CHAPTER XI.
That night he did not go to bed at all, but paced his room or sat buried in his deep chair, wondering what the morrow would bring forth and how he should best meet the questions that would be put to him. Smerdon was gone again to Occleve Chase, so he could take no counsel from him; and, in a way, he was almost glad that he had gone, for he did not know that he should be inclined now to follow any advice his friend might give him. He thought he knew what that advice would be--that he should pretend utter ignorance as to the reasons Cundall might have had for making him the inheritor of all his vast wealth, and on no account to acknowledge the brotherhood between them. But he told himself that, even had Smerdon been there to give such advice, it would not have been acceptable; that he would not have followed it.
As hour after hour went by and the night became far advanced, the young man made up his mind determinately that, henceforth, all subterfuge and secrecy should be abandoned, that there should be no more holding back of the truth, and that, when he was asked if he could give any reason why he should have been made the heir to the stupendous fortune of a man who was almost a stranger to him, he would boldly announce that it had been so left to him because he and Cundall were the sons of one father.
"The world," he said sadly to himself, "may look upon me as the man who killed him in the Park, and will look upon me as having for years occupied a false position; but it must do so if it chooses. I cannot go on living this life of deception any longer. No! Not even though Ida herself should cast me off." But he thought that though he might bear the world's condemnation, he did not know how he would sustain the loss of her love. Still, the truth should be told even though he should lose her by so telling it; even though the whole world should point to him as a fratricide!
He had wavered for many days now as to what course he should take, had had impulses to speak out and acknowledge the secret of his and his brother's life, had been swayed by Smerdon's arguments and by the letter he had received at the hotel, but now there was to be no more wavering; all was to be told. And, if there was any one who had the right to ask why he had not spoken earlier, that very letter would be sufficient justification of his silence. It was about midday that, as he was seated in his study writing a long letter to Smerdon explaining exactly what he had now taken the determination of doing, the footman entered with two cards on which were the names of "Mr. Fordyce, Paper Buildings," and "Mr. A. Stuart."
"The gentlemen wish to know if your lordship can receive them?" the man asked.
"Yes," Penlyn answered, "I have been expecting a visit from them. Show them in."
They came in together, Mr. Fordyce introducing himself as the solicitor of the late Mr. Cundall, and Mr. Stuart bowing gravely. Then Lord Penlyn motioned to them both to be seated.
"I received your letter last night," he said to the secretary, "and, although I may tell you at once that there were, perhaps, reasons why Mr. Cundall should have left me his property, I was still considerably astonished at hearing he had done so."
"Reasons, my lord!" Mr. Fordyce said, looking up from a bundle of papers which he had taken from his pocket and was beginning to untie. "Reasons! What reasons, may I ask?"
The lawyer, who from his accent was evidently a Scotch-man, was an elderly man, with a hard, unsympathetic face, and it became instantly apparent to Penlyn that, with this man, there must not be the slightest hesitation on his part in anything he said, nor must anything but the plainest truth be spoken. Well! that was what he had made up his mind should be done, and he was glad as he watched Mr. Fordyce's face that he had so decided.
"The reason," he answered, looking straight at both of them, "is that he and I were brothers."
"Brothers!" they both exclaimed together, while Stuart fixed his eyes upon him with an incredulous look, though in it there was something else besides incredulity, a look of suspicion and dislike.
"This is a strange story, Lord Penlyn," the lawyer said after a moment.
"Yes," the other answered. "And you will perhaps think it still more strange when I tell you that I myself did not know of it until a week ago."
"Not until a week ago!" Stuart said. "Then you could have learnt of your relationship only two or three days before he was murdered?"
"That is the case," Penlyn said.
"I think, Lord Penlyn," Mr. Fordyce said, "that, as the late Mr. Cundall's solicitor, and the person who will, by his will, have a great deal to do with the administration of his fortune, you should give me some particulars as to the relationship that you say he and you stood in to one another."
"If Lord Penlyn intends to do so, and wishes it, I will leave the house," Stuart said, still speaking in a cold, unsympathetic voice.
"By no means," Penlyn said. "It will be best that you both should hear all that I know."
Then he told them, very faithfully, everything that had passed between him and Walter Cundall, from the night on which he had come to Black's Club, and they had had their first interview in the Park, down to the letter that had been written on the night of the murder. Nor did he omit to tell them it was only a month previous to Cundall's disclosing himself, that he and Philip Smerdon had made the strange discovery at Le Vocq that his father, to all appearances, had had a previous wife, and had, also, to all appearances, left an elder son behind him. Only, he said, it had seemed a certainty to him and his friend that the lady was not actually his wife, and that the child was not his lawful son. If there was anything he did not think it necessary to tell them it was the violence of his behaviour to Cundall at the interview they had had in that very room, and the curse he had hurled after him when he was gone, and the wish that "he was dead." That curse and that wish, which had been fulfilled so terribly soon after their expression, had weighed heavily on his heart ever since the night of the murder; he could not repeat it now to these men.
"It is the strangest story I ever heard," Mr. Fordyce said. "The very strangest! And, as we have found no certificates of either his mother's marriage or his own birth, we must conclude that he destroyed them. But the letter that you have shown us, which he wrote to you, is sufficient proof of your relationship. Though, of course, as he has named you fully and perfectly in the will there would be no need of any proof of your relationship."
"The man," Stuart said quietly, "who murdered him, also stole his watch and pocket-book, probably with the idea of making it look like a common murder for robbery. The certificates were perhaps in that pocket-book!"
"Do you not think it was a common murder for robbery?" Lord Penlyn asked him.
"No, I do not," Stuart answered, looking him straight in the face. "There was a reason for it!
"What reason?"
"That, the murderer knows best."
It was impossible for Penlyn to disguise from himself the fact that this young man had formed the opinion in his mind that he was the murderer. His manner, his utter tone of contempt when speaking to him, were all enough to show in what light he stood in Stuart's eyes.
"I understand you," he said quietly.
Stuart took no notice of the remark, but he turned to Mr. Fordyce and said: "Did it not seem strange to you that Lord Penlyn should have been made the heir, when you drew the will?"
"I did not draw it," Mr. Fordyce said, "or I should in all probability have made some inquiries--though, as a matter of fact, it was no business of mine to whom he left his money. As I see there is one Spanish name as a witness, it was probably drawn by an English lawyer in Honduras, and executed there."
"Since it appears that I am his heir," Lord Penlyn said, "I should wish to see the will. Have you it with you?"
"Yes," Mr. Fordyce said, producing the will from his bundle of papers, and handing it to him, "it is here."
The young man took it from the lawyer, and spreading it out before him, read it carefully. The perusal did not take long, for it was of the shortest possible description, simply stating that the whole of everything he possessed was given and bequeathed by him to "Gervase, Courteney, St. John, Occleve, Viscount Penlyn, in the Peerage of Great Britain, of Occleve House, London, and Occleve Chase, Westshire." With the exception that the bequest was enveloped in the usual phraseology of lawyers, it might have been drawn up by his brother's own hand, so clear and simple was it. And it was perfectly regular, both in the signature of the testator and the witnesses.
The two men watched him as he bent over the will and read it, the lawyer looking at him from under his thick, bushy eyebrows, and Mr. Stuart with a fixed glance that he never took off his face; and as they so watched him they noticed that his eyes were filled with tears he could not repress. He passed his hand across them once to wipe the tears away, but they came again; and, when he folded up the document and gave it back to Mr. Fordyce, they were welling over from his eyelids.
"I saw him but once after I knew he was my brother," he said; "and I had very little acquaintance with him before then; but now that I have learnt how whole-souled and unselfish he was, and how he resigned everything that was dear to him for my sake, I cannot but lament his sad life and dreadful end. You must forgive my weakness."
"It does you honour, my lord," the lawyer said, speaking in a softer tone than he had yet used; "and he well deserved that you should mourn him. He had a very noble nature."
"If you really feel his loss, if you feel it as much as I do, who owed much to him," Stuart said, "you will join me in trying to track his murderer. That will be the most sincere mourning you can give him;" and he, too, spoke now in a less bitter tone.
"I promised, yesterday, the woman whom we both loved that I would leave no stone unturned to find that man; I need take no fresh vows now. But what clue is there to show us who it was that killed him?"
For a moment neither of the others answered. He had been dead now for four days, the inquest had been held yesterday, and he was to be buried on the following day; yet through all those proceedings this man who was his kinsman, this man for whom he had exhibited the tenderest love and unselfishness, had made no sign, had not even come forward to see to the disposal of his remains. Stuart asked himself what explanation could be given of this, and, finding no answer in his own mind, he plainly asked Lord Penlyn if he himself could give any.
"Yes," he answered; "yes, I can. He had charged me in that letter that I should never make known what our positions were; charged me when he could have had no idea of death overtaking him; and I thought that I should best be consulting his wishes by keeping silence when he was dead. And I tell you both frankly that, had it not been for this will--the existence of which I never dreamed of--I never should have spoken, never have proclaimed our relationship. For the sake of my future wife, as well as to obey him, I should not have done so. He was dead, and no good could have been done by speaking."
"It will lead to your conduct being much misconstrued by the world," Mr. Fordyce said. "It will not understand your silence."
"Must everything be made public?" Penlyn asked.
"More or less. One cannot suppress a will dealing with over two millions worth of property. Even though you were willing to destroy it and forfeit your inheritance, it could not be done. If Mr. Stuart and I allowed such a thing as that, we should become criminals."
"Well, so be it! the public must think what they like of me--at least until the murderer is discovered." Then he asked again: "But what clue is there to help us to find him?"
"None that we know of, as yet," Stuart said. "The verdict at the Coroner's Inquest yesterday was, 'Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown,' and the police stated that, up to now, they could not say that they suspected any one. There is absolutely no clue!"
"I suppose," Mr. Fordyce said, with a speculative air, "those Spanish letters will not furnish any, when translated.'"
"What Spanish letters?" Penlyn asked. "If you have any, let me see them, I am acquainted with the language."
"Is Corot a man's or a woman's name?" Mr. Fordyce asked, as he again untied his bundle of papers.
"Neither, that I know of," Penlyn answered. "It is more likely, I should think, to be a pet, or nickname. Why do you ask?"
"I found these three letters amongst others in his desk," Stuart said, taking them from Mr. Fordyce and handing them to Lord Penlyn, "and I should not have had my attention attracted to them more than to any others out of the mass of foreign correspondence there was, had it not been for the marginal notes in Mr. Cundall's handwriting. Do you see them?"
"Yes," he answered. "Yes. I see written on one, 'Sent C 500 dols.,' on another, 'Sent 2,000 Escudos,' and on the third again, 'Sent C 500 dols.'"
"What do the letters say?" they both asked.
"I will read them."
He did so carefully, and then he turned round and said:
"They are all from some man signing himself Corot, and dating from Puerto Cortes, who seems to think he had, or, perhaps, really had, since money was sent, some claim upon him. In the first one he says none has been forthcoming for a long while, and that, though he does not want for himself, some woman, whom he calls Juanna, is ill and requires luxuries. He finishes his letter with, 'Yours ever devotedly.' In the second he writes more strongly, says that Juanna is dying, and that, as she has committed no fault, he insists upon having money. After this the largest sum was sent."
"And the third?" they both asked.
"The third is more important. It says Juanna is dead, that he is going to England on business, and that, as he has heard Cundall is also about to set out for that country, he will see him there, as he cannot cross Honduras to do so. And he finishes his letter by saying: 'Do not, however, think that her death relieves you from your liability to me. Justice, and the vile injuries done to us, make it imperative on you to provide for me for ever out of your evilly-acquired wealth. This justice I will have, and you know I am one who will not hesitate to enforce my rights. Remember how I served José, and beware.'"
"This is a faithful translation?" Stuart asked.
"Take it to an interpreter, as you doubt me?" Penlyn said.
"I do not doubt you, Lord Penlyn," the other replied, "and I beg your pardon for this and any other suspicions I may have shown. Will you forgive me?"
"Yes," Penlyn said, and he held out his hand to the other, and Stuart took it.
"If this man is in England," Mr. Fordyce said, "and we could only find him out, and also discover what his movements have been, we should, perhaps, be very near the murderer."
"Every detective in London shall be set to work to-night, especially those who understand foreigners and their habits, to find him if he is here. And if he is, he will have to give a very full account of himself before he finds himself free," Stuart said.