CONFESSION
I stared at Burke in speechless amazement.
The tremendous possibilities opened up by this revelation left me
bewildered. But the wave of joy which suddenly swept over me was
unmistakable.
"Then, how--" I began, and stopped.
If I could not understand, it was only too clear that Burke could not
tell me what I wanted to know; for it was also plain that he too was
utterly at a loss to account for the circumstance. This, then, had
been the intelligence imparted by the Burman on Friday morning, which
had so upset Fluette and Burke.
But again, why in the first place should Burke have informed the
Burmese of the supposed gem's hiding-place? And how could it have been
the replica instead of the real stone? The whole thing was fraught
with many perplexities; something here, which I could not seize upon,
flaunted itself in obscurity, and if I wanted to learn more from Burke
it would not do for him to discover how far I was at sea. Was it
possible that he still fostered a hope of getting his fingers upon the
real gem?
I was again surveying him with a cold, suspicious eye.
"Burke," I said, "just how did you come to put the gem--or the paste
replica--in the soap?"
For a long time he sat contemplating his hand, first the back and then
the palm, and then closing the fingers and scrutinizing the nails.
Finally, with another shrug and a little gesture in which I read
resignation, he said:
"I might as well tell it. As you say, I knew the jewel-box--and I
honestly thought it contained the ruby--and the Clara Cooper letters
were in the safe, and I never had an opportunity to take them till
Tuesday night a week ago. The assurance that Page was going to Duluth
that night, combined with the backing Tshen would give me, put me in a
position where I could take the ruby and defy Page. I was so sure that
Page was going to Duluth that night that I arranged a meeting between
Fluette and the Burman at Page's house.
"For you surmised correctly when you declared that Fluette would not
buy the ruby on the strength of my representations alone. The purpose
of that meeting was to convince Fluette of the good faith of Tshen's
claim to the stone, whereupon I was to procure it from the safe--the
letters, too--and he was to pay over a certain sum of money for them."
"How much?" I bluntly demanded.
"Two hundred thousand dollars."
So this was the reason why Alfred Fluette must needs help himself to
Genevieve's patrimony. That rapacious monster, the Wheat Pit, had
exhausted all of his legitimate resources, and so mad was his obsession
that he scrupled not to steal.
I entertained only hard feelings for him at that moment. He had not
bought the ruby, however, and doubtless Genevieve's fortune was still
intact.
"Go on," I commanded curtly. "What happened then?"
"Well, Maillot's arrival demoralized everything. Fluette was to come
at ten o'clock, and Tshen at ten-thirty. I did n't know what to do. I
had no way of getting them word at that time of night, and I soon
realized that Page had given over the trip. I contrived, however, to
smuggle all of them up to my room, without anybody being the wiser.
"I explained the state of affairs, and assured them that I would fulfil
my part of the agreement as soon as Page and Maillot retired and the
house grew quiet.
"Some time after eleven I heard Page and Maillot coming up-stairs. The
light was out in my room, and, peering through the crack of my door, I
watched Page bid Maillot good-night. The old man was holding a lighted
candle in one hand and the small leather box in the other. I _know_ it
was the ruby he showed Maillot--"
"I suppose you were in the curtained alcove while he and Maillot were
talking," I interrupted.
"Not all the time; I didn't dare be. The old man was as sharp as a
fox. He didn't trust anybody.
"However, I carried out my part of the programme, all right; but just
as I reached the top of the stairs I felt the magnetism of somebody's
presence. I looked back and saw Page--he looked positively
diabolical--following me. How he enjoyed catching anybody in such a
predicament!"
"And then?"
"Well, then--why, I must have lost my head. I started for my room, but
the old man commanded me to stop, and I stopped. People generally did
when Page told them to. Fluette heard him and came into the hall to
learn what was the matter. Page could not see him then because of the
angle in the corridor, and the old man paused by the _étagère_ to light
the candle in the iron candlestick.
"After that the old man walked right up to me and held out his hand for
the box and the bundle of letters; but before I had time to give them
to him, Fluette rushed in between us. His appearance startled the old
man so that he recoiled a pace or two. This gave Fluette the
opportunity he needed to take the things from me. He smiled at Page,
and said:
"'By God, Felix Page, you sha'n't thwart me this time; for once I 've
got the upper-hand of you, and I mean to keep it.' Fluette, you see,
had put in the time while waiting in my room listening to Tshen's story
and examining his credentials.
"That infuriated Page so that he went clear off his head. He set down
the iron candlestick upon the floor, and plunged right into Fluette.
Quicker than you can think, they were wrestling furiously for the box
and the bundle of letters.
"'I ran into my room and told Tshen what was going on. Three of his
party were with him, and they were all so excited that I could scarcely
do anything with them. Next I ran back into the hall, where the two
men were still struggling and threshing about. They saved their breath
for their exertions, each trying with might and main to wrest the
precious package from the other.
"All at once the jewel-box was wrenched open. The ruby--or what I
thought was the ruby--flew out and fell at my feet. I stooped in a
flash and picked it up. As I straightened upright, I saw that Page had
succeeded in recovering the jewel-case, although Fluette had the
letters. With an oath, Page cast the empty box away from him. 'I 'll
cut your heart out for that!' he snarled, and started for Fluette.
Fluette hastily jabbed the letters into his coat pocket, grabbed up the
candlestick and threw it above his head. The light was extinguished,
and the candlestick crushed upon Page's head.
"It was an inspiration that made me press the ruby into the soap; I
could n't have found a better hiding-place if I had searched the house
over."
I was no longer heeding him. The last doubt had been removed. After
all, then, Alfred Fluette was the guilty man.
My heart ached for the three women upon whom the blow would fall the
hardest. The tangle was unravelling in accord with my theory. I had
warned Genevieve of what she might expect--indeed, she had apprehended
the probable outcome herself; it had been hopeless to attempt to
prepare Belle. But all this failed to relieve the situation any.
However, the ruby presently rose uppermost in my mind, and with it came
a conviction that Burke had not told me everything that he might have
respecting the gem. If it had not been in the bar of soap, where was
it? Then light flashed upon the enigma.
Burke and the Burmese had been afforded more time than I in which to
speculate upon the substitution of the false for the genuine stone, and
Burke had not gone inconsiderately to the Page place on Friday night,
but, quite the reverse, to prosecute a definite plan of search. How
near he came to the goal I did n't appreciate till later.
The discovery by the Burmese that the soap contained merely the paste
replica, made them suspect Burke of duplicity. Hence, after Fanshawe
and I lost them Friday morning, the Burman had continued to dog the
ex-secretary until relieved some time during the day by the misshapen
dwarf, who, in turn, had followed him to the Page place after nightfall.
The mute--whose ugly visage Genevieve had seen at the alcove
curtains--had attacked him, perhaps in the belief that Burke had found
the gem, and that he had been deceiving them respecting it.
It was this struggle in the bedroom which had created such a tumult,
frightening Burke within an inch of his life, and driving him pellmell
away and to his bed, where he had remained until the following Tuesday.
Both had utterly vanished by the time I effected an entrance to the
house.
"I can truthfully say, Burke," I confided, "that I never underestimated
your intelligence. You did not go blindly to the Page place Friday
night. You reasoned that, if Mr. Page displayed the genuine ruby to
Maillot, and if the jewel-case contained only the replica when you
robbed the safe an hour or so later, why, the substitution must have
occurred somewhere between the library table, where Maillot and Page
had been sitting, and the safe. Consequently you were encouraged by
the assurance that the scope of your search would be restricted.
"I believe you argued correctly. And to keep you out of further
mischief, or from setting your precious Burmese upon me again, why, you
may stay here a while and think over it."
Despite his protestations, when I left headquarters the last glimpse I
had of him was through the bars of a cell door.
I went directly to the Fluette residence to inform Genevieve that her
apprehensions and uncertainties had at last crystallized into dread
reality. I shall not dwell upon this wretched conference; it is quite
enough to say that the poor girl was torn with grief, yet not wholly
convinced.
"Knowles,"--she was clinging to my arm, her voice hoarse and
distressed,--"it is too terrible--too monstrous for belief. I can not
do it--can't believe it--unless I hear the words from Uncle Alfred's
own lips. He is here now; he did n't go down-town to-day. The
horrible charge has been made--confront him with it. He's up-stairs
with Aunt Clara."
"Very well," I quietly returned. "You go and ask him, as calmly as
possible, to come down to his study. Don't alarm Miss Belle or her
mother; it may not be necessary."
Moving blindly toward the stairs, she paused on the first landing and
turned to me a tragic face.
"Courage!" I whispered.
Then she found the strength to carry her on to the end of her revulsive
errand. I went direct to the study, and waited.
Fluette came in hastily, his manner wild, his face white and haggard.
Genevieve, distressed and heart-broken, followed close behind him. She
closed the door. The man began speaking at once, incoherently, in a
harsh, strident whisper that signified constricted throat muscles.
"So! It's come at last! You--keep it from--from--my God! keep it from
my wife and daughter!"
I answered him roughly, in an attempt to keep him from breaking
completely down.
"Pull yourself together, man! What sort of way is this to act?" I
surveyed his abject figure an instant, then added with some bitterness:
"It is not I that you fear, but your own conscience."
I was thinking of the women.
He slumped into a chair, clasped his out-stretched hands upon the
writing-table, and allowed his head to droop between his arms. At that
moment I heard Belle calling "Papa!" She was running lightly down the
stairs. Again she called, and I knew that she was coming swiftly
toward the library.
Genevieve made a move as if to bolt the door, but I checked her with a
gesture. Of what use would it be to bar the way of her who came so
impulsively? The dreadful truth must be broken to her. It was a task
that no third person might assume; let her hear it wrung from her
father's unwilling lips.
"Papa!" She was approaching quickly. How youthful and self-reliant
her voice sounded! The sweet, girlish contralto jarred painfully upon
at least two of our tense, waiting group. And Belle continued to
advance all unsuspectingly.
"Papa, where are you? Why don't you answer?"
Genevieve ran over to her uncle, and laid one arm across his bowed
shoulders.
"Uncle! Uncle!" She shook him, striving in an agitated way to rouse
him to a sense of realization. "Uncle! Sit up! Don't go all to
pieces, this way! Belle is at the door!"
[Illustration: "Uncle, Uncle! Sit up! Don't go to pieces this way"]
And sure enough, as the bent figure painfully straightened a light rap
sounded upon the panel, and Belle's fresh young voice again called:
"Are you in there, papa? May I come in?"
Genevieve drew suddenly back to a shadowed corner, wringing her hands
with a helpless, despairing gesture. Fluette rose unsteadily to his
feet. Then the door opened, and Belle stood framed in the doorway.
The man's look darted feverishly between the two girls--Genevieve
well-nigh overcome, while the smile on Belle's handsome face quickly
gave way to an expression of bewilderment, and then to a dawning one of
alarm. Next she rushed into the room, and stopped abruptly. Bending a
look of anxious inquiry first upon her cousin and then upon me, she
finally confronted her father.
"Papa," she faltered, her voice quaking with the fear that suddenly
gripped her heart, "what is it? What does this mean?" Then, as she
started blindly toward him, she uttered one piercing, agonizing cry:
"Papa!"
Unconsciously he brushed aside her beseeching arms. He did not answer
her directly; his words were a response to the charge that I had not
yet made.
"Man, you are right," he said huskily, "it is my conscience. It is not
you that accuse me, but the pure eyes of these two innocent girls--the
unspoken reproach of that broken, white-haired woman who sits in
silence up-stairs--those fling the charge into my face--sear it into my
very soul--every minute of the day and night.
"Take me. I am guilty. It was I who killed Felix Page."