THIS WOMAN TO THIS MAN

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3163, 18 May 1931, Page 2

THIS WOMAN TO THIS MAN

By C. N. and A. M. WIILL.IAMSON. Author of "The Lightning Conductor," "The Car of Destiny," "The Golden Silence," "The Princess Passes," Etc.

CHAPTER IL A Dangerous Hour.

The two men did not come straight to Mary and "Mr. N. Smith," as the girl half-expected, but passed on, and sat down at the fourth table away; The place of one, who seemed the elder, was exactly opposite Mary's companion. The other seated himself at the end of the table, where he, too, could easily let his eyes travel over the dark, impassive face of Mr. Smith, without appearing to stare rudely. Mary could now see the pair only by slightly turning her head.

"What do you think they will do next?" , she murmured, crumbling her toast.

"I think they—or one of them —will come over here to ask a few questions. And perhaps the rest depends on you," came the quiet answer. "Are you ready?" "I'll do my best for us both," Mary promised impulsively. Immediately after, she wondered why she had not said, "I'll do my best for you." This was nothing to her, really—nothing to her future, for soon it would be all over, all decided one way or another, and the man gone out of her life. Yet she could not help identifying her interests with his. In this danger, whatever it might be, they two .seemed to be united.

"They're looking at us. Now they're whispering together. Her companion gave Mary this news piecemeal, without appearing to be aware of the newcomers' existence. His attention was apparently concentrated on the girl. "Now, one of them has got up and is coming over. Courage!—l'm trusting all to you." "Mr. Michael Melikoff, I believe!" Mary heard a thick voice say, close to her shoulder. She looked up into the face of a man who might be a Russian Jew, though he spoke English like an Englishman, or perhaps rather more like an American. "I hope the lady will excuse me, but " "You're making a mistake," calmly broke in her companion. "My name is Nelson Smith. We have never met."

"Oh, really!" exclaimed the other. "You want to play a joke on me. Smith is a good name to choose. It gives you such a nice, large family."

"What does he mean, Nelson?" Mary heard herself asking. Then she frowned at the bearded face, and into the bright beads of eyes, fixing hers intently. "Smith is the name. I never heard that other."

Something like doubt or dismay changed the big man's expression. "I beg your pardon," he said, still staring. "I don't want to interrupt a pleasant little dinner-party if—but I don't think I can be mistaken. You tell me" —he spoke this time to the girl—"you tell me he is Mr. Smith; And you, madam, you say you are Mrs. Smith, bis wife?"

"I do say so," she answered steadily. "But I don't see what right you have to ask. We don't know you. My—husband doesn't know you." "I'm not sure yet. If he doesn't it'a a wonderfully strong resemblance. People have been arrested for less—in certain circumstances—and sent away to a country not so free as this."

"Look here, if you annoy me and my wife further, I shall be obliged to send for the manager, and you'll be turned out," said Nelson Smith. "You are offensive. But this is not the place for a scene."

"I do not wish to make one," said the other. "That is the reason I came over here to speak with you quietly. You know very well I can have you arrested any minute —If you are the man I believe you to be."

;, "But as I'm not, I don't know anything about it. Go away, and aslc the bead waiter, if you like, in whose name this table waß engaged—by my wife." "I have already asked. He told me 'Smith.' But anyone can engage a table in the name of Smith." "It seems to me, if I wanted a nom de guerre, I'd take one less obvious. Are you going, or must I ?" ."I'll go back to my table. But this is not the last of me, Mr. Nelson Smith. I am not a man easy to get rid of, when I have been wronged. Your 'double' has reason to know that."

"I think he must be mad!" said Mary. "Nelson, let us not take any more notice of him, but go on eating our dinner., Will you give me a piece of your toast? Mine's all gone."

The big man with the black beard shrugged his shoulders, and, after hesitating an instant, returned to the table where his friend—or brother—sat.

"You were splendid!" murmured Nelson Smith, or Michael Melikoif. "I can't thank you enough. If I had all my life to thank you in, instead of a few minutes, I couldn't do it. You had the exact air of a Mrs. Smith. Nobody could have believed you to be anything else."

They both laughed, and it seemed very strange that they could laugh. Yet Mary laughed again when he told her that she would have made a good actress; she, who had hardly ever been to the theatre!

She was glad and sorry at the same time when they had finished their dinner. "Shall we go?" she asked: but the man who was Smith, or Melikoff, said no. they would have coffee in the hall. There was time, still. He would oot make her late at home; but those

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men mustn't think they had frightened him away. Soon after "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" had gone to sit on the very sofa where a man had sat earlier, looking at Mary Greenleaf over a newspaper, the two bearded men followed. They also took coffee, and smoked very long, slender cigars. But before they had finished, Mr. N. Smith said, In a voice loud enough for them to hear, "Now I think we had better be going home." Five minutes later Mary, wrapped once more in her red cloak, was beint: helped into a taxi; and as her companion stepped in beside her, the followers were passing through the revolving door. Evidently they did not n«ind their object being not only sus pected, but actually known. "They'll keep close behind us," Mr. Smith said j "and not give me time to fool them J That is where you are going to save Ime again. There's no housi* In I,ondnn where I havs a right to enter as if ii belonged to me; but you are lending me a shelter." j For the first time Mary noticed thai he did not talk quite like an English man. The real Mr. Smith, from New York, who was her employer's friend had an accent rather like this. ! "If only Mrs. Ellsworth doesn't come out of her room!" Mary murmured, as the taxi rushed them nearer to Tor rington Square.

"If she does, will it make trouble for

you?" asked the man. "I don't know. And I don't care!" the girl answered, recklessly. It was glorious to be reckless. But she could never go back to being her old self, after to-night. "I care, a great deal. She must be a dreadful old woman, and you ought not to be at her mercy. But—Miss Greenleaf, I wonder if it matters at all to you that, we are soon to part? To me, it seems impossible. I don't want to let you go, because I know thai you are the best thing that has ever come into my life." "You —don't know me!" faltered Mary : "I believe I do know you, better than you have ever known yourself. Do I seem quite a stranger to you?" "No after what has happened.— after what we've gone through I can't feel that you're a stranger." "The fact is, we know little or no thing of each other's tastes. But wiknow something of each other's souls. If I tell you that I've never murdered anyone, or committed any unforgivable crime, will you believe me?" "If you told me you were a murderer, or had committed an unforgivable crime, I—don't think I could believe you," the girl stammered out. "I —it would hurt me very much, somehow, to believe evil of you." "I should like," said the man, "to take your hand when I thank you for saying that. But I won't, because you're alone with me, and to do me good you have put yourself in my power. I'd rather die than abuse it. And if I were more evil than I am, 1 should want to be good, to deserve your faith. Even wanting to be good Is part of the great battle, isn't it? And I don't call myself a bad man. ! and my people have been greatly injured. I have tried to pay back the injury. That's the worst of me, 1 swear it"

"You hardly need to tell me that," Mary almost whispered. "I had to tell you, because of a question I'm going to ask. Do you think there can be such a thing as love at first sight?" "I don't know. Books say so. Perhaps " . "There's no perhaps. And if no book had ever said so, it would be true. I've learned that it's true, to-night. I've seen the one woman in the world for me —my helpmate. Will you marry me, if I come out of to-night's danger, and can ask a woman to take her place at my side?" "Oh, you are saying this because you think you have to be grateful!" cried Mary. "But I don't want gratitude. 1 don't even deserve it. This is the first time I've ever lived. I owe that to you. And It's more than you can pos sibly owe to me." "You know little indeed about men. if you think I'm of the type who would tie himself to a woman for gratitude's sake. I love you." "How wonderful!" the girl whispered. "A man like you! And I " "'A man like me?' What am I !*ke?" "You seem to me —brave—and —and more interesting than anyone—l ever saw." "Then, do you want to part with me for ever, after you've sheltered me for a little while from danger, and send me away, bidding me God speed?" "No! And yet " "You might have consented to marry that other man who called himself Smith, if you had met him, and hadn't found him loathsome." "I thought I might. Now I see that I never could." "Why?" "Because—he wasn't you." Forgetting his resolution, he caught her hands, and kissed them. "If I am free to ssk you—if I escape—will you let me berr you again to be my wife?" "If I can escape, to hear you. It seems—too marvellous ever to come true. You don't know what Mrs, Ellsworth is." "St. George rescued the Princess

from the dragon. I'm no saint, but I'll rescue you from Mrs. Ellsworth. Trust me a little! My real name is " The taxi stopped. The chauffeur had drawn up at the pavement in front of 22a, Torrington Square. Sure that another was not far behind, Mary's heart leaped. She forgot that her companion was leaving an important communication about himself unfinished. And after all, what did the name matter? He opened the cab door, and jumped out. As she put her hand into his to descend, the latch-key Mrs. Ellsworth had lent her was in it. "Take this," she whispered hastily. "If they are watching, it will be better for you than for me, to have the key." Her companion paid the chauffeur generously, and got a loud, cheerful Thank you, sir!" which perhaps reached the ears of another chauffeur who was stopping his taxi before a uouse not far away. Mary walked slowly across the pavement, mounted he doorstep, and waited.- Without seeming to look, she saw that no one sot out of the second taxi. It was easy to guess who was inside. It did not .natter to the men, evidently, that their presence was known. They wished to see whether the alleged Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith had the key of a house'loor in Torrington Square, and were able to go in without hesitation, as if they were indeed at home. since tnis was doubtless their design in following so closely upon the luarry's tracks, they must have been iisappointed at the business-like promptness with which the latch-key was inserted in the lock, and the calm air of doing an everyday thing with which the young woman and young man walked into number 22a. The door was closed behind the two figures, and presently the windows of Jie front room on the ground floor turned rose-color, with light which filtered through crimson curtains. This was a touch of extra realism, that occurred to Mary at the last moment It was an exra risk, also; but the >iouse was quiet within. The click of the latchkey, the slight, unpreventable noise of opening and shutting the front loor had fortunately brought forth no Iressing-gowned form, and Mary thought it worth while to impress the watchers still further with the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith were thoroughly at home. Still, she understood very well that the ordeal was not yp»t >ver. The watchers would certainly wait for some time, to see whether ifter all they were not being cleverly r ricked. It would not be safe for the man who must be saved, to leave the uouse in less than half an hour. By that time the enemy might be discouraged, and go away. But even then, she must let him out by the basement door, so that, cautiously peeping forth from the shelter of the area, he might attempt to make sure that the street was deserted.

It seemed ages since Mary had last seen Mrs. Ellsworth's old-fashioned <lrawing-room, lit with gas. It might almost have been a memory of a former, lost existence, so cempletely had the girl and her view or life altered.

A few hours —or was it dim years? —ago, she had come into this room before starting out for her great adventure. It was her duty to ask her employer if she were comfortable and jiad everything she wanted; if there were any little commission, such as posting a letter, or buying stamps, or stopping at a chemist's, which she Mary—could execute on the way to her dinner-party." Mrs. Ellsworth had been sitting by a hot fire, stodging her cuind by reading a very silly novel, and destroying her appetite by nibbling chocolates. The air was heavy *nd devoid of oxygen. No wonder Mrs. Ellsworth's temper was always ready to flare up at the tiniest spark! Strange to say, the fat woman in black (she had nagged her husband to death, and worn mourning for him for twenty years) could think of nothing she wished her companion to do; but it took her a quarter of an hour to decide, and Mary i*ad been in fear of arriving late at the Savoy. While she waited for Mrs. Ellsworth to rake '.hrough the rubbish heaps of her brain to find an excuse for some errand, it had seemed to Mary that the red room with its mid-Victorian furniture and crimson rep upholstery, its ugly portraits and meaningless oil-painted landscapes, its inane bric-a-brac, and it 3 photograph-laden piano (never tuned) must be the most revolting drawing-room in all London. But when, at a quarter to eleven, she and »er lover —yes, he was that—stood iiand-in-hand under the sprawling gilt chandelier, the girl marvelled that she could ever have thought the room even commonplace. Now, the rose-light of hope and love illumined it, and made it beautiful. The grey volume of her old life was closed for ever. Whether the tuture were to bring joy or sorrow, it could never again be dull. The two spoke together in whispers, lest after all Mrs. Ellsworth should be awake, and from her distance catch the sound of voices in the house. Though she was sixty years old, her bearing was of an unnatural sharpness. The servants sometimes said that "the missus could hear you thinking." "There's one more thing I might do to help," said Mary. "It's just occurred to me. Above this is the room which used to be the drawing-room before Mrs. Ellsworth's rheumatism grew so bad that she began to hate going up and down stairs. Now, it's the spare bedroom. Mr. Ruthven Smith, of New York, sleeps there when he comes to visit. What if I should go softly up and light the gas, so that those two hateful wretches outside could see the red glow in the windows? Then they would suppose " She stopped, and carnation stained her cheeks. "They would suppose that Mr. and Mrs. Smith had gone to their room,"

the man finished, love and gratitude in the look he fixed upon Mary's flushed face. "You*re wonderful! You think of everything. Do you know, your trust, your faith, are the most beautiful things that ever happened to me? You call those men who want to trap me 'hateful wretches,' Yet you can't know that I am not the wretch, they the innocent, injured ones. For all you can tell, I may be a thief. This may have been my way of getting into a rich woman's house to steal her silver and jewels and money, and even take her life, if necessary." Mary shivered. "Don't!" she implored. "I can't bear to have you say such things even in joke. A girl feels when a man can be trusted, I think. She doesn't have to know, in any other way than through her instinct." "You are the kind of woman who has the power to turn Lucifer back from devil into archangel!" he exclaimed. "I'm almost afraid of you, you white saint, I am so unworthy. But if you'll give yourself' to me, I'll do my best, at least, to make you happy. You shall have love and worship. And who knows what, in the end, you will make of me?" "Hark!" Mary whispered, sharply. "I heard a sound —didn't you?" "Yes," he answered, "it's like a door creaking somewhere."

"Mrs Ellsworth's bedroom . door creaks. What shall we do? You must go up to that front room—quick! You'll get to the stairs before Mrs. Ellsworth can hobble as far as the swing-door. Take these matches. But if you can grope your way in the dark, don't light one if you can help it, till you are in the room. I'll come to you when she's safe in bed again, and let you out, as we planned." As she whispered on, she had turned down the lights to mere sparks, and the man, noiselessly opening the door, was ready to slip out. In another instant he was in the corridor, which, though unlighted, was never in pitchblackness, because of the large oldfashioned crescent of glass above the front door. Through its triangularshaped panes filtered some faint glimmerings from a street lamp; and Mary was reasonably confident that the fugitive could i find the stairs without stumbling. Nevertheless, her heart knocked like a hammer against her side. What if Mrs. Ellsworth had been quicker than seemed possible, in coming from her rooms at the back of the house, shut oif from the front corridor onAy by a swing-door of red baize? W.iat if she should catch sight of a man's shadowy form stealing upstairs? Would she believe Mary's assurance that her fancy must have played her a trick, or would she insist on routing Corlett, the butler, out of bed, and searching the house? In an instant the girl would know. If Mrs. Ellsworth thought that she saw anything move, she would shriek. But no cry came. Mary breathed a sigh of relief, though the hammer still pounded in her side. It seemed that her heart could never beat quietly again, or her breath come except in little panting gasps. She was trembling in every nerve, yet she looked a serene figure of girlhood as she stood under the chandelier whose turneddown lights haloed her brown hair with* a dim nimbus, as of tarnished gold. Slowly she unbuttoned one of fhp Inns:, pparl-groy glnves. which had been cleaned more times than she could remember. She forced herself to seem so entirely absorbed in this occupation, that anything irrelevant, such as the sound of an opening or shutting door, could not have rouaed her attention. He had said that she "would have made a good actress." Now she must show herself that he was right. She stood half turned away from the door, which the fugitive, in escaping, had purposely left ajar. Yet she knew without looking up, when a hand pushed it from outside, and when a great soft, shapeless figure in a dress-ing-gown filled the door like a picture too big for its long, narrow frame. "Well," remarked a bronchitic voice, "at last you've chosen to come home!" Mary raised her head as if in surprise. "Oh, Mrs. Ellsworth!" she exclaimed. "I don't think I'm late! I'm sorry I waked you up." "Waked me up!" repeated the fat woman in the dressing-gown. "You can't 'wake up,' if you haven't been to sleep. I never do sleep when any member of my household has upset the regular arrangements of my life, by going out at night. I never could when my husband was alive, and still less can I now that I'm alone and unprotected, as you ought to know, if you trouble your mind to study my peculiarities at all." She paused for an instant to glare at her employee, in the dim light of the two turned-down gas jets of the chandelier. Mary returned her gaze, in silence. There was nothing to say, though a great deal to think. It passed through the girl's mind that Mrs. Ellsworth, with her heavy cheeks, the triple chins rippling down into the short throat, and the huge figure spreading itself under a grey wool dressing gown, was more like a hippopotamus than a woman. She wondered how she could have endured existence with such a creature uncomplainingly, for Ave years. "You go out to enjoy yourself, and come back to sulk instead of enquiring how I have got through my evening," Mrs. Ellsworth went on. "Twenty times have I looked at my watch, if I looked once, in the last twenty minutes. Anything might have happened to you, for all I could tell. And a great deal has happened to me. But you take no interest, of course!" "I do take an interest," Mary soothed her. "I hope nothing disagreeable has happened. But won't you let me help you back to your room, Mrs. Ellsworth, and put you into bed again? It's cold here. And it is bad for you to stand long, you always say." "I say it, because it is the truth," the old woman drily impressed upon

her companion. "You can give me your arm, if you like—though it's rather late in the day to try and make up for everything I have gone through, alone. As for putting me to bed again, that can't be, for I haven't been to bed yet. I have been sitting up in a chair before my fire—such as it was—waiting!" "That is too bad," said Mary, quietly. "Fortunately, it isn't very late, though—only just eleven. So you can still get a good night's sleep, I hope: eleven to eight is nine hour. Shall I put out the gas here now, or later when I come back?"

"Kindly mind your own business, and don't be officious," snapped Mrs. Ellsworth; and Mary felt a new warmth of life flow through her veins, reminding herself that not many weeks more must she suffer this nagging and unjust tongue. Surely her lover would take her away, as soon as the formalities of a marriage could be got through. Mary knew only vaguely what such formalities were, but had an idea that banns had to be read three weeks running in the parish church. After five long years of this, however, she could bear three weeks, with the prospect of happiness before her eyes. "I told Corlett to leave the gas in this room and the evening paper on the centre table," Mrs. Ellsworth went on, "but you need not flatter yourself that they were left for you." The girl's heart bounded; but she made no answer. Corlett had forgotten or ignored his instructions, apparently, for Mary had lighted the chandelier when she entered the drawingroom, to" find it in darkness. What unforeseen thing had happened then while she was gone? She knew that, if she ventured to ask a question, Mrs. Ellsworth would find pleasure in tantalizing her. But if she were silent, her employer, bursting with the news —whatever it might be —would soon be forced to speak. "You can't even have noticed that my hair has not been arranged for the night," said Mrs. Ellsworth, "or you wouldn't have spoken of my being in bed."

"I'm afraid I was thinking of something else," the girl admitted. By this time, leaving the gas alight, though still turned low, they were on their slow way to the back of the house, Mrs. Ellsworth limping and hobbling more than usual, in her loose slippers, in order to .give the impression of being a martyr, .and leaning very heavily on Mary's slim arm. "Thinking of your pleasant dinnerparty with your friends!" she sneered. "Well, you have thought enough about them for the present, if you please. Now you will kindly give your attention to me, and what I have to say." They passed through the swing-door of red baize> along a narrower corridor in the "addition," as it was always called, and into Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom, where the two windows giving upon the scrap of back garden were shut and curtained, and the, heat of a blazing grate-fire turned March into July. Close to the fire stood a big easy chair (it had to be big in order to contain the mistress of the house), a box half full of chocolates; the silly novel which had made Mary's brain feel like cotton wool'some hours ago when she read aloud; and a Thermos flask of tea.

"I sat up," Mrs. Ellsworth deigned to explain, "and kept my hair as i» was, in case you deceived me, and stayed out later than you had my permission to do. Corlett had one of his headaches, which I believe he gets on purpose to be disagreeable, whenever it's most inconvenient for the house. It was necessary for me, at my age, and suffering as I do, to be ready to see whether or no my orders were obeyed as you were out enjoying yourself, and I could expect no help from the servants. A certain person has been here since you left. I suppose, in the circumstances, it will not be very difficult for you to guess who?" "In the circumstances?" Mary stammered.

"As you were at the Smith's," vouch safed Mrs. Ellsworth.

Mary grew hot, and then cold. What was coming? Did this woman guess she had b«en tricked, and was she going to deal out punishment by trapping the delinquent? "I don't quite understand," the girl faltered.

Mrs. Ellsworth, sitting down heavily in the huge arm-chair, looked up at her companion with an expression of disgust. "You are either very stupid," she said, "or else I have caught you or him in a lie. I don't know which yet, but I soon shall. There! Did you hear anything?" AH Mary's blood seemed to rush upon her heart. "It sounds like someone at the front door trying to get in with a latchkey—and not knowing how to use it/' "Exactly," replied Mrs. Ellsworth. "Now perhaps your wits are beginning to work. There is such a person at the door. He has used the latchkey on other occasions, but always complains of finding difficulty in fitting it in. He arrived at this house and surprised me, just in time to share my dinner. I detest surprises. And there was not enough for two. However, I trust I know my duty as a hostess. I welcomed him. But when he proposed paying another surprise visit to his cousins, I made no objection, knowing that their dinner hour was later than mine, and that they were certain to be at home, having invited you to join them. He sat with me while I had my soup, and while his room was being got ready upstairs. Then, when he had told me his news, and why he had come to England in this sudden way, he went up to dress himself. Twenty minutes later he bade me goodnight, and I thought I had reason to believe, took a taxi-cab to Archdeacon Smith's house in South Kensington. By this time perhaps you know whom I mean, and can tell me whether you saw him there?"

"I—l can't tell you anything," exclaimed Mary. "Mr. Smith has come from New York? He is going up to his room?"

"By now, I should say he is in it, unless he has had as much trouble finding the hat rack in the hall as he had with the keyhole in the door," returned Mrs. Ellsworth.

"I—let me go and speak to him," gasped Mary. "I—he may have forgotten to put out the gas." "Stay where you are!" commanded the bronchitic voice. "This is no time of night for young girls to be talking with gentlemen, in shut up houses, and the mistress in her room. There's something very strange here. You shall tell me what you have been doing this evening. Out with it! You look guilty as a thief." "I have—nothing to tell," repeated Mary. She spoke mechanically. Her lips answered for her, but her mind, her very self, had gone out of Mrs. Ellsworth's presence, and had followed Mr. Smith from New York upstairs, to the room where Mr. Smith from the Savoy was waiting for her to release him. The two men would meet! Something terrible would happen. The man she loyed and wished to help would think she had betrayed him. Or else the other would — Suddenly, a sharp noise pierced the confusion of her brain, as a sword might pierce a cloud. The fat woman stumbled to her gouty feet. "A revolver shot —in my house!" she cried. (To be Continued.)