The Secret House by Edgar Wallace (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📖

her on the pavement outside the grimy little office. Mr. Debenham was there, and a clerk he had brought with him as witness. The ceremony was brief and uninteresting; she became Mrs. Doughton before she quite realized what was happening.

"There is only one thing to do now," said the lawyer as they stood outside again on the sunlit pavement.

He looked at his watch.

"We had best go straight away to the London Safe Deposit, and, if you will give me the authority, I will take formal possession of your fortune and place it in the hands of my bankers. I think these things had better be done regularly."

The girl acquiesced.

Frank was singularly silent during the drive; save to make some comment upon the amount of traffic in the streets, he did not speak to her and she was grateful for his forbearance. Her mind was in a turmoil; she was married--that was all she knew--married to somebody she liked but did not love. Married to a man who had been chosen for her partly against her will. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes; if she was joyless, no less was he. It was an inauspicious beginning to a married life which would end who knew how? Before the depressing granite facade of the London Safe Deposit the party descended, Mr. Debenham paid the cabman, and they went down the stone steps into the vaults of the repository.

There was a brief check whilst Mr. Debenham explained his authority for the visit, and it was when the officials were making reference to their books that the party was augmented by the arrival of Poltavo.

He bowed over the girl's hand, holding it a little longer than Frank could have liked, murmured colourless congratulations and nodded to Debenham.

"Count Poltavo is here, I may say," explained the lawyer, "by your late uncle's wishes. They were contained in a letter he wrote to me a few days before he disappeared."

Frank nodded grudgingly; still he was generous enough to realize something of this man's feelings if he loved Doris, and he made an especial effort to be gracious to the new-comer.

A uniformed attendant led them through innumerable corridors till they came to a private vault guarded by stout bars. The attendant opened these and they walked into a little stone chamber, illuminated by overhead lights.

The only article of furniture in the room was a small safe which stood in one corner. A very small safe indeed, thought Frank, to contain so large a fortune. The lawyer turned the key in the lock methodically, and the steel door swung back. The back of Mr. Debenham obscured their view of the safe's interior. Then he turned with an expression of wonder.

"There is nothing here," he said.

"Nothing!" gasped Doris.

"Save this," said the lawyer.

He took a small envelope and handed it to the girl. She opened it mechanically and read:

"I have, unfortunately, found it necessary to utilize your fortune for the furtherance of my plans. You must try and forgive me for this; but I have given you a greater one than you have lost, a husband."

She looked up.

"What does this mean?" she whispered.

Frank took the letter from her hand and concluded the reading.

"A husband in Frank Doughton...."

The words swam before his eyes.

"And Frank Doughton is the heir to the Tollington millions, as his father was before him. All the necessary proofs to establish his identity will be discovered in the sealed envelope which the lawyer holds, and which is inscribed 'C.'"

The letter was signed "Gregory Farrington."

The lawyer was the first to recover his self-possession; his practical mind went straight to the business at hand.

"There is such an envelope in my office," he said, "given to me by Mr. Farrington with strict instructions that it was not to be handed to his executors or to any person until definite instructions arrived--instructions which would be accompanied by unmistakable proof as to the necessity for its being handed over. I congratulate you, Mr. Doughton."

He turned and shook hands with the bewildered Frank, who had been listening like a man in a dream; the heir to the Tollington millions; he, the son of George Doughton, and all the time he had been looking for--what? For his own grandmother!

It came on him all of a rush. He knew now that all his efforts, all his search might have been saved, if he had only realized the Christian name of his father's mother.

He had only the dimmest recollection of the placid-faced lady who had died whilst he was at school; he had never associated in his mind this serene old lady, who had passed away only a few hours before her beloved husband, with the Annie for whom he had searched. It made him gasp--then he came to earth quickly as he realized that his success had come with the knowledge of his wife's financial ruin. He looked at her as she stood there--it was too vast a shock for her to realize at once.

He put his arm about her shoulder, and Poltavo, twirling his little moustache, looked at the two through his lowered lids with an ugly smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

"It is all right, dear," said Frank soothingly; "your money is secure--it was only a temporary use he made of it."

"It is not that," she said, with a catch in her throat; "it is the feeling that my uncle trapped you into this marriage. I did not mind his dissipating my own fortune; the money is nothing to me. But he has caught you by a trick, and he has used me as a bait." She covered her face with her hands.

In a few moments she had composed herself; she spoke no other word, but suffered herself to be led out of the building into the waiting cab. Poltavo watched them drive off with that fierce little smile of his, and turned to the lawyer.

"A clever man, Mr. Farrington," he said, in a bitter tone of reluctant admiration.

The lawyer looked at him steadily.

"His Majesty's prisons are filled with men who specialize in that kind of cleverness," he said, drily, and left Poltavo without another word.


CHAPTER XVII


T. B. Smith was playing a round of golf at Walton Heath, when the news was telephoned through to him.

He left immediately for town, and picked up Ela at luncheon at the Fritz Hotel, where the detective had his headquarters.

"The whole thing is perfectly clear, now," he said. "The inexplicable disappearance of Mr. Farrington is explained in poster type, 'that he who runs may read.'"

"I am a little hazy about the solution myself," said Ela dubiously.

"Then I will put it in plain language for you," said T. B. as he speared a sardine from the _hors d'oeuvre_ dish. "Farrington knew all along that the heir to the Tollington millions was George Doughton. He knew it years and years ago, and it was for that reason he settled at Great Bradley, where the Doughtons had their home. Evidently the two older Doughtons were dead at this time, and only George Doughton, the romantic and altogether unpractical explorer, represented the family.

"George was in love with the lady who is now known as Lady Constance Dex, and knowing this, Farrington evidently took every step that was possible to ingratiate himself into her good graces. He knew that the fortune would descend equally to Doughton and to his wife. Doughton was a widower and had a son, a youngster at the time, and it is very possible that, the boy being at school, and being very rarely in Great Bradley, Farrington had no idea of his existence.

"The knowledge that this boy was alive must have changed all his plans; at any rate, the engagement was allowed to drift on, whilst he matured some scheme whereby he could obtain a large portion of the Tollington millions for his own use. Again I think his plans must have been changed.

"It was whilst he was at Great Bradley that he was entrusted with the guardianship of Doris Gray, and as his affection for the young girl grew--an affection which I think was one of the few wholesome things in his life--he must have seen the extraordinary chance which fate had placed in his way.

"With diabolical ingenuity and with a remorselessness which is reminiscent of the Borgias he planned first George Doughton's death, and then the bringing together of Doughton's son and his own ward. There is every proof of this to be found in his subsequent actions. He was prepared to introduce the young people to one another, and by affording them opportunities for meeting, and such encouragement as he could give, to bring about the result he so desired.

"But things did not move fast enough for him, and then he must have learnt, as the other trustees seem to have learnt recently, that there was an undiscovered time limit. He threw out hints to his niece, hints which were received rather coldly. He had taken the bold step of employing Frank Doughton to discover--himself! That was a move which had a twofold purpose. It kept the young man in contact with him. It also satisfied the other trustees, who had entrusted to Farrington the task of employing the necessary measures to discover the missing heir.

"But neither hint nor suggestion served him. The girl's fortune was due for delivery to her care, and his guardianship expired almost at the same time as the time limit for discovery of the Tollington millionaire came to an end. He had to take a desperate step; there were other reasons, of course, contributing to his move.

"The knowledge that he was suspected by me, the certainty that Lady Constance Dex would betray him, once she discovered that he had sent her lover to his death, all these were contributing factors, but the main reason for his disappearance was the will that was read after his bogus death.

"In that will he conveyed unchallengeable instructions for the girl to marry Frank Doughton without delay. I suspect that the girl now knows he is alive. Probably, panic-stricken by her tardiness, he has disclosed his hand so far as the alleged death is concerned."

T. B. looked out of the window on to the stream of life which was flowing east and west along Piccadilly; his face was set in a little frown of doubt and anxiety.

"I can take Farrington to-morrow if I want to," he said after a moment, "but I wish to gather up every string of organization in my hands."

"What of Lady Constance Dex?" asked Ela. "Whilst we are waiting, she is in some little danger."

T. B. shook his head.

"If she is not dead now," he said simply, "she will be spared. If Farrington wished to kill her--for Farrington it was who spirited her away--he could have done so in the house; no one would have been any the wiser as to the murderer. Lady Constance must wait; we must trust to luck before I inspect that underground chamber of which I imagine she is at present an unwilling inmate. I want to crush this blackmailing force," he said, thumping the table with energy; "I want to sweep out of England the whole organization which is working right under the nose of the police and in defiance of all laws; and until I have done that,