“If you’ll return the compliment and urge my suit with him,” Lady Cynthia laughed. “I am afraid he can’t quite make up his mind about me, and I am so nice. I haven’t flirted nearly so much as people think, and my instincts are really quite domestic.”
“My position,” Sir Timothy remarked, as he made an unsuccessful attempt to possess himself of the bill which Francis had called for, “is becoming a little difficult.”
“Not really difficult,” Lady Cynthia objected, “because the real decision rests in your hands.”
“Just listen to the woman!” Margaret exclaimed. “Do you realise, father, that Cynthia is making the most brazen advances to you? And I was going to ask her if she’d like to come back to The Sanctuary with us this evening!”
Lady Cynthia was suddenly eager. Margaret glanced across at her father. Sir Timothy seemed almost imperceptibly to stiffen a little.
“Margaret has carte blanche at The Sanctuary as regards her visitors,” he said. “I am afraid that I shall be busy over at The Walled House.”
“But you’d come and dine with us?”
Sir Timothy hesitated. An issue which had been looming in his mind for many hours seemed to be suddenly joined.
“Please!” Lady Cynthia begged.
Sir Timothy followed the example of the others and rose to his feet. He avoided Lady Cynthia’s eyes. He seemed suddenly a little tired.
“I will come and dine,” he assented quietly. “I am afraid that I cannot promise more than that. Lady Cynthia, as she knows, is always welcome at The Sanctuary.”
CHAPTER XXX
Punctual to his appointment that afternoon, the man who had sought an interview with Francis was shown into the latter’s study in Clarges Street.
He wore an overcoat over his livery, and directly he entered the room Francis was struck by his intense pallor. He had been trying feverishly to assure himself that all that the man required was the usual sort of help, or assistance into a hospital. Yet there was something furtive in his visitor’s manner, something which suggested the bearer of a guilty secret.
“Please tell me what you want as quickly as you can,” Francis begged. “I am due to start down into the country in a few minutes.”
“I won’t keep you long, sir,” the man replied. “The matter is rather a serious one.”
“Are you ill?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You had better sit down.”
The man relapsed gratefully into a chair.
“I’ll leave out everything that doesn’t count, sir,” he said. “I’ll be as brief as I can. I want you to go back to the night I waited upon you at dinner the night Mr. Oliver Hilditch was found dead. You gave evidence. The jury brought it in ‘suicide.’ It wasn’t suicide at all, sir. Mr. Hilditch was murdered.”
The sense of horror against which he had been struggling during the last few hours, crept once more through the whole being of the man who listened. He was face to face once more with that terrible issue. Had he perjured himself in vain? Was the whole structure of his dreams about to collapse, to fall about his ears?
“By whom?” he faltered.
“By Sir Timothy Brast, sir.”
Francis, who had been standing with his hand upon the table, felt suddenly inclined to laugh. Facile though his brain was, the change of issues was too tremendous for him to readily assimilate it. He picked up a cigarette from an open box, with shaking fingers, lit it, and threw himself into an easy-chair. He was all the time quite unconscious of what he was doing.
“Sir Timothy Brast?” he repeated.
“Yes, sir,” the man reiterated. “I wish to tell you the whole story.”
“I am listening,” Francis assured him.
“That evening before dinner, Sir Timothy Brast called to see Mr. Hilditch, and a very stormy interview took place. I do not know the rights of that, sir. I only know that there was a fierce quarrel. Mrs. Hilditch came in and Sir Timothy left the house. His last words to Mr. Hilditch were, ‘You will hear from me again.’ As you know, sir—I mean as you remember, if you followed the evidence—all the servants slept at the back of the house. I slept in the butler’s room downstairs, next to the plate pantry. I was awake when you left, sitting in my easy-chair, reading. Ten minutes after you had left, there was a sound at the front door as though some one had knocked with their knuckles. I got up, to open it but Mr. Hilditch was before me. He admitted Sir Timothy. They went back into the library together. It struck me that Mr. Hilditch had had a great deal to drink, and there was a queer look on Sir Timothy’s face that I didn’t understand. I stepped into the little room which communicates with the library by folding doors. There was a chink already between the two. I got a knife from the pantry and widened it until I could see through. I heard very little of the conversation but there was no quarrel. Mr. Hilditch took up the weapon which you know about, sat in a chair and held it to his heart. I heard him say something like this. ‘This ought to appeal to you, Sir Timothy. You’re a specialist in this sort of thing. One little touch, and there you are.’ Mrs. Hilditch said something about putting it away. My master turned to Sir Timothy and said something in a low tone. Suddenly Sir Timothy leaned over. He caught hold of Mr. Hilditch’s hand which held the hilt of the dagger, and and—well, he just drove it in, sir. Then he stood away. Mrs. Hilditch sprang up and would have screamed, but Sir Timothy placed his hand over her mouth. In a moment I heard her say, ‘What have you done?’ Sir Timothy looked at Mr. Hilditch quite calmly. ‘I have ridded the world of a verminous creature,’ he said. My knees began to shake. My nerves were always bad. I crept back into my room, took off my clothes and got into bed. I had just put the light out when they called for me.”
Francis was himself again. There was an immense relief, a joy in his heart. He had never for a single moment blamed Margaret, but he had never for a single moment forgotten. It was a closed chapter but the stain was on its pages. It was wonderful to tear it out and scatter the fragments.
“I remember you at the inquest,” he said. “Your name is John Walter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your evidence was very different.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You kept all this to yourself.”
“I did, sir. I thought it best.”
“Tell me what has happened since?”
The man looked down at the table.
“I have always been a poor man, sir,” he said. “I have had bad luck whenever I’ve made a try to start at anything. I thought there seemed a chance for me here. I went to Sir Timothy and I told him everything.”
“Well?”
“Sir Timothy never turned a hair, sir. When I had finished he was very short with me, almost curt. ‘You have behaved like a man of sense, Walter,’ he said. ‘How much?’ I hesitated for some time. Then I could see he was getting impatient. I doubled what I had thought of first. ‘A thousand pounds, sir,’ I said. Sir Timothy he went to a safe in the wall and he counted out a thousand pounds in notes, there and then. He brought them over to me. ‘Walter,’ he said, ‘there is your thousand pounds. For that sum I understand you promise to keep what you saw to yourself?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I agreed. ‘Take it, then,’ he said, ‘but I want you to understand this. There have been many attempts but no one yet has ever succeeded in blackmailing me.