A Mysterious Disappearance

The desperate expedient came to me of carrying off the body to the untenanted house at Putney where my old master had resided until his death, utilizing the four-wheeled cab with its half-drunken driver for the purpose.

If I reached Putney unhindered, I could dispose of my terrible burden easily, for the river flowed past the grounds, and every inch of the locality was known to me.

It occurred to me that perhaps the body might be found and recognized. Our personal linen was never marked, by reason of the fact that our laundry work was done upon our Yorkshire estate, but as a temporary safeguard I resolved to take some different and less valuable outer clothes from Mrs. Hillmer’s residence.

Her maid was of a similar build to my wife, so I hastened to the girl’s room, and laid hands upon a soiled coat and skirt which were relegated to the recesses of the wardrobe.

I glanced at my watch as I came along the corridor. It was 6.15 P.M. All the incidents I have related to you had happened within a quarter of an hour. Oh, heaven! it seemed longer than all the preceding years of my life.

Having resolved upon a line of conduct, I pursued it with the sang-froid and accuracy of one of the superior scoundrels delineated by Du Boisgobey. The door of the flat was locked. If the servants, hardly due yet, returned unexpectedly, I would send them off to Victoria Station on some imaginary errand of their mistress’s.

I knelt beside my poor wife’s body once more, and with great difficulty took off her costume and loosely fastened on the maid’s garments.

In her purse there were some bulky documents, which I afterwards discovered to be the reports furnished by a firm of private detectives, detailing all my movements with reference to Raleigh Mansions with surprising accuracy. But she had concealed her name. These men themselves only knew me as “Colonel Montgomery.”

How Alice first came to suspect me I can only guess. Perhaps my indifference, my absence from home at definite hours, a chance meeting in the street unknown to me – any of these may have supplied the initial cause, and led her to verify her doubts before taxing me with my supposed iniquity.

Indeed, her final act in coming alone to Mrs. Hillmer’s abode, revealed her fearless spirit and independent methods. She wanted no divorce court revelations. She would simply have spurned me as an unworthy and dishonorable wretch. Her small belongings I put in my pockets; the clothes I made into a parcel and stuffed temporarily beneath my overcoat.

Then I unlocked the door, and went down the few steps to the main entrance. There was no one about, the fog and sleet having cleared the street – a quiet thoroughfare at all times.

I took the risk of the maids coming back, and I ran to the square for my conveyance. The driver had been improving the occasion, and was more inebriated than before. He brought his cab to the door, and I knew, by the appearance of things, that no one had entered during my absence.

With some difficulty I lifted Alice’s body into my arms in as natural a position as possible, and carried her to the cab, leaving the door of the flat ajar. Luck still favored me. The cabman supposed that she, like himself, was intoxicated. A man came down the opposite side of the street, but he paid not the slightest heed to me, and, indeed, we were but dimly visible to each other.

Exerting all my strength unobtrusively, I placed my wife on the rear seat, and then calmly gave the driver instructions. He grumbled at the distance, but I told him I would pay him handsomely. Searching in my pockets and Alice’s purse, I could only find twelve shillings, so, although it was risky, to avoid a quarrel with the man, I determined to give him a five-pound note.

Thus far, all had gone well.

The notion possessed me that, to all intents and purposes, I had murdered my wife, and that I was now disposing of the visible signs of my guilt in the most approved manner of a daring criminal. Whether I did right or wrong I cannot, even at this late hour, decide. Should my death induce forgetfulness, I am still inclined to think that I acted for the best. My wife was dead; I was self-condemned. Why, then, allow others, wholly innocent, to be dragged into the vortex?

This was my line of thought. If you, reading this ghastly narrative, shudder at my deeds, I pray you nevertheless to weigh in the balance the good and ill that resulted from my actions.

At last we reached Putney, and drew up at the end of the disused lane which runs down by the side of the house to the river.

Here, again, the road was deserted. I lifted my wife out, carried her to the postern-gate, and returned to give the driver his note. The man was so amazed at the amount that he whipped up his horse instantly, fearing lest I should change my mind.

I was about to force open the old and rickety door into the garden when I remembered the drain-pipe jutting into the Thames – a place where, as a child, I often caused much alarm by surreptitious visits for the purpose of catching minnows. I quickly took off my coat and boots, turned up my trousers and shirt-sleeves, and examined the pipe with my hands.

It exactly suited my purpose. In half a minute I had firmly wedged my wife’s body beneath it. This was the most horrible portion of my task. The chill water, the desolation of the river bank, the mud and trailing weeds – all these things seemed so vile and loathsome when placed in contact with the mortal remains of my ill-fated Alice.

She had loved me. I believe I loved her, as I assuredly do now when her presence is but a memory, yet I was condemned to commit her to the contaminating beastliness of such surroundings. It was a small matter, in the face of death, but it has weighed on me since more than any other feature of that cruel night’s history.

Before leaving Putney I tied her clothes, hat, and furs to a couple of heavy stones and threw the parcel into deep water.

By train and cab I reached home but a few minutes late for dinner. It was not difficult for me to act my part with the servants, nor keep up the farce during the weary days that followed. My consciousness was so seared by what I had gone through that the mere make-believe of my position was a relief to me.

That night, in the privacy of my room, I recollected the broken fender, and feared lest the ironwork would supply a clue should the body be discovered, a thing I deemed practically impossible.

But, for Mrs. Hillmer’s sake, I took no risk. Next morning, before I saw you at Tattersall’s, I made arrangements for the whole contents of her drawing-room to be transferred to her brother’s flat, where, to my knowledge, the articles were needed.

Mrs. Hillmer had gone out early, so the thing was done in her absence. Her amazement was so great that she wired me, using as a signature the pet name of her childhood, and this was the first message you heard the groom refer to when he came a second time with the telegram from Richmond.

I wrote her a hurried note, explaining that I intended the transfer as a sop to her offended brother, but she had telegraphed again, and I had to go to see her, to learn that Mensmore resented the gift, and had gone off in a huff to Monte Carlo.

A little later, I took the supreme step of writing a farewell letter. Since my wife’s death I could not bear to meet any other woman. I communed with my poor Alice more when dead than when alive.

I do not think I have anything else to tell you. Step by step I watched you and the police tearing aside my barrier of deceit. At times I thought I would baffle you in the end. Were it not for my folly in bribing Jane Harding I think I must have succeeded.

That poor girl was the undoing of me in the first instance, and she now has brought me my final sentence, for she came to-day and told me, with tears, all that happened between the detective and herself. White, too, put in an appearance.

To-morrow, I suppose, he will bring a warrant, if you do not see him first and tell him the truth.

Do not misunderstand me. I am glad of this release. When you strove to arouse me from my despair I did, for a little while, cherish the hope that I might be able to devote my declining years to the work which Alice herself took an interest in. But the web of testimony woven round my old friend, Mensmore; the self-effacing spirit of his sister, who, to shield me, was willing to sacrifice herself; the possibility that I might involve these two, and perhaps others, in my own ruin – every circumstance conspired to overwhelm me.

I can endure no more, my dear Bruce. It is ended. The past is already a dream to me – the future void. My poor nature was not designed to withstand such a strain. The cord of existence has snapped, and I cannot bring myself to believe it will be mended again. In bidding you farewell I ask one thing. If you take a charitable view of my deeds, if you consider that my penalty is commensurate with my faults, then you might take my dead hand and say, “This was my friend. I pity him. May the spirit of his wife be merciful unto him should they meet in the regions beyond the grave.”

And so, for the last time, I sign myself

    Charles Dyke.

CHAPTER XXXI

VALEDICTORY

Much as Bruce would have wished to inter his dead friend’s secret with his mortal remains in the tomb, it was impossible.

Sir Charles Dyke’s sacrifice must not be made in vain, and the strange chain of events encircled other actors in the drama too strongly to enable the barrister to adopt the course which would otherwise have commended itself to him. An early visit to Scotland Yard, where, in company with Mr. White, he interviewed the Deputy Commissioner, and a conference with the district coroner settled two important questions. The police were satisfied as to the cause of Lady Dyke’s death, and the coroner agreed to keep the evidence as to the baronet’s sudden collapse strictly within the limits of the medical evidence.

A wholly unnecessary public scandal was thus avoided.

With Lady Dyke’s relatives his task required considerable tact. Without taking them fully into his confidence, he explained that Sir Charles had all along known the exact facts bearing upon her death and burial-place, but for family reasons he thought it best not to disclose his knowledge.

Bruce needed their co-operation in getting the home office to give the requisite permission for Lady Dyke’s reburial. The circumstance that the deceased baronet had left his estates to his wife’s nephew, joined to the important position Bruce occupied as one of the trustees and joint guardian, with the boy’s mother, of the young heir, smoothed over many difficulties.

After a harassing and anxious week Bruce had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing the remains of the unfortunate couple laid to rest in the stately gloom of the family vault.

The newspapers, of course, scented a mystery in the proceedings, but definite inquiry was barred in every direction. Even the exhumation order gave no clue to the reasons of the authorities for granting it, and in less than the proverbial nine days the incident was forgotten.

Sir Charles had made it a condition precedent to the succession that his heir should bear his name, and should live with his widowed mother on the Yorkshire estate, or in the town house, for a certain number of months in each year, until the boy was old enough to go to school.

The stipulation was intended to have the effect of more rapidly burying his own memory in oblivion. Bruce, too, was given a sum of £5,000, “to be expended in bequests as he thought fit.”

Claude understood his motive thoroughly. Jane Harding had been loyal to her master in her way, so he arranged that she should receive an annual income sufficient to secure her from want. Thompson, too, was provided for when the time came that he was too feeble for further employment at Portman Square, and Mr. White received a handsome douceur for his services.

Mrs. Hillmer did not even know of Sir Charles Dyke’s death until weeks had passed. Acting on Bruce’s advice her brother simply told her that everything had been settled, and that the authorities concurred with the barrister in the opinion that Lady Dyke was accidently killed.

When she had completely recovered from the shock of the belief that her loyal friend had murdered his wife, Mensmore one day told her the whole sad story. But he would allow no more weeping.