Chapter XLI: Which Reveals the Truth

The door of the dining-room, wherein we were still assembled, re-opened to admit a young man in evening clothes, the man of whom I had entertained a groundless jealousy--Drayton.

Stonor had, a few moments before, left the room in order to obtain some more soda-water. Otherwise, we were all present.

As Drayton entered, greeting us with some surprise, and inquiring of Whitlock why he had been sent for, Little suddenly and abruptly stepped forward and, raising his hand, said--

"I charge that man with being the assassin of Louise Lorimer!"

"You're a liar!" the young fellow cried. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that we are here to-night to end this mystery, and to deliver the assassin to justice," exclaimed Julian, facing him boldly. "You have acted cleverly--very cleverly--in establishing my guilt to your half-sister. But to-night it must end. The truth must out."

"Oh, must it?" cried Drayton. "Very well, then--it shall. Let us assume for a moment that I am guilty. How, pray, do you prove my alleged offence?"

"You were her secret lover."

"I don't deny that. It is true that I was in love with Louise; and, by heaven! ever since the poor girl's death I've been seeking her assassin!"

"You admit that you were the lover of Louise Lorimer?" asked Whitlock, in surprise.

"Of course I do. Daisy knows that quite well," he answered. "I frequently went to see her at that lonely house in Barnes where she spent so many dismal weeks. After the murder I took Daisy there to show her the place, as she wished to see it."

"My allegation is that you wished to get rid of her, and went there that night intending to do so," Julian said determinedly.

"Scandalous!" cried Daisy, in defence of her half-brother.

"My dear sir," he said, "you are at liberty to allege exactly whatever you like against me. But you will have to establish it, recollect. As a matter of fact, I was not in London on that night."

"Ah, so you intend to prove an alibi!" remarked Whitlock, quickly.

"You're a liar!" Little declared openly. "It will be proved that you were not only in London, but you were with Miss Marvin earlier in the evening."

"She will be able to tell you that, no doubt," responded the man whose finger-marks upon his glass at the Gambrinus had betrayed him. "You are endeavouring to make this allegation against me in order to shield yourself. You were, as you know, Daisy's admirer, and because she refused to have anything whatever to do with you, you have been her bitterest enemy."

"Is this true?" I asked breathlessly, turning to my well-beloved, beside whom stood Stonor, who had just re-entered.

"I have forgiven everything long ago, Victor," she said, in her soft, sweet voice. "But what I can never forgive is the foul assassination of my helpless friend. What Douglas has told me is sufficient proof of that man's guilt."

"And what has he told you?" I asked.

"Facts which he cannot substantiate," interposed Little, with a dry, but uneasy, laugh. The revelation that he had been an admirer of Daisy's had apparently upset him. It was strange how each man was now accusing the other, and all apparently without any satisfactory evidence to support their charges.

Drayton had admitted, however, that he had been the poor girl's lover in secret, and his manner when charged with the crime was distinctly that of a guilty man. I had not liked him from the first moment when I had seen him in the Gambrinus, and I did not like him now. Upon his countenance "Adventurer" was plainly written, yet he seemed to wield over Daisy some strong but occult power. She humoured his every whim, and what he told her she believed implicitly.

That there had been suspicion against Julian Little could not be denied, but in face of what I had just heard, I began now to discard the theory I had once formed, and I believed every word that my friend uttered.

Drayton, though shielded by Daisy, was no doubt guilty. He had been the secret lover of poor Louise, had been in the habit of visiting the deserted house at night--as it was impossible to go there in the daytime--and had, on the fatal night, rid himself of what he feared was becoming an incubus upon him. The whole affair was now plain as daylight; yet, unfortunately, it was merely based upon circumstantial evidence. There was no witness; no actual proof.

Whitlock apparently viewed the situation from exactly the same standpoint as myself. He saw in Drayton's allegations against Little an attempt to shield himself. The admission he had made of being the girl's lover was in itself a damaging one.

"Well," said the inspector, who certainly had a difficult task in these conflicting allegations, "I think, Mr Drayton, that I shall have to ask you to consider yourself my prisoner."

"What!" gasped the young man, all the colour fading from his face. "You--you mean you arrest me!"

"Yes--on suspicion of being the assassin of Louise Lorimer," responded Whitlock, in hard, businesslike tones.

Daisy gave vent to a low scream, realising that her half-brother, in whose honesty she had such firm belief, was now under arrest.

"No!" she cried. "This is infamous! He is innocent. I know he is!"

"Mr Drayton's innocence will be proved in due course," the detective said coldly. "Meanwhile I must detain him on suspicion."

"I can prove my innocence at once," cried the young man. "Give me a piece of paper--I want to write a note."

Whitlock pointed to a small escritoire, and, bending to it, Drayton scribbled a few hasty lines, which he placed in an envelope upon which he wrote an address.

"Will you please send someone with that and ask for an answer," he said, handing the note to Whitlock. "It isn't far--only in Marylebone Road."

My friend despatched it, ordering the sergeant to take a cab.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes or so later the sergeant returned, ushering in a pale-faced, ill-dressed youth with longish hair and broken boots--a youth who, by his appearance, picked up a precarious living on the streets.

"Good-evenin', Mr Drayton!" he exclaimed, on encountering the young man who had sent for him. "I've come, yer see. I said I would, when yer sent for me."

"Yes; I'm glad you're here, Monro," Drayton said. "I want you to tell this gentleman"--and he indicated Whitlock--"what you saw in that house at Barnes on the night when the young woman was murdered."

"Well, sir," he answered without hesitation, "I wor down on my luck, an' 'avin' no place to go for the night I saw, as I wor goin' along Castelnau, in Barnes, wot I takes to be a hempty 'ouse. I climbs over the gate, an' findin' a window at the back 'arf open, gets inside, when on a sudden I 'ears voices--a man and a woman, an' I also 'ears a little bell a-ringin'. I listens, an' I 'ears another footstep outside in the garden, an' I sees the figure of a man a-hidin' hisself in the bushes. I creeps up to the room where the voices come from, an' I sees a fellow an' a girl a-quarrellin'. An' then--an' then I saw the fellow deliberately kill the girl. An' after 'e'd done it 'e steals out quick, an' 'e nearly 'it up agin me in the dark passage where I wor a-standin'. An' 'e does a bunk, quick."

"You actually saw his face?" Whitlock asked eagerly. "Now, think of what you're saying."

"'Course I did."

"Is he in this room?"

"No. 'E ain't 'ere."

Drayton stared at the youth in abject wonder, for he expected that he would identify Little. "It was myself who hid in the bushes, for I had gone there to see Louise," he explained.

"What was he like?" Whitlock asked. "Describe him to us."

"Well, 'e was stout, with a rather crooked nose an' a reddish face. I saw 'im quite plainly," answered the youth Monro.

"But you never told me this before," Drayton said.

"I pointed out a bloke close to 'Ammersmith bridge wot from 'is back I thought was the man."

"And he was this gentleman--Mr Little," Drayton said.

"Well, the chap who did it was much fatter, an' 'ad a red face--a reg'lar clock on 'im," the youth declared.

"Where is Stonor?" I asked, looking round, for on Monro's entry there he had left the room again and had not returned.

Stonor! the description of the assassin fitted him exactly! I stood breathless.

In an instant his absence aroused strong suspicion, and Whitlock, stepping out into the hall, inquired of the sergeant if anyone had passed out.

"No, sir. And the area door is locked. I have the key."

Whitlock shouted up the stairs, "Mr Stonor! Mr Stonor!" but there was no response.

Frantic search resulted in the discovery of the door of a small bedroom on the second floor being locked. In a few moments it was unceremoniously forced, and there upon the floor, with a small empty phial upon the dressing-table, lay the body of the scoundrel who had so completely deceived the man who had entered into the ingenious partnership. He had, it seemed, seen the youth as he had left the rooms at Barnes on the night of his crime, and, again recognising him, saw that the game was up.

Later inquiries, made by Little, Drayton and myself, showed that Stonor was at first much attached to Louise, and had completely misled his sister at Scarborough. A very shady business transaction of his, amounting to a serious crime, in which he had swindled Little, had been discovered by the girl, and he feared to discharge her lest she should have her revenge by exposing his methods to Julian. Therefore he resolved to kill her, and cast suspicion upon Drayton with Little's aid. The concealment of the birth-certificate and other things showed how carefully he had prepared the evidence against Drayton, whom he knew as an adventurer, and how ingeniously he had carried the mystery forward until the police were so utterly puzzled that the problem had been placed beyond solution. Every detail had been marvellously thought out--all except the tragic suicide of his poor wife--which had utterly unnerved even him.

Inquiries made it quite plain that she was well aware of her husband's clever tactics, and had assisted him in several business transactions which were the reverse of honest. Drayton had, through Louise, obtained knowledge of all this, and the day previous to the tragedy demanded blackmail of her. She had not told her husband, as they were not on very good terms because of his undue admiration of the pretty telegraph-girl. When on the night in question she entered there to relieve Louise and watch the wire while she slept, and encountered the constable, and saw the body of the girl of whom she was jealous, she naturally concluded that Drayton had carried out his threat of exposure, especially as she found herself under arrest. She, therefore, in a frenzy of terror and despair, committed suicide in the police-cell.

* * * * *

More than a year has now passed since the dramatic incidents of that well-remembered night when the truth was crystallised.

Daisy--my own sweet-faced Daisy--is now my wife. We love each other. Need I tell you more?

An hour after the establishment of Stonor's guilt we mutually apologised for daring to doubt each other, and since that moment our lives have been full of blissful happiness.

She retired from the stage a week before our marriage, preferring my love to the life of limelight and tinsel in which she had hitherto been such a prominent figure. We have a pretty, old-fashioned house down at Wimbledon, overlooking the common; but we are very seldom there, for she is already becoming a hardened traveller, and is mostly away with me on the Continent, journeying hither and thither, and assisting me in my work as special correspondent of the _Daily Herald_. Indeed, many of the telegrams you read in your morning paper signed by myself have been penned by her hand.

Drayton, owing to certain information I gave him regarding the probable activity of the police, again left England suddenly, and when last heard of was in Mexico. Julian Little is now our best friend, and a confirmed bachelor. He is, like myself, ever travelling, and we sometimes come across each other in odd out-of-the-way places on the Continent, while at the office off Fleet Street the staff are just the same, except that in certain quarters there is, I believe, considerable envy at my good fortune.

But Daisy and I laugh the whole world in the face. We love each other with a passionate, perfect, and all-absorbing affection, and no cloud mars our peace and contentment. Her self-accusation was, I discovered, relative to the days long past, when Little had admired her, and when she in her girlish ecstasy had given him a declaration of what she believed then to be love. Though our marriage was really the outcome of a great and mysterious crime, yet we both feel, and we have both more than once declared, that if we could peep for an instant into the Book of Fate we should find our present existence of sweet content and our future just exactly as desired by you, my reader.--"THE LOOKER-ON."

THE END

EDINBURGH
COLSTON AND CO. LIMITED
PRINTERS

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[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]

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