"My mother died when I was little more than a child, and a year later I lost my father. After the latter event I went to live at Solchester with my uncle, Mr. Samuel Champneys, who was also my guardian. When I first met Evan Wildash I was sixteen years old and had just left school. He was my senior by four years and had come to Solchester to fill a vacancy in a land surveyor's office, his home, meanwhile, being with a maiden aunt whose house was only a few doors away from that of my uncle. Evan was an especially handsome young man, with large, black, lustrous eyes, a dark Italian-looking face, and a most persuasive voice; in short, just the kind of provincial Romeo to take captive the heart of a romantic school-girl. Small wonder, therefore, was it that, when he one day whispered in my ear that he loved me, he took mine captive on the spot. After that we used to met in secret two or three times a week, and, as if that were not enough, we got into the way of writing silly little love notes to each other between times, our post-office being a hollow in an old apple-tree at the bottom of my uncle's orchard.
"This went on for half a year or more, wholly without my uncle's knowledge, and never was girl more happy than I. Not for a moment did I doubt Evan's assurances that in all the world he loved but me; and, in return, he had all the girlish love I had to bestow. By-and-by rumours began to reach me of the wild and reckless kind of life he was leading--of his racing and betting propensities, of his card-playing, billiard-playing, and I know not what besides; but he was my Bayard in so far that, in my eyes, he wassans reproche, and I would not listen to aught that was said in his disparagement. At length, however, the crash came. He was dismissed from his situation, and, worse than all, dismissed without a character. Even then I would hear no ill spoken of him.
"It was just about this time that someone, I never discovered who, opened my uncle's eyes (good simple man!) to the state of affairs between Evan and myself. Under these circumstances five uncles out of six would have sent for their niece and have upbraided her and made things generally unpleasant for her; but he went to work after a different fashion. Instead of scolding me, he sent for my lover.
"According to Evan, as told to me later, Uncle Samuel spoke to him something to the following effect: 'You have lost your situation and you have lost your character--such a one as you had to lose. Solchester and you must now part company. I am given to understand that you profess to be in love with my niece. If you are seeking her for the sake of her small fortune--and it is only a very small one--I must impress two facts upon you. The first is, that she will not be of age for three and a half years; the second, that her money is so tied up that her husband, whoever he may be, will not be able to touch a penny of it. Now, although I am my niece's guardian, and although she is legally bound to do my bidding while under age, I have no wish to quarrel with her on your account. Rather than do that I am prepared to make you an offer, which, for your own sake, I strongly advise you to accept. What I have to propose is this: That, on condition of your breaking off all future relations with my niece, and of your at once going out to one of the Colonies--I care not which--I will present you with the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, the odd fifty to be given you at once for your passage and outfit, and the two hundred to be paid you the day after you land at Melbourne, or Halifax, or at whatever port you may decide upon consigning your worthless self to.' Evan took a day to consider. On the morrow he told my uncle that he would accept the proffered sum and go.
"'So that is the price at which you and my uncle appraise me!' I whimpered, when, with his arm round my waist and my head resting against his shoulder, he told me what he had agreed upon doing. 'Two hundred and fifty pounds! Oh, if I had but known before!'
"'Believe me, dearest, it is for the best,' he replied as he softly fondled my cheek. Then he went on to say that his plan was to go out to the South African diamond fields, where, according to his account, fortunes, just then, were being picked up 'every day of the week.' Why should he be less lucky than others? What was there to hinderhim, from picking up a fortune? He had not the slightest doubt that at the end of two, or, at the most, three years, he should be back in England, worth who could say how many thousands of pounds. When that desirable state of affairs should have come to pass, he would marry me despite the opposition of all the uncles in the universe. Meanwhile, would I be true to him? Of course I would be true to him, I told him as I wept quietly on his shoulder.
"Well, he went. One letter he wrote me after landing at Cape Town, which reached me through the good offices of his aunt, Miss Pinchin, who was privy to our engagement and willing to further it to the best of her ability. After that there was a long, long silence, and finally, about a couple of years after his departure from England came the news of his death from fever.
"I cried, but not a great deal, when the news was told me. The fact was that by the time Evan had been gone three or four months I began to find, much to my surprise and hardly less to my mortification, that his image was slowly, but surely, fading and losing its vividness of outline in my memory--that I no longer thought of him by day and dreamt of him by night, as I had been wont to do, and that his unaccountable silence troubled me less and less as time went on. Love, or that which I had dignified with the name of love, had taken no real root in my heart. A few natural tears I shed when the news was told me; and a sense of what might have been, but never could be now, came over me and smote me as with a lash. But I quickly dried my eyes. Three days before I had promised to become the wife of James Melray.
"My uncle had died some time before, after having appointed Mr. Melray my guardian for the remaining term of my minority. He placed me under the care of a certain Mrs. Simpson, and there, from time to time, he used to come and see me. Before a year was out he one day took my breath away by making me an offer of marriage. I asked for a couple of days to consider my answer, at the end of which time I accepted his offer. Before doing so, however, I gave him clearly to understand that I entertained no warmer feeling for him than one of simple liking and esteem. He was quite content, he told me, to take me on those terms. Affection, he did not doubt, would follow in due course. There seemed to me no need for mentioning the name of Evan Wildash. The episode in connection with him was a thing of the past. He was dead, and therewith the promise I had given him had no longer any binding force.
"Mr. Melray and I were married. I did my best to make my husband happy, and, through all the dark days which have followed, the consciousness that I succeeded in doing so has been the greatest consolation left me. He prophesied rightly when he said that, being rooted in esteem, affection would not fail to grow. It did grow, as he knew, and he was happy in the knowledge.
"One afternoon, about a week prior to that fatal September day, having finished my shopping in the town, instead of going direct home, I was tempted by the fineness of the weather to go round by the Ladies' Walk, that fine old avenue of elms which stretches for nearly a mile along the left bank of the river, and is the only park, so to call it, of which Merehampton can boast.
"I had been strolling slowly along for some minutes, immersed in thought, when I was startled by a man who came suddenly out from behind the trunk of one of the big old trees, and stepping in front of me blocked the way. A second look was needed before I knew him again. It was Evan Wildash; but oh, how changed! With his sallow, sunken cheeks, his restless, furtive eyes, his long, unkempt hair, and his shabby, ill-fitting clothes, he looked like a vile copy of his former self. I fell back with a cry as my eyes met his. 'So, traitress, you have not forgotten me!' he exclaimed through his set teeth, as he followed me up with clenched hands and raised shoulders.
"What answer I made I don't recollect, nor does it matter; but apparently it had the effect of soothing him in some measure. 'Let us sit,' he said,' I have much to tell you, many questions to ask.' Accordingly we seated ourselves on one of the public benches. At that hour of the afternoon the walk was nearly deserted; its whole length did not hold more than half-a-dozen people.
"What passed between us may be briefly summarised.
"After that one letter written from the Cape, he had gone 'up country' to the diamond fields. There he was presently smitten by sunstroke, and months passed before he was able to crawl outside the hospital-tent. So reduced was he in strength that manual labour of any kind was out of the question, and in order to keep himself from starving he was glad to accept a berth in a store; and there he had stayed till he had saved enough money to pay his passage home.
"'But when you got better, why did you not write,' I asked. 'I did write, again and yet again,' he replied. 'After that first letter not a line from you ever reached me,' I said. 'What conclusion could I come to save that you had forgotten me?' 'If that is so, then has there been treachery at work,' he replied, with a contraction of his ebon brows. 'That is a thing to be ferreted out, and I charge myself with the task. Meet me, three days from now, at the same time and place.'
"On that understanding we parted. There had been little or no tenderness in his manner towards me, but only, as it were, the gloomy humour of a man who found himself despoiled by another of something which he had believed to be his own, but on which, in his heart, he had set no particular store. On my part, I felt towards him nothing but a sort of repulsion mixed with pity--pity for the so evidently forlorn condition of one whom ill-fortune had so remorselessly dogged. As for his good looks they were gone as completely as if they had never existed. I wondered at and half despised myself when I called to mind that there had been a time when I looked up to this man as the hero of my dreams.
"I met him three days later as I had promised. He had averred that there had been treachery at work, and I was curious to learn the result of his inquiry. What he had to tell was something of a shock to me. The letters he had written after his recovery from his illness had all, like the one written after landing, which duly reached me, been sent under cover to his aunt, Miss Pinchin. But by the time the second letter came to hand I was engaged to be married. Miss Pinchin, in the exercise of her discretion, instead of forwarding that and the subsequent ones direct to me, had put them into fresh envelopes and addressed them to Mr. Melray. Whether he had opened and read them, or whether, having had some hint from the spinster as to the probable nature of their contents, he had burnt them unread, is a point as to which I am as ignorant today as I was then. At any rate, not one of them ever reached the person for whom they were intended, and, for the time being, a dull fire of resentment was kindled in my heart.
"For all that, I was by no means prepared to look at the affair from the point of view of Evan Wildash. In brief he pressed me to elope with him. 'You loved me--that you cannot deny,' ran his plea. 'When I was compelled to leave you, you gave me your promise to remain true to me; and that you would have kept it I fully believe, had not the report of my death been spread about, and had you not found yourself, after your uncle's decease, alone in the world. Even then, but for my aunt's treachery, it would not have been too late for you to have saved yourself from marrying a man whom you can henceforth regard with nothing but loathing and contempt. Although you have failed me, I have been true to you. To-day you are infinitely dearer to me than you were four years ago. You belong to me. You are mine and mine only. We will fly together to some land beyond the seas. I have means at command and you shall not want. Come, then--now--at once! In twelve hours we shall be far beyond pursuit.'
"Such and such like were the persuasions and arguments made use of by him. But I had no longer any love for him (if, indeed, I had ever had any)--no, not the least bit! Rather was I frightened of him. His restless manner, his strange jerky movements, a peculiar twitching of one corner of his mouth, and an indescribable something which flashed out at me every now and again from the sombre depths of his eyes, made me timorous of him and involuntarily caused me to shrink from too close a proximity to him. It seemed to me then--as, with still more reason, it seems clear to me now--that he had never thoroughly recovered from the effects of his sunstroke, and that, to a certain extent, he could hardly be held accountable for what he might either say or do.
"I will not weary you with the details of all that passed between us. I was afraid to take too indignant a tone with him, lest my doing so should provoke an explosion of passion on his part, which might end in a way disastrous to one or both of us. There was, however, no lack of firmness in the way in which I gave him to understand that between himself and me all was at an end for ever, and that that must be our last interview. He pleaded and urged me to reconsider my determination, but to no purpose. Finally, finding that I had only half-an-hour left in which to get home and change my dress before dinner, I was compelled to leave him somewhat abruptly. 'Shake hands before I go, and let us part as friends,' I said.
"He stared at my extended hand for a moment or two with bent brows. Then, with a strange harsh laugh which seemed to me to have an echo of insanity in it, he said: 'Part as friends--you and I? Never! We are lovers, not friends. You are mine and I am yours. Not even death shall have power to divide us.' Then, pulling his hat over his brows and turning quickly on his heel, he flung me a parting look over his shoulder. 'It isau revoir, and not farewell,' he exclaimed with a wave of his hand, and so strode swiftly away through the gloaming."
"For the next few days there was an uneasy feeling at my heart, a sense of impending misfortune, of which I could not rid myself. 'It isau revoir,' he had said, and that despite my telling him that on no account would I consent to meet him again. What motive was at the bottom of his persistence? When and how would he attempt to force his presence on me? For three days I never left the precincts of the house and garden.
"I now come to the fatal 18th of September. About ten o'clock on the morning of that day, after breakfast was over and my husband had shut himself up in his office, a note was brought me with word that the messenger had been instructed to wait for an answer. Even before I opened it I guessed but too surely who it was from. As nearly as I can recollect, it ran almost word for word as under:
"'Youmustsee me once more and to-day. I have made up my mind to leave England in less than a week from now, probably never to return; but I cannot go without bidding you farewell. Besides, I have some letters of yours, written years ago, which I will give you when I see you. Should you refuse me this last request, you must abide by the consequences. To-morrow at daybreak my body will be found in front of Loudwater House. There will be a bullet in my brain and on my lifeless heart will be found your letters.--E. W.'
"Such a message, coming from a man whom I believed to be half demented, was enough to frighten any woman, and it frightened me. I scribbled a line in answer, saying when and where I would meet him.
"All that day I was a prey to the most dismal forebodings. It was Friday. My husband, who was as regular in his habits as a piece of clockwork, made an invariable point of leaving home punctually at eight o'clock every Tuesday and Friday evening, in order to make one at a rubber of whist at the house of his friend, Mr. Arbour. Being thus aware that from eight till half-past ten my time would be at my own disposal, and being unwilling to meet Evan again by daylight in the Ladies' Walk, from fear lest the fact of my doing so should somehow reach my husband's ears, in my reply to him I had named nine o'clock as the time, and the corner of the graveyard of St. Mary's Church (a lonely spot at that hour and not more than three hundred yards from Loudwater House) as our place of meeting.
"I had fully made up my mind that this our last interview should be as brief a one as possible. I was morbidly anxious to regain possession of my letters. Unless I did so there was no knowing into whose hands they might fall nor what use might be made of them. And then for Evan Wildash to have committed suicide at the door of my husband's house would have been a dreadful thing indeed!
"The clock struck eight as my husband was putting on his overcoat in the hall. I tied a muffler round his throat, and at the door he kissed me, as he always did, even if he were not going to be more than an hour away. Alas and alas! how little did I dream that it was the last time he would ever press his lips to mine!
"After he was gone I scarcely blow how the time passed till nine o'clock. As I look back in memory, everything that happened that night after my husband's departure seems as far removed from reality as is the recollection of some hideous nightmare. It is enough to say that I was at the corner of the churchyard within five minutes of the appointed hour, where I found Evan already waiting for me.
"Of what passed between us I have only the vaguest recollection--after-events seem almost to have blotted the record from my mind. I remember with what a feeling of relief my fingers closed over my letters, which, however, he did not yield up without evident reluctance. Half a minute later his clenched hand went up to his heart, and, with a low cry, he staggered backward, and would have fallen had not his other hand instinctively gripped one of the churchyard railings. 'That accursed pain again!' he exclaimed with a groan. 'Brandy!--I must have brandy! or I shall die.'
"I gazed around in despair. As I have said, the place was a lonely one. There was no tavern in sight, nor, indeed, was I sure in which direction the nearest one lay. By this time he was resting his back against the railings, and even by that dim light I could discern that his features were warped by agony. Then a thought struck me. I had planned so as to leave Loudwater House unknown to anyone, having made my exit not by way of the front door, but through my husband's private office, one door of which opens into a side lane. My intention was to go back the same way, which the latch-key I had brought with me--applicable to both the front and side doors--would allow of my doing. It now struck me that if only Evan could walk as far as the office I might be able to get him some brandy from the liqueur-case upstairs unseen by anybody. I told him my idea, and he assented to it eagerly. How in the agony he was in he contrived to get as far as Loudwater House I cannot tell; but there we were at last. I opened the door with my key and went in first, he following. The place was in darkness; but I knew where matches were always to be found. 'Wait by the door till I get a light,' I said, being afraid lest he might stumble over something in the dark. Whether he did not heed me, or did not hear me, I have no means of knowing. In any case, he groped his way forward into the room, and a moment later an exclamation broke from his lips. He had half fallen over some obstruction on the floor. As I struck a match, and the gas-jet leapt up, I turned my head to see what had happened. By that he had recovered his footing, and, the instant the room became flooded with light, I saw that he was staring intently at his outstretched hands. Without my being aware of it, my eyes followed the direction of his. Then I saw that his hands were wet--nay, more; that they were bedabbled with blood. A moment I gazed, horror-stricken, then my eyes travelled downward, and the dread knowledge burst upon me that the object over which Evan had stumbled was none other than the murdered body of my husband!
"Frozen, I stood there gazing at the ghastly object--all the currents of life seeming, for the time being, to stand still. As for Evan, his gaze wandered from his hands to the body, and thence back to his hands. Then, all at once, he burst into a harsh, discordant, maniacal laugh, almost more dreadful to hear than was that which lay so white and still on the floor to look upon.
"'Blood!--blood on my hands--and his blood!' he cried with a half shriek. 'They will say that I did it--I--I!' Again his madman's laugh rang through the room. Then, with a last stare at his crimsoned hands, he turned, and, as I verily believe, without as much as another look at me, he flung wide the door and, passing with staggering strides out into the night, vanished from my sight for ever.
"But before that I was down on my knees by the side of my dead husband. How did I know he was dead? you may possibly ask. My first glance at his face had been enough to assure me that no faintest spark of life animated the marble-like image at my feet. On it was stamped the indescribable seal of death. For all that, as I now knelt by him my hand felt for his heart, but not the slightest fluttering responded to the pressure of my palm. He must have been dead some time. Already the hand I took in mine, and the brow to which I pressed my lips, were of an icy coldness.
"Presently I stood up and asked myself what I ought to do next. An unnatural calm possessed me. My eyes were dry and burning, but it seemed to me as if my limbs were as cold as those of the corpse at my feet. Tears would come later on, tears in abundance, but just then the fountains were fast sealed. I knew, no one better, that what I ought to have done was there and then to raise an alarm and summon the police with all possible speed. 'But if I do that,' I said, 'how can I explain away my presence at this untimely hour? And what if Evan, in his half-demented condition, and with his blood-imbrued hands, should be arrested and confronted with me? Would it not, in such a case, go hard with the pair of us, innocent though we are?' My poor dear husband was dead, of that there could be no doubt. It could do him no good, but might do me infinite harm, were the slightest shadow of suspicion to fall upon me in connection with the mystery of his murder, as would almost inevitably be the case were I found in that room at that hour with my outdoor things on, without anyone in the house dreaming that I was otherwhere than in my own chamber.
"Such were some of the thoughts that surged through my brain while one might have counted a dozen slowly. My mind was made up. After one last shuddering glance at my poor dear one, I put out the gas, opened the inner door without noise, satisfied myself that no one was about, sped upstairs and reached my own room unseen. A quarter of an hour later I rang the bell, to which Charlotte, the housemaid, responded. Under the pretence of being without an envelope in which to enclose a letter I had just written, I asked her to take a lighted candle, go down to Mr. Melray's office, and bring me one from there. The rest is known.
"As already stated, I never saw Evan Wildash after that night, nor did the slightest tidings of him ever reach me. After having read the story 'How, and Why,' and after having heard from Miss Sudlow by what strange chance the MS., of which the first half of the story professes to be a faithful copy, came into the hands of a certain Mr. Timmins, I can only conclude that the unknown stranger who met his death in the railway accident could have been none other than Evan. As to whether his partial derangement (for that his brain was affected I cannot doubt) was temporary or permanent, and by what motive he was possessed in describing under fictitious names, but not without sundry exaggerations and erroneous deductions, some portion of that which passed between himself and me, I am no more able to divine than the veriest stranger who may read these lines.
"Of the murder of my dear husband (surely such a crime cannot go for ever unpunished!) I know nothing more than is here set down.
"And that I aver to be the solemn truth.
"Denia Melray."
Within twenty-four hours of the receipt by Philip Winslade of Miss Sudlow's letter enclosing the copy of Mrs. Melray's statement, he and Mr. Robert Melray were closeted together in a private room of the hotel where the latter generally stayed during his visits to town.
"What a pity, what a very great pity it is that Denia was not straightforward enough to tell me all this at first," said Mr. Melray as he replaced the statement, which he had been glancing over afresh, in his pocket. "As you will readily conceive, it is an immense relief to me to find that she is in no way implicated in my poor brother's tragical fate. It would indeed have been terrible had anything tending to the contrary come to light, and I am truly thankful my mother and I have been spared any such revelation. Unfortunately we seem no nearer the elucidation of the mystery of James's death than we were before." He sighed heavily, his chin drooped forward on his breast, and he seemed lost in thought. There was a long pause. Suddenly he raised his head and, with his eyes bent searchingly on Winslade, said: "I supposeyousee no reason to doubt the accuracy of any of the details embodied in my sister-in-law's narrative?"
It was a question which Phil had expected to have put to him, and there was no hesitation in his reply.
"I see no valid reason for questioning thebona fidesof Mrs. Melray's narrative. There are certain points in connection with the events of September 18, as told by her, which would undoubtedly be open to grave suspicion did she not account for them in such a seemingly straightforward and natural way. For instance, on the face of it, it seems nothing less than a most remarkable coincidence that she and Wildash should have found themselves in her husband's private office within so short a time of Mr. Melray's unaccountable return and all that must have happened immediately after; and yet the explanation of how they came to be there is so simple and direct that, when one comes to consider, it seems by no means improbable that things should have fallen out as she asserts them to have done."
"Does there not seem to you a possibility that my brother may have accidentally discovered the assignation of the young people--that, in point of fact, he may have come suddenly upon them while they were talking together by the corner of the churchyard, that a quarrel may thereupon have ensued, with a result that was fatal to James?"
"That is a point which I have not failed to consider; but it is one which, the more I look at it, the more I find it to bristle with difficulties. That Mr. Melray left home as usual at eight o'clock is not questioned. Supposing him to have gone there direct, he was due at the house of Mr. Arbour from ten to twelve minutes later. Mrs. Melray states that, knowing her husband would not be back before half-past ten at the soonest, she named nine o'clock for her meeting with Wildash. This seems quite feasible, seeing that by that hour most of the shops would be shut, that there would be fewer people in the streets, and, consequently, less likelihood of their meeting being observed. But, supposing Mrs. Melray to have been unwise enough to fix a quarter or half-past eight for the meeting, what then? The churchyard where the meeting is said to have taken place is in an exactly opposite direction to the road Mr. Melray would have to traverse on his way to Mr. Arbour's; what possible reason, therefore, could take him so far out of his way? Even supposing for a moment that, by some means of which we know nothing, he had got wind of the assignation and had made up his mind to be present, that he carried out his intention, that high words passed between the two men, resulting in a quarrel fatal to one of them; supposing all this, we at once find ourselves beset with a fresh difficulty--none other, in fact, than to account for Mr. Melray's body being found in his own office, and not in the street by the churchyard, where the quarrel, had there been one, must presumably have taken place. But there is no evidence of a quarrel, nor as much as a single witness to prove that the two men ever met, while it could not for a moment be contended that Wildash, after killing Mr. Melray, could unobserved have dragged the body as far as Loudwater House. No; I confess it would be much harder for me to swallow these difficulties than it is to accept Mrs. Melray's narrative as a truthful statement of the facts of the case as far as she was concerned in them; and, looked at from her point of view, one can quite understand her anxiety to keep the whole affair a secret from everybody."
"Your views in the main seem to tally with my own," said Mr. Melray, "and I am glad to have them confirmed by you."
"It certainly seems somewhat singular," resumed Winslade presently, "that no one in Solchester should have known of the return of Wildash, and that by all his old associates the tidings of his death should still be implicitly believed. His aunt's evidence on the point would have been most valuable, because she, more than anyone, would have been likely to know of his return; but, unfortunately, she died some months ago. As to whether he and the stranger who was killed on the railway were one and the same person, there seems very little likelihood now of our ever being able to prove; the probability, however, would seem to be in favour of their being the same man."
"It is a point which, I confess, has very little interest for me," replied the other. "But now comes the question," he presently resumed, "of what I ought to say to my sister-in-law, of what notice, in point of fact, it is advisable that I should take of her extraordinary statement."
"If I may be allowed," said Winslade, "I would suggest that the less notice you take of it the better."
"My own opinion exactly. Indeed, if she and I were brought face to face, I scarcely know what I should find to say to her about it. For me, at least, it opens up a very different view of her character from the one I held before. But that," he added with one of his dry smiles, "is scarcely a point as to which it behoves me to enlighten her." He paused for a few seconds, sitting with half-shut eyes and drumming softly on the table with one hand. Then he said: "Perhaps, after all, my best plan will be to write her a brief note, telling her I have read her statement, and that although I am sorry she did not see her way to take me into her confidence long ago, yet, bearing in mind the uncommon circumstances surrounding the affair, that I do not feel at liberty to blame her for her reticence. Further, that I accept her statement without the shadow of a doubt as to the truth of anything there set down, and that for the future it may be as well that the subject should not be further alluded to between us. Yes," he continued with an air of relief, "I think that will decidedly be the best thing to do."
At Loudwater House everything went on as before. Fanny and the younger Mrs. Melray remained on the best of terms, and the latter continued to join her and Freddy two or three times a week in their walks. Once, and once only, did the young widow refer to a certain matter which was as carefully shunned by Fanny as by herself. One day when Freddy was out of hearing, Denia said: "I suppose I am only telling you what you know already when I inform you that my brother-in-law's perusal of the statement which I gave into your hands resulted in his writing me a short, but extremely nice letter."
"I was given to understand that it was Mr. Melray's intention to write to you."
"I cannot tell you how happy his letter has made me. Ever since receiving it I have felt sorry and ashamed of myself for not having taken him into my confidence at first and told him all I had to tell. All my life long I shall think very differently of him from what I used to do."
There was a little break in her voice as she finished speaking, and Fanny, glancing at her, saw that her blue eyes were brimmed with tears.
If, since her receipt of his letter, Mrs. Melray regarded her brother-in-law from a changed standpoint, Fanny did not fail to notice that he, on his part, now treated her with a certain show of cordiality of which there had been no sign before. Heretofore he had always addressed her ceremoniously as "Mrs. Melray," whereas he now as often as not spoke to her and of her by her baptismal appellation. A cloud seemed to have lifted itself off the house. The pretty widow's eyes began to sparkle again as they had not sparkled since her husband's death.
Only, Mrs. Melray the elder, when in her daughter-in-law's company, continued to be as grim and taciturn as she had always been. Nothing had happened which served to change or modify the silent, but uncompromising hostility with which she regarded the younger woman. That she could be very different when she chose was shown by her treatment of Miss Sudlow, which was not merely considerate, but had in it a certain element of cordiality, of a somewhat chill and stately kind it may be, but which, coming from the person it did, meant more than it would have meant from another.
One of the chief duties of the dowager's companion was to read aloud to her mistress. Unfortunately, about this time Miss Armishaw contracted a severe cold, which resulted, for the time being, in a partial loss of voice. In this strait Fanny offered her services as reader, an offer which Mrs. Melray was pleased to accept. This brought the two women into more confidential relations than before, for the readings always took place in the elder lady's private sitting-room, and were usually followed by half-an-hour's chat on sundry topics of the day before Fanny went back to her more immediate duties.
It was in the course of one of these after-reading talks that the dowager said: "Not till a week ago, my dear, did Robert give me a certain document to read, which, as I understand, was placed by my daughter-in-law in your hands first of all. It is a document which serves, in my opinion, to place her conduct in a very curious light indeed, and one which she may well have shrunk from having thrown on it. On that point, however, I will say no more. She is my son's widow, and although it would be hypocrisy on my part to say that I like her, I have no desire whatever to prejudice her in the eyes of others. Nay, I will go so far as to admit that there was never the slightest fault to be found with the way she did her duty by her husband, and that since his death her conduct has been most exemplary. That her life under this roof is a very lonely and isolated one cannot be disputed, consequently that she should seek your society a good deal is not to be wondered at. I am quite willing to grant her considerable powers of attraction, and if anyone were to question me closely on the point, I should probably be at a loss to say what there is about her which repels me so. There the feeling is, however, and it is one which I have been unable to overcome. If I were to describe it as a vague instinctive distrust I should perhaps not be very wide of the mark."
Fanny knew not what reply to make to this unwonted burst of confidence. But seeing that the dowager did not look as if any reply were expected of her she wisely held her tongue.
After a pause, during which the elder lady sat staring into the fire with a far-away look in her eyes, she spoke again.
"I suppose we may now finally give up all expectation of ever seeing my poor son's murderer brought to the bar of justice."
"For my part, madam, I cannot go so far as to admit that," replied Fanny. "One never can tell from day to day what clue may turn up, or what important fact be brought to light, perhaps from a quarter the least expected, or in a way the most surprising and unthought of. I have read of cases as apparently unfathomable as that of Mr. Melray, which time has unravelled after its own fashion, and after those most experienced in such matters had given them up as hopeless."
"Let us trust, my dear, that it may prove so in my son's case; but every day that passes tends to make it more unlikely."
"If one could only discover by what motive Mr. Melray was influenced, or what particular object he had in view, in coming back to his office after having set out for the house of Mr. Arbour, we should, I think, lay our hands on a very important clue. I suppose there was nothing found among Mr. Melray's papers bearing on that feature of the affair?"
"So far as I am aware, nothing. Mr. Cray had the going through of my son's papers, and had there been anything of the kind among them he would surely not have overlooked it. Not only was he closely questioned at the inquest, which was twice adjourned, but, later on, he had more than one private interview with the officer from Scotland Yard who had the case specially in hand. No man, however, could have been more entirely bewildered and nonplussed than he was. Again and again he declared that, as far as his knowledge went, his master had not an enemy in the world--no, not a single enemy, but a thousand friends!"
"I presume," said Fanny, "there was nothing found on Mr. Melray's person after death--no letter, or memorandum of any kind--which would serve to throw even a glimmer of light on the events of the 18th of September?"
"Mine were the hands that emptied my son's pockets of their contents after death," said the mother with a thin quaver in her voice. "Of course she--his wife, I mean--was supposed to be too much overcome to think of anything. I knew that James was in the habit of carrying a pocket-book, and it seemed to me that there might perhaps be entries in it which it would be as well that no strange eyes should read. Accordingly I took possession of it, and it has never been out of my keeping since that time."
"Pardon my inquisitiveness, but may I ask whether you have made yourself acquainted with the contents of the pocket-book?"
"I went carefully through it within a few hours of my son's death."
"And there was nothing in it that would serve----?"
"Nothing whatever. Nearly the whole of the entries in it have reference to his personal or domestic expenditure, for James was methodical in all his ways, and as careful to balance his private expenses as he was his business accounts. Since that day I have never opened the book, but have kept it locked up in my writing-table. Of course I was very much upset and put about just then, and it may be as well that you, with your younger and more trained eyes, should look over it, for, now that the point has been raised, it will certainly be more satisfactory to me to be assured that it contains nothing of moment which I may inadvertently have overlooked."
She rose, crossed to her writing-table, unlocked a drawer and produced therefrom her dead son's pocket-book, which she at once placed in Fanny's hands.
"Look carefully through it, my dear," she said. "There is nothing in it that you may not read."
Fanny cast her eyes over a number of the entries, all of which bore out Mrs. Melray's description of them. Then, because a pocket-book without a pocket would in some sort be a misnomer, she turned to the Russia-leather cover and, on lifting a flap, found the receptacle she was in search of. It held nothing save a small folded paper, which, from its texture, she took at first for a bank-note. When, however, she had extracted it she saw that it was merely an ordinary piece of tissue-paper with some written characters showing through it. Without opening it she handed it to Mrs. Melray.
"What is this, my dear?" demanded the elder lady. "I saw nothing of this when I looked through the book. But I suppose I did not look carefully enough. There seems to be writing on it, but my eyes are so weak that I must ask you to read it for me."
Accordingly Fanny took back the paper, which proved to be an ordinary press copy of a letter, its uneven edge on one side tending to show that it had been torn out of the tissue-book after having been passed through the machine. Having unfolded it she proceeded to read aloud as follows:
"Loudwater House,
"September4, 18--.
"Mr. John Noyes,
"Solchester.
"Sir,--I beg to enclose you Bank of England notes value three hundred and fifty pounds (viz., three of 100l. each and one of 50l.) in full discharge of the claim standing in your books against my name. This I do in preference to forwarding you a cheque for the amount. You will understand what I mean when I tell you that a few hours ago I had a long interview with our mutual friend, Mr. ----. I have retained the documents brought by him for my examination, as to the authenticity of which it is not needful that I should enter into any particulars. Kindly acknowledge the receipt of my enclosure by return, and at the same time forward, through registered post, the important document belonging to me which you have still in your possession.
"To a person of your business tact and experience I need scarcely remark that in a delicate matter like the present discretion is a most laudable virtue.
"Yours most truly,
"James Melray."
"Well, my dear, and what do you make of it?" asked Mrs. Melray, after staring silently at Fanny for several seconds.
"On the face of it, it seems a very mysterious production, and I confess that I don't in the least know what to make of it. The date of it is just a fortnight before Mr. Melray's death."
"So it is. That is a point which failed to strike me at the moment. But what is meant by 'our mutual friend, Mr. ----'? Is the name omitted?"
"Not omitted, but owing to a fault in copying, it is so smudged as to be illegible."
"That is a pity, but of course it can't be helped." Then, after a few moments of silent consideration, she added: "I think this is a case as to which it may be advisable to consult my son. What say you?"
"I quite agree with you, madam."
"Then you are inclined to attach some importance to the paper?"
"I am inclined to attach very great importance to it."
"In that case, will you be good enough to ring the bell?"
But Robert Melray was no more able to make head or tail of the paper found by Fanny than his mother had been. "The name of the person to whom the letter is addressed is altogether strange to me," he said; "but that is hardly to be wondered at, seeing that I don't know more than half-a-dozen people in all Solchester. I think we had better ask Cray to come upstairs, and ascertain whether he can throw any light on the affair."
But the managing clerk, when summoned, only shook his head. "The name of Mr. Noyes is quite unknown to me," he said. "From the tenor of this letter, I take it to refer to some private transaction of Mr. Melray. There is certainly no entry in the books of the firm bearing on any affair of the kind."
"I will have a copy of this copy made and forwarded to Winslade by to-night's post," was Robert Melray's final decision. "If he can do nothing else, he can at least establish for us the identity of Mr. John Noyes."