Caught in a Trap

by John C. Hutcheson

The winter passed by and fled. Ships from foreign parts came and went from Havre; and still, although the police with the able Chef at their head kept a strict look out and surveillance on all comers and goers, nothing was heard or seen of Markworth, and no circumstances arose to unravel the web of mystery in which his disappearance and the murder of the girl were enwrapped.

Clara Kingscott still remained at Havre. She was loth to leave the scene where her enemy had made his last coup, and she was hoping on against hope that something might arise to mature her vengeance—but nothing came.

So at last in disgust, having made the Chef promise her, as he did willingly in the interests of the law, to forward her the first intimation should anything be heard of Markworth, she quitted Havre and returned to England in order to prosecute her watch here.

She went back to the lodgings she had previously occupied in Bloomsbury. It may be remembered that these were the same where Markworth used formerly to live; and besides their being comfortable and suited to her in every way as a point of attack, the governess hoped that perchance he of whom she was in search might perchance come there unexpectedly. He would probably have seen the news of Susan’s death in the paper, and thinking that nothing had been discovered of his crime, as she thought, return again some time to London: where would he be more likely to come than here? No one connected with the after circumstances of his life knew of his having lived here but herself, and it was on the cards that the first place that he would go to, should he return again, as was most probable, to the scenes of his old life, when he thought pursuit had died out, would be Mrs Martin’s old apartments.

Here, therefore, Miss Kingscott sat herself down to bide her time. Patience was never a virtue that she possessed, and it can be no wonder that time hung heavy on her hands, and her heart was gnawed through with vexation and impatience at the delay in all her plans, the failure of her vengeance. Nemesis was at fault, and Nemesis showed the traces of her mental struggles in her face: this last year had aged her more than ten.

She paid repeated visits to the offices of Messrs Trump, Sequence, and Co., in Bedford Row, all to no purpose.

Mr Trump had first heard her placidly and promised assistance when she should have secured her prey; he had next, after being sufficiently bored, told her that it was no business of his, and washed his hands of it; he also said that if she took his advice she too would wash her hands of it, and leave it alone, to which Sequence, parrot-like, had re-echoed “leave it alone!” The lawyer finally, when he had been bored too much and had lost his admiration at the woman’s fixity of purpose, gave directions in his office that he was to be “never in” when she called. Clara Kingscott after this waited long hours, sitting determinedly in the outer room, amid the ill-concealed ridicule and chaff of “sucking sheepskins,” the clerks, and had finally to give up the lawyers in the chronic disgust which was now enveloping everything in her life.

Solomonson and Isaacs, the Jew creditors of Markworth, she also haunted; but they, too, could not see what was to be done, and did not take that interest in Clara Kingscott’s plans which she had supposed they would have done. To tell the truth the name of Markworth and all that was connected with their former client stunk in their nostrils; it was not a pleasant subject for them to dwell upon; so while their debtor was out of their reach,—although they were ready to pounce upon him vi et armis, with warrants and detainers, should he venture within the precincts of the lion’s den, id est, be again within the realm—they preferred taking a dignified, albeit Hebrews, silence on the matter, and let it lie perdu for the present.

Ousted on all sides, therefore, and disappointed of her prey, Clara Kingscott’s life during this interregnum of affairs was not a happy one, although she tried to make the best of it that she could. As she had plenty of money for her wants she was not obliged to seek employment, and she could afford to wait awhile and watch. But watching without occupation, and waiting with nothing to do, is poor work at the best for an impatient mind.

In the meantime she cultivated relationship with the lodging-house keeper Mrs Martin, in the furtherance of her projects: “the parlours” and the basement were on the best of terms.