Edgar Wallace: The Man Who Knew

He saw her hands go up to her face, and saw her staring eyes turn to the door in affright.

Frank Merrill stood in the doorway, and looked at her without recognition.

"I am sorry," he said. "You have a visitor?"

"Come in," said Mr. Mann. "I am awfully glad you called."

The girl had risen to her feet, and was shrinking back to the wall.

"Do you know this lady?"

Frank looked at her keenly.

"Why, yes, that's Sergeant Smith's daughter," he said, and he smiled. "Where on earth have you been?"

"Don't touch me!" she breathed, and put her hands before her, warding him off.

He looked at her in astonishment, and from her to Mann. Then he looked back at the girl, his brow wrinkled in perplexity.

"This girl," said Mr. Mann, "thinks she is your wife."

"My wife?" said Frank, and looked again at her.

"Is this a bad joke or something—do you say that I am your husband?" he asked.

She did not speak, but nodded slowly.

He sat down in a chair and whistled.

"This rather complicates matters," he said blankly, "but perhaps you can explain?"

"I only know what the girl has told me," said Mr. Mann, shaking his head. "I am afraid there is a terrible mistake here."

Frank turned to the girl.

"But did your husband look like me?"

She nodded.

"And did he call himself Frank Merrill?"

Again she nodded.

"Where is he now?"

She nodded, this time at him.

"But, great heavens," said Frank, with a gesture of despair, "you do not suggest that I am the man?"

"You are the man," said the girl.

Again Frank looked appealingly at his friend, and Saul Arthur Mann saw dismay and laughter in his eyes.

"I don't know what I can do," he said. "Perhaps if you left me alone with her for a minute—"

"Don't! Don't!" she breathed. "Don't leave me alone with him. Stay here."

"And where have you come from now?" asked Frank.

"From the house where you took me. You struck me yesterday," she went on inconsequently.

Frank laughed.

"I am not only married, but I am a wife beater apparently," he said desperately. "Now what can I do? I think the best thing that can be done is for this lady to tell us where she lives and I will take her back and confront her husband."

"I won't go with you!" cried the girl. "I won't! I won't! You said you'd look after me, Mr. Mann. You promised."

The little investigator saw that she was distraught to a point where a collapse was imminent.

"This gentleman will look after you also," he said encouragingly. "He is as anxious to save you from your husband as anybody."

"I will not go," she cried, "If that man touches me," and she pointed to Frank, "I'll scream."

Again came the tap at the door, and Frank looked round.

"More visitors?" he asked.

"It is all right," said Saul Arthur Mann. "There's a lady and a gentleman to see me, isn't there?" he asked the commissionaire. "Show them in."

May came first, saw the little tableau, and stopped, knowing instinctively all that it portended. Jasper followed her.

The girl, who had been watching Frank, shifted her eyes for a moment to the visitors, and at sight of Jasper flung across the room. In an instant her brother's arms were around her, and she was sobbing on his breast.

"Am I entitled to ask what all this means?" asked Frank quietly. "I am sure you will overlook my natural irritation, but I have suffered so much and I have been the victim of so many surprises that I do not feel inclined to accept all the shocks which fate sends me in a spirit of joyful resignation. Perhaps you will be good enough to elucidate this new mystery. Is everybody mad—or am I the sole sufferer?"

"There is no mystery about it," said Jasper, still holding the girl. "I think you know this lady?"

"I have never met her before in my life," said Frank, "but she persists in regarding me as her husband for some reason. Is this a new scheme of yours, Jasper?"

"I think you know this lady," said Jasper Cole again.

Frank shrugged his shoulders.

"You are almost monotonous. I repeat that I have never seen her before."

"Then I will explain to you," said Jasper.

He put the girl gently from him for a moment, and turned and whispered something to May. Together they passed out of the room.

"You were confidential secretary to John Minute for some time, Merrill, and in that capacity you made several discoveries. The most remarkable discovery was made when Sergeant Smith came to blackmail my father. Oh, don't pretend you didn't know that John Minute was my father!" he said in answer to the look of amazement on Frank Merrill's face.

"Smith took you into his confidence, and you married his alleged daughter. John Minute discovered this fact, not that he was aware that it was his own daughter, or that he thought that your association with my sister was any more than an intrigue beneath the dignity of his nephew. You did not think the time was ripe to spring a son-in-law upon him, and so you waited until you had seen his will. In that will he made no mention of a daughter, because the child had been born after his wife had left him, and he refused to recognize his paternity.

"Later, in some doubt as to whether he was doing an injustice to what might have been his own child, he endeavored to find her. Had you known of those investigations, you could have helped considerably, but as it happened you did not. You married her because you thought you would get a share of John Minute's millions, and when you found your plan had miscarried you planned an act of bigamy in order to secure a portion of Mr. Minute's fortune, which you knew would be considerable."

He turned to Saul Arthur Mann.

"You think I have not been very energetic in pursuing my inquiries as to who killed John Minute? There is the explanation of my tolerance."

He pointed his finger at Frank.

"This man is the husband of my sister. To ruin him would have meant involving her in that ruin. For a time I thought they were happily married. It was only recently that I have discovered the truth."

Frank shook his head.

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry," he said. "I have certainly not heard—"

"You will hear more," said Jasper Cole. "I will tell you how the murder was committed and who was the mysterious Rex Holland.

"Your father was a forger. That is known. You also have been forging signatures since you were a boy. You were Rex Holland. You came to Eastbourne on the night of the murder, and by an ingenious device you secured evidence in your favor in advance. Pretending to have lost your ticket, you allowed station officials to search you and to testify that you had no weapon. You were dropped at the gate of my father's house, and, as soon as the cab driver had disappeared, you made your way to where you had hidden your car in a field at a short distance from the house.

"You had arrived there earlier in the evening, and had made your way across the metals to Polegate Junction, where you joined the train. As you had taken the precaution to have your return ticket clipped in London, your trick was not discovered. You had regained your car, and drove up to the house ten minutes after you had been seen to disappear through the gateway. From your car you had taken the revolver, and with that revolver you murdered my father. In order to shield yourself you threw suspicion on me and made friends with one of the shrewdest men," he inclined his head toward the speechless Mr. Mann, "and through him conveyed those suspicions to authoritative quarters. It was you who, having said farewell to Miss Nuttall in Geneva, reappeared the same evening at Montreux and wrote a note forging my handwriting. It was you who left a torn sheet of paper in the room at Number 69 Flowerton Road, also in your writing.