CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Howard was the first to break the strained silence; he spoke in a toneless voice. “I Suppose you will presently tell me what all this means, the reason of this extraordinary attitude. I suppose you have been talking over the state of affairs with Maud, and are angry with me for having made such a muddle of things. You will stay to dinner, of course?”

Swiftly came the reply: “If I would not take your hand, is it likely I would accept your hospitality? I hope never to see you, nor set foot in this house of evil, again. Howard Stormont, I know you for what you are; I know the double life you have been leading since you left England and since you returned to it. I know you to be the associate of criminals, yourself not the least criminal amongst them.”

The face of the detected crook went livid: “We can’t talk here,” he said hoarsely. “Come down to my room and let us have it out.”

They went into the handsomely furnished study. As soon as they got there, he opened the door of a small sideboard, from which he extracted a bottle of uncorked brandy. He filled a tumbler half full of the raw spirit and gulped it down. For the moment, the potent draught steadied his nerves, and he sank into a chair, and looked with a certain amount of hardihood at his brother.

“Now let me hear what you do know, or think you know.” He had made no attempt to repel Jasper’s charge. He knew the man’s cautious character too well to think he would speak as he had done, except on evidence that was satisfactory and convincing.

“I know of your association with the woman known at present as Mrs. Edwards, who has gone under the different names of Elise Makris, Zillah Mayhew, Zillah Glenthorne, the woman who was connected with the tragedy at Nice in which poor Hugh Craig figured, the woman you dispatched to Paris along with the man Edwards to carry out your designs against the rich jeweller Calliard, who was robbed and murdered.”

Howard Stormont interrupted in a choking voice. He knew it was useless to protest innocence. “Murder was never intended. The fool who carried out the job exceeded his instructions.”

“Do you think I should believe a word you said?” was Jasper’s scornful comment. “Lying, even perjury, would be a venial offence in the eyes of one so steeped in crime. But even if the murder of Calliard cannot be laid directly at your door, what have you to say to your own attempt on the life of your old Australian associate, Newcombe, the man whom you feared for his knowledge of your past?”

“I made no attempt upon his life,” was the dogged reply. “I only wanted to give the drunken fool a fright.”

“A miserable lie,” said Jasper sternly. “You miscalculated the dose of your devilish poison, or the man would be dead now. For some days he hung between life and death. And I also know that you were concerned in this last dastardly attempt to extort money from young Wraysbury, with the help of the two confederates who had carried out your schemes in Paris.”

Stormont rose and helped himself to another dose of brandy. “And how did you find all this out?” he asked presently.

“That is my business,” was the curt answer.

It was some time before the wretched man spoke again. “I think I can guess how the information came. That young Lydon had his suspicions from the day he met Zillah here, and put a detective on our track. My sister told me she had given him some letters to post which I had forgotten to take with me; one of them was to her. He opened it and what he read gave him the clue, and he set this fellow Grewgus to work. But what beats me is how he suspected Zillah; he had never seen her. When he and Craig were at Nice, she took good care to keep out of his way.”

Jasper did not enlighten his brother on this point, and presently Howard put to him, point-blank, the question: “And now that you know all this, what are you and this precious young Lydon going to do? Do you intend to play the part of virtuous citizens and denounce me to the police?”

“We ought to do it, if we performed our duty,” said Jasper coldly. “But I have a proposition to make to you. Your letter shows me that you are broke to the world. Your interview with your confederate Edwards, after Grewgus had foiled his plot against Wraysbury, must have convinced you that a continuance of this criminal life is fraught with peril; that at any moment Nemesis may overtake you.”

Stormont looked up sharply, “How did you know that I had an interview with Edwards?” he asked, in evident surprise.

But Jasper declined to enlighten him. “Again I repeat, that is my business. This precious young Lydon, as you call him, has behaved like the honourable Englishman he is. I told him emphatically that he must give up Gloria, that he must not connect himself with a family that had this black stain upon its records. Gloria took the same view, and insisted upon releasing him, although she told me that to do so would break her heart.”

For the first time in their interview, the hardened criminal showed an overwhelming sense of shame. “Poor Gloria!” he muttered in a broken voice. “Poor Gloria! It is indeed hard upon her. And Lydon would not accept his dismissal. Well, I will admit he is a noble fellow.”

“I am glad you do him that justice. Well, my proposition is this. It is horrible to me to think that my innocent and unsuspecting child has lived all these years upon the proceeds of infamy. The money you have expended upon her for something like fourteen years I will restore to you on the condition that you abandon this life, and break away for ever from your criminal associates. Even then, there is not absolute safety. At any moment the past may yield up its secrets, and all the world may know you for what you are.”

Howard Stormont kept silence. His active brain was no doubt weighing the advantages and disadvantages of his brother’s suggestion.

“As I shall be very liberal in my estimate of what she cost you,” continued Jasper; “you could exist upon the interest of the capital sum I should hand over to you. But you are not without brains, and you might use that money to embark in some honest business.”

“It is a very generous offer,” Howard said at length. “And I am very disposed to accept It without further reflection. Still, I would like to go into matters a little closer first. I admit your visit here to-day has taken the courage out of me. You will laugh at me, I suppose, and consider it a further proof of my hypocrisy when I say that I would prefer not to live upon your bounty. But I should like to reckon up what I am likely to get out of the sale of Effington, when the mortgages have been paid off.”

“It is not a question of bounty; it is an act of reparation to my own conscience,” said Jasper hastily. “I would prefer to return the money to its rightful owners, if I could find them. But that is impossible. If you refuse to accept this sum, I shall devote it to charity, so as to make some sort of amends.”

“Give me till to-morrow, and I will let you know definitely. I presume you have told Maud?”

“Certainly,” answered Jasper. “She is as much horrified as I was when I learned the horrible truth. She is coming back with me.”

A ghastly smile spread over Stormont’s white face. “It is what one might expect. Rats always leave the sinking ship, don’t they?”

Jasper made no reply to this cynical remark, which showed the naturally hard and callous nature of the man. He moved towards the door with a few last words. “I must have your decision not later than the time you have stated.”

He went out into the hall and summoned a servant to find Mrs. Barnard and ask her to come to him in her boudoir. He had kept the taxi waiting. As soon as she was ready, they could quit this house of evil where the owner of it had plotted and thought out his criminal schemes.

She came to him ready dressed for her journey. She was taking with her a couple of small trunks; the rest of her belongings, which had all been bought with her own money, could be sent after her. Jasper explained that he was taking her down to Brighton, where she could make a long stay till she had made her plans for the future. Together they went down into the hall.

And suddenly, in a burst of womanly feeling, she whispered to her brother, “Vile as he is, I cannot leave him without a word.”

She turned, and walking swiftly to the study, opened the door and entered. Howard was sitting huddled up in his chair, looking a ghastly object of misery and despair. She laid her hand lightly on his arm for an instant. “God forgive you, Howard, and turn your heart before it is too late.”

His dry lips muttered a faint “Good-bye,” and she turned from him and rejoined Jasper.

They got back to Brighton in the evening, and in the private sitting-room the banker explained to Lydon and his family what had passed between the two men in that final visit to Effington. Leonard was rejoiced that Mrs. Barnard had come back with her brother. He had never quite been able to make up his mind about her, whether or not she was in Howard’s confidence; but her action showed that, like her niece, she had never guessed his guilty secret.

The next morning, Jasper Stormont, according to his usual custom, went for a stroll before breakfast, and on his return to the hotel found a telegram awaiting him. It was from the butler at Effington Hall and informed him that his brother had committed suicide early that morning. He had thought he would never set foot in Effington again, but in the face of such news he must go there at once.

When he reached the house, the butler gave him the details. On entering the study, one of the housemaids discovered her master lying dead in his easy-chair, a bottle of brandy standing beside his elbow, an empty pistol lying on the floor to which it had dropped after he had shot himself. He had been dead some few hours, the doctor said, when she had found him. At the time of his suicide, for the perpetration of which he had fortified himself with large doses of alcohol, the household was fast asleep, and nobody had heard the shot. Jasper could only conclude that the wretched man had come to the conclusion life was played out for him, and had nerved himself to make his exit from the world on which he had preyed for so long.

He had been careful to preserve appearances. He had written an open letter lying on the table in which he stated that utter financial ruin had come upon him, and that at his age he lacked the courage to begin the battle of life over again. He gave the address of his brother at Brighton, and requested that he should be communicated with at once.

There was a good deal of sympathy in the neighbourhood, where his benefactions and lavish hospitality had made him popular. The inquest was held in due course, and the usual compassionate verdict recorded. When Howard Stormont was laid to rest nobody guessed that the body of an arch-criminal was being committed to the earth. Jasper Stormont’s visit was explained on the grounds that he had come to take his sister for a long stay at Brighton.

So the future was secure. A sum was offered for Effington Hall which, after payment of the various charges and debts, left over a balance of about a couple of thousand pounds. Stormont had left no will, and his property therefore devolved upon his next of kin. But as none of them would touch a farthing, Jasper made a donation of the money to a necessitous hospital.

It was a great relief to Jasper and his sister that he had solved the problem of the future in the way he had, before the old instincts came to life again and led him to the commission of further crime. But tender-hearted Gloria sometimes shed tears when she remembered the numerous acts of kindness to her, proving that even the basest of men can possess some good qualities.

Lord Wraysbury heard nothing further from Edwards’ solicitors. Grewgus had settled that little matter, and for doing so he received a very handsome cheque from the grateful young nobleman. The house and furniture in Curzon Street were up for sale. Neither Edwards nor his wife was any longer in residence there. Grewgus chuckled as he thought this frustrated scheme must have cost the gang a pretty sum.

Glenthorne had also suddenly left Ashstead Mansions, and abandoned his solicitor’s practice. That interview of Grewgus with Edwards and the suicide of Stormont seemed to have produced far-reaching consequences. Edwards had disappeared and was not heard of at any of his usual haunts, and the dark, handsome Zillah had vanished as suddenly as her uncle. It looked like a wholesale dispersal of that portion of the gang.

Lydon and Grewgus settled up accounts. The detective informed his client that the Paris police had given up the case of Léon Calliard, after following several delusive clues. There was now practically no chance that the details of the unfortunate man’s murder would ever be known, unless he communicated the information he had acquired about Edwards and Zillah. Even then, it would be almost impossible to connect them with the affair.

But of course Lydon strongly discountenanced such a step. One could not take it without bringing Howard Stormont into the matter; it would also involve Jasper, who would have to testify that his brother had practically admitted his participation in it.

“Best to let sleeping dogs lie, for the sake of the family,” said the young man. “If one did discover the actual murderer, it would not bring the unfortunate Calliard to life, and it would inflict the greatest pain upon innocent people.”

Grewgus agreed, rather reluctantly. He had the true instincts of the sleuth-hound; he loved to hunt his quarry down. He would dearly have liked to go to Scotland Yard, but he was bound to respect his client’s wishes on the subject. All the same, he felt it was a tame sort of inquiry which had not resulted in a triumphant finish. As a consequence of it, Stormont had been driven to suicide, and the other persons concerned had found it expedient to lie low for a while. But for him, there was no public kudos in it.

On the same day on which he squared up accounts with Lydon he came face to face in the Strand with his old friend Tom Newcombe. The gentleman’s appearance had altered very much. He had discarded his beard and moustache, and a less keen eye than the detective’s might have failed to recognize him. But Grewgus had a wonderful memory for faces, and it required a very clever disguise to baffle him. They exchanged greetings.

“Hardly knew me, did you?” inquired the Colonial. “You see, I clean-shaved myself directly after we had settled matters. I got out of that house as soon as I could, but I was mortally afraid I might run across Stormont, and he might get me into his clutches again. Well, it’s all right now, he has passed in his checks. I can tell you it was a relief when I saw it in the papers. I thought, as I read it, that you might have had something to do with it.”

“Perhaps I had, in a very indirect fashion,” was the cautious answer.

“Well, he’s gone to where he wanted to send me. Gad, that man did make me see red when I thought of his attempt to put me out of the way. Many a time I’ve half made up my mind to sneak down to Effington and plug him if I got the chance. But a bit of prudence stepped in, fortunately. It wasn’t worth swinging for a fellow like that. And so he came to a bad end, after all. It makes one think a bit, mister, it does.”

“It makes you think a bit, eh?” repeated the detective. “And what turn do your thoughts take? The wages of sin is death, or something of that sort?”

“You’ve hit it,” said the Colonial, speaking with great seriousness. “I told you my mother was a good woman; she did her best to bring me up religious, but my father always scoffed at her for her pains. How many times have I heard her use that very phrase; it has always stuck in my memory. I thought of her a goodish bit when I was struggling back to life. I began to feel quite sick of the past, and all the evil I had done. But you know, mister, when you’ve once got into the crooked life, it’s precious hard to get out of it. But now I’ve got that bit of money, I’ve made up my mind to go straight.”

“I’m exceedingly glad to hear it,” said Grewgus heartily.

“Most crooks come to a bad end. Stormont, who was clever and cunning as the devil, took his life at the finish, and most of ’em overreach themselves and get into quod. So I’m making a fresh start. Till I read that in the papers, I was going out to Canada, for fear of Stormont. But now he’s out of the way, I shall stick in the old country. I shall buy a snug little business, a tobacconist’s by preference. Gosh, it will be pleasant to pass a policeman without fearing he’s going to lay his hand on you.”

They chatted for a little time longer, and at parting Grewgus offered Newcombe his hand, which the Colonial shook heartily. Since he had now resolved to lead an honest life, the detective felt he was justified in showing him this mark of esteem.

He got back to his office about four o’clock and busied himself with his correspondence. In the midst of it, a clerk entered and said that a lady wished to speak with him for a few minutes, but would not give her name.

Rather impatiently, for he was very occupied with his letters, he ordered the visitor to be shown in.

What was his astonishment when the mysterious lady entered, and he recognized in the dark, handsome young woman who had refused to give her name, Elise Makris, otherwise Mrs. Edwards.