CHAPTER XVIII. AN ALARMING MESSAGE

I sat and shivered in my brown shoes. In bringing Lady Mabel to The Lodge I had quite overlooked the possibility that she might espy the photograph of Monk which stood always, as I very well knew, on the piano in the drawing-room, and the worst of it was that the photograph had only been taken a few months, so there was no possibility of mistaking the face. It was certain that Mabel would appeal to me for confirmation of her assertion, since I had met Marr in her presence, so what could I do? While the two girls stared alternatively at one another and at the photograph, I tried to make up my mind what course it would be best to pursue.

"I think you must be mistaken," said Gertrude, who looked puzzled, "the photograph is certainly one that my father had taken early this year."

"Then your father is Wentworth Marr," insisted Mabel, examining the photograph more closely.

"Walter Monk is my father's name," said Gertrude with some stiffness, "there is no need for him to change it."

Mabel looked round at me, and I shivered again. The heavens were falling. "I ask you, Cyrus," she cried imperatively, "isn't this," she touched the photograph, "Mr. Marr."

"There is a likeness," I admitted cautiously.

"Nonsense! it's Mr. Marr himself. You met him at Aunt Lucy's. You must know."

"Know what?" I asked doggedly and uneasily.

"That this," she touched the photograph again, "is Mr. Marr."

I was silent, and looked at my toes, wondering what was best to say. Certainly I had made a promise to Monk to be silent, provided he fulfilled certain conditions. He had done so, and therefore my lips were sealed. Then I recalled the fact that I had limited the time of concealment to a fortnight and thus, in all honor, I was now free to tell the truth. It seemed necessary to do so at the moment, as no other course was open to me. Mabel was a most pertinacious young woman, and would never leave things alone until her doubts were set at rest. Moreover, Gertrude was looking at me inquiringly, as she had noticed my obvious embarrassment.

"Cyrus," she asked, and I raised my eyes, "what does this mean?"

"It's a long story," I said weakly.

"Oh," Mabel walked up to me, "then there is a story. Just you tell it." She sat down with a determined air. "I don't move from here until I know how Mr. Marr's photograph comes to be here under the name of Mr. Monk."

There was no help for it. I had to speak out and make the best I could of a most uncomfortable situation. "Mr. Walter Monk goes by that name in Burwain," I blurted out, "but in London he is known as Mr. Wentworth Marr."

"Well I never!" Mabel drew a long breath and looked at Gertrude, who had sat down, and was staring hard at me.

"Why has my father two names?" she asked apprehensively.

"Oh, there's nothing wrong," I said hastily, "he is Wentworth Marr by Act of Parliament."

"Perhaps he is a millionaire also by Act of Parliament," said Mabel sarcastically. "Can you say that he is, Cyrus?"

"Papa is not a millionaire," put in Gertrude hastily. "All he has is this house and five hundred a year."

"Oh," Mabel drew another long breath, "and he gave Aunt Lucy to understand that he was a rich man."

"Did he give her to understand that he was actually a millionaire?" I asked.

"Well no, not exactly. Aunt Lucy exaggerates. But he did say that he had no end of money and asked her permission to pay his addresses to me."

"To you!" cried Gertrude, her color coming and going; "why, I thought that you were engaged to Mr. Weston."

"I am in love with Mr. Weston," said Mabel straightforwardly, "but I am not engaged to him, although I may be. I refused him once, and my aunt wished me to marry you--that is, Mr. Marr!" She paused, then spread out her hands in a foreign fashion, "I can't understand what it means."

"Cyrus understands," said Gertrude, and her voice sounded cold. "Perhaps you will explain, Cyrus."

"Willingly," I said, nerved to desperate coolness, "but you will understand in your turn that I was bound by a promise made to your father not to say anything if certain conditions were fulfilled.

"Was that fair to me?" asked Mabel angrily.

"Perfectly fair," I snapped. "I learned the truth when I met Mr. Marr at Lady Denham's house. Then I recognized him as Mr. Monk, and afterwards I had an explanation with him."

"Why didn't you tell us his real name when you set eyes on him?" demanded Lady Mabel crossly.

"I did not wish to make a scene. It was only fair to await an explanation."

"What?" cried the girl, her color rising, "when Mr. Marr was calling on my aunt under a false name----"

"He has a perfect legal right to the name."

"And under the pretence of being a rich man."

"He is a rich man," I assured her, "to the extent of one hundred thousand pounds."

Gertrude looked at me in astonishment. "That isn't true," she denied.

"My dear girl, I have the word of your father for the amount."

"It's all very strange," said Mabel, calming somewhat, and hiding a covert smile. "Oh, great heavens! I wonder what Aunt Lucy will say!" She laughed outright. "It's like a play: to think that a man with a daughter as old as I am should wish to marry me."

Gertrude colored, and I saw that her mind was tormented to think that her father should act in this underhand way. To lessen her anguish I hastened to relate all I knew--this is, I explained about the Australian cousin, the legal change of name and reason for the suppression of the Burwain household, and the conditions upon which I had held my peace. The two girls listened quietly, Mabel with astonishment and Gertrude with pain. Certainly Walter Monk, alias Wentworth Marr, had not committed a crime, but he had scarcely acted straightforwardly.

"Well," said Mabel, drawing a long breath as usual when I had ended, "I never heard of such a thing. Why on earth didn't Mr. Marr, or Mr. Monk--I'm sure I don't know what to call him--tell me the whole truth? There was no reason to keep quiet that I can see."

"I was the reason, evidently," said Gertrude, with crimson cheeks, for she was heartily ashamed of her father. "Papa did not think you would marry him if you saw me."

For answer, Mabel, who was an extremely kindhearted girl, jumped up and kissed those same flushed cheeks. "My dear, I liked your father well enough, and would have no objection to you as a step-daughter." She laughed merrily at the idea. "But the fact is, I never intended to marry Mr. Marr, whatever Aunt Lucy said. I always loved Dicky Weston and I always shall, although he's so horrid."

"I'm glad of that," said Gertrude quickly, "for now I can see that my father is not the man to make any woman happy. I always thought that he was a kindhearted, harmless man, a trifle frivolous, perhaps, but quite honest. Now I understand that I have been deceived--in more ways than one," she added half to herself, and I could not understand what she meant. I did later.

"Do you blame me, Gertrude?" I asked, rising to take her hand.

"Of course she doesn't," said Mabel very rapidly; "you made a promise on certain conditions to keep quiet for an agreed time, and you have done so. No blame can possibly attach itself to you."

"Gertrude?" I said anxiously, taking no notice of Mabel's defence.

She pressed my hand. "I wish you could have told me," she said, in a low voice, "but my father was too clever for you. I understand."

"And you forgive me?" I pleaded.

"There is nothing to forgive."

"Of course there isn't," cried Mabel, kissing Gertrude again, "and don't let this make any difference to our friendship, dear. You will marry Cyrus and I shall marry Dicky--if he goes down on his knees to apologize for daring to ask me again--and everything will be well. But when I meet your father," ended Mabel wrathfully, "I shall speak my mind."

"I don't think that you will see him again," said Gertrude quietly. "He has gone to America, and went without a word of farewell or explanation to me. I think he will stop there. I see now that my affection was wasted on him, since he apparently cares for no one but himself."

"Never mind." Mabel caressed her. "You have Cyrus."

"Yes; thank God for an honest man," and she threw herself on my breast.

Mabel looked at us, and walked to the door. "I'll leave you together and go after Cannington. If Dicky's anything of a lover he'll meet me on the road--in his airship, if possible"--and with a laugh to relax the tension of the situation she vanished. Shortly, we heard her open the front door and pass out. Then only did I speak.

"Don't worry, Gertrude. He isn't worth it."

"He's my father, after all," she moaned; "it's terrible to think that he should deceive me so."

"Well, he hasn't done any real harm. He told me that he gave you the whole five hundred a year to yourself, more or less."

"That is not true. He has kept me very short."

"Hang him, he----" I stopped. After all, as she said, the man was her father, and I could not very well speak what was in my mind to his daughter. "Don't think of him any more, Gertrude," I whispered coaxingly. "I have you and you have me. Let us forget him."

"It will be best," she said, drying her eyes, for the ready tears had filled them, and small blame to her. "Do you think papa will come back?"

"No. He will probably stop in the States and marry an heiress."

"Thank God he will not come back," she muttered, half to herself. "I never want to see him in England again."

I thought that this was rather a strained view to take of Monk's delinquencies, seeing how fond Gertrude had been of him until she discovered his true character. But that is the way with true affection: it is all or nothing. Gertrude, a truthful, honest girl, could never trust her father again.

"No, I could never trust him," she said, speaking exactly what was in my mind. "He would only deceive me when it suited him. I always knew that my father was more or less selfish, but I looked upon him as a child. His character is not a deep one."

"It is deeper than we supposed," I said grimly.

"I can see that now, and--and--oh!" she rose and pushed me away--"I must go to my room to think matters over."

"What matters?"

"What you have told me and--and--others," she stammered.

I caught her hands. "Gertrude, what is it?"

She wrenched away her hands and glided towards the door. "I daren't tell you, I daren't tell you," she whispered, and her lips were as white as her face as she waved me back. "Wait, wait," she muttered, "when I can make up my mind, you shall know all." And she disappeared.

"All what?" That was the question I asked myself as I returned to the inn. Apparently Gertrude knew something more about her father than what I had told her. But what could it be that could so move her to tears? Of course the discovery of her father's doubtful behavior had given her a shock, but it scarcely explained her uncontrolled emotion. I began to wonder if Mr. Monk had any connection with the Mootley murder. But, on reflection I could find no connecting link. Until Gertrude gave me her entire confidence, I could not explain anything.

"Her entire confidence!" I stopped short when the two words flashed into my mind. I remembered that Gertrude had refused to give me the name of the mysterious person who had driven her out of the back door by the mere sight of him. Yes--him, for I truly believed that the person in question, although she had kept me in ignorance of the sex, was Walter Monk. On this assumption it was easy to guess why the poor girl had refused to speak the name. She dreaded lest her father should be implicated in the crime, and so, in the face of the danger to herself, had held her peace even to me, her staunch friend and devoted lover. This was what had brought her tears so readily. Notwithstanding she had seen him in the shop--as I now believed--she had hitherto refused to credit him with the murder. But the sudden discovery of the duplicity of which he was capable had aroused in her breast the latent doubt to active life. She now wished to be alone in order to consider if her father was guilty of murder as he had been guilty of deception. At least that was my belief, although I had little grounds to go upon. But Gertrude, as I had always thought, was shielding someone whom she had seen in Mrs. Caldershaw's shop. Who could that someone be but her father, since that relationship alone would be a powerful motive for her to hold her tongue, even at the risk of losing her liberty? But, try as I might, I could not see how Walter Monk could be connected with the death of Anne Caldershaw.

That same evening after dinner, Weston and I walked back to Tarhaven with the brother and sister. The sky was clear, and the atmosphere was not too chilly: also we walked along the cliffs under a full wintry moon. Naturally Weston and the girl he loved were together, and seemed to be quarreling pretty freely. In fact, Dicky told me that night, when we walked back, that several times he had attempted to propose again, but that Mabel had always laughed at him, so that he could not get the words out. She teased him and tantalized him, and drew him on and I repulsed him like a true daughter of Eve, so that his cold, scientific blood--to put it picturesquely--began to warm. Perhaps this was what the young minx desired. At all events, Dicky Weston understood her after that walk to Tarhaven much better than he had ever understood her before, and began to think that there were other things in the world than airships.

Cannington and I walked behind, chatting and smoking. Mabel either had not found time to tell him of her discovery, or had thought it best to leave the explanation to me. At all events Cannington knew nothing, so, to be beforehand, I judged it well to relate what I knew.

"Boy," I said abruptly, when we had settled well into our swing, "I have something to tell you: something you should have known before. And would have known," I added emphatically, "had I not been bound to hold my tongue for a certain period."

"What are you talking about, Vance?" asked Cannington, turning a surprised and youthful face to mine.

"Listen, and don't get your hair off!" said I, then rapidly and clearly told him of my recognition of Marr as Monk: of the conversation I had enjoyed with him in the London chambers, and finally detailed how Mabel had seen the photograph in The Lodge drawing-room which had proved the two men to be one. The boy listened quietly enough, although once or twice I heard him swear under his breath. "Well," said I, when I had finished, "do you blame me?"

"No," he said promptly, "since you arranged that the man should drop Aunt Lucy's acquaintance, and should drop courting Mab, I don't blame you. But I wish you had told me when the fortnight was up."

"My dear boy, how could I? You were going to Italy, and it was useless to communicate the news by letter. Especially," I added, "when Monk went to America, and intends apparently to stop there."

"Yes, yes. I suppose you acted for the best. But what a beast!"

"Come, that's a trifle hard," I protested. "Monk has a legal right to the name of Marr and has plenty of money. He is not a bad match for Mabel."

"I never liked him," said Cannington truculently, "and I am glad Mabel did not listen to him."

"She said that she never intended to listen to him, and now you may be sure that she will be Lady Mabel Weston very shortly."

"That depends upon Dicky's behavior," said Cannington sharply; "unless he is all that I can desire he sha'n't marry my sister."

"You leave things in the hands of Mabel, my son. She'll manage the affair all right. But Marr----"

"Damn him! I should like to give him a thrashing."

"I don't see upon what grounds you could, Cannington. It is true that he suppressed the fact that he had a grown-up daughter, but that is not a crime, and the suppression was due only to vanity. I daresay he intended to tell the truth if Mabel had accepted him."

"I daresay," muttered the boy, still wrathful, "but I wouldn't give the little beast the benefit of the doubt. I can't exactly call him to account either legally or socially, I suppose, but if he dares to speak to me again----" Cannington's fist clenched itself in his deerskin glove.

"I don't think you will set eyes on him for many a long day," I said carelessly; "he'll stop in the States and marry."

"What does his daughter say?"

"She is very much cut up at the way in which he has behaved. Fancy his having all that money--one hundred thousand pounds--and keeping his daughter down to the simple necessaries of life."

"Perhaps he hasn't the money at all," said Cannington abruptly.

"He must have," I insisted; "look at the motor car he drove in: and then his rooms are beautifully furnished."

"He might have got all that by swindling."

"In that case, you certainly are justified in thrashing him, since he obtained an introduction to Lady Denham under false pretences. But I don't think Mr. Monk has the nerve to swindle."

Cannington laughed grimly. I had never seen the easy-going boy so angry. "I think he has the nerve for anything, after what he has done--even for murder, Vance."

I started, remembering my belief that Gertrude was shielding her father. "I don't understand."

"He might have murdered Anne Caldershaw."

"Oh, nonsense. Mr. Monk wasn't even in the neighborhood."

"Mr. Walter Monk, under his real name, wasn't: but Mr. Wentworth Marr was!"

"Cannington?"

"Don't you remember how I told you that Marr called on that mess shortly before we arrived. He was stopping at the Lion Hotel in Murchester, and went off without seeing me again."

"Then you think that he went to Mootley to see Anne Caldershaw and murdered her straight away?"

"I can't be sure that he murdered her," said Cannington doubtfully, "but you can see for yourself that the man is game for anything. According to what you tell me, Mrs. Caldershaw was murdered for the sake of that glass eye, which contains the clue to a fortune. Monk or Marr, or whatever you like to call the beast, might have murdered the woman and stolen the eye and have got the money. I daresay," added Cannington, with a grim laugh, "he is really wealthy."

"I can't believe it," said I, desperately hoping against hope, for it was unpleasant to think that Gertrude might be the daughter of a criminal. "Long before the Mootley murder, he was courting your sister as a rich man."

"I daresay: he might have anticipated the fortune. However, that is my opinion, Vance, so you can take it or leave it. I don't want to hear the man's name again. I only hope he'll have the good sense to stay in the States, as I sha'n't answer for my temper when we meet."

"All right, boy, don't get your hair off with me."

"I haven't," said Cannington stiffly, "but the whole affair is unpleasant."

"If it is for you, think what it must be for me, when I am going to marry the daughter of such a rotter."

"You will keep to your engagement, then?"

"Of course," I returned indignantly. "What do you take me for?"

"A jolly good chap," said the boy, giving me a friendly dig. "I expect she--the lady, I mean--is worth it. Mabel says that she is no end of a beauty."

"Mabel is one of the few girls who can praise beauty in another. For that pretty speech she shall have the best wedding present I can procure."

"It may not be wanted," grunted Cannington.

I laughed and looked ahead at the pair quarreling in the moonlight. "On the contrary, I shall have to see to the matter at once," said I lightly.

On that night when I got back to the inn and retired to bed I thought long and deeply. Cannington's chance remark about Marr being in the neighborhood during the time the crime was committed convinced me that the man had been to Mootley. Gertrude had caught sight of him when she was in the back room, and had fled. For this reason she had declined to tell me the name of the mysterious person. And again, the presence of the glass eye on the drawing-room table was explained in a reasonable way. Monk had left it there, and apparently by chance, since, knowing, he would never have allowed such evidence of his guilt to remain there. How he had recovered it again I could not say, as he had been with me all the time until we re-entered the drawing-room together. It might be that Gertrude, in spite of her denial, had chanced on the eye, and, remembering her father's presence in the shop, had concealed it, thinking--and with good reason--that he was guilty. Even to me, under the circumstances, she would deny the truth, so I did not blame her overmuch. But I arranged in my own mind to see her the next day and learn for certain if she really believed her father to be guilty. On the grounds set forth he assuredly seemed to be.

But when the next day came, I did not call on Gertrude, for--as the saying goes--I had other fish to fry. At ten o'clock I received a telegram, asking me to be in London that afternoon at three o'clock. And the wire was from Mr. Walter Monk, or, as it was signed, Wentworth Marr. "Come up to my rooms at three to-day," ran the wording, "S. threatens. I want you to deal with him. WENTWORTH MARR."

There was a prepaid reply, so I sent an answer saying I would be in Stratford Street at the appointed time. Then I sat down to consider the meaning of the summons.

"'S. threatens.' That is, Striver is on the old man's trail. Humph! So Mr. Monk has returned from the States, where he had intended to remain. I daresay Striver followed him there and forced him to return. Now I wonder if Striver accuses Monk or Gertrude? That is the question. He may be threatening Monk with his daughter's disgrace so as to force him to get her to marry himself--Striver, that is. Or else he suspects Monk and can prove his guilt. Or else----" I stopped, and put the telegram into my pocket. "The crisis seems to be approaching," said I very prophetically. And I was right.