CHAPTER XV.
"I knew him intimately," Señor Guffanta said, "it is about him and his murder that I have come to talk."
These were the words with which he had responded to Lord Penlyn's reception of him; and, as he uttered them, a hope had sprung up into the young man's breast that, in the handsome Spaniard who stood before him, some one might have been found who, from his knowledge of his brother, would be able to throw some light upon, or clue to, his death.
"I cannot tell you," he said, "how welcome this information is to me. We have tried everything in our power to gather some knowledge that might lead towards finding--first, some one who would be likely to have a reason for his death; and, afterwards, the man who killed him. If you knew him intimately, it may be that you can assist us."
The Señor had taken the seat offered him by Penlyn, and from the time that he had first sat down, until now, he had not removed his dark piercing eyes from the other's face. But, as he continued to fix his glance upon Penlyn, there had come into his own face a look of surprise, a look that seemed to express a baffled feeling of consternation.
"Caramba," he said to himself while the other was speaking. "Caramba, what mystery is there here? I have made a mistake. I have erred in some way; how have I deceived myself? Yet I could have sworn by the blood of San Pedro that I was sure."
Then, when Lord Penlyn had ceased speaking, he said aloud:
"You will pardon me--but I am labouring under no mistake? You are Lord Penlyn?"
The other looked at him for a moment, wondering what such a question meant. Then he answered him:
"There is no mistake. I am Lord Penlyn."
The Spaniard passed his hand across his eyes as he heard this, but did not speak; and Lord Penlyn said:
"May I ask why you inquire?"
"Because--because I had thought--because I wished to be sure of whom I was speaking with."
"You may rest assured. And now, sir, let me ask you what you know about this unhappy Mr. Cundall and his life?"
"I know much about him. To begin with, I know that he was your brother--your elder brother--and that you have come to possess his fortune."
Lord Penlyn started and said: "You know that? May I ask how you know it?"
"It is not necessary for me to say. It is sufficient that I do know it. But it is not of that that I have come to talk."
"Of what have you come to talk then?"
"Of his murderer."
"Of his murderer!" the other repeated. "Oh! Señor Guffanta, is it possible that you can have any clue, is it possible that you think you will be able to find the man who killed him?"
"I am sure of it."
Lord Penlyn stared at him as he spoke, stared at him while in his mind there was a feeling of astonishment, mixed with something like awe, of his strange visitor. This dark, powerful-looking stranger, sat there before him perfectly calm and unmoved, looking straight at him as he spoke these words of import, "I am sure of it," and spoke them as though he was speaking of some ordinary incident. And in his calmness there was something that told the other that it was born of certainty.
"If you can do that, Señor Guffanta," he said, "there is nothing that you can ask from me, there is nothing that I can give that----"
"There is nothing I want of you," the Spaniard said, interrupting him, and making a disdainful motion with his long, brown hand. "I am not a paid police spy."
"I beg your pardon," the other answered. "I had no thought of offence. Only, sir, it is the wish of my life, and of some others who knew and loved him, to see him avenged.
"And it is the wish of my life also. Will you hear a short story?"
"I will hear anything you have to say."
"Then listen. I was born in Honduras, the child of a Spanish lady and of a friend of the old Englishman, Cundall, him from whom your brother's wealth was derived. That friend was a scoundrel, a man who tricked my mother into a marriage with him under a false name, who never was her husband at all. When they had been married, as she thought, for some few years, and when another child, my sister, had been born, she found out the deception, and--she killed him."
"Killed him!" Penlyn exclaimed.
"Yes, dead! We Spaniards brook no dishonour, we never allow a wrong to pass unavenged. She showed him the evidence of his falsehood in one hand, and with the other she shot him dead upon his own verandah. She was tried and instantly acquitted, and, in consideration of the wrong she had suffered, a law was made constituting her legally his wife, and making us children legitimate. But the disgrace was to her--a high-minded, noble woman--too much; she fell ill and died. Then the old man, Cundall, seeing that it was his friend's evil-doing that had led to our being orphans, said that henceforth we should be his care. So we grew up, and I had learnt to look upon myself and my sister as his heirs, when one day there came another who, it was easy to see, had supplanted us. It was the English lad, Walter Cundall."
"I begin to see," Penlyn said.
"At first," Señor Guffanta went on, "I hated him for spoiling our chances, but at last I could hate him no longer. Gradually, his gentle disposition, his way of interceding for me with his uncle, when I had erred, above all his tenderness to my poor sister, who was sick and deformed, won my love. Had he been my brother I could not have loved him more. Then--then, as years went on, I committed a fault, and the old man cast me off for ever. Another man tried to take from me the woman I loved--she was a vile thing worth no man's love; but--no matter how--I avenged myself. But from that day the old man turned against me, and would neither see nor hear of me again.
"A year or two passed and then I heard from Walter, for my sister and I had left Los Torros (the town where we had all lived) and had gone elsewhere, that the old man was dead. 'He has left everything to me,' Walter wrote, 'and there is no mention of you nor Juanna, but be assured neither of you shall ever want for anything.'"
"Stop," Lord Penlyn said, "you need tell me no more. I know the rest."
"You know the rest?" Señor Guffanta said, looking fixedly at him, "You know the rest?"
"Yes. You are Corot."
A bewildered look came over the Spaniard's face, and then, after a second's pause, he said:
"Yes. I am Corot. It was the name given me by the Mestizos amongst whom I played as a boy, and it kept to me. It is you, then, Lord Penlyn, who has set this Dobson to look for me?"
"Yes; we found your letters to him, and from one of them we believed you to be in England. We thought that--that----"
"That I killed him?"
"You threatened him in one of your letters. We were justified in thinking so."
"He, at least, did not think so. Read this."
He took from his pocket a letter written by Walter Cundall during the few days he had been back in England, and gave it to Penlyn. It ran:
"June, 188--.
"My Dear Corot,
"I am delighted to hear you are in England, and have got an appointment as agent for Don Rodriguez in London. Perhaps, now, I shall have some respite from those fearful threats which, at intervals, from your boyhood, you have hurled at me, at Juanna, and every one you really love. Come and see me when you can, only come as late as possible as I am out much; and we will have a talk about the old place and old times.
"Ever yours, in haste, W. C.
"P.S.--I wish poor Juanna could have lived to know of your good fortune."
"Do you think I should murder that man, Lord Penlyn?" Señor Guffanta asked quietly. "That man who, when he heard of my good fortune, could think of how happy it would have made my beloved sister--she who is now in her grave."
"Whatever I may have thought must be ascribed to the intense desire I and my friends have to find his murderer, and you must pardon the suspicion that came to our minds in reading your letters. But, Señor Guffanta, let us forget that and speak about finding him, since you also are anxious to avenge Walter, and feel sure that you can do so."
"I am perfectly sure. And before long I shall stand face to face with him. Then his doom is certain!"
Again Lord Penlyn noticed the self-constrained calm of the man, and again he told himself that he spoke with such an air of certainty that it was impossible to doubt him. For one moment the thought came to his mind that this apparent calmness, this certainty of finding the murderer, might be a rôle assumed by Guffanta to prevent suspicion falling upon him. But on reflection that thought took flight. Had he been the murderer he would never have revealed himself, would never have allowed it to be known that he was Corot, the man against whom circumstances had looked so black. And Cundall's letter was sufficient to show that what the Señor had told him, about the friendship that had existed between them, was true.
"You must know more than any of us, Señor Guffanta, as no doubt you do--to inspire you with such confidence of finding him. Had he any enemy in Honduras, who may now be in England, and have done this deed?"
"To my knowledge, none. He was a man who made friends, not enemies."
"How then, do you hope to find the man who killed him?"
"I hope nothing, Lord Penlyn, for I am sure to find him. What will you say when I tell you that I have seen his murderer's face?"
"You have seen his face? You know it!" the other exclaimed, springing to his feet. "Oh, let me at once send for the detectives and the lawyers, so that you may describe him to them, and let them endeavour to find him. But," he said suddenly, "where have you seen him?"
There was an almost contemptuous smile upon the Señor Guffanta's face as he said:
"Send for no one--at least, not yet. If by the detectives you mean Dobson, the heavy man, he will not assist me, and of the lawyers I know nothing; and at present I will not tell you when and where I have seen this man. But, sir--but, Lord Penlyn, I know one thing. When that man and I once more stand face to face, Walter Cundall, who shielded me from his uncle's wrath, who was as a brother to my beloved Juanna, will be avenged."
"What will you do?" Penlyn asked in an almost awestruck whisper. "You will not take the law into your own hands and kill him?"
"No; it maybe not! But with these hands alone," and he held them out extended to Penlyn as he spoke, "I will drag him to a prison which he shall only leave for a scaffold. Drag him there, I say, unless my blood gets the better of my reason, and I throttle him like a dog by the way."
He, too, had risen in his excitement; and as he stood towering in his height, which was great, above the other, and extended his long sinewy hands in front of him, while his deep brown skin turned to an almost darker hue, Penlyn felt that this man before him would be the avenger of his brother's death. So terrible did he look, that the other wondered how that murderer would feel when he should be in his grasp.
He stepped forward to Guffanta and held out his hand to him. "Sir," he said, "I thank God that you and I have met. But can we do nothing to assist you in your search? May I not tell the detectives what you know?"
"You may tell them everything I have told you; it will not enable them to be in my way. But what I have to do I must do by myself." He paused a moment; then he said: "It may be that when you do tell them, they will still think that I am the man----"
"No, no!"
"Yes, it may be so. Well, if they want to spy upon my actions, if they want to know what I do and where I go, I am to be found at the Hôtel Lepanto--that is when I am not here in this house, for I must ask you--I have a reason--to let me come to you as I want."
Penlyn bowed, and said some words to the effect that he should always be free of the house, and the other continued:
"My business here as agent for Don Rodriguez, a wealthy merchant of Honduras, will not occupy me much at present, the rest of my time will be devoted to the one purpose of finding that man."
"I pray that you may be successful."
"I shall be successful," the Spaniard answered quietly. "And now," he said, "I will ask you to do one thing."
"Ask me anything and I will do it."
"You have a garden behind your house," Señor Guffanta said, "how is admission obtained to it?"
Lord Penlyn stared at him wonderingly, not knowing what this question might mean, and then he said:
"There is an entrance from the back of this house, and another from an iron gate in the side street. But why do you ask? no one ever goes into it. It is damp, and even the paths are partly overgrown with weeds."
"There are keys to those entrances?"
"Yes."
"And in your possession?" and, as he spoke, his dark eyes were fixed very intently on the young man.
"They are somewhere about the house, but they are never used."
"I wish them found. Then, when they are found, I must ask you to give me your word of honour that no living creature, not even you yourself, will enter that garden without my knowing it. Will you do this?"
"I will do it," Penlyn said. "But I wish you would tell me your reason."
"I will tell you nothing more at present. But remember that I have a task to perform and that I shall do it."
Then he left him, and walked away to the neighbourhood of Leicester Square.
"What I have seen to-day," he said to himself, "would have baffled many a man. But you, Miguel, are different from other men. You are not baffled, you are only still more determined to do what you have to do. But who is he?--who is he? Caramba! he is not Lord Penlyn!"