Noll burst into howls of terror, and the twins speedily followed suit, the three of them scuttling away to their mother’s sofa, under which they bolted like rabbits to their burrow. Dicky and Molly cast themselves upon Bertha, loudly demanding protection from the naughty old man, who had grumbled at their mother until she cried, and then had attacked the nice kind man who had unhitched the horses and milked the cow; and for a few moments, despite the best endeavours of Bertha and Eunice towards peace and quiet, the turmoil was so great that it was impossible for anyone’s voice to pierce the din of screaming and crying which arose from the excited old man and the badly scared children.
But Edgar Bradgate stood perfectly quiet, and it was his calmness which finally soothed the old man into something like self-control again. Then he addressed himself to Grace in a tone of apology, even looking a little ashamed of his outburst.
“I crave your pardon, my dear niece, for making such an unseemly riot in your quiet home, and my excuse must be the extreme provocation that I have received. For two long years I have been tracking this man from the description which I could give of him, but I did not even know his name, and I have often despaired of bringing him to justice or getting my stolen property back again; so when I saw him calmly sitting on the other side of the table and nursing your child as if he were quite at home in the house, I will admit that I permitted my temper to run away with my discretion.”
“But won’t you tell us what it is that he has done, Uncle Joe, and then we shall be better able to understand things?” asked Grace, in a persuasive tone, and casting such a look of kindly encouragement at the accused as rendered the old man almost incoherent from indignation again.
“What he has done! What he has done! Why, it was the most barefaced robbery that I have ever heard of, and why he was not taken at the time with the stones upon him I could never understand; for I raised outcry enough. Indeed, I have often thought that the police must have been in league with him, and so they connived at his escape,” raved Uncle Joe, shaking his prisoner again with a savage air; but Edgar bore it with perfect patience, waiting quietly for explanations.
“What did he steal?” asked Grace again, while, as before, she sent a kindly glance towards the accused.
“Diamonds, magnificent uncut diamonds!” shouted the excited old man, with another fierce shake of his passive prisoner. “I had just taken a case of diamonds from a man, and I had lent him two hundred thousand dollars on them. I stuffed the case into the breast pocket of my overcoat—a brown cloth coat it was, with one top button missing, which a tipsy man had dragged off the day before, pulled it out by the roots, in fact—and I got into the cars, for I was off to Paston to attend a meeting of shareholders of a company which had gone wrong. I stood to lose five hundred thousand dollars over that business, so I was feeling pretty sore all round, or perhaps I might have taken more care of my diamonds. I was late in reaching the meeting, and I went into a dressing-room to leave my coat, which I took off and tossed on to a heap of others, quite forgetting that I had left the case of diamonds there. But I remembered it before I reached the room of the hotel where the meeting was being held, and I was turning back as quickly as I could move, when the door opened and an excited young man dashed out. He rushed past me and hurried into the waiting-room, picked up a coat, and dashed off again by another door; and it was not until he had gone that I saw it was my coat he had taken with him. I think something gave way inside my head at that moment, for I seemed to go quite mad when I rushed after him screaming and shouting at the top of my voice. But I did not catch him, and from that day to this I have only seen him once.”
“When was that?” demanded Grace; but into the face of Bertha there had come the light of a great relief, and, turning a little aside, her hands were busy fumbling at the front of her blouse to reach the little bag which she wore strapped round her neck.
“It was just before harvest in the very next year—indeed, it was that day when I came to borrow some money from Tom, and you told me that he was too poor to lend it to me—I was driving back to Pentland Broads by a cross-trail through the wheat, when a man passed me driving a wagon, smothered in dirt and dust he was, but I knew him again. It was the man who had run away with my coat and the case of diamonds—this man who stands here, and let him deny it if he can!” cried the old man, as his lean fingers took a firmer grip of his prisoner.
“I don’t even want to deny it,” said Edgar Bradgate quietly, and then he looked across at Bertha, saying, with a smile, “The explanation lies with you, Miss Doyne.”