Part 73 (1/2)

The Doctor looked on, smiling, and in silence. He saw the lips of both girls covered with the hot fervent kisses of good and honest men. He heard their whispered words, and then he turned away.

Those long black days of suspicion and despair were at an end. The mystery of it all was now being rapidly solved, and both girls within that little parlour wept tears of joy upon the shoulders of the men whom they had chosen as their husbands.

The happiness of four young hearts was complete. The grim shadow had lifted, and upon them now fell at last the bright suns.h.i.+ne of life and of love.

The self-effacement of that little household was at an end. Freed from the bondage of silence, the truth was at last told. Maud, with her own lips, explained to Charlie the confession she had made to Marion on the night of their disappearance. She had told her how the man Adam, whom she had known in Belgrade, had followed her several times in the neighbourhood of Earl's Court, had spoken to her, and had declared his love for her. She never suspected that he had been her father's enemy-- the man who had been the instigator of the dastardly outrage--until on the previous evening, her father had, in confidence, told her the truth, and added that, because of his re-appearance, they had to fly. She dared not tell him they had met, but she had made Marion her confidante.

It was the story of the bomb outrage that had held Marion horrified.

Charlie, when he had listened open-mouthed to the explanation of his well-beloved, cried:

”The a.s.sa.s.sin! And he dared to speak to you of love!”

”He is dead, dearest,” answered the girl, quietly stroking his hair from his brow. ”Let us forgive him--and forget.” For answer he took her again in his arms, and kissed her tenderly upon the lips.

Three days later.

The coroner's jury had returned a verdict of ”suicide while of unsound mind,” and the body of Jean Adam had, with the undertaker's a.s.sistance, been buried in Highgate Cemetery in the actual coffin which had been so long prepared for him. It was surely a weird revenge of old Sam's.

But the whole occurrence was a grim and terrible repayment of an old debt.

In the fading twilight of the wet and gloomy day on which the dead man's body was, without a single follower, committed to the grave, Rolfe and Barclay were seated with the millionaire in the familiar library in Park Lane.

Old Sam had been making explanations similar to those made by the Doctor down at Arundel. Suddenly he said, looking from one to the other:

”And now I have to apologise to you both. In arranging the disappearance of my dear friend the Doctor, I contrived to mislead you, in order to add mystery to the occurrence. I knew, Rolfe, you lost your train at Charing Cross that night; that you did not wish to be seen off by your sister Marion because you had--in my interests--quarrelled with Adam and had made murderous threats against him--perhaps unwisely.

These threats, however, you believed Adam had told to Barclay, hence your fear of the last-named later on. I arranged that a man should be present at Cromwell Road in clothes resembling your own, that a garment should be placed in the house with a bloodstain upon it, and that the doctor's safe should be blown open as though thieves had visited the place after the removal of the furniture. I knew from the Doctor that you, Barclay, would go there that evening, and my object was to puzzle and mislead you, at the same time believing that, having suspicions of your friend Rolfe, you would not go to the police. Again, in order to test Rolfe's devotion to myself, I suggested that the honour of the woman he loved, if sacrificed, could save me. I made this suggestion in order to put Rolfe off the scent.”

”Then it was all your own doing?” Max cried, in surprise.

”Entirely,” was the old man's response. ”In the interests of myself, as well as of both of you. Adam believed that you were aware of his secret intentions, therefore he was plotting to entice you to Turkey--a country where you might have disappeared with ease. That was undoubtedly his object.”

For a few moments he paused; then, clearing his throat, the old man said, in a distinct voice:

”The other night you were no doubt both surprised to find my drawing-room transposed into the interior of a Russian house. Well, it was done with a distinct purpose--to defeat my enemy. He, with his friend and accomplice Lyle, had made a false charge against me--a charge supported by the perjured evidence of the hunchback--a charge of having in the old days, years ago, murdered a woman--the woman who was my wife.”