William Le Queux - The Broken Thread

“I have no personal knowledge of any secret of the late Sir Henry’s,” responded the elder man, speaking quite openly. “If I knew of any I would tell you frankly.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Kellaway. You know you wouldn’t betray a client’s confidence,” said Raife, with a grim, bitter smile, as he stood by the ancient window gazing across the old Jacobean garden.

“Ah, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re right,” replied the man addressed. “But at any rate I repeat that I am ignorant of any facts concerning your father’s past that he had sought to hide.”

“You mean that you will not betray my dead father’s confidence?”

“I mean what I say, Sir Raife – that I am in entire ignorance of anything which might be construed into a scandal.”

“I did not suggest scandal, Mr Kellaway,” was his rather hard reply. “My father was, I suspect, acquainted with the man who shot him. The two men met in this room, and, I believe, the recognition was mutual!”

“Your father knew the assassin?” echoed the lawyer, staring at the young man.

“I believe so.”

“It seems incredible that Sir Henry should have been acquainted with an expert burglar – for such he apparently was.”

“Why should he have left me that warning message? Why should he seek to forewarn me of some mysterious trap?”

The old solicitor shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply. The whole, tragic affair was a complete and absolute mystery.

The London papers that afternoon were full of it, and already a host of eager reporters and press-photographers were waiting about on the off-chance of obtaining a glimpse of Raife, or any other member of the bereaved family. More than one had had the audacity to send in his card to Raife with a request for an interview, which had promptly been refused, and Edgson now had orders that the young master was not at home to any one.

Raife, still unconvinced that Mr Kellaway was in ignorance of his father’s secret, took him across to the cottage where lay the body of the stranger. The police were no longer there, but two doctors were making an examination. The inquest had been fixed for the morrow, and the medical men were consulting prior to the post-mortem.

The cause of death was only too apparent, but the principles of the law are hidebound, and it was necessary that a post-mortem should be made, in order that the coroner’s jury should arrive at their verdict.

Later Raife, assisted the family solicitor to gather out the contents of the safe and make them into bundles, which they sealed up carefully and counted.

“Of course,” Kellaway said, “I am not aware of the contents of your lamented father’s will, and I frankly confess I was rather disappointed at not being asked to make it.”

“I think it was made by some solicitors in Edinburgh,” was Raife’s reply. “Gordon and Gordon, I believe, is the name of the firm. It is deposited at Barclay’s Bank in London.”

“The executors will, no doubt, know. You have wired to them, you say?” Then, after a pause, Kellaway added: “The fact that Sir Henry engaged a strange solicitor to draw up his will would rather lead to the assumption that he had something to hide from me, wouldn’t it?”

“By jove, yes,” was the young man’s response. “I had never thought of that! He wished to preserve his secret until his death. I wonder if the will reveals anything?”

“Perhaps – who knows?”

Raife remained silent. He was still carefully removing the papers from the steel inner drawer of the safe – a drawer which had been overlooked when he had made his investigation. The papers were mostly memoranda regarding financial transactions, sales and purchases of land, and other matters. Among them were a number of old letters, mostly signed by George Mountjoy, who had been member for South Gloucestershire, and his father’s particular crony. He had died a year ago, and Sir Henry had keenly felt the loss of his life-long friend.

They had been as brothers, and old Mr Mountjoy was frequently a guest at Aldborough for months at a stretch, and treated quite as one of the family.

Letter after letter he turned over aimlessly, reading scraps here and there. They were strange letters, which showed a great bond of friendship existing between the two men. In some, Mountjoy asked Sir Henry’s advice regarding his most intimate and private affairs, and in others he gave the baronet his aid, and made suggestions regarding his line of action in many matters.

One struck him as very strange. Dated from the Hotel Angst, in Bordighera, over three years ago, it contained the following passage:

“As you have asked my advice upon the most secret page of our history, my dear Henry, I am most decidedly and emphatically of opinion that it will be best to allow them to remain in entire ignorance. He should, however, be diplomatically warned lest the pitfall you fear be placed in his path – as no doubt it will be sooner or later.

“Under no circumstances whatever would I alarm your wife by revealing to her the truth. Remember the state of her health is delicate, and undue anxiety would most probably shatter her nerves. No, remain silent. Only you and I know the truth, and that it is our duty to keep it strictly to ourselves.

“I know how it must gall you, and how helpless you must feel in the strange, unheard-of circumstances. But I beg of you to regard the threats as idle ones. For your safety I fear nothing, but for Raife it is different. He should be warned, but not in a way to cause him undue anxiety; only to impress upon him the need of shrewd precaution against his enemies.

“I shall never divulge the truth, and you, my dear Henry, should still preserve a calm and smiling face. Too well I know the extreme difficulty of doing this; but remember there is not the least suspicion of the truth abroad, and that most men in every walk of life have ugly secrets which they would not care to expose to the light of day.

“Your son, Raife, is in ignorance. Let him remain so, I beg of you. The truth, if told, will only bring unhappiness upon you both. He is young and fearless. Warn him against the trap that we, alas! know will be set sooner or later. But further than that do not go. I shall be back in London at the end of this month, and we can discuss the situation further.”

The remainder of the letter consisted mainly of Riviera gossip.

Raife stood staring at the sheet of grey note-paper, his brows knit in wonder.

“What is it?” asked Kellaway, noticing the effect the letter had had upon the young man.

“Read that,” was his reply. “It shows that my suspicions were well-grounded. My father had a secret – a secret which was known to no one else besides his friend, George Mountjoy. Read it, Kellaway. It is evident from that letter, and from the poor guv’nor’s dying message urging me to be careful, that I am in some strange, mysterious peril! What can it be?”

The routine of a coroner’s inquest does not vary much. In this instance the victim of a very obvious murder being a man of great distinction, a man who had rendered his country high political service, aroused widespread interest. Tunbridge Wells, where it was decided to hold the inquiry, was crowded with visitors as it has never been since the days of Beau Brummell and Beau Nash, those gay leaders of old-time society which foregathered at Bath, Tunbridge Wells, and the other inland spas of our country, to drink the waters, intrigue, elope, fight duels, and make for la joie de vivre as it was then constituted.

Every hotel was crowded, and even some of the old-world coaching inns revived the ancient glories that belonged to them in the days when society travelled by post-chaise and coach, and footpads and highwaymen were a terror on the King’s highway.