Читать книгу Found Dead - Fred M. White - Страница 9

Table of Contents

"Strangely enough," Margaret went on, "I found that letter, which I thought I had destroyed, the morning I came away from London. So I slipped it in my bag, heaven knows why. I suppose it was fate. It was found amongst the poor girl's belongings after her death, and handed over to me by someone whom I need not name just for the moment. But if you would like to see it——"

"Like to see it?" Mortmain cried. "I would give half I possess for a sight of it. Now, please——!"

The letter was handed over in silence, and Mortmain read it carefully twice. There was no address and no date, and not more than a few lines in a handwriting strangely like his own. And as Margaret had said, it was, indeed, a brutal letter—the sort of letter a certain type of man writes to a certain type of girl when he wishes all relationship to cease.

"So this is the cause of the trouble, is it?" Mortmain asked. "I am going to tell you, with all the earnestness in my power, that that letter is nothing more or less than an impudent forgery. I admit that the handwriting is very much like mine, and I suppose the scoundrel who was responsible for this effort must have borrowed a specimen of my handwriting with a view to the forgery. Now, did you ever know me to write a letter without an address and without a date? It is a strange fate that has brought us together here again to-day, but it will be a fortunate one for me or the fault is altogether mine. I tell you again that the girl you speak of was never known to me, and that I never put pen to the paper on which that was written. I don't know how I am going to prove it, but if you had given me a chance at the time, I could have cleared myself easily enough. As it is, two years have elapsed, which makes all the difference. But you can see for yourself that this matter has got to be thrashed out, unless you disbelieve me, in which case, there is no more to be said."

"But I don't disbelieve you," Margaret cried. "I think I would have taken your word in any case. Oh, what a headstrong, silly fool I was not to have given you the opportunity. Even when I wrote you in the terms I did, I felt that it could not be true. But I was deeply wounded, heartbroken almost, and I hardly knew what I was doing. And I am very much afraid, Jack, that I have wrecked two lives."

"Looks very much like it," Mortmain said sadly. "It is good in a way to see you again, Margaret, but I almost wish you had not come. Now, tell me, who gave you that letter?"

Margaret replied under her breath. It was almost a whisper, but it carried clearly enough to Mortmain's ears.

"My husband," she said.

"What!—the man Grimshaw? Do you mean to say that he it was who gave you that letter? Oh come, there is a great deal more here than meets the eye. Why should he do such a dastardly thing? He and I were not even acquainted. I never heard of him till some time after we had parted for good. And then a friend casually mentioned that my old flame, Margaret Debenham, had married an Australian called Grimshaw."

Margaret sat there for a moment or two with her head in her hands. She was crying gently. Then she looked up into Mortmain's face.

"I am not going to ask you to forgive me yet," she murmured. "That will come presently. Perhaps, in the first place I had better tell you all there is to know about my husband. He was an Englishman who had travelled a good deal and finally came back to England where he began to write about all sorts of strange happenings for the London papers. I met him two or three times in the course of my work, and it was not long before I began to see that he found me attractive. I am not boasting—that is the sort of thing that every woman knows by instinct. And then when he asked me to marry him, I told that I was already as good as engaged. I never mentioned the fact to you, because I thought it would not be quite fair. He seemed to take my refusal calmly enough and in a few days had, apparently, forgotten all about it. I was always meeting him in odd places and we were quite friendly. And then, when you were taking your holidays two years ago I went out with him on several occasions. He was interesting and amusing, and you know how casual we used to be in that old Bohemian set of ours. Then, when I got to know him better, he told me the sad story of Violet Graham. He told it very well indeed, and I was very much moved by what he had to say. And then, one day, when we were on the river at Hampton Court, he brought up the subject of the girl again and, after warning me that I must prepare for a great shock, produced the letter that is lying there on the table."

"What an infernal scoundrel," Mortmain muttered.

"You can imagine what a blow it was to me," Margaret went on. "There was your writing plainly before me and in the back of my mind was the story of that poor girl. You must remember that I had heard it more than once and I believed it implicitly. I was so furious against you that when I got back to my rooms, I sat down and wrote you that letter."

"Yes, in which you mentioned no woman whatsoever," Mortmain smiled sadly. "You brought no accusation against me, you merely said you never wanted to see me again. And I suppose you regarded Richard Grimshaw as a chivalrous gentleman who was doing his best for a poor girl that I had been making love to behind your back. And because many a heart is caught on the rebound you thought it would be just as well if you married Grimshaw. But, my dear, a marriage like that could never be a happy one."

"It wasn't," Margaret said with tears in her eyes. "In fact, I may say that it was no marriage at all. We had arranged that the ceremony should be private in the circumstances, and there was nobody present except ourselves and the verger of the church and the pew opener. And when we came into the street, a woman was standing outside. Directly my husband caught sight of her he changed colour and tried to hide himself behind a taxi that was crawling down the street. But the woman would have none of it. She was not noisy, but still very determined. And I wanted to hear what she had to say, because she looked a lady, despite the shabbiness of her dress it was easy to see that she had seen better times. Oh, it was dreadful."

"Don't go on unless you feel up to it," Mortmain said. "I can quite understand what your feelings are."

"But I must go on," Margaret said firmly. "She told me the most terrible things whilst the man stood by my side, white and shamefaced and uttering never a word. And when the woman had turned away quietly telling her story and warning me of the character of the man I had married, I made up my mind there and then what to do."

"You left him, of course," Mortmain said.

"I left him there and then," Margaret went on. "I told him that we must never meet again, and that though we had gone through the ceremony of marriage, he was no husband of mine."

"And that was the unhappy finish?" Mortmain asked.

"Well, not quite," Margaret said with a watery smile. "The man was a thorough adventurer. It was a proper shock to my pride to find that he did not care for me in the least. He hated work himself, and did as little of it as he possibly could. But he calculated that I did very well, and was likely to do better, and that I had an income of my own as well. In other words, he proposed to live upon me. And after we had parted he wrote to me and suggested a bargain. Nobody knew we were married, he said, and nobody need ever know, if I preferred it that way. My opinion has always been that he has already got a wife somewhere else, but that is by the way. His idea was that I should give him my own income on condition that the so-called marriage remained a secret, and that I should go on in the old way under my old name, otherwise he would cause a scandal and practically ruin me in the eyes of my friends. And I was so miserable that I consented. I insisted that he should leave England which, for a considerable time, he did. When he came back he began to blackmail me. He took my private income and a good deal of my earnings besides. He keeps me so poor that sometimes I have barely enough to eat. But why go on? I have told you the story of my life which I felt bound to do when fate brought us together in this amazing way. Do let me forget it for the moment and try and remember that I came here entirely on business."

"Oh, of course, of course," Mortmain said with assumed briskness. "I will tell you all I can, but I am afraid that I can't show you the room where the tragedy took place, because the police have the key. Still, there is a good deal of information that I can give you, and if you want to be really thorough, I can take you to the room upstairs where the body of the dead man is lying. But you will probably prefer to wait for the inquest."

"I am not afraid to look at a corpse," Margaret said. "I have all sorts of unpleasant things to do in the way of business, and I cannot afford to neglect anything, however gruesome it is. My editor will expect everything that I can send along and—well—will you think it very unwomanly of me if I suggest——"

Mortmain got up from his chair readily enough. He didn't want to think too much just then of the strange story he had just heard, because there would be plenty of time for that. He led the way up the broad stairs along a corridor and flung open the door of a room in which was the bed where the dead man lay.

"There," he said. "But don't dwell on it too long."

Bravely enough, Margaret gazed down on the placid features of the dead man. Then something like a stifled cry broke from her lips, and she would have fallen had not Mortmain caught her.

"Heavens, what is the matter?" he cried.

"My husband," she gasped. "Richard Grimshaw."