Chapter Thirty Two
The Secret
Presently she resumed in a sad voice full of emotion, lifting her face to mine, saying: “I did not dream, Stuart, of the trickery to which they resorted in order to change my personality and secure me from falling into the dragnet of the police, but my lips were already sealed when I afterwards learnt how my stepfather exerted his influence, and obtained a special licence from the Archbishop to allow your marriage to take place in that weird old house in Gloucester Square, how you were conducted there, and how you and the police were imposed upon by the body of my unfortunate sister being passed off as that of myself. It was not until weeks after that eventful night, when by bribery and influence the pair had buried my identity, that I learned the truth. Then, unable to come to you, fearing even to make my existence known, I could only watch and wait.”
“But why did they marry me in that manner?” I asked, amazed at her remarkable story.
“There were reasons,” she answered. “The police had tracked me, and it was imperative for the success of their scheme that I should remain free. Again, although Ethel was dying it was uncertain what time would elapse ere the spark of life would flicker and die out. They therefore resolved, in order that failure should be rendered impossible, upon effecting a master-stroke by marrying Ethel in my name, because by marriage with you I should change my nationality, and as a British subject it would be impossible to arrest me for a political offence committed in France. This they did, with the result you are already aware, but further, my poor sister expired during the ceremony; thus the police, in bursting in, were doubly baffled. Afterwards, they caused her to be buried as your wife, and upon the grave actually placed a wreath bearing your card, with an inscription purporting to have been written by you. Upon the back of that card I also wrote a message, urging you to prosecute inquiries, hoping that it would fall into your hands.”
“It did,” I said. “I found it, and your words have ever since been uppermost in my mind.”
“It was part of the compact that, posing as the wife of my dead sister’s husband, I should remain here and not visit London. As this man’s wife I was compelled to revive some of my late mother’s relatives, whom I had never before seen. These were the rightful owners of her wealth now that Ethel was no more, but to them I was forced to keep up the wretched deception that I was Ethel, and they, never having seen her since a child, returned to France with any suspicions they had entertained entirely allayed. I remained here alone with my maid Ashcombe as sole companion, and with the cold mask of honesty and indifference upon my face, thinking always of you. If they would only have let me tell you that I was innocent of that cruel deception, only let me show you that I was not the base adventuress you must have imagined, I think – I think I could have borne the rest. When I could not bear it any longer I prayed to them to let me see you, I prayed for one little grain of pity. Circumstances, however, seemed to conspire to thwart their plans, for a person whom they feared threatened to denounce them. Therefore they became desperate and would show me no mercy. At this time, too, I made the astounding discovery that my stepfather had married again unknown to me, two years before, a vain haughty girl young enough to be his daughter. He had kept this fact from me because he knew I had been acquainted with her in my girlhood days, and feared I might reveal his villainy. When I heard of this I wrote to Captain Bethune, who had been a mutual friend, and from him learned facts about yourself and her. I heard of your anxiety, of your futile search after the truth, and of your continual inquiry to fathom the mystery of my life. But our enemies had taken every precaution to prevent your discovering anything, and by threatening to give me up to the police they kept me still enthralled and silent. They, however, saw that the one man who had, by some unknown means, discovered their chicanery, might sooner or later expose the fraud; therefore, they grew reckless, and on one occasion my stepfather threatened my life if I gave you a single sign of my existence. It was after that, that I discovered the crime.”
“The crime!” I cried. “What crime?”
“I had but one friend, Captain Bethune,” she said in the same low, faltering tones, “and after this threat I went to his chambers late one night to seek his counsel and aid. I wanted to give you a sign that I still lived, but I was held powerless by fear of the terrible vengeance they threatened. I – I found him at home with two other men in his company – one was my stepfather, the other Gilbert Sternroyd. There was no quarrel, no word of anger, but I was witness to the terrible crime. Gilbert, happy and unsuspecting, was shot dead by a coward’s hand – he – ”
“You actually saw the shot fired?” I cried, starting up quickly. “Then you also saw the murderer? Speak! name him! Let me know the truth.”
“The man who shot Gilbert Sternroyd,” she said in a hard, firm voice, “the man who drew a revolver secretly from his pocket and fired full upon him as he stepped from the room, was my stepfather! I gripped his arm, but too late. Gilbert fell, and the coward fled.”
“His name?” I demanded.
“He is known to you,” she replied, slowly twisting her handkerchief between her fingers, and with a manner of subdued, fierce vengefulness she laughed a little hard laugh; but it was more significant of inward agony than any words could have been. “He is known to you, to the world, as the Earl of Fyneshade!”
“Fyneshade!” I gasped dumbfounded. “And he is your stepfather?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Seek him, and give him into the hands of the police, for he is the assassin.”
“But the motive?” I cried. “What was it?”
“Twofold. Sternroyd had obtained knowledge of the fraud perpetrated by substituting my personality for Ethel’s, and came to me declaring his intention of exposing it. Besides this he was an ardent admirer of Mabel, my stepfather’s young wife, and although she gave him no encouragement he was infatuated, and had made a will leaving his immense wealth to her. Fyneshade knew this, and saw that by getting rid of him he would preserve his guilty secret, and at the same time enrich his wife and consequently himself. He suggested this to my pseudo-husband, Francis Markwick, who – ”
“Markwick!” I gasped. “Was it that scoundrel who assisted in the fraud and posed as your husband?”
“The same. I myself overheard the two men in consultation upon the benefits to be derived from the young millionaire’s death, and afterwards warned him and also told Mabel. Therefore, from the first, Lady Fyneshade and your friend Bethune knew the truth.”
“But why did not Bethune inform the police instead of acting so suspiciously?” I queried in doubt.
“Because he feared to compromise me. He swore he would not speak until I gave him permission. This I could not give until assured of my own immunity from arrest.”
“How would this disclosure compromise you?”
“In the first place, I was present when the murder was committed. Secondly, you will remember you entered Jack’s chambers by stealth on the following night and found the body removed.”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “He locked one of the rooms and would not allow me to enter.”
“Because I was in that room, Stuart,” she explained. “I had again called upon him to ask his advice, not knowing how to act. Suddenly you entered, and to conceal me became imperative.”
“But the body was also concealed there, was it not?”
“No, it had been removed to Gloucester Square early in the morning following the murder, after which Jack, in accordance with his promise to shield me, fled from England in order that suspicion might fall upon himself. If he had at once caused the arrest of the murderer I should have been compromised. But Markwick denounced Jack to Mabel, who, of course, already guessed the truth, and very soon your friend was amazed to find circumstantial evidence woven around him in a most serious and amazing manner.”
“But I had all along been aware of his innocence,” Dora interrupted, sick at heart for her friend’s misery. “Sybil had told me.”
“Yes,” continued the woman I loved, turning to her. “Even when the police were hunting for him I feared to speak, knowing that by so doing I must implicate myself, and that the part I had innocently played in the dynamite affair and in the subsequent fraud would inevitably be disclosed. Once,” she continued, again turning to me, “once I sent my maid Ashcombe to you to ascertain secretly how you fared, but you were out, and as it was imperative that she should leave that night for Paris to prosecute some inquiries, she failed to see you and you therefore remained in ignorance.”
“My sister, too, has suffered terrible anguish,” Dora said. “She knew from the first that her husband was an assassin, yet to remove suspicion from him and avoid the terrible scandal, she was compelled to act a part that was to her revolting. That she had no thought for Gilbert and that she was faithful to her husband I am confident, yet in order to obtain confirmation of her suspicions of Fyneshade’s schemes she was compelled to court the friendship of Markwick, the man she most hated, while her husband, to avert suspicion that he had murdered Sternroyd, affected to be jealous of his confederate.”
“But my marriage,” I said, “it is astounding.”
“The plans of this base pair were indeed deeply laid and ingeniously formed,” she went on. “The crafty manner in which you were entrapped and wedded is but one illustration of their marvellous ingenuity and utter unscrupulousness. In securing the handsome revenue from my mother’s estates they provided for every eventuality, but by a conspiracy of circumstances Gilbert Sternroyd obtained knowledge of their secret, of how they had compelled me to pose as Markwick’s wife, and how they had married you to my dead sister. He sympathised with Mabel as wife of this titled adventurer, and, in order to rid her of him, intended to give him up to the police. My stepfather saw that only by death could he be silenced, and he therefore foully murdered him. Yes, Stuart, your marriage was an amazing one, secured by a scoundrel whose influence was far-reaching; but even that event was not one whit more astounding than those that followed.”
“True,” I said, amazed and bewildered at her disclosures.
“Towards me, also, Fyneshade has acted desperately, with double cunning.” Dora exclaimed fiercely, turning to me. “You remember on that night when, for the first time after your strange marriage, you visited the ghostly deserted house in Gloucester Square, I was there also. I knew that Fyneshade, supposed to be in Paris, was in hiding there, so I entered determined to face him and obtain liberty for Sybil, for Jack, nay for all, by compelling him to fly from the country and renounce all claim to return. I was prepared to offer him secrecy in exchange for this. But he detected us. He felled you from behind and dragged you down to the cellar, while he also stunned me, causing concussion of the brain; then locked me in that inner room. Probably I should have gone hopelessly insane and eventually starved had you not discovered me.”
“His villainy is revolting,” I exclaimed angrily. “His own action led to my discovery of the body, but I confess these disclosures put a complexion on the affair such as I had never dreamed;” and turning to Sybil, who had slowly risen and passed to the window, I asked, “Tell me the reason you are now constrained to make this confession.”
The air from the garden fanned her pale cheeks soothingly. She was leaning forward gazing fixedly across the lawn, but turned slowly at my words, and I saw her face was as beautiful as when we had first met.
“Because I no longer fear,” she answered calmly, and one would have doubted that this was the same woman who had been so wildly agitated only a few moments previously, she spoke so quietly. “Yesterday the French Government adopted an amnesty to political offenders, therefore the warrant cannot now be reissued against me. As to the ingenious fraud to which I have been a party, I can prove that I was merely a tool in the hands of these two malefactors who held me in their toils. From this moment I renounce the name of Markwick, to which I have no right, and again resume my maiden name, Sybil. I may be prosecuted – well, I am ready to take my trial – I – I am ready to face all, if only I can think that you believe me innocent, Stuart – if only I may dare to hope we may even be man and wife.”
Next second she was in my embrace, sobbing again with her head upon my shoulder.
“Rest assured,” I said tenderly, “that the innocent shall not suffer, and upon the guilty shall fall punishment swift and certain. If it becomes necessary for you to face a criminal trial, remember that I love you just as fondly as I have ever done.”
“Then you do not hate me for the despicable part I have been forced to act?” she cried joyfully, raising her earnest, tear-stained face.
“No, Sybil. Like myself, you have suffered at the hands of these merciless scoundrels, and before Heaven I swear they shall pay for it,” I cried with fierce anger. Turning to Dora, I added, “This has indeed proved that Jack, loyal and true-hearted, is in every way worthy the affection of the pure honest woman who has befriended us both.”
“I have but endeavoured to repay you for the small services you have rendered to Jack and myself,” she answered with a sweet smile. “I know that at one time you suspected him, but that was only natural, for he intended that you should. Already he is on his way home, and to-night will be in London. He will be present to bear witness with Sybil as to the tragic end of Gilbert Sternroyd.” Then, with a lingering glance at us, Dora rose and discreetly left on pretence of speaking to Ashcombe, while Sybil and I, alone, clasped in each other’s arms, repeated those vows of undying love we had exchanged far away at that little southern spa, overshadowed by its purple mountains with their eternal snows.
During several hours I remained joyful and content with my loved one, and the sun had already disappeared when we all three entered the fly to drive back to Didcot and catch the train for London. The earth, veiled in a soft shadow, seemed half slumbering, pensive and melancholy. A white opaque sky overhung the horizon, and lucent haze of colourless pearl-grey filled the valley. A time of palpable sadness comes each evening, when although not yet night the light is fading slowly, almost regretfully; and each of us in this silent farewell feels strange anxiety, a great need of hope and faith in his heart Song comes to one’s lips with the first rays of morning, tears to one’s eyes with the last ray of evening light Perhaps it is the dispiriting thought of labour constantly resumed, unceasingly abandoned; the eager wish, mingled with dread, for eternal rest. Perhaps, indeed, it is the resemblance of everything human to that agony of light and sound.
Sybil was seated beside me as we sped along the straight open road. A star shone above the dark line of distant trees amid the evanescence of earth and sky. We both looked at this consoling light.
It pierced with a ray of hope the mournful veil of twilight.
Chapter Thirty Three
A Family Council
From Didcot station I sent a telegram to Grindlay making an appointment with him to meet us at Lady Stretton’s later that night, and when we arrived there we found both the Inspector and Jack Bethune awaiting us.
Closeted together, Lady Stretton being present, Sybil told her story to the astonished police officer in a plain, matter-of-fact manner, describing minutely the circumstances of the tragedy as she had witnessed it, and eulogising Jack for the self-sacrifice he had made in order to shield her. Her confession was much the same as that she had made to me, and when she had concluded the detective turned, offered his hand to Jack, apologising for regarding him with undue suspicion, to which the other responded generously, saying:
“It was my fault; entirely my fault. I intended you should believe me guilty. But arrest the culprit; do not let him escape.”
“No, he shall not,” Grindlay said with a mysterious smile. “Very soon we shall have him under lock and key. But this affair is simply astounding,” he continued, turning to me. “I felt certain there must be some very suspicious circumstances connected with your secret marriage, but the intricacies of this extraordinary plot never occurred to me. I knew that only by the exertion of great influence could such a marriage as yours be procured, and certainly the substitution of Miss Henniker’s sister for herself was one of the most ingenious and neatly-executed pieces of trickery that has ever come under my notice. Indeed, the truth is even more remarkable than the mystery. The Earl and his precious confederate must be an inventive pair, otherwise they would not have succeeded in tricking us so neatly. When perpetrating the fraud and the murder, the Earl secured the silence of witnesses by devices evidently carefully planned. Since I last saw you I have learnt the truth from De Vries, the French ex-detective, who endeavoured to levy blackmail upon Markwick. It appears as though their scheme would never have been exposed had not he, while making inquiries into the causes of the Chamber of Deputies explosion, found himself balked by the strange marriage. The relatives away in Savoy, to whom the estate rightly belonged, had had their suspicions aroused by some slight incident, and had caused inquiry to be made by the police. De Vries, having both matters in hand, at length understood that an important object was to be attained by preventing Ethel from dying. This, however, was after his retirement from the Paris police. Nevertheless, an adept at criminal investigation, he prosecuted his inquiries out of sheer curiosity, and possibly with the hope of a reward, until he obtained confirmation of his suspicion that Miss Sybil was not dead. Finding he could glean nothing further he therefore resolved to obtain money for his silence, and blackmailed Markwick, compelling him to part with various sums of money. De Vries was, it appears, a friend of Sternroyd’s, and in a moment of expansiveness imparted to him the secret. Thereupon Sternroyd set diligently to work, discovered Sybil, and would – if not foully done to death – have exposed the whole conspiracy. But I have sent a messenger for De Vries, and expect him here every moment.”
Almost as he spoke the diminutive Frenchman was ushered in by one of the stately, powdered footmen of the Stretton household. He entered, smiling and bowing, and when Grindlay had explained what he had told us he turned to me, and in broken English, reiterated with much gesticulation how he had been commissioned by Monsieur Goron, the head of the Paris police, to investigate the dynamite explosion in the Chamber, and how, at the house of the noted Anarchist Mercuvel, an incriminating letter signed by Sybil Henniker had been discovered. She was traced, application was made to the London police for her arrest and extradition, and he himself came over and had actually accompanied the officers when they burst into the room wherein the marriage ceremony had taken place. Returning to Paris, baffled by the death of the woman supposed to be one of the guiding spirits of the apostles of dynamite, another inquiry was soon afterwards placed into his hands. It was made by a family named Langon, living near Chambéry, regarding the sister of Sybil Henniker. This aroused his suspicion, but having fallen into disfavour at head-quarters he found himself compelled to resign his official appointment Afterwards he returned to London, investigated the matter thoroughly, and arrived at the conclusion that it was Sybil who was passing herself off as the wife of Markwick, and that the Langon family were entitled to claim the late Madame Henniker’s property. The detective’s shrewdness had obtained for him hush-money to the extent of over a thousand pounds when, fearing Markwick would escape and thus his source of income might disappear, he coolly claimed another thousand in return for his liberty, a request which was refused.
When this family council terminated, and the bell was rung that refreshments might be served to Grindlay and the Frenchman, it was already near midnight. The footman on entering that abode of garish luxury passed at once across to Lady Stretton, saying in a low tone:
“Lord Fyneshade called an hour ago, your ladyship, and – ”
“Fyneshade!” all echoed in a tone of awe.
“And what did you tell him, Stebbings?” cried Lady Stretton, growing crimson with excitement.
“I told him your ladyship was engaged with Captain Bethune, Mr Ridgeway and a French gentleman,” the flunkey answered, astonished at the sensation his announcement had produced.
“Well, what then?”
“He glanced at Monsieur’s card lying in the hall, and then left hurriedly, first asking me whether a strange, fair-haired young lady had accompanied Mr Ridgeway. I told him that she had, and he then said I was not to disturb you or mention that he had called.”
“By Heaven! He’s bolted!” cried Grindlay, springing to his feet. “But he must not escape. Come with me, De Vries. We must find him before he has time to leave London.”
“But Markwick!” I cried. “What of him?”
“He has unfortunately already gone,” the Frenchman answered as he passed through the door. “I missed him this morning, after watching his lodgings at Notting Hill for nearly three weeks. He has eluded me, and I fear got clean away.”
A few moments later Grindlay and his companion jumped into a cab, and I heard a voice shout to the driver:
“Scotland Yard. Quick!”