associated with in the old days; luckily he didn'tdrag me in far enough. He was an expert forger. We used to call him`George the Penman.'"
Mrs Masters shuddered. "Oh, you poor weak soul, you were so near it asthat?"
"Very near, Carrie. The shock of the false accusation of murder pulledme up straight. I saw where I was drifting, and made up my mind thatthe straight path was the surest." At the moment that Mr Davis gaveutterance to this honourable sentiment there was a ring at the bell.
Mrs Masters rose at once. "It is Iris. I dropped her a note to sayyou were coming. She will be so pleased to see you."
There floated into the small sitting-room a very dainty and etherealfigure, Miss Iris Deane, a charming member of the chorus at theFrivolity Theatre.
She flung her arms round the neck of her handsome brother. "Oh Reggie,dear, what a treat to see you! And all this dreadful thing is liftedfrom you."
Iris was not his favourite sister. She was clever in a worldly way, andhad made good. But she had not the sterling loyalty of Caroline.
Davis gently checked her enthusiasm. "And how have you been getting on,Iris? Always floating on the top as usual?"
Miss Iris showed her dimples. "Always floating on the top, as you say,dear old boy. A silly, soft chap fell in love with me; wrote mostimpassioned love-letters. Well, he was too soppy for me to care muchabout him, and when his rich brother came along, offering me a price forhis love-letters, I can tell you I just jumped at the chance."
"Did you get a good price?" queried her brother.
"I stuck out for ten thousand," explained the capable Iris; "but thischap was a good bargainer, and I let them go at seven. It was better onthe whole. If I had married Roddie, I should have been so fed-up in amonth that I should have run away from him, and then Heaven knows whereI might have ended."
Davis looked at his sister approvingly. There was enough of the oldAdam left in him to entertain a slight envy of his sister's chances.Seven thousand pounds, a little fortune in itself, was a good bit ofwork, a handsome reward for the display of her dimples.
"Roddie who, dear? You might tell us his other name," queried MrsMasters, who perhaps was also smitten with a sense of envy.
"That's telling," answered the sprightly Iris, who was not given to betoo frank about her own affairs. "But if either of you two dear thingswant a little ready, apply to me. Of course, you will remember I havegot to take care of myself, to make provision for my old age."
Davis and Carrie exchanged glances. They knew the volatile Iris of old.As a child she had always been mean and grasping. Not much of theseven thousand would come their way, if they were on the verge ofstarvation.
Carrie spoke in cold accents. "You are really too generous, Iris. Butwe shall not have to trespass upon your generosity. I have enough formy humble wants. And Reggie has been able to put by, so much so that hehas been kind enough to make me a very handsome money present to-night."
"Dear old Reggie," said the sweetly smiling Iris. "I am so glad youhave made good."
And then Davis spoke: "Thanks, in great part, to Carrie, who told thatsplendid lie about the suicide, or murder, at 10 Cathcart Square. Youremember that, of course?"
"Suicide, wasn't it?" said Iris, but her cheek had grown a little pale.
"I don't think so. There was a forged letter purporting to be writtenby me. I am going to Scotland Yard to-morrow, stating frankly who I am,and urging them to exhume the body. We will find out who the man,buried under the name of Reginald Davis, really was."
And then the agitation of his younger sister became extreme. Sheclutched convulsively at his arm.
"Reggie, you will not do this. What does it matter to you who the manwas? Go under some other name, and let sleeping dogs lie."Unconsciously she had used the same expression as Mrs Masters, but fromdifferent motives.
"I have been under a different name for a longer time than I care toremember," answered Davis doggedly. "I have a fancy to resume my own,and make a clean breast of it to the police. They have nothing else tocharge me with."
Iris fell on her knees, and the tears rained down her cheeks.
"For my sake, Reggie, if not for your own."
"And why for your sake? Tell us what you mean," demanded her brothersternly.
And Iris spoke as clearly as she could speak amidst her strangled sobs.
"If you try and unearth that mystery at Cathcart Square, I might bedragged in, and it might be very awkward for me."
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
Davis directed a keen glance at his elder sister over the bowed head ofIris. The younger woman was by no means of an emotional nature. Light,frivolous and volatile, she had danced through life, and, on the whole,had had a good time. One could not picture her in a tragic mood.
And yet, she was the personification of deep emotion now. She couldhardly speak for those convulsive sobs, and in her frightened eyes therewas a deep and haunting terror. At what point, and through whatcircumstances, had tragedy touched this little selfish, self-centredbutterfly, gifted with a certain amount of cunning and sharpness, bututterly brainless.
"What do you know of Number 10 Cathcart Square, except what you gleanedfrom the newspapers?" demanded her brother sternly. "How can you beimplicated in the murder of the unknown man whom Carrie mistook for me?"
"But Carrie did not mistake him for you," wailed Iris. "She told meafterwards that the idea suggested itself in a flash, and when she readthe newspaper she was not sure whether it was you who had crept inthere, according to the evidence, and made away with yourself, throughfear of the police."
"Leave Carrie out of it for the moment," said Davis. "Whatever she didwas well thought out. Of course, we both know her object was toidentify me, if possible, and put Scotland Yard off the scent. What wewant to know is, how did you come to be acquainted with the house? Whatdo you mean by saying that, if further investigations are made, youmight be dragged in?"
"I was there on four occasions: on the last a few days before themurder, or suicide, whatever it was."
Davis gasped, and Carrie lifted her hands in horror. What did thisconfession mean? It was impossible that this slim, weak girl hadherself been the murderess, could have killed a big, powerful man of thesame build as the supposed Davis, with those slim, weak hands.
She saw the horror in their faces, and hastened to reassure them. "Ohno, not that, I swear to you. I am no more a murderess than you were amurderer, Reggie. But if the whole thing is raked up, and the man whomI believe it to be, accurately identified this time, things might lookvery black for me."
Davis lifted her from her kneeling position, and placed her in aneasy-chair. "Calm yourself, and tell us the whole story of why and howyou came to be in Cathcart Square at all."
Iris waited a few moments till the convulsive sobbing ceased. She spokewith little occasional gasps, but it was very evident it was a relief tounbosom herself.
"It is a very long story," she began tremulously.
"If the telling of it lasts till midnight, we must have it," said herbrother in an inflexible voice.
And compelled by his resolute manner, the girl, whom they had alwaysregarded as a frivolous butterfly, embarked upon her strange andthrilling narrative.
"It all arose out of the sale of those letters I spoke to you about.Carrie just now asked me the name of the man who wrote them. Well, Ididn't get further than Roddie, which doesn't carry you very far. If ithad not been for your threat of going to Scotland Yard, I should havestopped at that. A still tongue makes a wise head, you know."
They could quite believe that. In spite of her ceaseless chatter, Irishad always been very reticent about her own affairs. She had seen nextto nothing of her brother for a few years, not very much of CarrieMasters. And, on these occasions, she had always avoided, in a markedmanner, any allusion to her private affairs.
"I told you of a soppy young chap who started to make love to me lastyear. I didn't care a snap for him, but he was v
ery persistent, and atlast wrote me most urgent letters imploring me to be his wife. His fullname was Roderick Murchison, a member of the great brewing family; hisfather has been dead for some time, he died during the War, and Roddiecame in for tons of money, although he was not the eldest son. I don'tknow if you have ever heard of him?"
No, neither Davis nor Carrie had known of the existence of such a youngman. They had a hazy idea that there was a big brewing firm of thatname, that was all.
"Well, as I say, I didn't care a snap for him, although he was awfullygood and generous, overwhelmed me with, all kinds of lovely presents:rings, bracelets, fur coats, etc. In our life, you know, one acceptsthese things from the mugs who are gone on us without attaching verymuch importance to the