The girl from Scotland Yard
writhed like a woman demented. And in her dementia she broke the habit
of a lifetime and told the truth.
A policeman was standing outside the door of Leslie’s flat when
Coldwell came back, and a dozen men stood about on the sidewalk. He
beckoned Peter to him.
“You had better come along,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“To Wimbledon. Do you feel fit enough? There may not be a scrap, but I
rather imagine that her supreme and exalted highness will die
fighting.”
“Is Leslie there?”
Coldwell nodded.
A hundred yards short of May Towers the policemen stopped and the
little army of men got down. On the journey Coldwell had made his
arrangements. Four of the detectives were to make their way to the
back of the house; the remainder were to force the entrance. It was
Coldwell who rang the bell. In his right hand he gripped an ax, ready
to strike at the chain the moment the door was opened.
Standing behind him, Peter saw him stoop his head.
“Can you hear anything?” he whispered.
“No, sir.”
“Thought I heard a scream.”
He waited a few seconds longer, and then:
“Give me the crowbar.”
Somebody passed him up the long steel bar, and with a swing he drove
the clawed ends between door and lintel. Again he struck, and this
time he succeeded. Pulling back with all his strength, the door
cracked open. Two blows from the ax broke the chain, and they streamed
into the dark hall and up the stairs.
The squat Javanese stooped and lifted the girl without an effort, and
as he did so the little men who stood around clapped their hands
rhythmically. Leslie heard and set her teeth, as she felt herself
raised in the strong hands of this hideous little man.
She had a glimpse of Anita Bellini. The hate in her eyes made her
shudder in spite of herself.
“Good-bye, little Maughan!” she mocked. “You are going to your death.”
And then she stopped, her eyes glaring toward the door.
“Stand fast, everybody! Tell these fellows not to move, Bellini!”
It was Coldwell’s voice. Leslie felt herself slipping from the
encircling arms. Then, suddenly, somebody caught her, and she looked
round into the haggard face of Peter Dawlish.
“No gun play,” said Coldwell gently, “and there will be no trouble. I
want you, Bellini! I suppose you are prepared for that?”
“I am called Princess Bellini,” she said.
“Whether you’re Princess Bellini or Annie Druze or Alice Druze is a
matter of supreme indifference to me,” said Coldwell, as he caught her
wrist. “But you have the distinction of being the first woman I’ve
ever handcuffed.” He snapped the cold circle about her wrist. “But
then, you see, most of the ladies I’ve pinched have been gentle little
souls compared to you.”
She made no reply. That old look had come into her face again which
Leslie had seen before.
Then Anita Bellini did an unexpectedly generous thing. She nodded to
the wondering group of natives, shepherded behind three armed
detectives.
“These men have done no harm,” she said. “They have merely carried out
my instructions in ignorance of the law.”
She said something in Javanese to the man who had held Leslie, and he
grinned and answered in the same language.
“My head boy here”--she nodded to him--“will accept responsibility for
the other natives.”
And then, with a sidewise jerk of her head and a hard smile, she said:
“Well, here is the very end of the Druzes.”
“Not quite.” Leslie’s quiet voice interrupted her. “Martha has still
to be disposed of.”
There was anger, but there was fear also in Anita Bellini’s grimace.
“Martha? What do you mean--Martha?” she asked sharply. “I have not
seen her for years.”
Leslie smiled.
“I saw her two days ago, so I have the advantage of you,” she said.
They waited only long enough for Leslie to gather a change of dress
and a coat for the prisoner, and thereafter Anita Bellini went out of
her life forever, except for the day when Leslie stood in the witness
box and testified against the monocled prisoner, who did not look at
her but sat staring straight ahead at the scarlet-robed judge.
Before she collected the clothes, she went in search of Elizabeth, and
found her weeping in her bed in the little dressing room, and
persuaded her to dress. By the time the princess was out of the house
and on her way to Wimbledon police station, the child was arrayed in
her rags. Leslie stood in the doorway looking at her, and she was very
near to tears.
“Elizabeth, do you remember how you used to pretend you had all sorts
of nice fathers?”
The child nodded and smiled.
“Well, I’m going to introduce you to a real one.”
“A real father?” asked the girl breathlessly. “My father?”
“And you’ll never guess who he is.”
Suddenly the child was clinging to her, her arms locked about her
neck. Thus Peter found them, weeping together.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AND A MOTHER
It was not often that Mrs. Donald Dawlish made a call at any hour of
the day. The appearance in Berkeley Square of her big car at eleven
o’clock at night was something of an event.
“Mrs. Dawlish?” said Jane in wonder, when the footman came to her with
the news. She had not seen the woman for two years. Indeed, Mrs.
Dawlish’s attitude of late had been frankly antagonistic. “Ask her to
come up, please.”
The woman strode into the room, patting her mop of untidy white hair
into place. She wore the black which suited her better than any more
vivid shade, and on her bosom blazed a diamond star which was just a
little too large to be altogether ornamental.
“I suppose you’re surprised at my coming at this hour?” She dropped
her shawl on the settee, and, walking to the fire, held out her hands
to the blaze.
“I am a little,” said Jane, wondering what was coming next. Nothing
short of a catastrophe could have brought Peter’s mother in such
circumstances.
“I’ve been a good friend of yours, Jane, in the past,” she began, and
her look asked for confirmation; but Jane was silent. “There’s
trouble, bad trouble, over that will of the old man’s,” she went on.
“I’ve had a letter from his lawyer to-night, asking me to give them
all sorts of information that I am not prepared to give. The will was
proved six weeks ago. They can do nothing now, but they nag and nag
and I’m getting tired of it all. They may be acting for Peter, but I
doubt it. But Peter can stop this persecution.”
It was the first news that Jane Raytham had had of any trouble in
connection with the will, but the request was one which she could not
pass unchallenged.
“I know nothing about the matter,” she said. “Peter of course must do
as he wishes. I have no influence there.”
“You have a big influence,” said Mrs. Dawlish emphatically. “Peter has
found out about the child: I suppose you know that?”
Jane nodded.
“The man is crazy to find it, and he----”
She met the gray eyes and stopped.
“I am crazy to find it, too,” said Jane Raytham in a low voice.
“Are you?” Mrs. Dawlish was honestly surprised. “I didn’t think you
were that kind--to worry about--things. Well, that’s all the better
from my point of view. I can give you the child. You can tell Peter
that I’ll give you the child and make him a handsome allowance if he
will stop his lawyers from worrying me.”
“You can give me the child? You know where he is?” Jane’s voice shook.
“Well--yes, I do. It wasn’t a boy, Jane.”
Jane Raytham shrank back as if she had been struck.
“Not a boy? A girl? And you promised me----”
“There’s no sense in talking about promises, or what happened eight
years ago,” said Margaret Dawlish coldly, “I’m talking about the
present. Yes, it was a girl. Druze took her to an old servant of
mine--Martha’s servant!”
Jane could only stare at her, speechless with amazement.
“You--you’re Martha?”
Mrs. Dawlish nodded.
“Martha Druze?”
“Martha Dawlish. I am entitled to that name; not even Peter can take
it from me. I married old Dawlish a fortnight after his wife died in
childbirth. Anita bullied him into it, if you want to know the truth.
She would have married him herself, but Bellini was alive. I was her
favourite sister and she always wanted me to make a good marriage. I
don’t know what she had been to my husband and I don’t very much care,
but she was an attractive woman in those days, before she let herself
go; at any rate she had enough influence to make him marry me.”
Jane passed her hands before her eyes, as though she were trying to
sweep away the mist which still obscured a clear view.
“You’re Martha?” she said again. “Of course, I knew you were a nurse.
Then Peter----”
“No, Peter isn’t my son, if that is what you’re going to say. I
insisted that he shouldn’t be told. I felt it would weaken my position
and authority. Mr. Dawlish was rather an easy-going man and he agreed.
If Peter had had the brains of a gnat he wouldn’t have needed telling.
He had only to see the registration of his birth and compare it with
my marriage certificate to know as much as you know now. Jane, will
you help me with him? I don’t care how large the allowance I make him
is----”
Jane shook her head helplessly.
“I don’t know what I can do. I can’t think very clearly, only--I want
the child--my girl.”
The hard face of Mrs. Dawlish creased in a rare smile.
“Is there nobody else who wants her?” she asked significantly. “Has
Peter no rights? You haven’t thought of that, I suppose?”
“I have thought of it,” said Jane in a low voice. “But I know Peter.
And whether I or he have her, she will be free to us both. We’re going
very swiftly down the slope, and the slope is getting steeper and
Heaven knows where we shall land at the bottom. I’ve been just as
wicked as a woman can be. I’m a bigamist--don’t interrupt me,
please--I’m a bigamist and my husband must know. I don’t think it will
worry him as much as it worries me, and in a way he’ll be rather glad
to get rid of me. But I can face all that if I have my baby! I’ll do
what I can,” she went on quickly, recovering the lost balance, “if it
doesn’t hurt Peter. I’ve hurt him enough. He is too good a man to be
wounded any further. I cannot see him to-night; I will write to him
and ask if I may see him to-morrow, and then----”
The door was opening slowly and a man came in whose head was bandaged.
At first she did not recognize him, and then:
“Why--why, Peter!” she faltered.
He was leading by the hand a little girl in a worn, stained ulster.
The golden head was hatless. Jane Raytham looked down into that
beautiful child face, saw the clear eyes looking at her wonderingly,
solemnly, and put up her hand to her throat, hardly daring to speak.
She opened her lips; no sound came. She made yet another effort.
“Who is this, Peter?”
It was not like her own voice.
“This is Elizabeth,” said Peter gently. “Elizabeth”--he stooped and
looked into the child’s face--“Elizabeth, this is your mother!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
THESE WOMEN
“I’m sorry to have brought you down to this very unpretentious
little flat of mine,” said Leslie, “but I have discovered in myself
some of the qualities of a showman, and really and truly, most of the
documents and proofs I have are here.”
And then she laughed, rocking from side to side in her chair.
“What is the joke?” asked Coldwell suspiciously.
“You look so like Christy minstrels, all sitting round in a circle
with your hands on your knees, and it’s three o’clock in the morning,
and--there are a dozen reasons why I should laugh. I’ll begin at the
beginning; shall I?
“I suppose everybody knows how I worked up an interest in this case,
through finding a book of poems in a little Cumberland farmhouse, and
how I put two and several together, made them four, guessed them six,
and finally proved their real quantity beyond doubt.
“There was a family living in Devonshire named Druze.”