CHAPTER VI.
THE PIECE OF CONVICTION

The morning of the tenth of January was one of those of gloom and darkness which are, on occasions, the blots upon London's reputation.

There seemed no fog, only a heavy, threatening cloud of night fell suddenly upon the city, and at three o'clock it might have been midnight. Streets, shops, and offices were lit everywhere, and buses and taxis compelled to light up, while in the atmosphere was a sulphurous odour with a black deposit which caused the eyes to smart and the lungs to irritate.

Londoners know those periods of unpleasant darkness only too well.

I was sitting in my room in Albemarle Street, watching Haines, who was cleaning a piece of old silver I had bought at an auction on the previous day. The collecting of old silver is, I may say, my hobby, and the piece was a very fine old Italian reliquary, about ten inches in height, with the Sicilian mark of the seventeenth century.

Haines, under my tuition, had become an expert and careful cleaner of silver, and I was watching and exhorting him to exercise the greatest care, as the ornamentation was thin, and some of the scrollwork around the top extremely fragile. It had, according to the inscription at its base, contained a bone of a certain saint – a local saint of Palermo it seemed – but the relic had disappeared long ago. Yet the silver case which, for centuries, had stood upon an altar somewhere, was a really exquisite piece of the silversmith's art.

Suddenly the telephone-bell rang, and on answering it I heard Phrida's voice asking —

"I say, Teddy, is that you? Why haven't you been over since Thursday?"

I started, recollecting that I had not been to Cromwell Road since the afternoon of the inquest – three days ago.

"Dear, do forgive me," I craved. "I – I've been so horribly busy. Had to be at the works each day."

"But you might have been over in the evening," she responded in a tone of complaint. "You remember you promised to take me to the St. James's last night, and I expected you."

"Oh, dearest, I'm so sorry," I said. "But I've been awfully worried, you know. Do forgive me!"

"Yes, I know!" she answered. "Well, I'll forgive you if you'll run over now and take me to tea at the Leslies. I've ordered the car for four o'clock. Will that suit you?"

The Leslies! They were snobbish folk with whom I had but little in common. Yet what could I do but agree?

And then my well-beloved rang off.

When I got down to Cromwell Road just before four o'clock, the darkness had not lifted.

My feelings as I passed along the big, old-fashioned hall and up the thickly-carpeted stairs to the drawing-room were mixed ones of doubt, and yet of deep affection.

Ah, I loved Phrida – loved her better than my own life – and yet – ?

Fresh in my memory was the doctor's evidence that the crime in Harrington Gardens had been committed with a thin, triangular knife – a knife such as that I had often seen lying upon the old-fashioned, walnut what-not in the corner of the room I was just about to enter. I had known it lying in the same place for years.

Was it still there?

Purposely, because I felt that it could no longer be there, I had refrained from calling upon my love, and now, when I paused and turned the handle of the drawing-room door, I hardly dared to cast my eyes upon that antiquated piece of furniture.

Phrida, who was sitting with her hat and coat already on, jumped up gaily to meet me.

"Oh, you really are prompt, Teddy!" she cried with a flush of pleasure.

Then, as I bent over her mother's hand, the latter said —

"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Royle. I expect you have been very upset over the curious disappearance of your friend. We've searched the papers every day, but could find nothing whatever about it."

Phrida had turned towards the fire, her pretty head bent as she buttoned her glove.

"No," I replied. "Up to the present the newspapers are in complete ignorance of the affair. But no doubt they'll learn all about it before long."

Then, crossing the room to pick up a magazine lying upon a chair, I halted against the old walnut what-not.

Yes, the mediæval poignard was still lying there, just as I had always seen it!

Had it been used, and afterwards replaced?

I scarcely dared to glance at it, lest I should betray any unusual interest. I felt that Phrida's eyes were watching me, that she suspected my knowledge.

I took up the magazine idly, glanced at it, and, replacing it, returned to her side.

"Well," she asked, "are you ready?"

And then together we descended to the car.

All the way up to Abbey Road she hardly spoke. She seemed unusually pale and haggard. I asked her what was the matter, but she only replied in a faint, unnatural voice —

"Matter? Why nothing – nothing, I assure you, Teddy!"

I did not reply. I gazed upon the pretty, pale-faced figure at my side in wonder and yet in fear. I loved her – ah! I loved her well and truly, with all my soul. Yet was it possible that by means of that knife lying there so openly in that West-End drawing-room a woman's life had been treacherously taken.

Had my friend Digby, the fugitive, actually committed the crime?

When I put the whole matter clearly and with common-sense before myself, I was bound to admit that I had a strong belief of his innocence.

What would those finger-prints reveal?

The thought held me breathless. Yes, to satisfy myself I would surreptitiously secure finger-prints of my well-beloved and then in secret compare them with those found in Sir Digby's rooms.

But how? I was reflecting as the car passed by Apsley House and into the Park on its way to St. John's Wood.

Was I acting honestly? I doubted her, I quite admit. Yet I felt that if I took some object – a glass, or something with a polished surface – that she had touched, and submitted it to examination, I would be acting as a sneak.

The idea was repugnant to me. Yet with that horrible suspicion obsessing me I felt that I must do something in order to satisfy myself.

What inane small talk I uttered in the Leslies' big, over-furnished drawing-room I know not. All I remember is that I sat with some insipid girl whose hair was flaxen and as colourless as her mind, sipping my tea while I listened to her silly chatter about a Cook's tour she had just taken through Holland and Belgium. The estimable Cook is, alas! responsible for much tea-table chatter among the fair sex.

Our hostess was an obese, flashily-dressed, dogmatic lady, the wife of the chairman of a big drapery concern who, having married her eldest daughter to a purchased knighthood, fondly believed herself to be in society – thanks to the "paid paragraphs" in the social columns of certain morning newspapers. It is really wonderful what half-guineas will do towards social advancement in these days! For a guinea one's presence can be recorded at a dinner, or an at home, or one's departure from town can be notified to the world in general in a paragraph all to one's self – a paragraph which rubs shoulders with those concerning the highest in the land. The snobbery of the "social column" would really be amusing were it not so painfully apparent. A good press-agent will, for a fee, give one as much publicity and newspaper popularity as that enjoyed by a duke, and most amazing is it that such paragraphs are swallowed with keen avidity by Suburbia.

The Leslies were an average specimen of the upper middle-class, who were struggling frantically to get into a good set. The old man was bald, pompous, and always wore gold pince-nez and a fancy waistcoat. He carried his shop manners into his drawing-room, retaining his habit of rubbing his hands in true shop-walker style when he wished to be polite to his guests.

His wife was a loud-tongued and altogether impossible person, who, it was said, had once served behind the counter in a small shop in Cardiff, but who now regarded the poor workers in her husband's huge emporium as mere money-making machines.

By dint of careful cultivation at bazaars and such-like charitable functions she had scraped acquaintance with a few women of title, to whom she referred in conversation as "dear Lady So and So, who said to me the other day," or "as my friend Lady Violet always says."

She had buttonholed me at last, though I had endeavoured to escape her, and was standing before me like a pouter-pigeon pluming herself and endeavouring to be humorous at the expense of a very modest little married woman who had been her guest that afternoon and had just left after shaking my hand.

Women of Mrs. Leslie's stamp are perhaps the most evil-tongued of all. They rise from obscurity, and finding wealth at their command, imagine that they can command obeisance and popularity. Woe betide other women who arouse their jealousy, for they will scandalise and blight the reputation of the purest of their sex in the suburban belief that the invention of scandal is the hallmark of smartness.

At last I got rid of her, thanks to the arrival of an elegant young man, the younger son of a well-known peer, to whom, of course, she was at once all smiles, and, presently, I found myself out in the hall with Phrida. I breathed more freely when at last I passed into the keen air and entered the car.

"Those people are impossible, dearest," I blurted out when the car had moved away from the door. "They are the most vulgar pair I know."

"I quite agree," replied my well-beloved, pulling the fur rug over her knees. "But they are old friends of mother's, so I'm compelled to go and see them sometimes."

"Ah!" I sighed. "I suppose the old draper will buy a knighthood at this year's sale for the King's Birthday, and then his fat wife will have a tin handle to her name."

"Really, Teddy, you're simply awful," replied my companion. "If they heard you I wonder what they would say?"

"I don't care," I replied frankly. "I only speak the truth. The Government sell their titles to anybody who cares to buy. Ah! I fear that few men who really deserve honour ever get it in these days. No man can become great unless he has the influence of money to back him. The biggest swindler who ever walked up Threadneedle Street can buy a peerage, always providing he is married and has no son. As old Leslie buys his calicoes, ribbons and women's frills, so he'll buy his title. He hasn't a son, so perhaps he'll fancy a peerage and become the Lord Bargain of Sale."

Phrida laughed heartily at my biting sarcasm.

Truth to tell, though I was uttering bitter sentiments, my thoughts were running in a very different direction. I was wondering how I could best obtain the finger-prints of the woman who held my future so irrevocably in her hands.

I had become determined to satisfy myself of my love's innocence – or – can I write the words? – of her guilt!

And as I sat there beside her, my nostrils again became filled by that sweet subtle perfume – the perfume of tragedy.