That night Guffanta stood in the library of what had once been Walter
Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place, in the room in which the murdered
man had spent hours of agony after he had learned that Ida Raughton's
love was given to another; and to Mr. Stuart he told all that he knew.
To Lord Penlyn's request, nay to his command, that he should tell him
all, he paid no attention; indeed, he vouchsafed no words to him
beyond those of suspicion and accusation.
"I know so much," he said, speaking in the calm, cold voice which had
only once failed him--the time when he had discovered that the
assassin had in some way obtained entrance to the deserted garden
during his absence, "as to be able to say that you are not your
brother's murderer. But, unless there is something very strange that
as yet I do not know, that murderer is known to you, and you are
shielding him from me."
"It is false!" Lord Penlyn said, advancing to him and standing boldly
and defiantly before him. "As God hears me, I swear that it is false.
And you _shall_ tell me what you know, you shall justify your vile
suspicions of me."
"Yes," the Señor replied, "I shall justify them, but not _to_ you.
Meanwhile, have a care that I do not prove you to be an accomplice in
this murder. Have a care, I say!"
"I defy you and your accusations. And the law shall make you speak out
plainly."
"I am about to speak out plainly, this very night. But I am not going
to speak plainly to the man whose house affords a refuge to his
brother's murderer."
Lord Penlyn sprang at him, as he heard these words fall from his lips,
as he had once sprung at his own brother in the Park when that brother
told him he was bearing a name not rightly his; and once more he felt
himself in a grasp of iron, and powerless.
"Be careful!" Señor Guffanta said, as he hurled him back, "be careful,
or I shall do you an injury."
Stuart had endeavoured to come between them, but before he could do so
the short struggle was over, and then the Spaniard turned to him and
said, "I must speak with you alone. Come with me," and, turning, left
the room.
Before Stuart followed him he spoke to Penlyn, and said: "Do not take
this too seriously to heart. This man is evidently under some
delusion, if not as to the actual murderer, at least as to your
connection with the crime. Perhaps, when he has told me what he knows,
we shall find out where the error lies; and then he will ask your
pardon for his suspicions."
"It is too awful!" Penlyn said, "too awful to be borne. And I can do
nothing. I wish I could have killed him as he stood there falsely
accusing me, but he is a giant in strength."
"Let me go to him now," Stuart said; "and do not think of his words.
Remember, he, too, is excited at having seen the man again and missed
him. And if he does not absolutely bind me to silence I will tell you
all." Then he, also, went away. And that night, in Walter Cundall's
library, Señor Guffanta told his story. Told it calmly and
dispassionately, but with a fulness of detail that struck a chill to
Stuart's heart.
"I had been but a few days in London," he said, "when I learnt by
Walter's own hand--in the letter you have seen--that he was also here,
and that I was to go and see him. I was eager to do so, and on the
very night he was murdered, on that fatal Monday night, I set out to
visit him. He had told me to come late, and knowing that he was a man
much in the world, and also that, from living in Honduras, where the
nights alone are cool, one rarely learns to go to bed early, I did go
late; so late that the clocks were striking midnight as I reached his
house. But, when I stood outside it, there was no light of any kind to
be seen, only a faint glimmer from a lamp in the hall. 'He has gone to
his bed,' I said to myself, 'and the house is closed for the night.
Well, it is indeed late, I will come again.' And so I turned away,
and, knowing that there was a road through your Park, though I had not
gone by it, I determined to return that way."
"Through the Park--where he was murdered?" Stuart asked.
"Yes, by that way. But before I reached the gates, and when I was
outside the Palace of your Queen, Buckingham Palace, the storm that
had been threatening broke over me. _Caramba!_ it was a storm to drown
a man, a storm such as we see sometimes in the tropics, but which I
had never thought to see here. It descended in vast sheets of water,
it was impossible to stir without being instantaneously drenched to
the skin, and so I sought shelter in a porch close at hand. There,
seeing no one pass me but some poor half-drowned creature who looked
as though the rain could make his misery no greater than it was, I
waited and waited--I had no protection, no umbrella--and heard the
quarters and half-hours, and the hours tolled by the clock. At last,
as it was striking two, the storm almost ceased, and, leaving my
shelter, I crossed the road and entered the Park."
"Yes!" Stuart said in a whisper.
"Yes, I entered the Park, and went on round the bend, and so, under
the dripping trees, through what I have since learnt, is called the
'Mall.'"
"For God's sake, go on!" Stuart exclaimed.
"I had passed some short distance on my road meeting no living
creature, when but a little distance ahead of me I saw two figures
struggling, the figures of two men. Then I saw one fall, and the
other--not seeing me, there were trees between us--passed swiftly by.
But I saw him and his face, the face of a young man dressed as a
peasant, or, as you say here, a workman; a young man with a brown
moustache."
For a moment Señor Guffanta paused, and then he continued:
"I ran to the fallen man, and--it was Walter--dead! Stabbed to the
heart! I called him by his name, I kissed him, and felt his breast;
but he was dead! And then, in a moment, it came to my mind that it was
not with him I had to do; it was with the murderer. I sprang to my
feet, I left him there--there, dead in the mud and the water with
which his blood now mingled--and, as quickly as I could go, I retraced
my steps after that murderer. And God is good! I had wasted but two or
three moments with my poor dead friend, and ere I again reached the
gates of the Park I saw before me the figure of the man who had passed
me under the trees. He was still walking swiftly, and once or twice he
looked round, as though fearing he was followed. But I, who have
tracked savage beasts to their lairs, and Indians to their haunts,
knew how to track him. Keeping well behind him and at a fair distance,
sometimes screening myself behind the pillar on a doorstep, and
sometimes crossing the road, sometimes even letting myself fall back
still farther, I followed him. At one time, when I first brought him
into my sight again, it had been in my thoughts to spring upon him,
and there at once to kill him or take him prisoner. And then I thought
it best not to do so. We had moved far from the scene; who was to
prove, how was I to prove that it was he who had done this deed, and
not I? And there was blood upon my clothes and hands--it was plainly
visible! I could see it myself! blood that had flown from Walter's
dead heart on to me as I took him in my arms upon the ground. No, I
said, I must follow him, I must know where he lives, then I will take
fresh counsel with myself as to what I shall do. So I went on, still
following him. And by this time the dawn was breaking! He went on and
on, walking, perhaps, for half-an-hour or so, though it seemed far
more to me; but at last he stopped, and I had now some difficulty in
preventing him from seeing me. He had stopped at a gate in a wall, and
with a key had quickly opened it."
"The gate of the garden of Occleve House!" Stuart exclaimed, quivering
with excitement.
"Yes," the Señor answered, "the gate of the garden of Occleve House."
"My God!" the other said.
"Yes, it was that gate. And now I had to be careful. I was determined
to see where he had gone to through that gate, what he was doing in
that garden; but how to do it? If I looked through the railings he
would see me, he would know he was discovered--he might even then be
able to escape me! If I had had my pistol with me, I would have stood
by the gate and looked at him through it, and then, if necessary,
would have shot him dead. But I had it not; I had thought of no need
for it when I left the hotel that night. I did not know what was
before me when I went out. But I knew I must do something at once, and
so, seeing that the street was empty and no creature stirring, I
advanced near to the gate, stretched myself flat upon the _pavé_, and
with my head upon the ground looked under the lowest part of the
railings and saw----"
"What?" Stuart asked, interrupting him again in his excitement.
"A changed man, one different from him I had followed. Still a young
man with a brown moustache, but a young man whose habit was that of a
gentleman. He was dressed now in a dark, well-made suit, and with his
hands he was rolling up the peasant dress I had seen him wear. Then he
stooped over what seemed to be a hole, or declivity, near the wall and
dropped the suit into it, and arranged the weeds and long grass above
it, and then slowly he went to the house, and, taking again a key from
his pocket, entered the door."
"What man could thus have had the entrance to the back of the house?"
Stuart asked. "I am bewildered with horrible thoughts!"
"I also was bewildered, but I am now no longer so. I knew the man's
face; now--to-day--I know for certain who he was. Within the last few
days it flashed upon me, yet I doubted; but my doubts are satisfied. I
only learned of his existence ten days ago, or I should have suspected
him before."
"Who was it?" Stuart said. "Tell me at once."
"Wait yet a moment, and listen to me. As I saw that man enter the
house, a house that I, a stranger, could see was the mansion of some
person of importance, it came to me, to my mind, that this was the
owner, the master of that house, who had killed my friend. His reason
for doing so I could not guess--it might have been for the love of a
woman, or for hate, or about money--but that it was so I was
confident. And I said to myself, 'So! you cannot escape me! I know
your house, to-morrow I shall know your name, and, if in two or three
days the police have not got you in their power--I will wait that
while, for it is better they should take you than I--then I will kill
you.' And I went away thinking thus; there was no need to watch more.
I held him, for he could not escape I thought, in my hand."
"But it was not the owner of the house," Stuart said, "it was not Lord
Penlyn who killed him. He was away at an hotel at the time."
"Yes, he was--though still it would be possible for him then to have
entered his own house--but his was not the face of the man I had seen.
I learnt that, to my amazement, when for the first time I stood before
him. But, listen again! In the morning, at a restaurant, I found in a
Directory, of which I had learnt the use, that that house was Occleve
House, and that Lord Penlyn was the owner of it. And then my surprise
was great, for only an hour or so before I had found that Occleve was
the right name of Walter Cundall."
"You had learnt that?"
"When I lifted Walter in my arms in the Park, I felt against his
breast a book half out of his pocket. The murderer had missed that! I
took that book, for even in my haste and grief, I thought that in it
might be something that would give me a clue. But what were really in
it of importance were a certificate of his mother's marriage, another
of his own birth, and a letter, years old, from her to him. They told
me all, and, moreover they proved to me, as I then thought, that his
murderer lived in the very house and bore the very name that by right
seemed to be his.
"They were the certificates he showed to them on the morning he
disclosed himself," Stuart said, "and he had not removed them from his
pocket-book when he was killed!"
"Yes! that he showed to _them_; you have said it! It was to _two_ of
them that he showed those papers. And one was the friend of the other,
he lived with and upon him, he dares not meet me face to face, he
evades me! he, he is the murderer. He, Philip Smerdon!"
Stuart sprung to his feet.
"Philip Smerdon!" he exclaimed. "No, no! it cannot be!"
"It is, I say! It is he. Of all others, who but he could have done
this deed? Who but he who crept back to Occleve House having in his
pocket the keys whereby to enter it, who but he who shuns me because
it has been told him that I knew the assassin's face! And on the very
night that he is back in London, sleeping in that house, are not the
clothes that might have led to his identification removed?"
Stuart paused a moment, deep in thought, and then he said: "It cannot
be! On the day before the murder, in the morning, he left London for
Occleve Chase. He must have been there when it was committed."
"Bah!" Guffanta said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "he did not leave
London, he only made a pretence of doing so. All that day he, in his
disguise, must have been engaged in tracking my poor friend, and at
night he killed him." Then he paused a moment, and when he next spoke
he asked a question.
"Where was he going when he left Occleve House this afternoon in the
cab, and with his luggage?"
"He was going to join his father, he said," Stuart answered. "His
father is ill and has been ordered abroad for his health, and, having
recovered some money from his ruined business, he is going on the
Continent, and Smerdon is going with him."
"And to what part of the Continent are they going?"
"I do not know, though he said something about the French coast, and
afterwards, the Tyrol. Why do you ask?
"Why do I ask? Why? Because I must go also! I have to stand face to
face with him, and be able to convince myself that either I have made
some strange mistake, or that I am right."
"And--if you are right?"
"Then I have to take him to the nearest prison, or, if he resists, to
kill him."
"You will do that?"
"I will do anything necessary to prevent him ever escaping me again."
They talked on into the night, and Señor Guffanta extracted from the
other a promise that he would lend him any assistance in his power,
and that, above all, he would say nothing to Lord Penlyn that, by
being retold to Smerdon, should, if he were actually the murderer,
help him to still longer escape.
"I promise you," Stuart said, "and the more willingly because I myself
would give him up to justice if I were sure he is the man. But that,
of course, I cannot be; it is you alone who can identify this cruel
murderer. But, in one thing I _am_ sure you are wrong."
"In what thing?"
"In thinking that Lord Penlyn is in the slightest way an accomplice,
or suspects Smerdon at all. If he did so suspect him, I believe that
he would himself cause him to be arrested, even though they are such
friends."
"What motive would Smerdon have to kill Walter except to remove him
from the other's path? Do you think he would have done it without
consulting Lord Penlyn?"
"I am certain that if he did do it, as you think----"
"As I am as convinced as that we are sitting here!"
"Well, then I am certain that Lord Penlyn knows nothing of it. He is
hasty and impetuous, but he is the soul of honour."
"Perhaps," Guffanta said; "it may be so. But it is not with him that I
have to deal. It is with the man who struck the blow. And it is him I
go to seek."
"How will you find him?"
"Through you. You will find out for me where he is gone with his
father--if this is not a lie invented to aid his further escape--and
you will let me know everything. Is it not so?"
"Yes," Stuart said; "I myself swore that I would find the murderer if
I could; but, as I cannot do that, I will endeavour to help you to do
so. How shall I communicate with you?"
"Write, or come to the 'Hôtel Lepanto.' And when you once tell me
where that man is, there I shall soon be afterwards. Even though he
should go to the end of the world, I will follow him."
Then Señor Guffanta went back to his hotel, and told Diaz Zarates that
he should soon be leaving his house.
"I have to make a little tour upon the Continent, and I may go at any
moment."
"On a tour of pleasure, Señor?" the landlord asked.
"No! on a voyage of importance!"
And three days afterwards he went. A letter had come to him from
Stuart saying:
"_S_. has really gone with his father. He has left London for Paris on
the way to Switzerland. They are to pass the summer at some mountain
resort, but the place is not yet decided on. At first they will be at
Berne. If you meet, for God's sake be careful, and make no mistake."
"Yes!" Señor Guffanta muttered to himself as he packed his
portmanteau, and prepared to catch the night mail to Paris. "Yes, I
will be careful, very careful! And I will make no mistake!"