“That bottle contained papers giving a detailed account of all that Hilton Riddell, alias William Trace, had done, and was doing, to ruin you and liberate his brother. What a sneak the fellow has been to deceive people, and to do the tricky things he was doing. No wonder he came to a bad end. And how vindictive he must have been to write down all he wrote on the papers that have so wonderfully been put in my possession. Why, only one half the details would have reversed the relative positions of his brother and yourself, if anyone but me had secured that bottle. It seems miraculous, doesn’t it, that, after tossing about on the waters of the broad Atlantic, the fragile receptacle of a deadly secret should have been guided to the only person who knew how to make a proper use of it? I broke the bottle, and after reading them destroyed the papers. And what do you to say to the strange fact that I, who had never been in St. Ives before, should chance to be there just when that bottle was washed ashore? Only picture what a calamity it would have been had anyone but myself stumbled upon it.
“The whole thing has only served to strengthen the belief expressed nearer the beginning of this letter, and I no longer feel the slightest qualms of conscience on his behalf. Nor do I feel much further uneasiness about you. Wear is dead. Mr. Lyon is dead. Clement Corney is dead. The carefully-prepared proofs against you which Hilton Riddell consigned to the waves have perished in a more deadly element, and he himself is powerless to do you further injury unless the sea gives up its dead. All things taken together, therefore, you may consider yourself perfectly safe, and I do not think there would be the slightest risk in your returning to England, and resuming your duties at the shop. Let me know as soon as possible whether you intend to do so or not. You will have had sufficient holiday, and ought to try to make up for all the worry you have caused me lately.
“One thing puzzles me a little. How did Hilton Riddell get to know that you were sailing in the ‘Merry Maid,’ and what led him to pitch his suspicions on you? It couldn’t be all chance, and, but for his timely extinction things might have been very awkward for you by this time.
“But enough of this subject. You know all there is to know, and I know as much as I want to know. Nor do I desire ever to open the subject again.
“You will be interested to hear that Mr. Leonard Claridge is violently in love with Ada, and is very anxious to marry her off-hand. I am just as anxious that the marriage should take place as he is, for it would be a great thing to have Ada so advantageously settled. She pretends to turn her nose up at an offer from a grocer. But she is a very sensible girl, after all, and will reflect that if Mr. Claridge is a grocer he is not in the retail line, and will be able to provide her with an establishment quite equal to her mother’s.
“Fanny is likely to be much more troublesome to us. She is very passionate and intractable, and nobody seems able to manage her since the night you left home. That night was also the one on which Wear came to such a sudden and tragic end. It was also the night on which that governess disappeared, who seemed to have such a genius for managing Fanny. When I returned home, after seeing you safe on board the ‘Merry Maid,’ the governess had gone out. It was odd that she never came back, wasn’t it?”
Yes, it was certainly odd. Indeed, it was the one fly in Mr. Stavanger’s ointment. Just now the fact did not trouble him, because he was not aware of it.
At one of the principal hotels in Bombay a young man sat reading the letter from which the above long extract is given. He would have been fairly good-looking but for the unpleasant expression which his reckless indulgence in vicious pleasures and his aggressively selfish temperament had given him. In height and breadth he somewhat exceeded the average, but his gait was seen to be clumsy when he walked, although his proportions were regular enough. His hands and feet were small and well shaped, his complexion of a clear, but healthy enough paleness when he condescended to lead an abstemious life. Just now it was full of tell-tale pimples. His features were regular; his teeth well-shaped, but slightly discoloured; his hair, eyes, and expression all as black as they can be found anywhere.
Such was Hugh Stavanger, known on the hotel books as Harry Staley. He had been to the “poste restante” for his letter, and as his eyes wandered from one page to another, rapidly deciphering the contents that would have proved so baffling to anyone not initiated in the business of Stavanger, Stavanger, and Co., the heavy scowl on his face gave way to a look of evil triumph, not unmingled with astonishment.
“Well, of all the lucky accidents, these beat everything,” he murmured. “To think of all those people being bowled over like that. But what a caution the governor is, to be sure, with his talk about wickedness and Providence. And he really writes as if he believes what he preaches. There is one thing, though, in which he is quite right. The sea can’t give up its dead, at any rate not in such a condition as to be able to speak against me. Hullo! What’s this? Curse that girl. There is no mistake about her now. She was a spy when pretending to be governess. She disappeared from our house the night I sailed. This means that she found out where I was going to, and set that scoundrel of a Riddell on my trail. Her next manœuvre was to follow me out to Malta. These people evidently know who really took the diamonds. And they are moving heaven and earth to bring me to book. Ah! well! They mean to win. So do I, and all the odds are now in my favour. They may suspect what they like, but they haven’t a proof left. As the governor says, Providence is dead against them. We all know that it’s no use flying in the face of Providence, so my enemies are foredoomed to disappointment.