SHOWS THE TRUTH-TELLER.
"Speak, laidee," urged the Peruvian. "Speak--tell truth. Senos know--he
know!"
But my love was still obdurate.
"I prefer to face death," she whispered, "than to reveal the bitter truth
to you, dear."
What could I do? The others heard her words, and Cane was full of
triumph.
"I think, Miss Shand, that you should now tell whatever you know of this
complicated affair. The truth will certainly have to be threshed out in a
criminal court."
But she made no answer, standing there, swaying slightly, with her white
face devoid of expression.
"Let Senos tell you some-tings," urged the narrow-eyed native. "When that
man kill my master he fly to Lisbon. There Mrs. Petre meet him and go
London. There he become Sir Digby Kemsley, and I see him often, often,
because I crossed as stoker on same boat. He go to Luxemburg. I follow.
One day he see Grand Duke's daughter--pretty young laidee--and somebody
tell him she go to Egypt. She go, and he follow. I wait in Marseilles. I
sell my rugs, wait three, four weeks and meet each steamer from
Alexandria. At last he come with three laidees, and go to the Louvre et
Paix, where I sell my rugs outside the café. I see he always with
her--walking, driving, laughing. I want to tell her the truth--that the
man is not my master, but his assassin. Ah! but no opportunity. They go
to Paris. Then she and the laidees go to Luxemburg, and he to London. I
follow her, and stay in Luxemburg to sell my shawls, and to see her. She
drive out of the palace every day. Once I try and speak to her, but
police arrest me and keep me prison two days--ugh! After a week she with
another laidee go to Paris; then she alone go to Carlton Hotel in London.
I watch there and see Cane call on her. He no see me--ah, no! I often
watch him to his home in Harrington Gardens; often see him with that
woman Petre, and once I saw Luis with them. I have much patience till one
day the young lady leave the hotel herself and walk along Pall Mall. I
follow and stop her. She very afraid of dark man, but I tell her no be
afraid of Senos. Quick, in few words, I tell her that her friend not my
master, Sir Digby--only the man who killed him. She dumbstruck. Tells me
I am a liar, she will not believe. I repeat what I said, and she declares
I will have to prove what I say. I tell her I am ready, and she askes me
to meet her at same place and same time to-morrow. She greatly excited,
and we part. Senos laughs, for he has saved young laidee--daughter of a
king--from that man."
"What? You actually told her Highness!" cried Frémy in surprise.
"I told her how my master had been killed by that man--with the
snake--and I warned her to avoid him. But she hesitated to believe
Senos," was the native's reply. "Of course, she not know me. That was
date six January. I remember it, for that night, poor young laidee--she
die. She killed!"
"What?" Edwards cried, staring at the speaker. "She was killed, you say?"
"Yes," Frémy interrupted, "Marie Bracq was the name assumed by her
Highness, the daughter of the Grand Duke. She loved freedom from all the
trammels of court life, and as I have told you, went about Europe with
her maid as her companion, travelling in different names. Mademoiselle
Marie Bracq was one that it seems she used, only we did not discover this
until after her death, and after his Highness had paid the quarter of a
million francs to regain the concession he had granted--money which, I
believe, the French Government really supplied from their secret service
fund."
"Then it was the daughter of the Grand Duke who fell a victim in Cane's
flat?" I gasped in utter surprise at this latest revelation.
"Yes, m'sieur," replied Frémy. "You will recollect, when you told us at
the Préfecture of the name of the victim, how dumbfounded we were."
"Ah, yes, I recollect!" I said. "I remember how your chief point-blank
refused to betray the confidence reposed in him."
And to all this the assassin of Sir Digby Kemsley listened without a
word, save to point to my love, and declare:
"There stands the woman who killed Marie Bracq. Arrest her!"
Phrida stood rigid, motionless as a statue.
"Yes," she exclaimed at last, with all her courage, "I--I will speak.
I--I'll tell you everything. I will confess, for I cannot bear this
longer. And yet, dearest," she cried, turning her face to me and looking
straight into my eyes, "I love you, though I now know that after I have
spoken--after I have told the truth--you will despise and hate me! Ah,
God alone knows how I have suffered! how I have prayed for deliverance
from this. But it cannot be. I have sinned, I suppose, and I must bear
just punishment."
There was silence.
We all looked at her, though the woman Petre was still lying in her chair
unconscious, and upon the assassin's lips was a grim smile.
"You recollect," Phrida said, turning to me, "you remember the day when
you introduced that man to me. Well, from that hour I knew no peace. He
wrote to me, asking me to meet him, as he had something to tell me
concerning my future. Well, I foolishly met him one afternoon in
Rumpelmeyer's, in St. James's Street, when he told me that he had
purchased a very important German patent for the manufacture of certain
chemicals which would revolutionise prices, and would bring upon your
firm inevitable ruin, as you pursued the old-fashioned methods. But,
being your friend, and respecting us both, he had decided not to go
further with the new process, and though he had given a large sum of
money for it, he would, in our mutual interests, not allow it to be
developed. Naturally, in my innocence I thanked him, and from that
moment, professing great friendliness towards you, we became friends.
Sometimes I met him at the houses of friends, but he always impressed
upon me the necessity of keeping our acquaintance a secret."
And she paused, placing her hand upon her heart as though to stay its
throbbing.
"One afternoon," she resumed, "the day of the tragedy, I received a
telegram urging me to meet him without fail at five o'clock at
Rumpelmeyer's. This I did, when he imparted to me a secret--that you,
dear, were in the habit of meeting, at his flat, a foreign woman named
Marie Bracq, daughter of a hair-dresser in the Edgware Road; that you,
whom I loved, were infatuated with her, and--and that----"
"The liar!" I cried.
"He told me many things which naturally excited me, and which, loving you
as I did, drove me to madness. I refused at first to heed his words, for
somehow I mistrusted him--I know not why! But he offered to give me
proof. If I went that night, or early in the morning, to Harrington
Gardens, I would find her there, and I might question her. Imagine my
state of mind after what he had revealed to me. I promised I would come
there in secret, and I went home, my mind full of the lies and suspicion
which he had, I now see, so cleverly suggested. I didn't then know him to
be an assassin, but, mistrusting him as I did, I took for my own
protection the old knife from the table in the drawing-room, and
concealed it inside my blouse. At one o'clock next morning I crept out of
the house noiselessly, and walked to Harrington Gardens, where I opened
the outer door with the latch-key he had given me. On ascending to his
flat I heard voices--I heard your voice, dear--therefore I descended into
the dark and waited--waited until you came down the stairs and left. I
saw you, and I was mad--mad! Then I went up, and he admitted me. The trap
was already laid for me. I crossed that threshold to my doom!"
"How?" I asked in my despair. "Tell me all, Phrida,--everything!"
But at this point the Peruvian, Senos, interrupted, saying:
"Let me speak, sare. I tell you," he cried quickly.
"When I speak to the lady in Pall Mall I follow her. She go that
afternoon to Harrington Gardens, but there see Mrs. Petre, whom she
already know. Mrs. Petre find her excited, and after questioning her,
induce her to tell her what I say--that Cane he kill my master. Then Mrs.
Petre say, Sir Digby away in the country--not return to London--at
Paddington--till one o'clock in the morning. I listen to it all, for
Senos friend of the hall-porter--eh? So young laidee she says she come
late in the night--half-past one or two o'clock--and ask himself the
truth. But Cane in his room all the time, of course."
"Well, Phrida?" I asked quickly. "Tell us what happened on that night
when you entered."
"Yes," cried Cane sarcastically, "Lie to them--they'll believe you, of
course!"
"When I entered that man took me into the sitting-room, and I sat down.
Naturally I was very upset. Mrs. Petre, whom I had met before, was there,
and after he had told me many things about your relations with the
daughter of a hair-dresser--things which maddened me--Mrs. Petre admitted
her from the adjoining room. I was mad with jealousy, loving you as I
did. What happened between us I do not know. I--I only fear that--that I
took the knife from my breast and, in a frenzy of madness--killed her!"
And she covered her face with her hands.
"Exactly!" cried Cane. "I'm glad you have the moral courage to admit it."
"But describe exactly what occurred--as far as you know," Edwards said,
pressing her.
"I know that I was in a frenzy of passion, and hysterical, perhaps," she
said at last. "I recollect Mrs. Petre saying that I looked very unwell,
and fetching me some smelling-salts from the next room. I smelt them, but
the odour was faint and strange, and a few moments later I--well, I knew
no more."
"And then--afterwards?" I asked very gravely.
"When, later on I came to my senses," she said in slow, hard tones, as
though reflecting, "I found the girl whom I believed to be my rival in
your affections lying on the ground. In her breast was the knife. Ah,
shall I ever forget that moment when I realised what I had done! Cane was
bending over me, urging me to remain calm. He told me that my rival was
dead--that I had killed her and that she would not further interfere with
my future. I--I saw him bend over the body, withdraw the knife, and wipe
it upon his handkerchief, while that woman, his accomplice, looked on.
Then he gave me back the knife, which instinctively I concealed, and bade
me go quickly and noiselessly back home, promising secrecy, and declaring
that both he and Mrs. Petre would say nothing--that my terrible secret
was safe in their hands. I believed them, and I crept down the stairs out
into the road, and walked home to Cromwell Road. I replaced the knife in
the drawing-room, and I believed them until--until I knew that you
guessed my secret! Then came that woman's betrayal, and I knew that my
doom was sealed," she added, her chin sinking upon her breast.
"You see," laughed Cane defiantly, "that the girl admits her guilt. She
was jealous of Marie Bracq, and in a frenzy of passion struck her down.
Mrs. Petre was there and witnessed it. She will describe it all to you,
no doubt, when she recovers."
"And what she will say is one big lie," declared Senos, coming forward
again. "We all know Mrs. Petre," he laughed in his high-pitched voice;
"she is your tool--she and Luis. But he become a snake-charmer and give
exhibitions at music-halls. He bit by one snake at Darlington, a month
ago, and die quick. Ah, yes! Senos know! Snake bite him, because he
brought snake and give him to that man to bite my poor master."
"Why will Mrs. Petre tell lies, Senos?" demanded Edwards who, with Frémy,
was listening with the greatest interest and putting the threads of the
tangled skein together in their proper sequence.
"Because I, Senos, was at Harrington Gardens that night. I knew that the
laidee I had spoken to was going there, and I feared that some-ting might
happen, for Cane a desperate man when charged with the truth."
"You were there!" I gasped. "What do you know?"
"Well, this," said the narrow-eyed man who had hunted down the assassin
of his master. "I waited outside the house--waited some hours--when about
eleven Cane he came down and unfastened the door and leave it a little
open. I creep in, and soon after you, Mr. Royle, you come in. I wait and
see you go upstairs. Then I creep up and get out of the window on the
landing and on to the roof, where I see inside Cane's room--see all that
goes on. My friend, the hall-porter, he tell me this sometime before, and
I find the spot where, kneeling down, I see between the blinds. I see you
talk with him and I see you go. Then I see Miss Shand--she come in and
Mrs. Petre, and Cane talk to her. She very excited when she meet young
laidee, and Mrs. Petre she give her bottle to smell. Then she faint off.
The laidee, daughter of great Duke, she say something to Cane. He
furious. She repeat what I say to her. Then Mrs. Petre, who had given
Miss Shand the smelling-salts, find knife in her breast and secretly puts
it into Cane's hand. In a moment Cane strikes the young lady with it--ah!
full in the chest--and she sinks on the floor--dead! It went into her
heart. Cane and the woman Petre talk in low whispers for few minutes,
both very afraid. Then Miss Shand she wakes, opens her eyes, and sees the
young laidee dead on the floor. She scream, but Mrs. Petre puts her hand
over her mouth. Cane take out the knife, wipe it, and after telling her
something, Miss Shand creep away. Oh, yes, Senos he see it all! Miss
Shand quite innocent--she do nothing. Cane kill daughter of the great
Duke--he with his own hand--he kill her. Senos saw him--with his own
eyes!"
"Ah!" I cried, rushing towards the native, and gripping both his brown
hands. "Thank you, Senos, for those words. You have saved the woman I
love, for you are an eye-witness to that man's crime which with such
subtle ingenuity he has endeavoured to fasten upon her, and would have
succeeded had it not been for your dogged perseverance and astuteness."
"He kill my master," replied the Peruvian simply. "I watch him and
convict him. He bad assassin, gentlemens--very bad man!"