“Oh, I say, come now, Mr. Fair,” smilingly protested Ferret. “The gent as fired the shot was there, you know. You see, Mr. Marshall, it was this way. Mendes had threatened Mrs. Fair, and she went out and got the pistol, and at that moment Mr. Fair came into the room. Mendes shot himself, and Mr. Fair, hearing the shot and seeing the smoking pistol in Mrs. Fair’s hand, snatched it away from her and declared that it was he and not her that did the killing. She came here tonight and swore it was her, and now he comes and swears it was him. But Mendes swore just as he was dying that it was himself—and the priest will testify to that.”
“But, my heavens, man, Mendes died at once. I hid his body in——”
“In the chest,” interrupted the detective, grinning. “Yes, I know all about that. But, you see, Mendes did not die. He came to while you were at dinner. Our fellows followed him to his lodgings in Soho—and today my chum got hold of a letter that gave her the address, and she and I were with him when he died an hour ago—yes, and Mrs. Fair is there now.”
While he was speaking Fair sank back into his chair, as if unconscious of what was passing, but when Ferret paused he sprang up, crying, “Marshall, did you ever hear of anything so unspeakably glorious as Janet’s devotion?”
“Yes—once,” answered Marshall, with streaming eyes. “Your own, Fair.”
“But, Ferret,” went on Fair, when he had recovered his voice, “who is the chum who so materially assisted you? And where is Mrs. Fair now?”
“Mrs. Fair is by Mendes’s bedside. My chum is——”
The door opened and Kate Mettleby came hurrying in, breathless and worn. Ferret finished by saying: “My chum, gentlemen.”
“Oh, Mr. Fair,” began Kate, after Fair had presented Marshall to her with a word of explanation, “have you heard? Janet is with him—with Señor Mendes—it was awful—it was unbearably touching.”
“He is the father of her children, Kate,” said Fair gently, when Marshall and Ferret quietly stole out, leaving them together.
“Yes, I know—and—Maxwell—there is something—oh, how can I tell you? She came in and knelt by his bed with his head in her arms when the priest told her that he was dead. She knelt there half an hour, and when it was time for us to start to come here to meet you—Maxwell, can you bear it?—when I went and touched her shoulder and told her to come away—she—was dead.”
Kate’s head fell upon her folded arms on the table and her body shook with the strain of the awful day’s events. Fair suffered her to cry herself into a quieter state. Then he stooped and laying his hand on her head, he said: “Kate, the children have no mother now.”
THE END
All GainTAPESON—How much did he make out of that stock company he formed?Tickerly—All that was put into it.
All Gain
TAPESON—How much did he make out of that stock company he formed?
Tickerly—All that was put into it.