A THRILLING CLIMAX.
“Well, Mr. Lynne, are you rested? Are you feeling better now?”
It was the detective who asked the question as they left Doctor Kuhn’s
house together, with the doctor accompanying them, to walk the short
distance back to Pleasantglades. The chief had gone on alone after the
telephoning episode, saying that big as he was he had not the courage
yet to meet that man without seizing him by the throat.
“Oh, yes,” said Lynne. “I am beginning to get better control of myself.
I am glad that you have come. I want to visit the vault under the north
wing, and I rather wanted you to accompany me when I did that.”
“Indeed?” said Nick. “Why so?”
The man shrugged his shoulders, then replied:
“I suppose I am nervous, that is all--and I cannot get it out of my head
that somewhere there is an explanation for this sudden act of my
daughter’s.”
“You don’t expect to find such an explanation in that vault, do you?”
demanded the detective, in simulated surprise, for he had already
assumed that this was what Lynne did expect to find, for the very good
reason that he had arranged it, himself, to be found.
For that, and that only, could explain that paragraph of the letter
which still was in hiding in one of Nick Carter’s pockets; that
paragraph which was:
“The reasons why I have decided that there is no other way, you
will discover soon enough, and you will feel deep regret because I
did not go to you and tell you all about it, instead of doing this
thing.”
The clever forger--this man, of course--who had prepared that paragraph,
had also prepared the evidence to establish the meaning of it; the
evidence to explain what the forged letter pretended to refuse to
explain; the thing that was meant to explain why she should kill
herself.
Lynne claimed that he had not been at home until the time he stated in
telling Nick Carter about it, but it was certain in the mind of the
detective that he had been out here to Pleasantglades before he made his
presence known in New York at all, and that he had prepared everything
for the moment which had now arrived. The only upset in his plans was
the strange absence of the letter that he had left on the table in the
room where he had committed the murder.
That was, of course, preying upon his mind, but he did not dare to ask
about it, since he could have no knowledge of it, and, doubtless, he
consoled himself with the idea that the chief had found it and was
holding it back for some purpose of his own.
But, when new evidence should be found in the vault that there was a
reason why Edythe should have killed herself, then, of course, according
to his hopes, the letter would be forthcoming.
So Nick followed him into the north wing of the house; saw him draw
aside the circular rug that had been made for the semioctagonal room
that was there; saw him insert a key into a lock in that floor and lift
a ponderous trapdoor by adjusting a lever concealed in the wainscoating
which applied weights to it to pull it up; saw him snap on electric
lights from a switch, and then descend iron stairs to the regions below;
saw him consult a small book that he carried in his pocket, and then
attack the combination locks one after another until he had opened the
two outer doors, and then the two inner ones of the vault; saw him step
inside and use small, flat keys upon inner compartments of the great
safe, for that is what it was, and presently step back again into the
presence of the detective, and show him a beautiful string of pearls,
which he drew slowly and lovingly through his hands.
“This is what I came here to get--what I was coming here to get, to give
to Mrs. Babbington for her birthday,” he said. “Is it not exquisite?”
“It certainly is,” replied the detective.
Then Lynne left the pearls in the detective’s hands, and returned to the
interior of the great safe.
“There are some securities that I think I will take away with me, now
that I am here,” he remarked, as if casually, and he opened another
compartment inside the safe--and Nick felt that the moment had arrived.
It had.
Lynne suddenly started back a half-suppressed exclamation; then he cried
out, with all the theatrical art that he possessed:
“No, no! It is not possible! I will not believe it. Oh! oh! oh! This is
the worst blow of all!” Then he turned slowly around, and added, as one
who is overcome by sorrow: “Mr. Carter, I am very sorry now that I
brought you here. I might have hidden all this, and now you must know.
Look. Come here and look. It is best that you should.”
The compartment into which the detective peered when he stepped forward
was about half filled with bonds, which Nick saw at a glance were
negotiable ones; and on the top of them, unfolded, face up, was a short
note in that same hand that had written the letter found in the room of
death. Here was the evidence, then, that the fiend had prepared. The
note was:
“Forgive me, papa. I have only taken half, but I had to do so. I
will not tell you why, only that it was not for myself, but for
another. I would die rather than that you should know all the
truth, and I have partly determined to die before you can know it.
“EDYTHE.”
So this fiend in human guise, not content with taking the life of that
beautiful girl, that pure, sweet, young life, had attempted to steal her
honor also, and had not hesitated to cast an unthinkable imputation upon
her, even then.
Nick shut his fingers tightly together to keep himself from seizing the
monster by the throat then and there.
But he controlled himself so that Lynne saw nothing of the danger he was
in; and he reached into the compartment and took the note, folded it,
and put it into his pocket.
“We must keep that out of sight for the present, Lynne,” he said, in
explanation of his act. “Come; let us get out of here. The place gives
me the shivers.”
As one who is bent and torn by grief unbearable, Lynne followed Nick up
the stairs, after closing and locking the doors of the vault; and in
that same attitude of a stricken man, he followed the detective through
the north wing to the main part of the house--and they arrived at the
front door just as an automobile drove into the inclosure and under the
porte-cochère.
He did not even raise his eyes to discover who had arrived, since that
was not in keeping with the part he was playing, and so he did not
notice that it was Mrs. Babbington who was assisted from it, for Nick
quickly turned him about and led him toward the room where the body of
Edythe had not yet been disturbed.
The chief had his instructions from Nick, and would carry them out; and,
true enough, it was only a moment later when Nick heard footsteps
following them along the corridor.
The detective led Lynne into the room of death, partly closing the door
after him--and a moment later it was pushed wider open again, and Mrs.
Babbington stepped into the room with all the assured presence of the
woman of fashion that she was.
Nick had turned Lynne so that he faced the door, and the sudden start
and the awful gasp of terror that he gave when he saw and recognized
the woman, could not be described.
“You, you, you!” he cried out, and she was startled, too, by his
vehemence, which she had not anticipated, of course, since she believed
that he expected her.
But before she could reply, or even make a gesture, a still more
dramatic thing happened.
An old man, white and uncertain on his feet with age, pushed himself
forward. He thrust out his right arm and pointed an accusing finger at
the trembling man who faced him.
“You are not my master, Mr. J. Cephas Lynne; you are Thomas Lynne, his
servant!” he half shouted in a voice that choked with rage. “And you
murdered that girl--my beautiful little Edythe, whom I carried in my
arms from the time that she was born. Oh, you--you----”
Shaking off restraint, he sprang at the throat of the man who cowered
before him, and he would have reached him, too, had not Nick Carter
interposed himself between them.
But Nick did another thing at that instant; he seized Lynne, whirled him
about and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, and then he flung
him into a chair near the chief, who had followed into the room; and the
chief stood over the man, with his hands clenched tightly, as if he
would have enjoyed tearing him apart.
And there was another sharp click that sounded in the room at the same
instant, made by Patsy as he pulled Mrs. Babbington’s hands behind her,
and snapped handcuffs upon her white wrists as well.
She shrieked out, then tottered; and then stood upright again at the
sound of a shrill laugh from Lynne that was almost a snarl.
“They’ve got you, too, anyhow!” he yelled at her. “I won’t be alone in
this. Look, Carter, she knew it all from the first. She recognized me at
once when I went where she was, in Scotland. She had heard of my
supposed death, and, when she saw me, she knew that I had killed my
cousin Cephas. Oh, yes, she knew it, and she made the most of it. She
made me say that I would marry her, and that she should share the
fortune--and it was she, she, I tell you, who planned the murder of that
poor girl on the couch. I didn’t want to do it, and I would not have
done it, only that I saw she suspected me. She could not believe that
her father would change so greatly in so short a time. Even when I had
lured her here--Madge was with us last night in that car when we came
here, and I took her home afterward--even when I had lured her here----
Oh, well, what is the use. I succeeded in inducing her to come here. She
still thought I was her father, and that the accident and the illness
had changed me; she trusted me, and I brought her in here, and I killed
her. Now you have it. It is the truth, but that woman made me do it. And
I forged a letter that I put on that table. I was always an expert
penman, Carter. Cephas took me out of a prison when I went to him, and
if it had not been for him I would have been back there again long
before this, for another forgery. I wrote that note, too, that you have
got in your pocket, that we found in the vault. Oh, I can write things;
I can write things.”
The woman in the meantime had regained control of herself.
“The man is mad,” she said coldly. “I know nothing of the things he is
talking about.”
“Mrs. Babbington,” said Nick slowly, “the man is not mad, and you do
know all about the things he is talking about. More, I can prove many of
them now, and will prove all of them within a week. Take her away,
Chick, back to New York, and to headquarters. The chief and I will
attend to this unspeakable scoundrel. You have the warrants?”
“Yes.”
“That is sufficient, then. Serve them now.”