The Last Stroke Part 38

"But knowledge is not always proof--in a court of law--and I must have proof. That night a woman, dressed as a boy, by courage and cunning combined, forced her way into the rooms so lately occupied by Charles Brierly. Fear of detection had begun its work upon her mind, and she went, most of all, to try and throw justice off the track. In Brierly's desk she left a letter, very conspicuously placed, an anonymous letter, so framed as to throw suspicion upon the dead man's betrothed. This again showed the woman's hand. She also carried away a watch, a pistol, and some foreign jewellery and dainty _bric-a-brac_, to make the work seem that of a thief; and last, she found, upon a letter file, a newspaper clipping, which she also carried away. If she had left that I might have overlooked its value. As it was, I found the paper from which it had been cut, secured a second copy, and discovered my clue to the tangle. It was an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the heirs of one Hugo Paisley, and I soon found that the Brierly brothers were the sought-for heirs. Then I knew that Robert Brierly's life was also menaced, and I warned him, and tried to set a guard about him.

"In the meantime a boat had been found, not far from the scene of the shooting; it had been seen on the lake that morning, and its occupant was a spy, keeping watch up and down the road, and the hillsides, while his confederate carried out their programme of death. I had already fixed upon the woman, and now we began to look for the man."

Just here the man calling himself Latham got up stiffly, and moved toward the window near the clerk's desk, where he leaned against the cas.e.m.e.nt, as if looking down upon the street. No one seemed to notice him, and the narrator went on:

"And now I had to find my final convincing proofs of the motive and the deed. The brothers Brierly were, all unknown to themselves, the heirs to the Paisley estates, and of Hugo Paisley, by descent. Through some error the murderers of Charles Brierly had been led to think him the sole living member of the family, and when Robert Brierly stood forth at the inquest, the woman who had shot down his brother with hand and heart of steel, fell fainting at the sight of him, and, perhaps, at the thought of her wasted crime.

"And now it was a drawn game, in which both sides were forced to move with caution, and, for a time, I could only watch the woman, on the one hand, and the safety of Robert Brierly on the other, for he now stood between the plotters and their goal.

"But despite my watchfulness, the second blow fell, and the first time Robert Brierly ventured upon the city street alone, after dark, he was struck down, almost at his own door. It was a dangerous injury, and, lest the a.s.sa.s.sins should find a way to complete their work, we took him away, as soon as he could be moved."

The woman was sitting very erect now, her eyes smouldering behind the gleaming gla.s.ses, her hands tightly clinched upon her knee.

"I knew that we must force the issue, then," Ferrars went on. "And Mr.

Myers came over here to substantiate his client's claim to the Paisley estates, and to look up the pedigree, the past and present history, of the other claimants. How well he succeeded need not here be told. He did succeed."

Mrs. Latham had risen to her feet, and, for a moment, seemed struggling for composure, and the power to speak clearly.

"All this," she said then, "which is very strange, does not explain why you dispute my claim in favour of a dead man. As for this murder--if you have proved what you charge----"

"One moment," Ferrars broke in. "Let me add, in that connection, that one night one of my agents, in the character of a burglar, entered this woman's room at her hotel in Glenville. She found in a trunk, the veil from which the black fragment, found on the bush, was torn; and also a suit of boy's clothes. The veil she brought away, the clothes were given away to a poor woman only this morning, and she sold them to my agent.

As for the man, he has been traced by the stolen watch and jewelled ornaments. He tried to sell, and did p.a.w.n, them in Chicago, in New York, and here in London. In fact the chain of evidence is complete; nothing more is needed to convict these two."

The woman's face was white and set. "After all," she said in a hollow voice, "you have not proved that the Paisley estate is not mine by right. Mr. Brierly, the elder, being dead!"

"Even so, the second wife of Gaston Latham cannot inherit, and her brother, even in the character of brother-in-law, cannot share the inheritance. One moment," for the woman seemed about to speak. "Let me end this. Last night, in room number eight at a certain cafe, I heard the plotters in conference, and I know that the daughter of Mrs. Cramer, who would have inherited after the Brierlys, is dead. The game is up, Mr. Harry Levey. You and your sister have aimed two heavy strokes at the happiness of two n.o.ble women, and the lives of two good men, but the final stroke is mine! And now, Mrs. Jamieson, if that is----" He did not finish the sentence. The man Levey had drawn closer and closer to the inner door, while Ferrars spoke, and now with a swift spring he hurled himself against it, plunged forward and would have fallen had not Ferrars, always alert, bounded after him, and caught him as he fell. For the inner door had opened suddenly, at his touch, and when Ferrars drew the now struggling man backward, and away from it, the others in the room saw, in the doorway, a man and woman side by side.

At sight of Robert Brierly's face the woman, who had faced the ordeal of denunciation and conviction almost without a quiver, threw up her hands, and uttering a shrill scream, a cry of mortal terror and anguish, fell forward upon her face.

Then came a moment of excited movement, which would have been confusion but for the quick wit of Ruth Glidden, and the coolness and energy of the detective.

While the entrapped villain was struggling like a fiend in the grasp of four strong men, Ruth knelt beside the fallen woman and lifted her head.

The next moment two or three officers came hastening in, and Ferrars and Brierly, seeing their captive in safe hands, came together to her aid.

She looked up at them with a questioning face.

"Did you know?" she asked, her face full of horror. "Did you know her?"

Ferrars nodded, and as the officers led their captive, cursing and bl.u.s.tering, out at one door, he lifted the senseless woman, and carried her to the couch in the inner room.

"Bring water!" Ruth commanded, "and leave her to me."

As the two men closed the door between them and the two so strangely different women, Brierly laid a hand upon the detective's shoulder.

"Ferrars," he said, "what did Ruth mean? Who is that terrible woman? And how is she concerned in your story? It is time I should know the truth."

"Quite time. That woman is Mrs. Jamieson, or the person you knew under that name. She is cleverly disguised, but I expected some such trick.

She went to 'the States' to rid herself of you and your brother; and she took that man, who is really her own brother, and who tried to kill you, as her fellow criminal."

"And did she----" Brierly stopped, shuddering.

"She shot your brother; there is not a doubt of it."

"My G.o.d! And I thought----" They were alone in the office, and Brierly dropped weakly into the nearest chair and dropped his face upon his hands.

"You thought," finished Ferrars, "that I was interested in the woman. I was. I suspected her from the very first, and so did Hilda Grant."

In the inner room, Mrs. Jamieson opened her eyes and looked up to meet the gaze of the fair woman who was in all things what she was not.

Ruth bent over her, a gla.s.s of water in her hand.

"Drink this, Mrs. Jamieson," she said simply.

A shudder like a death throe shook the rec.u.mbent form. She lifted herself by one elbow, and caught at the gla.s.s, drinking greedily. Then, still holding the gla.s.s, she said slowly:

"Then you know me?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"By your voice, a little, but mostly by what Mr. Ferrars said."

"Mr. Ferrars!" she gasped. "Do you mean him?"

"I mean the man you have called Grant. Did you never guess that he was a detective?"

"And he knew!" The woman arose to her full height and again, as on a night long since, and in another country, her arms were tossed above her head, as Ruth nodded her answer, and for a moment her face was awful to look upon, so tortured, so despairing, so full of wrath and wretchedness and soul torture and heart agony, for women can love and suffer, though their souls be steeped in crime.

Ruth, who had taken the half emptied gla.s.s from her hand as she struggled to her feet, now put it down, and, startled by her look and manner, moved toward the door, but the woman, her face ghastly, cried "Stop!" with such agonised entreaty that the girl drew back.

"Don't!--I can't see him yet--Wait!--Let me----" She sank weakly back upon the couch, and Ruth noted, while turning away for a moment, how her hand toyed with her dainty watchguard, in seeming self forgetfulness, drawing forth the little watch, a moment later, and looking at it, as if the time was now of importance. Then she threw herself back against the cus.h.i.+ons.

"My--vinaigrette--my bag!" she moaned between gasping breaths.

The little bag had been left in the outer office, where it had fallen from her lap, and Ruth opened the door of communication a little way and asked for it, saying, as Ferrars came toward her, "Not yet."

As Ruth turned back, she heard a sharp little click, like the quick shutting of a watch case, and when she held out the vinaigrette, Mrs.

Jamieson was swallowing the remainder of the water in the gla.s.s.

"Your salts, Mrs. Jamieson."

The woman looked up with a wild scared look in her eyes, and held out, for an instant, the little jewelled watch.

"For years," she said, in a slow, strange monotone, "I have faced and feared danger, and failure. For years I have been prepared! Because of my cowardice, and my conscience, I have always kept a way of escape."

Her fingers fluttered aimlessly and the watch fell upon her lap. Her last words seemed to come through stiffening lips. Her face grew suddenly ghostly gray. Ruth sprang toward the door.