Rogues and Vagabonds

by George R. Sims

The vessel was bound for Baltimore, but he would take the first ship and go home again, What should he do when he landed in England? He had been travelling for years, leaving his affairs to be managed by his friend, Birnie. He was haunted by a constant terror, not that his crime would come to light, but that he might lose the result of it.

On the last afternoon he spent with Ralph Egerton, the dipsomaniac had boasted of having the marriage certificate in his own keeping. That certificate Gurth had never been able to find among the papers of which he had taken possession.

He had furnished the house which the old miser had occupied in the street off Russell Square and carried everything there, leaving Birnie to live at Ralph’s villa at St. John’s Wood. But, though he found hundreds of documents relating to the affairs of the deceased, there was no sign of the paper he so particularly wished to destroy.

He felt sure that the marriage had been performed before a registrar, and he could easily have ascertained where, but that would have been a dangerous step. It was to his interest that no attention should be attracted to the subject by inquiries about it.

There was nothing to connect him specially with the death of his cousin. Every one present on the occasion was equally liable to suspicion, and the only man who might have spoken, perhaps, had he liked, was bound in his own interest to hold his peace.

Birnie had shown him the false certificate of death which he had signed to avoid scandal, and it had not been a bad day’s work for the young doctor.

From that moment, without a word passing between them, it had been understood that Birnie lived rent-free, and had an allowance of so much a year out of the estate. To do him justice, Birnie had not been extortionate, and Gurth himself marvelled occasionally that he did not make a freer use of the power he undoubtedly possessed.

He had left Birnie not only manager of his affairs during his absence, but executor in case of his dying. With the exception of a legacy of £500 to the housekeeper, Mrs. Turvey, and £2,000 to Birnie, the whole of the property was left, in the event of his death without issue, to the nearest surviving relative of Ralph Egerton. Nothing, however, was to be touched till the anniversary of his death, and on that day a sealed letter was to be opened by his solicitors.

In this letter Gurth set forth the fact that he had heard a rumour that Ralph had been married. He left it to be inferred that had the wife or child, if there was one, at any time lodged a claim, he should instantly have recognised it, but no wife or child had ever come forward. He charged his executors to make diligent inquiry, and ascertain who was the nearest living relative of his late cousin.

This was a kind of death bed repentance. Gurth felt conscious that the record of the marriage would be advertised for, and, the books being searched, would be found, and then the property he had enjoyed during his lifetime would pass to the rightful owner.