CHAPTER XXI. THE STORY OF THE PAST

"Come, Alan," said Beauchamp after a pause, "you need not be tongue-tied with astonishment. I sent Blair on to tell you all that had happened, so you must have known that I was alive."

"Yes, yes--but your disguise," stammered the young man. "I expected to see Brown. You are not Brown, never could have been; for when he was here, I have seen you and him at the same time."

"That's all right, my boy. I was not Brown, as you say, and who Brown was I know no more than you do. But I am Brown now," with emphasis, "and Brown I shall remain until I can show myself with safety as Richard Marlow. Not that I intended to stick to that name. No; if Blair is right, and that scoundrel Warrender has left papers to prove my innocence, I shall take my own name. But this disguise! It is a plot between me and Blair. It was necessary that I should be on the spot, so we thought this was as good a mask as any. Oh, depend upon it, Alan, I am perfectly safe here from Jean Lestrange!"

As he spoke, Beauchamp was putting on his wig and beard. And when this was done to his satisfaction, he seated himself on a chair opposite to Alan, looking the very image of the Quiet Gentleman. Thorold did not wonder that Mrs. Marry had been deceived--the completeness of the disguise would have deceived a cleverer woman.

"Still," said he doubtfully, "if the real Brown should reappear----"

"We will have him arrested for the murder of Warrender," said Beauchamp quietly. "Yes, I am convinced he is guilty, else why did he steal the key of the vault? Blair told me about that. He must surely be some tool of Jean Lestrange's. No, not the man himself--I am aware of that. Blair saw the passenger-list."

"Are you certain that the Quiet Gentleman killed Warrender?"

"No, because I did not see the blow struck. I was insensible at the time--but it is a long story, and to make things perfectly clear, I must begin at the beginning. One moment, Alan." Beauchamp crossed to the door and turned the key. "I don't want Mrs. Marry to come in."

"She will hear your voice, and believing you to be dumb----"

"I'll speak low. Come nearer to this chair. First tell me how Sophy is."

"Very well, but much cast down. She thinks you are dead, and that your body has been stolen. Oh, Beauchamp!" cried Alan passionately, "why did you not trust Sophy and me? You would have spared us both many an unhappy hour."

"I wish now that I had told you, but I acted for the best. I had little time for thought. I expected daily that Lestrange would appear. If I had only considered the matter rather more--but there, it's done and we must make the best of it. Sophy's tears will be turned to smiles shortly--if, indeed, she still loves me, knowing that I am not her father," and the old man sighed.

"You need have no fear on that score," said Alan, with a faint smile. He was getting over the first shock of surprise. "Sophy would have nothing to do with Jean Lestrange, although she half believed his story. She always insists that you are her true father. She will welcome you back with the greatest joy."

"She must welcome me secretly."

"Secretly--why? Should your innocence be established, you would surely reappear as Richard Marlow?"

"What! And have the whole story in the papers? No, Alan, I shall spend the rest of my life under my true name of Beauchamp, and live on the two thousand a year I left myself in my will. You and Sophy can marry and take the rest of the money. I shall travel, and take Joe with me."

"Well, perhaps it is the best thing to do," said Thorold. "But tell me, how was it that the manager of the Occidental Bank reported you dead?"

"Joe wrote to him by my order to say so. When Joe came to me at Brighton and told me how the death of Warrender had complicated matters, I was afraid lest I should be traced, and perhaps accused of a second murder. So I thought it best to put it about that I was dead, and end all pursuit."

"If you had only trusted me, sir, all this trouble would have been avoided. I merited your confidence, I think."

"I know--I know. Indeed, on that day when I spoke to you of the probability that my body would not be allowed to rest in its grave, I had half a mind to tell you. But somehow the moment passed. Even then I had designed my plot of feigning death. It was the only way I saw of escaping Lestrange."

"Tell me the story from the beginning," said Alan. "I know only scraps."

"The beginning was in Jamaica, Alan," said Beauchamp sadly. "All this trouble arose out of the love I had for Sophy's mother. Poor Zelia! if only she had married me, I would have made her a good husband. As it was, she chose Achille Lestrange, a roué and a gambler, a spendthrift and a scoundrel. I could never tell Sophy what a bad man her father was. He treated poor Zelia abominably."

"But was that altogether his fault, Beauchamp? Joe hinted that Jean Lestrange caused much of the trouble."

"So he did, the scoundrel! Jean was, if anything, worse than his cousin, though there was not much to choose between them. But Jean was madly in love with Zelia--worshiped her with all the fierce passion of a Creole. When he lost her he vowed he would be revenged--he sowed dissension between them on my account."

"He hinted that you were in love with her, I suppose?"

"Yes, and he was right!" cried Beauchamp with emphasis. "I was in love with Zelia, and pitied her from the bottom of my heart. Well, a year after Sophy was born things came to a crisis. I was at Kingston, and my yacht in the harbor there. I saw a good deal of Zelia, and one night she came on board with her child, and asked me to take her away. Lestrange had struck her, the beast! and she had refused to live with him any longer. At first I hesitated, but she was in such a state of agony that I consented to take her away from her wretched life. I had to go first to Falmouth to fetch some things which I did not wish to leave--I had sold my plantation some time before, having made up my mind to leave Jamaica. So we sailed, reached Falmouth in safety, and I went to my estate, leaving Joe Brill on board."

"Ah! that was why Joe could not say who killed Achille?"

"Precisely. Joe knew little of the events of that night; but he believed in me, and stood by me like the noble, faithful fellow he is. But to continue: Zelia arrived at my house only to die; worry and melancholy had brought her to a low state of health, and she caught a fever. On the very night Jean and her husband came in pursuit she died. I had made all arrangements to sail; I had sold my estate, and had sent the proceeds to England. It had been my intention to have married Zelia when Achille had divorced her, to adopt little Marie, and to start life afresh in a new land. Her death put an end to these plans."

"But the murder, Beauchamp?"

"I am coming to that. Warrender was attending Zelia when she died, and he was in the house when Achille and Jean arrived. I was quite determined he should not get the child; for Zelia had left some money, and I knew well that Achille would soon squander it. Well, Lestrange demanded his wife. I told him she was dead; he declined to believe me, and we quarreled. I am naturally of a fiery temper," continued Beauchamp with some agitation, "and I knocked him down on the veranda. The blow stunned him, and he lay there like a dog."

"Was Jean present?"

"Yes. He saw me knock Achille down; then he went away to see the body of Zelia. I had to look for the child, intending to take her to my yacht until such time as I could obtain the guardianship. When I came out again I found Warrender kneeling down beside the body of Achille. He was dead!"

"Not from the effects of your blow?" cried Alan incredulously.

"No. He had been stabbed to the heart while senseless."

"By whom--Warrender?"

"I don't know. Warrender always swore that his hands were clean of blood, and certainly he had no reason to murder Achille. I suspected Jean, but Warrender told me that Jean had been in Zelia's room praying beside the body. He advised me to fly."

"Yes, yes; but who killed Achille?"

"Well, I supposed it must have been a negro whom Achille had brought with him--a Zambo, called Scipio, who was devoted to his mistress and who hated his master. On hearing that Zelia was dead--knowing, as he did, that her husband's brutality had probably had a good deal to do with it--he might have stabbed Achille as he lay senseless on the veranda. At any rate, Warrender said that he found him dead when he came out. To this day I don't know who killed him. It must have been either Warrender, Scipio, or Jean. I am inclined to suspect Scipio. However, at the time there was nothing for it but flight if I wanted to escape an accusation of murder. You see bow strong the evidence was against me, Alan. I had taken away Achille's wife and child; he had come in pursuit; I had quarreled with him and knocked him down; he had been found dead. Therefore I fled with the child. Can you blame me?"

"No," said Alan decisively. "Under the circumstances, I don't see what else you could do. So you escaped?"

"I did. I went on board my yacht and told Joe all. Of course, he believed in my innocence, and strongly advised me to leave at once. We sailed down the coast of South America, round the Horn, and home to England. I called myself Richard Marlow, and I sold the yacht under another name at a French seaport. I had plenty of money, and there was no one who suspected my past."

"I suppose the news of the murder had not reached England?"

"No. I believe there was a casual reference in one of the papers, but that was all. The yacht was supposed to have foundered. I felt secure from pursuit, and determined to start a new life. I gave out that Marie was my daughter, and I called her Sophy. Then I placed her in the convent at Hampstead, with a sum of money for her education, and besides that, I secured a certain sum on her for life in case of my death. When this was settled I went to Africa. There Fortune, tired of persecuting me, gave me smiles instead of frowns. I made a fortune in the gold-mines, and became celebrated as Richard Marlow the millionaire. The rest of my story you know."

"Up to a point," said Alan significantly. "I know how you bought this place and settled here with Sophy. But the letter from Barkham----"

"Ah! Joe told you about that, did he?" said Beauchamp composedly. "Yes, the letter was from an old friend of mine called Barkham. He told me that Jean Lestrange had recognized my portrait in an illustrated paper, and that he intended to come to England to hunt me down. The letter was sent to the office of the paper, and by them forwarded here. You may guess my feelings. I thought myself lost. I showed the letter to Warrender, and he suggested that I should feign death. I jumped at the idea, made a will, allowing myself an income under my true name of Herbert Beauchamp, got another key of the vault fashioned from the one which afterwards was taken to Phelps, and took Joe into my confidence. Then Warrender drugged me."

"What did he give you?" asked Alan. "You looked really dead."

"I can't tell you the name of the drug. He said it was some vegetable preparation used by the negroes. Then I died--apparently--and I was buried. They had bored holes in the coffin, and that night, when you were all absent, Joe and Warrender took me out of the vault and carried me to the hut on the heath, where Warrender revived me. It was while he was doing this that he heard a noise, and ran out. He never came back, and when I was myself again we went out to find his body. He was quite dead, stabbed to the heart, and lying some distance from the hut. Who killed him I do not know."

"But how did his body get into the vault?"

"Joe did it. After he had got me away, he dragged the body into the hut, and next night came back and took it to the vault. He put it into the coffin, never dreaming that any one would look for it there. Nor would they, and all would have been well had it not been for that man Cicero Gramp. He saw too much, and----"

He was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.