C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
thing which has to be hidden hangs on that chain? Mr. Ruthven Smith is advised to find out.
"I see now," the unfortunate man excused himself, "that someone has been taking advantage of my anxiety about the losses of my firm to play a cruel practical joke on me. I can't help thinking, at the same time, that the person must have had a grudge against you and your wife also."
"Or else a desire to make mischief between you and us," was Knight's calm suggestion.
Ruthven Smith caught it up, eagerly. "Ah, that possibility hadn't occurred to me."
"I suppose we all have enemies." Knight pursued the subject without excitement. "The writer probably wished to put the idea in your head that I had deliberately bought an historic diamond which I knew to be stolen."
"But that would have been ridiculous!" exclaimed the jewel expert, and felt sincere in making his protest.
Nevertheless, he had glanced at Annesley's face while talking of the Malindore diamond to Lady Cartwright. It had been on the edge of his mind that, if she looked self-conscious, it would be a point against her and her husband. Also he had determined to make his daring attempt at discovery before she had time to get rid of the diamond if she were hiding it. Now, however, in the light of her shining innocence, he had almost forgotten that he had suspected an underhand design on her part.
He asked Nelson Smith if he could think of any one, man or woman, among his acquaintances capable of writing the anonymous letter. Nelson Smith replied that his brain was a blank, and that he hardly thought it worth while to follow the matter up, unless Ruthven Smith wished to do so. In that case they might put the affair in the hands of the police.
But the elder man was of the younger's opinion. He had made a fool of himself, and was ashamed that he had attached importance to an unsigned communication. All he desired was to let the unpleasant business drop.
This being settled, Knight, in whose hand was the typewritten letter, tossed the thing into the fireplace of the library, where the two had been talking. When he and Ruthven Smith had shaken hands and agreed to forget the whole incident the latter was glad to escape from the interview. He went to his room and lay down, to soothe his nerves and think of an excuse to return to London early on Monday morning.
As soon as his meagre back was turned Knight stooped and retrieved the letter in its envelope, unscorched, from the fireplace. There was nothing about it—not even a tell-tale perfume—to give any clue to the writer.
Nevertheless, Knight considered it of value. He intended to use it as a bluff to frighten the Countess de Santiago, for only through her own fear could he prove her treachery.
Most of the guests at Valley House went to church, to give thanks for the fairy-like Easter eggs they had received. Annesley had a headache, however, and no one was surprised that her husband should choose to stop at home to look after her.
His adoring devotion for the girl was no secret. People laughed at it, but admired it, too, and some women envied Annesley. They imagined him spending the morning with his wife, but as a matter of fact he did not go near her. He feared to speak lest she might change her decision and refuse to travel to America with him.
His one hope—a desperate hope—lay in her going. He decided not to see her alone again until Monday evening, after the arrival of the cable from America.
In order to insure the coming of this message, and to make it realistic, he motored into Torquay and sent a long telegram, partly in cipher. Returning, he had a conversation with Charrington, the butler, and Char, the chauffeur, a conversation which left the brothers grave and subdued. Later Char went off in the car again, though it poured with rain, and was gone until late at night.
Between twelve and one o'clock Knight, strolling toward the garage, heard the automobile return, and stopped in the blaze of the acetylene for the motor to slow down.
"Is it all right?" he inquired.
"It's all right," Char answered, somewhat sullenly, yet with a certain reluctant respect. "Nothing will happen here Monday night."
"Good!" his master answered, and smiled at the thought of Madalena's malicious prophecy which would not be fulfilled. It was not a pleasant smile, yet, as he had said to Annesley, he planned no revenge against the tigress—the woman whose claws had ripped his heart open.
Tigress or no, she was a woman, and he knew that, as far as she was capable of caring, she had cared for him.
Perhaps it had been partly his fault. She was handsome, and had been years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and Knight—not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested—had been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to go away with. It had been called a loan, but he had not expected to get the money back, and never did get it.
In California she had set herself up as a palmist and had become successful, a success she duplicated in New York; and she had gladly made herself useful in many ways to "Don" and those with whom he "worked."
One way was to find out the number and worth of her rich clients' jewels, and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave them to the light. And aboard the Monarchic was not by any means the first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion by throwing it upon the wrong track.
Knight had consulted her, praised her, and flattered her from time to time. Now he told himself that he was paying for his thoughtlessness. He had taken Madalena for granted, regarding her as a machine rather than a woman; and though he owed to her the loss of his happiness, that happiness had been undeserved and, as he expressed it to himself, walking the wet paths at midnight, he had "stood to lose it anyhow."
He would frighten Madalena so that she would never dare to try her tricks again, and he would let her understand that because of what she had done their partnership had come to an end once and forever. Otherwise she should feel herself safe from him.
Bad he might be, and was, as he knew; but he didn't think it was in his make-up, somehow, to strike a woman.
He did not go back to the house, after his short talk with Char, until after he had heard the stable clock strike four. It was easier to think and see things clearly out of doors than in his room adjoining Annesley's—that closed room, forbidden to him now, where she was perhaps crying, and surely hating him. As for the long nightmare day he had lived through, it had been too full for much deliberate thinking; and he wanted to plan for the future: how to begin again, and how to keep the woman who had come to mean more for him than anything else had ever meant—more, he knew, than anything else could mean.
He was not sure whether the love in his heart was a punishment or a blessing, but there it was. It had come to stay.
"This woman to this man!"
He found himself repeating the words he remembered best in the marriage service, not bitterly as he had repeated them to Annesley, but yearningly, clingingly, groping after some promise of hope in them.
"She gave herself to me. I'm the same man she loved, after all, though she says I'm not," he told himself. "God! What's the good of being a man at all, if I can't get her back?"
As he wandered through one winter-saddened garden after another—the Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rose garden—he searched his soul, asking it how much more he should have to tell the girl about his past. In a kind of desperate resignation he persuaded himself that there was nothing he would not be willing to tell her now, if it were for her good, and if she wished to hear.
But something within him said that she would wish to hear no more. She would deign to put no questions to him, even if she felt curiosity. She would doubtless refuse to listen if he volunteered a further confession.