The Red Widow: or, The Death-Dealers of London

"Do you know, Gerald, I've been thinking again about Mr. Boyne," she said. "I can't get the man out of my mind."

"Well, to tell the truth, Marigold, neither can I," replied the young man. "Ever since that night at Hammersmith I've been trying in vain to solve the mystery."

"About the person concealed upstairs," remarked the blue-eyed girl reflectively. "Yes, it's most curious."

"It's more than curious," her companion declared. "Though I haven't mentioned it to you, I've watched the house for several nights, but I must admit that I've seen nothing at all suspicious."

"Oh! Then you've been on the watch!" she cried excitedly.

"Yes, on four occasions, and all to no purpose. Last Friday I waited from nine o'clock till one in the morning, and got wet through. He returned about ten, but did not come out again."

"He was upstairs with his secret friend, I suppose," said the girl.

"No doubt. Whoever may be confined there could not exist without seeing a human face and conversing with him, even for five minutes each day, or he would certainly go mad," said Gerald. "You remember I said that Italians, who have abolished capital punishment for murder, have substituted solitary confinement. It is far more terrible. They confine the assassin in a cell in silence, without sight of a human face. Their food is placed upon a turntable which revolves into the cell, so that the prisoner never sees a face. Such torture was invented long ago in the Bastille, and in every case it drives the guilty one raving mad within five years."

"How horrible!" cried the girl.

"I admit it is, but surely the punishment is far greater than that of hanging, or even the guillotine. Both are instantaneous, yet in Italy the criminal suffers all the tortures of Dante's Inferno – and deservedly so."

"Then you saw nothing?" asked Marigold.

"I fancied a lot, but I saw really nothing to increase my suspicions. One thing we know – that he is concealing some person in that locked room. Now who can the person be?"

"It may be some relative who has done something very wrong and is afraid of the police," suggested the girl.

"Agreed. It may be. But we have discussed the matter so many times that I think we should not talk further – but act," he said. "We have proved beyond doubt that Bernard Boyne is a man of mystery. Your deaf aunt, a most worthy woman, acts as his housekeeper. Why does he retain her? Merely because she is stone-deaf. Why does he want a deaf woman to wait upon him? Because there are sometimes noises in the house which would arouse the curiosity of any who chanced to overhear them."

"We must discover the identity of the person concealed," remarked the girl with the big blue eyes, as she lay back lazily among the cushions.

"We must. At all costs I intend to solve this mystery. Marigold," he said, removing his pipe from his lips and looking straight into her eyes, "my own belief is that you have discovered some very strange and startling drama of our complex London life – one which, when investigated, will prove to be astounding."

"Do you really think so?" asked the girl, looking into his handsome face.

"Yes – I do. Up to the present all our efforts have been in vain," he said. "Only one fact has been established, and that is that there is a prisoner – whether voluntary or not we cannot tell – in that creeper-covered house. We both saw Boyne creep up with food to him, while I saw his light beneath the door. Somebody is living up there in secret. Is it a man, or is it a woman? His eagerness makes me think that it is a woman. Who is it?"

"Somebody he is shielding – somebody who has committed some serious crime, who fears to show his or her face lest it be recognised by agents of Scotland Yard."

"Really, Marigold, you are very acute," he exclaimed. "We have had so many murder mysteries since the war, and in all of them the police confess their utter confusion, that the present situation fills me with great apprehension."

"I know," she said. "But why not let us begin again? Let us watch the house. I'll watch one night, and you watch the next. Surely we can by that means discover the truth. If the place is watched every night, this man Boyne must, in the end, be defeated."

"But I thought you liked Boyne?"

"Yes; he has been always very good to me. Remember that he is the owner of the place, and my aunt is his housekeeper," replied the girl.

"I quite appreciate your point," said Durrant. "But if we are to fully delve into the affair we must not be influenced by the fellow's open heart. The greatest criminals of the world have always been those who have been popular on account of their bonhomie and generosity."

The girl sat silent, her eyes fixed upon the rushes slowly waving in the stream. A motor-launch passed them, making a high wash against the bank, but she took no heed. She was still thinking of that strange occupant of the house in Bridge Place.

Three times during the past week she had, indeed, visited her aunt in an endeavour to discover something more. Boyne had been out, as usual, therefore she had been able to examine the place thoroughly. She had ascended to that locked room on each occasion, and had listened there. Once in the silence she had heard a distinct movement, a slight rustling, within.

Yet afterwards, as she had reflected, she wondered whether it had not been due to her imagination, or perhaps to a blind flapping at an open window. When one is suspicious, it is so easy to imagine queer circumstances.

"I only wish we could solve the mystery," she remarked wistfully. "It worries me. Auntie seems quite unconcerned."

"Because she has no suspicion, worthy old soul. She has no knowledge of Mr. Boyne's nocturnal visits with food to his friend."

"Why shouldn't we tell her, and then she'll be on the alert?" suggested the girl. "She might discover something."

"She might – but more probably she would be too eager, and thus put Boyne upon his guard," remarked the young fellow. "No. We must work together in strict secrecy if we intend to be successful."

"But who can he possibly be hiding?"

The young man in flannels shrugged his shoulders, and replied:

"I confess that the problem is getting on my nerves. The more I think it over the more inscrutable it becomes. Mischief is being worked somewhere. Of that I feel confident. All the actions of our friend Boyne point to it."

"But that shroud? Why does he wear it?" asked Marigold blankly.

"As a disguise, without a doubt. Perhaps the person upstairs has been confined there so long that his mind has already become deranged, as is inevitable after a long period of solitary incarceration, and Boyne now takes the precaution of adopting the simple disguise so that his friend should fail to identify him. He may have done his captive some great injury – or something."

"True; but, if he has, it was not in order to gain. Bernard Boyne is a comparatively poor man. My aunt says that he seems to have only just sufficient money to make both ends meet."

Gerald Durrant drew a long breath. Upon his countenance was an expression of doubt.

"He may pass as a poor man, and yet be rich," he remarked. "It may sound romantic, but there are many people living in the by-streets of London, successfully concealed beneath assumed names and unsuspected by their neighbours, who for years have lived a life of penury though they are really well off. And their motive is, for some reason or other, to cut themselves adrift from friends in their own sphere. Indeed, it is a well known fact that in the last days of King Edward an ex-Cabinet Minister lived for several years in seclusion in a meagre side-street near Kennington Park, as Mr. Benwell, his real identity never being suspected until, owing to his sudden death, an inquest was held, and the police, searching his papers, discovered that he was immensely wealthy and one of Britain's foremost statesmen, who was believed to be living in seclusion in Italy."

"Perhaps Mr. Boyne is some person who has sought retirement in a similar manner," Marigold suggested.

"No. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Boyne is playing a very deep and rather dangerous game – how dangerous I cannot yet discover."

"But you could discover nothing when you watched – just as I failed to find out any fact," she said. "I had no idea you were on the watch."

"I saw you on Tuesday night," he laughed. "You arrived at the house about half-past eight, and had a great trouble getting in."

"Were you there?" she cried eagerly. "I never dreamed that you were in the vicinity. Yes, you are right. I rang and banged on the door half a dozen times before I could attract auntie's attention. She generally leaves the door unlocked in case anyone should call."

"Boyne returned about twenty minutes after you had left, but though I watched till midnight, he did not come out again."

"Couldn't you take a day off one day and follow him when he goes out in the morning?" the girl suggested. "I would do it, but I fear that he'd recognise me."

"I might. But I think I may be more successful at night. It is very difficult to keep observation upon a person in broad daylight. In the darkness it is much easier."

"Why not try again to-night?" suggested Marigold. "I'll go with you."

He shook his head.

"Sunday night is a bad night. We know his habits on week-days, but he may have gone out all day to-day," he replied. "No; to-morrow would be more likely."