The Grey Monk

by T. W. Speight

As may perhaps be remembered, Mr. Travis, Alec’s business partner, could not reasonably have come to any other conclusion than that the latter had lost his life by the explosion of the Prairie Belle, seeing that week after week passed over without bringing any tidings of him; and, indeed, it was not till nearly three months had gone by that one day a tall, emaciated, almost ghastly figure stalked into the office, and for the moment all but made Mr. Travis’s hair stand on end when, in hollow tones, it said: “Well, Frank, old fellow, how are you by now?”

It appeared that he had been picked up, clinging to a spar and all but insensible, nearly an hour after the explosion had taken place. His rescuer, a farmer who lived on the margin of the lake, caused Alec to be taken to his house, where he was carefully nursed and tended by the farmer’s wife and daughter. He had been terribly bruised and half blinded by the explosion, and for several weeks he wandered in his mind and knew neither where he was, nor what had befallen him.

The farmer and his family belonged to the sect known as Quietists, and as they read no newspapers and held as little communion with the outside world as possible, it followed that Alec’s name was omitted from the published list of the survivors of the explosion. Small wonder was it that Travis almost looked upon his partner as on one come back from the grave.

Not till then did Alec learn of the inquiries which had been made about him during his absence. That the man who made them had come specially from England, Mr. Travis did not doubt, but as he had declined to state the nature of his business, there was nothing more to tell. The fact interested Alec but faintly, and soon passed out of his thoughts. He was a banished man; his wife had deserted him; his child was dead; and to him, after his accident and the illness which resulted from it, his past life gradually assumed the faded proportions of a dream, and not a real experience of his own.

And so one uneventful year after another dragged out its little span, the partners meanwhile prospering in business, and never being other than the best of friends.

At length, through the death of a relative, Mr. Travis succeeded to a considerable property and at once made up his mind to return to England. Alec, who for some years past had been pining for news from home, and who could not but remember that his father was getting well advanced in years, begged of his friend, on his arrival in the old country, to go to Mapleford and make certain inquiries sub rosa, and communicate the result to him. This Mr. Travis at once proceeded to do, writing Alec to the effect that his stepmother and his three half-brothers had all been some years dead, that a tablet to his, Alec’s memory had been put up in the church where so many of his progenitors were buried, that his son had been adopted by Sir Gilbert as the latter’s heir, and that his wife, under the designation of Mrs. Alexander Clare, was residing at the house known as Maylings, within a mile of the Chase.

Alec was astounded. His child had been a girl, and he had still by him, carefully preserved, his wife’s heartless letter and the certificate of the infant’s death. The result of Mr. Travis’s letter was that, three weeks later, Alec landed at Liverpool.

What followed is already known to the reader. Alec’s reason for not denouncing Luigi to Sir Gilbert at an earlier date was owing to his wife’s absence in Italy, of which he had learnt through certain inquiries made on his account by Martin Rigg. Before taking any positive steps in the affair he was desirous of obtaining some certain evidence as to how far Giovanna was implicated in the fraud, his intention being to seek an interview with her immediately upon her return. Rispani’s attempt on the strong room had brought matters to a climax a little sooner than he had anticipated.

He had not failed to hear of Luigi’s departure next day from the Chase, but although his mission was accomplished and there no longer existed any reason why he should not return to his far-away home, he stayed on day after day, unable to tear himself from the haunts of his youth and the roof-tree where he had been born. But at length he had made up his mind that the next day should be the final one of his stay, and as the evening shadows closed in he had gone to take his last walk in the grounds and his last look at the old mansion. It was the evening on which Sir Gilbert, finding himself alone indoors owing to the absence of Lady Pell and the others on their expedition to Dunarvon Castle, had gone for a twilight stroll in the shrubbery. From the shelter of a bank of evergreens he had been watched by his son as he passed slowly to and fro on the sward, puffing absently at his cigar and buried deep in thought. Hence it had come to pass that Alec was within a dozen yards of him when, overcome by a sudden dizziness, he stumbled and sank to the ground. His son’s strong arms had lifted him and carried him into the library by way of the French window. Then, after depositing him on a couch and pressing a kiss on his forehead, Alec had rung the bell and made a hurried exit by the way he had come.

Next morning he had decided to delay his departure till he should be able to ascertain whether his father was suffering from any after effects of the attack of the previous evening, but the sudden appearance of Sir Gilbert as he emerged from the spinney on his way to the Tower, to all appearance in his usual health, had at once dissipated his fears on that score. It was through an upper window of the Tower that he had seen his father’s approach; then had come the latter’s unanswered summons at the door, and after that his departure across the park in the direction of the lodge. Alec had rightly surmised that it was a wish to question Martin Rigg that had brought Sir Gilbert to the Tower, but he had of course no knowledge of the motives which had prompted the visit. The same evening, a couple of hours after nightfall, he had emerged from the Tower, and after locking the door and depositing the key in a place where Rigg on his return would know where to look for it, he had crossed the park, no longer wearing the robe and cowl of the Grey Monk, but in his ordinary attire, and after walking to Westwood station, four miles away, had taken the train for London. After a brief stay in town, where nobody recognised him, and where he made no effort to seek out any of his old-time friends or acquaintances, he had journeyed to Liverpool and booked himself as a passenger by the Arbaces.