Love and hatred Part 43

So true is that that----" He took another turn up and down the room, and then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off--scot free!

He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best intellects at the Criminal Bar--that he himself has no mean intellect he has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be in the least surprised if he managed to sc.r.a.pe through! More fortunate than most of his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with the widow of the man he murdered--if she can be brought to believe in him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believe _anything_ of those they love, or at any rate, they can be brought to _seem_ to believe anything!"

He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant."

"But you don't think--surely you don't think----"

"No, no----" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don't think Mrs.

Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind you--ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's a brave man. He did the job himself--even if he was helped by his friend."

He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to heart than he had expected.

"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, complicated story; and of course I'm trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I tell you now must never go beyond these four walls."

Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him--the other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one heart-beat--Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companions.h.i.+p in the evening of his days....

"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story--to which I shall make allusion presently--Oliver Tropenell's best chance lies in the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that question will be to put in these two anonymous letters."

Sir Angus took out of his pocket the two letters which had caused poor G.o.dfrey Pavely such acute discomfort just a year before.

Lord St. Amant read them through, carefully, in silence.

"Still, as I daresay you know, judges look very much askance at anonymous letters, and especially in a trial for murder. Also these prove so _very_ little--the more so that there seems to have been no talk at all about Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely in the neighbourhood. She bears, and has always borne, a very high character. As for these letters, they were evidently written by a woman--and by an educated woman. Any one familiar with disguised handwriting could tell you _that_ much. Of course I have my own theory as to who wrote them."

Lord St. Amant nodded. "Yes, so have I."

"Still, I'm not bound to give my theory to either side, am I? I foresee that very probably these letters will remain anonymous. A great many people who think themselves clever will put them down to some dismissed servant.

"The fact that Mr. Tropenell left England for Mexico so soon after the discovery of Mr. Pavely's body is a good point on his side. The judge will argue, above all the jury will argue, that if he had been in love with Mrs. Pavely--if he had loved her, that is, with a guilty pa.s.sion--he would not have left her just after she had become a widow.

Nothing compelled him to do so. It has been suggested, but from a person who does not intend to go into the witness-box if she can help it, that Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely are now secretly engaged. My answer to that is--why shouldn't they be? Many a man has married his best friend's widow without any one supposing that he committed murder in order to attain that satisfaction!"

"Have you proof--irrefutable proof--pointing to the guilt of Oliver Tropenell?"

"What is irrefutable proof? It can be proved that Oliver Tropenell spent many weeks on the Continent in the company of the man who undoubtedly masqueraded as Fernando Apra, and that for a certain portion of that time the two men exchanged ident.i.ties. Nothing can shake that portion of the evidence. But there is no record of the two having met, later, in London--I mean during the time when the net was certainly being drawn round G.o.dfrey Pavely. And, as I said before, Gilbert Baynton--_alias_ Fernando Apra--has an absolute alibi. He was certainly in Paris on the day when all trace of Pavely was lost. There seems no doubt at all that the evidence of the London hotel manager was most artfully arranged for.

The man's story was given in good faith, but the incident occurred a full week before Mr. Pavely was done to death."

"But where does Tropenell come in?"

"As to the movements of Mr. Oliver Tropenell, we have not been quite so fortunate in tracing them. But even so, we have evidence that during the fateful three days on one of which the murder was certainly committed, he was staying in London, having just arrived from the Continent. I personally have no doubt at all that it was on Thursday, January the 5th, that, lured by a cleverly concocted letter signed 'Fernando Apra,'

the hapless Pavely went to Duke House to find Tropenell lying in wait for him. The two men may have had words--they probably _did_ have words. But whatever pa.s.sed--and look at it as you may, St. Amant--it was deliberate murder."

Lord St. Amant stood up. His turn had come to astound the Commissioner of Police.

"Yes," he said, "yes, if your theory is correct, Kinross, it was deliberate murder--to me far the more terrible fact, because the murderer will soon be my stepson. I am to be married to Mrs. Tropenell by special licence next week."

And as the Commissioner of Police, transfixed with surprise, remained silent, the other went on, speaking rather quietly and coldly, "It is only fair on my part to tell you this. Indeed, perhaps I ought to have told you at once--I mean when I first gathered the purport of what you wished to say to me."

Sir Angus shook his head. He was filled with a great pity, as well as a great admiration, for the man--who now looked such an old man--standing there facing him.

"Look here," he said slowly. "I oughtn't perhaps to make such a suggestion to you--but we've become friends, St. Amant. That is why I venture to advise you that before this next Friday you should get these two unfortunate ladies, Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely, out of the country. Take them away--hide them away--in France or in Spain! If you do that they will be spared a fathomless measure of anguish and of shame. The presence of neither of them is essential to the course of justice, and if they remain in England they will certainly each be called as witnesses, in which case Mrs. Pavely will go through--well, I can only describe it as _h.e.l.l_. It is not as if the presence of either of them would be really beneficial to Oliver Tropenell."

"Can you say that quite truly about his mother?" asked Lord St. Amant searchingly.

Sir Angus looked up with a very troubled expression of face.

"No, I fear I can't," he answered, frankly, "for if Mrs. Tropenell can bring herself to believe her son absolutely innocent, then, in the hands of a skilful counsel, I have to admit that her evidence might be of great sentimental value to Tropenell. But the same cannot be said of Mrs. Pavely's presence in the witness-box. Whichever way you look at it, Mrs. Pavely's presence is bound to be, in a judicial sense, detrimental to the man in the dock. She is, if I may say so, St. Amant, a singularly attractive woman, and ten out of every twelve of the men in Court would probably regard her as providing a very adequate 'motive'!"

There was a pause, and then Sir Angus began again:

"What would you say to our persuading Mrs. Pavely to leave England for a while, leaving only Mrs. Tropenell to face the music?"

"Mrs. Pavely," said Lord St. Amant thoughtfully, "would probably refuse to leave England. I think, I fear, that she loves Oliver Tropenell--pa.s.sionately."

He added abruptly, "Are you having him watched?"

Sir Angus cleared his throat. "Well, no, not exactly _watched_. We are of course aware that he has been staying with you for the past week, and that he is going back to Freshley Manor--is it to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow? I take it that he would probably prefer to be arrested in his mother's house."

A feeling of sick horror came over the other man's heart. "I--I suppose so," he muttered.

And then Sir Angus Kinross dropped his voice: "You really know this man and I don't. Do you think it advisable that he should be prepared for what is coming--that _you_, for instance, St. Amant----"

"Do you mean," exclaimed Lord St. Amant, "that I may--warn him?"

The other nodded. "Yes, that is what I suggest that you should do. I take it that we can be quite sure that he will do nothing mad or foolish--that he will not try to get away, for instance? It would be quite useless, and I need hardly point out that it would ruin his chances--later. I think you are at liberty to tell him, as from yourself of course, that you have reason to think he has a sporting chance, St.

Amant. But I am trusting, not only to your honour, but to your secrecy and--and discretion."

The other nodded gravely. "Tropenell's not the sort of man to run away."

"No, I don't think he is--once he knows the game is up," answered the Commissioner of Police a trifle grimly.

CHAPTER XXVII

It was now early, very early in the morning after the return of Lord St.

Amant to the Abbey. Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping house. Not dead cold, however, in his lords.h.i.+p's comfortable bedroom, for he had built up the fire, as he sat on and on, still fully dressed, reading, or trying to read--his bed exactly in the same state as when he had gone upstairs from the drawing-room about eleven.

It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had last stayed up all night, but though he had made a great effort to forget himself in those ever fresh, even if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it impossible to banish from his mind--even for a few moments--the awful thing which he knew would, in a sense, never leave his mind again.

For the tenth time he put his book down, marking the page with a tiny strip of green watered ribbon, on a low table by his side, and then, staring into the fire, his memory lingered--not over his talk with Sir Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinking _that_ over--but over the incidents which had marked the evening before.

He had returned from London only just in time to dress for dinner, and so he had not seen his guests till just before a quarter-past eight.

Then had followed an hour pa.s.sed, outwardly at least, peacefully and pleasantly.

But while he had been eating mechanically the food put before him, in very truth not knowing what it was, terrible thoughts had gone through his mind in a terrible sequence.