The de Bercy Affair

"Tell me! tell me! Where shall I find her?" and he bent in eager pleading.

"No. How is it possible that I should tell you?"

"But you do know! Somehow you do! I see and feel it. Tell it me, Hylda! Where is she?"

She looked up at him with a smiling face which gave no hint of the asp's nest of jealousy which the sight of his agony and longing created in her bosom. And from those calm lips furious words came out:

"Why, I horribly hate the woman – and since I happen to know that she is suffering most vilely, do you think it likely that I would tell you where she is?"

He groaned, as his heart sank, his head dropped, his hope died. He moved slowly away to a window; then, with a frantic rush was back to her, on his knees, telling her of his wealth – it was more than she could measure! – and he had a checkbook in his pocket – all, one might say, was hers – she had only to name a sum – a hundred thousand, two hundred – anything – luxury for life, mansions, position – just for one little word, one little act of womanly kindliness.

When he stopped for lack of breath, she covered her eyes with the back of her hand, and began to cry; he saw her lips stretched in the tension of her emotion.

"Why do you cry? – that achieves nothing – listen – " he panted.

"To be offered money – to be so wounded – I who – " She could not go on.

"My God! Then I offer you – what you will – my friendship – my gratitude – my affection – only speak – "

"For another woman! Slave that you are to her! she is sweet to you, is she, in your heart? But she shall never have you – be sure of that – not while I draw the breath of life! If you want her free, I will sell myself for nothing less than yourself – you must marry me!"

Her astounding demand struck him dumb. He picked himself slowly up from her feet, walked again to the window, and stood with his back to her – a long time. Once she saw his head drop, heard him sob, heard the words: "Oh, no, not that"; and she sat, white and silent, watching him.

When he returned to her his eyes were calm, his face of a grim and stern pallor. He sat by her, took her hand, laid his lips on it.

"You speak of marriage," he said gently, "but just think what kind of a marriage that would be – forced, on one side – I full of resentment against you for the rest of my life – "

Thus did he try to reason with her, tried to show her a better way, offering to vow not to marry anyone for two years, during which he promised to see whether he could not acquire for her those feelings which a husband —

But she cut him short coldly. In two years she would be dead without him. She would kill herself. Life lived in pain was a thing of no value – a human life of no more value than a fly's. If he would marry her, she would tell him where Miss Marsh was: and, after the marriage, if he did not love her, she knew a way of setting him free – though, even in that case, Rosalind Marsh should never have him – she, Hylda, would see to that.

For the first time in his life Osborne knew what it was to hate. He, the man accused of murder, felt like a murderer, but he had grown strangely wise, and realized that this woman would die cheerfully rather than reveal her secret. He left her once more, stood ten minutes at the window – then laughed harshly.

"I agree," he said quite coolly, turning to her.

She, too, was outwardly cool, though heaven and hell fought together in her bosom. She held out to him a Bible. He kissed it.

"When?" she asked.

"This day week," he said.

She wrote on a piece of paper the address of a house in Poland Street; and handed it to him.

"Miss Marsh is there," she said, as though she were his secretary of former days, in the most business-like way.

He walked straight out without another word, without a bow to her.

When he was well out of the house he began to run madly, for there was no cab in sight. But he had not run far when he collided with Inspector Furneaux.

"Mr. Osborne," said Furneaux – "one word. I think you are interested in the disappearance of Miss Marsh? Well, I am happy to say that I am in a position to tell you where that lady is."

He looked with a glitter of really fiendish malice in his eyes at the unhappy man who leant against a friendly wall, his face white as death.

"Are you ill, sir?" asked Furneaux, with mock solicitude.

"Why, man, your information is a minute late," muttered Osborne; "I have it already – I have bought it." He held out the paper with the address in Poland Street.

Furneaux gazed at him steadily as he leant there, looking ready to drop; then suddenly, eagerly, he said:

"You say 'bought': do you mean with money?"

"No, not with money – with my youth, with my life!"

Furneaux seemed to murmur to himself: "As I hoped!" And now the glitter of malice passed away from his softened eyes, his forehead flushed a little, out went his hand to Osborne, who, in a daze of misery, without in the least understanding why, mechanically shook it.

"Surely, Mr. Osborne," said Furneaux, "Miss Marsh would consider that a noble deed of you, if she knew it."

"She will never know it."

"Oh, never is a long time. One must be more or less hopeful. Unfortunately, I am compelled to inform you that I am here to arrest you – "

"Me? At last! For the murder?"

"It was to be, Mr. Osborne. But, come, you shall first have the joy of setting free Miss Marsh, to whom you have given so much – there's a cab – "

Osborne followed him into the cab with a reeling brain. Yet he smiled vacantly.

"I hope I shall be hanged," he said, in a sort of self-communing. "That will be better than marriage – better, too, than deserving to be hanged, which might have been true of me a few minutes ago. Why, I killed a woman in thought just now – killed her, with my hands. Yes, this is better. I should hate to have done that wretched thing, but now I am safe – safe from – myself."

CHAPTER XIV

THE ARRESTS

As Furneaux and Osborne were being driven rapidly to Poland Street, bent on the speedy release of Rosalind, Inspector Winter, for his part, was seeking for Furneaux in a fury of haste, eager to arrest his colleague before the latter could arrest Osborne. At the same time Clarke, determined to bring matters to a climax by arresting Janoc, was lurking about a corner of Old Compton Street, every moment expecting the passing of his quarry. Each man was acting without a warrant. The police are empowered to arrest "on suspicion," and each of the three could produce proof in plenty to convict his man.

As for Winter, he knew that where Osborne was Furneaux would not be far that day. Hence, when in the forenoon he received notice from one of his watchers that Furneaux had that morning deliberately fled from observation, he bade his man watch Osborne's steps with one eye, while the other searched the offing for the shadow of Furneaux, on the sound principle that "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together."

Thus Osborne's ride to Holland Park to see Hylda Prout had been followed; and, two hours afterwards, while he was still waiting for Hylda's arrival, Winter's spy from behind the frosted glass of a public-house bar had watched Furneaux's arrival and long wait on the pavement. He promptly telephoned the fact to Winter, and Winter was about to set out westward from Scotland Yard when the detective telephoned afresh to say that Mr. Osborne had appeared out of the house, and had been accosted by Furneaux. The watcher, quite a smart youngster from a suburban station, hastened from his hiding-place. Evidently, Furneaux was careless of espionage at that moment. He hailed a cab without so much as a glance at the man passing close to Osborne and himself on the pavement, and it was easy to overhear the address given to the driver – a house in Poland Street.

Why to Poland Street Winter could not conceive. At all events, the fact that the drive was not to a police-station inspired him with the hope that Osborne's arrest was for some reason not yet an accomplished fact, and he, too, set off for Poland Street, which happily lay much nearer Scotland Yard than Holland Park.

Meantime, Osborne and Furneaux were hastening eastward in silence, Osborne with his head bent between his clenched hands, and an expression of face as wrenched with pain as that of a man racked with neuralgia. It was now that he began to feel in reality the tremendousness of the vow he had just made to marry Hylda Prout, in order to set Rosalind free. Compared to that his impending arrest was too little a thing for him to care about. But as they were spinning along by Kensington Gardens, a twinge of curiosity prompted him to ask why he was to be arrested now, after being assured repeatedly that the police would not formulate any charge against him.

Furneaux looked straight in front of him, and when he answered, his voice was metallic.

"There was no escaping it, Mr. Osborne," he said. "But be thankful for small mercies. I was waiting there in the street for you, intending to pounce on you at once, but when I knew that you had sacrificed yourself for Miss Marsh, I thought, 'He deserves to be permitted to release her': for, to promise to marry Miss Prout – "

"What are you saying? How could you possibly know that I promised to marry Miss Prout?"