own version of the family history was that Monsieur le Comte de Bercy did not survive the crash of the family fortunes in the Panama swindle. Other discrepancies were not lacking between official fact and romantic narrative. They gave Osborne the first glimpse of the abyss into which he had almost plunged. A loyal-hearted fellow, he shrank from the hateful consciousness that the hapless girl's tragic end had rescued him in all likelihood from another tragedy, bitter and long drawn out. But because he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a beautiful adventuress there was no reason why he should be blind and deaf when tardy common sense began to assert itself.
To a man who habitually shrank from the public eye, it was bad enough to be dragged into the fierce light that beats on the witness-box in an inquiry such as this, but it was far worse to feel in his inmost heart that he was now looked upon with suspicion by millions of people in England and America.
He could not shirk the meaning of the recorded evidence. The newspapers, it is true, had carefully avoided the ugly word alibi; but ninety per cent. of their readers could not fail to see that Rupert Osborne had escaped arrest solely by reason of the solid phalanx of testimony as to his movements on the Tuesday evening before and after the hour of the murder; the remaining ten per cent. reviled the police, and protested, with more or less forceful adjectives, that "there was one law for the rich and another for the poor."
At the inquest itself, Osborne was too sorrow-laden and stunned to realize the significance of certain questions which now seemed to leap at him viciously from out the printed page.
"How were you dressed when you visited Miss de Bercy that afternoon?" the coroner had asked him.
"I wore a dark gray morning suit and black silk hat," he had answered.
"You did not change your clothing before going to the Ritz Hotel?"
"No. I drove straight there from Feldisham Mansions."
"Did you dress for dinner?"
"No. My friends and I discussed certain new regulations as to the proposed international polo tournament, and it was nearly eight o'clock before we concluded the business of the meeting, so we arranged to dine in the grill-room and go to a Vaudeville entertainment afterwards."
That statement had puzzled the coroner. He referred to his notes.
"To the Vaudeville?" he queried. "I thought you went to the Empire Theater?" and Osborne explained that Americans spoke of "vaudeville" in the same sense as Englishmen use the word "music-hall" or "variety."
"You were with your friends during the whole time between 6.30 p.m. and midnight?"
"Practically. I left them for a few minutes before dinner, but only to go to the writing-room, where I wrote two short letters."
"At what hour, as nearly as you can recollect?"
"About ten minutes to eight. I glanced at the clock when the letters were posted, as I wished to be sure of catching the American mail."
"Were both letters addressed to correspondents in America?"
"No, one only. The other was to a man about a dog."
A slight titter relieved the gray monotony of the court at this explanation, but the coroner frowned it down, and Rupert added that he was buying a retriever in readiness for the shooting season.
But the coroner's questions suddenly assumed a sinister import when William Campbell, driver of taxicab number X L 4001, stated that on the Tuesday evening, at 7.20, he had taken a gentleman dressed in a dark gray suit and a tall hat from the corner of Berkeley Street (opposite the Ritz Hotel) to the end of the street in Knightsbridge in which Feldisham Mansions were situated, had waited there for him for about fifteen minutes, and had brought him back to Berkeley Street.
"I thought I might know him again, sir, an', as I said yesterday – " the man continued, glancing at Rupert, but he was stopped peremptorily.
"Never mind what you said yesterday," broke in the coroner. "You will have another opportunity of telling the jury what happened subsequently. At present I want you to answer my questions only."
An ominous hush in the court betrayed the public appreciation of the issues that might lurk behind this deferred evidence. Rupert remembered looking at the driver with a certain vague astonishment, and feeling that countless eyes were piercing him without cause.
The hall-porter, too, Simmonds by name, introduced a further element of mystery by saying that at least two gentlemen had gone up the stairs after Mr. Osborne's departure in his automobile, and that one of them bore some resemblance to the young millionaire.
"Are you sure it was not Mr. Osborne?" said the coroner.
"Yes, sir – leastways, I'm nearly positive."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because Mr. Osborne, like all American gentlemen, uses the lift, sir."
"Can any stranger enter the Mansions without telling you their business?"
"Not as a rule, sir. But it does so happen that between seven an' eight o'clock I have a lot of things to attend to, and I often have to run round the corner to get a taxi for ladies and gentlemen goin' out to dinner or the theater."
So, there was a doubt, and Rupert Osborne had not realized its deadly application to himself until he read question and answer in cold type while he toyed with his breakfast on the day after the inquest, which, by request of Mr. Winter, had been adjourned for a fortnight.
It was well for such shreds of stoicism as remained in his tortured brain that the housemaid was still unable to give evidence, and that no mention was made of the stone ax-head found in Rose de Bercy's drawing-room. The only official witnesses called were the constable first summoned by the hall-porter, and the doctor who made the autopsy. The latter – who was positive that Mademoiselle de Bercy had not been dead many minutes when he was brought to her flat at ten minutes to eight – ascribed the cause of death to "injuries inflicted with a sharp instrument," and the coroner, who knew the trend of the inquiry, would not sate public curiosity by putting, or permitting the jury to put, any additional questions until the adjourned inquest. Neither Clarke nor Furneaux was present in court. To all seeming, Chief Inspector Winter was in charge of the proceedings on behalf of the police.
Rupert ultimately abandoned the effort to eat, shoved his chair away from the table, and determined to reperuse with some show of calmness and criticism, the practically verbatim report of the coroner's inquiry.
Then he saw clearly two things – Rose de Bercy had willfully misled him as to her past life, and he was now regarded by the public as her probable betrayer and certain murderer. There was no blinking the facts. He had almost committed the imprudence of marrying a woman unworthy of an honorable man's love, and, as if such folly called for condign punishment, he must rest under the gravest suspicion until her slayer was discovered and brought to justice.
Rupert Osborne's lot had hitherto been cast in pleasant places, but now he was face to face with a crisis, and it remained to be seen if the force that had kept three generations of ancestors in the forefront of the strenuous commercial warfare of Wall Street had weakened or wholly vanished in the person of their dilettante descendant.
At any rate, he did not flinch from the drab reality of fact. He read on, striving to be candid as to meanings and impartial in weighing them.
At the end of the evidence were two paragraphs setting forth the newspaper's own researches. The first of these ran:
Our correspondent at St. Heliers has ascertained that the father and sister of the deceased will leave the island by to-day's mail steamer for the double purpose of identifying their relative and attending the funeral. There can be no question that their first sad task will be in the nature of a formality. They both admit that Rose de Bercy was none other than Mirabel Armaud. Mademoiselle Marguerite Armaud, indeed, bears a striking resemblance to her wayward sister, while Monsieur Armaud, though crippled with toil and rheumatism, shows the same facial characteristics that are so marked in his two daughters. The family never revealed to their neighbors in the village any knowledge of Mirabel's whereabouts. After her disappearance eight years ago her name was seldom, if ever, mentioned to any of their friends, and their obvious wishes in