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

I think you are going to be disappointed. I am almost certain that I know the contents of that packet. You will find that it consists, as I told you before, not of securities at all, but simply a few old letters."

Barnes' eyes narrowed.

"Whatever they are," he said, "they meant a couple of thousand a year to Morry, and they were worth his life to somebody! How do you account for that, eh?"

"You want the truth?" Wrayson asked.

"Yes!"

"Your brother was a blackmailer!"

The breath came through Barnes' teeth with a little hiss. He realized his position almost at once. He was trapped.

He walked up to Wrayson's side. His voice shook, but he was in deadly earnest.

"Look here," he said, "the contents of that packet, whatever they may be, are mine—mine and hers! You have nothing to do with the matter at all. I will not have you in the room when they are opened."

Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.

"The packet will be opened here," he said, "and I shall certainly be present."

Barnes ground his teeth.

"If you touch one of those papers or letters or whatever they may be, you shall be prosecuted for theft," he declared. "I swear it!"

Wrayson smiled.

"I will run the risk," he declared. "Ah! Baroness, this is kind of you," he added, throwing open the door and ushering her in. "There is a young friend of yours here who is dying to renew his acquaintance with you."

She smiled delightfully at Sydney Barnes, and threw back her cloak. She had just come in from the opera, and diamonds were flashing from her neck and bosom. Her gown was exquisite, the touch of her fingers an enchantment. It was impossible for him to resist the spell of her presence.

"You have been very unkind," she declared. "You have not been to see me for a very long time. I do not think that I shall forgive you. What do you say, Mr. Wrayson? Do you think that he deserves it?"

Wrayson smiled as he threw open the door once more. He felt that the next few minutes might prove interesting.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE WIDOW'S ULTIMATUM

Sydney Barnes stepped quickly forward. If Wrayson had permitted it, he would have snatched the packet from the girl's fingers. Wrayson, however, saw his intent and intervened. He stepped forward and led her to his writing table.

"I want you to sit down here quietly and open the envelope," he said, switching on the electric lamp. "That is what he told you to do, isn't it? There may be a message for you inside."

She looked round a little fearfully. The presence of the Baroness evidently discomposed her.

"I thought," she said, "that we were going to be alone, that there would have been no one here but him and you."

"The lady is a friend of mine," Wrayson said, "and it is very likely that she may be interested in the contents of this envelope."

She untied the string with trembling fingers. Wrayson handed her a paper-knife and she cut open the top of the envelope. Then she looked up at him appealingly.

"I—I don't want to look inside," she half sobbed.

Wrayson took up the envelope and shook out its contents before her. There was a letter addressed simply to Agnes, and a small packet wrapped in brown oilcloth and secured with dark-green ribbon. Sydney Barnes' hand stole out, but Wrayson was too quick for him. He changed his position, so as to interpose his person between the packet and any one in the room.

"Read the letter," he told the girl. "It is addressed to you."

She handed it to him. Her eyes were blinded with tears.

"Read it for me, please," she said.

He tore open the envelope and read the few lines scrawled upon a half sheet of notepaper. He read them very softly into her ear, but the words were audible enough to all of them.

"MY DEAR AGNES,—I have just discovered that there are some people on my track who mean mischief. I have a secret they want to rob me of. I seem to be followed about everywhere I go. What they want is the little packet in this envelope. I'm leaving it with you because I daren't carry it about with me. I've had two narrow escapes already.

"Now you'll never read this letter unless anything happens to me. I've made up my mind to sell this packet for what I can get for it, and take you with me out of the country. It'll be a matter of ten thousand quid, and I only wish I had my fingers on it now and was well out of the country. But this is where the rub comes in. If anything happens to me before I can bring this off, I'm hanged if I know what to tell you to do with the packet. It's worth its weight in banknotes to more persons than one, but there's a beastly risk in having anything to do with it. I think you'd better burn it! There's money in it, but I don't see how you could handle it. Burn it, Agnes. It's too risky a business for you! I only hope that in a week or so I shall burn this letter myself, and you and I will be on our way to America.

"So long, Nessie,

"from your loving husband.

"P.S.—By the bye, my real name is Morris Barnes!"

There was an instant's pause as Wrayson finished reading. Then there came a long-drawn-out whisper from Sydney Barnes. He was close to the girl, and his eyes were riveted upon the little packet.

"Ten—thousand—pounds! Ah! Five thousand each! Give me the packet, sister-in-law!"

She stretched out her hand as though to obey. Wrayson checked her.

"Remember," he said, "what your husband told you. You were to burn that packet. He was right. Your husband was a blackmailer, Mrs. Barnes, and he paid the penalty of his infamous career with his life. I shall not allow either you or your brother-in-law to follow in his footsteps!"

She flashed an indignant glance upon him.

"Who are you calling names?" she demanded. "He was my husband and he was good to me!"

"I beg your pardon and his," Wrayson said. "I was wrong to use such a word. But I want you to understand that to attempt to make money by the contents of that packet is a crime! Your husband paid the penalty. He knew what he was doing when he commanded you to burn it."

She looked towards Sydney Barnes.

"What do you say?" she asked.

The words leaped from his mouth. He was half beside himself.

"I say let us open the packet and look it through ourselves before we decide. What the devil business is it of anybody else's. He was my brother and your husband. These people weren't even his friends. They've no right to poke their noses into our affairs. You tell them so; sister-in-law. Give me the packet. Come away with me somewhere where we can look it through quietly. I'm fair and straight. It shall be halves, I swear. I say, sister-in-law Agnes, you don't want to go back to the refreshment bar, do you?"

"No!" she moaned. "No! no!"

"Nor do I want to go back to the gutter," he declared fiercely. "But money isn't to be had for the picking up. Ten thousand pounds Morris expected to get for that packet. It's hard if we can't make half of that."

She looked up at Wrayson as though for advice.

"Mrs. Barnes," he said gravely, "I can tell you what is in that packet. You can see for yourself, then, whether it is anything by means of which you can make money. It consists of the letters of a very famous woman to the man whom she loved. They were stolen from him on the battlefield. I do not wish to pain you, but the thief was Morris Barnes. The friends of the lady who wrote them paid your brother two thousand pounds a year. Her enemies offered him—ten thousand pounds down. There is the secret of Morris Barnes' wealth."

Sydney Barnes leaned over the back of her chair. His hot whisper seemed to burn her cheek.

"Keep the packet, sister-in-law. Don't part!"

"Your brother-in-law," Wrayson remarked, "is evidently disposed to continue your husband's operations. Remember you are not at liberty to do as he asks. Your husband's words are plain. He orders you to burn the packet."

"How do I know that you are telling me the truth?" she asked abruptly.

"Undo the packet," he suggested. "A glance inside should show you."

For some reason or other she seemed dissatisfied. She pointed towards the Baroness.

"What is she doing here?" she asked.

"She is a friend of the woman who wrote those letters," Wrayson answered. "I want her to see them destroyed."

There was silence for several moments. The girl's fingers closed upon the packet. She turned round and faced them all. She faced them all, but she addressed more particularly Wrayson.

"You are wondering why I hesitate," she said slowly. "Augustus said destroy the packet, and I suppose I ought to do it."

"By God, you shan't!" Sydney Barnes broke in fiercely. "Morry didn't know that I should be here to look after things."

She waited until he had finished, but she seemed to take very little, if any, notice of his intervention.

"It isn't," she continued, "that I'm afraid to go back to the bar. I'll have to go to work some where, I suppose, but it isn't that. I want to know," she leaned a little forward,—"I want to know who it is that has robbed me of my husband. I don't care what he was to other people! He was very good to me, and I loved him. I should like to see the person who killed him hanged!"

Wrayson, for a moment, was discomposed.

"But that," he said, "has nothing to do with obeying your husband's directions about that packet."

She looked at him with tired eyes and changeless expression.

"Hasn't it?" she asked. "I am not so sure. You have explained about these letters. It is quite certain that my husband was killed by either the friends or the enemies of the woman who wrote these letters. I think that if I take this packet to the police it will help them to find the murderer!"

Her new attitude was a perplexing one. Wrayson glanced at the Baroness as though for counsel. She stepped forward and laid her hand upon the girl's shoulder.

"There is one thing which you must not forget, Mrs. Barnes," she said quietly. "Your husband knew that he was running a great risk in keeping these letters and making a living out of them. His letter to you shows that he was perfectly aware of it. Of course, it is a very terrible, a very inexcusable thing that he should have been killed. But he knew perfectly well that he was in danger. Can't you sympathize a little with the poor woman whose life he made so miserable? Let her have her letters back. You will not find her ungrateful!"

The girl turned slowly round and faced the Baroness. They might indeed have represented the opposite poles in femininity. From the tips of her perfectly manicured fingers to the crown of her admirably coiffured hair, the Baroness stood for all that was elegant and refined in the innermost circles of her sex. Agnes would have looked more in place behind the refreshment bar from which Morris Barnes had brought her. Her dress of cheap shiny silk was ill fitting and hopeless, her hat with its faded flowers and crushed shape an atrocity, boots and gloves, and brooch of artificial gems—all were shocking. Little was left of her pale-faced prettiness. The tragedy which had stolen into her life had changed all that. Yet she faced the Baroness without flinching. She seemed sustained by the suppressed emotion of the moment.

"He was my man," she said fiercely, "and no one had any right to take him away from me. He was my husband, and he was brutally murdered. You tell me that I must give up the letters for the sake