At first I lay speechless in wonderment, but when I found tongue I spoke, imploring her to make explanation. I heard her sigh deeply, but to all my inquiries she remained dumb.
Chapter Five
The Unseen
“Tell me,” I demanded in my helplessness, of the mysterious woman at my side, “what has happened?”
“Rise, and try whether you can walk,” said the voice at last, sweet and low-pitched, the same well-remembered voice that had spoken to me in that unknown house of shadows.
I struggled and rose stiffly, assisted tenderly by her. To my joy I found that I could walk quite well.
“Thank God!” she gasped, as though a great weight had been lifted from her mind. “Thank God that I have found you. The tide is rising, and in half an hour you would have been beyond human aid.”
“The tide!” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“At high tide the river floods this place to the roof, therefore nothing could have saved you.”
“What place is this?”
The voice was silent, as though hesitating to reveal to me the truth.
“A place wherein, alas! more than one person has found his grave,” she explained at last.
“But I don’t understand,” I said eagerly. “All is so puzzling. I believed that I was inside a police-station, whereas I had actually walked into this mysterious and cleverly-prepared trap. Who are these people who are my enemies? – tell me.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot.”
“But you, yourself, are not one of them,” I declared.
“I may be,” answered the voice in a strange, vague tone.
“Why?”
“Ah! no, that is not a fair question to ask.”
“But surely, you, who were so kind to me after my accident in the street, will you desert me now?” I argued. Her failure to give me any assurance that she was my friend struck me as peculiar. There was something extremely uncanny about the whole affair. I did not like it.
“I have not said that I intend to leave you. Indeed, from motives of my own I have sought and found you; but before we go further I must obtain from you a distinct and faithful promise.”
“A promise – of what?”
There was a brief silence, and I heard that she drew a deep breath as those do who are driven to desperation.
“The situation is briefly this,” the voice said, in a tone a trifle harsher than before. “I searched for you, and by a stroke of good fortune discovered where your unknown enemies had placed you, intending that at high tide you should be drowned, and your body carried out to sea, as others have been. From this place there is only one means of egress, and that being concealed, only death can come to you unless I assist you. You understand?”
“Perfectly. This is a trap where a man may be drowned like a rat in a hole. The place is foetid with the black mud of the Thames.”
“Exactly,” she answered. Then she added, “Now tell me, are you prepared to make a compact with me?”
“A compact? Of what nature?” I inquired, much surprised.
“It will, I fear, strike you as rather strange, nevertheless it is, I assure you, imperative. If I rescue you and give you back your life, it must be conditional that you accept my terms absolutely.”
“And what are those terms?” I inquired, amazed at this extraordinary speech of hers.
“There are two conditions,” she answered, after a slight pause. “The first is that you must undertake to make no statement whatever to the police regarding the events of last night.”
She intended to secure my silence regarding the tragedy. Was it because that she herself was the actual assassin? I remembered that while I had reclined upon the silken couch in that house of mystery this startling suspicion had crossed my mind. Was that same cool, sympathetic palm that had twice soothed my brow the hand of a murderess?
“But there has been a terrible crime – a double crime committed,” I protested. “Surely, the police should know!”
“No; all knowledge must be kept from them,” she answered decisively. “I wish you to understand me perfectly from the outset. I have sought you here in order to rescue you from this place, because you have unwittingly fallen the victim of a most dastardly plot. You are blind, defenceless, helpless, therefore all who have not hearts of stone must have compassion upon you. Yet if I rescue you, and allow you to go forth again into the world, you may, if you make a statement to the police, be the means of bringing upon me a catastrophe, dire and complete.”
Every word of hers showed that guilt was upon her. Had I not heard the swish of her skirts as she crept from the room after striking down that unknown man so swiftly and silently that he died without a word?
“And if I promise to remain mute?”
“If you promise,” she said, “I will accept it only on one further condition.”
“And what’s that?”
“One which I know you will have some hesitation in accepting; yet, like the first, it is absolutely imperative.”
Her voice showed traces of extreme anxiety, and the slim hand upon my arm trembled.
She was young, I knew, but was she beautiful? I felt instinctively that she was, and conjured up within myself a vision of a refined face, perfect in its tragic beauty, like that of Van Dyck’s Madonna that I had seen in the Pitti Palace at Florence in those well-remembered days when I looked upon the world, and it had given me such pleasure.
“Your words are very puzzling,” I said gravely. “Tell me what it is that you would have me do.”
“It is not difficult,” she answered, “yet the curious character of my request will, I feel, cause you to hold back with a natural caution. It will sound strange; nevertheless, here, before I put the suggestion before you, I give you my word of honour, as a woman who fears her God, that no undue advantage shall be taken of your promise.”
“Well, explain what you mean.”
“The condition I impose upon you in return for my assistance,” she said, in deepest earnestness, “is that you shall promise to render assistance to a person who will ever remain unknown to you. Any requests made to you will be by letter bearing the signature A-V-E-L, and these instructions you must promise to obey without seeking to discover either motive or reason. The latter can never be made plain to you, therefore do not puzzle yourself unnecessarily over them, for it will be all to no purpose. The secret – for secret there is, of course – will be so well guarded that it can never be exposed, therefore if you consent to thus rendering me a personal assistance in return for your life, it will be necessary to act blindly and carry out to the letter whatever instructions you receive, no matter how remarkable or how illogical they may seem. Do you agree?”
“Well,” I said hesitatingly, “your request is indeed a most extraordinary one. If I promise, what safeguard have I for my own interests?”
“Sometimes you may, of course, be compelled to act against your own inclinations,” she admitted. “I, however, can only assure you that if you make this promise I will constitute myself your protectress, and at the same time give you solemn assurance that no request contained in the letters of which I have spoken will be of such a character as to cause you to commit any offence against the law.”
“Then it is you yourself who will be my anonymous correspondent?” I observed quickly.
“Ah, no!” she answered. “That is, of