The Slave of Silence Part 37

"And why are you sorry?" Sartoris asked.

"Because the stones were far safer there than they are here," Beatrice said.

There was no mistaking the girl's insinuation; even Sartoris reddened.

"So you mean to say that you suspect me?" he asked.

"Most certainly I do," Beatrice said boldly. "I have only to look into your face to see that. You are all three together; there is no honesty between you. You are not even loyal to each other. And I know who you are and what part you all played in the removal of my father's body from the hotel. You who call yourself Sartoris, are the little cripple of the black hansom cab, you others are the rogues who posed as Countess de la Moray and General Gastang. And if those diamonds are to become your property, you must take them by force."

"_Le brave chien_," the woman sneered. "Well, I suppose what must be, must. Who will do it?"

"Who better than yourself?" Sartoris asked. "I had rather not lay hands on a woman, but----"

"There is no necessity. The painful thing is not going to be done at all. It is well that I am here to shield your consciences from such an outrage."

The door had opened so suddenly that the man Reggie was almost carried off his feet, and Berrington stood in the room. Beatrice gave a sudden sob of relief, for she had forgotten Berrington altogether in the tension of the moment. He stood there erect and upright, his face pale with anger and his eyes blazing like stars.

Sartoris burst out furiously and impatiently----

"d.a.m.nation!" he screamed. "I had clean forgotten all about this fellow.

His very existence had pa.s.sed altogether out of my mind."

"Then your memory is very short and very convenient," Berrington said.

"It is not so very long ago that my presence in the house was exceedingly convenient to you."

"You saved my life for what it is worth," Sartoris growled sullenly.

"Well, it may be worth a great deal to the police," Berrington retorted.

"I saved your life, which was perhaps a foolish thing to do, especially as you had made preparations to sacrifice mine for so doing. Whilst your hands have been so full, I have been making investigations in the house.

Really, I have been very well repaid for my trouble."

Sartoris started and looked up uneasily. For once his ready tongue failed him.

"Perhaps you had better be a little more explicit," he said.

"Time enough for that, presently. My first discovery was in connection with the dining-room fireplace. I fancy you know what I mean. The next item was connected with the stairs. You murderous dog, so that was the trap you laid for me. I was not to go until you had seen me again. I was to stay for the sake of your sister. Well, I am glad that I obeyed now.

But my little discoveries did not end here. Mrs. Richford, what is this?"

Berrington held out a strip of soiled linen and Beatrice took it in her hand.

"It looks like a collar," she said. "It is a collar. If you have made a discovery, Colonel Berrington, I have made another. This collar belongs to my father; I marked it for him in some new ink that does not want heating. Melanyl, I think they call it. It was one of a set of a dozen collars and I marked them all, the day of that fatal dinner party. You see that, as my father had had no valet of late----"

"You acted in his stead," Berrington said eagerly; "when did you mark this?"

"About half-past four on the day of the dinner party."

"Not long before your father went up to dress for dinner, I suppose?"

"Yes, it would be about that time. After marking the collars that had just come from the makers, I placed them in father's wardrobe in his bedroom."

"Then this is the very collar that he wore for the dinner party,"

Berrington cried; "the very collar that he was wearing at the time he disappeared. And the same collar I found not an hour ago in Mr.

Sartoris's dining-room. Not in the dining-room proper, but in a kind of vault under the floor. What is the explanation of this, I wonder?"

"If you are so cursedly clever," Sartoris sneered, "you had better find out for yourself. Get him out of the way, get both of them out of the way, get the diamonds, and let us disappear. The game is up so far as England is concerned. Get him out of the way."

Sartoris's voice had risen to a wild scream. He sent his chair rapidly across the room in the direction of the door. Berrington pulled him up sharp.

"No tricks," he said sternly. "Now none of those electrical contrivances of yours. If you move so much as an inch further I'll shoot you like a dog."

Sartoris pulled up suddenly. He did not need to look at Berrington's face to feel sure that he was in deadly earnest. At the same time the man called Reggie leaped at Berrington's throat and bore him backwards.

The a.s.sault was so sudden that Berrington dropped the revolver that he had drawn, at the feet of Beatrice.

"Never mind about me," he called out. "Point the weapon upwards and pull the trigger."

In a mechanical kind of way Beatrice did as she was told. As the weapon swayed, the trigger clicked, and the bullet, deflected on the table, snapped the back leg of Sartoris's chair clean off, so that he came a huddled ma.s.s of bones to the floor. A report followed, and before the smoke had fully cleared away from Beatrice's eyes it seemed to her that the room was full of people. There were three or four policemen in uniform, Field cool and collected, Richford white and sullen, with the twitching face of Bentwood in the background.

As the man Reggie rose to his feet, the handcuffs were slipped over his wrists, and the woman was treated in a similar fashion. Only Sartoris, being absolutely helpless, was spared the like indignity. Field looked quite satisfied.

"Bagged the whole covey," he said. "Go and stand at the front door, one of you, and see that n.o.body goes out. There may be others present, of whom we know nothing as yet. Now, Mr. Sartoris, I should like to have a few words with you touching the disappearance of Sir Charles Darryll."

"You think that I murdered him?" Sartoris sneered.

"Certainly not," Field replied. "You can't have murder without a corpse, and in this case we do not even pretend to look for the corpse."

"Or a body perhaps," Sartoris went on. He was quite the coolest person in the room. "Well, what do you want me to say or do? If you produce the corpse----"

"As I said before, there is no corpse," Field said. "Colonel Berrington seems to have discovered something. He may be able to help us if you won't."

"I can help you," Berrington said in a thrilling voice, "beyond your most sanguine hopes."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

Sartoris sat a huddled heap on the floor, with his white snarling face looking out like the head of an angry snake. He was not in the least afraid, and yet the expression of his eyes told that he knew everything was over. As he struggled painfully to his feet, Mary ran forward and guided him to a chair. He did not thank her by so much as a gesture. All the care and tenderness was wasted upon that warped nature.

"If I were not a cripple," he snarled, "this would never have happened.

And yet a cursed bag of aching bones has got the better of you all, ay, and would have kept the better, too, if I could only have moved about like the rest. But you are not going to get me to say anything if I sit here all night."

It was a strange scene, altogether,--Sartoris a huddled heap, cursing and snarling in his chair, the man Reggie and the woman Cora standing by, with uneasy grins on their faces, trying to carry it off in a spirit of false bravado. To the right of them stood Bentwood, now quite sober and shaking, and Richford sullen and despairing. Beatrice was in the shadow behind Mark Ventmore. Mary moved forward, followed by Berrington.

"What is the charge?" the man Reggie asked. "What have we done?"

Field shrugged his shoulders. Really the question did not deserve a reply. Sartoris took up the same line in his snarling voice.