“Posted from Dover!” I echoed. “Then he has decamped. Jack is a murderer!”
I sank into my chair and re-read Dora’s note carefully. What should my course be if he were guilty? I put this question to myself plainly, and perceived all the horror of the situation. Yes, I must see Dora and ascertain the nature of this letter, but how could I bear to tell her the truth, to strike her such a cruel blow, bright, fragile being that she was? The first glimpse of the double prospect of misery and scandal which the future offered, if my suspicions proved just, was too terrible for endurance, and I summoned all my strength of will to shut out these gloomy anticipations. I dreaded to meet Dora; I was already shrinking from the pain that my words must inflict upon her.
What if detectives found my match-box beside the corpse? Might I not be suspected? Might they not dog my footsteps and arrest me on suspicion? If the slightest suspicion attached itself to me, I should be precluded entirely from assisting my friend.
It was clear that I had lost it on that fatal night, for I now remembered distinctly that as I fell my stomach struck heavily against some hard substance. I could indeed still feel the bruise. That my lost property was in Jack’s chambers was evident. If I intended to clear myself and assist him I should be obliged to act upon a resolution.
Chapter Eleven.
The Locked Room.
At first I dared not look the exigency in the face. For fully an hour I paced the room in nervous agitation, but the imperative necessity of recovering the box impressed itself every moment more deeply upon me. The crime was, as yet, still undiscovered; therefore, might I not enter, search, find the piece of evidence that would link me with the terrible tragedy, and return in the same manner as on the previous night? Undoubtedly the body was lying silent and ghastly where I left it, and if only I could get in and out of the flat unobserved, I should be free to assist the wretched man who was my friend, and who had held in his possession the extraordinary letter from Sybil.
The mantel-clock told me it was nearly three. At that hour there would be little likelihood of meeting anyone on the staircases, therefore I decided to go.