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Page 35
So began an anxious day, not only for the girl from Texas but for
all London as well. Her father was bursting with new diplomatic
secrets recently extracted from his bootblack adviser. Later, in
Washington, he was destined to be a marked man because of his
grasp of the situation abroad. No one suspected the bootblack,
the power behind the throne; but the gentleman from Texas was
destined to think of that able diplomat many times, and to wish
that he still had him at his feet to advise him.
"War by midnight, sure!" he proclaimed on the morning of this
fateful Tuesday. "I tell you, Marian, we're lucky to have our
tickets on the Saronia. Five thousand dollars wouldn't buy them
from me to-day! I'll be a happy man when we go aboard that liner
day after to-morrow."
Day after to-morrow! The girl wondered. At any rate, she would
have that last letter then--the letter that was to contain whatever
defense her young friend could offer to explain his dastardly act.
She waited eagerly for that final epistle.
The day dragged on, bringing at its close England's entrance into
the war; and the Carlton bootblack was a prophet not without honor
in a certain Texas heart. And on the following morning there
arrived a letter which was torn open by eager trembling fingers.
The letter spoke:
DEAR LADY JUDGE: This is by far the hardest to write of all the
letters you have had from me. For twenty-four hours I have been
planning it. Last night I walked on the Embankment while the
hansoms jogged by and the lights of the tramcars danced on
Westminster Bridge just as the fireflies used to in the garden
back of our house in Kansas. While I walked I planned. To-day,
shut up in my rooms, I was also planning. And yet now, when I
sit down to write, I am still confused; still at a loss where to
begin and what to say, once I have begun.
At the close of my last letter I confessed to you that it was I
who murdered Captain Fraser-Freer. That is the truth. Soften the
blow as I may, it all comes down to that. The bitter truth!
Not a week ago--last Thursday night at seven--I climbed our
dark stairs and plunged a knife into the heart of that defenseless
gentleman. If only I could point out to you that he had offended
me in some way; if I could prove to you that his death was
necessary to me, as it really was to Inspector Bray--then there
might be some hope of your ultimate pardon. But, alas! he had
been most kind to me--kinder than I have allowed you to guess
from my letters. There was no actual need to do away with him.
Where shall I look for a defense?
At the moment the only defense I can think of is simply this--the
captain knows I killed him!
Even as I write this, I hear his footsteps above me, as I heard
them when I sat here composing my first letter to you. He is
dressing for dinner. We are to dine together at Romano's.
And there, my lady, you have finally the answer to the mystery that
has--I hope--puzzled you. I killed my friend the captain in my
second letter to you, and all the odd developments that followed
lived only in my imagination as I sat here beside the green-shaded
lamp in my study, plotting how I should write seven letters to you
that would, as the novel advertisements say, grip your attention to
the very end. Oh, I am guilty--there is no denying that. And,
though I do not wish to ape old Adam and imply that I was tempted
by a lovely woman, a strict regard for the truth forces me to add
that there is also guilt upon your head. How so? Go back to that
message you inserted in the Daily Mail: "The grapefruit lady's
great fondness for mystery and romance--"
You did not know it, of course; but in those words you passed me a
challenge I could not resist; for making plots is the business of
life--more, the breath of life--to me. I have made many; and
perhaps you have followed some of them, on Broadway. Perhaps you
have seen a play of mine announced for early production in London.
There was mention of it in the program at the Palace. That was the
business which kept me in England. The project has been abandoned
now and I am free to go back home.
Thus you see that when you granted me the privilege of those seven
letters you played into my hands. So, said I, she longs for mystery
and romance. Then, by the Lord Harry, she shall have them!
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