"I suppose you will now admit that you know who wrote these letters?"
asked Major Lane sternly.
"Yes--at least I suppose they were written by Mrs. Garvice." Carden
spoke with a touch of impatience. The question seemed to him to be, on
the part of his father's old friend, a piece of useless cruelty.
"And can you suggest to whom they were written, if not to yourself?"
"No, of course not; I do not doubt that they were written to me," and
this time his face was ravaged with a horror and despair to which the
other two men had, as yet, no clue. "And yet," Carden added, a touch
of surprise in his voice, "I never saw these letters--they never
reached me."
"But, of course, you received others?" Major Lane spoke with a certain
eagerness; then, as the young man seemed to hesitate, he added
hastily: "Nay, nay, say nothing that might, incriminate yourself."
"But, indeed--indeed I have never received a letter from her--that
perhaps is why I did not know the handwriting."
"Theodore!" cried his father sharply, "think what you are saying! What
you've been shown are only copies--surely you understood that? What
Lane has just shown you are copies of letters which purport to have
been addressed to you, but which were intercepted on their way to the
post--is that not so?" and he turned to the Head Constable.
"Yes," said Major Lane; then he added, very deliberately: "The
originals of these two letters, which were bought for a large sum from
Mrs. Garvice's companion, evidently the woman referred to in the first
letter, are now in the hands of the news editor of the _Birmingham
Dispatch_. I was shown them as a great favour"--a grim smile
distorted, for a moment, the Head Constable's narrow jaw. "I did my
best--for your father's sake, Carden--to frighten these people into
giving them up; I even tried to persuade them to hold them over, but
it was no good. I was told that no Birmingham paper had ever had such
a--'scoop,' I believe, was the word used. You and your father are so
well known in this city"--and again Theodore Carden marvelled at the
cruelty of the man.
Thomas Carden broke in with a touch of impatience: "But nothing else
has been found, my boy! Lane should tell you that the whole theory of
your having known Mrs. Garvice rests on these two letters--which never
reached you."
Father and son seemed suddenly to have changed places. The old man
spoke in a strong, self-confident tone, but the other, his grey face
supported on his hands, was staring fixedly into the fire.
"Yes," said Major Lane, more kindly, "I ought perhaps to tell you,
Carden, that within an hour of my being shown these letters I had Mrs.
Garvice's house once more searched, and nothing was found connecting
you with the woman, excepting, I am sorry to say, this";--and he held
out an envelope on which was written in Theodore Carden's clear
handwriting the young man's name and business address. "Now I should
like you to tell me, if you don't mind doing so, where, when, and how
this name and address came to be written?"
"Yes, I will certainly tell you." Carden spoke collectedly; he was
beginning to realise the practical outcome of the conversation. "I
wrote that address about the middle of last October, in London, at
Mansell's Hotel in Pall Mall East."
"The poor fellow's going to make a clean breast of it at last"; so
thought Major Lane with a strange feeling of relief, for on the flap
of the envelope, which he had kept carefully turned down, was stamped
"Mansell's Hotel."
It was in a considerate, almost kindly tone, that the Head Constable
next spoke. "And now, Carden, I beg you, for your own sake, to tell
me the truth. Perhaps I ought to inform you, before you say anything,
that, according to our theory, Mrs. Garvice was certainly assisted in
procuring the drug with which, I firmly believe, she slowly
poisoned her husband. As yet we have no clue as to the person who
helped her, but we have ascertained that for the last two months, in
fact from about the date of the first letter addressed to you, a man
did purchase minute quantities of this drug at Birmingham, at
Wolverhampton, and at Walsall. Now, mind you, I do not, I never have,
suspected you of having any hand in that, but I fear you'll have to
face the ordeal of being confronted with the various chemists, of
whom two declare most positively that they can identify the man who
brought them the prescription which obtained him the drug in
question."
While Major Lane was speaking, Theodore Carden had to a certain extent
regained his self-possession; here, at least, he stood on firm ground.
"Of course, I am prepared to face anything of the kind that may be
necessary." He added almost inaudibly; "I have brought it on myself."
Then he turned, his whole voice altering and softening: "Father,
perhaps you would not mind my asking Major Lane to go into the library
with me? I should prefer to see him alone."