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

"I know that," said Lucian. "It was Mrs. Clear's shadow I saw on the blind. She was fighting with her husband, and when I rang the bell they were both so alarmed that they left the house by the back way and got into Jersey Street. Then Mrs. Clear went home, and the man himself came round into the Square by the front way. That was how I met him. I wondered how people were in the house during his absence. Mrs. Clear told me all."

"Did she say why her husband made you examine the house?" asked Diana.

"No. But I expect he made me do so that I should not have my suspicions about that back entrance. But, Mrs. Vrain, when Ferruci confessed that your husband was alive, why did you not tell it to the world?"

"Well, I'd got the assurance money, you see," said Lydia, with shrewd candour, "and I thought the company would make a fuss and take it back—as I suppose they will now. Ferruci wanted me to marry him, but I wasn't so bad as that. I did not want to commit bigamy. But I really held my tongue because Ferruci told me who killed Clear."

"He knew, then?" cried Lucian, "and denied it to me! Who killed the man?"

"Wrent did—the man who lived in Jersey Street."

"And who is at the bottom of the whole plot!" said Lucian furiously. "Do you know where he is to be found?"

"Yes," said Lydia boldly, "I do; but I'm not going to tell where he is!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want him punished."

"But I do," said Diana angrily. "He is a wretch who ought to suffer!"

"Very well," said Lydia, loudly and spitefully, "then make him suffer, for this Wrent is your own father! It was Mark who killed Michael Clear!"

In the course of their acquaintance, Diana had put up with a great deal from the little American adventuress, owing to her position of stepmother, but when she heard her accusing the man she had ruined of murder, the patience of Miss Vrain gave way. She rose quickly, and walking over to where Lydia was shrinking in her chair, towered in righteous indignation above the shameless little woman.

"You lie, Mrs. Vrain!" she said in a low, distinct voice, with a flushed face and indignation in her eyes. "You know you lie!"

"I—I only repeat what Ferruci told me," whimpered Lydia, rather alarmed by the attitude of her stepdaughter. "I'm sure I hope Mark didn't kill the man, but Ercole said that he was in Jersey Street for that purpose."

"It is not true! My father was in the asylum at Hampstead!"

"Indeed he wasn't—not at the time Clear was killed!" protested Lydia. "He was not put into the asylum until at least two weeks after Christmas. Is that not so, Mr. Denzil?"

"It is so," assented Lucian gravely, "but even admitting so much, it is impossible to believe that Mr. Vrain was in Jersey Street. For many months before Christmas he was in charge of Mrs. Clear, at Bayswater."

"So Ercole said," replied Lydia, "but he used to get away from Mrs. Clear at times, and had to be brought back."

"He wandered when he got the chance," said Lucian, with hesitation. "I admit as much."

"Well, then, when he was not at Bayswater he used to live in Jersey Street as Wrent. Ferruci found him out there, and tried to get him to go back, and he took Mrs. Clear several times to the same place in order to persuade him to return to Bayswater. That was why Mrs. Clear visited Jersey Street. Oh, Mark played his part there as Mr. Wrent, I guess; there ain't no two questions about that," finished Lydia triumphantly. "He is the assassin, you bet!"

"I don't believe it!" cried Diana furiously. "Why, my father is too weak in the head to have the will, let alone the courage, to masquerade like that. He is like a child in leading-strings."

"That's his cunning, Diana. He's 'cute enough to pretend madness, so that he won't be hanged!"

"It is impossible that Vrain can be Wrent," said Lucian decidedly. "I agree with Miss Vrain; he is too weak and irresponsible to carry out such a deed. Besides, I don't see how you prove him guilty of the murder; you do not even know that he could enter the Silent House by the secret way."

"I don't know anything about it, except what Count Ferruci told me," said Lydia obstinately. "And he said that Vrain, as Wrent, killed Clear. But you can easily prove if it's true or not."

"How can we prove it?" asked Diana coldly.

"By laying a trap for Mark. You know—at least Ercole told me, and I suppose Mrs. Clear told you—that she corresponded with Mark—Wrent, I mean—in the agony column of the Daily Telegraph.

"By means of a cypher? Yes, I know that, but she hasn't received any answer yet."

"Of course not," replied Lydia, with triumph, "because Wrent—that's Mark, you know—is in the asylum, and can't answer her."

"This is all nonsense!" broke in Lucian, impatient of this cobweb spinning. "I don't believe a word of Ferruci's story. If Vrain lived in Jersey Street as Wrent, why should Mrs. Clear visit him?"

"To get him back to Bayswater."

"Nonsense! nonsense! And even admitting as much, why should Mrs. Clear, in the newspapers, correspond in cypher with a man whom she not only knows is in an asylum as her husband, but who can be seen by her at any time?"

"I quite agree with you, Lucian," cried Diana emphatically. "Count Ferruci told a pack of falsehoods to Mrs. Vrain! The thing is utterly absurd!"

"Oh, I guess I'm not so easily made a fool of as all that!" cried Lydia, firing up. "If you don't believe me, lay the trap I told you of. Let Mark go free out of the asylum; get Mrs. Clear, with her cypher and newspapers, to ask him to meet her in the house where Clear was murdered, and then you'll see if Mark won't turn up in his character of Wrent."

"He will not!" cried Diana vehemently. "He will not!"

"Mark, when he left me," went on the angry Lydia, "had plenty of hair, and was clean shaven. Now—as Ferruci told me, for I haven't seen him—he is bald, and wears a skull-cap of black velvet, and a white beard. After Ercole told me about Jersey Street I went there to ask that fat woman about Mark; she said he had gone away two days after Christmas, and described him as an old man with a skull-cap and a white beard."

"Oh!" cried Lucian, for he recollected that Rhoda gave the same description.

"Ah! you know I speak the truth!" said Lydia, rising, "but I've had enough of all this. I've lost my money, and I don't suppose I'll go back to Mark. I've been treated badly all round, and I don't know what poppa will say. But I'm going out of London to meet him."

"You said you did not know where your father was!" cried Diana scornfully.

"I don't tell you everything, Diana," retorted Lydia, looking very wicked, "but, if you must know, poppa went over to Paris last week, and I'm going over there to meet him. He'll raise Cain for the way I've been treated."

"Well," said Lucian, as she prepared to take her leave, "I hope you'll get away."

"Do you intend to stop me, Mr. Denzil?" flashed out Mrs. Vrain, furiously.

"Not I; but I'll give you a hint—the railway stations will be watched by the police."

"For me?" said Lydia, with a scared expression. "Oh, sakes! it's awful! and I've done nothing. It's not my fault if I got the assurance money. I really thought that Mark was dead. But I'll try and get away to poppa; he'll put things right. Good-bye, Mr. Denzil, and Diana; you've done me a heap of harm, but I don't bear malice," and Mrs. Vrain rushed out of the room in a great hurry to escape the chance of arrest hinted at by Lucian. She had a sharp eye to her own safety.

Diana waited until the cab which Lydia had kept waiting was driving away, and then turned with an anxious expression on her face to look at Lucian. "My dear," she said, taking his arm, "what do you think of Lydia's accusation?"

"Against your father?" said Lucian. "Why, I don't believe it!"

"Nor do I; but it will be as well to set the trap she suggests; for if my father does not fall into it—and as he is not Wrent, I don't believe he will—the real man may keep the appointment with Mrs. Clear."

"Whosoever Wrent is, I don't think he'll come again to the Silent House," replied the barrister, shaking his head. "It would be thrusting his head into the lion's jaws. If he is in London he'll see the death of Ferruci described in the papers, and no doubt will guess that the game is up; so he'll keep away."

"Nevertheless, we'll do as Lydia suggests," said Diana obstinately. "You see Mr. Link and Mrs. Clear, and arrange about the cypher. Then my father is to be discharged as cured to-morrow, and I'll let him go out if he pleases. Of course, I'll follow him; then I'll be able to see if he goes to Pimlico."

"But, Diana, suppose he does go to the Silent House, and proves to be Wrent?"

"He won't do that, my dear. My father is no more Wrent than you are. I believe Lydia speaks in the full belief that he is; but Ferruci, for his own ends, lied to her. However, to trap the real man, let us do as Lydia suggests. The idea is a good one."

"Well, we'll try," said Lucian, with a sigh. "But I do hope, Diana, that this case will end soon. Every week there is some fresh development in a new direction, and I am getting quite bewildered over it."

"It will end with the capture of Wrent, the assassin."

"I hope so; and God grant Wrent does not prove to be your father!"

"There is no fear of that," said Diana gravely. "My father is insane more or less, but he is not a murderer. I am quite content to risk the trap suggested by that woman."

Lucian did not at once adopt the plan to net Wrent—whosoever he might be—invented by Lydia, and approved of by Diana. On the whole, he could not bring himself to believe that a weak-headed, foolish old creature like Vrain had masqueraded in Jersey Street as Wrent. Still there were certain suspicious incidents which fitted in very neatly with Ferruci's story. Mrs. Clear had stated that Vrain, when under her charge, escaped several times, and had remained away for several days, until brought back again by the Count. Again, the appearance of Wrent, as described by Rhoda, was precisely the same as the looks of Vrain when Lucian saw him in the Hampstead asylum; so it seemed that there might be some truth in the story.

"But it's impossible!" said Lucian to himself. "Vrain is half mad and incapable of conducting his own life, or arranging so cleverly to commit a crime. Also he had no money, and, had he lived in Jersey Street, would not have been able to pay Mrs. Bensusan. There is something more in the coincidence of this similarity of looks than meets the eye. I'll see Link and hear what he has to say on the subject. It's time he found out something."

The next day Lucian paid a