“Well,” he began, “for five years I was happy in seeing Janet and her two boys safe under the shadow of my broken heart; but about a year ago Lopez came to me and told me that some disreputable Cuban acquaintances of his had learned poor Janet’s secret, and that a paltry hundred pounds would keep them quiet. I, of course, sent him about his business and reported the matter to the police. The Cubans quietly got hold of Janet—just how I was never quite sure—and played upon her love for her children until they extorted one sum after another from her without my knowledge. At last they demanded a sum so vast that the poor girl was compelled to appeal to me. I told her to ignore their letters, and had them shadowed by detectives. We discovered that Mendes himself was at the head of a gang whose plan was to get the secrets of rich families for blackmailing purposes, his private fortune having been gambled away on the Continent. More than once Lopez or Mendes has ruined a woman of standing, and while pretending to remain a devoted lover, has told the other, who would at once begin the extortion of hush money. Mendes came here yesterday—and I shot him like a dog. Now Lopez will show that I was the paramour of my victim’s wife, and that my crime followed naturally upon Mendes tracking his wife to my house, and there learning that I had palmed her off as my wife for years. Those are the facts. Complete, wouldn’t you say?”
Allyne, always more susceptible to all emotions than Travers, frankly looked the horror he felt as he began to realize the truly desperate situation in which Fair now was; but Travers, after thinking for a few moments in silence, spoke out bravely: “Confound it, man, isn’t it a principle of law that a man is innocent until proven guilty? Who knows that you killed the scoundrel? And if suspicion should be drawn toward you, why, then let them prove the charge if they can. And, anyhow, can’t you plead that you killed him while protecting Mrs. Fair? The blackguard’s character will make it difficult for Lopez to prove Mendes’s alleged relations with Janet. I’d be hanged if I’d be hanged just for the fun of it.”
“Ah, but my dear fellow,” returned Fair, arguing out his point in his customary cool way, “you forget. It is known that he came to this house. It is known that he did not leave it. His body, my dear friend—his corpse, you know, is a nasty bit of evidence that we can’t get rid of.”
“Do you mean to say,” answered Travers, face to face with the calm man, “do you mean to tell us that the—that the chap’s corpse, you know, was in the house last night while you and Janet were entertaining us? If you are the man you are, surely no woman at any rate could have stood that.”
“Ah, you don’t know her,” smiled Fair. “To save me—yes, to please me even, that woman would do anything—bear anything.”
“And she jolly well ought to,” put in Allyne, slapping Fair’s back, and then with a nervous look about the room: “I say, what did you do with the—with that infernal thing, you know?”
“With the body?” asked Fair, with entire freedom from excitement. “It is here yet.”
“Here?” cried Allyne angrily and sick with perplexity.
“In the house now?” asked Travers, scowling but not believing.