Then I was right in suspecting that Stephen’s aunt had sent him to Quigg’s farm to die! And yet I had not guessed who that aunt was and that it was because of her that Stephen and I had been sent to the same place!
“You are rambling, old man,” she said coldly.
“Give us the will,” Sancious ordered.
“I won’t!”
“Give it to us,” Sancious repeated. “It is of no use to you, for your great-grandson has failed.”
“You’re lying!”
I heard the rustle of paper as Sancious said: “This will be on the streets at dawn.”
Then the old man’s quavering voice came faintly to me: “ ‘Baronet Flees After Death of Cousin in Duel. Sutton Valancy, Tuesday 2nd. December. Sir David Mompesson, Bart., is believed to have fled the country after the death of Mr Henry Bellringer …’ ”
He faltered and broke off. After a few moments there was another rustling and then Mrs Sancious continued: “ ‘… the death of Mr Henry Bellringer, understood to be a remote connexion of Sir David, in a duel between the two gentlemen. Mr Bellringer is reported to have eloped with Miss Henrietta Palphramond, and Sir David, who was opposed to the love-match because of his own attachment to the young lady, to have followed the lovers and to have interrupted the ceremony. Our correspondent states that the two gentlemen then fought a duel in which Mr Bellringer fell mortally wounded.’ ”
“Killed,” the old man said. “Killed by a Mompesson!”
“And now the Huffam heir will inherit if he gets hold of the will,” Sancious said. “Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s of no use to you now. Give us the will and we have a man waiting for a word from us to make the boy quiet.”
The old man said in a dazed voice: “So Umphraville is avenged.”
That was what Bellringer had said as he lay mortally wounded! What had he meant? What did the old man mean now?
“What are you talking about?” Sancious asked irritably.
“He sent me after them,” the old man began in a dazed tone. “The two couples. He was bent upon preventing their marriages. He promised … promised to increase my inheritance. I rode day and night.”
“He is wandering in his wits,” Mrs Sancious remarked.
I, however, was hanging on his every word, trying to fit this story to what Miss Lydia had told me.
“When I reached the Hall,” the old man continued, “it was in darkness. Then Umphraville came out and challenged me. I drew my sword and fought him. He was the better swordsman, but then she came running from the Hall behind me. She saw that I was in danger. She cried: ‘My son! My son! Watch out behind you!’ He believed she was speaking to him and turned his back on me, and I drove my sword home.”
There was a brief silence.
So that was the “extraordinary” cry — as Miss Lydia had called it — that the madwoman had uttered! She had recognised her child and seen that he was in danger. It was not John Umphraville but Escreet whom she was trying to protect!
Then the old man went on: “I did this for him. For the Huffam family. My family. The Umphravilles weren’t good enough to be allied to us. That’s what he said to me. But afterwards he was angry that I had failed to prevent James’ wedding to his harlot. And that I had killed Umphraville. And then Paternoster told me how he had tried to cheat me, to disinherit me of the house and money. I didn’t believe him until he showed me the codicil and the will he made while he was dying. And then I saw that while I was away from here on his business, he was trying to cheat me of my rights!”
Bellringer had referred to his great-grandfather being denied his rights! So that was the explanation of his words that had so puzzled me!
“After all I had risked! I had the right to be considered one of the family. That’s why I consented to help Paternoster when he made his suggestion. But we didn’t steal the codicil and the will. They were lies and I had the right to suppress them. And what pleasure it gave me to extort so much money from James for the codicil and later to sell the will back to the Mompessons! If I could not belong to them, then I wanted to exploit and destroy both families by setting them against one another as far as lay in my power. So when I sold the will to them, I warned the Mompessons of the existence of the codicil so that they would know that they would never be safe. And many years later I tricked John Huffam into buying it from me, believing he was buying it from some third party.”
So all the time that my grandfather, John Huffam, had been saving money from his annuity and had then plunged into debt to old Clothier in order to buy the codicil, Escreet had it in his possession! The purchase of it through a third party that my mother had described had been another of his charades!
“So you murdered a man all those years ago, did you?” Mrs Sancious said. “But Umphraville is not the only one, is he?”
I felt my mouth go dry with excitement. What could she mean?
“Yes, the only one,” he protested. “Isn’t one enough for you? God knows, it is for me!”
“Give us the will,” Sancious hissed. “You don’t want the Huffam boy to inherit, do you?”
“No, but nothing would make me give it to you!”
“Nothing?” Mrs Sancious repeated. “Not even if I was to reveal what really happened on the last occasion you and I met?”
The last occasion! Now it occurred to me that of the people present in that house on the night of my grandfather’s murder — my mother, Peter Clothier, Martin Fortisquince, Mr Escreet, and Mrs Sancious — the only two survivors were present once again. Except, of course, for the murderer himself. Perhaps I would learn something about what had happened that night. My heart began to pound at the thought.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” the old man said.
“Then I will tell you,” she said. “I was suspicious from the first about that evening. Why should Huffam have invited my husband and me after such a bitter division? And when I discovered that he had married his milksop daughter to the addle-pated young Clothier, I was more and more curious. Particularly when my husband told him he had brought something for him, and Huffam instantly turned the conversation as if he was anxious not to receive the gift so soon. What was in that package, I wondered? And when that quarrel broke out between Huffam and his son-in-law, why, I saw that it was a charade, though it deceived my gullible husband. So I resolved to watch very carefully. When Clothier and his bride left the house I was puzzled, for I had so far seen nothing untoward. Then I had to withdraw upstairs while the gentlemen sat over their wine. And that was when my husband gave Huffam the package, as he told me later. Then you and he left my husband and went into the plate-room, Huffam saying that he was going to unlock the strong-box in order to put the package away. Now we all know what he was in fact doing: he was bringing out the codicil to give to you to pass on to his son in-law. Is that not so?”
“Yes,” said the old man.
“But now we come to something that nobody knows except you and I. When Huffam said he was going to unlock the box, you had to leave the room since not even you were allowed to know where he kept the key hidden. And so you passed into the hall.”
“No!”
“Yes you did. You cannot deny it. Where do you imagine I was at this moment? Safely out of the way in the drawing-room upstairs? No such thing. I had come quietly down the stairs as far as the landing.”
“You are lying! You couldn’t have seen anything from there.”
“You can see a great deal. Do you doubt me? Then I will show you. Stand just here and I will go up to the landing.”
I heard footsteps and realized that Mr Escreet and Sancious were coming towards me. I retreated, my heart pounding and possessed by a terrible fear of being caught like a thief in that house. The plate-room, whose door was behind me, was my only refuge. Was it locked? To my relief, the door opened and I retreated into it, finding myself in near-darkness for the shutters were fastened. I left the door slightly ajar and, though I could see nothing, I could he
ar clearly.
Then I heard Mrs Sancious calling down from the landing: “I see you. Now do what you did then.”
There was a pause then she spoke again: “Come, do not be shy. Take it down.” After a pause she said: “Give it to him, Mr Sancious.” There was another silence and then she spoke: “You have it in your hand now. At this moment you are lowering it to the ground. Do you believe me now? Well, no matter. Then you went back into the plate-room and a minute later — no, less than a minute, you came out again without the sword. I watched you go round to the front hall treading very quietly. I was intrigued, as you may imagine. But I was even more puzzled by what you did now. You unlocked the vestibule-door with your own key and removed the great key from the street-door. Then you locked the vestibule-door again and hid the street-door key on top of that grandfather clock. Yes, I can see it from here. Then you waited for a few minutes, at intervals taking out your watch as if expecting someone. But you never thought to look up and peer into the shadows of the landing and see me, did you? After a minute or two I heard someone come in through the back-door and make softly towards the library. It was Clothier. Now I guessed that the whole point of the charade was to smuggle that package to him, but I was still perplexed by your conduct. Won’t you tell me now?”
There was a silence.
Then she went on: “You waited until he had passed into the library and then crept towards the back of the house. I know now that you went to lock the back-door in order to trap him inside the house, though I did not guess that then. You spoke to my husband and left the door to the dining-room open so that he would see Clothier as he tried to get out through the back-door. Then you came back here and passed into the plate-room. And as I later knew, you went from there into the library through the door which you had left locked to prevent Clothier from going into the plate-room. And you had a very good reason for not wanting him to do that, hadn’t you? Meanwhile I came down the stairs.”
I could hear her voice coming nearer again.
“I retrieved the key from the top of the clock and laid it by the vestibule-door. Why did I do that? From sheer deviltry, wishing simply to interfere with whatever design you were attempting to carry out. After a few minutes I saw Clothier come to the door. He had discovered that the back-door was locked and therefore that he could not leave the house. But now he found the key where I had put it and so he broke a pane of the vestibule-door — cutting himself in the process — and let himself out. Then I went back upstairs to the drawing-room and waited. After a few minutes you raised the alarm. How surprised and angry you were when, after naming Clothier as the murderer, you discovered that he had escaped from the house when you intended him to be caught on the premises with Huffam’s money — and his blood — upon him! Then you changed your story and spoke of an intruder, didn’t you? But there was no intruder.”
I understood what she was suggesting. And surely she was right! Peter Clothier was innocent and had been the unwitting dupe of a plot to incriminate him which had gone wrong because of her own interference. Everything she said provided a satisfactory explanation of the hitherto puzzling facts of the crime. But was it true or was she saying all of this merely in order to intimidate the old man? Suddenly I realized that her voice was getting much closer to me. I moved round the staircase but she kept on coming.
“No intruder,” she repeated. “And Huffam was dead before young Clothier even entered the house.”
The footsteps were approaching. I hurried back into the plate-room. Then my heart nearly stopped. The others were coming in here! I crossed the room and pulled at the door into the library but found that it was locked. I was trapped! Suddenly I knew what to do. I went to the plate-cupboard which stood open and concealed myself inside it, pulling the door to so that only a crack was left through which I could see a little.
I was just in time for they entered the room at that moment. I could not see them but their candles lit up the part of the chamber that I was able to observe.
“There was an intruder, there was,” the old man was insisting.
Clearly, he had convinced himself that this was the truth.
“No,” Mrs Sancious said gently. “For even before Clothier re-entered the house, you came in here with the sword, didn’t you? Huffam had unlocked the strong-box, hadn’t he?” In a caressing whisper she urged: “Show me now.”
The old man, moving as if he was sleep-walking, came into my line of sight still carrying the cruelly curved sword and with a candle in his other hand. He placed both of them on top of a large chest on the floor below the window and then knelt down, pulled up a section of the floorboard and removed something. A key! Still kneeling he opened the chest. Then he looked towards another part of the room as if dizzy and confused.
“He took something out,” came the gentle voice.
“Yes,” the old man muttered, and reached into the chest.
“After thirty years you saw it again,” the voice went on cajolingly. “Unless you could get it back to the Mompessons, Huffam would regain the estate after all. Your revenge against his family would be undone. And, moreover, you might lose this house since the will disinherited you. From the moment he had told you that someone — in fact, it was that mad old creature, Lydia Mompesson — had undertaken to restore it to him, you had begun to plot. You knew Sir Perceval would pay almost anything to have it back. You had planned it all so that Clothier would be blamed: the son of your old enemy. What sweet revenge! Just as you came in Huffam pulled out the package that my husband had given him, didn’t he? And perhaps he opened it and when he saw that it was indeed what he had hoped to find, he said something that goaded you past enduring, something like: ‘Last throw wins all. The estate is mine’.”
The old man turned towards the voice, muttering: “No, no, it wasn’t like that at all.”
“It took no more than a few seconds to do what had to be done. Now all you had to do to get your revenge and put it out of the power of the Huffam family ever to enjoy the estate, was to take the will from the package and hide it somewhere in this room. Then spread blood on the codicil and the letter that Huffam had written that evening and on some of the bank-notes from the chest, and put them all into the package. Then lock the door to the library so that young Clothier could not get in from there when he arrived. Then go out into the hall as I have already described and take steps to ensure that he could not escape. So he never knew that when you gave him the package in the library, Huffam was already lying dead a few feet from him in here. And when he had left the library all you had to do was come back in here, smear some of Huffam’s blood on your forehead, and raise the alarm.”
The old man got to his feet and stood dumbfoundered. “No,” he muttered. “You’ve invented all that.”
Sancious now came into my line of sight and bent over the strong-box as Mr Escreet had before. He began to search through it. As I watched him I thought about what I had just heard. Was it true then that Peter Clothier did not kill my grandfather? How could I be sure since the old man was denying it? Was certainty to elude me even now?
At that moment Sancious raised something in one hand and exclaimed: “I have it. The estate is mine!”
Instantly I knew what was going to happen. I stepped from my place of concealment, calling out: “Watch out behind you!”
Unfortunately, Sancious was so surprised by my sudden appearance that he turned towards me rather than to face the source of danger behind him, and at that instant Escreet drove into his back the sword which I believe he had used to kill John Umphraville nearly sixty years before. I saw a look of astonishment on the attorney’s face, but whether at the blow or at my sudden manifestation I could never know. He looked as if he was trying to speak to me, but his face became twisted so that his eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets. Then he fell to his knees, his head sank against the chest, and without a word he collapsed to the ground and lay still.
Mrs Sancious and I stared at each other. The old man, as if
he did not see us, crossed to the door of the library and locked it. Then he took the will from the lifeless hand of his victim, reached into the strong-box to take out a bundle of bank-notes, went to a bureau by the window and placed them inside a drawer.
All the while I looked at Mrs Sancious. She was now staring fearfully at the corpse of her husband. This was the woman who had allowed Peter Clothier to suffer for a crime of which she knew him to be guiltless, who had betrayed my mother to her death, who had sent her young nephew to die, and who had tried to encompass my end, too. I believed now that Peter Clothier was innocent and my doubts about the truth of what she had said had gone, for by his action Escreet had surely confessed to the murder in a manner more impossible to retract than any words.
The old man left the room, presumably in order to wait for the arrival of Peter Clothier by the back-door from Charing-cross.
As I came forward Mrs Sancious looked at me fearfully: “I did not mean it,” she stammered. “I only intended to goad him into giving us the will.”
What was she saying? Simply that she had not meant this to happen? Or that she had made her story up? Or had merely guessed at what she had not seen? There was no time to ponder these things now.
“He might be dangerous,” I said in a low voice and, because she seemed frozen, I seized her forearm with the intention of hurrying her away before we found ourselves trapped inside the house.
“The will,” she muttered, and, wrenching herself free, she crossed the room, stepping around the body, and removed it from the bureau.
Her self-possession was remarkable.
Taking care to avoid the old man, I hurried her into the lobby and out through the vestibule. In a moment we found ourselves in the mean little yard in absolute darkness for though the storm had quite abated, the blanket of cloud hung dark and heavy.
“We must go to the authorities,” I said. “The old man must be taken up before he harms anyone else.”
Then I almost said: “It must all be told. How you suppressed the evidence that would have freed Peter Clothier. What you and Bellringer did to Stephen.” But I saw that she was shivering and could not find it in me.