CHAPTER XXI
Audrey, when the blow had fallen, neither screamed nor fainted, nor even moved. She heard the man’s words with a dumb, awful consciousness that what she had dimly feared had happened, that the crime which had been committed within these rooms was now attributed to her.
Some vague foreshadowing of this had haunted her from time to time, long before she guessed that Mr. Candover was concerned in the death and disappearance of the White Countess. Mademoiselle Laure and the doctor—the one of them secretly inimical, the other probably suspicious—these were the witnesses who would both aver that she had confessed to seeing the White Countess in the rooms, and who would also be able to bear witness that her excitement and nervous distress were great, and her bearing inconsistent with the perfect innocence she professed in the matter.
The men waited respectfully enough for her to speak. At last she said:—
“I don’t understand. Who is it that accuses me?”
“We can’t answer that, ma’am,” said the man. “We’ve got nothing to do but just execute orders. And to say that you’d better not say anything yet, as what you say may be used in evidence against you.”
Audrey shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said with spirit. “This is all nonsense; there is no evidence, and there can be no evidence against me. For I can tell who it was that was last with the woman alive.”
Both men, she thought, looked interested, though they said nothing. She went on:—
“It was a man whom she called Eugène. But the name by which he is known here is not Eugène Reynolds, but Reginald Candover.”
“Well, ma’am, you needn’t tell us all this,” said the man who had stated that he had the warrant. “It won’t do you any good now; but if you tell it all to your solicitor at the trial, or rather before then—he’ll find out what he can for you, no doubt.”
“In the meantime, ma’am, if you’ll come along with us,” said the other man, who now spoke for the first time, “we’ve got to take you before a magistrate. It will only be the affair of a moment, and then you can send for your solicitor to see and advise you.”
“We’ve got a cab waiting, ma’am,” said the policeman.
But Audrey shook her head.
“I won’t go away with you,” she said firmly, “until I’ve had an opportunity of consulting some one.”
The men looked at each other.
“Can’t be done, ma’am, at least not yet. You must go before the magistrate first,” said the man with the warrant. “Afterwards, every facility will be given you.”
The other man, more impatient, made a movement as if to hurry her towards the door. But she hung back, looking so determined, with her teeth tightly clenched and her breast heaving, and her eyes very bright, that they hesitated a little as to the best means of proceeding.
“I won’t go. I simply refuse to go,” she said firmly, “until I’ve had an opportunity of—of conferring with—with my friends.”
She had at first intended to say that her husband was at hand, but on second thoughts she hesitated to let Gerard know the dreadful thing that had happened, without due preparation for the shock it would be to him. If only she could send word to his solicitor. Things were too desperate now for her to trouble her head about his former doubts of Gerard—she would take counsel with him as to the best means of breaking the news to her husband, and also as to what she ought to do for her own defence.
“We don’t want to have to use force, ma’am,” said the man with the warrant, warningly.
For answer Audrey rushed to the nearest window, and was with difficulty restrained from breaking it with her fists.
“Come, ma’am,” said the second man persuasively, “I’m quite sure a lady like you don’t want a disturbance. And we’ve done everything as quiet as possible on your account. We’ve waited about on purpose so as not to come in while your young ladies were here. And for your own sake you’d better be quiet. If, as you say, you can tell who did this, why you may be able to get it all hushed up so that nobody shall know anything about it. For the sake of your business, ma’am, you’d better not call a crowd about the place.”
Audrey made them a commanding gesture to stand back. They obeyed, and stood, the one between her and the window, and the other between her and the door. She waited a moment, collecting her thoughts. Then she spoke steadily and quietly, though with quickly drawn breaths and many pauses:—
“All I want to do is to be allowed to consult some one before I go. I intend to do this, whatever you may choose to do to try to prevent me. As for your using force, you will do that at your peril. For I’m quite sure that what I ask is reasonable enough.”
The man with the warrant nodded to the other.
“Very well, ma’am. If you’ll write a note, I’ll give it to some one to take for you, and we’ll wait here till your friend, that you write to, comes back.”
Audrey went into the inner showroom, closely followed by the two men, opened her writing-desk, and wrote a hurried note to the solicitor who had been employed by Gerard on his trial, telling him she was accused of connection with a murder, and asking him to come to her at once. When she had fastened the envelope, one of the men put out his hand offering to take it. But she refused, saying that she would send it by her own messenger.
As a matter of fact, she was wondering whom she was to employ, but happening to catch an odd look exchanged between the two men, her suspicions were aroused as to whether they meant the note to be sent at all.
Perhaps it was against the rules for any communication to be sent in such a case by a person newly arrested. Perhaps the men would merely retain the note and hand it over to the magistrate!
With these thoughts in her mind, Audrey hesitated to give up the note, and stood holding it tightly in her hands, while the men began to show unmistakable signs of impatience.
“Come, ma’am, we’ve given you a good deal of indulgence. If you’re going to send the note give it to me, and if you think better of it please come down with us and let us get this business done with.”
A voice from behind startled them all.
“What business?”
There was a cry from Audrey, an exclamation from the man with the warrant.
Standing between the heavy curtains that divided the one showroom from the other was Gerard, very pale, very quiet, grasping the hangings tightly, and gazing steadily at the group in front of him.
Brave as she had been, valiantly as she had resolved that she would not burst in upon him with the knowledge of the awful blow which had fallen upon her, Audrey was so overjoyed at the sight of her husband that, forgetting everything in the relief she felt, she dashed across the room and fell into his arms.
“Oh, Gerard, Gerard! thank God you’ve come,” sobbed she.
Gerard looked down at her for one second, and then again at the two men.
“What is all this?” said he shortly.
“Very sorry, sir. We’ve got a warrant for the arrest of the lady,” said the man who had taken the most prominent part in the affair, the man in the policeman’s boots.
“Upon what charge?”
Audrey, even at that moment of intense excitement, was amazed at the perfect calmness which Gerard showed. She had expected an outburst of indignation on his part, an angry repudiation of the insult put upon her; but instead of that, it seemed to her that he took the matter as coolly as if he had expected this to happen and had been quite prepared for it.
“On the charge of being concerned in the disappearance of a woman known as Madame Rocada, otherwise the White Countess,” said the man.
Gerard looked down at his wife, who was still clinging to him without uttering a word.
“This is serious,” said he.
“Oh, Gerard, surely——” moaned Audrey in a husky whisper.
An unobtrusive but reassuring pressure of his fingers upon her arm checked her, and she, feeling the intense relief of having another arm, another brain at her service, remained silent, listening, wondering, while he went on:—
“Of course my wife—this lady is my wife—is entirely innocent of any hand in the disappearance of anybody. But, at the same time, I recognise that it is a serious matter. What is it she was asking you if she might do?”
“Oh, Gerard, it doesn’t matter now,” sobbed out Audrey. “I—I wanted some one to break it gently to you, that was all. But now that you know, nothing matters, nothing matters. I was afraid it would be a shock to you, that’s all.”
“Well, it is a shock, a great shock, naturally,” admitted Gerard. “You can understand this when I tell you,” and he turned to the two men, “that I am rejoining my wife to-day after a long absence.”
Audrey was rather surprised at this unexpected and apparently uncalled-for confidence on her husband’s part, and she was still more astonished when he went on:—
“But our domestic affairs are, of course, no concern of yours. At the same time I daresay, now that you know what I have just told you, you will make allowance for the irritation my poor wife has shown, and you will not suppose she had any wish to interfere with the course of justice!”
“Justice!” echoed Audrey faintly, more amazed than ever at the calmness with which her husband received the horrible news.
“I repeat—justice,” said Gerard firmly. “If this unfortunate lady has disappeared, naturally she must be found, or traced. You can’t expect her friends to take her disappearance calmly. And may I ask,” and he turned from the one man to the other, “which of you has the warrant?”
The man in the policeman’s boots nodded.
“I have it, sir,” he said.
Gerard turned to the other man.
“Are you a policeman, too?” he asked.
The man answered in a voice which made Audrey look round. It was not that, she thought, in which she had previously heard him speak.
“I’m a detective, sir,” he said.
“And was it necessary, do you think, to threaten a woman—a lady—with using force, when all she wanted was to write a letter to her solicitor?”
The man with the policeman’s boots would have answered, but Gerard put up his hand, refusing to take his answer except from the person he had addressed. Again his calmness, and the impression his behaviour made on the policemen, surprised Audrey and excited her admiration.
“Well, sir, what we meant by force was not exactly that,” said the man in a voice that was hardly audible.
Gerard looked at him intently.
“Well,” he said, “it would have been better not to use the word at all, don’t you think so?”
“Perhaps, sir, we did exceed our duty a little,” said the detective hurriedly. “I’m sorry.”
“So I think you ought to be,” said Gerard, still fixing him with his keen blue eyes as he went on speaking, and disregarding every attempt made by the other man to distract his attention by casual comments. “You know very well that there was nothing surprising in the fact that a lady, brought face to face with such a charge, should wish to exchange a few words with her friends. I believe such a privilege is usually allowed, is it not?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Then why were you so strict?”
The man looked at his companion, but Gerard refused again to divert his gaze from the man he questioned, who fidgeted uneasily under this interrogatory.
“Ladies are difficult people to deal with, sir,” he said, in the same hoarse whisper as before. “One doesn’t want to be harsh, yet one is afraid of being talked round. Especially in such a case, sir.”
He was conciliatory, almost apologetic. At last Gerard relaxed his look, and turned to the other man.
“What is it you want my wife to do?” he asked briefly.
There was a hesitating silence.
“Do I understand that she is to be taken before a magistrate to-night?”
No answer.
“Or would it be possible, say by your good offices, if I were to promise that she would still be here to-morrow morning, for you to go away now and return then?” went on Gerard, with an easy confidence which made Audrey look up at him askance in fresh astonishment at his self-possession.
There was another pause, and Gerard pressed his wife’s arm with another reassuring touch.
“If you’ll allow us, sir, to discuss this a moment,” said the man with the warrant civilly.
“Oh, certainly, certainly. Shall we retire and leave you here? Or will you——”
Gerard drew apart the curtains that hung between the two showrooms; and the men, with another “Thank you, sir,” passed through and conversed in a low voice in the outer room.
Once alone with her husband, Audrey wanted to speak. But he put his hand upon her mouth, and with a warning frown, kept her silent. Meanwhile he listened with keen ears to the whispering that was going on in the outer room.
In a few minutes the man in the policeman’s boots reappeared, alone. Saluting Gerard, he said:—
“We think, sir, it might be managed as you suggest. If you, sir, will give an undertaking that the lady will be here to-morrow morning, when we shall have to come again, and when we hope she’ll make no objection to coming quietly.”
“I’ll give the undertaking,” said Gerard. “Would you like it in writing?” he added quickly, going towards the writing-desk, and gently disengaging himself from Audrey’s arms.
“Oh, no sir. Not with a gentleman. I understand you are sure there is nothing in the charge, sir?”
“Nothing whatever. Indeed I think you’ll find that on further consideration, this charge won’t be pressed further against my wife.”
“Oh, well, sir, in that case we’ll take further orders, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Gerard, as he followed the man out through the second showroom, and found that the other man had already taken his departure.
“Can you see? Mind the corner stair. It’s an awkward turn. That’s right.”
These words, in Gerard’s voice, reached Audrey’s ears as she stood trembling in the inner showroom, listening and waiting.
Then there was a pause, and she presently heard the door at the bottom shut sharply.
A moment later Gerard came back into the room. His eyes were very bright; all his calmness had disappeared, and he was shaking from head to foot with violent excitement.
“Gerard, Gerard, how did you manage it? What did you do? How is it that they went away so quietly? I thought the police had to execute a warrant, and that they couldn’t go away like that without orders!”
Gerard had by this time come close to her, and the brilliancy of his eyes, the heaving of his breast, frightened her.
“Of course they can’t, of course real policemen can’t,” he answered promptly.
“Real policemen! Oh, Gerard, who—who were they? Who were they?”
“They were members of the gang you told me about, the gang that’s controlled by that rascal Candover, I’ve no doubt,” said Gerard in her ear. “They thought you were all alone here, and that they could frighten you away, frighten you into giving up possession of this place which is yours.”
“Oh, Gerard, do you really think that?”
“I do indeed. They never meant to take you away—at least, if they had, they would have taken care to drop you at the first convenient halting-place. Probably they would have left you at some door which they would have represented to you was the door of your solicitor’s. And then they would have driven off. That they merely meant to work upon your woman’s fears to make you give up these premises I feel certain.”
“But how do you know all this? Surely you’re only guessing!” objected Audrey, who could not understand her husband’s confident yet excited manner.
He looked earnestly into her face.
“Can you keep a secret, a dead secret?” he whispered into her ear.
“Your secret! Yes, oh, yes!” panted she.
He put his lips close to her ear once more.
“The second man—the one who disguised his voice—who didn’t want to speak—was——”
“Go on, go on. Who was he?”
“Tom Gossett, the man whose false evidence secured my conviction. Hush!”
And even as the little cry rose to her lips, Gerard silenced it by pressing his own mouth long and tenderly against hers.