“I’m goin’ to Miss Madge now,” she said, going to the door, “and I won’t see you again; she’s getting light-headed, and might let it out; but I’ll not let any one in but myself,” and so saying, she left the room.
“Cast thy bread upon the waters,” said Calton, oracularly. “The kindness of Miss Frettlby to that poor waif is already bearing fruit—gratitude is the rarest of qualities, rarer even than modesty.”
Fitzgerald made no answer, but stared out of the window, and thought of his darling lying sick unto death, and he able to do nothing to save her.
“Well,” said Calton, sharply.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Fitzgerald, turning in confusion. “I suppose the will must be read, and all that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” answered the barrister, “I am one of the executors.”
“And the others?”
“Yourself and Chinston,” answered Calton; “so I suppose,” turning to the desk, “we can look at his papers, and see that all is straight.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Brian, mechanically, his thoughts far away, and then he turned again to the window. Suddenly Calton gave vent to an exclamation of surprise, and, turning hastily, Brian saw him holding a thick roll of papers in his hand, which he had taken out of the drawer.
“Look here, Fitzgerald,” he said, greatly excited, “here is Frettlby’s confession—look!” and he held it up.
Brian sprang forward in astonishment. So at last the hansom cab mystery was to be cleared up. These sheets, no doubt, contained the whole narration of the crime, and how it was committed.
“We will read it, of course,” he said, hesitating, half hoping that Calton would propose to destroy it at once.
“Yes,” answered Calton; “the three executors must read it, and then—we will burn it.”
“That will be the better way,” answered Brian, gloomily. “Frettlby is dead, and the law can do nothing in the matter, so it would be best to avoid the scandal of publicity. But why tell Chinston?”
“We must,” said Calton, decidedly. “He will be sure to gather the truth from Madge’s ravings, and he may as well know all. He is quite safe, and will be silent as the grave. But I am more sorry to tell Kilsip.”
“The detective? Good God, Calton, surely you will not do so!”
“I must,” replied the barrister, quietly. “Kilsip is firmly persuaded that Moreland committed the crime, and I have the same dread of his pertinacity as you had of mine. He may find out all.”
“What must be, must be,” said Fitzgerald, clenching his hands. “But I hope no one else will find out this miserable story. There’s Moreland, for instance.”
“Ah, true!” said Calton, thoughtfully. “He called and saw Frettlby the other night, you say?”
“Yes. I wonder what for?”
“There is only one answer,” said the barrister, slowly. “He must have seen Frettlby following Whyte when he left the hotel, and wanted hush-money.”
“I wonder if he got it?” observed Fitzgerald.
“Oh, I’ll soon find that out,” answered Calton, opening the drawer again, and taking out the dead man’s cheque-book. “Let me see what cheques have been drawn lately.”
Most of the blocks were filled up for small amounts, and one or two for a hundred or so. Calton could find no large sum such as Moreland would have demanded, when, at the very end of the book, he found a cheque torn off, leaving the block-slip quite blank.
“There you are,” he said, triumphantly holding out the book to Fitzgerald. “He wasn’t such a fool as to write in the amount on the block, but tore the cheque out, and wrote in the sum required.”
“And what’s to be done about it?”
“Let him keep it, of course,” answered Calton, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s the only way to secure his silence.”
“I expect he cashed it yesterday, and is off by this time,” said Brian, after a moment’s pause.
“So much the better for us,” said Calton, grimly. “But I don’t think he’s off, or Kilsip would have let me know. We must tell him, or he’ll get everything out of Moreland, and the consequences will be that all Melbourne will know the story; whereas, by showing him the confession, we get him to leave Moreland alone, and thus secure silence in both cases.”
“I suppose we must see Chinston?”
“Yes, of course. I will telegraph to him and Kilsip to come up to my office this afternoon at three o’clock, and then we will settle the whole matter.”
“And Sal Rawlins?”
“Oh! I quite forgot about her,” said Calton, in a perplexed voice. “She knows nothing about her parents, and, of course, Mark Frettlby died in the belief that she was dead.”
“We must tell Madge,” said Brian, gloomily. “There is no help for it. Sal is by rights the heiress to the money of her dead father.”
“That depends upon the will,” replied Calton, dryly. “If it specifies that the money is left to ‘my daughter, Margaret Frettlby,’ Sal Rawlins can have no claim; and if such is the case, it will be no good telling her who she is.”
“And what’s to be done?”
“Sal Rawlins,” went on the barrister, without noticing the interruption, “has evidently never given a thought to her father or mother, as the old hag, no doubt, swore they were dead. So I think it will be best to keep silent—that is, if no money is left to her, and, as her father thought her dead, I don’t think there will be any. In that case, it would be best to settle an income on her. You can easily find a pretext, and let the matter rest.”
“But suppose, in accordance with the wording of the will, she is entitled to all the money?”
“In that case,” said Calton, gravely, “there is only one course open—she must be told everything, and the dividing of the money left to her generosity. But I don’t think you need be alarmed, I’m pretty sure Madge is the heiress.”
“It’s not the money I think about,” said Brian, hastily. “I’d take Madge without a penny.”
“My boy,” said the barrister, placing his hand kindly on Brian’s shoulder, “when you marry Madge Frettlby, you will get what is better than money—a heart of gold.”
Chapter XXXII.
De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum
“Nothing is certain but the unforeseen;” so says a French proverb, and judging from the unexpected things which daily happen to us, it is without doubt a very true one. If anyone had told Madge Frettlby one day that she would be stretched on a bed of sickness the next, and would be quite oblivious of the world and its doings, she would have laughed the prophet to scorn. Yet it was so, and she was tossing and turning on a bed of pain to which the couch of Procustes was one of roses. Sal sat beside her, ever watchful of her wants, and listened through the bright hours of the day, or the still ones of the night, to the wild and incoherent words which issued from her lips. She incessantly called on her father to save himself, and then would talk about Brian, and sing snatches of song, or