This House to Let

“Mr Spencer, you will be a very stricken man when you have read through it. Your poor friend left behind him a very copious diary, made up to the morning of the day on which he was murdered. The original is at my office, you can inspect it at any time you like. This is a copy of the entries relating to Cathcart Square. It touches your domestic life very closely, in addition to proving why and by whom he was murdered.”

Stella waited to hear no more. Her face had gone livid, she felt shaking in every limb. That her old enemy, Murchison, had left a diary! They had never thought of that possibility. The game was up. She had staked something on her marriage as Norah Burton with Jack Pomfret, and had lost. This time she had staked everything and lost again, but now she had lost liberty and life in addition. There was but one end. She must seek at once the man who had, in a way, been a good and faithful friend, but also her evil genius.

She stole as quietly out of the hall as she had entered it, and hailed a passing taxi. She knew she would never enter the house at Eaton Place again.

Chapter Twenty Five

Mrs Spencer had plenty of money in her pocket. She was always accustomed to carry a large sum about her. Her adventurous life had taught her that it was always wiser to have a good amount of cash in her possession. The time might come at any moment when you were in a tight corner. She had promised a handsome reward to the taxi-cab driver if he could get to a certain destination within the speed limit.

That destination was Kew Bridge, where it abuts on a little-known neighbourhood called Strand-on-the-Green.

At the foot of Kew Bridge, the wretched and hunted woman halted, and paid the driver his extravagant fare. What did it matter what she paid to-night? To-morrow she might not be able to pay. She shuddered as she thought of that to-morrow.

The taxi-driver drove slowly out of sight. She waited, from a sense of habitual caution, till he was well out of the way. And then, remembering everything, she smiled bitterly. Was there any need of caution now?

She went down a narrow lane, halted at the door of a small cottage, and rang the front-door bell. As she did so, she was aware of a man a few yards away from her, who seemed to be strolling aimlessly about, a man dressed in ill-fitting clothes, and heavy boots.

A detective certainly! This man had followed her from Eaton Place in a taxi almost as swift as her own. Bryant knew his business, he was not going to lose sight of her, or of her reputed cousin, George Dutton.

The door was opened cautiously by George Dutton, alias George Burton.

It was a small furnished cottage that he had rented for some months past, at a rent commensurate with his means. He kept no servant; a feeble old woman came in the morning to clean him up and prepare his breakfast. When he came back at night from the not very prosperous bucket-shop, he looked after himself, and cooked over a gas-stove his evening meal.

The evenings were drawing in, and it was rather a dark night. He peered for a moment at his visitor, before he recognised her.

“Stella, by all that is wonderful.” He called her by the new name, not the old one of Norah. “Come in, dear, but your arrival in this unexpected fashion does not suggest good news.”

She passed hastily through the open doorway. “Shut it quick,” she said, in a low, hoarse voice. “There is a man watching outside, I am sure he is a detective.”

As a matter of fact, there were two detectives within a few feet of each other, but in her agitation she had not observed the second man, who was deputed to keep watch on the movements of Mr George Dutton.

George Dutton was an old hand, and not to be lightly disturbed by small incidents. But he recognised the significance of this visit. His ruddy colour died away.

“You have bad news,” he said quietly.

“The worst, George. Bryant, the detective, paid a visit to Guy this evening. I came in just in the nick of time. The library door was ajar, I heard what Bryant said. The Major has left a diary behind him, and, of course, he had put it all down, up to the arranged meeting in Cathcart Square. The game is up, you will recognise that.”

Dutton’s mentality was a little bit slower than her own. “Did you hear any extracts read from the diary?”

“What a fool you are!” she cried indignantly. “Why should I wait to hear? If the man kept a diary, is it not easy to guess that he would have related every incident connected with me, from our first meeting at the Southleigh dinner-party? Bryant is watching me, there is a detective waiting outside. No doubt he is watching you, too. He is just waiting to pounce.”

“Then why has he gone to your husband?”

“Oh, you are too dense for worlds. Just to soften the blow. Can’t you understand that he wants to warn him beforehand of the shame that is going to fall upon him, the discovery that his wife is a murderess?”

And then Mr Dutton understood. He stretched out appealing arms to her. “My poor little girl, my ever faithful pal! And I have brought you to this!”

“You have brought me to this,” she said bitterly. “Did I not implore you upon my knees to accept the Major’s terms, and you were so obstinate, so set. You would insist upon the other way because it seemed better to you. And I, fool that I was, always yielding to your sinister influence, gave way as I always have done.”

Scoundrel and criminal as he was, hardened by years of evil-doing, the man’s self-control gave way at that accusation. He drew her to him, and, strange to say, she did not shrink from his embrace.

“My poor Stella, I have tried to do my best for you always, even sacrificed myself. But the end has come.”

He recognised that, as she did.

“Yes,” she said stoically, “as you say, the end has come. You have always been very adept in falling into holes, and then digging yourself out again. How are you going to dig yourself and me out of this hole, in the face of that incriminating diary?”

Dutton walked up and down, his face working, his hands and his body trembling. He was up against the gravest problem of his adventurous career. The shadow of the prison had always hovered over him, but now there was a more ghastly menace, the shadow of the gallows. From the prison, he could return. There was no return from the other.

He paused in his restless pacing, and came to a halt before the stricken woman. He had recovered himself to a certain extent. He had gambled and lost, he was prepared to accept the fate of the unsuccessful gambler.

“You are brave, old girl?” he asked briefly.

She looked up at him with a wan smile.

“Yes, I think I am brave. I can guess what you are about to suggest, with the detectives watching us outside.” She burst into a little sob. “Oh, you always thought you were so clever, and yet, if I had had the management of affairs, things might have been so different.”

He spoke humbly. “I think you are right, Norah. I was always full of arrogance and self-conceit. You were weaker in character than I was, but you had always more brains. And I was a blind fool not to admit it. Many a time you gave me your advice, and I rejected it.”

“And what do you suggest now?” she asked, in a voice that had sunk to a whisper.

He looked at her steadily. He had screwed up his courage to the sticking point. Could he count upon an equal fortitude in her?

“It is the finish, old girl. You say the detectives are waiting outside. Bryant has got a good case, and the diary will hang us. There is no getting over that.”

“You propose – ” she said falteringly.

He spoke quite steadily. The end had come, he had made up his mind, so far as regards himself.

“We neither of us want to hang for the murder of Hugh Murchison?”

She shuddered, and hid her face with her hands. “Oh, that awful evening! It has been like a nightmare ever since.”

“I know,” said Dutton soothingly. “It was one of my fatal mistakes. But it is no use crying over spilt milk. To-night we are face to face with facts. We have gambled, and we have lost, and we have got to pay the penalty.”

The wretched woman rose up, and wrung her hands. “And to think I might have been the Countess of Southleigh.”

“I know; don’t think I am not reckoning up all that,” replied Dutton. “But we have got to deal with facts to-night, with the detectives waiting outside. The game is up, you know that as well as I do. We have only a few hours before us, perhaps a few minutes, in which to make the choice.”

“I know,” she answered. “You mean our only alternative is to cheat the law.”

He looked at her steadily. “That is the only way. If we suffer ourselves to be taken, we have not got a dog’s chance.”

Weak woman as she was, she gathered something of his iron resolution. Yes, they must die and die together, to cheat the law. Such was to be the end of the brilliant adventuress who had inveigled two men into marriage, Jack Pomfret and Guy Spencer, with her subtle and elusive charm.

“And what do you suggest, George? You have thought of these things more than I have.”

“I have always thought of them,” said Dutton gloomily. “Well, there are various ways I can suggest to you. I can shoot you first, and myself afterwards.”