Taken aback for a moment, Bentwood stepped off the path. He bent and gripped Field by the throat.
"You little beast!" he hissed. "I"ll kill you. If you only knew who you are talking to!"
But Field was made of whipcord and steel. He slipped away from the other"s grip and planted two or three body blows that caused Bentwood to groan aloud. Mark stepped out at once, but there was no need of his services. Field was all over his man by this time. As he clenched and drove his left home, Bentwood came heavily to the ground. Before he could stagger to his feet again, Field had the handcuffs on him.
"It"s an outrage," Bentwood bl.u.s.tered, though his face was white now and his big red cheeks shook like a jelly. "What does it all mean?"
"Case of Sir Charles Darryll," Field panted. "We know all about that. We shall have your friend Sartoris, in a minute, to say nothing of Reggie and Cora. If you tell us everything and make a clean breast of your part of it----"
"Shan"t," Bentwood said sullenly. "You can find out that for yourself."
Field pursed his lips in a soft whistle. The two shadows by the gate came up.
"Keep him close by," Field said. "He is just valiantly drunk now, but unless I greatly mistake my man, he will listen to reason shortly. Don"t take him far away, as I may want to make use of him presently. I am glad that he arrived on the scene before the motor came up."
Again the tense silence fell on the group; once more they had to possess their souls in patience. Field appeared more cheerful and philosophical; the arrest of Bentwood seemed to have taken a heavy weight from his mind. He took out a cigarette and lighted it. Mark turned to Mary.
"You are sure that you will not reconsider your decision?" he said. "I wish that I could persuade you not to remain here. It has been quite painful enough for you already, and you can do no good. Why should you witness the final humiliation of it?"
Mary looked at the speaker; a grateful sigh came from her lips.
"You are more than kind to me," she said. "But I have drunk so deeply of the cup of humiliation that a draught more or less makes no difference.
Heaven knows how I have tried to avert this thing, to ward off the danger that I could not see. And yet all this time I knew that sooner or later the blow would fall. Mr. Ventmore, how old do you take me to be?"
Mark could not say. It was rather an awkward question.
"I see by your silence that you would rather not reply," Mary said. "It means that you would have a delicacy in calling me an old woman. And yet I am barely thirty. When I think what I was three years ago, it seems to me as if ages had pa.s.sed. Of course, this is all silly talk, but I must talk or go mad."
"There is a happier time coming for you," Mark said.
"I know that. Once that blow has fallen, I shall regard myself as free of my cares. And now, with that prospect before me, I would avert the calamity if I could. And yet I have done my best and n.o.body could do more."
Silence fell again, for Mark could not think of anything else to say.
The silence was broken presently by the clang and snarl of a distant motor car, and Field pitched his cigarette away. He seemed to have become good-humoured all at once.
"That is good," he exclaimed. "Our patience has been rewarded at last.
Another few minutes and we will go and see what the house has in store for us. There"s the other man."
The motor pulled up opposite No. 100, and two men got out--followed by a third in clerical costume. The latter seemed to be protesting about something. As he came up the drive Field stepped out, and the two men who had engineered the motor car saluted.
"You have done exceedingly well," Field said in a pleased voice. "You will just stay where you are, because you may be wanted. So you have brought the gentleman from Edward Street? I telephoned your chief to make a raid on the place just now."
"But this is an outrage," the clerical figure said in a shaky voice. "To take a gentleman from his lodgings in that way is something that even the police----"
"The police are prepared to accept all responsibility," Field said drily. "There is one little matter that I have to clear up, and that is your ident.i.ty. As it is not a cold night you are not likely to suffer for the want of your wig."
Dexterously Field s.n.a.t.c.hed away wig and hat and gla.s.ses, and Richford stood exposed. He was about to say something when all attention was arrested by a sound from the house. It was a clear, crisp sound, the ring of a revolver shot.
"Look to your prisoners!" said Field crisply. "I am going into the house."
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
Meanwhile Berrington had stepped aside after having arranged to give Field the signal. And Berrington had made a discovery, the importance of which it was impossible to overestimate. For the moment it had almost deprived him of the power of thinking about anything else, but now it came to him that Beatrice might be in some little danger.
In the first place, the girl was in possession of a parcel of valuable diamonds, the possession of which the others knew of and coveted. The rascals were in a tight place now, and they would not stick at much to make their escape. If they were short of funds the diamonds in Beatrice"s pocket would come in useful. But Berrington, like the cool soldier that he was, had decided not to spoil the thing by an eager haste. There was plenty of a.s.sistance outside, and besides, he had a trusty revolver in his pocket. He stood now in the hall where he was in a position to hear all that was going on.
Beatrice had rushed to the door and beat her hands upon it. She was pulled away more or less roughly by the man called Reggie, but she did not seem to notice it.
"Am I mad or dreaming?" she said as she pressed her hands to her forehead. "I could have sworn that I heard a voice calling me, a voice----"
"All nonsense," said Sartoris hoa.r.s.ely. "You are overstrung, and your imagination is too real for you. Did any of the rest of you hear a voice?"
The other two denied that they had heard anything. Beatrice broke out scornfully----
"It is a lie," she said. "You all heard it. Everybody heard it. If not, why are you all so white, and why do you all look so curiously at one another?"
It was quite true, and Sartoris had no reply for the moment. He seemed to be struggling to regain his lost self-possession. Then he glanced at the man called Reggie, who shrugged his shoulders. Sartoris was himself again by this time.
"It was certainly an effect of the imagination," he cried. "Let us talk of other things. My dear young lady, my friends here have been good enough to betray the fact that you have a lot of valuable diamonds in your pocket. Is that a fact?"
Beatrice scorned to lie, and now in any case it would have been useless.
She looked from one to the other and wondered what had become of Berrington. Berrington was listening outside the door and feeling that the time for him to interfere was close at hand.
"It is exactly as these people say," Beatrice admitted.
"It is very good of them to take all this trouble," Sartoris said in a sulky voice. "Because of those stones in your pocket they are here to-night. They followed you here, because they are both lovers of that kind of thing. Out of purely disinterested motives, they had made up their minds not to tell me, but a little indiscretion on the part of my fair lady prevented that silent policy from becoming a success."
"What"s all this about?" Cora asked uneasily.
"Why ask?" Sartoris said with contempt. "So that was your game, eh? Fill your own pockets and leave the rest of us to look after ourselves. Go off together and try the air of South America once more, you reptiles!"
The other two said nothing. They had a proper respect for the keen intelligence of Carl Sartoris, and they knew that he had found them out.
There was a queer gleam in his eyes.
"We will have a friendly discussion on the ethics of the case some other time," he said with an ominous frown. "Meanwhile I think you can leave the matter to me. My dear young lady, I should very much like to see those diamonds."
"I regret that I cannot accommodate you," Beatrice said. "In the first place they are not mine."
"No, but they belong to Stephen Richford, which is much the same thing."
"Again I am sorry to have to disagree with you," Beatrice went on quietly. "The man who calls himself my husband has ended his career disgracefully. He has been guilty of fraudulent conduct, and even at the present moment he may be in the hands of the police."
Beatrice spoke more truly than she had imagined. She was not in the least frightened, and yet she knew perfectly well that these people would not stick at trifles.
"My husband came to me to-night," she said. "He came and asked me for these gems. He wanted to turn them into money to fly with; he desired to have a luxurious retreat. I might have parted with them but for one thing--he seemed to have no sorrow for those that he had robbed. So I declined to part with the diamonds. I am going to keep them and hand them over to my husband"s creditors. I took them from the safe in my hotel, fearing that there would be complications, but I was wrong, and I am sorry that I did so."