The Seven Secrets Part 23

"What?" he cried, in quick surprise. "Tell me why. Explain it all to me."

"There is nothing to explain--save that to-night he seemed to regard my movements with suspicion."

"Ah! my dear, your fears are utterly groundless," he laughed. "What can the fellow possibly know? He is a.s.sured that I am dead, for he signed my certificate and followed me to my grave at Woking. A man who attends his friend's funeral has no suspicion that the dead is still living, depend upon it. If there is any object in this world that is convincing it is a corpse."

"I merely tell you the result of my observations," she said. "In my opinion he has come here to learn what he can."

"He can learn nothing," answered the "dead" man. "If it were his confounded friend Jevons, now, we might have some apprehension; for the ingenuity of that man is, I've heard, absolutely astounding. Even Scotland Yard seeks his aid in the solving of the more difficult criminal problems."

"I tell you plainly that I fear Ethelwynn may expose us," his wife went on slowly, a distinctly anxious look upon her countenance. "As you know, there is a coolness between us, and rather than risk losing the doctor altogether she may make a clean breast of the affair."

"No, no, my dear. Rest a.s.sured that she will never betray us,"

answered Courtenay, with a light rea.s.suring laugh. "True, you are not very friendly, yet you must recollect that she and I are friends. Her interests are identical with our own; therefore to expose us would be to expose herself at the same time."

"A woman sometimes acts without forethought."

"Quite true; but Ethelwynn is not one of those. She's careful to preserve her own position in the eyes of her lover, knowing quite well that to tell the truth would be to expose her own baseness. A man may overlook many offences in the woman he loves, but this particular one of which she is guilty a man never forgives."

His words went deep into my heart. Was not this further proof that the crime--for undoubtedly a crime had been accomplished in that house at Kew--had been committed by the hand of the woman I so fondly loved?

All was so amazing, so utterly bewildering, that I stood there concealed by the tree, motionless as though turned to stone.

There was a motive wanting in it all. Yet I ask you who read this narrative of mine if, like myself, you would not have been staggered into dumbness at seeing and hearing a man whom you had certified to be dead, moving and speaking, and, moreover, in his usual health?

"He loves her!" his wife exclaimed, speaking of me. "He would forgive her anything. My own opinion is that if we would be absolutely secure it is for us to heal the breach between them."

He remained thoughtful for a few moments, apparently in doubt as to the wisdom of acting upon her suggestion. Surely in the situation was an element of humor, for, happily, I was being forearmed.

"It might possibly be good policy," he remarked at last. "If we could only bring them together again he would cease his constant striving to solve the enigma. We know well that he can never do that; nevertheless his constant efforts are as annoying as they are dangerous."

"That's just my opinion. There is danger to us in his constant inquiries, which are much more ingenious and careful than we imagine."

"Well, my child," he said, "you've stuck to me in this in a manner that few women would have dared. If you really think it necessary to bring Boyd and Ethelwynn together again you must do it entirely alone, for I could not possibly appear on the scene. He must never meet me, or the whole thing would be revealed."

"For your sake I am prepared to make the attempt," she said. "The fact of being Ethelwynn's sister gives me freedom to speak my mind to him."

"And to tell him some pretty little fiction about her?" he added, laughing.

"Yes. It will certainly be necessary to put an entirely innocent face on recent events in order to smooth matters over," she admitted, joining in his laughter.

"Rather a difficult task to make the affair at Kew appear innocent,"

he observed. "But you're really a wonderful woman, Mary. The way you've acted your part in this affair is simply marvellous. You've deceived everyone--even that old potterer, Sir Bernard himself."

"I've done it for your sake," was her response. "I made a promise, and I've kept it. Up to the present we are safe, but we cannot take too many precautions. We have enemies and scandal-seekers on every side."

"I admit that," he replied, rather impatiently, I thought. "If you think it a wise course you had better lose no time in placing Ethelwynn's innocence before her lover. You will see him in the morning, I suppose?"

"Probably not. He leaves by the eight o'clock train," she said. "When my plans are matured I will call upon him in London."

"And if any woman can deceive him, you can, Mary," he laughed. "In those widow's weeds of yours you could deceive the very devil himself!"

Mrs. Courtenay's airy talk of deception threw an entirely fresh light upon her character. Hitherto I had held her in considerable esteem as a woman who, being bored to death by the eccentricities of her invalid husband, had sought distraction with her friends in town, but nevertheless honest and devoted to the man she had wedded. But these words of hers caused doubt to arise within my mind. That she had been devoted to her husband's interest was proved by the clever imposture she was practising; indeed it seemed to me very much as if those frequent visits to town had been at the "dead" man's suggestion and with his entire consent. But the more I reflected upon the extraordinary details of the tragedy and its astounding denouement, the more hopeless and maddening became the problem.

"I shall probably go to town to-morrow," she exclaimed, after smiling at his declaration. "Where are you in hiding just now?"

"In Birmingham. A large town is safer than a village. I return by the six o'clock train, and go again into close concealment."

"But you know people in Birmingham, don't you? We stayed there once with some people called Tremlett, I recollect."

"Ah, yes," he laughed. "But I am careful to avoid them. The district in which I live is far removed from them. Besides, I never by any chance go out by day. I'm essentially a nocturnal roamer."

"And when shall we meet again?"

"By appointment, in the usual way."

"At the usual place?" she asked.

"There can be no better, I think. It does not take you from home, and I am quite unknown down here."

"If any of the villagers ever discovered us they might talk, and declare that I met a secret lover," she laughed.

"If you are ever recognised, which I don't antic.i.p.ate is probable, we can at once change our place of meeting. At present there is no necessity for changing it."

"Then, in the meantime, I will exercise my woman's diplomacy to effect peace between Ethelwynn and the doctor," she said. "It is the only way by which we can obtain security."

"For the life of me I can't discern the reason of his coolness towards her," remarked my "dead" patient.

"He suspects her."

"Of what?"

"Suspects the truth. She has told me so."

Old Henry Courtenay grunted in dissatisfaction.

"Hasn't she tried to convince him to the contrary?" he asked. "I was always under the impression that she could twist him round her finger--so hopelessly was he in love with her."

"So she could before this unfortunate affair."

"And now that he suspects the truth he's disinclined to have any more to do with her--eh? Well," he added, "after all, it's only natural.

She's not so devilish clever as you, Mary, otherwise she would never have allowed herself to fall beneath suspicion. She must have somehow blundered."

"To-morrow I shall go to town," she said in a reflective voice. "No time should be lost in effecting the reconciliation between them."

"You are right," he declared. "You should commence at once. Call and talk with him. He believes so entirely in you. But promise me one thing; that you will not go to Ethelwynn," he urged.

"Why not?"

"Because it is quite unnecessary," he answered. "You are not good friends; therefore your influence upon the doctor should be a hidden one. She will believe that he has returned to her of his own free will; hence our position will be rendered the stronger. Act diplomatically. If she believes that you are interesting yourself in her affairs it may anger her."