CHAPTER XII.

THE FACE IN THE GLASS.

From Harley Street, Cavendish Square, to Ormond Square, Bayswater, is but a short distance as the crow flies, but it was enough to transform the John Pomeroy of one place into the Gerald Warburton of the other. And such transformations were very frequent with Gerald just at this time. Now that he had learned to love Ambrose Murray's daughter, Ambrose Murray himself had acquired a fresh interest in his eyes, and he very rarely let more than two days pass over without finding himself in Miss Bellamy's sitting-room. From Miss Bellamy he had but one secret--his love for Eleanor. Everything else he told her: but to Ambrose Murray nothing was told. Murray had not the slightest idea that his daughter was in London; and so incurious was he respecting her, that he never even asked the name of the friends with whom she was living; and yet it was impossible to doubt that in his strangely constituted heart he loved her passionately. He still adhered to his first determination--not to see her, nor even to let her become aware of his existence, till he could stand before her, a man whose innocence the world was now as eager to proclaim as it had been before to swear that he was guilty.

Miss Bellamy felt it as a great deprivation that she could not go to see Eleanor, whom she had known and loved from infancy. But had she done so, Eleanor would have certainly been seen in Ormond Square before many hours were over--and then, what a meeting might there not have been! It was requisite that Eleanor should believe that Miss Bellamy had gone abroad for a short time, and the latter lady went out less frequently than she would otherwise have done, so great was her dread of unexpectedly encountering Miss Lloyd in the street.

"What are we to do now that we have found Jacoby?" said Gerald to Murray the day after their expedition into the City.

"That is just what I want you to tell me," was Murray's complacent rejoinder, as he took one of Gerald's hands between his thin palms and patted it gently. "Your knowledge of the world will enable you to say what the next step ought to be."

"I am afraid that my knowledge of the world, as you call it, is altogether at fault in this instance," said Gerald, with a dubious shake of the head. "To find a man, even in the great wilderness of London, is an altogether different thing from working up a chain of evidence strong enough to convict him of a crime committed twenty years ago.

"But don't you see, Gerald," argued Murray, in his quietly earnest way, "that the very fact of our having found this man constitutes the first link in the chain? All the proofs in the world would have availed us nothing had we not been able to find him. But now that we have got the first link complete, you may depend upon it that the forging of the second will follow in due course."

He spoke with an air of such thorough conviction, that for a moment or two Gerald hardly knew how to answer him.

"I am certainly at a nonplus," he said at last. "I was never more in the dark in my life. Have you any objection to my consulting Byrne?"

"No objection in the world. Consult anybody and everybody, as may seem best to you."

"Should I find it necessary to do so, have I your permission to tell him everything?"

"You have: my full permission."

"Mind you, I don't build any hopes on my interview with Byrne. I don't see how he can possibly help us; but still I will consult him."

"And out of that consultation the forging of the second link will be accomplished," said Murray. Again Gerald shook his head. Slightly exasperating to him was Murray's air of thorough conviction, unbacked as it was by the least fragment of proof, or even the vaguest suggestions as to either how or where such proof might be forthcoming.

Two days later, having an afternoon to spare, Gerald chartered a hansom for Amelia Terrace, Battersea, and picked up Ambrose Murray by the way. He had seen enough of Byrne to make him believe that he was a man who might be thoroughly trusted, and he had made up his mind to lay the case before him in its entirety. He left the cab with his companion in it at the corner of the terrace, and three minutes later he was closeted with Mr. Byrne.

That gentleman was smoking his long-stemmed pipe with the china bowl. He squeezed Gerald's outstretched hand, and greeted him with one of his expansive smiles, which came and went as suddenly as though produced by a clock-work movement inside his head.

"That was a neat stroke of business that we did the other night, sir, though it is I who say it," remarked Mr. Byrne.

"Yes; you managed it very cleverly, and it is on that very subject that I have come to see you again."

"I am yours to command, Mr. Warburton."

"If I recollect rightly, when I saw you before, you gave me to understand that you were in Court on the day that Ambrose Murray took his trial for the murder of Paul Stilling?"

"I was in Court at the time, and I retain a very clear recollection of the different features of the case."

"Can you tell me what impression you formed at the time as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner?"

"Now you put a very difficult question to me. Anyone who has seen much of criminal trials will tell you what an exceedingly unsafe thing it is to form an opinion from a prisoner's demeanour as to his guilt or otherwise."

"Never mind the prisoner's demeanour in this case. I simply want to know what your own impression was, as a result of what you saw and heard at the trial."

"Well, the weight of evidence, as no doubt you are aware, was dead against the prisoner, and that very fact will, as a rule, go a long way in the formation of a person's opinion. Still, in spite of that, at the time it was my impression that, whoever else it might have been, Murray was not the murderer."

"I am glad to hear you say that," said Gerald, heartily. "Because, after being shut up for twenty years, Murray has escaped from prison."

"Phew! That's good news, Mr. Warburton, very good news! I never could see my way to believe that man guilty."

"That man it was, and no other, who made the third in our little party the other night."

The china pipe had never been so near being broken as it was at that moment. It slipped from Byrne's nerveless fingers, and only the hearthrug saved it. This brought back his presence of mind.

"In telling you this," said Gerald, "you will understand at once the amount of confidence which I am placing in your discretion."

"Not undeservedly, Mr. Warburton--of that you may rest fully assured!" said Byrne, warmly. "I feel honoured by your confidence in this matter, sir: and if I can be of any further assistance either to you or Mr. Murray, my services are entirely at your command."

"That is just the point to which I am coming," said Gerald. "We do want your further assistance. It is for that very purpose I am here to see you to-day: it is for that very purpose Mr. Murray himself has come to see you."

"Mr. Murray here--to see me!"

"He is waiting in a cab at the corner of the street. I will go and fetch him."

Presently Ambrose Murray entered, ushered in by Gerald. Byrne regarded him with mingled feelings of respect, curiosity, and pity. It was characteristic of the man that during the few minutes of Gerald's absence he had found time to put on a better coat, and also, if the whole truth must be confessed, to impart the very slightest extra suspicion of rouge to his cheeks. The pipe was not again visible during the interview.

Gerald introduced Mr. Murray in his real name to Byrne, who had hardly spoken half a dozen words to him at their previous meeting.

"I am proud to see you, sir, under my humble roof," said Byrne, "and I should have been proud to have entertained you during my days of prosperity. But that was not to be," he added, with a melancholy shake of the head.

"And now to business," said Gerald. "Mr. Murray is firmly convinced that Max Jacoby was the murderer of Paul Stilling."

"Aye, aye!" interjected Byrne.

"As a matter of course, the great desire of his life is to prove his innocence of the terrible crime of which in the eye of the law he is still adjudged to be guilty. He can only do this by bringing home the guilt to the real murderer. Assuming Mr. Murray's view of the case to be the correct one, the question is, by what means is Jacoby's guilt to be brought home to him?"

"And that is the problem you have come to me to help you to solve?" said Byrne.

Murray answered by a grave inclination of the head.

"I don't know that I ever had such a poser put to me before," said Byrne.

"It is the very difficulty of the problem that has induced me to seek your services," said Gerald.

"I must put on my considering-cap," said Byrne. "I must sand-paper my brains."

He was silent for a little while. Then he said, "I see no light at present--not the faintest gleam. You must let me have time to think about it--to smoke over it. My old pipe has made many a difficulty clear for me; perhaps it may help me in this one."

"Take your own time, Mr. Byrne," said Murray. "When the light you seek is ready to come to you, it will come."

"Yes; but I don't know where to look for it," said Byrne.

"It will come of its own accord."

Byrne shook his bead.

"Poor fellow! he's just a bit touched yet," he said to himself.

After a little more conversation, Gerald and Mr. Murray went. It was arranged that Byrne should write and let them know when he was ready to see them again.

It was about a week later when they all met again by appointment.

"Has the light come yet?" was Murray's first question.

"If it has, it is only a tiny ray indeed," said Byrne. "Something like that of a farthing rushlight, liable to be blown out by the first puff of wind."

"In such cases as the one before us," resumed Byrne, when they were all seated, "it often happens that several abortive-attempts have to be made before the proper channel for exploration is discovered. The plan which I am about to propose to you will, in all probability, prove an abortive one, and will result in some other effort in some other direction having ultimately to be made. The plan in question is, however, the only one I can think of at present which seems to possess the least degree of feasibility. Very few words will suffice to lay it before you."

Mr. Byrne here paused to refresh himself from his daughter's smelling-bottle, which stood on the chimney-piece. Then he resumed--

"In the course of my various reconnoitrings about the house of Max Jacoby, or rather Van Duren, as we ought now to call him, I discovered a card in one of the windows, on which were the words, 'Unfurnished Apartments to let.' From what I can make out, Van Duren occupies no more of the house than the basement and ground-floor, the two upper floors being empty and to let, and having a private side-entrance of their own. Now, what I propose is, that I and my daughter shall go and take these empty apartments. Mr. Warburton here shall be my son for the time being. In that capacity he will be able to call upon me as often as he may think well to do so. By these means I shall become an inmate of Van Duren's house--he and I will be under one roof. Should there be anything to discover, I shall thus be more likely to discover it; should any clue develop itself by means of which this man's crime may be traced home to him, I shall be on the spot to follow it up. In any case, to get near the man seems the first thing to do; away from him we can do little or nothing."

"I think your idea a most admirable one," said Murray. "As you say, the first thing to do is to get near the man."

"Will it be essential that you should take your daughter into your confidence?" asked Gerald. "Will it be requisite that you should explain to her your reasons for taking up your residence in Van Duren's house?"

"I have no secrets from Miriam," answered Byrne. "But you need be under no apprehensions on that score. Miriam can keep a secret as well as I can; she is no commonplace, talkative school-girl. Besides which, her presence and co-operation are essential to the scheme I have in view. Without her, it would be impossible for me to carry it out. What this scheme is in all its details, you will excuse me from explaining to you now. I have told you what the first step is to be. With your permission, and if you can place full confidence in me, we will leave the remaining steps to develop themselves in the natural course of events."

"You have our fullest confidence, Mr. Byrne," said Murray. "We leave you to conduct the case entirely in the way that may seem best to you."

Gerald, unperceived by Mr. Murray, passed a slip of paper into Byrne's hand, on which was pencilled these words--

"Say nothing to Mr. M. about money matters. I will call to-morrow and arrange with you."

Murray and Gerald walked home together arm-in-arm. The former was in unusually high spirits.

"Did I not tell you, Gerald, that a way would be found out of the difficulty before long?"

"We are not out of the wood yet, sir," said Gerald, drily.

"Certainly not; but we have got a glimpse of daylight. But I cannot hope that you will see with my eyes; I cannot hope that the faith that burns within me will more than faintly warm you."

Gerald walked with Murray as far as the corner of Ormond Square, and then stopped the first empty cab that passed him, and hurried back to Harley Street.

Murray did not go straight home, but wandered back to a favourite second-hand book-stall, where he was well known. His purchases, it is true, were never of a very extensive character, being always confined to the threepenny, or, at the most, to the sixpenny box. But he was a frequent visitor at the stall, and he always made a point of turning over the entire contents of the box before making up his mind which particular treasure he would ultimately choose for his own. On the present occasion, after half an hour's diligent search, he decided on the extravagance of a double purchase. He bought "Althazar," an Arabian romance, for which he paid sixpence; and a "Treatise on Conic Sections," for which he paid threepence. This done, he walked quietly home, hugging his treasures under his arm, and promising himself a good long read that very evening, in either one volume or the other--it did not matter in the least which.

Mr. Murray's small stock of books, all selected from the same receptacle as his present purchases, was indeed a somewhat multifarious one. Nothing modern, nothing frivolous, was to be found there. They were all books that had seen service in their time, and the authors of which were not only dead, but forgotten. "Musings in a Churchyard," and "Travels in Africa in 1755," jostled each other on the same shelf. "A Treatise on the Steam Engine" had heaped a-top of it, as though there were some danger of an explosion, "An Essay on the Measurements and Construction of the Great Pyramid," and a thin volume of elegiac verse "by Mary M.," whoever she may have been.

It was characteristic of Mr. Murray that he seemed to like any one of these books as well as another. From each and all of them he seemed to derive either amusement or information, or perhaps both. And then he was one of those rare readers who will read the same book contentedly five or six times over. If he happened to be wakeful in the night, he would light his candle and pick up the treatise on Steam Engines, if that happened to come first to his hand, and read himself quietly to sleep again over matter that he had probably, perused attentively only some three or four days before.

He had not been at home more than five minutes to-day, when he heard a clatter of little feet on the stairs, and then came a knocking at his door, followed by a request that "Uncle Greaves" would go down into the garden and turn Alice's skipping-rope. So down he went, and turned the skipping-rope dutifully for half an hour. Then came a whisper from Frank, who was on thorns to know how the big kite was getting on, that Uncle Greaves had promised to make for him. It was getting on famously, he was told. "And will it really be as big as me?" asked Frank, eagerly. "Bigger--ever so much bigger," was the blissful answer. Then, with a troubled face, up came little Will. His waggon and horses had somehow come to grief; would Uncle Greaves try to mend them? Uncle Greaves would try to mend them, and would not only do that, but would give Dobbin a new coat of paint, and make an altogether superior animal of him.

When the afternoon grew dusk and chilly, and tea-time was at hand, the children would not let their darling uncle go till they had kissed him all round; and little blue-eyed Kitty, out of sheer love, slipped her old sawdust doll into his tail-pocket, and so made him a present of her dearest worldly possession.

"Take that card out of the window," said Mr. Van Duren, a few afternoons later, to his clerk, Pringle.

"Rooms let at last?" asked Pringle.

"Yes, at last."

"To ancient deaf old party and young lady, I suppose," muttered Pringle to himself, as he removed the card from the window. "Make this dead-alive hole a bit more lively, maybe. It needs it bad enough."

A strange thing happened to Max Van Duren that night. It was nearly midnight when he let himself in with his latch-key. His housekeeper had gone to bed long ago, and all was dark and silent. He lighted his bed-candle, and tramped slowly upstairs to his own room. He had put his candle on the dressing-table, and was proceeding to divest himself of his cravat, when, happening to glance into the large oval glass in front of which he was standing, he was startled to see there the reflection of another face beside his own. It was peering over his shoulder, and its eyes met his in the glass. Black and full of menace, or it might be of warning, were those eyes; and but for them, the face, with its thin line of black moustache, would have looked like that of a corpse, so death-like was its pallor.

Involuntarily Van Duren wheeled quickly round; but he was alone in the room. Involuntarily his eyes travelled back to the glass; but there was only the reflection of his own white face to be seen there now. He staggered back, and sat down in the nearest chair. But he was a man of very powerful nerve, and it did not take him long to recover himself. Presently he rose and crossed the room to a little cupboard. From this he drew a bottle of some cordial, out of which he poured a few drops into some water, and then drank the mixture.

There was a writing-table near the fire--when he was restless of a night, and could not sleep, he would often get up and work for an hour or two. At this table he now sat down, and drawing from a secret drawer a book of private memoranda, he proceeded to make the following entry in it, having first written down the day, month, and year of the occurrence:--

"At five minutes before twelve to-night I saw once again, and for the fourth time in my life, the Face in the Glass. It is some years since I saw it last, and I had begun to flatter myself that I should never see it again. Never have I seen it except as an omen of ill to follow. The first time it appeared to me was a few hours before I set foot on board the cursed 'Albatross.' The second time was the night before Katrinka tried to poison me, and all but succeeded. The third time was just before I heard the news of the great smash at Amsterdam, by which I lost half my fortune. Always as a presage of quick-following misfortune has that face appeared to me. And always his face! I shall dream of this for a month to come, and wake up every night shivering with horror. But what is the misfortune that is about to overtake me now? Vain question! Never did the horizon look fairer to me than it does at the present moment. Not the faintest cloud or sign of tempest anywhere visible. And yet, that something is about to happen--that some great crisis of my life is near at hand--I feel but too well assured. If only I knew where to look--if only I knew what to expect! But I am like a man who is condemned to fight a phantom in the dark.

"To-day I let my empty rooms to a deaf old gentleman and his daughter. What a bewitching creature the daughter is! Were I only twenty years younger, I know not into what folly I might be led by the sorcery of a face like hers."

END OF VOL. I.

______________________________________________ BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.