The Avenger, E. Phillips Oppenheim [uplifting book club books txt] 📗

was not a dream—that it was indeed Stephen Heneage who sat opposite to him, Heneage the impenetrable, whose calm, measured words left no indication whatever as to his motive in making this amazing revelation.

"You are naturally wondering," Heneage continued, "why, having seen what I did see, I kept silence. I followed your lead, because I fancied, in the first place, that the presence of that young lady was a personal affair of your own, and that she could have no possible connection with the tragedy itself. You were evidently disposed to shield her and yourself at the same time. I considered your attitude reasonable, if a little dangerous. No man is obliged to give himself away in matters of this sort, and I am no scandalmonger. The situation, however, has undergone a change."

Wrayson looked up quickly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To-night," Heneage said calmly, "I recognized your nocturnal visitor with the Baroness de Sturm.

"And what of that?" Wrayson demanded.

Heneage, who was leaning back in his chair, looking into the fire with half closed eyes, straightened himself, and turned directly towards his companion.

"How much do you know about the Baroness de Sturm?" he asked.

"Nothing at all," Wrayson answered. "I met her for the first time to-night."

Heneage looked back into the fire.

"Ah!" he murmured. "I thought that it might be so. The young lady is perhaps an old friend?"

"I cannot discuss her," Wrayson answered. "I can only say that I will answer for her innocence as regards any complicity in the murder of Morris Barnes."

Heneage nodded sympathetically.

"Still," he remarked, "the man was murdered."

"I suppose so," Wrayson admitted.

"And in a most mysterious manner," Heneage continued. "You have gathered, I dare say, from your knowledge of me, that these affairs always interest me immensely. I am almost as great a crank as the Colonel. I have been thinking over this case a great deal, but I must confess that up to to-night I have not been able to see a gleam of daylight. I had dismissed the young lady from my mind. Now, however, I cannot do so."

"Simply because you saw her with the Baroness de Sturm?" Wrayson asked.

"They are living together," Heneage reminded him, "a condition which naturally makes for a certain amount of intimacy."

"Do you know anything against the Baroness?" Wrayson demanded.

"Against her?" Heneage repeated thoughtfully. "Well, that depends."

"Do you mean to insinuate that she is an adventuress?" Wrayson asked bluntly.

"Certainly not," Heneage replied. "She is a representative of one of the oldest families in Europe, a persona grata at the Court of her country, and an intimate friend of Queen Helena's. She is by no means an adventuress."

"Then why," Wrayson asked, "should you attach such significance to the fact of her friendship with Miss Deveney?"

"Because," Heneage remarked, lighting another cigarette, "I happen to know that the Baroness is at present under the strictest police surveillance!"

Wrayson started. Heneage's first statement had reassured him: his later one was simply terrifying. He stared at his visitor in dumb alarm.

"I came to know of this in rather a curious way," Heneage continued. "My information, in fact, came direct from her own country. She is being watched with extraordinary care, in connection with some affair of which I must confess that I know nothing. She is staying in London, a city which I happen to know she detests, without any ostensible reason. Of all parts, she has chosen Battersea as a place of residence. It is her companion whom I saw leaving your flat at three o'clock on the morning of Barnes' murder. I am bound to say, Wrayson, that I find these facts interesting."

"Why have you come to me?" Wrayson asked. "What are you going to do about them?"

"I am going to set myself the task of solving the mystery of Morris Barnes' death," Heneage answered calmly. "If I succeed, I am very much afraid that, directly or indirectly, the presence of Miss Deveney in the flats that night will become known."

"And you advise me, therefore," Wrayson remarked, "to take a voyage—in plain words, to clear out."

"Exactly," Heneage agreed.

Wrayson threw his cigarette angrily into the fire.

"What the devil business is it of yours?" he demanded.

Heneage looked at him steadily.

"Wrayson," he said, "I am sorry that you should use that tone with me. I am no moralist. I admit frankly that I take this matter up because my personal tastes prompt me to. But murder, however great the provocation, is an indefensible thing."

"I am not seeking to justify it," Wrayson declared.

"I am glad to hear that," Heneage answered. "I cannot believe, either, that you would shield any one directly or indirectly connected with such a crime. I am going to ask you, therefore, to tell me what Miss Deveney was doing in these flats on that particular evening."

Wrayson was silent. In the light of what he had just been told about the Baroness, he knew very well how Heneage would regard the truth. Of course, she was innocent, innocent of the deed itself and of all knowledge of it. But Heneage did not know her; he would be hard to convince. So Wrayson shook his head.

"I can tell you nothing," he said. "I admit frankly my sympathies are not with you. I should not say a word likely to bring even inconvenience upon Miss Deveney."

"Dare you tell me," Heneage asked calmly, "that her visit was to you? No! I thought not," he added, as Wrayson remained silent. "I believe that that young lady could solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' death, if she chose."

Then Wrayson had an idea. At any rate, the disclosure would do no harm.

"Do you know who Miss Deveney is?" he asked.

Heneage looked across at him quickly.

"Do you?"

"Yes! She is the eldest daughter of the Colonel!"

"Our Colonel?" Heneage exclaimed.

Wrayson nodded.

"Her real name is Miss Fitzmaurice," he said. "Her mother's name was Deveney."

Heneage looked incredulous.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Wrayson answered. "I saw her picture the day of the garden party, and I recognized her at once. There is no doubt about it whatever. She and the Baroness were schoolfellows in Brussels. There is no mystery about their friendship at all."

Heneage was thoughtful for several moments.

"This is interesting," he said at last, "but it does not, of course, affect the situation."

"You mean that you will go on just the same?" Wrayson demanded.

"Certainly! And it rests with you to say whether you will be on my side or theirs," Heneage declared. "If you are on mine, you will tell me what Miss Deveney was doing in these flats on that night of all others. If you are on theirs, you will go and warn them that I am determined to solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' death—at all costs."

"I had no idea," Wrayson remarked quietly, "that you were ambitious to shine as an amateur policeman."

"We all have our hobbies," Heneage answered. "Take the Colonel, for instance, the most harmless, the most good-natured man who ever lived. Nothing in the world fascinates him so much as the details of a tragedy like this, however gruesome they may be. I have seen him handle a murderer's knife as though he loved it. His favourite museum is the professional Chamber of Horrors in Scotland Yard. My own interests run in a slightly different direction. I like to look at an affair of this sort as a chess problem, and to set myself to solve it. I like to make a silent study of all the characters around, to search for motives and dissect evidence. Human nature has its secrets, and very wonderful secrets too."

"I once," Wrayson said thoughtfully, "saw a man tracked down by bloodhounds. My sympathies were with the man."

Heneage nodded.

"Your view of life," he remarked, "was always a sentimental one."

"No correct view," Wrayson declared, "can ignore sentiment."

"Granted; but it must be true sentiment, not false," Heneage said. "This sentiment which interferes with justice is false sentiment."

"Justice is altogether an arbitrary, a relative phrase," Wrayson declared. "I know no more about the case of Morris Barnes than you do. I knew the man by sight and repute, and I knew the manner of his life, and it seems to me a likely thing that there is more human justice about his death than in the punishing the person who compassed it."

"There are cases of that sort," Heneage admitted. "That is the advantage of being an amateur, like myself. My discoveries, if I make any, are my own. I am not bound to publish them."

Wrayson smiled a little bitterly.

"You would be less than human if you didn't," he said.

Heneage rose to his feet and began putting on his coat. Wrayson remained in his seat, without offering to help him.

"So I may take it, I suppose," he said, as he moved towards the door, "that my visit to you is a failure?"

"I have not the slightest idea of running away, if that is what you mean," Wrayson answered. "I am obliged to you for your warning, but what I did I am prepared to stand by."

"I am sorry," Heneage answered. "Good night!"

CHAPTER XII

TIDINGS FROM THE CAPE

Wrayson paused for a moment in his work to answer the telephone which stood upon his table.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

His manager spoke to him from the offices below.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there is a young man here who won't go away without seeing you. His name is Barnes, and he says that he has just arrived from South Africa."

It was a busy morning with Wrayson, for in an hour or so the paper went to press, but he did not hesitate for a moment.

"I will see him," he declared. "Bring him up yourself."

Wrayson laid down the telephone. Morris Barnes had come from South Africa. It was a common name enough, and yet, from the first, he was sure that this was some relative. What was the object of his visit? The ideas chased one another through his brain. Was he, too, an avenger?

There was a knock at the door, and the clerk from downstairs ushered in his visitor. Wrayson could scarcely repress a start. It was a younger edition of Morris Barnes who stood there, with an ingratiating smile upon his pale face, a trifle more Semitic in appearance, perhaps, but in other respects the likeness was almost startling. It extended even to the clothes, for Wrayson recognized with a start a purple and white tie of particularly loud pattern. The cut of his coat, the glossiness of his hat and boots, too, were all strikingly reminiscent of the dead man.

His visitor was becoming nervous under Wrayson's close scrutiny. His manner betrayed a curious mixture of diffidence and assurance. He seemed overanxious to create a favourable impression.

"I took the liberty of coming to see you, Mr. Wrayson," he said, twisting his hat round in his hand. "My name is Barnes, Sydney Barnes. Morris Barnes was my brother."

Wrayson pointed to a chair, into which his visitor subsided with exaggerated expressions of gratitude. He had very small black eyes, set very close together, and he blinked continually. The more Wrayson studied him, the less prepossessing he found him.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Barnes?" he asked quietly.

"I have just come from Cape Town," the young man said. "Such a shock it was to me—about my poor brother! Oh! such a shock!"

"How did you hear about it?" Wrayson asked.

"Just a newspaper—I read an account of it all. It did give me a turn and no mistake. Directly I'd finished, I went and booked my passage on the Dunottar Castle. I had a very fair berth over there—two quid a week, but I felt I must come home at once. Fact is," he continued, looking down at his trousers, "I had no time to get my own togs together. I was so anxious, you see. That's why I'm wearing some of poor Morris's."

"Are you the only relative?" Wrayson asked.

"'Pon my sam, I am," the other answered with emphasis. "We hadn't a relation in the world. Father and mother died