The Red Widow: or, The Death-Dealers of London
"Will you employ him again?"
"I never employ a solicitor a second time, my dear Lilla. That would be a fatal mistake," was his reply. "But what I came to tell you mainly is that I've had a failure – a mysterious failure! Things haven't turned out exactly as I expected they would."
"Failure!" gasped the woman, with disappointment upon her dark, handsome face. "Then we must postpone it? How annoying!"
"Yes. But perhaps it's all for the best, Lilla. There was an element of danger. I told you that from the first."
"Danger! Rubbish!" declared his wife, with boldness, the diamonds flashing upon her fingers. "There's no danger! Of that I'm quite convinced. There was much more in that other little affair last winter. I was full of apprehension then – though I never told you of it."
"Well, at any rate, I haven't succeeded in the little business I've been attempting this last fortnight, so we'll have to postpone it."
"Perhaps your failure is due to the presence of your deaf old lady in the house," laughed his wife. "I passed the place in the car about a fortnight ago. Ugh! What a house!" and she shuddered.
"Yes, you might say so if you lived there and ate Mrs. Felmore's cold sausage for your supper, as I have to-night. Yet it must be done. If one makes money one has to make some sacrifice, especially if the money is made – well, not exactly on the square, shall we say?" And he grinned.
* * * * *Away in North Wales three days later.
A beautiful moonlit evening by the Irish Sea. Over the Great Orme the moon shone brilliantly across the calm waters lazily lapping the bay of Llandudno, which was filled at the moment with an overflowing crowd of holiday folk, mostly from Yorkshire and Lancashire.
All the hotels and boarding houses were crowded out, and there were stories of belated trippers, many of whom were on their first seaside holiday after the stress of war, being compelled to sleep in bathing machines.
The lamps along the promenade were all aglow, the pier blazed with light, and across the bay came the strains of the orchestra playing selections from the latest revue.
In the big lounge of the Beach Hotel, which faces the sea in the centre of the bay, sat a well-preserved, middle-aged woman in a striking black dinner gown, trimmed with jade-coloured ninon, and wearing a beautiful jade bangle and ear-rings to match. The visitor, whose hair was remarkable because of its bright chestnut hue – almost red, indeed – had been there for three weeks. She was a widow, a Mrs. Augusta Morrison, hailing from Carsphairn, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, whose late husband had great interests in a big shipbuilding works at Govan.
Of rather loud type, as befitted the widow of a Scotch shipbuilder who had commenced life in the shipyard, she dressed extravagantly, greatly to the envy of the bejewelled wives of a few Lancashire war millionaires, who, unable to gain admittance to that little piece of paradise, the Oakwood Park Hotel, beyond Conway, were compelled to mix with the holiday crowd on the seashore of Llandudno.
The hotel lounge was at the moment almost empty, for most of the visitors were either on the pier or had gone out for a stroll in the moonlight. But Mrs. Morrison sat near the door chatting with Charles Emery, a young Manchester solicitor who had only been married since he had been demobilised six months before, and who had come to Llandudno with his wife, as is the custom of young married folk of Lancashire.
Once or twice the rich widow – who had hired a car for her stay in North Wales – had invited Emery and his wife to go for runs with her to Bangor, and across the Menai Bridge to Holyhead, or to Carnarvon, Bettws-y-coed, St. Asaph, and other places. From time to time she had told them of her loneliness in her big country house in one of the wildest districts in Scotland, and her intention to go abroad that winter – probably to Italy.
"My wife has gone to the theatre with Mr. and Mrs. Challoner," Emery was saying, as he lazily smoked his cigarette. "I had some letters to write – business letters that came from the office this morning – so I stayed in."
"Have you finished them?" asked the handsome widow, whose hair was always so remarked, and her eyes large and luminous.
"Yes," he replied. "I suppose I shall soon have to be back in harness again in Deansgate. But we shall both cherish the fondest memories of your great kindness to us, Mrs. Morrison."
"It's really nothing, I assure you," laughed the widow merrily. "You have taken compassion upon me in my horribly lonely life, and I much appreciate it. Ah!" she sighed. "You can never imagine how lonely a woman can be who goes about the world aimlessly, as I go about. I travel here and there, sometimes on trips abroad, by sea, or by rail, often to the south of Europe, but I make no friends. Possibly it is my own fault. I may be too exclusive. And yet I never wish to be."
"I really don't think that!" he said gallantly. "At any rate, you've given us both a real ripping time!"
"I'm so glad you've enjoyed the little runs. But not more, I'm sure, than I have myself. I cannot live without movement. I love crowds. That's why I love cities – Manchester, London, Paris, and Rome. Where I live, up in Kirkcudbrightshire, it is one of the wildest and least explored districts of Great Britain. Between Loch Ken and Loch Doon, over the Cairnsmuir, the people are the most rural in all our island, quiet, honest folk, with no soul above their sheep and their cows. You and your wife must come north one day to Carsphairn and stay with me."
"I'm sure we should both be only too delighted to accept your hospitality, Mrs. Morrison," he said. "I'm afraid we can never repay you for your kindness to us. We are leaving next Monday."
"Oh, you have four more days! I'm motoring to Bettws-y-coed again to-morrow. You must both come with me, and we'll lunch at the Waterloo, as we did before. There has been rain these last few days, and the Swallow Falls will no doubt be grand."
And so it was arranged.
Next day all three went in the car up the beautiful valley of the Conway, with the wild hills on either side, through Eglwys Bach and Llanrwst, past Gwydyr Castle, and on by the Falcon Rock to that gem of North Wales, Bettws-y-coed.
To Mrs. Emery the widow was exceedingly amiable, and the day passed most pleasantly.
As they were motoring back through the mountains, purple in the sunset, between Capel Curig and Bangor, the widow, turning to Emery, suddenly said:
"I wonder, Mr. Emery, if you would advise me upon a little point of business? I'm rather perturbed, and I would so much like your professional advice. Can I see you after dinner to-night?"
"Most certainly," was his reply. "Any advice I can give you I will do so to the best of my ability," said the sharp young lawyer, well pleased at the prospect of a wealthy client.
That night at dinner Mrs. Morrison, radiant and handsome, wore a striking gown of black-and-gold, with a gold band in her red hair, and her string of fine pearls. In the big white-and-gold dining-room she was the most remarked of all the women there, but she pretended to take no notice of the sensation caused by her entrance into the room. Yet that gown had cost her sixty guineas in Dover Street, and, in secret, she was amused at the excitement its appearance had caused among the moneyed folk of Lancashire-by-the-Sea, who, after all, be it said, are honest people and who are more thorough than the shallow "Society" of post-war London.
After dinner, while Mrs. Emery went into the lounge and joined a woman and her daughter whom she knew, her husband went to Mrs. Morrison's sitting-room, where he found coffee awaiting him.
She produced a big silver box of cigarettes, and when she had served him with coffee and liqueur she lit a cigarette and settled herself to talk.
"The fact, Mr. Emery, is this," the woman with the wonderful hair commenced, when he had seated himself. "My late husband was a shipbuilder at Govan. Only recently I discovered that some twenty years ago he was guilty of some sharp practice in a financial deal which, while he and his friends enriched themselves, a man named Braybourne and his wife were both ruined. Braybourne died recently, but his widow is living in London. Now knowledge of this affair has greatly upset me, for I had the greatest faith in my dear husband's honesty."
"Naturally," remarked the young lawyer. "The knowledge of such a stigma attaching to his name must grieve you."
"Exactly. And I want somehow to make reparation. Not while I am alive – but after my death," she said. "I have been wondering what course would be best to pursue. I don't know Mrs. Braybourne, and probably she is in ignorance of my existence. Yet I should much like to do something in order to relieve my conscience. What would you advise?"
The young solicitor was silent for a few moments. At last he replied:
"Well, there are several courses open. You could make her an anonymous gift. But that would be difficult, for with a little inquiry she could discover the source of the payment."
"Ah! I don't want her to know anything!"
"I quite agree with that. You could, of course, make a will in her favour – leave her a legacy."
Mrs. Morrison remained silent for a while.
"Yes," she said at last, "that would be a way of easing my conscience regarding my husband's offence."
"Or, another way, you could insure your life in her favour. Then, at your death, she would receive the money unexpectedly," he suggested.
"That's rather a brilliant suggestion, Mr. Emery!" she replied eagerly. "But I know nothing about insurance matters. How can I do it? What have I to do and where shall I go to insure?"
"Well, Mrs. Morrison, I happen to be agent for a first-class life assurance company, the Universal, whose head offices are in Cornhill, London. If you so desire, I would be very happy to place a proposal before them," he said enthusiastically, for it meant a very substantial commission.
"I shall be very glad indeed, Mr. Emery, if you can carry the business through for me."
"With the utmost pleasure," was the young man's reply. "Er – what amount do you propose?"
"Oh! I hardly know. Some really substantial sum, I think. My husband, I have learned, got some twenty thousand pounds out of Mr. Braybourne. At least I would like to give her back half that sum."
"Ten thousand! How extremely generous of you, Mrs. Morrison. Of course, it's a large sum, and will mean a special premium, but no doubt the company will, providing you pass the medical test, issue the policy."
She thanked him for his promise to take up the matter for her. Then he went down to the writing-room to pen a letter to the Universal Assurance Company, while the handsome red-haired widow passed along the lounge and, with her merry chatter, rejoined his wife.
CHAPTER III
THE "GAME" – AND ITS PLAYERS
On the following morning Mr. Emery, the young solicitor, entered Mrs. Morrison's sitting-room at Llandudno with a telegram in his hand.
"I've just had this from the manager of the Universal. They are prepared to do the business and are writing me full particulars. I shall get them by to-morrow morning's post. I've wired to my clerk, Wilson, to post me a proposal form and some other papers."
Emery, his one thought being the big commission upon the business, entered Mrs. Morrison's room twenty-four hours later with a number of papers in his hand.
He sat down with the rich widow, and put before her the proposal form – a paper which had printed upon it a long list of questions, mostly inquisitorial. The bed-rock question of that document was "Who are you, and are you subject to any of the ills that human flesh is heir to?"
Question after question she read, and her answers he wrote down in the space reserved for them. Once or twice she hesitated before replying, but he put down her hesitation to a natural reserve.
The filling up of the form took some time, after which she appended her signature in a bold hand, and this completed the proposal.
"I fear it will be necessary for you to go to London to pass the doctor," he said. "When would that be convenient?"
"Any time after next Wednesday," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I have some shopping to do in town before I return to Scotland, so I can kill two birds with one stone."
"Excellent! They will, of course, make it as easy for you as possible. You will hear from Mr. Gray at the head office. Where shall you stay in town?
"With a friend of mine – a Mrs. Pollen." And she gave him an address in Upper Brook Street which he wrote down.
Before eleven o'clock Mrs. Morrison had dispatched a telegram addressed to "Braybourne, 9b, Pont Street, London," which read:
"All preliminaries settled. Shall be in London end of week.– AUGUSTA MORRISON."
Meanwhile, the solicitor, greatly elated at securing such a remunerative piece of work, sent the completed proposal to the head office of the company in London, and on the following day, accompanied by his wife, returned to his home in Manchester, after what had turned out to be a very profitable as well is beneficial holiday.
Before leaving, Mrs. Morrison arranged that he should carry the whole matter through, her parting injunction being:
"Remember – tell the Company to write to me at Upper Brook Street, and not to Scotland. And always write to me yourself to London."
Now that same evening, after Emery's departure, there arrived at the Beach Hotel, wearing rimless pince-nez, a dark, strongly-built man, well dressed, and with a heavy crocodile suit-case which spoke mutely of wealth. He signed the visitor's form as Pomeroy Graydon, and gave his address as "Carleon Road, Roath, Cardiff, Shipbroker."
He was late, and ate his dinner alone. Afterwards he went out for a stroll on the esplanade in the direction of the Little Orme, when, after walking nearly half a mile, he suddenly encountered the red-haired widow, who was attired plainly in navy blue with a small hat, having evidently changed her dress after dinner.
"Well, Ena!" he exclaimed, lifting his soft felt hat politely. "I'm here, you see! I thought it best to come up and see you. I'm at your hotel as Mr. Graydon of Cardiff."
"I'm awfully glad you've come, Bernie," she said. "I rather expected you."
"As soon as Lilla got your wire I started, and was fortunate to get to Euston just in time for the Irish mail – changed at Chester, and here I am!"
The pair strolled to a convenient seat close to where the waves lazily lapped upon the wall of the esplanade – for the tide was up – and the night a perfect one with a full white moon.
"Everything going well?" asked the smartly dressed man, whose pose in Hammersmith was so entirely different. He spoke in an eager tone.
"Yes, as far as I can see it's all plain sailing. I'm doing my part, and leave you and Lilla to do the rest. I've met here a very nice young fellow – as I intended – a useful solicitor named Emery, of Manchester. He is carrying the matter through for me. He's agent of the Universal."
"A first-class office."
"Well, I'm insuring with them in Lilla's favour."
"Have you carried out the plan we discussed?"
"To the very letter! Trust me, my dear Bernie."
"I always do, Ena," he declared, gazing across the moonlit sea. They were alone on the seat, and there was none to overhear:
"Ten thousand is a decent sum. Let's hope it will be all over soon. I sometimes have bad quarters of an hour – when I think!" he remarked.
"The sums assured have been higher and higher," she said. "We started with five hundred – you recollect the woman Bayliss? – and now we are always in thousands. Only you, Bernard, know how the game should be played. I do my part, but it is your brain which evolves all this business for which the companies are so eager, and which is so wonderful."
"True, our plan works well," Boyne admitted, still gazing over the sea. "We've all of us made thousands out of it – haven't we?"
"Yes. I can see no loophole by which the truth might leak out – save one," she said very seriously.
"And what's that?"'
"Your visits to your wife," was her reply. "Suppose somebody watched you, and saw you leave your frowsy little house in Hammersmith, go to Lilla in Pont Street, and blossom forth into a gentleman of means; it would certainly arouse a nasty suspicion. Therefore you should always be most careful."
"I am. Never fear," he said. "Recollect, nobody in Hammersmith knows that Lilla Braybourne is my wife."
"They don't know. But they might suspect things, which may lead eventually to an awkward inquiry, and then – ?"
"Oh! my dear Ena, don't contemplate unpleasant things!" he urged, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I know you are a clever woman – more clever by far than Lilla herself – therefore I always rely upon your discretion and foresight. Now, tell me – what has happened up to date?"
In reply she told him briefly of her meeting with the young solicitor Emery – which she had prearranged, by the way – and how she had entertained the newly-married pair.
"They, of course, believe you to be Mrs. Augusta Morrison, of Carsphairn, widow of old Joe Morrison, the great shipbuilder of Govan?" he remarked, smiling.
"Exactly. As you know, I paid a visit in secret to Carsphairn six weeks ago, and found out quite a lot. This I retailed to the Emerys, and they took it all in. I described Carsphairn to them, and showed them the snapshots of the place which I took surreptitiously when I was up there. Indeed, I gave a couple of them to Mrs. Emery – to make evidence."
"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You never leave anything undone, Ena."
"One must be thorough in everything if one desires success."
"And what is your address?"
"I gave it to my own flat in Upper Brook Street – care of Ena Pollen – widow."
"So you will come to London?"
"Yes – I have to go there shopping before I return to Scotland," she replied grimly. "I am staying with Mrs. Pollen."
"Good! It will be far the best for their London doctors to examine you. If you were examined up here they might resist the claim. If they did that – well, it would open up the whole business, and we certainly can't afford to arouse the very least little bit of doubt."
"Hardly," she laughed. "Well, I've played the game properly, my dear Bernie. My name is Morrison, and I am the widow of old Joe Morrison, the woman with the red hair, and I live at Carsphairn, Kirkcudbrightshire, the fine sporting estate left me by my late husband. All that is upon the records of the Universal Life Assurance Corporation."
"Excellent! You've established an undeniable identity – red hair and everything!" he said, again gazing reflectively out across the rippling waters. "You have taken the first step."
"The second move is that Mrs. Morrison goes to London on a shopping visit, prior to going abroad," the widow said.
"Really, you are marvellous, Ena!" declared the humble insurance agent of Hammersmith. "Your foresight always carries you to success."
"In a number of cases it has done so, I admit," the woman laughed. "When one's identity is not exactly as one represents, one has to have one's eyes skinned day and night. Men – even the shrewdest lawyers – are always easily gulled. Why? Because of the rapacious maws the legal profession have for fees. Women are always dangerous, for they are too frequently jealous of either good looks or pretty frocks. A man I can usually manage – a woman, seldom, unless she is in love. Then I side with her in her love affair and so gain her confidence."
"Ena, I repeat I hold you in admiration as one of the cleverest women I have ever known. Nothing deters you – nothing perturbs you! You fix a plan, and you carry it through in your own way – always with profit to our little combination."
"And very substantial profit, I venture to think, eh?"
"I agree," he said, with a grim laugh.
"All thanks to you, my dear Bernie," the red-haired woman said. "But really I am growing just a little apprehensive. Why – I don't know, I cannot tell. But somehow I fear we may play the game once too often. And what then – eh?"
"Funnily enough, I've experienced the same curiously apprehensive feeling of late," he said. "I always try, of course, to crush it out, just as I crush out any other little pricks of conscience which occur to me when I awake in the mornings."
"Very strange that we should both of us entertain apprehensive feelings!" she remarked very thoughtfully. "I hope it's no ill omen! Do you think it is?"
"No," he laughed. "Don't let us seek trouble – for Heaven's sake. At present there is not the slightest danger. Of that I feel confident. Let us go forward. When shall you go up to London?"
"To-morrow. I go to visit my dear friend, Mrs. Pollen – as I have told you."
He laughed.
"So really you are going on a visit to yourself – eh? Excellent! Really you are unique, Ena!"
"Well – it is the only way, and it will work well."
Then the strange pair, who were upon such intimate terms, rose and strolled leisurely side by side back towards the opposite end of the promenade, chatting merrily the while.
When approaching the Beach Hotel they halted, and the woman bade the man good-bye. Afterwards he sank upon a seat in one of the shelters, while she walked on and entered the hotel.
Not until half an hour later, after he had taken a stroll along to the end of the pier, where the band was still playing, did he return to the hotel. Mrs. Morrison was at the moment sitting in the lounge chatting with two men visitors. The eyes of the pair met as he passed, but neither gave any sign of recognition.
To those in the lounge the two were absolutely strangers to each other.
Little did the other visitors dream of the dastardly, even demoniacal, plot that was being so skilfully woven in their midst.
Next afternoon Bernard Boyne stepped from out of the Holyhead express upon Euston platform and drove in a taxi to Pont Street, where he was greeted warmly by his wife, who had been informed of his advent by telegram from Chester.
"Well?" she asked, when the door of the luxurious drawing-room was closed and they were alone. "And how did you find Ena?"
"She's splendid! All goes well," was his enthusiastic reply. "She's got hold of a young Manchester solicitor who is carrying the policy through all right. He happens to be an agent of the Universal. She's on her way back to London now. I wasn't seen with her in the hotel, of course."
"When is she coming here?"
"To-night at nine. She wants to see you."
"I think the less she sees of me just now the better, don't you, Bernie?"
"I quite agree. We don't want anyone to recognise you as friends when the time comes," replied Boyne. "As soon as she gets passed by the doctors – both of them unknown to any of us – which is a blessing – she'll have to go up to Scotland."
"To New Galloway again?"
"No. To Ardlui, that pretty little village at the head of Loch Lomond. The inquiries I have been making of the servants at Carsphairn show that it is the lady's intention to go with her maid to Ardlui for a fortnight, and thence to Edinburgh for another fortnight."
"Really, Bernie, you are wonderful in the way you pry into people's intentions."
"Only by knowing the habits and intentions of our friends can we hope to be successful," was his reply, as he flung himself back among the silken cushions of the couch and lazily lit a cigarette.
"So Ena will have to go to Scotland again?"
"Yes. She ought to pass the doctors in a week, for this young fellow is pushing it through because of the handsome fee she will give him, and then, in the following week, she must put on her best frocks and best behaviour and take a 'sleeper' on the nine twenty-five from Euston to Glasgow."
"What an adventure!" remarked the handsome woman before him.
"Of course. But we are out for big money this time, remember."
"You have examined the whole affair, I suppose, and considered it from every standpoint – eh?"
"Of course I have. As far as I can discover, there is no flaw in our armour. This young solicitor is newly married, and is much gratified that the wealthy Mrs. Morrison should take such notice of his young wife. But you know Ena well enough to be sure that she plays the game all right. She's the rich widow to the very letter, and talks about her 'dear husband' in a manner that is really pathetic. She declares that they were such a devoted couple."