“Mariette Lepage!” George cried aloud in a tone of dismay, causing not a little consternation among those assembled.
The strange-sounding foreign name was only too deeply impressed upon his memory. The writer of that curious letter, with its well-guarded expression in the argot of the Paris slums, was the unknown woman to whom, under his father’s will, he was compelled to offer marriage.
Chapter Five
Captain Brooker’s Objection
As everyone expected, the Coroner’s jury, after hearing Zertho’s evidence at the adjourned inquest, returned the usual verdict of “Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.” It was the only conclusion possible in such a case, the mystery being left for the police to solve. Later that afternoon Inspector Swayne was closeted with George and Mr Harrison at Stratfield Court, and after an hour’s consultation regarding the curious letter found in Nelly’s pocket, the detective left for London.
While that conversation was taking place Liane and her father, having returned from the inquest, were sitting together in the little dining-room. Brooker had cast off his shiny frock-coat with a sigh of genuine relief, assumed his old well-cut tweed jacket, easy and reminiscent of the past, while his daughter, having removed her gloves and veil, sat in the armchair by the fireplace still in her large black hat that gave a picturesque setting to her face. The windows were open, the blinds down, and the room, cool in the half-light, was filled with the sweet perfume of the wealth of old-world flowers outside.
“Our ill-luck seems to follow us, even now, my dear,” he observed, thrusting his hands deep into his empty pockets and lazily stretching out his legs. “That inquisitive old chap, the Coroner, was within an ace of raking up all the past. I was afraid they intended to adjourn again.”
“Why afraid?” asked Liane in surprise. “You surely do not fear anything?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” her father answered, with a quick glance at her. “But some facts might have been then elicited which are best kept secret.”
Liane looked at the Captain, long and steadily, with eyes full of sadness, then said, earnestly, —
“What caused you to suspect Zertho, father?”
“Suspect him. I never suspected him!”
“Do not deny the truth,” she answered, in a tone of mild reproach. “I know that before you went to London you sent him a message which, had he been guilty, would have allowed him time to escape.”
“But he was entirely unaware of the tragedy,” her father answered, rolling a cigarette with infinite care. “Zertho could have had no object in murdering Nelly. Besides, it had already been proved by the station-master that he had left by the train he saw him enter.”
“Then why did you take the trouble to go to London?” she inquired.
“My motive was a secret one,” he replied.
“One that even I must not know?” she inquired, in genuine surprise.
“Yes, even you must not know, Liane,” he answered. “Women are apt to grow confidential towards their lovers, and if the secret were once out, then my plans would be thwarted.”
“You suspect someone?” she asked, in a low, harsh voice.
“Well,” he answered, regarding his unlit cigarette intently, “I will not say that I actually suspect someone, but I have a theory, strange though it may be, which I believe will turn out to be the correct one.”
Liane started. Father and daughter again exchanged quick glances. She fancied she saw suspicion in his eyes.
“May I not assist you?” she asked. “You know that in the past I’ve many times brought you luck at the tables.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “In this I must act entirely alone. George Stratfield no doubt occupies all your thoughts.” She thought she detected a touch of sarcasm in his tone.
The girl blushed deeply, but did not answer. Her father, inveterate smoker that he was, lit his cigarette and sat silent and self-absorbed for a long time. He was thinking of the bright happy girl who, cold and dead in her tiny room upstairs, was the victim of a foul, terrible, and mysterious crime.
“How long have you known this man?” the Captain inquired at last.
“Three months.”
“And has he proposed to you?”
“He has,” she faltered, blushing more deeply.
He drew a long breath, rose slowly, and pulling aside the white blind, looked out as if in search of something. In truth, he was hesitating whether he should speak to her at once, or wait for some other opportunity. Turning to her at last, however, he said briefly, in a low, pained tone, —
“You must break off the engagement, Liane. You cannot marry him.”
“Cannot!” she gasped, her face turning pale. “Why?”
“Listen,” he continued huskily, coming closer to her, laying his big hand upon her shoulder, and looking down upon her tenderly. “Through all these years of prosperity and adversity you alone have been the one bright joy of my life. Your existence has kept me from going to the bad altogether; your influence has prevented me from sinking lower in degradation than I have already sunk. For me the facile pleasures of a stray man have ceased, because, for your sake, Liane, I gave up the old life and returned here to settle and become respectable. I admit that our life in England is a trifle tame after what we’ve been used to, but it will not, perhaps, be always so. At present my luck’s against me and we must wait in patience; therefore do not accept the first man’s offer of marriage. Life’s merely a game of rouge-et-noir. Sometimes you may win by waiting. Reflect well upon all the chances before you stake the maximum.”
“But George loves me, dad, and his family are wealthy,” she protested, meeting her father’s earnest gaze with her large grey eyes, in which stood unshed tears.
“I don’t doubt it, my girl,” he answered huskily. “I was young once. I, too, thought I loved a woman – your mother. I foolishly believed that she loved me better than anyone on earth. Ah! You wring from me my confession, because – because it should serve you as a lesson.” And he paused with bent head, while Liane held his strong but trembling hand. “It is a wretched story,” he went on in a low, harsh voice, “yet you should know it, you who would bind yourself to this man irrevocably. At the time this woman came into my life I was on leave down in the South of France, with wealth, happiness and bright prospects. I loved her and made her my wife. Then I went with my regiment to India, but already my future was blasted, for within a year of my marriage the glamour fell from my eyes and I knew that I had been duped. A fault committed by her threw such opprobrium upon me that I was compelled to throw up my commission, leave her and go back to England. I could not return to my friends in London, because she would discover and annoy me; therefore I have drifted hither and thither, falling lower and lower in the social scale, until, ruined and without means, I became a common blackleg and swindler. But it belongs to the past. It is dead, gone – gone for ever. Those years have gone and my youth has gone. I’ve lived like other men since then. Heaven knows it has not been a life to boast of, Liane. There have been days and years in it when I dared not trust myself to remember what had been – days of madness and folly, and months of useless apathy. Ah!” he sighed, “I was straight enough before my marriage, but my life was wrecked solely by that woman.”
His daughter listened intently, and when he had finished she echoed his deep sigh. Her father had never before told her the tragic story. She had always believed that her mother died of fever in India a year after marriage.
“Then my mother is not dead?” she observed reflectively.
“I do not know. To me she has been dead these eighteen years,” he answered, with a stern look upon his hard-set features. A lump rose in his throat, and in his eye there was a suspicion of a tear.
“Was she like me?”