"I knew him intimately," Señor Guffanta said, "it is about him and his
murder that I have come to talk."
These were the words with which he had responded to Lord Penlyn's
reception of him; and, as he uttered them, a hope had sprung up into
the young man's breast that, in the handsome Spaniard who stood before
him, some one might have been found who, from his knowledge of his
brother, would be able to throw some light upon, or clue to, his
death.
"I cannot tell you," he said, "how welcome this information is to me.
We have tried everything in our power to gather some knowledge that
might lead towards finding--first, some one who would be likely to
have a reason for his death; and, afterwards, the man who killed him.
If you knew him intimately, it may be that you can assist us."
The Señor had taken the seat offered him by Penlyn, and from the time
that he had first sat down, until now, he had not removed his dark
piercing eyes from the other's face. But, as he continued to fix his
glance upon Penlyn, there had come into his own face a look of
surprise, a look that seemed to express a baffled feeling of
consternation.
"_Caramba_," he said to himself while the other was speaking.
"_Caramba_, what mystery is there here? I have made a mistake. I have
erred in some way; how have I deceived myself? Yet I could have sworn
by the blood of San Pedro that I was sure."
Then, when Lord Penlyn had ceased speaking, he said aloud:
"You will pardon me--but I am labouring under no mistake? You are Lord
Penlyn?"
The other looked at him for a moment, wondering what such a question
meant. Then he answered him:
"There is no mistake. I am Lord Penlyn."
The Spaniard passed his hand across his eyes as he heard this, but did
not speak; and Lord Penlyn said:
"May I ask why you inquire?"
"Because--because I had thought--because I wished to be sure of whom I
was speaking with."
"You may rest assured. And now, sir, let me ask you what you know
about this unhappy Mr. Cundall and his life?"
"I know much about him. To begin with, I know that he was your
brother--your elder brother--and that you have come to possess his
fortune."
Lord Penlyn started and said: "You know that? May I ask how you know
it?"
"It is not necessary for me to say. It is sufficient that I do know
it. But it is not of that that I have come to talk."
"Of what have you come to talk then?"
"Of his murderer."
"Of his murderer!" the other repeated. "Oh! Señor Guffanta, is it
possible that you can have any clue, is it possible that you think you
will be able to find the man who killed him?"
"_I am sure of it_."
Lord Penlyn stared at him as he spoke, stared at him while in his mind
there was a feeling of astonishment, mixed with something like awe, of
his strange visitor. This dark, powerful-looking stranger, sat there
before him perfectly calm and unmoved, looking straight at him as he
spoke these words of import, "I am sure of it," and spoke them as
though he was speaking of some ordinary incident. And in his calmness
there was something that told the other that it was born of certainty.
"If you can do that, Señor Guffanta," he said, "there is nothing that
you can ask from me, there is nothing that I can give that----"
"There is nothing I want of you," the Spaniard said, interrupting him,
and making a disdainful motion with his long, brown hand. "I am not a
paid police spy."
"I beg your pardon," the other answered. "I had no thought of offence.
Only, sir, it is the wish of my life, and of some others who knew and
loved him, to see him avenged.
"And it is the wish of my life also. Will you hear a short story?"
"I will hear anything you have to say."
"Then listen. I was born in Honduras, the child of a Spanish lady and
of a friend of the old Englishman, Cundall, him from whom your
brother's wealth was derived. That friend was a scoundrel, a man who
tricked my mother into a marriage with him under a false name, who
never was her husband at all. When they had been married, as she
thought, for some few years, and when another child, my sister, had
been born, she found out the deception, and--she killed him."
"Killed him!" Penlyn exclaimed.
"Yes, dead! We Spaniards brook no dishonour, we never allow a wrong to
pass unavenged. She showed him the evidence of his falsehood in one
hand, and with the other she shot him dead upon his own verandah. She
was tried and instantly acquitted, and, in consideration of the wrong
she had suffered, a law was made constituting her legally his wife,
and making us children legitimate. But the disgrace was to her--a
high-minded, noble woman--too much; she fell ill and died. Then the
old man, Cundall, seeing that it was his friend's evil-doing that had
led to our being orphans, said that henceforth we should be his care.
So we grew up, and I had learnt to look upon myself and my sister as
his heirs, when one day there came another who, it was easy to see,
had supplanted us. It was the English lad, Walter Cundall."
"I begin to see," Penlyn said.
"At first," Señor Guffanta went on, "I hated him for spoiling our
chances, but at last I could hate him no longer. Gradually, his gentle
disposition, his way of interceding for me with his uncle, when I had
erred, above all his tenderness to my poor sister, who was sick and
deformed, won my love. Had he been my brother I could not have loved
him more. Then--then, as years went on, I committed a fault, and the
old man cast me off for ever. Another man tried to take from me the
woman I loved--she was a vile thing worth no man's love; but--no
matter how--I avenged myself. But from that day the old man turned
against me, and would neither see nor hear of me again.
"A year or two passed and then I heard from Walter, for my sister and
I had left Los Torros (the town where we had all lived) and had gone
elsewhere, that the old man was dead. 'He has left everything to me,'
Walter wrote, 'and there is no mention of you nor Juanna, but be
assured neither of you shall ever want for anything.'"
"Stop," Lord Penlyn said, "you need tell me no more. I know the
rest."
"You know the rest?" Señor Guffanta said, looking fixedly at him, "You
know the rest?"
"Yes. You are _Corot_."
A bewildered look came over the Spaniard's face, and then, after a
second's pause, he said:
"Yes. I am _Corot_. It was the name given me by the Mestizos amongst
whom I played as a boy, and it kept to me. It is you, then, Lord
Penlyn, who has set this Dobson to look for me?"
"Yes; we found your letters to him, and from one of them we believed
you to be in England. We thought that--that----"
"That I killed him?"
"You threatened him in one of your letters. We were justified in
thinking so."
"He, at least, did not think so. Read this."
He took from his pocket a letter written by Walter Cundall during the
few days he had been back in England, and gave it to Penlyn. It ran:
"_June_, 188--.
"MY DEAR COROT,
"I am delighted to hear you are in England, and have got an
appointment as agent for Don Rodriguez in London. Perhaps, now, I
shall have some respite from those fearful threats which, at
intervals, from your boyhood, you have hurled at me, at Juanna, and
every one you really love. Come and see me when you can, only come as
late as possible as I am out much; and we will have a talk about the
old place and old times.
"Ever yours, in haste, W. C.
"P.S.--I wish poor Juanna could have lived to know of your good
fortune."
"Do you think I should murder that man, Lord Penlyn?" Señor Guffanta
asked quietly. "That man who, when he heard of my good fortune, could
think of how happy it would have made my beloved sister--she who is
now in her grave."
"Whatever I may have thought must be ascribed to the intense desire I
and my friends have to find his murderer, and you must pardon the
suspicion that came to our minds in reading your letters. But, Señor
Guffanta, let us forget that and speak about finding him, since you
also are anxious to avenge Walter, and feel sure that you can do so."
"I am perfectly sure. And before long I shall stand face to face with
him. Then his doom is certain!"
Again Lord Penlyn noticed the self-constrained calm of the man, and
again he told himself that he spoke with such an air of certainty that
it was impossible to doubt him. For one moment the thought came to his
mind that this apparent calmness, this certainty of finding the
murderer, might be a rôle assumed by Guffanta to prevent suspicion
falling upon him. But on reflection that thought took flight. Had he
been the murderer he would never have revealed himself, would never
have allowed it to be known that he was _Corot_, the man against whom
circumstances had looked so black. And Cundall's letter was sufficient
to show that what the Señor had told him, about the friendship that
had existed between them, was true.
"You must know more than any of us, Señor Guffanta, as no doubt you
do--to inspire you with such confidence of finding him. Had he any
enemy in Honduras, who may now be in England, and have done this
deed?"
"To my knowledge, none. He was a man who made friends, not enemies."
"How then, do you hope to find the man who killed him?"
"I hope nothing, Lord Penlyn, for I am sure to find him. What will you
say when I tell you that I have seen his murderer's face?"
"You have seen his face? You know it!" the other exclaimed, springing
to his feet. "Oh, let me at once send for the detectives and the
lawyers, so that you may describe him to them, and let them endeavour
to find him. But," he said suddenly, "where have you seen him?"
There was an almost contemptuous smile upon the Señor Guffanta's face
as he said:
"Send for no one--at least, not yet. If by the detectives you mean
Dobson, the heavy man, he will not assist me, and of the lawyers I
know nothing; and at present I will not tell you when and where I have
seen this man. But, sir--but, Lord Penlyn, I know one thing. When that
man and I once more stand face to face, Walter Cundall, who shielded
me from his uncle's wrath, who was as a brother to my beloved Juanna,
will be avenged."
"What will you do?" Penlyn asked in an almost awestruck whisper. "You
will not take the law into your own hands and kill him?"
"No; it maybe not! But with these hands alone," and he held them out
extended to Penlyn as he spoke, "I will drag him to a prison which he
shall only leave for a scaffold. Drag him there, I say, unless my
blood gets the better of my reason, and I throttle him like a dog by
the way."
He, too, had risen in his excitement; and as he stood towering in his
height, which was great, above the other, and extended his long sinewy
hands in front of him, while his deep brown skin turned to an almost
darker hue, Penlyn felt that this man before him would be the avenger
of his brother's death. So terrible did he look, that the other
wondered how that murderer would feel when he should be in his grasp.
He stepped forward to Guffanta and held out his hand to him. "Sir," he
said, "I thank God that you and I have met. But can we do nothing to
assist you in your search? May I not tell the detectives what you
know?"
"You may tell them everything I have told you; it will not enable them
to be in my way. But what I have to do I must do by myself." He paused
a moment; then he said: "It may be that when you do tell them, they
will still think that I am the man----"
"No, no!"
"Yes, it may be so. Well, if they want to spy upon my actions, if they
want to know what I do and where I go, I am to be found at the Hôtel
Lepanto--that is when I am not here in this house, for I must ask
you--I have a reason--to let me come to you as I want."
Penlyn bowed, and said some words to the effect that he should always
be free of the house, and the other continued:
"My business here as agent for Don Rodriguez, a wealthy merchant of
Honduras, will not occupy me much at present, the rest of my time will
be devoted to the one purpose of finding that man."
"I pray that you may be successful."
"I shall be successful," the Spaniard answered quietly. "And now," he
said, "I will ask you to do one thing."
"Ask me anything and I will do it."
"You have a garden behind your house," Señor Guffanta said, "how is
admission obtained to it?"
Lord Penlyn stared at him wonderingly, not knowing what this question
might mean, and then he said:
"There is an entrance from the back of this house, and another from an
iron gate in the side street. But why do you ask? no one ever goes
into it. It is damp, and even the paths are partly overgrown with
weeds."
"There are keys to those entrances?"
"Yes."
"And in your possession?" and, as he spoke, his dark eyes were fixed
very intently on the young man.
"They are somewhere about the house, but they are never used."
"I wish them found. Then, when they are found, I must ask you to give
me your word of honour that no living creature, not even you yourself,
will enter that garden without my knowing it. Will you do this?"
"I will do it," Penlyn said. "But I wish you would tell me your
reason."
"I will tell you nothing more at present. But remember that I have a
task to perform and that I shall do it."
Then he left him, and walked away to the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square.
"What I have seen to-day," he said to himself, "would have baffled
many a man. But you, Miguel, are different from other men. You are not
baffled, you are only still more determined to do what you have to do.
But who is he?--who is he? _Caramba!_ he is not Lord Penlyn!"