The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

"There are two points," said Clem, presently, "which I should certainly like to be enlightened upon. In the first place, I should like to know the sum total pocketed by Varrel as the proceeds of his crime; and, in the second, what his object was in entrusting the parcel of notes to his mother's keeping.

"Those were two points as to which Mr. Wingate was equally curious with yourself," replied Hermia, "and he did not fail to question Varrel upon them during the few minutes we were allowed to stay with him after he had signed the confession. As soon as Varrel had realized that Mr. Hazeldine was dead, it was only natural that he should be desirous of getting away from the scene of his crime as speedily as possible. He must seize whatever he could lay hands on at once and decamp. To his intense amazement, the black bag in which he expected to find the gold Mr. Hazeldine was supposed to have brought from London, proved to be empty. All that his hurried search enabled him to lay hands on was a bag containing a hundred sovereigns and a parcel of notes of the value of five hundred pounds. The gold he divided with his mother before setting out for London; but Mrs. Varrel, as we have seen, refused to touch her portion of it. The notes he left in her charge because he felt sure their numbers were known, and that any attempt on his part to change them would simply have led to his arrest."

Late as the hour was when Clement Hazeldine left Nairn Cottage, he felt that he could not sleep until he had seen his brother and told him the news. A brisk walk of half-an-hour brought him to Beecham.

He found Edward sitting in slippered ease over a volume of Montesquieu--as one who hoped some day to help in framing the laws of his country--and a cigar. Ten minutes sufficed him to give his brother the pith of Hermia's narrative. He had brought Varrel's confession, and he finished his recital by producing it and handing it to the other.

Never was a man more astounded than Edward Hazeldine was at the news told him by his brother. To think, to realize as a fact that, after all, his father's death was not due to his own act! It seemed almost too incredible to be true. Of course, the fact remained, and could in no wise be gainsaid, that Mr. Hazeldine had fully intended to take his own life, and would undoubtedly have done so had not fate intervened and brought about the same end after a different fashion; but even so, the relief to Edward Hazeldine was more than he could find words to give expression to. It took him some time to recover himself; the cool, almost frigid, self-possession which was one of his most salient attributes had for the time being deserted him. One of his first remarks, after his wonder had in some measure spent itself, was,

"Thank Heaven! there will now be no need to refund the twelve thousand pounds--for, of course, the confession will have to be made public." Then presently he added, "Do you mean to say, Clem, that this fellow Varrel made no allusion to the fact that the large amount of money which was proved to be missing from the Bank's coffers had not been taken by him?"

"It would certainly seem that he did not. As I have already told you, he fainted before having come to the end of what he had evidently intended to say, and he died a few hours later. What further revelations he would have made had he lived a little while longer, it is now, of course, impossible to say."

"A lucky thing for us he died when he did!" said Edward, more to himself than to his brother. "The world will not fail to saddle him with the double crime."

As the brothers shook hands at parting, by which time it was past midnight, Edward said:

"By the way, Clem, that girl of yours must be one in a thousand. I hereby retract every word in her disparagement that I have ever given utterance to. I shall be proud to be introduced to her." Then more earnestly, and with what for him was an unwonted display of feeling: "In such a business as we have been discussing it is only a part of the selfishness of human nature that we should think of ourselves first, but I hope you'll believe me when I say that not the least portion of the happiness your news has caused me is due to the fact that the last shred of suspicion, which for so long a time has clung to that noble-hearted creature, John Brancker, will now be torn away, and his good name be given back to him as pure and unsullied as, in reality, it has been from the first!"