“And I was in ignorance,” I exclaimed.
“I deemed it best. I did not wish to alarm either of you, and indeed it is only since the narrow escape you both had at Heathermoor Gardens that I revealed to Thelma the motive of the plot. I did not suspect that terrible death-trap, but as soon as Thelma was missing I naturally felt that she must have fallen into the hands of one or other of the gang. Judge my surprise when I discovered that she surreptitiously, at Audley’s request, rejoined him in hiding at a small private hotel in Gloucester Road, Kensington. Audley was in constant dread of the police, an apprehension kept alive by Ruthen and Graydon, and for that reason he destroyed his clothes and some false notes before escaping from the room at Lancaster Gate. He turned the key from the outside, in order further to mystify those whom he believed to be his pursuers.”
“I was his pursuer,” I remarked.
“True. But he was avoiding you, as well as the police,” Feng said. “He was told that you were making inquiries concerning him on his wife’s behalf and would, if you gained the truth, reveal it to her. Naturally, he had no desire that Thelma should know that the police were wanting him upon grave charges of forgery.”
“But why did he not openly defy those men into whose hands he fell before his marriage?” I asked. “Surely, he could have cleared himself and have given information to the police.”
“Ah! Humphreys, the criminal with the master-mind took very good care that he was so deeply implicated that he dare not utter a word,” my friend pointed out. “Recollect his determination was that Thelma, alone and without friends except her mother, should meet with an untimely end in order that the Sung-tchun fortune should pass to him.
“First, however, she married unexpectedly, and, secondly, you came upon the scene as her protector. It was for that reason an attempt was first made to poison you, and then that clever plot at Stamford whereby you were drugged by that final cigarette given you by the supposed commercial traveler, who afterwards entered your room, forced against your lips a bottle containing a deadly drug, and made it appear as though you had committed suicide. Humphreys believed that you knew too much, so he intended that you should die before the girl over whom you were so carefully watching. He had no idea, however, of the part I was playing—until the police went to arrest him.”
“But could you not have told me the truth long ago—and given me warning?” I asked.
“That was impossible,” he replied. “Remember I warned you repeatedly. You would only have laughed had I told you Humphreys was your enemy: you were already deeply prejudiced against me. Thelma, too, tried to induce you to give the whole thing up, but you refused. Had Humphreys known that you suspected him he would have had you both murdered out of hand and chanced detection. But as things were he elected to wait until he could devise a plot that would be absolutely safe. So long as Stanley Audley was out of the way there was no need for him to do anything rash. And by his patience he nearly won in the end.”
“But he very nearly lost,” I said. “Suppose Thelma and I had been burnt to death. We could never have been identified and Humphreys could not have proved Thelma’s death. That meant he could not have inherited her fortune at any rate until sufficient time had elapsed for the Courts to presume her death.”