"The story about this Spaniard, Guffanta, is a strange one," Philip Smerdon wrote from Occleve Chase to Lord Penlyn, who had informed him of the visit he had received and the revelations made by the Señor, "but I may as well tell you at once that I don't believe it, although you say that the lawyers, as well as Stuart and Dobson, are inclined to do so. My own opinion is that, though he may not have killed Mr. Cundall, he is still telling you a lie--for some reason of his own, as to the friendship that existed between them; and he probably thinks that by pretending to be able to find the man, he will get some money from you. With regard to his having been face to face with the murderer, why, if so, does he not say on what occasion and when? To know his faceas that of the murderer, is to say, what in plainer words would be, that he had either known he was about to commit the act, or that he had witnessed it. It admits of no other interpretation, and, consequently, what becomes of his avowed love for Cundall, if he knew of the contemplated deed and did not prevent it, or, having witnessed it, did not at once arrest or kill his aggressor? You may depend upon it, my dear Gervase, that this man's talk is nothing but empty braggadocio, with, as I said before, the probable object of extracting money from you as he previously extracted it from your brother.
"As to the locking up of the garden and allowing no one to enter it, I am inclined to think that it is simply done with the object of making a pretence of mysteriously knowing something that no one else knows. And it is almost silly, for your garden would scarcely happen to be selected by the murderer as a place to visit, and what object could he have in so visiting it? However, as it is a place never used, I should gratify him in this case, only I would go a little farther than he wishes, and never allow it to be opened--not even when he desires it."
The letter went on to state that Smerdon was still very busy over the summer accounts at Occleve Chase, and should remain there some time; he might, however, he added, shortly run up to town for a night.
A feeling of disappointment came over Penlyn as he read this letter from his friend. During the two or three days that had elapsed between writing to Smerdon and receiving his answer, he had been buoyed up with the hope that in Guffanta the man had been discovered who would be the means of bringing the assassin to justice, and this hope had been shared by all the other men interested in the same cause. But he had come, in the course of his long friendship with Philip Smerdon, to place such utter reliance upon his judgment, and to accept so thoroughly his ideas, that the very fact of his doubting the Señor's statement, and looking upon it as a mere vulgar attempt to extort money from him, almost led him also to doubt whether, after all, he had not too readily believed the Spaniard.
Yet, he reflected, his actions, as he stood before him foretelling the certain doom of that assassin when once they should again be face to face, and his calm certainty that such would undoubtedly happen, bore upon them the impress of truth. And his story had earned the belief of the others--that, surely, was in favour of it being true. Stuart had seen him, had listened to what he had to say, and had formed the opinion that he was neither lying nor acting. Dobson also, the man who to the Señor's mind was ridiculous and incapable, had been told everything, and he, too, had come to the conclusion that Guffanta's story was an honest one, and that, of all other men, he who in some mysterious manner, knew the murderer's face, would be the most likely to eventually bring him to justice. Only, he thought that the Señor should be made to divulge where and when he had so seen his face; that would give him and his brethren a clue, he said, which might enable them to assist him in tracking the man. And he was also very anxious to know what the secret was that led to his desiring Lord Penlyn to have the garden securely closed and locked. He could find in his own mind no connecting link between the place of death in the Park and Lord Penlyn's garden (although he remembered that, strangely enough, his lordship was the dead man's brother), and he was desirous that the Señor should confide in him. But the latter would tell him nothing more than he had already made known, and Dobson, who had always in his mind's eye the vision of the large rewards that would come to the man who found the murderer, was forced to be content and to work, as he termed it, "in the dark."
"You must wait, my good Dobson, you must wait," the Spaniard said, "until I tell you that I want your assistance, though I do not think it probable that I shall ever want it. You could not find out that I wasCorot, you know, although I had many times the pleasure of lunching at the next table to you; I do not think that you will be able any the better to find the man I seek. But when I find him, Dobson, I promise you that you shall have the pleasure of arresting him, so that the reward shall come to you. That is, if I do not have to arrest him suddenly upon the moment, myself, so as to prevent him escaping."
"And what are you doing now,Signor?" Dobson asked, giving him a title more familiar to him in its pronunciation than the Spanish one, "what are you doing to find him?"
"I am practising a virtue, my friend, that I have practised much in my life. I am waiting."
"I don't see that waiting is much good, Signor. There is not much good ever done by waiting."
"The greatest good in the world, Dobson, the very greatest. And you do not see now, Dobson, because you do not know what I know. So you, too, must be virtuous, and wait."
It was only with banter of a slightly concealed nature such as this that Señor Guffanta would answer Dobson, but, light as his answers were, he had still managed to impress the detective with the idea that, sooner or later, he would achieve the task he had vowed to perform. "But," as the man said to one of his brethren, "why don't he get to work, why don't he do something? He won't find the man in that Hôtel Lepanto where he sits smoking cigarettes half the day, nor yet in Lord Penlyn's house where he goes every night."
"Perhaps he thinks his lordship did it, after all," the other answered, "and is watchinghim."
"No," Dobson said, "he don't think that. But I can't make out who the deuce he does suspect."
It was true enough that Guffanta did pass a considerable time in the Hôtel Lepanto, smoking cigarettes, and always thinking deeply, whether seated in the corridor or in his own room upstairs. But, although he had not allowed himself to say one word to any of the other men on the subject, and still spoke with certainty of ere long finding the murderer, he was forced to acknowledge that, for the time, he was baffled. And then, as he did acknowledge this, he would rise from his chair and stretch out his long arms, and laugh grimly to himself. "But only for a time, Miguel," he would say, "only for a time. He will come to you at last, he will come to you as the bird comes to the net. Wait, wait, wait! You may meet him to-day, to-night!Por Dios, you will surely trap him at last!"
Meanwhile Lord Penlyn, when he was left alone, and when he could distract his thoughts from the desire of his life, the finding of the man who had slain Walter Cundall, was very unhappy. Those thoughts would then turn to the girl he had loved deeply, to the girl whom he had cast off because she had ventured to let the idea come into her mind that it was he who might have done the deed. He had cast her off in a moment when there had come into his heart a revulsion of feeling towards her, a feeling of horror that she, of all others in the world, could for one moment harbour such an idea against him. Yet, he admitted to himself, there were grounds upon which even the most, loving of women might be excused for having had such thoughts. He had misled her at first, he had kept back the truth from her, he had given her reasons for suspicion--even against him, her lover. And now they were parted, he had renounced her, and yet he knew that he loved her as fondly as ever; she was the one woman in the world to him. Would they ever come together again? Was it possible, that if he, who had told her that never more in this world would he speak to her of love, should go back again and kneel at her feet and plead for pardon, it would be granted to him? If he could think that; if he could think that when once his brother was avenged he might so plead and be so forgiven, then he could take courage and look forward hopefully to the future. But at present they were strangers, they were as much parted as though they had never met; and he was utterly unhappy.
When Guffanta had declared himself; it had been in his mind to write and tell her all that he had newly learnt; but he could not bring himself to write an ordinary letter to her. It might be that, notwithstanding the deep interest she took in his unhappy brother's fate, she would refuse to open any letter in his handwriting, and would regard it almost as an insult. Yet he wanted to let her know what had now transpired, and he at last decided what to do. He asked Stuart to direct an envelope for him to her, and he put a slip of paper inside it, on which he wrote:
"Corothas disclosed himself, and he, undoubtedly, is not the murderer. He, however, has some strange knowledge of the actual man in his possession which he will not reveal, but says that he is certain, at last, to bring him to justice."
That was all, and he put no initials to it, but he thought that the knowledge might be welcome to her.
He had not expected any answer to this letter, or note, and from Ida none came, but a day or two after he had sent it, he received a visit from Sir Paul Raughton. The baronet had come up to town especially to see him, and having learnt from the footman that Lord Penlyn was at home, he bade the man show him to his master, and followed him at once. As Penlyn rose to greet him, he noticed that Sir Paul's usually good-humoured face bore a very serious expression, and he knew at once that the interview they were about to have would be an important one.
"I have come up to London expressly to see you, Lord Penlyn," Sir Paul said, shaking hands with him coldly, "because I wish to have a thorough explanation of the manner in which you see fit to conduct yourself towards my daughter. No," he said, putting up his hand, as he saw that Penlyn was about to interrupt him, "hear me for one moment. I may as well tell you at once that Ida, that my daughter, has told me everything that you have confided to her with regard to your relationship to Mr. Cundall--which, I think, it was your duty also to have told me--and she has also told me the particulars of your last interview with her."
"I parted with her in anger," the other answered, "because there seemed to have come into her mind some idea that I--that I might have slain my brother."
"And for that, for a momentary suspicion on her part, a suspicion that would scarcely have entered her head had her mind not been in the state it is, you have seen fit to cast her off, and to cancel your engagement!"
"It was she, Sir Paul, who bade me speak no more of love to her," Penlyn said, "she who told me that, until I had found the murderer of my brother, I was to be no more to her."
"And she did well to tell you so," Sir Paul said; "for to whom but to you, his brother and his heir, should the task fall of avenging his cruel murder?"
"That, I told her, I had sworn to do, and yet she suspected me. And, Sir Paul, God knows I did not mean the words of anger that I spoke; I have bitterly repented of them ever since. If Ida will let me recall them, if she will give me again her love--if you think there is any hope of that--I will go back and sue to her for it on my knees."
The baronet looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, and then he said. "Do you know that she is very ill?"
"Ill! Why have I not been told of it?"
"Why should you have been told? It was your words to her, and her excitement over your brother's murder, that has brought her illness about."
"Let me go and see her?"
"You cannot see her. She is in bed and delirious from brain fever; and on her lips there are but two names which she repeats incessantly, your own and your brother's."
The young man leant forward on the table and buried his head in his hands, as he said: "Poor Ida! poor Ida! Why should this trouble also come to you? And why need I have added to your unhappiness by my cruelty?" Then he looked up and said to Sir Paul: "When will she be well enough for me to go to her and plead for pardon? Will it be soon, do you think?"
"I do not know," the other answered sadly. "But if, when the delirium has left her, I can tell her that you love her still and regret your words, it may go far towards her recovery."
"Tell her that," Penlyn said, "and that my love is as deep and true as ever, and that, at the first moment she is in a fit condition to hear it, I will, myself, come and tell her so with my own lips. And also tell her that, never again, will I by word or deed cause her one moment's pain."
"I am glad to hear you speak like this," Sir Paul said, "glad to find that I had not allowed my darling to give herself to a man who would cast her off because she, for one moment, harboured an unworthy suspicion of him."
"This unhappy misunderstanding has been the one blot upon our love," Penlyn said; "if I can help it, there shall never be another."
As he spoke these words, Sir Paul put his hand kindly on his shoulder, and Penlyn knew that, in him, he had one who would faithfully carry his message of love to the woman who was the hope of his life.
"And now," Sir Paul said, "I want you to give me full particulars of everything that has occurred since that miserable night. I want to know everything fully, and from your lips. What Ida has been able to tell me has been sadly incoherent."
Then, once more--as he had had now so often to go over the sad history to others, with but little fresh information added to each recital--Lord Penlyn told Sir Paul everything that he knew, and of the strange manner in which the Señor Guffanta had come into the matter, as well as his apparent certainty of eventually finding the murderer.
"You do not think it is a bold ruse to throw off suspicion from himself?" Sir Paul asked. "A daring man, such as he seems to be, might adopt such a plan."
"No," the other answered, "I do not. There is something about the man, stranger as he is, that not only makes me feel certain that he is perfectly truthful in what he says, and that he really does possess some strange knowledge of the assassin that will enable him to find that man at last, but also makes the others feel equally certain."
"They all believe in him, you say?" Sir Paul asked thoughtfully.
"All! That is, all but Philip Smerdon, who is the only one who has not seen him. And I am sure that, if he too saw him and heard him, he would believe."
"Philip Smerdon is a thorough man of the world," Sir Paul said, "I should be inclined to give weight to his judgment."
"I am sure that he is wrong in this case, and that when he sees Guffanta, he will acknowledge himself to be so. No one who has seen him can doubt his earnestness."
"What can be the mystery concerning your garden? A mystery that is a double one, because it brings your house, of all houses in London, into connection with the murder of the very man who, at the moment, was the actual owner of it? That is inexplicable!"
"It is," Penlyn said, "inexplicable to every one. But the Señor tells us that when we know what he knows, and when he has brought the murderer to bay, we shall see that it is no mystery at all."
Although the Señor Guffanta had not, as yet, in answer to many questions put to him, been able to say positively that he was on the immediate track of the murderer of Walter Cundall, he still continued to inspire confidence in those by whom he was surrounded; and it had now come to be quite accepted amongst all whom he met at Occleve House that, although he was working darkly and mysteriously, he was in some way nearing the object he had in view. It may have been his intense self-confidence, the outward appearance of which he never allowed to fail, that impressed them thus, or the stern look with which he accompanied any words he ever uttered in connection with the assassin; or it may have been the manner he had of making inquiries of all descriptions of every one who had known anything of the dead man, that led them to believe in him; but that they did believe in him there was no doubt.
In the time he had at his disposal, after transacting any affairs he might have to manage for the merchant who had appointed him his agent in London, he was continually passing from one spot to another, sometimes spending hours at Mr. Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place, and sometimes a long period of time each day at Occleve House; but to no one did he ever say one word indicative of either success or failure. And, when he was alone in either of these places, his proceedings were of a nature that, had they been witnessed by any one, would have caused them to wonder what it was that he was seeking for. He would study attentively every picture that was a portrait, whether painting or engraving, and for photograph albums, of which there were a number in both houses, he seemed to have an untiring curiosity. He would look them over and over again, pausing occasionally a long time over some man's face that struck him, and then would turn the leaf and go on to another; and then, when he had, for the second or third time exhausted one album, he would take up another, and again go through that.
To Dobson, who was by the outside world regarded as the man who had the whole charge of the case, the Señor's actions, and his absolute refusal to confide in him, were almost maddening. To any question that he asked, he received nothing but the regular answer, "Patience, my good Dobson, patience," and with that he was obliged to be content. For himself, he had done nothing; he was no nearer having any idea now as to who the murderer was than he had been the morning after the deed had been committed, and as day after day went by, he began to doubt whether Guffanta was any nearer finding the man who was wanted than he was.
"But if he doesn't do something pretty quick," he said to one of the men who was supposed to be employed under him in investigating the case, "I shall put a spoke in his wheel."
"Why, what will you do, Mr. Dobson?" his underling asked.
"I shall just go up to the Home Office, and when they ask me, as they do regular, if I have got anything to report in connection with the Cundall case, I shall tell them that the Señor professes to know a good deal that he won't divulge, and ask them to have him up before them, and make him tell what he do know."
"And suppose he won't tell, Mr. Dobson? What then?"
"Why, he'll be made to tell, that's all! It isn't right, and it isn't fair that, if he knows anything and can't find the man himself, he should be allowed to keep it a secret and prevent me from earning the reward. I'll bet I'd soon find the man if I had his information--that is, if he's really got any."
"Don't it strike you, Mr. Dobson," the other asked, "that there is some mystery in connection with Occleve House that he knows of? What with his having the garden locked up, and his always being about there!"
"It did once, but I have thought it over, and I can't see how the house can be connected with it. You see, on that night it so happened there was no one in the house but the footmen and the women servants. His lordship and the valet had gone off to stay at the hotel, and Mr. Smerdon had gone down in the morning to the country seat, so what could the murderer have had to do with that particular house? And it ain't the house the Señor seems to think so much about--it's the garden."
"I can't make that garden business out at all," the other said; "what on earth has the garden got to do with it?"
"That's just what he won't say. But you mark my words, I ain't going to stand it much longer, and he'll have to say. If he don't tell pretty soon what he knows, I shall get the Home Office to make him."
Meanwhile the Señor, who had bewildered Lord Penlyn and Mr. Stuart by the connection which he seemed to feel certain existed between the garden of Occleve House and the murder in the Park, excited their curiosity still more when he suddenly announced one evening that he was going down, with his lordship's permission, to pay a visit to Occleve Chase.
"Certainly," Penlyn replied, "you have my full permission; I shall be glad if you will always avail yourself of anything that is mine. But, Señor Guffanta, you connect my houses strangely with this search you are making--first it was this one, and now it is Occleve Chase----; do you not think you should confide a little more in me?"
"I cannot confide in you yet, Lord Penlyn. And, frankly, I do not know that I have much to confide. Nor am I connecting Occleve Chase with the murder. But I have a wish to see that house. I am fond of old houses, and it was Walter's property once though he never possessed it. I might draw inspiration from a visit to it."
For the first time since he had known the Señor, Lord Penlyn doubted if he was speaking frankly to him. It was useless for Guffanta to pretend that he was not now connecting Occleve Chase in his own mind with the murder, as he had certainly connected the old disused garden previously--but whom did he suspect? For one moment the idea flashed through his mind that perhaps, after all, he still suspected him; but another instant's thought served to banish that idea. Whatever this dark, mysterious man might be working out in his own brain, at least it could not be that. Had he not said that, by some strange chance, he had once stood face to face with the assassin? Having done so, there could be no thought in his mind that he, Penlyn, was that assassin. But, if it was not him whom he suspected, who was it?
"Well," he said, "you must take your own way, Señor Guffanta, and I can only hope it may land you aright. Only, if you would confide more in me, I should be glad."
"I tell you that at present I cannot do so. Later on, perhaps, you will understand my reason for silence. Meanwhile, be sure that before long this man will be in my power."
Then the Señor asked for some directions as to the manner of reaching Occleve Chase, and Lord Penlyn told him the way to travel there.
"And I will give you a letter to my friend, Philip Smerdon, who is down there just now," he said, "and he will make your stay comfortable. He, of course, has also a great interest in the affair we all have so much at heart, and you will be able to talk it over with him; though, I must tell you, that he has very little hopes of your ultimate success."
"Ah! he has no hopes. Well, we shall see! I myself have the greatest of hopes. And this Mr. Smerdon, this friend of yours, I have never yet seen him. I shall be glad to know him."
So when the letter of introduction was written, the Señor departed, and on the next day he started for Occleve Chase.
He travelled down from London comfortably ensconced in a first-class smoking compartment, from which he did not move until the train deposited him at the nearest station to Occleve Chase. The few fellow-passengers who got in and out on the way, looked curiously at the dark, sunburnt man, who sat back in the corner, twisting up strange-looking little cigarettes, and gazing up at the roof or at the country they were passing through; but of none of them did the Señor take any notice, beyond giving one swift glance at each as they entered. It had become a habit of this man's life now to give such a glance at every one with whom he came into contact. Perhaps he thought that if he missed one face, he might miss that of the man for whom he was seeking.
At the station nearest to the "Chase" he alighted, and taking his small bag in his hand, walked over to the public-house opposite, and asked if a cab could be provided to take him the remainder of his journey, which he knew to be about four miles.
"I beg your pardon, sir," a neat-looking groom said, rising from a table at which he had been sitting drinking some beer, and touching his hat respectfully, "but might I ask if you're going over there on any business?"
"Who are you?" Señor Guffanta asked, looking at him.
"Beg pardon, sir, but I'm one of Lord Penlyn's grooms, and I thought if you were going over on any business you might like me to drive you over. I have the dog-cart here."
"I am a friend of Lord Penlyn's," the Señor answered, "and I am going to stay at Occleve Chase for a day or so. I have brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Smerdon."
"That's a pity, sir," the man said, "because Mr. Smerdon has gone up to London by the fast train. I have just driven him over from the Chase."
"He is gone to London?" the Señor said quietly. "And when will he be back, do you think?"
"He did not say, sir."
"Very well. If you will drive me there now, I shall be obliged to you."
The groom put the horse to, and fetched the dog-cart round from the stable, wondering as he did so who the quiet, dark gentleman was who was going to stay all alone at the "Chase" for a day or so; and then having put the Señor's bag in, he asked him to get up, and they started for Occleve Chase.
On the road Señor Guffanta made scarcely any remark, speaking only once of the prettiness of the country they were passing through, and once of the action of the horse, which seemed to excite his admiration; and then he was silent till they reached the house, a fine old Queen Anne mansion in excellent preservation. He introduced himself to the housekeeper who came forward in the hall, and said:
"I have a letter of introduction to Mr. Smerdon; I had hoped to find him here. Perhaps it would be well if I gave it to you instead."
"As you please, sir, but it is not necessary. Lord Penlyn's friends often come here, when they are in this part of the country, to see the house. It is considered worth going over. If you please, sir, I will send a servant up with your bag."
"I thank you," the Señor said, with his usual grave courtesy, "but I shall not trouble you much. I dare say by to-morrow I shall have seen all I want to."
"As you please, sir."
He followed the neat-looking housemaid to the room he was to occupy, after having told the housekeeper that the simplest meal in the evening would be sufficient for him, and then, when he had made some slight toilette, he descended to the lower rooms of the house. The old servant again came forward and volunteered her services to show him the curiosities and antiquities of the place; but Señor Guffanta politely told her that he would not trouble her.
"I am fond of looking at pictures," he said, "I will inspect those if you please. But I am acquainted with the styles of different masters, so I do not require a guide. If you will tell me where the pictures are in this house, I shall be obliged to you."
"They are everywhere, sir," she answered. "In the picture-gallery, the dining-room, hall, and library."
"I will go through the library first, if you please. Which is that?"
The servant led the way to a large, lofty room, with windows looking out upon a well-kept lawn, and told him that this was the room.
"These pictures will not take you long, sir," she said, "it's mostly books that are here. And Mr. Smerdon generally spends most of his time here at his accounts; sometimes he passes whole days at that desk."
She seemed inclined to be garrulous, and Señor Guffanta, who wished to be alone, took, at random, a book from one of the shelves, and throwing himself into a chair, began to read it. Then, saying that she would leave him--perhaps taking what he intended as a hint--she withdrew.
When he was left alone he took no notice of the pictures on the walls (they were all paintings of long-past days), but, rising, went over to the desk where she had said that Mr. Smerdon spent hours. There were a few papers lying about on it which he turned over, and he pulled at the drawers to see if they would open, but they were all locked fast.
"This room is no good to me," he said to himself, "I must try others."
Gradually, as the day wore on, the Señor went from apartment to apartment in the house, inspecting each one carefully. In the drawing-room he spent a great deal of time, for here he had found what, both at Occleve House and at Mr. Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place, had interested him more than anything else--some photograph albums. These he turned over very carefully, as he had done with the others in London, and then he closed them and went to another room.
"Did he ever know," he muttered once, "that the day would come when I should be looking eagerly for his portrait--did he know that, and did some instinct prompt him never to have a record made of his craven face? And yet, he shall not escape me! Yet, I will find him!"
Later in the evening, when he had eaten sparingly of the dinner that had been prepared for him, and had drunk still more sparingly of the choice wine set before him, confining himself almost entirely to water, he sent for the housekeeper and said:
"I think I have seen everything of importance here in the way of art, and Lord Penlyn is to be congratulated on his treasures. Some of the pictures are very valuable."
"They are thought to be so, sir," the woman answered. In her own mind, and after a conversation with another of the head servants, she had put Señor Guffanta down as some foreign picture-dealer, orconnoisseur, who had received permission from her master to inspect the collection at the "Chase," and, consequently, she considered him entitled to give an opinion, especially as that opinion was a favourable one. "They are thought to be so, sir."
"Yes; no doubt. But I have seen them all now, and I will leave to-morrow."
"Very well, sir."
"So, if you please, I will have that young man to drive me to the station. I will go by the train that he told me Mr. Smerdon travelled by."
That night, as Señor Guffanta paced up and down the avenue leading to the house and smoked his cigarettes, or as he tossed upon his bed, he confessed that he was no nearer to his task.
"Everything fails me," he said; "and yet, a week ago, I would have sworn by San Pedro that I should have caught him by now. There is only one chance--one hope left. If that fails me too, then I must lose all courage. Will it fail me?--will it fail?"
"It is strange, too," he said once to himself in the night, when, having been unable to sleep, he had risen and thrown his window open and was gazing from it, "that I cannot meet this man Smerdon, this man who believes that I shall fail--as,por Dios!I almost now myself believe! Strange, also, that he should have left on the very day I came here. I should like to see him. It may be that I shall do so in London to-morrow."
He left Occleve Chase at the time fixed, and by his liberality to the housekeeper and the other servants who had waited on him he entirely dispelled from their minds the idea that he was a picture-dealer.
"I suppose he is one of those foreign swells, after all," the footman who had served him said to the housekeeper, as he pocketed thedouceurthe Señor had given him; "there is plenty of 'em in London Society now."
He reached the London terminus late in the afternoon, and bade the cabman he hired drive him to the Hôtel Lepanto; but, before half the journey to that house was accomplished, the driver found himself suddenly called on by his fare to stop, and to turn round and follow another cab going in the opposite direction.
A hansom cab which had passed swiftly the one Señor Guffanta was in, a cab in which was seated a young man with a brown moustache, and on the roof of which was a portmanteau and a bundle of rugs.
"Quick!" the Señor said, speaking for the first time almost incoherent English; "follow that cab with the valise on the top. Quick, I say! I will pay you anything!"
"How can I be quick!" the man said with an oath, "when I can hardly turn my cab round? Which is the one you mean?"
"The one with the valise, I say, that passed just now. I will give you everything I have in my pockets if you catch it."
But it was no use. Before the cab could be turned and put in pursuit, the other one had disappeared round a corner into a short street, from which, ere Señor Guffanta's cab had reached it, it had again disappeared.
"Blood of my father!" the Señor said to himself in Spanish, "am I never to seize him?" Then he once more altered his directions to the cabman, and bade him drive to Occleve House.
He walked into the room in which he heard that Lord Penlyn and Mr. Stuart were seated, and the excitement visible upon his face told them that something had happened.
"I have seen him," he said, going through no formality of greeting; he was far too disturbed for that. "I have seen him once again, and once again I have lost him."
"Where have you seen him?" Stuart asked.
"Not at Occleve Chase, surely!" Penlyn exclaimed.
"No--here, in London! Not half-an-hour ago, in a cab. And I have missed him! He went too swiftly, and I lost sight of him."
"What will you do?" they both exclaimed.
"At present I do not know. I feel as though I shall go mad!" Then a moment after he said: "Give me the keys of the garden; at once, give them to me."
Penlyn took them from a drawer and gave them to Señor Guffanta, and he, bidding the others remain where they were, opened the door leading into the garden from the back of the house, and went out into it.
It was but a few minutes before he returned, but when he did so the bronze had left his face and he was deathly pale.
"Lord Penlyn," he said, biting his lips as he spoke, and clenching his hands until the nails penetrated the palms, "to whom have you given those keys during my absence?"
"To no one," Penlyn answered. "I promised you I would not let any one have them."
"You have given them to no one?" Guffanta said, while his eyes shone fiercely as he looked at the other. "To no one! To no one! Then will you tell me how the murderer of Walter Cundall has been in that garden within the last few hours?"
That night Guffanta stood in the library of what had once been Walter Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place, in the room in which the murdered man had spent hours of agony after he had learned that Ida Raughton's love was given to another; and to Mr. Stuart he told all that he knew. To Lord Penlyn's request, nay to his command, that he should tell him all, he paid no attention; indeed, he vouchsafed no words to him beyond those of suspicion and accusation.
"I know so much," he said, speaking in the calm, cold voice which had only once failed him--the time when he had discovered that the assassin had in some way obtained entrance to the deserted garden during his absence, "as to be able to say that you are not your brother's murderer. But, unless there is something very strange that as yet I do not know, that murderer is known to you, and you are shielding him from me."
"It is false!" Lord Penlyn said, advancing to him and standing boldly and defiantly before him. "As God hears me, I swear that it is false. And youshalltell me what you know, you shall justify your vile suspicions of me."
"Yes," the Señor replied, "I shall justify them, but nottoyou. Meanwhile, have a care that I do not prove you to be an accomplice in this murder. Have a care, I say!"
"I defy you and your accusations. And the law shall make you speak out plainly."
"I am about to speak out plainly, this very night. But I am not going to speak plainly to the man whose house affords a refuge to his brother's murderer."
Lord Penlyn sprang at him, as he heard these words fall from his lips, as he had once sprung at his own brother in the Park when that brother told him he was bearing a name not rightly his; and once more he felt himself in a grasp of iron, and powerless.
"Be careful!" Señor Guffanta said, as he hurled him back, "be careful, or I shall do you an injury."
Stuart had endeavoured to come between them, but before he could do so the short struggle was over, and then the Spaniard turned to him and said, "I must speak with you alone. Come with me," and, turning, left the room.
Before Stuart followed him he spoke to Penlyn, and said: "Do not take this too seriously to heart. This man is evidently under some delusion, if not as to the actual murderer, at least as to your connection with the crime. Perhaps, when he has told me what he knows, we shall find out where the error lies; and then he will ask your pardon for his suspicions."
"It is too awful!" Penlyn said, "too awful to be borne. And I can do nothing. I wish I could have killed him as he stood there falsely accusing me, but he is a giant in strength."
"Let me go to him now," Stuart said; "and do not think of his words. Remember, he, too, is excited at having seen the man again and missed him. And if he does not absolutely bind me to silence I will tell you all." Then he, also, went away. And that night, in Walter Cundall's library, Señor Guffanta told his story. Told it calmly and dispassionately, but with a fulness of detail that struck a chill to Stuart's heart.
"I had been but a few days in London," he said, "when I learnt by Walter's own hand--in the letter you have seen--that he was also here, and that I was to go and see him. I was eager to do so, and on the very night he was murdered, on that fatal Monday night, I set out to visit him. He had told me to come late, and knowing that he was a man much in the world, and also that, from living in Honduras, where the nights alone are cool, one rarely learns to go to bed early, I did go late; so late that the clocks were striking midnight as I reached his house. But, when I stood outside it, there was no light of any kind to be seen, only a faint glimmer from a lamp in the hall. 'He has gone to his bed,' I said to myself, 'and the house is closed for the night. Well, it is indeed late, I will come again.' And so I turned away, and, knowing that there was a road through your Park, though I had not gone by it, I determined to return that way."
"Through the Park--where he was murdered?" Stuart asked.
"Yes, by that way. But before I reached the gates, and when I was outside the Palace of your Queen, Buckingham Palace, the storm that had been threatening broke over me.Caramba!it was a storm to drown a man, a storm such as we see sometimes in the tropics, but which I had never thought to see here. It descended in vast sheets of water, it was impossible to stir without being instantaneously drenched to the skin, and so I sought shelter in a porch close at hand. There, seeing no one pass me but some poor half-drowned creature who looked as though the rain could make his misery no greater than it was, I waited and waited--I had no protection, no umbrella--and heard the quarters and half-hours, and the hours tolled by the clock. At last, as it was striking two, the storm almost ceased, and, leaving my shelter, I crossed the road and entered the Park."
"Yes!" Stuart said in a whisper.
"Yes, I entered the Park, and went on round the bend, and so, under the dripping trees, through what I have since learnt, is called the 'Mall.'"
"For God's sake, go on!" Stuart exclaimed.
"I had passed some short distance on my road meeting no living creature, when but a little distance ahead of me I saw two figures struggling, the figures of two men. Then I saw one fall, and the other--not seeing me, there were trees between us--passed swiftly by. But I saw him and his face, the face of a young man dressed as a peasant, or, as you say here, a workman; a young man with a brown moustache."
For a moment Señor Guffanta paused, and then he continued:
"I ran to the fallen man, and--it was Walter--dead! Stabbed to the heart! I called him by his name, I kissed him, and felt his breast; but he was dead! And then, in a moment, it came to my mind that it was not with him I had to do; it was with the murderer. I sprang to my feet, I left him there--there, dead in the mud and the water with which his blood now mingled--and, as quickly as I could go, I retraced my steps after that murderer. And God is good! I had wasted but two or three moments with my poor dead friend, and ere I again reached the gates of the Park I saw before me the figure of the man who had passed me under the trees. He was still walking swiftly, and once or twice he looked round, as though fearing he was followed. But I, who have tracked savage beasts to their lairs, and Indians to their haunts, knew how to track him. Keeping well behind him and at a fair distance, sometimes screening myself behind the pillar on a doorstep, and sometimes crossing the road, sometimes even letting myself fall back still farther, I followed him. At one time, when I first brought him into my sight again, it had been in my thoughts to spring upon him, and there at once to kill him or take him prisoner. And then I thought it best not to do so. We had moved far from the scene; who was to prove, how was I to prove that it was he who had done this deed, and not I? And there was blood upon my clothes and hands--it was plainly visible! I could see it myself! blood that had flown from Walter's dead heart on to me as I took him in my arms upon the ground. No, I said, I must follow him, I must know where he lives, then I will take fresh counsel with myself as to what I shall do. So I went on, still following him. And by this time the dawn was breaking! He went on and on, walking, perhaps, for half-an-hour or so, though it seemed far more to me; but at last he stopped, and I had now some difficulty in preventing him from seeing me. He had stopped at a gate in a wall, and with a key had quickly opened it."
"The gate of the garden of Occleve House!" Stuart exclaimed, quivering with excitement.
"Yes," the Señor answered, "the gate of the garden of Occleve House."
"My God!" the other said.
"Yes, it was that gate. And now I had to be careful. I was determined to see where he had gone to through that gate, what he was doing in that garden; but how to do it? If I looked through the railings he would see me, he would know he was discovered--he might even then be able to escape me! If I had had my pistol with me, I would have stood by the gate and looked at him through it, and then, if necessary, would have shot him dead. But I had it not; I had thought of no need for it when I left the hotel that night. I did not know what was before me when I went out. But I knew I must do something at once, and so, seeing that the street was empty and no creature stirring, I advanced near to the gate, stretched myself flat upon thepavé, and with my head upon the ground looked under the lowest part of the railings and saw----"
"What?" Stuart asked, interrupting him again in his excitement.
"A changed man, one different from him I had followed. Still a young man with a brown moustache, but a young man whose habit was that of a gentleman. He was dressed now in a dark, well-made suit, and with his hands he was rolling up the peasant dress I had seen him wear. Then he stooped over what seemed to be a hole, or declivity, near the wall and dropped the suit into it, and arranged the weeds and long grass above it, and then slowly he went to the house, and, taking again a key from his pocket, entered the door."
"What man could thus have had the entrance to the back of the house?" Stuart asked. "I am bewildered with horrible thoughts!"
"I also was bewildered, but I am now no longer so. I knew the man's face; now--to-day--I know for certain who he was. Within the last few days it flashed upon me, yet I doubted; but my doubts are satisfied. I only learned of his existence ten days ago, or I should have suspected him before."
"Who was it?" Stuart said. "Tell me at once."
"Wait yet a moment, and listen to me. As I saw that man enter the house, a house that I, a stranger, could see was the mansion of some person of importance, it came to me, to my mind, that this was the owner, the master of that house, who had killed my friend. His reason for doing so I could not guess--it might have been for the love of a woman, or for hate, or about money--but that it was so I was confident. And I said to myself, 'So! you cannot escape me! I know your house, to-morrow I shall know your name, and, if in two or three days the police have not got you in their power--I will wait that while, for it is better they should take you than I--then I will kill you.' And I went away thinking thus; there was no need to watch more. I held him, for he could not escape I thought, in my hand."
"But it was not the owner of the house," Stuart said, "it was not Lord Penlyn who killed him. He was away at an hotel at the time."
"Yes, he was--though still it would be possible for him then to have entered his own house--but his was not the face of the man I had seen. I learnt that, to my amazement, when for the first time I stood before him. But, listen again! In the morning, at a restaurant, I found in a Directory, of which I had learnt the use, that that house was Occleve House, and that Lord Penlyn was the owner of it. And then my surprise was great, for only an hour or so before I had found that Occleve was the right name of Walter Cundall."
"You had learnt that?"
"When I lifted Walter in my arms in the Park, I felt against his breast a book half out of his pocket. The murderer had missed that! I took that book, for even in my haste and grief, I thought that in it might be something that would give me a clue. But what were really in it of importance were a certificate of his mother's marriage, another of his own birth, and a letter, years old, from her to him. They told me all, and, moreover they proved to me, as I then thought, that his murderer lived in the very house and bore the very name that by right seemed to be his.
"They were the certificates he showed to them on the morning he disclosed himself," Stuart said, "and he had not removed them from his pocket-book when he was killed!"
"Yes! that he showed tothem; you have said it! It was totwoof them that he showed those papers. And one was the friend of the other, he lived with and upon him, he dares not meet me face to face, he evades me! he, he is the murderer. He, Philip Smerdon!"
Stuart sprung to his feet.
"Philip Smerdon!" he exclaimed. "No, no! it cannot be!"
"It is, I say! It is he. Of all others, who but he could have done this deed? Who but he who crept back to Occleve House having in his pocket the keys whereby to enter it, who but he who shuns me because it has been told him that I knew the assassin's face! And on the very night that he is back in London, sleeping in that house, are not the clothes that might have led to his identification removed?"
Stuart paused a moment, deep in thought, and then he said: "It cannot be! On the day before the murder, in the morning, he left London for Occleve Chase. He must have been there when it was committed."
"Bah!" Guffanta said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "he did not leave London, he only made a pretence of doing so. All that day he, in his disguise, must have been engaged in tracking my poor friend, and at night he killed him." Then he paused a moment, and when he next spoke he asked a question.
"Where was he going when he left Occleve House this afternoon in the cab, and with his luggage?"
"He was going to join his father, he said," Stuart answered. "His father is ill and has been ordered abroad for his health, and, having recovered some money from his ruined business, he is going on the Continent, and Smerdon is going with him."
"And to what part of the Continent are they going?"
"I do not know, though he said something about the French coast, and afterwards, the Tyrol. Why do you ask?
"Why do I ask? Why? Because I must go also! I have to stand face to face with him, and be able to convince myself that either I have made some strange mistake, or that I am right."
"And--if you are right?"
"Then I have to take him to the nearest prison, or, if he resists, to kill him."
"You will do that?"
"I will do anything necessary to prevent him ever escaping me again."
They talked on into the night, and Señor Guffanta extracted from the other a promise that he would lend him any assistance in his power, and that, above all, he would say nothing to Lord Penlyn that, by being retold to Smerdon, should, if he were actually the murderer, help him to still longer escape.
"I promise you," Stuart said, "and the more willingly because I myself would give him up to justice if I were sure he is the man. But that, of course, I cannot be; it is you alone who can identify this cruel murderer. But, in one thing Iamsure you are wrong."
"In what thing?"
"In thinking that Lord Penlyn is in the slightest way an accomplice, or suspects Smerdon at all. If he did so suspect him, I believe that he would himself cause him to be arrested, even though they are such friends."
"What motive would Smerdon have to kill Walter except to remove him from the other's path? Do you think he would have done it without consulting Lord Penlyn?"
"I am certain that if he did do it, as you think----"
"As I am as convinced as that we are sitting here!"
"Well, then I am certain that Lord Penlyn knows nothing of it. He is hasty and impetuous, but he is the soul of honour."
"Perhaps," Guffanta said; "it may be so. But it is not with him that I have to deal. It is with the man who struck the blow. And it is him I go to seek."
"How will you find him?"
"Through you. You will find out for me where he is gone with his father--if this is not a lie invented to aid his further escape--and you will let me know everything. Is it not so?"
"Yes," Stuart said; "I myself swore that I would find the murderer if I could; but, as I cannot do that, I will endeavour to help you to do so. How shall I communicate with you?"
"Write, or come to the 'Hôtel Lepanto.' And when you once tell me where that man is, there I shall soon be afterwards. Even though he should go to the end of the world, I will follow him."
Then Señor Guffanta went back to his hotel, and told Diaz Zarates that he should soon be leaving his house.
"I have to make a little tour upon the Continent, and I may go at any moment."
"On a tour of pleasure, Señor?" the landlord asked.
"No! on a voyage of importance!"
And three days afterwards he went. A letter had come to him from Stuart saying:
"S. has really gone with his father. He has left London for Paris on the way to Switzerland. They are to pass the summer at some mountain resort, but the place is not yet decided on. At first they will be at Berne. If you meet, for God's sake be careful, and make no mistake."
"Yes!" Señor Guffanta muttered to himself as he packed his portmanteau, and prepared to catch the night mail to Paris. "Yes, I will be careful, very careful! And I will make no mistake!"