"Murderer!"
CHAPTER IX
[THROWN IN HER FACE]
I must admit that, in spite of my efforts to keep up the outward semblance of indifference, when I reached the hall I was at a loss what next to do. A man scarcely ever has a passage of arms with an angry woman without suffering some loss of dignity, and that no matter how much in the right he is. I had a mine sprung on me from a wholly unexpected quarter; I had been accused of being an assassin by the woman who, for at any rate one sanguine second, I had fondly fancied was about to play the part of my good fairy; and now, as I was endeavouring with the finest air of conscious rectitude which I had at my command, to remove myself from the lash of her vigorous tongue, she had thrown after me in public that hideous epithet. I was aware that the maid, with eyes and ears wide open, was peeping at me from the banisters above, while standing stolidly at the foot of the stairs was that much too attentive waiter. As he moved to let me pass Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor--I was always fond of double-barrelled names, being persuaded that they were invariably marks of birth and breeding--gave me an assurance that I was still in range.
She addressed the waiter with perfect spontaneity.
"You may let him go, my man, for the present. But his course is nearly run, and he will be in the hands of the police sooner than he thinks."
I did not feel myself entitled to knock the man down because the woman insulted me, though my inclination went that way. I was still less disposed to turn and slang her back again, being convinced that in such a contest I should not be her equal. My impulse was to seek out Mrs. Barnes, as the landlady, and therefore responsible for all that took place in her establishment, and submit my grievances to her. But a glimpse that I caught of her, beating a precipitate retreat into her sanctum, directly she saw me glance in her direction, informed me that such a mode of procedure would be worse than vain. I turned into the coffee-room. Then, feeling that I must go somewhere to cool my brain, I quitted it almost immediately, to sally forth into the street.
I had brought my wares to a pretty market! Disaster seemed to be heaped upon disaster's head. Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor might be mad, but there seemed to be method in her madness, and if she really was possessed by the fixed idea that I was an assassin, though I might not stand in actual peril of my life, I could hardly be in a more awkward situation. No wonder I had felt towards her an instinctive antagonism, even when she had appeared to be most friendly. I was not sure that I had done wrong in not seeking to rebut even the wildest of her wild words with a greater show of gravity. The levity with which I had received them might be urged against me if it came to an arrest.
An arrest! At the mere thought of such a climax I involuntarily stood still. Cold sweat was on my brow.
I remembered what Mrs. Lascelles-Trevor had said about her emissaries being always on my track. For some time past I had had an uneasy feeling that my footsteps were being dogged and that I was being watched. I turned to see if any one was shadowing me now: he would have a bad time of it if I found him. I noted no one whose obvious attentions I could resent. But then I was in the Strand; in that busy thoroughfare the merest tyro could ply his trade of spy without fear of premature detection.