19000 Pound Part 26

His humanity made him abstain from telling her how the second body was found. He said:

"We can find all that out for you, Susan. Just trust us fully. It is right you should know, and you shall. Do you believe you can trust me?"

"Now--yes, I do."

"Why the change?"

"Because I can understand your wearing my husband's shirt now."

"You can?"

"Yes, in the change on the boat."

"No; I told you that my bag was marked 'G. D.'--your husband's was not."

"Yes--it was!"

"What!"

"I had better make a full confession, and tell you everything. It is the better way."

She was going to do so. It was no longer a case of rebellious Susan.

CHAPTER XVIII

A WIFE FOR REWARD

"That time you asked for a day's holiday," said the farmer, "was when you went to meet the boat, I suppose?"

"Yes. It is a hard thing to say of your husband, farmer, but there is no help for it now, if I am to tell all. My husband robbed you."

"Robbed me!"

"Yes. Of nineteen thousand pounds."

The farmer did not speak. He simply looked at the woman.

The story of the tying to the mill wheel had roused his suspicions as to her sanity--this last speech convinced him.

Nineteen thousand pounds! He had never in his life possessed such a sum or anything like it.

The little nest egg he added to year by year for those he might leave behind him did not count a nineteenth part of that sum.

Nineteen thousand pounds! He smiled.

"You think I am mad?" queried the woman, reading it in his face. "I am not. You had an aunt named Depew living in England?"

The farmer started. The smile left his face. He said:

"How do you know that?"

"Through Josh. She is dead. She died worth a lot of property--nineteen thousand pounds."

The farmer looked in amazement; he was too astonished to speak.

The woman continued:

"Josh used to open all your letters. One day one came from an English lawyer to say your aunt was dead, and had left you all her money."

The farmer gasped. The woman continued:

"The idea occurred to Josh to take your place."

"Take my place!"

"Yes. He did. He went over to England in your name. Said he was you.

Took doc.u.ments to prove it. He got the money and cabled me that he was coming back on the boat you came by."

She looked at Danvers as she finished speaking, and he said suddenly:

"Now, I see. On his portmanteau there would be the initials 'G. D.' for George Depew."

"Yes. They were painted on before he left New York. He thought of that."

"Well," said Gerald thoughtfully, "it is the most extraordinary coincidence----"

"Coincidence be d.a.m.ned," interposed the farmer; "where's my nineteen thousand pounds?"

He had got rid of the theory of insanity now. Had almost lost sight of the idea of Josh's supposed murder.

His own loss was predominant.

"My man has been robbed of it, I expect," said the woman; "that would be why he was murdered. Some one must have known he had the money, and killed him for it."

"Have you the cable your husband sent you?" inquired Gerald.

"Yes, and a letter, too. Open that top drawer and you'll see them between the leaves of the Bible under my handkerchiefs."

Gerald opened the drawer and found the doc.u.ments. He read them both.

The letter commencing "Dear old Girl," and ending "Your loving husband, Josh," told the story.

Gerald was by no means a fool, and he read between the lines of that letter--read the character of the writer; the rejoicing in the success of his villainy; the rogue meets rogue clause; the aching tooth and the fear of pain at the dentist's.

Indeed, it did not require a very shrewd brain to read between the lines of that letter, and understand the nature of the man who penned it.