"I take it that, having known Mr Monkton all your life, and your firm
having acted for his father, you were entirely in your client's
confidence."
"That is so. Monkton and I were personal friends, as well as solicitor
and client. We were at Cambridge together, before either of us
commenced our respective careers."
"Has he, to your knowledge, ever made any active enemies?"
"Not that I know of. Political enemies, no doubt, he has by the score--
myself included. But you know what English politics are. It's a fair
stand-up fight, and the loser grumbles a bit, but bears no rancour. Men
abuse each other across the floor of the House, and are good friends
again in the smoking-room."
"One other question, a somewhat delicate one, and I have done. Had he
ever an entanglement of any kind, the effects of which might pursue him
in later life?"
The solicitor rubbed his chin, and quite frankly replied:
"Not to my knowledge. That does not, however, conclusively prove a
negative."
"But you were close personal friends, in addition to your business
relation. Would it not be natural that, under such circumstances, he
would come to you for advice?"
There seemed an extra gleam of shrewdness in the solicitor's eyes as he
answered:
"In such circumstances as you suggest it is by no means easy to predict
what course a man would take. If Monkton had got into some entanglement
that, to put it bluntly--although, mind you, I don't believe such a
thing occurred--reflected some doubt either on his character or on his
intelligence, it is just as likely as not that his old friend would be
the last person to whom he would care to expose himself. He would be
equally likely to go to a stranger."
Wingate was fain to admit the force of the argument.
"One can never be sure of any man, even if you have known him all your
life," he added, as they shook hands. "Nobody knows that better than
our profession. But I would stake my existence that there were no
skeletons in Monkton's cupboard. The man was as straight as a die, and
he was passionately attached to his beautiful wife. Well, Mr Wingate,
give my best regards to dear Miss Sheila. I will send those boxes round
to-day."
He was as good as his word. Late in the afternoon they arrived, and
Sheila at once set to work reading the various papers, not, it must be
confessed, in a very hopeful spirit.
But when Wingate came round in the evening he found her in a state of
greatest excitement.
She took from an envelope a letter containing only a few words and
passed it to him. "Read that, and tell me what you make of it," she
said. "There is no formal beginning, and no signature. But you see it
is addressed to my father, and was evidently delivered by hand."
Upon the flap of the faded envelope Wingate saw some initials, two C's
in a cipher scroll embossed in black, an old-fashioned monogram such as
was in vogue in the early "sixties."
Then he read upon the half-sheet of notepaper, traced in a bold hand in
ink that was brown, as follows:
"You have ruined and disgraced me, and forced me to fly the country
and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. Well, I will be even
with you. I will wait, if necessary all my life, till my turn comes.
Then, when it does, I will strike you at the zenith of your career,
and mete out to you the suffering you have dealt to me."