The Seven Secrets Part 13

"If he has really absconded, it is an admission of guilt," I remarked.

"Most certainly," he replied. "It's a suspicious circ.u.mstance, in any case, that he did not remain until the conclusion of the inquiry."

We pulled the chest of drawers, a beautiful piece of old Sheraton, away from the door of the safe, and before placing the key in the lock my companion examined the exterior minutely. The key was partly rusted, and appeared as though it had not been used for many months.

Could it be that the a.s.sa.s.sin was in search of that key and had been unsuccessful?

He showed me the artful manner in which it had been concealed. The small hardy fern had been rooted up and stuck back again heedlessly into its pot. Certainly no one would ever have thought to search for a safe-key there. The dampness of the mould had caused the rust, hence before we could open the iron door we were compelled to oil the key with some brilliantine which was discovered on the dead man's dressing table.

The interior, we found, was a kind of small strong-room--built of fire-brick, and lined with steel. It was filled with papers of all kinds neatly arranged.

We drew up a table, and the first packet my friend handed out was a substantial one of five pound notes, secured by an elastic band, beneath which was a slip on which the amount was pencilled. Securities of various sorts followed, and then large packets of parchment deeds which, on examination, we found related to his Devonshire property and his farms in Canada.

"Here's something!" cried Ambler at length, tossing across to me a small packet methodically tied with pink tape. "The old boy's love-letters--by the look of them."

I undid the loop eagerly, and opened the first letter. It was in a feminine hand, and proved a curious, almost unintelligible communication.

I glanced at the signature. My heart ceased its beating, and a sudden cry involuntarily escaped me, although next moment I saw that by it I had betrayed myself, for Ambler Jevons sprang to my side in an instant.

But next instant I covered the signature with my hand, grasped the packet swift as thought, and turned upon him defiantly, without uttering a word.

CHAPTER XI.

CONCERNS MY PRIVATE AFFAIRS.

"What have you found there?" inquired Ambler Jevons, quickly interested, and yet surprised at my determination to conceal it from him.

"Something that concerns me," I replied briefly.

"Concerns you?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I don't understand. How can anything among the old man's private papers concern you?"

"This concerns me personally," I answered. "Surely that is sufficient explanation."

"No," my friend said. "Forgive me, Ralph, for speaking quite plainly, but in this affair we are both working towards the same end--namely, to elucidate the mystery. We cannot hope for success if you are bent upon concealing your discoveries from me."

"This is a private affair of my own," I declared doggedly. "What I have found only concerns myself."

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of distinct dissatisfaction.

"Even if it is a purely private matter we are surely good friends enough to be cognisant of one another's secrets," he remarked.

"Of course," I replied dubiously. "But only up to a certain point."

"Then, in other words, you imply that you can't trust me?"

"I can trust you, Ambler," I answered calmly. "We are the best of friends, and I hope we shall always be so. Will you not forgive me for refusing to show you these letters?"

"I only ask you one question. Have they anything to do with the matter we are investigating?"

I hesitated. With his quick perception he saw that a lie was not ready upon my lips.

"They have. Your silence tells me so. In that case it is your duty to show me them," he said, quietly.

I protested again, but he overwhelmed my arguments. In common fairness to him I ought not, I knew, keep back the truth. And yet it was the greatest and most terrible blow that had ever fallen upon me. He saw that I was crushed and stammering, and he stood by me wondering.

"Forgive me, Ambler," I urged again. "When you have read this letter you will fully understand why I have endeavoured to conceal it from you; why, if you were not present here at this moment, I would burn them all and not leave a trace behind."

Then I handed it to him.

He took it eagerly, skimmed it through, and started just as I had started when he saw the signature. Upon his face was a blank expression, and he returned it to me without a word.

"Well?" I asked. "What is your opinion?"

"My opinion is the same as your own, Ralph, old fellow," he answered slowly, looking me straight in the face. "It is amazing--startling--tragic."

"You think, then, that the motive of the crime was jealousy?"

"The letter makes it quite plain," he answered huskily. "Give me the others. Let me examine them. I know how severe this blow must be to you, old fellow," he added, sympathetically.

"Yes, it has staggered me," I stammered. "I'm utterly dumfounded by the unexpected revelation!" and I handed him the packet of correspondence, which he placed upon the table, and, seating himself, commenced eagerly to examine letter after letter.

While he was thus engaged I took up the first letter, and read it through--right to the bitter end.

It was apparently the last of a long correspondence, for all the letters were arranged chronologically, and this was the last of the packet. Written from Neneford Manor, Northamptonshire, and vaguely dated "Wednesday," as is a woman's habit, it was addressed to Mr.

Courtenay, and ran as follows:--

_"Words cannot express my contempt for a man who breaks his word as easily as you break yours. A year ago, when you were my father's guest, you told me that you loved me, and urged me to marry you. At first I laughed at your proposal; then when I found you really serious, I pointed out the difference of our ages. You, in return, declared that you loved me with all the ardour of a young man; that I was your ideal; and you promised, by all you held most sacred, that if I consented I should never regret. I believed you, and believed the false words of feigned devotion which you wrote to me later under seal of strictest secrecy. You went to Cairo, and none knew of our secret--the secret that you intended to make me your wife. And how have you kept your promise? To-day my father has informed me that you are to marry Mary! Imagine the blow to me! My father expects me to rejoice, little dreaming how I have been fooled; how lightly you have treated a woman's affections and aspirations. Some there are who, finding themselves in my position, would place in Mary's hands the packet of your correspondence which is before me as I write, and thus open her eyes to the fact that she is but the dupe of a man devoid of honour.

Shall I do so? No. Rest a.s.sured that I shall not. If my sister is happy, let her remain so. My vendetta lies not in that direction. The fire of hatred may be stifled, but it can never be quenched. We shall be quits some day, and you will regret bitterly that you have broken your word so lightly. My revenge--the vengeance of a jealous woman--will fall upon you at a moment and in a manner you will little dream of. I return you your letters, as you may not care for them to fall into other hands, and from to-day I shall never again refer to what has pa.s.sed. I am young, and may still obtain an upright and honourable man as husband. You are old, and are tottering slowly to your doom. Farewell._

"ETHELWYNN MIVART."

The letter fully explained a circ.u.mstance of which I had been entirely ignorant, namely, that the woman I had loved had actually been engaged to old Mr. Courtenay before her sister had married him. Its tenor showed how intensely antagonistic she was towards the man who had fooled her, and in the concluding sentence there was a distinct if covert threat--a threat of bitter revenge.

She had returned the old man's letters apparently in order to show that in her hand she held a further and more powerful weapon; she had not sought to break off his marriage with Mary, but had rather stood by, swallowed her anger, and calmly calculated upon a fierce vendetta at a moment when he would least expect it.

Truly those startling words spoken by Sir Bernard had been full of truth. I remembered them now, and discerned his meaning. He was at least an honest upright man who, although sometimes a trifle eccentric, had my interests deeply at heart. In the progress I had made in my profession I owed much to him, and even in my private affairs he had sought to guide me, although I had, alas! disregarded his repeated warnings.

I took up one after another of the letters my friend had examined, and found them to be the correspondence of a woman who was either angling after a wealthy husband, or who loved him with all the strength of her affection. Some of the communications were full of pa.s.sion, and betrayed that poetry of soul that was innate in her. The letters were dated from Neneford, from Oban, and from various Mediterranean ports, where she had gone yachting with her uncle, Sir Thomas Heaton, the great Lancashire coal-owner. Sometimes she addressed him as "Dearest,"

at others as "Beloved," usually signing herself "Your Own." So full were they of the ardent pa.s.sion characteristic of her that they held me in amazement. It was pa.s.sion developed under its most profound and serious aspects; they showed the calm and thoughtful, not the brilliant side of intellect.

In Ethelwynn's character the pa.s.sionate and the imaginative were blended equally and in the highest conceivable degree as combined with delicate female nature. Those letters, although written to a man in whose heart romance must long ago have been dead, showed how complex was her character, how fervent, enthusiastic and self-forgetting her love. At first I believed that those pa.s.sionate outpourings were merely designed to captivate the old gentleman for his money; but when I read on I saw how intense her pa.s.sion became towards the end, and how the culmination of it all was that wild reproachful missive written when the crushing blow fell so suddenly upon her.

Ethelwynn was a woman of extraordinary character, full of picturesque charm and glowing romance. To be tremblingly alive to the gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart, amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible const.i.tution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity. I knew her as a woman of highest mental powers touched with a melancholy sweetness. I was now aware of the cause of that melancholy.

Yet it was apparent that the serious and energetic part of her character was founded on deep pa.s.sion, for after her sister's marriage with the man she had herself loved and had threatened, she had actually come there beneath their roof, and lived as her sister's companion, stifling all the hatred that had entered her heart, and preserving an outward calm that had no doubt entirely disarmed him.