A PIECE OF WEDDING CAKE
Albert Redmayne, holding it his duty to come to England, did so, and
Jenny met him at Dartmouth after his long journey.
He was a small, withered man with a big head, great, luminous eyes,
and a bald scalp. Such hair as yet remained to him was the true
Redmayne scarlet; but the nimbus that still adorned his naked skull
was streaked with silver and his thin, long beard was also grizzled.
He spoke in a gentle, kindly voice, with little Southern gestures.
He was clad in a great Italian cloak and a big, slouchy hat, which
between them, almost served to extinguish the bookworm.
"Oh, that Peter Ganns were here!" he sighed again and again, while
he thrust himself as near as possible to a great coal fire, and
Jenny told him every detail of the tragedy.
"They took the bloodhounds to the cave, Uncle Albert, and Mr.
Brendon himself watched them working, but nothing came of it. The
creatures leaped up the channel from the cave and were soon upon the
plateau where the long tunnel opens into the air; but there they
seemed to lose their bearings and there was no scent that attracted
them, either up to the summit of the cliffs, or down to the rocky
beach underneath. They ran about and bayed and presently returned
again down the tunnel to the cave. Mr. Brendon has no belief in the
value of bloodhounds for a case like this."
"Nothing further of--of--Robert?"
"Not a trace or sign of him. I'm sure that everything that the wit
of man can do has been done; and many clever local people, including
the County Commissioner and the highest authorities, have helped Mr.
Brendon; but not a glimpse of poor Uncle Robert has been seen and
there is nothing to show what happened to him after that terrible
night."
"Or to brother Bendigo, either, for that matter," murmured Mr.
Redmayne. "It is your poor husband's case over again--blood, alas,
but nought else!"
Jenny was haggard and worn. She devoted herself to the old man's
comfort and hoped that the journey would not do him any hurt.
Mr. Albert Redmayne slept well, but the morning found him very
depressed and melancholy. Things, dreadful enough at a distance,
seemed far worse now that he found himself in the theatre of their
occurrence. He maintained a long conversation with Mark Brendon and
cross-questioned Doria; but their information did not inspire him to
a suggestion and, after twenty-four hours, it was clear that the
little man could be of no assistance to anybody. He was frightened
and awe-stricken. He detested "Crow's Nest" and the melancholy
murmur of the sea. He showed the keenest desire to return home at
the earliest opportunity and was exceedingly nervous after dark.
"Oh, that Peter Ganns were here!" he exclaimed again and again, as a
comment to every incident unfolded by Brendon or Jenny; and then,
when she asked him if it might be possible to summon Peter Ganns,
Mr. Redmayne explained that he was an American beyond their reach at
present.
"Mr. Ganns," he said, "is my best friend in the world--save
and excepting one man only. He--my first and most precious
intimate--dwells at Bellagio, on the opposite side of Lake Como from
myself. Signor Virgilio Poggi is a bibliophile of European eminence
and the most brilliant of men--a great genius and my dearest
associate for twenty-five years. But Peter Ganns also is a very
astounding person--a detective officer by profession--but a man of
many parts and full of such genuine understanding of humanity that
to know him is to gain priceless insight.
"I myself lack that intimate knowledge of character which is his
native gift. Books I know better than men, and it was my peculiar
acquaintance with books that brought Ganns and me together in New
York. There I served him well in an amazing police case and aided
him to prove a crime, the discovery of which turned upon a certain
paper manufactured for the Medici. But a greater thing than this
criminal incident sprang from it; and that is my friendship with the
wonderful Peter. Not above half a dozen books have taught me more
than that man. He is a Machiavelli on the side of the angels."
He expatiated upon Mr. Peter Ganns until his listeners wearied of
the subject. Then Giuseppe Doria intervened with a personal problem.
He desired to be dismissed and was anxious to learn from Brendon if
the law permitted him to leave the neighbourhood.
"For my part," he said, "it is an ill wind that blows good to
nobody. I am anxious to go to London if there is no objection."
He found himself detained, however, for some days, until an official
examination of the strange problem was completed. The investigation
achieved nothing and threw no ray of light, either upon the apparent
murder of Bendigo Redmayne, or the disappearance of his brother. The
original mystery at Foggintor Quarry was recalled, to fill the minds
of the morbid and curious; but no sort of connecting motive between
the two crimes appeared and the problem of Robert Redmayne only grew
darker. All purpose was lacking from both tragedies, while even the
facts themselves remained in doubt, since neither incident furnished
a dead body to prove murder against the missing man.
Mr. Albert Redmayne stayed no longer in Devonshire than his duty
indicated, for he could prove of no service to the police. On the
night previous to his departure he went through his brother's scanty
library and found nothing in it of any interest to a collector. The
ancient and well-thumbed copy of "Moby Dick" he took for sentiment,
and he also directed Jenny to pack for him Bendigo's "Log"--a diary
in eight or ten volumes. This he proposed to read at his leisure
when home again. To the end of his visit he never ceased to lament
the absence of Mr. Peter Ganns.
"My friend is actually coming to Europe next year," he explained.
"He is, without doubt, the most accomplished of men in the dreadful
science of detecting crime and, were he here, he could assuredly
read into these abominations a meaning for which we grope in vain.
Do not think," he added to Jenny, "that I undervalue the labours of
Mr. Brendon and the police, but they have come to naught, for there
are strange forces of evil moving here deeper than the plummet of
their intelligence can sound."
He departed, assured that his family was the victim of some evil,
concealed alike from himself and everybody else; but he promised
Jenny that he would presently write to America and lay every
incident of the case, so far as it was known and reported, before
his friend.
"He will bring a new intelligence to bear upon the tragedy," said
Albert. "He will see things that are hidden from us, for his brain
has a quality which one can only describe as a mental X-ray, which
probes and penetrates in a fashion denied to ordinary thinking
apparatus."
Before he returned to the borders of Como and his little villa
beneath the mountains, the old scholar took affectionate leave of
Jenny and made her promise to follow him as soon as she was able to
do so.
He had failed to observe the emotional bonds that united her to
Doria; but he had found Giuseppe an attractive personality and
welcomed the Italian's good sense and tact under distressing
circumstances. He made him a present of money before leaving and
promised him testimonials if he should need them. As for Jenny, she
was to enjoy the bequest under her grandfather's will when she
desired to do so, while for her future, her uncle trusted that she
would make her home with him.
He soon departed and the Redmayne inquiry, begun with much zest and
determination, gradually faded away and perished of inanition. No
solitary clue or indication of progress rewarded the investigations.
Robert Redmayne had vanished off the face of the earth and his
brother with him. There remained of the family only Albert and his
niece--a fact she imparted, not without melancholy, to Mark Brendon,
when the day came that he must take his leave of her and return to
other and more profitable fields of work.
He urged her to join her uncle as soon as possible and he begged her
to accept his willing service in any way within his power; while she
was gracious and thanked him for all that he had done.
"I shall never, never forget your patience and your great goodness,"
she said. "I am indeed grateful, Mr. Brendon, and I hope, if only
for your sake, that time will lay bare the truth of these horrible
things. To know that good men, against whom there was no grudge or
hate in the world, have been murdered by their fellow men--it is a
nightmare. But God will bring the truth to light--I feel positive of
that."
He left her more deeply in love than ever; but there seemed no note
of hope or promise in their farewell. And yet he felt a profound
conviction that they would meet again. She undertook to acquaint him
with her movements and was not sure that she would accept Albert
Redmayne's invitation to join him. So Mark left her, believing that
Doria was certain to determine her future and guessing that, if she
presently proceeded to Como, the lively and indomitable Italian
would quickly follow.
For the present, however, Giuseppe seemed to be concerned with his
own affairs. He brought Brendon back on his last journey from
"Crow's Nest" in the launch and explained that he had already found
good work beside the Thames.
"We shall, I hope, meet again," he said, "and you may hear presently
of a very wonderful adventure in which Doria shall be l'allegro--the
merry man and the hero!"
They talked and Mark became impatient under a growing consciousness
that the quicker-witted spirit was pulling his leg. Doria preserved
the best possible temper, but his Latin love of a certain sort of
fun seemed cynical and almost inhuman under the circumstances.
They spoke of the mystery and, upon that subject, the motor boatman
declared himself as quite unable to find any explanation; but, with
respect to Brendon's failure, he did not hesitate to make a sly
allusion. Indeed he hinted at things which Mark was to hear six
months later in a more responsible mouth.
"Above all, what has puzzled me most in this horrid affair is you,
Brendon," declared Giuseppe. "You are a great sleuth, we know; yet
you are no better than the rest of us stupid people before these
happenings and horrors. That made me wonder for a long time; but now
I wonder no longer."
"I'm beat and I own it. I've missed something vital--the keystone of
the arch. But why do you say that you wonder no more? Because you
know me now and find me a very dull dog?"
"Not so, my friend, far from it. You are a very wily, clever dog.
But--well, as we say in Italy, 'if you put a cat into gloves, she
will not catch mice.' You have been in gloves ever since you knew
Madonna was a widow."
"What do you mean?"
"Very well you know what I mean!"
And that was the end of their conversation, for Brendon frowned in
silence and Giuseppe began to slack the engines as they reached the
landing stage.
"Something tells me I shall meet you again, Marco," he said as they
shook hands and prepared to part; and Brendon, who shared that
impression strongly enough, nodded.
"It may be so," he answered.
For a period of several months, however, the detective was not to
hear more of those who had played their small parts in the unsolved
mystery. He was busy enough and in some measure rehabilitated a
tarnished reputation by one brilliant achievement in his finest
manner. But success did not restore his self-respect; and it
diminished in no degree the fever burning at his heart.
Once he received a note from Jenny telling him that she hoped to see
him in London before leaving for Italy; and the fact that she had
decided to join her uncle gave him some peace; but he heard nothing
further and his reply to Mrs. Pendean's communication, which had
come from "Crow's Nest," won no response. Weeks passed and whether
she remained still in Devonshire, was in London, or had gone to
Italy, he could not know, for she did not write again.
He dispatched a long letter in early spring to the care of Albert
Redmayne, but this also won no response. And then came an
explanation. She had been in London, but kept him ignorant of the
fact for sufficient reasons. She had neither thought of him nor
wanted him, for her life was full of another.
On a day in late March, Brendon received a little, triangular-shaped
box through the post from abroad, and opening it, stared at a wedge
of wedding cake. With the gift came a line--one only: "Kind and
grateful remembrances from Giuseppe and Jenny Doria."
She sent no direction that might enable him to acknowledge her gift;
but there was a postal stamp upon the covering and Brendon noted
that the box came from Italy--from Ventimiglia, a town which Doria
once mentioned in connection with the ruined castle and vanished
splendours of his race.
And yet, despite this sudden, though not surprising, event, there
persisted with Mark a conviction that this did not mean the end.
Time was to bring him into close companionship with Jenny again: he
knew it for an integral factor of the future; but the persistence of
this impression could not serve to lighten his melancholy before an
accomplished fact. That he might live to be of infinite service to
Jenny a subconscious assurance convinced him; but he must say
good-bye to love forever. Henceforth hope was dead and when duty
called he knew not what form his duty might assume. Through a
sleepless night he retraced every moment of his intercourse with
Doria's wife and much tormented himself.
But other recollections awakened by this survey gave him pause and
pointed to mysteries as yet unguessed. For was it possible that this
tender-natured woman, who had mourned her husband so bitterly but
nine months before, could now enter with such light-hearted joy into
union with another man? Was it reasonable to see Jenny Pendean, as
he remembered her in the agony of her bereavement, already the happy
and contented bride of one a stranger to her until so recently?
It was indeed possible, because it had happened; but reasons for so
untimely an event existed. They might, if understood, absolve the
widow for an apparent levity not consonant with her true and
steadfast self. It cast him down, almost as much as his own vanished
dream and everlasting loss, that hard-hearted love could work such a
miracle and banish the wedded past of this woman's life so
completely in favour of a doubtful future with a foreign spouse.
There were things hidden, and he felt a great desire to penetrate
them for the credit of the woman he had loved so well.