As We Forgive Them Part 13

The man was silent for several moments with that single irritating eye fixed upon me immovably.

"Ah!" he exclaimed at last with impatience. "I see that you are in utter ignorance. Perhaps it is as well that you should remain so."

Then he added, "But let us talk of another matter--of the future."

"Well?" I inquired, "and what of the future?"

"I am appointed secretary to Mabel Blair, and the controller of her affairs."

"And I promised Burton Blair upon his deathbed to guard and protect the young lady's interests," I said, in a cold, calm voice.

"Then may I ask, now we are upon the subject, whether you entertain matrimonial intentions towards her?"

"No, you shall not ask me anything of the kind," I blazed forth. "Your question is a piece of outrageous impertinence, sir."

"Come, come, Gilbert," Reggie exclaimed.

"There's surely no need to quarrel."

"None whatever," declared Mr. Richard Dawson, with a supercilious air.

"The question is quite simple, and one which I, as the future controller of the young lady's fortune, have a perfect right to ask. I understand," he added, "that she has grown to be very attractive and popular."

"Your question is one which I refuse to answer," I declared with considerable warmth. "I might just as well demand of you the reason why you have been lying low in Italy all these years, or why you received letters addressed to a back street in Florence."

His jaw dropped, his brows slightly contracted, and I saw my remark caused him some apprehension.

"Oh! and how are you aware that I have lived in Italy?"

But in order to mislead him I smiled mysteriously and replied--

"The man who holds Burton Blair's secret also holds certain secrets concerning his friends." Then I added meaningly, "The Ceco is well known in Florence and in Lucca."

His face blanched, his thin, sinewy fingers moved again, and the twitching at the corners of his mouth showed how intensely excited he had become at that mention of his nickname.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "He has played me false, then, after all--he has told you that--eh? Very well!" And he laughed the strange hollow laugh of a man who contemplates revenge. "Very well, gentlemen. I see my position in this affair is that of an intruder."

"To tell you the truth, sir, it is," exclaimed Reggie. "You were unknown until the dead man's will was read, and I do not antic.i.p.ate that the young lady will care to be compelled to employ a stranger."

"A stranger!" he laughed, with a haughty touch of sarcasm. "d.i.c.k Dawson a stranger! No, sir, you will find that to her I am no stranger. On the other hand you will, I think, discover that instead of resenting my interference, the young lady will rather welcome it. Wait and see," he added, with a strangely confident air. "To-morrow I intend to call upon Mr. Leighton, and to take up my duties as secretary to the daughter of the late Burton Blair, millionaire," and laying stress on the final word, he laughed again defiantly in our faces.

He was not a gentleman. I decided that on the instant he had entered the room. Outwardly his bearing was that of one who had mixed with respectable people, but it was only a veneer of polish, for when he grew excited he was just as uncouth as the bluff seafarer who had so suddenly expired. His tw.a.n.g was p.r.o.nouncedly c.o.c.kney, even though it was said he had lived in Italy so many years that he had almost become an Italian.

A man who is a real born Londoner can never disguise his nasal "n's,"

even though he live his life at the uttermost ends of the earth. We had both quickly detected that the stranger, though of rather slim built, was unusually muscular. And this was the man who had had those frequent secret interviews with the grave-eyed Capuchin, Fra Antonio.

That he stood in no fear of us had been shown by the bold and open manner in which he had called, and the frankness with which he had spoken. He was entirely confident in his own position, and was inwardly chuckling at our own ignorance.

"You speak of me as a stranger, gentlemen," he said, b.u.t.toning his overcoat after a short pause and taking up his stick. "I suppose I am to-night--but I shall not be so to-morrow. Very soon, I hope, we shall learn to know one another better, then perhaps you will trust me a little further than you do this evening. Recollect that I have for many years been the dead man's most intimate friend."

It was on the point of my tongue to remark that the reason of the strange clause in the will was because of poor Burton's fear of him, and that it had been inserted under compulsion, but I fortunately managed to restrain myself and to wish the fellow "Good-evening" with some show of politeness.

"Well, I'm hanged, Gilbert," cried Reggie, when the one-eyed man had gone. "The situation grows more interesting and complicated every moment. Leighton has a tough customer to deal with, that's very evident."

"Yes," I sighed. "He has the best of us all round, because Blair evidently took him completely into his confidence."

"Burton treated us shabbily, that's my opinion, Greenwood!" blurted forth my friend, selecting a fresh cigar, and biting off the end viciously.

"He left his secret to me remember."

"He may have destroyed it after making the will," my friend suggested.

"No, it is either hidden or has been stolen--which is not at all plain.

For my own part, I consider that the theory of murder is gradually becoming dispelled. If he had any suspicion that he had been the victim of foul play, he surely would have made some remark to us before he died. Of that I feel absolutely convinced."

"Very probably," he remarked, rather dubiously, however. "But what we have now to discover is whether that little bag he wore is still in existence."

"The man Dawson was evidently in England before poor Blair's death. It may have pa.s.sed into his possession," I suggested.

"He would, in all probability, endeavour to get hold of it," Reggie agreed. "We must establish where he was and what he was doing on that day when Blair was so mysteriously seized in the train. I don't like the fellow, apart from his alias and the secrecy of friendship with Blair. He means mischief, old chap--distinct mischief. I saw it in that one eye of his. Remember what he said about Blair giving him away.

It struck me that he contemplates revenge upon poor Mabel."

"He'd better not try to injure her," I exclaimed fiercely. "I've my promise to keep to poor Burton, and I'll keep it--by Heaven, I will!--to the very letter. She sha'n't fall into the hands of that adventurer, I'll take good care."

"She's in fear of him already. I wonder why?"

"Unfortunately she won't tell me. He probably holds some guilty secret of the dead man's, the truth of which, if exposed, might, for all we know, have the effect of placing Mabel herself outside the pale of good society."

Seton grunted, lolled back in his chair, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, after a brief silence. "I wonder whether that is so?"

On the following morning, as we were seated at breakfast, a note from Mabel was brought by a boy-messenger, asking me to come round to Grosvenor Square at once. Therefore without delay I swallowed my coffee, struggled into my overcoat, and a quarter of an hour later entered the bright morning-room where the dead man's daughter, her face rather flushed by excitement, stood awaiting me.

"What's the matter?" I inquired quickly as I took her hand, fearing that the man she loathed had already called upon her.

"Nothing serious," she laughed. "I have only a piece of very good news for you."

"For me--what?"

Without answering, she placed on the table a small plain silver cigarette-box, upon one corner of the lid of which was engraved the cipher double B, that monogram that was upon all Blair's plate, carriages, harness and other possessions.

"See what is inside that," she exclaimed, pointing to the box before her, and smiling sweetly with profound satisfaction.

I eagerly took it in my hands and raising the lid, peered within.

"What!" I cried aloud, almost beside myself with joy. "It can't really be?"

"Yes," she laughed. "It is."

And then, with trembling fingers, I drew forth from the box the actual object that had been bequeathed to me, the little well-worn bag of chamois leather, the small sachet about the size of a man's palm, attached to which was a thin but very strong golden chain for suspending it around the neck.