He did not reply. He could not tell her that his real search had not been for her, but for her dead child.
“Do you know I have been seeing you every day for months, Mr. Steele?” she asked. “I have sat by your side in railway trains, in tube trains, and even stood by your side in tube lifts,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “I have watched you and studied you and I have liked you.”
She said the last words deliberately and her beautiful hand rested for a second on his shoulder.
“Search your heart about Eunice,” she said, “and if you find that you are mistaken in your sentiments, remember that there is a great deal of happiness to be found in this world.” There was no mistaking her meaning.
“I love Eunice,” said Jim quietly, and the hand that rested on his shoulder was withdrawn, “I love her as I shall never love any other woman in life. She is the beginning and end of my dreams.” He did not look up at the woman, but he could hear her quick breathing. Presently she said in a low voice:
“I was afraid so—I was afraid so.” And then Jim, whose moral courage was beyond question, rose and faced her.
“Lady Mary,” he said quietly, “you have abandoned hope that you will ever find your daughter?”
She nodded.
“Suppose Eunice were your daughter? Would you give her to me?” She raised her eyes to his.
“I would give her to you with thankfulness,” she said, “for you are the one man in the world whom I would desire any girl I loved to marry “— she shook her head. “But you, too, are pursuing shadows,” she said. “Eunice is not my daughter—I have traced her parentage and there is no doubt at all upon the matter. She is the daughter of a South African musician.”
“Have you seen the scar on her wrist?” he asked slowly. It was his last hope of identification, and when she shook her head, his heart sank.
“I did not know that she had a scar on her wrist. What kind of a scar is it?” she asked.
“A small round burn the size of a sixpence,” said Jim.
“My baby had no such mark—she had no blemish whatever.”
“Nothing that would have induced some evilly disposed person to remove?”
Lady Mary shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said faintly. “You are chasing shadows, Mr. Steele, almost as persistently as I have done. Now let me tell you something about myself,” she said, “and I warn you that I am not going to elucidate the mystery of my disappearance—that can wait. This building is mine,” she said. “I am the proprietor of the whole block. My husband bought it and in a moment of unexampled generosity presented it to me the day after its purchase. In fact, it was mine when it was supposed to be his. He was not a generous man,” she said sadly, “but I will not speak of his treatment of me. This property has provided me with an income ample for my needs, and I have, too, a fortune which I inherited from my father. We were desperately poor when I married Mr. Danton,” she explained, “and only a week or two later my father’s cousin, Lord Pethingham, died, and father inherited a very large sum of money, the greater portion of which came to me.”
“Who is Madge Benson?” he demanded.
“Need you ask that?” she said. “She is my servant.”
“Why did she go to prison?”
He saw the woman’s lips close tight.
“You must promise not to ask questions about the past until I am ready to tell you, Mr. Steele,” she said, “and now I think you can see me home.” She looked round the office. “There are usually a dozen cablegrams to be seen and answered. A confidential clerk of mine comes in the morning to attend to the dispatch of wires which I leave for him. I have made myself a nuisance to every town clerk in the world, from Buenos Ayres to Shanghai,” she said with a whimsical laugh in which there was a note of pain. “‘The shadow he pursueth—’ You know the old Biblical lines, Mr. Steele, and I am so tired of my pursuit, so very tired!”
“And is it ended now?” asked Jim.
“Not yet,” said Lady Mary, and suddenly her voice grew hard and determined. “No, we’ve still got a lot of work before us, Jim—” She used the word shyly and laughed like a child when she saw him colour. “Even Eunice will not mind my calling you Jim,” she said, “and it is such a nice name, easily remembered, and it has the advantage of not being a popular nickname for dogs and cats.”
He was dying to ask her why, if she was so well off, she had taken up her residence in a little flat overlooking a railway line, and it was probable that had he asked her, he would have received an unsatisfactory reply.
He took leave of her at her door.
“Good night, neighbour,” he smiled.
“Good night, Jim,” she said softly.
And Jim was still sitting in his big arm-chair pondering the events of the night when the first rays of the rising sun made a golden pattern upon the blind.
CHAPTER TWENTY
EARLY the next morning a district messenger arrived at the flat with a letter from Eunice, and he groaned before he opened it.
She had written it in the hurt of her discovery and there were phrases which made him wince.
“I never dreamt it was you, and after all the pretence you made that this was a woman! It wasn’t fair of you, Jim. To secure a sensation you nearly frightened me to death on my first night here, and made me look ridiculous in order that I might fall into your waiting arms! I see it all now. You do not like Mr. Groat, and were determined that I should leave his house, and this is the method which you have followed. I shall find it very hard to forgive you and perhaps you had better not see me again until you hear from me.”
“Oh, damn,” said Jim for the fortieth time since he had left her.
What could he do? He wrote half a dozen letters and tore them all up, every one of them into shreds. He could not explain to her how the key came into his possession without betraying Lady Mary Danton’s secret. And now he would find it more difficult than ever to convince her that Digby Groat was an unscrupulous villain. The position was hopeless and he groaned again. Then a thought struck him and he crossed the landing to the next flat.
Madge Benson opened the door and this time regarded him a little more favourably.
“My lady is asleep,” she said. She knew that Jim was aware of Mrs. Fane’s identity.
“Do you think you could wake her? It is rather important.”
“I will see,” said Madge Benson, and disappeared into the bedroom. She returned in a few moments. “Madame is awake. She heard your knock,” she said. “Will you go in?”
Lady Mary was lying on the bed fully dressed, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and she took the letter from Jim’s hand which he handed her without a word, and read.
“Have patience,” she said as she handed it back. “She will understand in time.”
“And in the meanwhile,” said Jim, his heart heavy, “anything can happen to her! This is the very thing I didn’t want to occur.”
“You went to the house. Did you discover anything?”
He shook his head.
“Take no notice and do not worry,” said Lady Mary, settling down in the bed and closing her eyes, “and now please let me sleep, Mr. Steele; I have not been to bed for twenty-four hours.”
Eunice had not dispatched the messenger with the letter to Jim five minutes before she regretted the impulse which had made her write it. She had said bitter things which she did not really feel. It was an escapade of his which ought to be forgiven, because at the back of it, she thought, was his love for her. She had further reason to doubt her wisdom, when, going into Digby Groat’s library she found him studying a large photograph.
“That is very good, considering it was taken in artificial light,” he said. It was an enlarged photograph of his laboratory door bearing the blue imprint, and so carefully had the photographer done his work, that every line and whorl of the fingertips showed.