CHAPTER IV
THE BOARDING-HOUSE AND BOARDERS
MRS. DELFOSSE had “seen better days.” How it is that the profession of boarding-house keeping is for ever associated with a vista of past splendours history recordeth not. Other people hide past grandeur in the oblivion of silence, or shroud their social degeneracy even from their nearest friends. But the boarding-house keeper trumpets her past Arabian opulence from every vantage place her limited surroundings afford.
The house occupied by Mrs. Delfosse was one of a terrace. Not a mean lath-and-plaster, run-up-while-you-wait structure, but a fine substantial building that had, of course, ruined the innocent contractor who erected it. This house itself had, according to Mrs. Delfosse, been the scene of her former life of luxurious ease, in fact, until that fatal date when the late Captain Delfosse sailed on his last trip to America. There were some brutes who inwardly congratulated the luck of the Captain in never coming back, but the lady was inconsolable.
As usual in such cases, in the course of time she advertised for a few select boarders. What “select” meant was never explained, except it might mean that the tariff and accommodation were above the average.
There were five boarders—two city men on the first floor, Mr. and Mrs. Booth on the second floor back, and Professor Norris (an old friend of Mrs. Booth) on the second floor front.
The Booths, by the way, were only counted as temporary lodgers, as they had a fine house of their own in course of erection at Neutral Bay, and were merely waiting its completion to move.
When P.-C. Hobbs came on duty in plain clothes and relieved his brother officer on watch in front of Mrs. Delfosse’s boarding-house, he was just in time to overhear that lady recounting her griefs to a little gentleman whose outward egress she barred with her ample form in the front doorway.
“What shall I do, doctor? I am ruined, entirely ruined! To think of people coming and getting murdered in a house of mine, and me been here these fifteen years! It’s not as though they were permanents! And I who have always been so respected! Oh, little did my poor dear captain think I should ever come to this? The first floors have gone, and two better boarders no one could wish for; not paltry city clerks, but merchants, real merchants, and paid like the bank. And they left at once, never thinking of me. No one thinks of me. No one has a thought for a poor widow, left without resources. I call it shameful. There ought to be a law to prevent it. And who do you think will come and take rooms in a house where a man has been murdered? If it was only a suicide now, it would not be so bad. I have known persons in the best of families make away with themselves. But I’m ruined, ruined! I shall come to starve on the streets, I’m sure!”
The little doctor, who was fidgeting to get away, here interposed—
“Why not leave this house and take another?”
“I have thought of that; but look at the expense, and how would I get other rooms to fit the carpets, and stairs to suit the matting, let alone all the blinds and rollers? Now, just look at that oilcloth—”
As Mrs. Delfosse turned to point out the article mentioned, the doctor saw an opening, darted through, and was yards up the street before the lady could draw breath.
“Just like all the others. All for self; all for his own business. Not a thought for me. No one thinks of me.”
During this time, in the sitting-room of the same house, another interview was taking place. A middle-aged gentleman, with a strong resemblance to Shakespeare, in a nineteenth century coat and trousers, and long waving hair, was seated. This was Professor Norris. Why “Professor,” was never very clear, except it might be the long hair.
A young woman, tall, well-shaped, if you exclude her pinched-in waist, a complexion of strawberries and cream, blue eyes to match her fair hair, a nose of no particular merit, lips blood red, and a set of white teeth—if they were all real—as perfect and regular as the artificial article. There was the general plumpness and freshness about this young lady that the French term Beauty de Diable, and a sparkle in her eyes at times that would set on fire, not chips, as other sparks do, but masculine hearts.
This was Mrs. Booth—Bertha Booth.
She was raging up and down the room, her eyes red with crying, and she moaned and sobbed as she walked—
“I wish I were dead! I do. Oh, Alec; poor, dear Alec. It is horrible! horrible! I know I shall go mad. If I sit still even for a minute, I can feel the cold thing touching me again. Oh, why did I get married? We were very happy before, Professor! Or why did I not marry you, as you wanted me to? I am sure no one would have wanted to kill you. And the way he looked! I’m sure I shall never forget the face—it haunts me. And we had a few words yesterday, and we never had time even to make it up. And who did it—and how was it done? Tell me, Professor. I’m sure you must know—you know so many things. Don’t shake your head. I am certain you are keeping something back. But I will know! I ought to know! I’m his wife! And why am I not killed too? I wish I had been; it would have saved me hours of misery, for I shall die of it. I know I shall die of it.”
“Try to be calm, Bertha; be a brave woman. Time will heal all, reveal all; and remember that to-morrow there will be the inquest, and you will have to attend.”
“I can’t go. I’m not fit to go. It is too much. How can they expect me, who am nearly out of my mind with this horror, to go to their dreadful inquest?”
“But try and bear up, my dear. I will be with you. You will not be alone.”
“And I have no dress to wear,” Bertha murmured.
“No dress! Why you have heaps of dresses.”
“No black dress. But there, you are a man, or you would know at once I cannot go out in public till I have my weeds.”
“If that is the trouble, you can easily order all you want from Sydney.”
“But ready made! You know how I hate the shop costumes. You can always see what they are. Madame Beaumont shall make it; I really believe she is the only woman who can make a dress in Sydney. And she takes two days.”
“Really, my dear Bertha, you must be mad. Do you think they will adjourn the inquest two days for you to have a dress made?”
“I don’t care. They can kill me if they like. I wish I was dead.”
“I shall go to Farmer’s, and tell them to send over some costumes for you to choose.”
“I won’t look at them.”
He stood up to go. He had half crossed the room when she called him back softly—
“Pro?”—and she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. “Tell them I must have a waistcoat body.”
At this moment there was a knock on the door. Bertha hastily turned to a mirror to arrange her hair, before saying “Come in.”
The new arrival was a young man, well but loudly dressed, clean shaved, and well groomed. He entered quietly, respectfully.
“As an old friend, hearing the sad news, I called to see if I could be of any use in what must be a most trying time.”
“Oh, Huey, is that you? Sit down, sit down. I’m nearly mad. Thank you for calling. You can go, Pro, and mind you remember.”
The Professor nodded to the visitor and left the room.
“Is it true, Bertha—Mrs. Booth, I should say—all this I read in the evening paper?” said the visitor as he drew nearer to that lady on the door closing.
“What the papers say, I don’t know, but they cannot say what is more horrible, more dreadful, than the truth!”
And then Bertha, at great length, with interjected sobs and disjointed fragments of narrative, related the tragedy of the morning.
Huey, or, to give him his name in full, Hubert Gosper, listened sympathetically, wondering perhaps somewhat, how, after such a shock, she had power to bring her mind to even an inconsequential narrative.
“What do you think of it?” she asked him. “The Professor will say nothing, but look awfully wise, like a magpie on a fence. How was it done—how could it be done? Could Alec have done it himself? He never told me his affairs. Do you know if he was troubled about them? It’s the uncertainty that’s so dreadful. People that did not know us might even think I had something to do with it.”
“You will pardon me, I hope, what I am going to say, and do not jump at a conclusion at once. But I, who know you both, am inclined to think you had something to do with it.”
“What! I?”
“Now don’t take fright in that way. According to what you say, the room is only to be entered by the door, and you locked and bolted that; so there remains only two possibilities—either that Alec, by some unheard-of means, stabbed himself, or that you did the deed.”
“But that is monstrous!”
“Of course, but the point has to be considered. There is still another supposition. You might have opened the door to a third person, and afterwards reclosed it.”
“Why, that is as bad as the other!”
“In the ordinary way, yes. But it chanced that I have just been reading some experiments in hypnotism, by which strange results are sometimes obtained by one mind unconsciously over another. You, I believe, in former times were often mesmerized, and, it occurred to me at once, would readily yield to the evil desires, unknowingly, of some designing scoundrel. In such a case, I say again, you may have had something to do with your husband’s death.”
“But who could do such a thing? Besides, I know no designing scoundrel. Your guess is worse than nothing at all. It is foolishness.”
Nevertheless, the face of Mrs. Booth underwent a great change. She was evidently “put darkly in doubt,” and though she spoke in bold confidence, her companion clearly saw his shot had told.
“But what you say is unnatural—horrible! All the mesmerists or hypnotists in the world cannot make a wife kill her husband and not know it. And as for what is in the newspapers, they are made up of a pack of lies, and you ought to know it as well as anybody, for did you not use to work on one?”
“It may be so. I may be wrong. Only you wanted to know a possible way that this thing might have happened, and I gave the only explanation that occurred to me. Now tell me, what do you think?”
But poor Bertha could not tell. She had no theory. Her mind was off on a new chase, weaving all the possibilities out of this new idea which she had openly scorned. It was with almost a vacant air she bade Mr. Gosper good-bye, and as the door closed she sank down on the floor, moaning.
The cup of her affliction was running over.
“The scoundrel! Yet he would not dare. It cannot be true! Old Pro! I can never believe it! And yet—and yet!”
* * * * *
As Mr. Gosper was crossing Circular Quay on his return journey he met the Professor, who was coming back from his errand.
“Have a wine, old man?”
“Thank you, I seldom take anything, and I am anxious to be back to Bertha.”
“Oh, she’s first-rate—‘as well as can be expected,’ as the reports have it. Come along. It will cheer you up.”
With evident reluctance the Professor consented, and the two entered the private bar of the Paragon, Huey leading the way to a quiet corner, and with glasses before them, started the conversation.
“This affair looks bad, Professor.”
“How so?”
“I mean for our mutual friend, Mrs. Booth.”
“Yes; her husband’s death will be a sad loss to her.”
“Oh, that is not what I am thinking of. Husbands are plenty enough for a woman with her money and beauty. It’s her connection with the affair that troubles me.”
“In what way?”
“Why, don’t you see, man? The law will demand an explanation, and perhaps a victim, and the law that can only see as far as the end of its nose will reason, ‘Here is a room securely locked up with two persons in it. One of these persons is found dead by a wound not self-inflicted. Inference, the other person must have done it.’”
“Good God! You don’t think they will dare to accuse her?”
“Think! It is no thinking matter. Sydney is saying nothing else. On the ferry-boat, as elsewhere, they were talking of nothing but that, and the wonder was why Mrs. Booth was not already arrested.”
“But this is monstrous! You know it’s monstrous, Mr. Gosper. The very shock of such a charge might endanger Bertha’s reason, or even her life!”
“That may be true; but how will you prevent it? What is your own private opinion on the mystery? Surely you have formed one?”
“No, I have not. What you term the popular verdict is, of course, out of the question with me, who know her so well; but I have thought out no theory yet that will fit the case. I can recall no incident, in fact or fiction, of this description. Poe’s History of the Rue Morgue is the nearest in point I can call to mind. But then there was an open window.”
“That was the story of an ourang-outang climbing a waterspout to an open window and throwing one woman out, pushing the other up a chimney, and then escaping, was it not?”
“Yes; something of that kind. But even, as is sometimes maintained, if Fiction is only a prelude to Fact, the barred and fastened window in this case close that explanation.”
“Well, if you must go,” said Huey, for the Professor was rising, “remember to send for me at any time, if I can help either you or Mrs. Booth.”
Not admitting it even to himself, a dreadful fear had pricked the heart of the Professor. That Bertha could do such a deed was impossible, and yet women were strange creatures. Who could pretend to have sounded to the innermost depths of even one? And he would stake his life yes, his life—on her innocence. But even if it was so, and he braced his mind to face that awful contingency, he would not desert her. “A moment of passion—who is accountable for it? And, say what you will, that Alec was little better than a brute. It was in one sense a good riddance.” At all hazards he would stick to her, and, above all, if she was accused he would fight her battle. It is not the innocent who want friends; it is the guilty. And, guilty or innocent, he would stand by her.
So the thoughts chased through his mind as the ferry-boat crossed Sydney Harbour in the moonlight of a bright summer’s night. He did not heed the scene, familiar to him, of the grey indented shore, dotted with white house fronts and clothed with sombre foliage, or the jutting headlands, softening their dark outlines till in the distant background South Head was a soft grey that melted into the sky, and its turning light shone on the lapping water like a radiance. He did not heed the mirrored lights of Sydney Cove, or the small craft that, with half-drawn sail, drifted like shadows on the shining water. He did not heed the talk of the crowded boat, nor, passing M‘Mahon’s Point wharf, did he hear a scream, as from a distance, and a rush of eager feet to the stern of the vessel.