Leonard and Gloria were married a month before Jasper Stormont and
his wife left England for China. That last month they spent in London.
It was a very quiet wedding; a cousin of the bridegroom officiated as
one of the bridesmaids, the two others were girl friends of the bride,
and had been her bosom friends at Effington, where the memory of
Howard Stormont was still held in kindly remembrance by those who
would have been horrified if they had known the truth about him. Mr.
Grewgus was present at the ceremony, and presented dainty gifts to
both bride and bridegroom.
Leonard had bought a charming house in the neighbourhood of Godalming
with some four acres of pretty grounds. It could not compare with the
magnificence of Effington Hall, where Howard Stormont had played the
rôle of country gentleman what time he was hatching his evil schemes
in conjunction with his taciturn fellow-criminal, John Whitehouse. But
to Gloria it was a haven of peace and delight, with her flowers and
dogs and the sweet sounds and scents of country life. She and her
young husband are devoted to each other, and although they have the
most friendly relations with their neighbours, are full of happiness
when they are alone.
Twelve months had passed, and the villainy of Stormont and his
associates had become almost a faint memory to the young wedded
couple. Grewgus was always engaged in fresh investigations, and the
case to which he had given so much time and attention had almost been
jostled out of his mind by fresh problems.
Then one morning in the newspaper he read something that greatly
startled him and sent his thoughts travelling back to the strenuous
time when he had made that journey to Paris in pursuit of the woman
suspected to be Elise Makris.
His eye caught sight of the headline. “Murder and suicide in a small
Devonshire village.” Two very clear portraits of the victim, a woman,
and the murderer who had shot himself after killing her, stared at him
from the pages of the newspapers. The woman was Elise Makris, to call
her by the first name under which he had known of her in these pages;
the man was Bertram Edwards.
The report stated that a Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter Mrs. Baradine
had come to this village about a year ago, where they had purchased a
house of moderate size. They led a quiet and secluded life, only
mixing infrequently with the few neighbours of a respectable class
around them. Both women gave themselves out as widows. They attended
church regularly and visited at the Vicar’s house. Although little was
known about them, they had made a very favourable impression on
everybody with whom they had come in contact. The daughter was quite a
young woman and of remarkable beauty.
No visitors except those in the immediate neighbourhood had ever been
known to enter their doors. But one day their comparative isolation
had been disturbed. According to the account of one of the two maids,
a handsome man about thirty with very urbane and courteous manners had
called and requested that his name should be taken in to the ladies.
The name he gave was Edwards.
The mention of this name, when the maid took it in to the drawing-room
where the two women were seated, seemed to arouse consternation in
both mother and daughter. After a whispered conversation between the
two, Mrs. Baradine went into the hall and took the strange visitor to
her mother. The door of the room was closed, and the three sat
together for over an hour. At the end of that time, Mrs. Baradine went
out with the man Edwards and they did not return till it wanted a few
minutes to dinner.
The visitor stayed the night, sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms at
the back of the house. He stopped on the next day. From a remark
dropped by Mrs. Mayhew to the maid after breakfast, she gathered that
Edwards was taking his departure on the following morning. During the
whole of his visit, the demeanour of both mother and daughter
exhibited symptoms of great depression and anxiety.
They all dined together on the evening of the second day. After dinner
Mrs. Mayhew went out for a stroll, leaving Edwards and Mrs. Baradine
in the dining-room by themselves. The housemaid also went out, and the
rest of the story was finished by the other servant, the cook.
This woman, very curious as to this strange visitor, admitted that
twice she went into the hall and listened at the dining-room door. The
second time she heard voices high in altercation, but could not gather
what was being said. Suddenly, as she sat in the kitchen, speculating
on what was taking place between her young mistress and the man
Edwards, a shot rang out, followed in a fraction of time by a second
one. Sensing that a tragedy had happened, she rushed into the room and
was confronted with a ghastly spectacle. Mrs. Baradine was lying on
the floor dead, and beside her Edwards with a bullet through his
brain. Screaming, she fled into the village in search of the local
constable, whom she brought back to the house. Five minutes after they
came back, Mrs. Mayhew returned from her walk and fainted at the awful
sight.
Later on, the mother told her story. Mrs. Baradine was not a widow;
her real name was Edwards and she was the wife of the man who had
killed her, and who, realizing the impossibility of escape, destroyed
himself. Hers had been a most unhappy marriage, and, to escape from
her husband’s brutality, she had left him and hid herself, as she
fondly hoped, in this quiet Devonshire village under an assumed name.
By some means he had tracked her down, and had visited her with the
view of obtaining her forgiveness of the past, and inducing her to
resume their married life. To his request she had returned an
obstinate refusal, in which he seemed to have acquiesced, as he
announced his intention of returning to London on the following day.
On the evening of the fatal day, Mrs. Mayhew had left them alone after
dinner, apparently on fairly amicable terms. She could only conjecture
that, during her absence, he had sought to alter her daughter’s
resolution, that high words had ensued, and that in the violence of
his passion he had first taken her life and then his own.
Mrs. Mayhew, otherwise Madame Makris, was a clever woman and had told
her story well; she had kept out of it anything that would arouse
suspicions of the past. But Grewgus, with his knowledge, was able to
read between the lines.
Edwards had felt his old criminal instincts rising within him. So long
a time had elapsed without any action being taken that he had
concluded the past was done with. To the successful accomplishment of
any future schemes, his wife was necessary. He had tracked her down to
this lonely Devonshire village, and used all his arts of persuasion to
induce her to return to him. A man of brutal and violent passions, he
had been maddened by her refusal, and in a fit of frenzy bordering on
delirium had killed her.
After he had mastered the facts, Grewgus went round to Lydon’s office.
The young man knew what he had come for. He and Gloria had read the
same news at breakfast.
“I wonder if she was wearing her mascot when he killed her?” said
Lydon in a musing tone. “It saved her from the consequences of her
lover’s bullet, but not from her husband’s.”
“And so that is the end of three out of the four,” observed Grewgus in
the same thoughtful voice. “I wonder if Nemesis has yet overtaken that
gloomy miscreant, John Whitehouse, or if he is living somewhere a life
of smug respectability on his ill-gotten gains?”
But that question has not been answered yet. For all that is known to
the contrary, John Whitehouse, as great a criminal as the others, may
be leading the life suggested by the detective.