Chapter 3

"CLARA'S LETTER!"

Mallow stared at her, astonished at the earnestness with which she spoke. "I am afraid I don't quite follow you," he said at length. "Of course Carson knows Dr. Drabble. He met him at Casterwell."

"That is just the point. Was it for the first time he met him at Casterwell?"

"I--I suppose so; but, so far as I could see, he was never very intimate with the man."

"Then why should he present him with a pair of gold wrist-buttons," said Olive--"especially the pair he wore himself; the pair he had made to match that bracelet?"

"Yes that is strange," admitted Mallow.

"It would be, if it were a fact," said Olive. "But I do not for one moment believe that he gave them to Drabble at all."

"Then how do you suppose Drabble came by them?"

"That," said Olive, "is just where I am at a loss, and where I need your help. That is what we must find out."

"But, Mrs. Carson----"

"One minute, Mr. Mallow. Am I Mrs. Carson?"

"Well, I presume so. You were married to him," said Mallow, somewhat bewildered.

"I was married to some one, yes; but is that some one Angus Carson?"

Mallow jumped up hurriedly.

"You are not thinking of that absurd story I told you?"

"I am. Not that I think it absurd now. On the contrary, I am coming to believe more in the sense of it each hour."

"No, no," said Mallow. "I made every possible inquiry in London immediately before your marriage. I visited Athelstane Place; I questioned the police. But I could find nothing, absolutely nothing, to connect your husband in ever so remote a degree with that murder. Besides, look at the facts in his favour. Mr. Brock recognized him simply from his resemblance to his father, and his appearance corresponds exactly with the description of him given by Mrs. Purcell, even to the wearing of his bangle."

"I don't remember seeing him wear the wrist-buttons," said Olive. "Women, you know, are observant of these little things. Do you remember Mrs. Slarge reading out her sister's letter in the presence of Angus?"

"Yes, perfectly. It was then Carson showed us the bangle."

"Yes. Well, I looked then for these wrist-buttons, but I noticed he wore silver sleeve-links."

"On that particular occasion, perhaps?"

"But he never wore the others," retorted Olive. "Again and again I watched for them. This is the first I have seen, and it comes from Margery, not from Angus."

"Did you speak to your husband about it?"

"No; as I say, I was busy when Margery gave it to me, and I slipped it into my pocket without thinking. It was only on looking at it again, the other day, that its resemblance to the bracelet struck me. I wear it as a stud rather than as a brooch; you see, it has no catch-pin."

"Well, I think perhaps the best way would be to ask your husband how Dr. Drabble comes to possess a wrist-button so similar to his bracelet."

Olive turned suddenly pale, and hung her head. "I cannot," she said, faintly; "he has left me."

"Left you?" repeated Mallow, scarcely able to believe his ears. "Why--when?"

"Nearly a fortnight ago. It was not possible for us to continue living together. I hated him, and he did not care in the least for me. It was solely for my money that he married me; and now that he has it, he has no further use for me. We agreed it was best to separate. I was glad to do so."

"And this is the man you left me for!"

"Not of my own free will. You know I was the victim of circumstances. I told you everything about my father's letter. Here it is; read it yourself, and tell me if I could have acted otherwise."

In silence Mallow took the letter from her. He noticed that her hand trembled. In silence he read it through.

It was a strange letter, and it had apparently been written under stress of great mental excitement. The man might have been in mortal terror when he penned those lines. The warning at the close was a very cry of anguish.

"What do you say now?" asked Olive.

"I can say nothing. We seem to move in a world of mystery."

"You admit that I acted rightly?"

"I admit that you were forced to obey the letter," answered Mallow. "Whether you acted rightly is not quite the same thing."

"You are not just to me," cried Olive, passionately. "I loved my father dearly. He was always so good to me. I should have been wicked to ignore so solemn a command. Had it been only a question of money, I would readily have surrendered it all to Mr. Brock. But my father's dying wish--I could not disregard it, I could not."

"I admit that," said Laurence, reluctantly. "But what a miserable result it is!"

Olive covered her face with her hands. "I know, I know!" she cried. "The sins of the father are visited on the children. Oh, what can there have been in my father's life to make him sacrifice me so cruelly?"

"Mr. Brock was your father's oldest friend. He might, perhaps, know."

"He does not know, for I asked him the very day before this hateful marriage of mine. He could give me no answer. He could not understand the letter. Both in India and in England, he said, my father's life was above reproach."

"Yet there must be something," mused Mallow. "There are few men who have not a turned-down page somewhere in the book of their life, and as a rule it is not shown even to the dearest and closest of friends. 'We mortal millions live alone,' as Arnold puts it."

"Well, it can't be helped," said Olive, despairingly. "There is nothing to be gained by probing the past. But in the present we may be able to do something. To return to those wrist-buttons: in the first place, Carson never wore them----"

"One moment," interrupted Mallow. "You must be quite sure of that before we can accept it as evidence of any value. It is always possible he may have had them by him, yet not have worn them. Whether or no he gave them to Dr. Drabble is another matter; you had, perhaps, better write and get Mrs. Drabble to ask her husband."

"That is exactly what I did. But she replied that it was more than she dared to do. You know she is frightened to death of him. On the contrary, she implored me not to tell him lest Margery should get into trouble."

"The man can hardly blame her for following his own teaching," said Laurence, grimly. "He has been at some pains to teach her to look upon other people's belongings as her own; naturally the child thought she was doing no wrong. So Mrs. Drabble won't speak to her husband? Well, I must do so myself, then, when I get back to town."

"Have you the doctor's address there?"

"Yes. It so happens that he has been trying to enlist my sympathies towards his revolutionary projects. He gave me his town address and asked me to call." Mallow took out his pocket-book. "49, Poplar-street, Soho; that's where he lives. A veritable hotbed of foreign rascality, no doubt. Well, that disposes for the present of one more piece of evidence. What else have you?"

"Two days ago," said Olive, "I received this from Angus" (producing a letter). "He said that he was going to London, possibly even abroad. He has evidently gone abroad, for this is written from Florence."

"So I see," said Mallow, glancing over the letter. "Florence as an address is somewhat vague."

"He fears I may follow him, I suppose. Pray read the letter, Mr. Mallow."

Laurence did so. There were merely some half a dozen lines to the effect that the writer did not intend to return, that he gave his wife her full freedom, and apologizing for anything he might have done to distress her.

"He is a bad lot," said Mallow, in disgust, "Still, I cannot see how this letter is going to help you, nor, for that matter, what doubt it casts upon his identity."

"Can't you see," burst out Olive, "why he wrote that himself--and, moreover, he wrote it with his right hand. I have seen the writing of his left. It can be read only with great difficulty. This is perfectly plain and easily legible. Yet, when he was here, he always declared his right hand was much too painful to use in any way."

"Yes, I admit there may be something in it," said Mallow; "but might not some one else have written it for him?"

"Perhaps; that is, of course, just possible. But I doubt it. I don't believe his right hand was hurt at all. He merely feigned its uselessness for his own ends."

"But Mrs. Purcell declared that it was useless."

"She alluded to Carson's hand. This man, I tell you, is not Carson. I remember one day when we were out we climbed a slight cliff. I scrambled up first. On looking back, I saw Angus climbing up with both hands. There were other times, too, when he forgot himself. I have even seen him take his arm right out of the sling and use his hand perfectly freely. When I spoke to him about it he always would have it I was mistaken. I tried to get him to remove the bandages and show me his hand, but his excuse was that the doctor had strictly forbidden him to do so. No, believe me, Mr. Mallow, I am right. That letter was written by the man himself, and with his right hand. Carson is an impostor."

"Really that is very well argued," said Mallow, puzzled. "But there are flaws. However, we can consider those later. Pray go on. What is your third reason?"

"Mr. Dimbal writes to me that Angus--let us call him that for the present--has realized all securities, and has placed the proceeds to his own credit at the Cr�dit Lyonnais in Paris. Now, the real Angus Carson would not do that."

"I don't quite see why he should not," said Mallow; "but I admit, of course, it is strange. Still, even so, I find it difficult to believe the man is an impostor without more direct and convincing evidence."

"He is; I tell you he is," replied Olive, resolutely. "I truly believe that man who was murdered in Athelstane Place was the real Carson. The right hand--the diseased hand, you remember--was cut off, no doubt to procure the bracelet for this impostor. This man's clothes smelt of sandal-wood--a most unusual perfume--so did those of the poor wretch who was killed. The newspaper description of the dead man corresponds exactly with the man who calls himself my husband. He never by any chance spoke to me of his father or of his life in India. He never cared for me, and was only too ready to part from me. His only action of note since we were married has been to sell the stock and transfer the proceeds to a foreign bank, where he can deal with it. I am convinced, Mr. Mallow, that he was not Angus Carson. I go even further. I believe that he murdered Angus Carson in order to impersonate him. I am as sure of it as I am that--well, that I am alive; and, God help me, I am married to the wretch!"

Olive became so agitated that Mallow begged her to lie down. Do and say what he would, he could not shake her conviction. When he saw her somewhat more composed he left her and started off for a good brisk walk, that he might turn things over in his mind.

It was quite dusk when he got back to Sandbeach. Half an hour later and he would probably have failed to see a small white package lying on the path-way. He was in a narrow side street leading from the esplanade to the railway station. As it was, he not only saw it, but took the trouble to stop and pick it up. It proved to be a somewhat bulky letter addressed to Jeremiah Trall, Esq., 49, Poplar Street, Soho, London. Mallow's instinct as soon as he read this was to drop it. But the tall figure of a woman coming quickly round the corner arrested his attention. He saw that she was eagerly searching for something. She came up to him. "My letter sir," she ejaculated hurriedly. "I dropped it. Thank you." She snatched it from him, and before he had time to recover himself she was gone.

"Clara Trall!" he gasped, thunderstruck. "Shall I follow her? No, I have no right to do that. Yet the address of that letter is the address of Dr. Drabble in London. More mystery--more scheming. What on earth can it mean?"

But it was many a long day before Mallow found an answer to that question.