"Her ladyship is with the Earl in the blue boudoir, sir." And eyeing
Logan with some surprise, he added, "Will you step this way?"
We followed him upstairs, along a corridor on the first floor, until he
opened a door, and bowing said--
"Mr Woodhouse desires to see you urgently, m'lady."
Next second the four of us were in the small elegantly furnished room
upholstered in pale blue damask and gold, where the Earl and his wife
were in consultation.
"You!" he cried in fury, when his eyes fell upon Lolita. "Leave this
place at once, woman! Marigold has just told me everything--that it was
you who killed your lover in the park--that it was you who--"
"Excuse me, my lord," interrupted Logan, coming forward, whereupon at
sight of him the Countess fell back with a loud cry of dismay--a deathly
pallor overspreading her countenance.
Her hand went to her throat convulsively and she gasped as though she
were being strangled. Then, next instant, her teeth were set hard, her
nails were clenched into the palms, her shoulders were elevated, and she
stood rigid as a statue, and yet magnificent in her dinner-gown of pale
pink and shimmering silver.
She tried to face Lolita, the woman whom she had hounded to her death,
but her gaze wavered, and I saw that her effort to regain her
self-composure was an utterly vain one. She trembled visibly from head
to foot, while the expression in her eyes was sufficient to show the
terror now consuming her.
The Earl noticing the change in her, and how she shrank from us, looked
from Keene to the stranger, and asked--
"Well, sir? I have not the pleasure of knowing you. Who are you?"
"My name is Alfred Logan, architect by profession and--well, adventurer
by inclination," he replied. "I presume from your words that your wife
has denounced your sister, Lady Lolita, as the murderess of young Hugh
Wingfield in your park, and has also laid certain other charges against
that lady? Fortunately, however, I am in a position to reveal to you
the other side of the question, and reveal facts which I believe you
will find both startling and remarkable."
"Tell me?" exclaimed George hoarsely. "I suppose you intend to
retaliate by making charges against my wife--eh?"
"Yes!" cried the unhappy woman, clinging to her husband. "That man is
my worst enemy, George--save me from him--save me if you love me!"
"Your husband has no power to save you, madam," exclaimed Logan in a
cold distinct voice, while we all stood rooted to the spot. "It is my
duty, knowing the truth as I do, to tell it, and to leave your husband
to form his own conclusions. To-night, knowing that Lady Lolita, driven
to desperation by you, had threatened to commit suicide, rather than a
scandal should rest upon her noble house, you have written to her,
telling her of your intention of making these charges, with the sole
object of causing her death by her own hand, and thus placing yourself
in a position of safety. Heaven, however, is just, and I am here to
reveal those things that you have hidden from your husband--to tell the
world what I know regarding your past."
"Ah! no!" she cried, covering her face with her hands. "No! Enough!
Spare me!"
"You have not spared Lady Lolita, therefore you must hear the hard and
bitter truth." Then, disregarding the terrible effect his words had
upon her, he faced the Earl, and said, "What I am about to say will be
borne out partially by our friend here, Mr Richard Keene--whom you know
by the name of Smeeton--partly by Mr Woodhouse, and partly by your
sister herself."
"Go on," said the Earl in a low voice. "I am all attention."
"Then, in order to understand events in their true sequence, I must
begin at the very beginning," he said. "You will recollect that two
years before your marriage you, with Lady Lolita, spent the spring at
the Villa Aurora at San Remo, while Lady Marigold was staying with her
mother at the _Hotel Royal_, close by. At the same hotel was staying
Richard Keene, the man you afterwards met out in Africa under the name
of Smeeton, together with his valet, a good-looking young fellow named
Hugh Wingfield. The latter had very foolishly given a promise of
marriage to a rather pretty young French lady's maid named Marie
Lejeune, but on sight of Lady Lolita, he forsook the young woman and
fell madly in love with her ladyship. The latter, of course, had no
idea at the time that he was a valet. They first met casually when
walking in one of the olive woods behind the town, and he rendered her
some little service in arranging the easel upon which she was sketching.
He spoke well, dressed well, and as he mentioned he was staying at the
_Royal_, the best hotel, she naturally concluded that he was a
gentleman. She had, of course, no suspicion of the passion for her
which had been aroused within his heart. The young Frenchwoman,
however, quickly discovered the truth, and her intense jealousy was at
once aroused. She was a woman of rather questionable character, being
in association with two Italian adventurers named Belotto and Ostini,
who lived over at Mentone, and at once set to work to intrigue against
Lady Lolita and Lady Marigold Gordon. The two being great friends, in
consequence of your engagement to Lady Marigold, revenge did not present
any very great difficulty to that interesting trio who lived by their
wits. I admit that I, myself, was living upon what I could win at the
tables, and being at that time very hard-up had been induced to join
them in various nefarious schemes which, although they brought us the
wherewithal to live, caused us to be wanted by the police for helping
ourselves to other people's property."
"To put it plainly," remarked the Earl, "you were thieves."
"Exactly," Logan replied. "But our recent schemes had met with little
success and we were at our wits' end for money, when Marie Lejeune, who
was a born adventuress, suggested a scheme whereby, in addition to
revenging herself upon the woman who had robbed her of her lover, we
could blackmail both Lady Marigold and Lady Lolita. Therefore, after
considerable forethought and much ingenious intrigue, the scheme was put
into practice. A watch was placed upon Lady Marigold, and it was found
that she was in the habit of meeting clandestinely on the sea-road
towards Bordighera an old friend, a certain Major Atherton, and that she
one day went over to Monte Carlo with him in secret, where she was seen
by the valet Wingfield, who told his master. It was found that Atherton
was an old lover of her ladyship's, and a letter of hers was secured in
which Lady Marigold wrote, `I am only accepting George for his money.
You know my heart is yours alone.' Having secured that, the intriguers
turned their attention to young Wingfield and Lady Lolita. Marie, with
the Frenchwoman's keen jealousy, discovered that she had met the young
man once or twice, and that he had copied his master's checker-board
cipher, and with her own name as the keyword, corresponded with her by
its means. Lady Lolita had already discovered, to her great surprise,
that the prepossessing young man was desperately in love with her, and
his affection rather amused her than otherwise, for every woman is
flattered by attention. At last, however, the adventurers, of whom I
myself was one, contrived to effect a coup that was about as ingenious
as any devised by a gang of evildoers. The love-sick valet--still
concealing his real avocation--had arranged to meet her ladyship after
dinner one evening in the olive wood at the back of your villa, but his
master gaining possession of a cipher message which Lady Lolita had sent
him, was, of course, able to read it and resolved upon watching the
pair. What he saw he will, perhaps, relate with his own lips." And
then the speaker paused and turned to Richard Keene.
"Yes," he said, "as far as I know, all that Mr Logan says is absolutely
correct. Young Wingfield was my valet. He copied my checker-board
cipher, and by its means had the audacity to correspond with her
ladyship. When I realised what was going on I felt impelled to go to
her and tell her. Yet she being a perfect stranger to me, it was really
no affair of mine, so I hesitated until the evening in question, when I
watched my valet meet her and walk with her in the olive grove about
half a mile from the villa. It was one of those brilliant moonlight
nights of early spring on the Mediterranean, and it seemed to me that
her ladyship was in no way averse to the young fellow's attention. They
walked together for half an hour or so, in earnest conversation, when he
at length took leave of her and, apparently at her desire, left her to
return home alone. I followed her in secret, but she had not, however,
gone far before I heard her utter a cry of surprise and dismay. `Help!
help!' she cried, and in the darkness I saw black figures scuffling, the
report of a revolver, followed by a man's loud groan. I rushed forward,
but ere I reached the spot the men's figures I had seen distinctly had
disappeared, but in their place stood the woman Marie Lejeune. Upon the
ground lay a man dying, and just as Wingfield, attracted by the shot
returned, the woman, who had bent tenderly over the prostrate man rose,
and in her voluble French accused Lady Lolita of murder. At first her
ladyship was too startled and too utterly dumbfounded to deny this
astounding allegation, but when she did the Frenchwoman declared to
Wingfield that she had been witness of the crime, and taking up the
revolver lying at the poor fellow's side pointed out that the weapon
belonged to Lady Lolita's brother, the young Earl of Stanchester--that
his name was engraved upon it. Denials were useless, but the crafty
Marie, determined to await her opportunity to levy blackmail, urged her
ladyship to take back the revolver, and return to the villa at once,
which she did. But as she turned away I addressed her, offering to walk
home with her, told her my name and escorted her to her own gate. My
own opinion was that she had met the man there and deliberately shot
him, an opinion which I have held till quite recently, for it was
strengthened by the fact that the dead man, when discovered next day by
the police, was found to be one of her most intimate friends and
admirers, Lieutenant Randolph Glover, a wealthy young man who had, after
distinguishing himself at Ladysmith, been invalided to the Riviera."
"I recollect the tragedy quite well," declared the Earl. "And also what
a great sensation it caused. The police theory was that he had fallen
into the hands of sharpers, who had robbed him at _roulette_ and
afterwards made away with him, fearing his revelations."
"Exactly. And the police theory was right," Keene said. "Marie, who
had fascinated him, while her accomplices had extracted from him almost
his last penny, shot him herself, without a doubt. But this did not
prevent her levying blackmail upon poor Lady Lolita by threatening to
denounce her as the actual assassin. She had also convinced Wingfield
of her ladyship's guilt, pointing out their intimate friendship
previously, and insinuating that the tragedy was owing to jealousy. I
must admit that I believed her ladyship guilty, even though, when we met
on the following day and she spoke to me on the promenade, asking me to
preserve silence, she again denied her guilt. I promised her to remain
silent, hence the police of San Remo were in ignorance of her alleged
connexion with the crime, and believed it, as it really was, a case of
robbery and murder. Yet Lady Lolita was held in bondage by that woman."
Then Keene paused, and a dead silence again fell among us.
"Well," remarked Logan at last. "You have heard the truth regarding
that incident by one who was its eye-witness. Therefore, I will go
further and tell you what happened afterwards."
I looked at the proud woman who had sneered at my love for Lolita, and
who was now swaying pale and unsteadily before us, but even then, after
these startling revelations, I did not discern with what marvellous
cleverness and daring she had schemed to shield herself at the price of
the life of my well-beloved.