First Person Paramount Part 24

But the contact set my blood on fire and I caught her in my arms, and strained her to my breast. She shivered in my clasp and deeply sighed, but I rained hot kisses on her cheeks, and eyes, and lips pa.s.sionately, striving to warm her with my pa.s.sion, for I knew that she was cold, and unresponsive too, in spite of her surrender.

But of a sudden she tore herself from my embrace and fled. I caught her on a stretch of lawn and held her close again. To my dismayed astonishment she was weeping wildly. I kissed the tears away and frantically implored her for their reason. And yet she would do nought but sob, and gaze around her like one distraught and terrified. "Oh, my G.o.d!" she cried at last; "I cannot, I cannot! I was mad to undertake this thing--mad--mad!"

"What thing, my sweetheart?" I demanded in amazement.

For answer she threw herself into my arms and kissed me with all the pa.s.sion of her soul, once, twice. Then drawing back, she caught my hand in one of hers, and with the other pointed towards the river, trembling violently the while. "Ask me nothing now," she panted; "but let us go--quickly, quickly. This place is haunted! See, I am half sick with terror."

I pa.s.sed my arm about her waist and would have led her to the boat, but at that moment a short shrill whistle sounded from the willows, and was answered by two others from the wood. The first, however, had hardly pierced the air, when Marion uttered a frightful scream, and sank swooning at my feet.

I understood then that the woman I loved had in some fashion betrayed me. For one desperate second I stood listening for sounds and thinking of escape. Then anguish overwhelmed me. The transition from my paradise of beliefs to the h.e.l.l of certainties was too rapid, for hope to spring readily therefrom, and I thought to myself--

"Let even death come, for what is there good in life when love is wrecked and ruined!"

Uttering a groan, I fell on my knee beside her, not knowing what I did, not caring what might happen.

Next instant I dimly heard a rush of feet upon the gra.s.s, a cry of rage from right to left. A sharp pain quivered through my brain. I saw a blaze of light that faded quickly into unalleviated blackness. I felt the world swing with a sickening revolution round, and then came sweet encompa.s.sing oblivion.

VIII

TORTURE

I dreamed that my nostrils were being tickled with a straw. After awhile the sensation became intolerable. I knew that I was dreaming, yet I wished to wake up. Sleep, however, pressed with a heavy hand upon my eyelids, and I contended long and desperately without at all persuading him to go.

At last a voice said, "That will do, Jussieu, he is coming round."

I opened my eyes at once, with extraordinary ease, considering my long struggle, and I looked up into the impa.s.sive countenance of Sir Charles Venner. I was seated upright in a high-backed chair, strapped securely in position, strapped in such a way indeed that I could move only my fingers and my toes. The negro surgeon, Jussieu, whom I had last seen at the Kingsmere Hospital for Consumptives, was standing to the right of Sir Charles, and three of us were grouped about the centre of a small uncarpeted brick-floored room scarce twelve feet square, that was furnished only with the chair I occupied and a bracket oil lamp whose wick was smoking. There was one other person in the room. The negro, Beudant, stood near the closed door, wiping upon a cloth a blood-smeared lancet. I noticed that my left sleeve had been ripped open, and that my arm was bandaged just above the elbow. Evidently they had bled me. But why? And where was Marion? Of a sudden I remembered all. Marion had lured me to this river park and betrayed me with a Judas kiss into the hands of my enemies. Too late she had repented of her treachery and tried to save me. She had swooned; I had knelt beside her body, and someone had stunned me with a club. It was all very simple. I had been a contemptible fool, and now I must pay the price of my folly. What price would they exact? I wondered. But I most wondered at my indifference. They can only kill me, I reflected, and the thought scarcely disturbed me. Yet I was curious. There were many things I wished to know.

"Where am I?" I asked, looking at Sir Charles.

"You are in the cellar of my private house at Staines," he answered civilly enough. "I may inform you that I keep no servants except these men you see, and the house is set in the middle of a small park some hundred and fifty yards distant from the river and at least a quarter mile from any other building. You may therefore spare yourself the useless trouble of shouting for help, should you have been so minded."

"Thank you!" said I.

"Question me further, if you wish, Mr. Hume. It will be my turn soon to play inquisitor, when you are stronger."

"Where is Marion Le Mar?"

"She returned to London, this morning. You have been four and twenty hours insensible."

"A clever woman that," I muttered coolly. "You may congratulate yourself, Sir Charles, on her a.s.sistance. But for her I would long ago have been in France."

He smiled ironically. "You praise her too much!" he replied. "She has served me well, it is true; but for the last fortnight you have been practically my prisoner."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"What I say. Do you remember Miss Le Mar calling you to her room one certain evening and asking you questions of your race and parentage?"

"Yes."

"Had you left the house that evening, even the very second she dismissed you, and indeed at any moment since, you would have been arrested on the instant."

"By whom?"

"By my detectives!"

"What, did you commit yourself with the police?"

He smiled again. "Oh, no! Nevertheless, you would have been arrested, Mr. Hume, and you would have thought--by the police!"

"I--see; but--but--how could you have known, I mean, how could you have been sure that I was I--until you had communicated with--with her?"

For a third time he smiled, and when he spoke it was in a tone of genuine admiration. "You are an able man, Mr. Hume!" said he, "but no chain is stronger than its weakest link, and your weakest link was revealed to me that very morning!"

"Ah! what was it?"

"An advertis.e.m.e.nt in the personal column of the _Daily Mail_."

"You deal in mysteries!" I cried impatiently, "I never inserted such an advertis.e.m.e.nt in my life."

"It ran like this"--replied Sir Charles. "If the gentleman who left a plain, oak coffin in the front room of number 904 Old Kent Road on the morning of the ---- day of ----, does not claim it within fourteen days from date, it will be sold to pay expenses. Sarah Rosenbaum!"

"The idiot!" I gasped. "I gave it to her!"

Sir Charles burst out laughing. "Did you?" he cried--"did you indeed?

Well luckily for me she could not have understood you!"

"Do you mean to say, sir, it was only that advertis.e.m.e.nt which put you on my track?"

"That, and only that. I suspected you before, but I confess that you were adroit enough to allay my suspicions and hoodwink me completely!"

"Oh! Lord," I groaned. "To think that a frowsy, oily haired Jewess should be the cause of my undoing. Why in the name of goodness was she not satisfied to take the coffin for a gift!"

"Perhaps she was afraid to sell it, or perhaps she tried to sell it and could not show a t.i.tle to its would-be purchaser. You should not condemn her, Hume, upon _ex parte_ evidence. Pardon me for saying it, but the fault was yours. You should not have given her the coffin at all. You should have got rid of it by other means!"

"Too true!" I groaned. "But I only wanted a day's grace then, or I'd not have been so careless!"

"You had seven!" he exclaimed. "The advertis.e.m.e.nt did not appear for a week!"

I felt my cheeks crimson. "After all," I muttered, "you owe everything to Marion."

"Were you really such a fool," he cried.

I nodded. "Give me to drink!" I said. "I'm feeling weak and sick."

He made a sign, and one of the negroes hurried out. I was very near swooning, when I felt my chair tipped back, and something was forced between my teeth. I drank and was revived. Then one of the negroes fed me with a bowl of soup and soon my strength was perfectly restored. Sir Charles Venner waited all the time before me, occasionally feeling my pulse. He seemed satisfied at last that my condition warranted his promised inquisition, and he proceeded straight away to business.