to my memory – the latest creation of the Rue de la Paix, I supposed.
Well, I duly returned home to Albemarle Street once again, utterly mystified.
What did it all mean? Why had Digby adopted such a marvellous disguise? What did he mean by saying that he wished to stand my friend and safeguard me from impending evil?
Yes, it was all a mystery – but surely not so great a mystery as that which was to follow. Ah! had I but suspected the astounding truth how very differently would I have acted!
Filled with curiosity regarding Digby's strange forebodings, I alighted from a taxi in Harrington Gardens at a quarter to eleven that same morning, but on entering found the uniformed hall-porter in a great state of excitement and alarm.
"Oh, sir!" he cried breathlessly, advancing towards me. "You're a friend of Sir Digby's sir. The police are upstairs. Something extraordinary has happened."
"The police!" I gasped. "Why, what's happened?"
"Well, sir. As his man left the day before yesterday, my wife went up to Sir Digby's flat as usual this morning about eight, and put him his early cup of tea outside his door. But when she went in again she found he had not taken it into his room. She believed him to be asleep, so not till ten o'clock did she go into the sitting-room to draw up the blinds, when, to her horror, she found a young lady, a perfect stranger, lying stretched on the floor there! She rushed down and told me, and I went up. I found that Sir Digby's bed hadn't been slept in, and that though the poor girl was unconscious, she was still breathing. So I at once called in the constable on point duty at the corner of Collingham Road, and he 'phoned to the police station."
"But the girl – is she dead?" I inquired quickly.
"I don't know, sir. You'd better go upstairs. There's an inspector, two plain-clothes men, and a doctor up there."
He took me up in the lift, and a few moments later I stood beside Digby's bed, whereon the men had laid the inanimate form of a well-dressed girl whom I judged to be about twenty-two, whose dark hair, unbound, lay in disorder upon the pillow. The face, white as marble, was handsome and clean cut, but upon it, alas! was the ashen hue of death, the pale lips slightly parted as though in a half-sarcastic smile.
The doctor was bending over her making his examination.
I looked upon her for a moment, but it was a countenance which I had never seen before. Digby had many lady friends, but I had never seen her among them. She was a perfect stranger.
Her gown was of dark blue serge, smartly made, and beneath her coat she wore a cream silk blouse with deep sailor collar open at the neck, and a soft flowing bow of turquoise blue. This, however, had been disarranged by the doctor in opening her blouse to listen to her breathing, and I saw that upon it was a small crimson stain.
Yes, she was remarkably good-looking, without a doubt.
When I announced myself as an intimate friend of Sir Digby Kemsley, the inspector at once took me into the adjoining room and began to eagerly question me.
With him I was perfectly frank; but I said nothing regarding my second visit there in the night.
My gravest concern was the whereabouts of my friend.
"This is a very curious case, Mr. Royle," declared the inspector. "The C.I.D. men have established one fact – that another woman was with the stranger here in the early hours of this morning. This hair-comb" – and he showed me a small side-comb of dark green horn – "was found close beside her on the floor. Also a couple of hair-pins, which are different to those in the dead woman's hair. There was a struggle, no doubt, and the woman got away. In the poor girl's hair are two tortoiseshell side-combs."
"But what is her injury?" I asked breathlessly.
"She's been stabbed," he replied. "Let's go back."
Together we re-entered the room, but as we did so we saw that the doctor had now left the bedside, and was speaking earnestly with the two detectives.
"Well, doctor?" asked the inspector in a low voice.
"She's quite dead – murder, without a doubt," was his reply. "The girl was struck beneath the left breast – a small punctured wound, but fatal!"
"The woman who left this hair-comb behind knows something about the affair evidently," exclaimed the inspector. "We must first discover Sir Digby Kemsley. He seems to have been here up until eleven o'clock last night. Then he mysteriously disappeared, and the stranger entered unseen, two very curious and suspicious circumstances. I wonder who the poor girl was?"
The two detectives were discussing the affair in low voices. Here was a complete and very remarkable mystery, which, from the first, the police told me they intended to keep to themselves, and not allow a syllable of it to leak out to the public through the newspapers.
A woman had been there!
Did there not exist vividly in my recollection that strange encounter in the darkness of the stairs? The jingle of the golden bangles, and the sweet odour of that delicious perfume?
But I said nothing. I intended that the police should prosecute their inquiries, find my friend, and establish the identity of the mysterious girl who had met with such an untimely end presumably at the hands of that woman who had been lurking in the darkness awaiting my departure.
Truly it was a mystery, a most remarkable problem among the many which occur each week amid the amazing labyrinth of humanity which we term London life.
Sir Digby Kemsley had disappeared. Where?
Half an hour after noon I had left Harrington Gardens utterly bewildered, and returned to Albemarle Street, and at half-past one met Phrida at the Berkeley, where, as I have already described, we lunched together.
I had revealed to her everything under seal of the secrecy placed upon me by the police – everything save that suspicion I had had in the darkness, and the suspicion the police also held – the suspicion of a woman.
Relation of the curious affair seemed to have unnerved her. She had become paler and was fidgeting with her serviette. Loving me so devotedly, she seemed to entertain vague and ridiculous fears regarding my own personal safety.
"It was very foolish and hazardous of you to have returned there at that hour, dear," she declared with sweet solicitation, as she drew on her white gloves preparatory to leaving the restaurant, for I had already paid the bill and drained my liqueur-glass.
"I don't see why," I said. "Whatever could have happened to me, when – "
My sentence remained unfinished.
I held my breath. The colour must have left my cheeks, I know.
My well-beloved had at that moment opened her handbag and taken out her wisp of lace handkerchief.
My nostrils were instantly filled with that same sweet, subtle perfume which I so vividly recollected, the identical perfume of the woman concealed in that dark passage-way!
Her bangles, two thin gold ones, jingled as she moved – that same sound which had come up to me from the blackness. I sat like a statue, staring at her amazed, aghast, like a man in a dream.
CHAPTER III.
DESCRIBES THE TRYSTING-PLACE
I drove Phrida back to Cromwell Road in a taxi.
As I sat beside her, that sweet irritating perfume filled my senses, almost intoxicating me. For some time I remained silent; then, unable to longer restrain my curiosity, I exclaimed with a calm, irresponsible air, though with great difficulty of self-restraint:
"What awfully nice perfume you have, dearest! Surely it's new, isn't it? I never remember smelling it before!"
"Quite new, and rather delicious, don't you think? My cousin Arthur brought it from Paris a few days ago. I only opened the bottle last night. Mother declared it to be the sweetest she's ever smelt. It's so very strong that one single drop is sufficient."
"What do they call it?"
"Parfait d'Amour. Lauzan, in the Placé Vendôme, makes it. It's quite new, and not yet on the market,