THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

older men. Nor did they molest any one who entered or left the house. They merely exercised a quiet, unwearying, unobtrusive surveillance, and Eileen knew that Heldon Foyle had taken his own way of preventing her from seeing Sir Ralph Fairfield. She felt certain that were she to leave the house the men would follow her. She did not guess, however, that Foyle had intended them to give her an opportunity of discovering their presence. She would be the more unlikely to persist in her rash resolve if she knew it would be frustrated. Nor did she know that Fairfield was equally closely watched in all his comings and goings.

      The hysterical outbreak that had been provoked by the superintendent's penetration of her doings when she had visited his office at Scotland Yard had been followed by hours of almost complete collapse. To her father enough had been told to make him hurriedly summon a specialist. The doctor explained.

      "I have known similar cases follow a great shock. She is mentally unbalanced on one point. Unless anything occurs to excite her in connection with that, time will effect a cure. She must not be opposed in her wishes, and I would suggest that she be taken out of London and an effort made to distract her. Plenty of society, outdoor amusements—anything to occupy her mind."

      "I suggested that we should leave London," said Lord Burghley gloomily. "She refuses."

      "Then don't press her. Ask her friends to visit her, and don't let her leave the house except with a competent attendant."

      So it was that Eileen found herself practically a prisoner in her own home. She received the visitors invited by her father at first with a mechanical courtesy, but later on with an assumption of cheerfulness that deceived her father and even to more extent the doctor. She had begun to realise that she would never shake off the vigilance which surrounded her until she had convinced folk that she had regained her normal spirits. Her capabilities as an actress, which had won for her leading parts in many amateur plays, had never been taxed so hardly. But then she had invariably been cast for comedy. Now she felt she was playing tragedy. For night and day she never forgot. Always there was one thought hammering at her brain.

      She withdrew into the room as a neat little motor-brougham halted at the door. In a little while Mrs. Porter-Strangeways was announced. Reluctantly Eileen condescended to welcome the portly, middle-aged dame who was tacitly recognised as being the leader of American society in London. The girl smiled brightly as the woman rose to greet her with both arms outstretched.

      "It is so good of you, dear Mrs. Porter-Strangeways," she exclaimed. "I have only my friends to look forward to now."

      Mrs. Porter-Strangeways indicated her companion by some subtle means of her own.

      "You poor girl!" she exclaimed, throwing just the right reflection of sympathy into her not unmusical voice. "I called before, but you were unfit to see any one then. I took the liberty of bringing a friend to see you—the Princess Petrovska."

      The name conveyed nothing to Eileen. She knew not how the woman she faced was concerned in the tangle in which she herself was involved. She saw only a slim, beautifully dressed woman, whose age might have been somewhere between thirty and forty, and who still laid claim to a gipsy-like beauty. The dark eyes of the Princess dwelt upon the girl with a sort of well-bred curiosity. Mrs. Porter-Strangeways imparted information in a swift whisper.

      "A Russian title, I believe. Met her in Rome two years ago. She is a delightful woman—so bright and happy, though I believe, poor dear, she had a terrible time before her husband died. She called on me yesterday and asked me to bring her to see you. She's so interested in you. You don't mind?"

      The quick thought that she was being made a show of caused a spasm to flicker across Eileen's face. Almost instantly she regained her composure, and for half an hour Mrs. Porter-Strangeways prattled on. The other took little part in the conversation. Eileen could feel that the Princess was watching her closely under her cast-down eyelashes. The woman repelled and yet fascinated her. When the time came for leave-taking she found herself giving a pressing invitation to the other to call again. With a smile of satisfaction the Princess promised.

      They had not been gone a quarter of an hour when the Princess was announced alone. Eileen, a little astonished, received her questioningly.

      "I had to see you alone," explained the older woman. "I have something of importance to say to you—that's why I made Mrs. Porter-Strangeways bring me. I feared that you would not see me otherwise."

      "To see me alone?" repeated Eileen, with the air of one completely mystified. Then, as the other nodded grimly, she closed the door of the room.

      With a murmured "Pardon me" the Princess walked across the room and turned the key. "It will be better so," she said. "What I have to say must not be overheard. The life of a—some one may depend on secrecy."

      Eileen had begun to wonder if her strange visitor were mad. There was something, however, in her quiet, methodical manner that forbade the assumption. The Princess Petrovska had settled herself gracefully in a great arm-chair.

      "No, I am not mad." She answered the unspoken question. "I am quite in my senses, I assure you. I have come to you with a message from one you think dead—from Robert Grell."

      The room reeled before Eileen's eyes. She clutched the mantelpiece with one hand to steady herself.

      "From one I think dead!" she repeated. "Bob is dead." She gripped the other woman fiercely by the shoulder and almost shook her in the intensity of her emotion. "He is dead, I tell you. What do you mean? I know he is dead. Do not lie to me. He is dead."

      The Princess Petrovska glanced gravely up into the strained features of the girl. Her own face was a mask.

      "Calm yourself, Lady Eileen," she said. "You have been made the victim of a wicked deceit. He is not dead—but a man wonderfully like him is. I have come here at his request to relieve your mind." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "At the same time, he is in grave danger, and you can help him."

      The girl's hands dropped to her side, and she regarded her visitor helplessly. A new hope was beginning to steal into her heart, but her reason was all on the other side.

      "He is dead," she protested faintly. "Fairfield killed him. Why should he hide if he is not dead? Why should he not come here himself? Why should he send you?"

      "Don't be a fool," retorted the other impatiently, and the impertinence of the words had the effect intended of bracing the half-fainting girl. "He does not come because to do so would be madness—because if he showed himself he would be at once arrested by Scotland Yard detectives. They believe him to be the murderer of his double—a man named Goldenburg. There is a note he gave me for you."

      The letters danced before Eileen's eyes as she tore open the thin envelope and held what was undoubtedly Robert Grell's writing in her shaking hand. She was startled as never before in her life save when she heard of the murder. Slowly she read, the words biting into her brain—

      "Dearest,—Forgive me for not letting you know before that I am safe. I had no means of communicating with you with safety. The man who is dead was killed by no wish of mine. Yet I dared not run the risk of arrest. The bearer of this is an old friend of mine who will herself be in peril by delivering this. Trust her, and destroy this. She will tell you how to keep in touch with me."

      There was no signature. Mechanically Eileen tore the letter in two and dropped the fragments on the blazing fire. She felt the dark eyes of the Princess upon her as she did so. A spasm of jealousy swept across her at the thought that this woman should have been trusted, should have had the privilege of helping Grell rather than herself. She strove to push it aside as unworthy. He was alive. He was alive. The thought was dominant in her mind. She could have sung for very joy.

      "Well?" asked the Princess.

      "I don't understand," said Eileen wearily. "He does not explain. There is nothing clear in the note but that he is alive."

      "He dare say no more. We—that is—he's succeeded in evading the police so far. If by any chance that letter had fallen into their hands, it would have told them no more than they knew at present."