The Adventures of Jimmie Dale Part 56

She paused again--but only for an instant, as though to frame her thoughts in words.

"I have told you that I had never seen my uncle, that even my father had not seen him for twenty years; and I have told you that the man you know as Henry LaSalle is an impostor--I am using the word 'uncle' now when I refer to him simply to avoid confusion. You are, perhaps, expecting me to say that I took a distinctive dislike to him from the moment he arrived? On the contrary, I had every reason to be predisposed toward him; and, indeed, was rather agreeably surprised than otherwise--he was not nearly so uncouth and unpolished as, somehow, I had pictured his life would have made him. Do you understand, Jimmie? He was kind, sympathetic; and, in an apathetic way, I liked him. I say 'apathetic'

because I think that best describes my own att.i.tude toward every one and everything following father's death until--THAT NIGHT."

She rose abruptly from her chair, as though a pa.s.sive position of any kind had suddenly become intolerable.

"Why tell you what my father and I were to each other!" she cried out in a low, pa.s.sionate voice. "It seemed as though everything that meant anything had gone out of my life. I became worn out, nervous; and though the days were bad enough, the nights were a source of dread. I began to suffer from insomnia--I could not sleep. This was even before my supposed uncle came. I used to read for hours and hours in my room after I had gone to bed. But"--she flung out her hand with an impatient gesture--"there is no need to dwell on that. One night, about a week after that man had arrived, and a little over a month after father had died, I was in my room and had finished a book I was reading. I remember that it was well after midnight. I had not the slightest inclination to sleep. I picked up another book--and after that another. There were plenty in my room; but, irrationally, of course, none pleased me. I decided to go down to the library--not that I think I really expected to find anything that I actually wanted, but more because it was an impulse, and furnished me for the moment with some definite objective, something to do. I got up, slipped on a dressing gown, and went downstairs. The lights were all out. I was just on the point of switching on those in the reception hall, when suddenly it seemed as though I had not strength to lift my hand, and I remember that for an instant I grew terribly cold with dread and fear. From the room on my right a voice had reached me. The door was closed, but the voice was raised in an outburst of profanity. I--I could hear every word.

"'If she's out of the way, there's no come-back,' the voice snarled. 'I won't listen to anything else! Do you hear! Why, you fool, what are you trying to do--hand me one! Turn everything into cash, and divvy, and beat it--eh? And I'm the goat, and I get caught and get twenty years for stealing trust funds--and the rest of you get the coin!' He swore terribly again. 'Who's taken the risk in this for the last five years!

There'll be no smart Aleck lawyer tricks--there'll be no halfway measures! And who are you to dictate! She goes out--that's safe--I inherit as next of kin, with no one to dispute it, and that's all there is to it!'

"I stood there and could not move. It was the voice of the man I knew as my uncle! My heart seemed to have stopped beating. I tried to tell myself that I was dreaming, that it was too horrible, too incredible to be real; that they could not really mean to--to MURDER me. And then I recognised Hilton Travers' voice.

"'I am not dictating, and you are not serious, of course,' he said, with what seemed an uneasy laugh. 'I am only warning you that you are forgetting to take the real Henry LaSalle into account. He is bound to hear of this eventually, and then--'

"Another voice broke in--one I did not recognise.

"'You're talking too loud, both of you! Travers doesn't understand, but he's to be wised up to-night, according to orders, and--'

"The voice became inaudible, m.u.f.fled--I could not hear any more. I suppose I remained there another three or four minutes, too stunned to know what to do; and then I ran softly along the hall to the library door. The library, you understand, was at the rear of the room they were in, and the two rooms were really one; that is, there was only an archway between them. I cannot tell you what my emotions were--I do not know. I only know that I kept repeating to myself, 'they are going to kill me, they are going to kill me!' and that it seemed I must try and find out everything, everything I could."

She turned away from the table, and began to pace nervously up and down the miserable room.

Jimmie Dale rose impulsively from his chair--but she waved him back again.

"No; wait!" she said. "Let me finish. I crept into the library. It took me a long time, because I had to be so careful not to make the slightest noise. I suppose it was fully six or seven minutes from the time I had first heard my supposed uncle's voice until I had crept far enough forward to be able to see into the room beyond. There were three men there. The man I knew as my uncle was sitting at one end of the table; another had his back toward me; and Travers was facing in my direction--and I think I never saw so ghastly a face as was Hilton Travers' then. He was standing up, sort of swaying, as he leaned with both hands on the table.

"'Now then, Travers,' the man whose back was turned to me was saying threateningly, 'you've got the story now--sign those papers!'

"It seemed as though Travers could not speak for a moment. He kept looking wildly from one to the other. He was white to the lips.

"'You've let me in for--THIS!' he said hoa.r.s.ely, at last, 'You devils--you devils--you devils! You've let me in for--murder! Both of them! Both Peter and his brother--MURDERED!'"

She stopped abruptly before Jimmie Dale, and clutched his arm tightly.

"Jimmie, I don't know why I did not scream out. Everything went black for a moment before my eyes. It was the first suspicion I had had that my father had met with foul play, and I--"

But now Jimmie Dale swayed up from his chair.

"Murdered!" he exclaimed tensely. "Your father! But--but I remember perfectly, there was no hint of any such thing at the time, and never has been since. He died from quite natural causes."

She looked at him strangely.

"He died from--inoculation," she said. "Did--did you not see something of that laboratory in the Crime Club yourself the night before last--enough to understand?"

"Good G.o.d!" muttered Jimmie Dale, in a startled way then: "Go on! Go on!

What happened then?"

She pa.s.sed her hand a little wearily across her eyes--and sank down into her chair again.

"Travers," she continued, picking up the thread of her story, "had raised his voice, and the third man at the table leaned suddenly, aggressively toward him.

"'Hold your tongue!' he growled furiously. 'All you're asked to do is sign the papers--not talk!'

"Travers shook his head.

"'I won't!' he cried out. 'I won't have any hand in another murder--in hers! My G.o.d, I won't--I won't, I tell you! It's horrible!'

"'Look here, you fool!' the man who was posing as my uncle broke in then. 'You're in this too deep to get out now. If you know what's good for you, you'll do as you're told!'

"Jimmie, I shall never forget Travers' face. It seemed to have changed from white to gray, and there was horror in his eyes: and then he seemed to lose all control of himself, shaking his fists in their faces, cursing them in utter abandon.

"'I'm bad!' he cried. 'I've gone everything, everything but the limit--everything but murder. I stop there! I'll have no more to do with this. I'm through! You--you pulled me into this, and--and I didn't know!'

"'Well, you know now!' the third man sneered. 'What are you going to do about it?'

"'I'm going to see that no harm comes to Marie LaSalle,' Travers answered in a dull way.

"The other man now was on his feet--and, I do not know quite how to express it, Jimmie, he seemed ominously quiet in both his voice and his movements.

"'You'd better think that over again, Travers!' he said. 'Do you mean it?'

"'I mean it,' Travers said. 'I mean it--G.o.d help me!'

"'You may well add that!' returned the other, with an ugly laugh. He reached out his hand toward the telephone on the table. 'Do you know what will happen to you if I telephone a certain number and say that you have turned--traitor?'

"'I'll have to take my chances,' Travers replied doggedly. 'I'm through!'

"'Take them, then!' flung out the other. 'You'll have little time given you to do us any harm?'

"Travers did not answer. I think he almost expected an attack upon him then from the two men. He hesitated a moment, then backed slowly toward the door. What happened in the next few moments in that room, I do not know. I stole out of the library. I was obsessed with the thought that I must see Travers, see him at all costs, before he got away from the house. I reached the end of the hall as the room door opened, and he came out. It was dark, as I said, and I could not see distinctly, but I could make out his form. He closed the door behind him--and then I called his name in a whisper. He took a quick step toward me, then turned and hurried toward the front door, and I thought he was going away--but the next instant I understood his ruse. He opened the front door, shut it again quite loudly, and crept back to me.

"'Take me somewhere where we will be safe--quick!' he whispered.

"There was only one place where I was sure we would be safe. I led him to the rear of the house and up the servants' stairs, and to my boudoir."

She broke off abruptly, and once more rose from her chair, and once more began to pace the room. Back in his chair, Jimmie Dale, tense and motionless now, watched her without a word.

"It would take too long to tell you all that pa.s.sed between us," she went on hurriedly. "The man was frankly a criminal--but not to the extent of murder. And in that respect, at least, he was honest with himself. Almost the first words he said to me were: 'Miss LaSalle, I am as good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those two men downstairs.' And then he began to plead with me to make my own escape.

He did not know who the man was that was posing as my uncle, had never seen him before until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle; the other man he knew as Clarke, but knew also that 'Clarke' was merely an a.s.sumed name. He had fallen in with Clarke almost from the time that he had begun to practise his profession, and at Clarke's instigation had gone from one crooked deal to another, and had made a great deal of money. He knew that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous band of criminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he himself was, in a sense--a probationary sense, as he put it--a member; but he had never come into direct contact with them--he had received all his orders and instructions through Clarke. He had been told by Clarke that he was to cultivate father following the introduction, to win father's confidence, to get as many of father's affairs into his hands as possible, to reach the position, in fact, of becoming father's recognised attorney--and all this with the object, as he supposed of embezzling from father on a large scale. Then father died, and Travers was instructed to cable my uncle. He knew that the man who answered that summons was an impostor; but he did not know, until they had admitted it to him that night, that both my father and my uncle had been murdered, and that I, too, was to be made away with."

She looked at Jimmie Dale, and suddenly laughed out bitterly.

"No; you don't understand, even yet, the patient, ingenious deviltry of those fiends. It was they, at the time the new will was drawn, who offered to buy out my real uncle's sheep ranch in that lonely, unsettled district in Australia, and offered him that new position in New Zealand.

My uncle never reached New Zealand. He was murdered on his way there.

And in his place, a.s.suming his name, appeared the man who has been posing as my uncle ever since. Do you begin to see! For five years they were patiently working out their plans, for five years before my father's death that man lived and became known and accepted, and ESTABLISHED himself as Henry LaSalle. Do you see now why he cabled us to postpone our visit? He ran very little risk. The chances were one in a thousand that any of his few acquaintances in Australia would ever run across him in New Zealand; and besides, he was chosen because it seems there was a slight resemblance between him and the real Henry LaSalle--enough, with his changed mode of living and more elaborate and pretentious surroundings, to have enabled him to carry through a bluff had it become necessary. He had all of my uncle's papers; and the Crime Club furnished him with every detail of our lives here. I forgot to say, too, that from the moment my uncle was supposed to have reached New Zealand all his letters were typewritten--an evidence in father's eyes that his brother had secured a position of some importance; as, indeed, from apparently unprejudiced sources, they took pains to a.s.sure father was a fact. This left them with only my uncle's signature to forge to the letters--not a difficult matter for them!

"Believing that they had Travers so deeply implicated that he could do nothing, even if he had the inclination, which they had not for a moment imagined, and arrogant in the belief in their own power to put him out of the way in any case if he proved refractory, they admitted all this to him that night when he brought up the issue of the real Henry LaSalle putting in an appearance sooner or later, and when they wanted him to smooth their path by releasing all doc.u.ments where his power of attorney was involved. Do you see now the part they gave Travers to play? It was to put the stamp of genuineness upon the false Henry LaSalle. Not but that they were prepared with what would appear to be overwhelmingly convincing evidence to prove it if it were necessary; but if the man were accepted by the estate's lawyer there was little chance of any one else questioning his ident.i.ty."