A woman's debt

by William Le Queux

Lane was impressed by the shrewdness of the young man’s remark when they parted. “If you can find who has got that memorandum, you will discover the actual thief. I don’t believe in Mr. Morrice’s theory of it having passed into the hands of the dustman.”

“Neither do I, Mr. Croxton. Well, good-bye for the present. I think for the moment we will say nothing about these happenings to Miss Sheldon. It is not because I wish to keep her in the dark, for I am sure she is a good and noble girl. But for the moment, except to those actually concerned, secrecy is imperative. A chance word, a chance look, even a gesture might convey a warning where I do not wish it to be conveyed. You understand.”

Yes, Richard thoroughly understood. He hated to keep anything from his beloved Rosabelle, who had stood by him so staunchly in these dark hours. But the detective was right, women cannot control their feelings like men, especially where their deepest emotions are concerned.

Lane had perhaps been more frank in his statement of the facts than illuminating in his deductions from them, if indeed he had suffered himself to draw from them any deductions of a very positive nature. But the young man felt much more cheerful after that visit. He felt quite sure that if the detective had started with suspicions of him, he had dropped them by now, or his manner could not have been so cordial. He was certain that was not assumed.

This keen and patient investigator had certainly made a series of remarkable discoveries, it was almost impossible that nothing would result from them. It was easy to see that he was not a man who would tell you what was passing in his mind till the decisive moment for revelation had come. No doubt, in his own quiet way, he was drawing his net tighter and tighter. Would he draw it so closely at the end that the real criminal could not escape from its meshes? And would he, Richard Croxton, be rehabilitated in the sight of all men? Would the day come when Rupert Morrice would ask his pardon for his unjust suspicions, his harsh treatment, for having branded the son of his old sweetheart as a thief?

On his return from Petersham to his office, Lane found Sellars waiting for him by appointment. To this keen-witted young man he detailed the three fresh incidents that had occurred in so short a space—the conversation between Mrs. Morrice and her supposed nephew, overheard by Rosabelle; the fact that Sir George was under the close observation of Scotland Yard, the further startling fact that Archie Brookes had been brought up in the home of Alma Buckley. He wound up with the information that he had dispatched an anonymous letter to Rupert Morrice, the contents of which he trusted would induce the financier to start a searching investigation on his own account.

“By Jove, that was a fine idea, Lane, and got you out of an awkward situation,” said Sellars in a tone of admiration. “If he finds what, no doubt, we expect him to find, there will be trouble in Deanery Street. For, although I can’t pretend to know very much about him, he strikes me as just the kind of man who could be as hard as nails in certain circumstances.”

“Yes, I should say it was so,” Lane agreed. “Young Croxton, with whom I had a long talk to-day, tells me that he is the soul of honour and rectitude, that he has no toleration of wrong-doing in others, being so exempt from weaknesses himself. He gives me that impression too—the sort of man who would sacrifice his own son if he thought justice demanded it.”

Sellars had no petty jealousy of the other man’s superior powers in the line in which Lane was a master, and he, comparatively speaking, only a promising pupil. But he did occasionally fancy that he could see a point which the master, perhaps through carelessness, had overlooked. He thought he saw one now.

“That’s not quite true, is it? He firmly believed in young Croxton’s guilt, believes in it still from what you have told me. But he didn’t prosecute him. Not quite such a hard nut as we think him, perhaps.”