"Dead! And he's carried his secret with him to his grave!"
"Never!"
"But he has. Look! His jaw has dropped. Can't you see the change,
man!"
"Then he's carried out his threat after all!"
"By Heaven, he has! We've been fools, Reggie--utter idiots!" I
whispered.
"So it seems. I confess that I fully expected he'd tell us the truth
when he knew that the end had really come."
"Ah! you didn't know him as I did," I remarked bitterly. "He had a will
of iron and a nerve of steel."
"Combined with the constitution of a horse, or he'd been dead long ago.
But we've been outwitted--cleanly outwitted by a dying man. He defied
us, laughed at our ignorance to the very last."
"Blair was no fool. He knew what knowledge of the truth meant to us--a
huge fortune. So he simply kept his secret."
"And left us in penniless chagrin. Well, although we've lost thousands,
Gilbert, I can't help admiring his dogged determination. He went
through a lot, recollect, and he's been a good friend to us--very good--
so I suppose we really oughtn't to abuse him, however much we regret
that he didn't let us into his secret."
"Ah, if only those white lips could speak! One word, and we'd both be
rich men," I said in regret, gazing upon the dead, white face, with its
closed eyes and closely clipped beard, lying there upon the pillow.
"He intended to hold his secret from the very first," remarked my tall
friend, Reginald Seton, folding his arms as he stood on the opposite
side of the bed. "It isn't given to every man to make such a discovery
as he made. It took him years to solve the problem, whatever it was;
but that he really succeeded in doing so we can't for a moment doubt."
"And his profit was over a million sterling," I remarked.
"More like two, at the very lowest estimate. Recollect how, when we
first knew him, he was in dire want of a sovereign--and now? Why, only
last week he gave twenty thousand to the Hospital Fund. And all as the
result of solving the enigma which for so long we have tried to discover
in vain. No, Gilbert, he hasn't played the square game by us. We
assisted him, put him on his legs, and all that, and instead of
revealing to us the key to the secret which he discovered, and which
placed him among the wealthiest men of London, he point-blank refused,
even though he knew that he must die. We lent him money in the old
days, financed him, kept Mab at school when he had no funds, and--"
"And he repaid us every penny--with interest," I interposed. "Come;
don't let's discuss him here. The secret is lost for ever, that's
enough." And I drew the sheet over the poor dead face--the countenance
of Burton Blair, the man who, during the past five years, had been one
of London's mysteries.
A strange, adventurous life, a career more remarkable, perhaps, than
half those imagined by writers of romance, had been brought abruptly to
an end, while the secret of the source of his enormous wealth--the
secret which we both had for the past five years longed to share,
because we were in a sense justly entitled to participate in its
advantages--had gone with him to that bourne whence none return.
The apartment in which we stood was a small, rather well-furnished
bedroom in the _Queen's Hotel_, Manchester. The window looked out upon
the dark facade of the Infirmary, while to that chamber of the dead
there came the roar and bustle of the traffic and trams in Piccadilly.
His story was assuredly one of the strangest that any man has ever told.
Its mystery, as will be seen, was absolutely bewildering.
The light of the cheerless February afternoon was quickly fading, and as
we turned softly to descend and inform the hotel manager of the fatal
termination of the seizure, I noticed that the dead man's suit-case
stood in the corner, and that his keys were still in it.
"We had better take possession of these," I remarked, locking the bag
and transferring the small bunch to my pocket. "His executors will want
them."
Then we closed the door behind us, and going to the office imparted the
unwelcome intelligence that a death had occurred in the hotel. The
manager was, however, quite prepared to learn such news, for, half an
hour before, the doctor had declared that the stranger could not live.
His case had been hopeless from the very first.
Briefly, the facts were as follows. Burton Blair had bidden his
daughter Mabel farewell, left his house in Grosvenor Square on the
previous morning, and had taken the ten-thirty express from Euston to
Manchester, where he had said he had some private business to transact.
Just before the train arrived at Crewe, he suddenly became unwell, and
was discovered by one of the luncheon-car attendants in a state of
collapse in one of the first-class compartments. Brandy and
restoratives being administered, he revived sufficiently to travel on to
Manchester, being assisted out of the train at London Road, and two
porters had helped him into a cab and accompanied him to the hotel,
where, on being put to bed, he again lapsed into unconsciousness. A
doctor was called, but he could not diagnose the ailment, except that
the patient's heart was seriously affected and, that being so, a fatal
termination of the seizure might ensue. Towards two o'clock next
morning, Blair, who had neither given his name nor told the hotel people
who he was, asked that both Seton and I should be telegraphed for, and
the result was that in anxious surprise we had both travelled up to
Manchester, where on arrival, an hour before, we had discovered our
friend to be in an utterly hopeless condition.
On entering the room we found the doctor, a young and rather pleasant
man named Glenn, in attendance. Blair was conscious, and listened to
the medical opinion without flinching. Indeed, he seemed rather to
welcome death than to dread it, for, when he heard that he was in such a
very critical condition, a faint smile crossed his pale, drawn features,
and he remarked--
"Every man must die, so it may as well be to-day as to-morrow." Then,
turning to me, he added, "Gilbert, you are very good to come just to say
good-bye," and he put out his thin cold hand and grasped mine, while his
eyes fixed upon me with that strange, intent look that only comes into a
man's gaze when he is on the brink of the grave.
"It is a friend's duty, Burton," I answered, deeply in earnest. "But
you must still hope. Doctors are often mistaken. Why, you've a
splendid constitution, haven't you?"
"Hardly ever had a day's illness since I was a kid," was the
millionaire's reply in a low, weak voice; "but this fit has bowled me
completely over."
We endeavoured to ascertain exactly how he was seized, but neither
Reggie not the doctor could gather anything tangible.
"I became faint all of a sudden, and I know nothing more," was all the
dying man would reply. "But," he added, turning again to me, "don't
tell Mab till it's all over. Poor girl! My only regret is to leave
her. You two fellows were so very good to her back in the old days, you
won't abandon her now, will you?" he implored, speaking slowly and with
very great difficulty, tears standing in his eyes.
"Certainly not, old chap," was my answer. "If left alone she'll want
some one to advise her and to look after her interests."
"The scoundrelly lawyer chaps will do that," he snapped, with a strange
hardness in his voice, as though he entertained no love for his
solicitors. "No, I want you to see that no man marries her for her
money--you understand? Dozens of fellows are after her at this moment,
I know, but I'd rather see her dead than she should marry one of them.
She must marry for love--love, you hear? Promise me, Gilbert, that that
you'll look after her, won't you?"
Still holding his hand, I promised.
That was the last word he uttered. His pale lips twitched again, but no
sound came from them. His glassy eyes were fixed upon me with a stony,
terrible stare, as though he were endeavouring to tell me something.
Perhaps he was revealing to me the great secret--the secret of how he
had solved the mystery of fortune and become worth over a million
sterling--perhaps he was speaking of Mab. Which we knew not. His
tongue refused to articulate, the silence of death was upon him.
Thus he passed away; and thus did I find myself bound to a promise which
I intended to fulfil, even though he had not revealed to us his secret,
as we confidently expected. We believed that, knowing himself to be
dying, he had summoned us there to impart that knowledge which would
render us both rich beyond the dreams of avarice. But in this we had
been most bitterly disappointed. For five years, I confess, we had
waited, expecting that he would some day share some of his wealth with
us in return for those services we had rendered him in the past. Yet
now it seemed he had coolly disregarded his indebtedness to us, and at
the same time imposed upon me a duty by no means easy--the guardianship
of his only daughter Mabel.