"IT WAS MR. SABIN"
It was still an hour or two before dawn. No trace whatever of the
marauders had been discovered either outside the house or within. With
difficulty the Earl had been persuaded to relinquish his smoking
revolver, and had retired to his room. The doors had all been locked,
and two of the most trustworthy servants left in charge of the library.
Wolfenden had himself accompanied his father upstairs and after a few
words with him had returned to his own apartment. With his mother he had
scarcely exchanged a single sentence. Once their eyes had met and he had
immediately looked away. Nevertheless he was not altogether unprepared
for that gentle knocking at his door which came about half an hour after
the house was once more silent.
He rose at once from his chair--it seemed scarcely a night for
sleep--and opened it cautiously. It was Lady Deringham who stood there,
white and trembling. He held out his hand and she leaned heavily on it
during her passage into the room.
He wheeled his own easy chair before the fire and helped her into it.
She seemed altogether incapable of speech. She was trembling violently,
and her face was perfectly bloodless. Wolfenden dropped on his knees by
her side and began chafing her hands. The touch of his fingers seemed to
revive her. She was not already judged then. She lifted her eyes and
looked at him sorrowfully.
"What do you think of me, Wolfenden?" she asked.
"I have not thought about it at all," he answered. "I am only wondering.
You have come to explain everything?"
She shuddered. Explain everything! That was a task indeed. When the
heart is young and life is a full and generous thing; in the days of
romance, when adventures and love-making come as a natural heritage and
form part of the order of things, then the words which the woman had to
say would have come lightly enough from her lips, less perhaps as a
confession than as a half apologetic narration. But in the days when
youth lies far behind, when its glamour has faded away and nothing but
the bare incidents remain, unbeautified by the full colouring and
exuberance of the springtime of life, the most trifling indiscretions
then stand out like idiotic crimes. Lady Deringham had been a proud
woman--a proud woman all her life. She had borne in society the
reputation of an almost ultra-exclusiveness; in her home life she had
been something of an autocrat. Perhaps this was the most miserable
moment of her life. Her son was looking at her with cold, inquiring
eyes. She was on her defence before him. She bowed her head and spoke:
"Tell me what you thought, Wolfenden."
"Forgive me," he said, "I could only think that there was robbery, and
that you, for some sufficient reason, I am sure, were aiding. I could
not think anything else, could I?"
"You thought what was true, Wolfenden," she whispered. "I was helping
another man to rob your father! It was only a very trifling theft--a
handful of notes from his work for a magazine article. But it was
theft, and I was an accomplice!"
There was a short silence. Her eyes, seeking steadfastly to read his
face, could make nothing of it.
"I will not ask you why," he said slowly. "You must have had very good
reasons. But I want to tell you one thing. I am beginning to have grave
doubts as to whether my father's state is really so bad as Dr. Whitlett
thinks--whether, in short, his work is not after all really of some
considerable value. There are several considerations which incline me to
take this view."
The suggestion visibly disturbed Lady Deringham. She moved in her chair
uneasily.
"You have heard what Mr. Blatherwick says," she objected. "I am sure
that he is absolutely trustworthy."
"There is no doubt about Blatherwick's honesty," he admitted, "but the
Admiral himself says that he dare trust no one, and that for weeks he
has given him no paper of importance to work upon simply for that
reason. It has been growing upon me that we may have been mistaken all
along, that very likely Miss Merton was paid to steal his work, and that
it may possess for certain people, and for certain purposes, a real
technical importance. How else can we account for the deliberate efforts
which have been made to obtain possession of it?"
"You have spent some time examining it yourself," she said in a low
tone; "what was your own opinion?"
"I found some sheets," he answered, "and I read them very carefully;
they were connected with the various landing-places upon the Suffolk
coast. An immense amount of detail was very clearly given. The currents,
bays, and fortifications were all set out; even the roads and railways
into the interior were dealt with. I compared them afterwards with a map
of Suffolk. They were, so far as one could judge, correct. Of course
this was only a page or two at random, but I must say it made an
impression upon me."
There was another silence, this time longer than before. Lady Deringham
was thinking. Once more, then, the man had lied to her! He was on some
secret business of his own. She shuddered slightly. She had no curiosity
as to its nature. Only she remembered what many people had told her,
that where he went disaster followed. A piece of coal fell into the
grate hissing from the fire. He stooped to pick it up, and catching a
glimpse of her face became instantly graver. He remembered that as yet
he had heard nothing of what she had come to tell him. Her presence in
the library was altogether unexplained.
"You were very good," she said slowly; "you stayed what might have been
a tragedy. You knew that I was there, you helped me to escape; yet you
must have known that I was in league with the man who was trying to
steal those papers."
"There was no mistake, then! You were doing that. You!"
"It is true," she answered. "It was I who let him in, who unlocked your
father's desk. I was his accomplice!"
"Who was the man?"
She did not tell him at once.
"He was once," she said, "my lover!"
"Before----"
"Before I met your father! We were never really engaged. But he loved
me, and I thought I cared for him. I wrote him letters--the foolish
letters of an impulsive girl. These he has kept. I treated him badly, I
know that! But I too have suffered. It has been the desire of my life to
have those letters. Last night he called here. Before my face he burnt
all but one! That he kept. The price of his returning it to me was my
help--last night."
"For what purpose?" Wolfenden asked. "What use did he propose to make
of the Admiral's papers if he succeeded in stealing them?"
She shook her head mournfully.
"I cannot tell. He answered me at first that he simply needed some
statistics to complete a magazine article, and that Mr. C. himself had
sent him here. If what you tell me of their importance is true, I have
no doubt that he lied."
"Why could he not go to the Admiral himself?"
Lady Deringham's face was as pale as death, and she spoke with downcast
head, her eyes fixed upon her clenched hands.
"At Cairo," she said, "not long after my marriage, we all met. I was
indiscreet, and your father was hot-headed and jealous. They quarrelled
and fought, your father wounded him; he fired in the air. You understand
now that he could not go direct to the Admiral."
"I cannot understand," he admitted, "why you listened to his proposal."
"Wolfenden, I wanted that letter," she said, her voice dying away in
something like a moan. "It is not that I have anything more than folly
to reproach myself with, but it was written--it was the only one--after
my marriage. Just at first I was not very happy with your father. We had
had a quarrel, I forget what about, and I sat down and wrote words which
I have many a time bitterly repented ever having put on paper. I have
never forgotten them--I never shall! I have seen them often in my
happiest moments, and they have seemed to me to be written with letters
of fire."
"You have it back now? You have destroyed it?"
She shook her head wearily.
"No, I was to have had it when he had succeeded; I had not let him in
five minutes when you disturbed us."
"Tell me the man's name."
"Why?"
"I will get you the letter."
"He would not give it you. You could not make him."
Wolfenden's eyes flashed with a sudden fire.
"You are mistaken," he said. "The man who holds for blackmail over a
woman's head, a letter written twenty years ago, is a scoundrel! I will
get that letter from him. Tell me his name!"
Lady Deringham shuddered.
"Wolfenden, it would bring trouble! He is dangerous. Don't ask me. At
least I have kept my word to him. It was not my fault that we were
disturbed. He will not molest me now."
"Mother, I will know his name!"
"I cannot tell it you!"
"Then I will find it out; it will not be difficult. I will put the whole
matter in the hands of the police. I shall send to Scotland Yard for a
detective. There are marks underneath the window. I picked up a man's
glove upon the library floor. A clever fellow will find enough to work
upon. I will find this blackguard for myself, and the law shall deal
with him as he deserves."
"Wolfenden, have mercy! May I not know best? Are my wishes, my prayers,
nothing to you?"
"A great deal, mother, yet I consider myself also a judge as to the
wisest course to pursue. The plan which I have suggested may clear up
many things. It may bring to light the real object of this man. It may
solve the mystery of that impostor, Wilmot. I am tired of all this
uncertainty. We will have some daylight. I shall telegraph to-morrow
morning to Scotland Yard."
"Wolfenden, I beseech you!"
"So also do I beseech you, mother, to tell me that man's name. Great
heavens!"
Wolfenden sprang suddenly from his chair with startled face. An idea,
slow of coming, but absolutely convincing from its first conception, had
suddenly flashed home to him. How could he have been so blind? He stood
looking at his mother in fixed suspense. The light of his knowledge was
in his face, and she saw it. She had been dreading this all the while.
"It was Mr. Sabin!--the man who calls himself Sabin!"
A little moan of despair crept out from her lips. She covered her face
with her hands and sobbed.