Chapter XLIV: Conclusion

On that fateful night, after Oscar Nystrom’s denunciation of the assassin, Alza Dresler, accompanied by the fair-moustached Dane, sat for a long time with Dick Jervoise and Owen Odd in the former’s flat at Barnes, explaining how, while watching Nicholas Bourtzeff with evil intent, it became apparent to her that Nystrom might possibly have met Grinevitch in Christiania. From the letter sent to him by the victim before his death, it was apparent that Paul knew of his friend’s presence in the Norwegian capital. She had therefore spared no effort to find the Dane, who had so successfully concealed himself from the police, and had at last run him to earth in the south of Spain. She knew long ago that poor Helene Marquet had committed suicide because of Paul, and recollection of that fact set her wondering whether in that could be any motive for revenge.

At risk of her own liberty she approached Bourtzeff, explained her theory, and sought his assistance. In consequence of the fact that his compatriot had been killed so mysteriously, and that Dick Jervoise, his friend, was suspected, he consented, and the pair thereupon made up their differences. Bourtzeff went to Paris, and, after diligent inquiry and search, was at Orleans rewarded by the discovery of Helene’s parentage, and consequently the motive for the crime.

Peter Sundt had acted throughout with the greatest foresight and that marvellous cunning that had characterised his whole successful career. Yet he had believed that the parentage of the beautiful singer who had taken her own life was a secret from all save himself, and that the terrible truth could never be discovered.

“When you recognised Paul at Vardo, why didn’t you denounce him to the Berentsens?” asked Odd of his friend.

“Well, because I was not altogether certain of what might be the result,” was Dick’s reply. “My motives might have been entirely misjudged, and, besides, Paul Grinevitch, heartless scoundrel that he was, had intercepted a letter which I wrote to poor Helene on the Riviera only a few days before she took her life—a letter which I feared that, if driven into a corner, he might attempt to make use of to implicate me in the tragedy of her death and besmirch a dead woman’s honour. And so I remained silent until—until at last I could no longer keep my secret from Thyra, his latest victim; but, alas! it was then too late!” Then, turning to Alza, he took her hand, saying in deep earnestness: “To you, dear friend, both Thyra and myself owe a great debt which we can never, never repay.”

“It is already repaid,” replied the young woman, flushing slightly and then hesitating. “And—and M’sieur Dick, I want to tell you both something—something you suggested to me a long time ago. Do you remember? Well, it is this. Oscar and myself have decided to have in future nothing further to do with Enderlein and his friends. Yesterday we agreed to marry, and try—if it is possible—to settle down to a respectable and honest life.”

“It is possible, I am sure it is!” declared Dick. “And I congratulate you both. If at any time in the future, Alza, you want a friend, you know there is at least one man who is ready and anxious to assist you.”

* * * * *

The others had gone, leaving Dick and his friend with the pince-nez alone.

“And so it’s all clear at last, and the sun seems likely to shine on some of us once more. It’s not a bad old-world after all, is it, Owen?” the former was saying.

“In my eyes it’s turning out an infernally good world,” replied the doctor, and there was a particularly merry and knowing smile gleaming through the glittering gold ovals.

“That’s right. You always were sympathetic, old boy, and could enter into another fellow’s happiness as though it were your own.”

“Think so! P’raps you’re right. When one is happy oneself one joins more readily in the happiness of others.”

“What do you mean, you old rascal? You’ve got something up your sleeve, I expect.”

“It hasn’t troubled you much lately if I have. You’re about as selfish as they make them, Dick.” But the laughter in his eyes died away with the sting of the last remark.

“Oh, shut up, and tell me what you _do_ mean.”

“Well, do you fancy you’re the only fellow in the world worthy of Dame Fortune’s smiles? Aren’t there hundreds of others fifty times as good as you who are entitled to a bit of luck now and then?”

“Of course there are; but what the devil are you driving at? The cryptic _role_ does not fit you, Owen. If you’ve got any news, out with it, man. You’ll feel better afterwards,” and Dick laughed joyously.

“Well, I didn’t mention the matter before because you were so full of your own affairs that I doubted if you were capable of even taking it in, or at any rate appreciating the full significance as regards myself. The fact is, Dick, I’ve come in for a tidy bit of money.”

“You have? Bravo! bravo! old chap. I’m delighted to hear it,” and Dick sprang up and shook his friend’s hand till the latter winced. “You deserve it, every penny of it. And I hope there are a good many of them.”

“A tidy few. How many are there in £15,000?”

“Fifteen thousand! By Jove! that’s a piece of luck worth having. I congratulate you, old man, ’pon my soul, I do. But where has it all come from? Where is the patient blind enough to leave such a sum to the man who has done his best to kill him?”

“It was no patient, but my mother’s brother, my Uncle Roger, whom I haven’t seen since he went to the Transvaal ten years ago. I always liked him, and he seemed to take to me, and now he’s dead—poor old fellow—he’s left me a pretty substantial proof of the fact.”

“I should think he had, the old brick! He was something like an uncle. There aren’t many of that kind knocking about, worse luck! Well, Owen, the next thing you must do is to find a wife.”

“I’ve found one.”

“Great Scot! What next? Go gently; I can’t stand too much of this all at once. Do you mean to tell me in cold blood you’re engaged to be married?”

“Something very like it,” replied Owen, smiling.

“And you never gave me a hint, you mean beggar! I’m ashamed of you. But who is it? A real good one, I hope, and worthy of one of the best?” And again Dick made an onslaught on his friend’s hand.

“Yes, Dick, she _is_ a good one. You won’t find another like Miss Gordon in a long day’s march.”

“Miss Gordon! By Jove! I remember now. You mentioned her name some time ago. I’d forgotten all about her.”

“Naturally; she’s English, not Norwegian.”

“Now, then, drop it. No chaff. I want to hear your story. You know mine.”

And we will leave Owen to tell it. The two men were both deeply in love, and we can imagine the nature of the conversation, which they found a great deal more interesting than perhaps the reader would.

* * * * *

A brief telegram which appeared in the newspapers six days later conveyed but little to the millions of newspaper-readers throughout the United Kingdom, and yet, like so many other paragraphs in our daily journals, it contained the last scene of a hidden life-drama.

From Lloyd’s agent at Lisbon, the intelligence was to the effect that the captain of the Italian cruiser _Livorno_ had put in there to report that at night, while in a dense fog about eighteen miles south-south-west of Cape Finisterre, he had come into collision with a Norwegian steam yacht, belonging to Mr. Peter Sundt, of Christiania, the owner on board. The vessel, cut in two, had foundered immediately, and only four persons had been saved, the first officer and three able seamen. The concluding words of the telegram were: “Mr. Sundt controlled the cod-fishing industries of the Lofoden Islands and the Arctic coast of Finmark.”

Only at New Scotland Yard, at the Prefecture of Police in Paris, in the bureau of the Pubblica Sicurezza in Rome, and in the police headquarters of the other European capitals did the announcement convey a true meaning. The hue and cry was cancelled, and the little folding cards, with the photographs upon them, were placed among the “warrants withdrawn.”

* * * * *

The fetters of black winter again lay heavily upon the Arctic coast.

The fierce north-west wind swept dark clouds across the frozen land, and the snow was drizzling down in small flakes. The mountains had already thrown on their snow mantles, and the low ground of the immense tundra, stretching away a thousand miles to the south, had put on its garment of dazzling whiteness.

It was white and frozen everywhere, save for that grey, bleak, tempestuous sea which beat upon the ice-covered rocks where Thyra and Dick Jervoise, wrapped to their eyes in their Lapp coats of reindeer skin, stood together, hand in hand.

At that self-same spot she had stood with Paul Grinevitch just over a year ago. She had just recalled that fact to the man to whom, only a month before, she had been wedded in London. They had accompanied the captain on his last journey up there in the old _Mercur_, prior to retiring to live in the south, and were again in those same bleak, dismal surroundings wherein they had first met.

That great grey sea, wreathed in its drifting white mists, was, however, no longer to them the sea of despair as it once had been. On the contrary, as they stood together, her fur-mittened hand gripped warmly in his, and their gaze fixed on one another’s eyes, their true hearts beat in unison with an all-absorbing affection.

Surely no pair in the whole universe were happier than they! Standing upon the very edge of the world, they faced the north, the great region of the unknown, with the knowledge that the future held for them only joy and brightness and perfect peace.

The snow whirled about them, the keen frost made their faces tingle, but they heeded not. A thin cloud swept over the white ground—formed by the whirling snow. Then the wind suddenly became a tempest; the cloud rose to heaven, bewildering even to those most weather-hardened, and dangerous in the extreme to all things living—the snow-hurricane was upon them.

Bent against the tearing storm, themselves covered with snow, they with difficulty made their way to a low stone hut—for they were fully half a mile from Vardo—and beneath its wall sought shelter from the Arctic blizzard.

The long night was rapidly approaching, for the sky was dark, though it was but midday.

“My love,” he said, placing his arm tenderly about her, “as the storm passes, so pass the dark, clouded days of our lives. Very near have we both been to disaster and shipwreck upon the quicksands of life, but by God’s grace we have both been spared to enjoy each other’s affection. To-morrow we shall leave here for the blue skies and sunshine of the distant south—for the little villa among the olives at Bordighera which I have rented for the winter.”

“Ah! Dick, my own dear Dick!” she cried, burying her face in his furs. “You can never realise all that I suffered in those dark days of distress and suspicion—those days when I loved you, and yet dared not to show it. But”—she sobbed for joy—“it has all ended, now we are at last man and wife. You fought a brave fight for me; you rescued me from the hands of an assassin. I am yours to-day, for always—my husband—my love—for ever!”

He pressed her to his breast in silence, a silence far more eloquent than mere words.

And as they stood there the storm cleared quite suddenly, as do the fierce blizzards of the Arctic, and they walked back through the snow to the harbour-master’s wooden house, hand in hand, childishly blissful in all the sweet ecstasy of each other’s perfect and abiding love.

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 22 Changed: That he was a gentlmen
To: That he was a gentleman

pg 23 Changed: The soft sweetness of her feaures
To: The soft sweetness of her features

pg 29 Changed: equipment for the Antartic
To: equipment for the Antarctic

pg 43 Changed: seated in his armchair, bent, pale, and tried
To: seated in his armchair, bent, pale, and tired

pg 50 Changed: encased in leather mocassins
To: encased in leather moccasins

pg 61 Changed: driving in one ricketty old vehicle
To: driving in one rickety old vehicle

pg 68 Changed: fought the leements every day
To: fought the elements every day

pg 117 Changed: who had been rather suprised
To: who had been rather surprised

pg 117 Changed: back in the captial, where she had spent
To: back in the capital, where she had spent

pg 193 Changed: Miss—Miss——” stammmered Owen
To: Miss—Miss——” stammered Owen

pg 196 Changed: use of the word “our”; it semed
To: use of the word “our”; it seemed

pg 213 Changed: Is is not a fact
To: Is it not a fact

pg 215 Changed: Her wherabouts in Paris
To: Her whereabouts in Paris

pg 228 Changed: I undestood that the operations of the association
To: I understood that the operations of the association

pg 297 Changed: She choose before—and a pretty mess
To: She chose before—and a pretty mess

pg 326 Changed: my life, it he wishes
To: my life, if he wishes

pg 334 Changed: quite a different cricle from yours
To: quite a different circle from yours

pg 336 Changed: theft of the Countess de Magnan’s jewelery
To: theft of the Countess de Magnan’s jewelry