The Millionaire Mystery

by Fergus Hume

  ‘But you ought to come with me and arrest him.’

  ‘I do not think I have sufficient evidence to procure a warrant, Mr Thorold. A charge of murder is serious, you see.’

  ‘Pooh! pooh! I don’t want him arrested for murder, but on the charge of breaking open my desk.’

  ‘I could do that certainly. Well, you go and see him, Mr Thorold, while I interview Mrs Warrender. I’ll call along at the cottage later. You needn’t let Brown out of your sight until I come.’

  ‘You’ll arrest him?’

  ‘If you wish it; I’ll take the risk.’

  ‘Very good, I’m off!’ and with an abrupt nod Alan ran down the lane. Blair looked after him with a queer smile on his dry face. He had his own ideas regarding the termination of Alan’s attempt to make Brown the mysterious speak out.

  Mrs Warrender was at home when the inspector called. At first she felt she could not see him, for the idea of coming into contact with the police was abhorrent to her. She wondered if Blair could have discovered the relationship which existed between herself and Cicero, and it was her anxiety to ascertain this which made her grant the inspector an interview. If her brother were playing her false, the more she knew about his plans the better would she be able to frustrate them. Mrs Warrender was a capable woman, and had a genius for intrigue. She was quite decided that she could hold her own even against the trained intelligence of a police officer.

  And so it came about that the gentleman in question was shown into the drawing-room, a meretricious, gaudy apartment, which betrayed in furniture and decoration the tawdry taste of the doctor’s widow.

  She came forward to receive him in an elaborate tea-gown of pink silk trimmed with lace, and, in spite of the early hour, she wore a quantity of jewels. Blair had an eye for beauty, and could not deny that this lady was a fine woman, though, perhaps, too much of the ponderous type. He wondered why she did not wear mourning. She could have cared but little for her husband, he thought, to appear in gay colours so soon after his untimely end. But, in truth, Mrs Warrender had never professed to be an affectionate wife. She had married for a home, and made no secret of it.

  ‘Good-morning,’ she said, with a sharp glance at Blair’s impassive face. ‘I understand that you belong to the police, and that you wish to see me—why, I cannot conceive.’

  ‘If you will permit me to explain myself, I will soon give you my reasons,’ said the inspector, in his best manner. ‘May I sit down? Thank you. Now we can talk at our ease.’

  ‘I suppose it is about the sad end of my poor husband,’ she said, in tones of grief, which her gay attire somewhat belied. ‘Have you found out the truth?’

  ‘No; but I hope to do so—with your assistance.’

  She looked up suddenly.

  ‘If you think I killed the poor lamb, you are mistaken,’ she said. ‘I can account for all my actions on that night, policeman.’

  This last was hurled at Blair with the object of keeping him well in mind of her condescension in receiving him.

  ‘I never had the slightest suspicion of you,’ he protested. ‘My errand has to do with quite a different matter. And might I suggest,’ he added, a trifle testily, ‘that I am usually addressed as Inspector Blair?’

  ‘Oh, of course, if you insist upon it!’ she cried, with a shrug. ‘Inspector Blair—will that do?’

  ‘That will do very well, thank you.’ He paused, and stared hard at the expensive tea-gown and the aggressive jewellery until the widow became restive. ‘Are you rich?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘What has that got to do with you?’ cried Mrs Warrender furiously. ‘Remember you are talking to a lady!’

  ‘To a rich lady or to a poor one?’

  ‘Upon my soul, this is too much! Mind your business, Inspector Blair!’

  ‘This is my business,’ he retorted, keeping himself well in hand. ‘I merely asked you the question, because, if you are not rich, then I come to make you so.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Answer my question first: Are you rich?’ And he took another good look at the dress and the jewels.

  ‘No,’ she said sullenly, ‘I am not. My husband left me fairly well off, but not with so much money as I expected.’

  ‘Then you would not object to making some more?’

  Her eyes lighted up with the fire of greed.

  ‘I should! I should! I am dying to leave this dull village and take up a position in London; but I cannot do it without money.’ She paused, then clapped her hands. ‘I see,’ she cried; ‘Sophy Marlow is going to compensate me for the death of my husband. It would be easy enough with all the millions she has!’

  ‘I am sure it would,’ assented Blair coolly; ‘but I don’t mean to supply you with money for nothing.’

  ‘You! What have you to do with the matter?’

  ‘A good deal. Mr Thorold and Miss Marlow will rely on my advice.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Marlow!’ jeered Mrs Warrender, sitting up. ‘That is her name, is it, Inspector Blair? Are you sure it isn’t Marie Lestrange?’

  He leaned forward and caught her wrist in a grip of steel.

  ‘So you know the truth, then?’ he said. ‘Give me the confession.’

  ‘What confession? What do you mean?’ she cried, trying to release her hand.

  ‘The confession left by your husband, in which he tells the story of Achille Lestrange’s murder.’

  ‘I—I—I don’t know—’

  ‘Yes, you do; yes, you do—no lies!’ He shook her wrist. ‘You know that Marlow never murdered Captain Lestrange.’

  ‘Let go my wrist!’ cried Mrs Warrender, and succeeded in wrenching herself free. ‘What do you mean by behaving like this? I know nothing about the matter—there!’

  Blair jumped up and made for the door.

  ‘Very good. Then you lose the money I have got for you.’

  ‘Come back! come back!’ She followed him to the door and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be in a hurry. Is there—is there money in it?’

  ‘If you have the confession, yes.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘We will talk of that when I know the truth. Have you a confession?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’ She thought she might with safety admit as much. ‘I found the whole story of Mr and Mrs Lestrange and Mr Beauchamp amongst my business papers—my husband’s papers, I should say. It was signed and witnessed in New Orleans. It seems Warrender was dying there, and wanted to tell Mr Beauchamp—Marlow, I mean—the truth, so he had the confession drawn up by a lawyer. Afterwards, when he got well, he did not destroy it.’

  ‘Beauchamp was innocent of the murder, then?’

  ‘Yes. He knocked Achille Lestrange down, but he did not kill him.’

  ‘Aha! I thought so!’ chuckled Blair, rubbing his hands. ‘Who did?’

  Mrs Warrender drew back with a look of cunning on her face.

  ‘That’s tellings,’ said she, relapsing into the speech of her people. ‘I don’t part with my secret unless I get my price.’

  ‘Name your price.’

  ‘Two thousand pounds.’

  ‘What!’ cried the inspector. ‘Two thousand pounds for clearing the memory of a dead man! My dear lady, five hundred is nearer the mark.’

  ‘Two thousand,’ she repeated. ‘If Sophy Marlow has the millions left by her supposed father, she can well afford that.’

  ‘Humph! We’ll see. I must speak to Mr Thorold first. You have the confession?’

  ‘I have—safely put away. It was my intention to have seen Sophy Marlow about it, but I thought I’d wait.’

  ‘To see what price you could get?’ put in Blair.

  ‘Quite so. I’m a woman of business. If I don’t get my price, I burn that confession.’

  ‘You dare not! I can have you arrested, remember.’

  She snapped her fingers.

  ‘Pooh!’ she said. ‘I don’t care for your threats. This is my one chance of making money, and I’m going to take it. Tw
o thousand pounds or nothing.’

  ‘I’ll think it over,’ said Blair. ‘I am to have the refusal of that confession, mind.’

  ‘What! Do you want to make money too?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Blair, with irony; ‘I am a man of business.’

  She laughed, and took leave of him in a very amiable frame of mind. When he had gone, she smirked in front of a mirror and took a long look at herself.

  ‘Two thousand pounds,’ she cried, ‘and my own savings! I’m not so old, after all. I’ll run away from Cicero and marry again. Ha ha! I’ve made a deal this time!’ And she went in to luncheon with a most excellent appetite.

  While this interview was taking place, Alan had been at Mrs Harry’s cottage. Having received no orders to the contrary, she ushered him into the sitting-room. There sat the Quiet Gentleman in his grey suit. At sight of Alan he started violently.

  ‘Good-day, Mr Brown,’ said his visitor, looking closely at him. ‘I have come to see you about that key you stole. You are dumb, I believe, but not deaf, so no doubt you follow my meaning.’

  The Quiet Gentleman made a step forward, and, to the amazement of his visitor, he spoke.

  ‘Alan,’ he said—‘Alan Thorold!’

  The young man dropped into a chair, white and shaking. He knew that voice—he knew what was coming.

  With a laugh the Quiet Gentleman pulled off his wig and beard.

  ‘Don’t you know me, Alan?’ he asked.

  ‘Richard Marlow!’ gasped Alan.

  ‘Herbert Beauchamp,’ was the quiet reply.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE STORY OF THE PAST

  ‘COME, Alan,’ said Beauchamp after a pause, ‘you need not be tongue-tied with astonishment. I sent Blair on to tell you all that had happened, so you must have known that I was alive.’

  ‘Yes, yes—but your disguise,’ stammered the young man. ‘I expected to see Brown. You are not Brown, never could have been; for when he was here, I have seen you and him at the same time.’

  ‘That’s all right, my boy. I was not Brown, as you say, and who Brown was I know no more than you do. But I am Brown now,’ with emphasis, ‘and Brown I shall remain until I can show myself with safety as Richard Marlow. Not that I intended to stick to that name. No; if Blair is right, and that scoundrel Warrender has left papers to prove my innocence, I shall take my own name. But this disguise! It is a plot between me and Blair. It was necessary that I should be on the spot, so we thought this was as good a mask as any. Oh, depend upon it, Alan, I am perfectly safe here from Jean Lestrange!’

  As he spoke, Beauchamp was putting on his wig and beard. And when this was done to his satisfaction, he seated himself on a chair opposite to Alan, looking the very image of the Quiet Gentleman. Thorold did not wonder that Mrs Marry had been deceived—the completeness of the disguise would have deceived a cleverer woman.

  ‘Still,’ said he doubtfully, ‘if the real Brown should reappear—’

  ‘We will have him arrested for the murder of Warrender,’ said Beauchamp quietly. ‘Yes, I am convinced he is guilty, else why did he steal the key of the vault? Blair told me about that. He must surely be some tool of Jean Lestrange’s. No, not the man himself—I am aware of that. Blair saw the passenger-list.’

  ‘Are you certain that the Quiet Gentleman killed Warrender?’

  ‘No, because I did not see the blow struck. I was insensible at the time—but it is a long story, and to make things perfectly clear, I must begin at the beginning. One moment, Alan.’ Beauchamp crossed to the door and turned the key. ‘I don’t want Mrs Marry to come in.’

  ‘She will hear your voice, and believing you to be dumb—’

  ‘I’ll speak low. Come nearer to this chair. First tell me how Sophy is.’

  ‘Very well, but much cast down. She thinks you are dead, and that your body has been stolen. Oh, Beauchamp!’ cried Alan passionately, ‘why did you not trust Sophy and me? You would have spared us both many an unhappy hour.’

  ‘I wish now that I had told you, but I acted for the best. I had little time for thought. I expected daily that Lestrange would appear. If I had only considered the matter rather more—but there, it’s done and we must make the best of it. Sophy’s tears will be turned to smiles shortly—if, indeed, she still loves me, knowing that I am not her father,’ and the old man sighed.

  ‘You need have no fear on that score,’ said Alan, with a faint smile. He was getting over the first shock of surprise. ‘Sophy would have nothing to do with Jean Lestrange, although she half believed his story. She always insists that you are her true father. She will welcome you back with the greatest joy.’

  ‘She must welcome me secretly.’

  ‘Secretly—why? Should your innocence be established, you would surely reappear as Richard Marlow?’

  ‘What! And have the whole story in the papers? No, Alan, I shall spend the rest of my life under my true name of Beauchamp, and live on the two thousand a year I left myself in my will. You and Sophy can marry and take the rest of the money. I shall travel, and take Joe with me.’

  ‘Well, perhaps it is the best thing to do,’ said Thorold. ‘But tell me, how was it that the manager of the Occidental Bank reported you dead?’

  ‘Joe wrote to him by my order to say so. When Joe came to me at Brighton and told me how the death of Warrender had complicated matters, I was afraid lest I should be traced, and perhaps accused of a second murder. So I thought it best to put it about that I was dead, and end all pursuit.’

  ‘If you had only trusted me, sir, all this trouble would have been avoided. I merited your confidence, I think.’

  ‘I know—I know. Indeed, on that day when I spoke to you of the probability that my body would not be allowed to rest in its grave, I had half a mind to tell you. But somehow the moment passed. Even then I had designed my plot of feigning death. It was the only way I saw of escaping Lestrange.’

  ‘Tell me the story from the beginning,’ said Alan. ‘I know only scraps.’

  ‘The beginning was in Jamaica, Alan,’ said Beauchamp sadly. ‘All this trouble arose out of the love I had for Sophy’s mother. Poor Zelia! If only she had married me, I would have made her a good husband. As it was, she chose Achille Lestrange, a roué and a gambler, a spendthrift and a scoundrel. I could never tell Sophy what a bad man her father was. He treated poor Zelia abominably.’

  ‘But was that altogether his fault, Beauchamp? Joe hinted that Jean Lestrange caused much of the trouble.’

  ‘So he did, the scoundrel! Jean was, if anything, worse than his cousin, though there was not much to choose between them. But Jean was madly in love with Zelia—worshiped her with all the fierce passion of a Creole. When he lost her he vowed he would be revenged—he sowed dissension between them on my account.’

  ‘He hinted that you were in love with her, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, and he was right!’ cried Beauchamp with emphasis. ‘I was in love with Zelia, and pitied her from the bottom of my heart. Well, a year after Sophy was born things came to a crisis. I was at Kingston, and my yacht in the harbour there. I saw a good deal of Zelia, and one night she came on board with her child, and asked me to take her away. Lestrange had struck her, the beast! and she had refused to live with him any longer. At first I hesitated, but she was in such a state of agony that I consented to take her away from her wretched life. I had to go first to Falmouth to fetch some things which I did not wish to leave—I had sold my plantation some time before, having made up my mind to leave Jamaica. So we sailed, reached Falmouth in safety, and I went to my estate, leaving Joe Brill on board.’

  ‘Ah! that was why Joe could not say who killed Achille?’

  ‘Precisely. Joe knew little of the events of that night; but he believed in me, and stood by me like the noble, faithful fellow he is. But to continue: Zelia arrived at my house only to die; worry and melancholy had brought her to a low state of health, and she caught a fever. On the very night Jean and her husband came in pursuit she died.
I had made all arrangements to sail; I had sold my estate, and had sent the proceeds to England. It had been my intention to have married Zelia when Achille had divorced her, to adopt little Marie, and to start life afresh in a new land. Her death put an end to these plans.’

  ‘But the murder, Beauchamp?’

  ‘I am coming to that. Warrender was attending Zelia when she died, and he was in the house when Achille and Jean arrived. I was quite determined he should not get the child; for Zelia had left some money, and I knew well that Achille would soon squander it. Well, Lestrange demanded his wife. I told him she was dead; he declined to believe me, and we quarrelled. I am naturally of a fiery temper,’ continued Beauchamp with some agitation, ‘and I knocked him down on the veranda. The blow stunned him, and he lay there like a dog.’

  ‘Was Jean present?’

  ‘Yes. He saw me knock Achille down; then he went away to see the body of Zelia. I had to look for the child, intending to take her to my yacht until such time as I could obtain the guardianship. When I came out again I found Warrender kneeling down beside the body of Achille. He was dead!’

  ‘Not from the effects of your blow?’ cried Alan incredulously.

  ‘No. He had been stabbed to the heart while senseless.’

  ‘By whom—Warrender?’

  ‘I don’t know. Warrender always swore that his hands were clean of blood, and certainly he had no reason to murder Achille. I suspected Jean, but Warrender told me that Jean had been in Zelia’s room praying beside the body. He advised me to fly.’

  ‘Yes, yes; but who killed Achille?’

  ‘Well, I supposed it must have been a negro whom Achille had brought with him—a Zambo, called Scipio, who was devoted to his mistress and who hated his master. On hearing that Zelia was dead—knowing, as he did, that her husband’s brutality had probably had a good deal to do with it—he might have stabbed Achille as he lay senseless on the veranda. At any rate, Warrender said that he found him dead when he came out. To this day I don’t know who killed him. It must have been either Warrender, Scipio, or Jean. I am inclined to suspect Scipio. However, at the time there was nothing for it but flight if I wanted to escape an accusation of murder. You see how strong the evidence was against me, Alan? I had taken away Achille’s wife and child; he had come in pursuit; I had quarrelled with him and knocked him down; he had been found dead. Therefore I fled with the child. Can you blame me?’