Through the mistaken efforts of Isidore Bamberger, justice had got
herself into difficulties, and it was as well for her reputation,
which is not good nowadays, that the public never heard what happened
on that night at Craythew, how the three best men who had been
available at headquarters were discomfited in their well-meant attempt
to arrest an innocent man, and how they spent two miserable hours
together locked up in a dark winding staircase. For it chanced, as
it will chance to the end of time, that the doctor was out when the
butler telephoned to him; it happened, too, that he was far from home,
engaged in ushering a young gentleman of prosperous parentage into
this world, an action of which the kindness might be questioned,
considering that the poor little soul presumably came straight from
paradise, with an indifferent chance of ever getting there again. So
the doctor could not come.
The three men were let out in due time, however, and as no trace of a
warrant could be discovered at that hour, Logotheti and Griggs being
already sound asleep, and as Lord Creedmore, in his dressing-gown and
slippers, gave them a written statement to the effect that Mr. Van
Torp was no longer at Craythew, they had no choice but to return to
town, rather the worse for wear. What they said to each other by the
way may safely be left to the inexhaustible imagination of a gentle
and sympathising reader.
Their suppressed rage, their deep mortification, and their profound
disgust were swept away in their overwhelming amazement, however,
when they found that Mr. Rufus Van Torp, whom they had sought in
Derbyshire, was in Scotland Yard before them, closeted with their
Chief and explaining what an odd mistake the justice of two nations
had committed in suspecting him to have been at the Metropolitan
Opera-House in New York at the time of the explosion, since he had
spent that very evening in Washington, in the private study of the
Secretary of the Treasury, who wanted his confidential opinion on a
question connected with Trusts before he went abroad. Mr. Van Torp
stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and blandly insisted that
the cables should be kept red-hot--at international expense--till the
member of the Cabinet in Washington should answer corroborating the
statement. Four o'clock in the morning in London was only eleven
o'clock of the previous evening, Mr. Van Torp explained, and it was
extremely unlikely that the Secretary of the Treasury should be in
bed so early. If he was, he was certainly not asleep; and with the
facilities at the disposal of governments there was no reason why the
answer should not come back in forty minutes.
It was impossible to resist such simple logic. The lines were cleared
for urgent official business between London and Washington, and in
less than an hour the answer came back, to the effect that Mr. Rufus
Van Torp's statement was correct in every detail; and without any
interval another official message arrived, revoking the request
for his extradition, which 'had been made under a most unfortunate
misapprehension, due to the fact that Mr. Van Torp's visit to the
Secretary of the Treasury had been regarded as confidential by the
latter.'
Scotland Yard expressed its regret, and Mr. Van Torp smiled and begged
to be allowed, before leaving, to 'shake hands' with the three men who
had been put to so much inconvenience on his account. This democratic
proposal was promptly authorised, to the no small satisfaction and
profit of the three haggard officials. So Mr. Van Torp went away,
and in a few minutes he was sound asleep in the corner of his big
motor-car on his way back to Derbyshire.
Lady Maud found Margaret and Logotheti walking slowly together under
the trees about eleven o'clock on the following morning. Some of the
people were already gone, and most of the others were to leave in the
course of the day. Lady Maud had just said good-bye to a party of ten
who were going off together, and she had not had a chance to speak to
Margaret, who had come down late, after her manner. Most great singers
are portentous sleepers. As for Logotheti, he always had coffee in his
room wherever he was, he never appeared at breakfast, and he got rid
of his important correspondence for the day before coming down.
'I've had a letter from Threlfall,' he said as Lady Maud came up. 'I
was just telling Miss Donne about it. Feist died in Dr. Bream's Home
yesterday afternoon.'
'Rather unfortunate at this juncture, isn't it?' observed Margaret.
But Lady Maud looked shocked and glanced at Logotheti as if asking a
question.
'No,' said the Greek, answering her thought. 'I did not kill him, poor
devil! He did it himself, out of fright, I think. So that side of the
affair ends. He had some sealed glass capsules of hydrocyanide of
potassium in little brass tubes, sewn up in the lining of a waistcoat,
and he took one, and must have died instantly. I believe the stuff
turns into prussic acid, or something of that sort, when you swallow
it--Griggs will know.'
'How dreadful!' exclaimed Lady Maud. 'I'm sure you drove him to it!'
'I'll bear the responsibility of having rid the world of him, if I
did. But my share consisted in having given him opium and then stopped
it suddenly, till he surrendered and told the truth--or a large part
of it--what I have told you already. He would not own that he killed
Miss Bamberger himself with the rusty little knife that had a few red
silk threads sticking to the handle. He must have put it back into his
case of instruments as it was, and he never had the courage to look
at it again. He had studied medicine, I believe. But he confessed
everything else, how he had been madly in love with the poor girl when
he was her father's secretary, and how she treated him like a servant
and made her father turn him out, and how he hated Van Torp furiously
for being engaged to marry her. He hated the Nickel Trust, too,
because he had thought the shares were going down and had risked
the little he had as margin on a drop, and had lost it all by the
unexpected rise. He drank harder after that, till he was getting silly
from it, when the girl's death gave him his chance against Van Torp,
and he manufactured the evidence in the diary he kept, and went to
Bamberger with it and made the poor man believe whatever he invented.
He told me all that, with a lot of details, but I could not make him
admit that he had killed the girl himself, so I gave him his opium and
he went to sleep. That's my story. Or rather, it's his, as I got it
from him last Thursday. I supposed there was plenty of time, but Mr.
Bamberger seems to have been in a hurry after we had got Feist into
the Home.'
'Had you told Mr. Van Torp all this?' asked Lady Maud anxiously.
'No,' Logotheti answered. 'I was keeping the information ready in case
it should be needed.'
A familiar voice spoke behind them.
'Well, it's all right as it is. Much obliged, all the same.'
All three turned suddenly and saw that Mr. Van Torp had crept up while
they were talking, and the expression of his tremendous mouth showed
that he had meant to surprise them, and was pleased with his success
in doing so.
'Really!' exclaimed Lady Maud.
'Goodness gracious!' cried the Primadonna.
'By the Dog of Egypt!' laughed Logotheti.
'Don't know the breed,' answered Van Torp, not understanding, but
cheerfully playful. 'Was it a trick dog?'
'I thought you were in London,' Margaret said.
'I was. Between one and four this morning, I should say. It's all
right.' He nodded to Lady Maud as he spoke the last words, but he did
not seem inclined to say more.
'Is it a secret?' she asked.
'I never have secrets,' answered the millionaire. 'Secrets are
everything that must be found out and put in the paper right away,
ain't they? But I had no trouble at all, only the bother of waiting
till the office got an answer from the other side. I happened to
remember where I'd spent the evening of the explosion, that's all, and
they cabled sharp and found my statement correct.'
'Why did you never tell me?' asked Lady Maud reproachfully. 'You knew
how anxious I was!'
'Well,' replied Mr. Van Torp, dwelling long on the syllable, 'I did
tell you it was all right anyhow, whatever they did, and I thought
maybe you'd accept the statement. The man I spent that evening with is
a public man, and he mightn't exactly think our interview was anybody
else's business, might he?'
'And you say you never keep a secret!'
The delicious ripple was in Lady Maud's sweet voice as she spoke.
Perhaps it came a little in spite of herself, and she would certainly
have controlled her tone if she had thought of Leven just then. But
she was a very natural creature, after all, and she could not and
would not pretend to be sorry that he was dead, though the manner of
his end had seemed horrible to her when she had been able to think
over the news, after Van Torp had got safely away. So far there had
only been three big things in her life: her love for a man who was
dead, her tremendous determination to do some real good for his
memory's sake, and her deep gratitude to Van Torp, who had made that
good possible, and who, strangely enough, seemed to her the only
living person who really understood her and liked her for her own
sake, without the least idea of making love. And she saw in him what
few suspected, except little Ida and Miss More--the real humanity and
faithful kindness that dwelt in the terribly hard and coarse-grained
fighting financier. Lady Maud had her faults, no doubt, but she was
too big, morally, to be disturbed by what seemed to Margaret Donne an
intolerable vulgarity of manner and speech.
As for Margaret, she now felt that painful little remorse that hurts
us when we realise that we have suspected an innocent person of
something dreadful, even though we may have contributed to the
ultimate triumph of the truth. Van Torp unconsciously deposited a coal
of fire on her head.
'I'd just like to say how much I appreciate your kindness in singing
last night, Madame da Cordova,' he said. 'From what you knew and
told me on the steamer, you might have had a reasonable doubt, and I
couldn't very well explain it away before. I wish you'd some day tell
me what I can do for you. I'm grateful, honestly.'
Margaret saw that he was much in earnest, and as she felt that she had
done him great injustice, she held out her hand with a frank smile.
'I'm glad I was able to be of use,' she said. 'Come and see me in
town.'
'Really? You won't throw me out if I do?'
Margaret laughed.
'No, I won't throw you out!'
'Then I'll come some day. Thank you.'
Van Torp had long given up all hope that she would ever marry him, but
it was something to be on good terms with her again, and for the sake
of that alone he would have risked a good deal.
The four paired off, and Lady Maud walked in front with Van Torp,
while Margaret and Logotheti followed more slowly; so the couples did
not long keep near one another, and in less than five minutes they
lost each other altogether among the trees.
Margaret had noticed something very unusual in the Greek's appearance
when they had met half an hour earlier, and she had been amazed when
she realised that he wore no jewellery, no ruby, no emeralds, no
diamonds, no elaborate chain, and that his tie was neither green,
yellow, sky-blue, nor scarlet, but of a soft dove grey which she liked
very much. The change was so surprising that she had been on the point
of asking him whether anything dreadful had happened; but just then
Lady Maud had come up with them.
They walked a little way now, and when the others were out of sight
Margaret sat down on one of the many boulders that strewed the park.
Her companion stood before her, and while he lit a cigarette she
surveyed him deliberately from head to foot. Her fresh lips twitched
as they did when she was near laughing, and she looked up and met his
eyes.
'What in the world has happened to you since yesterday?' she asked in
a tone of lazy amusement. 'You look almost like a human being!'
'Do I?' he asked, between two small puffs of smoke, and he laughed a
little.
'Yes. Are you in mourning for your lost illusions?'
'No. I'm trying "to create and foster agreeable illusions" in you.
That's the object of all art, you know.'
'Oh! It's for me, then? Really?'
'Yes. Everything is. I thought I had explained that the other night!'
His tone was perfectly unconcerned, and he smiled carelessly as he
spoke.
'I wonder what would happen if I took you at your word,' said
Margaret, more thoughtfully than she had spoken yet.
'I don't know. You might not regret it. You might even be happy!'
There was a little silence, and Margaret looked down.
'I'm not exactly miserable as it is,' she said at last. 'Are you?'
'Oh no!' answered Logotheti. 'I should bore you if I were!'
'Awfully!' She laughed rather abruptly. 'Should you want me to leave
the stage?' she asked after a moment.
'You forget that I like the Cordova just as much as I like Margaret
Donne.'
'Are you quite sure?'
'Absolutely!'
'Let's try it!'