by Molly Thynne
She sprang to her feet as he entered, and Miss Allen instinctively moved to her side.
His face must have given him away for, before he opened his lips, she knew.
“Guilty!” she gasped.
He threw out his hands in a gesture of utter helplessness.
“It went against him,” he said, hardly recognizing his own voice.
With a little moan of anguish Cynthia turned blindly to the haven of Miss Allen’s arms. She did not cry and, for a moment, he was afraid she had fainted, then, to his relief, Miss Allen led her gently from the room.
He stood by the window looking out into the grey, dingy street, waiting for her return. It was some time before Miss Allen rejoined him.
“How is she?” he asked eagerly.
Miss Allen’s eyes were red and her voice was unsteady as she answered.
“As well as she is likely to be for some time,” she said rather tartly. She was suffering from the aftermath of an unaccustomed emotion. “She’s not going to die, if that’s what you mean, but her last hope has just been taken from her. I must go back to her in a minute. If the child had a decent mother I’d send for her.”
She crossed to the table and took a cigarette.
For a minute or two she smoked in silence. Then she turned to Fayre with a very pleasant smile on her homely face.
“I was a bear just now,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve had a bad quarter of an hour. Mr. Fayre, what are we going to do now?”
Fayre looked at her with utter misery in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he said desperately. “I must see Grey. After that … I don’t know.”
He buried his face in his hands.
“It’s out of our hands,” said Miss Allen softly. “How pitifully small we human beings feel when the big things happen. That child upstairs, with no experience of life to guide her, is dealing with something infinitely larger than anything I have ever known and I cannot help her. She must find her own way out, Mr. Fayre. On my word, I believe I would rather be John Leslie!”
“And I,” answered Fayre, rising to his feet. “This is not the first time he has faced death gallantly and, as I grow older, I begin to wonder if it is as terrible a thing as we think. But to live on, with all the light taken from your life! I wish I knew what to do,” he finished abruptly.
Miss Allen stared at him, puzzled.
“He’ll appeal, of course?”
“I suppose so, but there’s no hope there, I’m afraid. I can imagine no reason for upsetting the verdict. Kean was magnificent, but the facts were too strong for him. Don’t let Cynthia count on it.”
They talked for a few minutes and then he hurried back to his hotel, hoping to catch Grey.
The solicitor was waiting for him in their joint sitting-room.
“Sir Edward has gone back to town,” he said. “He could not wait. He told me to say that he was sorry to have missed you. He’s sick over this business. I’ve never seen a man so cut up at losing a case.”
“You’ll appeal, I suppose?”
“Of course, but I’m not sanguine; neither is Sir Edward.”
Fayre looked him straight in the eyes.
“What’s your honest opinion?” he asked.
Grey hesitated for a moment. Then:
“I think it’s absolutely hopeless,” he said frankly. “Nothing short of a miracle can save Leslie now.”
“So that an appeal will simply mean the infliction of quite unnecessary anguish on two people who have already had more than their share of suffering?”
“I suppose you can put it that way,” answered Grey soberly. “All the same, it’s his last chance and we can’t afford not to take it.”
Fayre nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ll travel up with you,” he said. “Have I time to pack?”
“Plenty. I’m off to see Leslie. I’d hoped you might stay on and have a few words with him before he is moved. I think I can work it and it would mean a lot to him now.”
The distress on Fayre’s face deepened, but his lips were set in an obstinate line.
“I’m sorry,” he said firmly, “but I must get up to town at once. I’d stay if I could, and anyhow I’ll run down again later.”
“Any message for him?”
“Tell him we’re not beaten yet,” said Fayre cryptically.
Grey raised his eyebrows.
“What’s the idea?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I wish to goodness I did!” was Fayre’s rejoinder as he disappeared into his room to pack.
He and Grey reached London in the small hours of the morning. Fayre drove straight to his club and forced himself to take a couple of hours’ rest, but he did not sleep and by nine o’clock he had bathed and breakfasted and was on his way to Kean’s Chambers.
Early as he was, Kean was there before him and was already well started on a strenuous day’s work. He pushed his papers aside when Fayre entered and came to meet him.
“I rather fancied you might turn up,” he said sombrely. “We shall appeal, of course.”
Fayre faced him as he had faced Grey.
“With what result?”
Kean did not mince matters.
“If I know anything of the law, none,” he said. “I’m sorry, Hatter; I did my best.”
Fayre’s eyes did not move from his face.
“That’s what I’ve come to ask you,” he said slowly. “You made a very brilliant speech. It was a magnificent defence, and it failed. To any one but myself it would seem that you had done your utmost.”
He paused and Kean turned on him sharply.
“I’ve worked harder over this case than I ever worked in my life,” he cut in.
Fayre nodded.
“I admit it. That’s not what I’m driving at. One or two things have come to my knowledge lately, facts that I have told no one, not even Grey.”
He paused again. He was finding it very hard to choose words for what he had come to say and Kean made no effort to help him.
“Ever since I discovered certain things,” Fayre went on, “I have been fighting against the conviction that you could have cleared Leslie if you had wished. Can you look me in the face now and say that you were not shielding some one from the beginning and that you undertook Leslie’s defence because you hoped by sheer eloquence to get him off without being forced to give this person away?”
Kean had strolled over to the hearthrug and seemed absorbed in the selection of a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece.
“I don’t know how you managed to unearth all this,” he said at last, “or what you think you have discovered, but you’re right on one point. I was shielding some one.”
“You’ve tried to save Leslie and failed,” went on Fayre inflexibly. “What steps do you propose to take now?”
Kean hesitated.
“Before I answer that question,” he said slowly, “suppose you put your cards on the table. How much do you know?”
“I know that, for some reason I have so far failed to discover, you allowed it to be supposed that you travelled by rail to Staveley Grange on March 14th, when, as a matter of fact, you motored from London to some station north of York and picked up the train there. You were held up at York for driving without side-lights.”
Kean smiled.
“You’ve hit on a snag there,” he said. “Blake, my chauffeur, was held up and nearly lost his job on the strength of it.”
“I’ve seen Blake,” was Fayre’s quiet reply. “He was on his holiday in London and was with his wife that night. A summons was served on him which he brought to you and which you said you would deal with. He is under the impression that it was a mistake on the part of the police.”
There was a pause during which Kean smoked thoughtfully. He seemed in no way disconcerted.
“Given that I was in York that night, what do you infer from that? March 14th was not the night of the murder, if that’s what you are driving at,” he said at last.
&n
bsp; Fayre went on steadily.
“How long have you known Mrs. Draycott and what were you and she doing in Paris in the spring of 1920? You had been married to Sybil for less than a year and I know you too well to insult you by the suggestion that it was merely a vulgar intrigue.”
Kean threw his cigarette into the fire.
“You’re right there,” he answered evenly; “it wasn’t. You haven’t entirely lost your sense of proportion yet, Hatter. I had my own reasons for wishing to see Mrs. Draycott, and, as she happened to be in Paris at the time, I went there. I stayed at the Bristol and she was in a small hotel on the other side of the river. Does that satisfy you?”
Fayre walked over to the writing-table and drew out the top drawer. From it he took two “Red Dwarf” pens and threw them on the table. With the exception of a brown earth stain down the side of one of them, they were identical, even to the black ink-stains that smeared the handles.
“One of these is the pen I picked up at the farm. Can you explain the other, or give any reason why you did not use this in your defence? We have proof that it did not belong to Leslie and that it was dropped some time before the murder. It would at least have proved the presence of a third person at the farm that night.”
Once more Kean hesitated. Then he raised his head and spoke quite frankly.
“Because it was the property of the person I wished to shield. I give you fair warning, Hatter, that, however deeply you may have managed to implicate me, I do not intend to divulge the name of the owner of that pen. Any more exhibits?”
Fayre was stung by the contempt in his voice. He took his note-case out of his pocket and extracted a snapshot which he placed on the table beside the pens.
“Yes,” he answered, and there was grief rather than anger in his voice. “This. I would have spared you this if I could, Edward.”
Kean picked it up and examined it.
“So you’ve stumbled on that, too. You’ve been pretty thorough, Hatter.”
“You knew, then?”
“That Sybil’s first husband was alive? I’ve known it for the last six years. As a matter of fact, I fetched him from Germany myself and placed him in an asylum in Dorset. You know he’s hopelessly insane, I suppose. Three specialists have pronounced him incurable.”
“You’ve lived with Sybil for six years, knowing all the time that Gerald Lee was alive?”
Kean looked at him with frank speculation in his eyes.
“What would you have done in my place, I wonder,” he said quietly. “Sybil’s heart was in such a state that any shock might prove fatal. Lee was hopelessly insane, incapable even of recognizing her. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the mere sight of him would have killed her. Rather than take the chance of the knowledge of his existence reaching her now, I would kill you, here in this room, with my own hands, and take the consequences.”
He spoke quite gently, but his voice carried conviction and Fayre realized that he would shrink from nothing in the effort to spare his wife.
“Sybil knows,” he said and, even as he spoke, he felt that he would have given anything to unsay the words.
For the first time Kean’s composure deserted him. His face became suddenly grey and lined. “Impossible!”
Then, with sudden vehemence:
“Do you realize what you’re saying? Good God, man, it can’t be true!”
“It is true, unless I’ve made some ghastly mistake,” answered Fayre steadily. “I thought she had discovered it and was keeping the secret from you.”
“My God, if that woman told her!” muttered Kean. “It’s the only explanation. What have you got to go on?”
“A letter Sybil wrote me, which reached me just after I had come on the photograph of Lee. I took it for granted that that was what she was alluding to.”
“You didn’t speak to her about it?”
“I haven’t seen her since. I had meant to, but there’s been no opportunity.”
Kean sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.
“Thank God!” he murmured. “There’s some mistake. It’s impossible that she should have found out. She would never …”
He was interrupted by the insistent peal of the telephone-bell. With a half-frenzied exclamation he tore the receiver from its hook.
“Yes, Sir Edward Kean speaking,” he said mechanically, his mind entirely occupied with the revelation Fayre had just made. Then, as he listened, the already ghastly pallor of his face increased.
“It’s Sybil,” he said, hardly above his breath as he dropped the receiver. “They’ve rung up from Westminster. It’s another attack.”
For a moment he sat staring blankly into space; then he turned to Fayre with a look of almost childish entreaty in his eyes.
“I must go to her, Hatter. For heaven’s sake, don’t keep me now!”
For answer Fayre picked up Kean’s hat and coat and handed them to him.
“We must have this out soon, Edward,” he said gravely. “No matter what happens.”
Kean was already struggling himself into his coat.
“At the earliest opportunity I promise you a full explanation. Will that do, Hatter?”
Fayre nodded. A moment later he was alone with his troubled thoughts. He strolled over to the table and, picking up the snapshot, put it back into his notecase. As he did so the door opened and Farrer, the old head clerk, looked in.
“I thought I heard Sir Edward go out, sir,” he said.
“He’s been sent for. Lady Kean has been taken ill again. I doubt if he’ll be back this morning. You’d better cancel any engagements he had for to-day.”
The old man made a clucking sound with his tongue against his teeth.
“It’s a pity she’s so delicate, sir,” he ventured.
And Fayre, overwrought to the verge of hysteria, almost laughed aloud at the utter inadequacy of the remark.
CHAPTER XXIV
The report of Sybil Kean when Fayre rang up at lunch-time was not reassuring. The heart attack had been less violent than either of those that had preceded it, but she had not rallied well. Fayre, remembering the letter she had sent him and the conviction she had expressed in it that the next attack would prove her last, wondered whether the wish to live had not forsaken her. In his heart he knew it would be better, both for her and for Edward, if she died. The connection between the unopened letter in his note-case and the Draycott trial was becoming clear to him at last. There was only one person for whom Kean cared enough to shield at the expense of his professional honour; that was Sybil, and Sybil, as was now evident from her letter to Fayre, had some secret knowledge of the case which she may or may not have been aware that she shared with her husband.
Fayre went over the events of the evening of March 23rd. So far as he could remember, he had parted from Sybil Kean in the drawing-room at Staveley shortly before six o’clock. From then onwards she had been invisible, presumably in her room, and had not appeared again until she joined the party in the drawing-room just before eight. He knew the country round Staveley well enough to realize that this would leave her ample time to reach Leslie’s farm by six-thirty, or thereabouts. It seemed incredible that any one in her state of health should have been capable of such an effort and, in Sybil’s case, doubly so, for, apart from her delicacy, she had always been indolent and easy-going to a fault, the last person to screw herself up to such a pitch of nervous tension as such an expedition would entail.
There was one other, and on the whole more probable, solution of the problem. Evidently Mrs. Draycott had become in some way possessed of a photograph of Gerald Lee. It was more than possible that she had had dealings with him in the past and that, in his distorted brain, he had harboured a grudge against her. Supposing Kean had been aware of this obsession and had received news of his escape from the asylum in which he had placed him? If Lee had managed to waylay the unfortunate woman and had murdered her, Kean would have every reason to wish to keep his guilt secret. Once the affair g
ot into the courts it would be impossible to hide the fact of his existence from Sybil. Where and how Lee and Kean had met on the fatal night, Fayre was unable to determine, but the complete lack of motive for the crime had pointed, from the first, to an act of almost insane malice, and that there was some connection between the events at the farm and the survival of Sybil Kean’s first husband Fayre was becoming more convinced each moment.
He tried to picture the consequences of the inevitable disclosure which would follow should this second solution prove the correct one, and his heart sank. That it would mean the end of Edward Kean’s career seemed certain. Not only was the part he had played in the grim drama bound to appear, but with the discovery of the identity of the murderer would come the disclosure of the damning fact that, during six years of his marriage to Sybil, he had been aware of the existence of Gerald Lee. And insanity is not recognized as a ground for divorce! If Sybil, knowing of Lee’s existence, had concealed it from her husband it seemed hardly likely that she would leave him for Lee, who, according to Kean, was not even in a condition to recognize his wife should she return to him. And if she decided to stick to Kean? Fayre could picture them dragging out their existence, probably in Italy or the south of France, Kean bereft of the work that was as his life’s blood to him and Sybil cut off forever from her friends and the world to which she belonged. He did not think she would long survive under such conditions and, Sybil once taken from him, what would become of Kean?
In a vain effort to get away from his own thoughts, Fayre went out and walked the busy streets until he was tired, but the exercise brought no relief and he was driven at last by sheer fatigue back to the club again.
He was dressing for dinner when he was called to the telephone. He was surprised to hear Kean’s voice at the other end.
“Come round after dinner and we’ll finish our conversation of this morning,” he said.
Fayre’s first feeling was one of relief. He knew that Kean would not have suggested an interview unless Sybil had definitely turned the corner. He gave a hasty assent, but before he could inquire after her, Kean had rung off.
As soon as he had finished his solitary dinner he set out for Westminster.
