CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was a couple of days before Lydon found an opportunity of breaking to Jasper Stormont the painful news about his brother. In the meantime he had received from Grewgus an account of the interview at the _Cecil_, and the dispatch of the telegram to Effington.

On his return to Brighton in the late afternoon, he was fortunate enough to find his future father-in-law sitting alone in the lounge; Gloria and her mother were out shopping.

There was a somewhat worried expression on the banker’s face. “Had a letter from Howard by the last post in,” he explained. “It looks to me as if he were within measurable distance of the end we have foreseen and predicted. He writes that the big _coup_ on which he was engaged has unexpectedly fallen through, and this places him in a most awkward predicament for the immediate future. He has made up his mind that he must give up Effington, reluctant as he is to part from a place to which he has become so attached. He adds, what I suppose we both suspected, that it is heavily mortgaged, and that when a sale is effected, there will be very little left for him. He has already apprised my sister of the alteration in his fortunes, and begs me to break it gently to Gloria. Somewhat to my surprise, he has made no request for money. I suppose he finds the future so dark, that any little help I could give him would be useless, and that he must make a drastic change in his mode of life. I must own candidly, my sympathy would be keener if his own insensate folly were not the cause of the disaster.”

Here was a splendid opportunity, thought Lydon. The big _coup_ on which Stormont was engaged, which was to repair his tottering fortunes, had failed to come off. It was easy to guess what the _coup_ was--the extraction of that immense sum of money from young Wraysbury. The abandonment of the prospect which had been nipped in the bud by the visit of Grewgus to the _Hotel Cecil_ had brought him to the ground.

“There is something I have to say to you about your brother, Mr. Stormont, something which I am sure will give you the greatest pain, but which it is right you should hear. But this is too public a place, and the ladies may return at any minute. Do you mind coming up to my room?”

Wondering and uneasy, the banker went with him upstairs. When they were seated, the young man told him all the details with which the reader is acquainted. Jasper Stormont listened with a set and rigid face, as Lydon explained to him how his suspicions had first taken definite shape on the arrival on the scene of Zillah Mayhew, whom he had at once associated, from the two facts of the scar and the sapphire pendant, with Elise Makris; of his engagement of Grewgus to follow up the clues and the various discoveries of that zealous detective, down to the latest episode in connection with Wraysbury, and the despatch of the wire from Edwards to Howard Stormont, which clearly involved the owner of Effington Hall in the dastardly plot.

“If I have not explained it as lucidly as I might have done,” were the concluding words of the long recital, “I can take you to Grewgus, if you wish it, and he will, I am sure, give you a much more coherent account than I have been able to do.”

Jasper Stormont lifted his haggard face: “There is no necessity, Leonard. You would not say these things if they were not true, and I can quite understand how, even before the advent of this woman, Howard’s unnatural reticence about his business affairs had created in you a feeling of uneasiness. I had that same feeling myself.”

Lydon drew a deep breath: “Ah, the same thing struck you, then?”

“Yes, I was suspicious, but very far from guessing the ghastly truth. I came to the conclusion that my brother had spoken truly when he said he was a financier, but he was not engaged in the highest walks of his profession. I guessed he was concerned with enterprises which men of strict integrity would describe as shady, but that in pursuing them he kept well within the compass of the law. That he bore to a financier of high repute much the same sort of relation that a blood-sucking moneylender bears to a reputable banker.”

There was a long pause before Jasper Stormont spoke again. “And now I must tell you something that would never have passed my lips but for what you have told me, and which proves that moral turpitude was engrained in the man from his early years. You know that he went to Australia? Do you know why he went?”

Yes, Lydon did. He had refrained from telling Jasper a certain portion of the revelations made by the Colonial, Tom Newcombe, from a feeling of delicacy. His reply was that he knew he had got into some trouble about money, but was not aware of the precise nature of it.

“Well, I will tell you. My father, who, although poorly blessed with the world’s goods, was a man of the strictest rectitude, and highly respected by all who knew him, procured him a post in a most respectable firm where, unfortunately, he had the handling of money. You can guess the sequel. To gratify his always extravagant tastes, of which Effington Hall is an illustration, he diverted several sums to his own use, displaying in their appropriation a remarkable ingenuity and cunning. When his defalcations came to light, the firm sent for my father. But for the respect in which they held him they would have prosecuted his son. My father and I between us--I had not very much money then--paid back the sum abstracted. We saved him from prosecution, on the condition that he should go out to Australia.”

“Did Mrs. Barnard know of this?” asked Lydon. He had never yet been able to make up his mind whether this self-contained, rather silent woman knew anything of her brother’s actual pursuits. Jasper Stormont’s next words solved the problem.

“Not a word. She had been recently married, and lived with her husband at a considerable distance. It was easy to keep the affair from her. I may say, in passing, that she is as honest as Howard is the reverse.

“He went to Australia, keeping up a fairly regular correspondence with his father, in which he made out that he had seen the wickedness of his ways, and was in honest employment. Of course, at that distance, we had no means of testing his assertions. He and I had never been particularly good friends, and his proved dishonesty had snapped the frail bond between us. We never wrote to each other for years.

“And then one day the long silence was broken. I married and went out to China, where I had secured a good post. Our parents had died before he returned to England. The little money my father had accumulated out of a continuous struggle with fortune was left to my sister, as being most in need of it. One day I received a long letter from Howard in which he told me that, having made a little money in Australia, he had determined to come back to the old country, and see what he could do with the small capital he had saved. He had gone in for finance, of course in a very modest way, and he had no reason to complain of his success.

“It is perhaps not greatly to my credit when I tell you that I am very hard against evil-doers, offenders against the moral law. I had not forgiven that early transgression, and I would have preferred not to renew relations with my brother. But I reflected that such sentiments were unchristian, and if the man was now walking in the straight path, it was not for me to withhold the hand of fellowship. I answered the letter, and from that day we corresponded more or less regularly.

“As that correspondence proceeded, it was apparent that he was prospering greatly. I was not surprised at that, for he had plenty of brains, and if he chose to employ them in a right direction, I saw no reason why he should not succeed. Mrs. Barnard’s husband had died, leaving her a small annuity which, joined to what my father had bequeathed her, formed a modest competence. Howard had pressed her to make her home with him, as he was a bachelor. He would not accept a penny from her towards the housekeeping; her own small income she was to look upon as pin-money.”

At this point in the history of his renewed relations with his brother, Jasper Stormont confessed that Howard’s generous treatment of his sister had strongly impressed him in his favour. It was more than probable that that early lesson had sunk into his soul, and he had really undergone a process of complete moral regeneration.

And then had come the request to adopt Gloria, and make her welfare one of the principal objects of his life. That further established him in the good graces of a brother who was disposed to be critical. Criminal as he had been, there were some good instincts in him, and these he had displayed to the full in the case of these two members of his family.

“It will be a terrible shock to Gloria when she is told, as told she must be,” said the banker. “She is a shrewd girl and you can see she has a sort of pitying contempt for some of his weaknesses, his extravagance, his vulgar love of ostentation. But she realizes he has shown unexampled kindness to her; if she could be spoiled, he has done his best to spoil her. I wish I could spare her sensitive nature the shock, but that cannot be. She must never go back to that man’s roof. So far as my influence goes, she must hold no further communication with him. The money he has spent on her during these several years I shall refund to him. As I doubt if he will be in a position to dictate terms, I may make it a condition that he shall cut away from his evil associates. Heaven knows if he would keep such a promise. I fear the spirit of evil is too strong in his crooked nature.”

For some little time the banker sat in agitated meditation. Then he suddenly roused himself from his painful thoughts and spoke again. “I feel as if my own small world had tumbled about my ears, Leonard; you will understand that. There is one thing we have got to face first and foremost as a consequence of this hideous discovery. Gloria cannot become your wife.”

The young man looked at him in astonishment. “But, my dear Mr. Stormont, in the name of justice, why? Do you think me such a cur as to visit the crimes of her relative upon a pure and innocent girl? Gloria has promised herself to me. Depend upon it I shall exact that promise.”

But Jasper Stormont could be a very obstinate man when he chose, and he held very rigid views of what was right and what was wrong. “No child of mine shall carry her tainted name into an honourable family,” he said firmly. “And you cannot get away from it that he has communicated a taint to the whole of his kindred. Besides, how do we know what is going to be the end of it? How can we be sure that, long as he has succeeded in evading justice, it will not overtake him one of these fine days. Even if I could succeed in persuading him to lead an honest life for the future, how can we guarantee the past? You say the Paris police have not yet given up their researches into the mystery of the jeweller’s death. At any moment something may come to light in that direction. No, my dear boy, I appreciate your nobility of choice, but Gloria must give you your freedom. If she is her father’s daughter, I think she will take the same view as I do.”

Lydon was not so sure. In his own mind, he thought that love would prevail. For a long time they wrangled over the point, the decision being finally reached that Gloria should act exactly as her feelings prompted her. Her father would state his views, but he would not use his influence over her to adopt them.

It was natural they should still talk further over the subject, painful as the discussion was to both.

“That _coup_ he pretended to be the outcome of some financial speculation was clearly the mulcting of this young simpleton of that tremendous sum,” remarked the banker presently. “The fact that it had fallen through as soon as he received that telegram from his accomplice proves that. And yet I do not see, if it had come off, that it would have made his position as sure as he told me. I do not know in what proportion these miscreants divide their villainous gains. There were certainly four of them in it, Howard, his friend Whitehouse, and the husband and wife, to say nothing of the gang who I suppose have an over-riding percentage on everything. Even if Howard got a quarter of the amount, the interest on that would not keep a place like Effington Hall going.”

Lydon smiled ironically. “Would a man of your brother’s temperament bother about such things as investments and interest? If he received that sum, he would simply draw on it as long as it lasted, trusting to further luck to replenish his waning store.”

“Horrible idea,” said the banker with a shudder. “But I think you have seen more clearly than I did, Leonard. To me, the idea of a man living on his capital is unthinkable. Well, I shall make these awful disclosures to Gloria after dinner; she shall have a little more peace, poor child. And, later on, you and she shall have a heart-to-heart talk.”

That talk took place later on in the evening, when the young couple went for a stroll. At first Gloria, tearful and agitated, took her father’s view. It was impossible she could intrude herself into his life, with such a ghastly secret in the background, a secret that in all probability could not be kept indefinitely in the background. It would break her heart to part with him, but, for his own sake, she must insist upon giving him back his freedom. If he was angry with her now, he would be grateful in the future. So she pleaded amidst her plentiful tears.

But by degrees he wore down her resolution, dictated by the judgment, not the heart. If Howard Stormont’s past should ever be revealed to an astonished world, he would help her with all his might to live the hateful thing down. When they returned to the hotel, he had proved the victor, and announced the result to Jasper, who, loyal to his promise, acquiesced, if he found it impossible to approve.

“I shall come up to London in the morning with you,” he said to the young man, “and ascertain on the ’phone what are Howard’s movements. I should say that, as his _coup_ has failed, he will be bewailing his ill-fortune at Effington. He will hardly have the heart to resume his usual habits for a few days.”

And so it proved. Mrs. Barnard, who answered the ’phone call, explained that her brother was rather out of sorts, and Jasper would find him at Effington at almost any hour of the day. If he went out, it would only be for a stroll in the grounds or to the village.

Jasper Stormont went down after luncheon; he had not committed himself to any particular time. To one thing he had firmly made up his mind; he would not take another meal at Effington Hall, in the society of the man he had the misfortune to call brother. He took a taxi at the station and drove in due course through the big gates of the stately mansion, which he devoutly hoped he was entering for the last time.

The owner was out, the new butler informed him, but was expected back shortly. Mrs. Barnard was in.

She was pleased to see her brother. “But why couldn’t you come to luncheon?” she asked him. “Surely you are going to dine and stop the night?”

She had received him in her own little boudoir, in which she wrote so many letters. “This may be the last time I shall see you here,” she remarked, not without symptoms of emotion. “Howard told me he had written to you about his misfortunes. For a long time I have feared this would be the end of his reckless extravagance. Well, it has come, and the only thing to do is to face it as well as one can. Thank Heaven, it won’t affect dear Gloria very much personally, but I am sure she is terribly grieved for us.”

Jasper Stormont was a lovable enough man in many ways, but the sight of Effington, with its pretence of wealth, had made him feel very hard. Still, he could not show hardness to this poor woman who had lived for so long in a fool’s paradise.

“She feels intense pity for _you_,” he said, laying a strong emphasis on the pronoun.

Mrs. Barnard looked wonderingly at him, and a flush dyed her face. “What does that mean? Has she no pity for poor Howard, who gratified her every whim, and spoiled her from the day she entered the house? I will not believe it of her. He has been weak, but not criminal, Jasper.”

And then Jasper raised his voice in righteous wrath. “My poor sister, you little knew, I have only known for the last few hours, that this brother of ours has been leading a double life. He is one of the biggest criminals that ever walked the face of the earth.”

Mrs. Barnard’s face froze into a look of horror. If any other man had spoken those awful words, she would have told him he lied. But she knew Jasper’s character too well. He would not have made such a charge if it were not true.

As briefly as possible he told her what he knew, through that chance opening of the letter to Zillah Mayhew by Lydon. The unhappy woman burst into a passionate fit of weeping.

“Jasper, you must take me away with you when you leave,” she said when she had recovered herself a little. “I could not stay another night under the roof after what you have told me. The associate of thieves, blackmailers, a potential murderer himself. It is like some hideous nightmare.”

And at that moment Howard Stormont walked into the room, with a smile of welcome on his harassed countenance. Perhaps he thought his brother had come to help him in his financial difficulties.

But as he took in the scene, the still weeping woman, Jasper standing beside her with a hard and inflexible look upon his face, he knew that the visit portended nothing of the kind.

He looked from one to the other and his own face grew paler as he noted his sister’s averted countenance.

“What the devil does all this mean? And you, Jasper, why do you refuse to take my hand?” he cried in a harsh voice that showed traces of fear.

At a sign from her brother, Mrs. Barnard withdrew, and the two men were left alone--Jasper stern, rigid; Howard with terrible forebodings in his guilty soul.