CHAPTER IX
THE SNARE
Dick's face bore a broad grin as he entered the room. He looked dreadfully mischievous. Assuming as serious an expression as I could conjure, I said to him:
"Why, what's the meaning of this, Dick? How do you come to be in town? Are you with Aunt Hannah?"
"It's all right—brother-in-law," he answered lightly. "No, I am not with Aunt Hannah, nor is Aunt Hannah with me. I have come up on my own."
"'On your own'? What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you, but—won't you introduce me, Mike?"
"Easterton," I said, "this is Roland Challoner's boy, Dick. Jack, this is the boy I told you about who was chloroformed by the thieves at Holt."
Jack's eyes rested on Dick. Then he put out his hand.
"Come here, old chap," he said in his deep voice. For several moments he held Dick's hand in his while he sat looking at him.
"Yes," he said at last, "I have heard about you—Dick. I heard about what you did that day those men caught you. Keep that spirit up, my boy—your family has never lacked pluck, if history is to be trusted—and you'll become one of the kind of men England so badly needs. What are you doing in London? Is your father with you?"
"No, I have come up on my own," Dick repeated. "I am going to tell Mike why, in a moment. Are you Mr. Jack Osborne that Mike is always talking to my sister about, who took Mike to that house—the house where the fire was?"
"Yes, I am," Jack answered, laughing. "Why?"
"Oh, because my sister didn't like your taking Mike there, you know—she didn't like it a bit. She and Mike are going to be married, you know, and Mike is going to be my brother-in-law."
I pounced upon him to make him be quiet, though Easterton and Osborne clamoured that he should be left alone and allowed to say anything he liked, Jack declaring that he wanted to hear "more of this romance."
At last we all became serious, and then Dick said:
"I made a discovery this morning at Holt. There is someone hidden in the old hiding-hole close to father's bedroom."
"Hidden in it!" I exclaimed. "Oh, nonsense!"
"Your telegram to Dulcie arrived at about half-past ten this morning," he went on, not heeding my remark, "and she and Aunt Hannah at once got ready to go to town—I know what was in the telegram, because Dulcie told me. About an hour after they were gone, I happened to go up to father's bedroom to fetch something, and when I came out again I noticed an odd sound—at first I couldn't think where it came from. It was like someone breathing very heavily, someone asleep. I stood quite still, and soon I found that it came from the priests' hiding-hole—you know it, you have seen it. I went over on tip-toe, got into the angle where the opening to the hole is, and pressed my ear down on the sliding board. I could hear the sound quite well then—somebody breathing awfully heavily. First I thought of sliding back the board and peeping in. Then I decided I wouldn't do that until I'd got somebody else with me. I noticed that the sliding board was unbolted—there is a little bolt on the side of it, you know—so I very quietly pushed forward the bolt and then went downstairs to look for James or Charles—that's the butler and the footman, you know," he said to Jack. "Cook told me they had both gone into Newbury for the day, and of course father's chauffeur was out with the car—he had taken Aunt Hannah and Dulcie to Holt Stacey to catch the train to London, and I knew that he would take a day off too, because he always does when he gets the chance—father isn't expected back until to-night. So then I went to try to find Churchill, or one of the other gardeners—goodness knows where they were hiding themselves. Anyway, I couldn't find them, nor could I find either of the keepers; in fact, I seemed to be the only man on the place."
"Well, go on," I said, as he paused. "You were the only man on the place. What did the only 'man' do then?"
"I'll tell you if you'll wait a moment—my brother-in-law is always so beastly impatient," he said, turning again to Jack. "Don't you find him like that, Mr. Osborne?"
"I do—always. But go on, old boy, I'm very interested."
"And so am I," Easterton laughed.
"Of course, it was no use telling cook or the maids; they'd have got what cook calls 'styricks' or something, so then it suddenly struck me the best thing for me to do would be to come right up to town and find Aunt Hannah and tell her. I knew where she'd be, because you'd said in your telegram—four hundred and thirty Grafton Street. I didn't know where Grafton Street was, but I thought I could find out—I borrowed money from cook for the railway ticket, though I didn't tell her what I wanted it for, or she wouldn't have given it to me, and directly after lunch I bicycled to Holt Stacey station and caught the train.
"I got to Grafton Street all right by a 'bus down Bond Street. There was a policeman standing near the house in Grafton Street, and when I rang the bell he came up and asked me what I wanted. I told him, and he said he thought I'd find 'the two ladies I wanted' at the Ritz Hotel. I knew where that was, and he showed me the way to get to it, down Dover Street—of course, if I'd had money enough I'd have taken taxis and got about much quicker. A giant in livery at the Ritz Hotel told me that 'two ladies answering to the description of the ladies I sought' had left the hotel about a quarter of an hour before I got there, and he didn't know where they had gone. Then I went to Brooks's to see if you were there, but you weren't, though they said you'd been there. That put the lid on it. I didn't know what to do, and I'd only got tenpence ha'penny left. I was awfully hungry, so I went and had tea and buns at the A.B.C. shop at Piccadilly Circus. While I was having tea I remembered hearing you tell Dulcie that Mr. Osborne lived at the Russell Hotel. I'd have telephoned to Mr. Osborne and explained who I was and asked him if he could tell me where I could find you, and I'd have telephoned too to your flat in South Molton Street to ask if you were there, but I'd got only fivepence ha'penny left after tea, and you might both have been out and then I'd have had only a penny-ha'penny and Paddington seemed an awfully long way to walk to, and I wasn't quite sure of the way, so I'd have had to keep asking, and that's such a bore, isn't it?
"So after tea I got on to the tube and came here and asked for Mr. Osborne. The man downstairs told me 'two gentlemen were with him,' and I asked him what they were like. He told me as well as he could, and I guessed from the description one of them must be you, and then just after the messenger had come up to ask if it was you and to tell you I was there, another hotel man turned up downstairs, and I talked to him, and he said he knew a Mr. Berrington was with Mr. Osborne because he, the man, had telephoned up your name a little while before, and Mr. Osborne had said to show you up. And so here I am, and that's all."
He stopped abruptly, breathless after his long talk, which had been delivered without an instant's pause.
"For your age you seem fairly intelligent," Jack said, with a look of amusement.
"Yes, fairly," Dick retorted. "But my brother-in-law says that 'when he was my age' the world was a much better and finer place, that the boys did wonderful things—'when he was my age.' He says, for instance, that he talked Latin and Greek and German and French and one or two other languages just as you talk English, Mr. Osborne, 'when he was my age'– funny how he has forgotten them all, isn't it? My sister told me only yesterday that Mike talks French fluently, but that his German 'leaves much to be desired.' Those were her words. Were all the boys wonderful when you were my age too, Mr. Osborne, can you remember? Another thing Mike says is that 'when he was my age' all boys were taught to swim by being taken to the ends of piers and flung into the sea—Mike says he was taught like that just as the rest were, and that he jolly well had to swim or he'd have been drowned, which seems pretty obvious, doesn't it, when you come to think of it? When did the fashion of teaching boys to swim like that go out, Mr. Osborne? I'm jolly glad it has gone out."
When I had succeeded in checking Dick's flow of talk and quelling his high spirits, and had questioned him further with regard to the man he declared to be in hiding at Holt—though without my being able to obtain from him any further information—I turned to Jack.
"What do you make of it?" I said. "What do you suggest ought to be done?"
"I think," he answered after a moment's pause, "that it affords an excellent excuse for you to run down to Holt to-night."
"Oh, good!" Dick exclaimed, jumping with excitement. "And there's a train at a quarter to seven that we can catch; it gets to Holt Stacey at five minutes to eight."
Jack glanced up at the clock.
"In three quarters of an hour's time," he said. "That will suit you, Mike, and you'll be glad, I know, of the excuse to go down to Holt to see the flowers and—and things. Don't think I suppose for a moment that you want to see either Dulcie Challoner or the old lady you call 'Aunt Hannah,' but still if you should see them, and of course you will—"
"Oh, he'll see them right enough," Dick burst out, "especially my sister. There aren't any flies on my brother-in-law, you bet!"
I boxed Dick's ears, but he didn't seem to mind. Perhaps I didn't box them very hard, for instead of howling as he ought to have done, he looked up at me sharply and exclaimed:
"Then you're coming down to Holt now! Hooray! We'll go down together—how ripping! I'll telephone to say you're coming, and say to get your room ready," and he sprang across to the instrument by the bedside.
I stopped him, gripping him by the shoulder, though not before he had pulled off the receiver and called through to the operator—"Trunks, please!"
"You'll do nothing of the sort," I said, "and look here, Dick, you are in Mr. Osborne's rooms, and not in your own play-room, so don't forget it."
I felt greatly preoccupied as the train sped down to Berkshire—anxious, too, about many things, not the least of these being how I should be received. Would Sir Roland have returned? Would Aunt Hannah have told him everything? If so would he have adopted her view with regard to the sending of that telegram, and with regard to other matters? And Dulcie, would she at last have come to think as Aunt Hannah thought? I could not believe she would have, but still—
As I have said, women are so extraordinary, that there is no knowing what they may not do, no accounting for what they may do.
Knowing there would be no conveyance obtainable at Holt Stacey, I had decided to go on to Newbury. On our alighting at Newbury I suddenly heard Dick's shrill voice calling:
"Why, Mike, there's father!"
Sir Roland had just got out of a compartment further up the train, and soon we were in conversation. He too had come from London, but whereas Dick and I had only just caught the train, Sir Roland had, he said, entered it as soon as it came into the station, which accounted for our not having seen him at Paddington. As we walked along the Newbury platform I explained to him very briefly the reason I had come down, and how it was I had Dick with me, inwardly congratulating myself upon my good fortune in thus meeting Sir Roland and so being able to explain everything to him concerning what had happened that day, before he should meet his sister and hear what she would tell him.
"It was only at the last moment I decided to come by this train," Sir Roland said as he entered the taxi that a porter had hailed, and I followed him, while Dick hopped in after us. "How tiresome it is one can't get a conveyance at Holt Stacey; people are for ever complaining to me about it. As I have not telegraphed for the car to meet me I had to come on to Newbury."
"I came to Newbury for the same reason," I said; and then, as the taxi rolled swiftly along the dark lanes, for we had a twelve miles' run before us, I gave Sir Roland a detailed account of all that had happened that day, from the time Easterton had rung me up at my flat to tell me of Jack Osborne's disappearance and to ask me to come to him at once, down to the sudden and unexpected arrival of Dick at Jack's rooms at the Russell Hotel.
Sir Roland was astounded, and a good deal perturbed. Several times during the course of my narrative he had interrupted in order to put some question or other to Dick. At first he had reproved him for going to London on what Dick called "his own"; but when I told him more he admitted that what the boy had done he had done probably for the best.
"Oh, I haven't told you one thing," Dick suddenly interrupted.
"Well, what?" Sir Roland asked.
"While I was on my way to Holt Stacey this morning, Mrs. Stapleton passed me in her car. I was on that part of the road, about a mile from the lodge, where if you look round you can see a long bit of the avenue. I wondered if Mrs. Stapleton were going to Holt by any chance, so I bicycled rather slowly for a minute or two, and looked round once or twice. I had guessed right, because all at once I saw her car going up the avenue."
"Are you sure it was Mrs. Stapleton?" I asked, suddenly interested.
"Oh, quite. But I don't think she saw me, her car went by so fast."
"Was anybody with her?"
"No, she was alone—the chauffeur was driving."
"And the car that went up the drive, are you sure it was the same?"
"Positive—that long grey car of hers, I'd know it anywhere; you can recognize it ever so far away."
We were half a mile from the lodge, now. Soon we had shot through the open gates, and were sliding up the splendid avenue. I felt intensely excited, also happier than when in the train, for I knew I now possessed Sir Roland's entire confidence. Delicious was it to think that in a few minutes I should see Dulcie again, but what excited me—and I knew it must be exciting Sir Roland too—was the thought of that man—or would it prove to be a woman?—lying concealed in the hiding-hole. Who could he be? How long had he been there? How had he got there and what could he be doing?
I had told Sir Roland of the false conclusion Aunt Hannah had come to with regard to the sending of that typed telegram, and how bitterly she had spoken to me about it—I had thought it best to prepare him for the absurd story that I felt sure Aunt Hannah would proceed to pour into his ear directly she met him. To my relief he had laughed, appearing to treat the matter of her annoyance and suspicion as a joke, though the sending of the telegram he looked upon, naturally, as a very grave matter. Consequently, upon our arrival at Holt, instead of inquiring for his sister, and at once consulting her upon the subject of the day's events, as he would, I knew, have done under ordinary circumstances, he told Charles, the footman, to send the butler to him at once, and to return with him.
We were now in the little library—Sir Roland and myself, Dick, the butler and the footman, and the door was shut. Without any preliminaries Sir Roland came straight to the point. He told the two servants of Dick's discovery that morning, told them that presumably the man was still in hiding where Dick had bolted him down, and that the four of us were at once going, as he put it, "to unearth the scoundrel."
"And you will stay here, Dick," Sir Roland added. "We shall not need your services at this juncture."
Dick was, I could see, deeply disappointed at, as he put it to me in an undertone, "being side-tracked like this by the guv'nor when it was I who marked the beggar to ground "; but his father's word was law, and he knew it.
"Never mind, my dear old chap," I said, as I noticed a slight quiver of the under lip, "directly we've unearthed him and got him safely bagged I'll come and tell you what he looks like and all about him. You see, your father doesn't want to run unnecessary risk—you're the only boy he's got, and this man may be armed. You would be annoyed if the fellow were to make holes in you, and I should be vexed too; greatly vexed."
Dick laughed at that, and when, a minute later, we left him, he was happier in his mind.
No sound was audible as we stood above the priests' hole, listening intently. This hiding-place was oddly situated, and ingeniously constructed. In an angle formed by two walls with old oak wainscoting was a sliding floor—in reality it was a single board, but it was made to resemble so exactly several boards set parallel and horizontally that none could believe it to be a single board unless they were shown. Immediately beneath was a room, or closet, not much bigger than a very large cupboard, which could accommodate three men standing, or two seated. In olden days this sliding board was covered with tapestry, and being made in such a way that, when stamped upon or struck, no hollow sound was emitted, it formed a safe place of concealment for any outlawed person for whom the emissaries of the law might be in search. To this day the board slides away into the wall as "sweetly" as it did in the days of the Reformation; but Sir Roland, owing to an accident having once occurred through someone leaving the hole uncovered, had affixed a small bolt to the board and given orders that this bolt should always be kept pushed into its socket.
When we had all stood listening for fully a minute, Sir Roland said suddenly:
"Charles, draw the bolt and slide back the board—get back, James!" he exclaimed sharply to the butler, who in his anxiety to see what would be revealed was bending forward.
"D'you want to be shot? Whoever the man may be he is pretty sure to be armed."
An instant later the board had vanished into the wall, and Sir Roland stood peering down exactly as he had warned his butler not to do.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed.
Casting prudence aside, we all pressed forward and looked down into the hole. Huddled in a heap at the bottom was a man in hunting kit—white breeches, top boots and "pink" coat. Sitting along the floor, he was bent almost double, so that we could not see his face.
"Hello!" Sir Roland called out, "who are you? What are you doing there?"
But the figure didn't move.
At one end of the hiding-hole a ladder was nailed vertically. The feet of the man touched its lowest rung. Turning, Sir Roland began carefully to descend.
"Let me, sir!" the butler exclaimed excitedly, "let me—it's not safe—he may attack you, sir!"
Without answering Sir Roland continued to clamber down. Now he stood upon the floor of the hiding-hole, at the foot of the figure. We saw him stoop, raise the man's head, and bend the body upward until the back rested against the other end of the hole.
An exclamation escaped us simultaneously. The face was that of a man of twenty-seven or so, though the stubbly beard and moustache, apparently a week's growth or more, at first gave the idea that he was much older. The eyes were closed and sunken. The mouth gaped. The face was deathly pale and terribly emaciated.
"By Gad!" gasped Sir Roland, as he took hold of the wrist and felt for the pulse. "My Gad, I think he's dead!"
CHAPTER X
NARRATES A CONFESSION
Half an hour later the man found in the hiding-hole lay upon a bed in one of the spare rooms.
Though not dead, he had, when discovered, been in the last stage of exhaustion. The doctor telephoned for had at once discovered that what we already suspected was true—the man's left ankle was very badly sprained. It must, he said, have been sprained ten or twelve days previously. In addition, the man was almost like a skeleton.
"You found him not an hour too soon," the doctor said when, after completing his diagnosis, and giving instructions concerning the treatment of his patient to the nurse who had just arrived, he rejoined us in the smoking-room downstairs. "He is in a state of complete collapse. For days he has evidently not touched food."
He looked at us in turn with an odd expression as he said this. He was clearly mystified at finding a man at Holt Manor dying of starvation—a starving man dressed for the chase, a man obviously of refinement, and undoubtedly to be described as a gentleman.
Sir Roland decided under the circumstances to tell the doctor everything: how the man's presence had been discovered by Dick, how we had afterwards found him lying upon the floor of the hiding-hole, apparently dead, and how, with the help of ropes, we had finally pulled him out. The doctor had, of course, heard of the robbery at Holt nearly a fortnight before, and he at once put two and two together.
For two days the stranger quivered between life and death. Two nurses were in constant attendance, and the doctor called frequently. It was on the afternoon of the third day that he expressed a desire to talk to Sir Roland; he had, until then, been allowed to speak only a word or two.
He wanted, he said, "to speak with Sir Roland alone"; but to this Sir Roland would not agree.
"If you want to speak to me, you can speak quite freely before this gentleman," he said; I was in the room at the time.
At first the man seemed distressed, but at last, finding that Sir Roland would make no concession, he said in a weak voice:
"I'm dying, Sir Roland, I feel it, and before I go there are things I should like to say to you—things that it may be to your advantage to hear."
His voice, I noticed, had in it the timbre peculiar to the voices of men of education.
"Say anything you like," Sir Roland answered coldly.
"You have been exceedingly kind to me: there are men who, finding me in concealment as you found me, and after what has happened in this house, would at once have called in the police. You may believe me or not, but I am extremely grateful to you. And I want to show my gratitude in the only way I can."
He paused for nearly a minute, then continued:
"Sir Roland, I will tell you as much as I am justified in telling about the robbery; but first, has anybody concerned in it been arrested?"
Sir Roland shook his head.
"Nobody—as yet," he answered. "The police have not discovered even the smallest clue."
"I and another were in your bedroom when your son suddenly sprang from behind the screen," the stranger went on. "Again you may believe me or not, but I tried to prevent my companion from doing him any injury. It was I who put the chloroform on the boy, but I did him no other harm, I swear, sir."
I saw Sir Roland's eyes blaze. Then, as his glance rested upon the stranger's starved, almost ashen face—it seemed to be gradually growing livid—the sternness of his expression relaxed.
"How came you to be in hiding here?" he asked abruptly. "How many accomplices had you?"
"Seven," the stranger replied, without an instant's hesitation. "The robbery was carefully planned; it was planned so carefully that it seemed without the bounds of possibility that it could fail to succeed. I and others were at your hunt breakfast—"
"Were your accomplices all men?" I interrupted sharply.
The man's stare met mine. He looked at me with, I thought, singular malevolence.
"They were not," he answered quietly. He turned again to Sir Roland. "Just after your son had been rendered unconscious, I had the misfortune to slip up on the polished floor and sprain my ankle badly. No sooner did my companion realize what had happened, than he snatched from me all the stolen property I held, in spite of my endeavour to prevent him, then emptied my pockets, and left me. Dismayed at being thus deserted—for unless I could hide at once I must, I knew, quickly be discovered—I crawled out of the room on all fours, and along the landing as far as the angle where the hiding-place is. The hole was open—we had opened it before entering your room, lest we might be surprised and suddenly forced to hide. Almost as I reached it I heard somebody coming. Instantly I scrambled down and slid the board over my head."
"How came you to know of the existence and the whereabouts of the hiding-hole at all?" Sir Roland inquired, eyeing the stranger suspiciously.
"That I do not wish to tell. I hoped ultimately to be rescued by my accomplices, and for that reason I made no sound which might have revealed my presence. My ankle had swollen considerably, and, confined in my riding-boot, which I couldn't pull off, it gave me intense pain. To clamber out unaided was consequently an impossibility; so there I lay, slowly starving, hoping, night after night, that my accomplices would force an entrance into the house and rescue me, for my companion who left me must have guessed where I was in hiding—we had agreed, as I have said, to seek concealment in that hole should either of us be driven to hide in order to escape detection."
"Was the man who deserted you the man who deliberately strained my boy's arm by twisting it?" Sir Roland asked.
"Yes."
"What is his name?"
"Gastrell—Hugesson Gastrell, that's the name the brute is known by. He always was a blackguard—a perisher! I shall refuse to betray any of the others; they are my friends. But Hugesson Gastrell—don't forget that name, Sir Roland. You may some day be very glad I told it to you—the man of The Four Faces!"
He paused. He seemed suddenly to be growing weaker. As we sat there, watching him, I could not help in a sense feeling pity for the fellow, and I knew that Sir Roland felt the same. It seemed terrible to find a man like this, quite young—he was certainly under thirty—a man with the unmistakable cachet of public school and university, engaged in a career of infamy. What was his life's story I wondered as I looked at him, noting how refined his features were, what well-shaped hands he had. Why had he sunk so low? Above all, who was he? for certainly he was no ordinary malefactor.
Suddenly he turned on to his back, wincing with pain as he did so; he had been lying partly on his side.
"I can't betray my friends, Sir Roland," he murmured, "but believe me when I say I am deeply grateful for your kindness to me. I was not always what I am now, you know," his voice grew weaker still; "not always an adventurer—a criminal if you will. Yes, I am a criminal, and have been for many years; unconvicted as yet, but none the less a criminal. I was once what you are, Sir Roland; I took pride in being a gentleman and in calling myself one. Educated at Marlborough and at Trinity—but why should I bore you with my story—eh, Sir Roland? Why should I bore you with, with—ah! The Four Faces! The Four Faces!" he repeated.
His eyes rolled strangely, then looked dully up at the ceiling. What did he mean by "The Four Faces"? Did he refer to the medallion worn by Gastrell? His mind was beginning to wander. He muttered and murmured for a minute, then again his words became articulate.
"Jasmine—oh, Jasmine my darling, I love you so!"
I started.
"Jasmine, if only you would … oh, yes, that is all I ask, all I want, my darling woman, all I … you remember it all, don't you? … yes … oh, it was her fault … he wouldn't otherwise have killed her … oh, no, discovery is impossible, the … it was quite unrecognizable…. The Four Faces—ha! ha! … I myself saw it, black, charred beyond all hope of recognition … he did right to … dear, I should have done the same…."
Between these scraps of sentences were words impossible to catch the meaning of, so indistinctly were they uttered, some being said beneath his breath, some muttered and inarticulate, some little more than murmurings.
He moved restlessly on the bed. Then his eyes slowly closed, and for a minute he lay still. And then, all at once, he seemed to spring back into life.
"Mother!" he shouted suddenly in quite a strong voice.
He started up in bed, and now sat erect and still, his wide-stretched eyes staring straight before him.
The nurse had, at Sir Roland's request, left the room before the stranger had begun to speak to him. Now, opening the door quickly, Sir Roland called to her to return.
The stranger's eyes were fixed. Motionless he sat there glaring, as it seemed to us, at some figure facing him. Instinctively we followed the direction of his gaze, but naught was visible to us save the artistic pattern upon the pink-tinted wall-paper opposite the foot of the bed.
His lips were slightly parted, now. We saw them move as though he spoke rapidly, but no words came. And then, all at once, he smiled.
"The Four Faces!" he repeated, almost inaudibly.
It was not a vacant smile, not the smile of a man mentally deficient, but a smile charged with meaning, with intelligent expression; a smile of delight, of greeting—a smile full of love. It was the first time we had seen a smile, or anything approaching one, upon his face, and in an instant it revealed how handsome the man had been.
"Mother!"
This time the word was only murmured, a murmur so low as to be barely audible. The fellow's pyjama jacket, one Sir Roland Challoner had lent to him, had become unfastened at the throat, and now I noticed that a thin gold chain was round his neck, and that from it there depended a flat, circular locket.
Sir Roland was seated close beside the bed. Almost as I noticed this locket, he saw it too. I saw him bend forward a little, and take it in his fingers, and turn it over. I could see it distinctly from where I sat. Upon the reverse side was a miniature—the portrait of a woman—a woman of forty-five or so, very beautiful still, a striking face of singular refinement. Yes, there could be no doubt whatever—the eyes of the miniature bore a striking likeness to the stranger's, which now gazed at nothing with that fixed, unmeaning stare.
I had noticed Sir Roland raised his eyebrows. Now he sat staring intently at the miniature which lay flat upon the palm on his hand. At last he let it drop and turned to me, while the stranger still sat upright in the bed, gazing still at something he seemed to see before him.
"I believe I have discovered his identity," Sir Roland whispered. "I recognize the portrait in that locket; I couldn't possibly mistake it seeing that years ago I knew the original well. It's a miniature of Lady Logan, who died some years ago. Her husband, Lord Logan, was a gambler, a spendthrift, and a drunkard, and he treated her with abominable cruelty. They had one child, a son. I remember the son sitting on my knee when he was quite a little chap—he couldn't at that time have been more than five or six. He went to Marlborough, I know; then crammed for the army, but failed to pass; and yet he was undoubtedly clever. His father became infuriated upon hearing that he had not qualified, and, in a fit of drunkenness, turned him with curses out of the house, forbidding him ever to return, in spite of Lady Logan's pleading on the lad's behalf. The lad had from infancy been passionately devoted to his mother, though he couldn't bear his father. The mother died soon afterwards—of a broken heart it was said—and Lord Logan survived her only a few months, dying eventually of delirium tremens. Upon his death the little money he left was swallowed up in paying his debts. The son, whose name was Harold, didn't show up even at the funerals—none knew where he was or what had become of him. It was generally believed that he had gone abroad, and Logan's executors thought it probable that the son had not had news of either his mother's or his father's death. Altogether it was a very sad story and—"