Chapter Thirty. Tells a Strange Tale.

“And your secret is known,” said the pale, agitated woman despairingly, her dark eyes still fixed upon the guilty man before her. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, for the wounded heart made it difficult for her to speak.

He nodded in the affirmative.

“To whom?” she asked.

“To Cator, of the Secret Service; to many of his agents, no doubt; to one, at least, of my political opponents, and to a woman who is your friend—Muriel Mortimer!”

“To Muriel?” she gasped in abject amazement.

“Yes,” he answered; “the woman who, if report speaks correctly, was suggested by you to Lady Meldrum as a fitting person to become my wife.”

“Ah, forgive me!” Claudia cried quickly. “I threw you into one another’s society in order to test your love for me. I was, not certain whether you really loved me, or whether this younger and prettier woman might not attract you. Believe me, I invited her to the house-party at Wroxeter for the same purpose that I allowed my name to be associated with that of the Grand-Duke and others—to test the extent of your affection. I was foolish—very foolish, I know. But forgive me, Dudley, I was jealous.”

In answer to her request he related the ingenious manner in which he had been entrapped, precisely as in the foregoing pages it has already been described.

“She wished to marry you in order to obtain money,” declared the angry woman, upon whom these revelations had fallen as a crushing blow. “I never suspected her; yet now I see it all. Her ingenuity has been simply marvellous. She intended that you should buy from her a freedom which it was not within her power to sell. If you had become her husband she would, no doubt, either have tempted you to commit suicide rather than face arrest—first, of course, having induced you to make a will in her favour—or else have expected you to pay heavily for release from a woman of her stamp.”

“But who is she?” he demanded. “What do you know of her?”

“Nothing, except what you already know, Dudley, that, although the ward of a respectable family, she is now proved to be an unscrupulous adventuress. But I myself will attempt to solve the mystery. She was abroad for about a year, she once told me, and she often goes to the Continent to visit friends there. There are many facts about her that are mysterious, and yet Lady Meldrum absolutely adores her. She cannot, however, know the truth of her association with these foreign ruffians who have attempted your life. Now that I recollect,” she added, “I found one morning, concealed behind one of the cushions in the cosy-corner of the library, a piece of crumpled paper, which, when opened, I discovered to be the commencement of a letter in a woman’s hand. It was in Italian, and began, ‘Mio adorato Tonio.’ She must have gone there to write to the man, and, being interrupted, had evidently crushed the paper in her hand and hid it, and then forgotten it.”

“Yes,” he said, “I recollect finding her alone there one evening, and that my entrance seemed to confuse her somewhat. But,” he went on despondently, “had the scoundrels been successful it would perhaps have been better for me.” He was no coward, but he saw that for him all life, all happiness, all love had ended.

“No, Dudley,” she answered in a sweet and tender voice, looking straight at him. “You are guilty, but both you and I have been the victims of this ingenious trickster. She first tried to rob me of your love, and then, finding herself unsuccessful, resorted to a foul and cunning strategy.”

“Yes,” he said in a low voice, his chin still upon his breast. “I am guilty, and must suffer. But,” he added, raising his head slowly until his eyes met hers, “promise me one thing, Claudia—promise that after to-day you will give no further thought to me. I have deceived you, and am unworthy; put me out of your mind for ever.”

“But you loved me, Dudley,” she cried with a mournful tenderness. “How can I allow your memory to pass from me when for so many years you have been my all in all?”

“In the future we must be parted,” he answered huskily. “From the consequences of my crime there is no escape—none. But if I thought that you had forgotten the grave wrong I have done you, my mind would at least be easier.”

She did not answer for a few moments. Then, with the passion begotten of a changeless and profound affection she rushed towards him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried out:

“No, Dudley, you are mine—mine! we must not part. I love you—you know that I do! You shall not leave me—you hear! you shall not!”

“But I must,” he replied gravely, a hardness appearing at the corners of his mouth as he slowly disengaged himself from her embrace. “I have given my word of honour to return to my chambers before midday.”

“To whom?”

“To Archibald Cator. The man who, in the exercise of his profession as chief of our Secret Service, has discovered my secret.” Chisholm, whatever might have been his follies in the past, was now a man of unflinching principle. He had given his word not to attempt to escape.

“Then I will go with you,” she said with resolution. “It is half-past eleven, and my carriage is outside. We will drive down to St. James’s Street together.”

But in all earnestness he begged her not to accompany him. He did not desire that she should be a witness of his degradation and arrest. He could not bear the thought. He knew that the matter would be placed before Lord Stockbridge himself, and that, in company with Cator, he would be called into the presence of the grave-eyed Chief in whose confidence and regard he had for long held so high a place.

“I shall go with you,” she said decisively, now calm and composed after her agitation and flood of tears. She had braced herself up with what was, under the circumstances, a remarkable effort. By way of explanation she added, half breathlessly: “I love you, Dudley, and my place in the hour of trial is at your side.”

He raised her bejewelled hand tremblingly to his lips, and thanked her in a husky voice. He, the Discrowned, dared not kiss her lips.

“Patience and courage,” she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder tenderly, just as she had been wont to do in those early days of his career when she had so often given him advice.

He shook his head sadly before answering.

“Both are unavailing against the vengeance of Heaven!”

She was silent. This man, whom she had loved as her own life, was a murderer. A gulf had opened between them, his arrest and denunciation were imminent. They could no longer be lovers. All was of the past.

Her tender woman’s sympathy for him in his hopeless despair was too deep for tears. Her countenance, usually so sweet and smiling, had grown hard, and her eyes large and serious. The caprice of her broken heart was that this last drive to his chambers should be taken in his company. Many and many a time he had driven with her hither and thither in London, but this was the last occasion. After that, then she would be alone, friendless, unloved—the queen of the silent kingdom, as she had so often termed the stately mansion, one of the finest in London, where the servants moved in silence and the huge marble hall and corridors echoed to the slightest whisper.

They drove together past Apsley House and along Piccadilly without exchanging a single word. Once or twice Dudley raised his hat mechanically to passers-by who, now that the yellow sunlight had struggled through the clouds, were enjoying a stroll in London’s gayest thoroughfare. Whenever there is any sunshine in the metropolis, it is always in Piccadilly. But the unwonted brightness of that morning jarred upon Dudley and Claudia. Few who passed the pair driving in that handsome carriage would ever have dreamed that the light of that beautiful woman’s heart was extinguished, and that the well-groomed man at her side was going deliberately to his doom.

Beneath the bearskin rug their hands met—and clasped. Their hearts beat quickly, their eyes met, but no word passed between them. Both understood that all words were empty in face of the horrible truth.

Archibald Cator, who had been sitting beside the fire in Chisholm’s sitting-room, rose and bowed when they entered. He recognised Claudia at once, and darted a look of inquiry at the accused man.

“Captain Cator, I believe?” she exclaimed, addressing him. “To apologise is quite unnecessary. I know everything. Mr Chisholm has told me the whole terrible story. You have but done your duty in the service of your country, and as far as I am concerned your just behaviour will receive a just verdict.”

The tall, thin-faced man was expressing his regrets, when Claudia, turning to him again, asked:

“In this affair there is still an element of mystery which should be at once cleared up. Through my own unpardonable folly in accepting as friend a woman whom I did not know, Mr Chisholm has fallen the victim of a curious conspiracy. Do you chance to know in Italy a man named Marucci?”

“Marucci?” repeated the captain; “Francesco Marruci, I presume you mean? Yes, I know him and have employed him in Rome, and elsewhere, to make confidential inquiries.”

“And do you chance to be acquainted with a woman named Mortimer—a young woman, Muriel Mortimer?”

“Certainly,” he replied quite frankly. “She is a fair-headed young person who poses as the ward of an English family named Meldrum. A couple of years ago, however, she married secretly an Italian named Biancheri, then a lieutenant of Artillery stationed at Florence, and she and her husband are now generally supposed to be agents employed in the secret service of Italy. This good-looking woman has been a successful spy. Her husband is a black-haired, evil-looking fellow with an ugly scar across his lower jaw.”

“His description is exact. He was the man who attempted to take my life last night!” exclaimed Chisholm, astonished at this revelation. “He called himself Tonio Rocchi.”

When Dudley had briefly described his adventure, Cator said:

“I knew the woman Mortimer was a guest at Wroxeter, and that was the reason why I wished nobody to know of my visit there. We are acquainted, but at that moment I had no wish to meet her.”

“Then this woman, her husband, and the Italian Marucci have by some means learnt my secret, and are actually in agreement as regards this scheme of attempted blackmail?”

“Most certainly,” was Cator’s response. “Biancheri, or Rocchi, as he calls himself, and his wife are as smart a pair of adventurers as any on the Continent, and it is well-known to us that they have on several occasions levied huge sums in blackmail when diplomatic and family secrets have leaked out.”

“But the Meldrums!” exclaimed Claudia in astonishment. “Is it possible that they, a most respectable family, can actually be aware of this woman’s fraud?”

“I think not,” was the captain’s reply. “Muriel Mortimer, the daughter of a deceased station-master employed on the Great Northern Railway, is of age, and therefore, of course, her own mistress. In England she is still the ward of Sir Henry Meldrum—who had taken her out of charity—and passes as a single woman, but she secretly married Biancheri while they were wintering in Florence, and her frequent journeys abroad have not been undertaken for the purpose of visiting friends, as she pretends but, in reality, to assist her husband in his ingenious and daring schemes of espionage and blackmail. She is an adventuress of the very worst type.”

“But how can she have learnt my secret?” demanded the melancholy man upon whom the all-reaching hand of justice had so heavily fallen.

“Ah, that is utterly impossible to tell,” answered Cator. “All that is certain is that she, together with her husband and confederates, will quickly clear out of England now that you have so determinedly withstood their efforts and defied their threats.”

Archibald Cator had turned away, and was making a pretence of examining the titles of the books in the bookcase on the opposite side of the room while Claudia and Dudley stood silently hand in hand. The captain had an appointment to see the Marquess of Stockbridge in company with the Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office at one o’clock, when the serious charges were to be privately investigated. The hour was drawing near, and the white-faced, tearful woman was taking leave of the guilty man, whom she had so fondly and so truly loved.

There was in her eyes an inexpressible sadness, and the quivering lips he had so often kissed with tender passion showed plainly the agony she was suffering.

“Forgive me, Claudia, forgive me for the sake of the love of old!” he implored, whispering in her ear. “With your forgiveness I can face my fate unflinchingly, knowing that my punishment is just.”

“Dudley,” she answered in a voice broken by emotion, as she uttered what was to her the dearest of all names, “I forgive you everything. A cruel, an inexorable fate tears us apart, but I shall never forget you—never. May God forgive you as I forgive you.”

“Thank you, my heart, for those encouraging words,” he cried, snatching up her hand and imprinting upon it a lingering kiss of farewell.

As their eyes met for a single instant, in hers he saw a look of blank despair and mingled sympathy more expressive than any words could possibly be.

“Farewell, Dudley!” was all she said. “I shall pray to Him for you.”

She turned slowly from him and walked across to the door, while Cator drew back the velvet portière and bowed in silence.

At this moment the door was thrown open by Parsons, who carried a rather bulky letter and a card upon his salver.

“The gentleman who called in the night has called again, sir,” announced the old man. “I told him you were engaged, but he said he could not possibly wait, as he was sailing from London almost immediately. He regretted missing you, and left this letter.”

His master glanced at the card, and saw that it bore the name “Ralph Brodie,” with the word “Boodle’s” in the corner.

With nervous fingers he quickly tore open the envelope and drew from it a note, together with a smaller envelope, rather soiled, sealed with black wax, and addressed to him in a woman’s pointed hand.

Claudia, who had halted, stood watching him.

The note was a brief one, written by Brodie from his club, stating with regret that his wife had died of consumption a month ago. Among the papers which he found after her death was the enclosed, together with instructions that he should deliver it personally and unopened. This he did. As he had only been in London a few hours on urgent business, and was compelled to return to India by the Caledonia that afternoon, he had written this note of explanation in case they could not meet.

He broke the brittle wax of the dead woman’s letter, and drew forth a sheet of thin foreign note-paper, the ink on which was somewhat faded.

Swiftly he scanned the lines of brown ink; then, while looking for May Brodie’s signature, he saw in addition to this another name at the bottom of of the document—“Muriel Mortimer.”

“Impossible!” he gasped. “Surely this is not a dream! Look! Read this!” He handed the missive to Cator, who, together with the woman who had just bidden him a last farewell, read it through eagerly.

“It is the truth!” cried Claudia wildly, a moment later, rushing towards him, throwing her clinging arms about his neck, kissing him passionately, and shedding tears of joy. “You are innocent, Dudley! innocent! Think, think! The truth is written there in the presence of a witness. You are innocent!”

Some time elapsed before Dudley could grasp the whole of the facts. What he held in his trembling fingers was a statement written by May Lennox three years before. It began in a somewhat rambling manner, was dated from Kapurthala, and had been written after the doctors had pronounced her to be suffering from incurable consumption. The important paragraph, however, penned in an unsteady hand and rather smeared, read as follows:

“And now, as I know that before very long I must die, I have resolved to confess to you the whole truth. I knew too well of my father’s relations with the Turkish and Italian Governments, and I knew how he induced you to procure for him photographs of the Anglo-Russian agreement in the East, offering myself to you as a bribe. I was helpless in his hands; he used me as his decoy in the various capitals, and often accomplished important coups of espionage with my assistance. But the photographs you furnished to him proved to be those of quite unimportant despatches, and utterly valueless. The photographs of the actual despatches wanted by Tewfik were procured by a person named Peynton in the employ of the Foreign Office, who has since died. My father, however, believed that you wilfully endeavoured to mislead him and intended to expose him; hence his fierce antagonism, which caused him to lay in wait for you in that lonely path near Godalming. As I had gained knowledge of his intention to harm you, I went down there and watched his movements. I was present, hidden in the shadow behind a rail only a few paces from the spot—at the point where, you will remember, the police found the weeds down-trodden and other signs of the presence of a third person. I overheard his suggestion to you, and your refusal; I saw him draw his knife with intent to strike you. I watched your struggle, and in the course of the fracas his revolver fell unnoticed from his pocket. As you were both close to me at that moment I was enabled to reach the weapon. Then I saw that your strength was failing, and you fired at him. You missed. I believe I know the very tree in which your bullet lodged. Seeing your imminent peril, I also fired—and he fell. I saved you, but I killed the man whom I was compelled to call father, though I had good reasons to hate his memory. He killed my poor mother by sheer brutality and neglect, and made me his puppet and decoy in his nefarious schemes. When he fell, you rushed from the spot, believing that you had killed him, but if you will refer to the medical evidence you will find that he was struck by a single bullet beneath the left shoulder-blade. That shot was the one I fired, and could not possibly have been fired by you. In order to tell you the truth, and yet not commit myself, I sent you anonymously, a few weeks after the occurrence, a piece of tracing-paper with a diagram upon it, and a few words, which were purposely rather vague, hoping that the plan of the spot would show you that you were innocent, and that in case you were afterwards charged with the crime you would be able to use the plan in your defence. Confession I make calmly and of my own free will, in order that it may be signed by the woman who is my companion and my most intimate friend, and that it may be opened by your own hand when I am dead and beyond the reach of man’s justice.”

There was nothing else. Only the signature, “May Beatrice Brodie,” together with that of Muriel Mortimer.

“This clearly explains how the woman Mortimer, or Biancheri, obtained possession of your secret,” observed Cator in surprise, after he had read it through aloud. “My inquiries, I recollect, showed that she entered Mrs Brodie’s employ as companion and was in India for six months, but that she returned, owing to the climate, and again took up her abode with the Meldrums. The explanation given by the Meldrums to friends was that she had been out to India on a visit. Having obtained knowledge of your secret, she imparted it to Biancheri after her marriage, with the result that he and his associates made the clever attempt to blackmail you. She, no doubt, felt herself safe as long as her late employer was living, and is, of course, in ignorance of her death and the passing of this confession into your hands.”

An hour later Dudley Chisholm was closeted alone with the Marquess of Stockbridge in the latter’s private room at the Foreign Office, where he related the whole story. That any man enjoying the confidence of Her Majesty’s Government in any capacity should have endeavoured to betray its secrets was a most heinous and unpardonable offence in the eyes of the stern old politician who was Her Majesty’s chief adviser. Nevertheless, on carefully weighing all the facts, his lordship came to the conclusion that the man who had been his private secretary, and who now held responsible office, had proved himself deeply penitent, and had, during the intervening years, endeavoured to make every reparation in his power. The actual documents Chisholm had photographed were quite unimportant. It was manifest that from first to last he had been the victim of a cleverly arranged conspiracy. The interview was a long one, and all that passed between them will never be recorded. But at last the Marquess rose and generously extended to Dudley his thin, bony hand in forgiveness. He summed up the case as follows:

“It is true that you photographed the despatches with intent to hand them to the man Lennox, and it is true that the present complications in Europe are the outcome of the betrayal of our policy, but it is not true, Chisholm, that you are a traitor. Your career has encouraged me to prophesy (and the indiscretion of which I am to-day aware for the first time has not caused me to alter my opinion) that you are one of the men who will rise after me to safeguard your country’s interests. The question placed on the paper by the member for West Antrim must be expunged at once. I will see to that matter personally, for it is apparent that the member in question has either received information, or is himself associated with the unscrupulous persons who endeavoured to profit by their knowledge of your secret. Leave it to me. That question will never be printed in the paper nor asked in the House. Only a traitor in association with the representative of some foreign Power dare endeavour to create a political crisis at this moment by asking such a question.”

“Then I am actually forgiven?” Dudley asked in a low voice, scarcely realising the truth.

“Yes, Chisholm,” replied the Marquess gravely, pressing the hand of the younger man, “you are forgiven, and what is more, my confidence in you is not shaken, for you have been proved a man of sterling worth, and the unfortunate victim of as vile and ingenious a conspiracy as ever was formed against us by dastardly spies from across the Channel. You come of an ancient and honourable race, Chisholm. Recollect, therefore, that throughout the remainder of your life your first duty is always to your God, and the second to your country and your Queen.”