Whatsoever a Man Soweth

“I’m delighted to think that Charlie will escape a very disagreeable affair. It’s fortunate he wasn’t here to receive that letter.”

“And I’m glad, too. When he returns I’ll tell him how you came here, and what you said. What name shall I give him?”

“Williams – Harry Williams,” I answered. “He will know.”

Then as I walked round to the window I examined the room quickly, but to my disappointment saw that there were no photographs. He might, I thought, keep the portraits of some of his friends upon the mantelshelf, as so many men do. Was this Denton one of the conspirators, I wondered? His absence without an address for four months caused me to suspect that he was.

Just as I had given her my assumed name, somebody knocked at the door, and she went to open it.

Next instant a thought flashed across to me. Should I take that letter? It was a theft – that I recognised, yet was it not in the interests of justice? By that communication I might be able to establish the dead man’s identity.

There was not a second to lose. I decided at once. I heard the woman open the door and speak to someone, then swift as thought I opened the cupboard, glanced at the packet of letters, and with quickly-beating heart took the one which bore the Blandford post-mark.

In a moment it was in my pocket. I re-closed the cupboard, and sprang to the opposite side of the room just as the good woman re-entered.

Then, with profuse thanks and leaving kind messages to the man of whom I spoke so familiarly as “Charlie,” I took my leave and hurried along the broad road into Salford, where I jumped upon a tram going to the Exchange.

I was in the train alone, in a third-class compartment, travelling north to Carlisle, before I dared to break open the letter.

When I did so I found within a scribbled note in cipher written on the paper of the Bear Hotel, at Devizes. After some difficulty, with the aid of the key which the writer had evidently used in penning it, I deciphered it as follows: —

“Dear Denton, – I saw you in the smoking-room of the Midland at Bradford, but for reasons which you know, I could not speak. I went out, and on my return you had gone. I searched, but could not find you. I wanted to tell you my opinion about Ellice and his friend. They are not playing a straight game. I know their intentions. They mean to give us away if they can. Sybil fears me, and will pay. I pretend to know a lot. Meet me in Chichester at the Dolphin next Sunday. I shall put up there, because I intend that she shall see me. Come and help me, for I shall have a good thing on, in which you can share. She can always raise money from her sister or her mother, so don’t fail to keep the appointment. Ellice has already touched a good deal of the Scarcliffs’ money from young Jack, and I now mean myself to have a bit. She’ll do anything to avoid scandal. It’s a soft thing – so come. – Yours, —

“R.W.”

The dead man was, as I had suspected, one of the gang, and he was a blackmailer. He had compelled her to meet him and had made demands which she had resisted. Yes – the letter was the letter of a barefaced scoundrel.

I clenched my hands and set my teeth.

Surely I had done right to endeavour to protect Sybil from such a band of ruffians. Once I had pitied the dead man, but now my sympathy was turned to hatred. He had written this letter to his friend Denton, suggesting that the latter should assist him in his nefarious scheme of blackmail.

He confessed that he “pretended” to know a lot. What did he pretend to know, I wondered? Ah! if only Sybil would speak – if only she would reveal to me the truth.

Yet, after all, how could she when that man, the fellow who had written that letter, had fallen by her hand?

The letter at least showed that her enemies had been and were still unscrupulous. Winsloe, even now, was ready to send her to her grave, just as I had been sent – because I had dared to come between the conspirators and their victim. And yet she trusted Nello – whoever the fellow was.

Who was the man Denton, I wondered? A friend of the mysterious “R.W.,” without a doubt, and a malefactor like himself.

I placed my finger within the linen-lined envelope, and to my surprise found a second piece of thin blue paper folded in half. Eagerly I opened it and saw that it was a letter written in plain English, in bad ink, and so faint that with difficulty I read the lines.

It was in the scoundrel’s handwriting – the same calligraphy as that upon the envelope.

I read the lines, and so extraordinary were they that I sat back upon the seat utterly bewildered.

What was written there complicated the affair more than ever. The problem admitted of no solution, for the mystery was by those written lines rendered deeper and more inscrutable than before.

Was Sybil, after all, playing me false?

I held my breath as the grave peril of the situation came vividly home to me.

Yes – I had trusted her; I had believed her.

She had fooled me!

Chapter Twenty Three.

Places Matters in a New Light

The words upon the second slip of paper were, —

“Ellice believes that Sybil still loves Wilfrid Hughes. This is incorrect. Tell him so. The girl is merely using Hughes for her own purposes. She loves Arthur Rumbold. I have just learnt the truth – something that will astonish you.”

Rumbold! Who was Arthur Rumbold? I had never heard mention of him. This was certainly a new feature of the affair. Sybil had a secret lover of whom I was in ignorance. She was no doubt still in communication with him, and through him had learnt of Eric’s whereabouts and other facts that had surprised me.

I read and re-read the letter, much puzzled. She was only using me for her own purposes – or in plain English she was fooling me!

I was angry with myself for not being more wary.

The train stopped at Preston, and then rushed north again as I sat alone in the corner of the carriage thinking deeply, and wondering who was this man Rumbold.

At Carlisle another surprise was in store for me, for I found a hurried note from Sybil saying that she had unfortunately been recognised by a friend and compelled to leave. She had gone on to Glasgow, and would await me there at the Central Station Hotel. Therefore, by the Scotch express at two o’clock that morning I travelled up to Glasgow, and on arrival found to my chagrin that she had stayed there one night, and again left. There was a note for me, saying that she had gone to Dumfries, but that it would be best for me not to follow.

“Return to Newcastle and await me,” she wrote. “My quick movements are imperative for my own safety. I cannot tell you in a letter what has happened, but will explain all when we meet.”

“By what train did the lady leave?” I inquired of the hall-porter who had handed me the letter.

“The six-twenty last night, sir,” was the man’s answer. “I got her ticket – a first-class one to Fort William.”

“Then she went north – not south,” I exclaimed, surprised.

“Of course.”

Sybil had misled me in her letter by saying that she had gone to Dumfries, when really she had travelled in the opposite direction. She had purposely misled me.

“The lady left hurriedly, it would appear.”

“Yes, sir. About five o’clock a gentleman called to see her, and she met him in the hall. She was very pale, I noticed, as though she was surprised at his visit, or rather upset. But they went out together. She returned an hour later, wrote this letter, which she told me to give to you if you called, and then left for Fort William.”

“And did the man call again?”

“Yes. She said he would, and she told me to tell him that she had gone to Edinburgh. I told him that, and he seemed very surprised, but went away. He was in evening dress, and it seemed as though they had intended dining together. She seemed,” added the man rather sneeringly, “to be more like a lady’s-maid than a lady.”

“But the gentleman, describe him to me.”

“Oh! he was a rather short, podgy man, fair, with a baldish head.”

Was it Parham? the description suited him.