Afterwards, in bitter anguish and remorse, Fayre cursed himself for
his blindness. At first he had been deceived by Kean’s attitude of
cold detachment towards the whole gruesome business and the impression
he had managed to convey that he had definitely decided on flight.
Later, the news of Sybil Kean’s death had stunned him and he had gone
blindly on his errand to Cynthia, dazed with grief and consternation.
But he could not forgive himself for not having insisted on staying by
his friend in his extremity.
Instead, he had carried out Kean’s instructions to the letter, had
found Cynthia still up and had interviewed her in the rather dreary
little room that had been her uncle’s study.
He had sent a message by the servant, asking to see her alone, and she
came to him, curiosity and apprehension in her eyes.
John Leslie was never out of her mind in these days and, though it
would seem that the worst had happened, she lived in hourly dread of
some further attack on her fortitude.
“Have you come from John?” she asked piteously. “When will they let me
see him?”
He took both her hands in his and drew her to him.
“Listen,” he said gently. “It’s all right about John. He is cleared
absolutely. In a short time you will be together and all this will
seem like a bad dream. Steady, now,” he added sharply, for the girl
had swayed away from him and, for a second, he thought the news had
been too much for her. But even as he spoke, a great rush of colour
flooded her face and she drew herself erect.
“It can’t be true!” she whispered. “Say it again, Uncle Fayre. John,
free!”
Her hands were on his shoulders and she almost shook him in her
eagerness.
“John’s safe,” he repeated. “Edward has cleared him. I have come from
Westminster now. Edward wants to speak to you. Can I ring him up now
and tell him you will see him?”
“Of course. Tell him to come quick. Does John know?”
“Not yet. Grey will see him to-morrow.”
“Couldn’t the news be got to him to-night? It’s cruel to make him
wait,” she pleaded.
Fayre shook his head.
“I’m afraid not. But you can ask Edward when he comes. Where’s your
telephone?”
She led the way into the hall, and in another moment Fayre was ringing
up the house in Westminster.
Kean’s butler answered the call.
“Can I speak to Sir Edward Kean?” asked Fayre. “He is expecting a call
from me. Mr. Fayre speaking.”
“Mr. Fayre?” The man’s voice was eager and hurried. “If you could come
round, sir? We’re in great trouble here and the responsibility . . .
There’s no one . . .”
The broken sentences tailed off oddly and Fayre was suddenly seized
with an ominous sense of foreboding.
“What is it?” he asked sharply.
“Sir Edward, sir. He shot himself just after you left. . . .”
“Is he dead? Quick, man!”
“Yes. He must have died at once. The doctor’s here now. If you could
come at once, sir . . .”
“I’ll come now.”
Mechanically Fayre hung up the receiver and put the telephone down on
the table. Then he collapsed completely, his face buried in his hands,
his whole body shaking uncontrollably.
When he pulled himself together sufficiently to look up he found
Cynthia standing by his side.
“What is it, Uncle Fayre? Not Sybil?”
In as few words as possible he explained the situation to her,
omitting any mention of Kean’s confession. He could not bring himself
to speak of that yet to her.
She was terribly shaken, but she held back her tears until she had
taken him into the dining-room and mixed him a stiff drink. While he
was drinking it she telephoned for a taxi and within five minutes he
was on his way back to Westminster.
It was late before he got back to the club, utterly worn out and
shaken with remorse. If he had had the sense to stay with Kean he
might have averted this final catastrophe.
Then, as he sat in his room, too tired and disheartened to face the
task of undressing, his sanity reasserted itself and he knew that Kean
had taken the only possible way out. Sybil was dead and nothing could
hurt her now. If only he could be sure that she had not guessed!
With an exclamation he rose to his feet and picked up the note-case he
had thrown on the table on first entering his bedroom. He drew out her
letter and opened the enclosure. He had not read a dozen lines before
his worse fears were confirmed.
“It is terribly difficult to write this,” it ran, “and yet I must tell
some one. I am so desperately afraid of what Edward may do. And the
awful thing is that I may be wrong and yet I cannot ask him to
explain. If what I think is true and he has kept this from me it is
because it would break his heart for me to know. There is some
extraordinary mystery behind it all. I can only tell you this, Hatter.
I am almost certain that the pen you found after the murder was mine
and, the day Edward motored me up to London in the car, I found some
of the sequins from Mrs. Draycott’s brown evening-dress between the
cushions of the back seat of the car. The papers said she had it on
when she was found and she wore it at Staveley the night before she
left. And yet I know that the car was in London then! I can’t
understand it. But, Hatter, the night before Mrs. Draycott left
Staveley I came out of my bedroom to go down to dinner and she and
Edward were standing by the door of her room, talking. I must have
opened my door very quietly, for they did not hear me, but I heard
Mrs. Draycott say: ‘This is the second time you’ve put it off. You
know what to expect if you don’t come up to the scratch this time.’ I
went back into my room and shut the door and they never saw me. I
don’t understand it, Hatter. Edward could not have been at the farm
that night. He went up to town that afternoon. My reason tells me that
I must be mistaken, and yet, all the time, I know that something is
going on, something horrible that I cannot understand. Edward has
never been like this over a case before. For once, his nerves are
beginning to go back on him. I do not know what to do, but I am
haunted by the fear that I may die before the trial is over and that
Edward, in his desire to save me, may do something. . . . I do not
know what I am writing, Hatter; I am so stupidly weak still and my
brain does not seem to work properly; but I want you to show this to
Edward and tell him that, for my sake, he must not let John Leslie
suffer. I am haunted by the thought that he may be led into doing
something utterly unlike everything I know of him, something he may
regret to his dying day, and I shall not be here to save him. I am so
tired. I cannot write any more, but do your best for me, Hatter.”
The letter dropped from Fayre’s nerveless fingers and fluttered to the
floor.
Shaken with pain and horror as he was, he could still give thanks for
two things: Kean had never guessed that his wife knew and had gone to
his grave believing that the crime he had committed for her sake had
not been in vain, and Sybil had died in ignorance of her first
husband’s tragic survival.