A Queen's Error Part 30

Under the circ.u.mstances I felt fully justified in giving it to him.

"Now, Anstruther," he said cheerfully, "I will get you to show me and Mr. Fowler the secret of the panel."

The broken gla.s.s had been already cleared from the frame over the mantelpiece; therefore, as soon as I touched the carved rose on the left-hand side, the framework moved up. I touched the spring beneath and the door in the wall flew open; there within was the steel safe, exactly as I had seen it last, Don Juan turned to me with a look of solicitude.

"Don't feel offended, Anstruther," he began, "at what I was going to say, but it is essential that I should open this safe in the presence of Mr. Fowler alone."

As he took the key from my hands and inserted it in the lock, I bowed and left them.

For half an hour I paced the pa.s.sage without or wandered through the back door into the neglected garden, which I found ab.u.t.ted on a disused graveyard--a very common object, met with often in startlingly unlikely places in one's walks in Bath.

It was on my return from one of these little rambles that I found the door of the old lady's sitting-room open, and Don Juan and Mr. Fowler superintending the removal of the safe by two porters; a third gentleman had now joined the party.

"This is Mr. Symonds of the Bank of England," said the old Don ceremoniously. "He has very kindly undertaken the removal of this safe to London."

I was getting now so used to the Don's mysterious movements that even this did not surprise me. I noticed, however, that the safe had been very carefully _sealed_ in addition to being locked. The safe was carried up to the street and placed on the front seat of a large motor car which was waiting.

In this the representative of the Bank of England quickly entered, and two very unmistakable detectives who had been standing by mounted on the front seat, then the motor puffed away.

"They won't stop now," remarked Mr. Fowler, "until they reach Threadneedle Street."

Within a quarter of an hour Don Juan and I were back in his private room at the hotel.

"Thank G.o.d!" he exclaimed as we entered, "my mind is now cleared from that terrible anxiety, and I can rest in peace."

I looked very hard at the old gentleman as he sank into an arm-chair, but I did not agree with him.

"Excuse me, Don Juan," I said, "I have another very serious matter to trouble you with."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OLD GRAVEYARD

"What do you mean?" asked Don Juan.

The old man glanced at me quickly, an anxious look in his eyes.

I looked him straight in the face in return.

"Don Juan," I replied, "Dolores and I love one another."

The anxious look faded into one of softness, and he commenced walking backwards and forwards in the room, without answering me.

Presently he stopped and faced me again, and in his old eyes, which were blue like his daughter's, there were tears.

"I will not conceal from you, Anstruther," he began, "the fact that your affection for Dolores has been apparent to me for some time past, and has given me cause for much thought. Not that I have distrusted you, remember," he added with a kind glance.

"I am not often deceived in a man, and I think I could trust my child to you." I gave a great gasp of pleasure, but he added immediately, "under certain circ.u.mstances."

"And those circ.u.mstances?" I asked anxiously.

"First," he began as he sank into an arm-chair, "you are of different religions; you are not a Catholic, I understand."

I answered him smiling.

"I don't think we shall disagree over that," I replied, "Dolores and her children shall wors.h.i.+p the Almighty as she wishes. My religion is that of a man of the world, I wors.h.i.+p with all."

The old man nodded his grey head and smiled.

"I did not expect you to be very bigoted," he answered quietly.

"Now, there is another point, Don Juan," I continued, "upon which I must satisfy you, and that is my ability to keep a wife."

I told him of my little estate in Hamps.h.i.+re with its small manor house on the sh.o.r.es of the Solent, and how I had let it to a yachting man who had taken a fancy to it; it being too large for my modest bachelor wants. I told him proudly of my balance at the bank, swelled by the thousand of the old lady of Monmouth Street, of which he already knew.

I told him what my income was from every source, and finally what I succeeded in wringing annually from the publis.h.i.+ng body. This last item seemed to amuse him mightily, despite his polite effort to listen to me with becoming solemnity.

"Very good, very good, Anstruther," he said at last encouragingly, "I see you are quite capable of maintaining a wife in a modest way. It is very creditable to you, too, that you have taken to making money by your pen. With regard to Dolores, however, should she become your wife, she is not likely to be a burden to you financially. She will, in the first place, become ent.i.tled on her marriage to an income of fifty thousand dollars, which arises from property which I settled upon her mother.

"Then, she is my only child as you know, and I shall make a further settlement upon her. My income has been acc.u.mulating for years, I want but little; when I die she and her children will have _all_."

The amount he mentioned certainly took my breath away, but I raised my hand and asked him to stop.

"Believe me, Don Juan," I said, "I should be a happier man if I could supply her wants by the work of my hands."

"I _do_ believe you," he answered, "and those would be my own sentiments exactly under similar circ.u.mstances. You will, however, not find a good income a bar to marital happiness if used judiciously. But enough of financial matters; I wish to come to another more important point. I believe it that Dolores loves you; from my own observations I believe she does, but I must hear it from her own lips.

"Should it prove to be the case, which I do not doubt, then I will give my consent to your marriage."

I rushed forward joyfully to thank him, for I knew what Dolores' answer would be, but he held up his finger to check me.

"I will give my consent under those circ.u.mstances," he continued, "on _one_ condition."

"And that?" I asked eagerly.

He did not answer me at once; he sat in his chair, with his hand to his forehead, thinking.

Then he lifted his head.

"Sit down and listen to me, Anstruther," he said; "I want you to follow exactly what I say.

"When you arrived in Valoro six weeks ago, and gave me that casket, you reopened an episode in my life closed many many years ago."

He spoke with great emotion and his lip trembled. I even saw a tear coursing down his sunburnt cheek.

"Since then," he continued, "you have very kindly followed me in the fulfilment of certain duties which devolved upon me upon opening that packet. You have followed me without question, as became a gentleman, taking an old man's word that all was well. In keeping that silence of delicacy, Anstruther, you have unwittingly done me a great service; you have left me unhampered to fulfil that which I had to do."