I felt that it could no longer be there, I had refrained from calling upon my love, and now, when I paused and turned the handle of the drawing-room door, I hardly dared to cast my eyes upon that antiquated piece of furniture.
Phrida, who was sitting with her hat and coat already on, jumped up gaily to meet me.
"Oh, you really are prompt, Teddy!" she cried with a flush of pleasure.
Then, as I bent over her mother's hand, the latter said —
"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Royle. I expect you have been very upset over the curious disappearance of your friend. We've searched the papers every day, but could find nothing whatever about it."
Phrida had turned towards the fire, her pretty head bent as she buttoned her glove.
"No," I replied. "Up to the present the newspapers are in complete ignorance of the affair. But no doubt they'll learn all about it before long."
Then, crossing the room to pick up a magazine lying upon a chair, I halted against the old walnut what-not.
Yes, the mediæval poignard was still lying there, just as I had always seen it!
Had it been used, and afterwards replaced?
I scarcely dared to glance at it, lest I should betray any unusual interest. I felt that Phrida's eyes were watching me, that she suspected my knowledge.
I took up the magazine idly, glanced at it, and, replacing it, returned to her side.
"Well," she asked, "are you ready?"
And then together we descended to the car.
All the way up to Abbey Road she hardly spoke. She seemed unusually pale and haggard. I asked her what was the matter, but she only replied in a faint, unnatural voice —
"Matter? Why nothing – nothing, I assure you, Teddy!"
I did not reply. I gazed upon the pretty, pale-faced figure at my side in wonder and yet in fear. I loved her – ah! I loved her well and truly, with all my soul. Yet was it possible that by means of that knife lying there so openly in that West-End drawing-room a woman's life had been treacherously taken.
Had my friend Digby, the fugitive, actually committed the crime?
When I put the whole matter clearly and with common-sense before myself, I was bound to admit that I had a strong belief of his innocence.
What would those finger-prints reveal?
The thought held me breathless. Yes, to satisfy myself I would surreptitiously secure finger-prints of my well-beloved and then in secret compare them with those found in Sir Digby's rooms.
But how? I was reflecting as the car passed by Apsley House and into the Park on its way to St. John's Wood.
Was I acting honestly? I doubted her, I quite admit. Yet I felt that if I took some object – a glass, or something with a polished surface – that she had touched, and submitted it to examination, I would be acting as a sneak.
The idea was repugnant to me. Yet with that horrible suspicion obsessing me I felt that I must do something in order to satisfy myself.
What inane small talk I uttered in the Leslies' big, over-furnished drawing-room I know not. All I remember is that I sat with some insipid girl whose hair was flaxen and as colourless as her mind, sipping my tea while I listened to her silly chatter about a Cook's tour she had just taken through Holland and Belgium. The estimable Cook is, alas! responsible for much tea-table chatter among the fair sex.
Our hostess was an obese, flashily-dressed, dogmatic lady, the wife of the chairman of a big drapery concern who, having married her eldest daughter to a purchased knighthood, fondly believed herself to be in society – thanks to the "paid paragraphs" in the social columns of certain morning newspapers. It is really wonderful what half-guineas will do towards social advancement in these days! For a guinea one's presence can be recorded at a dinner, or an at home, or one's departure from town can be notified to the world in general in a paragraph all to one's self – a paragraph which rubs shoulders with those concerning the highest in the land. The snobbery of the "social column" would really be amusing were it not so painfully apparent. A good press-agent will, for a fee, give one as much publicity and newspaper popularity as that enjoyed by a duke, and most amazing is it that such paragraphs are swallowed with keen avidity by Suburbia.
The Leslies were an average specimen of the upper middle-class, who were struggling frantically to get into a good set. The old man was bald, pompous, and always wore gold pince-nez and a fancy waistcoat. He carried his shop manners into his drawing-room, retaining his habit of rubbing his hands in true shop-walker style when he wished to be polite to his guests.
His wife was a loud-tongued and altogether impossible person, who, it was said, had once served behind the counter in a small shop in Cardiff, but who now regarded the poor workers in her husband's huge emporium as mere money-making machines.
By dint of careful cultivation at bazaars and such-like charitable functions she had scraped acquaintance with a few women of title, to whom she referred in conversation as "dear Lady So and So, who said to me the other day," or "as my friend Lady Violet always says."
She had buttonholed me at last, though I had endeavoured to escape her, and was standing before me like a pouter-pigeon pluming herself and endeavouring to be humorous at the expense of a very modest little married woman who had been her guest that afternoon and had just left after shaking my hand.
Women of Mrs. Leslie's stamp are perhaps the most evil-tongued of all. They rise from obscurity, and finding wealth at their command, imagine that they can command obeisance and popularity. Woe betide other women who arouse their jealousy, for they will scandalise and blight the reputation of the purest of their sex in the suburban belief that the invention of scandal is the hallmark of smartness.
At last I got rid of her, thanks to the arrival of an elegant young man, the younger son of a well-known peer, to whom, of course, she was at once all smiles, and, presently, I found myself out in the hall with Phrida. I breathed more freely when at last I passed into the keen air and entered the car.
"Those people are impossible, dearest," I blurted out when the car had moved away from the door. "They are the most vulgar pair I know."
"I quite agree," replied my well-beloved, pulling the fur rug over her knees. "But they are old friends of mother's, so I'm compelled to go and see them sometimes."
"Ah!" I sighed. "I suppose the old draper will buy a knighthood at this year's sale for the King's Birthday, and then his fat wife will have a tin handle to her name."
"Really, Teddy, you're simply awful," replied my companion. "If they heard you I wonder what they would say?"
"I don't care," I replied frankly. "I only speak the truth. The Government sell their titles to anybody who cares to buy. Ah! I fear that few men who really deserve honour ever get it in these days. No man can become great unless he has the influence of money to back him. The biggest swindler who ever walked up Threadneedle Street can buy a peerage, always providing he is married and has no son. As old Leslie buys his calicoes, ribbons and women's frills, so he'll buy his title. He hasn't a son, so perhaps he'll fancy a peerage and become the Lord Bargain of Sale."
Phrida laughed heartily at my biting sarcasm.
Truth to tell, though I was uttering bitter sentiments, my thoughts were running in a very different direction. I was wondering how I could best obtain the finger-prints of the woman who held my future so irrevocably in her hands.
I had become determined to satisfy myself of my love's innocence – or – can I write the words? – of her guilt!
And as I sat there beside her, my nostrils again became filled by that sweet subtle perfume – the perfume of tragedy.
CHAPTER VII.
FATAL FINGERS
Two days passed.
Those finger-prints – impressions left by a woman – upon the glass-topped specimen table in Sir Digby's room and on the door handle, were puzzling the police as they puzzled me. They had already been proved not to be those