William Le Queux

“ But upon the air, after she had gone, there lingered the subtle fragrance of peau d’Espagne, the same perfume used by the woman whose cool palm had soothed my brow. Nevertheless, it seemed impossible that a woman could thus commit a double crime so swiftly and with such force as to drive a knife to the heart of a man and fling him back upon me—all in silence, without the utterance of one single word.
With my eyes only a void of blackness, this mystery was bewildering, and rendered the more tantalising by my inability to gaze about me. ”

“ Imagine, however, what joy it is to one who has been pronounced incurably blind to look upon the world again and taste of its pleasures. It was that joy which gave lightness to my heart.
Yet over all was one grim shadow—the remembrance of that fateful night with its grim tragedy. Who was Edna? Where was she? What was she?
Through her instrumentality I had regained my sight, but her identity and her whereabouts still remained hidden, as she had plainly told me they would be before we had parted. ”

“ The situation was certainly the most curious in which any man could be placed, for with only one thought in my mind, namely, to raise the alarm, I had gone forth from the house of mystery and failed to mark it. This negligence of mine might, I reflected, result in the affair being hushed up for ever. London is a big place in which to search for the scene of a murder upon which my eyes had never gazed, and the details of which I only knew by my sense of touch. How many thousands of houses there were in the West End each with its smoke-blackened portico and little piece of area railing. ”

“ I heard, too, the low swish of a woman’s skirts, the heavy blow struck by an assassin’s hand, and in horror felt the warm life-blood of the unknown victim as it trickled upon my hand.
Mabel suddenly ran her white fingers over the keys, and the music brought me back to a realisation of my true position. I had at length discovered the actual house in which the mysterious tragedy had been enacted, and it became impressed upon me that by the exercise of greatest care I might further be enabled to prosecute secret investigations to a successful issue, and at length solve the enigma. ”

“ The gold-braided porter at the Grand handed me out of the cab, and I ascended by the lift to the room allotted to me like a man in a dream. It hardly seemed possible that I could have been absent in mind from that whirling, fevered world of London for six whole years. I had given a false name in the reception bureau, fearing that those people who called themselves my friends—Heaven save the mark!—might make inquiries and cause my arrest as a wandering lunatic. I had no baggage, and I saw that the hotel-clerk looked upon me with some suspicion. ”

“ In my helplessness I could do nothing but remain silent, and keep my terrible secret to myself. Unable either to communicate with the police or seek the assistance of my friend, I found that any endeavour to seek a solution of the problem was mere sowing of the wind. My thoughts hour by hour, as I sat alone in my dingy room, my poor blind eyes a black void, were of the ghastly affair, and in all its phases I considered it, trying to find some motive in the subsequent actions of the unscrupulous persons into whose hands I had had the misfortune to fall. ”

“ The beauties of the world which had given me so much pleasure and happiness were blotted out for me for ever. I lived now only in an eternal darkness which by day, when the sun shone upon my eyes, seemed to assume a dull dark red. At first it struck me that because my sight had been destroyed my personal appearance must have altered, but Dick assured me that it had not. No one, he declared, could tell by looking at my eyes that they were actually sightless.
And so I, Wilford Heaton, lived in those dull old chambers in Essex Street, in rooms that I had never seen. ”

“ She had drawn back in horror at the sight of the blood of the murdered man! Had she not, by her hesitation, admitted her own guilt?
“You don’t trust me,” she observed, with an air of bitter reproach.
“No,” I answered, very bluntly; “I do not.”
“You are at least plain and outspoken,” she responded. “But as our interests are mutual, I surely may presume to advise you to accept the conditions. Life is better than death, even though one may be blind.” ”

“ Sweet were the recollections that came back to me. How charming she had seemed to me as we had lingered hand-in-hand on our walks across the Park and Kensington Gardens, how soft and musical her voice! how full of tenderness her bright dark eyes! How idyllic was our love! She had surely read my undeclared passion. She had known the great secret in my heart.
Nevertheless, all had changed. In a woman’s life half a dozen years is a long time, for she may develop from girl to matron in that space. ”

“ The Enchantment of a Face. The face of Mabel Anson, my new-found friend and idyll, had in that instant changed. Her countenance was pale as death, while the hand holding the small pencil trembled.
“Whence did you obtain this?” she demanded in an awe-stricken tone, which showed plainly that she recognised it. She held her breath in expectancy.
What could I reply? To explain the truth was impossible, for I had pledged my honour to Edna to preserve the secret. Besides, I had no wish to horrify her by the strange story of my midnight adventure. Hence a lie arose involuntarily to my lips. ”

“ In the days that followed my mind was fully engrossed by recollections of her charm and beauty. Like every other man, I had had, before my blindness, one or two minor affairs of the heart, but never before had I experienced the grand passion. I had, indeed, admired several other women of various ages and various stations, but none had ever approached in grace, beauty, or refinement the woman who had so suddenly come into my life, and so quickly gone out of it. ”

“ A brief silence fell between us. All this was absolutely bewildering. I had been struck down on the previous night in a street at Chelsea, to find myself next day in a country house, and to be coolly informed by a man who called himself my secretary that I was owner of a great gold concession and a millionaire. The whole thing seemed too utterly incredible.
I felt my head, and found it bandaged. There was no mistake about the reality of it all. It was no curious chimera of the imagination.
Before me upon the blotting-pad were some sheets of blank notepaper. ”

“ I cried, heart-sick with desire to penetrate the veil of mystery that enshrouded that long period of unconsciousness. “All that you have told me, Gedge, is absolutely beyond belief. There must be some mistake. It is impossible that six years can have passed without my knowledge.”
“I think,” he said, “that, after all, Britten’s advice should be followed. You are evidently not yourself to-day, and rest will probably restore your mental power to its proper calibre.” ”

“ In comparison with the life and bustle of the Strand and Trafalgar Square, the wide roadway beside the Thames is always quiet and reposeful. Upon that same pavement over which I now strolled in the direction of the Temple I had, in the days of my blindness, taken my lessons in walking alone. That pavement had been my practice-ground on summer evenings under the tender guidance of poor old Parker, the faithful servant now lost to me. My eyesight had now grown as strong as that of other men. ”

“ She intended to secure my silence regarding the tragedy. Was it because that she herself was the actual assassin? I remembered that while I had reclined upon the silken couch in that house of mystery this startling suspicion had crossed my mind. Was that same cool, sympathetic palm that had twice soothed my brow the hand of a murderess?
“But there has been a terrible crime—a double crime committed,” I protested. “Surely, the police should know!”
“No; all knowledge must be kept from them,” she answered decisively. “I wish you to understand me perfectly from the outset. ”

“ All the time I was longing to get a sight of the interior of the adjoining apartment, the room whence had burst forth that woman’s agonised cry in the stillness of the night. I racked my brain to find some means of entering there, but could devise none. A guest can hardly wander over his hostess’s house on the first occasion he receives an invitation. Besides, to betray any interest in the house might, I reflected, arouse some suspicion. To be successful in these inquiries would necessitate the most extreme caution. ”

“ Nevertheless, be it how it might, the undisputed fact remained that I had lapsed into unconsciousness on that winter’s night six years before, and had known absolutely nothing of my surroundings until I found myself lying upon the floor of the drawing-room of what was alleged to be my country house.
Six years out of a man’s life is a large slice. The face of the world changes considerably in that space of time. I found myself living a life which was so artificial and incongruous to my own tastes as to appear utterly unreal. ”

“ I do not even know his real name.”
“How extraordinary!” she observed, greatly interested. “I really believe that there is often more romance and mystery in real life than in books. Such a circumstance appears absolutely bewildering.”
“If to you, Miss Anson, then how much more to me! I, who had relinquished all hope of again looking upon the world and enjoying life, now find myself actually in possession of my vision and able to mix with my fellow-men. Place yourself for a moment in my position, and try to imagine my constant thankfulness.” ”

“ And so we gossiped on, crossing the Park and entering Kensington Gardens—those beautiful pleasure grounds that always seem so neglected by the majority of Londoners—while the sun sank and disappeared in its blood-red afterglow. She spoke of her life abroad, declaring that she loved London and was always pleased to return to its wild, turbulent life. She had spent some time in Paris, in Vienna, in Berlin, but no one was half as interesting, she declared, as London. ”

“ The last I remember was the ugly face of Hickman glaring evilly into mine. His hideous grin seemed to render his dog’s face the more repulsive, and his laugh of triumph sounded in my ears harsh and discordant, showing plainly that the spirit of murder was in his heart.
At the same instant that I had made a movement towards him, I seemed to have received a stunning blow upon the top of the skull, which so dulled my senses that I was powerless to combat the curious giddiness that seized me, and sank senseless upon the floor of that shabby room, helpless as a log. ”

“ I had, in the days before the world became shut out from my gaze, seen men who were blind guiding themselves fearlessly hither and thither among the London crowds, and I was determined, in Dick’s absence, to master the means of visionless locomotion, so that I might walk alone for health’s sake, if for nothing else. ”

“ Although I adored Mabel Anson with a love beyond all bounds, and would on that evening have declared my passion for her had I dared, yet I could not disguise from myself that sight of the pencil-case I had taken from the dead unknown had wrought an instant and extraordinary change in her. ”

“ Some of the greatest oculists in the world had looked into my sightless eyes and pronounced my case utterly hopeless. Therefore I had no desire to be tinkered with by this man, who, for aught I knew, might be a quack whose sole desire was to run up a long bill.
“I have no necessity for your aid,” I answered, somewhat bluntly. “Therefore any examination is entirely waste of time.”
“But surely the sight is one of God’s most precious gifts to man,” he answered, in a smooth, pleasant voice; “and if a cure is possible, you yourself would, I think, welcome it.” ”

“ The blind quickly develop a habit of extreme caution, and with my senses dulled by the excruciating pain in my skull I lay reflecting without speaking. The throbbing in my head was frightful. When the recollections of my long walk which had ended so disastrously surged through my brain, it struck me that I must have been taken to a hospital after the accident, and that I had most probably remained there some days. Yet in hospitals there is no perfume of peau d’Espagne, nor do the nurses wear silken flounces. ”

“ How many hundreds of girls with wealth and beauty, perfectly happy in all else, are daily wearing out their lives because of the fickleness of the men to whom they have foolishly given their hearts! The tightly-laced corsets of every eight girls in ten conceals a heart filled by the regrets of a love long past; the men smile airily through the wreaths of their tobacco-smoke, while the women, in those little fits of melancholy which they love to indulge in, sit and reflect in silence upon the might-have-beens. ”

“ Gedge answered. “There is some mystery, but what it is we can’t yet fathom.”
“Mystery!” I echoed. “I should think there was some mystery—and devilishly complicated it must be too, when I find myself in this amazing position. Why, it’s sufficient to turn the brain of any man to be told of one’s marriage to a—to a woman one has never set eyes upon before, and—well, old enough to be his own mother!”
“Hush, hush!” said the secretary, who apparently wished to avoid a scene. He evidently knew that this angular woman, notwithstanding her affected juvenility, possessed a fiendish temper. ”

“ I smiled at the absurdity of the idea. I had never been a thrifty man; in fact, I had never had occasion to trouble my head about finance, and, truth to tell, had always been, from a lad, a most arrant dunce at figures.
“I fear I’m a sorry financier,” I remarked for want of something better to say.
“You are acknowledged to be one of the shrewdest and the soundest in the City of London,” Gedge answered.
“Well,” I remarked, closing the pass-book, securing the flap, and handing it back to him, “all I have to say is that this last hour that has passed has been absolutely replete with mystery. ”

“ The man Hickman’s ugly visage seemed slowly to fade in a blurred, blood-red mist.
At that same instant my blood was frozen by terror, for I felt convinced that this abrasion of my tongue had been planned by my companion’s devilish ingenuity, and that upon that needle-point had been placed some baneful substance, the action of which was rapid and certain. I saw it all, now that it was, alas! too late. ”