Gabrielle fell back in fear. Her handsome countenance was blanched to the lips. This man intended to speak—to tell the terrible truth—and before her lover too! She clenched her hands and summoned all her courage.
Flockart laughed at her—laughed in triumph. "I think, Gabrielle," he said, "that you should put an end to this deceit towards your poor blind father."
"What do you mean?" cried Walter in a fury, advancing towards Flockart. "What has this question—whatever it is—to do with you? Is it your place to stand between father and daughter?"
"Yes," answered the other in cool defiance, "it is. I am Sir Henry's friend."
"His friend! His enemy!"
"You are not my father's friend, Mr. Flockart," declared the girl, noticing the look of pain upon the afflicted old gentleman's face. "You have all along conspired against him for years, and you are actually conspiring with Lady Heyburn at this moment."
"You lie!" he cried. "You say this in order to shield yourself. You know that your mother and I are aware of your crime, and have always shielded you."
"Crime!" gasped Walter Murie, utterly amazed. "What is this man saying, dearest?"
But the girl stood, blanched and rigid, her jaw set, unable to utter a word.
"Let me tell you briefly," Flockart went on. "Lady Heyburn and myself have been this girl's best friends; but now I must speak openly, in defence of the allegation she is making against me."
"Yes, speak!" urged Sir Henry. "Speak and tell me the truth."
"It is a painful truth, Sir Henry; would that I were not compelled to make such a charge. Your daughter deliberately killed a young girl named Edna Bryant. She poisoned her on account of jealousy."
"Impossible!" cried Sir Henry, starting up. "I—I can't believe it,Flockart. What are you saying? My daughter a murderess!"
"Yes, I repeat my words. And not only that, but Lady Heyburn and myself have kept her secret until—until now it is imperative that the truth should be told to you."
"Let me speak, dad—let me tell you——"
"No," cried the old man, "I will hear Flockart." And, turning to his wife's friend, he said hoarsely, "Go on. Tell me the truth."
"The tragedy took place at a picnic, just before Gabrielle left her school at Amiens. She placed poison in the girl's wine. Ah, it was a terrible revenge!"
"I am innocent!" cried the girl in despair.
"Remember the letter which you wrote to your mother concerning her. You told Lady Heyburn that you hated her. Do you deny writing that letter? Because, if you do, it is still in existence."
"I deny nothing which I have done," she answered. "You have told my father this in order to shield yourself. You have endeavoured, as the coward you are, to prejudice me in his eyes, just as you compelled me to lie to him when you opened his safe and copied certain of his papers!"
"You opened the safe!" he protested. "Why, I found you there myself!"
"Enough!" she exclaimed quite coolly. "I know the dread charge against me. I know too well the impossibility of clearing myself, especially in the face of that letter I wrote to Lady Heyburn; but it was you and she who entrapped me, and who held me in fear because of my inexperience."
"Tell us the truth, the whole truth, darling," urged Murie, standing at her side and taking her hand confidently in his.
"The truth!" she said, in a strange voice as though speaking to herself. "Yes, let me tell you! I know that it will sound extraordinary, yet I swear to you, by the love you bear for me, Walter, that the words I am about to utter are the actual truth."
"I believe you," declared her lover reassuringly.
"Which is more than anyone else will," interposed Flockart with a sneer, but perfectly confident. It was the hour of his triumph. She had defied him, and he therefore intended to ruin her once and for all.
The girl was standing pale and erect, one hand grasping the back of a chair, the other held in her lover's clasp, while her father had risen, his expressionless face turned towards them, his hand groping until it touched a small table upon which stood an old punch-bowl full of sweet-smelling pot-pourri.
"Listen, dad," she said, heedless of Flockart's remark. "Hear me before you condemn me. I know that the charge made against me by this man is a terrible one. God alone knows what I have suffered these last two years, how I have prayed for deliverance from the hands of this man and his friends. It happened a few months before I left Amiens. Lady Heyburn, you'll recollect, rented a pretty flat in the Rue Léonce-Reynaud in Paris. She obtained permission for me to leave school and visit her for a few weeks."
"I recollect perfectly," remarked her father in a low voice.
"Well, there came many times to visit us an American girl named Bryant, who was studying art, and who lived somewhere off the Boulevard Michel, as well as a Frenchman named Felix Krail and an Englishman called Hamilton."
"Hamilton!" echoed Murie. "Was his name Edgar Hamilton—my friend?"
"Yes, the same," was her quiet reply. Then she turned to Murie, and said, "We all went about a great deal together, for it was summer-time, and we made many pleasant excursions in the district. Edna Bryant was a merry, cheerful girl, and I soon grew to be very friendly with her, until one day Lady Heyburn, when alone with me, repeated in strict confidence that the girl was secretly devoted to you, Walter."
"To me!" he cried. "True, I knew a Miss Bryant long ago, but for the past three years or so have entirely lost sight of her."
"Lady Heyburn told me that you were very fond of the girl, and this, I confess, aroused my intense jealousy. I believed that the girl I had trusted so implicitly was unprincipled and fickle, and that she was trying to secure the man whom I had loved ever since a child. I had to return to school, and from there I wrote to Lady Heyburn, who had gone to Dieppe, a letter saying hard things of the girl, and declaring that I would take secret revenge—that I would kill her rather than allow Walter to be taken from me. A month afterwards I again returned to Paris. That man standing there"—she indicated Flockart—"was living at the Hôtel Continental, and was a frequent visitor. He told me that it was well known in London that Walter admired Miss Bryant, a declaration that I admit drove me half-mad with jealousy."
"It was a lie!" declared Walter. "I never made love to the girl. I admired her, that's all."
"Well," laughed Flockart, "go on. Tell us your version of the affair."
"I am telling you the truth," she cried, boldly facing him. One day Lady Heyburn, having arranged a cycling picnic, invited Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Kratil, Mr. Flockart, Miss Bryant, and myself, and we had a beautiful run to Chantilly, a distance of about forty kilometres, where we first made a tour of the old château, and afterwards entered the cool shady Fôret de Pontarmé. While the others went away to explore the paths in the splendid wood I was left to spread the luncheon upon the ground, setting before each place a half-bottle of red wine which I found in the baskets. Then, when all was ready, I called to them, but there was no response. They were all out of hearing. I left the spot, and searched for a full twenty minutes or so before I discovered them. First I found Mr. Krail and Mr. Flockart strolling together smoking, while the others were on ahead. They had lost their way among the trees. I led them back to the spot where luncheon was prepared; and, all of us being hungry, we quickly sat down, chatting and laughing merrily. Of a sudden Miss Bryant stared straight before her, dropped her glass, and threw up her arms. 'Heavens! Why—ah, my throat!' she shrieked. 'I—I'm poisoned!'
"In an instant all was confusion. The poor girl could not breathe. She tore at her throat, while her face became convulsed. We obtained water for her, but it was useless, for within five minutes she was stretched rigid upon the grass, unconscious, and a few moments later she was still—quite dead! Ah, shall I ever forget the scene! The effect produced upon us was appalling. All was so sudden, so tragic, so horrible!
"Lady Heyburn was the first to speak. 'Gabrielle,' she said, 'what have you done? You have carried out the secret revenge which in your letter you threatened!' I saw myself trapped. Those people had some motive in killing the girl and placing this crime upon myself! I could not speak, for I was too utterly dumfounded."
"The fiends!" ejaculated Walter fiercely.
"Then followed a hurried consultation, in which Krail showed himself most solicitous on my behalf," the pale-faced girl went on. "Aided by Flockart, I think, he scraped away a hole in a pit full of dead leaves, and there the body must have been concealed just as it was. To me they all took a solemn vow to keep what they declared to be my secret. The bottle containing the wine from which the poor American girl had drunk was broken and hidden, the plates and food swiftly packed up, and we at once fled from the scene of the tragedy. With Krail wheeling the girl's empty cycle, we reached the high road, where we all mounted and rode back in silence to Paris. Ah, shall I ever rid myself of the memory of that fatal afternoon?" she cried as she paused for breath.
"Fearing that he might be noticed taking along the empty cycle, Krail threw it into the river near Valmondois," she went on. "Arrived back at the Rue Léonce-Reynaud, I protested that nothing had been introduced into the wine. But they declared that, owing to my youth and the terrible scandal it would cause if I were arrested, they would never allow the matter to pass their lips, Mr. Hamilton, indeed, making the extraordinary declaration that such a crime had extenuating circumstances when love was at stake. I then saw that I had fallen the victim of some clever conspiracy; but so utterly overcome was I by the awful scene that I could make but faint protest.
"Ah! think of my horrible position—accused of a crime of which I was entirely innocent! The days slipped on, and I was sent back to Amiens, and in due course came home here to dear old Glencardine. From that day I have lived in constant fear, until on the night of the ball at Connachan—you remember the evening, dad?—on that night Mr. Flockart returned in secret, beckoned me out upon the lawn, and showed me something which held me petrified in fear. It was a cutting from an Edinburgh paper that evening reporting that two of the forest-guards at Pontarmé had discovered the body of the missing Miss Bryant, and that the French police were making active inquiries."
"He threatened you?" asked Walter.
"He told me to remain quiet, and that he and Lady Heyburn would do their best to shield me. For that reason, dad," she went on, turning to the blind man, "for that reason I feared to denounce him when I discovered him with your safe open, for that reason I was compelled to take all the blame and all your anger upon myself."
The old man's brow knit. "Where is my wife?" he asked. "I must speak to her before we go further. This is a very serious matter."
"Lady Heyburn is still at Park Street," Flockart replied.
"I will hear no more," declared the blind Baronet, holding up his hand, "not another word until my wife is present."
"But, dad," cried Gabrielle, "I am telling you the truth! Cannot you believe me, your daughter, before this man who is your enemy?"
"Because of my affliction I am, it seems, deceived by every one," was his hard response.
To where they stood had come the sound of wheels upon the gravelled drive outside, and a moment later Hill entered, announcing, "A gentleman to see you very urgently, Sir Henry. He is from Baron de Hetzendorf."
"From the Baron!" gasped the blind man. "I'll see him later."
"Why, it may be Hamilton!" cried Murie; who, looking through the door, saw his old friend in the corridor, and quickly called him in.
As he faced Flockart he drew himself up. The attitude of them all made it apparent to him that something unusual was in progress.
"You've arrived at a very opportune moment, Hamilton," Murie said. "You have met Miss Heyburn before, and also Flockart, I believe, at Lady Heyburn's, in Paris."
"Yes, but——"
"Sir Henry," Walter said in a quiet tone, "this gentleman sent by the Baron is his secretary, the same Mr. Edgar Hamilton of whom Gabrielle has just been speaking."
"Ah, then, perhaps he can furnish us with further facts regarding this most extraordinary statement of my daughter's," the blind man exclaimed.
"Gabrielle has just told her father the truth regarding a certain tragic occurrence in the Forest of Pontarmé. Explain to us all you know, Edgar."
"What I know," said Hamilton, "is very quickly told. Has Miss Heyburn mentioned the man Krail?"
"Yes, I have told them about him," the girl answered.
"You have, however, perhaps omitted to mention one or two small facts in connection with the affair," he said. "Do you not remember how, on that eventful afternoon in the forest, when searching for us, you first encountered Krail walking with this man Flockart at some distance from the others?"
"Yes, I recollect."
"And do you remember that when we returned to sit down to luncheon Flockart insisted that I should take the seat which was afterwards occupied by the unfortunate Miss Bryant? Do you recollect how I spread a rug for her at that spot and preferred myself to stand? The reason of their invitation to me to sit there I did not discover until afterwards. That wine had been prepared forme, not for her."
"For you!" the girl gasped, amazed.
"Yes. The plot was undoubtedly this—"
"There was no plot," protested Flockart, interrupting. "This girl killedEdna Bryant through intense jealousy."
"I repeat that there was a foul and ingenious plot to kill me, and to entrap Miss Heyburn," Hamilton said. "It was, of course, clear that Miss Heyburn was jealous of the girl, for she had written to her mother making threats against Miss Bryant's life. Therefore, the plot was that I should drink the fatal wine, and that Miss Gabrielle should be declared to be the murderess, she having intended the wine to be partaken of by the girl she hated with such deadly hatred. The marked cordiality of Krail and Flockart that I should take that seat aroused within me some misgivings, although I had never dreamed of this dastardly and cowardly plot against me—not until I saw the result of their foul handiwork."
"It's a lie! You are trying to implicate Krail and myself! The girl is the only guilty person. She placed the wine there!"
"She did not!" declared Hamilton boldly. "She was not there when the bottle was changed by Krail, but I was!"
"If what you say is true, then you deliberately stood by and allowed the girl to drink."
"I watched Krail go to the spot where luncheon was laid out, but could not see what he did. If I had done so I should have saved the girl's life. You were a few yards off, awaiting him; therefore you knew his intentions, and you are as guilty of that girl's tragic death as he."
"What!" cried Flockart, his eyes glaring angrily, "do you declare, then, that I am a murderer?"
"You yourself are the best judge of your own guilt," answered Hamilton meaningly.
"I deny that Krail or myself had any hand in the affair."
"You will have an opportunity of making that denial in a criminal court ere long," remarked the Baron's secretary with a grim smile.
"What," gasped Lady Heyburn's friend, his cheeks paling in an instant, "have you been so indiscreet as to inform the police?"
"I have—a week ago. I made a statement to M. Hamard of the Sûreté in Paris, and they have already made a discovery which you will find of interest and somewhat difficult to disprove."
"And pray what is that?"
Hamilton smiled again, saying, "No, my dear sir, the police will tell you themselves all in due course. Remember, you and your precious friend plotted to kill me."
"But why, Mr. Hamilton?" inquired the blind man. "What was their motive?"
"A very strong one," was the reply. "I had recognised in Krail a man who had defrauded the Baron de Hetzendorf of fifty thousand kroners, and for whom the police were in active search, both for that and for several other serious charges of a similar character. Krail knew this, and he and his friend—this gentleman here—had very ingeniously resolved to get rid of me by making it appear that Miss Gabrielle had poisoned me by accident."
"A lie!" declared Flockart fiercely, though his efforts to remain imperturbed were now palpable.
"You will be given due opportunity of disproving my allegations," Hamilton said. "You, coward that you are, placed the guilt upon an innocent, inexperienced girl. Why? Because, with Lady Heyburn's connivance, you with your cunning accomplice Krail were endeavouring to discover Sir Henry's business secrets in order, first, to operate upon the valuable financial knowledge you would thus gain, and so make a bigcoup; and, secondly, when you had done this, it was your intention to expose the methods of Sir Henry and his friends. Ah! don't imagine that you and Krail have not been very well watched of late," laughed Hamilton.
"Do you allege, then, that Lady Heyburn is privy to all this?" asked the blind man in distress.
"It is not for me to judge, sir," was Hamilton's reply.
"I know! I know how I have been befooled!" cried the poor helpless man, "befooled because I am blind!"
"Not by me, Sir Henry," protested Flockart.
"By you and by every one else," he cried angrily. "But I know the truth at last—the truth how my poor little daughter has been used as an instrument by you in your nefarious operations."
"But——"
"Hear me, I say!" went on the old man. "I ask my daughter to forgive me for misjudging her. I now know the truth. You obtained by some means a false key to my safe, and you copied certain documents which I had placed there in order to entrap any who might seek to learn my secrets. You fell into that trap, and though I confess I thought that Gabrielle was the culprit, on Murie's behalf, I only lately found out that you and your accomplice Krail were in Greece endeavouring to profit by knowledge obtained from here, my private house."
"Krail has been living in Auchterarder of late, it appears," Hamilton remarked, "and it is evidently he who, gaining access to the house one night recently, used his friend's false key, and obtained those confidential Russian documents from your safe."
"No doubt," declared Sir Henry. Then, again addressing Flockart, he asked, "Where are those documents which you and your scoundrelly accomplice have stolen, and for the return of which you are trying to make me pay?"
"I don't know anything about them," answered Flockart sullenly, his face livid.
"He'll know more about them when he is taken off by the two detectives from Edinburgh who hold the extradition warrant," Hamilton remarked with a grim smile.
The fellow started at those words. His demeanour was that of a guilty man. "What do you mean?" he gasped, white as death. "You—you intend to give me into custody? If you do, I warn you that Lady Heyburn will suffer also."
"She, like Miss Gabrielle, has only been your tool," Hamilton declared. "It was she who, under compulsion, has furnished you with means for years, and whose association with you has caused something little short of a scandal. Times without number she has tried to get rid of you and your evil influence in this household, but you have always defied her. Now," he said firmly, looking the other straight in the face, "you have upon you those stolen documents which you have, by using an assumed name and a false address, offered to sell back to their owner, Sir Henry. You have threatened that if they are not purchased at the exorbitant price you demand you will sell them to the Russian Ministry of Finance. That is the way you treat your friend and benefactor, the man who is blind and helpless! Come, give them back to Sir Henry, and at once."
"You must ask Krail," stammered the man, now so cornered that all further excuse or denial had become impossible.
"That's unnecessary. I happen to know that those papers are in your pocket at this moment, a fact which shows how watchful an eye we've been keeping upon you of late. You have brought them here so that your friend Krail may come to terms with Sir Henry for their repossession. He arrived from London with you, and is at the 'Strathavon Arms' in the village, where he stayed before, and is well known."
"Flockart," demanded the blind man very seriously, "you have papers in your possession which are mine. Return them to me."
A dead silence fell. All eyes save those of Sir Henry were turned upon the man who until that moment had stood so defiant and so full of sarcasm. But in an instant, at mention of Krail's presence in Auchterarder, his demeanour had suddenly changed. He was full of alarm.
"Give them to me and leave my house," Sir Henry said, holding up his thin white hand.
"I—I will—on one condition: if I may be allowed to go."
"We shall not prevent you leaving," was the Baronet's calm reply.
The man fumbled nervously in the inner pocket of his coat, and at last brought out a sealed and rather bulgy foolscap envelope.
"Open it, Gabrielle, and see what is within," her father said.
She obeyed, and in a few moments explained the various documents it contained.
"Then let the man go," her father said.
"But, Sir Henry," cried Hamilton, "I object to this! Krail is down in the village forming a plot to make you pay for the return of those papers. He arrived from London by the same train as this man. If we allow him to leave he will inform his accomplice, and both will escape."
Murie had his back to the door, the long window on the opposite side of the room being closed.
"It was a promise of Sir Henry's," declared the unhappy adventurer.
"Which will be observed when Krail has been brought face to face with Sir Henry," answered Murie, at the same time calling Hill and one of the gardeners who chanced to be working on the lawn outside.
Then, with a firmness which showed that they were determined, Hamilton and Murie conducted Flockart to a small upstairs room, where Hill and the gardener, with the assistance of Stewart, who happened to have come into the kitchen, mounted guard over him.
His position, once the honoured guest at Glencardine, was the most ignominious conceivable. But Sir Henry sat in gratification that at least he had got back those documents and saved the reputation of his friend Volkonski, as well as that of his co-partners.
Stokes the chauffeur had driven Murie and Hamilton in the car down to the village, where the last-named, after a conversation with the police inspector, went to the "Strathavon Arms," together with two constables who happened to be off duty, in plain clothes.
They found Krail sitting in the bar, calmly smoking, awaiting a message from his accomplice.
Upon Hamilton's recognition he was, after a brief argument, arrested on the charge of theft from Glencardine, placed in the car between the two stalwart Scotch policemen, and conveyed in triumph to the castle, much, of course, against his will. He demanded to be taken straight to the police station; but as Sir Henry had ordered him to be brought to Glencardine, and as Sir Henry was a magistrate, the inspector was bound to obey his orders.
The man's cruel, colourless eyes seemed to contract closer as he sat in the car with his enemy Hamilton facing him. He had never dreamed that they would ever meet again; but, now they had, he saw that the game was up. There was no hope of escape. He was being taken to meet Sir Henry Heyburn, the very last man in all the world he wished to face. His sallow countenance was drawn, his lips were thin and bloodless, and upon his cheeks were two red spots which showed that he was now in a deadly terror.
Gabrielle, who had been weeping at the knees of her father, heard the whirr of the car coming up the drive; and, springing to the window, witnessed the arrival of the party.
A moment later, Krail, between the two constables, and with the local inspector standing respectfully at the rear, stood in the big, long library into which the blind man was led by his daughter.
When all had assembled, Sir Henry, in a clear, distinct voice, said, "I have had you arrested and brought here in order to charge you with stealing certain documents from my safe yonder, which you opened by means of a duplicate key. Your accomplice Flockart has given evidence against you; therefore, to deny it is quite needless."
"Whatever he has said to you is lies," the foreigner replied, his accent being the more pronounced in his excitement. "I know nothing about it."
"If you deny that," exclaimed Hamilton quickly, "you will perhaps also deny that it was you who secretly poisoned Miss Bryant in the Pontarmé Forest, even though I myself saw you at the spot; and, further, that a witness has been found who actually saw you substitute the wine-bottles. You intended to kill me!"
"What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!" cried the accused, who was dressed with his habitual shabby gentility. "The girl yonder, mademoiselle, killed Miss Bryant."
"Then why did you make that deliberate attempt upon my life atFotheringhay?" demanded the girl boldly. "Had it not been for Mr.Hamilton, who must have seen us together and guessed that you intendedfoul play, I should certainly have been drowned."
"He believed that you knew his secret, and he intended, both on his own behalf and on Flockart's also, to close your lips," Murie said. "With you out of the way, their attitude towards your father would have been easier; but with you still a living witness there was always danger to them. He thought your death would be believed to be suicide, for he knew your despondent state of mind."
Sir Henry stood near the window, his face sphinx-like, as though turned to stone.
"She fell in," was his lame excuse.
"No, you threw me in!" declared the girl. "But I have feared you until now, and I therefore dared not to give information against you. Ah, God alone knows how I have suffered!"
"You dare now, eh?" he snarled, turning quickly upon her.
"It really does not matter what you deny or what you admit," Hamilton remarked. "The French authorities have applied for your extradition to France, and this evening you will be on your way to the extradition court at Bow Street, charged with a graver offence than the burglary at this house. The Sûreté of Paris make several interesting allegations against you—or against Felix Gerlach, which is your real name."
"Gerlach!" cried the blind man in a loud voice, groping forward. "Ah," he shrieked, "then I was not mistaken when—when I thought I recognised the voice! That man's voice!Yes, it is his—his!"
In an instant Krail had sprung forward towards the blind and defenceless man, but his captors were fortunately too quick and prevented him. Then, at the inspector's orders, a pair of steel bracelets were quickly placed upon his wrists.
"Gerlach! Felix Gerlach!" repeated the blind Baronet as though to himself, as he heard the snap of the lock upon the prisoner's wrists.
The fellow burst out into a peal of harsh, discordant laughter. He was endeavouring to retain a defiant attitude even then.
"You apparently know this man, dad?" Gabrielle exclaimed in surprise.
"Know him!" echoed her father hoarsely. "Know Felix Gerlach! Yes, I have bitter cause to remember the man who stands there before you accused of the crime of murder."
Then he paused, and drew a long breath.
"I unmasked him once, as a thief and a swindler, and he swore to be avenged," said the Baronet in a bitter voice. "It was long ago. He came to me in London and offered me a concession which he said he had obtained from the Ottoman Government for the construction of a railroad from Smyrna to the Bosphorus. The documents appeared to be all right and in order, and after some negotiations he sold the concession to me and received ten thousand pounds in cash of the purchase-money in advance. A week afterwards I discovered that, though the concession had been granted by the Minister of Public Works at the Sublime Porte, it had been sold to the Eckmann Group in Vienna, and that the papers I held were merely copies with forged signatures and stamps. I applied to the police, this man was arrested in Hamburg, and brought back to London, where he was tried, and, a previous conviction having been proved against him, sent to penal servitude for seven years. In the dock at the Old Bailey he swore to be avenged upon me and upon my family."
"And he seems to have kept his word," Walter remarked.
"When he came out of prison he found me in the zenith of my political career," Sir Henry went on. "On that well-remembered night of my speech at the Albert Hall I can only surmise that he went there, heard me, and probably became fiercely resentful that he had found a man cleverer than himself. The fact remains that he must have gone in a cab in front of my carriage to Park Street, alighted before me, and secreted himself within the portico. It was midnight, and the street was deserted. My carriage stopped, I got out, and it then drove on to the mews. I was in the act of opening the door with my latch-key when, by an unknown hand, there was flung full into my eyes some corrosive fluid which burned terribly, and caused me excruciating pain. I heard a man's exultant voice cry, 'There! I promised you that, and you have it!' The voice I recognised as that of the blackguard standing before you. Since that moment," he added in a blank, hoarse voice, "I have been totally blind!"
"You got me seven years!" cried the foreigner with a harsh laugh, "so think yourself very lucky that I didn't kill you."
"You placed upon me an affliction, a perpetual darkness, that to a man like myself is almost akin to death," replied his accuser very gravely. "Secure from recognition, you wormed yourself into the confidence of my wife, for you were bent upon ruining her also; and you took as partner in your schemes that needy adventurer Flockart. I now see it all quite plainly. Hamilton had recognised you as Gerlach, and you therefore formed a plot to get rid of him and throw the crime upon my poor unfortunate daughter, even though she was scarcely more than a child. In all probability, Lady Heyburn, in telling the girl the story regarding Murie and Miss Bryant, believed it, and if so she would also suspect my daughter to be the actual criminal."
"This is all utterly astounding, dad!" cried Gabrielle. "If you knew who it was who deliberately blinded you, why didn't you prosecute him?"
"Because there was no witness of his dastardly act, my child. And I myself never saw him. Therefore I was compelled to remain in silence, and allow the world to believe my affliction due to natural causes," was his blank response.
The sallow-faced foreigner laughed again, laughed in the face of the man whose eyesight he had so deliberately taken. He could not speak. What had he to say?
"Well," remarked Hamilton, "we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that both this man and his accomplice will stand their trial for their heartless crime in France, and that they will meet their just punishment according to the laws of God and of man."
"And I," added Walter, in a voice broken by emotion, as he again took Gabrielle's hand tenderly, "have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that my darling is cleared of a foul, dastardly, and terrible charge."
After long consultation—Krail having been removed in custody back to the village—it was agreed that the only charges that could be substantiated against Flockart were those of complicity in the ingenious attempt upon Hamilton's life by which poor Miss Bryant had been sacrificed, and also in the theft of Sir Henry's papers.
But was it worth while?
At the Baronet's suggestion, he was allowed freedom to leave the upstairs room where he had been detained by the three stalwart servants; and, without waiting to speak to any one, he had made his way down the drive. He had, as was afterwards found, left Auchterarder Station for London an hour later.
The painful impression produced upon everybody by Sir Henry's statement of what had actually occurred on the night of the great meeting at the Albert Hall having somewhat subsided, Murie mentioned to the blind man the legend of the Whispers, and also the curious discovery which Gabrielle and he had made earlier in the morning.
"Ah," laughed the old gentleman a trifle uneasily, "and so you've discovered the truth at last, eh?"
"The truth—no!" Murie said. "That is just what we are so very anxious to hear from you, Sir Henry."
"Well," he said, "you may rest your minds perfectly content that there's nothing supernatural about them. It was to my own advantage to cause weird reports and uncanny legends to be spread in order to preserve my secret, the secret of the Whispers."
"But what is the secret, Sir Henry?" asked Hamilton eagerly. "We, curiously enough, have similar Whispers at Hetzendorf. I've heard them myself at the old château."
"And of course you have believed in the story which my good friend the Baron has caused to be spread, like myself: the legend that those who hear them die quickly and suddenly," said the old man, with a smile upon his grey face. "Like myself, he wished to keep away all inquisitive persons from the spot."
"But why?" asked Murie.
"Well, truth to tell, the reason is very simple," he answered. "As we are speaking here in the strictest privacy, I will tell you something which I beg that neither of you will repeat. If you do it might result in my ruin."
Murie, Hamilton, and Gabrielle all gave their promise.
"Then it is this," he said. "I am head of a group of the leading financial houses in Europe, who, remaining secret, are carrying on business in the guise of an unimportant house in Paris. The members of the syndicate are all of them men of enormous financial strength, including Baron de Hetzendorf, to whom our friend Hamilton here acts as confidential secretary. The strictest secrecy is necessary for the success of our great undertakings, which I may add are perfectly honest and legitimate. Yet never, unless absolutely imperative, do we entrust documents or letters to the post. Like the house of Rothschild, we have our confidential messengers, and hold frequent meetings, no 'deal' being undertaken without we are all of us in full accord. Monsieur Goslin acts as confidential messenger, and brings me the views of my partners in Paris, Petersburg, and Vienna. To this careful concealment of our plans, or of the fact that we are ever in touch with one another, is due the huge successes we have made from time to time—successes which have staggered the Bourses of the Continent and caused amazement in Wall Street. But being unfortunately afflicted as I am, I naturally cannot travel to meet the others, and, besides, we are compelled always to take fresh and most elaborate precautions in order to conceal the fact that we are in connection with each other. If that one fact ever leaked out it would at once stultify our endeavours and weaken our position. Hence, at intervals, two or even three of my partners travel here, and I meet them at night in the little chamber which you, Walter, discovered to-day, and which until the present has never been found, owing to the weird fables I have invented regarding the Whispers. To Hetzendorf, too, once or twice a year, perhaps, the members pay a secret visit in order to consult the Baron, who, as you perhaps may know, unfortunately enjoys very precarious health."
"Then meetings of Frohnmeyer, Volkonski, and the rest were held here in secret sometimes?" echoed Hamilton in surprise.
"On certain occasions, when it is absolutely necessary that I should meet them," answered Sir Henry. "They stay at the Station Hotel in Perth, coming over to Auchterarder by the last train at night and leaving by the first train in the morning from Crieff Junction. They never approach the house, for fear that servants or one or other of the guests may recognise them, but go separately along the glen and up the path to the ruins. When we thus meet, our voices can be heard through the crack in the roof of the chamber in the courtyard above. On such occasions I take good care that Stewart and his men are sent on a false alarm of poachers to another part of the estate, while I can find my way there myself with my stick," he laughed. "The Baron, I believe, acts on the same principle at his château in Hungary."
"Well," declared Hamilton, "so well has the Baron kept the secret that I have never had any suspicion until this moment. By Jove! the invention of the Whispers was certainly a clever mode of preserving the secret, for nobody cares deliberately to court disaster and death, especially among a superstitious populace like the villagers here and the Hungarian peasantry."
Both Gabrielle and her lover expressed their astonishment, the latter remarking how cleverly the weird legend of the Whispers invented by Sir Henry had been made to fit historical fact.
* * * * *
When the eight o'clock train from Stirling stopped at Auchterarder Station that evening, a tall, well-dressed man alighted, and inquired his way to the police-station. The porter knew by his accent that he was a Londoner, but did not dream that he was "a gentleman from Scotland Yard."
Half an hour later, after a chat with the rural inspector, the pair went along to the cell behind the small village police-station in order that the stranger should read over to the prisoner the warrant he had brought with him from London—the application of the French police for the arrest and extradition of Felix Gerlach,aliasKrail,aliasBenoist, for the wilful murder of Edna Mary Bryant in the Forest of Pontarmé, near Chantilly.
The inspector had related to the London detective the dramatic scene up at Glencardine that day, and the officer of the Criminal Investigation Department walked along to the cell much interested to see what manner of man was this, who was even more bold and ingenious in his criminal methods than many with whom his profession brought him daily into contact. He had hoped that he himself would have the credit of making the arrest, but found that the man wanted had already been apprehended on the charge of burglary at Glencardine.
The inspector unlocked the door and threw it open, but next instant the startling truth became plain.
Felix Krail lay dead upon the flagstones. He had taken his life by poison—probably the same poison he had placed in the wine at the fatal picnic—rather than face his accuser and bear his just punishment.
* * * * *
Many months have now passed. A good deal has occurred since that never-to-be-forgotten day, but it is all quickly related.
James Flockart, unmasked as he has been, never dared to return. The last heard of him was six months ago, in Honduras, where for the first time in his life he had been compelled to work for his living, and had, three weeks after landing, succumbed to fever.
At Sir Henry's urgent request, his wife came back to Glencardine a week after the tragic end of Gerlach, and was compelled to make full confession how, under the man's sinister influence, both she and Flockart had been forced to act. To her husband she proved beyond all doubt that she had been in complete ignorance of the truth concerning the affair in the Pontarmé Forest until long afterwards. She had at first believed Gabrielle guilty of the deed, but when she learned the truth and saw how deeply she had been implicated it was impossible for her then to withdraw.
With a whole-hearted generosity seldom found in men, Sir Henry, after long reflection and a desperate struggle with himself, forgave her, and now has the satisfaction of knowing that she prefers quiet, healthful Glencardine to the social gaieties of Park Street, Paris, or San Remo, while she and Gabrielle have lately become devoted to each other.
The secret syndicate, with Sir Henry Heyburn at its head, still operates, for no word of its existence has leaked out to either financial circles or to the public, while the Whispers of Glencardine are still believed in and dreaded by the whole countryside across the Ochils.
Edgar Hamilton, though compelled to return to the Baron, whose right hand he is, often travels to Glencardine with confidential messages, and documents for signature, and is, of course, an ever-welcome guest.
The unpretentious house of Lénard et Morellet of Paris now and then effects deals so enormous that financial circles are staggered, and the world stands amazed. The true facts of who is actually behind that apparently unimportant firm are, however, still rigorously and ingeniously concealed.
Who would ever dream that that quiet, grey-faced man with the sightless eyes, living far away up in Scotland, passing his hours of darkness with his old bronze seals or his knitting, was the brain which directed their marvellously successful operations!
The Laird of Connachan died quite suddenly about seven months ago, and Walter Murie succeeded to the noble estate. Gabrielle—sweet, almost child-like in her simple tastes and delightful charm, and more devoted to Walter than ever—is now little Lady Murie, having been married in Edinburgh a month ago.
At the moment that I pen these final lines the pair are spending a blissful honeymoon at the great old château of Hetzendorf, high up above the broad-flowing Danube, the Baron having kindly vacated the place and put it at their disposal for the summer. Happy in each other's love and mutual trust, they spend the long blissful days in company, wandering often hand in hand, for when Walter looks into those wonderful eyes of hers he sees mirrored there a perfect and abiding affection such as is indeed given few men to possess.
Together they have in secret explored the ruins of the ancient stronghold, and, by directions given them by the Baron, have found there a stone chamber by no means dissimilar to that at Glencardine.
Meanwhile, Sir Henry Heyburn, impatient for his beloved daughter to be again near him and to assist him, passes his weary hours with his favourite hobby; his wife, full of sympathy, bearing him company. From her, however, he still withholds one secret, and one only—the Secret of the House of Whispers.