1

It was rather a strange, sad life into which we settled down after the inquest and funeral. Jane remained in her little Hampstead house; she said she preferred it, though, particularly in view of the dear little new life due in January or so, I wanted her to be at Potter's Bar with us. I went up to see her very often; I was not altogether satisfied about her, though outwardly she went on much as of old, going to see her friends, writing, and not even wearing black. But I am no stickler for that heathen custom.

It was, however, about Clare that I was chiefly troubled. The poor child did not seem able to rally from her shock at all. She crept about looking miserable and strained, and seemed to take an interest in nothing. I sent her away to her aunt at Bournemouth for a change; Bournemouth has not only sea air but ritualistic churches of the kind she likes; but I do not think it did her much good. Her affection for poor Oliver had, indeed, gone very deep, and she has a very faithful heart.

Percy appointed the Haste's assistant editor to the editorship; he had not Oliver's flair, Percy said, but he did very well on the lines laid out for him. There was a rumour in Fleet Street that the proprietors of the Weekly Fact meant to start a daily, under the editorship of that man Gideon, and that it would have for its special object a campaign against our press. But they would have to wait for some time, till the paper situation was easier. The rumour gave Percy no alarm, for he did not anticipate a long life for such a venture. A paper under such management would certainly never, he said, achieve more than a small circulation.

Meanwhile, times were very troubled. The Labour people, led astray by that bad man, Smillie, were becoming more and more extreme in their demands. Ireland was, as always, very disturbed. The Coalition Government—not a good government, but, after all, better than any which would be likely to succeed it—was shaking from one bye-election blow after another. The French were being disagreeable about Syria, the Italians about Fiume, and every one about the Russian invasion, or evacuation, or whatever it was, which even Percy's press joined in condemning. And coal was exorbitant, and food prices going up, and the reviews of Audrey against the World most ignorant and unfair. I believe that that spiteful article of Mr. Gideon's about me did a good deal of harm among ignorant and careless reviewers, who took their opinions from others, without troubling to read my books for themselves. So many reviewers are like that—stupid and prejudiced people, who cannot think for themselves, and often merely try to be funny about a book instead of giving it fair criticism. Of course, that Fact article was merely comic; I confess I laughed at it, though I believe it was meant to be taken very solemnly. But I was always like that. I know it is shocking of me, but I have to laugh when people are pompous and absurd; my sense of the ridiculous is too strong for me.

After Oliver's death, I did not recognise Mr. Gideon when I met him, not in the least on personal grounds, but because I definitely wished to discourage his intimacy with my family. But we had one rather strange interview.

2

I was going to see Jane one afternoon, soon after the tragedy, and as I was emerging from the tube station I met Mr. Gideon. We were face to face, so I had to bow, which I did very coldly, and I was surprised when he stopped and said, in that morose way of his, 'You're going to see Jane, aren't you, Lady Pinkerton?'

I inclined my head once more. The man stood at my side, staring at the ground and fidgeting, and biting his finger-nail in that disagreeable way he has. Then he said, 'Lady Pinkerton, Jane's unhappy.'

The impertinence of the man! Who was he to tell me that of my own daughter, a widow of a few weeks?

'Naturally,' I replied very coolly. 'It would be strange indeed if she were not.'

'Oh, well—' he made a queer, jerking movement.

'You'll say it's not my business. But please don't … er … let people worry her—get on her nerves. It does rather, you know. And—and she's not fit.'

'I'm afraid,' I said, putting up my lorgnette, 'I do not altogether understand you, Mr. Gideon. I am naturally acquainted with my daughter's state better than any one else can be.'

'It gets on her nerves,' he muttered again. Then, after a moment of silent hesitation, he half shrugged his shoulders, mumbled, 'Oh, well,' and jerked away.

A strange person! Amazingly rude and ill-bred. To take upon himself to warn me to take care of my own child! And what did he mean 'got on her nerves?' I really began to think he must be a little mad. But one thing was apparent; his feeling towards Jane was, as I had long suspected, much warmer than was right in the circumstances. He had, I made no doubt, come from her just now.

I found Jane silent and unresponsive. She was not writing when I came in, but sitting doing nothing. She said nothing to me about Mr. Gideon's call, till I mentioned him myself. Then she seemed to stiffen a little; I saw her hands clench over the arms of her chair.

'His manner was very strange,' I said. 'I couldn't help wondering if he had been having anything.'

'If he was drunk, you mean,' said Jane. 'I dare say.'

'Then he does!' I cried, a little surprised.

Jane said not that she knew of. But every one did sometimes. Which was just the disagreeable, cynical way of talking that I regret in her and Johnny. As if she did not know numbers of straight, clean-living, decent men and women who never had too much in their lives. But, anyhow, it convinced me that Mr. Gideon did drink too much, and that she knew it.

'He had been here, I suppose,' I said gently, because I didn't want to seem stern.

'Yes,' said Jane, and that was all.

'My dear,' I said, after a moment, laying my hand on hers, 'is this man worrying you … with attentions?'

Jane laughed, an odd, hard laugh that I didn't like.

'Oh, no,' she said. 'Oh, dear no, mother.'

She got up and began to walk about the room.

'Never mind Arthur,' she said. 'I wouldn't let him get on my mind if I were you, mother…. Let's talk about something else—baby, if you like.'

I perceived from this that Jane was really anxious to avoid discussion of this man, for she did not as a rule encourage me to talk to her about the little life which was coming, as we hoped, next spring. So I turned from the subject of Arthur Gideon. But it remained on my mind.

3

You know how, sometimes, one wakes suddenly in the night with an extraordinary access of clearness of vision, so that a dozen small things which have occurred during the day and passed without making much apparent impression on one's mind stand out sharp and defined in a row, like a troop of soldiers with fixed bayonets all pointing in one direction. You look where they are pointing—and behold, you see some new fact which you never saw before, and you cannot imagine how you came to have missed it.

It was in this way that I woke in the middle of the night after I had met
Arthur Gideon in Hampstead. All in a row the facts stood, pointing.

Mr. Gideon had been in the house only a few minutes before Oliver was killed.

He and Oliver hated each other privately, and had been openly quarrelling in the press for some time. He had an intimacy with Jane which Oliver disliked.

Oliver must have been displeased at his coming home that evening with Jane.

Gideon drank.

Gideon now had something on his mind which made him even more peculiar than usual.

Jane had been very strange and secretive about his visit there on the fatal evening.

He and Oliver had probably quarrelled.

Only Jane had seen Oliver fall.

* * * * *

Had she?

* * * * *

HOW HAD THAT QUARREL ENDED?

This awful question shot into my mind like an arrow, and I sat straight up in bed with a start.

How, indeed?

I shuddered, but unflinchingly faced an awful possibility.

If it were indeed so, it was my duty to leave no stone unturned to discover and expose the awful truth. Painful as it would be, I must not shrink.

A second terrible question came to me. If my suspicion were correct, how much did Jane know or guess? Jane had been most strange and reserved. I remembered how she had run down to meet the wretched man that first morning, when we were there; I remembered her voice, rather hurried, saying, 'Arthur! Mother and dad are upstairs. Come in here,' and how she took him into the dining-room alone.

Did Jane know all? Or did she only suspect? I could scarcely believe that she would wish to shield her husband's murderer, if he were that. Yet…. why had she told me that she had seen the accident herself? If, indeed, my terrible suspicion were justified, and if Jane was in the secret, it seemed to point to a graver condition of things than I had supposed. No girl would lie to shield her husband's murderer unless … unless she was much fonder of him than a married woman has any right to be.

I resolved quickly, as I always do. First, I must save my child from this awful man.

Secondly, I must discover the truth as expeditiously as possible, shrinking from no means.

Thirdly, if I discovered the worst, and it had to be exposed, I must see that Jane's name was kept entirely out of it. The journalistic squabbles and mutual antipathy of the two men would be all that would be necessary to account for their quarrel, together with Gideon's probably intoxicated state that evening.

I heard Percy moving downstairs still, and I nearly went down to him to communicate my suspicions to him at once. But, on second thoughts, I refrained. Percy was worried with a great many things just now. Besides, he might only laugh at me. I would wait until I had thought it over and had rather more to go on. Then I would tell him, and he should make what use he liked of it in the papers. How interested he would be if the man who was one of his bitterest journalistic foes, who fought so venomously everything that he and his press stood for, and who was the editor-designate of the possible new anti-Pinkerton daily, should be proved to be the murderer of his son-in-law. What a scoop! The vulgar journalese slang slid into my mind strangely, as light words will in grave moments.

But I pulled myself together. I was going too far ahead. After all, I was still merely in the realms of fancy and suspicion. It is true that I have queer, almost uncanny intuitive powers, which have seldom failed me. But still, I had as yet little to go on.

With an effort of will, I put the matter out of my mind and tried to sleep. Counsel would, I felt sure, come in the morning.

4

It did. I woke with the words ringing in my head as if some one had spoken them—'Why not consult Amy Ayres?'

Of course! That was the very thing. I would go that afternoon.

Amy Ayres had been a friend of mine from girlhood. We had always been in the closest sympathy, although our paths had diverged greatly since we were young. We had written our first stories together for Forget-me-not and Hearth and Home, and together enjoyed the first sweets of success. But, while I had pursued the literary path, Amy had not. Her interests had turned more and more to the occult. She had fallen in with and greatly admired Mrs. Besant. When her husband (a Swedenborgian minister) left her at the call of his conscience to convert the inhabitants of Peru to Swedenborgianism, and finally lost his life, under peculiarly painful circumstances, in the vain attempt, Amy turned for relief to spiritualism, which was just then at its zenith of popularity. At first she practised it privately and unofficially, with a few chosen friends, for it was something very sacred to her. But gradually, as she came to discover in herself wonderful powers of divination and spiritual receptivity, and being very poor at the time, she took it up as a calling. She is the most wonderful palm-reader and crystal-gazer I have come across. I have brought people to her of whom she has known nothing at all, and she has, after close study and brief, earnest prayer, read in their hands their whole temperament, present circumstances, past history, and future destiny. I have often tried to persuade Percy to go to her, for I think it would convince him of that vast world of spiritual experience which lies about him, and to which he is so blind. If I have to pass on before Percy, he will be left bereaved indeed, unless I can convince him of Truth first.

5

I went to see Amy in her little Maid of Honour house in Kensington that very afternoon.

I found her reading Madame Blavatski (that strange woman) in her little drawing-room.

Amy has not worn, perhaps, quite so well as I have. She has to make up a little too thickly. I sometimes wish she would put less black round her eyes; it gives her a stagey look, which I think in her particular profession it is most important not to have, as people are in any case so inclined to doubt the genuineness of those who deal in the occult. Besides, what an odd practice that painting the face black in patches is! As unlike real life as a clown's red nose, though I suppose less unbecoming. I myself only use a little powder, which is so necessary in hot, or, indeed, cold weather.

However, this is a digression. I kissed Amy, and said, 'My dear, I am here on business to-day. I am in great perplexity, and I want you to discover something from the crystal. Are you in the mood this afternoon?' For I have enough of the temperament myself to know that crystal-gazing, even more than literary composition, must wait on mood. Fortunately, Amy said she was in a most favourable condition for vision, and I told her as briefly as possible that I wished to learn about the circumstances attendant on the death of Oliver Hobart. I wished her to visualise Oliver as he stood that evening at the top of those dreadful stairs, and to watch the manner of his fall. I told her no more, for I wanted her to approach the subject without prejudice.

Without more ado, we went into the room which Amy called her Temple of
Vision, and Amy got to work.

6

I was travelling by the 6.28 back to Potter's Bar. I lay back in my corner with closed eyes, recalling the events of that wonderful afternoon in the darkened, scented room. It had been a strange, almost overwhelming experience. I had been keyed up to a point of tension which was almost unendurable, while my friend gazed and murmured into the glass ball. These glimpses into the occult are really too much for my system; they wring my nerves. I could have screamed when Amy said, 'Wait—wait—the darkness stirs. I see—I see—a fair man, with the face of a Greek god.'

'Is he alone?' I whispered.

'He is not alone. He is talking to a tall dark man.'

'Yes—yes?' I bent forward eagerly, as she paused and seemed to brood over the clear depths where, as I knew, she saw shadows forming and reforming.

'They talk,' she murmured. 'They talk.'

(Knowing that she could not, unfortunately, hear what they said, I did not ask.)

'They are excited…. They are quarrelling…. Oh, God!' She hid her eyes for a moment, then looked again.

'The dark man strikes the fair man…. He is taken by surprise; he steps backward and falls … falls backwards … down … out of my vision…. The dark man is left standing alone…. He is fading … he is gone…. I can see him no more…. Leila, I have come to an end; I am overdone; I must rest.'

She had fallen back with closed eyes.

A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had put a few questions to her. She had told me little more than what she had revealed as she gazed into the crystal. But it was enough. She knew the fair man for Oliver, for she had seen him at the wedding. She had not seen the dark man's face, nor had she ever met Arthur Gideon, but her description of him was enough for me.

I had left the house morally certain that Arthur Gideon had murdered (or anyhow manslaughtered) Oliver Hobart.

7

I told Percy that evening, after Clare had gone to bed. I had confidence in Percy: he would believe me. His journalistic instinct for the truth could be counted on. He never waived things aside as improbable, for he knew, as I knew, how much stranger truth may be than fiction. He heard me out, nodding his head sharply from time to time to show that he followed me.

When I had done, he said, 'You were right to tell me. We must look into it. It will, if proved true, make a most remarkable story. Most sensational and remarkable.' He turned it over in that acute, quick brain of his.

'We must go carefully,' he said. 'Remember we haven't much to go on yet.'

He didn't believe in the crystal-gazing, of course, so had less to go on than I had. All he saw was the inherent possibility of the story (knowing, as he did, the hatred that had existed between the two men) and the damning fact of Gideon's presence at the house that evening.

'We must be careful,' he repeated. 'Careful, for one thing, not to start talk about the fellow's friendship with Jane. We must keep Jane out of it all.'

On that we were agreed.

'I think we must ask Clare a few questions,' said Percy.

He did so next day, without mentioning our suspicion. But Clare could still scarcely bear to speak of that terrible evening, poor child, and returned incoherent answers. She knew Mr. Gideon had been in the house, but didn't know what time he had gone, nor the exact time of the accident.

I resolved to question Emily, Jane's little maid, more closely, and did so when I went there that afternoon. She was certainly more circumstantial than she had been when she had told me the story before, in the first shock and confusion of the disaster. I gathered from her that she had heard her master and Mr. Gideon talking immediately before the fall; she had been surprised when her mistress had said that Mr. Gideon had left the house before the fall. She thought, from the sounds, that he must have left the house immediately afterwards.

'It is possible,' I said, 'that Mrs. Hobart did not know precisely when
Mr. Gideon left the house. It was all very confusing.'

'Oh, my lady, indeed it was,' Emily agreed. 'I'm sure I hope I shall never have such a night again.'

I said nothing to Jane of my suspicion. If I was right in thinking that the poor misguided child was shielding her husband's murderer, from whatever motives of pity or friendship, the less said to disturb her the better, till we were sure of our ground.

But I talked to a few other people about it, on whose discretion I could rely. I tried to find out, and so did Percy, what was this man's record. What transpired of it was not reassuring. His father was, as we knew before, a naturalised Russian Jew, presumably of the lowest class in his own land, though well educated from childhood in this country. He was, as every one knew, a big banker, and mixed up, no doubt, with all sorts of shady finance. Some people said he was probably helping to finance the Bolsheviks. His daughter had married a Russian Jewish artist. Jane knew this artist and his wife well, at that silly club of hers. Arthur Gideon, on coming of age, had reverted to his patronymic name, enamoured, it seemed, of his origin. He had, of course, to fight in the war, loath though he no doubt was. But directly it was over, or rather directly he was discharged wounded, he took to shady journalism.

Hardly a reassuring record! Add to it the ill-starred influence he had always attempted to exert over Johnny and Jane (he had, even in Oxford days, brought out their worst side) his quarrels with Oliver in the press, his unconcealed hatred of what he was pleased to call 'Potterism' (he was president of the foolish so-called 'Anti-Potter League'), his determined intimacy with Jane against her husband's wishes, and Jane's own implication that he at times drank too much—and you had a picture of a man unlikely to inspire confidence in any impartial mind.

Anyhow, most of the people to whom I broached the unpleasant subject (and I saw no reason why I should not speak freely of my suspicion) seemed to think the man's guilt only too likely.

Some of my friends said to me, 'Why not bring a charge against him and have him arrested and the matter thoroughly investigated?' But Percy told me we had not enough to go on for that yet. All he would do was to put the investigation into the hands of a detective, and entrust him with the business of collecting evidence.

The only people we kept the matter from were our two daughters. Clare would have been too dreadfully upset by this raking up of the tragedy, and Jane could not, in her present state, be disturbed either.

8

About three weeks after my visit to Amy Ayres, I had rather a trying meeting with that young clergyman, Mr. Juke, another of the children's rather queer Oxford friends. He is the son of that bad old Lord Aylesbury, who married some dreadful chorus girl a year or two ago, and all his family are terribly fast. We met at a bazaar for starving clergy at the dear Bishop of London's, to which I had gone with Frank. I think the clergy very wrong about many things, but I quite agree that we cannot let them starve. Besides, Peggy had a stall for home-made jam.

I was buying some Armenian doily, with Clare at my side, when a voice said, 'Can I speak to you for a moment, Lady Pinkerton?' and, turning round, Mr. Juke stood close to us.

I was surprised, for I knew him very little, but I said, 'How do you do, Mr. Juke. By all means. We will go and sit over there, by the missionary bookstall.' This was, as it sometimes is, the least frequented stall, so it was suitable for quiet conversation.

We left Clare, and went to the bookstall. When we were seated in two chairs near it, Mr. Juke leant forward, his elbows on his knees, and said in a low voice, 'I came here to-day hoping to meet you, Lady Pinkerton. I wanted to speak to you. It's about my friend, Gideon….'

'Yes,' I helped him out, my interest rising. Had he anything to communicate to me on that subject?

The young man went on, staring at the ground between his knees, and it occurred to me that his profile was very like Granville Barker's. 'I am told,' he said, in grave, quick, low tones, 'that you are saying things about him rather indiscriminately. Bringing, in fact, charges against him—suspicions, rather…. I hardly think you can be aware of the seriousness of such irresponsible gossip, such—I can't call it anything but slander—when it is widely circulated. How it grows—spreads from person to person—the damage, the irreparable damage it may do….'

He broke off incoherently, and was silent. I confess I was taken aback.
But I stood to my guns.

'And,' I said, 'if the irresponsible gossip, as you call it, happens to be true, Mr. Juke? What then?'

'Then,' he said abruptly, and looked me in the face, 'then, Lady Pinkerton, Gideon should be called on to answer to the charge in a court of law, not libelled behind his back.'

'That,' I said, 'will, I hope, Mr. Juke, happen at the proper time. Meanwhile, I must ask to be allowed to follow my own methods of investigation in my own way. Perhaps you forget that the matter concerns the tragic death of my very dear son-in-law. I cannot be expected to let things rest where they are.'

'I suppose,' he said, rising as I rose, 'that you can't.'

'And,' I added, as a parting shot, 'it is always open to Mr. Gideon to bring a libel action against any one who falsely and publicly accuses him—if he likes.'

'Yes,' assented the young man.

I left him standing there, and turned away to speak to Mrs. Creighton, who was passing.

I considered that Mr. Juke had been quite in his rights to speak to me as he had done, and I was not offended. But I must say I think I had the best of the interview. And it left me with the strong impression that he knew as well as I did that 'his friend Gideon' would in no circumstances venture to bring a libel action against any one in this matter.

I believed that the young clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that his crime deserved.

Clare said to me when I rejoined her. 'What did Mr. Juke want to speak to you about, mother?'

'Nothing of any importance, dear,' I told her.

She looked at me in the rather strange, troubled, frowning way she has now sometimes.

'Oh, do let's go home, mother,' she said suddenly. 'I'm so tired. And I don't believe they're really starving a bit, and I don't care if they are. I do hate bazaars.'

Clare used once to be quite fond of them. But she seemed to hate so many things now, poor child.

I took her home, and that evening I told Percy about my interview with Mr. Juke.

'A libel action,' said Percy, 'would be excellent. The very thing. But if he's guilty, he won't bring one.'

'Anyhow,' I said, 'I feel it is our duty not to let the affair drop. We owe it to poor dear Oliver. Even now he may be looking down on us, unable to rest in perfect peace till he is avenged.'

'He may, he may, my dear,' said Percy, nodding his head. 'Never know, do you. Never know anything at all…. On the other hand, he may have lost his own balance, as they decided at the inquest, and tumbled downstairs on to his head. Nasty stairs; very nasty stairs. Anyhow, if Gideon didn't shove him, he's nothing to be afraid of in our talk, and if he did he'll have to face the music. Troublesome fellow, anyhow. That paper of his gets worse every week. It ought to be muzzled.'

I couldn't help wondering how it would affect the Weekly Fact if its editor were to be arrested on a charge of wilful murder.