CHAPTER VIII
THE DARK PATH
“Whispering! Whispering! Whispering.” Again and again and yet again, Hustings repeated that mysterious word, as he drove his car back to Fryfeld at top-speed. It sang insistently in his brain, like the catchy jingle of some popular tune, confusing his mind with its maddening reiteration. Somehow it declared itself to be of the utmost importance, but in what way he could not imagine. Slanton—as would appear from Miss Danby’s wild tale—had revived sufficiently to breathe out that one word, before she fled panic-stricken to the safety of the cottage. The Fool-woman! Better have remained to learn the truth, for there was no reason to suppose that the man had relapsed into insensibility the moment after he had regained his speech. But the golden moment had come and gone. The man was dead: the secret was untold.
Yes! The man was dead, but who had killed him? Edith swore that she had left him alive: in a dying condition certainly, but sufficiently himself to speak. Therefore, if her story was true—and Dick believed that it was true—some one had found the man, had murdered the man. He had been drugged, but not unto death, for the marks on his throat explained loudly how he had come by his end. Yes! Slanton had undoubtedly been strangled. But who had strangled him and why? Edith’s flight was due to her hearing cautious footsteps on the high road beyond the wall, and those footsteps might have been—must have been, those of the assassin. It would have been perfectly easy for him to climb over the wall and execute his purpose; regaining the road in a few minutes to effect his escape. But how had he fled: on foot, or in some vehicle? And whither had he fled: north, south, east or west? Here was another series of perplexing questions which could not be answered. Not that Dick tried to do so, for the mystery of the word “Whispering!” dominated his mind. And try as he would to rid himself of the senseless jingle, he utterly failed to do so. Something—someone, kept telling him, voicelessly, that here was the key to open the Blue Beard’s Chamber of dreadful secrecy. But where was the keyhole into which that key could be thrust? His voiceless adviser gave him no hint of that.
Dick’s long day in Tarhaven, with the weight of two important interviews on his mind, and now the worry of a mysterious word which refused to explain itself, left him, mentally, a complete wreck. But recollected war-experiences, suggesting how very valuable well-considered slumber was to restore the balance of the brain, sent him immediately to his bedroom. Here he laid himself down and fell into a sound sleep. Considering the troubled state of things and the importance of the case creating that state, it was wonderful that he could settle himself so calmly to rest. But this he did, and successfully, for Nature, a generous lender but a hard creditor, demanded her dues, and got them.
For three necessary hours the young man slept placidly, to awaken, like a giant refreshed, when dusk was falling. A cold bath and a change of clothes improved his mood still more, while an excellent dinner completed the cure. Assuring himself that a calm mind was necessary for him to solve the riddle he had set—or rather that Fate had set—Dick sat down in his library and loaded his pipe. Then, wreathed in fragrant tobacco smoke, he judicially sorted out his newly-gained knowledge, with the idea of seeking Aileen later, so as to advise her as to the present aspect of things. Involved in this somewhat arid meditation, he delayed his contemplated visit too long, and only realized his fault when he beheld Aileen standing at the door.
“I couldn’t wait any longer,” said the girl, coming forward, hurriedly, “so I came over with Jenny. Oh, Dick, how could you keep me in suspense?”
Hustings jumped up, full of apologies, thinking how charming she looked in the filmy black frock, which so vividly enhanced her fair loveliness. “I intended to go over to your cottage, as soon as I sorted out things,” he said, placing an arm-chair nearer to the fire for her convenience.
“What things?” Aileen threw the woolly blue cloak she carried over the back of the chair, and sat down with a shiver to warm her hands.
“Those which I heard from Trant—from Miss Danby”
“And?” she looked an anxious question.
“And which I shall explain later,” he replied smoothly, “just now you require coffee and a liqueur.”
“The first, not the second, please. But tell me?”
“No! No! We must approach matters in hand calmly and in our right senses,” he crossed the room to touch the button of the bell. “I don’t want you to faint, as you did after the inquest.”
“The verdict gave me a shock: took me unprepared. But,” added the girl firmly, “the time for such weakness is past. You can rely upon me to”
Her speech was interrupted by the entrance of the butler, to whom Dick gave an order for the immediate bringing of coffee. “And see that it is hot and strong and black,” ordered Dick, sharply.
“I like milk in my coffee,” protested Aileen, through sheer feminine resentment to masculine authority.
Dick shook his sleek head masterfully. “Better have the pure juice of the berry to buck you up. Now don’t talk for the moment. I’m thinking!” and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his dinner-jacket, he wheeled to face the fire and stare silently into the burning coals.
The girl bit her lip, tapped her foot on the floor, and showed her displeasure very plainly. But as Dick took no notice of this indignant display, she leaned back in the deep chair to examine the room. It was an attractive sanctum for a scholar, with its air of luxury, its atmosphere of peace. Three walls were built up from floor to ceiling with numberless volumes, ranged shelf after shelf in carved book-cases of black oak, sombrely splendid. Piercing the fourth wall, two tall, narrow windows and an equally tall, narrow door, set midway between them, gave upon a broad terrace, whence shallow steps descended to spreading lawns of velvety emerald turf. The carpet and draperies of the library were darkly red, and over the fireplace hung the portrait of Dick’s cavalier ancestor, who had fought at Naseby. The effect of the whole was rich but gloomy: the atmosphere suggestively monastic.
It was a strictly masculine apartment, without flowers, ornaments, cushions, or feminine trifles of any kind, and in consequence, looked—to Aileen’s eyes at least—somewhat bleak. A woman’s hand, a woman’s presence, she thought, would improve its grim sobriety into something more genially cosy. And thinking thus, she blushed, knowing full well that she could be the woman if she so chose. The rosy betrayal of the fancy coloured her face vividly, and somewhat awkwardly, ince Dick turned to address her at that very moment. “What’s the matter now?” he asked, with characteristic bluntness.
“Nothing!” the girl, naturally, was confused, “only this room—delightful!”
“It would be more delightful, Aileen, if you were always here.”
His speech so exactly worded her thoughts that she blushed still more, looking down nervously so as not to meet his imperious gaze. “You promised not to talk like that until Edith was safe.”
“I daresay,” returned the young man dryly, “but I am flesh and blood you know, and a league-end wooing is not to my liking.”
Before Aileen could answer this very direct speech the conversation was again interrupted by the coming of the butler. His master directed him to place the tray with its coffee and liqueurs on the writing-table, and “Tell Miss More’s maid to come here in half an hour,” said Dick, handling the cups and saucers as the man retired, closing the door after him.
“What do you want with Jenny?” demanded Aileen when they were alone.
“I want a little information from Jenny. Here is your coffee: drink it while it is hot.”
The girl accepted the cup, and sipped the aromatic contents enjoyably. “And this information?”
Hustings filled a liqueur-glass and sat himself down in the arm-chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. “I saw Miss Danby to-day,” he remarked.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It is the beginning of the answer. Miss Danby tells me that Slanton induced her to take Jenny Walton into her service.”
The cup and its saucer rattled in Aileen’s hand. “Edith never told me that.”
“I gather that Edith never told you many things,” said Dick, shrugging. “You see, she was decent enough to keep you out of her mud as much as she could.”
“I won’t listen to your talking of my best friend in that way,” cried Aileen impetuously, and her eyes grew angry.
“I think you said that before, and yet had to listen. Don’t stumble over pebbles, you spitfire. This is serious.”
“And so am I.” She handed him her empty cup, made a gesture of refusal when he indicated a liqueur-glass, and folded her hands on her lap. “Only don’t call me names.”
“You are a trial, Aileen,” observed Hustings, calmly, “I’d like to shake you.”
“You did shake me,” she retorted, resentfully.
“For your good: for your good, my child. But Jenny—what do you know about her?”
“Only that she came from London six months ago. Edith told me that she was engaged from a Registry-office.”
“The Registry-office being Slanton, who sent her to spy on Miss Danby.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you, because Miss Danbv wouldn’t tell me. What is the link between her and Slanton I don’t know; but it must be a deadly link, a strong link to bind so capable a woman as your friend to such an out-and-out scamp as Slanton seems to have been. However, Miss Danby talks of the thing as her secret, so I am as much in the dark as you are. But the point is this: in Slanton’s past, lies the cause of his death. Jenny may know something of that past and may be able to reveal things.”
“She won’t if she is in Slanton’s power.”
“You forget that the man is dead. His power, if he possessed any over the girl, is therefore gone. But the best thing to do just now,” said Dick, settling himself in his chair, “is to report my doings of this afternoon,” and he forthwith detailed what Trant had said: what Edith had confessed.
Aileen heard him to the end without interrupting, and her face was shining with pleasure when he concluded. “So you see that Edith is innocent,” she cried triumphantly.
“I believe she is innocent. Yet—yet—there is always the doubt.”
“What doubt?” demanded Edith’s loyal friend, bristling.
“The doubt that this wild story may be made up.”
“No! No! If it was untrue she would have made it up before and told it at the inquest. I believe every word she says,” declared Aileen, emphatically.
“I hope the magistrate will,” murmured Dick with a shrug, “she appears before a magistrate in Tarhaven eight days from now.”
“Then in those eight days we must learn the truth.”
“It may condemn her.”
“No, I am sure that it will set her free. You blow hot and cold,” said the girl impatiently, “one moment you say that Edith is innocent, and the next you seem to doubt if she is.”
“True! The fact is, I want to believe her innocent, and yet the evidence”
“I don’t care what the evidence is, Edith never killed that man.”
“What a purely feminine view you take of the matter,” said Hustings, ironically, then added with genuine admiration, “You are very loyal.”
“I hold to Edith, whatever Edith may have done,” she replied, resolutely, and ended, inconsequently, “not that I believe she has done anything.”
Dick nodded absently. Then: “You know when the tide is coming in, it seems, from the surface wavelets, to be going out—yet it is coming in all the time.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a parable. The surface wavelets are my doubts of Miss Danby’s honesty; but the under-surge, fulfilling its purpose, is my belief in her innocence.”
“If you knew Edith as well as I do, you would have no doubts.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Dick again became ironical. “When she keeps the secret of her relationship to Slanton from you? That doesn’t sound as if you knew her intimately. I’ll say this much—that I believe Miss Danby to be a good sort, tangled up, against her will, in Slanton’s nets. And, although the man is dead, the nets still hold.”
“We must find the nets and get her out of the nets, said Aileen determinedly.
“I agree! But how?” Hustings suddenly rose from his chair, put his hands in his pockets, and looked down at the girl from his tall height. “I say, do you believe in the Unseen?”
“You appear to be full of unexpected remarks to-night, Dick. Yes, I do. Why?”
The young man strolled the full length of the room and back again before replying, finally halting before the girl. “I am a materialistic sort of chap myself: an agnostic, not knowing what to believe or disbelieve.”
“You apply that reasoning to Edith’s troubles,” said Aileen, meaningly, “but go on, explain yourself!”
“Well, it’s this. Do the dead come back to haunt the living with suggestions?”
“I don’t see why they shouldn’t,” the girl pondered. “Since the war the barrier between this world and the next has become very weak. Well?”
“Well! I mean this: that all day long, someone—something has been at my ear, repeating one word, incessantly.”
“And the word?”
“The last Miss Danby heard Slanton say—Whispering!” Dick spoke in a low tone; adding in a louder one, “I believe that word is the clue to the truth.”
“In what way?”
“‘Search me!’ as the Yanks say. I can’t explain. The voice is voiceless, if you can grasp my meaning. Slanton was a Spiritualist,” he ended, abruptly.
“What has that got to do with this?”
“Well—er—you see—that is!” Dick stumbled over his words, feeling that he was making an ass of himself, but an inward conviction drove him to continue more clearly. “Slanton was always trying to get through to the other side, when he was alive: now that he is dead he may be trying to reach back through me. Old habits cling, you know,”
“Oh nonsense,” Aileen spoke scoffingly, but uneasily. “I don’t believe it.”
“You are the materialist now. It may be nonsense —I don’t say that it isn’t nonsense; yet the fact remains that the word—Whispering—is the clue. I feel it—I am sure of it. Slanton may be giving it to me so that I can revenge him.”
“Or that he may save Edith. He harmed her enough in his life-time: so perhaps being dead and knowing more, he wishes to undo that harm.”
“Who is blowing hot and cold now?”
“I am!” she admitted promptly, “we are both waverers, Dick, and this conversation is unhealthy. Anyhow, suppose we accept this word as the clue, how are you going to make use of it?”
“I’ll tell you that after I have questioned Jenny.” Dick glanced at the grandfather’s clock ticking solemnly in the corner. “She’ll be here in five or six minutes, if Brent has delivered my message.”
Aileen nodded approvingly. “But before she comes, tell me how you think Slanton was murdered?”
Dick’s eyes looked amazement at this unnecessary question. “You heard the evidence at the inquest, didn’t you? He was strangled.”
“Not by Edith.”
“We’ll let it go at that. Maybe the person whose footsteps she heard on the other side of the wall—the footsteps which made her run away—climbed over the wall to complete his job.”
“How do you mean—complete his job?”
“My dear girl, if there is, as we think, a third party concerned in this matter, that person brought Slanton here when Slanton was insensible.”
“You forget the return-half ticket found in the doctor’s pocket.”
“No I don’t! The third party probably followed him to Cornby, got hold of him on the way to Fryfeld, and tattooed him while he was drugged.”
“But how could Slanton be drugged while coming here?”
“I can’t say. That is what we have to find out. The whole business smacks of premeditation to me. I don’t know where Slanton was drugged and branded, or how he was branded and drugged. But the person who lurked behind the wall did all that, and then carried his victim on to the lawn. After hiding the lacquer-box in the book-case, he got back on to the high road and waited. When Miss Danby ran away, he got over the wall again and—as I say—completed his job.”
“Why couldn’t he have strangled him before?”
“Impossible to say!” Dick broke into an exasperated laugh. “You do ask the most unanswerable questions. Hush! Here comes Jenny: she may have a reply to some of them, if not to all,” he raised his voice, which had fallen to a whisper, “Come in!”
Jenny, with her large moon-face looming above a bright orange sports-coat, and with her untidy red hair, straggling from under a flowery broad-brimmed hat, appeared at the now-open door, stolid and substantial. “’Eard as you wants me,” said Jenny in her heavy voice, and looking at Hustings.
“I do. Come in and close the door. Take that chair and answer my questions.”
The servant obeyed the first two commands, but seemed disposed to refuse obedience to the third. “I dunno as there’s anything I kin answer.”
Aileen spoke, before Dick could open his mouth. “For my sake, Jenny, reply to Mr. Hustings. I am in danger of being arrested as having something to do with the death of Dr. Slanton.”
“You ain’t got nothing to do with it, Miss,” said Jenny with sullen fierceness.
“Inspector Trant has his doubts of that,” observed Dick, seeing that the only way to the girl’s confidence was through her affection for Aileen.
“Dunno as ’e’s much clarse,” drawled Jenny, stolidly. Then, leaning forward she patted her young mistress clumsily on the knee. “Don’t you taik on, Miss. You’ve bin good to me, so I’ll be good to you.”
“Here’s your opportunity, then,” declared Hustings, cheerfully. “Miss Danby says that Dr. Slanton got you this situation.”
“I ain’t got no reason to saiy as he didn’t.”
“What do you know of Dr. Slanton?”
“Not much. One waiy I didn’t taike to ’im: another waiy I did, some’ow. Did me a good turn he did, gitting me ’ere.”
“Why did he take the trouble to get you this place?”
Jenny twisted her pudgy fingers together, glanced cunningly at Aileen, who was looking at her appealingly, and finally grinned largely. “Dunno why I shouldn’t speak strite,” she grunted, hoarsely, “it was this waiy, Mister. I ’ad a boy as wos called Bill which I took down Whitechapel waiy from a no-clarse gal. ’E wos pinched for burglaring a cove’s ’ouse, and the gal clawed me fearful saiying as I double-crossed Bill. A blarsted lie, if ever there wos one,” said Miss Walton, fiercely. “Anyhow, she clawed me up and I wos taiken to the ’orspital, where that doctor-bloke as was done in bossed the job.”
“The Plantagenet Hospital in Chelsea,” said Hustings, doubtfully. “How did you come to be taken there when your fight with this girl occurred—I take it—in Whitechapel?”
“Oh I’d seen the doctor-bloke afore. ’E uster go opium-smoking in Ole Wung’s crib in them parts. And when ’e wos coming fro’ the crib, night-time, ’e found me clawed-up in ther street—Jibbers Alley is the naime—by Isabeller Crane. So ’e acts the gent, ’e does, and taiks me to ’is ’orspital. When I got orl raight ’e ses as ’ow a laidy down ’ere wanted a gal, so I taikes on the job.”
Hearing for the first time of Jenny’s none too respectable past, Aileen shrank a little, to be immediately scowled upon by the girl. “Thet’s raight, Miss; jes’ you drawr your skirts fro’ a down-an-outer like me.”
“No! No! No!” Aileen rose to stand by the self-confessed sinner and pat her on the shoulder. “I don’t care what you have been—I only know what you are. I trust you thoroughly as my very good friend.”
Jenny caught the kind hand that was patting her, and kissed it. “Thet’s good enuff fur me,” she said, huskily, “you don’t need to saiy better, nohow, Miss Aileen. I’m ’and-an’-glove wif pinchers and coves as the cops are arter. Yuss, and Chinks too, in a waiy; but I ain’t never been bad wif men. I’m es good a gal es you’re, Miss. Bill wouldn’t marry me else when ’e comes outer quod.”
“You need never go back to that life,” Aileen assured her, earnestly.
“Not me!” declared Jenny, resolutely, “but when Bill comes out—’e’s gotter two years’ stretch—I’m going to be ’is wife. He knows as I’m strite.”
Aileen sat down again, nodding. “And Dr. Slanton?”
“Dunno as I kin tell you anything more abaht ’im.”
“Why did he get you this situation?” asked Dick, impatiently.
“Kind ’eart I sup’ose,” drawled Jenny, sneeringly.
“Oh, come now, my good girl”
“Yuss, I knows wot you’d saiy, Mister, and you wouldn’t be fur wrong in saiying it. ’E wos a bad ’un out-an-out. Ses ’e ter me in ’orspital, es ’e’d a laidy friend ’ere, ’e wanted to keep an eye on. Thort es she’d do a bunk, so ’e ses to me, ’e ses: ‘You git daown and keep yer lights on ’er, sending me a telligrim if she cuts ’er lucky.’ ”
“In plain words you acted as Slanton’s spy,” growled Hustings, disapprovingly.
Jenny shrugged. “’Ad to git grub some’ow, Mister. Never liked thet dame mesself, wif ’er ’igh-mightiness. But I do love you, Miss!” she assured Aileen.
“So you know nothing more of Dr. Slanton’s past,” Aileen looked disappointed.
“Naow! ’Cept es ’e come daown times and times to smoke in Ole Wung’s crib.”
“Did he get into any rows in Whitechapel?” questioned Dick.
“Wot d’y think? ’Eaps and ’eaps. Ole Wung tried to knife ’im onct, but ’e tipped thet Chink the Long Melford and scooted. But ’e come back!” went on Jenny with a note of admiration, “yuss ’e did, being afraid of nothing. And ’e knowed too much abaht Ole Wung fur Ole Wung to cut up narsty. Oh thet doctor-bloke was clever and tough enuff I don’t ’arf think; and ’e did me a good turn. But”—here her eyes and her voice grew vindictive—“’e wos a beast. Don’t wonner a bit es thet Miss Danby choked ’im.”
"‘She didn’t!” contradicted Aileen, angrily, “don’t say that.”
“Orl raight. Shan’t ef you don’t want me to. All th-saime, if she didn’t, oo did?”
“We thought you might have some idea, Jenny.”
“Me, Mister!” The stolid servant shaken out of her stolidity, rose in wrath, “I dunno nuffin, I don’t. Saiy I did it, do yer?”
“No! But I fancied you might know of some Whitechapel person who had a grudge against the doctor.”
“Oh, I knows ’eaps of them as ’ad grudges,” said Jenny, indifferently. “Ole Wung—Fancy Charlie—Roaring Luke—Totty Jones—Wu Ti. ’Eaps of ’em.”
“Do you think that any one of these?”
“Naow!” snarled Jenny, curtly and sullenly, as she walked to the door, “and ef you’re coming along o’ me, Miss Aileen, I’m on the jump.”
When the servant disappeared, Dick turned to assist his visitor into her woolly blue cloak. “Do you think that she is hiding things?” he asked, nodding towards the door, for somehow he sensed reticence—the withholding of something, which could have been said, should have been said, but which was not said.
“I think not!” Aileen pondered. “No! Jenny is too fond of me to hide anything likely to help. She is a rough diamond, Dick. I am sure she is honest.”
“I’ll make certain of that when I look up this opium-den,” said Dick, grimly, “it is necessary for me to see Old Wung: he might be the third party we want.”
Aileen shook her head. “A Chinaman wouldn’t tattoo a Biblical name.”
“Well—er—no,” agreed Hustings, reluctantly, “and yet the tattooing—the lacquer-box—the opium-drugging: these suggest the Far East. I must follow all possible clues you know.”
“Don’t forget the clue of the swastika,” she reminded him, “the murderer has it.”
“You can’t be sure of that. It might have been dropped in the wood.”
“No! I thought of that and searched thoroughly. It is not there.”
“Well,” sighed Dick, “that’s one clue and Slanton’s last word is another.”
At this moment Jenny peeped in. “Ain’t you coming?” she asked, querulously.
“Yes! Yes!” Aileen drew her cloak round her and asked a question suggested by Dick’s speech, “Jenny, what do you know of—Whispering?”
“Nuffin! I never whispers mesself and ’ates them es do. Sneaky I calls it.”
“Did you ever hear Dr. Slanton use that word?”
“Naow! And I carn’t wayt ’ere orl night.”
“But Jenny,”—Aileen ran after her, passing into the hall.
“Don’t be a worrit, Miss. Ef the wust comes, I’m ’ere to ’elp you to bust up the wust. And,” ended Jenny, sharply, “I can ’elp. So there!” and she stalked out sulkily, leaving two very perplexed people staring at one another.