The Slave of Silence
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"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.
"That's what we want to know," he said. "What is the charge? If you have a warrant, read it aloud. We have every right to know."
"I have a warrant so far as you are concerned," Field replied. "For the present, you are charged with forgery and uttering a certain document, purporting to be an assignment of mining interests in Burmah from Sir Charles Darryll to yourself. The document is in my pocket, and I can produce it for your inspection, if you like. I need not tell you that there will be other charges later on, but these will suffice for the present."
"That does not touch us, at all," the woman Cora said.
"I am arresting you on my own responsibility," Field said curtly. "If I have made any mistake, then you can bring an action for illegal detention later on. Colonel Berrington, we are wasting time here. Had we not better get on with our search?"
Berrington nodded approval. There was an exulting gleam in his eyes that betokened the discovery of something out of the common. Mary crossed the room rapidly and threw herself in an utter abandonment of grief at her brother's feet.
"Oh, why don't you tell them everything?" she cried. "Why don't you tell the whole truth and save yourself? I have friends here, more than one, who care for me, and who for my sake would do much to save you from the shame and humiliation that lie before you. I know much, but I do not know all. For the sake of the old name – "
"Burn the old name," Sartoris said. "What has it done for me? You have been a good sister to me, but your attentions have been a little embarrassing sometimes. And if you had hoped to change me, you had your trouble for your pains. You may put me on the rack and torture me, but not one word do I say."
"It seems so hard, so very hard," Mary moaned. "And when I look back to the time – "
"Oh, never mind looking back to any time," Sartoris muttered. "The game's up, I tell you. I have been beaten, and there's an end of it. I should play the same hand again if I had the chance, so make no mistake about that. Wheel me as far as the dining-room."
"It will not be of the slightest use," Berrington said in a cold, clear voice. "I know that you would blow the whole lot of us to Eternity if you got the chance, as a kind of revenge for our victory, but I have put an end to that. You will find all the wires disconnected from your battery. After that you are quite free to go into the dining-room."
Sartoris grinned and displayed his teeth in an evil smile. Heaven only knows what new form of villainy he was plotting. And he would cheerfully have blown up the house and destroyed everybody there, including himself, if he had had the opportunity to complete his revenge.
"We are wasting time," Field said. "Take all the prisoners away, except Dr. Bentwood. I have very good reasons for asking him to remain."
Bentwood smiled in a mean and sinister way. He had tried to hide himself in a corner of the room. There was something so cringing and fawning about the fellow that Berrington longed to kick him. Sartoris spoke in a waspish whisper:
"So the land lies in that quarter," he said. "We have an informer amongst us. If I had known that before, my good Bentwood, – if I had known that before!"
Big as he was, Bentwood looked small and mean at that moment.
"You are quite mistaken," he cried. "You are altogether wrong, my dear Carl. I am as much of a prisoner as any of you. I was taken in fair fight outside after a desperate struggle. What have I to gain by an attitude of unreasonable obstinacy?"
"Oh, nothing," Sartoris replied. "But you can make things easy for yourself by affording the police information. You will probably get off with ten years. I would fight the thing out to the bitter end and chance it. But you and I are made of different stuff."
Mark Ventmore, watching the two men, thought so too, but he said nothing. One was a mere bag of bones, the other a fine figure of a man, but Mark would have preferred the cripple, who made no sign and showed no feeling as he tottered to the door, between the policemen. Mary would have said something to him, but he waved her back.
"Now don't you trouble about me any more," he said. "I shall be safe for some years to come, the law will see to that. We shall never meet again, for the simple reason that a physique like mine will not stand the prison treatment. I shall die there. Good bye."
Mary kept back her tears. She would have felt better if she could have seen even the slightest trace of remorse in her brother.
"Marry Berrington," he said. "He has been pretty faithful to you and you will be alone in the world now. You should think yourself lucky with a man like that to fall back upon. I have to say adieu to the lot of you."
Sartoris was gone at last. In fact the whole lot were packed on the motor car which the police had sent down at Field's instigation. Being a cripple, Sartoris had been accommodated in the seat by the driver. With her eyes heavy with tears, Mary watched them depart. Sartoris was fatally correct in his prophecy; it was the last time that Mary was destined to see him. He had always recognised the fact that jail would be the death of him. He had the germs of a disease in his breast that he had only kept at bay by constant occupation and mental activity. Mary never looked upon the face of her brother in the flesh again.
Field turned to Berrington and drew a long breath.
"The atmosphere smells all the sweeter for the loss of that lot," he said. "My word, this has been an anxious night for me. I don't know when I have felt so nervous. But I see that you have made a discovery, Colonel Berrington. What is it?"
"It seems to me that I have made more than one," Berrington said. "In the first place my suspicion that the body of Sir Charles Darryll was brought here has been confirmed. To begin with, I have got to the bottom of that mysterious dining-room business. Come this way and I will show you. Bentwood and that officer of yours had better stay here for the moment."
"Anything that I can do for you, gentlemen," Bentwood said meekly. "Any information that lies in my power. You have only to command me, and I will respond."
"Presently," Field said contemptuously. "We will question you later on. Then you shall tell me all about that secret Eastern drug that you understand so well, and what effect it is likely to have on a sleeping man."
Bentwood gave a gasp, and his face grew livid. It was evident that Field had struck and tapped a mine that the doctor had considered to be hidden from everybody. Then Bentwood sat down moodily and looked into the fire.
Berrington led the way into the dining-room, where he proceeded to explain everything in relation to the room under the floor and the vault in connection therewith. Field was particularly interested. All this worked out beautifully with his theory.
"I expect the body was concealed here," he said. "The thing has been well worked out. But do you suppose that Sartoris went to all this trouble and expense for the simple reason – "
"He didn't," Berrington explained. "Miss Sartoris, or Miss Grey as I prefer to call her, told me all about that. The house was taken four years ago and occupied by an American electrical engineer whom Sartoris knew quite well. It was he who put in all these dodges. When he died, Sartoris took the place, doubtless feeling that he might be able to use the mysteries here to good effect. I don't suppose at that time that he knew anything about the full value of Sir Charles Darryll's concessions. But once he had to take action, then this room came in very usefully."
"Do you know why they brought the body here?" Field asked.
"Yes, I have a pretty good idea on that score. Sir Charles had certain papers in his room in the Royal Palace Hotel, and these people wanted to gain possession of them. The robbery was fixed to take place on the night of that dinner party. Mind you, Richford did not know anything about that, because Sartoris had kept him in the dark. Bentwood was to work it. Bentwood was to administer the drug, but he gave too much. The consequence was an overdose, as you may gather."
Field smiled peculiarly, but he gave no hint as to the extent of his own discovery.
"These people did not want a post mortem," Berrington said. "They did not desire that any traces of that practically unknown drug should be discovered."
"And you think that they all ran that risk to guard their secret?" asked Field. "Well, you have provided me with one or two surprises, but I am going to provide you with as many before we go to bed. Have you discovered anything further?"
"Oh, yes," said Berrington, "this collar, for instance. I am in a position to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Sir Charles wore it on the night of the dinner party. I found that down here in this very vault. No further proof is wanted that the body was here. But what puzzles me is this: we were so quickly on the spot that those rascals had not the slightest chance of disposing of the corpse. What then has become of it – why can't we find it? Now that one knows all about the ruby mines and the concessions – which appear to me to be very valuable – the mystery becomes tolerably clear. But the corpse, where is it?"
"Are you quite sure that there is a corpse?" asked Field drily. "Let us go and ask Bentwood."
Bentwood sat up and smiled as his two chief tormentors came back. He was ready to afford any information that the gentlemen required.
"It is not much that I am going to ask," said Field. "Only this: Please take us at once to the spot where we can find the body of Sir Charles Darryll."
Bentwood jumped nimbly to his feet. The question seemed to fairly stagger him. If he had thought of concealing anything, he abandoned the idea now.
"Come this way, gentlemen," he said. "You are too many for me altogether. I wish to heaven that I had kept my medical discoveries to myself."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Bentwood led the way from the dining-room up a back staircase, and paused before what looked like a portion of the wallpaper. There was a little discoloured spot about half way between the dado and the floor, and on this the doctor pressed a shaking thumb. A part of the wall fell away and disclosed a small room beyond. The room had evidently been occupied lately, for there was a fire in the grate and the remains of a meal on the table. The room itself was empty.
"Well, I'm hanged," Bentwood cried. "Gentlemen, I can't tell you now. You asked to see the body of Sir Charles Darryll, and I have done my best to satisfy your curiosity. The last time I saw the body it was here. It seems to have vanished, and I know no more than the dead what has happened. I'm telling you no more than the truth."
That the man was telling the truth was evidenced by the expression of his face. Field had no more questions to ask, because he was quite sure of the fact. On the table lay a letter, which the inspector first glanced at and then placed in his pocket.
"I am just a little disappointed," he said, "because I fancied that I had the complete and crowning surprise for you here tonight, Colonel. You had better go off with my men, because I have no further need of your services for the present, Dr. Bentwood. Perhaps to-morrow I may have the pleasure of calling upon you. Good night."
The doctor vanished from the house, which was empty now, save for Berrington and Field. The latter put out the lights and prepared to leave by way of the front door.
"What are you going to do next?" Berrington asked.
"Go back to headquarters and report progress," Field explained. "The rest is a matter of chance. I fancy I can see my way pretty clearly as to what has happened. Come along, sir; on the whole we have no call to be dissatisfied."
But the events of the night were by no means over yet. A battered constable at the Yard who had just had his head bandaged up had a story to tell. The prisoners from No. 100, Audley Place, had not been conveyed to durance vile without one accident that had been attended with a fatal tragedy. The officer told his story painfully.
"It was that little devil by the side of the driver," he said. "It's lucky for me that he was not a big man instead of a bag of bones. We'd come about half way when he turned and half throttled the driver and then put speed on the motor. There was a struggle for the steering gear, and then the whole show came to grief on a bridge. We were all pitched out, but we hung to our prisoners, who are a pretty sight, sir. Mr. Richford pitched over the side of the bridge on to the metals of the railway lines below and he was killed on the spot. I don't want another game like that."
Surely enough Richford had been killed. His neck had been broken, and he had died without the slightest pain. Berrington, listening gravely to the story, felt no shock from the recital that he had heard. The world was well rid of a poisonous scoundrel, and Beatrice would be free now to marry the man of her choice.
"Was Sartoris hurt?" he asked, a little ashamed to feel that he would have been glad to hear so for Mary's sake. "A delicate man like that – "
"Internally, the doctor says," the officer went on; "been spitting blood ever since he has."
Berrington expressed a desire to see the cripple, who received him without any sign of feeling. He was lying back in an arm chair, his face white and set.
"You need not condole with me," he said. "Don't ask me to make a deathbed confession, for that kind of thing is sheer waste of time. I know that I'm dying. I know that I may fall back at any moment, and then there will be the end. I'm full of blood inside. I might have told that fool of a doctor what he had come to find out – that a broken rib has pierced the lung, and I'm bleeding away quietly. Feel my hands."
Berrington touched the cold, clammy fingers. They were icy with the touch of death.
"Rigor mortis," Sartoris said. "Only a few minutes now. It's a good thing for you, and it's a good thing for Mary, who has been cursed with a brother like me. It's, it's – "
Sartoris said no more. There was a bubbling kind of sigh, blood welled from his mouth and ran down his coat, his head dropped on one side, and he was gone. There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done. On the whole it was just as well.
"It's a ghastly business altogether," Berrington said to Field. "Old soldier as I am, I have had quite enough of horrors for one night. I understand that Miss Grey returned to the Royal Palace with Mrs. Richford. I had better go and tell them both what has happened."
Field agreed, and Berrington departed on his errand. It was not much past eleven yet, so there was plenty of time. Mary and Beatrice had gone back to the hotel in care of Mark Ventmore. They were seated in the drawing-room when Berrington arrived.
Beatrice crossed the room quickly. She wanted to have a few words with Berrington before the others joined in the discussion; she wanted to know if anything had been discovered.
"About my father?" she asked. "This suspense is horrible. Have they not got on the track yet? Why did they want to do that disgraceful thing at all?"
Berrington explained as far as possible. Beatrice was quick to see the meaning of it all. The recital of the story made her a little easier in her mind.
"Possibly by this time to-morrow," Berrington said. "Meanwhile I have something to tell both you and Miss Grey that will be a shock to you, though personally it would be hypocritical to regard it in the light of a deplorable event. There was an accident to the motor car."
"Mr. Sartoris, I mean Mr. Grey, has he escaped?" Beatrice cried. "Yes?"
"I don't think that he was trying to escape. I fancy it was more in the spirit of diabolical mischief than anything else, but he attacked the driver and made a grab for the steering wheel. The result was a smash on a bridge, and the motor was upset. Stephen Richford was pitched clean over the bridge on to the lines, and – and – "
"Killed on the spot?" Beatrice asked quietly. "Would that I could say that I am sorry. It is the best thing that could have happened. And the rest of them?"
"There was not much damage done, except to Sartoris, or Grey, rather. The body of the car struck him on the chest, and a rib stuck into his lung. He bled to death. I was the last person to see him. To the end he was as hard and callous as ever. Will you tell Mary, please? It would come better from you."
Berrington and Ventmore stood talking quietly together whilst Beatrice performed her sad task. Mark listened to all that Berrington had to tell.
"And yet all this bother might have been saved," he said. "My father knew all about those concessions, and he has a pretty good idea of the value of them. Only yesterday he was talking to me about it. If Sir Charles had gone to him, he could have got every penny that he required. But you see, I was not on good terms with my father at the time, though that is all forgiven and forgotten now. At any rate I think we should ask my father's assistance if only to clear the good name of Sir Charles, and make a provision for Beatrice. Now that Richford is dead, something will have to be done. Don't you think so?"
"I am quite sure that you are right," Berrington said. "Your father is rich, and a remarkably good man of business. He is the very one to put matters on a proper footing, and see that the money is returned to the company that Sir Charles was entangled with. You say that those ruby mines are really a good property?"
"My father says that they are splendid," Mark replied. "Enough to give Sir Charles a large income, pay his debts, and provide for Miss Decié besides. I shall see my father to-night, and will go thoroughly into the question with him."
The thing was left at that, and Berrington made his preparations to depart. Mary was crying quietly now with the keen edge of her grief taken off. Mark and Beatrice drew aside, so that the others could talk in private.
"What shall I say to you, Mary?" Berrington asked.
"What can you say?" the girl asked in a gentle tone. "You are a good man, Phil, and it is good to know that you have loved me so devotedly and sincerely. I shall be able to come to you now and take up the thread of my happiness, where I deliberately snapped it three years ago. If my brother had not been misled by a designing woman – "
"Mary," Berrington said with firmness. "You are utterly wrong. I have had the story from Field only to-night, who has heard it from the lips of Miss Decié herself. She is a girl as good and pure as yourself. From first to last she was deceived. If Frank Leviter, the man who sacrificed his life for her sake and whom she loved, had lived, the mask would have fallen from your eyes. Your brother treated Violet Decié as he treated you, as he treated everybody. He was bad to the core of his being, and he has been saved from a shameful death by an accident. If you will try to get all that into your mind you will be a happier woman. You have lost three of the best years of your life – years that belonged to me as well as to you – in pursuit of a mistaken sense of duty. This must be clearly understood between us if the path of our married life is to be free from care."
Mary bent her head and said nothing. And yet, deep down in her heart she knew that Berrington had said no more than the truth. She placed her hand in his.
"I am ready for you when the time comes, Phil," she whispered. "Only one thing I ask. Never let this be mentioned between us again."
"That I faithfully promise," said Berrington. "It is what I was going to suggest. Do you stay here to-night with Beatrice Darryll?"
Mary replied that that was the arrangement. Meanwhile Mark had been discussing the future with Beatrice. She had warmly approved of all that her lover had said about his father. She was glad to know that old Mr. Ventmore would not oppose the marriage, and that her love for him would not tend to keep Mark a poor man.
"So perhaps you had better let me have all those papers that Sartoris was so anxious to get hold of," Mark concluded. "Could you let me have them now?"
"Of course I can," Beatrice said. "I'll go and get them for you from my room. Mary Grey is sharing my bed with me to-night – to-morrow I shall arrange for her to have my father's room. I'll get the papers at once if you will wait."
The papers were found with some little delay, and Beatrice was preparing to come downstairs again when it seemed to her that she heard a noise in the room next to her, the bedroom that had been occupied by Sir Charles. It was a creeping kind of noise followed by what was most unmistakably a sneeze.
Beatrice hesitated just for a moment, for her nerves had been much strained lately. Then she put her fear from her and walked into the next room. Only one of the electric lights gave a feeble glimmer over the room. A man stood there, a man who was changing his upper garments. Beatrice gave a little cry and staggered back into the doorway. The man turned at the same time, and saw that he was observed. His face was as white as that of Beatrice.
"Father!" the girl said, "father! Is it possible that I am not dreaming and that you are in the flesh before me again? Oh, father, father!"
CHAPTER XXXIX
A deadly faintness came over Beatrice. Torn and distracted as she had been of late, this last discovery was almost too much for her. She could only stand there with her hand upon her heart to still its passionate beating.
Yes, it was her father, beyond the shadow of a doubt. How he got there Beatrice could not possibly have told. He was looking much the same as when Beatrice had seen him last, save that his clothes were not so neat and he had not been shaved for some days. He seemed quite resigned to the situation although his expression was cross and irritable. He motioned to Beatrice to shut the door.
"Why don't you close the door?" he demanded. "Suppose anybody saw me?"
Beatrice was getting back some of her self-possession by this time. She closed the door and then took her seat on the edge of her father's bed.
"Why should you not be seen?" she asked. "What difference can it possibly make? We have all been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been?"
"I'm not quite sure," was the strange reply. "But you seem to have lost sight of my peculiar situation, Beatrice. My head is a little strange and confused, but I dare say it will come right presently. What happened to me on the night of the dinner party?"
"I did not see that anything happened," Beatrice said. "I suppose you went to bed in the ordinary way. I did not see that there was anything – "
"You didn't notice that I had too much wine with my dinner?"
Beatrice was fain to admit that she had not noticed anything of the kind. She wondered how much her father really knew as to what had happened.
"There has been a great deal of fuss," Sir Charles said. He proceeded to dress himself in certain old clothes and took up a beard and spectacles from the dressing table. Beatrice watched him with a growing feeling that he had taken leave of his senses.
"Why are you going to use those things?" she asked.
"Because it is absolutely necessary," Sir Charles said irritably. "I came here in this disguise to pick out certain things that I needed. A kind friend furnished this disguise, and also money for me to get away."
"But why do you want to get away?" Beatrice asked, more puzzled than ever.