We were in perfect darkness and no one seemed to be stirring in the house, although the mat under our feet, in some way connected with an electric alarm bell, was giving shrill notice of our arrival. Then we heard swift feet approaching and a tall, hard-featured woman in a plain black gown, and holding a lamp high over her head, appeared before us.
M. de Cartienne took her by the arm and led her on one side. The other man, who was making vain attempts to appear at his ease and composed, sank into a chair, palpably trembling. Of the real nature of the danger which was imminent I could form only the slightest idea; but that it was something very much to be feared I could easily gather from his agitation and de Cartienne’s manner.
Suddenly the latter turned round.
“Ackland,” he said quickly to the man in the chair, eyeing him keenly and with a shade of contempt in his tone, “you are not fit for any of the serious work, I can see. Listen! Light up the club-room and the smoke-room, stir up the fires, bring out the cards and wine-glasses, empty some tobacco-ash about, make the place look habitable for us when we come. Ferdinand is on the watch outside and will give you notice of our visitors. Ring all three alarm-bells at once if he gives the signal. Morton, I want you to wait for me. I’ll send you away all right before anything happens; but don’t go unless you see me again—unless you’re frightened.”
He turned on his heel and, without waiting for any answer from either of us, hurried away down the passage. The man whom he had called Ackland rose from his seat and, striking a match, lighted the gas-brackets all around the hall and the burners of a candelabra which hung from the roof.
My companion then threw open a door and I followed him into a luxuriously-appointed room, furnished with a suite of lounges and easy-chairs corresponding with those in the hall.
Whilst I was looking round, he hastily began moving the chairs about, as though they had been recently used, poking the fire and generally making the place look inhabited. Having done this, he crossed the hall and entered the opposite room. It was a little smaller, but similarly appointed and decorated, save that a long table, covered with a white cloth and laid for dinner, stood in the centre, and a smaller one, with a green baize covering at the further end. My companion threw a pack of cards and some counters upon the latter and drew it closer up to the fire. Then, having placed some chairs around it, he went back into the hall again and I followed.
All the while we had been moving about, strange noises had been going on under our feet. Now and then the sound of hurrying footsteps and of hoarse voices reached us, and, more often still, the steady rumbling of heavy articles being moved about. I looked at my companion for an explanation, but he did not seem inclined to offer one.
“What’s going on underneath?” I asked at last.
“Bowls!” he answered curtly, “Don’t talk, please, I want to listen!”
The underground noises continued for about a quarter of an hour, during which time my companion busied himself by removing from the club-room various articles—the false top of a table marked out in a curious fashion, several mahogany boxes, and other contrivances strange to me, but presumably gambling appliances, with all of which he disappeared through the door by which de Cartienne had made his exit, returning again directly.
At last everything was quiet, ominously quiet; then the door from the hall was thrown suddenly open, and the Count entered, followed by four or five other men. They were all apparently gentlemen, and in evening clothes, but terribly soiled and disordered. Some were splashed with mud from head to foot, some had their shirt-fronts blackened and crumpled, and the hands of all of them were black with grease and dirt. All looked more or less pale and nervous—in fact, M. de Cartienne was the only one who thoroughly retained his composure.
There was a lavatory on the other side of the staircase, towards which the whole of the little party trooped, M. de Cartienne being the last. As he disappeared he looked round and beckoned me to follow him. I did so and stood by his side, while he plunged his head into some cold water, and then began to wash his hands.
“I’m sorry this should have happened to-night, Morton,” he said. “Marx was here, but has bolted in a fright.”
“Couldn’t I catch him up?” I asked.
de Cartienne shook his head.
“No; he’s in the train by this time. He comes here every night, though. I’ll bring you down to-morrow, perhaps.”
“Are you coming back now?” I asked.
“No; I must see this thing through. You can go and at once, though. My carriage will take you back. I shall return by train. By the by, there’s a small favour I want to ask you.”
“Certainly.”
“I have kept a few private papers here, which I should not care to have examined should the search really take place. I want you to take them back to the hotel for me. The box is a little too heavy for me to carry, so I have told them to put it in the carriage as a footstool for you. You won’t mind that?”
“Not in the least,” I replied. “When shall I see you again?”
“At the hotel some time to-morrow. Come along now,” he added, putting on his coat.
He strolled with me to the front door and, throwing it open, listened intently.
There was no sound save the moaning of the wind in the bare trees which stood by the side of the house and the patter of the fast-falling rain. I stepped into the carriage and the Count came to the window to me.
“Don’t forget,” he said, pointing to a long, oblong box secured by a strong lock. “Draw the rug a little more over your knees—so.”
I obeyed him and let it hang down to hide the box, which I began to see was his object.
“And if you should meet anyone and they should be impertinent enough to ask you where you are going, don’t tell them. Give them your card and tell them to go to the devil. If they are very pressing indeed, you must tell a lie. Say that you’ve been to dine with Sir Sedgwick Bromley at Hatherly Hall. Don’t forget the name.”
“Very well. Are you coming back to the Metropole to-night?” I asked.
“I think so. But if you don’t mind I should be glad if you would have the box taken up into your room and keep it for me. I shouldn’t like anything to happen to it.”
I promised, but without much alacrity. We shook hands and the carriage drove off.
We could scarcely have accomplished more than a mile of our homeward journey when, with a sudden jerk which almost threw me forward, the carriage was brought to a standstill.
On the opposite side of the road were two carriages, or, rather, flys, from one of which a tall, slim man was in the act of descending. Several other men on horseback were just riding up from behind. They were all in plain clothes, but something about theirphysiqueand general appearance had an unmistakable suggestion of police.
The man who had been descending from the nearer of the two carriages crossed the road and approached me.
“Sorry to detain you, sir,” he said, saluting in military fashion, “but I must ask you your name and address and where you have been this evening.”
“I don’t know whether it has occurred to you that your behaviour is rather strange,” I remarked, looking at him steadily, “not to say impertinent! What the mischief do you mean by stopping my carriage in this way on the high road and asking me questions like that? Who are you?”
He hesitated, and then answered with a little more respect in his manner.
“I am deputy chief sergeant at Scotland Yard, sir, and these are my men. We have a little business at a house not far from here, and our orders are to detain and procure the names and addresses of all persons whom we might encounter of whom we had reasonable suspicion that they had recently left the house in question. You will not object to give me your name, sir?”
“Certainly not. My name is Philip Morton, and my general address is Ravenor Castle, Leicestershire. At present I am staying at the Metropole Hotel. Are you satisfied?”
“Perfectly, sir,” he answered, after one more rapid glance around the carriage. “I see that you are not concerned in this affair. I wish you good-night!”
We drove rapidly off, and I began to feel not a little dissatisfied with myself. The Count had no right to have mixed me up in this affair.
In my ill-temper I gave the box, which lay concealed under my feet, a savage kick, sufficient to have sent it flying to the other end of the carriage. But there was a little surprise in store for me. To my amazement the box remained perfectly immovable, just as though it had been screwed into the bottom of the carriage.
Forgetting the Count’s earnest injunctions, I threw aside the rug and, stooping down, tried to lift it by the handles. In those days I was proud of my muscles, and not altogether without reason, but it needed all my strength to lift that small box from the ground and hold it for a moment in my arms. What could it contain? Papers, cards, gambling appliances? Surely it could be none of these! The very idea was ridiculous! The Count de Cartienne had deceived me. I had been made the catspaw of those pale, anxious men who had watched me start so eagerly and scanned me over with many furtive glances. What it was of which I was in charge, I could not tell; but in that box lay their secret, and my first indignant impulse was to open the carriage door and kick it out into the road.
But are not second thoughts always better? Might not this affair shape itself to my advantage? There need be no more obligations to the Count de Cartienne. He was possessed of information which was valuable to me. I was possessed of this box, which, without doubt, was invaluable to him. I would propose an exchange—he should bring me face to face with Mr. Marx and receive his precious box; or, if he refused to do so, its destination should be Scotland Yard. A very equitable arrangement!
We were in London again, bowling smoothly along wide stretches of silent, gas-lit streets, empty, and almost deserted now, for it was past two o’clock.
Soon we turned sharply into Northumberland Avenue, and pulled up at the hotel. The man on the box—footman I suppose he was, although he was not in livery—opened the carriage-door for me and then took possession of the small trunk.
“If you will allow me, sir, I will take this up to your room,” he said.
“You needn’t trouble,” I answered. “I can manage.”
He retained possession of it.
“The Count’s orders were, sir, that I should not allow the hotel servants to meddle with it, and that, if possible, I should myself see it deposited in your room. You have no objection, sir, I hope?”
“Not at all,” I answered, turning away. “In fact, the less I have to do with it the better.”
We entered the hotel and, crossing the hall, rang for the lift.
The lift came to a standstill at the third floor and we stepped out on to the corridor. The Count’s servant followed me to my room, deposited the box on a chair at the foot of the bed and wished me good-night.
I then got into bed and, full of excitement though the day had been for me, slept soundly till morning.
It was five minutes past nine when I entered the great salon of the hotel and looked round for Lord Langerdale.
My search was not a long one. He was sitting alone at a table laid for three in one of the deep recesses, with a little pile of letters and a newspaper before him. Directly he saw me he pushed them away and held out his hand.
“Good-morning!” he said pleasantly. “I’m glad to see you’re so punctual. You’re not in a hurry for breakfast for a few minutes, are you?”
“Not at all,” I answered, taking the chair which he pushed towards me.
“That’s right. My wife will be down in a quarter of an hour, and we’ll wait for her, if you don’t mind.”
I bowed my assent, murmuring that I should be delighted, which was perfectly true.
Lord Langerdale turned a little round in his chair so as to face me and began at once:
“I am rather a blunt sort of man, Mr. Morton—we Irish generally are, you know—and I like to go straight at a thing. Will you tell me your mother’s maiden name?”
“I would with pleasure if I knew it,” I answered readily; “but I don’t.”
“Is she alive?”
I shook my head.
“She died about nine months ago.”
“And Morton is your name? May I ask who your father was?”
“Certainly. He was a farmer in Leicestershire.”
“A farmer?” Lord Langerdale looked surprised and I fancied a little disappointed. “Was he your mother’s first husband?”
I was about to answer in the affirmative, but remembered that I had no certain knowledge, so I corrected myself.
“You may think it strange, Lord Langerdale,” I said, “but I know nothing of my mother’s antecedents, nor of her family. From my earliest recollection she never mentioned her past, nor permitted others to do so. There was some mystery connected with it, I am sure; but what it was I have no clue.
“I could not help observing, as everyone else did, that she was far above my father from a social point of view, for she was an educated lady and he was only a small tenant farmer. Throughout all her life she was reticent, and her last act before she died was a paradox. She left me to the guardianship of the man whom she had always before seemed to dread and fear.”
“What is his name?”
“Mr. Ravenor, of Ravenor Castle. We were tenants of his.”
“My God!”
Lord Langerdale’s whole appearance was that of a man strongly agitated. He turned his head away for a moment, and the long, white fingers which supported it were shaking visibly.
I, too, was moved, for it seemed as though the time were come at last when something of my mother’s history would be made known to me. But he seemed in no hurry to speak again. It was I who had to remind him of my presence.
“Lord Langerdale,” I cried, my voice, despite all my efforts, trembling with eagerness, “you know who my mother was? You can tell me her history?”
He turned round slowly.
“One more question,” he said. “Are you sure that you were born at Ravenor?”
“I have never heard otherwise,” I told him. “But when I asked my mother once at which church I was christened, she could not tell me and forbade me to ask again.”
Lord Langerdale looked puzzled for a moment, and then asked me my age, which I told him.
“Do you remember the time when news came of Mr. Ravenor, after he had been supposed to have been dead for so long?”
“Yes. It is about my earliest distinct recollection,” I answered.
“Do you remember how your mother received the news?”
Yes, I remembered. Even at that moment a vision rose up before me. I saw her standing beneath the ivy-covered porch of our farmhouse, her beautiful face ghastly with sudden pallor, and her wild eyes riveted upon my father’s burly figure, as he shouted out the tidings. I described the scene to Lord Langerdale.
“And afterwards did she ever mention Mr. Ravenor’s name to you? Did she see anything of him?” he asked, when I had finished.
Briefly I told him of her warnings, of my meeting with Mr. Ravenor, of his proposal to adopt me, and of my mother’s death, and how at the end she suddenly turned round and left me to his guardianship. When I had finished he laid his hand upon my arm.
“Let us go upstairs to my rooms,” he said kindly. “If my wife were to come in now and learn the truth—and I’m a bad hand at keeping anything back from her—I’m afraid the shock would be too much for her. Come with me and I will tell you your mother’s history.”
So I rose and followed him with beating heart.
Lord Langerdale’s suite of apartments was on the second floor, and when we reached them it was no small relief to me to find the room into which we turned empty. I sank mechanically into the chair to which he pointed, whilst he himself remained standing a few feet away from me.
“From what you have told me,” he said gravely, “I have not the least doubt but that my wife and your mother were sisters.”
I gave a little gasp and began to wonder whether this was not all a wild dream. Lord Langerdale remained silent, whilst I recovered myself in some measure.
“Will you tell me about it?” I asked slowly. “I don’t understand.”
“I will tell you everything,” Lord Langerdale said kindly. “This is a great surprise to you, of course, and quite as great a one to me. Here is the story—or, rather, as much as I know of it.”
He cleared his throat and took a chair by my side. Everything else in the room except his face was blurred and indistinct, and his voice seemed to come to me from a long distance. But every word he uttered sank into my heart.
“Your grandfather was a very poor and very proud English baronet—Sir Arthur Montavon. My wife Elsie and your mother were his only children, and they were twins. They were presented at Court together, created an equal sensation, and were at once allowed to be the beauties of the season. This was the time when I first knew them, so it is here that I begin my tale.
“Six months after their appearance in Society, Elsie was engaged to be married to me. But your mother seemed to be more difficult to please. She refused several very good offers, and at the end of her first season she was still free.
“I don’t know exactly how or where she first met him,” Lord Langerdale continued slowly; “but before the following spring your mother was betrothed to the Count de Cartienne. At that time he was one of the richest, the best-looking, and most popular men about town. There seemed to be nothing which he could not do, no art in which he was not proficient, and he was passionately in love with your mother. Whether she ever really cared for him I cannot tell; but if she did, it could only have been a very transitory feeling.
“The marriage-day was fixed and was a general topic of conversation. I even believe that your mother had begun to prepare her trousseau, when something happened. Count de Cartienne was deposed from his post of chief favourite in Society, which he at one time held, by a younger and more extraordinary man. That man was——”
“Mr. Ravenor!” I exclaimed.
Lord Langerdale nodded.
“I don’t think,” he went on, “that you can possibly imagine from the Mr. Ravenor of to-day what he was when he became the rage of London Society. He had just returned from his first journey in the East, after some perilous adventures, which had filled the columns of the newspapers for weeks and had already created a strong curiosity about him. I met him, I think, on the first evening he entered a London drawing-room, and I will never forget it.
“He was as handsome as a Greek god, with limbs magnificently developed by his hardy, vigorous life and rigid asceticism, with the head of a Byron, the manners of a Grandison, and the fire and eloquence of a Burke, when he chose to open his mouth.
“Men and women alike were fascinated, which was all the more remarkable as he sought no intimate amongst the former, and studiously avoided compromising himself with any of the latter, although, Heaven knows, he had no lack of opportunity. The only man with whom he seemed to be on at all friendly terms was de Cartienne; and the only woman to whom he paid any save the most ordinary attention was your mother.”
Lord Langerdale paused for several moments and seemed wrapped in a brown study, from which my impatience aroused him. He continued at once:
“Things went on smoothly for a time, and then rumours began to get about. At first there were only faint whispers, but presently people began to talk openly. Count de Cartienne had better beware, they said, or he would lose his bride. At first he treated all such suggestions with contempt, but the time came when he was forced to consider them seriously.
“Mr. Ravenor published a small volume of poems anonymously, amongst which were some passionate love-sonnets addressed to A. M. Everyone was talking of the book and wondering who the new poet was, when, through some treachery in the publisher’s office, the secret leaked out, and everyone then knew that those thrilling love-songs were addressed to Alice Montavon.
“de Cartienne went straight to Mr. Ravenor and demanded an explanation. Mr. Ravenor acknowledged the authorship of the poems, and did not deny that the verses in question were addressed to your mother; further than that he would not say a word, and simply referred de Cartienne to her.
“He went straight to her, poor fellow! and was met with a piteous entreaty that he would release her from her engagement. She loved Mr. Ravenor and could marry no one else. What followed remains to some extent a secret; but this much we know:
“There was a furious scene between de Cartienne and your mother, which ended in his refusing to give her up and threatening to shoot his rival if ever he saw them together again. Sir Arthur Montavon, who was deeply in de Cartienne’s debt, swore that the marriage should take place, and apparently they gained their end, for Mr. Ravenor suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that he had left the country. On the very day before the wedding, however, Society was furnished with a still more sensational piece of scandal; your mother left her home secretly and the companion of her flight was Mr. Ravenor!”
I could sit still no longer, but rose and walked up and down the room with quick, unsteady strides. Lord Langerdale watched me with a great and growing pity in his honest face. There was silence between us for several minutes, during which, after one keen, restless look of inquiry, I kept my face turned away from his. Then he continued his story in a somewhat lower key:
“For two days de Cartienne was virtually a maniac. Then he seemed suddenly to come to his senses, and I think we all—Elsie and I especially—dreaded his terrible, set calmness more even than his previous fury. He made no wild threats, nor did he talk to anyone of his intentions. But we all knew what they were; and when he left London, secretly and alone, we trembled, for we knew that he was going in search of your mother. He needed no help, for he was himself a born detective, and possessed in a marvellous degree the art of disguising himself.
“Every day we searched the newspapers anxiously, dreading lest we should read of the tragedy which we feared was inevitable. But we heard nothing. The weeks crept on into months and the months to years and still we heard nothing—not even from your mother.
“We advertised, made every possible form of inquiry, but in vain. Then came the news of Mr. Ravenor’s shipwreck and supposed death, and we concluded that your mother had perished with him. I accepted a foreign appointment, and only returned to England, after ten years’ absence, last week. I heard at once of Mr. Ravenor’s marvellous return to life and I wrote to him. The only reply I received was a single sentence:
“‘You can tell your wife that her sister is dead. I have no more to say.’
“Only yesterday, to my amazement, I met de Cartienne again, and with him, you, who, I felt sure from the beginning, must be Alice’s son. It may seem strange to you that I should know so much and yet know no more. But it is so.”
I turned round and faced him slowly.
“Do you mean to say, then, that after her elopement my mother never once communicated with her father or sister?”
“Only in this way. She left a private message for my wife, telling her through whom to forward a letter, but not disclosing her whereabouts. Sir Arthur Montavon intercepted the message and took advantage of it to write a cruel, stern letter, forbidding her ever to appear in his presence again, or to address him or her sister; and I am sorry to say that, at his command, my wife, too, wrote in a censorious vein, hoping to make up for it by sending another letter a few days afterwards. The first letter your mother received; the second missed her. She inherited a good deal of her father’s firmness, almost severity, of disposition, and I have no doubt that the receipt of those letters would lead her to cut herself off altogether from her family.”
“Then you do not even know where she and Mr. Ravenor were married?” I asked huskily.
Lord Langerdale shook his head, and I noticed that he failed to look me in the face. I braced myself up with a great effort.
“Lord Langerdale,” I said quietly, “this is a matter of life or death to me. You seem to avoid my question. Answer me this: Have you any reason to suppose that—that there was no marriage?”
“None at all,” he answered quickly. “But, my dear boy,” he went on, coming over to my side and resting his hand upon my shoulder, “it is always as well to be prepared for the worst. I will tell you how it has seemed to me sometimes. Mr. Ravenor had very peculiar views with regard to marriage, something similar to those Shelley held in his youth, and we never heard of any ceremony, which seems strange. Then, too, their separation and your mother’s marriage to a farmer, her stern, lonely life afterwards, and the fact that your birth has been kept concealed from you——”
He hesitated and seemed to gather encouragement from my face. I could not, I would not, for a moment share his fear when I thought steadfastly about it. I thought of my mother dying, with a saint-like peace upon her face, in Mr. Ravenor’s arms. I thought of the calm, sorrowful dignity of her life, and the idea refused for a moment to linger in my mind. Some other great cause for estrangement there must have been between them, but not that—not that!
“I will go down and see Ravenor to-day,” Lord Langerdale declared, with sudden energy. “I will wrest the truth from him.”
I shook my head.
“This matter lies between him and me only,” I said, in a low tone. “I will go to him.”
The handle of the door was softly turned and Lady Langerdale stood upon the threshold. Her husband went over to her at once.
“Elsie,” he said, “you were right. There are many things which yet remain in darkness; but this is Alice’s boy—your sister’s son.”
She came up to me with outstretched hands and a wistful look in her sweet, womanly face.
My heart stood still for a moment, and then gave a great throb as I felt the warm clasp of her hands and the tremulous touch of her lips upon my forehead.
I knew that I had reached a crisis in my life, and though it had brought with it a great fear, it had also brought a great joy, for it seemed as though the days of my loneliness were over.
Could I doubt it when I looked into Lady Langerdale’s face and felt my uncle’s warm hand-clasp? There was a sweetness about such a thought hard for another to realise, and for a moment I gave myself up to it. Whilst Lord Langerdale briefly told his wife the few particulars which I had been able to give him of my mother and myself, I stood between the two, keenly conscious of and enjoying the change which seemed hovering over my life.
But afterwards I remembered the ordeal which I had yet to face and the mission which had brought me to London, and they saw the gladness die slowly out of my face.
Lord Langerdale questioned me concerning it, and then I told them everything—told them of our suspicions in connection with Mr. Marx and of my determination to find him out, and discover whether he had been guilty of foul play towards the man Hart.
When I came to my last night’s adventure with Count de Cartienne, Lord Langerdale looked very grave.
“It seems to me,” he declared, “that this is more a matter for the police than for you to mix yourself up in.”
I shook my head. Of one thing I did feel confident, although, as regards the whole of the rest of the affair, I was in a complete maze.
However anxious Mr. Ravenor might be for the truth concerning the missing man to be discovered, he had strong reasons for not wishing the police to take part in the search. I felt sure of that, and was determined to act accordingly.
Lord Langerdale was not easily reassured.
“I don’t like the idea of your having anything whatever to do with de Cartienne in all the circumstances,” he said, with a shudder. “He can have but one feeling for you, and a more dangerous man does not breathe. It is an evil chance that has brought you together.”
We all sat down to breakfast together. Lord Langerdale divided his attention between his breakfast andThe Times.
“Are you going shopping to-day, Elsie?” he asked, looking up from his paper.
She glanced at him inquiringly.
“I think so. Why?”
“Be very careful about your change, then. There has never been so much bad money about as just now. The papers are full of the most startling rumours. Coining must be going on in London somewhere upon an enormous scale, and the police are—— Why, Philip, what’s the matter with you?”
I recovered myself promptly and set down the cup which I had been within an ace of spilling.
“The coffee was a little hot,” I said slowly. “It was very stupid of me.”
He went on reading and Lady Langerdale began to talk to me. But my attention was wandering. It was a strange idea which had occurred to me, perhaps a ridiculous one. Yet it was possessed of a certain fascination.
In the middle of breakfast a waiter brought me a note. Lady Langerdale’s permission was given unasked and I tore it open. It was from de Cartienne, and the contents, though brief, were to the point:
“My dear Morton,—I have seen the man whom you are seeking and I know for certain where he will be to-morrow night. My carriage shall call for you at ten o’clock in the evening—to-morrow, mind; not this evening—and if you care to come I will bring you to him. By the by, you might as well bring with you the box which you were good enough to take care of—Yours,“E. de C.”
“My dear Morton,—I have seen the man whom you are seeking and I know for certain where he will be to-morrow night. My carriage shall call for you at ten o’clock in the evening—to-morrow, mind; not this evening—and if you care to come I will bring you to him. By the by, you might as well bring with you the box which you were good enough to take care of—Yours,
“E. de C.”
I handed it to Lord Langerdale, who adjusted his glasses and read it through carefully.
“I don’t like it,” he remarked, when he had finished; “don’t like it at all. Take my advice, Philip; send him his box, or whatever it is, and don’t go.”
I shook my head.
“I must find out about Mr. Marx,” I answered, “and I know of no other means. That will be to-morrow night, you know. To-day——”
“Yes, what are we going to do to-day?” Lord Langerdale interrupted.
I answered him without hesitation:
“I am going down to Ravenor Castle.”
He looked surprised, a little agitated.
“I shall go with you,” Lord Langerdale suddenly declared. “Alice was my sister-in-law, and if Ravenor deserted or ill-used her, I have the right to call him to account for it.”
“And I a better one,” I reminded him quietly. “Grant me this favour please. I must go alone and see him—alone.”
He looked at his wife and she inclined her head towards me.
“The boy is right,” she said softly. “It is his affair, not ours. It will be better for him to go alone.”
After a wearying journey I stood at last before the great gates of the castle, the bell at my feet giving shrill notice of my presence. The lodge-keeper hurried out and welcomed me.
I walked swiftly up the winding ascent, straight across the flagged courtyard and entered the castle by a side-door. Then, heedless of the surprised looks of the servants, I made my way to the library, and knocking softly at the door of the inner room, entered.
At first it seemed to me that he was not there, for the chamber was in semi-darkness. The heavily-shaded lamp which stood upon the writing-table was turned down so low as to afford no light at all, and the fitful glow of the firelight left the greater part of the room in shadow. But as I stood upon the threshold a burning coal dropped upon the hearth, and by its flame I saw him leaning back in a high oak chair a few feet away.
Softly I moved across the room towards him and then I saw that he was asleep.
I made no movement, but somehow he seemed to become conscious of my presence and opened his eyes. They fell upon me standing on the hearth-rug before him, and he sat up with a start.
“Philip!” he cried, “you here? You back? You have found him, then?”
At the sound of his voice I trembled, yet I answered him at once:
“Not yet. To-morrow night I shall see him. Till then I could do nothing—and I came here.” He looked at my mud-bespattered boots and wind-tossed hair.
“You have walked from Mellborough?” he asked. Then something in my face seemed to strike him, and, leaning forward, he placed his hands upon my shoulders and turned towards the glow of the fire.
“You have come with a purpose!” he said slowly. “Tell me—you have heard something in London?”
I bowed my head silently.
“Some story of the past—my past?”
“Yes.”
“My God!”
Then there was silence between us. I bore it till I could bear it no longer.
“Can you wonder that I have come?” I cried, my voice shaking with a passion which I knew no longer how to restrain. “Oh, speak to me! Tell me whether this thing is true?”
“It is true.”
He had drawn back a little; he had hesitated. I caught hold of his hands and drew him towards me.
“My father,” I cried passionately, “speak to me! Why do you draw away? Is it because—because—oh, only speak to me, call me your son, and if there be anything to forgive I will forgive it.”
He seemed suddenly to abandon an unnatural struggle and caught me by the hands and clasped them. For a moment his face was radiant.
“Philip, my son, my dear son!” he cried. “Thank God, it is not that! Thank God, that my name is yours! You are indeed my son.”
After a considerable silence my father told me how he had met Marx abroad. He had done him some service and they had become friendly. He latterly engaged him as secretary.
Then he went on to tell me how Marx had met him on his return after his long absence and had taken him to see his wife, who believed him dead.
He then told me how he had found her married again to Farmer Morton and implored her to come back to him. She refused, and he, in a blind fury, rushed back to where he had left Marx.
He was attacked by Morton; a struggle ensued on the brink of the slate-pit. After a time my father managed to fling Morton from him and fled.
That night Marx came to him and told him he had thrown Morton into the quarry, and that a man named Hart,aliasFrancis, had witnessed the deed. My father wanted to confess, but Marx persuaded him to keep silent and paid Francis to bear the crime.
“Now you know why I shrank from calling you my son, knowing that when the time came for you to be told of your parentage, I must also tell you that your father was a murderer!”
“It is false!” I cried, springing up and seizing both his hands. “It was an accident. No one could call it a murder. Oh, my father, my father, that you should have suffered like this for so slight a cause!”
A light leaped into his face and for a moment his wasted features and sunken eyes glowed and shone with a great, unexpected happiness. He drew me gently to him and laid his hands upon my shoulders.
“Thank God for this, Philip!” he said, with trembling voice. “It is greater consolation than I ever dared hope for in this world.”
On the morrow as we walked out together, my father and I, making our way as though by common consent up towards the bare brown hills, I remembered that there were many things which I wished to say to him.
“I want to ask you about Mr. Marx, father,” I began. “Everything concerning him is so utterly mysterious, especially his going away so suddenly. Apart from the fear of his having used some sort of foul play towards Hart—or Francis—I can’t help thinking that there is something else wrong with him. You trust him thoroughly, I suppose?” I added hesitatingly.
“I have always done so,” my father answered quietly.
“Do you like the man himself?” I asked.
My father shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“I cannot say that he has ever aroused my feelings in any way,” he answered. “He has had work to do for me and has done it well and silently. I have looked upon him somewhat as an automaton, although a valuable one. And yet——” he added musingly.
“Yet what?” I interrupted.
“Well, sometimes I have half fancied that he was playing a part, that his interest in our work was a little strained. He gave me the idea of a man working steadily forward towards a set purpose, and I have never seemed able to reconcile that purpose with the completion of our task. His sudden absences, too—for this is not the first of them,—are strange.”
“I should think so,” I assented. “Has he taken anything away with him this time?” I asked bluntly.
A very grave look came into my father’s face and he did not answer me at once. When he did so his tone was low and anxious.
“Yes, he has. About a fortnight ago we came to the end, virtually, of our long task. There was only a little revision wanted, which he was to have left for me. The night that he disappeared the manuscript disappeared also. Evidently he took it away with him.”
“Perhaps he has taken it to the publishers,” I suggested. My father shook his head doubtfully.
“Only this morning I have heard from them, begging me to forward it without delay,” he said.
I was silent. Even if he had taken the manuscript, what use could he make of it? How could it profit him?
Suddenly I stood still in the path. My heart gave a great leap and a cry broke from my lips. For the first time an idea, the vague phantom of an idea, swept in upon me, carrying all before it, and casting a brilliant, lurid light upon all that seemed so dark and mysterious.
“This man, Marx,” I cried, seizing my father’s arm. “Tell me quickly. Has he ever reminded you of anyone?”
My father looked at me wonderingly.