Filled with rage and the wish for revenge, the unfortunate White Countess had struggled with the disease which had laid its cruel hand upon her, and managed to reach London, fired with the intention of disturbing the new régime.
Mr. Candover had obtained intelligence of her movements, and had been on the alert, he and one or other of his confederates having been constantly about the premises held under the name “Rocada,” in the expectation of her arrival.
On the evening when her sudden appearance startled Audrey, both Mr. Candover and Johnson were on the watch, and though they had been unable to prevent her entering, they had prevented her doing more than that.
Johnson’s story was that she died a natural death from the bursting of a blood-vessel, caused by intense excitement on meeting the man who had ill-used and betrayed her, after having exploited her beauty on behalf of his gambling-house.
Johnson it was who had disguised himself as the “Dr. Fendall” whose address could not subsequently be ascertained; and he said that, immediately after Audrey had left the showrooms in search of help, he and Mr. Candover had brought a cab, had covered the dead woman with a long cloak belonging to Mademoiselle Laure, led her out between them as if she had been still alive, and carried her, under cover of the darkness, a gruesome companion, out to Willesden, where, in an empty house in a half-built street, where building was at a standstill for lack of funds, they had buried the body of the wretched woman under the flooring.
Having taken the precaution to make the driver of the cab too tipsy to take much notice of what was going on, they returned to the West End, Johnson sitting by the cabman and giving sufficient assistance with the reins for his condition to pass unnoticed by the authorities.
A search of the premises he indicated having been made, the truth of this part of Johnson’s story was established, and an inquest was held, which resulted in an open verdict, the condition of the body warranting the belief that the man’s story was substantially true.
This was not the only information which Johnson, now convinced that the truth was his best refuge, gave to the prosecution.
He confessed that, as far as he knew, no one of the name of Madame de Vicenza ever existed. The “Duchess” was a figment of Mr. Candover’s brain, and “The Briars” had been rented by him. It was also discovered that the premises which poor Audrey had believed to be rented in her name, and which had actually been paid for with her money, were really taken by Mr. Candover in the name of his sister, Mademoiselle Laure. The various documents which she had been made to sign were concoctions of his own, and the “solicitor” to whom he had introduced her had been one of his own creatures.
As for Tom Gossett, he had been chiefly employed as a tout, to discover likely victims for his employer. In his employment as a solicitor’s clerk in the city he had unhappily been able to find out all the details about Gerard Angmering’s habits and ways, which had been necessary to involve him in Candover’s net.