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Page 104
"But what am I saying? Did I deceive you at all? You have found
out the secret--that Robert was Mark--and that is all that
matters. How have you found out? I shall never know now. Where
did I go wrong? Perhaps you have been deceiving me all the time.
Perhaps you knew about the keys, about the window, even about the
secret passage. You are a clever man, Mr. Gillingham.
"I had Mark's clothes on my hands. I might have left them in the
passage, but the secret of the passage was now out. Miss Norris
knew it. That was the weak point of my plan, perhaps, that Miss
Norris had to know it. So I hid them in the pond, the Inspector
having obligingly dragged it for me first. A couple of keys
joined them, but I kept the revolver. Fortunate, wasn't it, Mr.
Gillingham?
"I don't think that there is any more to tell you. This is a
long letter, but then it is the last which I shall write. There
was a time when I hoped that there might be a happy future for
me, not at the Red House, not alone. Perhaps it was never more
than an idle day-dream, for I am no more worthy of her than Mark
was. But I could have made her happy, Mr. Gillingham. God, how
I would have worked to make her happy! But now that is
impossible. To offer her the hand of a murderer would be as bad
as to offer her the hand of a drunkard. And Mark died for that.
I saw her this morning. She was very sweet. It is a difficult
world to understand.
"Well, well, we are all gone now--the Abletts and the Cayleys. I
wonder what old Grandfather Cayley thinks of it all. Perhaps it
is as well that we have died out. Not that there was anything
wrong with Sarah--except her temper. And she had the Ablett
nose--you can't do much with that. I'm glad she left no
children.
"Good-bye, Mr. Gillingham. I'm sorry that your stay with us was
not of a pleasanter nature, but you understand the difficulties
in which I was placed. Don't let Bill think too badly of me. He
is a good fellow; look after him. He will he surprised. The
young are always surprised. And thank you for letting me end my
own way. I expect you did sympathize a little, you know. We
might have been friends in another world--you and I, and I and
she. Tell her what you like. Everything or nothing. You will
know what is best. Good-bye, Mr. Gillingham.
"MATTHEW CAYLEY.
"I am lonely to-night without Mark. That's funny, isn't it?"
CHAPTER XXII
Mr. Beverley Moves On
"Good Lord!" said Bill, as he put down the letter.
"I thought you'd say that," murmured Antony.
"Tony, do you mean to say that you knew all this?"
"I guessed some of it. I didn't quite know all of it, of
course."
"Good Lord!" said Bill again, and returned to the letter. In a
moment he was looking up again. "What did you write to him? Was
that last night? After I'd gone into Stanton?"
"Yes."
"What did you say? That you'd discovered that Mark was Robert?"
"Yes. At least I said that this morning I should probably
telegraph to Mr. Cartwright of Wimpole Street, and ask him to--"
Bill burst in eagerly on the top of the sentence. "Yes, now what
was all that about? You were so damn Sherlocky yesterday all of
a sudden. We'd been doing the thing together all the time, and
you'd been telling me everything, and then suddenly you become
very mysterious and private and talk enigmatically--is that the
word?--about dentists and swimming and the 'Plough and Horses,'
and--well, what was it all about? You simply vanished out of
sight; I didn't know what on earth we were talking about."
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