London (England) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
We turned into the town again through Gallowgate when she had dried her
eyes, and had lunch at a small eating-house in New Bridge Street, she
afterwards returning to her hotel to pack, for we had decided to take
the afternoon train up to King's Cross.
She was to meet me at the station at half-past three, and just before
that hour, while idling up and down Neville Street awaiting the arrival
of her cab, of a sudden I saw the figure of a man in a dark travelling
ulster and soft felt hat emerge from the station and cross the road to
Grainger Street West.
He was hurrying along, but in an instant something about his figure and
gait struck me as familiar; therefore, walking quickly after him at an
angle before he could enter Grainger Street, I caught a glimpse of his
countenance.
It was John Parham! And he was going in the direction of the Douglas
Hotel.
He had again tracked her down with an intention which I knew, alas! too
well could only be a distinctly evil one.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
TAKES ME A STEP FURTHER.
We were back again in Neate Street, Camberwell.
In Newcastle we had a very narrow escape. As Parham had walked towards
the hotel, Sybil had fortunately passed him in a closed cab. On her
arrival at the station she was in entire ignorance of the fellow's
presence, and as the train was already in waiting we entered and were
quickly on our way to London, wondering by what means Parham could
possibly have known of her whereabouts.
Was she watched? Was some secret agent, of whom we were in ignorance,
keeping constant observations upon us and reporting our movements to the
enemy? That theory was Sybil's.
"Those men are utterly unscrupulous," she declared as we sat together in
the little upstairs room in Camberwell. "No secret is safe from them,
and their spies are far better watchers than the most skilled detectives
of Scotland Yard."
At that moment Mrs Williams entered, delighted to see us back again,
for when we had left, Tibbie had, at my suggestion, paid rent for the
rooms for a month in advance and explained that we were returning.
"Two gentlemen came to inquire for you a week ago, Mr Morton," she
exclaimed, addressing me. "They first asked whether Mrs Morton was at
home, and I explained that she was away. They then inquired for you,
and appeared to be most inquisitive."
"Inquisitive? About what?" asked my pseudo wife.
"Oh! all about your private affairs, mum. But I told them I didn't know
anything, of course. One of the men was a foreigner."
"What did they ask you?" I inquired in some alarm.
"Oh, how long you'd been with me, where you worked, how long you'd been
married--and all that. Most impudent, I call it. Especially as they
were strangers."
"How did you know they were strangers?"
"Because they took the photograph of my poor brother Harry to be yours--
so they couldn't have known you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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