Edgar Wallace

“ Her father swallowed something.
"You shock me sometimes, Jean," he said, a statement which amused her.
"You're such a half-and-half man," she said with a note of contempt in her voice. "You were quite willing to benefit by Jim Meredith's death; you killed him as cold-bloodedly as you killed poor little Bulford, and yet you must whine and snivel whenever your deeds are put into plain language. What does it matter if Lydia dies now or in fifty years time?" she asked. "It would be different if she were immortal. ”

“ Now begin:
"My dear Friend."
Lydia wrote down the words and slowly the girl dictated.
"I do not know how I can write you this letter. I intended to tell you when I saw you the other day how miserable I was. Your suspicion hurt me less than your ignorance of the one vital event in my life which has now made living a burden. My money has brought no joy to me. I have met a man I love, but with whom I know a union is impossible. We are determined to die together—farewell—"
"You said she was going away," interrupted Lydia.
"I know," Jean nodded. ”

“ Old Jaggs was the outward and visible sign of Jack Glover's unwarranted authority, and slowly there was creeping into her mind a suspicion that Jean Briggerland might not have been mistaken when she spoke of Jack's penchant for "ordering people about."
Life was growing bigger for her. She had broken down the barriers which had confined her to a narrow promenade between office and home. ”

“ Jean Briggerland discovered a new arrival on her return to the house.
Jack Glover had come unexpectedly from London, so Lydia told her, and Jack himself met her with extraordinary geniality.
"You lucky people to be in this paradise!" he said. "It is raining like the dickens in London, and miserable beyond description. And you're looking brown and beautiful, Miss Briggerland."
"The spirit of the warm south has got into your blood, Mr. Glover," she said sarcastically. "A course at the Riviera would make you almost human."
"And what would make you human?" asked Jack blandly. ”

“ A big car was standing by the kerb and one of the attendants was holding open the door for a girl dressed in black. They had a glimpse of a pale, sad face of extraordinary beauty, and then she disappeared behind the drawn blinds.
The counsel drew a long sigh.
"Mad!" he said huskily. "He must be mad! If ever I saw a pure soul in a woman's face, it is in hers!"
"You've been in the sun, Sir John—you're getting sentimental," said Jack Glover brutally, and the eminent lawyer choked indignantly. ”

“ Lydia was not thinking of wills, but of an excuse to get back to London. Of a sudden the loveliness of Monte Carlo had palled upon her, and she had almost forgotten the circumstances which had made the change of scene and climate so welcome.
"Go back to London, my dear?" said Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, shocked. "What a—a rash notion! Why it is freezing in town and foggy and ... and I really can't let you go back!"
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was agitated at the very thought. Her own good time on the Riviera depended upon Lydia staying. Jean had made that point very clear. ”

“ He heard the shot, rushed down the steps and saw the body. Whether he picked up the pistol or not, I do not know. Jean Briggerland swears he had it in his hand, but, of course, Jean Briggerland is a hopeless liar!"
"You can't know what you're saying," said Lydia in a low voice. "It is a dreadful charge to make, dreadful, against a girl whose very face refutes such an accusation."
"Her face is her fortune," snapped Jack, and then penitently, "I'm sorry I'm rude, but somehow the very mention of Jean Briggerland arouses all that is worst in me. Now, you will accept Jaggs, won't you?" ”

“ It is too dangerous a letter to be in existence, Jean, dangerous for you and for me—you will let me have it to-night?"
She hesitated.
"It is in my room," she said, an unnecessary statement, and, in the circumstances, a dangerous one, for his eyes dropped to the bag that hung at her wrist.
"It is there," he said. "Jean darling, do as I ask," he pleaded. "You know, every time I think of that letter I go cold. I was a madman when I wrote it." ”

“ I fear long days of work for a callous, leering employer, and strap-hanging in a crowded tube on my way home to one miserable room and the cold mutton of yesterday. I fear getting up and making my own bed and washing my own handkerchiefs and blouses, and renovating last year's hats to make them look like this year's. I fear a poor husband and a procession of children, and doing the housework with an incompetent maid, or maybe without any at all. ”

“ Mordon came round with the car to pick her up soon after. Mordon! Her little chin jerked up with a gesture of annoyance, which she seldom permitted herself. And yet she felt unusually cheered. Her meeting with the Moor was a milestone in her life from which memory she could draw both encouragement and comfort.
"You met Muley?" said Lydia. "How thrilling! What is he like, Jean? Was he a blackamoor?"
"No, he wasn't a blackamoor," said the girl quietly. "He was an unusually intelligent man."
"H'm," grunted her father. "How did you come to meet him, my dear?" ”

“ His dislikes are so violent. He positively loathes Margaret, though why I have never been able to understand."
"He doesn't hate me," laughed Lydia, and Jean looked at her strangely.
"No, I suppose not," she said. "I can't imagine anybody hating you, Lydia. May I call you by your Christian name?"
"I wish you would," said Lydia warmly.
"I can't imagine anybody hating you," repeated the girl thoughtfully. "And, of course, Jack wouldn't hate you because you're his client—a very rich and attractive client too, my dear." She tapped the girl's cheek and Lydia, for some reason, felt foolish. ”

“ If you're in love, of course, that complicates matters a little."
"But suppose I don't want to know the name of my future husband?"
"Then you're inhuman," said Jean.
"Where is this magical chair?"
"It is on the San Remo road beyond the frontier station. You've been there, haven't you, Margaret?"
"Once," said Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, who had not been east of Cap Martin, but whose rule it was never to admit that she had missed anything worth seeing.
"In a wild, eerie spot," Jean went on, "and miles from any human habitation." ”

“ Jean had given him a very precise story of the girl's career, and Mr. Marcus Stepney adapted it for his own purpose.
"Why, your life has almost run parallel with mine," said Lydia.
"I hope it may continue," said Mr. Stepney not without a touch of sadness in his voice. "I am a very lonely man—I have no friends except the acquaintances one can pick up at night clubs, and the places where the smart people go in the season, and there is an artificiality about society friends which rather depresses me." ”

“ There was a glint of amusement in her eyes, and he felt that she knew what was at the back of his mind.
"All right," he said in a tone which suggested that it was anything but all right, and added, "I saw you flying through Nice this morning with that yellow-faced chauffeur of yours, Jean."
"Were you up so early?" she asked carelessly.
"I wasn't dressed, I was looking out of the window—my room faces the Promenade d'Anglaise. I don't like that fellow."
"I shouldn't let him know," said Jean coolly. "He is very sensitive. There are so many fellows that you dislike, too." ”

“ No word was spoken, and Lydia was too bewildered to ask questions until the car was on its way. Then the younger man chuckled.
"Clever, Rennett!" he said. "I tell you, those people are super-humanly brilliant!"
"I'm not a great admirer of villainy," said the other gruffly, and the younger man, who was sitting opposite the girl, laughed.
"You must take a detached interest, my dear chap. Personally, I admire them. I admit they gave me a fright when I realised that Miss Beale had not called the cab, but that it had been carefully planted for her, but still I can admire them." ”

“ The road to San Remo runs under the shadow of steep hills through a bleak stretch of country from which even the industrious peasantry of northern Italy cannot win a livelihood. Save for isolated patches of cultivated land, the hills are bare and menacing.
With these gaunt plateaux on one side and the rock-strewn seashore on the other, there was little to hold the eye save an occasional glimpse of the Italian town in the far distance. There was a wild uncouthness about the scenery which awed the girl. ”

“ Meredith, that if I had made love to that young lady, I should not be seen here to-day?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean," said Jack Glover soberly, "that it would not have been Bulford, but I, who would have been lured from his club by a telephone message, and told to wait outside the door in Berkeley Street. It would have been I, who would have been shot dead by Miss Briggerland's father from the drawing-room window."
The girl looked at him in amazement.
"What a preposterous charge to make!" she said at last indignantly. "Do you suggest that this girl has connived at a murder?" ”

“ It was so unlike her conception of the girl, that Lydia stared.
"The mother is in isolation," Lydia went on, "and Madame Souviet says that the poor woman has no money and no friends. I thought of going down to the hospital to-day to see if I could do anything for her."
"You'd better not, my dear," warned Mrs. Cole-Mortimer nervously. "Let us be thankful we've got the little brat out of the neighbourhood without our catching the disease. One doesn't want to seek trouble. Keep away from the hospital."
"Rubbish!" said Jean briskly. "If Lydia wants to go, there is no reason why she shouldn't. ”

“ Killing is a matter of expediency. Permissible if you call it war, terrible if you call it murder. To me it is just killing. If you are caught in the act of killing they kill you, and people say it is right to do so. The sacredness of human life is a slogan invented by cowards who fear death—as you do."
"Don't you, Jean?" ”

“ Jack groaned.
"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the chief unpleasantly.
"I'm all right, sir," said Jack, "only I'm so tired of hearing about Jean Briggerland's beauty. It doesn't seem a very good argument to oppose to the facts—"
"Facts!" said the other scornfully. "What facts have you given us?"
"The fact of the Briggerlands' history," said Jack desperately. "Briggerland was broke when he married Miss Meredith under the impression that he would get a fortune with his wife. He has lived by his wits all his life, and until this girl was about fifteen, they were existing in a state of poverty. ”

“ He took her hand and kissed it.
"Good night, Jean," he said in a tremulous voice. For a moment their eyes met, and then she turned as though she dared not trust herself and followed her father down the stairs.
They were half-way to the house when she laid her hand on Briggerland's arm.
"Keep this," she said. It was François' revolver. "It is probably loaded and I thought I saw some silver initials inlaid in the ivory handle. If I know François Mordon, they are his." ”

“ He lowered his eyes.
"I am sorry you think that," he said. "All the world thinks that I'm a gadabout, an idler, with no interest in existence, except the pleasure I can extract."
"And a jolly good existence, too," said Lydia briskly. She had detected a note of sentiment creeping into the conversation, and had slain it with the most effective weapon in woman's armoury.
"And now tell me all about the great Moorish Pretender who is staying at your hotel—I caught a glimpse of him on the promenade—and there was a lot about him in the paper." ”

“ At seven o'clock in the morning—a grey, cheerless morning it was, thought Lydia, looking out of the window—Mrs. Rennett came in with some tea.
"I'm afraid you haven't slept, my dear," she said with a glance at the bed. "It's very trying for you."
She laid her hand upon the girl's arm and squeezed it gently.
"And it's very trying for all of us," she said with a whimsical smile. "I expect we shall all get into fearful trouble."
That had occurred to the girl too, remembering the gloomy picture which Glover had painted in the car. ”

“ It was still wet, and the empty peroxide bottle told its own story.
Jean glanced at it thoughtfully as she crossed into the dressing-room.
"Whatever happened last night, Lydia?"
Lydia turned at the voice.
"Oh, the bed you mean," she made a little face. "Heaven knows. It occurred to me this morning that some person, out of mistaken kindness, had started to disinfect the room—it was only this morning that I recalled the little boy who was ill—and had overdone it."
"They've certainly overdone it," said Jean grimly. "I wonder what poor Mrs. Cole-Mortimer will say. ”

“ She is living a very full and joyous life, but the thought of her sin is haunting her and she decides to disappear and let people think she has drowned herself. She is really going into a convent. I've got to the point where she is saying farewell to her friend. Do you feel capable of being harrowed?"
"I never felt fitter for the job in my life," said Lydia, and sitting down in the chair the girl had vacated, she took up the pencil which the other had left.
Jean strolled up and down the lawn in an agony of mental composition and presently she came back and began slowly to dictate. ”

“ Glover was poor Jim's solicitor." She sighed. "I dislike lawyers," she said with a shiver, "they are so heavily paternal! They feel that they and they only are qualified to direct your life and your actions. I suppose it is second nature with them. Then, of course, they make an awful lot of money out of commissions and fees, though I'm sure Jack Glover wouldn't worry about that. He's really a nice boy," she said earnestly, "and I don't think you could have a better friend."
Lydia glowed at the generosity of this girl whom the man had so maligned. ”