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House of Whispers

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<h3 id="id02118" style="margin-top: 3em">CHAPTER XXXVIII</h3> <h5 id="id02119">"THAT MAN'S VOICE!"</h5> Stokes the chauffeur had driven Murie and Hamilton in the car down to the village, where the last-named, after a conversation with the police inspector, went to the "Strathavon Arms," together with two constables who happened to be off duty, in plain clothes. They found Krail sitting in the bar, calmly smoking, awaiting a message from his accomplice. Upon Hamilton's recognition he was, after a brief argument, arrested on the charge of theft from Glencardine, placed in the car between the two stalwart Scotch policemen, and conveyed in triumph to the castle, much, of course, against his will. He demanded to be taken straight to the police station; but as Sir Henry had ordered him to be brought to Glencardine, and as Sir Henry was a magistrate, the inspector was bound to obey his orders. The man's cruel, colourless eyes seemed to contract closer as he sat in the car with his enemy Hamilton facing him. He had never dreamed that they would ever meet again; but, now they had, he saw that the game was up. There was no hope of escape. He was being taken to meet Sir Henry Heyburn, the very last man in all the world he wished to face. His sallow countenance was drawn, his lips were thin and bloodless, and upon his cheeks were two red spots which showed that he was now in a deadly terror. Gabrielle, who had been weeping at the knees of her father, heard the whirr of the car coming up the drive; and, springing to the window, witnessed the arrival of the party. A moment later, Krail, between the two constables, and with the local inspector standing respectfully at the rear, stood in the big, long library into which the blind man was led by his daughter. When all had assembled, Sir Henry, in a clear, distinct voice, said, "I have had you arrested and brought here in order to charge you with stealing certain documents from my safe yonder, which you opened by means of a duplicate key. Your accomplice Flockart has given evidence against you; therefore, to deny it is quite needless." "Whatever he has said to you is lies," the foreigner replied, his accent being the more pronounced in his excitement. "I know nothing about it." "If you deny that," exclaimed Hamilton quickly, "you will perhaps also deny that it was you who secretly poisoned Miss Bryant in the Pontarmé Forest, even though I myself saw you at the spot; and, further, that a witness has been found who actually saw you substitute the wine-bottles. You intended to kill me!" "What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!" cried the accused, who was dressed with his habitual shabby gentility. "The girl yonder, mademoiselle, killed Miss Bryant." "Then why did you make that deliberate attempt upon my life at Fotheringhay?" demanded the girl boldly. "Had it not been for Mr. Hamilton, who must have seen us together and guessed that you intended foul play, I should certainly have been drowned." "He believed that you knew his secret, and he intended, both on his own behalf and on Flockart's also, to close your lips," Murie said. "With you out of the way, their attitude towards your father would have been easier; but with you still a living witness there was always danger to them. He thought your death would be believed to be suicide, for he knew your despondent state of mind." Sir Henry stood near the window, his face sphinx-like, as though turned to stone. "She fell in," was his lame excuse. "No, you threw me in!" declared the girl. "But I have feared you until now, and I therefore dared not to give information against you. Ah, God alone knows how I have suffered!" "You dare now, eh?" he snarled, turning quickly upon her. "It really does not matter what you deny or what you admit," Hamilton remarked. "The French authorities have applied for your extradition to France, and this evening you will be on your way to the extradition court at Bow Street, charged with a graver offence than the burglary at this house. The Sûreté of Paris make several interesting allegations against you—or against Felix Gerlach, which is your real name." "Gerlach!" cried the blind man in a loud voice, groping forward. "Ah," he shrieked, "then I was not mistaken when—when I thought I recognised the voice! That man's voice! Yes, it is his—his!" In an instant Krail had sprung forward towards the blind and defenceless man, but his captors were fortunately too quick and prevented him. Then, at the inspector's orders, a pair of steel bracelets were quickly placed upon his wrists. "Gerlach! Felix Gerlach!" repeated the blind Baronet as though to himself, as he heard the snap of the lock upon the prisoner's wrists. The fellow burst out into a peal of harsh, discordant laughter. He was endeavouring to retain a defiant attitude even then. "You apparently know this man, dad?" Gabrielle exclaimed in surprise. "Know him!" echoed her father hoarsely. "Know Felix Gerlach! Yes, I have bitter cause to remember the man who stands there before you accused of the crime of murder." Then he paused, and drew a long breath. "I unmasked him once, as a thief and a swindler, and he swore to be avenged," said the Baronet in a bitter voice. "It was long ago. He came to me in London and offered me a concession which he said he had obtained from the Ottoman Government for the construction of a railroad from Smyrna to the Bosphorus. The documents appeared to be all right and in order, and after some negotiations he sold the concession to me and received ten thousand pounds in cash of the purchase-money in advance. A week afterwards I discovered that, though the concession had been granted by the Minister of Public Works at the Sublime Porte, it had been sold to the Eckmann Group in Vienna, and that the papers I held were merely copies with forged signatures and stamps. I applied to the police, this man was arrested in Hamburg, and brought back to London, where he was tried, and, a previous conviction having been proved against him, sent to penal servitude for seven years. In the dock at the Old Bailey he swore to be avenged upon me and upon my family." "And he seems to have kept his word," Walter remarked. "When he came out of prison he found me in the zenith of my political career," Sir Henry went on. "On that well-remembered night of my speech at the Albert Hall I can only surmise that he went there, heard me, and probably became fiercely resentful that he had found a man cleverer than himself. The fact remains that he must have gone in a cab in front of my carriage to Park Street, alighted before me, and secreted himself within the portico. It was midnight, and the street was deserted. My carriage stopped, I got out, and it then drove on to the mews. I was in the act of opening the door with my latch-key when, by an unknown hand, there was flung full into my eyes some corrosive fluid which burned terribly, and caused me excruciating pain. I heard a man's exultant voice cry, 'There! I promised you that, and you have it!' The voice I recognised as that of the blackguard standing before you. Since that moment," he added in a blank, hoarse voice, "I have been totally blind!" "You got me seven years!" cried the foreigner with a harsh laugh, "so think yourself very lucky that I didn't kill you." "You placed upon me an affliction, a perpetual darkness, that to a man like myself is almost akin to death," replied his accuser very gravely. "Secure from recognition, you wormed yourself into the confidence of my wife, for you were bent upon ruining her also; and you took as partner in your schemes that needy adventurer Flockart. I now see it all quite plainly. Hamilton had recognised you as Gerlach, and you therefore formed a plot to get rid of him and throw the crime upon my poor unfortunate daughter, even though she was scarcely more than a child. In all probability, Lady Heyburn, in telling the girl the story regarding Murie and Miss Bryant, believed it, and if so she would also suspect my daughter to be the actual criminal." "This is all utterly astounding, dad!" cried Gabrielle. "If you knew who it was who deliberately blinded you, why didn't you prosecute him?" "Because there was no witness of his dastardly act, my child. And I myself never saw him. Therefore I was compelled to remain in silence, and allow the world to believe my affliction due to natural causes," was his blank response. The sallow-faced foreigner laughed again, laughed in the face of the man whose eyesight he had so deliberately taken. He could not speak. What had he to say? "Well," remarked Hamilton, "we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that both this man and his accomplice will stand their trial for their heartless crime in France, and that they will meet their just punishment according to the laws of God and of man." "And I," added Walter, in a voice broken by emotion, as he again took Gabrielle's hand tenderly, "have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that my darling is cleared of a foul, dastardly, and terrible charge." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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