CHAPTER XXI
WORSE SPEED
Langholm returned to his hotel and wrote a few lines to Rachel. It hadbeen arranged that he was to report progress direct to her, and as oftenas possible; but it was a very open arrangement, in which Steel hadsardonically concurred. Yet, little as there was to say, and for all hispractice with the pen, it took Langholm the best part of an hour towrite that he believed he had already obtained a most important clew,which the police had missed in the most incredible manner, though it hadbeen under their noses all the time. So incredible did it appear,however, even to himself, when written down, that Langholm decided notto post this letter until after his interview with the Chelsea landlady.
To kill the interval, he went for his dinner to the single club to whichhe still belonged. It was a Bohemian establishment off the Strand, andits time-honored name was the best thing about it in this member's eyes.He was soon cursing himself for coming near the place while engagedupon his great and sacred quest. Not a "clubable" person himself, asthat epithet was understood in this its home, Langholm was not a littlesurprised when half-a-dozen men (most of whom he barely knew) rose togreet him on his appearance in the smoking-room. But even with theirgreetings came the explanation, to fill the newcomer with a horror toosudden for concealment.
It appeared that Mrs. Steel's identity with the whilom Mrs. Minchin hadnot only leaked out in Delverton. Langholm gathered that it was actuallyin one of that morning's half-penny papers, at which he had not foundtime to glance in his hot-foot ardor for the chase. For the moment hewas shocked beyond words, and not a little disgusted, to discover thecause of his own temporary importance.
"Talk of the devil!" cried a comparative crony. "I was just telling themthat you must be the 'well-known novelist' in the case, as your cottagewas somewhere down there. Have you really seen anything of the lady?"
"Seen anything of her?" echoed a journalist to whom Langholm had neverspoken in his life. "Why, can't you see that he bowled her out himselfand came up straight to sell the news?"
Langholm took his comparative crony by the arm.
"Come in and dine with me," he said; "I can't stand this! Yes, yes, Iknow her well," he whispered, as they went round the screen which wasthe only partition between pipes and plates; "but let me see what thatscurrilous rag has to say while you order. I'll do the rest, and you hadbetter make it a bottle of champagne."
The "scurrilous rag" had less to say than Langholm had been led toexpect. He breathed again when he had read the sequence of short butpithy paragraphs. Mrs. Minchin's new name was not given after all, northat of her adopted district; while Langholm himself only slunk intoprint as "a well-known novelist who, oddly enough, was among the guests,and eye-witness of a situation after his own heart." The district mighthave been any one of the many manufacturing centres in "the largest ofshires," which was the one geographical clew vouchsafed by thehalf-penny paper. Langholm began to regret his readiness to admit theimpeachment with which he had been saluted; it was only in his own clubthat he would have been pounced upon as the "well-known novelist"; butit was some comfort to reflect that even in his own club his exactaddress was not known, for his solicitor paid his subscription and sentperiodically for his letters. Charles Langholm had not set up as hermitby halves; he had his own reasons for being thorough there. And it wasmore inspiriting than the champagne to feel that no fresh annoyance waslikely to befall the Steels through him.
"It's not so bad as I thought," said Langholm, throwing the newspaperaside as his companion, whose professional name was Valentine Venn,finished with the wine-card.
"Dear boy," said Venn, "it took a pal to spot you. Alone I did it! But Iwish you weren't so dark about that confounded cottage of yours; thehumble mummer would fain gather the crumbs that fall from the richscribe's table, especially when he's out of a shop, which is the presentcondition of affairs. Besides, we might collaborate in a play, and makemore money apiece in three weeks than either of us earns in a fat year.That little story of yours--"
"Never mind my little stories," said Langholm, hastily; "I've justfinished a long one, and the very thought of fiction makes me sick."
"Well, you've got facts to turn to for a change, and for once theyreally do seem as strange as the other thing. Lucky bargee! Have you hadher under the microscope all the summer? Ye gods, what a part ofMrs.--"
"Drink up," said Langholm, grimly, as the champagne made an opportuneappearance; "and now tell me who that fellow is who's opening the piano,and since when you've started a musical dinner."
The big room that the screen divided had a grand piano in the dininghalf, for use upon those Saturday evenings for which the old club wasstill famous, but rarely touched during the working days of the week.Yet even now a dark and cadaverous young man was raising the top of thepiano, slowly and laboriously, as though it were too heavy for him.Valentine Venn looked over his shoulder.
"Good God!" said he. "Another fact worth most folks' fiction--anothercoincidence you wouldn't dare to use!"
"Why--who is it?"
Venn's answer was to hail the dark, thin youth with rude geniality. Theyoung fellow hesitated, almost shrank, but came shyly forward in theend. Langholm noted that he looked very ill, that his face was assensitive as it was thin and pale, but his expression singularly sweetand pleasing.
"Severino," said Venn, with a play-actor's pomp, "let me introduce youto Charles Langholm, the celebrated novelist--'whom not to know is toargue yourself unknown.'"
"Which is the champion _non sequitur_ of literature," added Langholm,with literary arrogance, as he took the lad's hand cordially in his own,only to release it hurriedly before he crushed such slender fingers totheir hurt.
"Mr. Langholm," pursued Venn, "is the hero of that paragraph"--Langholmkicked him under the table--"that--that paragraph about his last book,you know. Severino, Langholm, is the best pianist we have had in theclub since I have been a member, and you will say the same yourself inanother minute. He always plays to us when he drops in to dine, and youmay think yourself lucky that he has dropped in to-night."
"But where does the coincidence come in?" asked Langholm, as the youngfellow returned to the piano with a rather sad shake of the head.
"What!" cried Venn, below his breath; "do you mean to say you are afriend of Mrs. Minchin's, or whatever her name is now, and that younever heard of Severino?"
"No," replied Langholm, his heart in an instantaneous flutter. "Who ishe?"
"The man she wanted to nurse the night her husband was murdered--thecause of the final row between them! His name was kept out of thepapers, but that's the man."
Langholm sat back in his chair. To have spent a summer's day in stolidsearch for traces of this man, only to be introduced to the man himselfby purest chance in the evening! It was, indeed, difficult to believe;nor was persuasion on the point followed by the proper degree ofgratitude in Langholm for a transcendent stroke of fortune. In fact, healmost resented his luck; he would so much rather have stood indebted tohis skill. And there were other causes for disappointment, as in aninstant there were things more incredible to Langholm than the everydaycoincidence of a chance meeting with the one person whom one desires tomeet.
"So that's the man!" he echoed, in a tone that might have told hiscompanion something, only the fingers which Langholm had feared to crushhad already fallen upon the keys, with the strong, tender, unerringtouch of a master, and the impressionable player was swaying withenthusiasm on his stool.
"And can't he play?" whispered Valentine Venn, as though it were theman's playing alone that they were discussing.
Yet even the preoccupied novelist had to listen and nod, and thenlisten again, before replying.
"He can," said Langholm at length. "But why was it that they took suchpains to keep his name out of the case?"
"They didn't. It would have done no good to drag him in. The poor devilwas at death's door at the time of the murder."
"But is that a fact?"
Venn opened his
eyes.
"Supposing," continued Langholm, speaking the thing that was not in hismind with the deplorable facility of the professionalstory-teller--"supposing that illness had been a sham, and they hadreally meant to elope under cover of it!"
"Well, it wasn't."
"I dare say not. But how do you know? They ought to have put him in thebox and had his evidence."
"He was still too ill to be called," rejoined Venn. "But I'll take youat your word, dear boy, and tell you exactly how I do know all about hisillness. You see that dark chap with the cigar, who's just come in tolisten? That's Severino's doctor; it was he who put him up here; andI'll introduce you to him, if you like, after dinner."
"Thank you," said Langholm, after some little hesitation; "as a matterof fact, I should like it very much. Venn," he added, leaning rightacross the little table, "I know the woman well! I believe in herabsolutely, on every point, and I mean to make her neighbors and mine dothe same. That is my object--don't give it away!"
"Dear boy, these lips are sealed," said Valentine Venn.
But a very little conversation with the doctor sufficed to satisfyLangholm's curiosity, and to remove from his mind the wild prepossessionwhich he had allowed to grow upon it with every hour of that wasted day.The doctor was also one of the Bohemian colony in Chelsea, and by nomeans loath to talk about a tragedy of which he had exceptionalknowledge, since he himself had been one of the medical witnesses ateach successive stage of the investigations. He had also heard on theother side of the screen, that Langholm was the novelist referred to ina paragraph which had of course had a special interest for him; and, aswas only fair, Langholm was interrogated in his turn. What was lessfair, and indeed ungrateful in a marked degree, was the way in which theoriginal questioner parried all questions put to himself; and he verysoon left the club. On his way out, he went into the writing-room, and,tearing into little pieces a letter which he had written thatafternoon, left the fragments behind him in the waste-paper basket.
His exit from the room was meanwhile producing its sequel in a littleincident which would have astonished Langholm considerably. Severino hadbeen playing for nearly an hour on end, had seemed thoroughly engrossedin his own fascinating performance, and quite oblivious of the diningand smoking going on around him according to the accepted ease andfreedom of the club. Yet no sooner was Langholm gone than the pianistbroke off abruptly and joined the group which the other had deserted.
"Who is that fellow?" said Severino, in English so perfect that theslight Italian accent only added a charm to his gentle voice. "I did notcatch the name."
It was repeated, with such additions as may be fairly made behind aman's back.
"A dashed good fellow, who writes dashed bad novels," was one of these.
"You forget!" said another. "He is the 'well-known novelist' who isgoing the rounds as a neighbor and friend of Mrs.--"
Looks from Venn and the doctor cut short the speech, but not before itsimport had come home to the young Italian, whose hollow cheeks flusheda dusky brown, while his sunken eyes caught fire. In an instant he wason his feet, with no attempt to hide his excitement, and still less tomask the emotion that was its real name.
"He knows her, do you tell me? He knows Mrs. Minchin--"
"Or whatever her name is now; yes; so he says."
"And what is her name?"
"He won't say."
"Nor where she lives?"
"No."
"Then where does he live?"
"None of us know that either; he's the darkest horse in the club."
Venn agreed with this speaker, some little bitterness in his tone.Another stood up for Langholm.
"We should be as dark," said he, "if we had married Gayety choristers,and they had left us, and we went in dread of their return!"
They sum up the life tragedies pretty pithily, in these clubs.
"He was always a silly ass about women," rejoined Langholm's critic,summing up the man. "So it's Mrs. Minchin now!"
The name acted like magic upon young Severino. His attention hadwandered. In an instant it was more eager than before.
"If you don't know where he lives in the country," he burst out, "whereis he staying in town?"
"We don't know that either."
"Then I mean to find out!"
And the pale musician rushed from the room, in pursuit of the man whohad been all day pursuing him.