The Agony Column/Chapter 4

by Earl Derr Biggers

 

CHAPTER IV

IT is hardly necessary to intimate that this letter came as something of a shock to the young woman who received it. For the rest of that day the many sights of London held little interest for her—so little, indeed, that her perspiring father began to see visions of his beloved Texas; and once hopefully suggested an early return home. The coolness with which this idea was received plainly showed him that he was on the wrong track; so he sighed and sought solace at the bar.

That night the two from Texas attended His Majesty's Theater, where Bernard Shaw's latest play was being performed; and the witty Irishman would have been annoyed to see the scant attention one lovely young American in the audience gave his lines. The American in question retired at midnight, with eager thoughts turned toward the morning.

And she was not disappointed. When her maid, a stolid Englishwoman, appeared at her bedside early Saturday she carried a letter, which she handed over, with the turned-up nose of one who aids but does not approve. Quickly the girl tore it open.

Dear Texas Lady: I am writing this late in the afternoon. The sun is casting long black shadows on the garden lawn, and the whole world is so bright and matter-of-fact I have to argue with myself to be convinced that the events of that tragic night through which I passed really happened.

The newspapers this morning helped to make it all seem a dream; not a line—not a word, that I can find. When I think of America, and how by this time the reporters would be swarming through our house if this thing had happened over there, I am the more astonished. But then, I know these English papers. The great Joe Chamberlain died the other night at ten, and it was noon the next day when the first paper to carry the story appeared—screaming loudly that it had scored a beat. It had. Other lands, other methods.

It was probably not difficult for Bray to keep journalists such as these in the dark. So their great ungainly sheets come out in total ignorance of a remarkable story in Adelphi Terrace. Famished for real news, they begin to hint at a huge war cloud on the horizon. Because tottering Austria has declared war on tiny Serbia, because the Kaiser is to-day hurrying, with his best dramatic effect, home to Berlin, they see all Europe shortly bathed in blood. A nightmare born of torrid days and tossing nights!

But it is of the affair in Adelphi Terrace that you no doubt want to hear. One sequel of the tragedy, which adds immeasurably to the mystery of it all, has occurred, and I alone am responsible for its discovery. But to go back:

I returned from mailing your letter at dawn this morning, very tired from the tension of the night. I went to bed, but could not sleep. More and more it was preying on my mind that I was in a most unhappy position. I had not liked the looks cast at me by Inspector Bray, or his voice when he asked how I came to live in this house. I told myself I should not be safe until the real murderer of the poor captain was found; and so I began to puzzle over the few clues in the case—especially over the asters, the scarab pin and the Homburg hat.

It was then I remembered the four copies of the Daily Mail that Bray had casually thrown into the waste-basket as of no interest. I had glanced over his shoulder as he examined these papers, and had seen that each of them was folded so that our favorite department—the Agony Column—was uppermost. It happened I had in my desk copies of the Mail for the past week. You will understand why.

I rose, found those papers, and began to read. It was then that I made the astounding discovery to which I have alluded.

For a time after making it I was dumb with amazement, so that no course of action came readily to mind. In the end I decided that the thing for me to do was to wait for Bray's return in the morning and then point out to him the error he had made in ignoring the Mail.

Bray came in about eight o'clock and a few minutes later I heard another man ascend the stairs. I was shaving at the time, but I quickly completed the operation and, slipping on a bathrobe, hurried up to the captain's rooms. The younger brother had seen to the removal of the unfortunate man's body in the night, and, aside from Bray and the stranger who had arrived almost simultaneously with him, there was no one but a sleepy-eyed constable there.

Bray's greeting was decidedly grouchy. The stranger, however—a tall bronzed man—made himself known to me in the most cordial manner. He told me he was Colonel Hughes, a close friend of the dead man; and that, unutterably shocked and grieved, he had come to inquire whether there was anything he might do.

“Inspector,” said I, “last night in this room you held in your hand four copies of the Daily Mail. You tossed them into that basket as of no account. May I suggest that you rescue those copies, as I have a rather startling matter to make clear to you?” Too grand an official to stoop to a waste-basket, he nodded to the constable. The latter brought the papers; and, selecting one from the lot, I spread it out on the table. “The issue of July twenty-seventh,” I said.

I pointed to an item half-way down the column of Personal Notices. You yourself, my lady, may read it there if you happen to have saved a copy. It ran as follows:

“Rangoon: The asters are in full bloom in the garden at Canterbury. They are very beautiful—especially the white ones.”

Bray grunted, and opened his little eyes. I took up the issue of the following day—the twenty-eighth:

“Rangoon: We have been forced to sell father's stick-pin—the emerald scarab he brought home from Cairo.”

I had Bray's interest now. He leaned heavily toward me, puffing. Greatly excited, I held before his eyes the issue of the twenty-ninth:

“Rangoon: Homburg hat gone forever—caught by a breeze—into the river.”

“And finally,” said I to the inspector, “the last message of all, in the issue of the thirtieth of July—on sale in the streets some twelve hours before Fraser-Freer was murdered. See!”

“Rangoon: To-night at ten. Regent Street. —Y.O.G.”

Bray was silent.

“I take it you are aware, Inspector,” I said, “that for the past two years Captain Fraser-Freer was stationed at Rangoon.”

Still he said nothing; just looked at me with those foxy little eyes that I was coming to detest. At last he spoke sharply:

“Just how,” he demanded, “did you happen to discover those messages? You were not in this room last night after I left?” He turned angrily to the constable. “I gave orders—”

“No,” I put in; “I was not in this room. I happened to have on file in my rooms copies of the Mail, and by the merest chance—”

I saw that I had blundered. Undoubtedly my discovery of those messages was too pat. Once again suspicion looked my way.

“Thank you very much,” said Bray. “I'll keep this in mind.”

“Have you communicated with my friend at the consulate?” I asked.

“Yes. That's all. Good morning.”

So I went.

I had been back in my room some twenty minutes when there came a knock on the door, and Colonel Hughes entered. He was a genial man, in the early forties I should say, tanned by some sun not English, and gray at the temples.

“My dear sir,” he said without preamble, “this is a most appalling business!”

“Decidedly,” I answered. “Will you sit down?”

“Thank you.” He sat and gazed frankly into my eyes. “Policemen,” he added meaningly, “are a most suspicious tribe—often without reason. I am sorry you happen to be involved in this affair, for I may say that I fancy you to be exactly what you seem. May I add that, if you should ever need a friend, I am at your service?”

I was touched; I thanked him as best I could. His tone was so sympathetic and kindly, and above all, so sincere, that before I realized it I was telling him the whole story—of Archie and his letter; of my falling in love with a garden; of the startling discovery that the captain had never heard of his cousin; and of my subsequent unpleasant position. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

“I suppose,” he said, “that no man ever carries an unsealed letter of introduction without opening it to read just what praises have been lavished upon him. It is human nature—I have done it often. May I make so bold as to inquire—”

“Yes,” said I. “It was unsealed and I did read it. Considering its purpose, it struck me as rather long. There were many warm words for me—words beyond all reason in view of my brief acquaintance with Enwright. I also recall that he mentioned how long he had been in Interlaken, and that he said he expected to reach London about the first of August.”

“The first of August,” repeated the colonel. “That is to-morrow. Now—if you'll be so kind—just what happened last night?”

Again I ran over the events of that tragic evening—the quarrel; the heavy figure in the hall; the escape by way of the seldom-used gate.

“My boy,” said Colonel Hughes as he rose to go, “the threads of this tragedy stretch far—some of them to India; some to a country I will not name. I may say frankly that I have other and greater interest in the matter than that of the captain's friend. For the present that is in strict confidence between us; the police are well-meaning, but they sometimes blunder. Did I understand you to say that you have copies of the Mail containing those odd messages?”

“Right here in my desk,” said I. I got them for him.

“I think I shall take them—if I may,” he said. “You will, of course, not mention this little visit of mine. We shall meet again. Good morning.”

And he went away, carrying those papers with their strange signals to Rangoon.

Somehow I feel wonderfully cheered by his call. For the first time since seven last evening I begin to breathe freely again.

And so, lady who likes mystery, the matter stands on the afternoon of the last day of July, nineteen hundred and fourteen.

I shall mail you this letter to-night. It is my third to you, and it carries with it three times the dreams that went with the first; for they are dreams that live not only at night, when the moon is on the courtyard, but also in the bright light of day.

Yes—I am remarkably cheered. I realize that I have not eaten at all—save a cup of coffee from the trembling hand of Walters—since last night, at Simpson's. I am going now to dine. I shall begin with grapefruit. I realize that I am suddenly very fond of grapefruit.

How bromidic to note it—we have many tastes in common!

Ex-Strawberry Man.

The third letter from her correspondent of the Agony Column increased in the mind of the lovely young woman at the Carlton the excitement and tension the second had created. For a long time, on the Saturday morning of its receipt, she sat in her room puzzling over the mystery of the house in Adelphi Terrace. When first she had heard that Captain Fraser-Freer, of the Indian Army, was dead of a knife wound over the heart, the news had shocked her like that of the loss of some old and dear friend. She had desired passionately the apprehension of his murderer, and had turned over and over in her mind the possibilities of white asters, a scarab pin and a Homburg hat.

Perhaps the girl longed for the arrest of the guilty man thus keenly because this jaunty young friend of hers—a friend whose name she did not know—to whom, indeed, she had never spoken—was so dangerously entangled in the affair. For, from what she knew of Geoffrey West, from her casual glance in the restaurant and, far more, from his letters, she liked him extremely.

And now came his third letter, in which he related the connection of that hat, that pin and those asters with the column in the Mail which had first brought them together. As it happened, she, too, had copies of the paper for the first four days of the week. She went to her sitting-room, unearthed these copies, and—gasped! For from the column in Monday's paper stared up at her the cryptic words to Rangoon concerning asters in a garden at Canterbury. In the other three issues as well, she found the identical messages her strawberry man had quoted. She sat for a moment in deep thought; sat, in fact, until at her door came the enraged knocking of a hungry parent who had been waiting a full hour in the lobby below for her to join him at breakfast.

“Come, come!” boomed her father, entering at her invitation. “Don't sit here all day mooning. I'm hungry if you're not.”

With quick apologies she made ready to accompany him down-stairs. Firmly, as she planned their campaign for the day, she resolved to put from her mind all thought of Adelphi Terrace. How well she succeeded may be judged from a speech made by her father that night just before dinner:

“Have you lost your tongue, Marian? You're as uncommunicative as a newly-elected office-holder. If you can't get a little more life into these expeditions of ours we'll pack up and head for home.”

She smiled, patted his shoulder and promised to improve. But he appeared to be in a gloomy mood.

“I believe we ought to go, anyhow,” he went on. “In my opinion this war is going to spread like a prairie fire. The Kaiser got back to Berlin yesterday. He'll sign the mobilization orders to-day as sure as fate. For the past week, on the Berlin Bourse, Canadian Pacific stock has been dropping. That means they expect England to come in.”

He gazed darkly into the future. It may seem that, for an American statesman, he had an unusual grasp of European politics. This is easily explained by the fact that he had been talking with the bootblack at the Carlton Hotel.

“Yes,” he said with sudden decision, “I'll go down to the steamship offices early Monday morning—”