Anyone coming down this upper half of the stairs could be seen full face from the screened door used by the servants: but when descending the lower half, the view from the same point would be in profile.
At present, however, the curtains were drawn tightly across the passage, and the only occupants of the hall and library were the two detectives, Jenkins, and Mrs. Bates.
Hylda Prout did not hurry. If she were engaged in a masquerade which should achieve its object she evidently meant to leave nothing to chance, and a woman cannot exchange her costume for a man's without experiencing difficulty with her hair, especially when she is endowed by nature with a magnificent chevelure.
Jenkins returned from the mission imposed by Furneaux's monosyllable,—insensibly the four deserted the brilliantly lighted library and gathered in the somewhat somber hall, whose old oak wainscoting and Grinling Gibbons fireplace forbade the use of garish lamps. Insensibly, too, their voices lowered. The butler and housekeeper hardly knew what to expect, and were creepy and ill at ease, but the two police officers realized that they were about to witness a scene of unparalleled effrontery, which, in its outcome, might have results vastly different from those anticipated.
They were sure now that Hylda Prout had killed Rose de Bercy. Furneaux had known that terrible fact since his first meeting with Osborne's secretary, whereas Winter had only begun to surmise it when he and Furneaux were reconciled on the very threshold of Marlborough Street police-station. Now he was as certain of it as Furneaux. Page by page, chapter by chapter, his colleague had unfolded a most convincing theory of the crime. But theories will not suffice for a judge and jury—there must be circumstantial evidence as well—and not only was such evidence scanty as against Hylda Prout, but it existed in piles against Osborne, against Pauline Dessaulx, and against Furneaux himself. Indeed, Winter had been compelled to recall his permission to Janoc and his sister to leave England that day. He foresaw that Hylda Prout, if brought to trial, would use her knowledge of Rose de Bercy's dealings with the Anarchist movement to throw the gravest suspicion on its votaries in London, and it would require no great expert in criminal law to break up the theoretical case put forward by the police by demonstrating the circumstantial one that existed in regard to Pauline Dessaulx.
This line of defense, already strong, would become impregnable if neither Janoc nor Pauline were forthcoming as witnesses. So Clarke, greatly to his delight, was told off again to supervise their movements, after they had been warned not to quit Soho until Winter gave them his written permission.
Some of the difficulties ahead, a whole troupe of fantastic imageries from the past, crowded in on Winter's mind as he stood there in the hall with Furneaux. What a story it would make if published as he could tell it! What a romance! It began eight years ago at a fête champtre in Jersey. Then came a brief delirium of wedded life for Furneaux, followed by his wife's flight and reappearance as a notable actress. Osborne came on the scene, and quickly fell a victim to her beauty and charm of manner. It was only when marriage was spoken of that Furneaux decided to interfere, and he had actually gone to Osborne's residence in order to tell him the truth as to his promised wife on the very day she was killed. Failing to meet him, after a long wait in the library and museum, during which he had noted the absence of both the Saracen dagger and the celt, already purloined for their dread purposes, he had gone to Feldisham Mansions.
During a heart-breaking scene with his wife he had forced from her a solemn promise to tell Osborne why she could not marry him, and then to leave England. The unhappy woman was writing the last word in her diary when Furneaux was announced! No wonder she canceled an engagement for dinner and the theater. She was sick at heart. A vain creature, the wealth and position she craved for had been snatched from her grasp on the very moment they seemed most sure.
The murder followed his departure within half an hour. Planned and executed by a woman whom none would dream of, it was almost worthy to figure as the crime of the century. Hylda Prout had counted on no other suspect than the man she loved. She knew he was safe—she assured herself, in the first place, that he could offer the most positive proof of his innocence—but she reckoned on popular indignation alleging his guilt, while she alone would stand by him through every pang of obloquy and despair. She was well prepared, guarded from every risk. Her open-hearted employer had no secrets from her. She meant to imperil him, to cast him into the furnace, and pluck him forth to her own arms.
But fate could plot more deviously and strangely than Hylda Prout. It could bring about the meeting of Osborne and Rosalind, the mutual despair and self-sacrifice of Janoc and Pauline, the insensate quarrel between Winter and Furneaux, and the jealous prying of Clarke, while scene after scene of tragic force unfolded itself at Tormouth, in the Fraternal Club, in the dismal cemetery, in Porchester Gardens, and in the dens of Soho.