Colonel Thorndyke's Secret

“I have been reading Ramoo’s letter, and he has told me some things that have surprised and shocked me. I will tell you about them after dinner, dear. It is a long story, but you won’t have to wait until Dick and the Gregs are gone. They are interested in all that interests us, and shall hear the letter read. No; I think I will ask them and Dick to come in the morning. I should not like anything to sadden the first evening of our coming home.”

“Then it is something sad.”

“Yes, but it does not affect us, though it does affect Ramoo. Now clear your brow, dear, and dismiss the subject from your mind, else our guests will fancy that our marriage has not been altogether so satisfactory as they had hoped.”

“As if they could think such a thing as that, Mark,” she said indignantly. “But there is the sound of wheels; it is Mr. Chetwynd’s gig.”

The three visitors all came in together, having met at the door. Mark, with a great effort, put aside the letter from his mind, and a cheerful evening was spent. They had much to tell of their travels, many questions to ask about the parish and their mutual friends and the neighborhood generally, and when they rose to go Mark said:

“Would you mind riding over again tomorrow morning, Dick? I have a letter to read to you that will interest you greatly.”

“Certainly. What time shall I be here?”

“Say at eleven o’clock. It is a long epistle, and will take us an hour to get through; after that we can stroll round, and, of course, you will stop to lunch.

“I should be glad if you and Mrs. Greg can come over too,” he added, turning to the Rector; “you will be much interested also in the matter.”

The next day the party met in the library at the hour named. “I may tell you, Mr. Greg, that I specially asked you and your wife here because this letter throws some light on Arthur Bastow’s connection with my father’s murder; you were friends with his father, and I think you ought to know. As to you, Dick, the letter will interest you from beginning to end, and will surprise as much as it will interest you.”

“Even I don’t know what it is, Mrs. Greg,” Millicent said. “I know it quite upset Mark yesterday, but he said he would sooner I did not know anything about it until today, as he did not want me to be saddened on the first evening of our return home. Now, please go on, Mark; you have said quite enough to excite us all.”

Mark had read but a short distance when Dick Chetwynd exclaimed:

“Then Ramoo was at the bottom of that Indian business, after all. I almost wonder you never suspected it, Mark.”

“Well, I hardly could do so,” Mark said, “when my uncle was so fond of him, and he had served him so faithfully.”

As he approached the point at which he had laid down the letter on the previous evening, Millicent’s color faded.

Suddenly an exclamation of horror broke from her when he read the last line.

“Oh, Mark,” she said, with quivering lips, “don’t say it was Ramoo. He always seemed so kind and good.”

“It was here I stopped last night,” he said, “but I fear there can be no doubt about it. I must say that it is evident from this letter, that no thought of doing my father harm was in his mind when he placed that ladder against the window. Now I will go on.”

The letter continued as follows:

“Having placed the ladder, I clambered to the window and quietly entered the room. It was quite dark, but I knew the place of every piece of furniture so well that I was able to go without hesitation to the cabinet. Your father was speaking very slowly and distinctly when he told you how it was to be opened, and I was able to do it easily, but I did not know that the back opened with a sharp click, and the noise startled me and woke your father. In an instant he was out of bed and seized me by the throat. Now, he was a much stronger man than I was. I struggled in vain. I felt that in a moment I should become insensible; my vow and my duty to the god flashed across me, and scarce knowing what I did, I drew a little dagger I always carried, and struck blindly. He fell, and I fell beside him. For a time I was insensible. When I recovered I was seized with the bitterest remorse that I had killed one I loved, but I seemed to hear the voice of the god saying, ‘You have done well, Ramoo. I am your great master, and you are bound to my service.’

“I got up almost blindly, felt in the cabinet, and found a coin and a piece of paper, and a feeling of exultation came over me that, after nearly twenty years, I should succeed in carrying out my vow and taking his bracelet back to the god. I descended the ladder, crept in the back door by which I had come out, went up to my room, where I had kept a light burning, and examined my treasures. Then I saw that all had been in vain. They were doubtless a key to the mystery, but until a clew was given they were absolutely useless. I sat for hours staring at them. I would have gone back and replaced them in the cabinet and left all as it had been before, but I dared not enter the room again. The next day I heard you say that you suspected that the talk with your father had been overheard, and that the man who had earlier in the evening before shot at him had returned, and while listening had heard something said about the hiding place, and thought that he would find some sort of treasure there. I thought that in the talk your father might have told you how to use these things, though I had not caught it, and it was therefore important that you should have them back again, so I went into the room after the inquest was over, and placed the things in their hiding place again.

“Then, thinking it over, I determined to leave your service. You would be trying to find the treasure, and I must watch you, and this I could not do as long as I was a house servant; so I came up to London, and you thought I had sailed for India, but I did not go. I hired four Lascars, men of my own religion, and paid them to watch every movement that you made, to see where you visited and where you went. I paid them well, and they served me well; it was so that I was able to bring those men to your help when but for that you would have lost your life. It was for this to some extent that I had you followed; for I soon found out that you were on the search for the man who had fired through the window, and who you believed had killed your father, rather than for the jewels. I knew that you might run into danger, and partly because I loved you, and partly because it was possible that it would be essential for that coin and piece of paper to be produced in order that the treasure might be obtained, I kept guard over you.

“When the 18th of August approached we were all on the watch. I felt sure that you would take every possible precaution while you had the bracelet in your possession. We knew who were your principal friends, the banker’s son and Mr. Chetwynd. On the 18th of August everything went on as usual. On the following day the banker’s son came to you, and as soon as he left you, you went to the lawyer’s, and afterwards to the banker’s. I felt sure now that it was at that bank that the jewels had been placed, and that you had been waiting till the young memsahib’s birthday for the news that they might be taken out; then you went to Mr. Chetwynd’s, and he went to the bank. I had no doubt that he was to take them out for you, and after that one of the men never took his eyes off him when he was outside of his house. Afterwards you went to the place where the men used to fight, and the man who was watching you went in, and had beer, and saw you talking with the big man you used to fight with, in the parlor behind the bar. The watcher went out to follow you, but left another to watch this man. We found that both Mr. Chetwynd and he went to a shipping office in Tower Street, and we then guessed that you intended to take the bracelet at once across the sea.

“I went myself and found out that a vessel was sailing in two days to Amsterdam. I took a passage for a man in the cheap cabin, and asked to look at the list of passengers, as I believed that some friend would be sailing by her; there were two men’s names down together in one handwriting among the first class passengers, and I guessed that these were you and Mr. Chetwynd. I also saw the name of the big man, which I had heard long before, down in the list of passengers, and another name next to his in the same handwriting. I did not know his name, but guessed that it was another of the fighting men, and that they were going to look after you until you had got rid of the diamonds. On the morning that she was to sail one of the Lascars was on board; I thought it possible that in order to throw anyone who might be following you off your scent you might at the last moment go ashore, and that Mr. Chetwynd might take the diamonds over, so I watched, and saw you on the deck with your friend.

“I and the other three Lascars then took passage that evening in a craft for Rotterdam, and got to Amsterdam two days before your ship arrived; we went to different houses, and going separately into the worst parts of the town, soon found a man who kept a gambling den, and who was a man who could be trusted. I offered him a thousand francs to collect twenty-five men, who were to be paid a hundred francs each, and to be ready, if your ship arrived after dark, to attack two passengers I would point out to them. I did not want you to be hurt, so bargained that all knives were to be left behind, and that he was to supply the men only with clubs. If the ship came in in daylight you were to be attacked the first time you went out after dark. You know how that was carried out. You had two more men with you than I had expected; but I thought that with a sudden rush you might all be separated. You know the rest. The moment you were knocked down I and three others carried you to a boat. It had been lying near the stairs, and we took you off to the barge in which I had arranged you should be taken to Rotterdam.

“We told them that you were a drunken man who had been stunned in a fight in a public house. As soon as we were off, I searched you and found the diamonds. Then, as you know, we put you ashore. We all crossed to England that night. Two days later I sailed in this ship, the Brahmapootra. I am not afraid of telling you this, because I know that the diamonds will not shine on the god’s arm until all fear of search and inquiry are over. My task will be done when I hand them over to the man who holds the office I once held; then I shall bear the penances imposed on me for having broken my caste in every way, and for having taken life, and for the rest of my days I shall wander as a fakir through India. I shall be supported by the knowledge that I have done my duty to my god, and have sacrificed all in his service, but it will ever be a grief to me that in so doing it was necessary to sacrifice the life of one who had ever shown me kindness. You may wonder why I have written this, but I felt that I must own the truth to you, and that you should know that if in the course of my duty to the god it was my misfortune to slay your father, I have twice saved your life, just as three times I saved that of the Colonel Sahib, your uncle.”

There was silence for some little time after Mark had finished reading.

“It is a strange story indeed,” Mr. Greg said, “but it is not for us to judge the man. He has acted according to his lights, and none can do more. He sacrificed himself and his life solely to the service of his god, well knowing that even were he successful, his reward would be penance and suffering, and a life of what cannot but be misery to a man brought up, as he has been, to consider himself of the highest and holiest rank of the people. I think, Mark, we need neither say nor think anything harshly of him.”

“Certainly not,” Mark agreed. “I can understand that according to his view of the matter anything that stood between him and his goal was but an obstacle to be swept aside; assuredly there was no premeditation in the killing of my father. I have no doubt that the man was attached to him, and that he killed him not to save his own life, but in order that his mission might be carried out.”

“Quite so, Mark; it was done in the same spirit, if I may say so, that Abraham would have sacrificed his son at the order of his God. What years of devotion that man has passed through! Accustomed, as you see, to a lofty position, to the respect and veneration of those around him, he became a servant, and performed duties that were in his opinion not only humiliating, but polluting and destructive to his caste, and which rendered him an outcast even among the lowest of his people. Do you not think so, Mrs. Thorndyke?”

Millicent, who was crying quietly, looked up.

“I can only think of him as the man who twice saved Mark’s life,” she said.

“I understand why you have wished to tell me this story,” the Rector went on to Mark. “You wish me to know that Arthur Bastow did not add this to his other crimes; that he was spared from being the murderer of your father, but from no want of will on his part; and, as we know, he killed many others, the last but an hour or two before he put an end to his own life; still I am glad that this terrible crime is not his. It seemed to be so revolting and unnatural. It was the Squire’s father who had given the living to his father, and the Squire himself had been his friend in the greatest of his trials, and had given him a shelter and a home in his old age. I am glad, at least, that the man, evil as he was, was spared this last crime of the grossest ingratitude.”

“Well, Mark,” Dick Chetwynd said cheerfully, in order to turn the subject, “I am heartily glad that we have got to the bottom of this jewel mystery. I have been puzzling over it all the time that you have been away, and I have never been able to understand how, in spite of the precautions that we took, they should have found out that the jewels were at Cotter’s, and that you had them on board with you, and, above all, why they spared your life when they could so easily and safely have put you out of the way. It is certainly strange that while you were thinking over everything connected with the jewels, the idea that Ramoo was the leading spirit in the whole business should never once have occurred to you.”

A month later, when Mark went up to town, he called at Leadenhall Street.

“Of course, you have not heard of the arrival of the Brahmapootra at Madras yet. May I ask when she left the Cape?”

“She never left the Cape, sir,” the clerk replied, “and there are very grave fears for her safety. She spoke the Surinam and gave her mails for England when the latter was eight days out from the Cape, and the Surinam reported that a day later she encountered a terrible gale, lost several spars, and narrowly escaped being blown onto the African coast. Since then we have had no news of the Brahmapootra. A number of Indiamen have arrived since; the latest came in only yesterday, and up to the time when she left no news had been received of the ship. Three small craft had been sent up the coast weeks before to make inquiries for her, but had returned without being able to obtain any intelligence, and had seen no wreckage on the coast, although they had gone several hundred miles beyond where she had spoken the Surinam, therefore there can be little doubt that she foundered with all hands during the gale. You had no near relatives on board, I hope, sir?”

“No near relatives, but there was one on board in whom I was greatly interested. Here is my card; I should feel greatly obliged if you would write me a line should you hear anything of her.”

“I will do so, sir. We have had innumerable inquiries from friends and relatives of those on board, and although of late we have been obliged to say that there can no longer be any hope that she will ever be heard of, not a day passes but many persons still come in to inquire.”

No letter ever came to Mark; no news was ever heard of the Brahmapootra. Ramoo’s sacrifice was in vain, and never again did the diamond bracelet glisten on the arm of the idol in the unknown temple.