The Silent House by Fergus Hume (ebook reader android .TXT) 📕

"Mr. Denzil," said he, with a ghastly smile, "I have played a bold game, and, thanks to a woman's treachery, I have lost. I hoped to get twenty thousand pounds and a charming wife; but I have gained nothing but poverty and a chance of imprisonment; but I am of noble birth, and I will not survive my dishonour. You wish to know who Wrent is—you shall never know."

He raised the bottle to his lips before Lucian, motionless with horror, could rush forward, and the next moment Count Ercole Ferruci was lying dead on the floor.

That afternoon London was ringing with the news of Ferruci's suicide; but no paper could give any reason for the rash act. This inability was due to the police, who, anxious to capture those concerned in the conspiracy to obtain the assurance money of the Sirius Company, kept everything they could out of the papers, lest Lydia and Wrent should be put on their guard, and so escape.

Lucian had been forced to report the death of Ferruci to the authorities. Now the case was out of his hands again, and in those of Link, who blamed the young barrister severely for not having brought him into the matter before. The detective was always more prone to blame than to praise.

"But what could I do?" cried Lucian angrily. "You threw up the case twice! You said the assassin of Clear—or, as you thought, Vrain—would never be discovered!"

"I did my best, and failed," retorted Link, who did not like his position. "You have had better luck and have succeeded."

"My luck has been sheer hard work, Link. I was not so faint-hearted as you, to draw back at the first check."

"Well, well, the whole truth hasn't been discovered yet, Mr. Denzil. As you have found out this conspiracy, I may learn who the assassin is."

"We know that already. The assassin is Wrent."

"You have yet to prove that."

"I?" said Lucian, with disdain. "I prove nothing. I wash my hands of the whole affair. You are a detective; let me see what you will make of a case which has baffled you twice!" and Denzil, with rage in his heart, went off, laughing at the discomfiture of Link.

At that moment the detective hated his successful rival with his whole heart.

Lucian took a hansom to the Royal John Hotel in Kensington, where Diana, in a great state of alarm, was reading the evening papers, which contained short notices of Ferruci's death. On seeing her lover, she hurried forward anxiously and caught him by the hand.

"Lucian, I am so glad you have come!" she cried, leading him to a chair. "I sent messages both to Geneva Square and Sergeant's Inn, but you were neither at your lodgings nor in your office."

"I was better employed, my dear," said Lucian, with a weary sigh, for he was quite worn out with fatigue and anxiety. "I have been with Link, telling him about Ferruci's death, and being blamed as the cause of it."

"You blamed! And why?" said Diana, with just indignation.

"Because I forced Ferruci to confess the truth, and when he saw that there was every chance of his being put into jail for his villainy, he went to his bedroom and took poison. You know, Mrs. Clear said the man was something of a chemist, so I suppose he prepared the poison himself. It was very swift in its action, for he dropped dead before I could recover my presence of mind."

"Lucian! this is terrible!" cried Diana, wringing her hands.

"You may well say that," he replied gloomily. "Now the whole details of the case will be in the papers, and that unfortunate woman will be arrested."

"Lydia! And what will her father say? It will break his heart!"

"Perhaps; but he must take the consequences of having brought up his daughter so badly. Still," added Lucian, reflectively, "I do not believe that Lydia is so guilty as Wrent. That scoundrel seems to be at the bottom of the affair. Ferruci and he contrived and carried out the whole thing between them, and a precious pair of villains they are."

"Will Wrent be arrested?"

"If he can be found; but I fancy the scoundrel has made himself scarce out of fright. Since he left Jersey Street, after the murder, he has not been heard of. Even Mrs. Clear does not know where he is. You know she has put advertisements in the papers in the cypher he gave her—according to the arrangement between them—but Wrent has not turned up."

"And Rhoda?"

"Rhoda is still missing. The police are getting warrants out for the servant, for Wrent, for Mrs. Clear, and for Lydia Vrain. Ferruci, luckily for himself and his family, has escaped the law by his own act. It was the wisest thing the scoundrel could do to kill himself and avoid dishonour. I must admit the man had pluck."

"It is terrible! terrible! What will be the end of it?"

"Imprisonment for the lot, I expect, unless they can prove that Wrent murdered Clear; then they will hang him. But now that Ferruci is dead, I fancy Rhoda is the only witness who can prove Wrent's guilt. That is why she ran away. I don't wonder she was afraid to stay. But I feel quite worn out with all this, Diana. Please give me a biscuit and a glass of port; I have had nothing all day."

With a sigh, Diana touched the bell, and when the waiter made his appearance gave the order. She felt low-spirited and nervous, in spite of the discovery that her father was alive and well; and indeed the extraordinary events of the last few days were sufficient to upset the strongest mind.

Lucian was leaning back in his chair with closed eyes, for his head was aching with the excitement of the morning. Suddenly he opened them and jumped up. At the same time Diana threw open the door with an exclamation, and both of them heard the thin, high voice of a woman, who apparently was coming up the stairs.

"Never mind my name," said the voice, "I'll tell it to Miss Vrain myself. Take me to her at once."

"Lydia!" called Lucian, "and here? Great heavens! Why does she come here?"

Diana said nothing, but compressed her lips as Lydia, followed by the waiter with the biscuits and wine, came into the room. She was plainly and neatly dressed, and wore a heavy veil, but seemed greatly excited. She did not say a word, nor did Diana, until the waiter left the room and closed the door. Then she threw up her veil, revealing a haggard face and red eyes, swollen with weeping, and filled with an expression of terror.

"Sakes alive! isn't this awful?" she wailed, making a clutch at Miss Vrain's arm. "You've done it, this time, Diana. Ferruci's dead, and your father alive, and I'm not a widow, and my father away I don't know where! I was told that the police were after me, so I'm clearing out."

"Clearing out, Mrs. Vrain?" repeated Diana, stiffly.

"I should think so!" sobbed Lydia. "I don't want to stay and be put in gaol, though what I've done to be put in gaol for, I don't know."

"What?" cried Lucian indignantly. "You don't know—when this abominable conspiracy is——"

"I know nothing of the conspiracy," interrupted Lydia.

"Did you not get Ferruci to put your husband into an asylum?"

"I? I did nothing of the sort. I thought my husband was dead and buried until Ferruci told me the truth, and then I held my tongue until I could think of what to do. After Ercole died, his servant came round and told me all—he overheard the conversation you had with the Count, Mr. Denzil. I was never so astonished in my life as to hear about Mrs. Clear and her husband—and Mark alive—and—and—oh, Lord! isn't it dreadful? Give me a glass of wine, Diana, or I'll go right off in a dead faint!"

In silence Miss Vrain poured out a glass of port and handed it to her stepmother, who sipped it in a most tearful mood. Lucian looked at the wretched little woman without saying a word, and wondered if, indeed, she was as innocent as she made herself out to be. He thought that, after all, she might be ignorant of Ferruci's plots, although she had certainly benefited by them; but she was such a glib liar that he did not know how much to believe of her story. However, she had hitherto only given a general idea of her connection with the matter, so when she had finished her wine, and was somewhat calmer, Lucian begged her to be more explicit.

"Did you know—did you guess, or even suspect—that your husband was alive?"

"Mr. Denzil," said Lydia, with unusual solemnity, "as I'm a married woman, and not the widow I thought I was, I did not know that Mark was alive! I'm bad, I daresay, but I am not bad enough to shut a man up in a lunatic asylum and pretend he is dead, just to get money, much as I like it. What I did about identifying the corpse was done in good faith."

"You really thought it was my father's body?" questioned Diana doubtfully.

"I swear I did," responded Mrs. Vrain, emphatically. "Mark walked out of the house because he thought I was carrying on with Ferruci, which I wasn't. It was that Tyler cat who made the trouble between us, and Mark was so weak and silly—half crazy, I think, with his morphia and over-study—that he cleared right out, and I never knew where he had gone to. When I saw that notice about the murdered man in Geneva Square, who called himself Berwin, and was marked on the cheek, I thought he might be my husband. When the coffin was opened, I really believed I saw poor Mark's dead body. The face was just like his, and scarred in the same way."

"What about the missing finger, Mrs. Vrain? If I remember, you even gave a cause for its loss."

"Well, it was this way," replied Lydia, somewhat discomposed. "I knew that Mark hadn't lost a finger when he left, but Ferruci said that if I denied it the police might refuse to believe that the body was that of my husband. So, as I was sure it was Mark's corpse, I just said he had lost a finger out West. I didn't think there was any harm in saying so, as for all I knew he might have got it chopped off after leaving me. But the face of the dead man was—as I thought—Mark's, and he called himself Berwin, which, you know, Diana, is the name of the Manor, and the scar was on the cheek. I know now it was all contrived by Ercole; but then I was quite ignorant."

"When did you find out the truth?"

"After that cloak business. Ferruci came to me, and I told him what that girl at Baxter's had said, and insisted that he should tell me the truth. Well, he did, in order to force me to marry him, and then I told him to go and make it right with the girl, so that when Mr. Denzil went again she'd deny that Ercole had bought the cloak."

"She denied it, sure enough," said Lucian grimly. "Ferruci, before he died, told me he had bribed her to speak falsely. What more did the Count reveal to you, Mrs. Vrain?—the conspiracy?"

"Yes. He said he'd found Mark hiding at Salisbury, half mad with morphia, and had taken him up to Mrs. Clear's, where it seems he went mad altogether, so they locked him up as her husband in a lunatic asylum. Ferruci also told me that he had seen Michael Clear on the stage, and that as he