"I will follow you in a few moments," said Drelincourt to his wife. "I have a note to write which must be despatched at once."
He waited with a nonchalant air, a couple of fingers of each hand thrust into his waistcoat pockets, till she had gone, then he sank wearily into a chair.
"At last the sword has fallen! For twenty long years it has been suspended over my head, and now the hair that held it has snapped. Fate guides our footsteps through a blind labyrinth, and brings us to the exit by ways we wot not of. But it may be that all is not yet lost. Some loophole of escape there may be still, though all is dark at present. Through what mischance has Gumley been caught in the toils after all these years? Why has he confessed to the robbery of the jewels? Why---- But these are idle questions. I must see Rodd and get him to fathom this mystery for me."
Therewith he rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Marsh that I wish to see him at once in the library," he said to Wicks. Then to himself he added: "In all the world there is but one soul to whom I can freely talk and from whom I have no concealments."
When he entered the library, three minutes later, he found Roden Marsh already there.
"So--you have heard," he said, as he shut the door, and paused for a moment before advancing. "I can read your news in your face."
"I wanted to be the first to tell it you, so that you might be prepared; but I could find no opportunity of seeing you alone."
"My dear Rodd, night and day for twenty years I have never been otherwise than prepared. But tell me what it is you have heard. At present I am altogether in the dark. That Gumley has been arrested, and has confessed to the robbery of my first wife's jewels--so much I have been told, but beyond that I know nothing."
"Yesterday morning Gumley, who has not been seen in this part of the country for a number of years, tried to pawn a lady's watch. The suspicions of the pawnbroker were aroused, the police were called in, Gumley's lodging was searched, and in it was found nearly the whole of Mrs. Drelincourt's stolen property. This morning I happened to be in Sunbridge on business when Gumley was brought up at the court house before Mr. Ormsby and two other magistrates. It was Draycot, the chief constable, who told me of the arrest, so, of course, I took care to be present at the hearing."
"It seems strange, does it not, that the fellow should have kept his ill-gotten gains by him all these years?"