CHAPTER XXIV
It had been a little after three o'clock when Katty Winslow entered Mr.Greville Howard's study--and now it was half-past four. The room hadgrown gradually darker, but the fire threw out a glimmering light on thefaces of the two sitting there.
All at once Katty realised, with a sense of acute discomfiture, that asyet her host had said nothing--nothing, at least, that mattered. He haddrawn out of her, with extraordinary patience, courtesy, andintelligence, all that _she_ could tell _him_--of what had happenedbefore, and about the time of, Godfrey Pavely's death.
She had even told him of the two anonymous letters received by GodfreyPavely--but with regard to them she had of course deliberately lied,stating that Godfrey had shown them to her, and that she still had noidea from whence they came.
Her listener had made very few comments, but he had shown, quite earlyin their conversation, a special interest in the personality of OliverTropenell. He had even extracted from Katty a physical description ofthe man she declared to be now Mrs. Pavely's lover, and probable futurehusband.
At first, say during the first half-hour, she had felt extraordinarilyat ease with the remarkable old man who had listened to her soattentively, while the fine eyes, which were the most arresting featureof his delicate, highly intelligent countenance, were fixed on herflushed face. But now, with the shadows of evening falling, she couldnot see him so clearly, and there came a cold feeling about KattyWinslow's heart. There was very little concerning her own past relationswith Godfrey Pavely that this stranger did not now know. She felt as ifhe had uncovered all the wrappings which enfolded her restless,vindictive, jealous soul. But she herself, so far, had learnt nothingfrom him.
She began to feel very tired, and suddenly, whilst answering one of hissearching, gentle questions, her voice broke, and she burst into tears.
He leant quickly forward, and laid his thin, delicate right hand onhers. "My dear Mrs. Winslow, please forgive me! This has been a painfulordeal for you. I feel like a Grand Inquisitor! But now I am going tobring you comfort--I ought not to say joy. But before I do so I am goingto make you take a cup of tea--and a little bread and butter. Then,afterwards, I will show you that I appreciate your generous confidencein telling me all that you have done."
He waited a moment, and then said impressively, "I am going to put youin the way to make it possible for you to avenge your dead friend, Ithink I may also say _my_ dead friend, for Mr. Godfrey Pavely and I hadsome very interesting and pleasant dealings with one another, and thatover many years."
She was soothed by the really kind tone of his low voice, even by thecaressing quality of his light touch, and her sobs died down.
Mr. Howard took his hand away, and pressed a button close to his chair.A moment later a tray appeared with tea, cake, bread and butter, and alittle spirit lamp on which there stood what looked like a goldtea-kettle.
"You can put on the light, Denton," and there came a pleasant glow ofsuffused light over the room.
"Perhaps you will be so kind as to make the tea?" said Mr. Howard in hisfull, low voice.
Katty smiled her assent, and turned obediently towards the little tablewhich had been placed by her elbow.
She saw that the kettle was so fixed by a clever arrangement that therewas no fear of accident, though the water in it had been brought inalmost boiling on the lacquer tray--a tray which was as exquisitelychoice in its way as was everything else in the room.
Katty, as we know, was used to making afternoon tea. Very deftly she putthree teaspoonfuls of tea into the teapot, and then poured out theboiling water from the bright yellow kettle. She was surprised at itsweight.
"Yes," said Greville Howard, "it's rather heavy--gold always is. It'sfifteen-carat gold. I bought that kettle years ago, in Paris. It took myfancy."
He looked at the clock. "We will give the tea three minutes to draw," hesaid thoughtfully.
And then he began to talk to her about the people with whom she wasstaying, the people who had never seen him, but who had so deep--it nowseemed to her so unreasoning and unreasonable--a prejudice against him.And what he had to say about them amused, even diverted, Katty, soshrewd were his thrusts, so true his appreciation of the faults and thevirtues of dear Helen and Tony Haworth. But how on earth had he learntall that?
And then, at the end of the three minutes, she poured the tea into thetransparent blue-and-white Chinese porcelain cups.
"No milk, no sugar, no cream for me," he said. "Only a slice of thatlemon."
Greville Howard watched Katty take her tea, and eat the bread and butterand the cake--daintily, but with a good appetite. He watched her withthe pleasant sensations that most men felt when watching Katty doanything--the feeling that she was not only very pretty, but veryhealthy too, and agreeable to look upon, a most satisfactory, satisfyingfeminine presence.
After she had finished, he again touched his invisible button, and thetray was taken swiftly and noiselessly away.
* * * * *
"And now," he said, "I am going to tell you _my_ part of this strangestory, and you will see, Mrs. Winslow, that the two parts--yours andmine--fit, and that the vengeance for which I see you crave, is in yourhands. I shall further show you how to arrange so that you need notappear in the matter if Sir Angus Kinross prove kind, as I feel sure hewill be--to you."
Katty clasped her hands together tightly. She felt terribly moved andexcited. Vengeance? What did this wonderful old man mean?
"Dealers in money," began Mr. Greville Howard thoughtfully, "have to runtheir own international police, and that, my dear young lady, isespecially true of the kind of business which built up what I think Imay truly call my fame, as well as my fortune. During something likeforty years I paid a large subsidy each year to the most noted firm ofprivate detectives in the world--a firm, I must tell you, who have theirheadquarters in Paris. Though I no longer pay them this subsidy, formine was a one-man business, I still sometimes have reason to employthem. They throw out their tentacles all over the world, and theirchief, a most intelligent, cultivated man, is by way of being quite agood friend of mine. I always thoroughly enjoy a chat with him when I amgoing through Paris on my way to my villa in the South of France. It isto this man that the credit of what I am about to tell you, the credit,that is, of certain curious discoveries connected with the mystery ofMr. Godfrey Pavely's death, is due."
Greville Howard waited a few moments, and then he spoke again.
"I must begin at the beginning by telling you that when this FernandoApra came to see me, I formed two very distinct opinions. The one, whichis now confirmed by what you have told me, was that the man was not aPortuguese; the other was that he was 'made up.' I felt certain that hishair was dyed, and the skin of his face, neck and hands tinted. He was avery clever fellow, and played his part in a capital manner. But I tookhim for an adventurer, a man of straw, as the French say, and I believedthat Mr. Godfrey Pavely was being taken in by him. Yet there werecertain things about this Apra that puzzled me--that I couldn't makeout. An adventurer very rarely goes to the pains of disguising himselfphysically, for his object is to appear as natural as possible. Therewas yet another reason why the adventurer view seemed false. All thetime we were talking, all the time he was enthusing--if I may use a veryugly modern word--about the prospects of this gambling concession, I hadthe increasing conviction that he was not serious, that he was not _outfor business_--that he had come to see me with some other motive thanthat of wishing me to take an interest in his scheme."
Greville Howard leant forward, and gazed earnestly into his visitor'sface. "I felt this so strongly that the thought did actually flashacross me more than once--'Is this man engaged in establishing analibi?' When I asked him for the name and address of the Frenchreferences to which Mr. Pavely had made an allusion in his letter ofintroduction, I saw that he was rather reluctant to give me the names.Still he did do so at last, the bankers being----"
"Messrs. Zosean & Co.," exclaimed Katt
y. "I have sometimes thought ofgoing to see them."
"You would have had your journey for nothing. As I shall soon show you,they were--they still are--an unconscious link in the chain. To returnto Apra, as we must still call him. So little was I impressed by thispeculiar person that I expected to hear nothing more of him or of hisgambling concern. But one day I received a letter from Mr. GodfreyPavely, telling me that he himself wished to see me with reference tothe same matter. I saw at once that _he_ really did mean business. Hewas very much excited about the prospects of the undertaking."
Mr. Greville Howard paused. He looked attentively at his visitor, butKatty's face told him nothing, and he continued: "I cross-examined himrather carefully about this Fernando Apra, and I discovered that he hadonly seen the fellow twice, each time rather late in the evening, and byartificial light. I then told him of my conviction that Apra was playinga part, but he scouted the idea. Our unfortunate friend was a veryobstinate man, Mrs. Winslow."
"Yes," said Katty in a low voice. "That is quite true."
"And then," went on the other thoughtfully, "Pavely was also exceedinglysusceptible to flattery----"
Katty nodded. This Mr. Greville Howard knew almost too much.
"Well, as you know, he came down again to see me--and the next thing Iheard was that he had disappeared! At once--days before Mrs. Pavelyreceived that very singular letter--I associated Apra with the mystery.It was, however, no business of mine to teach the police their business,though I thought it probable that there would come a moment when Ishould have to intervene, and reveal the little that I knew. That momentcame when Mr. Pavely's body was discovered in Apra's office at DukeHouse."
Greville Howard straightened himself somewhat in his easy chair.
"I at once wrote, as I felt in duty bound, to Sir Angus Kinross. I hadmet him, under rather unfortunate circumstances, some years ago, beforehe became Commissioner of Police. That, doubtless, had given him aprejudice against me. Be that as it may, instead of taking advantage ofmy offer to tell him in confidence all I knew, he sent a most unpleasantperson down to interview me. This man, a pompous, ignorant fellow, cametwice--once before the inquest, once after the inquest. I naturally tooka special pleasure in misleading him, and in keeping to myself what Icould have told. But though I was able to give him the impression Idesired to convey, he was not able to keep anything he knew from _me_;and, at the end of our second interview, he let out that the police hadvery little doubt that two men had been concerned in the actualmurder--for murder the police by then believed it to be--of Mr. GodfreyPavely."
Greville Howard stopped speaking for a moment.
"Two men?" repeated Katty in a bewildered tone.
And the other nodded, coolly. "Yes, that is the opinion they formed,very early in the day, at Scotland Yard. They also made up their mindsthat it would be one of those numerous murders of which the perpetratorsare never discovered. And, but for you and me, Mrs. Winslow, the veryclever perpetrators of this wonderfully well planned murder would haveescaped scot-free."
He touched his invisible bell, and his man answered it.
"Make up the fire," he said, "--a good lasting fire."
When this had been done, he again turned to Katty. "We now," he said,"come to the _really_ exciting part of my story. Up to now, I think Ihave told you nothing that you did not know."
"I had no idea," said Katty in a low, tense voice, "that the policebelieved there were _two_ people concerned with Godfrey's death."
She was trying, desperately, to put the puzzle together--and failing.
"I crossed to France last March," went on Greville Howard musingly,"and, inspired I must confess by a mere feeling of idle curiosity, Istopped in Paris two days in order to see, first, Messrs. Zosean, andsecondly Henri Lutin, the head of the Detective Agency with whom, as Itold you just now, I have long been in such cordial relations. I calledfirst on Henri Lutin and reminded him of the story of Mr. Pavely'sdisappearance, and of the subsequent finding of his body in thisFernando Apra's office. I also informed him that I would go up to acertain modest sum in pursuit of independent enquiries if he wouldundertake to make them. He consented, and as a preliminary, gave me someinformation with regard to Messrs. Zosean. Provided with a goodintroduction I called on these bankers, and this is what I learnt.Messrs. Zosean, with that curious incuriousness which is so very French,scarcely knew anything of what had happened, though they were vaguelyaware that a man had been found killed by accident in their mysteriousclient's office, for Fernando Apra was their client, but only--notethis, for it is important--a client of a few weeks' standing. He hadpaid in to their bank, some two months before Mr. Pavely's death, thevery considerable sum of one million francs, forty thousand pounds, ondeposit. One of the junior partners saw him--only once, late in theafternoon."
Greville Howard waited a long moment--then he added impressively: "_Andthe man whom they to this day believe to be Fernando Apra bore nophysical resemblance at all to the man who visited me here under thatname_. In fact, the description given by the bankers exactly tallieswith that of another man--of a man whom _you_ described to me about anhour ago."
"I don't quite understand," faltered Katty.
"Don't you? Think a little, Mrs. Winslow, and you will agree with methat the real client of Messrs. Zosean was Oliver Tropenell, the manwhom you believe to be the lover and future husband of Mrs. Pavely."
Katty uttered an inarticulate exclamation--was it of surprise or ofsatisfaction? Her host took no notice of it, and continued hisnarrative:
"One day--I soon found it to have been the day following that on whichthe murder of Mr. Pavely was presumably committed--a man who, I feelsure, was _my_ Fernando Apra, turned up at Messrs. Zosean with a cheque,the fact that he was coming having been notified to the bank from Londonby telephone. He drew out the greater part of the money lodged in thename of Apra in Messrs. Zosean's bank--not all, mark you, for some eightthousand pounds was left in, and that eight thousand pounds, Mrs.Winslow, is still there, undisturbed. I doubt myself if it will ever beclaimed!
"I then, following the plan laid down for me by Henri Lutin, askedMessrs. Zosean at what hotel Fernando Apra had stayed. I was given twoaddresses. These addresses I handed on to my friend the secret enquiryagent, and the rest of the story belongs to him, for it was Lutin whodiscovered all that I am now going to tell you."
Greville Howard stopped speaking. He looked thoughtfully at the womanwho sat ensconced in the low arm-chair opposite him.
He felt rather as a man may be supposed to feel who is about to put alight to a fuse which will in due course blow up a powder magazine.There even came over his subtle, tortuous mind a thrill of pity for theman whom he was about to sacrifice to this pretty woman's desire forvengeance and--as he could not help seeing--jealous hatred of anotherwoman who might, for all he knew, be in every way more worthy of hisinterest, even of his admiration, than she who sat there looking at himwith gleaming eyes and parted lips.
But Greville Howard, like all his kind, was a fatalist as well assomething of a philosopher. He could not have lived the life he had led,and done the work which had built up his great fortune, had he beenanything else, and Katty had come at a very fortunate psychologicalmoment for him--as well as for herself. Greville Howard was becomingwhat he had rarely ever been--bored; he was longing consciously for afresh interest and for a new companionship in his life. And so:
"Perhaps you will be disappointed at the meagreness of what I am aboutto tell you, but you may believe me when I say that it is informationwhich will make the way of Sir Angus Kinross quite clear, and which maybring one, if not two, men to the gallows."
Katty gave a little involuntary gasp. But he went on:
"It did not take my friend Lutin very long to discover that a man of thename of Apra had stayed at each of the hotels indicated to me by thebankers. He also discovered that 'Apra' had with him a friend namedDickinson who put down his birthplace as New York. Do you follow me,Mrs. Winslow?"
"Yes, I think
so," she replied hesitatingly.
"At the first hotel, a small, comfortable, rather expensive house inthe Madeleine quarter, Fernando Apra was a tall, dark, good-looking man,and the other, the New Yorker, was fair and short. Though on the best ofterms they lived very different lives. The American was out a greatdeal; he thoroughly enjoyed the gay, lively sides of Paris life.Fernando Apra on the other hand stayed indoors, reading and writing agood deal. At last the two men left the hotel, giving out that they weregoing to spend the winter in the South of France. But they only stayed afew days at Lyons and, doubling back to Paris, they settled in the LatinQuarter on the other side of the river.
"By that time, my dear Mrs. Winslow, _they had exchanged identities_.The tall, dark man was now Dickinson, and his fair friend had becomeApra! It was Apra who one day told the manager he was going to a fancydress ball and asked him to recommend him a good theatrical costumier.When Lutin ran that costumier to earth, the man at once remembered thefact that a client he took to be an Englishman had come and had hadhimself made up as a Mexican, purchasing also two bottles ofolive-coloured skin stain. Now Apra was out all night after thisextraordinary transformation in his appearance had taken place, but oneof the waiters at the hotel recognised him that same evening at Mabille.When the man spoke to him, he appeared taken aback, and explained thathe had made a mistake in the day of the fancy dress ball. The nextmorning he left the hotel, distributing lavish tips to everybody. ButDickinson stayed on for a few days, and during those days he receivedeach day a telegram from England. One of these telegrams is actually inmy possession."
Katty's host got up. He went across to a narrow, upright piece of inlaidmahogany furniture, and unlocking a drawer, took from it an envelope.Having opened it, he handed Katty a blue strip of paper on which wereprinted the words: "Concession going well" and the signature "G."
Katty stared down at the bit of blue paper, and she flushed. Even sherealised the significance of that "G."
"I think," said her host quietly, "that if you write down from mydictation certain notes, and hand them, _together with this telegram_,to the Commissioner of Police, he may be trusted to do the rest."