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

Apparently there had been a pool of blood there, but it had nearly all dried up, save that portion which had not yet become completely hardened.

What could it mean?

He returned to the spot which had been immediately beneath where he had lain upon the bed. Had some previous occupant of that barred room been foully done to death while sleeping? It certainly seemed that such was the explanation.

"Who brought me here, I wonder?" he said aloud to himself, as the ghastly suggestion crept over him. "What is Marigold thinking of my disappearance? What can they think of it at the office?"

Across the narrow room he paced in frantic anger at having been so entrapped without the slightest motive. The dead silence of the place oppressed him. Without knowledge of where he was, either in London or in the country, he set his teeth and regretted the moment when he went to the assistance of the two women. Yet, surely, they could have nothing to do with his detention there? The absence of motive held him completely perplexed.

In the fast-fading light he made a complete and minute inspection of that chamber wherein he had made the gruesome discovery. If someone had really been done to death in that place recently, then there might be other traces of the tragedy. Further, how was he to know that he, in turn, would not fall a victim!

Hastily, because the light was going, he turned out a cupboard, but found nothing save a quantity of newspapers. Some rubbish in the rusty fireplace he examined, but his search there was also fruitless.

Then he turned his attention to a long, narrow double-doored cupboard let into the wall close to the bed. One door was bolted from within, and the other locked. To force it open was only the work of a few moments. Within he found a quantity of feminine apparel of good quality, a skirt, shoes, and other things.

One object which he took up caused him to ejaculate another cry of horror, and to hold his breath.

He carried it across to the broken window, and there bent to see if what he suspected was the actual truth.

Yes! He satisfied himself that it was. What he held in his hand was a woman's cream crêpe-de-chineblouse, prettily trimmed with lace, but the neck, chest, and all over the left sleeve were stained with blood!

"Then the victim was a woman!" he gasped aloud.

Quickly he examined all the other articles of attire, but found no traces of blood upon any other. He decided to keep his knowledge to himself, so that when he escaped, as he intended to do, he might at once inform the police of what he had found. Therefore he instantly set to work to replace the floor-boards, and recover them with the old piece of linoleum which hid the great ugly stain. Then, restoring the room to order in the best way possible, he replaced the blouse and the other feminine garments where he had found them, and was able – after a great deal of difficulty, for it was nearly dark – to place the two doors of the cupboard together in such a way that they closed, so that all trace of them being forced was thus removed.

That some unknown woman had recently lost her life in that place was now quite certain. After he had put the place in order again – all save re-erecting the bedstead, for this could not be done, neither could he mend the broken chair – he stood in the darkness pondering. It was impossible to remain in that horrible place all night. If he slept he might be attacked, as the poor woman had probably been. And in his half-dazed condition he needed sleep badly.

His one thought was of Marigold.

"What will she think, poor girl!" he cried aloud in his anguish. "What has she done now that I am missing?"

He listened. There was no sound save the chiming of a church clock in the distance, followed by the shrill whistle of a locomotive. Then he heard the long-drawn siren of a ship repeated three times, but some distance away. Evidently the place was near a river, or perhaps by the sea. That would account for the smell of tar.

Then all became quiet again. The silence and darkness began to get upon his nerves until he could stand it no longer. The thought that a dark tragedy had been perpetrated upon that very spot where he stood filled him with horror.

Therefore at last he again went to the window, and began to send up some unearthly yells in a fierce endeavour to attract the attention of somebody outside.

Time after time he repeated his shouts, but nobody answered. He could hear the voices of two common women gossiping, and though he could not see them he shouted to them. But they only deigned to yell back.

"Oh, shut up! Do shut up – whoever you are!"

Suddenly he recollected that drunken brawls and cries for help are only too frequent in lower-class neighbourhoods, therefore his cries for assistance, though they must be heard, were being disregarded.

So he desisted, and resolved to remain patient a further quarter of an hour, and then resume his cries for help.

He was standing in the darkness near the window when a slight and curious movement behind him caused him to turn sharply.

Beneath the door he saw a light, but whoever was there wore rubber soles to their shoes, for they made no sound. The slight noise which had fallen upon his strained ears was the slow and stealthy drawing of a bar outside the door.

Someone was creeping noiselessly in!

On tiptoe he crossed, and, seizing the bar of iron, sprang behind the door, his hand raised ready to fell any person who entered.

The handle of the door was very slowly turned, but next second – ere he became aware of it – a strange thing happened.

CHAPTER XXI

LOST DAYS

As the door of the room in which he was imprisoned slowly opened, and he stood ready to attack the new-comer and fight for his liberty, he became suddenly blinded and rendered utterly powerless by a burst of heavy grey smoke.

He drew one whiff of it, and, reeling, fell senseless upon the floor.

Then, as the fumes which had rendered him unconscious slowly cleared, there stood in the dim light a form wearing an exact replica of the white cloak and hood which Bernard Boyne used when he visited that upstairs room in Hammersmith. The window being broken, and now that the door was open too, the fumes quickly dispersed, yet Gerald lay there where he had fallen, pale as death, and breathing only slightly.

"A heavy dose!" laughed the hooded man grimly. "He won't get over it for quite a long time!"

And then he turned and left, leaving the door still open, so that all trace of the poisonous vapour which he had released from a heavy iron cylinder should be removed.

An hour later he returned, but without his cloak, for the gas-mask was no longer needed. He carried an electric torch, which he flashed into the white face of the unconscious victim.

"You'll soon go away – never to return!" growled the mysterious man aloud; and then suddenly by the reflection of the light his face became revealed.

It was Bernard Boyne.

"The fellow knows too much – and so does the girl!" he muttered to himself. "We must deal with her next. But she's not yet dangerous. Still, as Lilla says, in our business we can't afford to take any risks. So stay there for the present, my friend," he added.

And bending he felt the prostrate man's pulse in the professional manner of a medical man. Then, apparently well satisfied, he crossed the room, closed the window and, after locking the door outside again, descended the stairs.

When young Durrant at last began to slowly recover his senses, he awakened to find himself seated in an arm-chair in a small and not uncomfortable cabin on board a ship. The vessel was rolling heavily, and ever and anon the waves swept up past the porthole, partially obscuring the light.

He drew his hand across his fevered brow and endeavoured to think. But all was hazy, uncertain, and unreal. Was he still dreaming? he asked himself. He placed both his hands upon the arms of the leather-covered chair and felt them. No! It was no dream! He was on a ship at sea!

Suddenly across his brain swept recollections of that room in which he had been imprisoned – that gruesome chamber with its unmistakable evidence of a tragedy – the place in which some unknown woman had been foully done to death. He remembered his meeting with those two ladies outside Kensington Gardens, their hospitality and its dire result. At any rate, there was one satisfaction, that his enemies, whoever they were, had spared his life.

He rose, his limbs feeling very sore and stiff. How long had elapsed since he had so suddenly met that mysterious burst of smoke he had no idea. Nor had he any knowledge of where he had been, or where that room of tragedy was situated. All remained a complete blank.

In rising to his feet he nearly fell owing to the heavy roll of the vessel – a steamer evidently, for he could feel the vibration of the engines. Unsteadily he opened the door, and found himself in a narrow gangway, with several cabins on either side. Opposite him a door stood open, revealing a burly, dark-bearded man in uniform lounging in a chair, smoking a pipe and reading a book.

Hearing Gerald's footsteps he turned his head.

"Hulloa!" he cried roughly. "Got over your drunk then, Mr. Simpson? Come in here!"

"Thanks," was Durrant's reply. "But I never drink, and my name is not Simpson."

"Ah! I thought you'd say that! Sit down, anyway," the captain remarked, with a good-humoured laugh. "Yesterday when we had a chat, you didn't deny that your name was George Simpson, did you?"

"I don't remember having had a chat with you yesterday," replied Gerald, amazed at the captain's words.