The Avenger - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best classic romance novels .txt) 📗

Morris Barnes? Secondly, when was it done? Thirdly, where was it done? I have left out a possible fourth, why was it done? because, in this case, I think that the motive and the man are practically identical. I mean that if you discover one, you discover the other."

Heneage leaned across the table towards the Colonel.

"You are a magician, Colonel," he declared quietly. "I glanced through this case in the paper, and it did not even interest me. Since I have listened to you I have fallen under the spell of the mysterious. Have you any theories?"

The Colonel's face fell a little.

"Well, I am afraid not," he admitted regretfully. "To be perfectly interesting the affair certainly ought to present something more definite in the shape of a clue. You see, providing we accept the evidence of Wrayson and the cabman, and I suppose," he added, laying his hand affectionately upon Wrayson's shoulder, "we must, the actual murderer is a person absolutely unseen or unheard of by any one. If you are all really interested we will discuss it again in a week's time after the adjourned inquest."

"I, for one, shall look forward to it," Heneage remarked, glancing across towards Wrayson. "What about a pool?"

"I'm on," Wrayson declared, rising a little abruptly.

"And I," Mason assented.

"And I can't," the Colonel said regretfully. "I must go down to Balham and see poor Carlo Mallini; I hear he's very queer."

The Colonel loved pool, and he hated a sick-room. The click of the billiard balls reached him as he descended the stairs, but he only sighed and set out manfully for Charing Cross. On the way he entered a fruiterer's shop and inquired the price of grapes. They were more than he expected, and he counted out the contents of his trousers pockets before purchasing.

"A little short of change," he remarked cheerfully. "Yes! all right, I'll take them."

He marched out, swinging a paper bag between his fingers, travelled third class to Balham, and sat for a couple of hours with the invalid whom he had come to see, a lonely Italian musician, to whom his coming meant more than all the medicine his doctor could prescribe. He talked to him glowingly of the success of his recent concert (more than a score of the tickets sold had been paid for secretly by the Colonel himself and his friends), prophesied great things for the future, and laughed away all the poor fellow's fears as to his condition. There were tears in his eyes as he walked to the station, for he had visited too many sick-beds to have much faith in his own cheerful words, and all the way back to London he was engaged in thinking out the best means of getting the musician sent back to his own country, Arrived at Charing Cross, he looked longingly towards the club, and ruefully at the contents of his pocket. Then with a sigh he turned into a little restaurant and dined for eighteen-pence.

CHAPTER IV

UNDER A CLOUD

Exactly one week later, six men were smoking their after-dinner cigars at the same round table in the dining-room at the Sheridan Club. As a rule, it was the hour when, with all the reserve of the day thrown aside, badinage and jest reigned supreme, and the humourist came to his own. To-night chairs were drawn a little closer together, voices were subdued, and the conversation was of a more serious order. Not even the pleasant warmth of the room, the fragrance of tobacco, and the comfortable sense of having dined, could altogether dispel a feeling of uneasiness which all more or less shared. It chanced that all six were friends of Herbert Wrayson's.

The Colonel, as usual, was in the chair, but even on his kindly features the cloud hovered.

"Of course," he said, "none of us who know Wrayson well would believe for a moment that he could be connected in any way with this beastly affair. The unfortunate part of it is, that others, who do not know him, might easily be led to think otherwise!"

"It is altogether his own fault, too," Mason remarked. "He gave his evidence shockingly."

"And his movements that night, or rather that morning, were certainly a little peculiar," another man remarked. "His connection with the affair seemed to consist of a series of coincidences. The law does not look favourably upon coincidences!"

"But, after all," the Colonel remarked, "he scarcely knew the fellow! Just nodded to him on the stairs, and that sort of thing. Why, there isn't a shadow of a motive!"

"We can't be sure of that, Colonel," Heneage remarked quietly. "I wonder how much we really know of the inner lives of even our closest friends? I fancy that we should be surprised if we realized our ignorance!"

The Colonel stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.

"That may be true," he said, "of a good many of us. Wrayson, however, never struck me as being a particularly secretive sort of chap."

"Unfortunately, that counts for very little," Heneage declared. "The things which surprise us most in life come often from the most unlikely people. We none of us mean to be deceitful, but a perfectly honest life is a luxury which few of us dare indulge in."

The Colonel regarded him gravely.

"I hope," he said, "that you don't mean that you consider Wrayson capable—"

"I wasn't thinking of Wrayson at all," Heneage interrupted. "I was generalizing. But I must say this. I think that, given sufficient provocation or motive, there isn't one of us who wouldn't be capable of committing murder. A man's outer life is lived according to the laws of circumstances and society: his inner one no one knows anything about, except himself—and God!"

"Heneage," Mason sighed, "is always cynical after 'kümmel.'"

Heneage shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

"No!" he said, "I am not cynical. I simply have a weakness for the truth. You will find it rather a hard material to collect if you set out in earnest. But to return to Wrayson. Let me ask you a question. We are all friends of his, more or less intimate friends. You would all of you scout the idea of his having any share in the murder of Morris Barnes. What did you make of his evidence at the inquest this afternoon? What do you think of his whole deportment and condition?"

"I can answer that in one word," the Colonel declared. "I think that it is unfortunate. The poor fellow has been terribly upset, and his nerves have not been able to stand the strain. That is all there is about it!"

"Wrayson has been working up to the limit for years," Mason remarked, "and he's not a particularly strong chap. I should say that he was about due for a nervous breakdown."

A waiter approached the table and addressed the Colonel—he was wanted on the telephone. During his absence, Heneage leaned back in his chair and relapsed into his usual imperturbability. He was known amongst his friends generally as the silent man. It was very seldom that he contributed so much to their discussions as upon this occasion. Perhaps for that reason his words, when he spoke, always carried weight. Mason changed his place and sat beside him. The others had wandered off into a discussion upon a new magazine.

"Between ourselves, Heneage," Mason said quietly, "have you anything at the back of your head about Wrayson?"

Heneage did not immediately reply. He was gazing at the little cloud of blue tobacco smoke which he had just expelled from his lips.

"There is no reason," he declared, "why my opinion should be worth any more than any one else's. I think as highly of Wrayson as any of you."

"Granted," Mason answered. "But you have a theory or an idea of some sort concerning him. What is it?"

"If you really want to know," Heneage said, "I believe that Wrayson has kept something back. It is a very dangerous thing to do, and I believe that he realizes it. I believe that he has some secret knowledge of the affair which he has not disclosed—knowledge which he has kept out of his evidence altogether."

"A—guilty—knowledge?" Mason whispered.

"Not necessarily!" Heneage answered. "He may be shielding some one."

"If you are right," Mason said anxiously, "it is a serious affair."

"Very serious indeed," Heneage assented. "I believe that he is realizing it."

The Colonel came back looking a little disturbed.

"Sorry, boys, but I must be off," he announced. "Wrayson has just telephoned to ask me to go down and see him. I'm afraid he's queer! I've sent for a hansom."

"Poor chap!" Mason murmured. "Let us know if any of us can do anything."

The Colonel nodded and took his departure. The others drifted up into the billiard-room. Heneage alone remained seated at the end of the table. He was playing idly with his wineglass, but his eyes were fixed steadfastly, if a little absently, upon the Colonel's empty place.

CHAPTER V

ON THE TELEPHONE

It was a little hard even for the Colonel to keep up his affectation of cheerfulness when he found himself alone with the man whom he had come to visit. His experience of life had been large and varied, but he had never yet seen so remarkable a change in any human being in twenty-four hours. There were deep black lines under his eyes, his cheeks were colourless, every now and then his features twitched nervously, as though he were suffering from an attack of St. Vitus' dance. His hand, which had lain weakly in the Colonel's, was as cold as ice, although there was a roaring fire in the room. He had admitted the Colonel himself, and almost dragged him inside the door.

"Did you meet any one outside—upon the stairs?" he asked feverishly.

"No one upon the stairs," the Colonel answered. "There was a man lighting his pipe in the doorway."

Wrayson shivered as he turned away.

"Watching me!" he declared. "There are two of them! They are watching me all the time."

The Colonel took off his coat. The room seemed to him like a furnace. Then he stretched out his hands and laid them upon Wrayson's shoulders.

"What if they are?" he declared cheerfully. "They won't eat you. Besides, it is very likely the dead man's rooms they are watching."

"They followed me home from the inquest," Wrayson muttered.

The Colonel laughed.

"And if I'd been living here," he remarked, "they'd have followed me home just the same. Now, Herbert, my young friend," he continued, "sit down and tell me all about it like a man. You're in a bit of trouble, of course, underneath all this. Let's hear it, and we'll find the best way out."

The Colonel's figure was dominant; his presence alone seemed to dispel that unreal army of ghosts and fancies which a few moments before had seemed to Wrayson to be making his room like the padded cell of a lunatic asylum. His tone, too, had just enough sympathy to make its cheerfulness reassuring. Wrayson began to feel glimmerings of common sense.

"Yes!" he said, "I've something to tell you. That's why I telephoned."

The Colonel rose again to his feet, and began fumbling in the pocket of his overcoat.

"God bless my soul, I almost forgot!" he exclaimed, "and the fellows would make me bring it. We guessed how you were feeling—much better to have come up and dined with us. Here we are! Get some glasses, there's a good chap."

A gold-foiled bottle appeared, and a packet of hastily cut sandwiches. Wrayson found himself mechanically eating and drinking before he knew where he was. Then in an instant the sandwiches had become delicious, and the wine was rushing through his veins like a new elixir of life. He was himself again, the banging of anvils in his head had ceased; he was shaken perhaps, but a sane man. His eyes filled with tears, and he gripped the Colonel by the hand.

"Colonel, you're—you're—God knows what you are," he murmured. "All the ordinary things sound commonplace. I believe I was going mad."

The Colonel leaned back and laughed as though the idea tickled him.

"Not