Directly after breakfast was over the next morning the Rector came in.
“I would not come in yesterday, Mark,” he said. “I knew that you would
be best alone; and, indeed, I was myself so terribly upset by the news
that I did not feel equal to it. I need not say how deeply I and my wife
sympathize with you. Never did a kinder heart beat than your father's;
never have I seen people so universally grieved as they are in the
village. I doubt whether a man went to work yesterday, and as for
the women, had it been a father they had lost they could not be more
affected.”
“Yes, he will be greatly missed,” Mark said unsteadily; “and, between
ourselves--but this must go no further--I have a suspicion, amounting
almost to a certainty, that the hand that dealt this blow is the same
that caused the vacancy that brought you here.”
“Do you mean Arthur Bastow?” Mr. Greg said in amazement. “Why, I thought
that he was transported for fifteen years.”
Then Mark told the Rector the inner history of the past six months,
and of the report they had had from the officer at Bow Street of the
personal appearance of the wounded man.
“Other things are in favor of it,” he went on. “My father's watch and
purse were untouched, and a stranger on a dark night would be hardly
likely to have discovered the ladder, or to have had a file in his
pocket with which to cut through a link, though this might have been
part of the apparatus of any burglar. Then, again, an ordinary man would
hardly have known which was my father's bedroom, except, indeed, that he
saw the light there after those in the ladies' rooms were extinguished;
but, at any rate, he could not have told which was my father's and which
was mine. But all this is, as I said, Mr. Greg, quite between ourselves.
I had a long talk yesterday with Sir Charles Harris, and, as he said,
there is no legal proof whatever, strong as the suspicion is; so I am
going to say nothing on the subject at the inquest. The scoundrel's poor
father is dying, happily in ignorance of all this. Dr. Holloway was up
with him all night, and told me this morning before he drove off that it
is very unlikely that he will get through the day.”
“It is all very terrible, Mark; but I cannot deny that everything points
to the man. Surely no one else could have cut short so useful a life,
for certainly no ordinary degree of hatred would drive a man, however
brutal his nature, to commit such a crime, and to run the risk of
hanging for it. Let us take a brisk walk in the garden for an hour--that
will be the best thing for you. I will stop with you until the inquest
is over, and then you had better come over and have lunch with us.”
“Thank you; I cannot do so,” Mark said, “though I should like to. In the
first place, Millicent will come downstairs this afternoon, and I should
like to be in to meet her. Had it not been for that I might have come,
as I can walk across the fields to the Rectory without passing through
the village. There is another reason. I sent up yesterday by the coach
a letter to be delivered at once by hand, and I expect a detective down
here by one o'clock. I don't know that he will do any good; but at
the same time it will give me something to do, and at present there is
nothing I dread so much as sitting alone. Fortunately, yesterday evening
Millicent went to bed at five o'clock, and Mrs. Cunningham sat with me
all the evening, and her talk did me a great deal of good.”
The inquest occupied a very short time, the only point on which many
questions were asked being as to the firing through the window. Mark
stated that it was already so dark that although he was within fifty
yards of the man when he mounted and rode off, he could not give any
very distinct description of his figure. It struck him as being that of
a man of medium height.
“You have made out that the bullet was intended for your father?”
“I cannot say that, sir, it went between his head and that of Mr.
Bastow, but it might have been meant for either.”
“Was your father impressed with the idea that it was an attempt to
murder him?”
“He naturally thought so. Mr. Bastow can assuredly have no enemies,
while my father, as a magistrate, may have made some. He certainly
thought it was an attempt to murder him, and was so impressed by the
fact that when we went to the library later on he went into certain
family matters with me that he had never communicated before, and which,
had it not been for this, he would not have entered into for some years
to come.”
“He had his opinion, then, as to who was his assailant?”
“He had, sir, but as it was but an opinion, although there were
several facts that seemed to justify the conviction, there was no proof
whatever, and therefore I do not think myself justified in saying what
that opinion was.”
“Do you entertain the same opinion yourself?”
“I do,” Mark said emphatically; “but until I can obtain some evidence in
support of what is really but a matter of opinion, and because, were I
to give the name, it would lessen my chance of obtaining such evidence,
I decline to mention the name.”
“You have no doubt that the author of the second attempt is the same as
that of the first?”
“Personally, I have no doubt whatever; it stands to reason that it is
barely possible that two men could have, unknown to each other, made up
their minds to murder my father on the same evening.”
The constable's evidence added nothing to that given by Mark. He had
been down to the lane where the man pursued had mounted. The reins of
the horse had apparently been thrown over a gatepost, and he thought it
had been standing there for some little time, for there were marks where
it had scraped the ground repeatedly. He had followed the marks of its
hoofs for some distance; it had gone at a gallop for about half a mile,
and then the pace had slackened into a trot. It continued until the
lane fell into the main road, but beyond this he had been unable to
distinguish it from the marks of the traffic in general.
“You found no footprints whatever near the foot of the ladder, or
anywhere else round the house?”
“None whatever, sir.”
“There were no signs of any other window or door save that of Mr.
Thorndyke's room being attempted?”
“None at all, sir.”
There was but a short consultation between the jurors, who at once
returned a verdict of “Willful murder by some person or persons
unknown.”
Dr. Holloway had, after giving evidence, returned at once to Mr.
Bastow's room. The only point of importance in his evidence was the
statement that the wound must have been fatal at once, the heart itself
having been penetrated. It had been inflicted by a dagger or a narrow
bladed knife.
“Do you mean that it was an unusually small dagger, Dr. Holloway?”
“I should say it was a very fine dagger; not the sort of weapon that you
would expect to find a highwayman carry, if he carried one at all, but
rather a weapon of Spanish or Italian manufacture.”
“Not the sort of wound that a rapier would make?”
“Yes, the wound itself might have been very well made by a light rapier,
but there was a slight bruise on the flesh on each side of the wound,
such a mark as might be made by the handle or guard of a dagger, and
sufficiently plain to leave no doubt in my mind that it was so made.”
“Had the wound a downward course, or was it a straight thrust?”
“A straight thrust,” the doctor replied. “My idea is that the two men
were grappling together, and that as Mr. Thorndyke was a very powerful
man, his assailant, who probably was approaching the bed with the
dagger in his hand, plunged it into him; had he struck at him I should
certainly have expected the course of the wound to be downward, as I
fancy a man very seldom thrusts straight with a dagger, as he would do
with a rapier.”
When the inquest was over, Mark, going out into the hall, found the
doctor waiting there for him.
“Mr. Bastow breathed his last some ten minutes ago. I saw when I went up
to him just before I gave my evidence that it was likely that he would
die before I returned to the room.”
“I am very sorry,” Mark said, “although I expected nothing else from
what you told me: He was a very kind hearted man; no one could have
had a kinder or more patient tutor than he was to me, while my father
regarded him as a very dear and valued friend. I am expecting the
undertaker here in a few minutes, and they can both be buried at the
same time.”
It was late in the afternoon before Millicent came down with Mrs.
Cunningham. The news of Mr. Bastow's death had set her tears flowing
afresh; she had been very fond of him, and that he and the Squire should
have been taken at once seemed almost beyond belief. She had, however,
nerved herself to some degree of composure before she went down to meet
Mark; but although she returned the pressure of his hand, she was unable
for some time to speak. Mrs. Cunningham thought it best to speak first
on the minor grief.
“So Mr. Bastow has gone, Mark?”
“Yes, Dr. Holloway thought very badly of him yesterday, and said that he
had but very faint hope of his rallying. I cannot help thinking that it
was best so. Of course, he was not a very old man, but he has for some
years been a very feeble one, and now that Millicent and I have both
given up our studies with him, I think that he would have felt that his
work was done, and would have gone downhill very fast.”
“I think so, too,” Mrs. Cunningham agreed. “I am sure that even had the
Squire's death come quietly, in the course of nature, it would have
been a terrible blow to him. He was fond of you and Millicent, but his
affection for your father was a passion; his face always lit up when he
spoke to him. I used to think sometimes that it was like an old dog with
his master. It was quite touching to see them together. I think, Mark,
with you, that it is best that it should be as it is.”
Gradually the conversation turned to other matters. Millicent was,
however, unable to take any part in it, and half an hour later she held
out her hand silently to Mark and left the room hurriedly. The next day
she was better, and was able to walk for a time with Mark in the garden
and talk more calmly about their mutual loss, for to her, no less than
to Mark, the Squire had been a father.
“'Tis strange to think that you are the Squire now, Mark,” she said as
they sat together in the dining room on the evening before the funeral.
“You will think it stranger still, Millicent,” he said, “when I tell you
that I am not the Squire, and never shall be.”
She looked up in his face with wonder.
“What do you mean, Mark?”
“Well, dear, you will know tomorrow, as Mr. Prendergast, one of the
family solicitors, is coming down; but I think it is as well to tell you
beforehand. It has been a curious position all along. I never knew it
myself till my father told me when we went into the library after
the shot was fired. The news did not affect me one way or the other,
although it surprised me a great deal. Like yourself, I have always
supposed that you were my father's ward, the daughter of an old comrade
of his brother's. Well, it is a curious story, Millicent. But there is
no occasion for you to look frightened. The fact is you are my uncle's
daughter and my cousin.”
“Oh, that is not very dreadful!” she exclaimed in a tone of relief.
“Not dreadful at all,” Mark said. “But you see it involves the fact that
you are mistress of this estate, and not I.”
Millicent stood up suddenly with a little cry. “No, no, Mark, it cannot
be! It would be dreadful, and I won't have it. Nothing could make me
have it. What, to take the estate away from you when you have all along
supposed it to be yours! How could I?”
“But you see it never has been mine, my dear. Father might have lived
another five-and-twenty years, and God knows I have never looked forward
to succeeding him. Sit down and let me tell you the story. It was not my
father's fault that he reigned here so long as master, it was the result
of a whim of your father's. And although my father fought against it, he
could not resist the dying prayer of my uncle.”
He then related the whole circumstances under which the girl had been
brought up as Millicent Conyers, instead of Millicent Conyers Thorndyke,
and how the estate had been left by Colonel Thorndyke's will to his
brother until such time as Millicent should come of age, or marry,
and how he had ordered that when that event took place the rest of his
property in money and jewels was to be divided equally between Mark and
herself.
“It must not be, Mark,” she said firmly. “You must take the estate, and
we can divide the rest between us. What is the rest?”
“To begin with,” Mark said cheerfully, “there are 25,000 pounds,
the accumulations of the rents of the estate after the death of my
grandfather up to the time when the Colonel returned from India; and
there are, besides, a few thousands, though I don't exactly know how
many, that my father paid over to the solicitors as the surplus of the
rents of the estates after paying all expenses of keeping up this house.
He very properly considered that although he had accepted the situation
at your father's earnest wish, he ought not to make money by doing so.
If we put it down at 30,000 pounds altogether, you see there is 15,000
pounds for each of us. A very nice sum for a young man to start life
with, especially as I shall have my father's estate near Hastings,
which brings in 500 pounds a year; and as the rents of this have been
accumulating for the last ten years, my share will be raised from 15,000
pounds to 20,000 pounds. Besides this, there is the main bulk of the
Colonel's fortune made in India. That seems to be worth about 100,000
pounds but I must own that the chance of getting it seems very small.”
“How is that, Mark?”
Mark told her the whole story.
“I mean to make it my business to follow the matter up,” he said. “I
think that the chance of ever finding it is very small. Still, it will
give me an object to begin life with.”
“Oh, I hope that you will never find it!” she exclaimed. “From what you
say it will be a terrible danger if you do get it.”
Mark smiled.
“I hardly think so, Millicent. I cannot believe that people would be
following up this thing for over fifteen years, for it was many years
before the Colonel came home that he got possession of these diamonds.
Even Hindoos would, I think, have got sick of such a hopeless affair
long before this; but as they may ever since your father's death have
been watching us, although it hardly seems possible, I shall follow out
the Colonel's instructions, and get rid of those particular diamonds
at once. I shall only keep them about me long enough to take them to
Amsterdam and sell them there. The Colonel said they were the finest
diamonds that he ever saw, and that he really had no idea of what they
were worth. However, that is for the future.”
“Mrs. Cunningham has known this all along, Mark?”
“Not about the money affairs, but of course she knew that you were my
cousin. She brought you from India, you see, and has known all
along that the Colonel was your father. She knows it, and the family
solicitors know it, but I believe no one else, except, perhaps, Ramoo. I
am not sure whether he was in uncle's service when you were sent over in
Mrs. Cunningham's charge. He may know it or he may not, but certainly
no one else does, except, as I say, the solicitors and myself. Possibly
some other of the Colonel's old comrades knew that there was a child
born; but if they were in England and happened to hear that my father
had succeeded to the estate, they would, of course, suppose that the
child had died.”
“Then,” Millicent said, in a tone of relief, “there can be no reason why
anyone else should know anything about it. I will see Mr. Prendergast
when he comes down tomorrow, and beg him to say nothing about it;
15,000 pounds is quite enough for any girl; and besides, you say that my
father's greatest wish was that I was not to be married for money, and
after all the pains that have been taken, his wish will not be carried
out if I am to be made owner of the estate.”
“You won't be able to persuade Mr. Prendergast to do that,” Mark said,
smiling. “It is his duty simply to carry out the provisions of your
father's will, and to place you in possession of the estate; and if he
would keep silence, which he certainly won't, you don't suppose that I
would.”
“Then I shall hate you, Mark.”
“I don't think you will, Millicent, and I would rather that you did that
than that you should despise me. At the present moment you may think
that this estate would be only a burden to you, but some day when you
marry you might see the matter in a different light.”
The girl looked at him reproachfully.
“I should never think so!” she burst out. “What would you have me do?
Live here in this great house, with only Mrs. Cunningham, while you are
going about the world seeking for this treasure? Never!”
“No, I don't think that it would be nice for you to do that, Millicent,”
Mark said. “Mrs. Cunningham and I have been talking it over. We thought
that the best plan would be for her to take a house in London, and go
there with you; you would have the advantages of good masters.
“Then you were saying only a short time since that you would like to
learn the harp and take lessons in painting. There would be time enough
to think about what you would do with respect to this house afterward.”
“It is all horrible,” Millicent said, bursting into tears, “and I shall
always feel that I have robbed you.”
“But I don't feel so in the least,” Mark urged. “I was not in the
smallest degree put out when my father told me about it. I have always
had a fancy for wandering about the world, as my uncle did, and doing
something to distinguish myself, instead of settling down for life to be
a country magistrate and a squire. Of course it came as a surprise, but
I can assure you that it was not an altogether unpleasant one. What
can a man want more than a nice little estate of 500 pounds a year and
20,000 pounds in money?”
“It is all very well to say that, but as you said to me just now, you
may see it in a different light some day.”
Then she sat thinking for some time. “At any rate,” she went on at last,
“I don't see why anyone should know about it now. If the house is to be
shut up and you are going away, why need anyone know anything about it?
My father's wish was that I should not have people making love to me
just because I was an heiress; after all that has been done, it would be
wicked to go against his wishes. I suppose the interest of this 15,000
pounds would be enough for Mrs. Cunningham and I to live comfortably on
in London?”
“Yes,” Mark said; “it will, at 5 per cent, bring in 750 pounds a year.”
“Then I shall remain Millicent Conyers to the world. There is nothing to
prevent that, is there?” she said almost defiantly.
“No,” he replied thoughtfully. “The rents of this estate might
accumulate. I suppose the solicitors would see after that; and as I
shall be away it will, of course, make no difference to me. Were I to
stay in the neighborhood I could not consent to live as my father did,
in a false position; but even then I might give out that the property
had only been left to my father during his lifetime, and that it had now
gone elsewhere, without saying whom it had gone to. However, as I shall
be away there will be no occasion even for that. When the will is read
there will be no one present but ourselves, and I don't see why its
contents should not be kept a secret for a time; at any rate, we can ask
Mr. Prendergast's opinion upon that subject.”
At this moment, Mrs. Cunningham coming into the room, Millicent ran to
her and threw her arms round her neck.
“He has made me most miserable,” she said. “I thought I could not have
been more miserable than I was before he told me all about it.”
“I knew that he was going to do so, and I was quite sure that you would
not be pleased at the news. I have all along thought that it was a
mistake on the part of your father; but as it was his decision, and not
mine, I only had to carry out his wishes.”
“It is cruel,” Millicent sobbed. “I don't mean it is cruel of my father;
of course he could not have known, and he thought he was doing the best
thing for my happiness, but it has all turned out wrong.”
“For the present you may think so, dear; but you must remember that up
to the present time it has turned out well. I know that your uncle did
not like it at first, but I think that he passed ten happy years here.
It gave him a great power for doing good, and he worthily availed
himself of it. We have all spent a happy time; he was universally liked
and respected. I think all of us have benefited by it. It would not have
been half as pleasant if it had been known that you, my child, were the
real owner of the estate, and he was acting merely as your guardian.
Let us hope that everything will turn out as well in future. Colonel
Thorndyke told me that he had left a considerable sum in addition to the
estates, and that this was to be divided between you and Mark; so you
see your cousin will not go out into the world a beggar.”
“It is most of it lost,” Millicent said with an hysterical laugh. “It
is all hidden away, and no one can find it; everything has gone wrong
together.”
“Well, I think, dear, that you had better go up to bed. I will go
with you. At the present time this, of course, has come upon you as an
additional shock. I would gladly have shielded you from it for a time if
I could have done so, but you must have learned it tomorrow, and I quite
agree with Mark that is was better that he should tell you this evening.
I sent down to the town today to the doctor's and asked him to send me
up a soothing draught, thinking that you might be upset by the news. I
hope by the morning you will be able to look at matters more calmly.”
Some time later Mrs. Cunningham came down again.
“She has cried herself to sleep,” she said. “She is much grieved about
this money being lost.”
“It is annoying; still I cannot help thinking that the Colonel must have
taken some such precaution to prevent the treasure from being lost.”
“One would certainly think so,” Mrs. Cunningham agreed; “the Colonel
seemed to me a methodical man. I know that he had the reputation of
being one of the most particular men in the service as to all petty
details. His instructions to me before I left him were all very minute,
and he gave me a sealed packet which he told me contained instructions
and a copy of the register of his marriage and of Millicent's birth, and
he said that in case of his death I was to take it to your father. He
said that there was a letter inclosed in it to him, and also a copy
of his will. The letter was directed to your father, and not to me.
I handed it over to him when he asked me to come here. He told me
afterwards that the letter contained the request that his brother lived
to make personally to him--that the child should be brought up as his
ward; and that he had handed the certificates to a lawyer, who had,
however, received copies of them from the Colonel himself before he went
down to see your father. So, as he took these precautions to insure
his wishes being carried out in the event of his sudden death, I should
think that he must have done something of the sort with regard to this
treasure.”
“I should think that extremely likely, Mrs. Cunningham. I certainly had
not thought of that before, and I hope that for Millicent's sake and my
own it may turn out to be so. I can get on extremely well without
it, but at the same time I don't pretend that 50,000 pounds are to be
despised.”
The next morning Mr. Prendergast, who had arrived at Reigate late the
evening before, and had put up at an inn, came up to the house an hour
before the time named for the funeral. He learned from Mark that he had
already acquainted Millicent with her change of circumstances. A few
minutes after he arrived, a servant told him that Miss Conyers would be
glad if he would see her alone for a few minutes in the drawing room.
Mark had already prepared him for her request.
“Mark has told you that he told me about this hateful thing last night,
I suppose, Mr. Prendergast?”
“He has,” the old lawyer said kindly; “and he tells me also that you are
not at all pleased at the news.”
“Pleased! I should think not, Mr. Prendergast,” she said indignantly. “I
am not going to rob my cousin of what he has always been taught to think
as his inheritance. It is abominable, I call it, and most unnatural.”
“But, my dear young lady, it is yours, and not his. I do not wish to
discuss whether the arrangement was altogether a wise one, but I think
that so far it has turned out well for all parties. Your estate has
profited greatly by the management of your uncle, the tenants and all
connected with it have benefited greatly, he himself has had active
employment afforded him, of which he was fond. Your cousin has,
I believe, enjoyed the advantages of the position, and has become
acquainted with the best people in this part of the country, and will
now obtain the benefit of something like 15,000 pounds--a comfortable
little sum, especially as he inherits, I believe, his father's property
in Sussex. You yourself will have obtained what I cannot but consider
the advantage of having been brought up without knowing that you were an
heiress, and therefore without being spoiled, which is, in my opinion,
the case with many young ladies in such a condition; therefore I cannot
but think that, if unwise in its conception, the matter has so far
worked out well. I am bound to say that Mr. Mark Thorndyke has been
speaking to me very handsomely on the subject, and that he appears in no
way disappointed at finding that you are the heiress of the estate, and
is really concerned only at your unwillingness to accept the situation.”
“I wanted to know, Mr. Prendergast,” she said, but in a tone that showed
she was convinced by his manner that her request would be refused, “if
you could arrange so that things would not be disturbed, and he should
come into possession as his father's heir in the natural way.”
“But you see he is not his father's heir, Miss Thorndyke. His father
only had the use, as we call it, of the property until you came of age,
or marriage; it was not necessary for it to come to you on your coming
of age, but only, as your father explained to me, in the event of your
marriage; that is to say, it was not to become public that you were
entitled to the estate until your marriage. If you married before you
were twenty-one the property was then to come to you. If you did not
you were to be informed of the circumstances or not, as Mr. Thorndyke
might decide was best, but you were not to come into the property until
you married. Your cousin was also to be informed when you came to the
age of twenty-one, and as at that time he was to take his half share of
the remainder of the property, he would then be able to arrange his life
as he liked. If your uncle died, as unfortunately he has done, before
you reached the age of twenty-one, you would then be placed in your
proper position; but your father desired us to say to you that it was
his wish, that if it could be arranged, your having succeeded to the
ownership should not be publicly known until you divulged it to your
husband after marriage. The other portions of the will must be carried
out. This being only a request, you are at liberty to follow it or not
as you may choose.”
“Certainly I should choose,” the girl said. “After all this trouble to
prevent my being run after as an heiress, it would be wicked to upset
it all and to fly in the face of his wishes by setting up as mistress of
this estate. Still you understand, Mr. Prendergast, that I don't mean to
take it.”
The lawyer smiled indulgently. “There is one way in which it might be
managed,” he said. “Perhaps you can guess what it is?”
A flush of color rose over the girl's face. “Don't say it, I beg of you,
Mr. Prendergast. Mrs. Cunningham hinted at it this morning, and I told
her that my own wish entirely agreed with that of my father, and that
I was determined not to be married for money; and I am quite sure that
Mark would be as unwilling as I am that the estate should change hands
in that way. No, Mr. Prendergast, you must find some other way of doing
it than that. Surely an estate cannot be forced upon anyone who is
determined not to take it.”
“Well, we must think it over,” Mr. Prendergast said quietly. “And now I
think that it is time for me to join the others.”