The Silent Shore

CHAPTER XVI

"The story about this Spaniard, Guffanta, is a strange one," Philip Smerdon wrote from Occleve Chase to Lord Penlyn, who had informed him of the visit he had received and the revelations made by the Señor, "but I may as well tell you at once that I don't believe it, although you say that the lawyers, as well as Stuart and Dobson, are inclined to do so. My own opinion is that, though he may not have killed Mr. Cundall, he is still telling you a lie-for some reason of his own, as to the friendship that existed between them; and he probably thinks that by pretending to be able to find the man, he will get some money from you. With regard to his having been face to face with the murderer, why, if so, does he not say on what occasion and when? To know his face as that of the murderer, is to say, what in plainer words would be, that he had either known he was about to commit the act, or that he had witnessed it. It admits of no other interpretation, and, consequently, what becomes of his avowed love for Cundall, if he knew of the contemplated deed and did not prevent it, or, having witnessed it, did not at once arrest or kill his aggressor? You may depend upon it, my dear Gervase, that this man's talk is nothing but empty braggadocio, with, as I said before, the probable object of extracting money from you as he previously extracted it from your brother.

"As to the locking up of the garden and allowing no one to enter it, I am inclined to think that it is simply done with the object of making a pretence of mysteriously knowing something that no one else knows. And it is almost silly, for your garden would scarcely happen to be selected by the murderer as a place to visit, and what object could he have in so visiting it? However, as it is a place never used, I should gratify him in this case, only I would go a little farther than he wishes, and never allow it to be opened-not even when he desires it."

The letter went on to state that Smerdon was still very busy over the summer accounts at Occleve Chase, and should remain there some time; he might, however, he added, shortly run up to town for a night.

A feeling of disappointment came over Penlyn as he read this letter from his friend. During the two or three days that had elapsed between writing to Smerdon and receiving his answer, he had been buoyed up with the hope that in Guffanta the man had been discovered who would be the means of bringing the assassin to justice, and this hope had been shared by all the other men interested in the same cause. But he had come, in the course of his long friendship with Philip Smerdon, to place such utter reliance upon his judgment, and to accept so thoroughly his ideas, that the very fact of his doubting the Señor's statement, and looking upon it as a mere vulgar attempt to extort money from him, almost led him also to doubt whether, after all, he had not too readily believed the Spaniard.

Yet, he reflected, his actions, as he stood before him foretelling the certain doom of that assassin when once they should again be face to face, and his calm certainty that such would undoubtedly happen, bore upon them the impress of truth. And his story had earned the belief of the others-that, surely, was in favour of it being true. Stuart had seen him, had listened to what he had to say, and had formed the opinion that he was neither lying nor acting. Dobson also, the man who to the Señor's mind was ridiculous and incapable, had been told everything, and he, too, had come to the conclusion that Guffanta's story was an honest one, and that, of all other men, he who in some mysterious manner, knew the murderer's face, would be the most likely to eventually bring him to justice. Only, he thought that the Señor should be made to divulge where and when he had so seen his face; that would give him and his brethren a clue, he said, which might enable them to assist him in tracking the man. And he was also very anxious to know what the secret was that led to his desiring Lord Penlyn to have the garden securely closed and locked. He could find in his own mind no connecting link between the place of death in the Park and Lord Penlyn's garden (although he remembered that, strangely enough, his lordship was the dead man's brother), and he was desirous that the Señor should confide in him. But the latter would tell him nothing more than he had already made known, and Dobson, who had always in his mind's eye the vision of the large rewards that would come to the man who found the murderer, was forced to be content and to work, as he termed it, "in the dark."

"You must wait, my good Dobson, you must wait," the Spaniard said, "until I tell you that I want your assistance, though I do not think it probable that I shall ever want it. You could not find out that I was Corot, you know, although I had many times the pleasure of lunching at the next table to you; I do not think that you will be able any the better to find the man I seek. But when I find him, Dobson, I promise you that you shall have the pleasure of arresting him, so that the reward shall come to you. That is, if I do not have to arrest him suddenly upon the moment, myself, so as to prevent him escaping."

"And what are you doing now, Signor?" Dobson asked, giving him a title more familiar to him in its pronunciation than the Spanish one, "what are you doing to find him?"

"I am practising a virtue, my friend, that I have practised much in my life. I am waiting."

"I don't see that waiting is much good, Signor. There is not much good ever done by waiting."

"The greatest good in the world, Dobson, the very greatest. And you do not see now, Dobson, because you do not know what I know. So you, too, must be virtuous, and wait."

It was only with banter of a slightly concealed nature such as this that Señor Guffanta would answer Dobson, but, light as his answers were, he had still managed to impress the detective with the idea that, sooner or later, he would achieve the task he had vowed to perform. "But," as the man said to one of his brethren, "why don't he get to work, why don't he do something? He won't find the man in that Hôtel Lepanto where he sits smoking cigarettes half the day, nor yet in Lord Penlyn's house where he goes every night."

"Perhaps he thinks his lordship did it, after all," the other answered, "and is watching him."

"No," Dobson said, "he don't think that. But I can't make out who the deuce he does suspect."

It was true enough that Guffanta did pass a considerable time in the Hôtel Lepanto, smoking cigarettes, and always thinking deeply, whether seated in the corridor or in his own room upstairs. But, although he had not allowed himself to say one word to any of the other men on the subject, and still spoke with certainty of ere long finding the murderer, he was forced to acknowledge that, for the time, he was baffled. And then, as he did acknowledge this, he would rise from his chair and stretch out his long arms, and laugh grimly to himself. "But only for a time, Miguel," he would say, "only for a time. He will come to you at last, he will come to you as the bird comes to the net. Wait, wait, wait! You may meet him to-day, to-night! Por Dios, you will surely trap him at last!"

Meanwhile Lord Penlyn, when he was left alone, and when he could distract his thoughts from the desire of his life, the finding of the man who had slain Walter Cundall, was very unhappy. Those thoughts would then turn to the girl he had loved deeply, to the girl whom he had cast off because she had ventured to let the idea come into her mind that it was he who might have done the deed. He had cast her off in a moment when there had come into his heart a revulsion of feeling towards her, a feeling of horror that she, of all others in the world, could for one moment harbour such an idea against him. Yet, he admitted to himself, there were grounds upon which even the most, loving of women might be excused for having had such thoughts. He had misled her at first, he had kept back the truth from her, he had given her reasons for suspicion-even against him, her lover. And now they were parted, he had renounced her, and yet he knew that he loved her as fondly as ever; she was the one woman in the world to him. Would they ever come together again? Was it possible, that if he, who had told her that never more in this world would he speak to her of love, should go back again and kneel at her feet and plead for pardon, it would be granted to him? If he could think that; if he could think that when once his brother was avenged he might so plead and be so forgiven, then he could take courage and look forward hopefully to the future. But at present they were strangers, they were as much parted as though they had never met; and he was utterly unhappy.

When Guffanta had declared himself; it had been in his mind to write and tell her all that he had newly learnt; but he could not bring himself to write an ordinary letter to her. It might be that, notwithstanding the deep interest she took in his unhappy brother's fate, she would refuse to open any letter in his handwriting, and would regard it almost as an insult. Yet he wanted to let her know what had now transpired, and he at last decided what to do. He asked Stuart to direct an envelope for him to her, and he put a slip of paper inside it, on which he wrote:

"Corot has disclosed himself, and he, undoubtedly, is not the murderer. He, however, has some strange knowledge of the actual man in his possession which he will not reveal, but says that he is certain, at last, to bring him to justice."

That was all, and he put no initials to it, but he thought that the knowledge might be welcome to her.

He had not expected any answer to this letter, or note, and from Ida none came, but a day or two after he had sent it, he received a visit from Sir Paul Raughton. The baronet had come up to town especially to see him, and having learnt from the footman that Lord Penlyn was at home, he bade the man show him to his master, and followed him at once. As Penlyn rose to greet him, he noticed that Sir Paul's usually good-humoured face bore a very serious expression, and he knew at once that the interview they were about to have would be an important one.

"I have come up to London expressly to see you, Lord Penlyn," Sir Paul said, shaking hands with him coldly, "because I wish to have a thorough explanation of the manner in which you see fit to conduct yourself towards my daughter. No," he said, putting up his hand, as he saw that Penlyn was about to interrupt him, "hear me for one moment. I may as well tell you at once that Ida, that my daughter, has told me everything that you have confided to her with regard to your relationship to Mr. Cundall-which, I think, it was your duty also to have told me-and she has also told me the particulars of your last interview with her."

"I parted with her in anger," the other answered, "because there seemed to have come into her mind some idea that I-that I might have slain my brother."

"And for that, for a momentary suspicion on her part, a suspicion that would scarcely have entered her head had her mind not been in the state it is, you have seen fit to cast her off, and to cancel your engagement!"

"It was she, Sir Paul, who bade me speak no more of love to her," Penlyn said, "she who told me that, until I had found the murderer of my brother, I was to be no more to her."

"And she did well to tell you so," Sir Paul said; "for to whom but to you, his brother and his heir, should the task fall of avenging his cruel murder?"

"That, I told her, I had sworn to do, and yet she suspected me. And, Sir Paul, God knows I did not mean the words of anger that I spoke; I have bitterly repented of them ever since. If Ida will let me recall them, if she will give me again her love-if you think there is any hope of that-I will go back and sue to her for it on my knees."

The baronet looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, and then he said. "Do you know that she is very ill?"

"Ill! Why have I not been told of it?"

"Why should you have been told? It was your words to her, and her excitement over your brother's murder, that has brought her illness about."

"Let me go and see her?"

"You cannot see her. She is in bed and delirious from brain fever; and on her lips there are but two names which she repeats incessantly, your own and your brother's."

The young man leant forward on the table and buried his head in his hands, as he said: "Poor Ida! poor Ida! Why should this trouble also come to you? And why need I have added to your unhappiness by my cruelty?" Then he looked up and said to Sir Paul: "When will she be well enough for me to go to her and plead for pardon? Will it be soon, do you think?"

"I do not know," the other answered sadly. "But if, when the delirium has left her, I can tell her that you love her still and regret your words, it may go far towards her recovery."

"Tell her that," Penlyn said, "and that my love is as deep and true as ever, and that, at the first moment she is in a fit condition to hear it, I will, myself, come and tell her so with my own lips. And also tell her that, never again, will I by word or deed cause her one moment's pain."

"I am glad to hear you speak like this," Sir Paul said, "glad to find that I had not allowed my darling to give herself to a man who would cast her off because she, for one moment, harboured an unworthy suspicion of him."

"This unhappy misunderstanding has been the one blot upon our love," Penlyn said; "if I can help it, there shall never be another."

As he spoke these words, Sir Paul put his hand kindly on his shoulder, and Penlyn knew that, in him, he had one who would faithfully carry his message of love to the woman who was the hope of his life.

"And now," Sir Paul said, "I want you to give me full particulars of everything that has occurred since that miserable night. I want to know everything fully, and from your lips. What Ida has been able to tell me has been sadly incoherent."

Then, once more-as he had had now so often to go over the sad history to others, with but little fresh information added to each recital-Lord Penlyn told Sir Paul everything that he knew, and of the strange manner in which the Señor Guffanta had come into the matter, as well as his apparent certainty of eventually finding the murderer.

"You do not think it is a bold ruse to throw off suspicion from himself?" Sir Paul asked. "A daring man, such as he seems to be, might adopt such a plan."

"No," the other answered, "I do not. There is something about the man, stranger as he is, that not only makes me feel certain that he is perfectly truthful in what he says, and that he really does possess some strange knowledge of the assassin that will enable him to find that man at last, but also makes the others feel equally certain."

"They all believe in him, you say?" Sir Paul asked thoughtfully.

"All! That is, all but Philip Smerdon, who is the only one who has not seen him. And I am sure that, if he too saw him and heard him, he would believe."

"Philip Smerdon is a thorough man of the world," Sir Paul said, "I should be inclined to give weight to his judgment."

"I am sure that he is wrong in this case, and that when he sees Guffanta, he will acknowledge himself to be so. No one who has seen him can doubt his earnestness."

"What can be the mystery concerning your garden? A mystery that is a double one, because it brings your house, of all houses in London, into connection with the murder of the very man who, at the moment, was the actual owner of it? That is inexplicable!"

"It is," Penlyn said, "inexplicable to every one. But the Señor tells us that when we know what he knows, and when he has brought the murderer to bay, we shall see that it is no mystery at all."