Once more Philip Winslade found himself under the necessity of journeying down to Solchester. It took him no long time after his arrival to discover that Mr. Noyes was the secretary and manager of a certain Loan and Discount Corporation well known to not a few of the good people of the town.
No sooner had he ascertained this than he made it his business to call upon Mr. Noyes. Having explained who he was and that he was prosecuting the inquiry on behalf of Mr. Robert Melray, he produced his copy of the letter of the 4th of September, and asked the manager to inform him whether he remembered the receipt of the original, to which Mr. Noyes, having glanced his eye over the copy, replied that he remembered it very well indeed.
"In that case," resumed Winslade, "will you be good enough to enlighten me, and Mr. Robert Melray through me, as to the precise nature of the transaction to which it refers, in view of the fact that no note or memorandum of any kind has been found among the late Mr. Melray's papers which helps in the slightest degree to explain it?"
Mr. Noyes toyed for some seconds with his watch-chain before answering. Then he said: "I need scarcely tell you, Mr. Winslade, that it is a matter of principle with me never to open my lips about any confidential matters of which I may become the depositary in the ordinary course of business. Seeing, however, that the case to which this letter refers is of a very exceptional kind, that Mr. Melray is dead, and that the information is asked for by his brother as his partner and successor, I think that, for once, I shall be justified in taking an exceptional course. Here is the 'Times.' If you will kindly engage yourself with it for a matter of five or six minutes, I shall then be at liberty to tell you all I know of the affair."
"It was about the middle of last August," began the manager a few minutes later, as he wheeled his chair half round so as more directly to confront his auditor, "that a young man called upon me whom I had never to my knowledge seen before. (I can verify the exact date for you, should it be necessary to do so.) His name, he told me, was Richard Dyson, and that he was a relative of Mr. Melray, the well-known ship-owner of Merehampton. His object in calling on me was to negotiate, on the part of that gentleman, a loan of three hundred pounds, of which sum, he gave me to understand, Mr. Melray was in immediate need; the security offered for the same being a fully paid-up life policy for two thousand pounds. That Mr. Melray, although in a large way of business, should be in pressing want of the sum in question did not surprise me in the least. Many prosperous merchants and tradesmen whose capital is locked up, or otherwise not available at a moment's notice, are occasionally pressed for a comparatively small amount of ready money. Consequently what I did was to take down the particulars of the required loan and tell Mr. Dyson that I would lay the application before my directors and communicate with him at the earliest possible moment.
"Well, sir, the terms of the loan having been acceded to, a communication to that effect was sent under cover to Mr. Dyson. Next day saw him at my office again, his object in coming being to settle with me the details for the completion of the affair. Mr. Melray having an objection to being seen entering or leaving an office the chief business of which was the lending of money, it was arranged between Dyson and myself that I should wait upon his relative at half-past seven on the evening of the next day but one, at the George and Dragon Hotel, where a private room would be engaged by him.
"I was at the hotel punctually at the time agreed upon, and on asking for Mr. Melray was at once ushered into his room. I found the shipowner, whom I had never seen before, to be a thin, grey-haired man, somewhat prim and old-fashioned in his attire, and wearing smoke-tinted spectacles. After a brief greeting we at once entered on the business which had taken me there. The evening was closing in and the room was in semi-darkness. I thought Mr. Melray would have rung for lights, but he did not. There were pen and ink on the table. At his request I stationed myself by him, and pointed out the particular spot on the assignment and other documents where his signature was required. That done, I folded up the papers and handed him a cheque for three hundred pounds; he, in return, presented me with the policy, which, till the sum lent should be repaid, together with interest as agreed on, would remain in my custody. The whole affair was over in five or six minutes at the most. At this distance of time there can be no harm in my confessing that I thought it rather stingy treatment on the part of Mr. Melray not to offer me as much as a glass of wine.
"Now, one of the two people who, twice every year, audit the Corporation's accounts and verify their securities, is Mr. Dunning, a lawyer well known both at Solchester and Merehampton, At the half-yearly audit, which took place about three weeks after my interview with Mr. Melray, the policy of assurance, together with other documents bearing on the transaction, came, in due course, under Mr. Dunning's inspection. You will readily imagine, then, that I was not a little surprised when he came to me with the papers in his hand and asked me to tell him all I knew of the transaction to which they referred. Taking into account his official connection with the Corporation, there was no breach of confidence in my complying with his request. It was then my turn to put certain questions to him, and the surprise I had felt before was in nowise lessened when he told me that he had been Mr. Melray's lawyer, and, in certain matters, his confidential adviser, for something like a quarter of a century; that, from his knowledge of that gentleman's affairs, he could aver that it was next to impossible that he should have been in need of such a sum as three hundred pounds; that, so far as he was aware, Mr. Melray, whose eyes were remarkably good for his age, had never worn spectacles in his life; and, finally, that he, Mr. Dunning, believed the signatures which I had witnessed to be neither more nor less than unblushing forgeries of his client's name. Thereupon it was agreed that he should take the suspected documents away with him and see Mr. Melray on the morrow.
"Of what passed between the two I have no knowledge, but when I tell you that, as far as I am concerned, the sequel of the affair was the letter of which you have this morning shown me a copy, you are at liberty, just as I was, to think what you like. Having got my 'pound of flesh,' as I suppose you would term it, I returned the policy as requested, and from that day to this have never sought to pry further into the affair."
The first thing Winslade did after leaving Mr. Noyes was to despatch a telegram to Mr. Melray, which served to bring that gentleman to Solchester by the next train. It is not needful to dilate on the grieved astonishment with which he listened to the other's recital of what had passed between himself and the money-lender. Dyson had been a favourite with both the brothers, not merely because he was the only son of an orphan cousin--of whom, as a girl, they had been both proud and fond--but also by reason of certain pleasant qualities of his own, which, if they did not spring from any genuine depth or sincerity of feeling, had all the appearance of doing so and answered their purpose equally as well.
"We must go at once and find Dunning," were Mr. Melray's first words when he had in some measure regained his composure. "So far we have only heard half the story. It rests with him to tell us the remainder."
They were fortunate enough to find Mr. Dunning at home and disengaged. A very few minutes sufficed to acquaint the lawyer with the nature of their errand.
"We know all that Mr. Noyes has to tell," said Mr. Melray in conclusion. "We want you to supplement his narrative from the point where his information comes to an end."
"That I can very readily do," said the lawyer. "When I showed Mr. James Melray the loan-office documents, with what purported to be three separate signatures of his attached thereto, he at once, in the most emphatic and indignant terms, denounced the whole affair as an audacious mixture of forgery and fraud. He had never seen Noyes in his life, much less applied to him for a loan, or pledged his policy of assurance. But when he had reached that point of his disclaimer I said to him, 'Would it not be as well to satisfy yourself that the policy is still in your possession?' 'Why, I had it in my hand no longer ago than yesterday,' was his reply. 'It lies where it has always lain, on the top shelf in the large safe, one of a bundle of documents tied round with red tape.' Thereupon, as if to make assurance doubly sure, he rose, crossed the room, unlocked the safe, and produced from the interior the bundle of papers of which he had spoken and extracted from the rest a large oblong envelope, which he brought to the table. It was labelled in his own writing, 'Paid-up Policy of Assurance on Own Life for 2,000l.; 'There,' he said, with a little triumph in his tone, 'whatever else the rogue may have been guilty of he has not succeeded in making away with this.' 'I hope you won't think me unreasonable,' I replied, 'if I ask you to open the envelope and examine its contents.' Scarcely had the words left my lips before, with his office knife, he had slit open one end of the envelope and drawn forth the enclosure. An instant later he sank back in his chair with a groan. All that the envelope contained was some blank sheets of engrossing paper.
"For a few moments I was afraid that Mr. Melray was about to have a seizure of some kind, so colourless was his face and so glassy were his eyes. He would not, however, let me ring for help, and gradually he came round. A careful examination of the envelope revealed themodus operandiby which the fictitious contents had been substituted for the genuine. The large black seal, with its impression of Mr. Melray's monogram, had not been meddled with beyond the point of detaching it bodily, probably with the help of a sharp penknife, from the thick paper of the envelope. Then, after the substitution had been effected, the seal had been reaffixed in its place with the help of a little gum; and, finally, a thin rim of melted wax had been run round it so as completely to hide any evidence of the envelope having been tampered with. In the confidential position held by Dyson under his kinsman, he had free access to the safe and its contents. When once he had got the policy into his possession and had put everything in train with Mr. Noyes, it was a comparatively simple matter, with the aid of a wig and a few other accessories, to pass himself off in the half-light of the August evening for a man double his own age. What puzzled me then, and not only me, but Mr. Melray, and what puzzles me still, is, why he contented himself with the comparatively small sum of three hundred pounds, when he might have borrowed double that amount on the security of the policy had he been so minded. But it may have been that he saw, or thought he saw, the means of repaying a small sum, and so of redeeming the policy, while it might have been impossible for him to do so in the case of a more considerable loan.
"I have already told you, gentlemen," continued the lawyer, "how terribly Mr. Melray was put about by the discovery of his young relative's treachery and ingratitude, not to call his conduct by a stronger name. In the first excess of his resentment he vowed that the moment Dyson returned (just then he happened to be away on his annual holiday) he would cause him to be arrested, and would prosecute him with the most extreme rigour of the law. But, after a while, the flame of his anger began to burn less fiercely. He called to mind that the culprit was the only son of his favourite cousin, to whom he had passed his word when she lay on her death-bed that he would act a parent's part by the lad. He remembered, too, his unfortunate bringing-up, and that his father had been a dissolute spendthrift, bankrupt of all moral principle. Nor did he forget that young men often flounder into difficulties almost unwittingly and through no very grave dereliction on their part, and that, in order to get rid of one difficulty, they sometimes succumb to the first temptation that comes in their way, and thereby saddle themselves with an incubus of a far more onerous kind. Finally, he decided that on Dyson's return he would confront him with the evidences of his crime, but that, instead of handing him over to the arm of the law, he would insist on his quitting England for a certain term of years, and would forgive him to the extent of finding him the means wherewith to make a fresh start in life on the other side of the world. Me he bound to secrecy, while, either on the same or the following day, he forwarded the three hundred and fifty pounds to Noyes and thereby redeemed his policy.
"As we all know," said Robert Melray, "the interview between my brother and Richard never took place. The latter did not get back from his holidays till the third day after James's death; but it seems somewhat remarkable, in view of my brother's intention, as avowed to you, of confronting Richard with the evidence of his guilt, that the criminatory documents should not have been found by Mr. Cray among his papers."
"The absence of the papers in question, as it seems to me, can only be explained by one of two suppositions. Either your brother afterwards changed his mind and himself destroyed them, or else Dyson, either suspecting or knowing that his crime had been brought to light during his absence, contrived to find and appropriate them in advance of Mr. Cray."
"Your last supposition seems to me the more likely of the two," said Mr. Melray. "I recollect now that it was not till after the funeral that Mr. Cray set about a systematic examination of my brother's papers, so that, in the interim, Richard would have plenty of opportunity to search for and find what he wanted. I declare that, next to my poor brother's death, to-day's revelation is the most distressing thing I have had to contend with in the whole course of my life!"
"You say, Mr. Dunning, that my brother bound you to secrecy," resumed Robert Melray after a pause. "Would it not have been better if you had looked upon his death as virtually absolving you from your promise, thereby enabling you to bring under my notice certain facts which I have learnt to-day for the first time?"
"The point is one which I have debated with myself not once, but many times. The conclusion I finally came to was that, having regard to certain special features of the case, your brother's death did not absolve me from my promise. That a grievous crime had been committed could not be gainsaid; but if Mr. Melray chose to condone it that was no business of mine. In all probability, as he said, it was the one great sin of the young man's life, and who should say that it had not been bitterly repented of? Further, how was I to be sure in what light you would look at the affair? You might have chosen to prosecute the culprit, which would have made it a very difficult matter for me ever to forgive myself. In any case his character would have been blasted, and his career, almost of necessity, ruined. Still, I am not prepared to state positively what I might or might not have done, had it been your intention to carry on the business of Melray Brothers, which, almost as a matter of course, would have involved the retention of your kinsman in your service. Knowing, however, as I have from the first, that it is your resolve to get rid of the business as speedily as possible and retire into private life, in which case you and he would part, probably for ever, I deemed it best to keep the secret of his delinquencies locked up in my own breast, where, I can assure you, it had no lack of other secrets to keep it company."
"I will not say but that you have perhaps acted for the best," remarked Mr. Melray. "Still---- But at this stage of the affair it would be futile to dwell on suppositions. What I have now to decide upon is the nature of the steps which it behoves me to take after what has been told me to-day. That, however," he added with a sigh, "is a problem which requires consideration."
"May I ask whether Mr. Dyson is entitled to any bequest under his late cousin's will?" It was Winslade who put the question.
"His name is down in the late Mr. Melray's will for a legacy of three thousand pounds," replied the lawyer. "The reason he has not been paid it before now is because the estate has not yet been finally wound up."
Presently Mr. Melray and Winslade went their way, the former to the railway station, the latter to prosecute certain inquiries on his own account.
The first thing he did was to retrace his steps to the office of Mr. Noyes.
"I must ask you to excuse me for troubling you again," he said to the money-lender; "but what I am desirous of knowing is whether any communication passed between Dyson and yourself after his return from his holidays?"
"I wrote to him the day after the funeral, asking him to come and see me. He came. Thereupon I proceeded to tell him of Mr. Melray's discovery of the payment by the latter of the three hundred and fifty pounds (principal and interest of the loan), and of my return to him of the policy of assurance. What, however, I positively declined to tell him, although he pressed me hard to do so, was how and by whose agency the discovery had been brought about. From that day to this I have seen nothing of Mr. Dyson, neither do I care if I never set eyes on him again."
Philip Winslade thanked Mr. Noyes and took his leave. "There can be little doubt," he said to himself as he walked along, "that, as Dunning suggested, Dyson obtained access to the dead man's papers before Mr. Cray had an opportunity of going through them, and abstracted the promissory note and other documents which bore Mr. Melray's signature as forged by himself."
In the course of the interview with Mr. Dunning the question had suggested itself to him whether it was really a fact that Dyson did not get back from his holidays till the third day after Mr. Melray's death. In order to answer it, it would be needful for him to go to Merehampton; but, as he had still another inquiry to make in Solchester, he resolved to take that in hand first.
It was not till late in the evening that he got back to his hotel, after having brought his inquiry to a successful issue. The nature of it and its result cannot be told more succinctly than in the following note:
"My dearest Fanny,--In Mrs. Melray's statement there occurs the following passage: 'Evan was an especially handsome young man, with large, black, lustrous eyes, and a dark Italian-looking face.' Elsewhere she makes mention of his 'ebon brows.' Now, in face of this, I have ascertained to-day beyond the possibility of doubt, and not from one, but from three different sources, that Evan Wildash, instead of being a dark-complexioned man with black eyes and 'ebon brows,' had a particularly fair complexion, also that his eyes were blue-grey, and the colour both of his hair and eyebrows a light reddish brown.
"Solve me the problem which is involved in this contradiction if you can. For myself, I confess that it baffles me.
"For the present I have decided to say nothing of this to Mr. Melray. It would only unsettle him and cause him to imagine all sorts of things, and just now he has enough to occupy his thoughts, poor man!
"I will write you fully in the matter of R. D. in the course of a few days. I shall be in Merehampton for an hour or two to-morrow, but it is not advisable that we should meet.
"Ever and always yours,
"Phil."
In the dusk of the following evening Philip Winslade alighted at Merehampton station. Thence he made his way to the head constable's office, where he was already known, and where he found awaiting him certain information which, the day before, he had asked by letter might be obtained for him.
The information thus supplied him was to the effect that Richard Dyson, at the time of Mr. Melray's death, was lodging with a widow of the name of Parkinson, at No. 5 Lydd Place, but that he had removed to fresh rooms about a month later. It was to No. 5 Lydd Place that Winslade now betook himself.
Widow Parkinson proved to be quite willing to tell all she knew, which was not much, about her late lodger, and even to adorn her somewhat bald narrative with a little fanciful embroidery of her own invention. She considered that she had a grievance against Mr. Dyson. According to her account, he had left her, without any just cause or reason, in what she was pleased to term a very shabby way, and had taken himself and his belongings elsewhere; therefore did she feel herself at liberty to throw reticence to the winds.
That from the widow's flood of talk, which at times threatened, metaphorically, to wash him off his feet, Phil contrived to eliminate the particular bit of information he was in search of goes without saying. Mr. Melray came by his death on the evening of Friday, September 18. According to his landlady, Dyson, at that time on his holidays, did not put in an appearance at his lodgings till Monday, the 21st, early on the morning of which day--that is to say, somewhere between five and six o'clock--he knocked the widow up. The account of himself which he volunteered was to the effect that he had just arrived by an early train, having lengthened out his holiday to the last possible moment, and that he was due back at the office at nine o'clock that same morning. It was the widow herself who broke to him the news of his cousin's tragical fate. "And awfully cut up about it he was surely," she went on to remark. "He had always been a laughing, careless, easy-going sort of gent, and I did not think he had so much feeling in him."
Philip Winslade left No. 5 Lydd Place no wiser than he had entered it. While his inquiries of the last few days had served to bring to light many strange and hitherto unsuspected facts, they left the Loudwater Tragedy as much a mystery as before, and to Phil, in the mood in which he then was, it seemed likely to remain such for all time to come. But it sometimes happens that when everything seems at a standstill, when the way we would go is, as it were, blocked by a solid wall against which it would be folly to dash ourselves, silent forces of which we know nothing are at work, and in their own way and their own good time bring round the appointed end, which, as often as not, proves to be an end such as has not been dreamed of by us in any of our schemes of what the future might possibly bring to pass.
There are certain persons connected with our narrative whom, although for some time we may seem to have lost sight of them, it is permissible to hope the reader has not quite forgotten. To them and their concerns we now turn for a little while.
Mrs. Winslade, since her departure from Iselford, had been living a very quiet life with her son in one of the north-western suburbs of London. It was an infinite relief to her to be able to breathe the freer and more generous air of the metropolis (where people scarcely know the names of their next-door neighbours, much less their business, and find enough to do in attending to their own concerns) after having lived for so long a time under the prying eyes of the gossipmongers of Iselford.
On a certain chilly afternoon in early summer, as Philip Winslade was being driven in a hansom along the Thames Embankment on an errand connected with his employers, his eyes were attracted to a solitary figure seated on a bench fronting the river. After staring for a moment or two as though doubtful whether he saw aright, he ordered the driver to pull up, and alighted. Even then he paused before advancing. Could it be possible, he asked himself, that yonder lonely figure, sitting with bowed shoulders, his clasped hands resting on the nob of his umbrella, and gazing into vacancy with the unmistakable air of a man weighed down by some secret trouble which he was unable to shake off, could be the Rev. Louth Sudlow? As he drew nearer he saw that it was indeed none other than the Vicar of St. Michael's who was sitting there.
That something was amiss, that the whilom genial, kind-hearted Vicar was suffering from the effects of a blow of some kind, Phil could no longer doubt.
Seeing that the other took no notice of his presence, he laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. "Mr. Sudlow," he said, "this is indeed a surprise to meet you here."
The Vicar started violently, straightened his back and stared up into Phil's face, as he might into that of a stranger; but presently a slow light of recognition dawned in his eyes. "Surely--surely it must be young Mr. Winslade," he said, as he extended his hand with something of his old urbanity.
"Yes, sir, it is I," answered Phil as he grasped the proffered hand, which trembled like that of a very old man. "I trust that you are quite well, sir, and that all are well at home." Then, after a moment's hesitation. "May I ask whether you have been sitting here long?"
The Vicar stared around for a moment as if not quite certain how he came to be there, and stroked his cheeks with the fingers and thumb of his left hand before answering. "Not very long, I think," he said hesitatingly; "but, really, I am not quite sure at what hour I left my hotel."
If Phil, while at a distance, had been struck by the change in his appearance, he was nothing less than dismayed now that he saw him close at hand. The gold-rimmed spectacles were there as of yore, but the eyes that looked through them were dim and sunken, with a sort of vacant despair in them and that sad, heavy-lidded weariness which betokens insomnia. Then, too, it was evident that he had not been shaved for some days, which, of itself, was enough to prove that all was not well with him. His white cravat was limp and loosely tied, his hat and clothes were unbrushed, while his shoes were thick with dust and one shoe-string had come untied. The fresh healthy tints of his face were utterly gone; his cheeks had become flabby and pendulous, and, in short, the Rev. Louth Sudlow looked to the full a dozen years older than when Phil had seen him last.
The young man was at a loss what to say or do next. Presently he ventured to ask, "Are you making much of a stay in London, Mr. Sudlow?"
Again the elder man had to pull his thoughts together before replying. "I--I scarcely know. That is to say, I had intended going back home to-night, but--but certain things have happened, and I have not quite made up my mind what to do."
Phil saw that his thoughts would be far away again in a moment or two, and that he must say what he had to say while he could still claim his attention.
"You are perhaps not aware, sir," he went on, "that my mother is keeping house for me in London; but such is the case. I need scarcely tell you how pleased she would be to see you. That is my cab waiting there. Let me persuade you to keep me company as far as where I live. We shall just be in time for a cup of my mother's tea, which I remember you used to say was the best you tasted anywhere."
Somewhat to his surprise, the Vicar rose at once, although a little stiffly. "I shall be very gratified indeed," he said, "to see Mrs. Winslade again after so long a time. I know no one for whom I have a greater respect and esteem."
Half-an-hour later the hansom deposited the two men at Pembury Villa.
As Phil had prophesied, they were just in time for a cup of his mother's tea. After the Vicar had partaken of one, together with a few mouthfuls of thin bread-and-butter, he suddenly fell fast asleep in the easy-chair in which he was sitting on one side of the fire. It was past ten o'clock when he awoke. Scarcely had he opened his eyes and had time to call to mind where he was, before his hostess was at his side with a cup of broth in which a glass of sherry had been infused. A few minutes later he averred that he felt better and stronger than he had felt for the past week. It was too late now to think of going down to Iselford till the morrow, and he must perforce stay where he was over night.
As the Vicar sat there an irresistible longing came over him to unburden his mind of the trouble that was crushing him down--so utterly down that, as he sat on the Embankment, he had more than once been tempted to make an end of everything in the cold grey river running so swiftly within a few yards of his feet.
Well, he yielded to the longing and did unburden himself. The story he had to tell, although sad enough, was by no means an uncommon one. He had been induced--he did not say by whom or what--to invest the whole of his savings, painfully accumulated, a few pounds at a time, during a long course of years, in some American mining shares of which only half the nominal capital had been subscribed. The concern had been paying an intermittent dividend for three or four years, and there seemed no likelihood that the shareholders would ever be called upon to disburse the remainder of the capital. The sudden flooding of the mine had, however, entirely altered the complexion of affairs. A large sum was needed to enable it to be got into working order again, and a heavy call was at once made, something like six hundred pounds being demanded from the Rev. Louth Sudlow as his portion thereof. Now, the whole of the Vicar's available resources did not amount to more than one-sixth of the sum in question. The predicament was a serious one--so serious, in point of fact, that Mrs. Sudlow, in a moment of desperation, had been induced to appeal for help to her kinsman, the Earl of Beaumaris. The answer to that appeal had been a curt refusal. After that, as a last resource, the Vicar had come up to London in the hope of being able to borrow the required sum from an old college chum with whom he still kept up a desultory correspondence. Here again disappointment awaited him. His friend had gone on a voyage to the antipodes for the benefit of his health, and was not expected back for some months. Ruin stared the unhappy man in the face, and he had been wandering about the streets for some hours, lacking courage to carry back home the story of his failure, when Phil chanced to encounter him.
Such was the story poured forth by the Vicar, brokenly and with many pauses and hesitations, to his sympathising listeners. But when, an hour later, he went down on his knees in his bedroom he had been made happy by the assurance that the morrow should see his troubles at an end.
Next forenoon Mrs. Winslade went into the City and sought an interview with her broker. When, later in the day, Phil saw the Vicar off at the terminus on his way to Iselford, the heart of the latter was too full to find expression in words. There was a last handshake, a fervent "God bless you!" and then, as the wheels of the train began to revolve, he was fain to turn away his face and hide the emotion which would no longer be controlled.
That Robert Melray was infinitely distressed by the revelations of his kinsman's delinquencies we have had his own word for. He had been so much away from England that for a number of years he had seen scarcely anything of Dyson, but he knew that his brother had always had a high opinion of the young man's industry and business capacity, and that from the time of the elder Dyson's death he had stood in a sort of paternal relation to him. To James Melray, as Robert admitted, far more than to himself, must the discovery, thrust upon him by Dunning, have come as a shock--one, indeed, in his case from which he would never have wholly recovered had his life been prolonged for years.
Richard Dyson's wrongdoing was of a character so extreme that not to have taken some kind of notice of it would have seemed to Robert Melray not merely weak, but criminal. What if he were to carry out the programme as laid down by his brother to Dunning? What if he were to advance Dyson the three thousand pounds which would accrue to him presently under James Melray's will and dismiss him with ignominy? Nothing less than that did it seem possible for him to do. On the other hand, he could not afford to overlook the love borne by his mother for her dead niece's son--a love till now undarkened by the faintest shadow of a cloud. Mrs. Melray senior was seventy-six years old. The murder of her eldest son had been a blow which nothing but her indomitable spirit had enabled her to recover from. Should his be the hand, Robert Melray asked himself, to strike her another blow, which, to such a woman as she--one to whom the probity of every member of the house of Melray was as dear as her own virtue--would be only less terrible than the first? The more he thought of it the more he shrank from taking upon himself the onus of such a deed.
One other course was open to him. He had good hope of being able to dispose of the business of Melray Brothers before he was many weeks older. What if he were to go on till then and make no sign? With the turning over of the business to other hands his relations with Dyson, so far as the firm was concerned, would cease, and there would be no need ever to set eyes on him again were he minded not to do so. What if he were to keep his dark secret undivulged, unless it were to the criminal himself at their hour of parting, and allow his mother to live on for the rest of her days in happy ignorance of what, were it brought to her knowledge, might, perchance, prove well-nigh fatal to her? Yet it galled Robert Melray's strong sense of right and justice to think that a crime so flagrant should go wholly unpunished, even although the criminal were of his own flesh and blood. Willingly, then, did he accede to Dyson's written request for a ten-days' holiday on the plea of ill-health, which he found on his desk one morning shortly after his and Philip Winslade's interview with Mr. Dunning. For the time being he felt absolved from coming to a decision of any kind, and he breathed more freely in consequence.
Fanny Sudlow was another inmate of Loudwater House whose mind was beset by doubts which refused either to allow themselves to be treated as if they were of no consequence, or to furnish any ground from which they might be developed into certainties. It was Phil's last briefly-worded epistle which had served to upset Fanny's equanimity. The strange discrepancy between Evan Wildash, as described by those who had known him, and the same person as described in Mrs. Melray's statement, was one which it baffled her to reconcile, even as it had baffled her lover. When she looked at Denia and asked herself whether it were possible that the foul demon of deceit could find lodgment in so fair a frame, she could but shake her head and tell herself that such a thing was very hard to believe. And yet there was Phil's letter! In her own despite, Fanny began to feel something of that sentiment of vague distrust which the elder Mrs. Melray avowed that her daughter-in-law had inspired her with from the first.
Meanwhile Denia's smiles, as the spring days lengthened, began to come and go more frequently, and there were times when some quaint remark on Fanny's part would elicit a little burst of rippling laughter and a gay rejoinder. The cloud which had for so many months overshadowed her young life was beginning to melt and disappear. Soon the past, with all that it held of pleasure or of pain, would for her have become nothing more than a faint memory which, as time went on, would intrude itself less and less often upon her. Hers was one of those natures which no calamity can crush for long. Her heart was like one of those quiet tarns, deep-buried among the hills, high above which the tempests rave while they lie softly darkling below. She was happy as the birds are happy, because it was not in her to be otherwise: that, at least, was how Fanny Sudlow summed her up in her own thoughts.
But Denia's talk, however wide it might range, or however apparently careless it might be, was always strictly impersonal. Herself and her concerns were kept studiously in the background, and Fanny's hand was not the one to try to drag them to the front. One afternoon, however, either of set purpose or because for a moment her usual caution had deserted her, Denia said to Miss Sudlow: "Don't these sunny, sweet-breathing spring days, when everything seems bursting with life, often make you long to have wings that you might fly away somewhere--anywhere? They do me. Oh! I am not going to bury myself in this place for ever, let who will think it. I have ideas--intentions. As soon as my husband's affairs have been wound up and I know for certain what my portion of the estate will amount to, I shall leave here and for ever. I have friends in London, and to them I shall go first of all. Afterwards---- But that is no matter."
It was a hot close evening in mid May. There had scarcely been a breath of air all day and the night had brought no coolness. Fanny Sudlow sat in the dark at the open casement of her bedroom window, her hair unbound and a handkerchief soaked in vinegar laid across her forehead. She was suffering from one of those distressing headaches to which she had been more or less liable all her life. She heard the clock of St. Mary's strike eleven, and still she sat on, knowing of old that it was useless for her to go to bed till the pain should in some measure have abated. Her window looked into a corner of the old garden, in which, just then, the moon shone silvery bright. She had not been out of doors all day; her room felt so stifling and the garden looked so cool and inviting, that a strong desire came over her to get away from the close atmosphere of the house and pace its silent walks awhile in search of that nepenthe she was unable to find indoors. It was a desire which she let have its way.
Having tied back her hair, she flung a dark travelling cloak around her, the hood of which she could draw over her head were she so minded. Then she quitted her room and went lightly downstairs. Early hours were the rule at Loudwater House, and everybody had retired long ago. There were two exits from the house into the garden, one through the conservatory, the other by means of a glass door at the end of a side corridor. Fanny chose the latter. Having, with as little noise as possible, unlocked the door, she opened it and stepped out into the still moonlit night.
Making her way into the farther walks, she began to pace them slowly to and fro. Not a light shone anywhere in such windows of the house as were visible from the garden. The quietude was intense, but presently the silence was broken by the chiming of the quarter before twelve. The moonlight seemed to listen, and as the sound died away a low sigh breathed over the garden, and therewith half-opened leaves and bursting buds began to stir and whisper. They had awoke to the first kisses of the soft cool airs which had come as the avant-couriers of midnight.
Suddenly Fanny became as rigid as a statue. Her quick ears had caught a faint sound, as it might be of the crunching of gravel beneath someone's footsteps. Scarcely breathing, she listened. Yes, there it was again, nearer than before. Evidently someone was approaching in the direction where she was. Her first impulse was to hide herself. In a little trepidation she glanced around. Ah! there, close by her, was the well-house, as it was called. It was the one sheltered spot in the garden. A few swift noiseless strides and her form was lost among its shadows.
The old well was said to be coeval with the building of Loudwater House, to the inmates of which it had been the sole source of water supply for several generations. Of late years, however, that is to say, since the establishment of the Merehampton waterworks, it had fallen into the desuetude and neglect which become the portion of all things which outlast their uses. Nowadays its water was used for two purposes only. One was to supply the dowager Mrs. Melray's tea-kettle (there was no water anywhere, in that lady's opinion, equal to that of the old well for expressing the hidden virtues of Souchong or Bohea). The other purpose to which it was put was the irrigation of the garden. The well itself was covered in by a conical overhanging red-tiled roof, supported by thick oaken beams, with other beams inside, forming, with the windlass-rope and bucket, the needful apparatus for bringing the water to the surface. Even on a moonlight night like the present it was a home of dense shadow.
Fanny drew the hood of her cloak about her and waited in mute expectancy, her eyes fixed on the point whence the sound had come. Nearer came the footsteps--only in the intense midnight quietude could they have been heard--and presently round a curve of the path advanced a female figure, also, like Fanny, darkly cloaked; but, for all that, one glance was enough to reveal to the latter the identity of the new-comer. It was impossible to mistake either figure or gait for those of anyone save Denia Melray.
Fanny, with an arm flung round one of the beams that supported the windlass and with her other hand pressed to her bosom, watched the lithe, graceful figure pass her hiding-place and disappear round a curve of the walk a little further on. Three or four seconds later came the sound of a low whistle, which was immediately responded to by another whistle. Then, as in a flash, Fanny recalled to mind that, among other knick-knacks suspended from a chatelaine which the young widow occasionally wore, was a tiny silver dog-whistle, which had struck her as being a somewhat incongruous ornament for a person to carry who acknowledged to never having owned a dog in her life. Now, in the direction which Denia had taken was the one door by which admittance could be had to the garden from the outside; consequently, when a peculiar grating sound presently made itself heard, Fanny at once came to the conclusion that Mrs. Melray was at that moment withdrawing the bolts of the door in question. Who was her midnight visitor? Fanny's heart beat painfully. On the threshold of what mystery had she unwittingly found herself?
Evidently a change of weather was impending. By this time a fine gauzy mist had overspread the upper reaches of the sky, through which the moon shone with a chastened lustre. The evergreens babbled softly to each other of the rain that was soon to come. Presently a sound of voices reached the ears of the waiting girl, those of a man and a woman talking together in low tones, and then, half a minute later, the speakers came round a turn of the path and so towards the well- house, he with an arm round her waist and with his other hand holding one of hers pressed close to his breast. Then, while the two were still some distance away, something in the man's walk, or figure, or his way of carrying himself, revealed his identity. "It is Richard Dyson!" exclaimed Fanny to herself, with a thrill that set every nerve tingling. "Oh, blind, blind that I have been!"
Phil had written her a brief account of what had passed at the interviews with Messrs. Noyes and Dunning, and she was aware that Dyson had been accorded a holiday on the plea of ill-health, Mr. Melray having mentioned the fact in her hearing in reply to his mother's question, "How is it that I have seen nothing of Richard for the last few days?" In all probability Dyson had only just returned, and his first thought, his first object had been to---- But when Fanny's thoughts had travelled thus far they veered suddenly round to his companion. "Oh, it is dreadful--dreadful!" she murmured under her breath. "Who would have thought it of her?--Who would have believed it possible?"
Meanwhile the two were slowly drawing nearer, talking earnestly together. The first words which reached Fanny distinctly were spoken by Denia.
"You are sure your holiday has done you good, and that you have come back better than you went?" she was saying.
"On that point I have no doubt whatever," was Dyson's low-voiced reply. "Only, darling, hadyoubeen with me I should have enjoyed my holiday infinitely more. But the day will come, and that before long, when you will be mine and I shall be yours, and no one in the wide world will have the right to come between us."
With that he bent his head and, unreproved, pressed his lips to hers.
At that moment they were exactly opposite the well-house. Slowly they kept on to a point about a score yards beyond it, then they turned and as slowly retraced their steps. It struck Fanny that the reason why they kept to that particular walk might be because it was less overlooked from the windows of Loudwater House than any other part of the grounds. Ought she to stay and overhear more of what they might have to say to each other? Ought she not, rather, to try and get away unseen and unheard? What right had she to be there, hiding and listening? On the other hand, she could not forget that a certain dark mystery still remained unfathomed, and in consideration of the strange and undreamed-of way in which events were shaping themselves, she could not help saying to herself, "What if by staying here and listening I should chance to overhear something which would----" She was about to add, "bring to light the long-sought-for clue?" But her thought became dumb midway. No, whatever Denia might be, whatever she might have been guilty of otherwise, she, Fanny, could not and would not believe that she had had any hand in the bringing about of her husband's death. It was a hateful thing to be an eavesdropper, and as soon as they had passed her--they were close to the well-house again by this time--she would steal away through the shrubbery at the back.
Suddenly, with a quick movement, Denia disengaged herself from Dyson's encircling arm. "Ah!" she exclaimed, drawing a deep breath, as she turned and confronted him, "for the moment I had forgotten. Answer me this, and truthfully, as the breath is in your body: Did you, or did you not, just before you went away, on two occasions, take Annabel Glyn for a walk along the Solchester Road?"
There was a perceptible pause before Dyson replied. Then with a laugh which to Fanny in her hiding-place sounded wholly forced and artificial, he said: "Why, my darling, what rubbishing nonsense is this you have got into that pretty head of yours?Itake Annabel Glyn for a walk? The idea is preposterous."
"Your answer is no answer. Did you, or did you not, take her?"
"I did not."
"That you will swear?"
"That I swear."
"Very well. I will take your word for the truth of what you tell me. It was the dusk of evening and my informant must have mistaken someone else for you. Only, I want you to understand, Dick, that if I know how to love, I know how to hate just as fervently. It is as easy to me to do one as the other. Therefore,cher ami, woe be to you if you deceive me. Don't forget--never for one moment forget, that your secret is my property--that I hold your life in the hollow of my hand!"
For a moment or two longer her emotion seemed almost to choke her; then suddenly turning, she placed her hand within his arm. "Come," she said, and her voice was again as soft as that of a cooing dove, just one turn more and then you must positively go. "Who can say what prying eyes may not be secretly watching us?"
With that they passed out of earshot, and the same instant Fanny turned and sped softly away through the shrubbery at the back of the well-house. As she passed the conservatory she saw that the door was ajar, but she did not pause till she reached her own room. Then she stood with her hands pressed to her head, amazed--confounded--not so much by her own blindness as by the revelation of Denia's unparalleled cunning and duplicity. It almost took her breath away to think of it. How she had hoodwinked them all!--she, with her doll's eyes and candid-seeming brow, and her smile that was almost infantine in its sweetness. What puppets they had been in her fingers--Mr. Melray, Phil, and herself!
And she loved Richard Dyson! On that point, after what she, Fanny, had been witness to, there could be no possible doubt; and yet all along Denia had made believe that Dyson's presence was utterly repugnant to her. But over and above their love for each other was there not some dark secret between the two--some bond the nature of which was known to themselves alone? "Your secret is my property. I hold your life in the hollow of my hand." Those had been Denia's words, and they had been meant as a warning to Dyson. What hidden meaning lay at the back of them? Could it, after all, be possible that Denia----? "No--no--even now I will not believe it!" cried Fanny when her thoughts had carried her thus far.