A deadly faintness came over Beatrice. Torn and distracted as she had
been of late, this last discovery was almost too much for her. She could
only stand there with her hand upon her heart to still its passionate
beating.
Yes, it was her father, beyond the shadow of a doubt. How he got there
Beatrice could not possibly have told. He was looking much the same as
when Beatrice had seen him last, save that his clothes were not so neat
and he had not been shaved for some days. He seemed quite resigned to
the situation although his expression was cross and irritable. He
motioned to Beatrice to shut the door.
"Why don't you close the door?" he demanded. "Suppose anybody saw me?"
Beatrice was getting back some of her self-possession by this time. She
closed the door and then took her seat on the edge of her father's bed.
"Why should you not be seen?" she asked. "What difference can it
possibly make? We have all been looking for you everywhere. Where have
you been?"
"I'm not quite sure," was the strange reply. "But you seem to have lost
sight of my peculiar situation, Beatrice. My head is a little strange
and confused, but I dare say it will come right presently. What happened
to me on the night of the dinner party?"
"I did not see that anything happened," Beatrice said. "I suppose you
went to bed in the ordinary way. I did not see that there was
anything----"
"You didn't notice that I had too much wine with my dinner?"
Beatrice was fain to admit that she had not noticed anything of the
kind. She wondered how much her father really knew as to what had
happened.
"There has been a great deal of fuss," Sir Charles said. He proceeded to
dress himself in certain old clothes and took up a beard and spectacles
from the dressing table. Beatrice watched him with a growing feeling
that he had taken leave of his senses.
"Why are you going to use those things?" she asked.
"Because it is absolutely necessary," Sir Charles said irritably. "I
came here in this disguise to pick out certain things that I needed. A
kind friend furnished this disguise, and also money for me to get away."
"But why do you want to get away?" Beatrice asked, more puzzled than
ever.
"My dear child, your memory must be sadly defective," Sir Charles said
sharply. "You seem to forget that I am in great difficulties. Richford
was going to put me right, but Richford is dead. It is just my luck."
"Who told you that?" Beatrice asked. "Why it was only tonight----"
"My dear, there was a gentleman outside the hotel who told somebody
else. Richford was arrested at the house of a friend of mine; I saw the
thing done. Then I realized that my position was desperate. You see I
have been stopping at Wandsworth with a friend for the last two or three
days."
Beatrice began to understand a little. The cunning nature of the plot
was beginning to unfold itself before her.
"The name of that friend is Mr. Carl Sartoris, I suppose?" Beatrice
asked.
"That's the man. Though I cannot see how you came to know that. I met
Sartoris before on business. He wanted me to sell him some rubbishy Ruby
Mines concessions that Lord Edward Decie and myself procured years ago.
I refused to take his money then; it did not seem fair. Besides I was in
funds at the time."
Beatrice could hardly refrain from smiling at the naive confession.
"I should like to hear more about that," she said.
"I was just coming to it," Sir Charles went on. "I must have taken too
much wine on that night; I seemed to sleep for days. When I came to
myself I was in a strange room, with a doctor bending over me."
"A tall man with a beard? A man who carries drink all over him?"
Beatrice asked.
"That is the fellow," Sir Charles said with obvious surprise, "though
how you could know all these things puzzles me. Name of Bentwood.
Sartoris was in the room, too. He told me that I had been found
wandering about, and he told me that I was in danger of immediate
arrest. When I suggested sending for Richford, he said that Richford had
come to grief, and that the police were after him. Altogether, my dear
child, my situation was not one to be envied."
"I quite understand that," Beatrice said, not without sarcasm.
"My dear, it was dreadful. Richford had come to grief. So far as I knew
to the contrary, my only child was mated to a felon. Think of my mental
agony!"
"I don't think we need dwell on that," Beatrice said with some traces of
scorn in her voice. "You always knew that Stephen Richford was a
scoundrel. He was not the less of a scoundrel because he could give me a
position as the wife of a rich man, and because he could free you from a
great and terrible danger. My mental agony counted for something too."
"I should think it did," Sir Charles said pompously. "I find that you
were married, that all the papers were talking of my strange
disappearance. Strangely enough, I never could get a sight of a daily
newspaper. I don't know why. At any rate, you were married. Richford had
come to grief, and thus was in hourly expectation of arrest. It was at
this point that my friend Carl Sartoris came in. He kept me safe, he
insisted upon giving me L500 for those concessions, which really was a
delicate way of finding me the money to leave the country. Everything
was arranged for my departure when the police came to the house of my
friend Sartoris and took _him_ off also. Directly I found that out, that
something was wrong there, I crept away from the house, and here I am."
Sir Charles held out his hands helplessly. He always expected other
people to do things for him. Beatrice began to see her side of the case.
Richford was dead, and the large sum of money that he had promised Sir
Charles was no longer available. And Beatrice recalled the night of the
dinner party, when her father had taken her to the window, and had shown
her the two men watching silently below. The danger was just as great
as ever; it was just as imperative that Sir Charles should leave the
country.
Out of the whirling emotion in Beatrice's head order began to be
restored. Everybody, so far as the girl knew, believed her father to be
dead. The body had been spirited away for some reason known to Sartoris
and his colleagues; nobody ever expected to see Sir Charles again. If he
could slip out of the country now, and go abroad, the danger would be
averted. Beatrice began to see her way to manage the thing.
"I will do what I can," she said. "You have that L500 intact? Very good.
But there are some things that I am bound to tell you. People who are in
a position to know, say that your mining concessions are very valuable
indeed."
"Worth absolutely nothing," Sir Charles said. "Tried it before. Besides,
if they were worth a lot of money, it is impossible to work the mine.
The country is too disturbed and dangerous for anything of that kind.
Besides, I have sold the concessions, and there is an end of it. Even
without a business mind you can see that."
"All the same, I feel pretty sure that I am right," Beatrice said. "My
dear father, you have been the victim of a strange conspiracy. You had
not taken too much wine that night, but you were drugged by some mineral
or vegetable in such a manner that the next day you were taken for dead.
I did not know that fact till I was married; indeed, the news was kept
from me and brought to me at church. The man whom you regard as your
benefactor wanted certain papers of yours, and the doctor, Bentwood, was
going to do the drugging. It was done too well; you were regarded as
dead. Then, for some reason or other, probably because it was necessary
for you to sign certain papers--your body was stolen, and you were
taken, still in a state like death, to the house of Carl Sartoris at
Wandsworth."
"God bless my soul, you don't really mean it?" Sir Charles cried.
"Indeed I do," Beatrice went on. "This Bentwood is a doctor who is an
expert in the miracles and the hocus pocus of the East. The drug they
administered to you is not known in England; the thing has never been
seen here. I understand that they could have kept you in a state of
suspended animation as long as they pleased. But they desired to see you
in the flesh again so that you could sign that paper relating to those
mines."
"I signed the paper this very morning," Sir Charles cried. "But I don't
understand it all. Begin at the beginning and tell me all over again."
Beatrice did so, but it was a long time before her father appeared to
comprehend. When he did so he was utterly incapable of seeing what Carl
Sartoris had had in his mind.
"I can see that they didn't want to murder me," he said. "A
_post-mortem_ would have prevented that part of the scheme that required
my signature--hence the daring theft of my body. But the main thing is
that I have made L500 by the transaction."
Beatrice's lip curled scornfully.
"I had hoped that you would have taken another view of the case," she
said. "I am afraid that you will never alter, father. Richford is dead,
and I am free from him. Sartoris is dead, also, so we shall never know
what his ultimate designs were. I don't see that you can keep that money
under the circumstances, father."
Sir Charles was emphatically of a different opinion. Besides, as he
pointedly put it, how was he going to get away without funds?
"I had forgotten that side of the matter," Beatrice said. "But I am not
without friends. There is Mark Ventmore, for instance. If I were to ask
him----"
"You are not to do anything of the kind," Sir Charles said angrily. "How
on earth am I going to restore this money to Sartoris when the poor
fellow is dead? He may not have a single relative in the world, for all
I know. The money is honestly mine, and it is sufficient to take me out
of this accursed country where detectives are waiting for me at every
corner. And now you want to bring Mark Ventmore into it."
"Mark is the soul of honour," Beatrice said. "I am sure that he----"
"Has been in the past a confounded nuisance," Sir Charles interrupted.
"It looks as if he were going to be just as much trouble in the future."
"He is the man I am going to marry," Beatrice said quietly. "I offered
my life to save you and your good name, and a merciful providence
released me from the sacrifice. Next time, I please myself. I shall
never marry anybody but Mark."
"Of course you won't," Sir Charles said, in an aggrieved voice. "If you
had never seen Mark Ventmore you would have been married to Richford a
year ago, in which case I should not stand in my present awkward
position. But we are only wasting time. Help me on with this beard and
then walk as far as the hall with me. Then you can give me a kiss, and
I'll take a cab and give you my blessing."
Beatrice said nothing. She would keep his secret. And all the world
should hear that Sir Charles had been the victim of a calamity that
could not be solved.