The Crime and the Criminal Part 64

"What's up now?" he asked.

A good deal seemed to be up, at any rate with Mr. Haines. That gentleman was standing on the other side of the table staring at something which he was holding in his hand, giving vent to a variety of observations which were scarcely parliamentary.

"It's Loo! Blamed if it ain't! It's my girl! It's Loo!"

Throwing down what he was holding, he rushed at the detective like some wild animal.

"d.a.m.n you!" he yelled. "It's Loo!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE WOMAN OF THE PORTRAIT.

The detective easily avoided the man's blind rush, the result of which was that Mr. Haines all but cannoned into Mr. Holman's niece.

Miss Hetty Johnson, however--the young lady's name was Johnson--seemed in no way disconcerted.

"That's right. Knock me down and trample on me. I don't mind. I've done nothing to n.o.body. But it's all the same as if I had."

Brought back by the young lady's words to a sense of reality, Mr.

Haines spluttered out an apology.

"I beg your pardon. It was an accident." Then he raved at Mr. Holman.

"You--you devil! You've been having me, tricking me, doing me. You cursed slippery British hound, I feel like killing you!"

He looked as he said he felt. His tall figure was drawn upright, his long arms were stretched out in front of him, his fists were clenched as in a paroxysm of rage.

Mr. Holman stared at him with stolid imperturbability.

"Perhaps, when you've quite finished, you'll tell us what's wrong."

"You know. Don't you try to play it any more off on to me, or the presence of a woman shan't save you."

"What's the matter with the man?" asked Mrs. Holman.

"Don't you hear me asking him?" chimed in her lord. "But it doesn't seem as if he cared to tell us."

As if one was not sufficient, Mr. Haines began shaking both his fists at the detective.

"You said you knew nothing about her; you told me you could not help me; you advised me to go back by the next ship. I could not make it out. Now I do catch on. You had her portrait all the time."

"Whose portrait?"

"Loo's!"

"Who's Loo?"

"My girl!"

The words came from Mr. Haines with a roar.

The detective looked at him as if he was beginning to suspect that, after all, there might be some method in his madness.

"See here, Mr. Haines, I don't know if you are or are not mad, but just try to behave as if you weren't. I've no notion what you're talking about. I tell you I know no more about your girl than I know about the man in the moon."

"You tell me that, and expect me to believe it, when you have her portrait?"

"I have her portrait! Where?"

"Here!" Striding forward, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the two portraits which were lying on the table. As he did so, he perceived the second. "Why, here's another! There are two! You have two portraits of my girl, and you tell me that you know nothing of her."

Although the detective's face remained impa.s.sive, a speck of light seemed all at once to come into his eyes. The pupils dilated. There was something in them which suggested that the whole man had become, upon a sudden, alert and eager.

"I would ask you, Mr. Haines, to consider carefully what you are saying. More may depend upon your words than you imagine. Do I understand you to say that you know the original of that photograph?"

"Know the original! Of course I do. It's my girl, my Loo!"

"Are you prepared to swear it?"

"I am, before G.o.d and man."

"May I ask if there is anything in particular in which the likeness consists?"

"Don't you think a father knows his daughter when he sees her in a picture? Don't talk back to me. I tell you it's my girl, my Loo! Where is she?"

"I will tell you everything in a moment, Mr. Haines. Look at those photographs closely. Don't you notice anything about them which is peculiar?"

Mr. Haines did as he was told. He peered closely at the portraits.

"She is looking pretty sick."

"Well she might do. Those photographs were taken after death?"

"After death?"

"Have you heard of the Three Bridges Tragedy?"

"The Three Bridges Tragedy? Yes."

"That is the portrait of the victim."

"The victim? So! She is dead. She was done to death. I knew it."

"The man who has been found guilty of the crime is now lying in gaol under sentence of death."