“Yes; but we could not be sure of that until lately. The capture of both the culprits was hardly to be hoped for. Come in!”
In response to this permission, a servant entered to say that Mr. Jenkins wished to see Mr. Cory. Mr. Jenkins, feeling sure of a welcome, followed the servant into the room, and was speedily communicating some important information to his three hearers.
“Annie,” said Mr. Cory, as soon as the servant had closed the door behind her, “this is the agent who has been working for us at Boulogne. Perhaps he has some fresh discoveries to report.”
“You are right, sir,” said Jenkins, ensconcing himself comfortably on the seat pointed out to him, and basking in the warmth of the comfortable fire. “Mr. Stavanger had hardly reached Boulogne, when he developed symptoms of serious illness, and both doctor and nurses were speedily in requisition. Mrs. Stavanger pleaded indisposition on her own account, and declined to immure herself in a sick room. Hence her husband was entirely given up to strangers, for the little girl was of no use as a nurse. One of the women who has been engaged for this office is an Englishwoman, and she has proved singularly amenable to pecuniary persuasions. In a conversation which I secured with her yesterday, she gave me some extraordinary information. Mr. Stavanger’s ailment, it appears, is brain fever, and his whole thoughts are centred upon various events connected with, and subsequent to, the diamond robbery. He raves incessantly of his son, and of all the trouble he has brought upon him. These ravings I have tried to arrange in their chronological order, and, always premising that they are not the mere phantoms of a diseased brain, I conclude them to reveal the following facts: Mr. Stavanger became convinced of his son’s guilt, some time not long before Mr. Riddell’s committal. Certain indiscretions on the part of Hugh Stavanger caused others beside his father to learn of his guilt. One of these others was a servant named Wear, who at once proceeded to blackmail the family on the strength of her knowledge. This woman died very suddenly, and Mr. Stavanger has been haunted by a belief that his son compassed her death. You, I know, had an idea that the old gentleman himself had a hand in the affair. But whatever may be attributed to the son, I feel sure that the father was not to blame in this respect. Yet he was quite prepared to go to great lengths to shield his scapegrace son, and knowing him to be a thief, and suspecting him to be a murderer, he aided his escape from England in the ss. ‘Merry Maid.’ While staying at St. Ives, several weeks after this, he had an extraordinary find in the shape of a sealed bottle, containing papers. These papers appear to have been written and signed by Mr. Hilton Riddell, on board the ‘Merry Maid,’ before being sealed in the bottle and thrown into the sea. Their purport was a complete description of all that had taken place on board the vessel since it had sailed from London, and they evidently contained proof enough of Hugh Stavanger’s guilt. If such a bottle was really cast into the sea, it was a very strange chance that threw it into the hands of the only man besides those denounced in it who could have a great personal interest in suppressing and destroying its contents.”
“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Mr. Cory. “Why, it would have saved months of work and suspense for us. But—I am afraid it reveals only too truly what has been the fate of poor Hilton! He had penetrated the secrets of the villains, and felt that his life was not safe. They must in their turn have suspected him, and Stavanger and Cochrane had deemed it necessary to their safety to remove him. Oh, the scoundrels! But the poor lad shall be amply avenged!” Annie, too, was excited and indignant. So was Miss Margaret. But they forbore all interruptions, and Mr. Jenkins concluded his narrative in his own way.
“But little remains to be added,” he said. “This Mr. Stavanger seems to be an odd mixture of bigotry, hypocrisy, and blind devotion to his disreputable son. He talks quite jubilantly about the opportune deaths of Mr. Edward Lyon, and of a man by whom he himself was being blackmailed because of the fellow’s knowledge of Hugh Stavanger’s guilt. Then his ravings are to the effect that Harley Riddell must have really done something to make himself accused of God, since Providence is visibly fighting against him. He also seems to be aware of many of your abortive attempts to entrap his son, and the poor soul triumphs over you in his delirium. Here is the last of his speeches that have been reported to me. ‘Yes, you may search the world over, but you will not discover Hugh. He is only the chosen instrument of Providence, used to bring his deserts to a villain who has committed some great and undiscovered crime. That villain’s brother’s would have betrayed Hugh, and what became of him—Bah! Neither he nor you can prove aught against my son—unless the sea gives up its dead!’”
CHAPTER XXIII. and Last.
JUBILATE.
The Court was crowded in every part. For the trial of Hugh Stavanger and Captain Cochrane upon various indictments had aroused immense public interest, and countless rumours were afloat respecting the wonderful acumen, devotion, and heroism of Miss Annie Cory. She was inundated with applications for interviews, and greatly as she disliked much of the questioning to which she was subjected, she submitted to it with the best grace she could muster, for Harley’s sake. Soon she found herself a popular idol. Her sayings and doings were recorded in every paper in the land that could obtain authentic information on the subject, and some of the more obscure journals that were endowed with smart editors determined to rescue them from their obscurity, published racy accounts of fictitious interviews with her, which were so extraordinarily full of favourable criticism that none but her enemies could have taken serious exception to them. She was photographed so often that at last she rebelled, and vowed that she would never enter a photographer’s studio again. She figured as Miss Una Stratton, as Miss Cory, and as Mr. Bootle, her various presentments being so totally different that curiosity to see her rose to its highest pitch, and caused her every movement to be watched with the keenest interest. Briny, too, came in for his share of attention. For had it not transpired that his mistress in all probability owed her life to him? And that he was a cordially beloved member of the Cory family? Through the publication of his history a curious thing came to pass.
One day an elderly gentleman sought an interview with Mr. Cory. Briny was in the hall when he arrived, and welcomed him with the wildest demonstrations of affection. It transpired that Briny’s original name had been Neptune; that his master’s name was Woodstock; that the latter had been ordered by his doctors to do a little sea-voyaging; and that after going out to America, he had engaged a return passage for himself and his dog on board a timber-laden vessel bound for England, and not likely to make such a rapid passage as a steamer, his object being to spend a few weeks over the voyage.