And, as a matter of fact, at the very moment when Guy was driving down to the tender, in order to escape from an imaginary charge of forgery, his brother Cyril, to his own immense astonishment, was being conveyed from Dover Pier to Tavistock, under close police escort, on a warrant charging him with the wilful murder of Montague Nevitt, two days before, at Mambury, in Devon.
If Guy had only known that, he would never have fled. But he didn’t know it. How could he, indeed, in his turmoil and hurry? He didn’t even know Montague Nevitt was dead. He had been too busy that day to look at the papers. And the few facts he knew from the boys crying in the street he naturally misinterpreted, by the light of his own fears and personal dangers. He thought he was “wanted” for the yet undiscovered forgery, not for the murder, of which he was wholly ignorant.
Nevertheless, we can never in this world entirely escape our own personality. As Guy went on board, believing himself to have left his identity on shore, he heard somebody, in a voice that he fancied he knew, ask a newsboy on the tender for an evening paper. Guy was the only passenger who embarked at Plymouth; and this person unseen was the newsboy’s one customer.
Guy couldn’t discover who he was at the moment, for the call for a paper came from the upper deck; he only heard the voice, and wasn’t certain at first that he recognised even that any more than in a vague and indeterminate reminiscence. No doubt the sense of guilt made him preternaturally suspicious. But he began to fear that somebody might possibly recognise him. And he had bought the paper with news about the warrant. That was bad; but ‘twas too late to draw back again now. The tender lay alongside a while, discharging her mails, and then cast loose to go. The Cetewayo’s screw began to move through the water. With a dim sense of horror, Guy knew they were off. He was well under way for far distant South Africa.
But he did NOT know or reflect that while he ploughed his path on over that trackless sea, day after day, without news from England, there would be ample time for Cyril to be tried, and found guilty, and perhaps hanged as well, for the crime that neither of them had really committed.
The great ship steamed out, cutting the waves with her prow, and left the harbour lights far, far behind her. Guy stood on deck and watched them disappearing with very mingled feelings. Everything had been so hurried, he hardly knew himself as yet how his flight affected all the active and passive characters in this painful drama. He only knew he was irrevocably committed to the voyage now. There would be no chance of turning till they reached Cape Town, or at, the very least Madeira.
He stood on deck and looked back. Somebody else in an ulster stood not far off, near a light by the saloon, conversing with an officer. Guy recognised at once the voice of the man who had asked in the harbour for an evening paper. At that moment a steward came up as he stood there, on the look-out for the new passenger they’d just taken in. “You’re in thirty-two, sir, I think,” he said, “and your name—”
“Is Billington,” Guy answered, with a faint tremor of shame at the continued falsehood.
The man who had bought the paper turned round sharply and stared at him. Their eyes met in one quick flash of unexpected recognition. Guy started in horror. This was an awful meeting. He had seen the man but once before in his life, yet he knew him at a glance. It was Granville Kelmscott.
For a minute or two they stood and stared at one another blankly, those unacknowledged half-brothers, of whom one now knew, while the other still ignored, the real relationship that existed between them. Then Granville Kelmscott turned away without one word of greeting. Guy trembled in his shame. He knew he was discovered. But before his very eyes, Granville took the paper he had been reading by that uncertain light, and, raising it high in his hand, flung it over into the sea with spasmodic energy. It was the special edition containing the account of the man McGregor’s death and Guy Waring’s supposed connection with the murder. Granville Kelmscott, indeed, couldn’t bring himself to denounce his own half-brother. He stared at him coldly for a second with a horrified face.