He remained silent for some seconds.
"And so that was done," he continued. "Paulton and Henderson had left the house, the former satisfied at the thought that he could now use me as his cat"s-paw--and by Heaven! he has done so! The coin we had in the house, some genuine, but most of it base, we hid away with the body between the ceiling and the floor. None knew our secret but my wife, Gwen--who almost revealed it during an attack of brain fever, which resulted from the shock she had received--Paulton, Henderson and myself.
Vera was not old enough to know, but when she reached her seventeenth year, we decided to tell her the whole story, deeming it wiser, for various reasons, to do so. And now you understand."
"And during all the years I have known you," I said, "where has Paulton been? What became of Whichelo, and of Henderson? I met Whichelo for the first time in my life, just after you had left Houghton so mysteriously. Yet you say you have known him all these years."
"Whichelo joined his brother in Mexico City, and remained there for many years," he replied. "Paulton and Henderson continued their clever work of money-making, though mostly in Rome, and in Barcelona, where they had a number of accomplices. And I was bled--blackmailed by Paulton to the extent of nearly all my fortune--month after month, year after year. My wife, as you know, has her own fortune, and there were reasons why he could not touch that without incriminating himself, so for years I have had to live almost entirely on her means. Some years ago, Paulton and Henderson were both arrested in Paris on a charge of forgery of Russian bank-notes. They were tried, and sentenced to ten years" penal servitude. At the end of seven years, they were released. Paulton returned to England, and began once more to blackmail me. Worse, he had seen Vera, and at once told me he should marry her. If I refused my consent he would, he declared--"
The poor fellow who had once bought a knighthood, stopped, gasping for breath. I laid my hand upon his arm, as I thought to soothe him, but he pushed it off quite roughly.
"Some months ago he sent me an ultimatum. If I still refused to let my girl marry him, he--would call before the last day of--March--and--"
"Yes? Yes?" I exclaimed, unable now to restrain my curiosity.
"He declared he would disclose all he knew, take Vera from me by a plan that he explained, and that I saw I could not frustrate, and encompa.s.s the death of any persons to whom he thought I might have revealed the secret concerning him. Also he would tell the police the truth about the murder of his half-brother. He believed that you and I being such intimate friends, I had told you about him. Also he believed, for some reason, that my butler, James, knew something. He said he would kill you both. One of his accomplices was Judith, whom, a year ago, Gwen unsuspectingly engaged as maid. She, it seems, had kept Paulton posted in all that was happening in Houghton. I was driven to my wits" ends-- entirely desperate--though--you--you never suspected it."
"But the photograph," I exclaimed, as I noticed a curious change suddenly come over him, "that photograph of Paulton--why was it at Houghton?"
"We always kept it there, that Vera might never fail to identify Paulton, should she ever meet him. When we told Vera, in her seventeenth year, all that had happened years ago, we showed her that portrait for the first time. It was my idea to set it in the morning-room recently, so that my poor girl might never forget what the man looked like who had sworn to take her from me."
"Could you not have removed the--that hidden body?" I exclaimed, anxious to get from him as many facts as possible, in the short time he had still to live. "What proof could he then have had--?"
"Don"t--ah! don"t!" he interrupted. "There were reasons--of--of course, had it been possible, I--a water-pipe had burst in my house--it had caused the body to stain the ceiling--and--also there were--" and his thin, bony fingers clutched at the air in frantic gesture.
His sentences were now disjointed, their meaning could not be followed.
Now he was straining terribly his mouth gaped, his dry throat emitted a strange, rasping sound. I seized his wasted wrist. His pulse was almost still. Now his face was growing ashen, his eyes were staring into s.p.a.ce--their intelligence was fading.
The nurse entered, and glanced at me significantly.
I sprang to my feet, and ran to the door.
"Vera! Vera! Lady Thorold!" I called. "Come--ah! come quickly, he is dying... _dying_!"
They rushed in from the corridor, where they had been awaiting me. In an access of despair, Lady Thorold threw herself upon her knees beside the bed, moaning aloud in a grief terrible to witness. My love stood beside her, gazing down upon her father--dazed--motionless. Grief had paralysed her senses.
Suddenly, his thin, white lips moved, but no words were audible.
Quickly Vera bent over him. The shrunken lips moved again. He was murmuring. For an instant, his filmy eyes showed a gleam of intelligence once again.
"d.i.c.k--be good--to her--you--you will be good--_to her_!"
The voice was now, so faint, that I could barely catch his words. His dull gaze rested upon my eyes. I stooped down. My hand was upon his.
Ah! How cold he was!
"Always," I said aloud, with an effort, a great lump rising in my throat. "I promise that--I promise I will do all possible to make Vera happy--always--_always_!"
By the expression, that for an instant came into his dull, filmy eyes, I saw that he had heard and understood. Slowly the eyelids closed. He was turning paler still. The light died from his face.
A few seconds later his countenance was ashen, and I knew that he had breathed his last.
Speechless, motionless, I still stood there.
My hand was still upon his, as it lay upon the coverlet, slowly stiffening. The only sound audible was the bitter wailing of his widow--and of Vera. I made no attempt to comfort them. Better, I knew, let the pa.s.sion of their sorrow read! its flood-tide, and allow the fury of their misery to exhaust itself. Words of sympathy, at such a time, would only be a mockery.
Later, I would do all possible to help them to recover from the awful blow which had so suddenly fallen upon them.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
CONTAINS THE END.
For a quarter of an hour we remained there in the presence of the dead.
The grey light in the side-ward faded into darkness. The electric light had not been switched on. The sobs and lamentations of Lady Thorold and her daughter, locked in each other"s arms, began slowly to subside.
Gradually my thoughts drifted to the past, and all that had happened in those years I had known Thorold so intimately, and had loved him almost as a father. One thought afforded me most intense happiness. At last the time had come when I should be able to prove to Vera the intense love I bore her.
"Be good to her--you will be good to her--d.i.c.k--always," had been her father"s dying request. Ah, how well I would obey my dear friend"s last request! Never again should unhappiness of any kind cross his child"s path, if I could prevent it. I would show her how, in my opinion, a husband should treat a wife.
My thoughts drifted to Houghton. What had happened there, I wondered.
What was happening now?
Ah! What was happening! Had I known what was happening in those moments I should not, perhaps, have felt as restful as I did.
Next day the newspapers were full of it.
The "Siege," as they had termed it, had in truth become a real and desperate siege. All attempts to dislodge Paulton, Henderson, and the woman with them, had proved of no avail. Several policemen had since been severely wounded. This was due to the fact that the police, under the impression that the besieged men were armed only with shot-guns, had approached, as they believed with impunity, rather close to the house.
All at once, a murderous fusillade had been opened upon them from a shuttered window--only by chance, indeed, had the result not proved again fatal. The wounds the police had received had been dreadful, far worse than bullet wounds, for the a.s.sailants had, by cutting the paper cases of the shot-cartridges round the middle with a knife, caused the charge of shot to travel like a bullet, which burst open when it struck.
"It was late in the afternoon," ran one newspaper account of the conclusion of the siege, "when a big body of police arrived from Oakham, armed with revolvers and rifles, to fire upon the besieged men, and in a few minutes the rattle of musketry rang out, the reports echoing and reverberating in the woods around Houghton Park, and among the distant hills. In return, came shots in quick succession, fired now from one window, then from another. The men hidden in the house seemed to have plenty of ammunition."
The reporter then indulged in half a column of descriptive writing.
After that, he came again to the point--
"Finally, finding that all efforts to dislodge the besieged proved futile, and fearing they might, in their mad fury of revenge, set the house alight, the order was given to renew the attack. This was at once done. The combined fire played havoc upon the house for doors, windows, and shutters were quickly riddled, and even some of the chimney-pots were shattered. At last the return fire ceased entirely, and the order was given to rush the house. This was done, and only just in time. In one of the lower rooms straw, paper, wood shavings and other inflammable material had been piled up, and two paraffin-cans lay upon the floor, both being empty. Evidently it had been the intention of the besieged men to pour paraffin over the inflammable material, but they had found only empty cans. The material had been set on fire, but, not being well alight, was soon extinguished. At once a search was made for the besieged men--a risky undertaking, seeing that they might still be provided with ammunition and lying in concealment to open fire on the besieging party.
"It was in a shuttered room on the first floor that the bodies were at last found. The shutters had been riddled with rifle bullets. The two men and the woman were lying upon the floor, all three had been shot dead. Paulton had received no fewer than three bullet wounds."
There was much more, but I had read enough. I let the newspaper drop from my nerveless fingers.
Somehow, in spite of these terrible happenings, I felt happy--strangely happy.
At the moment, I had no time to a.n.a.lyse my feelings and discover a reason for the sense of restfulness that had come over me at last, after those weeks of hot, feverish excitement. Later, I knew it was the knowledge that all who could harm my well-beloved had mercifully been removed.
Lady Thorold, Whichelo and Vera were the only people living, besides myself, who knew the grim secret of Sir Charles" past life. No more would Lady Thorold, kind, gentle, sympathetic woman that she was, be haunted by the fear of blackmail, or terrorised by those human vultures who had so often threatened to reveal what had happened in the house in Belgrave Street in the dead of night years before. And, blessed thought, no more would my darling be hara.s.sed, bullied, or made to go almost in fear of her life.
And the gold--those bags of base coin found hidden so carefully at Houghton Hall, hidden there by Whichelo after their removal from Belgrave Street? And the mysterious body discovered in the house in Belgrave Street? Both had been pounced upon by the police.
But my only thought, my only care was of Vera--Vera, my beloved.