As We Forgive Them Part 12

As I sat there with the dead man's daughter, endeavouring to induce her to receive the mysterious individual without open hostility, I could not help noticing the vivid contrast between the luxury of her surroundings and the heavy burden of her heart.

She suggested that the house should be sold and that she should retire to Mayvill and there live quietly in the country with Mrs. Percival, but I urged her to wait, at least for the present. It seemed a pity that Burton Blair's splendid collection of old masters, and the fine tapestries that he had bought in Spain only a few years ago, and the unique collection of early Majolica, should go to the hammer. Among the many treasures in the dining-room was Andrea del Sarto's "Holy Family,"

for which Blair had given sixteen thousand five hundred pounds at Christie's, and which was considered one of the finest examples of that great master. Again, the Italian Renaissance furniture, the old Montelupo and Savona ware and the magnificent old English plate were each worth a fortune in themselves, and should, I contended, remain Mabel's property, as they had been all bequeathed to her.

"Yes, I know," she responded to my argument. "Everything is mine except that little bag containing the sachet, which is yours, and which is so unfortunately missing."

"You must help me to recover it," I urged. "It will be to our mutual interests to do so."

"Of course I will a.s.sist you in every way possible, Mr. Greenwood," was her answer. "Since you've been away in Italy I have had the house searched from top to bottom, and have myself examined all my father's dispatch-boxes, his two other safes, and certain places where he sometimes secreted his private papers, in order to discover whether, fearing that an attempt might be made to steal the little bag, he left it at home. But all in vain. It certainly is not in this house."

I thanked her for her efforts, knowing well that she had acted vigorously on my behalf, but feeling that any search within that house was futile, and that if the secret were ever recovered it would be found in the hands of one or other of Blair s enemies.

Together we sat for a long time discussing the situation. The reason of her hatred of the man Dawson she would not divulge, but this did not cause me any real surprise, for I saw in her att.i.tude a desire to conceal some secret of her father's past. Nevertheless, after much persuasion, I induced her to consent to allow the man to be informed of his office, and to receive him without betraying the slightest sign of annoyance or disfavour.

This I considered a triumph of my own diplomacy. Up to a certain point I, as her best friend in those hard, dark days bygone, possessed a complete influence over her. But beyond that, when it became a question involving her father's honour, I was entirely powerless. She was a girl of strong individuality, and like all such, was quick of penetration, and peculiarly subject to prejudice on account of her high sense of honour.

She flattered me by declaring that she wished that I had been appointed her secretary, whereupon I thanked her for the compliment, but a.s.serted--

"Such a thing could never have been."

"Why?"

"Because you have told me that this fellow Dawson is coming here as a matter of right. Your father wrote that unfortunate clause in his will under compulsion--which means, because he stood in fear of him."

"Yes," she sighed in a low voice. "You are right, Mr. Greenwood. Quite right. He held my father's life in his hands."

This latter remark struck me as very strange. Could Burton Blair have been guilty of some nameless crime that he should fear this mysterious one-eyed Englishman? Perhaps so. Perhaps the man d.i.c.k Dawson, who had for years been pa.s.sing as an Italian in rural Italy, was the only living witness of an incident which Blair, in his prosperous days, would have gladly given a million to efface. Such, indeed, was one of the many theories which arose within me. Yet when I recollected the bluff, good-natured honesty of Burton Blair, his sterling sincerity, his high-mindedness, and his anonymous charitable works for charity's sake, I crushed down all such suspicions, and determined only to respect the dead man's memory.

The next night, just before nine o'clock, as Reggie and I were chatting over our coffee in our cosy little dining-room in Great Russell Street, Glave, our man, tapped, entered, and handed me a card.

I sprang from my chair, as though I had received an electric shock.

"Well! This is funny, old chap," I cried turning to my friend. "Here's actually the man Dawson himself."

"Dawson!" gasped the man against whom the monk had warned me. "Let's have him in. But, by Gad! we must be careful of what we say, for, if all is true of him, he has the cuteness of Old Nick himself."

"Leave him to me," I said. Then turning to Glave, said, "Show the gentleman in."

And we both waited in breathless expectancy for the appearance of the man who knew the truth concerning the carefully-guarded past of Burton Blair, and who, for some mysterious reason, had concealed himself so long in the guise of an Italian.

A moment later he was ushered in, and bowing to us exclaimed with a smile--

"I suppose, gentlemen, I have to introduce myself. My name is Dawson-- Richard Dawson."

"And mine is Gilbert Greenwood," I said rather distantly. "While my friend here is Reginald Seton."

"I have heard of you both from our mutual friend, now unfortunately deceased, Burton Blair," he exclaimed; and sank slowly into the grandfather armchair which I indicated, while I myself stood upon the hearthrug with my back to the fire in order to take a good look at him.

He was in well-made evening clothes, over which he wore a black overcoat, yet there was nothing about him suggestive of the man of strong character. He was of middle height, and his age I judged to be nearly fifty. He wore gold-framed round eye-gla.s.ses with thick pebbles, through which he seemed to blink at us like a German professor, and his general aspect was that of a sedate and studious man.

Beneath a patchy ma.s.s of grey-brown hair his forehead fell in wrinkled notches over a pair of sunken blue eyes, one of which looked upon the world in speculative wonder, while the other was grey, cloudy, and sightless. Straggling eyebrows wandered in a curiously uncertain manner to their meeting-place above a somewhat fleshy nose. Below the cheeks and beard and moustache blended in a colour-scheme of grey. From the sleeves of his overcoat, as he sat there before us, his lithe, brown fingers shot in and out, twisting and tapping the padded arms of the chair with nervous persistence, and in a manner which indicated the high tension of the man.

"My reason for intruding upon you at this hour," he said half apologetically, yet with a mysterious smile upon his thick lips, "is because I only arrived back in London this evening and discovered that my friend Blair has, by his will, left in my hands the control of his daughter's affairs."

"Oh!" I exclaimed in pretended surprise as though it were news to me.

"And who has said this?"

"I have received information privately," was his evasive answer. "But before proceeding further, I thought it best to call upon you, in order that we might from the outset thoroughly understand each other. I know that both of you have been Blair's most intimate and kindest friends, while owing to certain somewhat curious circ.u.mstances I have been compelled, until to-day, to remain entirely in the background, his friend in secret as it were. I am also well aware of the circ.u.mstances in which you met, of your charity to my dead friend and to his daughter--in fact, he told me everything, for he had no secrets from me.

Yet you on your part," he continued, glancing at us from one to the other with that single blue eye, "you must have regarded his sudden wealth as a complete mystery."

"We certainly have done," I remarked.

"Ah!" he exclaimed quickly in a tone of ill-concealed satisfaction.

"Then he has revealed to you nothing!"

And in an instant I saw that I had inadvertently told the fellow exactly what he most desired to know.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BURTON BLAIR'S SECRET IS REVEALED.

"Whatever Burton Blair told me was in strictest confidence," I exclaimed, resenting the fellow's intrusion, yet secretly glad to have that opportunity of meeting him and of endeavouring to ascertain his intentions.

"Of course," answered Dawson with a smile, his one shining eye blinking at me from behind his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses. "But his friendliness and grat.i.tude never led him sufficiently far to reveal to you his secret.

No. I think if you will pardon me, Mr. Greenwood, it is useless for us to fence in this manner, having regard to the fact that I know rather more of Burton Blair and his past life than you ever have done."

"Admitted," I said. "Blair was always very reticent. He set himself to solve some mystery and achieved his object."

"And by doing so gained over two millions sterling which people still regard as a mystery. There is, however, no mystery about those heaps of securities lying at his banks, nor about the cash with which he purchased them," he laughed. "It was good Bank of England notes and solid gold coin of the realm. But now he's dead, poor fellow; it has all come to an end," he added with a slightly reflective air.

"But his secret still exists," Reggie remarked. "He has bequeathed it to my friend here."

"What!" snapped the man with one eye, turning to me in sheer amazement.

"He has left his secret with you?"

He seemed utterly staggered by Reggie's words, and I noted the evil glitter in his glance.

"He has. The secret is now mine," I answered; although I did not tell him that the mysterious little wash leather bag was missing.

"But don't you know what that involves, man?" he cried, and having risen from his chair he now stood before me, his thin fingers twitching with excitement.

"No, I don't," I said, laughing in an endeavour to treat his words lightly. "He has left me as a legacy the little bag he always carried, together with certain instructions which I shall endeavour to act upon."

"Very well," he snarled. "Do just as you think fit, only I would rather you were left possessor of that secret than me--that's all."

His dismay and annoyance apparently knew no bounds. He strove hard to conceal it, but without avail. It was therefore at once plain that there was some very strong motive why the secret should not be allowed to fall into my possession. Yet his belief that the little sachet had already pa.s.sed into my hands negatived my theory that this mysterious person was in any way connected with Burton Blair's death.

"Believe me, Mr. Dawson," I said quite calmly, "I entertain no fear of the result of my friend's kind generosity. Indeed, I can see no ground for any apprehension. Blair discovered a mystery which, by dint of long patience and almost superhuman effort, he succeeded in solving, and I presume that, possibly from a feeling of some little grat.i.tude for the small help my friend and myself were able to render him, he has left his secret in my keeping."