“H’m,” said Ellery. “You are a remarkably cold-blooded scoundrel.”
“Perhaps; but we can keep our opinions of each other to ourselves. You would prefer me to go away rather than stay and face your accusation. Isn’t that so?”
“I suppose you can put it that way,” said Ellery.
“Well, I can’t go without money. That’s the position. And I want a good lot. I can’t lay hands on money at short notice, and you will have to find it. Besides, remember that, if you don’t accuse me, I am still Walter Brooklyn’s heir, and he is Sir Vernon’s. I understand it is most unlikely Sir Vernon will live to make another will. Now, how much can you provide—and how soon? That is the business proposition we have to settle between us. I am prepared to disappear for the present, and I will go further, for a suitable consideration—and promise never to come back to this country. But my condition is that I get half of whatever comes to Joan when Sir Vernon dies. How does that strike you?”
Joan had listened with a feeling of nausea to Woodman’s confession. But now she broke in indignantly. “I am afraid,” she said, “that you are a little after the fair. It is quite true that, under my stepfather’s new will, you appear to be the principal heir. It is also true that my stepfather stood to inherit a large sum of money, until Sir Vernon made a new will.” Joan said these words very slowly and distinctly. As Woodman heard them the colour, which had quite come back, faded again from his face, and he stared at her with a consternation that deepened as she went on.
“We had not quite finished our story. After your wicked bargain with my stepfather you attempted to raise money on the strength of being his, and therefore indirectly Sir Vernon’s, heir. I know how hard up you were—indeed pressure from creditors will, I hope, provide a good enough reason for your absconding now. If you choose to spread the report that you have died abroad, we shall certainly not object. But you will get no money from us. As I was saying, you went to Sir John Bunnery and tried to raise a large sum from him on the ground of your expectations. But you may not know that Sir John at once wrote privately to Sir Vernon to ask whether you were really the heir, or that yesterday Sir Vernon rallied enough to make a new will. That will, of course, excludes both you and my stepfather altogether.”
At these words the colour came suddenly back into Woodman’s cheeks. In a second he pulled open a drawer in the desk before him, seized from it a revolver and took aim at Joan. But Ellery was just too quick for him, knocking up his arm so that the bullet embedded itself in the ceiling. Woodman at once turned on Ellery, closing with him, and a fierce struggle began. At this moment there was a sound of breaking glass, and, rapidly opening the window through the hole which he had made, Superintendent Wilson leapt into the room. At the same time, the door leading to the outer office began to rattle as if some one were attempting to open it from without; but it was locked, and resisted all efforts to break it open. Then some one smashed the glass panel above and the head of Inspector Blaikie, with Moorman’s terrified face behind, appeared in the gap. At sight of the superintendent, Ellery relaxed his hold for a moment and Woodman broke loose. But this time, instead of aiming at Joan, he turned the weapon upon himself. Putting the barrel of the revolver to his temple he fired. When, a moment later, the inspector forced an entrance, he found Joan, Ellery, and Superintendent Wilson bending over Carter Woodman’s body.
Chapter XXXVII.
A Happy Ending
Joan, Ellery, and the superintendent faced one another across Woodman’s body. Moorman, his nerves gone, crouched in a corner, muttering. The inspector bent down and made a quick inspection of the body.
“H’m,” he said, “he’s quite dead.”