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

by T. W. Speight

There was one last drawer still to open. He drew it slowly out. It held neither gold, nor notes, nor bills of exchange. There was nothing in it but a small cedar-wood box, which box was locked. Pringle took it out of the drawer. It was very light, and not at all strong. What could there be inside it? Why should the contents of this box be held as of more account than the gold and notes that lay openly about? Perhaps within that little casket lay hidden some dark secret of Van Duren's life. With the aid of one of his files, which lay there on the floor, Pringle could force open the lid in a couple of minutes, and see with his own eyes what was shut up inside. No sooner thought than done--done without pausing to ask himself whether such an act would not shut him out from all possibility of retreat. So long as the box remained intact, so long as the gold and notes remained untouched, all that he had to do was to shut and relock the door of the safe, and Van Duren need never know anything of what had happened to-night.

But the lid of the box was forced even while this thought was floating vaguely through his mind. He forced it, breaking it into two pieces as he did so. To his intense disappointment, there was nothing inside but a parcel of old letters.

Yes, at the very bottom there was something more, and yet nothing of any great consequence: only a woman's portrait. He took it up with a sneer, and moved a few steps nearer the gaslight, so as to be able to examine it more closely.

For a full minute he stood staring at the portrait without moving a muscle, with no more apparent life in him than a waxen effigy. Then he let the portrait drop as suddenly as though it had burnt him, and putting his hands to his face, he sank on his knees beside it on the floor. But not long did he remain thus. With a low cry, he started to his feet as though suddenly struck by some overwhelming thought, and hurrying across the floor, he pulled out the drawer that held the letters, and went back with it to the light. Holding the drawer under one arm, he picked out a letter here and there, opened it, read a line or two, glanced at the signature, and then put it back and took up another. Last of all, he picked up the portrait, kissed it, laid it atop of the letters, and put the drawer back into its place in the safe. Then once more he sat down to think.

What a strange and terrible discovery was that which he had just made! The likeness was Jessie's likeness, and the letters were Jessie's letters. Max Van Duren was the villain who had robbed him of his child.

Nineteen men out of twenty would have destroyed the letters of a girl for whom they had ceased to care, and whom they had cast upon the world without compunction, to starve, or die, or to live on in a way that was worse than death. But here the letters were. They had been written in the days when this man called Jessie his "wild rose," when she believed him to be everything that was good and honourable; when, at his persuasion, and for love of him, she ran away from the drunken, disreputable father who seemed to value her so little, but who found out how dear the motherless girl was to his heart when he had lost her for ever. Yes; here were the letters, overflowing with sweet, girlish confidence and outspoken love. Who could tell why Van Duren had kept them? Not he himself, if any one had put the question to him.

Jonas Pringle had need to think. He heard the City clocks strike one, as he sat on the pile of ledgers by the open door of the safe, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. He heard the City clocks strike two, and still he sat like a man turned to stone.

When, years before, he had first come to London, and had reason to believe that his daughter was hidden somewhere in the same huge wilderness, all his spare time for many weary months had been devoted to looking for her. But that could not go on for ever: and although he had long ago given up all active search for Jessie, the trick, acquired at that time, of peering up into the face of every woman who passed him in the streets, had never wholly left him. Thousands of times had he dwelt in imagination on the meeting which, he felt convinced, must one day take place between his daughter and himself--how he would snatch her to his heart and tell her that all the past was dead and forgiven. And now he had seen her, but only to find that she shunned him as though he were stricken with the plague. A thousand times had he sworn to himself that should he ever knowingly cross the path of the man who had destroyed his child, no power in heaven or on earth should baulk him of his revenge. And now that by a strange chance he had crossed the path of that man, should his oaths be all forgotten, and the revenge he had promised himself nothing but an empty dream? Not so, not so.

But what form should his vengeance take? Not the poor, paltry, insignificant form of robbing this man of his gold. After what he had learned to-night, rather than take a penny of his money, he would have begged from door to door. What he wanted was not Van Duren's money, but Van Duren's life. He would like to have seen him come home the worse for wine, and in that condition have gone to bed, and then he would have set fire to the house and have burnt him as he slept. He would like to have treated him as some savage tribes treat their prisoners--torturing them hour after hour, killing them by inches through a long summer day. A death that would come quickly was too good for him. Something slow and lingering, something that would make him long for death as a prisoner longs for the order for his release, would not be one whit more than he, and all such as he, deserved.

At length he heard the clocks strike four, and he knew that the bright May dawning was beginning to flood the streets with the grey and gold of another day. Then he stood up, stiff, cold, and weary, but with an intense fire burning at his heart that seemed to light him up from head to foot, and had already transformed him into another man. He put out the gas, and leaving the safe-door still unlocked, but locking the outer door, he crept upstairs to bed. He had matured his plan; he had thought out his scheme of vengeance; everything was clearly mapped out in his mind: he could now afford to take a few hours' sleep.