CHAPTER XLII.
[A FAMILY COUNCIL.]
On the following morning Aunt and Uncle Rob and Florence and Reginald sat at the breakfast table, waiting for Dick, who had not been home all night. Although they had had no word from him since he left them on the previous evening, they knew that he would join them at the earliest possible moment. It had been an anxious night with them, and they had had but little sleep. There were dark rims round Aunt Rob's eyes, and signs of unrest were on Uncle Rob's countenance. Singularly enough, the invalid of the party, Reginald, had gathered strength; his voice was firmer, his step more confident, and there was an expression on his face which denoted that he had prepared himself to meet the worst that fortune had in store for him.
"Florence and I have been considering the straight and honest course to pursue," he said, "and we have decided. She wished me at first to be guided by your advice; but she is beginning to find out that she has married a wilful man."
She gave him a tender smile, and put her hand in his.
"It is not that I don't value your advice; but what would be the use of asking for it if I hadn't made up my mind to take it?"
"No use, my dear," said Aunt Rob. "What have you decided to do?"
"To offer a reward for the discovery of the murderer of my father."
Aunt Rob nodded her approval, and would have expressed it had she not observed the grave look on her husband's face. So she held her tongue, and waited for him to speak.
"It is not a plan we generally approve of," he remarked, after a pause, "and it seldom meets with success."
"Has it ever?" asked Reginald.
"Yes. A fifty to one chance."
"If it were a thousand to one chance it would be wrong to throw it away. Much of the evidence that has been given can be so construed as to cast suspicion upon me. How shall I protect myself except by showing the world that I court the most searching inquiry? Lady Wharton's story is true, and some villain, personating my father, succeeded in imposing upon and robbing her. The offer of a substantial reward will not only quicken the efforts of the police, but will set a hundred people on the hunt. God forbid that I should do anyone an injustice. I cannot conceive that Abel Death is the murderer, and yet in the eyes of the public it lies between him and me. It would be the height of folly to ignore that fact. Here in this paper"--he took up a newspaper, glanced at it, and flung it indignantly aside--"is a veiled allusion to Abel Death and me as accomplices. No names are mentioned, but the inference can hardly be missed. On my way home from the funeral on Tuesday, and yesterday from the Coroner's Court, I saw some of the newspaper bills with their cruel headlines accusing me! I saw the silent accusation in the eyes of the people as I passed. Is it in nature that I should sit idly down under such imputations? They are enough to drive a man mad, and I shall go mad if I do not do something quickly to repel them. The wretch who went down to Bournemouth must have purchased a railway ticket; the clerk who sold it him may have seen his face; passengers travelling the same way must have seen him: he must have been seen by other persons in Bournemouth; he may have taken a carriage there to drive to the Gables; if he went on foot he may have asked his way to the house; when he left Lady Wharton he could scarcely have walked about the town till the trains started in the morning; he must have slept somewhere; a waiter or a chambermaid may have noticed him; there may have been something in his speech or manner to attract attention, however slight. There are a thousand things from which a clue may be obtained and which may be brought to the recollection by the hope of earning money. The offer of a reward will stir people's memories, will cause them to come forward with scraps of information which otherwise would be thought of no importance. Uncle Rob, Aunt Rob--I dare not, and will not, call you father and mother till I am cleared of these vile suspicions--do you not see that I must do this for dear Florence's sake, that it is my duty to make her less ashamed of the name I gave her?"
The sobs in his throat prevented him from continuing. Trembling in every limb, shaking with passion and excitement, he turned appealingly to his wife.
She clasped him in her loving arms, crying, "I am not ashamed of it; I am proud of it, and of you, my dear, dear husband! If there is a stain upon our name you shall wipe it away; you shall make it bright and clean and pure, and men and women shall say, 'The son has atoned for his father's faults, and stands before the world an honourable gentleman who has met misfortune bravely, and silenced the slanderers who dared to breathe a word against him.' Oh, my dear, my dear! I never loved you as I love you now, I never honoured you as I honour you now. Mother, father, stand by us--comfort him, strengthen him!"
She glowed with heavenly pity, with indignant pride, with devoted love. The type of a true, brave, honest English girl, she stood embracing the man whose heart, whose life, were linked with hers, ready to defend him, to suffer for him, to fling back the words of scorn flung at him--if need were, to die for him. It is beneath the stress of a heavy stroke of misfortune that men and women such as she show their noblest qualities.
A great peace stole into Reginald's heart; the sobs in his throat died away.
"I will try to prove myself worthy of you," he said huskily. "I pray to God that I may live to prove it."
Aunt Rob's heart throbbed with exultation.
"Our daughter, father, that I nursed at my breast," she murmured to her husband. "God love and preserve her!"
"Amen!" he answered.
So in that humble home those sweet flowers bloomed in the midst of the darkness, and through the lowering clouds one bright star shone--the star of love and hope and mutual faith.
When the excitement had subsided, and they were all seated again, Uncle Rob said,
"Let it be as you have decided, Reginald, my lad. As an inspector of police I might argue with you; as a man and a father I agree with you. And in the nick of time, here comes Dick."
To Dick, with his cheerful face and voice, that bore no traces of his night's anxious vigil, all was explained. He shook hands with Reginald, and said,
"A good move. I'll go a step farther. Let there be two bills put out and posted all over England, one offering a reward for the discovery of the murderer, the other for giving such information of Abel Death as will lead to his being found. You can tell us, perhaps, Uncle Rob--would that be against the law?"
"I don't think the law can touch it," he replied. "It might not be approved of in some quarters, but the law don't apply, so far as I know anything of it."
"If the law," said Aunt Rob, with fine disdain, "can prevent a son from offering a reward for the discovery of his father's murderer the less we have of it the better. Why, instead of one man looking for the monster, there 'll be a hundred! Dick, you must see to the printing of the bills, and they should be got out at once."
"I will attend to everything; but before we go into details I've something to tell you. I should have been here earlier if I hadn't met little Gracie Death. What a brick that mite is! Just listen to what she discovered yesterday, Reginald--that there's a way of getting into your father's house without getting through the front or the back door. You may well look startled; it nearly took my breath away. Do you remember that pitiful hoarse voice of hers, uncle, on the night of the fog, when she said, 'You will find father, won't you, sir?'" Uncle Rob nodded. "Well, as nobody has been able to find him, she has made up her mind to find him herself, heaven knows how, but somehow. She thinks of nothing else, she dreams of nothing else, and she's got it into that clever little head of hers that he's to be found in Catchpole Square, the very place, one would imagine, that he'd be likely to avoid. If faith can move mountains, as they say it can, the thing is as good as done. There is such magnetism in her little body that when she speaks she almost makes you believe what she believes. Now, I'm not going to tell you how she got into the house while Uncle Rob is here. As inspector of police he would consider it his duty to make use of the information."
"I certainly should," said Uncle Rob. "I'd best make myself scarce."
"Don't go yet, uncle. I want you to hear something you ought to know. Gracie, talking to me this morning, tells me of a man she saw Dr. Vinsen speaking to last night. She hates that doctor--so do I; and it's because she hates him that she creeps behind them without their seeing her, and hears Dr. Vinsen say, 'You act up to your instructions, and I'll keep my promise.' That's all she does hear, because the doctor, turning his head over his shoulder, sends her scuttling away; but she's certain he doesn't suspect that he'd been followed and overheard. There isn't much in that, you'll say; but listen to what follows. Gracie had just finished telling me this when a man passes us. 'There,' she says, 'that's the man.' I catch sight of his face, and who do you think it was?"
"Out with it, Dick," said Uncle Rob.
"It was the juryman that's been putting all those questions at the inquest about our private affairs, and that's been doing his best to throw suspicion upon Reginald and me and all of us. Queer start, isn't it?"