The Last Stroke: A Detective Story, Lawrence L. Lynch [books for new readers .txt] 📗

knife. I might not have been so much impressed by these details, perhaps, had I not learned that your brother was[Pg 242] returning from a visit of charity to the sick, a visit which he had paid regularly for some time. Then I thought I saw light upon the subject."

"Yes." Brierly bent toward the detective, a keen light in his eyes. "I have been very dull, Ferrars, but I have had time for much thinking of late. I think that, at last, I begin to understand."

"And what do you understand?" A slow smile was overspreading the detective's face.

"That my brother and I have had a common enemy. That nothing short of both our lives will satisfy him; that the attack upon Charley, nearly a year ago, was the beginning—that, having taken his life, they are now upon a still hunt for mine—and that, but for you, they would have completed their work that evening when, chafing, like the fool I was, under restraint, I set out alone, and met——"

"A policeman." Ferrars' lips were grave, but his eyes smiled. "It was a close squeak, Brierly. The fellow very nearly brained you. And now"—and he drew his chair closer, and his face at once became grave almost to sternness—"we want to end this game; there is too much risk in it for you."

"You need not fear for me, Ferrars. From this moment I go forward, or follow, as you will, blindly; you have only to command. What must I do?"

[Pg 243]

"Prepare to go aboard the Lucania five days from date in the disguise of what do you imagine?"

"A navvy possibly."

"No. I know the boat's captain, luckily, and I know that a party of Salvation Army officers are to sail that day for England. We will go aboard, all of us, in the salvation uniform and doff it later, if we choose."

"You say all of us?"

"I mean Mrs. Myers, who goes to join her husband and see London and Paris; Miss Glidden, who goes because she wills to go and because she believes that Miss Grant can be best diverted from her sorrow, and strengthened for her future life, by such a journey, Miss Grant, ergo, and our two selves." He leaned back and watched his vis-à-vis narrowly from underneath drooping lashes. He was giving his client's docility a severe test, and he knew it.

As for Robert, he remained so long silent that the detective, relaxing his gaze, resumed—

"I won't ask you to take too much upon trust, Brierly. Our present position, briefly told, is this. We are nearing the climax, but we cannot force it. One point of the game remains still in the enemy's hands. And the scene is shifted to England—to London, to be literal. The next move must be made by the other side. It will be made over there, and[Pg 244] we must be at hand when the card is played. If all ends as I hope and anticipate, your presence in London will be imperative, almost. As for the ladies, Miss Grant's presence may be needed, as a witness perhaps, and certainly nothing could be better for her than the companionship of her friend, Miss Ruth, and the motherly kindness of Mrs. Myers, just now."

Robert Brierly turned his face away, and clinched his hands in desperation. He was thinking of Ruth, and an inward battle was raging between strong love and stubborn pride.

"And now," went on the other, as if all unheeding, "concerning the disguises. I have told you of the person seen by our spies at the Glenville House, for a brief time?"

Brierly bowed assent.

"He, this man, was only described to me, but seen by Miss Grant."

"Oh!" Brierly started.

"Lately, we have received, through the good offices of Mr. Doran, a picture of this man—it's growing late and I'll give the details at another time—I have believed this man to be one of your enemies, quite possibly the one."

"One of them?"

"Yes. And large and muscular enough he is, to have been your assailant, and——"

[Pg 245]

"And my brother's murderer?"

"In my opinion they are not the same. But we must not go into this. Some one has kept us—that is, yourself, Miss Grant and myself, in the character of her cousin—under constant watch, almost. There must have been tools, but this man I believe to be the chief, on this side."

"Great heavens! How many are there, then?"

"Honestly, I do not yet know. The answer to that is in Europe. But this man—he has been shadowed since Miss Grant saw him on Clark Street—has already sailed for England. My man escorted him, after a modest and retiring fashion, to New York, and saw him embark. I propose that we go east by different routes. The ladies one way, you and I by another. They will hardly imagine us all flitting by water, and their spies will hardly be prepared for a sea voyage, even should one of us be 'piped' to the wharf. Of one thing I must warn you; you are not to set foot in London, nor to put yourself in evidence anywhere as a tourist, until you are assured that you may walk abroad in safety. To know you were in England would be to render your opponents desperate, indeed."

"You have only to command. I am as wax in the potter's hand henceforth. And now I ask you on the eve of this long journey why my brother and myself are[Pg 246] thus hunted. How we stand in the way of these enemies of ours I cannot imagine."

"That I am ready to tell you, since you ask no more. You stand between your enemies and a fortune."

"Impossible!"

"I knew you would say that. But wait." Ferrars rose abruptly. "I shall not see you again before we leave for New York," he said, taking up his hat. "Come with me across the way, I must say good-bye to the ladies; they——"

"Do they understand?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Myers and her two charges were pleasantly bestowed just across the street, in one of the cosy and tree-encircled cottages of the aristocratic little suburb, in which the party had found a retreat. And all three were still upon the broad piazza when the two men appeared.

No other occupants of the house were visible, and before long Robert Brierly found that, by accident or design, the detective, Mrs. Myers, and Hilda, had withdrawn to the further end of the long veranda, and that Ruth Glidden had crossed to his side, and now stood before him, leaning lightly against a square pillar, and so near that he could not well rise without disturbing her charming pose.

[Pg 247]

Before he could open his lips she was speaking.

"Robert, don't get up. Please do not. There is something I must say to you. I have seen the trouble, the anxiety in your face to-night. I know what Mr. Ferrars has been saying to you; at least I can guess, and I understand."

"Ruth!"

"Don't speak. Let me finish, Rob. If I didn't know you so thoroughly, if the whole of your big, noble heart had not been laid bare to me, as never before, during your illness, I should not dare, would lack the courage to say what I will say, for your sake, as well as for mine." She caught her breath sharply, and before he could command the words he would have spoken, she hurried on.

"Don't think that I do not know how you look upon this journey abroad, in my company, and now——" She paused again. "This is very hard to say, Rob, and I am not saying it well, but you will not misunderstand me, I know that; and I can't lose your friendship, Rob, dear, and the pleasure your company will be to me, if we can set out understanding ourselves and each other. You have let Charlie's death and the money loss this search may bring you, crush out all hope, and you have been steeling yourself to give me up; to forget me. But do you think I will let you do this? I know your pride,[Pg 248] dear. I love you for it. But why must it separate us utterly? You are not the only man in this world who must win his way first, and whose wife must wait. I have waited, and I shall wait, always if need be. But it need not be. You will be the King Cophetua to my beggar maid yet. Oh, I know. I am afraid of nothing but your horrible self doubt, your fear of being——"

"Of being called a fortune hunter, Ruth."

"Well, you shall not be called that, sir knight of the proud, proud crest. Listen! You must be to me the Robert of old; not avoiding me, but my friend who understands me. We are both free to go abroad, and with a chaperone, as we are going, would not be de rigueur otherwise; and this subject is not to be referred to again, until the quest upon which we are starting—yes, I say we—is at an end.

"Who knows what may happen between our going and our home-coming? At the worst, I am still your friend, and shall never be more to any other man." She was about to move away, but he sprang up and caught her hands.

"Ruth! You have given me new life. And you have shamed me. It is of you I have thought, when I have tried to tear myself away and leave you free to choose another."

"Robert, for shame. Shall you 'choose another' then?"

[Pg 249]

"Never! You know that!"

"If I did not I should never have spoken as I have just now."

"But there are so many who might give you everything."

"There is only one who can give me my heart's desire."

"Ruth, my darling, if I were rich, or if you were poor, no man should ever win you from me. But the world must never call Ruth Glidden's husband a fortune hunter."

"It never shall. Never!"

"And so, you see——"

"I see the folly of what I have said. What do we care for dame Grundy? And why should you and I be foolish hypocrites, deceiving no one? In my heart of hearts I have been your promised wife always. I think I have the little ring with which we were betrothed when we were ten years old. We will go abroad as lovers, Rob, and if you cannot offer me a fortune—it must be a very large one to satisfy me—before we return, I shall give all mine to the London poor, and you will have to support me the rest of my days. What folly, Robert, what wickedness, to let mere money matters come between you and me!"

[Pg 250]

CHAPTER XXI. "QUARRELSOME HARRY."

The Lucania had been in port forty-eight hours, and Mrs. Myers and her party had been snugly quartered in one of London's most charming rural nooks, at Hampton Court, with Robert Brierly close at hand, before Ferrars ventured to visit the city.

Mr. Myers had discreetly remained in London, going from thence to meet his friends at Hampton Court, but Ferrars, for reasons which he did not explain, went to the city, as soon as he had assured himself of the comfort and safety of his party, this assurance including the provision of a watchful aid, who kept guard whenever Robert Brierly, himself now well convinced of the need of caution, ventured abroad.

Leaving Mr. Myers thus to enjoy an evening with his wife and friends, Ferrars hastened to "the city," where every stone seemed familiar, and many faces were those[Pg 251] of friends or foes, well known and well remembered. To escape recognition his own countenance had been simply but sufficiently hidden behind a disguise of snowy hair and rubicund visage, both assumed as soon as he had parted from the group at Hampton Court, for Ferrars realised that the battle was now on, and he had no idea of giving the foe the chance possibility of an encounter. He was well known at Scotland Yard, as well as to the chief of the department of police, and it was to one of these officials that he made his way, for he had two reasons of his own for hastening on, in advance of the party.

Not long before leaving the "States," he had received a dainty notelet. It could not have been called a letter. It came through the hands of Doctor Barnes, and it was signed, "Lotilia K. Jamieson."

 

It is late afternoon when Ferrars reaches Oxford Street, after his interview with several official personages, during which he has bestowed upon each a number of typewritten cards, bearing what seems to be