The Avenger (Oppenheim)/Chapter 35
HIS WIFE
WRAYSON drew a little breath and looked back at Sydney Barnes.
"You asked me a question," he said. "I believe I have heard of your brother calling himself by some such name."
Barnes grasped him by the arm.
"Look here," he said, "come and repeat that to the young lady over there. She's with me. It won't do you any harm."
Wrayson rose to his feet, but before he could move he felt Heneage's hand fall upon his arm.
"Where are you going, Wrayson?" he asked.
Barnes looked up at him anxiously. His pale face seemed twisted into a scowl.
"Don't you interfere!" he exclaimed. "You've done me enough harm, you have. You let Mr. Wrayson pass. He's coming with me."
Heneage took no more notice of him than he would of a yapping terrier. He looked over his head into Wrayson's eyes.
"Wrayson," he said, "don't have anything more to do with this business. Take my advice. I know more than you do about it. If you go on, I swear to you that there is nothing but misery at the end."
"I know more than you think I do," Wrayson answered quietly. "I know more indeed than you have any idea of. If the end were in hell I should not hold back."
Heneage hesitated for a moment. He stood there with darkening face, an obstinate, almost a threatening figure. Passers-by looked with a gleam of interest at the oddly assorted trio, whose conversation was obviously far removed from the ordinary chatter of the loungers about the place. One or two made an excuse to linger by—it seemed possible that there might be developments. Heneage, however, disappointed them. He turned suddenly upon his heel and left the room. Those who had the curiosity to follow along the corridor saw him, without glancing to the right or to the left, descend the stairs and walk out of the building. He had the air of a man who abandons finally a hopeless task.
The look of relief in Barnes' face as he saw him go was a ludicrous thing. He drew Wrayson at once towards the corner.
"Queer thing about this girl," he whispered in his ear. "She ain't like the others about here. She just comes to make inquiries about a friend who's given her the chuck, and whose name she says was Howard. I believe it's Morry she means. Just like him to take a toff's name!"
"Wait a moment before we speak to her," Wrayson said. "How did you find her out?"
"She spoke to me," Barnes answered. "Asked me if my name was Howard, said I was a bit like the man she was looking for. Then I palled up to her, and I'm pretty certain Morry was her man. I want her to go to the flat with me and see his clothes and picture, but she's scared. Mr. Wrayson, you might do me a good turn. She'll come if you'd go too!"
"Do you know why I am here to-night?" Wrayson asked.
"No! Why?"
"To meet that young woman of yours," Wrayson answered.
Barnes looked at him in amazement.
"What do you mean?" he asked quickly. "You don't know her, do you?"
His sallow cheeks were paler than ever. His narrow eyes, furtively raised to Wrayson's, were full of inquisitive fear.
"No! I don't know her," Wrayson answered, "but I rather fancy, all the same, that she is the young person whom I came here to meet to-night."
Barnes waited breathlessly for an explanation. He did not say a word, but his whole attitude was an insistent interrogation point.
"You remember," Wrayson said, "that when you and I were pursuing these investigations together, I made some inquiries of the woman at whose flat your brother called on the night of his murder. I saw her again at Dinant yesterday, and she told me of this young person. She also evidently believed that the man for whom she was inquiring was your brother."
Barnes nodded.
"She told me that she was to have met a gentleman to-night," he said. "Here, we must go and speak to her now, or she'll think that something's up."
He performed something that was meant for an introduction.
"Friend of mine, Miss," he said, indicating Wrayson. "Knew my brother well, lived in the flat just below him, in fact. Perhaps you'd like to ask him a few questions."
"There is only one question I want answered," the girl replied, with straining eyes fixed upon Wrayson's face, and a little break in her tone. "Shall I see him again? If Augustus was really—his brother—where is he? What has happened to him?"
There was a moment's silence. Sydney Barnes had evidently said nothing as to his brother's tragic end. Wrayson could see, too, that the girl was on the brink of hysterics, and needed careful handling.
"We will tell you everything," he said presently. "But first of all we have to decide whether your Augustus Howard and Morris Barnes were the same person. I think that the best way for you to decide this would be to come home to my flat. Mr. Barnes' is just above, and I dare say you can recognize some of his brother's belongings, if he really was—your friend."
She rose at once. She was perfectly willing to go. They left the place together and entered a four-wheeler. During the drive she scarcely opened her lips. She sat in a corner looking absently out of the window, and nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. She answered a remark of Sydney Barnes' without turning her head.
"I always watch the people," she said. "Wherever I am, I always look out of the window. I have always hoped—that I might see Augustus again that way."
Wrayson, from his seat in the opposite corner of the cab, watched her with growing sympathy. In her very conformity to type, she represented so naturally a real and living unit of humanity. Her poor commonplace prettiness was already on the wane, stamped out by the fear and trouble of the last few months. Yet inane though her features, lacking altogether strength or distinction, there was stamped into them something of that dumb, dog-like fidelity to some object which redeemed them from utter insignificance. Wrayson, as he watched her, found himself thinking more kindly of the dead man himself. In his vulgar, selfish way, he had probably been kind to her: he must have done something to have kindled this flame of dogged, persevering affection. Already he scarcely doubted that Morris Barnes and Augustus Howard had been the same person. Within a very few minutes of her entering the flats there remained no doubt at all. With a low moan, like a dumb animal mortally hurt, she sank down upon the nearest chair, clasping the photograph which Sydney Barnes had passed her in her hands.
For a few moments there was silence. Then she looked up—at Wrayson. Her lips moved but no words came. She began again. This time he was able to catch the indistinct whisper.
"Where is he?"
Wrayson took a seat by her side upon the sofa.
"You do not read the newspapers?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Not much. My eyes are not very good, and it tires me to read."
"I am afraid," he said gently, "that it will be bad news."
A little sob caught in her throat.
"Go on," she faltered.
"He is dead," Wrayson said simply.
She fainted quietly away.
Wrayson hurried downstairs to his own flat for some brandy. When he returned the girl was still unconscious. Her pocket was turned inside out and the front of her dress was disordered. Sydney Barnes was bending close over her. Wrayson pushed him roughly away.
"You can wait, at least, until she is well," he said contemptuously.
Sydney Barnes was wholly unabashed. He watched Wrayson pour brandy between the girl's lips, bathe her temples, and chafe her hands. All the time he stood doggedly waiting close by. No considerations of decency or humanity would weigh with him for one single second. The fever of his great desire still ran like fire through his veins. He did not think of the girl as a human creature at all. Simply there was a pair of lips there which might point out to him the way to his Paradise.
She opened her eyes at last. Sydney Barnes came a step nearer, but Wrayson pushed him once more roughly away.
"You are feeling better?" he asked kindly.
She nodded, and struggled up into a sitting posture.
"Tell me," she said, "how did he die? It must have been quite sudden. Was it an accident?—or—or——"
He saw the terror in her eyes, and he spoke quickly. All the time he found himself wondering how it was that she was guessing at the truth.
"We are afraid," he said "that he was murdered. It is surprising that you did not read about it in the papers."
She shook her head.
"I do not read much," she said, "and the name was different. Who was it—that killed him?"
"No one knows," he answered.
"When was it?" she asked.
He told her the date. She repeated it tearfully.
"He was down with me the day before," she said. "He was terribly excited all the time, and I know that he was a little afraid of something happening to him. He had been threatened!"
"Do you know by whom?" Wrayson asked.
She shook her head.
"He never told me," she answered. "He didn't tell me much. But he was very, very good to me. I was at the refreshment-room at London Bridge when I first met him. He used to come in and see me every day. Then he began to take me out, and at last he found me a little house down at Putney, and I was so happy. I had been so tired all my life," she added, with a little sigh, "and down there I did nothing but rest and rest and wait for him to come. It was too good to last, of course, but I didn't think it would end like this!"
Quietly but very persistently Sydney Barnes insisted on being heard.
"It's my turn now," he said, standing by Wrayson's side. "Look here, Miss, I'm his brother. You can see that, can't you?"
"You are something like him," she admitted, "only he was much, much nicer to look at than you."
"Never mind that," he continued eagerly. "I'm his brother, his nearest relative. Everything he left behind belongs to me!"
"Not—quite everything," she protested.
"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"You may be his brother," she answered, "but I," holding out her left hand a little nervously, "I was his wife!"