“You refer to the mysterious death of his wife!” the girl cried. “Then he is innocent?”
“Certainly. I can vouch for his innocence, and I am here to seek his pardon—and yours, Maidee. When I formed my plot of vengeance I had no idea that he would meet you, and fall in love with you. Surely it was the irony of fate that my dear niece, to whom I have ever been devoted, should love the son of my worst enemy—one of the men responsible for my downfall.”
“What downfall?” inquired the girl. “Do tell us. You are always so very mysterious, Uncle John,” while at the same moment Gordon placed his arm about her slim, neat waist in protection as they stood together.
“Maidee, listen then,” said the old man in a strange, tremulous voice, after he had stood in silence for a few moments, looking into her dark eyes. “Have you ever heard of a man—a politician of some note—called the Earl of Ellersdale?”
“The Earl of Ellersdale!” cried Gordon Cunningham. “Why, he was Prime Minister, and died about eighteen years or so ago. He was an intimate friend of my father.”
“Yes, he was,” said Ambrose.
Maidee, staring straight at the old man at that moment, suddenly gave vent to a loud cry of dismay.
“The Earl of Ellersdale!” she gasped. “Why—why, Inspector Medland took me to see his statue in Westminster Abbey; and now—and now that I see you side face, I—I recognise the likeness! Are you—are you his brother?”
“No, Maidee,” was the low reply; “I am the dead Earl!”
The girl and her lover stood astounded. It was upon Cunningham’s lips to jeer at the man’s amazing statement.
Next instant, however, the priest exclaimed in his very good English:
“If any corroborative evidence is necessary, I am here to testify that my friend is actually the Earl of Ellersdale, with whom I was on terms of intimate acquaintanceship until three days before his death.”
“Ever since my death—a death connived at, nay, insisted upon—by the two persons into whose hands grave circumstances compelled me to place my future, my friend Don Mario has continued to be my friend. I lived in obscurity in Pimlico as Richard Goodrick.”
“Richard Goodrick! Are you, then, the man who died so mysteriously on the night when Sir George was assassinated?” cried Maidee, astounded.
“Yes, my child,” replied the old gentleman, fire showing in his dark eyes. “Let me explain.”
But Gordon Cunningham’s attitude was still antagonistic towards the old man. He had neither forgotten nor forgiven how, as Tulloch, he had bullied and blackmailed him.
“I do not see, dear, why we should be compelled to listen to all these explanations,” he said, addressing his well-beloved.
“Hear me!” cried the Earl. “You must hear! It is but right that you both should know the truth.”
“Yes, the truth!” interrupted the deep voice of a stranger, as at the same moment the form of Inspector Medland—whose visit had been arranged in secret with the Earl—entered the drawing-room. “Excellent; let us, at last, hear the truth!”
The girl, her lover, and Don Mario all started, staring at the intruder, who, bowing, smiled, merely explaining that he had called upon Miss Lambton, as he desired to have a chat with her.
“I’m considerably interested in this meeting,” he added. “There are one or two little matters which I am very anxious to clear up,” he added, casting a meaning look towards the Earl.
Don Mario, his face livid, stood as though transfixed to the spot. He was staggered by the turn of events.
“Well,” said the ex-Premier, drawing himself up proudly and clearing his throat. “Let me explain—let me relate the strange events which led to my supposed death and disappearance into obscurity,” and then in a few brief sentences he described the house party at Ellersdale, the mysterious death of Rollo, Maidee’s father, and the terrible accusation brought against himself. He told them of the cigar found to be poisoned, the second cigar lying in the box, and the phial discovered in the buhl cabinet, of which he alone held the key; how his friends Cunningham and Nesbitt had declared that all protest of innocence would be unavailing with a jury in face of his sister-in-law’s statement, and pointed out the scandal which must be brought upon the Party. Hence, with the clever connivance of the doctors and his friends, he had died, while those who had known the truth were now also dead—all save his friend Don Mario.
Maidee listened to the old Earl’s story in silence. At last she said:
“Then my mother could, if she had chosen, have cleared you of the terrible charge?”
“Yes, child,” was his slow reply. “Your mother, I fear, was fiercely antagonistic towards me, because I had been strongly against your father’s marriage. Hence she had made some statement that was false; and I could no longer remain Prime Minister unless I could prove my innocence. For that reason I went into obscurity, and am believed by the world to have died.”
“Ah! it was a wicked conspiracy! Who, then, killed my poor father?”
“That still remains a mystery,” was the Earl’s slow response, “an entire mystery.” He did not add that for some time he had suspected Gordon’s father of the crime.
“But, surely, my mother ought never to have made a statement that was deliberately false. It was shameful to have wrecked your life thus. She——”
“Hush, child,” said the old gentleman reproachfully; “remember she was your mother, and it pains me exceedingly to have related before you what I have been compelled to tell.”
The priest stood there, his sallow, clean-shaven countenance pale and drawn, his brow slightly knit, his sharp eyes fixed upon the speaker’s face.
“But what evidence can you show that you were not responsible for your brother’s tragic end?” asked Gordon Cunningham, still doubtful, and recollecting that the Earl’s disappearance from the political world had been accomplished mainly through his father.
“There is unfortunately no proof of my innocence,” replied the old Earl. “Only my own word that, though Rollo had quarrelled with me, I bore him no malice.”
Gordon smiled, but with a somewhat dissatisfied air. Whereupon Medland, who had stood with his hands in his pockets, at that moment stepped forward, saying:
“I think that this, which I found when searching the contents of the safe in Sir George Ravenscourt’s library at Carlton House Terrace after his death, may throw an interesting light upon the occurrence,” and he produced a letter written in a feminine hand upon black-edged notepaper, and addressed to Sir George from an hotel in Geneva.
The Earl took it with trembling fingers, read it through eagerly, and then turning swiftly and fiercely upon Don Mario, he pointed at him with his finger, saying:
“At last the truth is told! There stands the assassin of my brother Rollo—he, the man who for twenty years I have regarded as my faithful friend!”
Maidee and her lover stood aghast—dumbfounded.
Yet as they looked upon the priest they saw that his mouth was half open, and that he stood motionless as a statue, unable to utter a single word in self-defence.
His face had changed. Guilt was plainly written there. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.
He had lowered his quick, penetrating eyes and drawn his pale lips tightly before his accuser.
CHAPTER XXX.
WHAT OCCURRED ON THE SEVENTEENTH
The Earl of Ellersdale handed to Maidee the letter written by her mother to Sir George Ravenscourt a few days before her death.
Both the girl and her lover read it through together eagerly.
Briefly it placed upon record her deepest regret at having so cruelly wronged the dead Earl.
“May God forgive me for my sin,” she wrote. “My poor husband Rollo was outrageously jealous. Being a Catholic, I naturally admired the preaching of the famous Father Mellini who, while my fellow guest of Lord Ellersdale, flattered me and courted me. He possessed a fatal fascination for women. Three days before poor Rollo’s death he entered the blue drawing-room suddenly, and there surprised Father Mellini holding my hand, though I had protested loudly against his amorous advances. A violent scene ensued, and my husband threatened that if the priest did not leave Ellersdale he would inform his brother, and create a public scandal. Father Mellini thereupon drew himself up, and openly cursed my husband, declaring that a fate should fall upon him that should be as terrible as it would be unexpected.
“Three hours later he left the house and returned to London. Rollo had assured me that he believed in my honesty; and, indeed, though I confess I greatly admired the priest, I had never, however, for a single moment encouraged his advances. On the next evening Lord Ellersdale returned from London, and when my husband was in the act of smoking a cigar, three nights later, he was suddenly attacked and died. In my husband’s death I traced the hand of Don Mario Mellini. He had, I knew, experimented with subtle poisons; yet I dared not come forward and make any statement, for by so doing I should have brought great scandal upon myself. Therefore, in order to shield my admirer, and also in order to wreak vengeance upon Lord Ellersdale, who had been my enemy throughout, I made certain unfounded allegations against him.
“Through me it was therefore believed that he had killed his brother, yet now I wish, once and for ever, to make it plain to you that such was not the case; the assassin was that prince of poisoners, the priest Don Mario Mellini. It was he who deliberately doctored the two cigars—one intended for my husband and one for his brother; while the phial, which I recognised as having seen once in his possession, he placed in the cabinet, which he opened by means of a false key. I have acknowledged it in the confessional, and I have since learnt with satisfaction that when the truth reached the proper quarter at the Vatican, Father Mellini was sent back to an obscure village somewhere in Italy. You, Sir George, were Lord Ellersdale’s friend, and therefore to you, now that I know my days are numbered, I confess and ask forgiveness for the terrible wrong I committed and the fatal vengeance I effected.”
Maidee held her mother’s last letter in her hand in silence, her eyes fixed upon the livid countenance of the accused.
“And now,” said Inspector Medland, well-groomed and wearing a fashionably cut grey overcoat and gloves, “I would like to make one or two observations. You all know that the death of Sir George Ravenscourt was a mystery—one of the most remarkable crimes of recent years, on account of the complicated circumstances. The affair was one which has greatly puzzled us. Though months have elapsed, yet I have never relaxed my efforts to elucidate the complex enigma. Only three days ago did I obtain conclusive evidence.”
“Of what?” asked the Earl anxiously.
“Of the motive of Sir George’s murder, and that of the man Richard Goodrick—supposed to be yourself. Listen, and if I make any false statement, please correct me,” he said. “On the afternoon of the seventeenth of January, Sir George, who had previously recognised you, came to your lodgings in Charlwood Street, and offered you a large sum—afterwards found intact in his safe—if you would reveal yourself, defy the police, and return to political life to lead your Party. He believed you were without funds. The country and the Party were in sore need of you, and he declared that he was in a position to prove your innocence concerning your brother Rollo’s death. But you refused. Is that not so?”
The Earl slowly nodded in the affirmative.
“That evening, after Sir George had left, you met this friend of yours, the priest, and told him what had occurred,” the detective went on. “It at once aroused the suspicion of this exemplary cleric; a deadly fear seized him, for he came to the conclusion that Miss Maidee had probably learnt the truth from some paper of her mother’s, and had told Sir George, who, in turn, was endeavouring to win you back from your obscurity. In fear of denunciation as the murderer of the Hon. Rollo Lambton, and filled with an insane desire for revenge upon the whole family, he formed a clever and dastardly plot. Let us reconstruct the crime. Later that night this man went to Carlton House Terrace—for he has been recognised as having been seen near the Duke of York’s column by the constable on the beat—and when Sir George returned home he accosted him outside the house. The Baronet instantly recognised him as the once-popular preacher, while he, on his part, explained that he had come to him in secret, as he had learnt that the Earl of Ellersdale still lived, and wished to consult him upon what action he should take—whether to announce it publicly or not.”
The man standing accused glared at the detective, who had now contrived to place himself between him and the closed door. He saw that he had been caught like a rat in a trap.
“Sir George invited him in to talk,” Medland went on, “and after some conversation sat down to place upon record the fact that he had met the Earl, and had subsequently learnt the truth from the lips of Father Mellini. But while he was in the act of writing, his visitor rose and stealthily crept behind his chair. With a quick movement he twisted his silk muffler around his victim’s mouth to prevent any cry he might make being heard, and with a long, sharp pin, probably a lady’s hat pin, prepared with the same poison as that used to kill Rollo Lambton, he inflicted a fatal wound in Sir George’s scalp—a punctured wound from which he died without a sound within two minutes.”
“It’s a lie—a foul lie!” shrieked the priest hoarsely, speaking for the first time in protest. The muscles of his mobile face were twitching, and his hands were trembling.
“I hardly think so,” said Medland, in a hard, pitiless tone, “for you slipped out of that house noiselessly and took a hansom over to Pimlico. I have the cabman who drove you from the rank at the bottom of the Haymarket. You got out in Vauxhall Bridge Road and went to Charlwood Street, to the door of which you had a latchkey, one lent you by your friend Goodrick a week before. You entered noiselessly, and there found your friend seated by his fire, busily examining some papers. You approached him in the same manner as you had crept up behind Sir George, and struck him in a precisely similar way. He turned upon you savagely, but the poison was rapid. In a few moments he was struggling in the death agony, unable to shout for assistance because you had twisted your handkerchief round his mouth. You went forth again, back to your lodgings in Denbigh Street. You believed that you had killed Richard Goodrick, because you feared that he knew the truth concerning his brother’s murder, and in order further to mislead and mystify the police, early next morning you sent a telegram to the dead man, purporting to come from Sir George. But you were horrified when next day the man you had killed called upon you—and you discovered that Richard Goodrick was still alive, and living as John Ambrose in a street off the Walworth Road.”
“But who was the man who was killed?” asked the Earl, greatly interested.
“A private detective named Jewell, who had been employed by Sir George,” was the prompt reply. “When you refused to return to political life, Sir George apparently became seized with wonder whether, after all, you were the dead Earl. Therefore he invoked the aid of Jewell—who had previously watched you after the baronet had recognised you that night—and who then suggested that he should make up as yourself and, after watching you out, make a thorough search of your apartments to see if anything existed there to identify you fully as the dead Earl of Ellersdale. While in the act of doing so, that assassin yonder entered and struck the blow which so swiftly proved fatal. It was true that the unfortunate inquiry agent wore a false white beard, but so did the Earl, a fact well known to the landlady, Mrs. Ayres, who was so excited by the tragic discovery that her examination of the dead man’s features was not very thorough. The doctor pointed out to me that upon the face were signs of grease-paint, yet on questioning Mrs. Ayres, she told me that she had known her eccentric lodger to disguise himself before going out for his evening walks. We therefore had no doubt but that the dead man was really Richard Goodrick, though we knew that about a man who resorted to disguises there must be some curious mystery. It was that mystery we failed to penetrate until the discovery of the priest who had suddenly disappeared from Denbigh Street, and this letter from Mrs. Lambton to Sir George Ravenscourt. That gave us our first clue.”
“But why did not Sir George take action, after receiving that letter from my sister-in-law?” inquired the Earl.
“Your sister-in-law died a few days after she had written. You, the Earl, were believed to be dead also. Therefore he locked up the letter and kept the secret. But,” the inspector went on, “you, knowing that someone had been killed in belief that it was yourself, visited Mrs. Ayres in the guise of an American interested in curios and secured certain documents which you had in concealment in your room, and which established your identity, eh?”
“That is so,” admitted the Earl.
“And afterwards, in the guise of Tulloch, the adventurer, in order further to torture Mr. Cunningham, you compelled him to ask a question in the House regarding the coroner’s verdict in the case of Sir George, while this Italian at the same time also sent him an anonymous letter threatening death if he dare put the question. So you see,” Medland added, addressing those assembled, “we have to deal with one who is a master-criminal—one who is an expert in the use of poisons, who prepares them in some secret laboratory, and who sells them, sufficient for a fatal dose at one thousand francs—forty pounds—a person. Ah! we have discovered it all! Not only is he an assassin—for it was he also, Miss Lambton, who, in order to close your lips, fearing what you knew, prepared your hat-pins and bribed a gas-fitter at work in the house to place them on your dressing-table for your use, just as he contrived to place the poisoned cigars for your unfortunate father—but he is also a purveyor of poison, a subtle, swift, undetectable and noxious substance by which dozens of people have died, as I will, later on, prove to the satisfaction of a jury.”
“Ah!” laughed Don Mario, defiantly. “You will have to substantiate all these startling allegations!” he said, his foreign accent the more pronounced in his excitement.
“I have my evidence ready, my dear sir,” responded Medland quite coolly. “We have not been idle during these past months, I assure you.” Then, turning to Gordon Cunningham, the detective added:
“To this man who has cloaked himself beneath his religion and is a disgrace to his Church, is due the ruin of one of the greatest political forces in our kingdom, the death of at least three persons, and a secret attempt upon the young lady whom you love. Besides, by distributing his secret poison to all who care to purchase it, he has been instigator in at least a dozen other murders in London alone within my own knowledge; of how many on the Continent may be left to the imagination.”
“He richly deserves the punishment which the judge will mete out to him,” declared the Earl with a gleam of hatred and contempt.
“I quite agree,” replied Medland, who took from his pocket a warrant for Don Mario’s arrest, while at the same moment there entered two of his men, Detective-Sergeant Wagner and a companion, both of whom had been engaged on the affair at Carlton House Terrace.
Don Mario’s aquiline features had become more accentuated. From the entry of Medland, he had realised that the game was up. His friend, the Earl, had cleverly induced him to call with him at that house, to see Maidee again, and had there entrapped him. All had been done at Medland’s suggestion, for at Scotland Yard it was feared lest the assassin might escape back to Italy, and so evade the English law.
Yet ere the two detective-sergeants could seize him, he had slipped from the pocket of his black overcoat a small gold toothpick with which he had scratched the back of his left hand.
The tiny abrasure of the skin was almost imperceptible, yet all present knew that with the potent poisons at his command he could summon death almost instantly, if he so willed.
And so it proved, for even as they looked they saw a horrible agonised expression cross his drawn, yellow face.
He tried to laugh at his captors in mocking defiance, but it was a hollow show of triumph, for the muscles of his thin cheeks had already grown rigid, and his arms and legs were trembling violently.
He endeavoured to speak; he suddenly clasped his hands as he faced the Earl, as though he would crave forgiveness, but next moment his legs refused to support him and he collapsed in a heap upon the floor.
Few poisons act with such rapidity as in the case of the one which he had been in the habit of using, for within three minutes of the self-inflicted scratch, the priest lay there, his body twisted and distorted in death.
His awful end was a terrible spectacle.
Maidee turned away with a cry of horror, covering her face with her hands, while the Earl and Gordon watched the tragedy in silence.
“One must indeed be thankful, Uncle John, that your life has been spared!” Maidee said at last, turning and placing her hand upon the old Earl’s arm.
“Yes, Lord Ellersdale,” exclaimed Medland, “when you disappeared from London, I confess I had serious apprehensions that you, too, had fallen a victim.”
“But is anything known outside of all this?” asked his lordship apprehensively.
“Not a syllable, save to us here in this room—and to the Director of Criminal Investigations. He, of course, does not yet know all the facts.”
“Well,” said the man who had been Prime Minister of England, in a voice trembling with emotion, “there yonder lies perhaps the most dangerous criminal in all Europe. Happily for the Roman Catholic Church—a religion which I, for one, hold in respect—there are few of its priests such as he. Beneath his benign smile he hid the bitter vengeance of a brutal heart, and under his cassock he carried death in its most horrible form. He was a man with fatal fingers. But he is dead, therefore let us all forgive, and I would beg of each of you still to respect my secret, to consider the whole matter as confidential, and still regard me as plain John Ambrose.”
“But will you not return to your own sphere?” asked Medland quickly. “The country is surely in sad need of you, my lord.”
“Never. My work is done, and I am honoured by a statue in Westminster. The world must never know the tragedy of my later life, and how two innocent men were foully done to death in order to preserve my incognito. No,” he said determinedly, in a low voice, “there must be no scandal. I shall go away to the south somewhere, and there end my days in peace.”
Maidee rushed across to her uncle, and, clinging to his neck, sobbed bitterly.
“As for you, my child,” said the old man, stroking her cheek tenderly, “you and Gordon, I understand, are to marry next month. May God bless you both. May you be very happy, and may the clouds that have overshadowed the youth of both of you never again reappear. You are comfortably off in your own right, my child, and I feel certain that Gordon will make you a most excellent husband.” Then, stretching forth his hand to young Cunningham, he asked in a low, faltering voice:
“Gordon, forgive me!”
“Why, of course, Lord Ellersdale,” exclaimed the young man. “Never let us recall the past.”
The pair grasped hands.
Then, Medland and his two subordinates having promised to regard the whole matter as confidential, Gordon placed his arm tenderly around Maidee’s slim waist, and, pressing his lips to hers, declared with a glad smile that that kiss was to be regarded as the seal of secrecy.
To-day the statue to the Right Honourable the Earl of Ellersdale, K.G., erected by Parliament, still stands in that silent row in Statesmen’s Corner. Many pause before it and recall the great Englishman who was unfortunately cut off at the zenith of his fame. But surely none suspect that in a pretty, white, rose-embowered villa facing the blue, sunlit bay of San Sebastian, the bay of golden sands just across the French frontier in Spain, there lives the hale and hearty old English gentleman, Mr. Ambrose, who is none other than the dead Premier himself.
His niece and Gordon, now man and wife, live in a large house in Grosvenor Street, and during each parliamentary recess never fail to make a journey by the Sud Express to visit Uncle John, whose identity is preserved even from Lady Ravenscourt herself. Fortunately, the Earl died before her marriage, so she never knew him.
The young pair, devoted to each other, enjoy a life of idyllic happiness, and, as you well know by reading the newspapers, Gordon Cunningham, whose popularity at one time was on the wane, after that fainting fit in the House, is now marked out for Cabinet rank.
Of all the clever young men in England, he ranks first.
But neither you, my respected reader, nor the public, have ever dreamt that his great success has been, and is still, due to the promptings and careful guidance of another—a master hand in diplomacy and politics—the famous Earl of Ellersdale.
And so is the great secret kept—the Secret of the Fatal Fingers.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
The edition serialized in The Graphic of Australia (Nov 1917 to Apr 1918) was consulted for most of the changes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. banknotes/bank-notes, post office/post-office, taxicab/taxi-cab, etc.) have been preserved.
This story was adapted into a silent film in 1916.
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings/nestings and a missing period.
Merge two disjointed contractions.
[Chapter II]
“I was writing it when—when he—— Burn it. Promise ” replace the trailing space with a question mark.
[Chapter III]
Change (“The assassin must have entered with a key,” said Madland.) to Medland.
[Chapter XIV]
“showed her a photograph of the late Sir George Ravenscroft” to Ravenscourt.
[Chapter XVIII]
“two figures entered from Parliament Square a man in a dark overcoat” replace the space after Square with an em-dash.
“while her companion was Detective Inspector Medland!” to Detective-Inspector.
[Chapter XXIV]
Replace:
“application it was lying upon its back, its body writh-”
with:
“applications, accompanied always by remittances.”
[Chapter XXVII]
“fair-haired young woman in her pale blue dressing-grown” to gown.
[End of text]