Chapter Thirteen.Burton Blair’s Secret is Revealed.“Whatever Burton Blair told me was in strictest confidence,” I exclaimed, resenting the fellow’s intrusion, yet secretly glad to have that opportunity of meeting him and of endeavouring to ascertain his intentions.“Of course,” answered Dawson with a smile, his one shining eye blinking at me from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “But his friendliness and gratitude never led him sufficiently far to reveal to you his secret. No. I think if you will pardon me, Mr Greenwood, it is useless for us to fence in this manner, having regard to the fact that I know rather more of Burton Blair and his past life than you ever have done.”“Admitted,” I said. “Blair was always very reticent. He set himself to solve some mystery and achieved his object.”“And by doing so gained over two millions sterling which people still regard as a mystery. There is, however, no mystery about those heaps of securities lying at his banks, nor about the cash with which he purchased them,” he laughed. “It was good Bank of England notes and solid gold coin of the realm. But now he’s dead, poor fellow; it has all come to an end,” he added with a slightly reflective air.“But his secret still exists,” Reggie remarked. “He has bequeathed it to my friend here.”“What!” snapped the man with one eye, turning to me in sheer amazement. “He has left his secret with you?”He seemed utterly staggered by Reggie’s words, and I noted the evil glitter in his glance.“He has. The secret is now mine,” I answered; although I did not tell him that the mysterious little wash-leather bag was missing.“But don’t you know what that involves, man?” he cried, and having risen from his chair he now stood before me, his thin fingers twitching with excitement.“No, I don’t,” I said, laughing in an endeavour to treat his words lightly. “He has left me as a legacy the little bag he always carried, together with certain instructions which I shall endeavour to act upon.”“Very well,” he snarled. “Do just as you think fit, only I would rather you were left possessor of that secret than me—that’s all.”His dismay and annoyance apparently knew no bounds. He strove hard to conceal it, but without avail. It was therefore at once plain that there was some very strong motive why the secret should not be allowed to fall into my possession. Yet his belief that the little sachet had already passed into my hands negatived my theory that this mysterious person was in any way connected with Burton Blair’s death.“Believe me, Mr Dawson,” I said quite calmly, “I entertain no fear of the result of my friend’s kind generosity. Indeed, I can see no ground for any apprehension. Blair discovered a mystery which, by dint of long patience and almost superhuman effort, he succeeded in solving, and I presume that, possibly from a feeling of some little gratitude for the small help my friend and myself were able to render him, he has left his secret in my keeping.”The man was silent for several moments with that single irritating eye fixed upon me immovably.“Ah!” he exclaimed at last with impatience. “I see that you are in utter ignorance. Perhaps it is as well that you should remain so.” Then he added, “But let us talk of another matter—of the future.”“Well?” I inquired, “and what of the future?”“I am appointed secretary to Mabel Blair, and the controller of her affairs.”“And I promised Burton Blair upon his deathbed to guard and protect the young lady’s interests,” I said, in a cold, calm voice.“Then may I ask, now we are upon the subject, whether you entertain matrimonial intentions towards her?”“No, you shall not ask me anything of the kind,” I blazed forth. “Your question is a piece of outrageous impertinence, sir.”“Come, come, Gilbert,” Reggie exclaimed.“There’s surely no need to quarrel.”“None whatever,” declared Mr Richard Dawson, with a supercilious air. “The question is quite simple, and one which I, as the future controller of the young lady’s fortune, have a perfect right to ask. I understand,” he added, “that she has grown to be very attractive and popular.”“Your question is one which I refuse to answer,” I declared with considerable warmth. “I might just as well demand of you the reason why you have been lying low in Italy all these years, or why you received letters addressed to a back street in Florence.”His jaw dropped, his brows slightly contracted, and I saw my remark caused him some apprehension.“Oh! and how are you aware that I have lived in Italy?”But in order to mislead him I smiled mysteriously and replied—“The man who holds Burton Blair’s secret also holds certain secrets concerning his friends.” Then I added meaningly, “The Ceco is well known in Florence and in Lucca.”His face blanched, his thin, sinewy fingers moved again, and the twitching at the corners of his mouth showed how intensely excited he had become at that mention of his nickname.“Ah!” he exclaimed. “He has played me false, then, after all—he has told you that—eh? Very well!” And he laughed the strange hollow laugh of a man who contemplates revenge. “Very well, gentlemen. I see my position in this affair is that of an intruder.”“To tell you the truth, sir, it is,” exclaimed Reggie. “You were unknown until the dead man’s will was read, and I do not anticipate that the young lady will care to be compelled to employ a stranger.”“A stranger!” he laughed, with a haughty touch of sarcasm. “Dick Dawson a stranger! No, sir, you will find that to her I am no stranger. On the other hand you will, I think, discover that instead of resenting my interference, the young lady will rather welcome it. Wait and see,” he added, with a strangely confident air. “To-morrow I intend to call upon Mr Leighton, and to take up my duties as secretary to the daughter of the late Burton Blair, millionaire,” and laying stress on the final word, he laughed again defiantly in our faces.He was not a gentleman. I decided that on the instant he had entered the room. Outwardly his bearing was that of one who had mixed with respectable people, but it was only a veneer of polish, for when he grew excited he was just as uncouth as the bluff seafarer who had so suddenly expired. His twang was pronouncedly Cockney, even though it was said he had lived in Italy so many years that he had almost become an Italian. A man who is a real born Londoner can never disguise his nasal “n’s,” even though he live his life at the uttermost ends of the earth. We had both quickly detected that the stranger, though of rather slim built, was unusually muscular. And this was the man who had had those frequent secret interviews with the grave-eyed Capuchin, Fra Antonio.That he stood in no fear of us had been shown by the bold and open manner in which he had called, and the frankness with which he had spoken. He was entirely confident in his own position, and was inwardly chuckling at our own ignorance.“You speak of me as a stranger, gentlemen,” he said, buttoning his overcoat after a short pause and taking up his stick. “I suppose I am to-night—but I shall not be so to-morrow. Very soon, I hope, we shall learn to know one another better, then perhaps you will trust me a little further than you do this evening. Recollect that I have for many years been the dead man’s most intimate friend.”It was on the point of my tongue to remark that the reason of the strange clause in the will was because of poor Burton’s fear of him, and that it had been inserted under compulsion, but I fortunately managed to restrain myself and to wish the fellow “Good-evening” with some show of politeness.“Well, I’m hanged, Gilbert,” cried Reggie, when the one-eyed man had gone. “The situation grows more interesting and complicated every moment. Leighton has a tough customer to deal with, that’s very evident.”“Yes,” I sighed. “He has the best of us all round, because Blair evidently took him completely into his confidence.”“Burton treated us shabbily, that’s my opinion, Greenwood!” blurted forth my friend, selecting a fresh cigar, and biting off the end viciously.“He left his secret to me remember.”“He may have destroyed it after making the will,” my friend suggested.“No, it is either hidden or has been stolen—which is not at all plain. For my own part, I consider that the theory of murder is gradually becoming dispelled. If he had any suspicion that he had been the victim of foul play, he surely would have made some remark to us before he died. Of that I feel absolutely convinced.”“Very probably,” he remarked, rather dubiously, however. “But what we have now to discover is whether that little bag he wore is still in existence.”“The man Dawson was evidently in England before poor Blair’s death. It may have passed into his possession,” I suggested.“He would, in all probability, endeavour to get hold of it,” Reggie agreed. “We must establish where he was and what he was doing on that day when Blair was so mysteriously seized in the train. I don’t like the fellow, apart from his alias and the secrecy of friendship with Blair. He means mischief, old chap—distinct mischief. I saw it in that one eye of his. Remember what he said about Blair giving him away. It struck me that he contemplates revenge upon poor Mabel.”“He’d better not try to injure her,” I exclaimed fiercely. “I’ve my promise to keep to poor Burton, and I’ll keep it—by Heaven, I will!—to the very letter. She sha’n’t fall into the hands of that adventurer, I’ll take good care.”“She’s in fear of him already. I wonder why?”“Unfortunately she won’t tell me. He probably holds some guilty secret of the dead man’s, the truth of which, if exposed, might, for all we know, have the effect of placing Mabel herself outside the pale of good society.”Seton grunted, lolled back in his chair, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire.“By Jove!” he exclaimed, after a brief silence. “I wonder whether that is so?”On the following morning, as we were seated at breakfast, a note from Mabel was brought by a boy-messenger, asking me to come round to Grosvenor Square at once. Therefore without delay I swallowed my coffee, struggled into my overcoat, and a quarter of an hour later entered the bright morning-room where the dead man’s daughter, her face rather flushed by excitement, stood awaiting me.“What’s the matter?” I inquired quickly as I took her hand, fearing that the man she loathed had already called upon her.“Nothing serious,” she laughed. “I have only a piece of very good news for you.”“For me—what?”Without answering, she placed on the table a small plain silver cigarette-box, upon one corner of the lid of which was engraved the cipher double B, that monogram that was upon all Blair’s plate, carriages, harness and other possessions.“See what is inside that,” she exclaimed, pointing to the box before her, and smiling sweetly with profound satisfaction.I eagerly took it in my hands and raising the lid, peered within.“What!” I cried aloud, almost beside myself with joy. “It can’t really be?”“Yes,” she laughed. “It is.”And then, with trembling fingers, I drew forth from the box the actual object that had been bequeathed to me, the little well-worn bag of chamois leather, the small sachet about the size of a man’s palm, attached to which was a thin but very strong golden chain for suspending it around the neck.“I found it this morning quite accidentally, just as it is, in a secret drawer in the old bureau in my father’s dressing-room,” she explained. “He must have placed it there for security before leaving for Scotland.”I held it in my hand utterly stupefied, yet with the most profound gratification. Did not the very fact that Blair had taken it off and placed it in that box rather than risk wearing it during that journey to the North prove that he had gone in fear of an attempt being made to obtain its possession? Nevertheless, the curious little object bequeathed to me under such strange conditions was now actually in my hand, a flat, neatly-sewn bag of wash-leather that was black with age and wear, about half-an-inch thick, and containing something flat and hard.Within was concealed the great secret, the knowledge of which had raised Burton Blair from a homeless seafarer into affluence. What it could be, neither Mabel nor I could for a moment imagine.Both of us were breathless, equally eager to ascertain the truth. Surely never in the life of any man was there presented a more interesting or a more tantalising problem.In silence she took up a pair of small buttonhole scissors from the little writing-table in the window and handed them to me.Then, my hand trembling with excitement, I inserted the point into the end of the leather packet and made a long sharp cut the whole of its length, but what fell out upon the carpet next instant caused us both to utter loud exclamations of surprise.Burton Blair’s most treasured possession, the Great Secret which he had carried on his person all those years and through all those wanderings, now at last revealed, proved utterly astounding.
“Whatever Burton Blair told me was in strictest confidence,” I exclaimed, resenting the fellow’s intrusion, yet secretly glad to have that opportunity of meeting him and of endeavouring to ascertain his intentions.
“Of course,” answered Dawson with a smile, his one shining eye blinking at me from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “But his friendliness and gratitude never led him sufficiently far to reveal to you his secret. No. I think if you will pardon me, Mr Greenwood, it is useless for us to fence in this manner, having regard to the fact that I know rather more of Burton Blair and his past life than you ever have done.”
“Admitted,” I said. “Blair was always very reticent. He set himself to solve some mystery and achieved his object.”
“And by doing so gained over two millions sterling which people still regard as a mystery. There is, however, no mystery about those heaps of securities lying at his banks, nor about the cash with which he purchased them,” he laughed. “It was good Bank of England notes and solid gold coin of the realm. But now he’s dead, poor fellow; it has all come to an end,” he added with a slightly reflective air.
“But his secret still exists,” Reggie remarked. “He has bequeathed it to my friend here.”
“What!” snapped the man with one eye, turning to me in sheer amazement. “He has left his secret with you?”
He seemed utterly staggered by Reggie’s words, and I noted the evil glitter in his glance.
“He has. The secret is now mine,” I answered; although I did not tell him that the mysterious little wash-leather bag was missing.
“But don’t you know what that involves, man?” he cried, and having risen from his chair he now stood before me, his thin fingers twitching with excitement.
“No, I don’t,” I said, laughing in an endeavour to treat his words lightly. “He has left me as a legacy the little bag he always carried, together with certain instructions which I shall endeavour to act upon.”
“Very well,” he snarled. “Do just as you think fit, only I would rather you were left possessor of that secret than me—that’s all.”
His dismay and annoyance apparently knew no bounds. He strove hard to conceal it, but without avail. It was therefore at once plain that there was some very strong motive why the secret should not be allowed to fall into my possession. Yet his belief that the little sachet had already passed into my hands negatived my theory that this mysterious person was in any way connected with Burton Blair’s death.
“Believe me, Mr Dawson,” I said quite calmly, “I entertain no fear of the result of my friend’s kind generosity. Indeed, I can see no ground for any apprehension. Blair discovered a mystery which, by dint of long patience and almost superhuman effort, he succeeded in solving, and I presume that, possibly from a feeling of some little gratitude for the small help my friend and myself were able to render him, he has left his secret in my keeping.”
The man was silent for several moments with that single irritating eye fixed upon me immovably.
“Ah!” he exclaimed at last with impatience. “I see that you are in utter ignorance. Perhaps it is as well that you should remain so.” Then he added, “But let us talk of another matter—of the future.”
“Well?” I inquired, “and what of the future?”
“I am appointed secretary to Mabel Blair, and the controller of her affairs.”
“And I promised Burton Blair upon his deathbed to guard and protect the young lady’s interests,” I said, in a cold, calm voice.
“Then may I ask, now we are upon the subject, whether you entertain matrimonial intentions towards her?”
“No, you shall not ask me anything of the kind,” I blazed forth. “Your question is a piece of outrageous impertinence, sir.”
“Come, come, Gilbert,” Reggie exclaimed.
“There’s surely no need to quarrel.”
“None whatever,” declared Mr Richard Dawson, with a supercilious air. “The question is quite simple, and one which I, as the future controller of the young lady’s fortune, have a perfect right to ask. I understand,” he added, “that she has grown to be very attractive and popular.”
“Your question is one which I refuse to answer,” I declared with considerable warmth. “I might just as well demand of you the reason why you have been lying low in Italy all these years, or why you received letters addressed to a back street in Florence.”
His jaw dropped, his brows slightly contracted, and I saw my remark caused him some apprehension.
“Oh! and how are you aware that I have lived in Italy?”
But in order to mislead him I smiled mysteriously and replied—
“The man who holds Burton Blair’s secret also holds certain secrets concerning his friends.” Then I added meaningly, “The Ceco is well known in Florence and in Lucca.”
His face blanched, his thin, sinewy fingers moved again, and the twitching at the corners of his mouth showed how intensely excited he had become at that mention of his nickname.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “He has played me false, then, after all—he has told you that—eh? Very well!” And he laughed the strange hollow laugh of a man who contemplates revenge. “Very well, gentlemen. I see my position in this affair is that of an intruder.”
“To tell you the truth, sir, it is,” exclaimed Reggie. “You were unknown until the dead man’s will was read, and I do not anticipate that the young lady will care to be compelled to employ a stranger.”
“A stranger!” he laughed, with a haughty touch of sarcasm. “Dick Dawson a stranger! No, sir, you will find that to her I am no stranger. On the other hand you will, I think, discover that instead of resenting my interference, the young lady will rather welcome it. Wait and see,” he added, with a strangely confident air. “To-morrow I intend to call upon Mr Leighton, and to take up my duties as secretary to the daughter of the late Burton Blair, millionaire,” and laying stress on the final word, he laughed again defiantly in our faces.
He was not a gentleman. I decided that on the instant he had entered the room. Outwardly his bearing was that of one who had mixed with respectable people, but it was only a veneer of polish, for when he grew excited he was just as uncouth as the bluff seafarer who had so suddenly expired. His twang was pronouncedly Cockney, even though it was said he had lived in Italy so many years that he had almost become an Italian. A man who is a real born Londoner can never disguise his nasal “n’s,” even though he live his life at the uttermost ends of the earth. We had both quickly detected that the stranger, though of rather slim built, was unusually muscular. And this was the man who had had those frequent secret interviews with the grave-eyed Capuchin, Fra Antonio.
That he stood in no fear of us had been shown by the bold and open manner in which he had called, and the frankness with which he had spoken. He was entirely confident in his own position, and was inwardly chuckling at our own ignorance.
“You speak of me as a stranger, gentlemen,” he said, buttoning his overcoat after a short pause and taking up his stick. “I suppose I am to-night—but I shall not be so to-morrow. Very soon, I hope, we shall learn to know one another better, then perhaps you will trust me a little further than you do this evening. Recollect that I have for many years been the dead man’s most intimate friend.”
It was on the point of my tongue to remark that the reason of the strange clause in the will was because of poor Burton’s fear of him, and that it had been inserted under compulsion, but I fortunately managed to restrain myself and to wish the fellow “Good-evening” with some show of politeness.
“Well, I’m hanged, Gilbert,” cried Reggie, when the one-eyed man had gone. “The situation grows more interesting and complicated every moment. Leighton has a tough customer to deal with, that’s very evident.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “He has the best of us all round, because Blair evidently took him completely into his confidence.”
“Burton treated us shabbily, that’s my opinion, Greenwood!” blurted forth my friend, selecting a fresh cigar, and biting off the end viciously.
“He left his secret to me remember.”
“He may have destroyed it after making the will,” my friend suggested.
“No, it is either hidden or has been stolen—which is not at all plain. For my own part, I consider that the theory of murder is gradually becoming dispelled. If he had any suspicion that he had been the victim of foul play, he surely would have made some remark to us before he died. Of that I feel absolutely convinced.”
“Very probably,” he remarked, rather dubiously, however. “But what we have now to discover is whether that little bag he wore is still in existence.”
“The man Dawson was evidently in England before poor Blair’s death. It may have passed into his possession,” I suggested.
“He would, in all probability, endeavour to get hold of it,” Reggie agreed. “We must establish where he was and what he was doing on that day when Blair was so mysteriously seized in the train. I don’t like the fellow, apart from his alias and the secrecy of friendship with Blair. He means mischief, old chap—distinct mischief. I saw it in that one eye of his. Remember what he said about Blair giving him away. It struck me that he contemplates revenge upon poor Mabel.”
“He’d better not try to injure her,” I exclaimed fiercely. “I’ve my promise to keep to poor Burton, and I’ll keep it—by Heaven, I will!—to the very letter. She sha’n’t fall into the hands of that adventurer, I’ll take good care.”
“She’s in fear of him already. I wonder why?”
“Unfortunately she won’t tell me. He probably holds some guilty secret of the dead man’s, the truth of which, if exposed, might, for all we know, have the effect of placing Mabel herself outside the pale of good society.”
Seton grunted, lolled back in his chair, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, after a brief silence. “I wonder whether that is so?”
On the following morning, as we were seated at breakfast, a note from Mabel was brought by a boy-messenger, asking me to come round to Grosvenor Square at once. Therefore without delay I swallowed my coffee, struggled into my overcoat, and a quarter of an hour later entered the bright morning-room where the dead man’s daughter, her face rather flushed by excitement, stood awaiting me.
“What’s the matter?” I inquired quickly as I took her hand, fearing that the man she loathed had already called upon her.
“Nothing serious,” she laughed. “I have only a piece of very good news for you.”
“For me—what?”
Without answering, she placed on the table a small plain silver cigarette-box, upon one corner of the lid of which was engraved the cipher double B, that monogram that was upon all Blair’s plate, carriages, harness and other possessions.
“See what is inside that,” she exclaimed, pointing to the box before her, and smiling sweetly with profound satisfaction.
I eagerly took it in my hands and raising the lid, peered within.
“What!” I cried aloud, almost beside myself with joy. “It can’t really be?”
“Yes,” she laughed. “It is.”
And then, with trembling fingers, I drew forth from the box the actual object that had been bequeathed to me, the little well-worn bag of chamois leather, the small sachet about the size of a man’s palm, attached to which was a thin but very strong golden chain for suspending it around the neck.
“I found it this morning quite accidentally, just as it is, in a secret drawer in the old bureau in my father’s dressing-room,” she explained. “He must have placed it there for security before leaving for Scotland.”
I held it in my hand utterly stupefied, yet with the most profound gratification. Did not the very fact that Blair had taken it off and placed it in that box rather than risk wearing it during that journey to the North prove that he had gone in fear of an attempt being made to obtain its possession? Nevertheless, the curious little object bequeathed to me under such strange conditions was now actually in my hand, a flat, neatly-sewn bag of wash-leather that was black with age and wear, about half-an-inch thick, and containing something flat and hard.
Within was concealed the great secret, the knowledge of which had raised Burton Blair from a homeless seafarer into affluence. What it could be, neither Mabel nor I could for a moment imagine.
Both of us were breathless, equally eager to ascertain the truth. Surely never in the life of any man was there presented a more interesting or a more tantalising problem.
In silence she took up a pair of small buttonhole scissors from the little writing-table in the window and handed them to me.
Then, my hand trembling with excitement, I inserted the point into the end of the leather packet and made a long sharp cut the whole of its length, but what fell out upon the carpet next instant caused us both to utter loud exclamations of surprise.
Burton Blair’s most treasured possession, the Great Secret which he had carried on his person all those years and through all those wanderings, now at last revealed, proved utterly astounding.
Chapter Fourteen.Gives an Expert Opinion.Upon the carpet at our feet lay scattered a pack of very small, rather dirty cards which had fallen from the little sachet, and which both of us stood regarding with surprise and disappointment.For my own part I expected to find within that treasured bag of wash-leather something of more value than those thumbed and half worn-out pieces of pasteboard, but our curiosity was instantly aroused when, on stooping, I picked up one of them and discovered certain letters written in brown faded ink upon it, similar to those upon the card already in my possession.It chanced to be the ten of diamonds, and in order that you may be able to the more clearly understand the arrangement of the letters upon them, I reproduce it here:—“How strange!” cried Mabel, taking the card and examining it closely. “It surely must be some cipher, the same as the other card which I found sealed up in the safe.”“No doubt,” I exclaimed, as, stooping and gathering up the remainder of the pack, I noticed that upon each of them, either upon the front or upon the back, were scrawled either fourteen or fifteen letters in a treble column, all, of course, utterly unintelligible.I counted them. It was a piquet pack of thirty-one, the missing card being the ace of hearts which we had already discovered. By the friction of having been carried on the person for so long the corners and edges were worn, while the gloss of the surface had long ago disappeared.Aided by Mabel I spread them all upon the table, utterly bewildered by the columns of letters which showed that some deep secret was written upon them, yet what it was we were utterly unable to decipher.Upon the front of the ace of clubs was scrawled in three parallel columns of five letters each, thus:—E H NW E DT O LI E HW H RAgain, I turned up the king of spades and found on the reverse only fourteen letters:—Q W FT S WT H UO F EY E“I wonder what it all means?” I exclaimed, carefully examining the written characters in the light. The letters were in capitals just as rudely and unevenly drawn as those upon the ace of hearts, evidently by an uneducated hand. Indeed the A’s betrayed a foreign form rather than English, and the fact that some of the cards were inscribed on the obverse and others on the reverse seemed to convey some hidden meaning. What it was, however, was both tantalising and puzzling.“It certainly is very curious,” Mabel remarked after she had vainly striven to construct intelligible words from the columns of letters by the easy methods of calculation. “I had no idea that my father carried his secret concealed in this manner.”“Yes,” I said, “it really is amazing. No doubt his secret is really written here, if we only knew the key. But in all probability his enemies are aware of its existence, or he would not have left it secreted here when he set forth on his journey to Manchester. That man Dawson may know it.”“Most probably,” was her reply. “He was my father’s intimate acquaintance.”“His friend—he says he was.”“Friend!” she cried resentfully. “No, his enemy.”“And therefore your father held him in fear? It was that reason which induced him to insert that very injudicious clause in his will.”And then I described to her the visit of the man Dawson on the previous night, telling her what he had said, and his impudent, defiant attitude towards us.She sighed, but uttered no reply. I noticed that as I spoke her countenance went a trifle paler, but she remained silent, as though she feared to speak lest she should inadvertently expose what she intended should remain a secret.My chief thought at that moment, however, was the elucidation of the problem presented by those thirty-two well-thumbed cards. The secret of Burton Blair, the knowledge of which had brought him his millions, was hidden there, and as it had been bequeathed to me it was surely to my interest to exert every effort to gain exact knowledge of it. I recollected how very careful he had been over that little bag which now lay empty upon the table, and with what careless confidence he had shown it to me on that night when he was but a homeless wanderer tramping the muddy turnpike roads.As he had held it in his hand, his eyes had brightened with keen anticipation. He would be a rich man some day, he had prophesied, and I, in my ignorance, had then believed him to be romancing. But when I looked around that room in which I now stood and saw that Murillo and that Tintoretto, each of them worth a small fortune in themselves, I was bound to confess that I had wrongly mistrusted him.And the secret written upon that insignificant-looking little pack of cards was mine—if only I could decipher it!Surely no situation could be more tantalising to a poor man like myself. The man whom I had been able to befriend had left me, in gracious recognition, the secret of the source of his enormous income, yet so well concealed was it that neither Mabel nor myself could decipher it.“What shall you do?” she inquired presently, after poring over the cards in silence for quite ten minutes. “Is there no expert in London who might find out the key? Surely those people who do cryptograms and things could help us?”“Certainly,” was my answer, “but in that case, if they were successful they would discover the secret for themselves.”“Ah, I never thought of that!”“Your father’s directions in his will as to secrecy are very explicit.”“But possession of these cards without the key is surely not of much benefit,” she argued. “Could you not consult somebody, and ascertain by what means such records are deciphered?”“I might make inquiries in a general way,” I answered, “but to place the pack of cards blindly in the hands of an expert would, I fear, simply be giving away your father’s most confidential possession. There may be written here some fact which it is not desirable that the world shall know.”“Ah!” she said, glancing quickly up at me. “Some facts regarding his past, you mean. Yes. You are quite right, Mr Greenwood. We must be very careful to guard the secret of these cards well, especially if, as you suggest, the man Dawson really knows the means by which the record may be rendered intelligible.”“The secret has been bequeathed to me, therefore I will take possession of them,” I said. “I will also make inquiries, and ascertain by what means such ciphers are rendered into plain English.”I had at that moment thought of a man named Boyle, a professor at a training-college in Leicester who was an expert at anagrams, ciphers, and such things, and I intended to lose no time in running up there to see him and ascertain his opinion.Therefore at noon I took train at St. Pancras, and about half-past two was sitting with him in his private room at the college. He was a middle-aged, clean-shaven man of quick intelligence, who had frequently won prizes in various competitions offered by different journals; a man who seemed to have committed Bartlett’sDictionary of Familiar Quotationsto memory, and whose ingenuity in deciphering puzzles was unequalled.While smoking a cigarette with him, I explained the point upon which I desired his opinion.“May I see the cards?” he inquired, removing his briar from his mouth and looking at me with some surprise, I thought.My first impulse was to refuse him sight of them, but on second thoughts I recollected that of all men he was one of the greatest experts in such matters, therefore I drew the little pack from the envelope in which I had placed them.“Ah!” he exclaimed the moment he took them in his hand and ran quickly through them. “This, Mr Greenwood, is the most complicated and most difficult of all ciphers. It was in vogue in Italy and Spain in the seventeenth century, and afterwards in England, but seems to have dropped into disuse during the past hundred years or so, probably on account of its great difficulty.”Carefully he spread the cards out in suits upon the table, and seemed to make long and elaborate calculations between the heavy puffs at his pipe.“No!” he exclaimed. “It isn’t what I expected. Guess-work will never help you in this solution. You might try for a hundred years to decipher it, but will fail, if you do not discover the key. Indeed, so much ingenuity is shown in it that a writer in the last century estimated that in such a pack of cards as this, with such a cipher upon them, there are at least fully fifty-two millions of possible arrangements.”“But how is the cipher written?” I inquired much interested, yet with heart-sinking at his inability to assist me.“It is done in this way,” he said. “The writer of the secret settles what he wishes to record and he then arranges the thirty-two cards in what order he wishes. He then writes the first thirty-two letters of his message record, or whatever it may be, on the face or on the back of the thirty-two cards, one letter upon each card consecutively, commencing with the first column, and going on with columns two and three, working down each column, until he has written the last letter of the cipher. In the writing, however, certain prearranged letters are used in place of spaces, and sometimes the cipher is made still more difficult for a chance finder of the cards to decipher by the introduction of a specially arranged shuffle of the cards half-way through the writing of the record.”“Very ingenious!” I remarked, utterly bewildered by the extraordinary complication of Burton Blair’s secret. “And yet the letters are so plainly written!”“That’s just it,” he laughed. “To the eye it is the plainest of all ciphers, and yet one that is utterly unintelligible unless the exact formula in its writing be known. When that is ascertained the solution becomes easy. The cards are rearranged in the order in which they were written upon, and the record or message spelt off, one letter on each card in succession, reading down one column after another and omitting the letter arranged as spaces.”“Ah!” I exclaimed fervently. “How I wish I knew the key.”“Is this a very important secret, then?” asked Boyle.“Very,” I replied. “A confidential matter which has been placed in my hands, and one which I am bound to solve.”“I fear you will never do so unless the key is in existence,” was his answer. “It is far too difficult for me to attempt. The complications which are so simply effected in the writing, shield it effectually from any chance solution. Therefore, all endeavours to decipher it without knowledge of the pre-arrangement of the pack must necessarily prove futile.”He replaced the cards in the envelope and handed them back to me, regretting that he could not render me assistance.“You might try every day for years and years,” he declared, “and you would be no nearer the truth. It is too well protected for chance discovery, and is, indeed, the safest and most ingenious cipher ever devised by man’s ingenuity.”I remained and took a cup of tea with him, then at half-past four entered the express and returned to London, disappointed at my utterly fruitless errand. What he had explained to me rendered the secret more impenetrable and inscrutable than ever.
Upon the carpet at our feet lay scattered a pack of very small, rather dirty cards which had fallen from the little sachet, and which both of us stood regarding with surprise and disappointment.
For my own part I expected to find within that treasured bag of wash-leather something of more value than those thumbed and half worn-out pieces of pasteboard, but our curiosity was instantly aroused when, on stooping, I picked up one of them and discovered certain letters written in brown faded ink upon it, similar to those upon the card already in my possession.
It chanced to be the ten of diamonds, and in order that you may be able to the more clearly understand the arrangement of the letters upon them, I reproduce it here:—
“How strange!” cried Mabel, taking the card and examining it closely. “It surely must be some cipher, the same as the other card which I found sealed up in the safe.”
“No doubt,” I exclaimed, as, stooping and gathering up the remainder of the pack, I noticed that upon each of them, either upon the front or upon the back, were scrawled either fourteen or fifteen letters in a treble column, all, of course, utterly unintelligible.
I counted them. It was a piquet pack of thirty-one, the missing card being the ace of hearts which we had already discovered. By the friction of having been carried on the person for so long the corners and edges were worn, while the gloss of the surface had long ago disappeared.
Aided by Mabel I spread them all upon the table, utterly bewildered by the columns of letters which showed that some deep secret was written upon them, yet what it was we were utterly unable to decipher.
Upon the front of the ace of clubs was scrawled in three parallel columns of five letters each, thus:—
E H NW E DT O LI E HW H R
E H NW E DT O LI E HW H R
Again, I turned up the king of spades and found on the reverse only fourteen letters:—
Q W FT S WT H UO F EY E
Q W FT S WT H UO F EY E
“I wonder what it all means?” I exclaimed, carefully examining the written characters in the light. The letters were in capitals just as rudely and unevenly drawn as those upon the ace of hearts, evidently by an uneducated hand. Indeed the A’s betrayed a foreign form rather than English, and the fact that some of the cards were inscribed on the obverse and others on the reverse seemed to convey some hidden meaning. What it was, however, was both tantalising and puzzling.
“It certainly is very curious,” Mabel remarked after she had vainly striven to construct intelligible words from the columns of letters by the easy methods of calculation. “I had no idea that my father carried his secret concealed in this manner.”
“Yes,” I said, “it really is amazing. No doubt his secret is really written here, if we only knew the key. But in all probability his enemies are aware of its existence, or he would not have left it secreted here when he set forth on his journey to Manchester. That man Dawson may know it.”
“Most probably,” was her reply. “He was my father’s intimate acquaintance.”
“His friend—he says he was.”
“Friend!” she cried resentfully. “No, his enemy.”
“And therefore your father held him in fear? It was that reason which induced him to insert that very injudicious clause in his will.”
And then I described to her the visit of the man Dawson on the previous night, telling her what he had said, and his impudent, defiant attitude towards us.
She sighed, but uttered no reply. I noticed that as I spoke her countenance went a trifle paler, but she remained silent, as though she feared to speak lest she should inadvertently expose what she intended should remain a secret.
My chief thought at that moment, however, was the elucidation of the problem presented by those thirty-two well-thumbed cards. The secret of Burton Blair, the knowledge of which had brought him his millions, was hidden there, and as it had been bequeathed to me it was surely to my interest to exert every effort to gain exact knowledge of it. I recollected how very careful he had been over that little bag which now lay empty upon the table, and with what careless confidence he had shown it to me on that night when he was but a homeless wanderer tramping the muddy turnpike roads.
As he had held it in his hand, his eyes had brightened with keen anticipation. He would be a rich man some day, he had prophesied, and I, in my ignorance, had then believed him to be romancing. But when I looked around that room in which I now stood and saw that Murillo and that Tintoretto, each of them worth a small fortune in themselves, I was bound to confess that I had wrongly mistrusted him.
And the secret written upon that insignificant-looking little pack of cards was mine—if only I could decipher it!
Surely no situation could be more tantalising to a poor man like myself. The man whom I had been able to befriend had left me, in gracious recognition, the secret of the source of his enormous income, yet so well concealed was it that neither Mabel nor myself could decipher it.
“What shall you do?” she inquired presently, after poring over the cards in silence for quite ten minutes. “Is there no expert in London who might find out the key? Surely those people who do cryptograms and things could help us?”
“Certainly,” was my answer, “but in that case, if they were successful they would discover the secret for themselves.”
“Ah, I never thought of that!”
“Your father’s directions in his will as to secrecy are very explicit.”
“But possession of these cards without the key is surely not of much benefit,” she argued. “Could you not consult somebody, and ascertain by what means such records are deciphered?”
“I might make inquiries in a general way,” I answered, “but to place the pack of cards blindly in the hands of an expert would, I fear, simply be giving away your father’s most confidential possession. There may be written here some fact which it is not desirable that the world shall know.”
“Ah!” she said, glancing quickly up at me. “Some facts regarding his past, you mean. Yes. You are quite right, Mr Greenwood. We must be very careful to guard the secret of these cards well, especially if, as you suggest, the man Dawson really knows the means by which the record may be rendered intelligible.”
“The secret has been bequeathed to me, therefore I will take possession of them,” I said. “I will also make inquiries, and ascertain by what means such ciphers are rendered into plain English.”
I had at that moment thought of a man named Boyle, a professor at a training-college in Leicester who was an expert at anagrams, ciphers, and such things, and I intended to lose no time in running up there to see him and ascertain his opinion.
Therefore at noon I took train at St. Pancras, and about half-past two was sitting with him in his private room at the college. He was a middle-aged, clean-shaven man of quick intelligence, who had frequently won prizes in various competitions offered by different journals; a man who seemed to have committed Bartlett’sDictionary of Familiar Quotationsto memory, and whose ingenuity in deciphering puzzles was unequalled.
While smoking a cigarette with him, I explained the point upon which I desired his opinion.
“May I see the cards?” he inquired, removing his briar from his mouth and looking at me with some surprise, I thought.
My first impulse was to refuse him sight of them, but on second thoughts I recollected that of all men he was one of the greatest experts in such matters, therefore I drew the little pack from the envelope in which I had placed them.
“Ah!” he exclaimed the moment he took them in his hand and ran quickly through them. “This, Mr Greenwood, is the most complicated and most difficult of all ciphers. It was in vogue in Italy and Spain in the seventeenth century, and afterwards in England, but seems to have dropped into disuse during the past hundred years or so, probably on account of its great difficulty.”
Carefully he spread the cards out in suits upon the table, and seemed to make long and elaborate calculations between the heavy puffs at his pipe.
“No!” he exclaimed. “It isn’t what I expected. Guess-work will never help you in this solution. You might try for a hundred years to decipher it, but will fail, if you do not discover the key. Indeed, so much ingenuity is shown in it that a writer in the last century estimated that in such a pack of cards as this, with such a cipher upon them, there are at least fully fifty-two millions of possible arrangements.”
“But how is the cipher written?” I inquired much interested, yet with heart-sinking at his inability to assist me.
“It is done in this way,” he said. “The writer of the secret settles what he wishes to record and he then arranges the thirty-two cards in what order he wishes. He then writes the first thirty-two letters of his message record, or whatever it may be, on the face or on the back of the thirty-two cards, one letter upon each card consecutively, commencing with the first column, and going on with columns two and three, working down each column, until he has written the last letter of the cipher. In the writing, however, certain prearranged letters are used in place of spaces, and sometimes the cipher is made still more difficult for a chance finder of the cards to decipher by the introduction of a specially arranged shuffle of the cards half-way through the writing of the record.”
“Very ingenious!” I remarked, utterly bewildered by the extraordinary complication of Burton Blair’s secret. “And yet the letters are so plainly written!”
“That’s just it,” he laughed. “To the eye it is the plainest of all ciphers, and yet one that is utterly unintelligible unless the exact formula in its writing be known. When that is ascertained the solution becomes easy. The cards are rearranged in the order in which they were written upon, and the record or message spelt off, one letter on each card in succession, reading down one column after another and omitting the letter arranged as spaces.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed fervently. “How I wish I knew the key.”
“Is this a very important secret, then?” asked Boyle.
“Very,” I replied. “A confidential matter which has been placed in my hands, and one which I am bound to solve.”
“I fear you will never do so unless the key is in existence,” was his answer. “It is far too difficult for me to attempt. The complications which are so simply effected in the writing, shield it effectually from any chance solution. Therefore, all endeavours to decipher it without knowledge of the pre-arrangement of the pack must necessarily prove futile.”
He replaced the cards in the envelope and handed them back to me, regretting that he could not render me assistance.
“You might try every day for years and years,” he declared, “and you would be no nearer the truth. It is too well protected for chance discovery, and is, indeed, the safest and most ingenious cipher ever devised by man’s ingenuity.”
I remained and took a cup of tea with him, then at half-past four entered the express and returned to London, disappointed at my utterly fruitless errand. What he had explained to me rendered the secret more impenetrable and inscrutable than ever.
Chapter Fifteen.Certain Things we Found at Mayvill.“Miss Blair, sir,” announced Glave next day just before noon, while I was sitting alone in my room in Great Russell Street, smoking vigorously, and utterly bewildered over the problem of the dead man’s pack of cards.I sprang to my feet to welcome Mabel, who in her rich warm furs was looking very dainty and charming.“I suppose if Mrs Percival knew I had come here alone, she’d give me a sound lecture against visiting a man’s rooms,” she said, laughing after I had greeted her and closed the door.“Well,” I said, “it’s scarcely the first time you’ve honoured me with a visit, is it? And surely you need not trouble very much about Mrs Percival.”“Oh, she really grows more straight-backed every day,” Mabel pouted. “I mustn’t go here, and I mustn’t go there, and she’s afraid of me speaking with this man, and the other man is not to be known, and so on. I’m really growing rather sick of it, I can tell you,” she declared, seating herself in the chair I had just vacated, unloosing her heavy sable cape, and stretching a neat ankle to the fire.“But she’s been an awfully good friend to you,” I argued. “As far as I can see, she’s been the most easy-going of chaperons.”“The perfect chaperon is the one who can utterly and effectually efface herself five minutes after entering the room,” Mabel declared. “And I will give Mrs Percival her due, she’s never clung on to me at dances, and if she’s found me sitting out in a dim corner she has always made it a point to have an urgent call in an opposite direction. Yes,” she sighed, “I suppose I oughtn’t to grumble when I recollect the snappy old tabbies in whose hands some girls are. There’s Lady Anetta Gordon, for instance, and Vi Drummond, both pretty girls out last season, but whose lives are rendered perfect tortures by those two ugly old hags who cart them about. Why, they’ve both told me they dare not raise their eyes to a man without a snappy lecture next day on polite manners and maiden modesty.”“Well,” I said frankly, standing on the hearthrug, and looking down at her handsome figure: “I really don’t think you have had much to complain about up to the present. Your poor father was most indulgent, and I’m sure Mrs Percival, although she may seem rather harsh at times, is only speaking for your own benefit.”“Oh, I know I’m a very wilful girl in your eyes,” she exclaimed, with a smile. “You always used to say so when I was at school.”“Well, to tell the truth, you were,” I answered quite openly.“Of course. You men never make allowance for a girl. You assume your freedom with your first long trousers, while we unfortunate girls are not allowed a single moment alone, either inside the house or out of it. No matter whether we be as ugly as Mother Shipton or as beautiful as Venus, we must all of us be tied up to some elder woman, who very often is just as fond of a mild flirtation as the simpering young miss in her charge. Forgive me for speaking so candidly, won’t you, Mr Greenwood, but my opinion is that the modern methods of society are all sham and humbug.”“You’re not in a very polite mood to-day, it seems,” I remarked, being unable to restrain a smile.“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “Mrs Percival is so very aggravating. I want to go down to Mayvill this afternoon, and she won’t let me go alone.”“Why do you so particularly wish to go there alone?”She flushed slightly, and appeared for a moment to be confused.“Oh, well, I don’t want to go alone very particularly, you know,” she tried to assure me. “It is the foolishness of not allowing me to travel down there like any other girl that I object to. If a maid can take a railway journey alone, why can’t I?”“Because you have theconvenancesof society to respect—the domestic servant need not.”“Then I prefer the lot of the domestic,” she declared in a manner which told me that something had annoyed her. For my own part I should have regretted very much if Mrs Percival had consented to her going down to Herefordshire alone, while it also seemed apparent that she had some secret reason of her own for not taking her elder companion with her.What, I wondered, could it be?I inquired the reason why she wished to go to Mayvill without even a maid, but she made an excuse that she wanted to see the other four hunters were being properly treated by the studs-man, and also to make a search through her father’s study to ascertain whether any important or confidential papers remained there. She had the keys, and intended to do this before that odious person, Dawson, assumed his office.This suggestion, evidently made as an excuse, struck me as one that really should be acted upon without delay, yet it was so very plain that she desired to go alone that at first I hesitated to offer to accompany her. Our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that I could of course offer to do so without overstepping the bounds of propriety, nevertheless I resolved to first endeavour to learn the reason of her strong desire to travel alone.She was a clever woman, however, and had no intention of telling me. She had a strong and secret desire to go down alone to that fine old country house that was now her own, and did not desire that Mrs Percival should accompany her.“If you are really going to search the library, Mabel, had I not better accompany and help you?” I suggested presently. “That is, of course, if you will permit me,” I added apologetically.For a moment she was silent, as though devising some means out of a dilemma, then she answered—“If you’ll come, I’ll of course be only too delighted. Indeed, you really ought to assist me, for we might discover some key to the cipher on the cards. My father was down there for three days about a fortnight before his death.”“When shall we start?”“At three-thirty from Paddington. Will that suit you? You shall come and be my guest.” And she laughed mischievously at such utter break-up of theconvenancesand the probable chagrin of the long-suffering Mrs Percival.“Very well,” I agreed; and ten minutes later I went down with her and put her, smiling sweetly, into her smart victoria, the servants of which were now in mourning.You perceive that I was playing a very dangerous game? And so I was; as you will afterwards see.At the hour appointed I met her at Paddington, and putting aside her sad thoughtfulness at her bereavement we travelled together down to Dunmore Station, beyond Hereford. Here we entered the brougham awaiting us, and after a drive of nearly three miles, descended before the splendid old mansion which Burton Blair had bought two years before for the sake of the shooting and fishing surrounding it.Standing in its fine park half-way between King’s Pyon and Dilwyn, Mayvill Court was, and is still, one of the show places of the county. It was an ideal ancestral hall. The grand old gabled house with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean entrance, gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possessed a delightful charm which few other ancient mansions could boast, and a still further interesting feature lay in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even to the minutest detail. For close on three hundred years it had been held by its original owners, the Baddesleys, until Blair had purchased it—furniture, pictures, armour, everything just as it stood.It was nearly nine o’clock when Mrs Gibbons, the elderly housekeeper, welcomed us, in tears at the death of her master, and we passed into the great oak-panelled hall in which hung the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier. Captain Harry Baddesley, of whom there still was told a romantic story. Narrowly escaping from the battle-field, the captain spurred homewards, with some of Cromwell’s soldiers close at his heels; and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the house. Little daunted, the lady assisted them and personally conducted them over the mansion. As in so many instances, the secret room was entered from the principal bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the Roundheads had their suspicions aroused. So they decided to stay the night.The hunted man’s wife sent them an ample supper and some wine which had been carefully drugged, with the result that the unwelcome visitors were very soon soundly asleep, and the gallant captain, before the effects of the wine had worn off, were far beyond their reach.Since that day the old place had remained absolutely unchanged, with its rows of dark, time-mellowed family portraits in the big hall, its Jacobean furniture and its old helmets and pikes that had borne the brunt of Naseby. The night was bitterly cold. In the great open hearth huge logs were blazing, and as we stood there to warm ourselves after our journey, Mrs Gibbons, who had been apprised of our advent by telegraph, announced that she had prepared supper for us as she knew we could not arrive in time for dinner.Both she and her husband expressed the deepest sympathy with Mabel in her bereavement, and then having removed our coats we went on into the small dining-room, where supper was served by Gibbons and the footman with that old-fashioned stateliness characteristic of all in that fine old-world mansion.Gibbons and his wife, old retainers of the former owners, were, I think, somewhat surprised that I had accompanied their young mistress alone, nevertheless Mabel had explained to them how she wished to make a search of her father’s effects in the library, and that for that reason she had invited me to accompany her. Yet I must confess that I, on my part, had not yet formed any conclusion as to the real reason of her visit. That there was some ulterior motive in it I felt certain, but what it was I could not even guess.After supper Mrs Gibbons took my pretty companion to her room, while Gibbons showed me the one prepared for me, a long big chamber on the first floor, from the windows of which I had a wide view over the undulating lawns to Wormsley Hill and Sarnesfield. I had occupied the room on several occasions, and knew it well, with its great old carved four-poster bed, antique hangings, Jacobean chests and polished oaken ceiling.After a wash I rejoined my dainty little hostess in the library—a big, long, old room, where a fire burned brightly and the lamps were softly shaded with yellow silk. Over the fireplace were carved in stone the three water-bougets of the Baddesleys, with the date 1601, while the whole room from end to end was lined with brown-backed books that had probably not been disturbed for half-a-century.After Mabel had allowed me a cigarette and told Gibbons that she did not wish to be disturbed for an hour or so, she rose and turned the key behind the servants, so that we might carry out the work of investigation without interruption.“Now,” she said, turning her fine eyes upon me with an excitement she could not suppress as she walked to the big writing-table and took her father’s keys from her pocket, “I wonder whether we shall discover anything of interest. I suppose,” she added, “it is really Mr Leighton’s duty to do this. But I prefer that you and I should look into my father’s affairs prior to the inquisitive lawyer’s arrival.”It almost seemed as if she half-expected to discover something which she desired to conceal from the solicitor.The dead man’s writing-table was a ponderous old-fashioned one of carved oak, and as she unlocked the first drawer and turned out its contents, I drew up chairs and settled with her in order to make a methodical and thorough examination. The papers, we found, were mostly letters from friends, and correspondence from solicitors and brokers regarding his investments in various quarters. From some which I read I gathered what enormous profits he had made over certain deals in Kaffirs, while in certain other correspondence were allusions to matters which, to me, were very puzzling.Mabel’s eager attitude was that of one in search of some document or other which she believed to be there. She scarcely troubled to read any of the letters, merely scanning them swiftly and casting them aside. Thus we examined the contents of one drawer after another until I saw beneath her hand a blue foolscap envelope sealed with black wax, and bearing the superscription in her father’s handwriting:—“To be opened by Mabel after my death.—Burton Blair.”“Ah!” she gasped in breathless haste. “I wonder what this contains?” And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscap closely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of a brass fastener.From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding to my surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered, but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen. It was a half-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismal country, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house, with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip of flower-garden railed off at the side. Before the door was a rustic porch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsor armchair that had apparently just been vacated.While I was examining the view beneath the lamplight, the dead man’s daughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father had penned.Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery, and, startled, I turned to glance at her. Her countenance had changed; she was blanched to the lips.“No!” she gasped hoarsely. “I—I can’t believe it—I won’t!”Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.“What is it?” I inquired anxiously. “May I not know?” And I crossed to where she stood.“No,” she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her. “No! Not even you may know this!” And with a sudden movement she tore the paper to pieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast the fragments into the fire.The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man’s confession—if such it were—was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood, haggard, rigid and white as death.
“Miss Blair, sir,” announced Glave next day just before noon, while I was sitting alone in my room in Great Russell Street, smoking vigorously, and utterly bewildered over the problem of the dead man’s pack of cards.
I sprang to my feet to welcome Mabel, who in her rich warm furs was looking very dainty and charming.
“I suppose if Mrs Percival knew I had come here alone, she’d give me a sound lecture against visiting a man’s rooms,” she said, laughing after I had greeted her and closed the door.
“Well,” I said, “it’s scarcely the first time you’ve honoured me with a visit, is it? And surely you need not trouble very much about Mrs Percival.”
“Oh, she really grows more straight-backed every day,” Mabel pouted. “I mustn’t go here, and I mustn’t go there, and she’s afraid of me speaking with this man, and the other man is not to be known, and so on. I’m really growing rather sick of it, I can tell you,” she declared, seating herself in the chair I had just vacated, unloosing her heavy sable cape, and stretching a neat ankle to the fire.
“But she’s been an awfully good friend to you,” I argued. “As far as I can see, she’s been the most easy-going of chaperons.”
“The perfect chaperon is the one who can utterly and effectually efface herself five minutes after entering the room,” Mabel declared. “And I will give Mrs Percival her due, she’s never clung on to me at dances, and if she’s found me sitting out in a dim corner she has always made it a point to have an urgent call in an opposite direction. Yes,” she sighed, “I suppose I oughtn’t to grumble when I recollect the snappy old tabbies in whose hands some girls are. There’s Lady Anetta Gordon, for instance, and Vi Drummond, both pretty girls out last season, but whose lives are rendered perfect tortures by those two ugly old hags who cart them about. Why, they’ve both told me they dare not raise their eyes to a man without a snappy lecture next day on polite manners and maiden modesty.”
“Well,” I said frankly, standing on the hearthrug, and looking down at her handsome figure: “I really don’t think you have had much to complain about up to the present. Your poor father was most indulgent, and I’m sure Mrs Percival, although she may seem rather harsh at times, is only speaking for your own benefit.”
“Oh, I know I’m a very wilful girl in your eyes,” she exclaimed, with a smile. “You always used to say so when I was at school.”
“Well, to tell the truth, you were,” I answered quite openly.
“Of course. You men never make allowance for a girl. You assume your freedom with your first long trousers, while we unfortunate girls are not allowed a single moment alone, either inside the house or out of it. No matter whether we be as ugly as Mother Shipton or as beautiful as Venus, we must all of us be tied up to some elder woman, who very often is just as fond of a mild flirtation as the simpering young miss in her charge. Forgive me for speaking so candidly, won’t you, Mr Greenwood, but my opinion is that the modern methods of society are all sham and humbug.”
“You’re not in a very polite mood to-day, it seems,” I remarked, being unable to restrain a smile.
“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “Mrs Percival is so very aggravating. I want to go down to Mayvill this afternoon, and she won’t let me go alone.”
“Why do you so particularly wish to go there alone?”
She flushed slightly, and appeared for a moment to be confused.
“Oh, well, I don’t want to go alone very particularly, you know,” she tried to assure me. “It is the foolishness of not allowing me to travel down there like any other girl that I object to. If a maid can take a railway journey alone, why can’t I?”
“Because you have theconvenancesof society to respect—the domestic servant need not.”
“Then I prefer the lot of the domestic,” she declared in a manner which told me that something had annoyed her. For my own part I should have regretted very much if Mrs Percival had consented to her going down to Herefordshire alone, while it also seemed apparent that she had some secret reason of her own for not taking her elder companion with her.
What, I wondered, could it be?
I inquired the reason why she wished to go to Mayvill without even a maid, but she made an excuse that she wanted to see the other four hunters were being properly treated by the studs-man, and also to make a search through her father’s study to ascertain whether any important or confidential papers remained there. She had the keys, and intended to do this before that odious person, Dawson, assumed his office.
This suggestion, evidently made as an excuse, struck me as one that really should be acted upon without delay, yet it was so very plain that she desired to go alone that at first I hesitated to offer to accompany her. Our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that I could of course offer to do so without overstepping the bounds of propriety, nevertheless I resolved to first endeavour to learn the reason of her strong desire to travel alone.
She was a clever woman, however, and had no intention of telling me. She had a strong and secret desire to go down alone to that fine old country house that was now her own, and did not desire that Mrs Percival should accompany her.
“If you are really going to search the library, Mabel, had I not better accompany and help you?” I suggested presently. “That is, of course, if you will permit me,” I added apologetically.
For a moment she was silent, as though devising some means out of a dilemma, then she answered—
“If you’ll come, I’ll of course be only too delighted. Indeed, you really ought to assist me, for we might discover some key to the cipher on the cards. My father was down there for three days about a fortnight before his death.”
“When shall we start?”
“At three-thirty from Paddington. Will that suit you? You shall come and be my guest.” And she laughed mischievously at such utter break-up of theconvenancesand the probable chagrin of the long-suffering Mrs Percival.
“Very well,” I agreed; and ten minutes later I went down with her and put her, smiling sweetly, into her smart victoria, the servants of which were now in mourning.
You perceive that I was playing a very dangerous game? And so I was; as you will afterwards see.
At the hour appointed I met her at Paddington, and putting aside her sad thoughtfulness at her bereavement we travelled together down to Dunmore Station, beyond Hereford. Here we entered the brougham awaiting us, and after a drive of nearly three miles, descended before the splendid old mansion which Burton Blair had bought two years before for the sake of the shooting and fishing surrounding it.
Standing in its fine park half-way between King’s Pyon and Dilwyn, Mayvill Court was, and is still, one of the show places of the county. It was an ideal ancestral hall. The grand old gabled house with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean entrance, gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possessed a delightful charm which few other ancient mansions could boast, and a still further interesting feature lay in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even to the minutest detail. For close on three hundred years it had been held by its original owners, the Baddesleys, until Blair had purchased it—furniture, pictures, armour, everything just as it stood.
It was nearly nine o’clock when Mrs Gibbons, the elderly housekeeper, welcomed us, in tears at the death of her master, and we passed into the great oak-panelled hall in which hung the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier. Captain Harry Baddesley, of whom there still was told a romantic story. Narrowly escaping from the battle-field, the captain spurred homewards, with some of Cromwell’s soldiers close at his heels; and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the house. Little daunted, the lady assisted them and personally conducted them over the mansion. As in so many instances, the secret room was entered from the principal bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the Roundheads had their suspicions aroused. So they decided to stay the night.
The hunted man’s wife sent them an ample supper and some wine which had been carefully drugged, with the result that the unwelcome visitors were very soon soundly asleep, and the gallant captain, before the effects of the wine had worn off, were far beyond their reach.
Since that day the old place had remained absolutely unchanged, with its rows of dark, time-mellowed family portraits in the big hall, its Jacobean furniture and its old helmets and pikes that had borne the brunt of Naseby. The night was bitterly cold. In the great open hearth huge logs were blazing, and as we stood there to warm ourselves after our journey, Mrs Gibbons, who had been apprised of our advent by telegraph, announced that she had prepared supper for us as she knew we could not arrive in time for dinner.
Both she and her husband expressed the deepest sympathy with Mabel in her bereavement, and then having removed our coats we went on into the small dining-room, where supper was served by Gibbons and the footman with that old-fashioned stateliness characteristic of all in that fine old-world mansion.
Gibbons and his wife, old retainers of the former owners, were, I think, somewhat surprised that I had accompanied their young mistress alone, nevertheless Mabel had explained to them how she wished to make a search of her father’s effects in the library, and that for that reason she had invited me to accompany her. Yet I must confess that I, on my part, had not yet formed any conclusion as to the real reason of her visit. That there was some ulterior motive in it I felt certain, but what it was I could not even guess.
After supper Mrs Gibbons took my pretty companion to her room, while Gibbons showed me the one prepared for me, a long big chamber on the first floor, from the windows of which I had a wide view over the undulating lawns to Wormsley Hill and Sarnesfield. I had occupied the room on several occasions, and knew it well, with its great old carved four-poster bed, antique hangings, Jacobean chests and polished oaken ceiling.
After a wash I rejoined my dainty little hostess in the library—a big, long, old room, where a fire burned brightly and the lamps were softly shaded with yellow silk. Over the fireplace were carved in stone the three water-bougets of the Baddesleys, with the date 1601, while the whole room from end to end was lined with brown-backed books that had probably not been disturbed for half-a-century.
After Mabel had allowed me a cigarette and told Gibbons that she did not wish to be disturbed for an hour or so, she rose and turned the key behind the servants, so that we might carry out the work of investigation without interruption.
“Now,” she said, turning her fine eyes upon me with an excitement she could not suppress as she walked to the big writing-table and took her father’s keys from her pocket, “I wonder whether we shall discover anything of interest. I suppose,” she added, “it is really Mr Leighton’s duty to do this. But I prefer that you and I should look into my father’s affairs prior to the inquisitive lawyer’s arrival.”
It almost seemed as if she half-expected to discover something which she desired to conceal from the solicitor.
The dead man’s writing-table was a ponderous old-fashioned one of carved oak, and as she unlocked the first drawer and turned out its contents, I drew up chairs and settled with her in order to make a methodical and thorough examination. The papers, we found, were mostly letters from friends, and correspondence from solicitors and brokers regarding his investments in various quarters. From some which I read I gathered what enormous profits he had made over certain deals in Kaffirs, while in certain other correspondence were allusions to matters which, to me, were very puzzling.
Mabel’s eager attitude was that of one in search of some document or other which she believed to be there. She scarcely troubled to read any of the letters, merely scanning them swiftly and casting them aside. Thus we examined the contents of one drawer after another until I saw beneath her hand a blue foolscap envelope sealed with black wax, and bearing the superscription in her father’s handwriting:—
“To be opened by Mabel after my death.—Burton Blair.”
“Ah!” she gasped in breathless haste. “I wonder what this contains?” And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscap closely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of a brass fastener.
From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding to my surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered, but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen. It was a half-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismal country, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house, with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip of flower-garden railed off at the side. Before the door was a rustic porch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsor armchair that had apparently just been vacated.
While I was examining the view beneath the lamplight, the dead man’s daughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father had penned.
Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery, and, startled, I turned to glance at her. Her countenance had changed; she was blanched to the lips.
“No!” she gasped hoarsely. “I—I can’t believe it—I won’t!”
Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.
“What is it?” I inquired anxiously. “May I not know?” And I crossed to where she stood.
“No,” she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her. “No! Not even you may know this!” And with a sudden movement she tore the paper to pieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast the fragments into the fire.
The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man’s confession—if such it were—was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood, haggard, rigid and white as death.
Chapter Sixteen.In which Two Curious Facts are Established.Mabel’s sudden action both annoyed and surprised me, for I had believed that our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that she would at least have allowed me sight of what her father had written.Yet when, next second, I reflected that the envelope had been specially addressed to her, I saw that whatever was contained therein had been intended for her eye alone.“You have discovered something which has upset you?” I said, looking straight into her white, hard-drawn face. “I hope it is really nothing very disconcerting?”She held her breath for a moment, her hand instinctively upon her breast as though to still the wild beating of her heart.“Ah! unfortunately it is,” was her answer. “I know the truth now—the awful, terrible truth.” And without a word of warning she covered her face with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears.At her side in an instant I was striving to console her, but I quickly realised what a deep impression of dismay and horror those written words of her dead father had produced upon her. She was filled with grief, and utterly inconsolable.The quiet of that long, old-fashioned room was unbroken save for her bitter sobs and the solemn tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock at the further end of the apartment. My hand was placed tenderly upon the poor girl’s shoulder, but it was a long time ere I could induce her to dry her tears.When she did so, I saw by her face that she had become a changed woman.Walking back to the writing-table she took up the envelope and re-read the superscription which Blair had written upon it, and then for the first time her eyes fell upon the photograph of that lonely house by the crossways.“Why!” she cried, startled, “where did you find this?”I explained that it had dropped from the envelope, whereupon she took it up and gazed, for a long time upon it. Then, turning it over, she discovered what I had not noticed, namely, written faintly in pencil and half effaced were the words, “Owston crossroads, 9 miles beyond Doncaster on the Selby Road.—B.B.”“Do you know what this is?”“No, I haven’t the least idea,” I answered. “It must be something of which your father was very careful. It seems to be well worn, too, as though carried in somebody’s pocket.”“Well,” she said, “I will tell you. I had no idea that he still preserved it, but I suppose he kept it as a souvenir of those weary journeys of long ago. This photograph,” she added, holding it still in her hand, “is the picture of the spot for which he searched every turnpike in England. He had the photograph but nothing else to guide him to the spot, and we were therefore compelled to tramp all the main roads up and down the country in an attempt to identify it. Not until nearly a year after you and Mr Seton had so kindly placed me at school at Bournemouth did my father, still on his lonely tramp, succeed in discovering it after a search lasting over three years. He identified it one summer evening as the crossways at Owston, and he found living in that house the person of whom he had been all those weary months in search.”“Curious,” I said. “Tell me more about it.”“There is nothing else to tell, except that, by identifying the house, he obtained the key to the secret—at least, that is what I always understood from him,” she said. “Ah, I recollect all those long wearying walks when I was a girl, how we trudged on over those long, white, endless roads, in sunshine and in rain, envying people in carriages and carts, and men and women on bicycles, and yet my courage always supported by my father’s declaration that great fortune must be ours some day. He carried this photograph with him always, and almost at each crossroad he would take it out, examine the landscape and compare it, not knowing, of course, but that the old toll-house might have been pulled down since the taking of the picture.”“Did he never tell you the reason why he wished to visit that house.”“He used to say that the man who lived there—the man who used to sit on summer evenings in that chair outside, was his friend—his good friend; only they had been parted for a long time, and he did not know that my father was still alive. They had been friends abroad, I fancy, in the days when my father was at sea.”“And the identification of this spot was the reason of your father’s constant wanderings?” I exclaimed, pleased that I had at last cleared up one point which, for five years or so, had been a mystery.“Yes. A month after he had made the discovery he came to Bournemouth, and told me in confidence that his dream of great wealth was about to be realised. He had solved the problem, and within a week or two would be in possession of ample funds. He disappeared, you will remember, almost immediately, and was away for a month. Then he returned a rich man—so rich that you and Mr Seton were utterly dumbfounded. Don’t you recollect that night at Helpstone, after I had come from school to spend a week with my father on his return? We were sitting together after dinner and poor father recalled the last occasion when we had all assembled there—the occasion when I was taken ill outside,” she added. “And don’t you recollect Mr Seton appearing to doubt my father’s statement that he was already worth fifty thousand pounds.”“I remember,” I answered, as her clear eyes met mine. “I remember how your father struck us utterly dumb by going upstairs and fetching his banker’s pass-book, which showed a balance of fifty-four thousand odd pounds. After that he became more than ever a mystery to us. But tell me,” I added in a low, earnest voice, “what have you discovered to-night that has so upset you?”“I have nearly found proof of a fact that I have dreaded for years—a fact that affects not only my poor father’s memory, but also myself. I am in peril—personal danger.”“How?” I asked quickly, failing to understand her meaning. “Recollect that I promised your father to act as your protector.”“I know, I know. It is awfully good of you,” she said, looking at me gratefully with those wonderful eyes that had always held me fascinated beneath the spell of her beauty. “But,” she added, shaking her head sorrowfully, “I fear that in this you will be powerless. If the blow falls, as it must sooner or later, then I shall be crushed and helpless. No power, not even your devoted friendship, can then save me.”“You certainly speak very strangely, Mabel. I don’t follow you at all.”“I expect not,” was her mechanical answer. “You do not know all. If you did, you would understand the peril of my position and of the great danger now threatening me.”And she stood motionless as a statue, her hand upon the corner of the writing-table, her eyes fixed straight into the blazing fire.“If the danger is a real one, I consider I ought to be aware of it. To be forewarned is to be forearmed!” I remarked decisively.“It is a real one, but as my father has confessed the truth to me alone, I am unable to reveal it to you. His secret is mine.”“Certainly,” I answered, accepting her decision, which, of course, was but natural in the circumstances. She could not betray her dead father’s confidence.Yet if she had done, how altered would have been the course of events! Surely the story of Burton Blair was one of the strangest and most romantic ever given to man to relate, and as assuredly the strange circumstances which occurred after his decease were even more remarkable and puzzling. The whole affair from beginning to end was a complete enigma.Later, when Mabel grew slightly calmer, we concluded our work of investigation, but discovered little else of interest save several letters in Italian, undated and unsigned, but evidently written by Dick Dawson, the millionaire’s mysterious friend—or enemy. On reading them they were, I found, evidently the correspondence of an intimate acquaintance who was sharing Blair’s fortune and secretly assisting him in the acquisition of his wealth. There was much mention of “the secret,” and repeated cautions against revealing anything to Reggie or to myself.In one letter I found the sentences in Italian: “My girl is growing into quite a fine lady. I expect she will become a Countess, or perhaps a Duchess, one day. I hear from your side that Mabel is becoming a very pretty woman. You ought, with your position and reputation, to make a good match for her. But I know what old-fashioned ideas you hold that a woman must marry only for love.”On reading this, one fact was vividly impressed upon me, namely, that if this man Dawson shared secretly in Blair’s wealth he surely had no necessity to obtain his secret by foul means, when he already knew it.The clock on the stables chimed midnight before Mabel rang for Mrs Gibbons, and the latter’s husband followed, bringing me a night-cap of whisky and some hot water.My little companion merrily pressed my hand, wishing me good-night, and then retired, accompanied by the housekeeper, while Gibbons himself remained to mix my drink.“Sad thing, sir, about our poor master,” hazarded the well-trained servant, who had been all his life in the service of the previous owners. “I fear the poor young mistress feels it very much.”“Very much indeed, Gibbons,” I answered, taking a cigarette and standing with my back to the fire. “She was such a devoted daughter.”“She is now mistress of everything, Mr Ford told us when he was down three days ago.”“Yes,” I said, “everything. And I hope that you and your wife will serve her as well and as faithfully as you have done her father.”“We’ll try, sir,” was the grave, grey-haired man’s response. “Everybody’s very fond of the young mistress. She’s so very good to all the servants.” Then, as I remained silent, he placed my candle in readiness on the table, and, bowing, wished me good-night.He closed the door, and I was alone in that great silent old room where the darting flames cast weird lights across into the dark recesses, and the long, old Chippendale clock ticked on solemnly as it had done for a century past.Having swallowed my hot drink, I returned again to my dead friend’s writing-table, carefully examining it to see whether it contained any secret drawers. A methodical investigation of every portion failed to reveal any spring or unsuspected cavity, therefore, after glancing at that photograph which had taken Blair those many months of weary tramping to identify, I extinguished the lamps and passing through the great old hall with the stands of armour which conjured up visions of ghostly cavaliers, ascended to my room.The bright fire gave the antique place with those rather funereal hangings a warm and cosy appearance in contrast to the hard frost outside, and feeling no inclination to sleep just then, I flung my self into an armchair and sat with arms folded, pondering deeply.Again the stable-clock chimed—the half-hour—and then I think I must have dozed, for I was awakened suddenly by a light, stealthy footstep on the polished oaken floor outside my door. I listened, and distinctly heard some one creeping lightly down the big old Jacobean staircase, which creaked slightly somewhere below.The weird ghostliness of the old place and its many historic traditions caused me, I suppose, some misgivings, for I found myself thinking of burglars and of midnight visitants. Again I strained my ears. Perhaps, after all, it was only a servant! Yet, when I glanced at my watch, and found it to be a quarter to two, the suggestion that the servants had not retired was at once negatived.Suddenly, in the room below me, I distinctly heard a slow, harsh, grating noise. Then all was still again.About three minutes later, however, I fancied I heard low whispering, and, having quickly extinguished my light, I drew aside one of my heavy curtains, and peering forth saw, to my surprise, two figures crossing the lawn towards the shrubbery.The moon was somewhat overcast, yet by the grey, clouded light I distinguished that the pair were a man and a woman. From the man’s back I could not recognise him, but his companion’s gait was familiar to me as she hurried on towards the dark belt of bare, black trees.It was Mabel Blair. The secret was out. Her sudden desire to visit Mayvill was in order to keep a midnight tryst.
Mabel’s sudden action both annoyed and surprised me, for I had believed that our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that she would at least have allowed me sight of what her father had written.
Yet when, next second, I reflected that the envelope had been specially addressed to her, I saw that whatever was contained therein had been intended for her eye alone.
“You have discovered something which has upset you?” I said, looking straight into her white, hard-drawn face. “I hope it is really nothing very disconcerting?”
She held her breath for a moment, her hand instinctively upon her breast as though to still the wild beating of her heart.
“Ah! unfortunately it is,” was her answer. “I know the truth now—the awful, terrible truth.” And without a word of warning she covered her face with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears.
At her side in an instant I was striving to console her, but I quickly realised what a deep impression of dismay and horror those written words of her dead father had produced upon her. She was filled with grief, and utterly inconsolable.
The quiet of that long, old-fashioned room was unbroken save for her bitter sobs and the solemn tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock at the further end of the apartment. My hand was placed tenderly upon the poor girl’s shoulder, but it was a long time ere I could induce her to dry her tears.
When she did so, I saw by her face that she had become a changed woman.
Walking back to the writing-table she took up the envelope and re-read the superscription which Blair had written upon it, and then for the first time her eyes fell upon the photograph of that lonely house by the crossways.
“Why!” she cried, startled, “where did you find this?”
I explained that it had dropped from the envelope, whereupon she took it up and gazed, for a long time upon it. Then, turning it over, she discovered what I had not noticed, namely, written faintly in pencil and half effaced were the words, “Owston crossroads, 9 miles beyond Doncaster on the Selby Road.—B.B.”
“Do you know what this is?”
“No, I haven’t the least idea,” I answered. “It must be something of which your father was very careful. It seems to be well worn, too, as though carried in somebody’s pocket.”
“Well,” she said, “I will tell you. I had no idea that he still preserved it, but I suppose he kept it as a souvenir of those weary journeys of long ago. This photograph,” she added, holding it still in her hand, “is the picture of the spot for which he searched every turnpike in England. He had the photograph but nothing else to guide him to the spot, and we were therefore compelled to tramp all the main roads up and down the country in an attempt to identify it. Not until nearly a year after you and Mr Seton had so kindly placed me at school at Bournemouth did my father, still on his lonely tramp, succeed in discovering it after a search lasting over three years. He identified it one summer evening as the crossways at Owston, and he found living in that house the person of whom he had been all those weary months in search.”
“Curious,” I said. “Tell me more about it.”
“There is nothing else to tell, except that, by identifying the house, he obtained the key to the secret—at least, that is what I always understood from him,” she said. “Ah, I recollect all those long wearying walks when I was a girl, how we trudged on over those long, white, endless roads, in sunshine and in rain, envying people in carriages and carts, and men and women on bicycles, and yet my courage always supported by my father’s declaration that great fortune must be ours some day. He carried this photograph with him always, and almost at each crossroad he would take it out, examine the landscape and compare it, not knowing, of course, but that the old toll-house might have been pulled down since the taking of the picture.”
“Did he never tell you the reason why he wished to visit that house.”
“He used to say that the man who lived there—the man who used to sit on summer evenings in that chair outside, was his friend—his good friend; only they had been parted for a long time, and he did not know that my father was still alive. They had been friends abroad, I fancy, in the days when my father was at sea.”
“And the identification of this spot was the reason of your father’s constant wanderings?” I exclaimed, pleased that I had at last cleared up one point which, for five years or so, had been a mystery.
“Yes. A month after he had made the discovery he came to Bournemouth, and told me in confidence that his dream of great wealth was about to be realised. He had solved the problem, and within a week or two would be in possession of ample funds. He disappeared, you will remember, almost immediately, and was away for a month. Then he returned a rich man—so rich that you and Mr Seton were utterly dumbfounded. Don’t you recollect that night at Helpstone, after I had come from school to spend a week with my father on his return? We were sitting together after dinner and poor father recalled the last occasion when we had all assembled there—the occasion when I was taken ill outside,” she added. “And don’t you recollect Mr Seton appearing to doubt my father’s statement that he was already worth fifty thousand pounds.”
“I remember,” I answered, as her clear eyes met mine. “I remember how your father struck us utterly dumb by going upstairs and fetching his banker’s pass-book, which showed a balance of fifty-four thousand odd pounds. After that he became more than ever a mystery to us. But tell me,” I added in a low, earnest voice, “what have you discovered to-night that has so upset you?”
“I have nearly found proof of a fact that I have dreaded for years—a fact that affects not only my poor father’s memory, but also myself. I am in peril—personal danger.”
“How?” I asked quickly, failing to understand her meaning. “Recollect that I promised your father to act as your protector.”
“I know, I know. It is awfully good of you,” she said, looking at me gratefully with those wonderful eyes that had always held me fascinated beneath the spell of her beauty. “But,” she added, shaking her head sorrowfully, “I fear that in this you will be powerless. If the blow falls, as it must sooner or later, then I shall be crushed and helpless. No power, not even your devoted friendship, can then save me.”
“You certainly speak very strangely, Mabel. I don’t follow you at all.”
“I expect not,” was her mechanical answer. “You do not know all. If you did, you would understand the peril of my position and of the great danger now threatening me.”
And she stood motionless as a statue, her hand upon the corner of the writing-table, her eyes fixed straight into the blazing fire.
“If the danger is a real one, I consider I ought to be aware of it. To be forewarned is to be forearmed!” I remarked decisively.
“It is a real one, but as my father has confessed the truth to me alone, I am unable to reveal it to you. His secret is mine.”
“Certainly,” I answered, accepting her decision, which, of course, was but natural in the circumstances. She could not betray her dead father’s confidence.
Yet if she had done, how altered would have been the course of events! Surely the story of Burton Blair was one of the strangest and most romantic ever given to man to relate, and as assuredly the strange circumstances which occurred after his decease were even more remarkable and puzzling. The whole affair from beginning to end was a complete enigma.
Later, when Mabel grew slightly calmer, we concluded our work of investigation, but discovered little else of interest save several letters in Italian, undated and unsigned, but evidently written by Dick Dawson, the millionaire’s mysterious friend—or enemy. On reading them they were, I found, evidently the correspondence of an intimate acquaintance who was sharing Blair’s fortune and secretly assisting him in the acquisition of his wealth. There was much mention of “the secret,” and repeated cautions against revealing anything to Reggie or to myself.
In one letter I found the sentences in Italian: “My girl is growing into quite a fine lady. I expect she will become a Countess, or perhaps a Duchess, one day. I hear from your side that Mabel is becoming a very pretty woman. You ought, with your position and reputation, to make a good match for her. But I know what old-fashioned ideas you hold that a woman must marry only for love.”
On reading this, one fact was vividly impressed upon me, namely, that if this man Dawson shared secretly in Blair’s wealth he surely had no necessity to obtain his secret by foul means, when he already knew it.
The clock on the stables chimed midnight before Mabel rang for Mrs Gibbons, and the latter’s husband followed, bringing me a night-cap of whisky and some hot water.
My little companion merrily pressed my hand, wishing me good-night, and then retired, accompanied by the housekeeper, while Gibbons himself remained to mix my drink.
“Sad thing, sir, about our poor master,” hazarded the well-trained servant, who had been all his life in the service of the previous owners. “I fear the poor young mistress feels it very much.”
“Very much indeed, Gibbons,” I answered, taking a cigarette and standing with my back to the fire. “She was such a devoted daughter.”
“She is now mistress of everything, Mr Ford told us when he was down three days ago.”
“Yes,” I said, “everything. And I hope that you and your wife will serve her as well and as faithfully as you have done her father.”
“We’ll try, sir,” was the grave, grey-haired man’s response. “Everybody’s very fond of the young mistress. She’s so very good to all the servants.” Then, as I remained silent, he placed my candle in readiness on the table, and, bowing, wished me good-night.
He closed the door, and I was alone in that great silent old room where the darting flames cast weird lights across into the dark recesses, and the long, old Chippendale clock ticked on solemnly as it had done for a century past.
Having swallowed my hot drink, I returned again to my dead friend’s writing-table, carefully examining it to see whether it contained any secret drawers. A methodical investigation of every portion failed to reveal any spring or unsuspected cavity, therefore, after glancing at that photograph which had taken Blair those many months of weary tramping to identify, I extinguished the lamps and passing through the great old hall with the stands of armour which conjured up visions of ghostly cavaliers, ascended to my room.
The bright fire gave the antique place with those rather funereal hangings a warm and cosy appearance in contrast to the hard frost outside, and feeling no inclination to sleep just then, I flung my self into an armchair and sat with arms folded, pondering deeply.
Again the stable-clock chimed—the half-hour—and then I think I must have dozed, for I was awakened suddenly by a light, stealthy footstep on the polished oaken floor outside my door. I listened, and distinctly heard some one creeping lightly down the big old Jacobean staircase, which creaked slightly somewhere below.
The weird ghostliness of the old place and its many historic traditions caused me, I suppose, some misgivings, for I found myself thinking of burglars and of midnight visitants. Again I strained my ears. Perhaps, after all, it was only a servant! Yet, when I glanced at my watch, and found it to be a quarter to two, the suggestion that the servants had not retired was at once negatived.
Suddenly, in the room below me, I distinctly heard a slow, harsh, grating noise. Then all was still again.
About three minutes later, however, I fancied I heard low whispering, and, having quickly extinguished my light, I drew aside one of my heavy curtains, and peering forth saw, to my surprise, two figures crossing the lawn towards the shrubbery.
The moon was somewhat overcast, yet by the grey, clouded light I distinguished that the pair were a man and a woman. From the man’s back I could not recognise him, but his companion’s gait was familiar to me as she hurried on towards the dark belt of bare, black trees.
It was Mabel Blair. The secret was out. Her sudden desire to visit Mayvill was in order to keep a midnight tryst.