The Silent House, Fergus Hume [romantic novels to read .TXT] 📗

Clear won't speak," said Denzil grimly. "She will keep quiet for her own sake; and as Rhoda has left Jersey Street, there will be no danger of trouble from that quarter. First, I'll see Lydia and the Count, to get to the bottom of this conspiracy; then I'll set the police on Rhoda's track, that she may be arrested and made to confess her knowledge of the murder."

"Do you think she knows anything?"

"I think she knows everything," replied Lucian with emphasis. "That is why she has run away. If we capture her, and force her to speak, we may be able to arrest Wrent."

"Why Wrent?" asked Diana.

"Have you forgotten what Mrs. Clear said? I agree with her that he is the assassin, although we can't prove it as yet."

"But who is Wrent?"

"Ah!" said Lucian, significantly, "that is just what I wish to find out."

The upshot of this interview was that early the next morning Denzil went to the chambers of Ferruci, in Marquis Street, and informed the servant that he wanted particularly to see the Count.

At first the Italian, being still in bed—for he was a late riser—did not incline to grant his visitor an interview; but on second thoughts he ordered Lucian to be shown into the sitting-room, and shortly afterwards joined him there wrapped in a dressing-gown. He welcomed the barrister with a smiling nod, and having some instinct that Lucian came on an unpleasant errand, he did not offer him his hand. From the first the two men were on their guard against one another.

"Good-morning, sir," said Ferruci in his best English. "May I ask why you take me from my bed so early?"

"To tell you a story."

"About my friend Dr. Jorce saying I was with him on that night?" sneered the Count.

"Partly, and partly about a lady you know."

Ferruci frowned. "You speak of Mrs. Vrain?"

"No," replied Lucian coolly. "I speak of Mrs. Clear."

At the mention of this name, which was the last one he expected to hear his visitor pronounce, the Italian, in spite of his coolness and cunning, could not forbear a start.

"Mrs. Clear?" he repeated. "And what do you know of Mrs. Clear?"

"As much as Dr. Jorce could tell me, Count."

Ferruci's brow cleared. "Then you know I pay for keeping her miserable husband with my friend," he said composedly. "It is for her sake I am so kind."

"Rather it is for your own you are so cunning."

"Cunning! A most strange word for my goodness," said the Count coolly.

"The most fit word, you mean," replied Lucian, impatient of this fencing. "It is no use beating about the bush, Count. I know that the man you keep in the asylum is not Clear, but Mark Vrain."

"La! la! la! You talk great humbug. Mr. Vrain is dead and buried!"

"He is not dead," answered Lucian resolutely, "and the man who was buried under his name is Michael Clear, the husband of the woman who told me all."

Ferruci, who had been pacing impatiently up and down the room, stopped short, with a nervous laugh.

"This is most amusing," he said, with an emotion he could not conceal despite his self-control. "Mrs. Clear told you all, eh? She told you what, my friend?"

"That is the story I have come to tell you," replied Lucian sharply.

"Very good," said Ferruci, with a shrug. "I wait to hear this pretty story," and with a frown he threw himself into a chair near Lucian. Apparently he saw that he was found out, for it took him all his time to keep his voice from trembling and his hands from shaking. The man was not a coward, but being thus brought face to face with a peril he little expected, it was scarcely to be wondered at that he felt shaken and nervous. Moreover, he knew little about the English law, and hardly guessed how his misdeeds would be punished. Still, he did not surrender on the spot, but listened quietly to Lucian's story, in the hope of seeing some way of escape from his awkward position.

"The other day I went to Dr. Jorce's asylum," said Lucian slowly, "and there I discovered—it matters not how—that your friend Clear was Mr. Vrain; also I learned that he had been placed in the asylum by you and Mrs. Clear. Jorce gave me her address in Bayswater, but when I went there I could not find her; she had left. I then put an advertisement in all the papers, stating that if she called on me she would hear of something to her advantage. Now, Count, it appears that Mrs. Clear was in the habit of looking into the papers to see if there was any message from yourself, or your friend Wrent, so she saw my advertisement at once, and came in person to reply to it."

"One moment, Mr. Denzil," said Ferruci politely. "I know no one called Wrent, and he is not my friend."

"We'll come to that hereafter," answered Lucian, with a shrug. "In the meantime I'll proceed with my story, which I see interests you very much. Well, Count, it seems that Michael Clear was an actor, who bore a strong resemblance to Mr. Vrain, save that he had not a scar on his face. Vrain, at Bath, was always clean shaven; now he wears a long white beard, but that is neither here nor there. Clear had a moustache, but when that was shaved off he looked exactly like Vrain. For purposes of your own, which you can easily guess, you made the acquaintance of this man, a profligate and a drunkard, and proposed, for a certain sum of money to be paid to his wife, that he, Michael Clear, should personate Vrain and live in the Silent House in Geneva Square, under the name of Berwin. You knew that Clear was slowly dying of consumption and drink, so you trusted that he would die as Vrain; that Mrs. Vrain—who I believe is in the plot—would recognise the corpse by the description in the newspapers; and that, when Clear was buried as Vrain, she would get the assurance money and marry you."

"That is clever," said the Count, with a sneer.

"But is it true?"

"You know best," answered Lucian, coolly. "However, all turned out as you expected, for Clear died as Vrain—or rather was murdered at your command, as he did not die quickly enough—his body was recognised by Mrs. Vrain, buried as her husband, and she got the assurance money. The only thing that remains for your conspiracy to be entirely successful is that Mrs. Vrain should marry you; and—as I was told by Mr. Clyne—that has pretty well been arranged."

"Do you think, then, that Clyne would let his daughter marry a man who has done all this?" said Ferruci, who was now very pale.

"I don't believe Clyne knows anything about it," replied Lucian coldly. "You and Mrs. Vrain made up this pretty plot between you. Vrain himself told me how you decoyed him from Salisbury, and took him to Mrs. Clear's, in Bayswater, where he passed as her husband, although, as she confesses, she kept him as a kind of prisoner."

"But this is wrong," cried Ferruci, trying to laugh. "This is most foolish. How would a man, of his own will, pass as the husband of a woman he knew not?"

"A sane man would not; but none knew better than you, Count, that Vrain was not sane, and that you dosed him with drugs, and let Mrs. Clear keep him locked up in her house until you put him in the asylum. Vrain was a puppet in your hands, and you locked him up in an asylum a fortnight after the man who personated him was murdered. You intended to marry Mrs. Vrain and keep her wretched husband in that asylum all his life."

"The best place for a lunatic," said Ferruci.

"Ah!" cried Lucian. "Then you admit that that Vrain was mad?"

"I admit nothing, not even that he is alive. If what you say is true," said the Italian, cunningly, "how came it that the murdered man had the scar on his cheek? He might have been like Vrain, eh, but not so much."

"Mrs. Clear explained that," replied Lucian quickly. "You made that scar, Count, with vitriol, or some such stuff. You don't know chemistry for nothing, I see."

"I am quite ignorant of chemistry," said Ferruci sullenly.

"Jorce heard a different story in Florence."

"In Florence! Did Jorce ask about me there?" said the Count in alarm.

"He did, and heard some strange tales, Count. Come, now, it is no use your trying to evade this matter further. Jorce can prove that you put Vrain into his asylum under the name of Clear. Miss Vrain can prove that the so-called Clear is her father, and Mrs. Clear—who has turned Queen's evidence—has exposed the whole of your conspiracy. The game's up, Count."

Ferruci sprang from his seat and began to walk hastily up and down the room. He looked haggard and pale, and years older, as he recognised his position, for he saw very plainly that he was trapped, and that nothing remained to him but flight. But how to fly? He stopped opposite to Lucian.

"What do you intend to do?" he demanded in a hoarse voice.

"Have you arrested, along with Mrs. Vrain," replied Lucian, making this threat to force Ferruci into defending himself or confessing.

"Mrs. Vrain is innocent—she knows nothing about this conspiracy, as you call it. I planned the whole thing myself."

"You admit, then, that the so-called Vrain was really Michael Clear?"

"Yes. I got him to personate the man Vrain, so that I could get the assurance money when I married Lydia. I chose Clear because he was like Vrain. I made the scar on the cheek, and I thought he would die soon, being consumptive."

"And you killed him?"

"No! No! I swear I did not kill him!"

"Did you not take that stiletto from Berwin Manor?"

"No! I never did! I am telling the truth! I do not know who killed Clear."

"Did you not visit Wrent in Jersey Street?"

"Yes. I was the man Rhoda saw in the back yard. I was waiting for Mrs. Clear, to take her to Hampstead; and in the meantime I thought I would climb over the fence and see Clear. But the girl saw me, so I ran away, and joined Mrs. Clear up the road. I was not aware at the time that the woman who saw me was Rhoda. Afterwards I went to Hampstead with Mrs. Clear, to see Jorce."

"Did you buy the cloak?"

"I did. That girl in Baxter & Co.'s told a lie for me. I was warned by Mrs. Vrain that you had made questions about the cloak, so I went to the girl and told her you were a jealous husband, and paid her to say it was not I who bought the cloak. She did so, quite ignorant of the real reason I wished her to deny knowing me."

"Why did you buy the cloak?" asked Lucian, satisfied with this explanation.

"I bought it for Wrent. He asked me to buy it, but what he wanted it for I do not know. He had it some days before Christmas, and, I believe, gave it to Mrs. Clear, and afterwards to the girl Rhoda. But of this I am not sure."

"Who is Wrent?" asked Denzil, reserving the most important question for the last.

"Wrent?" said Ferruci, smiling in a sneering way. "Ah! you wish to know who Wrent is? Well, excuse me for a few minutes, and I'll bring you something to show who he is."

With a nod to Lucian he passed into his bedroom, leaving the barrister much astonished. He thought that Ferruci was Wrent himself, and had gone away to resume the disguise of wig and beard. While he pondered thus the Count reappeared, carrying a small bottle in his