The Brightener

A woman, fully dressed, was stretched on the pink silk coverlet fast asleep, her head deep sunk in the embroidered pillow.

It was all I could do to keep back a cry – for this was no woman I had seen on board, not even a drunken or sleep-walking stewardess. Yet her face was not strange to me. That was the most horrible, the most mysterious part! There was no mistake, for the face was impossible to forget. As I stared, almost believing that I dreamed, another scene rose between my eyes and the dainty little cabin of the Naiad.

It also was a scene in a dream. I knew it was a dream, but it was torturingly vivid. I was a prisoner on a German submarine, in war-time, and signals from my own old home – Courtenaye Abbey – flashed into my eyes. They flashed so brightly that they set me on fire. I wakened from the nightmare with a start. A strong light dazzled me, and, striking my face, lit up another face as well. Just for an instant I saw it; then the revealing ray died into darkness. But on my retina was photographed those features, in a pale, illumined circle.

A second sufficed to bring back to my brain this old dream and the waking reality which followed, that night at the Abbey, long ago – the night which Shelagh and I called "Spy Night." For here, in my cabin on the yacht Naiad, on the crushed pillow of my bed, was that face.

As I realized this, without benefit of any doubt, a faint sickness swept over me. It was partly horror of the past; partly physical disgust of the brandy-reek – stronger than ever now – hanging like an unseen canopy over the bed; and partly cold fear of a terrifying Presence.

There she lay, sunk in drugged and drunken sleep, the Woman of Mystery, in whose existence no one but Shelagh and I had ever quite believed: the woman who had visited us in our sleep, and who – almost certainly – had fired the Abbey, hoping that we and the Barlows might suffocate in our beds.

The face was just the same as it had been then: "beautiful and hideous at the same time, like Medusa," I had described it; only now it was older, and though still beautiful, somehow ravaged. The hair still glowed with the vivid auburn colour which I had thought "unreal looking"; but now it was tumbled and unkempt. Loose locks strayed over the dainty pillow, and at the bottom of the bed, pushed tightly against the footboard by a pair of untidy, high-heeled shoes, was a dusty black toque half covered with a very thick motor-veil of gray tissue. There was a gray cloak, too, in a tumbled mass on the pink coverlet, and a pair of soiled gloves. Everything about the sleeper was sordid and repulsive, a shuddering contrast to the exquisite freshness of the bed and room – everything, that is, except the face. Its half-wrecked beauty was still supreme, and even in the ruin drink or drugs had wrought, it forced admiration.

"A German spy– here in my cabin – on board Roger Fane's yacht!" I said the words slowly in my mind, not with my tongue. Not a sound, not the faintest whisper, passed my lips. Yet suddenly the long, dark lashes on bruise-blue lids began to quiver. It was as if my thought had shaken the woman by the shoulder, and roused what was left of her soul.

I should have liked to dash out of the room and with a shriek bring everyone on board to my cabin. But I stood motionless, concentrating my gaze on those trembling eyelids. Something inside me seemed to say: "Don't be a coward, Elizabeth Courtenaye!" It was exactly like Grandmother's voice. I had a conviction that she wanted me to see this thing through as a Courtenaye should, shirking no responsibility, and solving the mystery of past and present without bleating for help.

The fringed lids parted, shut, quivered again, and flashed wide open. A pair of pale eyes stared into mine – wicked eyes, cruel eyes, green as a cat's. Like a cat, too, the creature gathered herself together as if for a spring. Her muscles rippled and jerked. She sat up, and in chilled surprise I thought I saw recognition in her stare.

CHAPTER VI

THE WOMAN OF THE PAST

"Oh, you've come at last!" she rasped, in a harsh, throaty voice roughened by drink. "I know you. I – "

"And I know you!" I cut her short, to show that I was not cowed.

Sitting up in bed, hugging her knees, she started at my words so that the springs shook. Whatever it was she had meant to say, she forgot it for the moment, and challenged me: "That's a lie!" she snapped. "You don't know me yet – but you soon will."

"I've known you since you came into my room at Courtenaye Abbey the night you tried to burn down the house," I said. "You were spying for the Germans in the war. Heaven knows all the harm you may have done. I can't imagine for whom you're spying now. Anyhow, you can't frighten me again. The war's over, but I'll have you arrested for what you did when it was on."

The woman scowled and laughed, more Medusa-like than ever. I really felt as if she might turn me to stone. But she shouldn't guess her power.

"Pooh!" she said, showing tobacco-stained teeth. "You won't want to arrest me when you hear who I am, Lady Shelagh Leigh!"

"Lady Shelagh Leigh!" It was on my lips to cry, "I'm not Shelagh Leigh!" But I stopped in time. The less I let her find out about me, and the more I could find out about her before rousing the yacht, the better. I spoke not a word, but waited for her to go on – which she did in a few seconds.

"That makes you sit up, doesn't it?" she sneered. "That hits you where you live! Why did you think I chose your cabin? I didn't select it by chance. I confess I was taken back at your remembering. I thought I hadn't given you time for much study of my features that other night. But it doesn't matter. You can't do anything to me. I'll soon prove that! But I had a good look at you, there in your friend's old Devonshire rat-trap. I knew who you both were. It was easy to find out! And the other day, when I heard that Lady Shelagh Leigh was likely to marry Roger Fane, I said to myself, 'Gosh! One of the girls I saw at the darned old Abbey!'"

"Oh, you said that to yourself!" I echoed. And, though my knees failed, I kept to my feet. To stand towering above the squatting figure on the bed seemed to give me moral as well as physical advantage. "How did you know, pray, which girl I was?"

"I knew, 'pray,'" she mocked, "because you've got the best room on this yacht. Roger'd be sure to give that to his best girl. Which is how I'm sure you're not Elizabeth Courtenaye."

"How clever you are!" I said.

"Yes – I'm clever – when I'm not a fool. Don't think, anyhow, that you can beat me in a battle of brains. I've come on board this boat to succeed, and I will succeed in one of two ways, I don't care a hang which. But nothing on God's earth can hold me back from one or the other – least of all, can you. Why, you can ask any question you please, and I'll answer. I'll tell the truth, too – for the more I say, and the more you're shocked, the more helpless you are – do you see?"

"No, I don't see," I drew her on.

"Don't you guess yet who I am?"

"I've guessed what you were– a German spy."

"That's ancient history. One must live – and one must have money – plenty of money. I must! And I've had it. But it's gone from me – like most good things. Now I must have more – a lot more. Or else I must die. I don't care which. But others will care. I'll make them."

Looking at her, I doubted if she had the power; though she must have had it in lost days of gorgeous youth. Yet again I remained silent. I saw that she was leading up to something in particular, and I let her go on.

"You're not much of a guesser," she said, "so I'll introduce myself. Lady-who-thinks-she's-going-to-marry Roger Fane, let me make known to you the lady who has married him – Mrs. Fane, née Linda Lehmann. I've changed my name since, more than once. At present I'm Katherine Nelson. But Linda Lehmann is the name that matters to Roger. You're nothing in looks, by the by, to what I was at your age. Nothing!"

If my knees had been weak before, they now felt as if struck with a mallet! She might be lying, but something within me was horribly sure that she spoke the truth. I'd never heard full details of Roger Fane's "tragedy," but Mrs. Carstairs had dropped a few hints which, without asking questions, I'd patched together. I had gleaned that he'd married (when almost a boy) an actress much older than himself; and that, till her sudden and violent death after many years – nine or ten at least – his life had been a martyrdom. How the woman contrived to be alive I couldn't see. But such things happened – to people one didn't know! The worst of it was that I did know Roger Fane, and liked him. Besides, I loved Shelagh, whose happiness was bound up with Roger's. It seemed as if I couldn't bear to have those two torn apart by this cruel creature – this drunkard – this spy! Yet – what could I do?

At the moment I could think of nothing useful, because, if she was Roger's wife, her boast was justified: for his sake and Shelagh's she mustn't be handed over to the police, to answer for any political crime I might prove against her – or even for trying to burn down the Abbey. Oh, this business was beyond what I bargained for when I engaged to "brighten" the trip on board the Naiad! Still, all the spirit in me rallied to work for Roger Fane – even to work out his salvation if that could be. And I was glad I'd let the woman believe I was Shelagh Leigh.

"Roger's wife died five years ago, just before the war began," I said. "She was killed in a railway accident – an awful one, where she and a company of actors she was travelling with were burned to death."

The creature laughed. "Have you never been to a movie show, and seen how easy it is to die in a railway accident? – to stay dead to those you're tired of, and to be alive in some other part of this old world, where you think there's more fun going on? It's been done on the screen a hundred times – and off it, too. I was sick to death of Roger. I'd never have married a stick like him – always preaching! – if I hadn't been down and out. When I met him, it was in a beastly one-horse town where I was stranded. The show had chucked me – gone off and left me without a cent. I was sick – too big a dose of dope, if you want to know. But Roger didn't know – you can bet. Not then! I took jolly good care to toe the mark, till he'd married me all right. He was a sucker! I suppose he was twenty-two and over, but Peter Pan wasn't in it with him in some ways. He kept me off the stage – and tried to keep me off everything else worth doing for five years. Then I left him, for my health and looks had come back, and I got a fair part in a play on tour. There I met a countryman of mine – oh! don't be encouraged to hope! I never gave Roger any cause to divorce me; and if I had, I'd have done it so he couldn't prove a thing!"

"When you say the man was your countryman, I suppose you mean a German," I said.

"Well, yes," she replied, with the flaunting frankness she affected in these revelations. "German-American he was. I'm German by birth, and grew up in America. I've been back often and long since then. But this man had a scheme. He wanted me to go into it with him. I didn't see my way at first though there was big money, so he left the show before the accident. When I found myself alive and kicking among the dead that day, however, I saw my chance. I left a ring and a few things to identify me with a woman who was killed, and I lit out. It was in the dead of night, so luck was on my side for once. I wrote my friend, and it wasn't long before I was at work with him for the German Government. The Abbey affair was after he'd got out of England and into Germany through Switzerland. He was a sailor, and had been given command of a big new submarine. If it hadn't been for the row you and your pal kicked up, we – he on the water and I on land – might have brought off one of the big stunts of the war. You tore it – after I'd been mewed up in the old rat-warren for a week, and everything was working just right! I wish to goodness the whole house had burned, and I did wish you'd burned with it. But I don't know if to-night isn't going to pay me – and you – just as well. There's a lot owing from you to me. I haven't told you all yet. My friend's submarine was caught, and he went down with her. I blame that to you. If I hadn't failed him with the signals, he might be alive now."

"I was more patriotic than I knew!" I flung back. "As you're so confidential, tell me how you got into the Abbey, and where you hid."

She shook her dyed and tousled head. "That's where I draw the line," she said. "I've told you what I have told to please myself, not you. You can't profit by a word of it. That's where my fun comes in! If I split about the Abbey, you might profit somehow – or your friend the Courtenaye girl would. I want to punish her, too."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Perhaps in that case you won't care to explain how you came on board the Naiad?"

"I don't mind that," the ex-spy made concession. "I went out of England after the Abbey affair – friends helped me away – and I worked in New York till things grew too hot. Then I came over as a Red Cross nurse, got into France, and stopped till the other day. I'd be there still if I hadn't picked up a weekly London gossip-rag, and seen a paragraph about a certain rumoured engagement! You can guess whose! It called Roger —my Roger, mind you! – a 'millionaire.' He never was poor, even in my day; he'd made a lucky strike before we met, with an invention. I said to myself: 'Linda, my girl, 'twould be tempting Providence to lie low and let another woman spend his money.' I started as soon as I could, but missed him in London, and hurried on to Plymouth. If it hadn't been for that bally storm I shouldn't have caught him up! The yacht would have sailed. As it was, before you came on board this afternoon I presented myself, thickly veiled. I had a card from a London newspaper, and an old card of Roger's which was among a few things of his I'd kept for emergencies. I can copy his handwriting well enough not be suspected, except by an intimate friend of his, so I scribbled on the card an order to view the yacht. I got on all right, and wandered about with a notebook and a stylo. I soon found the right place to hide – in the storeroom, behind some barrels. But I had to make everyone who'd seen me think I'd gone on shore. That was easy! I told a sailor fellow by the gang plank I was going, and said I'd mislaid an envelope in which I'd slipped a tip for him and another man. I thought I'd left it on a table in the dining saloon, and he'd better look for it, or it might be picked up by somebody. He went before I could say 'knife!' and the envelope really was there, so he didn't have to hurry back. Two minutes later I was in the storeroom, and no one the wiser. Lord! but I got the jumps waiting for the stewardesses to be safe in bed before I could creep out to pay your cabin a call!"

"So, to cure the 'jumps' you annexed a whole bottle of brandy," I said.

"I did – for that and another reason you may find out by and by. But I'm hanged if you're not a cool hand, for a young girl who has just heard her lover's a married man. I thought by this time you'd be in hysterics."

"Girls of my generation don't have hysterics," I taunted her. By the dyed hair and vestiges of rouge and powder which streaked the battered face I guessed that a sneer at her age would sting like a wasp. I wanted to rouse the woman's temper. If she lost her head, she might show her hand!

"You'll have worse than hysterics, you fool, before I finish," she snapped. "I'm going to make Roger Fane acknowledge me as his wife and give me everything I want – money, and motor cars, and pearls – and, best of all, a position in society. I'm tired of being a free lance."

"He won't do it!" I cried.

"He'll have to – when he hears what will happen if he doesn't. If I can't live a life worth living, I'll die. Roger Fane will go off this yacht under arrest as my murderer."

"You deserve that he should kill you, but he will not," I said.

"He'll hang for killing me, anyhow. You see, the more motive he has to destroy me, the more impossible for him – or you – to prove his innocence. Do you think I'd have told you all this, if any one was likely to believe such a cock-and-bull story as the truth would sound to a jury? But I'm through now! I've said what I came to say. I'm ready to act. Do you want a row, or will you go quietly to the door of Roger's cabin (he must be there by this time) and tell him that his wife, Linda Lehmann, is waiting for him in your stateroom? That'll fetch him!"

I had no doubt it would. My only doubt was what to do! But if I refused, the woman was sure to keep her word, and rouse the yacht by screams. That would be the worst thing possible for Shelagh and Roger. I decided to go, and break to him the news with merciful swiftness.

If I could, I would have turned a key upon the creature, but the doors of the Naiad's cabins were furnished only with bolts. My one hope, that she'd keep to my room, owed itself to the fact that she was too drunk to move comfortably, and that, despite her bluff, the best trump she had was quiet diplomacy with Roger.