“When I began to get talked about, he insisted upon my making a ‘show’ as he called it and brought a lot of jewels which he told me should be mine at his death. Whether he bought them—they did not look new to me—or whether he acquired them in one of those deals of his which nobody knew anything about, I am unable to say with certainty. They were beautiful—but they were not mine until his death. Every night I dined with him at Yeh Ling’s, and he handed to me the jewel-case which he had taken from his bag, and every night I carried those jewels back to the house and gave them into his care.”
“Did the old man ever tell you how he came to seek you out?”
She nodded and a faint smile came and went.
“Jesse Trasmere was very frank. That was one of his charms. He told me he knew my deplorable history and he wanted somebody about whom he knew a few discreditable facts! He said that in almost those identical words: ‘You’ll have to go along as I want you,’ he said, ‘and the higher you get, and the more successful you become, the less you will want the news published that your father was a murderer.’ And yet, curiously enough, he never objected to my taking my own name, for Ardfern is my name, for professional purposes. I don’t suppose anybody at that dingy Institute associates me with the skinny little girl who used to scrub and peel and toil at uninteresting lessons from morning until night.”
“What was your father?” asked Tab with an effort, for he expected that any reference to her parents must still wound her.
To his surprise she answered readily.
“He was an actor,” she said, “and I think he was a clever actor until he took to drink. It was in drink that he murdered my mother. That much I learnt at the home—I have not troubled to enquire since. What are you thinking about, Tab?”
His forehead was knit.
“I am trying to recall the execution of any person named Ardfern in the last twenty years, I know them all by name,” he said slowly. “Have you a telephone?”
She nodded.
In three minutes Tab was talking to the news editor of the Megaphone.
“Jacques,” he said, “I want some information. Do you remember any person named Ardfern being executed for murder in the last—” he looked round at the girl—“seventeen or eighteen years?”
“No,” was the instant reply. “There was a man named Ardfern against whom a coroner’s verdict of manslaughter was returned but he skipped the country.”
“What was his first name?” asked Tab eagerly.
“I am not sure that it was Francis or Robert. No, it was Willard—Willard Ardfern. I remember there were two ’ards’ in it,” said the information bureau.
“In what town was this crime committed?”
Jacques answered without hesitation, giving the name of a small country town that Tab knew well.
He hung up the receiver and turned to the girl.
“What was your father’s name?” he asked.
“Willard,” she replied without hesitation.
“Phew!” whistled Tab, and wiped his streaming forehead. “Your father was not hanged.”
He saw her go red and white.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Perfectly sure. Old Jacques never makes a mistake. Besides which, he had the name pat when I asked him. Willard Ardfern. He was indicted for manslaughter. I fear that your unhappy mother died of his violence but Willard Ardfern himself left the country and was never arrested or tried.”
His arm went round her in support, she had gone suddenly white and ill-looking.
“Thank God,” she whispered. “That seemed—worse—than killing my poor mother. Oh Tab, it has been such a nightmare to me! Such a dreadful, dreadful weight. You can’t know how I felt about it.”
“Was it that?—” he hesitated, “something I had said that made you feel bad when we talked of Mr. Trasmere’s will?”
She looked at him steadily but did not give an answer.
“I used to hate this nightly borrowing of jewels,” she went back to her relations with Jesse Trasmere. “I had enough money to buy my own, though I have no particular leaning toward jewelry, but old Trasmere would not hear of it. Any movement towards my independence he checked ruthlessly,” she stopped suddenly and her mouth made a little “O” of surprise. “I wonder if he heard—in China?” she asked. “Yes, that is it! He must have met my father. That is how he came to know about me! I am sure Yeh Ling knows, because Mr. Trasmere had a habit of making elaborate notes—I wonder,” she said speaking to herself. Impulsively she threw out her hands and caught his. “Tab, the night you came into my dressing-room I felt instinctively that you were a factor in my life. I could never have dreamt how big a part you were going to be.”
For once in his life Tab could not think of an appropriate rejoinder.
XXVIII
There came to police headquarters a tall, ruddy-skinned man of middle age. He wore a suit which was evidently not made for him, and he seemed a little depressed by his surroundings.
“I have an appointment with Inspector Carver,” he said and passed a letter across the desk to the police clerk, who read it and nodded.
“Inspector Carver is expecting you,” he said and called a messenger.
Carver looked round as the door opened and viewed his caller with a speculative eye. Then he jumped up.
“Of course!” he said. “Sit down please.”
“I hope—” began the man, “there isn’t going to be any trouble.”
“Not for you,” said Carver, “but I rather fancy there is trouble coming for somebody.”
The messenger closed the door and left them together.
Half an hour later Inspector Carver telephoned for the office stenographer, and when the harassed man with the fresh face and ill-fitting clothes left the police office after a three-hour examination, Inspector Carver had material for much cogitation.
Tab called in the ordinary way of duty and they discussed
