Kitabı oku: «The Silent Shore», sayfa 7
"It will lead to your conduct being much misconstrued by the world," Mr. Fordyce said. "It will not understand your silence."
"Must everything be made public?" Penlyn asked.
"More or less. One cannot suppress a will dealing with over two millions worth of property. Even though you were willing to destroy it and forfeit your inheritance, it could not be done. If Mr. Stuart and I allowed such a thing as that, we should become criminals."
"Well, so be it! the public must think what they like of me-at least until the murderer is discovered." Then he asked again: "But what clue is there to help us to find him?"
"None that we know of, as yet," Stuart said. "The verdict at the Coroner's Inquest yesterday was, 'Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown,' and the police stated that, up to now, they could not say that they suspected any one. There is absolutely no clue!"
"I suppose," Mr. Fordyce said, with a speculative air, "those Spanish letters will not furnish any, when translated.'"
"What Spanish letters?" Penlyn asked. "If you have any, let me see them, I am acquainted with the language."
"Is Corot a man's or a woman's name?" Mr. Fordyce asked, as he again untied his bundle of papers.
"Neither, that I know of," Penlyn answered. "It is more likely, I should think, to be a pet, or nickname. Why do you ask?"
"I found these three letters amongst others in his desk," Stuart said, taking them from Mr. Fordyce and handing them to Lord Penlyn, "and I should not have had my attention attracted to them more than to any others out of the mass of foreign correspondence there was, had it not been for the marginal notes in Mr. Cundall's handwriting. Do you see them?"
"Yes," he answered. "Yes. I see written on one, 'Sent C 500 dols.,' on another, 'Sent 2,000 Escudos,' and on the third again, 'Sent C 500 dols.'"
"What do the letters say?" they both asked.
"I will read them."
He did so carefully, and then he turned round and said:
"They are all from some man signing himself Corot, and dating from Puerto Cortes, who seems to think he had, or, perhaps, really had, since money was sent, some claim upon him. In the first one he says none has been forthcoming for a long while, and that, though he does not want for himself, some woman, whom he calls Juanna, is ill and requires luxuries. He finishes his letter with, 'Yours ever devotedly.' In the second he writes more strongly, says that Juanna is dying, and that, as she has committed no fault, he insists upon having money. After this the largest sum was sent."
"And the third?" they both asked.
"The third is more important. It says Juanna is dead, that he is going to England on business, and that, as he has heard Cundall is also about to set out for that country, he will see him there, as he cannot cross Honduras to do so. And he finishes his letter by saying: 'Do not, however, think that her death relieves you from your liability to me. Justice, and the vile injuries done to us, make it imperative on you to provide for me for ever out of your evilly-acquired wealth. This justice I will have, and you know I am one who will not hesitate to enforce my rights. Remember how I served José, and beware.'"
"This is a faithful translation?" Stuart asked.
"Take it to an interpreter, as you doubt me?" Penlyn said.
"I do not doubt you, Lord Penlyn," the other replied, "and I beg your pardon for this and any other suspicions I may have shown. Will you forgive me?"
"Yes," Penlyn said, and he held out his hand to the other, and Stuart took it.
"If this man is in England," Mr. Fordyce said, "and we could only find him out, and also discover what his movements have been, we should, perhaps, be very near the murderer."
"Every detective in London shall be set to work to-night, especially those who understand foreigners and their habits, to find him if he is here. And if he is, he will have to give a very full account of himself before he finds himself free," Stuart said.
CHAPTER XII
The conversation between the three was, necessarily, of so lengthy a nature, that Lord Penlyn desired them to partake of some luncheon, which invitation they accepted. While it was proceeding, they continued to discuss fully all the extraordinary circumstances of which they had any knowledge in connection with the murder of Walter Cundall, and also of the position in which Penlyn now found himself.
"Of course, it is no use trying to disguise the fact, my lord," the lawyer said, "that this strange will in your favour will be the subject of much discussion. The only thing we have to do now is to think how much need be made public. Your inheritance of his money-even to a nobleman in your position-is a matter of importance, and will cause a great deal of remark."
"Of course, I understand that," Penlyn answered. "But you say we have to think of 'how much' need be made public. What part of this unhappy story is there that you imagine need not be known?"
Mr. Fordyce thought a moment, with his bushy eyebrows deeply knitted, then he said:
"I do not see why any one need be told of the relationship existing between you. It is no one's business after all; and it was evidently his wish that, for your sake, it should never be known."
"Naturally," Penlyn replied, "I do not want my affairs told to every one, and made a subject of universal gossip; but then, what reason is to be given for his having left me all his money?"
"It might be hinted that you were connections, though distant ones," Mr. Fordyce said.
"Would it not appear strange that, in such circumstances, we knew so little of one another?"
"Yes," the lawyer said, "unless it were said that you were only recently acquainted with the fact."
"But the will is dated three years ago!" Stuart remarked. "Then I scarcely know what to suggest," Mr. Fordyce said.
They talked it over and over again, but they could arrive at no determination; and at last it was resolved that the best thing would be to let matters take their course. No announcement would be publicly made, and though, of course, it would, eventually leak out that Lord Penlyn was Walter Cundall's heir, the world would have to put its own construction upon the fact. Or again, other men had before now made eccentric wills, taking sudden fancies to people who were strangers to them and leaving them all their money. It would be best that Walter Cundall's will should also come to be regarded in that category.
"After all," Stuart said, "you were acquaintances, and mixed in the same circle. Even the fact that you both loved the same woman goes for something, and that must be sufficient for those who take any interest in the matter."
He had come into the house with innumerable suspicions against Lord Penlyn, suspicions aroused by his being the inheritor of Cundall's property, and also by the fact that he and the dead man had both loved the same woman, and with a strange feeling in his heart that, when he stood before him, he would stand before a murderer. He had also remembered that conversation in the club about the peculiarity of the dagger, or knife, with which Cundall must have been slain, and his recollection of the hesitating way in which Penlyn had answered, had added to his suspicions. But, when he had seen the genuine tears of sorrow that had been shed over the will, those suspicions vanished, and he told himself that it was not in this man that the murderer would be found. And, if this new-formed idea had required any strengthening, it would have received it when those importunate and threatening letters had been read from the unknown person signing himself, Corot. There was the man, who, if in England, must be found at all costs. But how to find him was the question.
"There is one to whom I must, at least, disclose my relationship with Walter," Penlyn said, and they both noticed that, for the first time, he spoke of his brother by his Christian name. "I must tell Miss Raughton the position we stood in to one another."
Stuart, with feelings of a very different nature now in his heart from those with which he had first regarded him, asked him if he thought it was wise to do so? Would she not think that, standing in the position of his affianced wife and having also been beloved by his brother, she should have been the first to be told of the bond between them?
"It may not be wise," Penlyn said sadly, and with a weary look upon his face, "and it may be that she will think I have deceived her-as, unhappily, I have done by my silence-but still I must tell her. With her, at least, there must be nothing more suppressed."
Then he told them of the strange dream that she had had (even mentioning that she had said she could recognise the form, if not the face, of the man who sprang upon him), and of the vow she had made him take to endeavour to discover the murderer.
"If dreams were of the slightest importance, which they are not," Mr. Fordyce said, "this one would go to prove that Corot is not the murderer, since it is hardly likely that she has ever known him. Still, it is a strange coincidence that she should have dreamt of his death on the very night that it took place."
"The idea of knowing the form, or figure, of the man is nothing," Stuart said. "If there was any likelihood of there being anything in that, it would also be the case that we should have to look upon Lady Chesterton's conservatory as the spot where it happened, as it was there she dreamt she saw him. But we know that he was killed in St. James' Park."
"If the detectives can only discover this man Corot," Penlyn said, "we might find out what he was doing on that night."
"If they cannot find him," Stuart said, "it shall not be for the want of being paid to look for him."
"I would give every farthing of the fortune my brother has left me to discover him, or to find the real assassin!" Penlyn said.
They discussed, after this, the way in which the information that had come into their possession, from the three letters written in Spanish, should be conveyed to the detectives, and Stuart arranged to take the matter into his hands.
"Leave it to me," he said, "I happen to know two or three of them; in fact, I have already communicated with Dobson, who understands a great deal about foreigners. He has done all the big extradition cases for a long while, and knows the exact spots in which men of different nationalities are to be found. If Corot is in London, Dobson, or one of his men, will be sure to discover him."
"And you think I had better not appear in the matter at all?" Penlyn asked, appealing to both of them.
"Not at present, certainly," Mr. Fordyce said; "as Mr. Stuart is at present acting in it, it had better be left to him. Mr. Cundall's agents in the City have placed everything in his hands, and I suppose you, as his heir, will have no objection to do so also."
"I shall be extremely grateful to Mr. Stuart if he will hold the same position towards me that he filled with my brother," Penlyn said; "and if he wants any assistance, my friend and secretary, Mr. Smerdon, will be happy to render it him."
"I will do all I can," Stuart said quietly, "to assist you, both in regard to his affairs and to finding the guilty man if possible."
Then Lord Penlyn made a suggestion that his own lawyer, Mr. Bell, should also be brought into communication with Mr. Fordyce and Stuart, and the former said that he would call upon him the next day.
"There will then be five of us interested in finding the assassin," Penlyn said, "for I am quite sure that both Mr. Bell and Philip Smerdon will go hand in hand with us in this search. Surely amongst us, and with the aid of the detectives, who ought to work well for the reward I will pay them, we shall succeed in tracking him."
"I hope to God we shall!" Stuart said, and Penlyn solemnly exclaimed, "Amen!"
They were about to separate now, after an interview that had lasted for some hours, when Penlyn said:
"To-morrow is the day of his funeral. If it were possible-if you think that I could do so, I should wish to be present at it."
The others thought a moment, Stuart looking at Mr. Fordyce as though waiting for him to answer this suggestion, but, instead of doing so, he only said: "What do you think, Mr. Stuart?"
Stuart still hesitated, and seemed to be pondering deeply, and then he said:
"I think, if it will not be too great a denial to you, if you will not feel that you are failing in the last duty you can pay him, you should remain away. You could only go as chief mourner if you go at all, and that will render you too conspicuous, and would set every tongue in London wagging. Can you resign yourself to staying away?"
"I must resign myself, I suppose," the other answered. "Perhaps, too, it is better I should do so; for, when I should see his coffin being lowered into its grave, the memory of his nobility and unselfishness, and his cruel end, would come back to me with such force that I fear I should no longer be master of myself."
So Lord Penlyn did not see the last of his brother's remains; and Mr. Stuart, Mr. Fordyce, and two of his agents made up the list of his mourners. But behind the carriage that conveyed them, came countless other carriages belonging to men and women who had known and liked the dead man, and in some cases their owners were in them; amongst others Sir Paul Raughton being in his. The wreaths of flowers that were piled above his coffin also came from scores of friends, and afforded great interest to the enormous mob that followed the victim's funeral, and made a decorous holiday of the occasion. It is not often that a millionaire is stabbed to death in London by an unknown hand; and many of those, who had read with intense excitement of the murder, determined to see the last obsequies of the victim. Amongst those wreaths were two formed of splendid white roses, one of which bore the words worked into it, "We shall meet again" and the initial letter "I," and another the words, "I remember" followed by the letter "G."
And late that night, as the time was, fast approaching for the cemetery to be closed, Lord Penlyn walked swiftly up the path leading to the new-made grave, and, seeing that there was no one near, knelt down and prayed silently by it. Then he whispered, "I will never rest until you are avenged. If you can hear my vow in heaven, hear me now swear this." And, taking a handful of the mould from the grave, he wrapped it in his handkerchief, and passed out again into the world.
CHAPTER XIII
The Hôtel et Café Restaurant de Lepanto is one of those many places near, and in the neighbourhood of, Leicester Square, where foreigners delight to sojourn when in London. Not first-class foreigners, perhaps, or, at least, not foreigners of large means, but generally such as come to London to transact business that occupies them for a short time. As a rule, this establishment is patronised by Spanish and Portuguese gentlemen of a commercial status, persons who, more often than not, are connected with the wine trade of those countries; and it is also frequented by singers and dancers and other artistes who may find themselves-by what they regard as a stroke of fortune-fulfilling an engagement in our Metropolis. To them, the Hôtel Lepanto is a congenial abode, a spot where they can eat of the oily and garlic-flavoured dishes partaken of with so much relish when at home in Madrid, Lisbon, Seville, or Granada, and here they can converse in their own tongues with each other and with Diaz Zarates, the Spanish landlord of the house, to whom half-a-dozen Southern languages and many patois are known.
The hotel seems to exist entirely for the people of these countries, since into it no Frenchman, nor Italian, nor German ever comes; they have their own hostelries of an equally, to them, agreeable nature in other streets in the neighbourhood. So these Southerners, with the dark eyes, and coal-black hair, and brown skin, have the little dining-room with the dirty fly-blown paper, and the almost as dirty table-covers and curtains, all to themselves; and into it-or to the passage with the three chairs and the marble-table where, as often as not, the Señors and Señoras sit and smoke their cigarettes for hours together, in preference to doing so in the dining-room-no one of another nation intrudes. If, not having Spanish or Portuguese blood in his veins, there ever is any one who does so intrude, it is generally some Englishman of a rashly speculative nature, who wants to try a Spanish dinner and see what it is like, and who, having done so, never wants to try another.
And sometimes, as has been the case of late, much to the disgust of Diaz Zarates, an English detective has made his appearance, and, under the guise of one of the above speculative individuals essaying an Iberian meal, has endeavoured to worm secrets out of him about his patrons and guests. To the disgust of Diaz Zarates of late, because he knows perfectly well who Dobson is (although that astute individual is not aware of the landlord's knowledge of his calling), and because, honestly, he has never heard of any one bearing the name of Corot in his life.
And it is of such a person with that name, that Dobson has been making little inquiries whenever he has dropped in to try a Spanish luncheon or a Spanish dinner.
Seated, a few days after the murder of Walter Cundall, on one of the three chairs in the passage, and meditatively smoking cigarettes out of which, as is the case with Spanish-made ones, the tobacco would frequently fall in a lighted mass on the marble table, was Señor Miguel Guffanta, as he was inscribed in Diaz's books. Had the Señor been as carefully washed as the upper classes of Spaniards usually are, had his linen been as white and clean as the linen usually worn by the upper classes of Spaniards, and, had he been freshly shaved, he would, in all probability have presented the appearance of a fine, handsome man. But he had come downstairs this morning to smoke his cigarette, without troubling to make his toilette, putting on his yesterday's shirt, and going through no ablutionary process at all, and with a thick, heavy stubble of twenty-four hours' growth upon his cheeks and chin. Still, with all this carelessness, Señor Miguel Guffanta was a handsome man. He had a dark, Moorish-looking face, the lines of which were very regular, he had large luminous eyes that, when he chose, he could open to an enormous extent, and coal-black hair that curled thickly over his head. His frame was a powerful one; his height being considerable and his chest broad and deep, and his long, sinewy, brown hands looked as though their grasp would be a grasp of iron, if put to their utmost strength. In age he was about thirty-eight or forty, but he looked younger, because no single gray hair had appeared either in his luxurious locks or in his long, black moustache. As he sat there, taking fresh cigarette-papers from his pocket, and, when he had put some dry, dusty tobacco into them, twisting both ends up, and smoking them while he gazed meditatively either at the ceiling of the passage, or into the species of horse-box that was designated as the "bureau," a stranger might have wondered what brought the Señor there. Unkempt as he was this morning, there was something about him, either in the easy grace of his figure, or in the contemptuous, almost haughty, look in his face, that proclaimed instantly that this was not a man accustomed to soliciting orders for wine, or to appearing in Spanish ballets or choruses, or of, in any way, ministering to other people's amusement.
As he still sat there thinking and smoking, the landlord came down the passage, and bowing and wishing him "Good morning" in Spanish, entered his box, and proceeded to make some entries in his books. The Señor nodded in return, and then made another cigarette and went on with his meditations; but, when that one was smoked through, he rose and leaned against the door-post of the bureau, and addressed Zarates.
"And have any more guests arrived since last night," he asked, "and is the hotel yet full?"
"No more, Señor, no more as yet," the landlord answered him. "Dios! but there is little business doing now."
"That is not well! And he who loves so much our Spanish luncheons and dinners, our good friend Dobson (he pronounced the name, Dobesoon) with the heavy, fat face and the big beard-what of him?"
"He is a pig, a fool!" Diaz said, as he ran an unclean finger up a column of accounts. "He believes me not when I tell him that of his accursed Corot I know nothing, and that I believe no such man is in London."
The Señor laughed gently to himself at this answer, and then he said: "And he has not yet found him?"
"Dios! found him, no! Of that name I never heard before, no, never! There is no such name!"
"For what does he say he wishes to see this Corot? Is it that he has a legacy to give him, or has he committed a crime for which this fat man, this heavy Alguazil, wants to arrest him?"
"Quien sabé! He says he has a little friendly question to ask him, that is all. He says if he could see him for one moment, he would tell him all he wants to know. And then he says he must find him. But I do not think now he will ever find him."
"Nor do I," the Señor said. Then he looked up at the clock, and, seeing it was past twelve, went to his room, saying that it was time he prepared himself for the day.
But when he reached that apartment, which was a small room on the second floor, that looked out on to the back windows of the street that ran parallel with the one in which the Hôtel Lepanto was situated, it did not seem as if those preparations stood in any great need of hurry. The inevitable cigarette-papers were again produced and the dusty tobacco, and the Señor, throwing himself into the arm-chair that stood in the corner of the room, again gave himself up to meditation.
"Corot," he said to himself, "Corot. How is it that that man has ever heard the name-what does he know about it, why should he want to find him? I thought that, outside Los Torros and Puerto Cortes, that name had never been heard. Walter knew it, and Juanna knew it, and I knew it, but of others there was no one alive who knew it. Yet here, is this big, stupid man, in this big, stupid city (where-por Dios! one may be stabbed to death and none find the slayer), with the name upon his lips. How has he ever heard it, how has he ever known of it?"
He could find no answer to these questions which he asked himself, and gradually his thoughts went off into another train.
"So, after all," he continued, "his name was not Cundall but Occleve, and he it was who was this lord, this Penlyn, though that other bears the name. And he, who inherited all that wealth from the old man, had no right to it, no not so much right as Juanna-poor Juanna! – and I had. And now he is gone, and it is with the living that I have to do. Well, it shall be done, and by my father's blood the reckoning shall be a heavy one if this lord does not clear himself!"
He rose from his seat, and, going to a cupboard, took from it a suit of clothes of good, dark material, and after brushing them carefully, laid them out upon the bed. From a shelf in it he took out a very good silk hat, which he also brushed, and a pair of nearly new gloves. Then he rang the bell, and bade the servant who answered it bring him sufficient hot water for shaving and washing.
As he went through his toilette, which he did very carefully, and putting on now linen of dazzling whiteness, with which the most scrupulous person could have found no fault, his thoughts still ran upon the subject that had occupied his mind entirely for many days.
"There is danger in it, of course," he muttered to himself; "but I am used to danger; there was danger when Gonzalez provoked me, though it was not as great as that I stand in now. These English are stupid, but they are crafty also, and it may be that a trap will be set for me, perhaps is set already. Well, I will escape from it as I have from others. And, after all, I have one damning proof in my favour, one card that, if I am forced to play, must save me! What I have to do, shall be done to-day. I am resolved!"
His toilette was finished now, he was clean-shaved and well dressed from head to foot, and the Señor Miguel Guffanta stood in his room a very different-looking man from the one who had sat, an hour ago, smoking cigarettes in the hotel passage. Before he left it, he unlocked a portmanteau, and took from it a pocket-book into which he looked for a moment, and then he locked his door and descended the stairs.
"Going out for the day, Señor?" Diaz asked, as he peered out of his box.
"Yes. I am going to make a call on an English friend. Adios."
"Adios, Señor."
"It is as hot as Honduras," Señor Guffanta said to himself as he crossed to the shady side of the street. "I must walk slowly to keep myself cool."
He did walk slowly, making his way through Leicester Square and down Piccadilly, and, at nearly the bottom of the latter, turned off to the right and passed through several streets. Then, when he had arrived at a house which stood at a corner he stopped. He evidently had been here before, for he had found his way without any difficulty through the labyrinth of streets between this house and Leicester Square, and now he paused for one moment previous to mounting the doorstep. But, before he did so, he turned away and went a short distance down a side-street. The big house outside which he was standing formed the angle of two streets, and ran down the side one that the Señor had now turned into. At the back of it was a garden, fairly filled with trees, that ran some distance farther down this street, and into which an open-worked iron gate led, a gate through which any passerby could look. It was not a well-kept garden, and in it there was some undergrowth; and it was at this undergrowth, on the farthest right hand side, that Señor Guffanta peered for some few moments through the iron gate.
"It seems the same," he muttered to himself; "nothing appears disturbed since I was last here." Then he returned to the front of the house, and mounting the steps knocked at the hall door.
The footman who opened it had no time to ask the tall, well-dressed foreigner with the handsome face, who was standing before him, what he required, before the Señor said, in good English:
"Is Lord Penlyn within?"
"Yes, sir," the man answered. "Do you wish to see him?"
"Yes. Be good enough to take him my card, if you please," and he produced one bearing the name of Señor Miguel Guffanta. "Give him that," he said, "and say that I wish to see him."
The footman motioned him to a seat, and had put the card upon a salver to take to his master, when the Señor said "Stay, I will put a word upon it," and, taking a pencil from his pocket, he wrote underneath his name, "From Honduras."
"He will see me, I think," he said, "when he sees that."
The man bowed and went away, returning a few minutes afterwards to say that Lord Penlyn would see him, and the Señor followed him into the room in which so many other interviews had taken place.
Lord Penlyn rose and bowed, and Señor Guffanta returned the bow gravely, while he fixed his dark eyes intently on the other's face.
"You state on your card, Señor Guffanta, that you are from Honduras. I imagine, therefore, that you have come about a matter that at the present moment is of the utmost importance to me?" Lord Penlyn said.
"You refer to the late Mr. Cundall?" the Señor asked. "Yes, I do. Pray be seated."
"I knew him intimately," Señor Guffanta said. "It is about him and his murder that I have come to talk."
