The Avenger Part 48

"When was it?" she asked.

He told her the date. She repeated it tearfully.

"He was down with me the day before," she said. "He was terribly excited all the time, and I know that he was a little afraid of something happening to him. He had been threatened!"

"Do you know by whom?" Wrayson asked.

She shook her head.

"He never told me," she answered. "He didn't tell me much. But he was very, very good to me. I was at the refreshment-room at London Bridge when I first met him. He used to come in and see me every day. Then he began to take me out, and at last he found me a little house down at Putney, and I was so happy. I had been so tired all my life," she added, with a little sigh, "and down there I did nothing but rest and rest and wait for him to come. It was too good to last, of course, but I didn't think it would end like this!"

Quietly but very persistently Sydney Barnes insisted on being heard.

"It's my turn now," he said, standing by Wrayson's side. "Look here, Miss, I'm his brother. You can see that, can't you?"

"You are something like him," she admitted, "only he was much, much nicer to look at than you."

"Never mind that," he continued eagerly. "I'm his brother, his nearest relative. Everything he left behind belongs to me!"

"Not--quite everything," she protested.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"You may be his brother," she answered, "but I," holding out her left hand a little nervously, "I was his wife!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE MURDERED MAN'S EFFECTS

Both men had been totally unprepared for the girl's timid avowal. To Wrayson, however, after the first mild shock of surprise, it was of no special import. To Sydney Barnes, although he made a speedy effort to grapple with the situation, it came very much as a thunderclap.

"You have your certificate?" he asked sharply. "You were married properly in a church?"

She nodded. "We were married at Dulwich Parish Church," she answered. "It was nearly a year ago."

"Very well," Sydney Barnes said. "It is lucky that I am here to look after your interests. We divide everything, you know."

She seemed about to cry.

"I want Augustus," she murmured. "He was very good to me."

"Look here," he said, "Augustus always seemed to have plenty of oof, didn't he?"

She nodded.

"He was very generous with it, too," she declared. "He gave me lots and lots of beautiful things."

His eyes travelled over her hands and neck, dest.i.tute of ornaments.

"Where are they?" he asked sharply.

"I've had to sell them," she answered, "to get along at all, I hated to, but I couldn't starve."

The young man's face darkened.

"Come," he said. "We'd better have no secrets from one another. You know how to get at his money, I suppose?"

She shook her head.

"Indeed I don't know anything about it," she declared.

"You must know where it came from," he persisted.

"I don't," she repeated. "Indeed I don't. He never told me and I never asked him. I understood that he had made it in South Africa."

Sydney Barnes wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"Look here," he said in a voice which, notwithstanding his efforts to control it, trembled a little, "this is a very serious matter for us. You don't want to go back to the refreshment bar again, do you?"

"I don't care what I do," she answered dully. "I hated that, but I shall hate everything now that he is gone."

"It's only for a day or two you'll feel like that," he declared. "We've got a right, you and I, to whatever Morry left behind, and whatever happens I mean to have my share. Look around you!"

It was not an inspiring spectacle. The room was dirty, and almost devoid of furniture.

"All that I've had out of it so far," he declared, "is free quarters here. The rent's paid up to the end of the year. I've had to sell the furniture bit by bit to keep alive. It was a cheap lot, cheap and showy, and it fetched jolly little. Morry always did like to have things that looked worth more than he gave for them. Even his jewellery was sham--every bally bit of it. There wasn't a real pearl or a real diamond amongst the lot. But there's no doubt about the money. I've had the bank-book. He was worth a cool two thousand a year was Morry--that's five hundred each quarter day, you understand, and somewhere or other there must be the bonds or securities from which this money came. He never kept them here. I'll swear to that. Therefore they must be somewhere that you ought to know about."

She nodded wearily.

"Very likely," she said. "I have a parcel he gave me to take care of."

The effect of her simple words on Barnes was almost magical. The dull colour streamed into his sallow cheeks, he shook all over with excitement. His voice, when he spoke, was almost hysterical. He had been so near to despair. This indeed had been almost his last hope.

"A parcel!" he gasped. "A parcel! What sort of a parcel? Did he say that it was important?"

"It's just a long envelope tied up with red tape and sealed," she answered. "Yes! he made a great fuss about leaving it with me."

"Tell us all about it," he demanded greedily. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!

Be quick!"

"It must have been almost the very day it happened," she said, with a little shudder. "He came down in the afternoon and he seemed a bit queer, as though he had something on his mind. He took out the envelope once or twice and looked at it. Once he said to me, 'Agnes,' he said, 'there are men in London who, if they knew that I carried this with me, would kill me for it. I was frightened, and I begged him to leave it somewhere. I think he said that he had to have it always with him, because he couldn't think of a safe hiding-place for it. Just as he was going, though, he came back and took it out of his pocket once more."

"He left it with you?" Barnes exclaimed. "You have it safe?"