"I took the envelope--your envelope--out of the desk," confessed McIntyre. "I would have spoken of it, Margaret, but was hurt that you had left our marriage certificate lying around so carelessly."
"Your what?" Barbara sprang up, astounded.
"Our marriage certificate," repeated McIntyre firmly. "Margaret and I were married last week in Baltimore. We would have told you, Helen, but your peculiar conduct and Barbara"s, so angered me that I forbade Margaret to take you into our confidence."
"Father!" Barbara got no further, for Helen had risen. She spoke with quiet dignity.
"You forget, father, that since Monday night we have thought you a forger and, worse, a murderer," her voice faltered. "In our effort to guard you we have become estranged. Margaret"--she held out her hand with an affectionate gesture and with a sob her step-mother kissed her.
"How did this envelope get back inside our safe?" asked Kent a moment later, picking it up and displaying the red seal, intact save for the broken corner.
"I went downstairs about midnight or a little later and into the library," confessed Helen. "What was my surprise and terror to see Grimes holding the envelope. To me it meant father"s exposure as a forger. I had a revolver in my hand and struck before I thought. Then I must temporarily have lost my reason. It was only my thought to save father that lent me courage and strength to thrust Grimes inside the casket where Babs and I used to hide. I then returned to my room, and was just coming downstairs again after secreting the envelope, to release Grimes and get medical a.s.sistance if need be, when Margaret"s screams aroused the household."
McIntyre interrupted his daughter with a hasty gesture, and addressed his wife. "When Detective Ferguson questioned me as to your reason for being in the library, Margaret, I stated you had gone down to get a book left lying on the Venetian casket," he said. "I waited for you to volunteer an explanation of your presence there, but you never made any."
"I went down to get our marriage certificate." Margaret forgot the presence of others and spoke only to him, the love-light in her eyes pleading against the censure she dreaded, as she made her brief confession. "Mr. Clymer sent me a note, inclosing a canceled check, stating the bank officials had decided my signature was a forgery. The check was drawn to Barbara, and on examining it I noticed the peculiar formation of the letter "B"; it is characteristic of your handwriting and Helen"s." She paused, and added:
"I was at a loss what to think. I knew you and Helen wrote alike; Helen"s extraordinary behavior to me led me to believe that perhaps she had been short of funds, and forged my name to a check in desperation.
Then I remembered seeing you, Charles, open the box containing my aconitine pills, the box"s disappearance, and Jimmie"s death from that poison"--she raised her hands in an expressive gesture. "Although my reason told me that you might be guilty, my loyalty and love refuted the accusation."
"Margaret!" McIntyre"s voice shook with emotion; then controlling himself he turned to Sylvester. "I presume this check was some more of your deviltry?"
Helen answered for the clerk. Removing a soiled paper from her bag she laid it on Kent"s desk. "This note was handed to me by Grimes," she explained. "It reads: "Helen, please cash this check and give money to Mrs. Brewster"s dressmaker. Father." I followed the instructions."
"And gave the money to my sister," Sylvester chuckled at their surprise.
"My sister was taught in a French convent, and she is an excellent seamstress, when she isn"t drunk, as Mrs. McIntyre knows."
"See here, Sylvester," Clymer broke his long silence. "You were in the police court on a charge of a.s.sault and battery brought by your wife on Tuesday morning, and you were in the prisoner"s cage at the moment Turnbull died. How then was it possible for you to be at the McIntyre"s at midnight on Monday?"
"I was out on bail and appeared in the courtroom just in time for my trial," Sylvester explained. "I did not have to sit in the cage, but recognizing Turnbull I went there to be with him."
Kent placed the forged check bearing Margaret Brewster"s signature on the desk. "I take it this check is your work, Sylvester," he said. "You reaped the benefit by having the money paid to your sister. Did you also have the fake telegram delivered to me stating Mr. Rochester was in Cleveland?"
"I faked that," broke in Rochester, before the clerk could make a disclaimer. "I thought it best to disappear for a few days down in Virginia, where I could think things over in peace."
"So it was you, Sylvester, and not Mr. Rochester whom I encountered in his apartment," exclaimed Kent. "How did you get in the apartment?"
"From the fire-escape and along the window ledge to the bathroom window." Sylvester hitched his shoulders. "It was nothing for a man of my agility."
Ferguson eyed him with doubtful respect.
"You have courage," he admitted grudgingly. "Come, we must get to Headquarters," and he aided Sylvester to his feet, but once standing, Sylvester refused to move. Instead he turned to Helen.
"What was that you pa.s.sed to Mr. Rochester in the police court and he later gave to Mr. Turnbull?" he asked. "Oh, don"t deny it, I saw you palm a note, Mr. Rochester, from the young lady."
"There is nothing now to conceal," declared Helen. "After O"Ryan and Jimmie left the house for the police station I grew fearful that Jimmie might over-tax his strength in carrying out the farce of his arrest. So as soon as I could I telephoned to Philip to meet me at the police court and to bring some amyl nitrite capsules with him."
"And the note, Sylvester, which you saw Miss McIntyre give me in court,"
concluded Rochester, as Helen paused, "told me to hand the capsules to the burglar and to defend him in court. I did both, although badly puzzled by the request." Rochester hesitated. "I carried out your wishes, Helen, without question; but when the burglar"s ident.i.ty was revealed, I jumped to the conclusion that you had used me as an instrument to kill him, for I knew something of the effects of amyl nitrite."
"Great Heavens!" exclaimed Helen, aghast.
Rochester looked at her and bit his lip; he knew of her affection for Jimmie and her attachment to his memory, but he could not kill the hope that when Time had healed the loss, his devotion might some day win her for his own.
"I did you great injustice," he admitted humbly. "But I was fearfully shocked by the scene. I strove to divert suspicion by insisting that Jimmie died from angina pectoris, and then you came, Helen, and demanded an autopsy."
"I had to," Helen broke in. "I could not believe that Jimmie"s death was due to natural causes," her voice quivered. "He had been so loyal--so faithful--I could not be less true to him, even if, as I feared, my own dear father was guilty of the crime."
Kent turned and faced Sylvester, who had made a few shuffling steps toward the door.
"You have done incalculable harm by your criminal acts," he said sternly. "But for your lying and trickery Jimmie Turnbull would be alive to-day. I trust the Court will give you the maximum sentence."
Sylvester eyed him insolently. "I"ve had a run for my money, and I stood to win large sums if things had only gone right," he announced; then addressed Helen directly. "What did you do with the securities?"
"I put the envelope back in the open safe when I was here early this afternoon," she explained.
An oath ripped from Sylvester. "I mistook you for your sister," he snarled. "Had I known it was you, I"d have wrung the securities from you."
Helen stared at his suddenly contorted face. "Ah, you are the man who looked in at the window of the reception room yesterday morning when I was talking to Mr. Kent," she cried. "I recognize you now."
He continued to glare at her. "I also sent you a note by your sister outside the Cafe St. Marks to secrete the letter "B"," his voice rose almost into a shout in his ungovernable rage. "I heard Turnbull tell you to take the envelope to Rochester, and I banked on your bringing it here or to his apartment. D-mn you! You"ve thwarted me at every turn."
Rochester"s powerful hand was clapped across his mouth with such force that the clerk staggered against Ferguson.
"Here you, out you go." The detective shoved the struggling man toward the door leading into the corridor and Clymer sprang to his a.s.sistance; a second later Rochester closed the door on their receding figures and found Helen standing by his elbow.
"I must go," she said, turning back to look at her father and his bride.
"Wait a minute." Kent held up an envelope with its fateful red seal.
"This was delivered empty at Rochester"s apartment last night--it is addressed to him. Who wrote it?"
"I did," exclaimed Mrs. McIntyre. "I felt I must consult either you, Mr. Kent, or Mr. Rochester, so I sent the note to his apartment, but the messenger boy hurried me, and it was not until hours later that I found the note lying on the desk in the reception room and realized I had sent an empty envelope."
"I see." Kent held up another envelope, the red seal broken at the corner. "This is yours, Helen."
Helen hesitated perceptibly before taking the envelope and tearing it open. She handed the securities to her father.
"Here is father"s forged confession," she said as she took the remaining paper from the envelope.
"It is a marvelous imitation of my handwriting," declared McIntyre, looking at it carefully, then tearing it into tiny bits he flung them into the sc.r.a.p-basket and pocketed the securities.
"And to think that I aided Sylvester"s plot to gain the securities by engaging him as our clerk," groaned Rochester.
"It was clever of him to seek employment here," agreed Kent. "But like many crooks he over-reached himself through over-confidence. Must you go, Colonel McIntyre?"
"Yes." McIntyre walked over to Helen.
"My dear little girl," he began and his voice was husky with feeling.