they walked in silence down the drive, with that sinking of the heart inevitable when a pleasant time comes suddenly to an end. but there was more than this to trouble them both. the thoughts of the young men were with the girls who had enchanted them. arthur was pondering, with the deepest pain, the terrible awakening he had had only a short time before, from the dream that he had found a pearl among women, a very queen of girls.
he had made up his mind to take courage, and to ask cora to be his wife, although he was afraid that his own prospects, good as they were, might not seem golden enough to tempt the parents of the sweet-voiced cora to yield their consent to his wooing.
but of cora herself he had entertained no doubts. and to find that the charms which had fascinated him, the bright wit which had amused him, had been merely part of the stock-in-trade of one of a party of adventurers, bent on making a good thing out of british credulity while their time of prosperity lasted, was such a shock that it left him dazed, unable to think or to understand.
[306]gerard, on his side, though he was not suffering, like his friend, from a great disillusion, was in a state of terrible anxiety.
where was rachel? had she compromised herself with these adventurers? and had she alone of them all had the cleverness to escape the net laid for their feet by the police?
or was she, as he thought much more probable, the accomplice of cecil jones, and his assistant in bringing the americans to justice?
neither possibility was pleasant to contemplate. if she were one of the friends of these americans, even though she might extricate herself from all suspicion of being concerned in their misdoings, she could not fail to be dragged into a most unpleasant case, the publicity of which might perhaps offend, if not alienate, her best friends.
if, on the other hand, as seemed much more probable, she should prove to have been the accomplice of cecil jones, it was distasteful to contemplate her having assisted in exposing the people who passed as her friends and who gave her the shelter of their roof.
on the whole, therefore, it was in a state of considerable perplexity and distress that gerard accompanied his friend down the drive, and turned into the road.
both young men had come down by train, and it[307] was towards the station that they were wending their way, when they saw a little way in front of them the bright lights of a motor-car.
expecting to find that it and its occupants had some connection with the police surprise at the priory, gerard and arthur walked quickly up to it and perceived that the man in a big overcoat, who was standing beside it, was no other than cecil jones.
“ah!” said he, making a gesture with his hand to stop them, “here he comes!”
the young men, rather disconcerted, stopped and looked at him aggressively. they felt that upon his shoulders lay the burden of the brusque manner in which the crisis at the priory had taken place.
“you are from scotland yard, i suppose?” said gerard stiffly.
jones nodded with a genial smile. but it was strange how that smile of his, which used to seem so imbecile and irritating when they had taken him for a fool, or an amiable decoy, seemed to have grown astute and intelligent now that they knew him for what he was, a detective of remarkably well developed histrionic powers and the keenest of keen eyes.
jones nodded.
gerard glanced at the car, and jones stepped back.
“there’s someone you know inside,” he said with a dry smile.
[308]he was gently, mildly triumphant, satisfied with having brought off a coup which would redound greatly to his credit.
gerard guessed whom he should see as he stepped up to the side of the car. and, just as he had expected, he saw miss davison inside, leaning back in one corner, with her eyes closed, and a look of weariness that was almost pain upon her handsome, pale face.
but it was the sight of the man seated beside her which caused gerard to utter an exclamation, and to look in stupefaction from rachel to him and from him to cecil jones.
for, sitting in the car beside miss davison, wrapped in a fur-lined motor-coat and with a cap drawn well down over his eyes, was the distinguished-looking man with the white mustache whom gerard had been accustomed to look upon as her evil genius.
“let me introduce mr. buckland, colonel,” said cecil jones, as he came up to the side of the car and leaned upon the door.
but at the name miss davison sat up, and leaning towards the man by her side, whispered loud enough for gerard to hear—
“oh, uncle, i may tell him now, may i not?”
some inkling of the truth, the whole truth, was already beginning to glimmer in gerard’s brain, but he was not to know all just yet.
the man with the white mustache shook his head,[309] whispered something back, and then said aloud, holding out his hand to gerard—
“i’m very pleased to meet you, mr. buckland. i’ve heard a great deal about you from my niece. but i ought to introduce myself. my name is ormsby, colonel ormsby.”
gerard could scarcely refrain from uttering a cry. for he had suddenly remembered that the face of the man with the white mustache, which had roused faint recollections which he could not fix in his mind, was that of a certain gallant officer who had been made chief constable of one of the large provincial towns, and who had distinguished himself not many years before in an important criminal case which was still in the public mind.
further glimmerings as to miss davison’s position began to appear in gerard’s mind.
meanwhile cecil jones had said a few words in a low voice to the colonel, and raising his hat to the lady, had walked back towards the priory at a brisk pace, accompanied by another man who had remained quietly in the background during the few minutes that this introduction lasted.
the colonel asked the two young men whether they would go back to town, and on receiving their thanks, he made way for them to enter the car, which immediately started on its journey.
very little was said by anybody until town was reached.
[310]miss davison, who seemed thoroughly exhausted, scarcely opened her eyes, but sat back in her corner, from time to time inhaling the contents of a bottle of lavender salts which she held in her hand.
the colonel sat next to her, and gerard on the outer side, while arthur aldington occupied the seat beside the driver.
it was a very long time before colonel ormsby said anything about the affair at the priory. but just as they were driving through the outskirts of london, and miss davison was rousing herself and putting up her hands to rearrange her hat, he whispered in the young man’s ear—
“you’ve been present to-day at the capture of one of the most dangerous card-sharping and blackmailing gangs in europe. they’ll each get seven years.”
“blackmailing?” echoed gerard, horrorstruck.
the colonel nodded.
“they hadn’t begun that game over here yet, but they wouldn’t have been long in starting, if they hadn’t been laid by the heels. that old woman is the author of more mischief than would suffice to keep half a dozen criminal courts busy.”
gerard uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“but the name—isn’t she mrs. van santen?” he asked appalled.
“no. there is a mrs. van santen, who lives in an[311] out-of-the-way town in the states, and whose husband has made his pile in railway stocks; but she has nothing to do with them, nor have the other members of the gang. each has a different surname or, rather, a dozen.”
“and the women—the others?”
“i don’t know anything of the one who calls herself delia; but there is probably a history behind her good-looking mask. the other is a public singer—married—”
“married?” echoed gerard.
“yes—husband in america, or was. she may now be the wife of the man who calls himself harry van santen. he’s a precious scoundrel, the worse of the two, if anything.”
gerard was appalled. the thought that miss davison had been living under the same roof with these dangerous criminals was terrible, and he stammered out something of his thoughts.
the colonel glanced at him quickly, and nodded.
“only a woman of the finest pluck and the most indomitable spirit could have done it. the strain must have been tremendous,” he said. “however, we couldn’t have brought things to a head without her help.”
“to play the spy—on the people who thought she was their friend!” stammered gerard.
“that’s not exactly the case,” returned the colonel[312] in a voice too low for his niece to hear. “she helped to keep the house going. i know, for we supplied the money.”
gerard uttered an exclamation.
then he sat back as if stunned.
“then she is—a detective!” he almost gasped.
“well, she has been acting in that capacity,” admitted colonel ormsby. “i wish she would go on with the career. she began it at my suggestion, on my fervent advice. she has been a great success, an unparalleled success. if you were wise, you, as i understand, have great influence with her, would advise her to keep on with it.”
gerard said nothing. he did not see the look of keen anxiety on the face of rachel, who had gathered some part of their conversation, and who knew what the subject was that they were discussing.
they went on in silence until piccadilly was reached. then the colonel turned to his niece.
“my dear, where are you going to stay to-night? will you put up at my hotel?”
she shook her head.
“i’ve kept on the lodgings in duke street,” said she. “i think i’ll go there. and you can come and see me in the morning, and take me to lady jennings’. i can’t feel happy till i’ve told the dear old thing everything.”
“very well, my dear. then i’ll tell marks to drive to duke street.”
[313]they drove on, and miss davison was helped out by the gentlemen, and gerard thanked the colonel for having brought him so far on his way, and let the car drive away without him.
for miss davison had given him a look which he took for permission to speak to her. and as the car drove down the street, they walked up it, side by side, in the quiet night.
“now,” said she, with a weary air of being glad to get rid of a burden, “you know everything. you can see why it was impossible for me to tell you anything. i was under promise—oath—not to let any creature on earth know what i was and what my work was. i was fully sheltered by the fact that it was my uncle who had started me on this most distasteful but most remunerative career, and though i have often asked him to release me, he has always refused until i could assist in carrying out some sensational feat, to justify, as he said, his choice of me for this career.”
“and he has released you now?”
“of course. if he had not, you would have known nothing, you would have been told nothing.”
“you might have trusted me,” said gerard reproachfully.
she turned upon him quickly.
“i could trust no one,” she said. “a word, nay, a look, while i was living under the same roof with a gang of dangerous criminals, might have been death to me. i knew that, while i was staying with them,[314] i carried my life in my hand. it was by far the worst experience i have ever had, and i could not have gone through with it, could not have stood the strain of being always on the watch for the proofs which i had to hoard up to communicate to the police, but for my uncle’s promise that it should be the last, the very last thing he would call upon me to do.”
gerard involuntarily heaved a deep sigh of thankfulness.
“and you have done with it?” he said.
“yes.”
his tone grew harder.
“for the time, that is, of course. you will probably find your way back when you are asked by the friends you have formed. it was cecil jones who accompanied you everywhere, wasn’t it? when you detected pickpockets in a crowd, and handed him the stolen property? when you accompanied him to the police-station to give evidence against the shop-lifter at the stores—”
“you thought i was the shop-lifter!” said miss davison demurely.
“well, i know better now. as i say, you always had this jones—”
“whose name is not jones at all.”
“well, you had this fellow who calls himself jones to help you and to stand by you.”
“yes. my uncle, who gives advice to the police in important cases still, though he has practically retired,[315] picked out this man as one he could rely upon to help me.”
“and now i suppose you will marry him?” said gerard fiercely.
miss davison looked demurely down on the pavement.
“he has a wife,” she said, “and three, if not four, children.”
“thank god!”
miss davison suddenly stopped and held out her hand.
“good-night,” said she, “mr. buckland, and—good-bye.”
he took her hand and held it in his own, which was trembling.
“must it be good-bye, rachel?” he said hoarsely.
“surely,” said she, with a little forced, weary laugh, “you don’t want to remain a friend of an ex-detective!”
gerard burst into a tirade of which the salient features were that he would have remained her friend if she had actually been one of the gang themselves, if she had been a card-sharper, if she had been a shop-lifter, if she had been a pickpocket. he loved her, and he knew that, whatever she might have done, she would never have been anything at heart but the noble and good woman whom he loved as he had always done.
[316]he behaved indeed so irrationally, he expressed his love and devotion in so many impassioned and absurd speeches, he looked so earnest and he spoke so tenderly, that miss davison, if she could in any case have held out till morning, was softened, and gave way there and then. gave way, that is to say, to the extent of telling him that he was an absurd boy, and that he might, if he liked, and if he had nothing better to do, take her to see lady jennings on the following day.
and, as there was no one in the street, she let him kiss her when he said good-night.
