"I quite understand. Now I will take up as little time as possible, but there are one or two questions I should like to ask you, if I may."
The solicitor nodded genially. "Go on, sir."
"I take it that, having known Mr Monkton all your life, and your firm having acted for his father, you were entirely in your client"s confidence."
"That is so. Monkton and I were personal friends, as well as solicitor and client. We were at Cambridge together, before either of us commenced our respective careers."
"Has he, to your knowledge, ever made any active enemies?"
"Not that I know of. Political enemies, no doubt, he has by the score-- myself included. But you know what English politics are. It"s a fair stand-up fight, and the loser grumbles a bit, but bears no rancour. Men abuse each other across the floor of the House, and are good friends again in the smoking-room."
"One other question, a somewhat delicate one, and I have done. Had he ever an entanglement of any kind, the effects of which might pursue him in later life?"
The solicitor rubbed his chin, and quite frankly replied:
"Not to my knowledge. That does not, however, conclusively prove a negative."
"But you were close personal friends, in addition to your business relation. Would it not be natural that, under such circ.u.mstances, he would come to you for advice?"
There seemed an extra gleam of shrewdness in the solicitor"s eyes as he answered:
"In such circ.u.mstances as you suggest it is by no means easy to predict what course a man would take. If Monkton had got into some entanglement that, to put it bluntly--although, mind you, I don"t believe such a thing occurred--reflected some doubt either on his character or on his intelligence, it is just as likely as not that his old friend would be the last person to whom he would care to expose himself. He would be equally likely to go to a stranger."
Wingate was fain to admit the force of the argument.
"One can never be sure of any man, even if you have known him all your life," he added, as they shook hands. "n.o.body knows that better than our profession. But I would stake my existence that there were no skeletons in Monkton"s cupboard. The man was as straight as a die, and he was pa.s.sionately attached to his beautiful wife. Well, Mr Wingate, give my best regards to dear Miss Sheila. I will send those boxes round to-day."
He was as good as his word. Late in the afternoon they arrived, and Sheila at once set to work reading the various papers, not, it must be confessed, in a very hopeful spirit.
But when Wingate came round in the evening he found her in a state of greatest excitement.
She took from an envelope a letter containing only a few words and pa.s.sed it to him. "Read that, and tell me what you make of it," she said. "There is no formal beginning, and no signature. But you see it is addressed to my father, and was evidently delivered by hand."
Upon the flap of the faded envelope Wingate saw some initials, two C"s in a cipher scroll embossed in black, an old-fashioned monogram such as was in vogue in the early "sixties."
Then he read upon the half-sheet of notepaper, traced in a bold hand in ink that was brown, as follows:
"You have ruined and disgraced me, and forced me to fly the country and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. Well, I will be even with you. I will wait, if necessary all my life, till my turn comes.
Then, when it does, I will strike you at the zenith of your career, and mete out to you the suffering you have dealt to me."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
IN WHICH SMEATON MAKES A DISCOVERY.
Wingate laid down the letter and looked at Sheila, who was regarding him expectantly.
"What do you make of it?" she repeated.
"It is evident that he had an enemy, and a very bitter one," answered her lover. "The sentences are deliberate, but they appear to have been written by a man who was in a white heat of pa.s.sion when he penned them."
"Smeaton ought to see that letter, without loss of time, dear," she said.
"I quite agree. His trained intelligence may get more out of it than we can. I will make an appointment with him for to-morrow morning, and I will be here when he comes."
Smeaton arrived next morning, hoping that at last he might discover a substantial clue. He read the brief note carefully and deliberately.
"Is it important, do you think?" inquired Sheila eagerly.
"In my opinion it is of very considerable importance. Miss Monkton," he replied. "I think it will help us."
"It certainly proves that he had a secret enemy," interjected Wingate, "and one who would hesitate at nothing that would secure him revenge."
"I quite agree, sir. The letter breathes the most intense hatred in every line. The motive of that hatred we have got to discover."
Then the detective, turning to Sheila, said: "Now, Miss Monkton, there is a little information that I am sure you will be able to give us. I am not so well posted in your father"s biography as I ought to be. But, before he became a prominent politician, I understand that he was a barrister with an extensive and lucrative practice."
"That is so," corroborated Sheila. "He did not often talk about those times, but I have always understood that he made quite a big income at the Bar."
"And when did he retire from his profession?"
"About fifteen years ago."
"And he resolved to say good-bye to the Bar and devote himself entirely to politics?"
Sheila nodded. "That is quite true. He had a very firm opinion that a man could not serve two masters."
"Was he on the Chancery or the Common Law side?" was Smeaton"s next question.
"On the Common Law," replied Sheila. "But why do you ask that question?"
"You shall know in good time. Miss Monkton. Well, we may take it, then, that this vindictive letter was written more than fifteen years ago."
"While he was still at the Bar," interrupted Wingate, who was beginning to realise the point of the detective"s reasoning. "You are a.s.suming that this venomous epistle did not come from a political enemy."
"It is an a.s.sumption for which I have reasonable grounds," was Smeaton"s answer. "There has been no bitterness in party politics ever since Mr Monkton became a conspicuous figure in the House. And we know that, while he was most popular with his own side, he was respected and liked by his political opponents."
"Is it too much to ask you to give us the benefit of any theory you have formed, Mr Smeaton?" suggested Sheila, in her pretty, gracious way.
"With all the pleasure in life, my dear young lady. This letter goes back, in my opinion, to your father"s barrister days, when he was one of the foremost counsel in England. I asked you just now whether he was on the Equity or the Common Law side, and you wondered why I asked the question."
"I am still wondering," said Sheila simply.
"On the Equity side they try all sorts of cases concerned with points of law, the majority of them of a very dry and uninteresting character. I should not look in an Equity case for a defeated litigant who would turn into a vindictive enemy of the type of the writer of this letter."
The young people began to see, as yet very dimly, whither he was leading them.
"On the Common Law side, on the contrary, we are brought into the world of human pa.s.sion and emotion; one in which the issues of life or death are at stake. We will suppose that your father, in the plenitude of his powers, is retained as counsel against some adroit rogue, some swindling company promoter, for example, who up to that moment had managed to keep himself well on the right side of the law."