The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
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And after all these years of spotless living and generous use of his wealth, was he to be dragged down to the depths of infamy and degradation by a man like Moreland? Already, in fancy, he heard the jeering cries of his fellow-men, and saw the finger of scorn point at him – he, the great Mark Frettlby, famous throughout Australia for his honesty, integrity, and generosity. No, it could not be, and yet this would surely happen unless he took means to prevent it.
The day after he had seen Moreland, and knew that his secret was no longer safe, since it was in the power of a man who might reveal it at any moment in a drunken fit, or out of sheer maliciousness, he sat at his desk writing. After a time he laid down his pen, and taking up a portrait of his dead wife which stood just in front of him, he stared at it long and earnestly. As he did so, his mind went back to the time when he had first met and loved her. Even as Faust had entered into the purity and serenity of Gretchen's chamber, out of the coarseness and profligacy of Auerbach's cellar, so he, leaving behind him the wild life of his youth, had entered into the peace and quiet of a domestic home. The old feverish life with Rosanna Moore, seemed to be as unsubstantial and chimerical, as, no doubt, his union with Lillith after he met Eve, seemed to Adam in the old Rabbinical legend. There seemed to be only one way open to him, by which he could escape the relentless fate which dogged his steps. He would write a confession of everything from the time he had first met Rosanna, and then – death. He would cut the Gordian knot of all his difficulties, and then his secret would be safe; safe? no, it could not be while Moreland lived. When he was dead Moreland would see Madge and embitter her life with the story of her father's sins – yes – he must live to protect her, and drag his weary chain of bitter remembrance through life, always with that terrible sword of Damocles hanging over him. But still, he would write out his confession, and after his death, whenever it may happen, it might help if not altogether to exculpate, at least to secure some pity for a man who had been hardly dealt with by Fate. His resolution taken, he put it into force at once, and sat all day at his desk filling page after page with the history of his past life, which was so bitter to him. He started at first languidly, and as in the performance of an unpleasant but necessary duty. Soon, however, he became interested in it, and took a peculiar pleasure in putting down every minute circumstance which made the case stronger against himself. He dealt with it, not as a criminal, but as a prosecutor, and painted his conduct as much blacker than it really had been. Towards the end of the day, however, after reading over the earlier sheets, he experienced a revulsion of feeling, seeing how severe he had been on himself, so he wrote a defence of his conduct, showing that fate had been too strong for him. It was a weak argument to bring forward, but still he felt it was the only one that he could make. It was quite dark when he had finished, and while sitting in the twilight, looking dreamily at the sheets scattered all over his desk, he heard a knock at the door, and his daughter's voice asking if he was coming to dinner. All day long he had closed his door against everyone, but now his task being ended, he collected all the closely-written sheets together, placed them in a drawer of his escritoire, which he locked, and then opened the door.
"Dear papa," cried Madge, as she entered rapidly, and threw her arms around his neck, "what have you been doing here all day by yourself?"
"Writing," returned her father laconically, as he gently removed her arms.
"Why, I thought you were ill," she answered, looking at him apprehensively.
"No, dear," he replied, quietly. "Not ill, but worried."
"I knew that dreadful man who came last night had told you something to worry you. Who is he?"
"Oh! a friend of mine," answered Frettlby, with hesitation.
"What – Roger Moreland?"
Her father started.
"How do you know it was Roger Moreland?"
"Oh! Brian recognised him as he went out."
Mark Frettlby hesitated for a few moments, and then busied himself with the papers on his desk, as he replied in a low voice —
"You are right – it was Roger Moreland – he is very hard up, and as he was a friend of poor Whyte's, he asked me to assist him, which I did."
He hated to hear himself telling such a deliberate falsehood, but there was no help for it – Madge must never know the truth so long as he could conceal it.
"Just like you," said Madge, kissing him lightly with filial pride. "The best and kindest of men."
He shivered slightly as he felt her caress, and thought how she would recoil from him did she know all. "After all," says some cynical writer, "the illusions of youth are mostly due to the want of experience." Madge, ignorant in a great measure of the world, cherished her pleasant illusions, though many of them had been destroyed by the trials of the past year, and her father longed to keep her in this frame of mind.
"Now go down to dinner, my dear," he said, leading her to the door. "I will follow soon."
"Don't be long," replied his daughter, "or I shall come up again," and she ran down the stairs, her heart feeling strangely light.
Her father looked after her until she vanished, then heaving a regretful sigh returned to his study, and taking out the scattered papers fastened them together, and endorsed them.
"My Confession." He then placed them in an envelope, sealed it, and put it back in the desk. "If all that is in that packet were known," he said aloud, as he left the room, "what would the world say?"
That night he was singularly brilliant at the dinner table. Generally a very reticent and grave man, on this night he laughed and talked so gaily that the very servants noticed the change. The fact was he felt a sense of relief at having unburdened his mind, and felt as though by writing out that confession he had laid the spectre which had haunted him for so long. His daughter was delighted at the change in his spirits, but the old Scotch nurse, who had been in the house since Madge was a baby, shook her head —
"He's fey," she said gravely. "He's no lang for the warld."
Of course she was laughed at – people who believe in presentiments generally are – but, nevertheless, she held firmly to her opinion.
Mr. Frettlby went to bed early that night, the excitement of the last few days and the feverish gaiety in which he had lately indulged proving too strong for him. No sooner had he laid his head on his pillow than he dropped off to sleep at once, and forgot in placid slumber the troubles and worries of his waking hours.
It was only nine o'clock, so Madge stayed by herself in the great drawing-room, and read a new novel, which was then creating a sensation, called "Sweet Violet Eyes." It belied its reputation, however, for it was very soon thrown on the table with a look of disgust, and rising from her seat Madge walked up and down the room, and wished some good fairy would hint to Brian that he was wanted. If man is a gregarious animal, how much more, then, is a woman? This is not a conundrum, but a simple truth. "A female Robinson Crusoe," says a writer who prided himself upon being a keen observer of human nature – "a female Robinson Crusoe would have gone mad for want of something to talk to." This remark, though severe, nevertheless contains several grains of truth, for women, as a rule, talk more than men. They are more sociable, and a Miss Misanthrope, in spite of Justin McCarthy's, is unknown – at least in civilised communities. Miss Frettlby, being neither misanthropic nor dumb, began to long for some one to talk to, and, ringing the bell, ordered Sal to be sent in. The two girls had become great friends, and Madge, though by two years the younger, assumed the ROLE of mentor, and under her guidance Sal was rapidly improving. It was a strange irony of fate which brought together these two children of the same father, each with such different histories – the one reared in luxury and affluence, never having known want; the other dragged up in the gutter, all unsexed and besmirched by the life she had led. "The whirligig of time brings in its revenges," and it was the last thing in the world Mark Frettlby would have thought of seeing: Rosanna Moore's child, whom he fancied dead, under the same roof as his daughter Madge.
On receiving Madge's message Sal came to the drawing room, and the two were soon chatting amicably together. The room was almost in darkness, only one lamp being lighted, Mr. Frettlby very sensibly detested gas, with its glaring light, and had nothing but lamps in his drawing-room. At the end of the apartment, where Sal and Madge were seated, there was a small table. On it stood a large lamp, with an opaque globe, which, having a shade over it, threw a soft and subdued circle of light round the table, leaving the rest of the room in a kind of semi-darkness. Near this sat Madge and Sal, talking gaily, and away on the left-hand side they could see the door open, and a warm flood of light pouring in from the hall.
They had been talking together for some time, when Sal's quick ear caught a footfall on the soft carpet, and, turning rapidly, she saw a tall figure advancing down the room. Madge saw it too, and started up in surprise on recognising her father. He was clothed in his dressing-gown, and carried some papers in his hand.
"Why, papa," said Madge, in surprise. "I – "
"Hush!" whispered Sal, grasping her arms. "He's asleep."
And so he was. In accordance with the dictates of the excited brain, the weary body had risen from the bed and wandered about the house. The two girls, drawing back into the shadow, watched him with bated breath as he came slowly down the room. In a few moments he was within the circle of light, and, moving noiselessly along, he laid the papers he carried on the table. They were in a large blue envelope much worn, with writing in red ink on it. Sal recognised it at once as the one she had seen in the possession of the dead woman, and with an instinctive feeling that there was something wrong, she tried to draw Madge back, as she watched her father's action with an intensity of feeling which held her spell-bound. Frettlby opened the envelope, and took therefrom a yellow, frayed piece of paper, which he spread out on the table. Madge bent forward to see it, but Sal, with a sudden terror drew her back.
"For God's sake no," she cried.
But it was too late; Madge had caught sight of the names on the paper – "Marriage – Rosanna Moore – Mark Frettlby" – and the whole awful truth flashed upon her. These were the papers Rosanna Moore had handed to Whyte. Whyte had been murdered by the man to whom the papers were of value —
"Oh! My father!"
She staggered blindly forward, and then, with one piercing shriek, fell to the ground. In doing so, she struck against her father, who was still standing beside the table. Awakened suddenly, with that wild cry in his ears, he opened his eyes wide, put out feeble hands, as if to keep something back, and with a strangled cry fell dead on the floor beside his daughter. Sal, horror-struck, did not lose her presence of mind, but, snatching the papers off the table, she thrust them into her pocket, and then called aloud for the servants. But they, already attracted by Madge's wild cry, came hurrying in, to find Mark Frettlby, the millionaire, lying dead, and his daughter in a faint beside her father's corpse.
CHAPTER XXXI.
HUSH-MONEY
As soon as Brian received the telegram which announced the death of Mark Frettlby, he put on his hat, stepped into Calton's trap, and drove along to the St. Kilda station in Flinders Street with that gentleman. There Calton dismissed his trap, sending a note to his clerk with the groom, and went down to St. Kilda with Fitzgerald. On arrival they found the whole house perfectly quiet and orderly, owing to the excellent management of Sal Rawlins. She had taken the command in everything, and although the servants, knowing her antecedents, were disposed to resent her doing so, yet such were her administrative powers and strong will, that they obeyed her implicitly. Mark Frettlby's body had been taken up to his bedroom, Madge had been put to bed, and Dr. Chinston and Brian sent for. When they arrived they could not help expressing their admiration at the capital way in which Sal Rawlins had managed things.
"She's a clever girl that," whispered Calton to Fitzgerald. "Curious thing she should have taken up her proper position in her father's house. Fate is a deal cleverer than we mortals think her."
Brian was about to reply when Dr. Chinston entered the room. His face was very grave, and Fitzgerald looked at him in alarm.
"Madge – Miss Frettlby," he faltered.
"Is very ill," replied the doctor; "has an attack of brain fever. I can't answer for the consequences yet."
Brian sat down on the sofa, and stared at the doctor in a dazed sort of way. Madge dangerously ill – perhaps dying. What if she were to die, and he to lose the true-hearted woman who stood so nobly by him in his trouble?
"Cheer up," said Chinston, patting him on the shoulder; "while there's life there's hope, and whatever human aid can do to save her will be done."
Brian grasped the doctor's hand in silence, his heart being too full to speak.
"How did Frettlby die?" asked Calton.
"Heart disease," said Chinston. "His heart was very much affected, as I discovered a week or so ago. It appears he was walking in his sleep, and entering the drawing-room, he alarmed Miss Frettlby, who screamed, and must have touched him. He awoke suddenly, and the natural consequences followed – he dropped down dead."
"What alarmed Miss Frettlby?" asked Brian, in a low voice, covering his face with his hand.
"The sight of her father walking in his sleep, I suppose," said Chinston, buttoning his glove; "and the shock of his death which took place indirectly through her, accounts for the brain fever."
"Madge Frettlby is not the woman to scream and waken a somnambulist," said Calton, decidedly, "knowing as she did the danger. There must be some other reason."
"This young woman will tell you all about it," said Chinston, nodding towards Sal, who entered the room at this moment. "She was present, and since then has managed things admirably; and now I must go," he said, shaking hands with Calton and Fitzgerald. "Keep up your heart, my boy; I'll pull her through yet."
After the doctor had gone, Calton turned sharply to Sal Rawlins, who stood waiting to be addressed.
"Well," he said briskly, "can you tell us what startled Miss Frettlby?"
"I can, sir," she answered quietly. "I was in the drawing-room when Mr. Frettlby died – but – we had better go up to the study."
"Why?" asked Calton, in surprise, as he and Fitzgerald followed her up stairs.
"Because, sir," she said, when they had entered the study and she had locked the door, "I don't want any one but yourselves to know what I tell you."
"More mystery," muttered Calton, as he glanced at Brian, and took his seat at the escritoire.
"Mr. Frettlby went to bed early last night," said Sal, calmly, "and Miss Madge and I were talking together in the drawing-room, when he entered, walking in his sleep, and carrying some papers – "
Both Calton and Fitzgerald started, and the latter grew pale.
"He came down the room, and spread out a paper on the table where the lamp was. Miss Madge bent forward to see what it was. I tried to stop her, but it was too late. She gave a scream, and fell on the floor. In doing so she happened to touch her father. He awoke, and fell down dead."
"And the papers?" asked Calton, uneasily.
Sal did not answer, but producing them from her pocket, laid them in his hands.
Brian bent forward, as Calton opened the envelope in silence, but both gave vent to an exclamation of horror at seeing the certificate of marriage which they knew Rosanna Moore had given to Whyte. Their worst suspicions were confirmed, and Brian turned away his head, afraid to meet the barrister's eye. The latter folded up the papers thoughtfully, and put them in his pocket.
"You know what these are?" he asked Sal, eyeing her keenly.
"I could hardly help knowing," she answered; "it proves that Rosanna Moore was Mr. Frettlby's wife, and – " she hesitated.
"Go on," said Brian, in a harsh tone, looking up.
"And they were the papers she gave Mr. Whyte."
"Well!"
Sal was silent for a moment, and then looked up with a flush.
"You needn't think I'm going to split," she said, indignantly, recurring to her Bourke Street slang in the excitement of the moment. "I know what you know, but I'll be as silent as the grave."
"Thank you," said Brian, fervently, taking her hand; "I know you love her too well to betray this terrible secret."
"I would be a nice 'un, I would," said Sal, with a scorn, "after her lifting me out of the gutter, to round on her – a poor girl like me, without a friend or a relative, now Gran's dead."
Calton looked up quickly. It was plain Sal was quite ignorant that Rosanna Moore was her mother. So much the better; they would keep her in ignorance, perhaps not altogether, but it would be folly to undeceive her at present.
"I'm goin' to Miss Madge now," she said, going to the door, "and I won't see you again; she's getting light-headed, and might let it out; but I'll not let any one in but myself," and so saying, she left the room.
"Cast thy bread upon the waters," said Calton, oracularly. "The kindness of Miss Frettlby to that poor waif is already bearing fruit – gratitude is the rarest of qualities, rarer even than modesty."
Fitzgerald made no answer, but stared out of the window, and thought of his darling lying sick unto death, and he able to do nothing to save her.
"Well," said Calton, sharply.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Fitzgerald, turning in confusion. "I suppose the will must be read, and all that sort of thing."
"Yes," answered the barrister, "I am one of the executors."
"And the others?"
"Yourself and Chinston," answered Calton; "so I suppose," turning to the desk, "we can look at his papers, and see that all is straight."
"Yes, I suppose so," replied Brian, mechanically, his thoughts far away, and then he turned again to the window. Suddenly Calton gave vent to an exclamation of surprise, and, turning hastily, Brian saw him holding a thick roll of papers in his hand, which he had taken out of the drawer.
"Look here, Fitzgerald," he said, greatly excited, "here is Frettlby's confession – look!" and he held it up.
Brian sprang forward in astonishment. So at last the hansom cab mystery was to be cleared up. These sheets, no doubt, contained the whole narration of the crime, and how it was committed.
"We will read it, of course," he said, hesitating, half hoping that Calton would propose to destroy it at once.
"Yes," answered Calton; "the three executors must read it, and then – we will burn it."
"That will be the better way," answered Brian, gloomily. "Frettlby is dead, and the law can do nothing in the matter, so it would be best to avoid the scandal of publicity. But why tell Chinston?"
"We must," said Calton, decidedly. "He will be sure to gather the truth from Madge's ravings, and he may as well know all. He is quite safe, and will be silent as the grave. But I am more sorry to tell Kilsip."
"The detective? Good God, Calton, surely you will not do so!"
"I must," replied the barrister, quietly. "Kilsip is firmly persuaded that Moreland committed the crime, and I have the same dread of his pertinacity as you had of mine. He may find out all."
"What must be, must be," said Fitzgerald, clenching his hands. "But I hope no one else will find out this miserable story. There's Moreland, for instance."
"Ah, true!" said Calton, thoughtfully. "He called and saw Frettlby the other night, you say?"
"Yes. I wonder what for?"
"There is only one answer," said the barrister, slowly. "He must have seen Frettlby following Whyte when he left the hotel, and wanted hush-money."
"I wonder if he got it?" observed Fitzgerald.
"Oh, I'll soon find that out," answered Calton, opening the drawer again, and taking out the dead man's cheque-book. "Let me see what cheques have been drawn lately."
Most of the blocks were filled up for small amounts, and one or two for a hundred or so. Calton could find no large sum such as Moreland would have demanded, when, at the very end of the book, he found a cheque torn off, leaving the block-slip quite blank.
"There you are," he said, triumphantly holding out the book to Fitzgerald. "He wasn't such a fool as to write in the amount on the block, but tore the cheque out, and wrote in the sum required."
"And what's to be done about it?"
"Let him keep it, of course," answered Calton, shrugging his shoulders. "It's the only way to secure his silence."
"I expect he cashed it yesterday, and is off by this time," said Brian, after a moment's pause.
"So much the better for us," said Calton, grimly. "But I don't think he's off, or Kilsip would have let me know. We must tell him, or he'll get everything out of Moreland, and the consequences will be that all Melbourne will know the story; whereas, by showing him the confession, we get him to leave Moreland alone, and thus secure silence in both cases."
"I suppose we must see Chinston?"
"Yes, of course. I will telegraph to him and Kilsip to come up to my office this afternoon at three o'clock, and then we will settle the whole matter."
"And Sal Rawlins?"
"Oh! I quite forgot about her," said Calton, in a perplexed voice. "She knows nothing about her parents, and, of course, Mark Frettlby died in the belief that she was dead."
"We must tell Madge," said Brian, gloomily. "There is no help for it. Sal is by rights the heiress to the money of her dead father."
"That depends upon the will," replied Calton, dryly. "If it specifies that the money is left to 'my daughter, Margaret Frettlby,' Sal Rawlins can have no claim; and if such is the case, it will be no good telling her who she is."
"And what's to be done?"
"Sal Rawlins," went on the barrister, without noticing the interruption, "has evidently never given a thought to her father or mother, as the old hag, no doubt, swore they were dead. So I think it will be best to keep silent – that is, if no money is left to her, and, as her father thought her dead, I don't think there will be any. In that case, it would be best to settle an income on her. You can easily find a pretext, and let the matter rest."
"But suppose, in accordance with the wording of the will, she is entitled to all the money?"
"In that case," said Calton, gravely, "there is only one course open – she must be told everything, and the dividing of the money left to her generosity. But I don't think you need be alarmed, I'm pretty sure Madge is the heiress."
"It's not the money I think about," said Brian, hastily. "I'd take Madge without a penny."
"My boy," said the barrister, placing his hand kindly on Brian's shoulder, "when you marry Madge Frettlby, you will get what is better than money – a heart of gold."
CHAPTER XXXII.
DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM
"Nothing is certain but the unforeseen;" so says a French proverb, and judging from the unexpected things which daily happen to us, it is without doubt a very true one. If anyone had told Madge Frettlby one day that she would be stretched on a bed of sickness the next, and would be quite oblivious of the world and its doings, she would have laughed the prophet to scorn. Yet it was so, and she was tossing and turning on a bed of pain to which the couch of Procustes was one of roses. Sal sat beside her, ever watchful of her wants, and listened through the bright hours of the day, or the still ones of the night, to the wild and incoherent words which issued from her lips. She incessantly called on her father to save himself, and then would talk about Brian, and sing snatches of song, or would sob broken sentences about her dead mother, until the heart of the listener ached to hear her. No one was allowed into the room except Sal, and when Dr. Chinston heard the things she was saying, although used to such cases, he recoiled.