She opened it, and, after perusal, handed it to her betrothed. "Oh, Austin, what can this mean?"
Austin Wingate read the brief words: "There is a great surprise in store. It may come at any moment."
They sat down in silence, not trusting themselves to speak, to hazard a conjecture as to this mysterious message. At such a moment, so tense with possibilities, they almost forgot they were lovers. And while trying to read in their mutual glances the inmost thoughts of each other, there came the faint tinkle of the door-bell.
Sheila started up as her ears caught the sound. "Listen, Austin! Who"s that?" she asked breathlessly.
A few moments later they heard old Grant open the door. Next second a loud cry of alarm rang through the house. The voice was Grant"s.
Austin, hearing it, dashed from the room and down the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
CONTAINS MANY SURPRISES.
Wingate, hearing Grant"s cry as he opened the hall-door, had only reached the head of the stairs, followed by Sheila, when he met the faithful old butler rushing towards him, crying--"Oh, Miss Sheila, we have--we have a visitor! Come down." _In the hall stood Reginald Monkton_! He was sadly and woefully changed from the alert, vigorous man from whom his daughter had parted on that fateful night which seemed so far distant. The once upright figure was stooping with fatigue and weariness, his face was thin and shrunken, his fine eyes, that used to flash forth scorn on his opponents, had lost their brilliant fire.
Behind him stood Mrs Saxton, dressed in a sober garb of grey.
As he caught sight of Sheila, a broken cry escaped from him: "At last, at last, my beloved child."
Sheila sprang forward, and in a moment they were locked in each other"s arms, tears of happiness raining down her face.
For some seconds n.o.body spoke a word. Austin Wingate was trying hard to control his emotion. Grant, in the background, was crying like a child.
Then Mrs Saxton advanced, her own eyes dim with the pathos of the scene--of this sudden reunion of father and daughter.
"I have brought him back to you," she said, in a voice that trembled.
"But he is very weak and ill. Let us take him to the library at once.
You shall learn everything from me."
Tenderly, the two, Sheila and her lover, led the poor, worn man to the room in which he had spent so many happy hours, Mrs Saxton following.
They placed him in the big arm-chair, and his daughter knelt beside him.
Wingate standing in front.
Then suddenly, the girl pointed a trembling finger at the woman gowned in grey, and her eyes took on a hard, steely look. "What has she to do with it?" she asked, hoa.r.s.ely.
Almost in a whisper came her father"s words: "Everything; she had to do with it from the beginning. But listen to her; for without her aid I should not be here to-night; perhaps I should never have been here, or, if so, such a hopeless wreck that life would have been no blessing."
His voice broke as he ended, and he raised Sheila"s hand to his lips.
And then Mrs Saxton spoke, at first hesitatingly, and in tones that trembled with her terrible emotion. But as she went on her courage came back, and she enunciated her words clearly and distinctly.
"I know you must hate me. Miss Monkton, and I deserve your hatred.
Perhaps, later on, you will judge me a little less harshly, in consideration of the fact that I repented at the eleventh hour, and saved him from these fiends who were bent upon his undoing."
Sheila and Wingate regarded her intently, but neither spoke a word to relieve her embarra.s.sment, or give any indication that they regarded her with anything but the deepest loathing.
"Mr Monkton and I have been to Scotland Yard, and seen Smeaton, the detective. I know from him that you are acquainted with all the actors in this tragedy, including myself. He has told me of your coming across me at the post-office, of your reading the telegram which I sent to Brighton to the man known as Bolinski, who is now in the hands of justice, along with the partner of his crime."
She paused a moment, and then resumed her narrative in the midst of a chilling and hostile silence.
"My connection with it all arose from my intimate acquaintance with the man Stent. It would not interest you to know how I fell under his influence and domination; it would reflect too much discredit on both-- on him who persuaded, on me who yielded. You know already that Stent and Bolinski were the two men who abducted your father. What you do not know is that this plan was maturing for, at least, a couple of years.
Further, you do not know that they were not the instigators, but the instruments of this outrage."
"And their motive?" questioned Wingate sharply.
A bitter smile crossed the young woman"s face. "A motive ever dear to men of their criminal and rapacious type--greed! Offer them a big enough bribe, and they are the willing tools of the man who lures them.
Scruples they have none."
"And who was the instigator?" questioned Wingate again.
"I will come to that all in due course. But more than half-a-dozen times they tried to put their scheme into execution, and failed on every occasion but the last, through a series of accidents. I did not know this for some time after I came upon the scene, when it was revealed to me by Stent, in a moment of unusual confidence."
Here Sheila interrupted. "We know that these two put the dying man dressed in my father"s clothes in the taxi. Presently you shall tell us who that man was, and why he was sent. But first let us go back a little before that. Why did my father dine at the Italian restaurant with Bolinski?"
Reginald Monkton lifted his hand. "I will explain that, if you please, Mrs Saxton. I received a letter from this man, signed with an a.s.sumed name, stating that he could supply me with some important information that would be of the greatest possible use to the Government. He insisted that absolute secrecy must be observed on his part for fear of unpleasant consequences, and suggested Luigi"s restaurant in Soho as the rendezvous. I have had information offered me in this way before, and did not entertain any suspicions. I guessed him to be a needy adventurer who would sell his friends for a consideration, and walked into the trap."
"He kept up the _role_ of the informer I suppose?" queried Wingate. He was perhaps just a little surprised that a man of the world and an astute lawyer should not have had his doubts as to the genuineness of the letter.
"Perfectly, to all appearance. He told me various things about well-known people which, if they were true, would most certainly be useful. He a.s.sumed perfect frankness; he did not suggest that I should credit his statements till I had fully investigated them, and named a fairly modest sum in the event of my being satisfied. Of course, I now see that the whole thing was a pretence. He invented a lot of so-called facts to justify his having invited me to meet him."
Both Sheila and Wingate looked puzzled. Mrs Saxton broke in:
"Of course, I see what is presenting itself to your minds. What object had he in meeting your father at all, when to all appearances they had carefully laid their plans in another direction? Well, their first idea was this, that, given a proper amount of luck, they might effect his capture outside the restaurant. But there were too many people about, and Mr Monkton was too quick for them. I told you just now they had tried to carry out their plan before in half-a-dozen likely places."
Wingate nodded. "Yes, I see. It was one, probably, of several alternative schemes which they had ready for the same evening. Now, Mrs Saxton, will you tell us who was the dying man they put into the taxi and what was their object in putting him into Mr Monkton"s clothes?"
He looked at her steadily; it was with difficulty he could put any civility into his tones as he spoke. But she had turned King"s evidence, and he was bound to recognise the fact. The less he showed his hostility, the more he would get out of her.
"It was not for a long time that I was able to piece together certain facts which enable me to answer your question," replied the woman, who had now perfectly recovered her composure.
"He was. I believe, an Irishman by birth, with no friends or relatives in the world. He had been mixed up with Stent and Bolinski for years, and he knew too much. They knew he was a dying man when they put him into the cab. Their object was to get him off their hands, to let him die elsewhere."
"But why did they dress him up in Mr Monkton"s clothes," queried Wingate.
"I suppose, in order that the superficial likeness might enable him to be earned into the house, where he was bound to collapse. He had been an inmate of Bolinski"s house for some time, and I expect for his own reason Bolinski did not wish him to die there."
Wingate shuddered at a sudden idea that had occurred to him. "Do you think they gave him anything, any drug to hasten his death?" he asked hesitatingly.
"Who ran tell? They had no scruples, though I cannot honestly say I know of any instance in which their callousness led them to take human life."
"Can you account for his repeating the word `Moly" before he died?"
Mrs Saxton shook her head. "Perhaps you did not catch the word aright.
I know he had been privy to this scheme. Perhaps, in his wandering state, he was trying to p.r.o.nounce the name Monkton, and you mistook the first syllable. I can offer no other explanation."
There was a brief pause before Wingate spoke again.
"You were on very early in the scene, were you not?"
Mrs Saxton bowed her head in a.s.sent. "To my shame I was. Stent made out to me at first that they were getting Mr Monkton away for a brief s.p.a.ce to render him harmless. They were connected with some schemes abroad, so he said, which Mr Monkton was using his powerful influence to thwart. I believed him, not knowing the real instigator. I called on Miss Monkton, as you will remember, for the purpose of pumping her, of finding in what quarter suspicion was directed."