yes!” she cried aloud hoarsely. “I must arouse no suspicion. I must remain calm! I must play my part as his friend--yes, play it to the end.”

So, putting on her coat, she left her cabin and ascended to the wireless office, where the young operator sat with the telephones upon his ears.

He smiled, and, removing one of the ’phones from his ear, heard her say in a low, tremulous voice.

“I--I want to send a very urgent message.”

“Yes, madam,” replied the polite young Marconi operator in uniform, indicating the desk and pad of forms.

Upon one she wrote a message which she addressed to:

“Thomas, Regent Palace Hotel, London. Poor Rupert has died suddenly from heart disease. Am desolate. Inform mother. Have wired St. Louis.--Wilcox.”

And within a few minutes the operator, with his hand upon his key, tapped out the anxiously awaited news to Albert Ashe, who was purposely at the hotel in question under the name of Sidney Thomas.

The sinister plot of the Guest House and its weird influence was perhaps unequalled in the annals of the world’s crimes.

Only Etta and her accomplice knew. The truth was on the day before she and Rupert Kimball sailed, she had, still posing as Mrs. Wilcox, hired a car from a garage and driven her unwanted friend down to Hampton Court, taking him, out of curiosity, to the Guest House, about which there had been so much gossip.

Previously she had related to him the strange stories, and gave him to read the article in the _Richmond and Twickenham Times_. It had intrigued him; hence their visit there.

They passed through the house by permission of the foreman of the decorators, and his only comment was:

“Well, it seems a very charming old house for any newly-married couple to live in. That blue and grey scheme in the drawing-room is really very artistic. An old house like this would be snapped up at a very huge price in America, wouldn’t it? I’m glad to have seen it.”

Then, after remaining there half an hour, during which time they visited all the rooms, they re-entered the hired car and drove back by way of Kew and Hammersmith to London.

Poor fellow! Rupert Kimball, whatever might have been his past, never in all his innocence dreamed of the poison shadows that had fallen upon him--that mysterious evil which only five days later resulted in his death from natural causes.