acquaintance of Edward Layton's father, a man who, although well on in
years, was as weak-minded as he was himself. They entered into a kind
of partnership, in which, no doubt, the elder man, now in his grave,
was the leader and prompter. From Eustace's description of Edward
Layton's father I recognized a man weak-minded as Eustace himself was,
and whose inherent honor and honesty were warped by his fatal passion
for gambling. Old Mr. Layton, for a long time, kept his infatuation
from the knowledge of his son, and it was not until he was actually
involved in crime and disgrace that Edward became aware of it. Long
before this Edward had, through his engagement with Mabel Rutland,
been employed in the helpless task of endeavoring to save her beloved
brother, but when the knowledge of his own father's disgrace was forced
upon him, he knew that all hope of Mabel's father consenting to his
marriage was irretrievably gone. It was not only that the young and the
old man had lost money in betting--it was that they had actually been
guilty of forging bills, which Mr. Beach, the father of the woman whom
Edward Layton afterwards married, held in his possession. It was this
that first took Edward Layton to Mr. Beach's house. Mabel had implored
him to save her darling brother, against whom Mr. Beach had threatened
to take criminal proceedings. I do not at this moment know whether
Edward Layton had revealed to Mabel the disgrace which hung also above
his father but that is immaterial. Agnes Beach, Mr. Beach's only child,
saw and fell in love with Edward Layton, and her father, disreputable
as he was, being devoted to his daughter, was guided by her in all that
subsequently transpired. The bills he held he determinedly refused to
part with, unless Edward Layton married his child.
In the terrible position in which he was placed, knowing that Mabel
Rutland was lost to him forever--knowing how deeply and devotedly she
loved her brother Eustace--knowing the disgrace which hung over his
own name, he saw no other way to prevent utter ruin than to enter into
this fatal engagement, and to marry a woman whom he did not love. But,
with a full consciousness of the disreputable connection he was about
to form, he laid no pressing injunction upon his father to recognize
the unhappy union; and, indeed, old Mr. Layton, aware that he was in
Mr. Beach's power, was by no means desirous to meet him. Love lost,
honor lost, the sword hanging over his head, Edward Layton submitted
to the sacrifice. There was no duplicity on his part. Agnes Beach knew
full well that he did not love her. He received, as he believed, the
whole of the forged bills which Mr. Beach held, and it was not until
some time after his marriage that he discovered that three of these
fatal acceptances had been withheld from him. At the time he made this
discovery he was leading a most unhappy life with his wife, and on more
than one occasion she taunted him with the power she held over him.
It was shortly after the marriage that weak-minded Eustace made the
acquaintance of Ida White. She was an attractive woman, well versed in
the wiles of her sex, and she played upon him and entangled him to such
an extent that there was no escape for him. It is unnecessary here to
enter into the details of this connection. It is sufficient to say that
Ida White held Eustace Rutland completely in her power, with a firm
conviction that if she could induce him to marry her, she could, after
the marriage, obtain the forgiveness of Eustace's father--which would
insure her a life of ease and luxury. But there was still a certain
firmness in the young man.
"Marry me," she said.
"I will marry you," Eustace replied, "when I get back the forged
acceptances."
Where were they? In Mrs. Layton's possession.
Close as was the intimacy which existed between the unhappy lady
and her maid, Mrs. Layton retained so jealous a possession of these
incriminating documents that Ida White was not able to lay her hands
upon them. In the company of Eustace Rutland she was supping in
Prevost's Restaurant on the night of the 25th of March. She had slipped
away from Mrs. Layton's house, as she had often done before, to meet
her young and foolish lover. She saw her master and Mabel enter the
room, and observed Layton taking off his ulster. Then the idea suddenly
entered her head that Eustace and she should personate her master
and the young lady--with a full knowledge how deeply those two were
compromised by their being together and arrive home before them, by
which time, doubtless, Mrs. Layton would be asleep. She knew that under
her pillow Mrs. Layton kept the documents which Eustace frantically
desired to obtain, and the possession of which would make her, Ida
White, his wife. If Mrs. Layton awoke and resisted while the forged
bills were being abstracted, Eustace would be at hand to use force, if
necessary; and it was principally from the wish to compromise her lover
so deeply that he would not dare to break his promise to marry her that
she determined to put her idea into execution. She knew that ordinarily
Edward Layton kept the latch-key of the street door in the pocket of
his ulster. She disclosed the scheme to Eustace, and threatened him
with exposure if he did not do as she desired. It was she who took the
ulster from the wall of the restaurant, and it was she who, secretly
and expeditiously, assisted Eustace to put it on; then they stole out
together and entered the carriage. Before acquainting Eustace with her
design she had ascertained that Edward Layton's carriage was waiting
for him and for Mabel. She trusted to her own resources to keep her
master out of his house after she and Eustace had entered it.
Here a word is necessary as to the true meaning of Edward Layton's
proceedings during the day and night of the 25th of March. Abandoned
as were the hopes in which he and Mabel had once fondly indulged, she
still relied upon his efforts to save her brother from harm. Eustace
had lost heavily upon certain races. He had made a despairing appeal
to her, and she called upon Layton to assist the erring lad. It was in
the endeavor to discover Eustace that Edward Layton had driven from
place to place to obtain from him the information necessary to rescue
him from his peril. Mabel had, by letter, engaged to meet Edward Layton
in Bloomsbury Square at ten o'clock on the night of that day, in order
that he might relieve her anxiety with respect to her brother. How they
met, and what transpired after they met, have been already sufficiently
detailed.
Ida White's man[oe]uvres were successful up to a certain point. She
and Eustace entered the carriage, were driven home, and, unsuspected,
obtained entrance into the house. The correspondence between Eustace
and Mabel had been for some time conducted through the medium of the
system of the Nine of Hearts, and it was either by an oversight or by
accident that Eustace, during the drive from Prevost's Restaurant to
Edward Layton's house, took from his own pocket one of these cards and
let it drop into the pocket of the ulster. But when they were safely in
Layton's house, and crept stealthily and noiselessly into Mrs. Layton's
bedroom, they made the horrible discovery that Mrs. Layton, in a moment
of frenzy, had emptied the bottle of poisonous narcotics, and had by
her own will destroyed herself. The proof was at her bedside: When she
had swallowed the fatal pills, the horror of the deed overwhelmed her.
She summoned up sufficient strength to rise in her bed, to take paper
and the pen from the inkstand, and before the death-agony commenced in
her sleep, to write upon that paper the confession which fixed upon her
the crime of suicide.
Having reached this point of the strange story, I demanded to know from
Eustace Rutland what had become of that confession.
"Ida took possession of it," he said, "and I have not seen it from that
moment to this."
"Why did you not come forward and make this public?" I cried.
"Because," was his reply, "Ida told me that, if what we had done became
known, nothing could save us from the hangman."
"Did she obtain possession of the forged acceptances?"
"Yes."
"How was it that the tumbler from which the fatal draught was taken was
on the mantle-shelf?"
"Ida placed it there."
It was enough. The entire facts of this mysterious case were clear to
me. I required nothing more to prove Edward Layton's innocence than the
possession of the document written almost in her death-throes by his
unhappy wife.
I unlocked the door and called up Fowler. Briefly and swiftly I told
him what was necessary, and said it was not at all improbable that this
document was in Ida White's lodgings at Brixton; and I had scarcely
uttered the words before a rat-tat-tat came at the street door.
"It is she!" cried Eustace.
"Who?" I asked, in great excitement.
"Ida," he replied.
"It serves our turn exactly, sir," muttered Fowler to me, and then
addressing Eustace, he said, "Is that your bedroom?" pointing to a
communicating door.
"We will go in there. Let the lady come up."
We disappeared, leaving the communicating door partially open, and the
next minute I heard Ida White's voice.
"Cursed luck!" she cried. "I've lost eighty-five pounds to-day. I tell
you what it is, Eustace--if we can't wheedle your old governor into
forgiving us after we are married, we shall have to turn book-makers
ourselves. You shall take the bets, and I will do the clerking. It will
be a novelty, and we shall make pots of money."
Eustace did not reply.
"Why don't you speak?" she continued. "Are you struck dumb?"
Then came Eustace's voice, like the cry of a despairing soul:
"You are a devil! Why have you driven me to this? I hate you, hate you,
hate you! You fiend, you have killed my sister!"
Fowler did not wait for me to act. He seized me by the arm, and pulled
me after him into the room.
"What!" screamed Ida "you two!"
"Yes," said Fowler--and in the midst of my own excitement I could not
avoid observing the expression of calm satisfaction on his face--"we
two."
"What are you here for?"
"For reasons, Ida White," replied Fowler, "which may or may not be
fatal to yourself. Follow what I am about to say. We have here a
confession from this young gentleman which, if true--that is, if it can
be proved by documentary evidence--will bring undoubted disgrace upon
you, but neither death by the hangman's hands nor penal servitude for
life."
She recoiled, and echoed,
"Death! Penal servitude for life!"
"It is exactly as I have said. Death by the hangman's hands or penal
servitude for life. All is known. Your theft of the ulster at Prevost's
Restaurant, and everything else. Your liberty at this moment rests upon
a written document. If it never existed, or if you have destroyed it,
you are doomed. If it exists, you are saved."
"You are a madman!" she cried, but her face was blanched, and her
figure expressed the most abject terror.
"I am an officer of the law," said Fowler. "Now do you understand? If
the confession written by Mrs. Edward Layton, and which, after her
death, you took from the table by her bedside, is in existence, you
have nothing to fear. If it is not, you are a lost woman. No words, no
parleying! It is life or death for you! The moment has come. Decide.
Which way?"
Utterly overpowered, Ida White replied, with hands tremblingly raised,
as if for mercy,
"I have the paper."
"Where?"
Her hands wandered to her pocket, and she took a purse from it.
"Here!"
"There is something else, lady-bird."
"What?"
"The papers you stole from underneath your mistress's pillow. Ah!
you have those also! Hand them over. Thank you, lady-bird. Very
satisfactory --very satisfactory indeed. A happy termination to a most
remarkable case!"
VII.
"August 27, 1885.
"Dear Mr. Laing, My intermediate letters will have placed you in
possession of all that has occurred. Edward Layton is released with
honor, and it has been the subject of hundreds of leading articles
that the obstinacy of one juryman, who refused to be guided by
circumstantial evidence, saved a noble young fellow from an unjust
death. A great blow has been struck against the jury system. Eleven men
wrong, and one man right!--people could hardly believe it. But it was
so in this instance, and I have no doubt it has been so in others. You
being now a married man, domestically happy and contented, the news I
have to impart will give you pleasure. Edward Layton is in Switzerland.
He has gone upon a long summer and autumn tour. Alone? No. Mabel
Rutland, restored to health, is with him. Well, but that is not enough?
I take a satisfaction in prolonging the interest. I could almost fancy
myself a novelist. Mr. and Mrs. Rutland are also of the company, and it
is Mr. Rutland himself who invited Edward Layton to travel with them.
In less than a year from this date the lovers will be united, and faith
and self-sacrifice will be rewarded. Mr. James Rutland, Mabel's uncle,
to whose obstinacy Edward Layton undoubtedly owes his life, and before
whose obstinacy Justice should bow, is also travelling with them. No
one else? Yes. Mabel's brother, Eustace, repentant, humbled, reformed.
"I have had painted for me a very simple picture on a large canvas. It
is the Nine of Hearts, which I intend shall always occupy the place
of honor in my house. It cannot fail to attract attention, and when
inquiries are made about it I shall have a story to tell.
"With a full appreciation of your rare generosity, I remain, dear sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"Horace Bainbridge."
THE END.