About the same time that Sir Paul Raughton received the telegram from
London, and was taking counsel with one or two of his elder guests as
to whether he should at once tell Ida the dreadful news or leave it
till the morning, Lord Penlyn entered his hotel in town. A change had
come over the young man--a change of such a nature that any one, who
had seen him twenty-four hours before, would scarcely have believed
him to be the same person. His face, which usually bore a good colour,
was ghastly pale, his eyes had great hollows and deep rings round
them, and even his lips looked as if the blood had left them. He had
come from his club--where, since it had been discovered who the victim
of last night's tragedy was, nothing else but the murder had been
talked about, as was also the case in every club and public place in
London--and he now mounted the steps of the hotel with the manner of a
man who was either very weak or very weary.
"Do you know where my servant is?" he asked of the hall porter, who
held the door open for him; and even this man noticed that his voice
sounded strange and broken, and that he looked ill.
"He is at his tea, my lord; shall I send for him?"
"No, but send him to me when he has finished. We shall return to my
house to-night."
The porter bowed, and said, "I have sent a letter to your room, my
lord," and Penlyn went on. His apartment, consisting of a sitting-room
and bed-room, was on the ground floor of the hotel, and was usually
given to guests of distinction (who were likely, in the landlord's
opinion, to pay handsomely for the accommodation), as it saved them
the trouble of going up any stairs. The hotel was a private one; a
house that did not welcome persons of whom it knew nothing, but made
those whom it did know, entirely at their ease. It was very quiet,
shutting its doors at midnight unless any of its visitors were at a
ball or party, in which case, if some of those visitors were ladies,
the porter's deputy sat up for them; but, when they were gentlemen,
furnishing them with latch-keys. As sometimes there were not more than
three or four gentlemen in this extremely select hotel at one time,
this was an obviously better system than having a night-porter.
Lord Penlyn took up the letter that was lying on his table, and
proceeded to open it, throwing himself at the same time wearily into
an arm-chair. He recognised Ida's handwriting, and as he did so he
wondered if, by any possibility, the letter could be about the subject
of which all London was talking to-day---the murder of Walter Cundall.
When he saw that there was another one inclosed in it, the handwriting
of which he did not know, his curiosity was so aroused (for he
wondered how a stranger to him should know, or suppose, that he was at
Belmont), that he opened this one first and read it. Read it carefully
from beginning to end, and then dropped it on the floor as he put his
hands up to his head, and wailed, "Murdered! Oh my God! Murdered! When
he had written this letter only an hour before." And then he wept long
and bitterly.
The letter ran:
MY BROTHER,
"Since I saw you last Saturday I have been thinking deeply upon what
passed between us, and I have come to the conclusion that, after all,
it will be best for nothing to be said to any one on the subject of
our father's first marriage; not even to Miss Raughton or her father.
By keeping back the fact that you have an elder brother, no harm is
done to any one. I shall never marry now, and consequently, you are
only taking possession of what will be yours, or your children's,
eventually. No one but you, your friend Mr. Smerdon, and I, know of
this secret; let no one ever know it. We love the same woman, and,
when she is your wife, I shall have the right to love her with a
brother's love. Let us unite together to make her life as perfectly
happy as possible. To do this we must not begin by undeceiving her as
to the position she is to hold.
"I suggest this, nay, I command you to do this, because of my love for
her, a love which desires that her life may be without pain or sorrow.
I shall not witness her happiness with you, not yet at least, for I do
not think I could bear that; but, in some future years, it may be that
time will have so tempered my sorrow to me, that I shall be able to
see you all in all to each other, perhaps to even witness your
children playing at her knee, and to feel content. I pray God that it
may be so.
"Remember, therefore, what I, by my right as your elder brother--which
I exert for the first and last time!--charge you to do. Retain your
position, still be to the world what you have been, and devote your
life to her.
"I have one other word to say. The Occleve property is a comfortable,
though not a remarkably fine, one. You have heard of my means, and
they are scarcely exaggerated. If, at any time, there is any sum of
money you or she may want, come to me and you shall have it.
"Let us forget the bitter words we each spoke in our interview. Our
lives are bound up in one cause, and that, and our relationship,
should prevent their ever being remembered.
"Your brother,
"WALTER."
When he was calmer, he picked the letter up again and read it through
once more, having carefully locked his door before he did so, for he
did not wish his valet to see his emotion. But the re-reading of it
brought him no peace, indeed seemed only to increase his anguish. When
the man-servant knocked at his door he bade him go away for a time, as
he was engaged and could not be disturbed; and then he passed an hour
pacing up and down the room, muttering to himself, starting at the
slightest sound, and nearly mad with his thoughts. These thoughts he
could not collect; he did not know what steps to take next. What was
he to tell Ida or Sir Paul--or was he to tell them anything? The dead
man, the murdered brother, had enjoined on him, in what he could not
have known was to be a dying request, that he was to keep the secret.
Why then should he say anything? There was no need to do so! He was
Lord Penlyn now, there was nothing to tell! No one but Philip, who was
trustworthy, knew that he had ever been anything else. No one would
ever know it. And he shuddered as he thought that, if the world did
ever know that Walter Cundall had been his brother, then the world
would believe him to be his murderer! No! it must never be known that
he and that other were of the same blood.
He could not sit still, he must move about, he must leave the house!
He rang for his man and told him to pack up and pay the bill, and take
his things round to Occleve House, and that he should arrive there
late; and the man seemed surprised at his orders.
"Will you not dress, my lord?" he asked. "You were to dine out
to-night."
"To-night? Yes! true! I had forgotten it; but I shall not go. Mr.
Cundall who was killed last night was a friend of mine; I am going to
his club to hear if any more particulars have been made known." And
then he went out.
The valet was a quiet, discreet man, but as he packed his master's
portmanteaus he reflected a good deal on the occurrences of the past
few days. First of all, he remembered the visit of Mr. Cundall on
Saturday to Occleve House, and that the footman had told him that he
had heard some excited conversation going on as he had passed the
room, though he had not been able to catch the words and he also
called to mind that, an hour afterwards, Lord Penlyn had told him to
take some things round to this hotel (which they were now leaving as
suddenly as they had come), and also that they would not pay their
visit to Sir Paul Raughton's for the Ascot week. Was there any
connecting link between Mr. Cundall's visit to his master, and his
master leaving the house and giving up Ascot? And was there any
connection between all this and the murder of Mr. Cundall, and the
visible agitation of Lord Penlyn? He could not believe it, but still
it did seem strange that this visit of Mr. Cundall's should have been
followed by such an alteration of his master's plans, and by his own
horrible death.
"What time did my governor come in last night?" he said to the porter,
as he and that worthy stood in the hall waiting for a cab that had
been sent for.
"I don't know," the porter answered. "There was only his lordship and
another gent staying in the house, except the Dean's family upstairs,
and some foreign swells, and none of them keep late hours, so we gave
him and the other gent a key and left a jet of gas burning in the
'all. But both on 'em must have come in precious late, for Jim, who
sleeps on the first floor, said he never heard either of them. I say,
this is a hawful thing about this Mr. Cundall."
"It is so! Well, there's the cab. Jim, put the portmanteaus on the
top. Here you are, porter!" and he slipped the usual tip into the
porter's hand, and wishing him "good evening," went off.
"Well," he said to himself as he drove to Occleve House, "I should
like to know what we went to that hotel for three days for! It wasn't
because of the Dean's daughters nor yet for the foreign ladies,
because he never spoke to any of them. Well, I'll buy a 'Special' and
read about the murder."
Lord Penlyn walked on to Pall Mall, going very slowly and in an almost
dazed state, and surprised several whom he met by his behaviour to
them. Men whom he knew intimately he just nodded to instead of
stopping to speak with for a moment, and some he did not seem to see
at all. He was wondering what further particulars he would hear when
he got to Cundall's club, and also when Smerdon would be back. That
gentleman had started for Occleve Chase on Monday morning, but must by
now have received a telegram Penlyn had sent him, telling him to
return at once. In it he had cautiously, and without mentioning any
names, given him to understand that their visitor of last Saturday had
died suddenly, and he expected that he would return by the next train.
He had started off for Cundall's club, thinking to find out what was
known, but, when he got there, he reflected that he could scarcely
walk into a club, of which he was not a member, simply to make
inquiries about even so important a subject as this. He could give no
grounds for his eagerness to learn anything fresh, could not even say
that he was particularly intimate with the dead man. Would it not look
strange for him to be forcing his way in and making inquiries? Yes!
and not only that, but it would draw attention on him, and it would be
better to gather particulars elsewhere. He would go to his own club
and find out what was known there.
So, looking very wan and miserable, he walked on to "Black's," and
there he found the murder as much a subject of discussion as it was
everywhere else. All the evening papers were full of it; the men who
always profess to know something more than their fellows, whether it
be with regard to a dark horse for a race, an understanding with
Germany, or the full particulars of the next great divorce case--these
men had heard all sorts of curious stories--that Cundall had a wife
who had tracked him from the Tropics to slay him; that he had
committed suicide because he was ruined; that he had been murdered by
an outraged husband! There was nothing too far-fetched for these
gentlemen!
Sifted down as the case was thoroughly by the papers, the facts that
had come out, since first his body was discovered, amounted to this:
He had been at his club late in the evening, and his brougham was
waiting outside for him when the storm began. Then he had sent word
down to his coachman to say that, as he had a letter to write, the
carriage had better go home and he would take a cab later on. Other
testimony, gathered by the papers, went on to show that he had sat on
at his club, reading a little, and then going to a writing-table where
he had sat some time; that when he had written his letter he went to a
large arm-chair and read it over more than once, and then put a stamp
on it, and, putting it in his pocket, still sat on and on, evidently
thinking deeply. Two or three members said they had spoken to him, and
one that he had told Cundall he did not seem very gay, but that he had
replied in his usual pleasant manner, that he was very well, but had a
good deal to occupy his mind. It was some time past two o'clock (the
club, having a large number of Members of Parliament on its roll,
was a late one) before the storm was over, and he rose to go. The
hall-porter was apparently the last person who spoke to him alive,
asking him if he should call a cab, but receiving for answer that, as
the air was now so cool and fresh, he would walk home through the
Park, it being so near to Grosvenor Place. The porter standing at the
door of the club, himself to inhale the air, saw Mr. Cundall drop a
letter in the pillar-box close by, and then go on. The only other
person he noticed about, at that time, was a man who looked like a
labourer, who was going the same way as Mr. Cundall. The sentries who
had been on duty at, and around, St. James's Palace were also
interrogated, and the one who had been outside Clarence House, stated
that he distinctly remembered a gentleman answering to Mr. Cundall's
description passing by him into the Park, at about a quarter to three.
It was still raining slightly, and he had his umbrella up. He, too,
saw the labourer, or mechanic, walking some fifteen yards behind him,
and supposed he was going to his early work. From the time Mr. Cundall
passed this man until the policeman found him dead, no one seemed to
have seen him.
With the exception of the medical evidence, which stated that he had
been stabbed to, and through, the heart by one swift, powerful blow,
that must have caused instantaneous death, there was little more to be
told. Judging from the state of the ground, there had been no
struggle, a fact which would justify the idea that the murder had been
planned and premeditated. The workman might have easily planned it
himself in the time he followed him from outside his club to the time
they were in the Park together, but he would have had to be provided
with an extraordinarily long knife, such as workmen rarely carry. But,
even had he not been the murderer, he must have seen the murder
committed, since he was close at hand. It was, therefore, imperative
that this man should be found. But to find one man in a city with four
millions and a quarter of inhabitants was no easy task, especially
when there was nothing by which to trace him. The sentry by whom he
passed nearest thought he seemed to be a man of about five or six and
twenty, with a brown moustache. But how many thousands of men were
there in London to whom this description would apply!
Lord Penlyn sat there reading the "Specials," listening to the
different opinions expressed, and particularly noting the revengeful
utterances of men who had known Cundall. Their grief was loud, and
strongly uttered, and it was evident that the regular police, or
detective, force might be, if necessary, augmented by amateurs who
would leave no stone unturned to try and get a clue to the murderer.
Amongst others, he noticed one young man who was particularly
grief-stricken, and who was constantly appealed to by those who
surrounded him; and, on asking a fellow-member who he was, he learnt
that he was a Mr. Stuart, the secretary of his dead brother. It
happened that he had been brought into the club by a man who had known
Cundall well.
"To-morrow," Penlyn heard him say, and he started as he heard it, "I
am going to make a thorough investigation of all his papers. As far as
I or his City agents know, he hadn't a relation in the world; but
surely his correspondence must give us some idea of whom to
communicate with. And, until this morning, I should have said he had
not got an enemy in the world either."
"You think, then, that this dastardly murder is the work of an enemy,
and not for mere robbery?" the gentleman asked who had brought him
into the club.
"I am sure of it! As to the workman who is supposed to have done
it--well, if he did do it, he was only a workman in disguise. No! he
had some enemy, perhaps some one who owed him money, or whose path he
had been enabled by his wealth to cross, and that is the man who
killed him. And, by the grace of Heaven, I am going to find that man
out."
Penlyn still sat there, and as he heard Stuart utter these words he
felt upon what a precipice he stood. Suppose that, in the papers which
were about to be ransacked, there should be any that proved that
Walter Cundall was his eldest brother, and that he, Penlyn, had only
learnt it two days before he was murdered. Would not everything point
to him as the Cain who had slain his brother, and was he not making
appearances worse against him by keeping silence? He must tell some
one, he could keep the horrible secret no longer. And he must have the
sympathy of some one dear to him; he would confide in Ida! Surely, she
would not believe him to be the murderer of his own brother! Yes, he
would go down to Belmont and tell her all. Better it should come from
him than that Stuart should discover it, and publish it to the world.
"I hope you may find him out," several men said in answer to Stuart's
exclamation. "The brute deserves something worse than hanging. If
Cundall's murderer gets off, it is the wickedest thing that ever
happened." Then one said: "Is there any clue likely to be got at
through the wound?"
"No," Stuart answered, "I think not. Though the surgeon who has
examined it says that it was made by no ordinary knife or dagger."
"What does he think it was, then?" they asked.
"He says the wound is more like those he has seen in the East. The
dagger, he thinks, must have been semicircular and of a kind the Arabs
often use, especially the Algerian Arabs."
"I never knew that!" one said; "but then I have never been to Algiers.
Who has? Here, Penlyn, you were there once, weren't you?"
"Yes," Penlyn said, and his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his
mouth as he uttered the words; "but I never saw or heard of a knife or
dagger of that description."
Stuart looked at Lord Penlyn as he spoke, and noticed the faltering
way in which he did so. Then, in a moment, the thought flashed into
his mind that this was the man who had won the woman whom his generous
friend and patron had loved. Could he--but no, the idea was
ridiculous! He was the winner, Cundall the loser. Successful men had
no reason to kill their unsuccessful rivals!