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Secret House, The

<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> Doris Gray was face to face with a dilemma. She stood in a tragic position; even now, she could not be sure that her guardian was dead. But dead or alive, he had left her a terrible problem, for terrible it seemed to her, for solution. She liked Frank Doughton well enough, but she was perhaps too young, had too small a knowledge of the great elements of life to appreciate fully her true feelings in the matter; and then the influence of this polished man of the world, this Count of the Roman Empire as he described himself, with his stories of foreign capitals, his easy conversation, his acquaintance with all the niceties of social intercourse, had made a profound impression upon her. At the moment, she might not say with any certainty, whether she preferred the young Englishman or this suave man of the world. The balance was against Frank, and the command contained in the will, the knowledge that she must, so she told herself, make something of a sacrifice, was a subject for resentment. Not even the sweetest girl in the world, obeying as she thought the command of a dead man, who was especially fond and proud of her, could be compensated for the fact that he had laid upon her his dead hands, charging her to obey a command which might very easily be repugnant and hateful to her. She did not, in truth, wish to marry anybody. She could well afford to allow the question of her fortune to lapse; she had at least five years in which to make up her mind, as to how she felt toward Frank Doughton. She liked him, there was something especially invigorating and wholesome in his presence and in his very attitude towards her. He was so courteous, so kindly, so full of quick, strong sympathy and yet—there were some depths he could not touch, she told herself, and was vague herself as to what those depths were. She was strolling in Green Park on a glorious April morning, in a complacent mood, for the trees were in fresh green bud and the flower beds were a blaze of colour, when she met Frank, and Frank was so obviously exhilarated that something of his enthusiasm was conveyed to her. He saw her before she had seen him, and came with quickening footsteps toward her. "I say," he said explosively, "I have some splendid news!" "Let us sit down," she said, with a kindly smile, and made a place for him by her side on a bench near by. "Now, what is this wonderful news?" "You remember Mr. Farrington gave me a commission to find the missing heir of Tollington?" She nodded. "Well, I have found him," he said, triumphantly; "it is an extraordinary thing," he went on, "that I should have done so, because I am not a detective. I told Mr. Farrington quite a long time ago that I never expected to make any discovery which would be of any use to him. You see Mr. Farrington was not able to give me any very definite data to work on. It appears that old Tollington had a nephew, the son of his dead sister, and it was to this nephew that his fortune was left. Tollington's sister had been engaged to a wealthy Chicago stockbroker, and the day before the wedding she had run away with an Englishman, with whom her family was acquainted, but about whom they knew very little. She guessed that he was a ne'er-do-well, who had come out to the States to redeem his fallen fortune. But he was not a common adventurer apparently, for he not only refused to communicate with the girl's parents, although he knew they were tremendously wealthy, but he never allowed them to know his real name. It appears that he was in Chicago under a name which was not his own. From that moment they lost sight of him. In a roundabout way they learned that he had gone back to England and that he had by his own efforts and labours established himself there. This news was afterwards confirmed. The girl was in the habit of writing regularly to her parents, giving neither her surname nor address. They answered through the columns of the London Times. That is how, though they knew where she was situated, all efforts to get in touch with her proved to be unavailing; and when her parents died, and her brother renewed his search, he was met with a blank wall. You see," Frank went on, a little naïvely, "it is quite impossible to discover anybody when their name is not even known to one." "I see," smiled the girl; "and have you succeeded where all these people have failed?" "I have hardly progressed so far as that," he laughed. "What I have discovered is this: that the man, who seventy years ago left the United States with the sister of old Tollington, lived for some years in Great Bradley." "Great Bradley!" she said, in surprise; "why, isn't that where Lady Constance Dex lives?" He nodded. "Everybody seems to live there," he said, ruefully; "even our friend," he hesitated. "Our friend?" she repeated, inquiringly. "Your friend Poltavo is there now," he said, "permanently established as the guest of Dr. Fall. You have heard of the Secret House?—but everybody in England has heard of it." "I am afraid that everybody does not include me," she smiled, "but go on with your story; how did you find that he lived in Great Bradley?" "Well, it was rather a case of luck," he explained. "You see, I lived some years in Great Bradley myself; that is where I first met your uncle. I was a little boy at the time. But it wasn't my acquaintance with Great Bradley which helped me. Did you see in the paper the other day the fact that, in pulling down an old post office building, a number of letters were discovered which had evidently slipped through the floor of the old letter-box, and had not been delivered?" "I read something about it," she smiled; "forty or fifty years old, were they not?" He nodded. "One of these," he said, quietly, "was addressed to Tollington, and was signed by his sister. I saw it this morning at the General Post Office. I happened to spot the paragraph, which was sent in to my paper, to the effect that these letters had been undelivered for forty or fifty years, and fortunately our correspondent at Great Bradley had secured a list of the addresses. I saw that one of these was to George Tollington of Chicago, and on the off chance I went down to Great Bradley. Thanks to the courtesy of the Postmaster-General I was able to copy the letter. It was a short one." He fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper.   "Dear George," he read, "this is just to tell you that we are quite well and prosperous. I saw your advertisement in the Times newspaper and was pleased to hear from you. Henry sends to you his kindest regards and duties. "Your loving sister, "Annie."   "Of course, it is not much to go on," he said apologetically, folding the letter up and replacing it in his pocket. "I suppose Great Bradley has had a constant procession of Annies, but at any rate it is something." "It is indeed," she smiled. "It means quite a lot to me, or at least it did," he corrected himself. "I had an arrangement with your uncle, which was approved by the other trustees of the estate. It means a tremendous lot," he repeated. There was some significance in his tone and she looked up to him quickly. "In money?" she asked. "In other things," he said, lowering his voice. "Doris, I have not had an opportunity of saying how sorry I am about the will; it is hateful that you should be forced by the wishes of your guardian to take a step which may be unpleasant to you." She coloured a little and turned her eyes away. "I—I do not want to take advantage of that wish," he went on awkwardly. "I want you to be happy. I want you to come to me for no other reason than the only one that is worth while; that you have learned to care for me as I care for you." Still she made no response and he sighed heavily. "Some day," he said, wistfully, "I had hoped to bring in my hands all the material advantages which a man can offer to the woman he loves." "And do you think that would make a difference?" she asked quickly. "It would make this difference," he replied, in the same quiet tone, "that you could not think of me as one who loved you for your fortune, or one who hoped to gain anything from the marriage but the dearest, sweetest woman in the world." The eyes which she turned upon him were bright with unshed tears. "I do not know how I feel, Frank," she said. "I am almost as much a mystery to myself as I must be to you. I care for you in a way, but I am not sure that I care for you as you would like me to." "Is there anybody else?" he asked, after a pause. She avoided his glance, and sat twining the cord of her sunshade about her fingers. "There is nobody else—definitely," she said. "Or tentatively?" he insisted. "There are always tentative people in life," she smiled, parrying his question. "I think, Frank, you stand as great a chance as anybody." She shrugged her shoulders. "I speak as though I were some wonderful prize to be bestowed; I assure you I do not feel at all like that. I have a very humble opinion of my own qualities. I do not think I have felt so meek or so modest about my own qualities as I do just now." He walked with her to the end of the park, and saw her into a taxicab, standing on the pavement and watching as she was whirled into the enveloping traffic, out of sight. As for Doris Gray, she herself was suffering from some uneasiness of mind. She needed a shock to make her realize one way or the other where her affections lay. Poltavo loomed very largely; his face, his voice, the very atmosphere which enveloped him, was constantly present with her. She reached Brakely Square and would have passed straight up to her room, but the butler, with an air of importance, stopped her. "I have a letter here, miss. It is very urgent. The messenger asked that it should be placed in your hands at the earliest possible moment." She took the letter from him. It was addressed to her in typewritten characters. She stripped the envelope and found yet another inside. On it was typewritten:   "Read this letter when you are absolutely alone. Lock the door and be sure that nobody is near when you read it."   She raised her pretty eyebrows. What mystery was this? she asked. Still, she was curious enough to carry out the request. She went straight to her own room, opened the envelope, and took out a letter containing half a dozen lines of writing. She gasped, and went white, for she recognized the hand the moment her eyes fell upon it. The letter she held in her shaking hand ran:   "I command you to marry Frank Doughton within seven days. My whole fortune and my very life may depend upon this."   It was signed "Gregory Farrington," and heavily underlined beneath the signature were the words, "Burn this, as you value my safety." *         *         *         *         * T. B. Smith stepped briskly into the office of his chief and closed the door behind him. "What is the news?" asked Sir George, looking up. "I can tell you all the news that I know," said T. B., "and a great deal that I do not know, but only surmise." "Let us hear the facts first and the romance afterwards," growled Sir George, leaning back in his chair. "Fact one," said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off his fact on the first finger of his hand, "is that Gregory Farrington is alive. The man whose body was picked up in the Thames is undoubtedly the gentleman who was shot in the raid upon the Custom House. The inference is, that Gregory was the second party in the raid, and that the attempt to secure the trunk of the admirable Dr. Goldworthy was carefully conceived. The box apparently contained a diary which gave away Gregory to one who had it in her power to do him an immense amount of harm." "You refer to Lady Constance Dex?" asked the chief, interestedly. T. B. nodded. "That is the lady," he said. "Evidently Farrington has played it pretty low down upon her; was responsible for the death of her lover, and, moreover, for a great deal of her unhappiness. Farrington was the man who told George Doughton about some scandal of her youth, and Doughton, that high-spirited man, went straight off to Africa without communicating with the lady or discovering how far she was guilty in the matter. The documents in the box would, I surmise, prove this to Lady Dex's satisfaction, and Farrington, who was well informed through his agents on the Coast, would have every reason for preventing these letters getting into the hands of a woman who would be remorseless in her vengeance." "Is that fact established?" asked the chief. "Pretty well," said T. B. He took some papers out of his pocket and laid them on the desk before him. "I have now got a copy of the letter which the dead lover wrote to Lady Constance. I need not say," he said lightly, "how I obtained possession of this, but we in our department do not hesitate to adopt the most drastic methods——" "I know all about that," said the chief, with a little smile; "there was burglary at the rectory two days ago, and I presume your interesting burglar was your own Private Sikes." "Exactly," said T. B. cheerfully. "Fact number two," he went on, "is that Gregory Farrington and the international blackmailer named Montague Fallock are one and the same person." The chief looked up. "You do not mean that?" "I do indeed," said T. B. "That interesting paragraph in the will of the late Mr. Farrington confirms this view. The will was especially prepared to put me off the scent. Letters which have been received by eminent personages signed 'Montague Fallock' and demanding, as usual, money with threats of exposure have recently been received and confirm this theory." "Where is Montague Fallock now?" "Montague Fallock is an inmate of the Secret House," said T. B. "It seems pretty easy to take him, does it not?" asked Sir George, in surprise. "Have you moved in the matter?" T. B. shook his head. "It is not so easy as you imagine," he said. "The Secret House contains more secrets than we can at present unravel. It was built, evidently and obviously, by a man of extraordinary mechanical genius as Farrington was, and the primary object with which it was built was to enable him on some future occasion to make his escape. I am perfectly certain that any attempt to raid the house would result immediately in the bird flying. We have got to wait patiently." "What I cannot understand," said his chief, after awhile, "is why he should make a dramatic exit from the world." "That is the easiest of all to explain," smiled T. B. "He was scared; he knew that I identified him with the missing Fallock; he knew, too, that I strongly suspected him of the murder of the two men in Brakely Square. Don't you see the whole thing fits together? He imported from various places on the Continent, and at various periods, workmen of every kind to complete the house at Great Bradley. Although he began his work thirty years ago, the actual finishing touches have not been made until within the last few years. Those finishing touches were the most essential. I have discovered that the two men who were shot in Brakely Square, were separately and individually employed in making certain alterations to the house and installing certain machinery. "One was a young architect, the other was a general utility man. They were unknown to each other; each did his separate piece of work and was sent back to his native land. By some mischance they succeeded in discovering who their employer was, and they both arrived, unfortunately for them, simultaneously at the door of Fallock or Farrington's house with the object of blackmailing him. Farrington overheard the conversation; he admitted as much. "He stood at the door, saw them flourishing their pistols and thought it was an excellent opportunity to rid himself of a very serious danger. He shot them from the doorway, closed the doorway behind him, and returned the revolver to its drawer in his study, and came down in time to meet the policeman with energetic protestations of his terror. I smelt the powder when I went into the house; there is no mistaking the smell of cordite fired in so confined a place as the hallway of a house. And Lady Dex was also there; she must have witnessed the shooting." "Why did she come?" asked the chief. "My conjecture is that she came either to confront Farrington with evidence of his complicity, which is unlikely, or else to secure confirmation of the story her lover told in his last letter." "But why shouldn't Farrington disappear in an ordinary way—or why need he disappear at all?" asked Sir George. "He had plenty of credit in the city. He had the handling of his niece's fortune. He could have blocked out your suspicion; he is not the kind of man to be scared of a little thing like that." "That is where I am at sea," said T. B. "I must confess his disappearance is not consistent with his known character. He certainly had the fortune of the girl, and I have no doubt in my mind that he has a very genuine affection for his niece. Her inheritance, by the way, falls due next month; I do not suppose that had anything to do with it. If he had robbed her of it, or he had dissipated this money which was left in his care, one could have understood it, but the fact that he is dead will not restore the fortune if it is gone." "What are you doing?" asked the chief. "About Farrington?" asked T. B. "I am having the house kept under observation, and I am taking whatever precautions I can to prevent our friend from being scared. I am even attempting to lure him into the open. Once I can catch him outside of the Secret House, I think he will be a clever man to escape." "And Poltavo?" "He is in town," said T. B. "I think he will be a fairly easy man to circumvent; he is obviously acting now as the agent of our friend Farrington, and he is horribly proud of himself!" <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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