[PART II.]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
RELATED BY PAUL GODFREY, PRIVATE DETECTIVE.
It is not often that a private detective—that is my occupation, and I am not ashamed of it—takes up a case for love, but that is what I did when I took up the great Rye Street murder. I don't deny that professional pride had something to do with it, for any man would have been proud to be employed in putting together the pieces of so celebrated a mystery. It was love that gave me the command, and that is not the least curious part of an affair which filled the newspapers for weeks, and puzzled the cleverest heads in Scotland Yard. The way of it was this. A few years ago business took me to Swanage, where I met Miss Cameron, her Christian name, Ellen. She and her mother (since dead) had gone there for Mrs. Cameron's health. I was, and still am, a bachelor, and I fell in love with Miss Cameron. I proposed and was not accepted, and I left Swanage a sadder, but I can't say a wiser man. Proverbs and popular sayings don't always apply.
In such circumstances some men are angry; others pretend not to care, and say there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Others are sorry for a week or so, and then see another girl who takes their fancy. It was not the case with me. I knew I had lost a prize, and that it would be a long time before I got over it. Between you and me I don't think I have got over it to this day, and that, perhaps, is a thing I ought not to say. It is down, however, and there it shall remain.
Before I bade Miss Cameron good-bye in Swanage I couldn't help saying that if it was ever in my power to serve her I would do so willingly. I hadn't the least idea that I should ever be called upon, and I should have called the man a fool who said, "One of these days you will find yourself engaged in a murder case that has set all the country ringing, and in which the happiness of the woman you love is at stake." Clever writers say it is the unexpected that always happens. It happened to me.
On the morning of my introduction into the case I was sitting in my office, idling away my time. I had nothing particular to do, and was waiting for something to turn up in the way of business. It seemed as if I should not have long to wait, for my clerk came in and said that a lady wished to see me. I brisked up. Ladies don't come to a private detective for nothing. "Divorce case," thought I.
"What name?" I asked.
"Name of Cameron," my clerk answered. "Lady didn't have a card."
I jumped up, all my nerves tingling, and told the lad to show the lady in. I didn't wait for him to do it, though; I pushed past him, and there stood Ellen Cameron, the woman I loved and had never forgotten. I held out my hand with a smile, and she took it with a sigh. Her sad face showed that she was in trouble; her lips quivered as she asked whether I could give her a few minutes of my time, and her hand was cold as ice.