Chapter XXFayre slept little that night and rose the next morning jaded and sick at heart. During the long hours in which he had tossed ceaselessly on his bed, wrestling in vain with the problem that was torturing him, he had been unable to come to any conclusion. If he did what he felt was his duty he would be the means of involving two, at least, of his dearest friends in dire trouble, besides running the risk of jeopardizing the cause he had most at heart. If, on the other hand, he held back the discovery he had just made he would be taking on his shoulders a responsibility so great that he hardly dared face it. He had confronted difficult problems in the course of his official life, but seldom one that touched him so nearly or made him feel so utterly helpless.It was in this mood that Cynthia found him when she rang up from her aunt’s house in Grosvenor Square and asked him to take her out to lunch. A troublesome tooth had given her the opportunity she longed for and she had hurried up to town, ostensibly to see the dentist, but really to find out what progress Fayre had made in his investigations.For a moment Fayre was taken aback, then he found himself welcoming the prospect of her company for an entire afternoon. He feared her sharp eyes and direct mode of attack, but, more even than these, he dreaded his own thoughts. Cynthia was the embodiment of youth and courage and, after his night of miserable indecision, he felt a positive craving for the stimulus of her society.As though in answer to his needs she seemed even more vividly alive than usual when he picked her up and carried her off to an unpretentious, but very select, little restaurant he and several of the older members of his club affected. Cynthia had stipulated for a quiet place where her ready tongue could wag freely. She had plenty to say. Bill Staveley had managed to procure her another interview with John Leslie and she reported him as cheerful and inclined to take a hopeful view of the future.“He says that, so long as he knows he’s innocent and that I believe in him, he doesn’t mind what happens; but he doesn’t realize how black things look against him,” said Cynthia. “He’s frightfully grateful to you and Edward Kean and full of faith in you both. I tried not to show how anxious I was. Uncle Fayre, they surely can’t convict him if he’s innocent, can they?”On the face of this Fayre found it hard to break to her the news that Gregg had completely cleared himself. To his relief she took it more cheerfully than he had expected.“I never really suspected him, you know,” she said. “I suppose I should have been beast enough to be glad if he had done it, because it would have cleared John, but I should have been sorry, too. It would be too horrible if it was some one that one knew. It’s a relief, in a way. Has Mr. Grey done anything about the Page clue? I always felt that that was where our hope lay.”“He’s working on the Carlisle to London route, on the chance that the car may have got held up somewhere and, if that fails, he proposes to advertise openly for Page. If, as I still think, the man had nothing to do with the actual murder, he may come forward. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to warn him by advertising too soon. It is a last resort.”“I believe he did it,” asserted Cynthia obstinately. “If we can find Page we shall get to the bottom of the whole thing. You know the police have let the tramp go? He ended by confessing that he took Mrs. Doggett’s money and I made her go up to the station and speak for him. He’s very lame still and the police want him to stay in the neighbourhood, so Bill found him a room in one of his cottages. I went to see him. He’s a funny little man and we got quite chummy, but he’s determined to go back to ‘the road,’ as he calls it, as soon as he can get away. He told me that he had been tramping for years and he’s got all sorts of interesting stories about tramps and burglars and all kinds of queer people and he adores you. When I spoke about John he said: ‘The gentleman’ll get ’im off, you see,’ as if you were a kind of Providence. He’s rather a pet, really. What did you do to make him love you so?”“Treated him like a human being, I suppose. He’s not going back to the road, if I can help it, poor little beggar. He’s never had a chance and I’d like to give him one.”“If we do get onto that man, Page, he’ll deserve it. After all, it was through him that we first heard of the strange car.”“When I get my cottage I’ll see what I can find for him to do. He’s not a pleasing object at present, but he’ll improve with prosperity.”“I can see your cottage!” observed Cynthia mischievously. “It’ll be crammed with all sorts of derelicts and lame dogs and you’ll go fussing round them like a hen with a lot of chickens. May I come and stay with you, Uncle Fayre?”“As often and as long as you like. You’ll be a respectable married woman by then and you can act as chaperone to Miss Allen.”“Is Miss Allen going to stay with you?”“If she’ll come. I haven’t asked her yet.”“I’m glad you’ve made friends with her. She’s a brick, isn’t she?”“A thorough good sort, I should say,” assented Fayre rather cautiously. There was a gleam in Cynthia’s eye he didn’t quite like.She flashed a sidelong glance at him.“It’s an awfully good idea; I wonder I never thought of it.”“What is?” asked Fayre suspiciously.“Her coming to stay with you, of course,” was Cynthia’s innocent rejoinder.After lunch they called at Grey’s office.“I’m glad you dropped in,” he told Fayre. “We’ve got on the track of a car which was held up at York. It was traveling without a tail-light. If it was our friend, Page, he was probably trying to conceal his broken number-plate. Anyway, I’ve sent a man up there to find out all the particulars and he’ll be back early to-morrow. There’s just a chance that we’ve got onto the right car.”“That’ll please you, Cynthia. Lady Cynthia’s always believed in the Page clue,” explained Fayre.“Now that Dr. Gregg’s gone off with a clean sheet, it’s all we’ve got to go on,” said Grey. “It’s a funny thing how he crops up all through this case. That fellow Baxter died in his house, you know, and Gregg signed the certificate. As far as we can make out, everything seems in order and, short of exhuming Baxter, we’ve done all that’s necessary to prove his death.”“I’ve no reason to think that Gregg was concealing anything the other day. He seemed only too anxious to tell all he knew. If he’s shielding any one he’s doing it very cleverly.”“I think we may wipe out Dr. Gregg altogether now. After all, at the time, he’d have had no reason to conceal Baxter’s death, whatever he may feel about it now.”“I’ve got a feeling in my bones about this Page business,” said Cynthia, as they turned into the Strand after leaving Grey’s office. “I believe we’re going to find him and that things are going to be all right for John. You can call it imagination, if you like, but this is the first time I’ve felt really hopeful. Life seems quite different, all of a sudden!”Fayre was suddenly afraid for her. There was something terribly pathetic in her optimism and he knew it was reared on a pitifully frail foundation.“Don’t build too much on it,” he begged, ruefully aware that it was always his lot to throw cold water on her enthusiasm. “If may be nothing but a wild goose chase, after all.”“It isn’t,” she asserted positively. “I can’t tell you why I know, but I do and you’ll see I’m right. The funny thing is that Sybil Kean has had the same feeling all along. Did you know? She told me so when she was ill at Staveley.”The haggard look came back into Fayre’s eyes. He had forgotten his own worries for the moment, carried away by Cynthia’s enthusiasm, but now they returned to him, their strength in no wise diminished. Cynthia, intent on her own thoughts, did not notice his preoccupation.“It was the night before I went to Carlisle to stay with the Campbells. I didn’t tell her why I was going, because we’d agreed that it was better for her not to talk about the whole thing. We hadn’t mentioned John or anything, but, when I said good night, she looked at me in such a queer way and said, somehow as if she knew it was true: ‘Don’t worry, Cynthia, John will never be convicted. I’m certain of it.’ ”Fayre stared at her in astonishment.“Sybil said that! Did she give any reason for it?”“None, but she seemed so curiously certain. Almost as if she knew something. She didn’t say any more and she looked so desperately ill and tired that I just went. Do you think she had some sort of second-sight, Uncle Fayre? People do do that sort of thing when they’ve been very ill, don’t they? I’m certain she wasn’t just saying it to reassure me.”The worried lines on Fayre’s face deepened.“I don’t know,” he said, “and I can’t understand it. I was under the impression that she was worrying about the whole thing more than was good for her. It never occurred to me that she was in the least hopeful. I only hope she’s right. You know she’s been very ill again?”“Yes. Edward wrote to Bill. He was a fool to whisk her off like that before she was really fit. It was Dr. Gregg’s fault, really, for saying she could go. It’s funny, but he felt just as you did about the case. He said she must be got away from the atmosphere of the whole thing because she was wearing herself to a thread over it and would never have a chance of pulling up unless she got right away. And she’s the only person who’s given me any real hope!”“You’re very fond of Sybil, aren’t you?” asked Fayre thoughtfully.Cynthia stared at him.“Of course. She’s been a perfect brick to me always and she’s a dear, anyway. You know, whenever I’ve got hopelessly fed up with things at home she’s had me in London for weeks together, and she was an angel about John from the beginning. I’d do a good deal for Sybil, and I’m not naturally an unselfish person,” she finished frankly.Fayre did not allude to the matter again and, when Cynthia announced her intention of going to the Keans’ on the chance of being allowed to see Sybil, he walked with her to the door, but he did not offer to go in. Instead, he mounted a bus and went out to Richmond. Arrived there, he made for the Park and walked until he was tired out. It was late when he entered the station and took the train back to London and he was worn out with hard exercise and lack of food, but he had at last come to a part solution of his difficulties. He had some supper at the club and then literally fell into bed. And this time he slept.Next morning he rang up Cynthia, whom he found just starting for her dentist’s. He picked her up there after her appointment and carried her off to Kensington Gardens.He waited until they had found chairs under the trees and then went straight to the point.“You’re an unusual person, Cynthia,” he said appreciatively. “I’ve kidnapped you in the middle of a busy morning and you’ve not asked a single question.”“I’ve been worrying, though,” she answered. “Do you realize that you’ve been looking as if you’d lost a shilling and found sixpence, as old Mrs. Doggett would say, ever since I’ve been in town? I nearly asked you before what was the matter, but I thought I’d wait till you came out with it yourself. There is something wrong, isn’t there?”“Nothing that affects you or Leslie,” he hastened to assure her. “But you are right, I have been worried about something. The trouble is not my own, or I’d put the whole thing before you, and I don’t mind admitting that I should be glad of an outside opinion on it. But that’s out of the question. I’m sorry to be so mysterious.”Cynthia nodded. Her face showed complete understanding.“Poor Uncle Fayre!” she said. “I know how you feel. One bothers and bothers over a thing until one can’t see it straight at all and then one loses faith in one’s own judgment. It’s quite true, an outsiderisa help sometimes.”“It’s a help I shall have to do without in this instance,” he admitted reluctantly. “Let’s forget it and talk of something pleasant.”They chatted desultorily for a while, laughing and joking and taking a genuine pleasure in each other’s company, as people with a keen sense of humour will, even though tragedy be close upon their heels, but Cynthia never ceased to be aware that there was an object in their meeting and knew that he was only waiting for an opportunity to broach the subject that was really on his mind.He did so at last, so casually that, if she had not been on the alert, she might have missed the significance of his question. He had brought the conversation round to Sybil Kean and her illness.“If only she doesn’t have a relapse now,” he said thoughtfully. “If would be a bit of bad luck for us if Edward were to throw up the case.”Cynthia turned to him with something like panic in her eyes.“I hadn’t thought of that,” she exclaimed. “Of course if she were really ill he wouldn’t be able to go to Carlisle. He’d never leave her.”“I’m afraid he wouldn’t. He’s utterly wrapped up in her. Sybil is a fascinating person, but I must admit that Edward’s devotion was a revelation to me. I did not know he had it in him to care so much for any one.”“I don’t believe anybody else would ever have understood him as Sybil does,” said Cynthia slowly. “He’s not an easy person to know.”Fayre gazed reflectively at the tips of his well-polished boots.“You’ve seen a lot of Sybil in the last few years, haven’t you?” he asked suddenly.Cynthia knew that the question for which she had been waiting had come at last, but she could not see its point.“Yes,” she answered wonderingly. “I’ve stayed with her in London, you know, as well as seeing her often at Staveley. Why do you ask?”“What do you really think of those two, Cynthia?” Then, seeing the genuine bewilderment in her face: “I’m curious about Sybil. Edward is, and always has been, absolutely devoted and there can be no question that, from his point of view, their marriage has been a very happy one. But what about Sybil?” Cynthia’s face cleared.“You mean, does she love him?” she said frankly. “It’s funny you should ask that. I was puzzling over it last night. Eve Staveley told me a long time ago that Sybil had never got over her first husband’s death and that she believed that it was only Edward’s insistence that made her marry him. Well, I was wondering last night whether she was right.”“You think that Sybil’s fonder of Edward than any of us realize?”In spite of his efforts he could not subdue the urgency in his voice.“Honestly, I believe she is fonder of him than she realizes herself,” answered Cynthia slowly. “If you asked her, she’d probably tell you that she had never forgotten her first husband and could never care for any one else and she’d think she was speaking the truth, but I saw Sybil once when she was really anxious about Edward and I’m certain she cares far more than people think. You see, I’d just got engaged to John then and I suppose I was in the mood to notice that sort of thing,” she finished, with a swift, shy glance at his intent face.He nodded.“I expect you’re right. At any rate, I’m prepared to trust to your intuition.”He returned to the study of his boot-tips and, for a minute or two, they sat in silence. It was broken by Cynthia.“Then it was Sybil you were worrying about,” she remarked calmly.Fayre jumped.“I have been worrying about her ever since I got back to England,” he began mendaciously; but she interrupted him ruthlessly.“The thing that has been bothering you and that you said you wished you could consult some outside person about has something to do with Edward and Sybil Kean, hasn’t it? I’m not going to ask indiscreet questions, Uncle Fayre, but Sybil’s my friend as well as yours and it’s only fair to tell me if she’s in any real trouble.”Fayre hesitated for a moment and then he spoke frankly. “As I said before, I can’t tell you what it is all about. But I can say this. There is something that, sooner or later, I shall have to tell Edward, something that affects him so nearly that, I honestly believe, were he to hear it now, would cause him to throw up the case. I would do anything to keep the knowledge from him altogether, but I cannot. My only problem is, whether I am justified in keeping this news back till after the trial. That’s what I have been trying to decide and I’ve made up my mind at last. So far as I can see I shall be harming nobody if I hold the news over until after the trial is over, and I have definitely decided to do so. But I’ve got to a point at which I hardly dare trust my own judgment.”“Does Sybil know of this, Uncle Fayre?”“Good Heavens, no! If she did I think it would kill her.”“And it will really make no difference to her if you keep this back till John’s trial is over?” she persisted.“None, that I can see. In fact, my instinct is to put off telling Edward as long as possible, but that’s simply because I shrink from hurting either of them. He’s got to be told in the end, but, what with the impending strain of the trial and all the worry he has gone through on Sybil’s account lately, this seems the worst moment to spring bad news on him. Grey says that the case is one of the first on the list at the Carlisle Assizes and should come on early next month.”At the thought of the trial Cynthia’s face blanched and she clenched her hands tightly on her lap to stop their trembling. Fayre realized that it was kinder to ignore her agitation.“As I said,” he went on quietly, “I made up my mind last night to hold this thing over. You can rest assured that, as far as I am concerned, nothing will happen to put a spoke in Edward’s wheel and, if we can count on him, it will be half the battle.”He gave her a few minutes in which to recover herself and then saw her back to her aunt’s house, after which he strolled slowly back to the club. On the way he pondered over Sybil Kean’s words to the girl at Staveley. He could not reconcile them with her evident anxiety when she spoke to him about Leslie. No doubt she had seen that Cynthia was near to the breaking-point and had lied nobly in the hope of reassuring her. And yet that wasn’t like Sybil, as he knew her.She was the last person to kindle a false hope deliberately.His mind was still dwelling on her as he picked up the little pile of letters that awaited him at the club and it was with a shock that he recognized her handwriting on one of them. He opened it eagerly. Inside was a closed envelope, unaddressed, with a covering letter from Sybil herself which ran:“Hatter dear, the flowers were lovely. It was like you to think of them. In a day or two I shall have got rid of the doctor and be able to thank you in person, instead of in this silly note which looks so much more shaky than I really am. I am picking up wonderfully, but it was a close shave this time, Hatter, and it has made me think. Don’t tell Edward, but I have a strong feeling that the next attack will be my last. I want you to do me a favour and put the enclosed among your most private papers. If I should die before John Leslie’s trial is over and if he should be convicted I want you to open it and read it and then show it to Edward. If John Leslie is acquitted or if I am alive at the close of the trial I am trusting you to burn it unread. I expect you think I am mad, and sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether my brain is not going, but you are the only friend I have whose loyalty I know I can utterly depend on. I know I can trust you and that you will do what I ask unquestioningly. Good-by, my dear, till we meet. They won’t let me write any more. Sybil.”Fayre stood staring blankly at the letter and the enclosure; then he crossed to a writing-table and wrote in his small, neat hand across the envelope: “In the event of my death, to be destroyed unread.”This done, he put it carefully away in his pocket-book with the snapshot Miss Allen had given him.“She knows,” he told himself heavily. “And she has kept the truth from Edward. No wonder the strain of it has almost killed her!”
Fayre slept little that night and rose the next morning jaded and sick at heart. During the long hours in which he had tossed ceaselessly on his bed, wrestling in vain with the problem that was torturing him, he had been unable to come to any conclusion. If he did what he felt was his duty he would be the means of involving two, at least, of his dearest friends in dire trouble, besides running the risk of jeopardizing the cause he had most at heart. If, on the other hand, he held back the discovery he had just made he would be taking on his shoulders a responsibility so great that he hardly dared face it. He had confronted difficult problems in the course of his official life, but seldom one that touched him so nearly or made him feel so utterly helpless.
It was in this mood that Cynthia found him when she rang up from her aunt’s house in Grosvenor Square and asked him to take her out to lunch. A troublesome tooth had given her the opportunity she longed for and she had hurried up to town, ostensibly to see the dentist, but really to find out what progress Fayre had made in his investigations.
For a moment Fayre was taken aback, then he found himself welcoming the prospect of her company for an entire afternoon. He feared her sharp eyes and direct mode of attack, but, more even than these, he dreaded his own thoughts. Cynthia was the embodiment of youth and courage and, after his night of miserable indecision, he felt a positive craving for the stimulus of her society.
As though in answer to his needs she seemed even more vividly alive than usual when he picked her up and carried her off to an unpretentious, but very select, little restaurant he and several of the older members of his club affected. Cynthia had stipulated for a quiet place where her ready tongue could wag freely. She had plenty to say. Bill Staveley had managed to procure her another interview with John Leslie and she reported him as cheerful and inclined to take a hopeful view of the future.
“He says that, so long as he knows he’s innocent and that I believe in him, he doesn’t mind what happens; but he doesn’t realize how black things look against him,” said Cynthia. “He’s frightfully grateful to you and Edward Kean and full of faith in you both. I tried not to show how anxious I was. Uncle Fayre, they surely can’t convict him if he’s innocent, can they?”
On the face of this Fayre found it hard to break to her the news that Gregg had completely cleared himself. To his relief she took it more cheerfully than he had expected.
“I never really suspected him, you know,” she said. “I suppose I should have been beast enough to be glad if he had done it, because it would have cleared John, but I should have been sorry, too. It would be too horrible if it was some one that one knew. It’s a relief, in a way. Has Mr. Grey done anything about the Page clue? I always felt that that was where our hope lay.”
“He’s working on the Carlisle to London route, on the chance that the car may have got held up somewhere and, if that fails, he proposes to advertise openly for Page. If, as I still think, the man had nothing to do with the actual murder, he may come forward. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to warn him by advertising too soon. It is a last resort.”
“I believe he did it,” asserted Cynthia obstinately. “If we can find Page we shall get to the bottom of the whole thing. You know the police have let the tramp go? He ended by confessing that he took Mrs. Doggett’s money and I made her go up to the station and speak for him. He’s very lame still and the police want him to stay in the neighbourhood, so Bill found him a room in one of his cottages. I went to see him. He’s a funny little man and we got quite chummy, but he’s determined to go back to ‘the road,’ as he calls it, as soon as he can get away. He told me that he had been tramping for years and he’s got all sorts of interesting stories about tramps and burglars and all kinds of queer people and he adores you. When I spoke about John he said: ‘The gentleman’ll get ’im off, you see,’ as if you were a kind of Providence. He’s rather a pet, really. What did you do to make him love you so?”
“Treated him like a human being, I suppose. He’s not going back to the road, if I can help it, poor little beggar. He’s never had a chance and I’d like to give him one.”
“If we do get onto that man, Page, he’ll deserve it. After all, it was through him that we first heard of the strange car.”
“When I get my cottage I’ll see what I can find for him to do. He’s not a pleasing object at present, but he’ll improve with prosperity.”
“I can see your cottage!” observed Cynthia mischievously. “It’ll be crammed with all sorts of derelicts and lame dogs and you’ll go fussing round them like a hen with a lot of chickens. May I come and stay with you, Uncle Fayre?”
“As often and as long as you like. You’ll be a respectable married woman by then and you can act as chaperone to Miss Allen.”
“Is Miss Allen going to stay with you?”
“If she’ll come. I haven’t asked her yet.”
“I’m glad you’ve made friends with her. She’s a brick, isn’t she?”
“A thorough good sort, I should say,” assented Fayre rather cautiously. There was a gleam in Cynthia’s eye he didn’t quite like.
She flashed a sidelong glance at him.
“It’s an awfully good idea; I wonder I never thought of it.”
“What is?” asked Fayre suspiciously.
“Her coming to stay with you, of course,” was Cynthia’s innocent rejoinder.
After lunch they called at Grey’s office.
“I’m glad you dropped in,” he told Fayre. “We’ve got on the track of a car which was held up at York. It was traveling without a tail-light. If it was our friend, Page, he was probably trying to conceal his broken number-plate. Anyway, I’ve sent a man up there to find out all the particulars and he’ll be back early to-morrow. There’s just a chance that we’ve got onto the right car.”
“That’ll please you, Cynthia. Lady Cynthia’s always believed in the Page clue,” explained Fayre.
“Now that Dr. Gregg’s gone off with a clean sheet, it’s all we’ve got to go on,” said Grey. “It’s a funny thing how he crops up all through this case. That fellow Baxter died in his house, you know, and Gregg signed the certificate. As far as we can make out, everything seems in order and, short of exhuming Baxter, we’ve done all that’s necessary to prove his death.”
“I’ve no reason to think that Gregg was concealing anything the other day. He seemed only too anxious to tell all he knew. If he’s shielding any one he’s doing it very cleverly.”
“I think we may wipe out Dr. Gregg altogether now. After all, at the time, he’d have had no reason to conceal Baxter’s death, whatever he may feel about it now.”
“I’ve got a feeling in my bones about this Page business,” said Cynthia, as they turned into the Strand after leaving Grey’s office. “I believe we’re going to find him and that things are going to be all right for John. You can call it imagination, if you like, but this is the first time I’ve felt really hopeful. Life seems quite different, all of a sudden!”
Fayre was suddenly afraid for her. There was something terribly pathetic in her optimism and he knew it was reared on a pitifully frail foundation.
“Don’t build too much on it,” he begged, ruefully aware that it was always his lot to throw cold water on her enthusiasm. “If may be nothing but a wild goose chase, after all.”
“It isn’t,” she asserted positively. “I can’t tell you why I know, but I do and you’ll see I’m right. The funny thing is that Sybil Kean has had the same feeling all along. Did you know? She told me so when she was ill at Staveley.”
The haggard look came back into Fayre’s eyes. He had forgotten his own worries for the moment, carried away by Cynthia’s enthusiasm, but now they returned to him, their strength in no wise diminished. Cynthia, intent on her own thoughts, did not notice his preoccupation.
“It was the night before I went to Carlisle to stay with the Campbells. I didn’t tell her why I was going, because we’d agreed that it was better for her not to talk about the whole thing. We hadn’t mentioned John or anything, but, when I said good night, she looked at me in such a queer way and said, somehow as if she knew it was true: ‘Don’t worry, Cynthia, John will never be convicted. I’m certain of it.’ ”
Fayre stared at her in astonishment.
“Sybil said that! Did she give any reason for it?”
“None, but she seemed so curiously certain. Almost as if she knew something. She didn’t say any more and she looked so desperately ill and tired that I just went. Do you think she had some sort of second-sight, Uncle Fayre? People do do that sort of thing when they’ve been very ill, don’t they? I’m certain she wasn’t just saying it to reassure me.”
The worried lines on Fayre’s face deepened.
“I don’t know,” he said, “and I can’t understand it. I was under the impression that she was worrying about the whole thing more than was good for her. It never occurred to me that she was in the least hopeful. I only hope she’s right. You know she’s been very ill again?”
“Yes. Edward wrote to Bill. He was a fool to whisk her off like that before she was really fit. It was Dr. Gregg’s fault, really, for saying she could go. It’s funny, but he felt just as you did about the case. He said she must be got away from the atmosphere of the whole thing because she was wearing herself to a thread over it and would never have a chance of pulling up unless she got right away. And she’s the only person who’s given me any real hope!”
“You’re very fond of Sybil, aren’t you?” asked Fayre thoughtfully.
Cynthia stared at him.
“Of course. She’s been a perfect brick to me always and she’s a dear, anyway. You know, whenever I’ve got hopelessly fed up with things at home she’s had me in London for weeks together, and she was an angel about John from the beginning. I’d do a good deal for Sybil, and I’m not naturally an unselfish person,” she finished frankly.
Fayre did not allude to the matter again and, when Cynthia announced her intention of going to the Keans’ on the chance of being allowed to see Sybil, he walked with her to the door, but he did not offer to go in. Instead, he mounted a bus and went out to Richmond. Arrived there, he made for the Park and walked until he was tired out. It was late when he entered the station and took the train back to London and he was worn out with hard exercise and lack of food, but he had at last come to a part solution of his difficulties. He had some supper at the club and then literally fell into bed. And this time he slept.
Next morning he rang up Cynthia, whom he found just starting for her dentist’s. He picked her up there after her appointment and carried her off to Kensington Gardens.
He waited until they had found chairs under the trees and then went straight to the point.
“You’re an unusual person, Cynthia,” he said appreciatively. “I’ve kidnapped you in the middle of a busy morning and you’ve not asked a single question.”
“I’ve been worrying, though,” she answered. “Do you realize that you’ve been looking as if you’d lost a shilling and found sixpence, as old Mrs. Doggett would say, ever since I’ve been in town? I nearly asked you before what was the matter, but I thought I’d wait till you came out with it yourself. There is something wrong, isn’t there?”
“Nothing that affects you or Leslie,” he hastened to assure her. “But you are right, I have been worried about something. The trouble is not my own, or I’d put the whole thing before you, and I don’t mind admitting that I should be glad of an outside opinion on it. But that’s out of the question. I’m sorry to be so mysterious.”
Cynthia nodded. Her face showed complete understanding.
“Poor Uncle Fayre!” she said. “I know how you feel. One bothers and bothers over a thing until one can’t see it straight at all and then one loses faith in one’s own judgment. It’s quite true, an outsiderisa help sometimes.”
“It’s a help I shall have to do without in this instance,” he admitted reluctantly. “Let’s forget it and talk of something pleasant.”
They chatted desultorily for a while, laughing and joking and taking a genuine pleasure in each other’s company, as people with a keen sense of humour will, even though tragedy be close upon their heels, but Cynthia never ceased to be aware that there was an object in their meeting and knew that he was only waiting for an opportunity to broach the subject that was really on his mind.
He did so at last, so casually that, if she had not been on the alert, she might have missed the significance of his question. He had brought the conversation round to Sybil Kean and her illness.
“If only she doesn’t have a relapse now,” he said thoughtfully. “If would be a bit of bad luck for us if Edward were to throw up the case.”
Cynthia turned to him with something like panic in her eyes.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she exclaimed. “Of course if she were really ill he wouldn’t be able to go to Carlisle. He’d never leave her.”
“I’m afraid he wouldn’t. He’s utterly wrapped up in her. Sybil is a fascinating person, but I must admit that Edward’s devotion was a revelation to me. I did not know he had it in him to care so much for any one.”
“I don’t believe anybody else would ever have understood him as Sybil does,” said Cynthia slowly. “He’s not an easy person to know.”
Fayre gazed reflectively at the tips of his well-polished boots.
“You’ve seen a lot of Sybil in the last few years, haven’t you?” he asked suddenly.
Cynthia knew that the question for which she had been waiting had come at last, but she could not see its point.
“Yes,” she answered wonderingly. “I’ve stayed with her in London, you know, as well as seeing her often at Staveley. Why do you ask?”
“What do you really think of those two, Cynthia?” Then, seeing the genuine bewilderment in her face: “I’m curious about Sybil. Edward is, and always has been, absolutely devoted and there can be no question that, from his point of view, their marriage has been a very happy one. But what about Sybil?” Cynthia’s face cleared.
“You mean, does she love him?” she said frankly. “It’s funny you should ask that. I was puzzling over it last night. Eve Staveley told me a long time ago that Sybil had never got over her first husband’s death and that she believed that it was only Edward’s insistence that made her marry him. Well, I was wondering last night whether she was right.”
“You think that Sybil’s fonder of Edward than any of us realize?”
In spite of his efforts he could not subdue the urgency in his voice.
“Honestly, I believe she is fonder of him than she realizes herself,” answered Cynthia slowly. “If you asked her, she’d probably tell you that she had never forgotten her first husband and could never care for any one else and she’d think she was speaking the truth, but I saw Sybil once when she was really anxious about Edward and I’m certain she cares far more than people think. You see, I’d just got engaged to John then and I suppose I was in the mood to notice that sort of thing,” she finished, with a swift, shy glance at his intent face.
He nodded.
“I expect you’re right. At any rate, I’m prepared to trust to your intuition.”
He returned to the study of his boot-tips and, for a minute or two, they sat in silence. It was broken by Cynthia.
“Then it was Sybil you were worrying about,” she remarked calmly.
Fayre jumped.
“I have been worrying about her ever since I got back to England,” he began mendaciously; but she interrupted him ruthlessly.
“The thing that has been bothering you and that you said you wished you could consult some outside person about has something to do with Edward and Sybil Kean, hasn’t it? I’m not going to ask indiscreet questions, Uncle Fayre, but Sybil’s my friend as well as yours and it’s only fair to tell me if she’s in any real trouble.”
Fayre hesitated for a moment and then he spoke frankly. “As I said before, I can’t tell you what it is all about. But I can say this. There is something that, sooner or later, I shall have to tell Edward, something that affects him so nearly that, I honestly believe, were he to hear it now, would cause him to throw up the case. I would do anything to keep the knowledge from him altogether, but I cannot. My only problem is, whether I am justified in keeping this news back till after the trial. That’s what I have been trying to decide and I’ve made up my mind at last. So far as I can see I shall be harming nobody if I hold the news over until after the trial is over, and I have definitely decided to do so. But I’ve got to a point at which I hardly dare trust my own judgment.”
“Does Sybil know of this, Uncle Fayre?”
“Good Heavens, no! If she did I think it would kill her.”
“And it will really make no difference to her if you keep this back till John’s trial is over?” she persisted.
“None, that I can see. In fact, my instinct is to put off telling Edward as long as possible, but that’s simply because I shrink from hurting either of them. He’s got to be told in the end, but, what with the impending strain of the trial and all the worry he has gone through on Sybil’s account lately, this seems the worst moment to spring bad news on him. Grey says that the case is one of the first on the list at the Carlisle Assizes and should come on early next month.”
At the thought of the trial Cynthia’s face blanched and she clenched her hands tightly on her lap to stop their trembling. Fayre realized that it was kinder to ignore her agitation.
“As I said,” he went on quietly, “I made up my mind last night to hold this thing over. You can rest assured that, as far as I am concerned, nothing will happen to put a spoke in Edward’s wheel and, if we can count on him, it will be half the battle.”
He gave her a few minutes in which to recover herself and then saw her back to her aunt’s house, after which he strolled slowly back to the club. On the way he pondered over Sybil Kean’s words to the girl at Staveley. He could not reconcile them with her evident anxiety when she spoke to him about Leslie. No doubt she had seen that Cynthia was near to the breaking-point and had lied nobly in the hope of reassuring her. And yet that wasn’t like Sybil, as he knew her.
She was the last person to kindle a false hope deliberately.
His mind was still dwelling on her as he picked up the little pile of letters that awaited him at the club and it was with a shock that he recognized her handwriting on one of them. He opened it eagerly. Inside was a closed envelope, unaddressed, with a covering letter from Sybil herself which ran:
“Hatter dear, the flowers were lovely. It was like you to think of them. In a day or two I shall have got rid of the doctor and be able to thank you in person, instead of in this silly note which looks so much more shaky than I really am. I am picking up wonderfully, but it was a close shave this time, Hatter, and it has made me think. Don’t tell Edward, but I have a strong feeling that the next attack will be my last. I want you to do me a favour and put the enclosed among your most private papers. If I should die before John Leslie’s trial is over and if he should be convicted I want you to open it and read it and then show it to Edward. If John Leslie is acquitted or if I am alive at the close of the trial I am trusting you to burn it unread. I expect you think I am mad, and sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether my brain is not going, but you are the only friend I have whose loyalty I know I can utterly depend on. I know I can trust you and that you will do what I ask unquestioningly. Good-by, my dear, till we meet. They won’t let me write any more. Sybil.”
Fayre stood staring blankly at the letter and the enclosure; then he crossed to a writing-table and wrote in his small, neat hand across the envelope: “In the event of my death, to be destroyed unread.”
This done, he put it carefully away in his pocket-book with the snapshot Miss Allen had given him.
“She knows,” he told himself heavily. “And she has kept the truth from Edward. No wonder the strain of it has almost killed her!”