The House 'Round the Corner Part 36

It would serve no good purpose to set forth in detail the manner in which Mr. and Mrs. Ogilvey cleared up the mystery on the one hand, and became mystified themselves on the other. Few parents can rear a charming daughter to womanhood without experiencing the surprise, almost the dismay, of finding that she has given her heart to a man of whom they know little. In this instance, a devoted father and an equally devoted mother could only listen in bewilderment when the girl, who was still a child in their eyes, introduced "Robert Armathwaite" as her promised husband, while their astonished eyes were only paralleled by Meg's own when the tall, grave-looking stranger proceeded to explain that he was not Robert Armathwaite, but Sir Robert Dalrymple, K.C.S.I.

Marguerite, at first, believed he was joking. When he a.s.sured her he was even more serious than usual, she relieved the situation by making an elaborate curtsey to her own reflection in an old-fas.h.i.+oned mirror in the drawing-room.

"Lady Dalrymple!" she cried. "Presented at court by her humble self! Sir Robert Dalrymple, K.C.S.I.! Lady Dalrymple, K.I.S.S.!"

Whereupon, she proceeded to invest each of them with her own order.

When the bench, the bar, the police, and the press were duly represented that afternoon, Mr. Stephen Ogilvey spoke fully and frankly. His wife and daughter were present, and, if Mrs. Ogilvey wept a little during the recital, it was only natural.

For she alone knew what this gentle-voiced, white-haired man had endured during those June days two years ago.

Even the tender-hearted Marguerite could never realize the exquisite torture which her father had suffered voluntarily. Perhaps the presence of her lover, combined with the reaction of the discovery that her father had committed no actual crime, rendered her temporarily incapable of appreciating the motives which accounted for his actions.

Be that as it may, this is his story:

"To make clear the reason which led me to deceive my friends in Elmdale in such an extraordinary way, I must go back twenty-four years in my life. I was then thirty-five years of age, and Professor of Philology in a recently-formed University in the Midlands. I was married, but, as some of you know, my first and only child was not born until the events happened which drove me into retirement, and led my dear wife and myself to seek the peace and seclusion of Elmdale."

It is not to be wondered at if Dalrymple and Marguerite exchanged smiling glances at those words; but the Professor's strange narrative should not be interrupted by lovers' confidences.

"I am a man of highly sensitive nature," he went on, "and my mind almost gave way under the shock when my brother James, somewhat older than myself, who occupied a prominent position in Birmingham as manager of an important private bank, was reported missing from his office under circ.u.mstances which pointed to a serious and systematic embezzlement of the bank's funds. Day by day the scandal enlarged its bounds. The bank closed its doors; hundreds of people were ruined; there were several cases of suicide among the robbed depositors; and, at last, my brother, James Ogilvey, was arrested in France, owing to a chance meeting with a man who knew him. He was brought to trial, sentenced to a long term of penal servitude, and pa.s.sed into seeming oblivion accompanied by the curses of thousands. My wife and I literally could not hold up our heads among our friends in the Midlands, and, as we were not wholly dependent on my earnings, we resolved to change our name and start life anew. At that crisis, my mother died. Undoubtedly her death was hastened by my brother's wrong-doing, and it is probable that she destroyed a will already in existence, meaning to make another, but was stricken down by apoplexy before she could carry out her intention. At any rate, no will was found, so her property became intestate. This house and ground belonged to her, but she was unknown locally, as she left Elmdale more than half a century ago, so, after settling some legal matters, my wife and I determined to live here, and adopt my wife's maiden name. There was no great difficulty. I still continued to do my work, which was mainly of a specialist nature, under my own name, but in Elmdale I was always 'Stephen Garth,' and the catastrophe in the Midlands soon pa.s.sed into the mists when our child was born.

"We reasoned that by the time she grew to womanhood, the memory of James Ogilvey's crime would have died away. At any rate, there was nothing to be gained by letting her know that such a person had ever existed, and you can take it from me that she was ignorant of the fact until a late hour yesterday. Some eight years ago, my unfortunate brother was released. I met him in London, supplied him with ample funds, and sent him to the Colonies, taking good care that he should know neither my altered name nor my address. I heard no more of him until the beginning of June, two years since, when he wrote to me as 'Stephen Garth,' said he was coming to live in my house, being tired of a roving life, and threatened to take lodgings in the village if I did not receive him.

Now, my wife and I were determined that he should never cross our daughter's path if we could help it, so a journey to France was resolved on hastily and the two took their departure. For my own part, I decided to await my brother's coming, and try to reason with him. If he proved obdurate, I meant to join my wife and daughter abroad, and, to that end, as Mr. Dobb is aware, I made over all my property to my wife in trust for my daughter. This step was necessary, I believe, to save them from persecution at my brother's hands, because he had hinted at some grievance with regard to the disposition of my mother's estate, a grievance quite unfounded, since I had dealt with him most generously on his release from prison. In order to conceal his presence from the villagers until I had tried every argument to prevail on him to leave me and my family in peace, I arranged to meet him at Leyburn, and drive to the edge of the moor. I brought him to the house without anyone being the wiser, but I soon found I was a child in his hands. He played on my fear of publicity by agreeing to lie _perdu_ if I would supply him with drink. I bore with the infliction for some days until, driven to despair, I refused to purchase any more alcohol. There was a furious scene between us, and he threatened not merely exposure, but legal proceedings to force me to 'disgorge,' as he put it, his share of the property left by our mother, whose maiden name, by the way, Faulkner, is well known here. I realize now that James was in a state verging on dementia, but I may sum up a distressing period of four days and nights of suffering by saying that, in a final paroxysm of rage, he was seized with apoplexy, and died almost instantaneously.

"Though convinced that he was dead, I hoped against hope for some hours.

Then _rigor mortis_ set in, and I knew that the only man who had ever inflicted an injury on my good name had struck his last and shrewdest blow by dying in my house. I want you to consider the position I was in.

A man, a stranger, was lying there dead, in circ.u.mstances that demanded an inquest. I had not called for a doctor, or obtained any a.s.sistance locally. I had sent my wife and daughter to a foreign country, obviously to get them out of the way. A _post-mortem_ examination would show that death had taken place nearly a day before I made any stir. If I destroyed certain doc.u.ments in my brother's possession--such, for instance, as a ticket of leave, which he had retained long after its expiry for the mere purpose, I firmly believe, of bringing pressure to bear on me--there would be nothing to show his ident.i.ty. In a word, there was a _prima facie_ case of murder ready to be established against me. Of course, the medical evidence would go to prove my innocence, but all the world--all of my small world, at any rate--would gape and gossip because of the scandal which my wife and I had given more than twenty years of our life to escape. For the sake of my wife and daughter I resolved upon a daring expedient. The 'Ogilvey fraud' of a previous generation was forgotten. Why should I not resume my own name, and let my brother die and be buried as Stephen Garth? I saw that my own behavior during the past week would help the a.s.sumption that I had committed suicide, while a rather marked resemblance between my brother and myself, together with the fact that he had died from apoplexy, would complete the illusion. Moreover, there exists, in connection with this very house, a curious legend which condemned seven generations of its owners to die by violence, either self-inflicted, or caused by others.

James Ogilvey's death was the seventh, and I trusted to this alleged prophecy of a Spanish priest put to death by a sea-rover named Faulkner in the seventeenth century being sufficiently well known in connection with a shadow, or manifestation, cast on the wall by a stained-gla.s.s window in the staircase.

"At any rate, I steeled my heart to a dreadful undertaking, dressed my brother in my own clothes, tied his body to a hook in the hall where the shadow I have spoken of is seen at this time of the year, and stole away across the moor after writing a letter to the coroner.

"Gentlemen, I believe I have broken the law in some respects, and I am prepared to suffer for my misdeeds. Perhaps, a long and blameless and not wholly useless life may plead for me now. I acted as I did because of a certain pride in my work, and because of my love for a dear wife and daughter. I dreamed that the dead past had indeed buried its dead but, by a most unusual combination of simple circ.u.mstances, the whole strange story has been brought to light. I have nothing more to say. Now that a long ordeal of silence is ended, I am happier to-day than I ever thought to be again in my existence. I can produce a certain number of doc.u.ments to prove what I may term the historical part of my confession.

The really vital part of it--the manner of my brother's death--can receive no other testimony than my own, eked out by such statement as my friend, Dr. Scaife, may find himself able to make after hearing my version of the tragedy."

Marguerite ran to her father and threw her arms around his neck.

"If they take you before a judge, dad," she cried, "let me go into court and tell them that I was the cause of all the trouble. Then he will warn me not to be such a bad little girl, and sympathize with you so greatly that he will say you leave the court without a stain on your character."

As a matter of fact, owing to the att.i.tude of the authorities and with the active a.s.sistance of Banks in the columns of the _Nuttonby Gazette_, the official inquiry into the affair attracted very little notice. A ten-line paragraph explained that it was Mr. James Ogilvey who died, and not Mr. Stephen Garth, and a special faculty was obtained to correct the announcement on the stone in Bellerby churchyard. Naturally, the people in Elmdale and the neighborhood had a pretty fair knowledge of the truth, but everyone was so pleased to see the "professor" and his wife again that the thing was hushed up with remarkable ease. Even Percy Whittaker held his tongue.

Village gossip has it that Storr, the chauffeur, is badly smitten by Betty Jackson's charms. The girl's mother clinched matters by grumbling that "sen Betty's gotten a young man there's no doin' owt wi' her." And Begonia Smith turned the garden into a fairy-land that summer.

The Black Prince received his new and most impressive set of features before a certain noteworthy marriage took place, and beamed a courtly approval on the bride when she descended the stairs in her wedding dress. In fact, the Elmdale tragedy received its quietus when James Walker, senior, and James Walker, junior, watched Sir Robert and Lady Dalrymple drive past their office _en route_ to Paris and the Continent.

Said the father:

"Little things often lead to the most surprising events. Who'd ha'

thought, Jimmie, when we let the 'House 'Round the Corner' to a stranger named Robert Armathwaite, that we were indirectly bringing about the marriage of Meg Garth to Sir Robert Dalrymple?"

"Well, I didn't, for one!" said the son gloomily.

THE END