A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

"On Wednesday morning next I shall want you to go down from Euston Station to Marhyddoc, and there make certain inquiries for me."

"Nothing could please me better, sir. I've had plenty of travelling by water: a little travelling by land will make a pleasant change."

"Then meet me here on Tuesday evening at seven, and I will give you your instructions."

Before proceeding further, Byrne thought that he had better put Ambrose Murray in possession of what he had done since their last meeting, and seek his sanction to the steps he proposed taking next. Byrne accordingly sought Murray out at his lodgings, and the two men had a long consultation. Gerald, unfortunately, was at Stammars just then, and could not be present.

"Everything now hinges upon the result of Morrell's inquiries at Marhyddoc," said Byrne. "Should the report he will bring back with him prove a favourable one, then we may consider ourselves fortunate indeed--then we may take it that the best or worst will soon be known to us. But should the result of his inquiries prove unfavourable to our hopes, then all that we have done--all my toiling and scheming, all the expense you have been put to--will have been next to useless. Van Duren's guilt as the murderer of Paul Stilling may have been morally proved to the satisfaction of you and me and one or two others, but that would be of no avail whatever in proving your innocence and in bringing home the crime to him. Unless we can wrest from the sea the terrible secret which it has hidden so carefully all these years, the guilt of Van Duren will remain unproved for ever. Beyond the point now reached by us it is impossible to advance a single step till we shall have made that secret our own."

"The sea has only been keeping its secret all these years that it might yield it up when the time should be ripe for me to ask for it. That time has now come. I ask for it, and I shall have it. Have no fear, my good friend, no fear whatever. Guided by an unseen hand, we have threaded a labyrinth from which at first there seemed no possible outlet; and now that we have reached the gate, and are bidden to look for the key, can you doubt that it is there for the searching--can you doubt that we shall find it?"

"Cracked, to a certainty," muttered Byrne to himself, as he left the house. "And no wonder either, poor fellow, when one remembers all that he has had to go through."

Morrell went down to Wales in due course, and in due course he returned. His report to Byrne was of such a nature that the latter could not conceal his exultation. "We shall have him yet!" he exclaimed, much to the ex-mate's astonishment. "He has escaped for twenty long years, but the hangman's fingers shall unbutton his collar before he is six months older."

Then he went and saw Murray again, and it was arranged that they two, together with Gerald, if possible, should go down to Marhyddoc as soon as certain necessary preparations which would have to be made in London should be completed. Morrell, too, was to form one of the party.

When Byrne and Miriam got back to their rooms in Spur Alley, Van Duren could not conceal his exultation at seeing them under his roof again. His time of probation would soon be at an end now: Miriam would soon have to make up her mind to the utterance of a definite "Yes," or "No." Now that she had come back, she seemed more kind and gracious to him than before, from which fact he did not fail to draw an augury that was favourable to his own wishes.