CHAPTER II

JUDGMENT POSTPONED

Mr. Jennerton, Senior, scrutinised the card which his lady visitor had
presented, passed it on to his son, and waved the former to a chair.

“Mrs. Holman,” he murmured. “What can we do for you, Madam?”

The woman disposed of her somewhat ample person in the chair indicated,
deposited her bag upon the edge of the table, and glanced suspiciously
at Mr. Jennerton, Junior. She was of approximately middle age,
fashionably dressed, although without distinction. Her eyes were of a
hard blue, her features inclined to be severe. Her lips, however, were
unexpectedly full.

“May I ask whether the young gentleman’s presence is necessary?” she
began. “What I have to say is strictly confidential.”

“This is my son,” Mr. Jennerton explained, “my partner and also my
secretary. Two heads are better than one, we find, and we know our
business too well to be other than discreet.”

Mrs. Holman indicated with a nod that she was prepared to accept the
situation.

“No need to say much about myself,” she went on. “You have my name on
the card there. My husband was killed in the War, and since then I have
been acting as housekeeper to the Reverend Martin Bushe. You know of
him, I dare say?”

Mr. Jennerton shook his head. “I am sorry to say that I am not familiar
with the name,” he admitted.

“Mr. Bushe,” she explained, “keeps a small but very select school up in
Hampstead for advanced scholars only.”

“A sort of coach?” Mr. Jennerton suggested.

His visitor assented. “Mr. Bushe is a very clever man,” she declared.
“He is willing to prepare his pupils for anything except the army. A
short time ago,” she continued, with a marked hardening of the lines of
her face, “it became necessary to engage a typist to deal with the
correspondence relating to the establishment. A young person of the name
of Sophie Vivian obtained the post, and was with us for about seven
months. At the end of that time she left hurriedly, at my insistence. It
will be sufficient if I tell you that her attitude towards the senior
scholars and one of the undermasters was most unbecoming. I preferred to
dispense with her presence and do what typing was necessary myself.”

“Just so,” Mr. Jennerton murmured.

“The services I require from you are that you should discover how Miss
Sophie Vivian, as she is called, manages to live without work in a
comfortable little house, Number 17a, Richmond Street, just this side of
Golder’s Green, and who are her most frequent visitors.”

Mr. Jennerton made a few notes. “This is business,” he remarked drily,
“which is usually undertaken by one of the minor departments of our
establishment. We do not refuse investigations of this description, but
it is not a branch of our calling which we care to cultivate. You can, I
suppose, give me no reasons for your curiosity?”

“I am not prepared to do anything of the sort,” was the curt reply. “I
am told that you are the best firm of private detectives in London. The
job I am offering you is private detectives’ work. Can you tell me how
much your fee will be?”

“That will depend upon the circumstances. The matter appears to present
so few difficulties, however, that I think you will not find it a
serious affair. Shall we report to you up at Hampstead?”

Mrs. Holman rose to her feet and picked up her bag. “I should prefer no
correspondence. I will call upon you a week from to-day.”

She took her leave, unconscious of the fact that she had sown the seeds
of tragedy.

“A type of woman I particularly dislike,” Mr. Jennerton remarked.
“Good-looking but unattractive, severe but sensual, just the sort of
person to lose her head over a young schoolmaster.”

“I can guess why the typist left,” Gerald murmured.

* * * * *

Three days later a card was brought to Mr. Jennerton which he studied
for a moment with pursed lips, and passed over to his son.

“Things are moving up Hampstead way,” he remarked. “Here is our friend
the schoolmaster to see us. You can show the gentleman up,” he told the
commissionaire.

The Reverend Martin Bushe, notwithstanding the fact that he was still of
prepossessing appearance, had the air of a man who had found life a
difficult business. His long, rather narrow face was deeply lined. He
walked with a stoop, wore heavy glasses, and although his hair was still
abundant, it had become completely and prematurely grey. There were
evidences about him, however, of past elegance; his linen was
irreproachable, his sombre black clothes well cut, his footgear bore the
stamp of a West End bootmaker. He unfastened an old-fashioned cape as
Mr. Jennerton motioned him to a seat, and laid upon the floor by his
side a soft black felt hat of clerical shape.

“What can we do for you, sir?” Mr. Jennerton enquired, studying his
visitor with some curiosity.

* * * * *

Mr. Bushe removed his tortoise-shell glasses and wiped his eyes.
Notwithstanding his furrowed face, he seemed of no great age. The eyes
themselves were hard and bright, his voice firm and pleasant.

“I am recommended to you, Mr. Jennerton,” he began, “as being the head
of one of the best-known and highest-class firms of private detectives
in the world.”

“I believe,” Mr. Jennerton admitted without undue modesty, “that we have
earned that reputation.”

“I keep a school,” his visitor continued—“not a large establishment,
but owing to certain successes I have achieved, I am able in a measure
to choose my own pupils. They number only thirty, and my sixth-form lads
are all working with some specific aim. I employ only two assistant
masters, who are both Oxford men. While I am on the subject, I will
mention the fact that they both came to me with excellent references.”

Mr. Jennerton bowed. “I have heard your name mentioned, Mr. Bushe,” he
confided, “as a very brilliant scholar of your day, and a very
successful schoolmaster since you entered the profession. You are also,
I believe, a regular contributor to the reviews on classical and
theological subjects.”

Mr. Bushe seemed a little surprised. “I scarcely expected,” he admitted,
“to find you so well informed. However, now that you know who I am, let
me explain the object of my visit. It has come to my knowledge entirely
by accident during the last few days that one of my household, whether
it be one of my two assistant masters or one of my senior students, I
cannot tell, has been in the habit of leaving the school premises late
at night, eluding the vigilance of the lodge-keeper by wearing a cape
and hat and also glasses similar to my own, and returning at any hour in
the morning.

“Furthermore, this person, whoever he may be, has obviously some gift of
mimicry. Although the difference in age between myself and the older of
my two assistant masters must be at least fifteen years, and in the case
of the eldest of my scholars nearly twenty, this person who has taken
such an unwarrantable liberty has succeeded on many occasions in being
mistaken for me.”

“A situation which might lead to serious complications,” Mr. Jennerton
mused.

“A situation which has already involved me in various embarrassments,”
his visitor confided. “In the Athenæum Club last night a dignitary of
the church, who is one of my closest friends, distinctly avoided coming
to my table. I learned afterwards from a friend that I was supposed to
have been seen supping at a restaurant called the Trocadero on the
previous night with—er—a young lady—er—of—considerable personal
attractions.”

Gerald managed with difficulty to restrain a smile. His father
maintained his attitude of sympathetic interest.

“Other similar misapprehensions, I understand, exist,” the schoolmaster
continued. “The parents of one of my scholars are under the impression
that I spent an evening last week in a retired corner of a box at the
Hippodrome, while another of my acquaintances firmly believes that he
saw me in a taxicab in Oxford Street, accompanied by a young lady of
striking appearance.”

“The position,” Mr. Jennerton admitted, “is no doubt annoying, but, if
you will forgive my saying so, I should have thought that it would have
been a perfectly easy matter for you yourself to have discovered the
culprit.”

“It would appear so,” Mr. Bushe agreed, “but, as a matter of fact, I
have made efforts in that direction and failed. It is really not so easy
a matter as it appears. My lodge-keeper is not an old servant, and
though I am loath to do any one an injustice, I imagine that he is a
type of person who might easily be bribed. He assures me that he has
noticed no one leaving the house on the various specific occasions I
have mentioned, except myself. Then, as to returning, both my assistant
masters have latchkeys, and there are several entrances to the gardens.”

“You could, at any rate, see that your outer habiliments are not
available,” Mr. Jennerton suggested.

“I have already taken that step,” Mr. Bushe replied. “Such an action on
my part has, however, been anticipated. My impersonator, whoever he may
be, has provided himself with a cloak and hat corresponding to my own.”

“What about changing your lodge-keeper?”

“That course has occurred to me,” the schoolmaster confessed. “At the
same time, however, I have become possessed of a desire to go a little
further than merely discover the identity of the delinquent. I should
like to ascertain the whole curriculum, to know exactly how the evening
has been spent, in what company, and at what hour the truant returns. I
could then deal with the matter finally.”

“The commission appears to present no particular difficulties,” Mr.
Jennerton assured his visitor. “If a person other than yourself should
leave the house any night this week, I think we can promise you all the
information you desire. Whom do you suspect?”

His client hesitated. He replied, after a brief pause, with obvious
unwillingness.

“Of my two assistant masters,” he confided, “Ernest Drysdale is short in
stature, fair in complexion and inclined towards _embonpoint_. He may at
once be ruled out. His _confrère_, Reginald Marston, a very
distinguished scholar and a young man in whose character I have always
had the highest confidence, is, on the other hand, dark, of about my
height, and not unlike me in general appearance. He was a member of the
Thespian Society at Oxford.”

Mr. Jennerton made a note. “And among the senior scholars?”

“There is only one who need be considered—Geoffrey Wylde. His
facilities, however, for leaving the house and returning are nothing
like so great.”

Mr. Jennerton appeared to consider the situation for several moments. “I
would suggest to you, Mr. Bushe,” he said, at length, “that this is not
a matter in which the services of a detective are necessary. You could
place an additional servant in whom you have confidence with the
lodge-keeper to-morrow night, instruct them to stop whoever might
attempt to leave the place, and deal out your own discipline.”

Mr. Bushe frowned. “There would be no discipline to deal out,” he
objected. “It is no vital offence, even for Wylde, to leave the house,
and wearing similar clothes to mine might be simply a matter of taste.
Besides, as I have explained, what I require is a record of how the
young man, whoever he may be, spends his evening. I should then be in a
position to deliver justice conclusively.

“I have the name, Mr. Jennerton,” his visitor concluded, “of being a
severe man. That may be so, but I am also a just one. I require absolute
proof of misdemeanour before I move. Having that proof, I do not
hesitate to deal out justice. . . . With regard to the matter of fees?”

“They will not be large,” Mr. Jennerton assured his questioner. “The
case can easily be dealt with by one of our ordinary staff. By the bye,”
he added, “this senior scholar of yours, Geoffrey Wylde—are his parents
people of means?”

“They are, I believe, moderately wealthy,” Mr. Bushe replied gravely,
“but I do not think that he is over-well supplied with pocket money. I
feel bound, however, to mention the fact that a few weeks ago Mr.
Marston approached me and asked for an advance on his salary. I am
inclined to regret now that I acceded to his request.”

Mr. Bushe rose to his feet and took a dignified leave. Mr. Jennerton,
Senior, and his son exchanged puzzled glances.

“Beat!” the latter murmured softly.

* * * * *

For nearly half an hour the Reverend Martin Bushe, in the seclusion of
his library, read and reread the letter which he had received by the
evening post from Jennerton and Company, Limited, some few days after
his visit to them. He had sat down to its perusal very much his ordinary
self, a little tired perhaps with the day’s labours, for he was an
earnest worker, but with no very serious apprehensions as to the
disclosures which he expected. When finally he folded up the letter he
seemed suddenly to have become an older and a stricken man. He sat for
several minutes without moving, his eyes looking through the walls of
the room, his lips more than once quivering a little as though with
pain. Finally he rose and rang the bell.

“Find Mr. Drysdale and Mr. Wylde,” he directed the butler, “and ask them
to step this way.”

There was a brief period of delay. Afterwards they entered almost
simultaneously. Wylde was a public schoolboy, a little lanky and
overgrown, destined for the Civil Service, more or less of an athlete,
with an earnest, sensitive face and indications of a mentality in
advance of his years; Drysdale was of a more sombre type, gloomy and a
little taciturn, disappointed in his college career, disappointed with
his first essay in the scholastic profession. Mr. Martin Bushe motioned
them both to chairs. He was not a man of remarkably keen perceptions,
but it was easy even for him to see that neither was altogether at his
ease.

“I have sent for you two,” he began, “to ask you a question. Wylde, you
know the regulations of this establishment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you, Mr. Drysdale, you too know that although I desire my
assistants to have every possible liberty, I like them to give notice if
they desire to spend an evening out.”

“I usually do so, sir,” the usher replied, after a moment’s hesitation.

“It has come to my knowledge,” Mr. Bushe continued gravely, “that you,
Wylde, and you also, Mr. Drysdale, have been in the habit of leaving
this house secretly at night; not only that, but one or both of you have
had the impertinence to assume the disguise of my outer garments.”

Neither made any reply. Curiously enough, their surprise seemed to be
centred upon each other.

“I will speak to Wylde later,” Mr. Bushe proceeded. “I look upon this
offence, Mr. Drysdale, as being more serious in your case. You see what
your example has done. How can I expect to maintain discipline in this
establishment when you, who should be my principal helper, break every
regulation of the place?”

“I am very sorry, sir,” the assistant master said. “I admit that I have
taken a great liberty. As to your cloak and hat, I know perfectly well
that the use of them aggravates my offence. You so seldom leave home at
night, however, and Browning, the lodge-keeper, is so inquisitive, that
I confess I have made use of them on various occasions.”

“What have you to say for yourself, Wylde?” Mr. Bushe enquired.

“Simply that I had to go, sir,” the boy replied, looking his questioner
in the eyes. “I couldn’t have stayed in. I never wore your clothes. I
bought some like them.”

“What do you mean by saying that you couldn’t have stayed in?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I had to go,” the youth repeated.

The schoolmaster leaned forward and pushed the green lamp a little
farther away from him. In its light, his face had seemed almost ghastly.

“The information I have received,” he said, “has come as a very great
shock to me. You have betrayed your trust, Mr. Drysdale. I shall not
think it necessary to ask you to accept the customary notice. You will
make it convenient, I hope, to leave to-morrow morning.”

“I shall certainly do so,” the other assented, turning away.

“Any expression of regret you might think well to tender——” Mr. Bushe
suggested with faint sarcasm.

“I have no regrets,” the other interrupted as he opened and closed the
door.

Wylde started to follow him. Mr. Bushe called him back.

“Stay here, Wylde,” he directed.

“I want to speak to Mr. Drysdale,” the boy confided, with a curious
glitter in his eyes. “There is something I want from him.”

“You will have an opportunity later on,” Mr. Bushe told him. “Stay here
now, if you please. Your father, Geoffrey Wylde, is one of my dearest
friends. I am anxious to take no false step with regard to you.”

For a quarter of an hour Mr. Martin Bushe sat in silence in the shadows
of the room, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Wylde fidgetted in his chair,
pulled out his watch and looked at it every few minutes. At last he rose
to his feet.

“I can’t stand this any longer!” he cried. “Let me go, sir—please let
me go.”

The headmaster waved him away. “You will report to me before classes at
nine o’clock in the morning,” he said.

The boy made for the door, forgot to close it, and bounded up the
stairs, three at a time. Mr. Martin Bushe rose to his feet and stood for
a moment deep in thought. Then he took the letter from Jennerton and
Company, tore it deliberately across and threw it into the fire.

* * * * *

Some hour or so after the despatch of the firm’s report to the Reverend
Martin Bushe, Gerald Jennerton made a visit, impulsively decided upon,
to Miss Sophie Vivian. So far as he was able to judge, she was
unexpectedly superior to her type. She welcomed him civilly, but without
enthusiasm. It was obvious that she wanted to know definitely the
purpose of his visit before she responded to the amenities in which he
endeavoured to engage.

“I suppose I really ought to have written,” he remarked, as he accepted
her somewhat dubious invitation to follow her into the sitting room.
“The fact is, I meant to do so to-night, but as I was passing your
street it seemed to me that the simpler thing was to call. Personality
counts so much with my father, and correspondence doesn’t lead one very
far.”

“But I don’t quite understand,” she said, “from whom you heard that I
was looking for work.”

“Your name was mentioned by the Reverend Martin Bushe,” Gerald confided.
“He and my father are fellow clubmen.”

Miss Vivian frowned slightly. She was far better looking than he had
anticipated, better dressed, and obviously better educated. The house
was very small, and in a partially built-up neighbourhood, but the
little room, even though its furniture was not expensive, had an air of
comfort, even of luxury. There was no suggestion that she was in
financial straits.

“Mr. Bushe,” she murmured. “That really makes it even funnier, because
Mr. Bushe knows that I hate typing. Won’t you sit down?”

Gerald accepted a chair with gratitude. He felt that he was over the
first difficulty.

“What Mr. Bushe really said to my father, I fancy,” he remarked, “was
that you had recently been engaged at his school, and that he had found
your work exceptionally good.”

“I had lots of fun there,” she admitted frankly, “but it was a horrid
place. I was very glad to get away.”

“You live here all alone?” he ventured.

She smiled at him. “Why not? Girls are getting used to that sort of
thing nowadays. Surely you don’t find it strange?”

“Not at all,” he assured her. “The only thing is, it seems such a lonely
neighbourhood. The houses near you are not finished, and you seem almost
cut off at the end of the street.”

“I am not a nervous person,” she declared.

“Am I to take it,” he asked, “that you are really not looking for an
engagement?”

She hesitated. “I wouldn’t quite say that. Everything is a little
uncertain with me just now. Perhaps you had better come and see me again
some time.” She glanced at the clock and started suddenly to her feet.
“Is that the right time?” she exclaimed.

Gerald consulted his watch. “Within a minute or two.”

“I must ask you, please, to excuse me now,” she begged. “Please go away
at once. I ought not to have asked you in. I have an engagement, a
visitor coming.”

Gerald picked up his hat and rose to his feet.

“I am sorry,” he said. “May I hope that you will consider the matter
upon which I came to see you? Perhaps I had better write?”

“Yes—yes,” she assented hastily. “Write to me. Write and tell me just
what sort of a position it is you want me to fill—only, you must go
away now at once.”

Even as he was moving towards the door a look almost of terror suddenly
flashed into her face. The latch of the front gate had been raised, and
the gate itself opened and slammed. There was the sound of eagerly
approaching footsteps along the tiled walk. She drew aside the curtains
which led into a room beyond.

“Do as I ask,” she insisted feverishly. “Step in here and wait. The
moment you hear any one enter this room, leave the house on tiptoe. I
will see that the door is unlatched. You must promise me that you will
do this.”

“Naturally,” Gerald answered. “I am very sorry to be in the way. But are
you really all alone in the house?”

“Of course I am. Why?”

“It seems such a solitary spot for you, that’s all. Aren’t you ever
afraid?”

“Only of intruders,” she answered curtly.

Through the few inches of parted curtains he had a little vision of her
as she stood for a moment with her hand pressed to her side, listening
intently. Then he heard the sound of a key in a lock, the opening of a
door, a step in the hall, a voice. Whereupon—he had been a detective
for a few weeks only, and the instincts of his past life were
unweakened—he did exactly as he had promised. He stole into the passage
without a glance towards the sitting room, or a moment’s pause to
listen, opened the door softly and passed out. . . .

As he made his way towards the main thoroughfare he was filled with an
almost oppressive sense of the remoteness of this little oasis of
half-built houses. He found a taxicab as soon as he emerged on the main
thoroughfare and drove thoughtfully back to his club.

* * * * *

At the end of that dark and silent street, with its ghostly medley of
half-built villas, its disorder of cement tubs and heaps of bricks, two
men, some hours later, were fighting in the moonless night. If either
had any idea of the rules of civilized conflict, he had thrown them to
one side, and they fought with a common purpose, as savage men who
fought to kill. Both were young, one with some advantage in height.

Backwards and forwards, in the added obscurity of the half-built wall,
they sprang at each other, swayed and stumbled, wrestled and wrenched
themselves free, only to fall once more to combat. Not a word passed at
any time, scarcely a groan, although more than once the taller man
seemed locked in the other’s grip, and once his head was banged against
the wall with a sickening thud. There was blood upon the pavement as
well as upon their faces, and now and then a little sobbing breath
escaped from one or the other of them.

They fought as men who have lived for long under the repression of a
silent and aching hatred, men who fought without weapons, but aflame
with the desire to kill.

The end, when it came, was unexpected. The taller youth, putting forth
what appeared to be his last effort, closed with his enemy, beat him
back against the wall, reached his jaw, leaned forward to drive home a
second blow just as the other staggered and fell. The victor for a
moment threw up his arms, then he, too, overbalanced, slipped in a pool
of blood and fell heavily with his head upon the rough edge of the
kerbstone. They lay across the pavement, grotesque and repulsive,
scarcely a groan from either of them. A distant church clock struck the
hour. Down at the bottom of the unfinished road opposite there seemed
some commotion outside a small house at the end of a silent row.

A policeman had taken his stand at the gate.

Presently a taxicab stopped, picked up some passengers, came rumbling
along the half-made road, was on the point of turning away towards the
main thoroughfare when the driver jammed on his brakes and pulled up.
The light of his lamps had disclosed the horror on the pavement. Gerald
stepped quickly out of the cab, followed by a man in the uniform of a
police inspector. They leaned over the prostrate bodies.

“Two of them, sir,” the police inspector said to Gerald. “We weren’t
expecting that.”

The latter made no reply for a moment. He was looking at the
broad-brimmed felt hat which had rolled into the gutter, and the torn
fragments of a black cloak upon one of the men’s shoulders.

“A police ambulance, as quickly as possible,” the inspector directed the
taxicab driver. “You’ll find a box at the next corner.”

The man drove off. Gerald, conscious of a sudden nausea, swayed. The
police inspector passed an arm through his.

“Take my advice, Mr. Jennerton,” he begged, “and get along home. The
rest of this isn’t your job. Mr. Dix insisted upon telephoning you as
soon as we found out what had happened, because we knew your men had
been shadowing the girl, but this part belongs to the police. You can’t
do any good here.”

Gerald nodded. “I’ll see Mr. Dix in the morning,” he said. “One of these
two must have met the other coming away.”

The inspector nodded. “Maybe we’ll never know which of them did it,
sir,” he observed. “It’s my belief the tall one’s got a broken neck.
I’ll get you a taxi.”

He blew a whistle. A taxi came lumbering up, and Gerald stepped in.

“I’ll let you know if there’s any news in the morning, sir,” the
inspector promised.

* * * * *

The “Richmond Street Tragedy”, announced the next morning in lurid
headlines throughout the entire press, made an instantaneous appeal to
the sensation-loving public. All the concomitants of horror were there,
naked and terrible—a beautiful young woman discovered strangled to
death in her lonely little house, and within fifty yards two young men
who had fought to the bitter edge of death now lying unconscious in a
hospital, with an emissary of the law always in attendance, waiting for
the last words of either. The whole neighbourhood swarmed with newspaper
men.

The old charwoman who had discovered the tragedy, although knowing
little of the young woman, had a great deal to say about a mysterious
man who had visited her almost nightly, and who wore always a black felt
hat of curious shape, and an old-fashioned cloak. Not one such garment
but two had been brought to the hospital with the wounded men, and with
them two hats, one battered out of recognition, but still undoubtedly of
the shape described.

The participants in that terrible struggle of the night had been
identified by the time the midday edition was out. One was Geoffrey
Wylde, senior student at the school conducted by the Reverend Martin
Bushe at Hampstead, the other Ernest Drysdale, a tutor engaged at the
same establishment. The evening papers were able to throw still further
light upon the tragedy. They were able to announce that Miss Sophie
Vivian, the murdered lady, had recently been engaged at the school of
the Reverend Martin Bushe as a typist, and had left rather hurriedly at
the insistence of the matron.

The drama of jealousy, at present only dimly outlined, was eagerly
surmised by a thrilled public. The question which every one asked was,
which was the murderer and which the avenger?

On the following morning, after twenty-four hours of anxiety, both men
were still alive, the condition of each equally critical. The inquest
was held over, awaiting the possibility of evidence from one of them.

Every hour little pieces of additional information rendered
reconstruction by the amateur criminologist an easier task. The story of
how first one and then the other of the two young men adopted the same
disguise to steal out of the house at night was everywhere made public,
but of their meeting in that deserted, half-made street, of the flame of
wild passion which blazed there during that fierce struggle, no man knew
anything. It could only be surmised that one risked his life as the
avenger; one, perhaps, as the jealous murderer.

On the third morning it was announced that Drysdale had recovered
consciousness, that the possibilities of his recovery were fairly
favourable.

* * * * *

Shortly after half-past ten on the fourth morning following the tragedy,
a taxicab turned in at the drive leading to the scholastic establishment
at Hampstead, and Mr. Jennerton and Gerald, admitted by a butler of
austere demeanour, were ushered into the library.

“Mr. Bushe is taking a class at present, sir,” the man announced. “I
will let him know of your arrival.”

Father and son seated themselves in the worn but comfortable easy-chairs
on each side of the fireplace. In less than five minutes Mr. Martin
Bushe came sweeping in. He bowed to his visitors and subsided a little
wearily into a chair.

“You will pardon my keeping you waiting,” he begged. “I am trying to
carry on as usual, but I find the task almost beyond me.”

He had, indeed, the air of a stricken man. His eyes appeared to have
receded into great hollow depths, his pallor was almost ghastly, the
lines seemed to have become more deeply engraven in his face. “I receive
your visit, gentlemen,” he confessed, his voice no longer mellifluous
and pleasing, but harsh with a vibrant note of anxiety, “in fear and
trembling. It is right, of course, that justice should be done to the
perpetrator of this horrible deed, but all my life I fear that I shall
be oppressed with the memory that it was I who came to you with the
story of what was going on, I who paid you to watch; that it was from my
admonitions that these two unhappy young men guessed at each other’s
infatuation. I am almost afraid to ask you the question which haunts me.
You know—tell me as quickly as you can.”

“You came to us just in time,” Mr. Jennerton confided. “Thanks to your
visit and to one other circumstance——”

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Mr. Bushe interrupted fiercely. “What I
want to know is this: are you able to supply the evidence which the
police require? Do you know which young man first visited that unhappy
girl, at whose hands she met with her death?”

“We do,” Mr. Jennerton replied gravely. “The story as it stands in the
Press to-day is very nearly the true version. Not one but both of these
young men were in the habit of leaving your house secretly at night, as
our report informed you. Both were accustomed to visit Sophie Vivian at
different hours. We know which one visited her first and which last, on
this fatal occasion.”

“Which?” Mr. Bushe gasped, “Don’t tell me it is Geoffrey Wylde you mean
to lay your hands upon! I love the lad. Don’t tell me that it was he.”

“It was not he,” Gerald declared. “As a matter of fact, he did not leave
your house until an hour after Ernest Drysdale. The two must have met at
the corner of Richmond Street, where they quarrelled and fought.”

Mr. Martin Bushe gave a little groan of relief. “I can’t explain to
you,” he faltered, “what a relief this is to me. I was at Oxford with
that lad’s father, and although he was my senior, he was my dearest
friend.”

Mr. Jennerton now leaned a little forward in his chair. There was
scarcely the sympathy in his face which one might have expected.

“Mr. Bushe,” he announced, “in all my experience of crime and criminals,
which has been extensive, I have never come across a case exactly like
this. My son and I have decided, under the circumstances, to waive
professional etiquette and to make a certain disclosure to you. Before
you visited us we had already received instructions from another source
to prepare a report upon this unfortunate young woman’s manner of life,
her means and her visitors.”

The schoolmaster seemed for a moment perplexed. “From another source?”
he repeated.

“I should prefer to mention no names,” Mr. Jennerton continued. “If it
had not happened that we had also those instructions to carry out, it is
possible that your tutor might find himself in the dock as soon as he
leaves the hospital. As things are, however, neither of those young men
will ever be charged with the crime.”

The Reverend Martin Bushe gripped the sides of his chair. There was a
little twitch at the corners of his lips; otherwise scarcely a sign of
emotion.

“Neither of them?” he echoed mechanically.

“We were set no arduous task,” Mr. Jennerton went on. “We discovered
without difficulty that the little house in which Miss Vivian was living
had been provided by you, that her means of subsistence came from you,
and that you were her most frequent visitor. You were naturally able to
pay your visits at a time when your younger rivals were engaged with
their duties, although occasionally, as you were beginning to realise,
you ran some risks. From our report, you discovered that the young lady
was carrying on an intrigue with either your usher or your senior pupil,
or both. Whether you had any communication with them upon the subject or
not we do not at present know, but it is certain that before either of
the two young men had left your premises, you visited Miss Vivian
yourself. What passed between you and her is your secret.”

Nothing in the whole development of this somewhat curious case had so
amazed either Mr. Jennerton himself, or Gerald, as the complete
composure of the accused man. There was no shock of surprise, no
shrinking of fear, no sign even of great mental disturbance. On the
contrary, the haggard look left his face and an expression of positive
relief took its place. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs
in natural fashion. His personality appeared somehow to re-establish
itself. He had entered the room a stricken, trembling man. In those few
seconds he seemed to revert to his former self—the cultured scholar,
the man of the world, at ease with his companions, master of the
situation.

“Out of curiosity,” he enquired, “may I ask the name of your other
client?”

Father and son exchanged glances.

“I think,” Gerald said, “that, as we have gone so far, there is no
reason to keep the matter secret. It was Mrs. Holman, the matron of your
school, who instructed us.”

The schoolmaster’s expression might almost have been one of pleased
interest.

“That is the kind of woman,” he pronounced, “from whom one might expect
an action of this sort. Jealous, she was—jealous from the moment the
girl crossed the threshold—yet perhaps what she did was for the
best. . . . Have you news of the young men to-day?”

“Both,” Gerald confided, “are now conscious and will probably recover.
Their stories have not yet been told, but apparently each believes the
other to be the murderer. Hence their furious fight.”

“There need be no discussion upon that point,” the Reverend Martin Bushe
declared firmly. “Not only your facts but also the theory which I have
read in your minds are correct. Within an hour and a half of receiving
your report I visited the young woman, and in a fit of cold and
deliberate fury I killed her. If it is quite convenient to you,
gentlemen, I will remain here while you make the necessary arrangements
for my arrest.”

He leaned back in his chair. Gerald left the room and returned in a
moment or two.

“One never knows in these moments of excitement,” Mr. Bushe continued,
in a low tone, “what might happen to any one. If you would favour me
with half a sheet of note paper and pen and ink from the tables
there. . . . Thank you, Mr. Jennerton.”

In his prim, formal hand, the schoolmaster wrote a few sentences, signed
them and paused with the pen still in his hand. The two men, father and
son, looked at him curiously. There was a new expression in his eyes—no
longer one of fear—a set, far-away look, as of one who gazes curiously
into the future. His head dropped a little farther back upon the
cushions just as heavy footsteps in the hall drew nearer and paused.

So, as the knocking came upon the panels of the door, Martin Bushe died.