The summer began to wane, and as August drew to a close the world of
London at large forgot the murder of Walter Cundall.
It forgot it because it had so many other things to think about,
because it had its garden parties and fêtes, and Henley and Goodwood;
and because, after that, the exodus set in, and the Continent,
Scotland, and Cowes, as well as all the other seaside resorts, claimed
its attention. It is true one incident had come to light which had
given a fillip to the dying curiosity of the world and society, but
even that had scarcely tended to rouse fresh interest in the crime.
This incident was the discovery that Lord Penlyn was the heir to all
of the dead man's vast wealth. The news had come out gradually through
different channels, and it had set people talking; but even then--at
this advanced state of the London season--it had scarcely aroused more
than a passing flutter of excitement. And society explained even this
fact to its own satisfaction--perhaps because it had, by now, found so
many other things of more immediate, and of fresher, interest. Cundall
had been, it said, a man of superbly generous impulses, one who seemed
to delight in doing acts of munificence that other men would never
dream of; what more natural a thing for him to do than to leave his
great wealth to the very man who had won the woman he had sought for
his wife? Was it not at once a splendid piece of magnanimity, a
glorious example of how one might heap coals of fire on those who
thwarted us--was it not a truly noble way of retaliating upon the
woman he loved, but who had no love for him? She would, through his
bequest to her husband that was to be, become enormously rich, but she
could never enjoy the vastness of those riches without remembering
whence they came; every incident in her life would serve to remind her
of him.
So, instead of seeing any cause for suspicion in the will of Walter
Cundall, the world only saw in it a magnificently generous action, a
splendidly noble retaliation. For it never took the trouble to learn
the date of the will, but supposed that it had been made on the day
after he had discovered that Ida Raughton had promised herself to
another.
To those more directly interested in the murder and in the discovery
of the assassin, the passing summer seemed to bring but little promise
of success. Lord Penlyn knew that Señor Guffanta had left London, but
beyond that he did not know what had become of him, nor whether it was
the business of Don Rodriguez, or pleasure, or the search for the
murderer that had taken him away. Stuart, who still believed him
innocent of the slightest participation or knowledge of the crime, yet
did not feel inclined to give him the least information as to the
Señor's movements, fearing that, if Smerdon was the man--of which, as
yet, he by no means felt positive--he might learn that he was being
pursued; and so contented himself with saying as little as possible.
As to Dobson, he had now come to the conclusion that the "Signor," as
he always called him, was an arrant humbug, and really knew no more
about the murder than he did himself. And as the detective had already
received a handsome sum of money from Lord Penlyn for his services,
such as they were, and as he had at the present moment what he called
"one or two other good little jobs on," he gradually devoted himself
to these matters, and the murder of Mr. Cundall ceased to entirely
occupy his efforts. Though, as he was a man who did his duty to the
best of his ability, he still kept one of his subordinates looking
about and making inquiries in various places where he thought
information might be obtained. But the information, as he confessed,
was very long in coming.
From Señor Guffanta Stuart had heard more than once during his
absence, which had now extended to three weeks, but the letters he
received contained nothing but accounts of his failure to come upon
the suspected man. In Paris, the Señor wrote, he had been absolutely
unable to find any person of the name of Smerdon, though he had tried
everything in his power to do so. He had pored daily over _Galignani_
and other papers that contained the lists of strangers who arrived in
the French capital, he had personally inspected the visitors' books in
every hotel likely to be patronised by English people of good social
position; but all to no effect. Then, determined, if his man was
there, not to miss him, he had applied to the particular _bureau_ of
police at the Préfecture, where are kept, according to French law, the
lists furnished weekly by every hotel-keeper and lodging-house keeper
of their guests and tenants, both old and new; and these, being shown
him, he had carefully searched, and still he had failed. He was
induced to think, he wrote Stuart, that Smerdon, either alone or with
his family (if he really had them with him) must have changed his
route, or his destination, at the last moment. Or, perhaps they had
travelled by Brussels and the Rhine to Switzerland, or passed through
Paris from one station to the other without stopping, or they might
have gone by the way of Rheims and Delle from Calais to Basle. Could
Mr. Stuart, he asked, obtain any further information from Lord Penlyn
as to the whereabouts of the man whose face he wished to see, for if
he could not, he did not know where to look for him.
In answer to this, Stuart wrote back that no letter had come from
Smerdon since the day he left Occleve House, the day on which the
Señor had seen the murderer in the cab, but that he had little doubt
that the former was now in Switzerland. "Why," he wrote, "since you
are determined to make yourself sure about Smerdon's identity with the
man you saw kill our friend, do you not go on into Switzerland? There
you could have but little difficulty in finding him, for printed lists
of the visitors to almost every resort, small or large, are published
daily or weekly. Any bookseller would procure you the _Fremdenblatts_
and _Listes des Étrangers_, and if you could only find his name at one
spot, you would be sure to catch him up at last. When a traveller
leaves an hotel in Switzerland, the train, or boat, or diligence is a
sure indication of what district he is changing to, and any
intelligent porter or servant will in all probability be able to
remember any person you can describe fairly accurately."
To this a letter came back from Guffanta, saying that he acknowledged
the reason of Mr. Stuart's remarks, and that he would waste no more
time in Paris but would at once set out for Switzerland. "Only," he
wrote, in his usual grave and studied style, "you must pardon me for
what I am now going to say, and for what I am going to ask. It is for
money. I have exhausted my store, which was not great when I arrived
in England, and which has only been increased by a small draft on Don
Rodriguez's London banker. I have enough to take me to Switzerland I
find, but not enough to carry me into the heart of the country. Will
you please send me some to the Poste Restante, at Basle? I will repay
it some day, and be sure that I shall eventually gain the object we
both desire in our hearts."
For answer to this, Stuart put a fifty-pound note in a registered
letter, and forwarded it to the address Guffanta had given him. Then,
when it had been acknowledged by the latter, he heard no more from him
for some time.
During this period Lord Penlyn had been absent from town. He had
received from Sir Paul Raughton, at the time when the Señor was about
to leave London, a letter telling him that Ida was much better, and
that he thought that Penlyn might see her if he went down to Belmont.
Sir Paul had faithfully delivered the message given him, and to Ida
this, he said, had been the best medicine. At first she would scarcely
believe it possible that her lover would ever again see her or speak
of love to her; but, when she learnt that not only was he anxious to
do this, but that it was he himself whom he considered in the wrong,
and that, instead of extending his pardon to her, he was anxious to
sue for hers, the colour came back to her cheek and the smile to her
eyes and lips.
"Oh, papa!" she said, as she sat up one day in her boudoir and nestled
close to him, "oh, papa, how could I ever think so ill of him, of him
who is everything that is good and noble? How wicked I have been! How
wicked and unjust!"
"Of course!" Sir Paul exclaimed, "that is just the kind of thing a
woman always does say. She quarrels with the man she loves, and then,
just because he wants to make up the quarrel as much as she does, she
thinks she has been in the wrong. And after all, mind you, Ida,
although I don't believe that Penlyn had any more to do with the
murder than I had----"
"No, papa!" speaking firmly.
"Still he does not come out of the affair with flying colours. He
never moved hand nor foot to find out who really had done it, and he
kept the secret of poor Cundall being his brother from me. He oughtn't
to have done that!"
Sir Paul did feel himself aggrieved at this. He thought that, as Ida's
father, he should have been told everything bearing upon the
connection between the two men, and he considered that there had been
some intention to deceive him on the part of Penlyn. In his joy at the
prospect of his daughter's renewed happiness he was very willing to
forgive Penlyn, but still he could not help mentioning his errors, as
he considered them.
"Remember the letter from his brother, papa! It contained his solemn
injunctions--rendered doubly solemn by the awful fate that overtook
him on the very night he wrote them! How could he confide the secret
to any one after that?"
Her father made no answer to this question, not knowing what to say.
After all, he acknowledged that had he been made the custodian of such
a secret, had he had such solemn injunctions laid on him as Cundall
had laid on his brother, he would have tried to keep them equally
well. Honestly, he could not tell himself that Penlyn should have
broken the solemn command imposed upon him; the command issued by a
man who, as he gave it, was standing at the gate of the grave.
So, when Penlyn paid his next visit to Belmont, there was a very
different meeting between him and its inmates from the meetings that
had gone before. Sir Paul took him by the hand, and told him that he
was sincerely happy in knowing that once more he and Ida were
thoroughly united, and then he went into her. Not a moment elapsed
before she was folded to his heart and he had kissed her again and
again, not a moment before she was beseeching him to forgive her for
the injurious thoughts and suspicions she had let come into her mind.
"Hush, Ida hush, my darling!" he said, as he tried to soothe her; "it
is not you who should ask for forgiveness, but I. Not because I kept
my brother's secret from you, but because of the brutal way in which I
cast you off, simply for your doubting me for one moment. Oh, Ida, my
own, say that you forgive me."
"I have nothing to forgive," she said; "the fault was mine. I should
never have doubted you."
And so once more they were united, united never more to part. And
since everything was now known to Ida, her future husband was able to
talk freely to her, to tell her other things that had transpired of
late, and especially of, what seemed to him, the strange behaviour of
the Señor, and the accusation he had brought against him of shielding
the murderer in his house.
"Oh, Gervase!" Ida exclaimed, "why is it that every one should be
so unjust to you? Was it not enough that I should have suspected
you--though only for a moment in my grief and delirium--without this
man doing so in another manner. It is monstrous, monstrous!"
"Your suspicions," he answered, "were natural enough. You had had your
mind disturbed by that strange dream, and, when you heard of my
relationship to Cundall, it was natural that your thoughts should take
the turn they did. But I cannot understand Guffanta, nor what he
means."
He had recognised many times during the estrangement between him and
Ida that her temporary suspicion of him was natural enough, and
that--being no heroine of romance, but only a straightforward English
girl, with a strange delusion as to having seen the assassin in her
dream--it was not strange she should have doubted him; but for
Guffanta's accusation he could find no reason. Over and over again he
had asked himself whom it could be that he suspected? and again and
again he had failed to find an answer. On that fatal night there had
been no one sleeping in Occleve House but the servants, no one who
could have gained admission to it; yet the Señor had charged him with
sheltering the man who had done the deed, both on that night and
afterwards.
"Can he not be made to speak out openly?" Ida asked. "Can he not be
made to say who the person was whose face he saw? Why do you not force
him to do so?"
"I have seen nothing of him since the night he accused me of
protecting the murderer, and he has left the hotel he was staying at."
"Where is he gone?" Ida asked.
"No one seems to know, though Stuart says he fancies he is still
looking for the murderer. I pray God he may find him."
"And I too!" Ida said.
After this meeting, Penlyn acceded to the request of Sir Paul and his
future wife that he should stay at Belmont for some time, and he took
up his abode there with them. His valet came down from town, bringing
with him all things necessary for a stay in the country, and then Ida
passed happier days in the society of her lover than she had ever yet
enjoyed. They spent their mornings together sitting under the firs
upon the lawn, they drove together--for she was still too weak to ride
in the afternoons; and in the evenings Sir Paul would join them. Their
marriage had been postponed for two months in consequence of Ida's ill
health, but they knew that by the end of October they would be happy,
and so they bore the delay without repining. One thing alone chastened
their happiness--the memory of the dead man, and the knowledge that
his murderer had not been brought to justice.
"I swore upon his grave to avenge him," Penlyn said, "and I have done
nothing, can do nothing. If any one ever avenges him it will be Señor
Guffanta, and I sometimes doubt if he will be able to do so. It seems
a poor termination to the vows I took."
"Perhaps it is but a natural one," Ida answered. "It is only in
romances, and in some few cases of real life, that a murder planned as
this one must have been is punished. Yet, so long as we live, we will
pray that some day his wicked assassin may be discovered."
"Do you still think," Penlyn asked, "that the figure which you saw in
your dream was known to you in actual life? Do you think that if the
murderer is ever found you will remember that you have known him?"
"It was a dream," she answered, "only a dream! Yet it made a strange
impression on me. You know that I also said that, if once I could
remember to what man in actual life that figure bore a resemblance, I
would have his every action of the past and present closely
scrutinised; yet I, too, can do nothing. Even though I could identify
some living person with that figure, what could I, a woman, do?"
"Nothing, darling," her lover answered her, "we can neither of us do
anything. If Guffanta cannot find him, we must be content to leave his
punishment to heaven."
So, gradually, they came to think that never in this world would
Walter Cundall's death be avenged, and gradually their thoughts turned
to other things, to the happy life that seemed before them, and to the
way in which that life should be spent. Under the fir trees they would
sit and plan how the vast fortune that the dead man had left should
best be laid out, how an almshouse bearing his name should be erected
at Occleve Chase, and how a large charity, also in his name, should be
endowed in London. And even then, they knew that but a drop of his
wealth would be spent; it would necessitate unceasing thought upon
their part to gradually get it all distributed in a manner that should
do good to others.
"He was the essence of charity and generosity," Penlyn said, "it shall
be by a charitable and generous disposal of his wealth that we will
honour his memory."
They were seated on their usual bench one evening, still making their
plans, when they saw one of Sir Paul's footmen coming towards them and
bringing the usual batch of papers and letters. It was the time at
which the post generally came in, and they had made a habit of having
their correspondence brought to them there, and of passing the
half-hour before dinner in reading their letters. The man handed
several to Lord Penlyn and one to Ida, and they began to peruse them.
Those to Penlyn were ordinary ones and did not take long in the
reading, and he was about to turn round and ask Ida if hers were of
any importance, when he was startled by a sound from her lips,--a
sound that was half a gasp and half a moan. As he looked at her, he
saw that she had sunk back against the wooden rail of the garden seat,
and that she was deathly pale. The letter she had received, and the
envelope bearing the green stamp of Switzerland, had fallen at her
feet.
"Ida! my dearest! what is it?" he exclaimed, as he bent towards her
and placed his arm round her. "Ida! have you had bad news, have
you----?"
"The dream," she moaned, "the dream! Oh, God!"
"What dream?" he said, while a sweat of horror, of undefined, unknown
horror broke out upon his forehead. "What dream?"
"The letter! Read the letter!" she answered, while in her eyes was a
look he had once seen before--the far-away look that had been there
when he first spoke to her of his brother's murder.
He stooped and picked up the letter--picked it up and read it
hurriedly; and then he, too, let it fall again and leaned back against
the seat.
"Philip Smerdon my brother's murderer!" he exclaimed. "Philip Smerdon,
my friend, an assassin! The self-accused, the self-avowed murderer of
Walter Cundall! Ida," he said, turning to her, "is _his_ the figure in
your dream?"
"Yes," she wailed. "Yes! I recognise it now."