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

came. She began again. This time he was able to catch the indistinct whisper.

"Where is he?"

Wrayson took a seat by her side upon the sofa.

"You do not read the newspapers?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Not much. My eyes are not very good, and it tires me to read."

"I am afraid," he said gently, "that it will be bad news."

A little sob caught in her throat.

"Go on," she faltered.

"He is dead," Wrayson said simply.

She fainted quietly away.

Wrayson hurried downstairs to his own flat for some brandy. When he returned the girl was still unconscious. Her pocket was turned inside out and the front of her dress was disordered. Sydney Barnes was bending close over her. Wrayson pushed him roughly away.

"You can wait, at least, until she is well," he said contemptuously.

Sydney Barnes was wholly unabashed. He watched Wrayson pour brandy between the girl's lips, bathe her temples, and chafe her hands. All the time he stood doggedly waiting close by. No considerations of decency or humanity would weigh with him for one single second. The fever of his great desire still ran like fire through his veins. He did not think of the girl as a human creature at all. Simply there was a pair of lips there which might point out to him the way to his Paradise.

She opened her eyes at last. Sydney Barnes came a step nearer, but Wrayson pushed him once more roughly away.

"You are feeling better?" he asked kindly.

She nodded, and struggled up into a sitting posture.

"Tell me," she said, "how did he die? It must have been quite sudden. Was it an accident?—or—or—"

He saw the terror in her eyes, and he spoke quickly. All the time he found himself wondering how it was that she was guessing at the truth.

"We are afraid," he said "that he was murdered. It is surprising that you did not read about it in the papers."

She shook her head.

"I do not read much," she said, "and the name was different. Who was it—that killed him?"

"No one knows," he answered.

"When was it?" she asked.

He told her the date. She repeated it tearfully.

"He was down with me the day before," she said. "He was terribly excited all the time, and I know that he was a little afraid of something happening to him. He had been threatened!"

"Do you know by whom?" Wrayson asked.

She shook her head.

"He never told me," she answered. "He didn't tell me much. But he was very, very good to me. I was at the refreshment-room at London Bridge when I first met him. He used to come in and see me every day. Then he began to take me out, and at last he found me a little house down at Putney, and I was so happy. I had been so tired all my life," she added, with a little sigh, "and down there I did nothing but rest and rest and wait for him to come. It was too good to last, of course, but I didn't think it would end like this!"

Quietly but very persistently Sydney Barnes insisted on being heard.

"It's my turn now," he said, standing by Wrayson's side. "Look here, Miss, I'm his brother. You can see that, can't you?"

"You are something like him," she admitted, "only he was much, much nicer to look at than you."

"Never mind that," he continued eagerly. "I'm his brother, his nearest relative. Everything he left behind belongs to me!"

"Not—quite everything," she protested.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"You may be his brother," she answered, "but I," holding out her left hand a little nervously, "I was his wife!"

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE MURDERED MAN'S EFFECTS

Both men had been totally unprepared for the girl's timid avowal. To Wrayson, however, after the first mild shock of surprise, it was of no special import. To Sydney Barnes, although he made a speedy effort to grapple with the situation, it came very much as a thunderclap.

"You have your certificate?" he asked sharply. "You were married properly in a church?"

She nodded. "We were married at Dulwich Parish Church," she answered. "It was nearly a year ago."

"Very well," Sydney Barnes said. "It is lucky that I am here to look after your interests. We divide everything, you know."

She seemed about to cry.

"I want Augustus," she murmured. "He was very good to me."

"Look here," he said, "Augustus always seemed to have plenty of oof, didn't he?"

She nodded.

"He was very generous with it, too," she declared. "He gave me lots and lots of beautiful things."

His eyes travelled over her hands and neck, destitute of ornaments.

"Where are they?" he asked sharply.

"I've had to sell them," she answered, "to get along at all, I hated to, but I couldn't starve."

The young man's face darkened.

"Come," he said. "We'd better have no secrets from one another. You know how to get at his money, I suppose?"

She shook her head.

"Indeed I don't know anything about it," she declared.

"You must know where it came from," he persisted.

"I don't," she repeated. "Indeed I don't. He never told me and I never asked him. I understood that he had made it in South Africa."

Sydney Barnes wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"Look here," he said in a voice which, notwithstanding his efforts to control it, trembled a little, "this is a very serious matter for us. You don't want to go back to the refreshment bar again, do you?"

"I don't care what I do," she answered dully. "I hated that, but I shall hate everything now that he is gone."

"It's only for a day or two you'll feel like that," he declared. "We've got a right, you and I, to whatever Morry left behind, and whatever happens I mean to have my share. Look around you!"

It was not an inspiring spectacle. The room was dirty, and almost devoid of furniture.

"All that I've had out of it so far," he declared, "is free quarters here. The rent's paid up to the end of the year. I've had to sell the furniture bit by bit to keep alive. It was a cheap lot, cheap and showy, and it fetched jolly little. Morry always did like to have things that looked worth more than he gave for them. Even his jewellery was sham—every bally bit of it. There wasn't a real pearl or a real diamond amongst the lot. But there's no doubt about the money. I've had the bank-book. He was worth a cool two thousand a year was Morry—that's five hundred each quarter day, you understand, and somewhere or other there must be the bonds or securities from which this money came. He never kept them here. I'll swear to that. Therefore they must be somewhere that you ought to know about."

She nodded wearily.

"Very likely," she said. "I have a parcel he gave me to take care of."

The effect of her simple words on Barnes was almost magical. The dull colour streamed into his sallow cheeks, he shook all over with excitement. His voice, when he spoke, was almost hysterical. He had been so near to despair. This indeed had been almost his last hope.

"A parcel!" he gasped. "A parcel! What sort of a parcel? Did he say that it was important?"

"It's just a long envelope tied up with red tape and sealed," she answered. "Yes! he made a great fuss about leaving it with me."

"Tell us all about it," he demanded greedily. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Be quick!"

"It must have been almost the very day it happened," she said, with a little shudder. "He came down in the afternoon and he seemed a bit queer, as though he had something on his mind. He took out the envelope once or twice and looked at it. Once he said to me, 'Agnes,' he said, 'there are men in London who, if they knew that I carried this with me, would kill me for it. I was frightened, and I begged him to leave it somewhere. I think he said that he had to have it always with him, because he couldn't think of a safe hiding-place for it. Just as he was going, though, he came back and took it out of his pocket once more."

"He left it with you?" Barnes exclaimed. "You have it safe?"

She nodded.

"I was going to tell you. 'Look here, Agnes,' he said, 'I'm nervous to-night. I don't want to carry this about with me. I shall want it to-morrow and I'll come down for it. To-night's a dangerous night for me to be carrying it about.' Those were just about his last words. He gave me the packet and I begged him to be careful. Then he kissed me and off he went, smoking a cigar, and as cheerful as though he were going to a wedding."

She began to cry again, but Barnes broke in upon her grief.

"Didn't he tell you anything more about it?" he demanded.

"He told me—if anything happened to him," she sobbed, "to open it."

"We must do so," he declared. "We must do so at once. There must be a quarter's dividends overdue. We can get the money to-morrow, and then—oh! my God!" he exclaimed, as though the very anticipation made him faint. "Where is the packet?"

"At the bottom of my tin trunk in my rooms," she answered. "I had to leave the house. I couldn't pay the rent any longer."

"Where are the rooms?" he demanded. "We'll go there now."

"In Labrador Street," she answered. "It's a poor part, but I've only a few shillings in the world."

"We'll have a cab," he declared, rising. "Mr. Wrayson will lend us the money, perhaps?"

"I will come with you," Wrayson said quietly.

"We needn't bother you to do that," Sydney Barnes declared, with a suspicious glance.

The young woman looked towards him appealingly. He nodded reassuringly.

"I think," he said, "that it will be better for me to come. I am concerned in this business after all, you know."

"I don't see how," Barnes declared sullenly. "If this young lady is my sister-in-law, surely she and I can settle up our own affairs."

Wrayson stood with his back to the door, facing them.

"I hope," he said, "that you will not, either of you, be disappointed in what you find in that packet. But I think it is only right to warn you. I have reason to believe that you will not find any securities or bonds there at all! I believe that you will find that packet to consist of merely a bundle of old letters and a photograph!"

Barnes spat upon the floor. He was shaking with fright and anger.

"I don't believe it," he declared. "What can you know about it?"

Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.

"Look here," he said, "the matter is easily settled. We will put this young lady in a cab and she shall bring the packet to my flat below. You and she shall open it, and if you find securities there I have no more to say, except to wish you both luck. If, on the other hand, you find the letters, it will be a different matter."

The girl had risen to her feet.

"I would rather go alone," she said. "If you will pay my cab, I will bring the packet straight back."

Wrayson and Barnes waited in the former's flat. Barnes drank two brandy and sodas, and walked restlessly up and down the room. Wrayson was busy at the telephone, and carried on a conversation for some moments in French. Directly he had finished, Barnes turned upon him.

"Whom were you talking to?" he demanded.

"A friend of yours," he answered. "I have asked her to come round for a few minutes."

"A friend of mine?"

"The Baroness!"

The colour burned once more in his cheeks. He looked down at his attire with dissatisfaction.

"I didn't want to see her again just yet," he muttered. Wrayson smiled.

"She won't look at your clothes," he remarked, "and I rather want her here."

Barnes was suddenly suspicious.

"What for?" he demanded. "What has she got to do with the affair? I won't have strangers present."

"My young friend," Wrayson said, "I may just as well warn you that