“Shall you allow the regrettable incident of last night to pass unnoticed? If you do, I fear that man may make another attempt upon you. Therefore it will surely be better if he understands once and for all that I was a witness of his dastardly cowardice.”
“No,” she replied in a low, pained voice. “Please don’t let us discuss it. It must pass.”
“Why?”
“Because if I were to seek to punish him he might bring forward something—something that I wish kept secret.”
I knew that, I recollected every word of that heated conversation. The blackmailer held some secret of hers which, being detrimental, she dreaded might be revealed.
Surely it was all a strange and most remarkable enigma from beginning to end! From that winter night on the highway near Helpstone, when I had found her fallen at the wayside, until that very moment, mystery had piled upon mystery and secret upon secret until, with Burton Blair’s decease and with the pack of tiny cards he had so curiously bequeathed to me, the problem had assumed gigantic proportions.
“That man would have murdered you, Mabel,” I said. “You are is fear of him?”
“I am,” she answered simply, her gaze fixed across the lawn and park beyond, and she sighed.
“But ought you not to assume the defensive now that the fellow has deliberately endeavoured to take your life?” I argued. “His villainous action last night was purely criminal!”
“It was,” she said in a blank, hollow voice, turning her eyes upon me. “I had no idea of his intention. I confess that I came down here because he compelled me to meet him. He has heard of my father’s death and now realises that he can obtain money from me; that I shall be forced to yield to his demands.”