CHAPTER

DURING THE TEMPORARY ABSENCE of Nora Dring and Eston from the house-boat, Hilary had used her opportunities. She knew that once they had accomplished their flight, it would only be a matter of time before the police would be at their river hiding-place. And something brought it home to her that with the police would come Jimmie Silverdale. She could have given few logical reasons for this assumption. She just knew, instinctively. She had penned her message in wild feverish haste, always on the alert for the return of either of her companions and she had concluded hurriedly.

      Jimmie Silverdale seated himself on a small table, his legs swinging, and began to read. Garfield jerked his bead peremptorily and the other detectives moved silently out of the tiny saloon, leaving the inspector and the journalist alone.

      "What does she say?" asked Garfield. "That won't be exactly a confidential love letter, if I'm any judge."

      A slight tinge of red crept into the other's sallow cheek. He shook his head laughingly. "No," he agreed. "You shall read it in a moment." He resumed his perusal of the letter.

      "My dear Jimmie," Hilary had begun. Then apparently, on second thought, she had crossed out the Jimmie and substituted "Mr. Silverdale." Jimmie noticed and smiled thoughtfully.

      "What can you think of me?" she went on. "If these last two or three days have been a waking nightmare to me, I have only myself to blame, but you, to whom I owe so much, may also have suffered through my lack of trust in you, or perhaps through too much trust in someone else. They have gone to arrange for us again to take flight, and I may have to cut this letter short at any instant. Jimmie, the time has come when I must trust you fully and frankly. You are the only person on whom I can rely to cut the dreadful tangle by which I am surrounded.

      "I know how black circumstances must seem to you of all people, but I swear to the powers above that I have had no willing complicity in the terrible crime with which I seem to be associated. Sir Harold Saxon was a name to me a name only—until the moment when you, of all people! told me that he had been murdered and that I was a suspect in the eyes of the police. From that stunning second, I have been haunted—by an intolerable dilemma—for I had pledged my word. Now I consider myself released.

      "When I asked you to spirit Nora and myself secretly from town, I was doing so at her request. She had come to the studio after a night's absence distraught beyond measure and begged me to help her. We bad been friends for many years and as I thought had no secrets from each other. Now she was faced with some, awful calamity of which she would give me no hint beyond the fact that the police would probably be seeking her. She clung to me like a frightened child, weeping and beseeching that I would not leave her. What could I do? We had been friends-with a friendship even exceeding that of sisters—for years. So I promised and sent for you. The secret was not my own. I could tell you nothing.

      "It was next morning when you called for us that I realized part of the possible truth, but even then I could not credit that she, any more than myself, could be a possible murderess. I had to play the game by her, Jimmie. Even when I saw that you misunderstood, I had to play the game.

      "There are many things dark to me in this story, sequences that perhaps you may be able to fill, gaps that you may bridge with your fuller knowledge and opportunities for inquiry. You said that Sir Harold Saxon had a photograph of mine. How that came to be I cannot tell. I never set eyes on the man alive in my life.

      "My acquaintance with Eston dates back scarcely a fortnight. I met him first with Nora at a small art exhibition and she introduced him as a very old friend of hers. We dined together all three of us that night, and once afterwards at Nora's request, I joined them at a small restaurant. I remember being left alone with Eston for a little and that he went over to speak to a man. I now know the man to be a hanger-on of his—a man who is assisting him in whatever scheme he has on at present and who is called Velvet Fred.

      "There was not the slightest reason for me to be suspicious of Eston, yet it. is clear enough now that we were and are pawns in some very deep and wide game that he is playing—a game which with your help I shall ultimately fathom.

      "It was after you had seen us off from Paddington that I began to realize what a great change the last few days had brought over Nora. After what you had said, I had to regard her with fresh eyes, for all the damning facts which to an outsider told against me were tenfold deadly against her. Yet somehow, Jimmie, I revolted against regarding her as—that! She cross-examined me about you on the way down and I am afraid we had some unpleasantness.

      "But it was not until we reached Twyford that I began to realize that other people—particularly Eston—were concerned. There Eston intercepted us, and there she threw off the mask. To all intents and purposes, I was given to understand that I was their prisoner—that any attempt at defiance would be met by the story that I was a lunatic.

      "I had enough confidence in myself to face a public scene if necessary-but a public scene there would have meant the probable revelation of my identity and you had said enough to let me know that I stood in peril of arrest by the police should they once know where to find me. I was a coward. I could not face that sordid and unnecessary publicity, So I accepted things as they were, but I managed to get a wire sent off to you.

      "It was to this boat that I was brought. There was no physical constraint upon me, though through the silky, oily manner of Eston, I could read his full intention not to hesitate if need be. In some way I was essential to a great conspiracy which was on foot. At that time I had not the remotest idea what it might mean. If Nora and Eston were concerned with the murder of Sir Harold Saxon, why did they trouble themselves about me? I thought then that they might believe I should be a witness against them—but even so, why should they handicap themselves? Three people are easier to trace than two.

      "Nora has to this moment made no explanation; indeed her manner has been, if not coldly brutal, at least repellent. She has given me to understand that I must obey orders, if necessary. Eston is suave and, I fear, dangerous. Behind all this business, there is some mystery, some motive that I cannot penetrate. I feel baffled, like one groping vainly in the dark.

      "Less than an hour ago, he paid me the compliment of offering me marriage. I am afraid I did one indiscreet thing with such a man—I laughed at him. He pointed out that the police were, even then, within eyeshot of us and that they believed me to be guilty of a terrible crime. Now Eston is a shrewd man and I am not conceited enough to believe that he is taking the risks he must be taking for the sake of my beautiful eyes! There is a n— in the wood-pile somewhere, and through Eston's hurt vanity, when I mocked him, I caught a glimpse—the merest glimpse.

      "This man may, or may not, believe that I am a guilty woman. He certainly believes that I have been closely associated with the late Saxon—that I am in fact his widow. It all sounds wildly fantastic and incredible, doesn't it, Jimmie? It would be funny, if it were not so tragic! So this abduction—if it is an abduction—has been arranged for the sake of marrying me off to a man who wishes to lay his fingers on a colossal fortune left by Sir Harold Saxon. The scheme has more intricate complications, perhaps, than the bald statement can suggest and I am not quite clear how far Nora is involved, except that she is acting as a sort of female jailer upon me.

      "I am ashamed to confess that Eston makes an astute guess at my feelings and my fears for, during this afternoon Is scene, he challenged me to raise my voice and call the police who were watching. I wanted to, and yet somehow I dare not. I am just a little coward. If I am to be talked about as I realize I must be in the end! I want to clear myself of the faintest taint of suspicion. By remaining for the moment with Nora and Eston, I may be enabled to reach the heart of the mystery.

      "I hear Nora returning. I must stop. Love —H."

      Jimmie turned the four pages of closely written letter paper over and over and stared blankly at Garfield. The chief inspector held out a hand impatiently and took the missive. Silverdale rolled himself a cigarette and striking a match on the sole of his boot, smoked in silence while Garfield with wrinkled brows digested Hilary's message.

      "Well?" he asked at last.

      "Pity she hadn't time to be more detailed," observed the detective. "She's a clever young lady and Eston apparently has found her a bigger handful than he anticipated. She has put her finger on the heart of the mystery."

      Silverdale elevated expressive eyebrows. "A conspiracy to grab all the money Saxon made?"

      "Not the slightest doubt of it. Eston obviously believes that she is Lady Harold Saxon I which is one of the points at which his cleverness is going to lead him into trouble. Equally certain is the fact that he feels confident—or probably knows for certain—that Miss Sloane had nothing to do with the murder."

      The journalist surveyed his companion with a slightly puzzled air. "I don't quite get that," he said. "If Eston, as is the most likely hypothesis, either killed Saxon himself or knows who did, of course he realizes that Hilary is innocent. But there is nothing in her letter to suggest that."

      Garfield wore a slightly superior smile. He loved a little mystification. "Did it escape you, Jimmie, that Miss Sloane tells how he offered to marry her?"

      "From all I know of Eston he wouldn't worry much whether his wife had a little thing like murder on her conscience."

      "No? I am surprised at your ignorance of law, Jimmie. The moral side might not weigh with Eston at all, but other things would. A murderer cannot benefit from the death of his victim. If Hilary Sloane really had killed Harold Saxon, even if she were his wife, she could not legally obtain a penny of his estate. She would be barred from any benefit. Now, Eston wants to marry her because it will give him a finger in the loot. Therefore he is confident she has a claim."

      "Thanks," said Jimmie dryly. "Meanwhile, perhaps you can make a guess at the lady who posed as Hilary Sloane when she married Saxon. It seems to me that the real Lady Saxon is a n— in the wood-pile, as Hilary puts it."

      "You don't want a microscope to see a barn door, Jimmie," observed Garfield with cryptic emphasis. "If dead certainties didn't so often turn out wrong, I'd make a little bet with you that I could give the lady's name. All that can be fixed up later. Meanwhile, I think we'll get back to town."

      "Why?"

      "Jimmie, neither your brain nor your observation is working at full pressure. You're too closely concerned with thinking of Hilary Sloane to do yourself full justice. See here?"

      He placed a broad thumb-nail on the reverse of Hilary's envelope, where a tiny faintly penciled word could be seen.

      "Miss Sloane got a hint of their destination at the last moment and passed it on for us," he went on.

      The faintly penciled word was "London."