It was vague, of course; such letters are always vague; no man, even in confessing, likes to allude in plain terms to the exact nature of the crime he has committed; and besides, Guy took it for granted that Cyril knew all about the main features of the case already. He didn’t ask his brother to forgive him, he said; he didn’t try to explain, for explanation would be impossible. How he came to do it, he had no idea himself. A sudden suggestion—a strange unaccountable impulse—a minute or two of indecision—and almost before he knew it, under the spell of that strange eye, the thing was done, irretrievably done for ever. The best he could offer now was to express his profound and undying regret at the wrong he had committed, and by which he had never profited himself a single farthing. Nevitt had deceived him with incredible meanness; he could never have believed any man would act as Nevitt had acted. Nevitt had stolen three thousand pounds of the sum, and applied them to paying off his own debt to the Rio Negro creditors: The remaining three thousand, sent herewith, Guy had recovered, almost by a miracle, from that false creature’s grasp, and he returned them now, in proof of the fact, in Montague Nevitt’s own pocket-book, which Cyril would no doubt immediately recognise. For himself, he meant to leave England at once, at least for the present. Where he was going he wouldn’t as yet let Cyril know. He hoped in a new country to recover his honour and rehabilitate his name. Meanwhile, it was mainly for Cyril’s sake that he fled—and for one other person’s too—to avoid a scandal. He hoped Cyril would be happy with the woman of his choice; for it was to insure their joint happiness that he was accepting the offer of escape so unexpectedly tendered him.
He sealed up the letter—that incriminating letter, that might mean so much more than he ever put into it—and took it out to the post, with the three thousand pounds and Montague Nevitt’s pocket-book in a separate packet. Proud Kelmscott as he was by birth and nature, he slunk through the streets like a guilty man, fancying all eyes were fixed suspiciously upon him. Then he returned to the hotel in a burning heat, went into the smoking room on purpose like an honest man, and rang the bell for the servant boldly.
“Bring my bill, please,” he said to the waiter who answered it. “I go at seven o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter replied, with official promptitude. “Directly, sir. What number?”
“I forget the number,” Guy answered, with a beating heart; “but the name’s Billington.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter responded once more, in the self-same unvaried tone, and went off to the office.
Guy waited in profound suspense, half expecting the waiter to come back for the number again; but to his immense surprise and mystification, the fellow didn’t. Instead of that, he returned some minutes later, all respectful attention, bringing the bill on a salver, duly headed and lettered, “Mr. Billington, number 40.” In unspeakable trepidation, Guy paid it and walked away. Never before in all his life had he been surrounded so close on every side by a thick hedge of impenetrable and inexplicable mystery.
Then a new terror seized him. Was he running his head into a noose, blindfold? Who was the Billington he was thus made to personate, and who must really be staying at the very same time in the Duke of Devonshire? Was this just another of Nevitt’s wily tricks? Had he induced his victim to accept without question the name and character of some still more open criminal?
There was no time now, however, to drawback or to hesitate. The die was cast; he must stand by its arbitrament. He had decided to go, and on that hasty decision had acted in a way that was practically irrevocable. He put his things together with trembling hands, called a cab by the porter, and drove off alone in a turmoil of doubt, to the landing-stage in the harbour.
Policemen not a few were standing about on the pier and in the streets as he drove past openly. But in spite of the fact that a warrant had been issued for his apprehension, none of them took the slightest apparent notice of him. He wondered much at this. But there was really no just cause for wonder. For at least an hour earlier the police had ceased to look out any longer for Nevitt’s murderer. And the reason they had done so was simply this: a telegram had come down from Scotland Yard in the most positive terms, “Waring arrested this afternoon at Dover. The murdered man McGregor is now certainly known to be Montague Nevitt, a bank clerk in London. Endeavour to trace Waring’s line of retreat from Mambury to Dover by inquiry of the railway officials. We are sure of our man. Photographs will be forwarded you by post immediately.”