At Piccadilly Circus they parted and went their respective ways, each greatly pleased with the other and both highly amused. As soon as Thorndyke was out of sight, Varney whipped out his note-book, and, by the light of a street lamp made a careful précis of the necessary points of the required letter. That letter also occupied Thorndyke’s mind, and he only hoped that the corresponding agent of Daniel Purcell, deceased, would not allow his enthusiasm to carry him to the extent of producing a letter the contents of which would stamp the case as one of rank collusion. For in this letter Thorndyke saw a way, and the only way, out for Margaret Purcell. He knew—or at least was fully convinced—that her husband was dead. But he had no evidence that he could take into court, nor did he expect that he ever would have. It would be years before it would be possible to apply to presume Purcell’s death; and throughout those years Margaret’s life would be spoiled. This letter was a fiction. The erring husband was a fiction. But it would be better that Margaret should be liberated by a fiction than that she should drag out a ruined life shackled to a husband who was himself a fiction.
Chapter XII.
In Which Mr. Varney Once More Pulls the Strings
For the second time, in connection with the death of Daniel Purcell, Mr. Varney found it necessary to give an attentive eye to the movements of the postman. He had ascertained from the post office the times at which letters were delivered in the neighbourhood of Margaret’s flat; and now, in the gloom of a December evening, he lurked in the vicinity until he saw the postman approaching down the street and delivering letters at the other flats on his way. Then he entered the now familiar portals and made his way quietly up the stairs until he reached Margaret’s outer door. Here he paused for a few moments, standing quite still and listening intently. If he had been discovered he would have simply come to pay a call. But he was not; and the silence from within suggested that there was nobody in the hall. With a furtive look round, he drew a letter from his pocket and silently slipped it into the letter-box, catching the flap on his finger as it fell to prevent it from making any sound. Then he turned and softly stole down the stairs; and as he reached the ground floor the postman walked into the entry.
It was not without reluctance that he came away. For she was behind that door, almost certainly; she, his darling, for whose freedom from the imaginary shackles that she wore, he was carrying out this particular deception. But his own guilty conscience made it seem to him that he had better not be present when the fabricated letter arrived. So he tore himself from the beloved precincts and went his way, thinking his thoughts and dreaming his dreams.
Varney’s surmise was correct. Margaret was within. But it was perhaps as well that he had refrained from paying a call, for she was not alone, and his visit would not have been entirely welcome. About half an hour before his arrival, Jack Rodney had ascended those stairs and had been admitted in time to join Margaret at a somewhat belated tea.
“My excuse for coming to see you,” said Rodney, “is in my pocket—the front page of The Times.”
“I don’t know what you mean by an excuse,” Margaret replied. “You know perfectly well that I am always delighted to see you. But perhaps you mean an excuse to yourself for wasting your time in gossiping with me.”
“Indeed I don’t,” said he, “I count no time so profitably employed as that which I spend here.”
“I don’t quite see what profit you get,” she rejoined, “unless it is the moral benefit of doing a kindness to a lonely woman.”
“I should like to take that view if I honestly could. But the fact is that I come here for the very great pleasure of seeing you and talking to you; and the profit that I get is that very great pleasure. I only wish the proprieties allowed me to come oftener.”