Part 8 (2/2)
”You might almost as well be afloat,” said Brendon, and the remark pleased Bendigo.
”That's how I feel; and I can tell you there's a bit of movement, too, sometimes. I never wish to see bigger water than beat these cliffs during the south-easter last March. We shook to our keel, I can tell you.”
He went to a tall cupboard in a corner, unlocked it and brought out a square, wooden desk of old-fas.h.i.+oned pattern. This he opened and produced a letter which he handed to the detective.
Brendon sat down in a chair under the open window and read this communication slowly. The writing was large and sprawling; it sloped slightly-upward from left to right across the sheet and left a triangle of white paper at the right-hand bottom corner:
”DEAR BEN: It's all over. I've done in Michael Pendean and put him where only Judgment Day will find him. Something drove me to do it; but all the same I'm sorry now it's done--not for him but myself. I shall clear to-night, with luck, for France. If I can send an address later I will. Look after Jenny--she's well rid of the blighter. When things have blown over I may come back. Tell Albert and tell Flo. Yours,
”R. R.”
Brendon examined the letter and the envelope that contained it.
”Have you another communication--something from the past I can compare with this?” he asked.
Bendigo nodded.
”I reckoned you'd want that,” he answered and produced a second letter from his desk.
It related to Robert Redmayne's engagement to be married and the writing was identical.
”And what do you think he's done, Mr. Redmayne?” Brendon asked, pocketing the two communications.
”I think he's done what he hoped to do. At this time of year you'll see a dozen Spanish and Brittany onion boats lying down by the Barbican at Plymouth, every day of the week. And if poor Bob got there, no doubt plenty of chaps would hide him when he offered 'em money enough to make it worth while. Once aboard one of those sloops, he'd be about as safe as he would be anywhere. They'd land him at St. Malo, or somewhere down there, and he'd give you the slip.”
”And, until it was found out that he was mad, we might hear no more about him.”
”Why should it be found that he was mad?” asked Bendigo. ”He was mad when he killed this innocent man, no doubt, because none but a lunatic would have done such an awful thing, or been so cunning after--with the sort of childish cunning that gave him away from the start. But once he'd done what this twist in his brain drove him to do, then I judge that his madness very likely left him. If you caught him to-morrow, you'd possibly find him as sane as yourself--except on that one subject. He'd worked up his old hatred of Michael Pendean, as a s.h.i.+rker in the war, until it festered in his head and poisoned his mind, so as he couldn't get it under. That's how I read it. I had a pretty good contempt for the poor chap myself and was properly savage with my niece, when she wedded him against our wishes; but my feeling didn't turn my head, and I felt glad to hear that Pendean was an honest man, who did the best he could at the Moss Depot.”
Brendon considered.
”A very sound view,” he said, ”and likely to be correct. On the strength of this letter, we may conclude that when he went home, after disposing of the body under Berry Head, your brother must have disguised himself in some way and taken an early train from Paignton to Newton Abbot and from Newton Abbot to Plymouth. He would already have been there and lying low before the hunt began.”
”That's how I figure it,” answered the sailor.
”When did you last see him, Mr. Redmayne?”
”Somewhere about a month ago. He came over for the day with Miss Reed--the young woman he was going to marry.”
”Was he all right then?”
Bendigo considered and scratched in his red beard.
”Noisy and full of chatter, but much as usual.”
”Did he mention Mr. and Mrs. Pendean?”
”Not a word. He was full up with his young woman. They meant to be married in late autumn and go abroad for a run to see my brother Albert.”
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