The Castle Of The Shadows

by A. M. Williamson

"No, the woman, Liane Devereux. She had been shot—in the face. Oh, it was horrible! It is horrible now to talk to you of it. Her features were so destroyed that she could be recognized only by her hair, which was golden-red, and her figure—her beautiful figure which all the world admired so much. Even her hands—she must have held them up before her face, the poor creature, instinctively trying to save herself, to preserve her beauty, for they, too, were shattered. Her jewels were all gone, and she had had many jewels. Soon the police discovered that they had been pawned. And Max was accused of pawning them, to get money to pay gambling debts."

"How could they accuse him of that?"

"He really had pawned them, at her request. She wanted money, and would not listen to his objections to getting it in that way. He had pawned them on the day of the murder, and still had the tickets, which he had forgotten to enclose with the money for the jewels, when he sent it to Mademoiselle Devereux. She had asked him to pawn the things in his name, so that hers could be protected, and, of course, that went dreadfully against Max. He couldn't possibly prove, when the woman was dead, that he had pawned the jewels for her, because the money he had raised had disappeared. He would have taken it to her himself, but on returning to his own flat from the pawnbroker's he received a strange letter saying that she hated him, and never wished to see him again. It was all quite sudden, and Max was angry. Still, he might have gone, insisting that she should tell him what she meant by such a letter, but he had arranged a hurried journey to England. They arrested him on the way. He was going there in the hope of borrowing some money from his godfather, a cousin of ours, who had told Max that if at any time he should be in difficulties he must apply to him. But what proof had Max of his own intentions? Every one thought that he was escaping to England to hide himself, after having committed a cowardly murder.

"There were other bits of evidence against him, too; for instance, the revolver with which the woman was shot was his, with a silver monogram on it. Everybody—even the best of his friends—believed him guilty. And father—poor father!—but I can't talk about that part. It is too cruel. Oh, you are pale, and changed! I knew it would be so. You are like the rest. But how could I expect anything else when you have heard such a story? Everything against him—nothing in his favour. Even Max himself was dazed. Over and over again he said that he had no explanation to give of the mystery."

"There is only one explanation, since he was innocent—and I'm as sure of that as before," said Virginia firmly. "It was a diabolically clever plot, planned with fiendish ingenuity, to ruin your brother—all your family, perhaps."

"Hundreds of times I have thought of that," sighed Madeleine Dalahaide. "Many, many times I spoke of it to the man who defended Max at his trial. But there was no one it would be reasonable to suspect. We had absolutely no enemy. Max had none. Everybody adored him—in his happy days."

"The man whom Liane Devereux loved better than your brother?"

"Ah, but you must see, as the advocate saw, that if she loved the other better he had no motive either to kill the woman or ruin Max. Where there had been no injury, there need be no revenge. And if Max knew who the man was he never told his name."

"There was nobody—nobody who had a right to think himself injured by your brother, even long before?"

"Not by my brother, so far as we could find out. The theory of a plot was advanced, of course, and—and I clung to it; but it fell to the ground. There seemed nothing to support it."