C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
you confessed must be a blighted future. Now, I may be mistaken, but I believe that I begin to see my way!"
She looked at the ring, which I had returned to her, with startled, dilating eyes. "Something connected with this!" she murmured.
"Yes. It is as if I had placed my eye to that little circlet, looking through it as through a spyglass towards my goal. I shall work after this, Miss Cunningham, as I could not work before, because I have now a fixed starting-point. It may be an intricate tangle that I shall have to unravel, it may be a tedious task, yet—"
"There are only six weeks–less than six weeks to do it in!" she murmured, but a faint colour had sprung to her cheeks, a light of hope to her eyes.
"Is it not possible," I begged, "if I find myself near success, yet stopped temporarily midway by some unforeseen obstacle, that you can delay your marriage? Let me have that to hope for. It will help me to win."
She shook her head sadly, and the rose-flush died.
"It is useless to think of it," she said. "You may imagine, since I have confessed so much to you, that it was not my plan to name such an early date. It was Mr. Wildred who suggested it–indeed, he insisted, and unfortunately he is in a position to insist."
"Has nothing changed since we met at the Savoy?" I hurriedly asked. "Can't you explain to me the power which you admitted then that this man holds over you?"
"No, nothing is changed, Mr. Stanton! The reason that I cannot explain is–a part of his power, if you like to call it that."
"Heaven knows I do not like it!" I exclaimed, almost savagely. And as the words fell from my lips Lady Tressidy entered the room. She had finished superintending her packing, and the sight of her was a sudden sharp reminder that next day she would take Karine away.
Chapter XIV.
An Extra Special
Lady Tressidy was so full of plans for the future–Karine's future with Carson Wildred–that my soul sickened of her chatter, and I took myself off as soon as it was decently possible to do so. With no further chance of private talk with Karine much of my incentive for remaining was gone, at all events, and I was anxious to think out the puzzle regarding the transfer of the ring.
To recapitulate, Farnham had announced his intention of keeping it until the necessity arose for having it cut from his finger. Still, it seemed he had not kept it, and it had not been cut off. The conviction was strong within me that Wildred had obtained the jewel by foul play. Yet how could he have done this, short of severing from the hand the finger that had worn it?
Strange fancies flitted luridly through my brain. In a few days more Harvey Farnham would have landed in New York, and I could reach him there at the hotel he had mentioned as his favourite; or in Denver, Colorado, if he had chosen to pursue his homeward journey without a night's delay.
I counted the hours which must pass before I could attempt any such communication, and they seemed to rise like a high wall between me and my hopes and my suspicions.
As I walked homeward, involuntarily hastening my footsteps, I heard the newsboys crying out some item of intelligence for the evening papers. "Extry Speshul! Extry Speshul!" "Mysterious Discovery in the Thames!"
So preoccupied was I that the words passed into my ears without making any definite impression on my mind; or, if they did, it was the mere rhythm of the different shouting voices that impressed itself upon me.
So often were they repeated from all sides as I walked on that at length the short sentences began to form a species of intoned accompaniment to my thoughts, without assuming a separate importance in my consciousness.
Suddenly, however, a grimy infant of tender years and appalling precocity flourished a pink sheet, smelling of the printer's ink, directly under my eyes.
"Buy a paper, guv-nor!" he cajoled me. "Hall abeout the 'orrid murder and the 'eadless man."
I seldom read evening papers, and to-night, of all nights, I had little inclination for such irrelevant mental diet. But I flung the child a copper, and found the halfpenny journal thrust into my hand.
I would have tossed it from me carelessly, but the headlines relating to the latest sensation caught my eye.
Then, forgetful of the crowds who stared at me in my agitation, I strode nearer to the white ball of electric light which had shone down upon the page.
Chapter XV.
A Mystery of the Thames
It was the name, Purley Lock, which had fastened my attention. "Horrible Discovery near Purley Lock!" the headline announced. I read on, rapidly, but thoughtfully. Two boys from Great Marlow had, it seemed, been wandering beside the river bank, between that village and Purley Lock. Straying along a small backwater, leading out from a larger one, they had noticed a peculiar object caught among a number of reeds. One of the boys had curiously poked at it with his stick, bringing it nearer to the shore, when it appeared to be a heavy, almost formless, mass sewn up in a rough sack. The boys, being frightened, had run home with their story, and a member of the local police force, going to the spot, had found the children's suspicions confirmed. The unclothed body of a man, partially consumed by fire and lacking the head, as well as otherwise mutilated in a seemingly aimless way, had been doubled up and sewn in the sack. Weights had evidently been attached to the horrible bundle, but had in some manner become detached. So far no clue whatever, either as to the identity of the murdered man, or that of the murderer, had been brought to light. The body had been in the water for some days, but might still have been recognisable had the head not been removed.
The horror of my dream on Christmas Eve came back to me as I read. No doubt there had been many river mysteries and "shocking discoveries" in the Thames, and perhaps I had read of them, dismissing them from my mind with the alacrity with which one does rid one's thoughts of such sordid tragedies, when they do not happen to concern oneself or one's acquaintances. But this tragedy I could not so dismiss.
I could even picture the very spot where the boys must have seen the sack caught among the dry and rattling reeds. "A small backwater leading out of a larger one, between Great Marlow and Purley Lock." The larger one was doubtless that on which Carson Wildred's house was situated; the smaller one–a mere alley of water, leading away under a drooping tangle of willow and chestnut branches–one had to pass in walking from Purley to the House by the Lock. I was sure, as I recalled the place in memory, that the scene of the discovered mystery could have been no other than this.
Having read to the end, I folded up the paper and put it away in a pocket of my greatcoat for future reference. Then I began walking slowly on towards the Savoy Hotel.
Had it not been for the odd chance which had induced two boys to stroll, in the middle of winter, along the bank of an insignificant outlet of a Thames backwater, what a fine place, I told myself, this would have been for the concealment of a crime! Even without the weights, which had probably become detached from the sack by tangling among the roots under the surface of the water, the body might have been expected to remain hidden for months–at least, till the coming of the spring.
Then, as I so reflected, my mind turned to darker thoughts. Had a crime been committed by the inhabitants of the House by the Lock, what a convenient hiding-place would that adjacent waterway have been! I had no reason to fancy that such a crime had been done, and yet–my thoughts went back to the day on which I paid my somewhat memorable visit to Wildred and Farnham.
Suddenly came the recollection of the awful cry I had heard as I waited in the curious octagonal room, looking at the covered portrait of Karine. The sound had been explained, but there had been a certain flurry and clumsiness