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no more successful than the charming girl now standing before me. Burton Blair was a strange man, both in actions and in words, very reserved regarding his own affairs, and yet, curiously enough, with the advent of prosperity he had become a prince of good fellows.
“But who were his enemies?” I inquired.
“Ah! of that I am likewise in utter ignorance,” was her reply. “As you know, during the past year or two, like all rich men he has been surrounded by adventurers and parasites of all sorts, whom Ford, his secretary, has kept at arm’s length. It may be that the existence of the precious packet was known, and that my poor father has fallen a victim to some foul plot. At east, that is my firm idea.”
“If so, the police should certainly be informed,” I said. “It is true that the wash-leather sachet which he showed me on the night of our first meeting is now missing, for we have all made the most careful search for it, but in vain. Yet what could its possession possibly profit any one if the key to what was contained there is wanting?”
“But was not this key, whatever it was, also in my father’s hands?” queried Mabel Blair. “Was it not the discovery of that very key which gave us all these possessions?” she asked, with the sweet womanliness that was her most engaging characteristic.
“Exactly. But surely your father, shrewd and cautious as he always was, would never carry upon his person both problem and key together! I can’t really believe that he’d do such a foolish thing as that.”
“Nor do I. Although I was his only child, and his confidante in everything relating to his life, there was one thing he persistently kept from me, and that was the nature of his secret. Sometimes I have found myself suspecting that it was not an altogether creditable one – indeed, one that a father dare not reveal to his daughter. And yet no one has ever accused him of dishonesty or of double-dealing. At other times I have noticed in his face and manner an air of distinct mystery which has caused me to believe that the source of our unlimited wealth was some curious and romantic one, which to the world would be regarded as entirely incredible. One night, indeed, as we sat here at table after dinner, and while smoking, he had been telling me about my poor mother who died in lodgings in a back street in Manchester while he was absent on a voyage to the West Coast of Africa, he declared that if London knew the source of his income it would be astounded. ‘But,’ he added, ‘it is a secret – a secret I intend to carry with me to the grave.’”
Strangely enough he had uttered those very same words to me a couple of years before, when one night he had sat before the fire in my rooms in Great Russell Street, and I had referred to his marvellous stroke of good fortune. He had died, and he had either carried out his threat of destroying that evidence of his secret in the shape of the well-worn chamois leather bag, or else it had been ingeniously stolen from him.
The curious, ill-written letter I had secured from my friend’s luggage, while puzzling me had aroused certain suspicions that hitherto I had not entertained. Of these I, of course, told Mabel nothing, for I did not wish to cause her any greater pain. In the years we had been acquainted we had always been good friends. Although Reggie was fifteen years her senior, and I thirteen years older than she, I believe she regarded both of us as big brothers.
Our friendship had commenced when, finding Burton Blair, the seafaring tramp, practically-starving as he was, we clubbed together from our small means and put her to a finishing school at Bournemouth. To allow so young and delicate a girl to tramp England aimlessly in search of some vague and secret information which seemed to be her erratic father’s object, was, we decided, an utter impossibility; therefore, following that night of our first meeting at Helpstone, Burton and his daughter remained our guests for a week, and, after many consultations and some little economies, we were at last successful in placing Mabel at school, a service for which we later received her heartfelt thanks.
She was utterly worn-out, poor child. Poverty had already set its indelible stamp upon her sweet face, and her beauty was beginning to fade beneath that burden of disappointment and erratic wandering when we had so fortunately discovered her, and been able to rescue her from the necessity of tramping footsore over those endless, pitiless highways.
Contrary to our expectation it was quite a long time before we could induce Blair to allow his daughter to return to school, for, as a matter of fact, both father and daughter were entirely devoted to one another. Nevertheless, in the end we triumphed, and later, when the bluff, bearded wayfarer came to his own, he did not forget to return thanks to us in a very substantial manner. Indeed, our present improved circumstances were due to him, for not only had he handed a cheque to Reggie sufficient to pay the whole of the liabilities of the Cannon Street lace business, but to me, on my birthday three years ago, he had sent, enclosed in a cheap, silver cigarette case, a draft upon his bankers for a sum sufficient to provide me with a very comfortable little annuity.
Burton Blair never forgot his friends – neither did he ever forgive an unkind action. Mabel was his idol, his only real confidante, and yet it seemed more than strange that she knew absolutely nothing of the mysterious source of his colossal income.
Together we sat for over an hour in that great drawing-room, the very splendour of which spoke mystery. Mrs Percival, the pleasant, middle-aged widow of a naval surgeon, who was Mabel’s chaperon and companion, entered, but left us quickly, much upset by the tragic news. Presently, when I told Mabel of my promise to her father, a slight blush suffused her pale cheeks.
“It is really awfully good of you to trouble over my affairs, Mr Greenwood,” she said, glancing at me, and then dropping her eyes modestly. “I suppose in future I shall have to consider you as my guardian,” and she laughed lightly, twisting her ring around her finger.
“Not as your legal guardian,” I answered. “Your father’s lawyers will, no doubt, act in that capacity, but rather as your protector and your friend.”
“Ah!” she replied sadly, “I suppose I shall require both, now that poor dad is dead.”
“I have been your friend for over five years, Mabel, and I hope you will still allow me to carry out my promise to your father,” I said, standing before her and speaking in deep earnestness.
“There must, however, at the outset be a clear and distinct understanding between us. Therefore permit me for one moment to speak to you candidly, as a man should to a woman who is his friend. You, Mabel, are young, and – well, you are, as you know, very good-looking – ”
“No, really, Mr Greenwood,” she cried, interrupting me and blushing at my compliment, “it is too bad of you. I’m sure – ”
“Hear me out, please,” I continued with mock severity. “You are young, you are very good-looking, and you are rich; you therefore possess the three necessary attributes which render a woman eligible in these modern days when sentiment is held of such little account. Well, people who will watch our intimate friendship will, with ill-nature, declare, no doubt, that I am seeking to marry you for your money. I am quite sure the world will say this, but what I want you to promise is to at once refute such a statement. I desire that you and I shall be firm friends, just as we have ever been, without any thought of affection. I may admire you – I confess, now, that I have always admired you – but with a man of my limited means love for you is entirely out of the question. Understand that I do not wish to presume upon the past, now that your father is dead and you are alone. Understand, too, from the very outset that I now give you the hand of firm friendship as I would give it to Reggie, my old schoolfellow and best friend, and that in future I shall safeguard your interests as though they were my own.” And I held out my hands to her.
For a moment she hesitated, for my words had apparently caused her the most profound surprise.
“Very well,” she faltered, glancing for an instant up to my face. “It is a bargain – if you wish it to be so.”
“I wish, Mabel, to carry out the promise I made to your father,” I said. “As you know, I am greatly indebted to him for much generosity, and I wish, therefore, as a mark of gratitude, to stand in his place and protect his daughter – yourself.”
“But were we not, in the first place, both indebted to you?” she said. “If it had not been for Mr Seton and