The Golden Web Part 7

"He gave me no explanation," she said. "He allowed me to ask for none.

He told me to come to you and say this. There is no one," she asked, in a lower tone, looking nervously around, "who could possibly overhear us?"

"Not a soul."

"He told me to say," she continued, leaning forward, and with her eyes suddenly a little distended, "that he had no difficulty in finding the man of whom you two had spoken--the man whom you used to call Bully Sinclair. He spent the evening with him, drank with him, went back to his hotel by invitation. Then he tried very carefully to open up negotiations. Sinclair became at once suspicious. He was very violent, and declined to discuss the matter at all. He swore all the time that he had been robbed, and that he was going to have his revenge. My brother tried to reason with him, and in the end they quarrelled. It was Sinclair who struck Basil. My brother only returned the blow. And then he told me to say that before he could search him, before he could search the room, he found that the man was dead."

"Anything else?" Deane asked.

"He told me to say that any papers which the man Sinclair might have had must be in the room among his effects, which have all been put together, and are still there, locked up, waiting for someone to come and claim them. He told me to say that he had done his best, and that whatever the consequences might be he was ready to face them. If you cared to run risks, the number of the room at the Universal Hotel is 27. It is locked and guarded, but there might be ways. That is what he said."

Deane leaned a little forward across the table. "But of himself?" he demanded. "Did he say nothing of himself?"

She shook her head. "It is wonderful," she said, "but he never thinks of himself. He is more composed, more cheerful, than when I bade him good-night at Southampton, the day he left home. He made me promise that I would tell you these things first, before I uttered a word on my own account. I have kept my promise. You understand what I have told you?"

"Perfectly," Deane answered.

"Then I am going to speak to you now on my own account," she said, raising her eyes to his. "Mr. Deane, I do not pretend to be a clever person, but one thing is perfectly clear to me. Basil entered into this adventure for your sake. Your name was never mentioned in the trial, and they all seem to have believed that it was to rob Sinclair, and for nothing else, that Basil went there that night. Mr. Deane, I don't believe it. His quarrel with Sinclair, and its awful termination, was an accident. You must come forward and say that he went there to serve you, and not for purposes of robbery. It is for you to save his life. You can do it, and he is my only brother."

Deane's eyebrows came a little closer together. The girl who looked at him wondered no more at the hopeless way in which her brother had spoken of this man. His face was as though it were carved out of a stone.

"Miss Rowan," he said, "if there is anything which I can do for your brother, I will do it, for the sake of the days when we lived together, and when we were so near the very heart of life and death. But I tell you frankly that I see very little chance of successful intervention on my part. It takes a good deal in this country to stay the arm of the law, and your brother has grievously offended against it."

She struck the table before which he sat, with the palm of her hand. "If he did," she cried, "it was for your sake! I am sure of it! He went to do your bidding, and you must save him!"

"May I ask," said Deane, "why you are so sure that he went to do my bidding?"

"Yes! Ask, if you will, and I will answer you. I know it because this was the real point of all his message to you. This was what I had to say. This is really why I have come. The doc.u.ment--the doc.u.ment, mind,--he said no more, but he told me to make this very clear to you--the doc.u.ment is in a worn leather case, sewn inside the breast pocket of the coat Sinclair was wearing when he died."

Deane drew a little breath. "Young lady," he said, "it seems to me that you have been unnecessarily prolix. Your brother sent you here to tell me this?"

"Yes!"

"He did not send you here," Deane continued, "to beg for help--to waste my time in purposeless recriminations?"

"No!" she answered faintly.

"He knew very well," Deane continued, "that no mortal man can help him.

The trial is over and the case is lost. The only thing to work for now is a reprieve."

"But that is not what I want," she interrupted. "He must be pardoned!"

"That," answered Deane, "is impossible. Neither I nor anyone breathing can work miracles."

She leaned towards him with accusing eyes. "But it was you," she declared,--"it was you for whom he undertook this enterprise!"

Deane shrugged his shoulders. "My dear young lady," he said, "you are mistaken. I cannot explain to you yet the full significance of those various messages which you have brought me from your brother, but believe me, what he did, he did knowing well the risks he undertook, and without any thought or hope of aid from me if he should fail. I will be quite honest with you, if you like. I will tell you the exact truth.

Your brother and Sinclair were once friends. Sinclair and I were always enemies. There was a little matter of business open between us, and I thought that your brother might very well arrange it. I had no idea of his quarrelling with Sinclair. I did not encourage him to do so in any way."

"You sent him there," she persisted doggedly.

"I send messengers to every part of the world," Deane answered, "but I do not incite them to enter into murderous quarrels with the people whom they go to see. I will do what I can for your brother, but it must be in my own way."

"You will be able at least to save him from--from--"

Deane held out his hand. "Of course," he answered. "You need not think about that. His health alone would be sufficient to put that out of the question. What I can do for him, I will. I promise you that."

The girl rose up, and held out her hands a little piteously. "Remember,"

she begged, "I have no one else to go to, no other hope but in you. If I lose Basil, I shall be alone in the world!"

The tears were in her eyes. Every line of her face, every feature, seemed to be pleading with him. Deane led her to the door himself. His tone was unusually kind.

"I will do my best," he promised once more.

CHAPTER X

AT THE THEATRE

The door had barely closed upon his visitor when Deane was back once more in the throes of business, answering questions, giving quotations, receiving offers. The telephone was reconnected, and rang out its impatient summons every few seconds. He signed half-a-dozen drafts, deputed an understudy to receive some of his visitors who were weary of waiting, and dictated several important letters. When once more the pressure had abated, and the telephone had ceased to ring, he leaned back in his chair with a little exclamation of relief. The visit of Rowan's sister, and her pa.s.sionate appeal, had unnerved him for a moment. He found himself trying to recall her last words, even at the moment when he realized that she was still in the room, sitting at a distant corner.

"Miss Rowan!" he exclaimed. "Why, I thought that you had left!"

"I went as far as the outer office," she said apologetically, "and then I slipped back again. You were so busy that I did not like to interrupt."

Deane rose to his feet,--he was a little cramped from long sitting. He lowered the blind and turned on the electric light, walking around the room, and casually touching the door to see that it was closely shut.

Then he came back to his place, and leaned over once more toward the girl. "Why have you come back?" he asked.

"To ask you a question," she answered.

"Well?"

"Basil went on your behalf to see this man, Sinclair," she said. "He had a commission from you, had he not, and he failed?"

"Yes!" Deane said. "He failed!"

"It was to make an offer for some doc.u.ment, was it not?"

Deane nodded. "Yes!" he said. "It was."

"You are doing your best for Basil," she said, her voice trembling a little. "You paid for his defence, I know. You have promised that you will do all that you can, even now. I thought, perhaps, I might be able to do something in return. Why couldn't I get this paper for you?"

He looked at her steadily for several moments. "You could," he answered, "if you had the pluck."

"Tell me how?" she asked.

"You are his sister," he said. "Presumably you are interested in his defence. The details of the struggle between those two are, of course, important. It makes all the difference between manslaughter and murder if a weight, for instance, be held in the hand or thrown. You know the lawyers who defended him?"