“_To be hanged by the neck until you are dead._” The sentence still
rang in Fayre’s ears as his taxi sped through the streets on its way
to Miss Allen’s lodgings. He could hear the thin, strained voice of
the Judge, an old man nearing death himself, but still, after a long
experience on the Bench, shaken and appalled at the awful magnitude of
the words he was called upon to utter.
Fayre groaned aloud as the full sum of their meaning dawned upon him.
Leslie, of whose innocence he was assured, cut off from life just when
it was about to mean so much to him and Cynthia!
Fayre did not dare to think of Cynthia, waiting, torn between hope and
fear, through the long hours in the grey old house where she and Miss
Allen lodged. He wished with all his heart that it had not fallen to
him to break the news to her.
He stopped his cab at the corner of the street and walked the last
hundred yards to the house. At least he could save the girl the
inevitable rush to the window at the sound of wheels and the moments
of suspense while he entered the house and mounted the stairs. As it
happened, he found the front door open and reached the sitting-room
before she realized his presence in the house.
She sprang to her feet as he entered, and Miss Allen instinctively
moved to her side.
His face must have given him away for, before he opened his lips, she
knew.
“Guilty!” she gasped.
He threw out his hands in a gesture of utter helplessness.
“It went against him,” he said, hardly recognizing his own voice.
With a little moan of anguish Cynthia turned blindly to the haven of
Miss Allen’s arms. She did not cry and, for a moment, he was afraid
she had fainted, then, to his relief, Miss Allen led her gently from
the room.
He stood by the window looking out into the grey, dingy street,
waiting for her return. It was some time before Miss Allen rejoined
him.
“How is she?” he asked eagerly.
Miss Allen’s eyes were red and her voice was unsteady as she answered.
“As well as she is likely to be for some time,” she said rather
tartly. She was suffering from the aftermath of an unaccustomed
emotion. “She’s not going to die, if that’s what you mean, but her
last hope has just been taken from her. I must go back to her in a
minute. If the child had a decent mother I’d send for her.”
She crossed to the table and took a cigarette.
For a minute or two she smoked in silence. Then she turned to Fayre
with a very pleasant smile on her homely face.
“I was a bear just now,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve had a bad
quarter of an hour. Mr. Fayre, what are we going to do now?”
Fayre looked at her with utter misery in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he said desperately. “I must see Grey. After
that . . . I don’t know.”
He buried his face in his hands.
“It’s out of our hands,” said Miss Allen softly. “How pitifully small
we human beings feel when the big things happen. That child upstairs,
with no experience of life to guide her, is dealing with something
infinitely larger than anything I have ever known and I cannot help
her. She must find her own way out, Mr. Fayre. On my word, I believe I
would rather be John Leslie!”
“And I,” answered Fayre, rising to his feet. “This is not the first
time he has faced death gallantly and, as I grow older, I begin to
wonder if it is as terrible a thing as we think. But to live on, with
all the light taken from your life! I wish I knew what to do,” he
finished abruptly.
Miss Allen stared at him, puzzled.
“He’ll appeal, of course?”
“I suppose so, but there’s no hope there, I’m afraid. I can imagine no
reason for upsetting the verdict. Kean was magnificent, but the facts
were too strong for him. Don’t let Cynthia count on it.”
They talked for a few minutes and then he hurried back to his hotel,
hoping to catch Grey.
The solicitor was waiting for him in their joint sitting-room.
“Sir Edward has gone back to town,” he said. “He could not wait. He
told me to say that he was sorry to have missed you. He’s sick over
this business. I’ve never seen a man so cut up at losing a case.”
“You’ll appeal, I suppose?”
“Of course, but I’m not sanguine; neither is Sir Edward.”
Fayre looked him straight in the eyes.
“What’s your honest opinion?” he asked.
Grey hesitated for a moment. Then:
“I think it’s absolutely hopeless,” he said frankly. “Nothing short of
a miracle can save Leslie now.”
“So that an appeal will simply mean the infliction of quite
unnecessary anguish on two people who have already had more than their
share of suffering?”
“I suppose you can put it that way,” answered Grey soberly. “All the
same, it’s his last chance and we can’t afford not to take it.”
Fayre nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ll travel up with you,” he said. “Have I time to pack?”
“Plenty. I’m off to see Leslie. I’d hoped you might stay on and have a
few words with him before he is moved. I think I can work it and it
would mean a lot to him now.”
The distress on Fayre’s face deepened, but his lips were set in an
obstinate line.
“I’m sorry,” he said firmly, “but I must get up to town at once. I’d
stay if I could, and anyhow I’ll run down again later.”
“Any message for him?”
“Tell him we’re not beaten yet,” said Fayre cryptically.
Grey raised his eyebrows.
“What’s the idea?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I wish to goodness I did!” was Fayre’s rejoinder as he
disappeared into his room to pack.
He and Grey reached London in the small hours of the morning. Fayre
drove straight to his club and forced himself to take a couple of
hours’ rest, but he did not sleep and by nine o’clock he had bathed
and breakfasted and was on his way to Kean’s Chambers.
Early as he was, Kean was there before him and was already well
started on a strenuous day’s work. He pushed his papers aside when
Fayre entered and came to meet him.
“I rather fancied you might turn up,” he said sombrely. “We shall
appeal, of course.”
Fayre faced him as he had faced Grey.
“With what result?”
Kean did not mince matters.
“If I know anything of the law, none,” he said. “I’m sorry, Hatter; I
did my best.”
Fayre’s eyes did not move from his face.
“That’s what I’ve come to ask you,” he said slowly. “You made a very
brilliant speech. It was a magnificent defence, and it failed. To any
one but myself it would seem that you had done your utmost.”
He paused and Kean turned on him sharply.
“I’ve worked harder over this case than I ever worked in my life,” he
cut in.
Fayre nodded.
“I admit it. That’s not what I’m driving at. One or two things have
come to my knowledge lately, facts that I have told no one, not even
Grey.”
He paused again. He was finding it very hard to choose words for what
he had come to say and Kean made no effort to help him.
“Ever since I discovered certain things,” Fayre went on, “I have been
fighting against the conviction that you could have cleared Leslie if
you had wished. Can you look me in the face now and say that you were
not shielding some one from the beginning and that you undertook
Leslie’s defence because you hoped by sheer eloquence to get him off
without being forced to give this person away?”
Kean had strolled over to the hearth-rug and seemed absorbed in the
selection of a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece.
“I don’t know how you managed to unearth all this,” he said at last,
“or what you think you have discovered, but you’re right on one point.
I _was_ shielding some one.”
“You’ve tried to save Leslie and failed,” went on Fayre inflexibly.
“What steps do you propose to take now?”
Kean hesitated.
“Before I answer that question,” he said slowly, “suppose you put your
cards on the table. How much do you know?”
“I know that, for some reason I have so far failed to discover, you
allowed it to be supposed that you travelled by rail to Staveley
Grange on March 14th, when, as a matter of fact, you motored from
London to some station north of York and picked up the train there.
You were held up at York for driving without side-lights.”
Kean smiled.
“You’ve hit on a snag there,” he said. “Blake, my chauffeur, was held
up and nearly lost his job on the strength of it.”
“I’ve seen Blake,” was Fayre’s quiet reply. “He was on his holiday in
London and was with his wife that night. A summons was served on him
which he brought to you and which you said you would deal with. He is
under the impression that it was a mistake on the part of the police.”
There was a pause during which Kean smoked thoughtfully. He seemed in
no way disconcerted.
“Given that I was in York that night, what do you infer from that?
March 14th was not the night of the murder, if that’s what you are
driving at,” he said at last.
Fayre went on steadily.
“How long have you known Mrs. Draycott and what were you and she doing
in Paris in the spring of 1920? You had been married to Sybil for less
than a year and I know you too well to insult you by the suggestion
that it was merely a vulgar intrigue.”
Kean threw his cigarette into the fire.
“You’re right there,” he answered evenly; “it wasn’t. You haven’t
entirely lost your sense of proportion yet, Hatter. I had my own
reasons for wishing to see Mrs. Draycott, and, as she happened to be
in Paris at the time, I went there. I stayed at the Bristol and she
was in a small hotel on the other side of the river. Does that satisfy
you?”
Fayre walked over to the writing-table and drew out the top drawer.
From it he took two “Red Dwarf” pens and threw them on the table. With
the exception of a brown earth stain down the side of one of them,
they were identical, even to the black ink-stains that smeared the
handles.
“One of these is the pen I picked up at the farm. Can you explain the
other, or give any reason why you did not use this in your defence? We
have proof that it did not belong to Leslie and that it was dropped
some time before the murder. It would at least have proved the
presence of a third person at the farm that night.”
Once more Kean hesitated. Then he raised his head and spoke quite
frankly.
“Because it was the property of the person I wished to shield. I give
you fair warning, Hatter, that, however deeply you may have managed to
implicate me, I do not intend to divulge the name of the owner of that
pen. Any more exhibits?”
Fayre was stung by the contempt in his voice. He took his note-case
out of his pocket and extracted a snapshot which he placed on the
table beside the pens.
“Yes,” he answered, and there was grief rather than anger in his
voice. “This. I would have spared you this if I could, Edward.”
Kean picked it up and examined it.
“So you’ve stumbled on that, too. You’ve been pretty thorough,
Hatter.”
“You knew, then?”
“That Sybil’s first husband was alive? I’ve known it for the last six
years. As a matter of fact, I fetched him from Germany myself and
placed him in an asylum in Dorset. You know he’s hopelessly insane, I
suppose. Three specialists have pronounced him incurable.”
“You’ve lived with Sybil for six years, knowing all the time that
Gerald Lee was alive?”
Kean looked at him with frank speculation in his eyes.
“What would you have done in my place, I wonder,” he said quietly.
“Sybil’s heart was in such a state that any shock might prove fatal.
Lee was hopelessly insane, incapable even of recognizing her. I’m not
exaggerating when I say that the mere sight of him would have killed
her. Rather than take the chance of the knowledge of his existence
reaching her now, I would kill you, here in this room, with my own
hands, and take the consequences.”
He spoke quite gently, but his voice carried conviction and Fayre
realized that he would shrink from nothing in the effort to spare his
wife.
“Sybil knows,” he said and, even as he spoke, he felt that he would
have given anything to unsay the words.
For the first time Kean’s composure deserted him. His face became
suddenly grey and lined. “Impossible!”
Then, with sudden vehemence:
“Do you realize what you’re saying? Good God, man, it can’t be true!”
“It is true, unless I’ve made some ghastly mistake,” answered Fayre
steadily. “I thought she had discovered it and was keeping the secret
from you.”
“My God, if that woman told her!” muttered Kean. “It’s the only
explanation. What have you got to go on?”
“A letter Sybil wrote me, which reached me just after I had come on
the photograph of Lee. I took it for granted that that was what she
was alluding to.”
“You didn’t speak to her about it?”
“I haven’t seen her since. I had meant to, but there’s been no
opportunity.”
Kean sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.
“Thank God!” he murmured. “There’s some mistake. It’s impossible that
she should have found out. She would never . . .”
He was interrupted by the insistent peal of the telephone-bell. With a
half-frenzied exclamation he tore the receiver from its hook.
“Yes, Sir Edward Kean speaking,” he said mechanically, his mind
entirely occupied with the revelation Fayre had just made. Then, as he
listened, the already ghastly pallor of his face increased.
“It’s Sybil,” he said, hardly above his breath as he dropped the
receiver. “They’ve rung up from Westminster. It’s another attack.”
For a moment he sat staring blankly into space; then he turned to
Fayre with a look of almost childish entreaty in his eyes.
“I must go to her, Hatter. For heaven’s sake, don’t keep me now!”
For answer Fayre picked up Kean’s hat and coat and handed them to him.
“We must have this out soon, Edward,” he said gravely. “No matter what
happens.”
Kean was already struggling himself into his coat.
“At the earliest opportunity I promise you a full explanation. Will
that do, Hatter?”
Fayre nodded. A moment later he was alone with his troubled thoughts.
He strolled over to the table and, picking up the snapshot, put it
back into his notecase. As he did so the door opened and Farrer, the
old head clerk, looked in.
“I thought I heard Sir Edward go out, sir,” he said.
“He’s been sent for. Lady Kean has been taken ill again. I doubt if
he’ll be back this morning. You’d better cancel any engagements he had
for to-day.”
The old man made a clucking sound with his tongue against his teeth.
“It’s a pity she’s so delicate, sir,” he ventured.
And Fayre, overwrought to the verge of hysteria, almost laughed aloud
at the utter inadequacy of the remark.