* * * * * *
There is but little more to tell. With the exception of the part which Devlin played in it, and which has now for the first time been related, the story became public property, and Kenneth Dowsett was proved to be the murderer of poor Mary Melladew. Time has softened the grief of Mr. and Mrs. Melladew, and they find in the love of Lizzie and her husband, Richard Carton, some solace for the tragedy which a ruthless hand committed. Mr. Portland paid me the two thousand pounds he promised, and I am in a fair way of business. Fanny Lemon and her husband live in retirement in the country. Not a word ever passes their lips in connection with the events I have related. I have seen and heard nothing of Mrs. Dowsett and her daughter.
* * * * * *
A short time ago my wife and I were in an open-air public place of amusement witnessing a wonderful exhibition, the extraordinary novelty of which consisted in a man floating earthwards from the clouds at a distance of some thousands of feet from the earth.
"Look there!" said my wife.
I had given her such faithful and vivid descriptions of Devlin that she always said, if it happened that he still lived and she saw him, that she could not fail to recognise him. I turned in the direction she indicated, and, standing alone, apart from the crowd, once more saw Devlin. He was watching the performer floating from heaven to earth. There was a strange smile upon his lips.
I could not restrain the impulse which prompted me to move towards him. My approach attracted his attention. He looked at me, and was gone. I have never seen him since.
The last words I heard him speak recur to me. There was in them the spirit of Divine justice. Crimes cannot be for ever successfully hidden. The monsters who commit them shall be brought to their doom by those whose duty it is to track them down, or by unseen mysterious agencies by which they are surrounded, or by their own confession.
But let the legislators see to it; let those who call themselves philanthropists and humanitarians see to it; let those whose fortune it is to possess great wealth see to it. There are in this modern Babylon fester-spots of corruption wherein nothing but sin and vice can possibly grow. They are crowded with human beings ripening for evil; they are crowded with human souls lost to salvation. They are an infamy--and the infamy rests not upon the creatures who are born and bred there, but upon those who allow them to be, and who have the undoubted power to cleanse them, and make them healthy for body and soul. For generation upon generation have they been allowed to breed corruption; to this day they are allowed to do so. All who have the remedy in their hands are responsible. The preacher who preaches and does not practise; the rich who can afford, but grudges to give; the statesman with his dilettante efforts towards social improvement, and his huge efforts towards place and power--one and all of these are accountable for the sin. It is no less, and it rests upon them.
Footnote 1: I have this desk, with its contents, now in my possession. The extraordinary revelations made therein (which I may mention have no connection with the present story) will one day be made public--B. L. F.