William Le Queux (continued 3)

After a wash I rejoined my dainty little hostess in the library—a big, long, old room, where a fire burned brightly and the lamps were softly shaded with yellow silk. Over the fireplace were carved in stone the three water-bougets of the Baddesleys, with the date 1601, while the whole room from end to end was lined with brown-backed books that had probably not been disturbed for half-a-century.

After Mabel had allowed me a cigarette and told Gibbons that she did not wish to be disturbed for an hour or so, she rose and turned the key behind the servants, so that we might carry out the work of investigation without interruption.

“Now,” she said, turning her fine eyes upon me with an excitement she could not suppress as she walked to the big writing-table and took her father’s keys from her pocket, “I wonder whether we shall discover anything of interest. I suppose,” she added, “it is really Mr Leighton’s duty to do this. But I prefer that you and I should look into my father’s affairs prior to the inquisitive lawyer’s arrival.”

It almost seemed as if she half-expected to discover something which she desired to conceal from the solicitor.

The dead man’s writing-table was a ponderous old-fashioned one of carved oak, and as she unlocked the first drawer and turned out its contents, I drew up chairs and settled with her in order to make a methodical and thorough examination. The papers, we found, were mostly letters from friends, and correspondence from solicitors and brokers regarding his investments in various quarters. From some which I read I gathered what enormous profits he had made over certain deals in Kaffirs, while in certain other correspondence were allusions to matters which, to me, were very puzzling.

Mabel’s eager attitude was that of one in search of some document or other which she believed to be there. She scarcely troubled to read any of the letters, merely scanning them swiftly and casting them aside. Thus we examined the contents of one drawer after another until I saw beneath her hand a blue foolscap envelope sealed with black wax, and bearing the superscription in her father’s handwriting:—

“To be opened by Mabel after my death.—Burton Blair.”

“Ah!” she gasped in breathless haste. “I wonder what this contains?” And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscap closely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of a brass fastener.

From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding to my surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered, but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen. It was a half-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismal country, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house, with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip of flower-garden railed off at the side. Before the door was a rustic porch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsor armchair that had apparently just been vacated.

While I was examining the view beneath the lamplight, the dead man’s daughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father had penned.

Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery, and, startled, I turned to glance at her. Her countenance had changed; she was blanched to the lips.

“No!” she gasped hoarsely. “I—I can’t believe it—I won’t!”

Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.

“What is it?” I inquired anxiously. “May I not know?” And I crossed to where she stood.

“No,” she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her. “No! Not even you may know this!” And with a sudden movement she tore the paper to pieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast the fragments into the fire.

The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man’s confession—if such it were—was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood, haggard, rigid and white as death.

Chapter Sixteen.

In which Two Curious Facts are Established.

Mabel’s sudden action both annoyed and surprised me, for I had believed that our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that she would at least have allowed me sight of what her father had written.

Yet when, next second, I reflected that the envelope had been specially addressed to her, I saw that whatever was contained therein had been intended for her eye alone.

“You have discovered something which has upset you?” I said, looking straight into her white, hard-drawn face. “I hope it is really nothing very disconcerting?”

She held her breath for a moment, her hand instinctively upon her breast as though to still the wild beating of her heart.

“Ah! unfortunately it is,” was her answer. “I know the truth now—the awful, terrible truth.” And without a word of warning she covered her face with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears.

At her side in an instant I was striving to console her, but I quickly realised what a deep impression of dismay and horror those written words of her dead father had produced upon her. She was filled with grief, and utterly inconsolable.

The quiet of that long, old-fashioned room was unbroken save for her bitter sobs and the solemn tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock at the further end of the apartment. My hand was placed tenderly upon the poor girl’s shoulder, but it was a long time ere I could induce her to dry her tears.

When she did so, I saw by her face that she had become a changed woman.

Walking back to the writing-table she took up the envelope and re-read the superscription which Blair had written upon it, and then for the first time her eyes fell upon the photograph of that lonely house by the crossways.

“Why!” she cried, startled, “where did you find this?”

I explained that it had dropped from the envelope, whereupon she took it up and gazed, for a long time upon it. Then, turning it over, she discovered what I had not noticed, namely, written faintly in pencil and half effaced were the words, “Owston crossroads, 9 miles beyond Doncaster on the Selby Road.—B.B.”

“Do you know what this is?”

“No, I haven’t the least idea,” I answered. “It must be something of which your father was very careful. It seems to be well worn, too, as though carried in somebody’s pocket.”

“Well,” she said, “I will tell you. I had no idea that he still preserved it, but I suppose he kept it as a souvenir of those weary journeys of long ago. This photograph,” she added, holding it still in her hand, “is the picture of the spot for which he searched every turnpike in England. He had the photograph but nothing else to guide him to the spot, and we were therefore compelled to tramp all the main roads up and down the country in an attempt to identify it. Not until nearly a year after you and Mr Seton had so kindly placed me at school at Bournemouth did my father, still on his lonely tramp, succeed in discovering it after a search lasting over three years. He identified it one summer evening as the crossways at Owston, and he found living in that house the person of whom he had been all those weary months in search.”

“Curious,” I said. “Tell me more about it.”

“There is nothing else to tell, except that, by identifying the house, he obtained the key to the secret—at least, that is what I always understood from him,” she said. “Ah, I recollect all those long wearying walks when I was a girl, how we trudged on over those long, white, endless roads, in sunshine and in rain, envying people in carriages and carts, and men and women on bicycles, and yet my courage always supported by my father’s declaration that great fortune must be ours some day. He carried this photograph with him always, and almost at each crossroad he would take it out, examine the landscape and compare it, not knowing, of course, but that the old toll-house might have been pulled down since the taking of the picture.”

“Did he never tell you the reason why he wished to visit that house.”

“He used to say that the man who lived there—the man who used to sit on summer evenings in that chair outside, was his friend—his good friend; only they had been parted for a long time, and he did not know that my father was still alive. They had been friends abroad, I fancy, in the days when my father was at sea.”

“And the identification of this spot was the reason of your father’s constant wanderings?” I exclaimed, pleased that I had at last cleared up one point which, for five years or so, had been a mystery.

“Yes. A month after he had made the discovery he came to Bournemouth, and told me in confidence that his dream of great wealth was about to be realised. He had solved the problem, and within a week or two would be in possession of ample funds. He disappeared, you will remember, almost immediately, and was away for a month. Then he returned a rich man—so rich that you and Mr Seton were utterly dumbfounded. Don’t you recollect that night at Helpstone, after I had come from school to spend a week with my father on his return? We were sitting together after dinner and poor father recalled the last occasion when we had all assembled there—the occasion when I was taken ill outside,” she added. “And don’t you recollect Mr Seton appearing to doubt my father’s statement that he was already worth fifty thousand pounds.”

“I remember,” I answered, as her clear eyes met mine. “I remember how your father struck us utterly dumb by going upstairs and fetching his banker’s pass-book, which showed a balance of fifty-four thousand odd pounds. After that he became more than ever a mystery to us. But tell me,” I added in a low, earnest voice, “what have you discovered to-night that has so upset you?”

“I have nearly found proof of a fact that I have dreaded for years—a fact that affects not only my poor father’s memory, but also myself. I am in peril—personal danger.”

“How?” I asked quickly, failing to understand her meaning. “Recollect that I promised your father to act as your protector.”

“I know, I know. It is awfully good of you,” she said, looking at me gratefully with those wonderful eyes that had always held me fascinated beneath the spell of her beauty. “But,” she added, shaking her head sorrowfully, “I fear that in this you will be powerless. If the blow falls, as it must sooner or later, then I shall be crushed and helpless. No power, not even your devoted friendship, can then save me.”

“You certainly speak very strangely, Mabel. I don’t follow you at all.”

“I expect not,” was her mechanical answer. “You do not know all. If you did, you would understand the peril of my position and of the great danger now threatening me.”

And she stood motionless as a statue, her hand upon the corner of the writing-table, her eyes fixed straight into the blazing fire.

“If the danger is a real one, I consider I ought to be aware of it. To be forewarned is to be forearmed!” I remarked decisively.

“It is a real one, but as my father has confessed the truth to me alone, I am unable to reveal it to you. His secret is mine.”

“Certainly,” I answered, accepting her decision, which, of course, was but natural in the circumstances. She could not betray her dead father’s confidence.

Yet if she had done, how altered would have been the course of events! Surely the story of Burton Blair was one of the strangest and most romantic ever given to man to relate, and as assuredly the strange circumstances which occurred after his decease were even more remarkable and puzzling. The whole affair from beginning to end was a complete enigma.

Later, when Mabel grew slightly calmer, we concluded our work of investigation, but discovered little else of interest save several letters in Italian, undated and unsigned, but evidently written by Dick Dawson, the millionaire’s mysterious friend—or enemy. On reading them they were, I found, evidently the correspondence of an intimate acquaintance who was sharing Blair’s fortune and secretly assisting him in the acquisition of his wealth. There was much mention of “the secret,” and repeated cautions against revealing anything to Reggie or to myself.

In one letter I found the sentences in Italian: “My girl is growing into quite a fine lady. I expect she will become a Countess, or perhaps a Duchess, one day. I hear from your side that Mabel is becoming a very pretty woman. You ought, with your position and reputation, to make a good match for her. But I know what old-fashioned ideas you hold that a woman must marry only for love.”

On reading this, one fact was vividly impressed upon me, namely, that if this man Dawson shared secretly in Blair’s wealth he surely had no necessity to obtain his secret by foul means, when he already knew it.

The clock on the stables chimed midnight before Mabel rang for Mrs Gibbons, and the latter’s husband followed, bringing me a night-cap of whisky and some hot water.

My little companion merrily pressed my hand, wishing me good-night, and then retired, accompanied by the housekeeper, while Gibbons himself remained to mix my drink.

“Sad thing, sir, about our poor master,” hazarded the well-trained servant, who had been all his life in the service of the previous owners. “I fear the poor young mistress feels it very much.”

“Very much indeed, Gibbons,” I answered, taking a cigarette and standing with my back to the fire. “She was such a devoted daughter.”

“She is now mistress of everything, Mr Ford told us when he was down three days ago.”

“Yes,” I said, “everything. And I hope that you and your wife will serve her as well and as faithfully as you have done her father.”

“We’ll try, sir,” was the grave, grey-haired man’s response. “Everybody’s very fond of the young mistress. She’s so very good to all the servants.” Then, as I remained silent, he placed my candle in readiness on the table, and, bowing, wished me good-night.

He closed the door, and I was alone in that great silent old room where the darting flames cast weird lights across into the dark recesses, and the long, old Chippendale clock ticked on solemnly as it had done for a century past.

Having swallowed my hot drink, I returned again to my dead friend’s writing-table, carefully examining it to see whether it contained any secret drawers. A methodical investigation of every portion failed to reveal any spring or unsuspected cavity, therefore, after glancing at that photograph which had taken Blair those many months of weary tramping to identify, I extinguished the lamps and passing through the great old hall with the stands of armour which conjured up visions of ghostly cavaliers, ascended to my room.

The bright fire gave the antique place with those rather funereal hangings a warm and cosy appearance in contrast to the hard frost outside, and feeling no inclination to sleep just then, I flung my self into an armchair and sat with arms folded, pondering deeply.

Again the stable-clock chimed—the half-hour—and then I think I must have dozed, for I was awakened suddenly by a light, stealthy footstep on the polished oaken floor outside my door. I listened, and distinctly heard some one creeping lightly down the big old Jacobean staircase, which creaked slightly somewhere below.

The weird ghostliness of the old place and its many historic traditions caused me, I suppose, some misgivings, for I found myself thinking of burglars and of midnight visitants. Again I strained my ears. Perhaps, after all, it was only a servant! Yet, when I glanced at my watch, and found it to be a quarter to two, the suggestion that the servants had not retired was at once negatived.

Suddenly, in the room below me, I distinctly heard a slow, harsh, grating noise. Then all was still again.

About three minutes later, however, I fancied I heard low whispering, and, having quickly extinguished my light, I drew aside one of my heavy curtains, and peering forth saw, to my surprise, two figures crossing the lawn towards the shrubbery.

The moon was somewhat overcast, yet by the grey, clouded light I distinguished that the pair were a man and a woman. From the man’s back I could not recognise him, but his companion’s gait was familiar to me as she hurried on towards the dark belt of bare, black trees.

It was Mabel Blair. The secret was out. Her sudden desire to visit Mayvill was in order to keep a midnight tryst.

Chapter Seventeen.

Merely Concerns a Stranger.

Without a moment’s hesitation I struggled into an overcoat, slipped on a golf cap and sped downstairs to the room below my own, where I found one of the long windows open, and through it stepped quickly out upon the gravel.

I intended to discover the motive of this meeting and the identity of her companion—evidently some secret lover whose existence she had concealed from us all. Yet to follow her straight across the lawn in the open light was to at once court detection. Therefore I was compelled to take a circuitous course, hugging the shadows always, until I at length reached the shrubbery, where I halted, listening eagerly.

There was no sound beyond the low creaking of the branches and the dismal sighing of the wind. A distant train was passing through the valley, and somewhere away down in the village a collie was barking. I could not, however, distinguish any human voices. Slowly I made my way through the fallen leaves until I had skirted the whole of the shrubbery, and then I came to the conclusion that they must have passed through it by some bypath and gone out into the park.

My task was rendered more difficult because the moon was not sufficiently overcast to conceal my movements, and I feared that by emerging into the open I might betray my presence.

But Mabel’s action in coming there to meet this man, whoever he was, puzzled me greatly. Why had she not met him in London? I wondered. Could he be such an unpresentable lover that a journey to London was impossible? It is not an uncommon thing for a well-born girl to fall in love with a labourer’s son any more than it is for a gentleman to love a peasant girl. Many a pretty girl in London to-day has a secret admiration for some young labourer or good-looking groom on her father’s estate, the seriousness of the unspoken love lying in the utter impossibility of its realisation.

With ears and eyes open I went on, taking advantage of all the shadow I could, but it seemed as though, having nearly five minutes’ start of me, they had taken a different direction to that which I believed.

At last I gained the comparative gloom of the old beech avenue which led straight down to the lodge on the Dilwyn road, and continued along it for nearly half-a-mile, when suddenly my heart leaped for joy, for I distinguished before me the two figures walking together and engaged in earnest conversation.

My jealous anger was in an instant aroused. Fearing that they might hear my footsteps on the hard frozen road I slipped outside the trees upon the grass of the park, and treading noiselessly was soon able to approach almost level with them without attracting attention.

Presently, on the old stone bridge across the river which formed the outlet of the lake, they halted, when, concealing myself behind a tree, I was enabled, by the light of the moon which had fortunately now grown brighter, to clearly see the features of Mabel’s mysterious companion. I judged him to be about twenty-eight, an ill-bred, snub-nosed, yellow-haired common-looking fellow, whose hulking form as he leaned against the low parapet was undoubtedly that of an agriculturist. His face was hard-featured and prematurely weatherbeaten, while the cut of his clothes was distinctly that of the “ready-made” emporium of the provincial town. His hard felt hat was cocked a little askew, as is usual with the yokel as well as with the costermonger when he takes his Sunday walk.

As far as I could observe he seemed to be treating her with extraordinary disdain and familiarity, addressing her as “Mab” and lighting a cheap cigarette in her presence, while on her part she seemed rather ill at ease, as though she were there under compulsion rather than by choice.

She had dressed herself warmly in a thick frieze driving cape and a close-fitting peaked cap which, drawn over her eyes, half-concealed her features.

“I really can’t see your object, Herbert,” I heard her distinctly argue. “What could such an action possibly benefit you?”

“A lot,” the fellow answered, adding in a rough, uncouth voice which bore the unmistakable brogue of the countryman, “What I say I mean. You know that, don’t yer?”

“Of course,” she answered. “But why do you treat me in this manner? Think of the risks I run in meeting you here to-night. What would people think if it were known?”

“What do I care what people think!” he exclaimed carelessly. “Of course you’ve got to keep up appearances—fortunately, I ain’t.”

“But you surely won’t do what you threaten?” she exclaimed in a voice of blank dismay. “Remember that our secrets have been mutual. I have never betrayed you—never in any single thing.”

“No, because you knew what would be the result if you did,” he laughed with a sneer. “I never trust a woman’s word—I don’t. You’re rich now the old man’s dead, and I want money,” he said decisively.

“But I haven’t any yet,” she replied. “When will you have some?”

“I don’t know. There are all sorts of law formalities to go through before, so Mr Greenwood says.”

“Oh! a curse on Greenwood!” the fellow burst forth. “He’s always with you up in London, they say. Ask him to get you some money from the lawyers. Tell him you’re hard up—got to pay bills, or something. Any lie will do for him.”

“Impossible, Herbert,” she answered, trying to remain calm. “You must really be patient.”

“Oh, yes, I know!” he cried. “Call me good dog and all that. But that kind of game don’t suit me—you hear? I’ve got no money, and I must have some at once—to-night.”

“I haven’t any,” she declared.

“But you’ve got lots of jewellery and plate and stuff. Give me some of that, and I can sell it easily in Hereford to-morrow. Where’s that diamond bracelet the old man gave you for a present last birthday—the one you showed me?”

“Here,” she replied, and raised her wrist, showing him the beautiful diamond and sapphire ornament her father had given her, the worth of which was two hundred pounds at the very least.

“Give me that,” he said. “It’ll last me a day or two until you get me some cash.”

She hesitated, evidently indisposed to accede to such a request and more especially as the bracelet was the last present her father had made her. Yet, when he repeated his demands in a more threatening tone, it became plain that the fellow’s influence was supreme, and that she was as helpless as a child in his unscrupulous hands.

The situation came upon me as an absolute revelation. I could only surmise that a harmless flirtation in the years before her affluence had developed into this common fellow presuming upon her good nature, and, finding her generous and sympathetic, he had now assumed an attitude of mastery over her actions. The working of the rustic mind is most difficult to follow. To-day in rural England there is so very little real gratitude shown by the poor towards the rich that in the country districts, charity is almost entirely unappreciated, while the wealthy are becoming weary of attempting to please or improve the people. Your rustic of to-day, while perfectly honest in his dealings with his own class, cannot resist dishonesty when selling his produce or his labour to the rich man. It seems part of his religion to get, by fair means or by foul, as much as he can out of the gentleman, and then abuse him in the village ale-house and dub him a fool for allowing himself to be thus cheated. Much as I regret to allege it, nevertheless it is a plain and bitter truth that swindling and immorality are the two most notable features of English village life at the present moment.

I stood listening to that strange conversation between the millionaire’s daughter and her secret lover, immovable and astounded.

The arrogance of the fellow caused my blood to boil. A dozen times as he sneered at her insultingly, now cajoling, now threatening, and now making a disgusting pretence of affection, I felt impelled to rush out and give him a good sound hiding. It was, indeed, only because I recognised that in this affair, so serious was it, I could only assist Mabel by remaining concealed and using my knowledge of it to her advantage that I held my tongue and stayed my hand.

Without doubt she had, in her girlish inexperience, once believed herself in love with the fellow, but now the hideousness of the present situation was presented to her in all its vivid reality and she saw herself hopelessly involved. Probably it was with a vain hope of extricating herself that she had kept the appointment; but, in any case, the man whom she called Herbert was quick to detect that he held all the honours in the game.

“Now come,” he said at last, in his broad brogue, “if you really ain’t got no money on you, hand over that bracelet and ha’ done with it. We don’t want to wait ’ere all night, for I’ve got to be in Hereford first thing in the morning. So the least said the better.”

I saw that, white to the lips, she was trembling in fear of him, for she shrank from his touch, crying—

“Ah, Herbert, it is too cruel of you—too cruel—after all I’ve done to help you. Have you no pity, no compassion?”

“None,” he growled. “I want money and must have it. In a week you must pay me a thousand quid—you hear that, don’t you?”

“But how can I? Wait and I’ll give it to you later—indeed, I promise.”

“I tell you I ain’t going to be fooled,” he cried angrily. “I mean to have the money, or else I’ll blow the whole thing. Then where will you be—eh?” And he laughed a hard triumphant laugh, while she shrank back pale, breathless and dismayed.

I clenched my fists, and to this moment I do not know how I restrained myself from springing from my hiding-place and knocking the fellow down. At that moment I could have killed him where he stood.

“Ah!” she cried, her hands clasped to him in a gesture of supplication, “you surely don’t mean what you say, you can’t mean that, you really can’t! You’ll spare me, won’t you? Promise me!”

“No, I won’t spare you,” was his brutal reply, “unless you pay me well.”

“I will, I will,” she assured him in a low, hoarse voice, which was eminently that of a desperate woman, terrified lest some terrible secret of hers should be exposed.

“Ah!” he sneered with curling lip, “you treated me with contempt once, because you were a fine lady, but I am yet to have my revenge, as you will see. You are now mistress of a great fortune, and I tell you quite plainly that I intend you to share it with me. Act just as you think best, but recollect what refusal will mean to you—exposure!”

“Ah!” she cried desperately, “to-night you have revealed yourself in your true light! You brute, you would, without the slightest compunction, ruin me!”

“Because, my dear girl, you are not playing straight,” was his cool, arrogant reply. “You thought that you had most ingeniously got rid of me for ever, until to-night here I am, you see, back again, ready to—well, to be pensioned off, shall we call it? Don’t think I intend to allow you to fool me this time, so just give me the bracelet as a first instalment, and say no more.” And he snatched at her arm while she, by a quick movement, avoided him.

“I refuse,” she cried with a fierce and sudden determination. “I know you now! You are brutal and inhuman, without a speck of either love or esteem—a man who would drive a woman to suicide in order to get money. Now you have been released from prison you intend to live upon me—your letter with that proposal is sufficient proof. But I tell you here to-night that you will obtain not a penny more from me beyond the money that is now paid you every month.”

“To keep my mouth closed,” he interrupted. And I saw an evil, murderous glitter in his black eyes.

“You need not keep it closed any longer,” she said in open defiance. “Indeed, I shall tell the truth myself, and thus put an end to this brilliant blackmailing scheme of yours. So now you understand,” she added firmly, with a courage that was admirable.

A silence fell between them for a moment, broken only by the weird cry of an owl.

“Then that is absolutely your decision, eh?” he inquired in a hard voice, while I noticed that his face was white with anger and chagrin as he recognised that, if she told the truth and faced the consequence of her own exposure, whatever it might be, his power over her would be dispelled.

“My mind is made up. I have no fear of any exposure you may make concerning me.”

“At any rate give me that bracelet,” he demanded savagely, with set teeth, grasping her arm and trying by force to undo the clasp.

“Let me go!” she cried. “You brute! Let me go! Would you rob me, as well as insult me?”

“Rob you!” he muttered, his coarse white face wearing a dangerous expression of unbridled hatred, “rob you!” he hissed with a ford oath, “I’ll do more. I’ll put you where your cursed tongue won’t wag again, and where you won’t be able to tell the truth!”

And, unfortunately, before I was aware of his intentions he had seized her by the wrists and, with a quick movement, forced her backwards so violently against the low parapet of the bridge that for a moment they stood locked in a deadly embrace.

Mabel screamed on realising his intentions, but next second with a vile imprecation he had forced her backwards over the low wall, and with a loud splash she fell helplessly into the deep, dark waters.

In an instant, while the fellow took to his heels, I dashed forward to her rescue, but, alas! too late, for, as I peered eagerly down into the darkness, I saw to my dismay that the swirling icy flood had closed over her, that she had disappeared.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Crossways at Owston.

The sound of the assassin’s fast-receding footsteps, as he escaped away down the dark avenue towards the road, awakened me to a keen sense of my responsibility, and in an instant I had divested myself of my overcoat and coat, and stood peering anxiously into the darkness beneath the bridge.

Those seconds seemed hours, until of a sudden I caught sight of a flash of white in mid stream, and without a moment’s hesitation I dived in after it.

The shock of the icy water was a severe one but, fortunately, I am a strong swimmer, and neither the intense coldness nor the strength of the current interfered much with my progress as I struck out towards the unconscious girl. Having seized her, however, I had to battle severely to prevent being swept out around the bend where I knew that the river, joined by another stream, broadened out, and where any chances of effecting a rescue would be very small.

For some minutes I struggled with all my might to hold the unconscious girl’s head above the surface, yet so strong was the swirling flood, with its lumps of floating ice, that all resistance seemed impossible, and we were both swept down for some distance until at last, summoning my last effort I managed to strike out with my senseless burden and reach a shallow, where I managed by dint of fierce struggling, to land and to drag the unfortunate girl up the frozen bank.

I had once, long ago, attended an ambulance class, and now, acting upon the instructions I had there received, I set at once to work to produce artificial respiration. It was heavy work alone, with my wet clothes freezing stiff upon me, but still I persevered, determined, if possible, to restore her to consciousness, and this I was fortunately able to do within half an hour.

At first she could utter no word, and I did not question her. Sufficient was it for me to know that she was still alive, for when first I had brought her to land I believed that she was beyond human aid, and that the dastardly attempt of her low-born lover had been successful. She shivered from head to foot, for the night wind cut like a knife, and presently, at my suggestion, she rose and, leaning heavily upon my arm, tried to walk. The attempt was at first only a feeble one, but presently she quickened her pace slightly and, without either of us mentioning what had occurred, I conducted her up the long avenue back to the house. Once within she declared that it was unnecessary to call Mrs Gibbons. In low whispers she implored me to remain silent upon what had occurred. She took my hand in hers and held it.

“I want you, if you will, to forget all that has transpired,” she said, deeply in earnest. “If you followed me and overheard what passed between us, I want you to consider that those words have never been uttered. I—I want you to—” she faltered and then paused without concluding her sentence.

“What do you wish me to do?” I inquired, after a brief and painful silence.

“I want you to still regard me with some esteem, as you always have done,” she said, bursting into tears, “I don’t like to think that I’ve fallen in your estimation. Remember, I am a woman—and may be forgiven a woman’s impulses and follies.”

“You have not fallen in my estimation at all, Mabel,” I assured her. “My only regret is that the scoundrel made such an outrageous attempt upon you. But it was fortunate that I followed you, although I suppose I ought to apologise to you for acting the eavesdropper.”

“You saved my life,” was her whispered answer, as she pressed my hand in thanks. Then she crept swiftly and silently up the big staircase and was lost to view.

Next morning she appeared at the breakfast-table, looking apparently little the worse for her narrow escape, save perhaps that around her eyes were dark rings that told of sleeplessness and terrible anxiety. But she nevertheless chatted merrily, as though no care weighed upon her mind. While Gibbons was in the room serving us she could not speak confidentially, but as she looked across at me, her glance was full of meaning.

At last, when we had finished and had walked together across the great hall back to the library, I said to her—

“Shall you allow the regrettable incident of last night to pass unnoticed? If you do, I fear that man may make another attempt upon you. Therefore it will surely be better if he understands once and for all that I was a witness of his dastardly cowardice.”

“No,” she replied in a low, pained voice. “Please don’t let us discuss it. It must pass.”

“Why?”

“Because if I were to seek to punish him he might bring forward something—something that I wish kept secret.”

I knew that, I recollected every word of that heated conversation. The blackmailer held some secret of hers which, being detrimental, she dreaded might be revealed.

Surely it was all a strange and most remarkable enigma from beginning to end! From that winter night on the highway near Helpstone, when I had found her fallen at the wayside, until that very moment, mystery had piled upon mystery and secret upon secret until, with Burton Blair’s decease and with the pack of tiny cards he had so curiously bequeathed to me, the problem had assumed gigantic proportions.

“That man would have murdered you, Mabel,” I said. “You are is fear of him?”

“I am,” she answered simply, her gaze fixed across the lawn and park beyond, and she sighed.

“But ought you not to assume the defensive now that the fellow has deliberately endeavoured to take your life?” I argued. “His villainous action last night was purely criminal!”

“It was,” she said in a blank, hollow voice, turning her eyes upon me. “I had no idea of his intention. I confess that I came down here because he compelled me to meet him. He has heard of my father’s death and now realises that he can obtain money from me; that I shall be forced to yield to his demands.”

“You may surely tell me his name,” I said.

“Herbert Hales,” she replied, not, however, without some hesitation. Then she added, “But I do wish Mr Greenwood, you would do me a favour and not mention the painful affair again. You do not know how it upsets me, or how much depends upon that man’s silence.”

I promised, although before doing so I tried my level best to induce her to give me some clue to the nature of the secret held by the uncouth yokel. But she was still obdurate and refused to tell me anything.

That the secret was something which affected herself or her own honour seemed quite plain, for, at every suggestion of mine to bring the fellow face to face with her, she shrank in fear of the startling revelation he could make.

I wondered whether that document, for her eyes only, which had been written by the man now dead, and which she had destroyed on the previous night, had any connexion with the secret known by Herbert Hales. Indeed, whatever the nature of that fellow’s knowledge, it was potent enough to compel her to travel down from London in order, if possible, I supposed, to arrange terms with him.

Fortunately, however, the household at Mayvill was unaware of the events of the previous night, and when at midday we left again to return to London, Gibbons and his wife stood at the door and wished us both a pleasant journey.

The house steward and his wife of course believed that the object of our flying visit was to search the dead man’s effects, and with the natural curiosity of servants, both were eager to know whether we had discovered anything of interest, although they were unable to question us directly. Inquisitiveness increases with a servant’s trustworthiness, until the confidential servant usually knows as much of his master’s or mistress’ affairs as they do themselves. Burton Blair had been particularly fond of the Gibbonses, and it almost seemed as though the latter considered themselves slighted by not being informed of every disposition made by their dead master in his will.

As it was, we only told them of one, the legacy of two hundred pounds apiece, which Blair had left them, and this had of course caused them the most profound gratification.

Having deposited Mabel at Grosvenor Square, and taken lingering leave of her, I returned at once to Great Russell Street and found that Reggie had just returned from the warehouse in Cannon Street.

Acting upon my sweet little friend’s appeal I told him nothing of the exciting incident of the previous night. All I explained was the searching of Blair’s writing-table and what we had discovered there.

“Well, we ought I think to go and see that house by the crossways,” he said when he had seen the photograph. “Doncaster is a quick run from King’s Cross. We could get there and back to-morrow. I’m interested to see the house to discover which poor Blair tramped all over England. This must have come into his possession,” he added, handling the photograph, “without any name or any clue whatever to its situation.”

I agreed that we ought to go and see for ourselves, therefore, after spending a quiet evening at the Devonshire, we left by the early train next day for Yorkshire. On arrival at Doncaster station, to which we ran through from London without a stop, we took a fly and drove out upon the broad, snowy highroad through Bentley for about six miles or so, until, after skirting Owston Park we came suddenly upon the crossroads where stood the lonely old house, just as shown in the photograph.

It was a quaint, old place, like one of those old toll-houses one sees in ancient prints, the old bar being of course missing. The gate-post, however, still remained, and snow having fallen in the night the scene presented was truly wintry and picturesque. The antique house with its broad, smoking chimney at the end had apparently been added to since the photograph had been taken, for at right angles was a new wing of red brick, converting it into quite a comfortable abode. Yet, as we approached, the old place rising out of the white, snow-covered plain breathed mutely of those forgotten days when the York and London coaches passed it, when masked gentlemen-of-the-road lurked in these dark, fir plantations which stood out beyond the open common at Kirkhouse Green, and when the post-boys were never tired of singing the praises of those wonderful cheeses at the old Bell in Stilton.

Our driver passed the place and about a quarter of a mile further on we stopped him, alighted and walked back together, ordering the man to await us.

On knocking at the door an aged old woman in cap and ribbons, opened it, whereupon Reggie, who assumed the position of spokesman, made excuse that we were passing, and, noticing by its exterior that the place was evidently an old toll-house, could not resist the inducement to call and request to be allowed to look within.

“I’m sure you’re very welcome, gentlemen,” answered the woman, in her broad, Yorkshire dialect. “It’s an old place and lots o’ folk have been here and looked over it in my time.”

Across the room were the black old beams of two centuries before, the old chimney-corner looked warm and cosy with its oaken, well-polished settle, and the big pot simmering upon the fire. The furniture, too, was little changed since the old coaching days, while about the place was a general air of affluence and comfort.

“You’ve lived here a long time, I suppose?” Reggie inquired, when we had glanced around and noted the little lancet window in the chimney-corner whence the toll-keeper in the old days could obtain a view for miles along the highroad that ran away across the open moorlands.

“I’ve been here this three-and-twenty years come next Michaelmas.”

“And your husband?”

“Oh! he’s here,” she laughed, then called, “Come here, Henry, where are you?” and then she added, “He’s never left here once since he came home from sea eighteen years ago. We’re both so very attached to the old place. A bit lonely, folks would call it, but Burghwallis is only a mile away.”

At mention of her husband’s return from sea we both pricked up our ears. Here was evidently the man for whom Burton Blair had searched the length and breadth of England.

Chapter Nineteen.

Which Contains a Clue.

A door opened and there came forward a tall, thin, wiry old man with white hair and a pointed grey beard. He had evidently retired on our arrival in order to change his coat, for he wore a blue reefer jacket which had had but little wear, but the collar of which was twisted, showing that he had only that moment assumed it.

His face was deeply wrinkled with long, straight furrows across the brows; the countenance of a man who for years had been exposed to rigours of wind and weather in varying climates.

Having welcomed us, he laughed lightly when we explained our admiration for old houses. We were Londoners, we explained, and toll-houses and their associations with the antiquated locomotion of the past always charmed us.

“Yes,” he said, in a rather refined voice for such a rough exterior, “they were exciting days, those. Nowadays the motor car has taken the place of the picturesque coach and team, and they rush past here backwards and forwards, blowing their horns at every hour of the day and night. Half the time we have a constable lying in wait in the back garden ready to time them on to Campsall, and take ’em to the Petty Sessions afterwards!” he laughed; “and fancy this at the very spot where Claude Duval held up the Duke of Northumberland and afterwards gallantly escorted Lady Mary Percy back to Selby.”

The old fellow seemed to deplore the passing of the good old days, for he was one of what is known as “the old school,” full of narrow-minded prejudices against every new-fangled idea, whether it be in medicine, religion or politics, and declaring that when he was a youth men were men and could hold their own successfully against the foreigner, either in the peace of commerce or in the clash of arms.

To my utter surprise he told us that his name was Hales—the same as that of Mabel’s secret lover, and as we chatted with him we learned that he had been a good many years at sea, mostly in the Atlantic and Mediterranean trades.

“Well, you seem pretty comfortable now,” I remarked, smiling, “a cosy house, a good wife, and everything to make you happy.”

“You’re right,” he answered, taking down a long clay pipe from the rack over the open hearth. “A man wants nowt more. I’m contented enough and I only wish everybody in Yorkshire was as comfortable this hard weather.”

The aged pair seemed flattered at receiving us as visitors, and good-naturedly offered us a glass of ale.

“It’s home-brewed, you know,” declared Mrs Hales. “The likes of us can’t afford wine. Just taste it,” she urged, and being thus pressed we were glad of an excuse to extend our visit.

The old lady had bustled out to the kitchen to fetch glasses, when Reggie rose to his feet, closed the door quickly, and, turning to Hales, said in a low voice—

“We want to have five minutes’ private conversation with you, Mr Hales. Do you recognise this?” and he drew forth the photograph and held it before the old man’s eyes.

“Why, it’s a picture o’ my house,” he exclaimed in surprise. “But what’s the matter!”

“Nothing, only just answer my questions. They are most important, and our real object in coming here is to put them to you. First, have you ever known a man named Blair—Burton Blair.”

“Burton Blair!” echoed the old fellow, his hands on the arms of his chair as he leaned forward intently. “Yes, why?”

“He discovered a secret, didn’t he?”

“Yes, through me—made millions out of it, they say.”

“When did you last see him?”

“About five or six years ago.”

“When he discovered you living here?”

“That’s it. He searched every road in England to find me.”

“You gave him this photograph?”

“No, I think he stole it.”

“Where did you first meet him?”

“On board the Mary Crowle in the port of Antwerp. He was at sea, like myself. But why do you wish to know all this?”

“Because,” answered Reggie, “Burton Blair is dead, and his secret has been bequeathed to my friend here, Mr Gilbert Greenwood.”

“Burton Blair dead!” cried the old man, jumping to his feet as though he had received a shock. “Burton dead! Does Dicky Dawson know this?”

“Yes, and he is in London,” I replied.

“Ah!” he ejaculated, with impatience, as though the premature knowledge held by the man Dawson had upset all his plans. “Who told him? How the devil did he know?”

I had to confess ignorance, but in reply to his demand I deplored the tragic suddenness of our friend’s decease, and how I had been left in possession of the pack of cards upon which the cipher had been written.

“Have you any idea what his secret really was?” asked the wiry old fellow. “I mean of where his great wealth came from?”

“None whatever,” was my reply. “Perhaps you can tell us something?”

“No,” he snapped, “I can’t. He became suddenly rich, although only a month or so before he was on tramp and starving. He found me and I gave him certain information for which I was afterwards well repaid. It was this information, he told me, which formed the key to the secret.”

“Was it anything to do with this pack of cards and the cipher?” I inquired eagerly.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen the cards you mention. When he arrived here one cold night, he was exhausted and starving and dead beat. I gave him a meal and a bed, and told him what he wanted to know. Next morning, with money borrowed from me, he took train to London and the next I heard of him was a letter which stated that he had paid into the County Bank at York to my credit one thousand pounds, as we had arranged to be the price of the information. And I tell you, gentlemen, nobody was more surprised than I was to receive a letter from the bank next day, confirming it. He afterwards deposited a similar sum in the bank, on the first of January every year—as a little present, he said.”

“Then you never saw him after the night that his search for you was successful?”

“No, not once,” Hales answered, addressing his wife, who had just entered, saying that he was engaged in a private conversation, and requesting her to leave us, which she did. “Burton Blair was a queer character,” Hales continued, addressing me, “he always was. No better sailor ever ate salt junk. He was absolutely fearless and a splendid navigator. He knew the Mediterranean as other men know Cable Street, Whitechapel, and had led a life cram-full of adventure. But he was a reckless devil ashore—very reckless. I remember once how we both narrowly escaped with our lives at a little town outside Algiers. He pulled an Arab girl’s veil off her face out of sheer mischief, and, when she raised the alarm, we had to make ourselves scarce, pretty quick, I can tell you,” and he laughed heartily at the recollection of certain sprees ashore. “But both he and I had had pretty tough times in the Cameroons and in the Andes. I was older than he, and when I first met him I laughed at what I believed to be his ignorance. But I soon saw that he’d crammed about double the amount of travelling and adventure into his short spell than ever I had done, for he had a happy knack of deserting and going up country whenever an opportunity offered. He’d fought in half-a-dozen revolutions in Central and South America and used to declare that the rebels in Guatemala, had, on one occasion, elected him Minister of Commerce!”

“Yes,” I agreed, “he was in many ways a most remarkable man with a most remarkable history His life was a mystery from beginning to end, and it is that mystery which now, after his death, I am trying to unravel.”

“Ah! I fear you’ll find it a very difficult task,” replied his old friend, shaking his head. “Blair was secret in everything. He never let his right hand know what his left did. You could never get at the bottom of his ingenuity, or at his motives. And,” he added, as though it were an afterthought, “can you assign any reason why he should have left his secret in your hands?”

“Well, only gratitude,” I replied. “I was able on one occasion to render him a little assistance.”

“I know. He told me all about it—how you had both put his girl to school, and all that. But,” he went on, “Blair had some motive when he left you that unintelligible cipher, depend upon it. He knew well enough that you would never obtain its solution alone.”

“Why?”

“Because others had tried before you and failed.”

“Who are they?” I inquired, much surprised.

“Dick Dawson is one. If he had succeeded he might have stood in Blair’s shoes—a millionaire. Only he wasn’t quite cute enough, and the secret passed on to your friend.”

“Then you don’t anticipate that I shall ever discover the solution of the cipher?”

“No,” answered the old man, very frankly, “I don’t. But what of his girl—Mabel, I think she was called?”

“She’s in London and has inherited everything,” I replied; whereat the old fellow’s furrowed face broadened into a grim smile, and he remarked—

“A fine catch for some young fellow, she’d make. Ah! if you could induce her to tell all she knows she could place you in possession of her father’s secret.”

“Does she actually know it?” I cried quickly. “Are you certain of this?”

“I am; she knows the truth. Ask her.”

“I will,” I declared. “But cannot you tell us the nature of the information you gave to Blair on that night when he re-discovered you?” I asked persuasively.

“No,” he replied in a decisive tone, “it was a confidential matter and must remain as such. I was paid for my services, and as far as I am concerned, I have wiped my hands of the affair.”

“But you could tell me something concerning this strange quest of Blair’s—something, I mean, that might put me on the track of the solution of the secret.”

“The secret of how he gained his wealth, you mean, eh?”

“Of course.”

“Ah, my dear sir, you’ll never discover that—mark me—if you live to be a hundred. Burton Blair took jolly good care to hide that from everybody.”

“And he was well assisted by such men as your self,” I said, rather impertinently, I fear.

“Perhaps, perhaps so,” he said quickly, his face flushing. “I promised him secrecy and I’ve kept my promise, for I owe my present comfortable circumstances solely to his generosity.”

“A millionaire can do anything, of course. His money secures him his friends.”

“Friends, yes,” replied the old man, gravely; “but not happiness. Poor Burton Blair was one of the unhappiest of men, that I am quite certain of.”

He spoke the truth, I knew. The millionaire had himself many times declared to me in confidence that he had been far happier in his days of penury and careless adventure beyond the seas, than as possessor of that great West End mansion, and the first estate in Herefordshire.

“Look here,” exclaimed Hales, suddenly, glancing keenly from Reggie to myself, “I give you warning,” and he dropped his voice to almost a whisper. “You say that Dick Dawson has returned—beware of him. He means mischief, you may bet your hat on that! Be very careful of his girl, too, she knows more than you think.”

“We have a faint suspicion that Blair did not die a natural death,” I remarked.

“You have?” he exclaimed, starting. “What causes you to anticipate that?”

“The circumstances were so remarkable,” I replied, and continuing, I explained the tragic affair just as I have written it here.

“You don’t suspect Dicky Dawson, I suppose?” the old fellow asked anxiously.

“Why? Had he any motive for getting rid of our friend?”

“Ah! I don’t know. Dicky is a very funny customer. He always held Blair beneath his thumb. They were a truly remarkable pair; the one blossoming forth into a millionaire, and the other living strictly in secret somewhere abroad—in Italy, I think.”

“Dawson must have had some very strong motive for remaining so quiet,” I observed.

“Because he was compelled,” answered Hales, with a mysterious shake of the head. “There were reasons why he shouldn’t show his face. Myself, I wonder why he has dared to do so now.”

“What!” I cried eagerly, “is he wanted by the police or something?”

“Well,” answered the old man, after some hesitation, “I don’t think he’d welcome a visit from any of those inquisitive gentlemen from Scotland Yard. Only remember I make no charges, none at all. If, however, he attempts any sharp practice, you may just casually mention that Harry Hales is still alive, and is thinking of coming up to London to pay him a morning call. Just watch what effect those words will have upon him,” and the old man chuckled to himself, adding, “Ah! Mr Dicky-bird Dawson, you’ve got to reckon with me yet, I fancy.”

“Then you’ll assist us?” I cried in eagerness. “You can save Mabel Blair if you will?”

“I’ll do all I can,” was Hales’ outspoken reply, “for I recognise that there’s some very ingenious conspiracy afoot somewhere.” Then, after a long pause, during which he had re-filled his long clay, and his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon mine, the old man added, “You told me a little while ago that Blair had left you his secret, but you didn’t explain to me the exact terms of his will. Was anything said about it?”

“In the clause which bequeaths it to me is a strange rhyme which runs—

”‘King Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens. He’d one short of seven—and nine or ten scenes!’

“and he also urged me to preserve the secret from every man as he had done. But,” I added bitterly, “the secret being in cipher I cannot obtain knowledge of it.”

“And have you no key?” smiled the hard-faced old seafarer in the thick reefer.

“None—unless,” and at that moment a strange thought flashed for the first time upon me, “unless the key is actually concealed within that rhyme!” I repeated the couplet aloud. Yes, all the cards of that piquet pack were mentioned in it—king, eight, knave, queen, seven, nine, ten!

My heart leapt within me. Could it be possible that by arranging the cards in the following order the record could be read?

If so, then Burton Blair’s strange secret was mine at last!

I mentioned my sudden and startling theory, when the tall old fellow’s grey face broadened into a triumphant grin and he said—

“Arrange the cards and try it.”

Chapter Twenty.

The Reading of the Record.

The envelope containing the thirty-two cards reposed in my pocket, together with the linen-mounted photograph, therefore, clearing the square old oak table, I opened them out eagerly, while Reggie and the old man watched me breathlessly.

“The first mentioned in the rhyme is king,” I said. “Let us have all four kings together.”

Having arranged them, I placed the four eights, the four knaves, the queens, aces, sevens, nines and tens, in the order given by the doggerel.

Reggie was quicker than I was in reading down the first column and declared it to be a hopeless jumble entirely unintelligible. I read for myself, and, deeply disappointed, was compelled to admit that the key was not, after all, to be found there.

Yet I recollected what my friend in Leicester had explained, how the record would be found in the first letter on each card being read consecutively from one to another through the whole pack, and tried over and over again to arrange them in intelligible order, but without any success. The cipher was just as tantalising and bewildering as it had ever been.

Whole nights I had spent with Reggie, trying in vain to make something of it, but failing always, unable to make out one single word.

I transcribed the letters backwards, but the result upon my piece of paper was the same.

“No,” remarked old Hales, “you haven’t got hold of it yet. I’m sure, however, you are near it. That rhyme gives the key—you mark me.”

“I honestly believe it does if we could only discover the proper arrangement,” I declared in breathless excitement.

“That’s just it,” remarked Reggie, in dismay. “That’s just where the ingenuity of the cipher lies. It’s so very simple, and yet so extraordinarily complicated that the possible combinations run into millions. Think of it!”

“But we have the rhyme which distinctly shows their arrangement:—

”‘King Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queen, He’d one short of seven and nine or ten—’

“That’s plain enough, and we ought, of course, to have seen it from the first,” I said.

“Well, try the king of one suit, the eight of another, the knave of another—and so on,” Hales suggested, bending with keen interest over the faces of the pigmy cards.

Without loss of time I took his advice, and carefully relaid the cards in the manner he suggested. But again the result was an unintelligible array of letters, puzzling, baffling and disappointing.

I recollected what my expert friend had told me, and my heart sank.

“Don’t you really know now the means by which the problem can be solved?” I asked of old Mr Hales, being seized with suspicion that he was well aware of it.

“I’m sure I can’t tell you,” was his quick response. “To me, however, it seems certain that the rhyme in some way forms the key. Try another assortment.”

“Which? What other can I try?” I asked blankly, but he only shook his head.

Reggie, with paper and pencil, was trying to make the letters intelligible by the means I had several times tried—namely, by substituting A for B, C for D, and so on. Then he tried two letters added, three letters added, and more still, in order to discover some key, but, like myself, he was utterly foiled.

Meanwhile, the old man who seemed to be fingering the cards with increased interest was, I saw, trying to rearrange them himself by placing his finger upon one and then another, and then a third, as though he knew the proper arrangement, and was reading the record to himself.

Was it possible that he actually held the key to what we had displayed, and was learning Burton Blair’s secret while we remained in ignorance of it!

Of a sudden, the wiry old seafarer straightened his back, and, looking at me, exclaimed, with a triumphant smile—

“Now, look here, Mr Greenwood, there are four suites, aren’t there? Try them in alphabetical order—that would be clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. First take all the clubs and arrange them king, eight, knave, queen, ace, seven, nine, ten, then the diamonds, and afterwards the other two suites. Then see what you make of it.”

Assisted by Reggie, I proceeded to again resort the cards into suites, and to arrange them according to the rhyme in four columns of eight each upon the table, the suites as he suggested, in alphabetical order.

“At last!” shouted Reggie, almost beside himself with joy. “At last! Why, we’ve got it, old chap! Look! Read the first letter on each card straight down, one after the other? What do you make it spell?”

All three of us were breathless—old Hales apparently the most excited of all—or perhaps, he had been misleading us and pretending ignorance.

I had, as yet, only placed the first suite, the clubs, but they read as follows:—

King. B O N T D R N N C R O A U I T Eight. E I T Y G O J T A E N N W N H Knave. T N H J E N T Y N D J O I D E Queen. W T E S J T H F D T O L L T C Ace. E W J I W H E O E H N D L H R Seven. E H L X H E F U F E E E F E O Nine. N E E P E F I R E R W O I O S Ten. T R F A R I F J N E I N N L S

“Why!” I cried, staring at the first intelligible word I had discovered. “The first column commences ‘Between.’”

“Yes, and I see other words in the other columns!” cried Reggie, excitedly snatching some of the cards from me in his excitement, and assisting me to rearrange the other suites.

Those moments were among the most breathless and exciting of my life. The great secret which had brought Burton Blair all his fabulous wealth was about to be revealed to us.

It might render me a millionaire as it had already done its dead possessor!

At last the cards being all arranged in their proper order, the eight diamonds, eight hearts and eight spades beneath the eight clubs, I took a pencil and wrote down the first letter on each card.

“Yes!” I cried, almost beside myself with excitement, “the arrangement is perfect. Blair’s secret is revealed!”

“Why, it’s some kind of record!” exclaimed Reggie. “And it begins with the words ‘Between the Ponte del Diavolo!’ That’s Italian for the Devil’s Bridge, I suppose!”

“The Ponte del Diavolo is an old mediaeval bridge near Lucca,” I explained quickly, and then I recollected the grave-faced Capuchin, who lived in that silent monastery close by. But at that moment all my attention was given to the transcript of the cipher, and I had no time for reflection. The letter “J” was inserted sometimes in place of a space, apparently in order to throw the lettering out, and so conceal it from any chance solution.

At length, after nearly a quarter of an hour, for certain of the faded letters on the cards were almost obliterated, I discovered that the decipher I had scribbled was a strange record as follows:—“Between the Ponte del Diavolo and the point where the Serchio joins the Lima on the left bank, four hundred and fifty-six paces from the foot of the bridge, where the sun shines only one hour on the fifth of April and two hours on the fifth of May, at noon, descend twenty-four foot-holes behind where a man can defend himself against four hundred. There two big rocks one on each side. On one will be found cut the figure of an old ‘E.’ On the right hand go down and you will find what you seek. But first find the old man who lives at the crossways.”

“I wonder what it all means!” remarked Reggie, who, turning to old Mr Hales, added, “The latter indicates you,” whereat the old fellow laughed knowingly, and we saw that he knew more of Blair’s affairs than he would admit.

“It means,” I said, “that some secret is concealed in that narrow, romantic valley of the Serchio, and these are the directions for its discovery. I know the winding river where through ages the water has cut deeply down into a rocky bed full of giant boulders and wild leaping torrents and deep pools. Of the pointed Ponte del Diavolo are told many quaint stories of the devil building the bridge and taking for his own the first living thing to pass over it, which proved to be a dog. Indeed,” I added, “the spot is one of the wildest and most romantic in all rural Tuscany. Strange, too, the Fra Antonio should live in the monastery only three miles from the spot indicated.”

“Who is Fra Antonio?” asked Hales, still gazing upon the cards thoughtfully.

I explained, whereupon the old fellow smiled, and I felt certain that he recognised in the monk’s description one of Blair’s friends of days bygone.

“Who actually wrote this record?” I inquired of him. “It was not Blair, that’s plain.”

“No,” was his reply. “Now that it has been legally left to you by our friend, and that you have succeeded in deciphering it, I may as well tell you something more concerning it.”

“Yes, do,” we both cried eagerly with one breath.

“Well, it happened in this way,” explained the thin old fellow, pressing down the tobacco hard into his long clay. “Some years ago I was serving as first mate on the barque Annie Curtis of Liverpool, engaged in the Mediterranean fruit trade and running regularly between Naples, Smyrna, Barcelona, Algiers and Liverpool. Our crew was a mixed one of English, Spaniards and Italians, and among the latter was an old fellow named Bruno. He was a mysterious individual from Calabria, and among the crew it was whispered that he had once been the head of a noted band of brigands who had terrorised that most southern portion of Italy, and who had only recently been exterminated by the Carabineers. The other Italians nicknamed him Baffitone, which in their language is, I believe, Big Moustache. He was a hard worker, drank next to nothing, and was apparently rather well educated, for he spoke and wrote English quite well, and further he was always worrying everybody to devise ciphers, the solution of which he would set himself in his leisure to puzzle out. One day, on a religious feast, made excuse by the Italians for a holiday, I found him in the forecastle writing something on a small pack of cards. He tried to conceal what he was doing, but, my curiosity aroused, I detected at once how he had arranged them, and the very fact told me what a remarkably ingenious cipher he had discovered.”

The old man paused for a moment, as though he hesitated to tell us the whole truth. Presently when he had lit his pipe with a spill, he resumed, saying—

“I left the sea, came back to my wife here, and for fully six years saw nothing of the Italian until one day, looking well and prosperous in a suit of brand new clothes and a new hard hat, he called upon me. He was still on the Annie Curtis, but she was in dry dock, and therefore he was, he said, having a bit of a spree ashore. He remained here with me for two days, and with his little camera, evidently a fresh acquisition he snapshotted every conceivable object, including this house. Before he went away he took me into his confidence and told me that what had been suspected of him on board the Annie Curtis was true, that he was none other than the notorious Poldo Pensi, the brigand whose daring and ferocity had long been chronicled in Italian song and story. He had, however, since the breaking up of his band, become a reformed character, and rather than profit by certain knowledge that he had obtained while an outlaw, he worked for his living on board an English ship. The knowledge, he said, was obtained from a certain Cardinal Sannini of the Vatican whom he had held to ransom, and was of such a character that he might become a rich man any day he wished, but having regard to the fact that the Government had offered a large reward for his capture either dead or alive, he deemed it best to conceal his identity and sail the seas. But he told me, here in this room, as we sat smoking together the night before he departed, that the secret was on record, but in such a manner that any one discovering it would not be able to read it without possessing the key to the cipher.”

“Then he left it on these cards!” I cried, interrupting.

“Exactly. The secret of Cardinal Sannini, obtained by the notorious outlaw Poldo Pensi, whose terrible band ravaged half Italy twenty-five years ago, and who compelled Pope Pius IX himself to pay tribute to them, is written here—just as you have deciphered it.”

“Is this man Pensi dead?” I inquired.

“Oh yes, he died and was buried at sea, somewhere off Lisbon, before Burton Blair came into possession of the cards. The secret, I ascertained, was wrung from Cardinal Sannini, who, while on his way across the wild, inhospitable country between Reggio and Gerace was seized by Pensi and his gang, taken up to their stronghold—a small mountain village about three miles from Nicastro—and there held prisoner, a large ransom being about to be demanded of the Holy See. For certain reasons, it seemed, the wily old Cardinal in question did not desire that the Vatican should be made aware of his capture, therefore he made it a condition of his release that he should reveal a certain very remarkable secret—the secret written upon the cards—which he did, and in exchange for which Pensi released him.”

“But Sannini was one of the highest placed Cardinals in Rome,” I exclaimed. “Why, at the death of Pio Nono, he was believed to be designed as his successor to the Pontificate.”

“True,” remarked the old man, who seemed well versed in all the recent history of St. Peter’s at Rome. “The secret divulged by the Cardinal is undoubtedly one of very great value, and he did so in order to save his own reputation, I believe, for from what the outlaw told me, they had discovered that he was in the extreme south in direct opposition to the Pope’s orders, and in order to stir up some religious ill-feeling against Pio Nono. Hence Sannini, so trusted by His Holiness, was compelled at all hazards to keep the facts of his capture an absolute secret. Pensi related how, before releasing the Cardinal, he went himself in secret to a certain spot in Tuscany, and ascertained that what the great ecclesiastic had divulged was absolutely the truth. He was then released, and given safe escort back to Cosenza, whence he took train back to Rome.”

“But how came Burton Blair possessed of the secret?” I inquired eagerly.

“Ah!” remarked the old fellow, showing the palms of his hard brown hands, “that’s the question. I know that upon these very cards, Poldo Pensi, the ex-brigand of Calabria, inscribed the Cardinal’s directions in English. Indeed you will note that the wording betrays a foreigner. Those faded capital letters were traced by him on board the Annie Curtis, and he certainly held the secret safely until his death. What he told me I never divulged until—well, until I was compelled to by Burton Blair on that night when he recognised this house from Poldo’s photograph, and re-discovered me.”

“Compelled you!” Reggie exclaimed. “How?”

Chapter Twenty One.

“Worse than Death.”

The tall old fellow looked at me with his grey eyes and shook his head.

“Burton Blair knew rather too much,” he answered evasively. “He had, it seemed, been raised to chief mate of the Annie Curtis, when I left her, and Poldo, the man who had held dukes and cardinals and other great men to ransom, worked patiently under him. Then after a bad go of fever Poldo died, and strangely enough gave—so Blair declared—the pack of cards with the secret into his hands. Dicky Dawson, however, who was also on board as bo’sun, and who had lived half his life on Italian brigs in the Adriatic, declares that this story is untrue, and that Blair stole the little bag containing the cards from beneath Poldo’s pillow half an hour before he died. That, however, may be the truth, or a lie, yet the facts remain, that Poldo must have let out some portion of his secret in the delirium of the fever and that the little cards passed into Blair’s possession. Three weeks after the Italian’s death, Blair, on landing at Liverpool, carrying with him the cards and the snap-shot photograph, set out on that very long and fatiguing journey up and down all the roads in England, in order to find me, and learn from me the key to the secret of the outlaws which I held.”

“And when at last he found you, what then?”

“He alleged solemnly that Bruno had given it to him as a dying gift, and that his reason for seeking me was because the old outlaw had, before he died, requested to see the photograph from his sea-chest, and looking upon it for a long time, had said to himself reflectively in Italian, ‘There lives in that house the only man who knows my secret.’ For that reason Blair evidently secured the picture after the Italian’s death. On arrival here he showed me the cards, and promised me a thousand pounds if I would reveal the Italian’s confidences. As the man was dead, I saw no reason to withhold them, and in exchange for a promise to pay the amount I told him what he wanted to know, and among other matters explained the rearrangement of the cards, so that he could decipher them. The key to the cipher I had learnt on that festival when I had discovered Poldo writing upon a pack of cards a message, evidently intended for the Cardinal himself at Rome, for I have since established the fact that the outlaw and the ecclesiastic were in frequent but secret communication prior to the latter’s death.”

“But this man Dawson must have profited enormously by the revelation made by Blair,” I remarked. “They seem to have been most intimate friends.”

“Of course he profited,” Hales replied. “Blair, possessing this remarkable secret, went in deadly fear of Dicky, the bo’sun, who might declare, as he had already done, that he had stolen it from the dying man. He was well aware that Dawson was an unscrupulous sailor of the very worst type, therefore he considered it a very judicious course, I suppose, to go into partnership with him and assist in the exploration of the secret. But poor Blair must have been in the fellow’s hands all through although it is plain that the gains Blair made were enormous, while those of Dicky have been equal, although it seems probable that the latter has lived in absolute obscurity.”

“Dawson feared to come to England,” Reggie remarked.

“Yes,” answered the old man. “There was a rather ugly incident in Liverpool a few years ago—that’s the reason.”

“There is no negative evidence regarding the actual gift of the pack of cards to Blair by this reformed outlaw, is there!” I inquired.

“None whatever. For my own part I believe that Poldo gave them to Blair together with instruction to return ashore and find me, because he had showed him many little kindnesses during repeated illnesses. Poldo, on giving up his evil ways, had become religious and used to attend sailors’ Bethels and missions when ashore, while Blair was, as you know, a very God-fearing man for a sailor. When I recollect all the circumstances, I believe it was only natural that Poldo should give the dead Cardinal’s secret into the hands of his best friend.”

“The spot indicated is near Lucca in Tuscany,” I remarked. “You say that this outlaw, Poldo Pensi, had been there and made an investigation. What did he find?”

“He found what the Cardinal had told him he would find. But he never explained to me its nature. All he would tell was that the secret would render its possessor a very wealthy man—which it certainly did in Blair’s case.”

“The connexion of the Church between the late Cardinal Sannini and Fra Antonio, the Monk of Lucca, is strange,” I observed. “Is the monk, I wonder, in possession of the secret? He certainly had some connexion with the affair, as shown by his constant consultations with the man Dawson.”

“No doubt,” remarked Reggie, turning over the little cards idly. “We’ve now got to discover the exact position of both men, and at the same time prevent this fellow Dawson from obtaining too firm a hold on Mabel Blair’s fortune.”

“Leave that to me,” I said confidently. “For the present our line of action is quite clear. We must investigate the spot on the bank of the Serchio and discover what is hidden there.” Then turning to Hales, I added, “In the record it is, I notice, distinctly directed ‘First find the old man who lives at the house by the crossways.’ What does that mean? Why is that direction given?”

“Because I suppose that when the record was written upon these cards I was the only other person having any knowledge of the Cardinal’s secret—the only person, too, possessing the key to the cipher.”

“But you affected ignorance of all this at first,” I said, still viewing the old fellow with some suspicion.

“Because I was not certain of your bona-fides,” he laughed quite frankly. “You took me by surprise, and I was not inclined to show my hand prematurely.”

“Then you have really told us all you know?” Reggie said.

“Yes, I know no more,” he replied. “As to what is contained at the spot indicated in the record, I am quite ignorant. Remember that Blair has paid me justly, even more than he stipulated, but as you are well aware he was a most reserved man concerning his own affairs, and left me in entire ignorance.”

“You can give us no further information regarding this one-eyed man who seems to have been Blair’s partner in the extraordinary enterprise?”

“None, except that he’s a very undesirable acquaintance. It was Poldo who nicknamed him ‘The Ceco.’”

“And the monk who calls himself Fra Antonio?”

“I know nothing of him—never heard of any such person.”

It was upon the tip of my tongue to inquire whether the old man had a son, and if that son’s name was Herbert, recollecting, as I did, that tragic midnight scene in Mayvill Park. Yet, fortunately perhaps, I was prompted to remain silent, preferring to conceal my knowledge and to await developments of the extraordinary situation.

Still a fierce, mad jealousy was gnawing at my heart. Mabel, the calm, sweet girl I loved so well, and whose future had been entrusted to me, had, like so many other girls, committed the grievous error of falling in love with a common man, rough, uncouth, and far beneath her station. Love in a cottage—about which we hear so much—is all very well in theory, just as is the empty-pocket-light-heart fallacy, but in these modern days the woman habituated to luxury can never be happy in the four-roomed house any more than the man who gallantly marries for love and foregoes his inheritance.

No. Each time I recollected that young ruffian’s sneers and threats, his arrogance and his final outburst of murderous passion, which had been so near producing a fatal termination to my well-beloved, my blood boiled. My anger was aflame. The fellow had escaped, but within myself I determined that he should not go scot-free.

And yet, when I recollected, it seemed as though Mabel were utterly and irresistibly in that man’s power, even though she had attempted defiance.

We remained with Hales and his wife for another hour learning few additional facts except from a word that the old lady let drop. I ascertained that they actually had a son whose name was Herbert, but whose character was none too good.

“He was in the stables at Belvoir,” his mother explained when I made inquiry of him. “But he left nearly two years ago, and we haven’t seen him since. He writes sometimes from various places and appears to be prospering.”

The fellow was, therefore, as I had surmised from his appearance, a horsekeeper, a groom, or something of that kind.

It was already half-past seven when we arrived back at King’s Cross, and after a hasty chop at a small Italian restaurant opposite the station, we both drove to Grosvenor Square, in order to explain to Mabel our success in the solution of the cipher.

Carter, who admitted us, knew us so well that he conducted us straight upstairs to the great drawing-room, so artistically lit with its shaded electric lights placed cunningly in all sorts of out-of-the-way corners. Upon the table was a great old punch-bowl, full of splendid Gloire de Dijon roses, which the head gardener sent with the fruit from the house at Mayvill daily. Their arrangement was, I knew, by the hand of the woman whom for years I had secretly admired and loved. Upon a side table was a fine panel photograph of poor Burton Blair in a heavy silver frame, and upon the corner his daughter had placed a tiny bow of crape to honour the dead man’s memory. The great house was full of those womanly touches that betrayed the sweet sympathy of her character and the calm tranquillity of her life.

Presently the door opened, and we both rose to our feet, but instead of the bright, sunny-hearted girl with the musical voice and merry, open face, there entered the middle-aged bearded man in gold-rimmed glasses, who was once the bo’sun of the barque Annie Curtis of Liverpool, and afterwards had been the secret partner of Burton Blair.

“Good-evening, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, bowing with that forced veneer of polish he sometimes assumed. “I am very pleased to welcome you here in my late friend’s house. I have, as you will perceive, taken up my quarters here in accordance with the terms of poor Blair’s will, and I am pleased to have this opportunity of again meeting you.”

The fellow’s cool impudence took us both entirely aback. He seemed so entirely confident that his position was unassailable.

“We called to see Miss Blair,” I explained. “We were not aware that you were about to take up your residence here quite so quickly.”

“Oh, it is best,” he assured us. “There are a great many matters in connexion with Blair’s wide interests that require immediate attention,” and as he was speaking, the door again opened and there entered a dark-haired woman of about twenty-six, of medium height, rather showily dressed in a black, low-cut gown, but whose countenance was of a rather common type, yet, nevertheless, somewhat prepossessing.

“My daughter, Dolly,” explained the one-eyed man. “Allow me to introduce you,” and we both gave her rather a cold bow, for it seemed that they had both made their abode there, and taken over the management of the house in their own hands.

“I suppose Mrs Percival still remains?” I inquired after a few moments, on recovering from the shock at finding the adventurer and his daughter were actually in possession of that splendid mansion which half London admired and the other half envied—the place of which numerous photographs and descriptions had appeared in the magazines and ladies’ journals.

“Yes, Mrs Percival is still in her own sitting-room. I left her there five minutes ago. Mabel, it seems, went out at eleven o’clock this morning and has not returned.”

“Not returned,” I exclaimed in quick surprise. “Why not?”

“Mrs Percival seems to be very upset. Fears something has happened to her, I think.”

Without another word I ran down the broad staircase with its crystal balustrade and, tapping at the door of the room, set apart for Mrs Percival, and announcing my identity, was at once allowed admittance.

The instant the prim elderly widow saw me she sprang to her feet in terrible distress, crying—

“Oh, Mr Greenwood, Mr Greenwood! What can we do? How can we treat these terrible people? Poor Mabel left this morning and drove in the brougham to Euston Station. There she gave Peters this letter, addressed to you, and then dismissed the carriage. What can it possibly mean?”

I took the note she handed me and tremblingly tore it open, to find a few hurriedly scribbled lines in pencil upon a sheet of notepaper, as follows:—

“Dear Mr Greenwood,—You will no doubt be greatly surprised to learn that I have left home for ever. I am well aware that you entertain for me as high a regard and esteem as I do for you, but as my secret must come out, I cannot remain to face you of all men. These people will hound me to death, therefore I prefer to live in secret beyond the reach of their taunts and their vengeance than to remain and have the finger of scorn pointed at me. My father’s secret can never become yours, because his enemies are far too wily and ingenious. Every precaution has been taken to secure it against all your endeavours. Therefore, as your friend I tell you it is no use grinding the wind. All is hopeless! Exposure means to me a fate worse than death! Believe me that only desperation has driven me to this step because my poor father’s cowardly enemies and mine have triumphed. Yet at the same time I ask you to forget entirely that any one ever existed of the name of the ill-fated, unhappy and heart-broken Mabel Blair.”

I stood with the open, tear-stained letter in my hand absolutely speechless.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Mystery of a Night’s Adventure.

“Exposure means to me a fate worse than death,” she wrote. What could it mean?

Mrs Percival divined by my face the gravity of the communication, and, rising quickly to her feet, she placed her hand tenderly upon my shoulder, asking—

“What is it, Mr Greenwood? May I not know?”

For answer I handed her the note. She read it through quickly, then gave vent to a loud cry of dismay, realising that Burton Blair’s daughter had actually fled. That she held the man Dawson in fear was plain. She dreaded that her own secret, whatever it was, must now be exposed, and had, it seemed, fled rather than again face me. But why? What could her secret possibly be that she was so ashamed that she was bent upon hiding herself?

Mrs Percival summoned the coachman, Crump, who had driven his young mistress to Euston, and questioned him.

“Miss Mabel ordered the coupé just before eleven, ma’am,” the man said, saluting. “She took her crocodile dressing-bag with her, but last night she sent away a big trunk by Carter Patterson—full of old clothing, so she told her maid. I drove her to Euston Station where she alighted and went into the booking-hall. She kept me waiting about five minutes, when she brought a porter who took her bag, and she then gave me the letter addressed to Mr Greenwood to give to you. I drove home then, ma’am.”

“She went to the North, evidently,” I remarked when Crump had left and the door had closed behind him. “It looks as though her flight was premeditated. She sent away her things last night.”

I was thinking of that arrogant young stable worker, Hales, and wondering if his renewed threats had really caused her to keep another tryst with him. If so, it was exceedingly dangerous.

“We must find her,” said Mrs Percival, resolutely. “Ah!” she sighed, “I really don’t know what will happen, for the house is now in possession of this odious man Dawson and his daughter, and the man is a most uncouth, ill-bred fellow. He addresses the servants with an easy familiarity, just as though they were his equals; and just now, he actually complimented one of the housemaids upon her good looks! Terrible, Mr Greenwood, terrible,” exclaimed the widow, greatly shocked. “Most disgraceful show of ill-breeding! I certainly cannot remain here now Mabel has thought fit to leave, without even consulting me. Lady Rainham called this afternoon, but of course I had to be not at home. What can I tell people in these distressing circumstances?”

I saw how scandalised was the estimable old chaperone, for she was nothing if not a straightforward widow, whose very life depended upon rigorous etiquette and the traditions of her honourable family. Cordial and affable to her equals, yet she was most frigid and unbending to all inferiors, cultivating a habit of staring at them through her square eyeglass rimmed with gold, and surveying them as though they were surprising creatures of a different flesh and blood. It was this latter idiosyncrasy which always annoyed Mabel, who held the very womanly creed that one should be kind and pleasant to inferiors and cold only to enemies. Nevertheless, under Mrs Percival’s protective wing and active tuition, Mabel herself had gone into the best circle of society whose doors are ever open to the daughter of the millionaire, and had established a reputation as one of the most charming débutantes of her season.

How society has altered in these past ten years! Nowadays, the golden key is the open sesame of the doors of the bluest blood in England.

The old exclusive circles are no longer, or if there are any, they are obscure and dowdy. Ladies go to music halls and glorified night-clubs. What used to be regarded as the drawback from the dinner at a restaurant is now a principal attraction. A gentlewoman a generation ago reasonably objected that she did not know whom she might sit next. Now, as was the case at the theatre in the pre-Garrick days, the loose character of a portion of the visitors constitutes in itself a lure. The more flagrant the scandal concerning some bedizened “impropriety” the greater the inducement to dine in her company, and, if possible, in her vicinity. Of such is the tone and trend of London society to-day!

For a quarter of an hour, while Reggie was engaged with Dawson père et fille, I took counsel with the widow, endeavouring to form some idea of where Mabel had concealed herself. Mrs Percival’s idea was that she would reveal her whereabouts ere long, but, knowing her firmness of character as well as I did, I held a different opinion. Her letter was one of a woman who had made a resolve and meant at all hazards to keep it. She feared to meet me, and for that reason would, no doubt, conceal her identity. She had a separate account at Coutts’ in her own name, therefore she would not be compelled to reveal her whereabouts through want of funds.

Ford, the dead man’s secretary, a tall, clean-shaven, athletic man of thirty, put his head into the room, but, finding us talking, at once withdrew. Mrs Percival had already questioned him, she said, but he was entirely unaware of Mabel’s destination.

The man Dawson had now usurped Ford’s position in the household, and the latter, full of resentment, was on the constant watch and as full of suspicion as we all were.

Reggie rejoined me presently, saying, “That fellow is absolutely a bounder of the very first water. Actually invited me to have a whisky-and-soda—in Blair’s house, too! He’s treating Mabel’s flight as a huge joke, saying that she’ll be back quickly enough, and adding that she can’t afford to be away long, and that he’ll bring her back the very instant he desires her presence here. In fact, the fellow talks just as though she were as wax in his hands, and as if he can do anything he pleases with her.”