EXPLANATIONS
Night was beginning to fight with morning by the time that Venner
returned to Merton Grange. There was no one to be seen; the house was in
total darkness, so that Venner placed the motor in the stable and
returned to his own rooms. On the whole, he was disposed to congratulate
himself upon the result of his night's work. It mattered very little to
himself or anybody else what became of Fenwick, now he was once out of
the way. He was never likely to trouble them again, and as far as Venner
could see, he was now in a position openly to claim his wife before all
the world.
Despite his feeling of happiness, Venner slept but badly, and a little
after ten o'clock the next morning found him back at Merton Grange. Evors
greeted him cordially, with the information that he alone was up as yet,
and that the others had doubtless taken advantage of the opportunity to
get a good night's rest.
"And you will see, my dear fellow," he said, "how necessary such a thing
is. Goodness knows how long it is since I went to bed with my mind
absolutely at rest. The same remark applies with equal force to Miss Le
Fenu--I mean your wife."
"I can quite understand that," Venner said. "It has been much the same
with me, though I must confess that I was so happy last night that I
could not sleep at all. By the way, have you any information as to your
father's movements? He probably knows by this time that his house has
been given over to a gang of swindlers."
"He does," Evors said. "I have had a telegram from him this morning to
say that he will be home some time in the course of the day; and, to tell
the truth, I am looking forward with some dread to meeting my father. But
I think I shall be able to convince him now that I am in earnest and that
I am anxious to settle down in the old place and take my share in the
working of the estate. When my father sees Beth and knows her story, I am
sanguine that he will give us a welcome, and that my adventures will be
over. I want him to meet Beth down here, and last night after you had
gone, and we were talking matters over, Vera promised to go up to town
to-day and fetch her sister. By the way, what has become of your
friend--Gurdon, I think his name is? I mean the fellow who very nearly
lost his life the night he fell down the cellar trap and found himself
landed in the house in Portsmouth Square."
"Oh, Gurdon's all right," Venner laughed.
"I hope you will have the chance of making his acquaintance in the
course of the day. You seem to have been in Charles Le Fenu's
confidence for some time--tell me, why all that mystery about the house
in Portsmouth Square? Of course, I don't mean Le Fenu's reason for
calling himself Bates, and all that kind of thing, because that was
perfectly obvious. Under the name of Bates he was lying low and
maturing his plans for crushing Fenwick. As a matter of fact, Fenwick
was almost too much for him. Indeed, he would have been if Gurdon and
myself had not interfered and given both of you a chance to escape. It
was a very neat idea of Fenwick's to kidnap a man and keep him a
prisoner in his own house."
"Yes," Evors said. "And he used his own house for illegal purposes. But
before I answer your question, let me ask you one. Why was Gurdon
prowling about Portsmouth Square that night?"
"That is quite easily explained," Venner replied. "I sent him. To go back
to the beginning of things, I have to revert to the night when I first
saw Mark Fenwick at the Great Empire Hotel, posing as a millionaire, and
having for company a girl who passed as his daughter. Seeing that this
pseudo Miss Fenwick was my own wife, you can imagine how interested I
was. She has already told in your hearing the reason why she left me on
our wedding day, and if I am satisfied with those reasons it is nothing
to do with anybody. As a matter of fact, I am satisfied with them, and
there is no more to be said; but when I ran against Vera again at the
hotel I knew nothing of past events, and I made an effort to find out the
cause of her apparently strange conduct. In a way, she was fighting
against me; she would tell me nothing, and I had to find out everything
for myself. On the night in question I sent Gurdon to Portsmouth Square,
and he had the misfortune to betray himself."
"It nearly ended in his death," Evors said, soberly. "Charles Le Fenu
was very bitter just about that time. You can quite understand how it
was that he mistook Gurdon for one of Fenwick's spies. But why did he
go there?"
"He followed my wife, and there you have the simple explanation of the
whole thing. But you have not yet told me why those two or three rooms
were furnished in the empty house."
"Who told you about that?" Evors asked.
"What a chap you are to ask questions! We got into the empty house after
the so-called Bates was supposed to have been kidnapped, and to our
surprise we found that all that fine furniture had vanished. There was no
litter of straw or sign of removal outside, so we came to the conclusion
that it had been conveyed from one house to the other. After a good deal
of trouble, we lit upon a moveable panel, and by means of it entered the
house where you and Le Fenu were practically prisoners. We were on the
premises when you managed to get the better of that man in the carpet
slippers and his companion; we heard all that took place in the
drawing-room between Fenwick and Beth and Le Fenu. In fact, we aided and
abetted in getting the police into the house. You will recollect how
cleverly Le Fenu managed the rest, and how he and you got away from the
house without causing any scandal. That was very smartly done. But come,
are you going to tell me the story of the empty house, and why it was
partly furnished?"
"I think I can come to that now," Evors said. "The whole thing was born
in the ingenious brain of Felix Zary. He was going to lay some sort of
trap for Fenwick, but we shall never know what it was now, because Fate
has disposed of Fenwick in some other way. Now, won't you sit down and
have some breakfast with me?"
At the same moment Vera came in. Familiar as her features were and well
as Venner knew her, there was a brightness and sweetness about her now
that he had never noticed before. The cloud seemed to have lifted from
her face; her eyes were no longer sad and sombre--they were beaming with
happiness.
"I am so glad you have come," she said. "We want you to know all that
happened last night after you had gone."
Venner explained that he knew pretty well all that had taken place, as
he had been having it all out with Evors. What he wanted now was to get
Vera to himself, and presently he had his way.
"We are going for a long walk," he said, "where I have something serious
to say to you. Now that you have no longer any troubles on your
shoulders, I can be very firm with you--"
"Not just yet," Vera laughed. "Later on you can be as firm as you like,
and we are not going for a long walk either. We shall just have time to
get to the station and catch the 11.15 to Victoria. I am going up to
London to-day to bring Beth down here. I think the change will do her
good. Of course, we can't remain in the house, so I have taken rooms for
the three of us at a farm close by. When Beth has had everything
explained to her and knows that the man she loves is free, you will see a
change for the better in the poor child. There is nothing really the
matter with her mind, and when she realises her happiness she will soon
be as well as any of us. You will come with me to London, Gerald?"
"My dearest girl, of course I will," Venner said. "I will do anything you
like. Let us get these things pushed through as speedily as possible, so
that we can start on our honeymoon, which has been delayed for a trifling
matter of three years, and you cannot say that I have been unduly
impatient."
Vera raised herself on her toes and threw her arms round her husband's
neck. She kissed him twice. There were tears in her eyes, but there was
nothing but happiness behind the tears, as Venner did not fail to notice.
"You have been more than good," she whispered. "Ah, if you only knew how
I have missed you, how terrified I was lest you should take me at my word
and abandon me to my fate, as you had every right to do. And yet, all the
time, I had a curious feeling that you trusted me, though I dared not
communicate with you and tell you where you could send me so much as a
single line. I was fearful lest a passionate appeal from you should turn
me from my purpose. You see, I had pledged myself to fight the battle for
Beth and her lover, and for the best part of three years I did so. And
the strangest part of it all is that you, my husband, from whom I
concealed everything, should be the very one who eventually struck
straight to the heart of the mystery."
"Yes, that's all right enough," Venner smiled, "but why could not you
have confided in me in the first instance? Do you think that I should
have refused to throw myself heart and soul into the affair and do my
best to help those who were dear to you?"
"I suppose I lost my head," Vera murmured. "But do not let us waste too
much time regretting the last three years; and do not let us waste too
much time at all, or we shall lose our train."
"That is bringing one back to earth with a vengeance," Venner laughed.
"But come along and let us get all the business over, and we can look
eagerly forward to the pleasure of afterwards."
It was all done at length--the long explanation was made in the West End
doctor's drawing-room, and at length Beth seemed to understand the
complicated story that was told her. She listened very carefully, her
questions were well chosen; then she flung herself face downwards on the
couch where she was seated and burst into a passion of weeping. Vera
held her head tenderly, and made a sign to Venner that he should leave
them together.
"This is the best thing that could happen," she whispered. "If you will
come back in an hour's time you will see an entirely different girl.
Don't speak to her now."
It was exactly as Vera had predicted, for when Venner returned presently
to the drawing-room, he found a bright, alert little figure clad in furs
and eager for her journey. She danced across the room to Venner and held
up her lips for him to kiss them.
"I understand it all now," she cried. "Vera has told me absolutely
everything. How good and noble it was of her to sacrifice her happiness
for the sake of Charles and myself, and how wicked I must have been ever
to think that Charles could have been guilty of that dreadful crime. Ever
since then there has been a kind of cloud over my mind, a certain sense
of oppression that made everything dim before my eyes. I could not feel,
I could not even shed a tear. I seemed to be all numb and frozen, and
when the tears came just now, all the ice melted away and I became myself
again. Don't you think I look quite different?"
"I think you look as if you would be all the better for a lot of care and
fussing," Venner said. "You want to go to some warm spot and be petted
like a child. Now let us go and say good-bye to these good friends of
yours and get down to Canterbury. There is somebody waiting for you there
who will bring back the roses to your pale cheeks a great deal better
than I can."
"Isn't Mr. Gurdon coming with us?" Vera asked.
"He can't" Venner explained. "I've just been telephoning to him, and he
says that he can't come down till the last train. He will just look in
presently after dinner--he is sharing my rooms with me. But hadn't we
better get along?"
Canterbury was reached at length, and then Merton Grange, where Le Fenu
and Evors were waiting in the portico. Lord Merton had not yet arrived:
indeed, Evors explained that it was very uncertain whether he would get
there that night or not.
"Not that it makes much difference," he said, eagerly. "Of course, you
will all dine with me. For my part, I can't see why you shouldn't stay
here altogether."
"What?" Vera cried, "without a chaperon?"
"I like that," Le Fenu exclaimed. "What do you call yourself? Have you
so soon forgotten the fact that you are a staid married woman? What do
you think of that, Venner?"
Vera laughed and blushed softly; she was not thinking so much now of her
own happiness as of the expression of joy and delight on the face of her
sister. Beth had hung back a little shyly from Evors as they crossed the
hall, and he, in his turn, was constrained and awkward. Very cleverly
Vera managed to detach her husband and her brother from the others.
"Let them go into the dining-room," she whispered. "It doesn't matter
what becomes of us."
"But is she really equal to the excitement of it?" Le Fenu asked,
anxiously. "She must have had an exceedingly trying day."
"I am quite sure that she is perfectly safe," Vera said. "Of course, she
was terribly excited and upset at first, but she was quite calm and
rational all the way down, as Gerald will tell you. All Beth wants now is
quiet and change, and to feel that her troubles are over. Let's go and
have tea in that grand old hall. If the others don't care to come in to
tea we will try not to be offended."
The others did not come in to tea, neither were they seen till it was
nearly time to dress for dinner. Assuredly Vera had proved a true
prophet, for Beth's shy, quiet air of happiness indicated that she had
suffered nothing through the events of the day. It was a very quiet meal
they had later on, but none the less pleasant for that. Dinner had come
to an end and the cigarettes were on the table before Gurdon appeared. He
carried a copy of an evening paper in his hand, and despite his usual air
of calmness and indifference, there was just the suspicion of excitement
about him that caused Venner to stand up and reach for the paper.
"You have news there for us, I am sure," he said. "I think we are all in
a position to stand anything you like to tell us."
"You have guessed it correctly," Gurdon said. "It is all here in the
_Evening Herald_."
"What is all here?" Le Fenu demanded.
"Can't you guess?" Gurdon asked. "I see you can't. It is the dramatic
conclusion, the only conclusion of the story. Our late antagonist,
Fenwick, has committed suicide!"