said, turning her fine eyes upon me with an excitement shecould not suppress as she walked to the big writing-table and took herfather's keys from her pocket, "I wonder whether we shall discoveranything of interest. I suppose," she added, "it is really Mr.Leighton's duty to do this. But I prefer that you and I should lookinto my father's affairs prior to the inquisitive lawyer's arrival."
It almost seemed as if she half-expected to discover something which shedesired to conceal from the solicitor.
The dead man's writing-table was a ponderous old-fashioned one of carvedoak, and as she unlocked the first drawer and turned out its contents, Idrew up chairs and settled with her in order to make a methodical andthorough examination. The papers, we found, were mostly letters fromfriends, and correspondence from solicitors and brokers regarding hisinvestments in various quarters. From some which I read I gathered whatenormous profits he had made over certain deals in Kaffirs, while incertain other correspondence were allusions to matters which, to me,were very puzzling.
Mabel's eager attitude was that of one in search of some document orother which she believed to be there. She scarcely troubled to read anyof the letters, merely scanning them swiftly and casting them aside.Thus we examined the contents of one drawer after another until I sawbeneath her hand a blue foolscap envelope sealed with black wax, andbearing the superscription in her father's handwriting:--
"To be opened by Mabel after my death.--Burton Blair."
"Ah!" she gasped in breathless haste. "I wonder what this contains?"And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscapclosely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of abrass fastener.
From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding tomy surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered,but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen. It was ahalf-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismalcountry, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house,with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip offlower-garden railed off at the side. Before the door was a rusticporch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsorarmchair that had apparently just been vacated.
While I was examining the view beneath the lamp-light, the dead man'sdaughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father hadpenned.
Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery,and, startled, I turned to glance at her. Her countenance had changed;she was blanched to the lips.
"No!" she gasped hoarsely. "I--I can't believe it--I won't!"
Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.
"What is it?" I inquired anxiously. "May I not know?" And I crossedto where she stood.
"No," she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her. "No! Not evenyou may know this!" And with a sudden movement she tore the paper topieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast thefragments into the fire.
The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man's confession--if suchit were--was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood,haggard, rigid and white as death.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
IN WHICH TWO CURIOUS FACTS ARE ESTABLISHED.
Mabel's sudden action both annoyed and surprised me, for I had believedthat our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that shewould at least have allowed me sight of what her father had written.
Yet when, next second, I reflected that the envelope had been speciallyaddressed to her, I saw that whatever was contained therein had beenintended for her eye alone.
"You have discovered something which has upset you?" I said, lookingstraight into her white, hard-drawn face. "I hope it is really nothingvery disconcerting?"
She held her breath for a moment, her hand instinctively upon her breastas though to still the wild beating of her heart.
"Ah! unfortunately it is," was her answer. "I know the truth now--theawful, terrible truth." And without a word of warning she covered herface with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears.
At her side in an instant I was striving to console her, but I quicklyrealised what a deep impression of dismay and horror those written wordsof her dead father had produced upon her. She was filled with grief,and utterly inconsolable.
The quiet of that long, old-fashioned room was unbroken save for herbitter sobs and the solemn tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock atthe further end of the apartment. My hand was placed tenderly upon thepoor girl's shoulder, but it was a long time ere I could induce her todry her tears.
When she did so, I saw by her face that she had become a changed woman.
Walking back to the writing-table she took up the envelope and re-readthe superscription which Blair had written upon it, and then for thefirst time her eyes fell upon the photograph of that lonely house by thecrossways.
"Why!" she cried, startled, "where did you find this?"
I explained that it had dropped from the envelope, whereupon she took itup and gazed, for a long time upon it. Then, turning it over, shediscovered what I had not noticed, namely, written faintly in pencil andhalf effaced were the words, "Owston crossroads, 9 miles beyondDoncaster on the Selby Road.--B. B."
"Do you know what this is?"
"No, I haven't the least idea," I answered. "It must be something ofwhich your father was very careful. It seems to be well worn, too, asthough carried in somebody's pocket."
"Well," she said, "I will tell you. I had no idea that he stillpreserved it, but I suppose he kept it as a souvenir of those wearyjourneys of long ago. This photograph," she added, holding it still inher hand, "is the picture of the spot for which he searched everyturnpike in England. He had the photograph but nothing else to guidehim to the spot, and we were therefore compelled to tramp all the mainroads up and down the country in an attempt to identify it. Not untilnearly a year after you and Mr. Seton had so kindly placed me at schoolat Bournemouth did my father, still on his lonely tramp, succeed indiscovering it after a search lasting over three years. He identifiedit one summer evening as the crossways at Owston, and he found living inthat house the person of whom he had been all those weary months insearch."
"Curious," I said. "Tell me more about it."
"There is nothing else to tell, except that, by identifying the house,he obtained the key to the secret--at least, that is what I alwaysunderstood from him," she said. "Ah, I recollect all those longwearying walks when I was a girl, how we trudged on over those long,white, endless roads, in sunshine and in rain, envying people incarriages and carts, and men and women on bicycles, and yet my couragealways supported by my father's declaration that great fortune must beours some day. He carried this photograph with him always, and almostat each crossroad he would take it out, examine the landscape andcompare it, not knowing, of course, but that the old toll-house mighthave been pulled down since the taking of the picture."
"Did he never tell you the reason why he wished to visit that house."
"He used to say that the man who lived there--the man who used to sit onsummer evenings in that chair outside, was his friend--his good friend;only they had been parted for a long time, and he did not know that myfather was still alive. They had been friends abroad, I fancy, in thedays when my father was at sea."
"And the identification of this spot was the reason of your father'sconstant wanderings?" I exclaimed, pleased that I had at last clearedup one point which, for five years or so, had been a mystery.
"Yes. A month after he had made the discovery he came to Bournemouth,and told me in confidence that his dream of great wealth was about to berealised. He had solved the problem, and within a week or two would bein possession of ample funds. He disappeared, you will remember, almostimmediately, and was away for a month. Then he returned a rich man--sorich that you and Mr. Seton were utterly dumbfounded. Don't yourecollect that night at Helpstone, after I had come from school to spenda week with my father on his return?
We were sitting together afterdinner and poor father recalled the last occasion when we had allassembled there--the occasion when I was taken ill outside," she added."And don't you recollect Mr. Seton appearing to doubt my father'sstatement that he was already worth fifty thousand pounds."
"I remember," I answered, as her clear eyes met mine. "I remember howyour father struck us utterly dumb by going upstairs and fetching hisbanker's pass-book, which showed a balance of fifty-four thousand oddpounds. After that he became more than ever a mystery to us. But tellme," I added in a low, earnest voice, "what have you discovered to-nightthat has so upset you?"
"I have nearly found proof of a fact that I have