RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
The Australian authoress Mary Helena Fortune (ca. 1833-1911) was one of the first women to write detective fiction, and probably the first to write it from the viewpoint of the detective. Her opus includes several novels and over 500 stories, many of which feature a detective by the name of Mark Sinclair. She wrote under the pseudonyms "Waif Wander" and "W.W."
"YOU are very silent tonight, my dear father," said Gerald Devann, as he raised his head from his book, and looked into the face of a grey-haired and worn-looking gentleman who was seated opposite to him. "I hope you are not feeling unwell?"
"I am not well, Gerald, and the knowledge that my case is more serious than I had hoped has made me thoughtful on your account, my son."
"I trust you have exaggerated the source of your indisposition, father," the young man said, as he pushed his book from him and anxiously scanned the well-known face; "but, as for me, you have no reason whatever to be uneasy on my account. Thanks to you, I have a profession of which I am proud, and it already promises to be one which may enrich me before I am too old to enjoy ease and wealth."
"And already you are doing it honour, my son, and I am proud of you; but I shall not live to rejoice in your eminence."
"Father," said the young man, as he rose and drew his chair nearer to Mr. Devann's, "do not encourage such sad forebodings; it is not like yourself. Perhaps the sea air is too strong for you, and you spend most of your time here. Let us take a house in town, where you can have the best medical advice, and an entire change of scene."
Mr. Devann rose and walked to the window, from which he could see the widespread ocean, and the sands and cliffs of a rocky coast. He was a tall man, of slender build, and there was in his carriage that listless droop that betokens nearly always a delicacy of health. He might have been about fifty, but looked younger. It seemed as though he was taking an almost last farewell of his favourite view; for he stood long at the window, nor did his son interrupt him until he returned to his seat, and turned with a shiver toward the fire that burned in the low grate at his left hand.
"Ring the bell, Gerald, and let us have lights, and the evening shut out. Have you ever felt the lonely influence of a sea view when the sun has set? I have always, but never so deeply as tonight. There must be a storm approaching, for the clouds hang low over the horizon, and the shadows are dark on the water. Draw your chair nearer, for I have a story to tell you—a story that has been of my life, and that may be completed in yours. Joseph, when you have drawn the curtains, bring me my traveling desk from my own room."
And so when they were again alone Mr. Devann leaned back in his chair and began.
"It is time that you should know all, my son, and I do not fear so much the telling of it now as I should have done years ago, for you have mastered your profession, and have a future of certain success before you; but it can never be a pleasant thing for a father to say to an only son you have fancied me a rich man, when I have nothing to leave behind me but an ignis fatuus that I have followed myself for twenty years. Yet that is what I have to say to you this night, Gerald."
The young lawyer did not immediately reply, and his father's eyes were fixed anxiously on his handsome face.
"It is a disappointment, my dear father, and I need not deny it; but you know the reason."
"I do. Because you will be a poorer man your wished-for union with Marcella must be deferred. But you are young, my son, and there is yet a hope that you may accomplish what I have lost my twenty years vainly m search of. Listen to me, Gerald, and you will know how strangely I have lost a fortune that I have never enjoyed, but which, it is just possible, may yet be yours.
"I had, at about your age, a friend and companion, with whom I had spent every week of my life from my schooldays, and who was indeed a cousin once removed. The name of this friend was Geoffrey Sexiter. Being at the age of twenty-six, and full of a romantic anxiety to see the world and make our fortunes, we realized what property we were possessed of, and traveled to the then young territory of Nevada, where, in the mines and by fortunate speculation, we succeeded in making each such a rapid fortune that we found ourselves in a position to sell out and enjoy ourselves with our wealth before we had been three years in Nevada. No sooner agreed on than our determination was accomplished, and the most of our wealth was turned into diamonds, as being most easily carried; and after much consultation with a partner in the mines, who was a foreigner, and had been a most skillful locksmith, we decided upon placing these diamonds in a casket of his construction.
"And this was how we arranged it. The casket was a plain box of oak, strongly bound with brass, and lined in all its compartments with velvet. To this casket were two locks of a most peculiar and intricate construction, each working with the other, and having power over it; that is to say, both the keys were required to open each lock, and neither could be used alone, and of these keys we had one each, as a guarantee that both must be present when the treasure was displayed. All this was suggested by the partner I have mentioned, who was the locksmith, and who manufactured both them and the keys."
"What was that man's name," questioned Gerald, whose disappointment had given way to the deepest interest in his father's story of the box.
"His name was then Silas Werner, but I have reason to suppose that it was not his real name. This Werner had not been so fortunate as ourselves, yet he seemed more jealously anxious about the safety of our property than we were. He bestowed upon the casket an astonishing amount of labour, so much so that it could not be but remarked, and was, especially by a fellow-countryman of his own, a man named Croix, and it was Croix who at last succeeded in making both Geoffrey Sexiter and myself suspicious of his motives.
"'He can make duplicates of the lock and keys he proposes,' was what Croix said when the arrangement was first proposed, and so it was that, as a guarantee of his honesty, we insisted on detail being performed in our presence, and until it was finished, and the keys in our possession, Werner was never for one moment without either myself or Sexiter at his side. It was a foolish idea altogether, and it proved a most fateful one, as you will hear.
"Our plans had been arranged, and our passages taken to Australia, where the new gold-fields were the wonder of the world; but we had another motive for coming to this country in the fact that our relative, Yelland Jossiter, Marcella's father, had come out and was a large land proprietor in Victoria. Werner decided to come with us, but he was found one night with a bowie knife in his heart, in the gulch between our hut and his own, and Croix was arrested, tried for and found not guilty of the murder.
"'You are safe enough now,' was what he said to us on his liberation, 'for no one has the secret of the keys;' and we left him behind, as we thought. But among the sailors on board there was a man whom to this day I am assured was Croix, though I was never able to fully bring the matter home to him, so thoroughly well was he disguised.
"Now, Gerald, comes the strangest and saddest part of my story. We arrived in the Bay late in the evening of a dark, dull day in winter, and had to await morning for the usual official examination. You may imagine that we slept but little that night, and as soon as possible we landed and made preparations to join Mr. Jossiter, with whom we had been in communication and who was awaiting us in town.
"My poor friend, Geoffrey Sexiter, had all along felt a deeper interest in the safety of our precious box than I had, or had, at least, exhibited it more; and his conviction of the identity of the suspected sailor was all along greater. He watched the man so closely that had he been innocent he must have resented it, and I confess to you that I dreaded the man if he was really the villain Croix.
"'If it is true that he was really guilty of Werner's murder,' I used to say to my friend, 'his object is the possession of the secret and the keys, and we shall be his next victims. Let us sell the diamonds and sink our wealth into some valuable property.'
"But to this Geoffrey objected with an obstinacy that was a strong feature in his character. 'No,' he said. 'We will carry out our original intention; we shall retain just enough of means to start us fairly in life, while we are young, and keep our diamonds as a provision for misfortune or old age. Don't think any more of the box, Gerald, for I shall take charge of it, and hide it where no mortal shall guess the secret quite independent of the keys.'
"And so we landed and separated, Geoffrey having charge of our valuable casket; but if ever I saw Jean Croix's face I saw it among the crowd at the coach office, where I bade my friend a temporary adieu as, with the casket hidden in a carpet bag, he went to a station of our relative's about twenty miles from town.
"I had one letter from him," Mr. Devann went on, after a pause; "it is in
this desk, and you can read it afterwards; but never saw Geoffrey Sexiter
again in life, for he was found on the morning following his arrival at
Broadview dead in his bed, and with a bowie knife in his heart. I had no
doubt that the same hand that murdered Silas Werner had stricken his
death-blow, for the key of the casket was gone.
"I need not enter into any further particulars of that sad tragedy, for you have heard of it often, my son, though you never knew the extent of the misfortune it proved to me, for I have never seen or heard of the casket of diamonds since."
"But did poor Sexiter give you no particulars in his letter?" Gerald asked of his father.
"He gave every particular, and of the place where he had hidden it, but I could never find it though I spent years in the search. Nor do I know to this day whether or not Croix obtained possession of it. Every effort was made to discover traces of him, but ineffectually, though I feel certain of having seen his face twice, about three years after Geoffrey's murder. You know I bought Broadview, and it has since remained in my possession. You know also what long visits I have paid it during all those years in which I have vainly tried to discover the secret of poor Sexiter's death, a secret which I now pass to you, Gerald, instead of the wealth I had hoped to have left you; but God's will be done."
"My dear father, do not give the subject another thought on my account. You have certainly aroused my deep interest by the story you have related, and to bring to justice that wretch Croix is an ample inducement for me to try and elucidate the secret that has baffled you. But as far as my own prospects are concerned, if Marcella must not be the wife of a moderately wealthy man, I must forego her, that is all—indeed, father, I have already fancied her changed toward me."
"Changed, my son? Since when?"
"Since she has had a new suitor."
"Who is he?"
"A wealthy foreigner, named Barjoss, who has brought numerous letters of introduction to our magnates. But the subject is not a pleasant one to me, sir; and, as it is near your hour of retiring, may I ring for Joseph?"
"Stay a moment, my boy," replied Mr. Devann, as he laid his hand on his son's arm; "I may not again have an opportunity of solemnly giving you this desk and its contents, which you will find mainly relating to the events I have been describing to you. It is a sad legacy, my dear Gerald, but I have none other to give you. You will find everything docketed and in order, and there is—the most important of all—the key of the lost casket. Day or night it has not left my person for all the years I have told you of.
As he spoke, Mr. Devann drew from his neck a short chain of gold, to which was attached a small key of peculiar form, and of most beautifully chased steel, on which he looked with a lingering sadness that astonished and alarmed his son.
"Pray do not give me that key, my dear father," he said, anxiously, "for it can be of no present use to me. The desk I should like to examine, but I pray you to keep the key where you have always kept it."
"The key is yours, my son," said Mr. Devann, as he touched the bell for his servant, "and with it I give you my blessing and the prayer that its possession may not prove such a source of unhappiness as it has been to me."
The father's hand grasped the son's for a moment, and the eyes of the two men met in a loving and trustful look that lingered long in the memory of Gerald, for it was the last look he met from his father's eyes. Of course he was not conscious of the fact; but his look followed Mr. Devann as he left the room, and it was then he first noticed the weakness of the elder man's step, and the bending form that had once been so erect.
"I shall insist on him getting up to town with me tomorrow," he thought; "he must get the best advice." But, alas! For that tomorrow which so frequently never comes.
Gerald went to the window at which his father had so lately stood, and, drawing back the curtain, looked out upon the view of sea and land with a fresh interest. He was thinking of the lost treasure, and sweeping his eyes over many a well-known object with a curiosity he had not hitherto felt. He was thinking of the sad end of his father's friend, whom he now knew, for the first time, had died at Broadview, in the very house whose roof was over his head; and, thinking of Geoffrey, he looked at sea and rocks, at creek and bill, with a wonder in his mind as to where the murdered man had hidden the casket of diamonds, and if the fatal box had long ago been discovered, and its contents squandered by the villain who had dyed his soul in the blood of Geoffrey Sexiter.
It was yet early, and there was ample time to examine the contents of the desk entrusted to him by his father, so he turned to the table, and saw lying yet upon it the mysterious key that had been the cause of such sin and suffering. He lifted and examined it closely, admiring the while the perfection of its manufacture and finish; and then he hung the chain to which it was attached around his neck, so that it should be hidden. Scarcely had he done so when his father's servant, Joseph, entered the room and was about to remove the desk.
"Did my father send you for the desk?" he asked; for he thought it strange that Mr. Devann should so soon change his mind.
"Yes, Mr. Gerald—Oh, no," he added, contradicting himself; "but he always wishes it in his room, and I thought—"
"You may leave it, Joseph. I have taken it into my charge, at my father's express wish. Stay a minute; I want to ask you a few questions."
"Very well, sir."
"You have been in attendance on Mr. Devann for some time. Have you seen any serious change in him lately?"
"You mean as to his health, Mr. Gerald?"
"Yes."
"I am sorry to say that I have indeed, sir—a change greatly for the worse. But you are not surprised, Mr. Gerald? Surely you were prepared for such a change!"
"As how? I do not understand you, Joseph. I have certainly seen and regretted my father's delicacy of constitution for long; but until this evening I had not the least idea that there might be anything truly or immediately serious the matter."
"My master has long been aware that his heart was affected, Mr. Gerald, and that he is liable at any moment of sudden excitement to die instantly. I am grieved that I should be the first to tell you this."
"That is the reason of his giving me my strange legacy," the young man murmured, as he hid his face with one hand, and waved Joseph from the room with the other. "Poor father, and I never suspected it;" and then he gathered up the desk as a treasure he had not until now appreciated, and carried it to his own room to examine its contents without fear of interruption.
Gerald's room at Broadview was on the ground floor, and looked out from the side of the mansion toward a portion of the property where a rocky hill sloped almost to the beach, and was crowned by a mass of giant trees, whose great arms had gathered and been swayed by the winds of many tedious years. From a chasm in the hill a stream tumbled toward the sea over and among the black and wind-blown rocks that were piled fantastically upon each other, and among which indeed the shrubberies of Broadview had been extended with many a twisted walk and grassy seat. As the young man entered his chamber the moon was lying on this scene with a beautiful effulgence, and threw a path of sparkling light across the placid sea to, as it were, the little landing-place where lay the boats belonging to the house. For the first time in his life Gerald felt a strange shudder of repugnance at this lovely yet lonely scene in which no living thing was visible, and he dropped the blind over it as he lit the lamp and placed the desk on his table.
With a deeper interest than he had ever felt in anything like the romance of a life before, Gerald Devann unlocked the desk and seated himself before it. It was a strong and capacious article, and contained many compartments. In the first that he opened, and meeting his eye at a glance, lay a card, denoting its contents to be "Letters and documents relating to my murdered friend, Geoffrey Sexiter;" on another the inscription was, "Documents relating to our Nevada transactions;" and the third bore, "Papers, portraits, and everything relating to Silas Werner, and his manufacture of the lost casket;" while the fourth was labeled, "Papers relating to searches indicated and made at Broadview for the lost diamonds."
Which of these compartments should he select for examination at that time? The third was nearest to him, and he had a great curiosity to look upon the portraits of those so deeply interesting to him, though he scarcely expected that the first morocco case he opened should bring him face to face with what he at first was certain was his own portrait; but, though the likeness was perfect, the date assured him that he was looking on the pictured resemblance of his father in his youth.
It was a handsome figure, tall and well formed, with a nobly cut face and dark wavy hair. The eyes that met Gerald's were large and dark, and the curved lips, with their tracery of dark moustache, were prototypes of his own; but there was a weakness in the chin typical of Mr. Devann's character; even a stranger might have guessed that his was not the determination to carry undeviatingly out one plan, or to keep his foot firmly where he had once planted it.
Laying his father's portrait aside, Gerald lifted another and met the dead face of Silas Werner, as he had lain where he had been foully stricken down in the Nevada gulch. A foreign-looking face, with decidedly marked features and straight, black heavy eyebrows that enhanced the awful pallor of death, yet a face that was somewhat strangely familiar to him. He gazed at it long, but put it aside without resolving the question as to where he had seen such a face and the next likeness was labeled "Jean Croix."
This, then, was the man who had been tried for the murder of Werner, and to whom had been imputed the death of his father's friend, Geoffrey Sexiter. A stout-built, middle-sized figure, with great muscles and coarse hands; a square, stolid face, with a heavy mustache and beard, and almost invisible eyebrows of the fairest hair. A man with a loose, shapeless coat and a felt hat, whose shadow fell deep over the pale deep set eyes in a coarse and repellent face.
Pushing this portrait from him, he again drew forward that of Werner, the familiar puzzle of whose resemblance would insist itself upon him. At this moment there was a tap at his room door, and his father's servant, Joseph, spoke to request admittance. As Joseph entered Gerald's eyes fell upon his face suddenly, and, with an exclamation of surprise, he lifted the picture to compare it with the features of the attendant, who was gazing at the young gentleman in astonishment.
"Is anything the matter with my father?" Gerald asked when he saw the repressed surprise in Joseph's face. "I am afraid he is not so well as I had hoped, Joseph; but I hope he is not worse."
"No, sir, Mr. Devann is asleep. But I also am uneasy about him; and as I did not know if he had imparted to you the serious nature of his disease, I ventured to take upon myself the liberty of preparing for what may be a sudden change. I am afraid, sir, my master cannot live long."
"He has told me himself, Joseph," Gerald said, sorrowfully; "and I am grieved that he did not let me know the truth sooner. I shall sit up all night, so that I may be at hand at any moment should he not feel so well."
"There is another thing, Mr. Gerald," the man said, hesitatingly; "but I missed, in undressing my master, a key he always wore suspended round his neck."
"It is now around mine, Joseph."
"Ah! So—well, sir."
"Stay," said Gerald, as the man was about to leave the room. "Your allusion to that key surprises me. Are you at all acquainted with its history?"
"Your respected father has not placed any confidence in me respecting the key, but I know a great deal more about it than he dreams. Some day I may perhaps be of service to him or to you respecting it."
More and more as Joseph spoke did he see the resemblance to the portrait of Croix's Nevada victim in his features, and his curiosity was deeply aroused.
"I confess to you that I am greatly puzzled, Joseph, by your great resemblance to this picture. Can you account for it?" And he laid the picture of Werner before him.
Joseph shuddered visibly as he but glanced at the portrait, and replied, "It is easily accounted for, Mr. Gerald, for that man was my poor father."
"Your father?" cried the young gentleman in added surprise. "Can it be possible? And you nave never told my father of your relationship?"
"No, sir, I did not see that my doing so would have been of any service to him; but I was not long in his service before I found out that he was the same Devann of whom my poor father had written after his arrival at Nevada, and I have at this moment in my possession a facsimile of that picture, which, together with all particulars of his death, and the trial of Croix for his murder, were forwarded to us in Germany by friends of my poor father."
"Did you know Croix, then?"
"I was twelve years old when my father left us to make a fortune in America, and Jean Croix accompanied him. I knew him well, and I know him now, so well that if he were to appear before me in the disguise of an angel I should tear the wings from his hated form, and do justice upon him for the murder of my poor innocent father."
Such a change came over the man as he uttered these words! His form seemed to dilate and his eyes to flash fire as his clenched fist fell heavily on the table. Gerald could hardly credit his senses that it was the same quiet, grey-haired man who had for nearly three years attended Mr. Devann so unpresumingly.
"No wonder you are surprised, sir," he went on, "for I am some times surprised at myself, but from another cause. I have been from boyhood of a fierce and impulsive nature, and I have followed that man to avenge my father for twenty years; but of late, since I became almost hopeless of succeeding, I have tamed down into the thing you have known me. But the fire is only smoldering, it is not quenched, but will burn to destroy Jean Croix yet."
"You think he lives, then?"
"I am certain of it. I have followed him from land to land, over most of the known world, only to lose him again and spend years in recovering the trace; but at last I came here, determined to wait and watch here, where he was sure to come again, as sure as the foolish moth returns to the light that must destroy him."
"Here? Why should Croix so certainly come here?"
"To again search for the lost diamonds."
"You know about that, too!" cried Gerald.
"I have the letter yet in which my father described the secret of the keys, and I know the story of Geoffrey Sexiter's death. He died in this very room, where the murderer's knife readied his heart."
"Here!—died here?"
"Yes, here; and I do not doubt that you will find all about it in that desk."
"True," returned Gerald, thoughtfully, "I have not yet half examined it. But will you tell me why it is you believe that Jean Croix did not find the hidden box?"
"Because I have never lost such utter trace of him that I was not assured of what his mode of life had been. A curse has followed him by day and by night. He has suffered hunger and thirst, pains and imprisonment, but has never during all those years known the ease of a full purse. If he had discovered the casket his life would have been a very different one."
"How strange it is that you never until now spoke of this!" Gerald exclaimed.
"Is it not far more strange that my master has never spoken to you of it until this day? What could I do to help while no trace can be found of the villain Croix? When I once more see his face I will show you what action means. I have learned much of Mr. Devann's wandering thoughts of late, as he speaks in his sleep since his health has failed; but more than that the casket was too well hidden by a dead man I have never known."
"You shall know all and help me to seek for it afresh, Joseph, for I am sure you are faithful; but go now and see to my father, while I gather from these papers the secret of the keys."
Never previously had Gerald Devann felt such a strange sensation, as of the almost actual presence of the dead, as he looked upon the pictured face of Geoffrey Sexiter, and then around him at the familiar objects in the room that had been so long ago his. The face was eminently handsome, and full of the fire and vigor of a strong mind; but what had it availed him beneath the knife of the assassin? At this very table he may have sat an hour before his last on earth. Beneath that very canopy of damask he may have closed his eyes for the last time on earth. From that very window he may have stepped when, with the casket under his cloak, he went forth to hide his treasure; but where—where had he hidden it to baffle the careful search of twenty years? As this question presented itself, Gerald hastily examined the paper until he reached, in his father's writing, "Sexiter's last letter to me from Broadview."
The young man opened it eagerly, and his hand trembled as he did so. From the shaded lamp before him great shadows seemed to waver on the dark wainscoted walls, and to hover above his head like sentient things. Gerald was, for almost the first time in his life, nervous and fanciful, and he felt as if the spirit Geoffrey Sexiter was in the room as he read that letter, to which he had signed his name so hurriedly, little thinking that it was for the very last time. The writing was dashing and bold, but the ink had faded as had the grass over his grave, yet it seemed to Gerald as if the young man was speaking to him as he read the words on the spot where they had been written.
Broadview, Wednesday Night.
Dear Old Gerald,
I cannot sleep without easing your mind about our property, and will post this before I sleep. All is safe as you could wish, and I have got such a hiding place as I defy the—ahem—to find out, yet I can see it from the window of my bedroom. Jossiter wants to sell this property, and I advise you to close with him before you join me here. I will write more fully tomorrow.
Yours ever,
Geoffrey Sexiter
The letter was endorsed by Mr. Devann:—
This letter reached me safely by post, but on the following morning the writer was found in bed murdered, and the duplicate key of the casket gone.—G. Devann."
As he laid down the letter, Gerald sighed while lie thought sadly of the
happy young life cut off so shortly in the very zenith of his hopes; and was
it a fancy that the sigh was echoed softly behind him, or that a shade seemed
to flit past him toward the window? Gerald rose hastily and followed it to
see nothing but the moonlit sea stretching out before him, and to reason
himself out of a folly of imagination he had not hitherto been subject
to.
"I can see it from my bedroom window." The words haunted him as his eyes wandered over the view his position commanded. The bright and silent sea with heavy, dark shadows lying under the cliff, where in deep waves the water moaned sadly as it heaved to the breathings of the mighty wind. The rocky slopes to which the shrubbery swept on the right, where the hill dropped gently to the coast—there was nothing else, and yet a thousand caskets might be hidden in so wide a space, and no living man ever succeed in tracing them without a clue.
Was there no clue? Had the dead man left no hint of the hiding place?
Turning back to the table and the desk, the young lawyer seated himself
again, and continued his examination of the papers relating to Geoffrey's
death.
There was one. "Poor Geoffrey's Room As I Found It," in which Mr. Devann described every article in the room, and in it was a faded knot of flowers that "stood in a glass on the table." Except these flowers there was not a hint of where Geoffrey had gone to hide his box, but on them Gerald gazed with a growing interest. They were withered and dried, of course, yet sufficient traces of what they had once been were left in the crumbling remains to show that they had been simple wild blossoms and mostly of one species.
"What is more probable than that he gathered those on his return from placing the casket in safety?" thought Gerald. "The poor fellow's mind relieved, he would doubtless stroll about the spot to see that he had not been observed, and in plucking the blossoms feign a natural reason for his visit to it!"
But it was late by this time and he had not yet examined half the contents of the interesting desk. He remembered too his anxiety about his father, and decided to postpone the task until he should have the benefit of Mr. Devann's explanations, so he locked the desk and, re-locking it in an old cabinet that stood near his bed, he left the room for that of his father.
The man-servant was sitting by the window, from which he had drawn back the curtains a little, and a night-lamp burned on a stand where its rays could not fall on the sleeper's face. Gerald moved softly to the bedside, and saw that his father was sleeping a sound and pleasant sleep, for a smile of content, as it were, rested on his worn features. Laying his hand softly on the restful forehead, he felt there a gentle warmth and moisture, and moved quietly to Joseph's side.
"My father is sleeping easily and naturally," he Whispered.
"Yes, more so than I have seen him do for many weeks, Mr. Gerald. Just sit here, if you please, sir, for there is something going on out there that I do not understand."
Gerald took the indicated seat and gazed in the direction of the man's pointing finger.
"Do you observe in the shadow of those rocks to the right a darker shadow than the rest, that you can detect rising and falling on the water?"
"I think I do—it is almost directly under that prominent point we have called Broadview Point?"
"Exactly; well that darker spot is a boat which came round the point about half-an-hour ago, and as soon as the man who rowed came full in sight, as though he was making directly for our landing-place, he suddenly turned and sheltered himself in the shadow."
"What could any one want here at such an hour? It must be nearly two o'clock."
"It is; and that man is on no lawful errand."
"How strangely you speak, Joseph! Have you seen or heard anything that has aroused your suspicions of that boat?"
"Nothing but what I have told you, sir; but I feel strange. When that man's face was for a moment full in the moonlight, I shuddered as though a cold hand had gripped my heart."
"But, after all, there is nothing wonderful in any one taking a row by moonlight; I have done so myself, Joseph."
"Yes; but you have not sought to land on what is known by every boatman on the Bay to be private property. Why, your flag is flying at this moment over the tower. Stay, have you left a light in your room, Mr. Gerald?"
"Yes."
"Ah! That was what turned him back; he would not see your window until he reached the very spot at which he turned into the shadow so suddenly. By heaven, sir, he has mounted the cliff! Look!"
It was true. A man's form was visible for a moment as it darted across the grass that surmounted the cliff and disappeared among the shrubbery and rocks to the right, and when he had gone oat of sight Joseph rose up in the strongest agitation.
"I must follow him!" he hissed, in a low tone. "I must see that man, Mr. Gerald! Something tells me that everything depends on it!"
"Joseph, unless you can give me stronger reasons than what your imagination can afford, I cannot agree to your leaving the house; remember that my father requires all your attention should he awake, and your very leaving the room may unnecessarily disturb him."
"I will not make the slightest noise, and you are here to watch, sir; but go I must, for as sure as I live that man is Jean Croix!" And with a light step Joseph glided from the room and closed the door behind him softly.
"That man was Jean Croix!" repeated Gerald, wonderingly. "If that be so he has come once again to search for that fateful box. But how could Joseph know! He could not recognize him at such a distance, and as for feeling the presence of an enemy—nonsense!" Yet he sat and watched the summit of the cliff with a breathless interest that could in no way be accounted for save by his in some way sharing the very feeling he pooh-poohed in Joseph.
"I can see it from the window of my room," he went on repeating from poor Sexiter's last letter, and he remembered that his father's window was at the same side of the mansion, and commanded nearly the same view as his own did; so he watched for the stranger as though for a something that might guide his eyes in even the possible direction of the long lost treasure; but vainly, for he saw nothing, not even the figure of Joseph, and insensibly his head fell back against the wainscot, and the young man slept.
In the meantime Joseph had left the house, and, keeping close under the shadow of every well-known rock and shrub, made his rapid way to the spot at which he had caught a momentary glimpse of the boatman. Arrived there, he scanned from the shelter of a copse every moonlit patch among the boulders up toward the mountain, and down to the edge of the cliff, but no living thing was visible.
He waited with restrained breathing and straining eyes, but heard or saw nothing save the waves breaking softly on the beach, and the white moonlight lying in patches among the rocks. If he had guessed in what direction to go he would not have crouched there so idly, but he did not; while at last, as he grew wearied of his useless watch, a sudden determination to examine the boat seized him, and he glided from rock to rock until he reached the cliff, down which he made his rapid way with the agility of a younger man.
Joseph could not have told what he hoped or expected to find in the flat-bottomed fisher's boat that lay rocking on the waves with the flukes of its little anchor buried in the sand, but he bounded into it, and found nothing there but the sculls and a cloak lying at the bottom of the skiff. This latter article he lifted in hopes of it containing a pocket, nor was he disappointed. There was a pocket, and in it a small packet which he transferred to his own coat era he bounded on shore again, and returned up the cliff as he had descended.
As he paused behind a crag not very far from the beach, some small stones descended down the worn path, and suddenly a man's form appeared above him between him and the moon. He drew further back and watched, while he heard the loud beat of his own heart stronger than the beat of the ocean upon the sand. As the stranger descended he paused and lifted the hat from his head, as he did so a flood of light rested upon his features, and a smothered cry from Joseph echoed among the rooks. "It is the murderer Croix!" he almost shouted, as he started forward to intercept him, but he was too late; for the man had seen, as he supposed, the face of his victim, Silas Werner, and fled down the rocks to his boat as though the dead were behind him to avenge his own blood. Soon the skiff was rowed wildly round the Point, while Joseph sat helplessly and watched his enemy float once more away from his just vengeance.
And Gerald slept until Joseph Werner came into the room and touched him on the shoulder. Mr. Devann was awake, and sitting up in bed with a strange look of bewilderment on his white face.
"Gerald, my son!" he exclaimed, as the young man hastened to his side, and took his hand; "it is the strangest thing that I could never find the casket, and now I have seen it so plainly!"
"Where, dear father?"
Mr. Devann lay back on his pillows, and whispered, "Look at the desk—the papers round the flowers—and you will know—the secret of the keys."
"Hush, he sleeps again," whispered Gerald, as Joseph stooped to look into his master's face.
"Yes, Mr. Gerald, he sleeps truly, but it is the sleep that knows no waking on earth."
It was true. Mr. Devann was dead, with "the secret of the keys" on his lips.
Morning had almost broken ere the young lawyer threw himself on his bed to find a few hours' rest. He had helped Joseph in his last offices to the dead, and heard also of the identity of Croix with the midnight boatman; but he had no leisure, or indeed inclination, to examine the paper to which his father's last words had directed him. Yet his dreams were of the rocky shrubbery above the cliff down which Joseph had climbed, and when the high sun awoke him to remembrance of his loss, and the events of the previous night, his first look was from the window toward the rocky slope, as though he expected to see the murderer's form, or some visible sign of the spot that hid the lost diamonds.
"How foolish I am!" he said, or thought, as he dressed himself. "Joseph's idea of having seen the murderer of his father was a ridiculous one. He had not seen him since his boyhood, and it is impossible that he could recognize him;" but even as he thought so the man himself entered.
"I was just about to call you, Mr. Gerald. It will be necessary for some one to go into town to make arrangements for the funeral of my poor master, will you permit me to go?"
"You, Joseph?"
"Yes, Mr. Gerald, I think I can set some one on the track of that villain, and business would be an excuse for my going."
"You are placing too much belief in the identity of the man you saw last night, my friend. After all these years it is so nearly impossible that he would not be changed beyond your recognition."
"Examine that, which formed part of the contents of the pocket-book I found in the coat;" and he laid a small flat box before Gerald, who opened it and found the contents to be the impression in wax of a peculiar key.
"If you fit the key around your neck into that, you will find that the impression has been taken from it," said Joseph; "and I think I can lay my hand on the man who took it. He was a countryman of mine and in your father's service before I entered it. It is only lately that, little by little, I have recalled circumstances that have made me suspect the man I allude to as having been, to a certain extent, the accomplice of Croix."
"If you think so, you had best leave the house altogether, Joseph, and set about finding out all you can in that direction. My father's death will be a reasonable excuse for your pretended dismissal; but you will still remain in my service, though not apparently so."
It was so arranged after much consultation, and before night Gerald was once more alone with his dead father, and at liberty to recommence his examination of the desk containing so many saddening souvenirs.
To one, however, had Mr. Devann's last words more particularly directed him, and he carefully spread upon the table the sheet of letter paper in which the withered flowers were folded, and saw traced upon it, in rough penciling, the outline of a turreted house with a banner floating from one of them, bearing the device of two keys crossed in the centre. At one side of this sketch was a glimpse of the sea with a ship in the distance, and on the other a steep cliff, from the summit of which a wooded hill swept up grandly. Underneath was written in pencil too, and with a hurried flourish: "The new residence of Broadview, to be built over the hiding place of the casket.—G. S."
With this rough sketch in his hand Gerald sat long in thought. With his dead father's placid face lying calmly beside him, he sorrowed for his long and unsuccessful search for the treasure he had won in youth, and with which he had vainly hoped to enjoy at ease the life that was to him, as he lay there, more valueless than the foam left on the sands by the receding tide. But Gerald was himself young, and the face of a fair woman made his life as yet but a foretaste of bliss.
"If I should find the diamonds," he murmured, as he bent over the sketch and compared the bits of scenery with the view outside, "I could offer Marcella a position she would adorn and surely accept." The reader may guess from the lover's thoughts whether or not Marcella Jossiter was worthy a good man's affection.
My story now leads me to a small public-house on the outskirts of Melbourne, on the evening of the day following the night of Mr. Devann's death. At about seven o'clock the landlord, who was known as Jim Smith, was standing at the door of his empty bar with his hands thrust into his pockets, and his eyes bent in a scowl on the road that passed his house and led from the coast into town. He was a stout, short man of an ungainly build, and had straight cut hair that somehow or other was suggestive of prison life.
It was a lonely place, and there was not a sound of life about the premises. Even the lamp in the bar remained unlighted, though dusk was deepening into night, when at last a man appeared approaching the house on horseback, and drew up at the door.
"At last!" said Smith, as he took the bridle while the traveler dismounted. "I thought the devil, your master, had got you."
"You'd best keep a civil tongue in your teeth, my man," the other replied, fiercely; "there are more ropes in the world than one."
"Ay, and more knives too, Baron Barjoss, so don't try any of your bounce on me, for I'm tired of it, seeing it don't pay;" and the speaker led the horse toward the stable with a dark look over his shoulder at Barjoss, who went into the bar, and pouring himself out some spirits in a tumbler, carried it into the room behind, in which he was presently rejoined by Smith.
"It seems to me, my man, that you are slightly forgetting yourself," the newcomer said, as he fixed his deep, cruel-looking eyes on Smith's face, "when you talk to me with the freedom you attempted just now. Pray, what little matter has disagreed with your stomach so far as to cause temporary delirium?"
"I am as wide awake as you are, Jean Croix," cried the other; "and I'm not afraid of you one bit, though you can use a knife in the dark; and, as I tell you, I'm tired of living this hang-dog life without seeing the colour of your money this month."
"Money would buy your cowardly soul!" sneered Barjoss, or Croix, as he tossed a purse across the table to his accomplice, "and now, before we go one word further, let me warn you that if ever I again hear the name you have just now dared to make use of pass your lips, your life's blood will follow it."
"Two can play at that game," Smith returned in a surly manner; "but it's too late in the day to quarrel, and it is no wonder that I lose my temper leading the life I do," and he pocketed the purse as he spoke.
"Don't lose it again with me, that's all, and you can go to the devil and lead what life you like as soon as I marry Marcella Jossiter."
"How do you get on there! Do you think you have a chance?"
"I think I have a certainty. Miss Jossiter is proud and ambitious, and if she is not enamored of my person she highly approves of my title and wealth," and the speaker laughed harshly as he drained his glass.
"And her dot? Is the money certain?"
"As certain as the Bank of England. Ah! Man, it will float us fairly once more."
"It is time, for the ship is devilish near swamped," was the reply. "But you spend the evening there tonight, don't you? What are the cards?"
"Yes; I must dress at once. You can drive me in, but you will not have to wait, as my invitation is to accept a bed at The Elms. We are to have a hand at cards after the fine folk have left, and I must say that I never had a pupil to do me more credit than Mr. Yelland Jossiter. Ha! ha! ha!"
"He loses well, eh?"
"He is sure of his revenge, you know, Smith."
Before we meet the speaker under another roof, let us take a look at Barjoss in the bar parlor of the Black Magpie, so that we may be the more ready to admire the great metamorphosis that is presently to take place. He seemed a man of some years under fifty, with square, slightly bowed shoulders, and a low-sired, strongly built figure. His face was clean shaved, excepting that a heavy mustache of a fair hue fell over his coarse lips. His eyes were almost colourless, but sharp, and full of hasty fire under heavy, pent-house brows, and his forehead under the fashionably cut hair was broad, but low and retreating.
Let us precede this man to the drawing-room of The Elms, in Toorak, the handsome residence of Mr. Yelland Jossiter. The room was gorgeously furnished, and reclining in a chair of fine satin-damask was a magnificently handsome girl, or rather woman, of some five and twenty years. The figure of this woman was beautifully developed, but without the slightest tendency to excessive fullness, and as to feature her face was almost a picture in its perfection of form and outline. A massive, low, broad forehead with lustrous dark eyes beneath straight dark eyebrows, and crowned by a coronet of glossy dark braids of hair as though by a crown she might have adorned, together made the beauty of Marcella Jossiter undeniable; but she was proud as Lucifer, who wanted to be king in heaven, and her natural manner was one of an excessive and supercilious haughtiness that sadly defaced the effect of her personal charms.
In consequence of the manner I have alluded to, as well as to the well-known fact that her acceptance of any man who was not an almost millionaire was out of the question, Marcella had but few suitors save Gerald Devann, who was her cousin, and had been her friend and playmate from childhood. But, though Gerald had always hoped for her hand as soon as he was in a position to request it, there was no engagement between them, and she played fast and loose with the young lawyer as it suited her humour or her hopes of a superior alliance until, as I have said, she had reached the ripe age of twenty-five.
On the evening in question Marcella lounged in her chair with an open letter between her jeweled fingers, and there was a heavy cloud on her brow. The letter was from Gerald, and it intimated in loving words the death of his father. There were some vague hints in it, too, of a change of circumstances that she could not understand, with an allusion to the impetus afforded to a determined energy by a pure and strong affection.
"Can Uncle Devann have left his affairs involved?" was what Marcella was wondering, "Or what does Gerald mean? He little knows me if he thinks I would ever be a poor man's wife. No, that is not the form to be hidden in a state of mediocrity."
And as she thought so she arose and swept her train of glittering black silk past one of the great mirrors opposite to her, reflected in which the white shoulders and beautiful arms gleamed white as lily leaves, and just at this moment the door was opened and "The Baron Von Barjoss" announced by the showily liveried footman.
Marcella's proud face flushed slightly as she gave her hand to the expected visitor, who received it as he might have done that of a princess in her own right.
While the Baron is making his compliments in a strain of devotion that would do credit to the most finished courtier, I have an opportunity of saying that in the dark-haired and dark-whiskered man, in the most perfect of attires, and with a display of diamonds on his person indicative of lavish wealth, few indeed would have recognized the horseman who arrived a couple of hours previously at the Black Magpie; a coarseness that exhibited itself in spite of all his efforts, and a vulgarity of appearance that nothing could totally do away with, was, by a money-loving society, ascribed to his being a foreigner; and Marcella's heightened colour did not proceed from any repulsion she felt at either his person or manners, for the Baron Von Barjoss could do no wrong.
"I am so sorry for this disappointment, Baron; but you will feel, of course, that it was unavoidable."
"What disappointment do you allude to, my dear Miss Jossiter? I at least could feel none in your presence."
"Did the servant not tell you that we were compelled to suddenly put off our party? When I had last the pleasure of seeing you, I understood you to say that you were about to leave town for a day or two, so I did not know where to address you, but I sent a note to the Club."
"I have not been at the Club. I drove straight from my friend's in the country to your door. But I trust nothing serious has occurred? Ah! I see in your hand a note with black border. I do hope you have not had a death in your family."
"I am sorry to say we have, Baron. This note is from my cousin, Gerald Devann, and it brought to us the sad intelligence that my uncle died rather suddenly at Broadview early this morning."
"Died at Broadview!" repeated the Baron with so strange an intonation that Marcella looked at him with surprise.
"You seem affected, Baron. Were you acquainted with my uncle."
"Acquainted? No; but it is very singular that, during my visit to the country—yesterday in fact—my friend took me for a sail round the coast and pointed out to me the residence of Mr. Devann as Broadview; but I am unacquainted with the family save by name. I have indeed met a young gentleman of that name, who is perhaps your cousin," and he glanced at the letter that Marcella was folding and replacing in its envelope.
"Yes, Gerald is my cousin."
"Ah, I am indeed truly glad to hear that he is so closely related to you, dear Miss Jossiter; for the fact assures me that society is mistaken in ascribing to him the closer relationship of your fiancée."
From any one else Marcella would have resented this as a piece of unwarrantable impertinence; but Barjoss was a baron, and a foreigner, and, above all, a man of great wealth; yet Marcella's proud head was erected, and the rich flush on her cheek deepened with anger.
"Society does me too much honour in presuming to couple my name with that of any gentleman; and I shall be obliged to you, Baron Von Barjoss, if you will, should the opportunity arise, decidedly contradict any such report, for which, I assure you, there is no foundation whatever."
"How happy you make me!" cried the apparently enamored Baron, as he dropped on one knee before Marcella, and raised her hand to his lips. "I know how wrong it is of me at such a moment to obtrude devotion upon you, but the temptation is irresistible, and my love for your adorable self uncontrollable! Do in mercy grant me even the slightest indication that you will listen to my suit! Our title is one of the oldest and the wealthiest in my own land, and many fair and noble women have graced it; but never one so peerless and worthy has been Baroness Von Barjoss! Marcella, may I plead my cause with your worthy father?"
Marcella turned away her face, but she did not remove her hand from the clasp of her suitor, for in one instant it flashed into her empty heart that the aim of her whole womanhood was accomplished! She should be the Baroness Von Barjoss, the envied wife of a man of unbounded wealth, and the memory of her playmate Gerald weighed but as dross in the balance with her supposed position as wife of the man at her feet.
"I pray you rise, Baron," she whispered softly.
"Let me kneel until you deny my suit or make me the happiest of men," he cried ardently.
"I will not deny your suit," she said, as she drew her hand softly away, while Gerald's letter fluttered to the carpet, "but remember that les convenances must be observed, and we must say no more while my poor uncle lies unburied."
"But after?
"You may address my father as soon as you wish."
Pressing his treacherous lips to the fair hand once again, he rose to his feet and bowed profoundly.
"You have given me more than life, my dearest, but I must respect your wishes, which are those of an unselfish and delicate-minded woman; but the hours will seem years until I can claim you openly as my own."
There was a change in the night when the man Smith drove the vehicle, which had taken Barjoss to Mr. Jossiter's, back to the Black Magpie. Clouds had darkened the sky, and heavy drops began to fall as he unharnessed the horse and turned him into his stable. He was alone in the house, and so had locked it up previous to going into town; but as he left the stable a loud knocking at the door of the little hotel hastened his steps to open it.
The night had grown dark, and the lamp was not lighted, so that he was barely able to distinguish the person who sought admittance, a foot-traveler, apparently wrapped in a coarse and well-worn overcoat.
"What do you want?" Smith asked with his natural surliness.
"A funny sort of a question for a landlord of a tavern when he sees a man in the rain and darkness."
"I say it again, then, what do you want?"
"I want food and shelter and a bed, and a good many other things that can be paid for in good coin of the realm. Now, I've answered your question, so stand out of my way, and don't keep me standing here in the cold."
As he spoke he pushed aside the astonished Smith and made his way into the bar, where he struck a light, and applied the match to the lamp hanging over the counter.
"Strike me crooked but you seem at home here!" exclaimed the confounded landlord, as he entered the already lighted bar.
"I am at home, Jim Smith, and that's more than you can say."
As the words left the stranger's lips he unbuttoned his coat, and threw his hat on the floor. Smith saw the butt of a revolver in his breast pocket, but he saw the face too, and started back with a cry that was not one of pleasure.
"By God, it's Joseph!" he said.
"Ay, is it? Why, man, you do not look half glad to see me," and Joseph laughed a mocking laugh as he noted the face of Smith.
"Glad? No one likes to see dead men. We heard you were dead a year ago."
"Who told you that yarn? The alias man, eh?"
"Yes, it was him."
"I thought so; and you believed him? Fool! Couldn't you guess he was deceiving you?"
"Why should he?"
"Faugh! You never had any brains. Hasn't he kept his thumb on you all these years because he had you in his power, and would you have stood it if you knew that there was yet another who knew your secret?"
"Was that his reason?" Smith said, thoughtfully, as he pushed a decanter toward Joseph. "It might be so."
"It is so; how can you doubt? The thing's as plain as the nose on your face. But how was it I lost sight of Alias so long, eh?"
"How do I know! I haven't seen him for—"
"Now, look here, Smith," said Joseph, as he set the tumbler down and looked straight into the face of the man he addressed, "there's no use lying to me. I saw the man we are speaking of last night, and if he's not in this house now he has not long left it."
"It is true," Smith replied doggedly; "he was here a couple of hours ago, but I can't help that. You have an awful down on him, I know that, and I know too that he is afraid of you, and hides from your shadow; but I have nothing to do with that, I am in his power, and, besides, he pays me well."
"You are in my power too, Jim Smith, and so you must serve me; but assure yourself that I will pay you better than ever he did."
"I don't know that; he's in a grand way now, and is going to marry one of the finest fortunes in the colony."
"No, he won't. Do you think that I will stand by and see a murderer and a villain ruin any family by a pretended alliance with it? No! Baron Von Barjoss has a different future before him than the one he has planned for himself."
Smith stared at Joseph as he mentioned the impostor's title.
"So you know that?" he said.
"I know everything. Did he ever share those diamonds with you?"
"You must be the devil, Joseph! No; he never found the lost casket. But in the name of wonder how did you find out anything about that!"
"Oh! He never found the casket, so he could make no use of the impression you took in wax of Devann's key? Oh, you're a sly customer, Jim Smith; but I'm able for you. Now, draw your chair nearer and listen. Croix shall not again escape me. I have more against him than you know of, and he shall die the death I have planned for him, if I die with him myself. You can help me, so choose this night between the murderer and me. There is my hand. If you are on my side, take it."
Smith paused for a moment, and then he laid his hand in that of the other man.
"I know you," he said, "and you are not a man to be baulked of your revenge; and, by heaven, you deserve it, for you have waited for it long! I will work for you, and with you, Joseph. Let Croix see to himself."
At Broadview the sad and silent days following a death were especially sad and lonely to Gerald Devann. In the few cold and formal words expressive of sorrow and condolence that he had received from Marcella, in reply to the note in which he had so plainly expressed his love and trust in her, he had read his doom, even though the name of Baron Von Barjoss had never been uttered in his hearing; but it had been uttered by his uncle, Yelland Jossiter, and that in such plain terms that he could not doubt that the foreigner was an accepted suitor.
"I am deeply grieved on your account, my dear Gerald," Mr. Jossiter whispered, after the will had been read, "for I thought that your father's property was nearly as valuable as my own. It seems now, however, that when everything is arranged there will be little left save Broadview, which, I suppose, you will sell, as such an establishment is quite unfitted for an unmarried man!"
"I shall never sell Broadview," was Gerald's reply, as his face flushed slightly.
"No? Well, at all events, if you should change your mind, give me the first offer. Your father bought it from me, you know, before you were born, and, to tell you the truth, I should like to make it a marriage gift to Marcella."
"A marriage gift! Is my cousin going to be married then?" Gerald spoke desperately, and his relative turned his face away so that he should not see how white the young man's cheeks had grown and how angrily his eyes flashed.
"I am afraid I have been premature in telling you of our intentions, my dear Gerald, but it is between friends. The fact is that your poor father's sudden death has only postponed our arrangements for Marcella's marriage to the Baron Von Barjoss. I need not tell you how suitable such an alliance will be, as the Baron is not only a man of an old title but of almost uncountable wealth!"
"I will not congratulate either you or my cousin," said Gerald, haughtily, "and only advise you both to be careful about what you are doing. Within the last day or two circumstances have come to my knowledge which, if correct, will blot the name and title of Barjoss out of society, and make those who may have been taken in by him regret the fact to the last day of their lives."
"Gerald, I feel surprised that you should allow a personal pique, the source of which I can divine easily, make you so unjust to a gentleman of whom you know absolutely nothing; and it is very fortunate for you that your libel has only fallen into my ears!"
Jossiter spoke with an angry light in his eyes, and with a haughty condescension he had not hitherto assumed toward Gerald Devann; but the young lawyer met his eyes with a gaze steadier than his own as he answered, proudly:
"You may put what construction you please on the warning I have given you; if you do not take it, you and yours will be the only sufferers. As for the villain who calls himself Barjoss, I am not afraid of him. You can send him here if you like, and I will tell him what all the world will know of him soon. But, no! Barjoss will not face Broadview in daylight!"
As he spoke he turned away shortly, and left Jossiter standing near his carriage, which had remained behind the others, while the few words I have written were passing between the rich man and him to whom his words had been as the stab of a dagger. Looking after the young man for a moment, ere he entered his carriage and was whirled on his way homeward, Jossiter laughed aloud at what he considered to be Gerald's envy and jealousy of the man who had supplanted him.
"As if, under any circumstances whatever, my Marcella could have stooped to be his wife!" he said. "She who might be a very queen for beauty and bearing to descend to the level of a lawyer's wife!"
Gerald wandered up the shrubbery to the right of the house, and felt that at one instant his idol was shattered so completely that nothing could ever restore it to the pedestal on which it had once stood. In the deepest recesses of his heart he acknowledged the worthlessness of a woman who, for title and wealth, could sell herself to so repellent a man as the so-called Barjoss; nor was he faultless enough not to enjoy, in anticipation, the triumph he should feel in exposing the murderer and seeing him suffer the delayed justice that awaited him.
Throwing himself down on an eminence that commanded a grand view of sea and land, and over the surface of which were heaped and scattered moss-grown boulders of many sizes, Gerald tried to compose himself and think over his position. He had during the last two days vainly searched every inch of the hill on which he lay, as the only place indicated in the sketch on Sexiter's last letter, save, indeed, the broad sea beneath him, where a thousand caskets might be hidden from the ken of mortal man for ever and ever; and he had, as his father had years ago done, given up all hope of finding the lost diamonds. But another object had taken the place of his search for the box—an object doubly intensified since his late interview with Yelland Jossiter. Need I say that it was to expose and bring to justice the villain Croix?
Joseph had paid a visit to Broadview since his interview and arrangement with the landlord of the Black Magpie, and had confided to Gerald the whole story of his connection with Smith. He had not thought it necessary or prudent to tell him all his plans, for there were some of them that Gerald might not approve of, or think himself justified in keeping silence about; but he willingly gave Joseph the full benefit of his legal knowledge to guide him in making out an unfailing case against Croix, in whose downfall he should now have a double enjoyment.
Lying there with a cluster of the old ti-tree scrub behind him, and the sound of the soft rollers breaking on the beach, Gerald was thinking of his dead father, whose loving eyes he should never meet again, when he was conscious of a queer sound that seemed to proceed from beneath the sandy turf on which he lay. He lay still for a little and listened to a sort of rushing noise, as it seemed, and then all at once he felt as if the ground was subsiding beneath him. Rising suddenly on his elbow, it sank into the sand up to his shoulder, and before he could think he found himself several feet beneath the surface amid a surrounding of rocks and vegetation, and with the subsided surface around him in a heap of sand that had filtered through the roots of the ti-tree that were left above him like a great tangle of weed.
He shook the sand and turf from him, and sprang to his feet. He was standing in what be at once perceived must once have been a sort of cave, formed of rocks and boulders heaped together in a confusion not unusual in this country. Advantage had been taken of the natural formation to make of the rocks an eminence that commanded one of the finest views on the coast, for art had packed up the insecure spots and covered the upper surface with soil and a scrub of ti-tree. There was plenty of light in this underground space of rocks, for, from far up in the roof, waving branches and patches of blue sky were plainly visible.
Gerald's heart beat wild and fast. Had he fallen by chance on the hiding place of poor Geoffrey Sexiter? What was more probable? The eminence was plainly visible in the sketch, and though Gerald had searched the surface foot by foot there was no spot where so valuable a deposit could be safely hidden. Was it here, then, that Geoffrey had placed the casket, and laughed at the idea of building a "new Broadview" over so insecure a foundation?
Afraid even to search, lest his fresh hopes should be again disappointed, the young man looked slowly around him among the shadows under the rocks where they caved over each other, to the level on which he stood. Is that the glimmer of mica there between those two boulders where the tangled roots of the ti-tree fall? No; it is a plain box of Oak bound with brass. It has the strange brazen shields for two keys; it is the lost casket of diamonds. And Gerald fell back upon the rocks, weak with the sudden joy. He was rich beyond his dreams. The hand of Marcella Jossiter might now be his if his belief in her worth had not been so cruelly shattered! The whole world was open to him with all its honours and enjoyments, and he was young to enjoy it all!
He lifted the box and shook the dry and light sand from its sides. For a moment he feared that it might not contain the treasure, that some one else had preceded him and rifled it. From his neck he removed the key that his father had left to him as his last legacy, and placed it in one of the locks—it turned as easily as though it had been oiled yesterday; and then he opened his pocket-book and took out another that had been forwarded to him that very day by Joseph Werner—it unlocked the second lock, and as he lifted the lid beneath him lay the velvet nests described by Mr. Devann, flashing with their glory of brilliants! Gerald closed the box, re-locked it, and staggered to one of the openings in the rocks to gain a draught of fresh air to prevent him from swooning.
"IT is the strangest thing, Marcella," said Mr. Jossiter to his daughter, with an air of chagrin, that we were never made acquainted with the existence of such a treasure, much less that it was on the Broadview Estate, and belonging to Devann. There is a strange mystery about the whole story."
"But you knew of the key, father?"
"Oh, yes; and I knew that some box had been lost at Sexiter's visit to Broadview before you were born, but who could guess that it would turn up in a prince's dower just now?"
"And you have seen them, actually seen those lovely diamonds with your own eyes?"
"Ay, and handled them. They are, or rather were, loose in the little velvet compartments just like so many little pebbles. Oh, they were beautiful!"
"And Gerald is going—really going to the continent?"
"He is. Ah, Marcella, I'm afraid we have made a false move in throwing him overboard, as it has turned out; and if it is not too late, I advise you to try and hedge yet."
"What do you mean by hedge, papa?" Marcella asked, with a flush mounting up to her cheeks, for she knew very well what was meant.
"I mean that if he shows any of his old weakness for you, I would recommend you to give him every encouragement. He is coming to bid you farewell, you know; so if the old flame is not quite dead, you will have a good opportunity of rekindling it."
But it was quite dead. When Gerald, in the deep mourning that so well became him, stood once again face to face with Marcella, his heart beat not one whit the faster, nor did the slightest change of countenance tell of any internal commotion as he met her softened eyes, and noted the care with which she was dressed to renew her impression on his heart. If he had felt the least softness, there was the flash of diamonds on her engaged ring finger that would have frozen him to ice again, even if her beauty had aroused the least warmth within his breast. He knew that ring was Baron Von Barjoss's present, and the token of her engagement to him, and his manner grew suddenly cold and formal as he listened to her regrets at his sudden determination to leave Melbourne.
"It is so sudden," she murmured, as she held his hand with a lingering clasp. "I cannot believe it possible that the dreadful sea may soon flow between me and my more than brother. Oh, Gerald, how can you go?"
He smiled coldly.
"I have lost all I cared for here, Marcella; and now that I have almost unlimited wealth at my command, I can realize all my dreams in seeing the world under the most favourable auspices. But I shall not be always away, and I only regret that I cannot hope to see you happy in the future, or congratulate you on your position in the present."
"Why, Gerald?" she faltered. "To what do you allude?"
"To your engagement to an impostor!" he answered, firmly. "But I will not speak to you of that. I have vainly warned your father, and I warn you now; but no more. The awful past of that man is now hovering over him, and it will fall and crush him ere long. And now farewell, Marcella."
And was that all? A clasp of the hand, a calm, cool clasp that was loosed ere it met the warmth of her own? That was all, and with a blush of shame and anger in her proud face, Marcella Jossiter fell back in her chair and wept bitterly.
"That man has been here again," said James Smith, the landlord of the Black Magpie, as, at about eleven o'clock at night, Baron Von Barjoss entered the bar, looking seedy and ill-tempered.
"What man?" he asked, as he tossed off a glass of brandy, and turned to go to his own room.
"How do I know what man he is? This is the third time he has been here, and he says that if he didn't see you tonight your chance was gone, for he'd go and treat with Mr. Devann."
"With Mr. Devann! What can he mean?"
"You had better ask him that question; he is to call again in half an hour," and the speaker glanced at the clock.
"What sort of looking chap is he?" asked Croix.
"It would puzzle me to tell you. He is evidently disguised and muffled up to the eyes."
"Well, let him in if he comes again. I can disguise myself as well as any man living."
The speaker had hardly reached his room when another man entered the bar, and, with a chuckle, Smith pointed to the passage in which Barjoss had just disappeared.
"He's prepared to see you; and now, Joseph, mind what you're about, for he's as sharp as needles."
"Oh, rest easy! I know the man I have to deal with, and he had better meet death at his own choice than face it with me at his elbow."
The speaker went into the passage, and knocked at the door farthest toward the back. It was opened to him in a few seconds, and the man who called himself Baron Von Barjoss told him to enter.
"The landlord has told me that you are anxious to see me, and though this is rather an awkward time of night, I will hear what you have to say, so as to save you the trouble of coming again."
"It is very kind of you to think of my convenience," Joseph replied, with a sneer he tried to suppress; "but when you know my business you will also know that I take, or will take, no trouble that I shall not expect to be well paid for."
"Well, all that being understood, sit down and state your business. What is it?"
"You are a great man," commenced Joseph, as he glanced around the richly furnished room devoted to the Baron's use, "a man of title and of wealth, and I am a poor and apparently useless one, yet I can give into your hand that which you have craved for and searched for and sinned for during twenty-five years."
"Searched for!" cried Barjoss, as he stared at the speaker.
"Ay, searched for; it is in my power to lay your hand on Gerald Devann's lost casket of diamonds."
"I do not believe it!" the other cried, as he started to his feet. "I do not believe one word of it!"
"Oh, don't you?" returned the other, with annoying coolness as it seemed to the excited Baron.
"No; I don't! If you knew any more about the jewels you speak of than that they are lost, you would not come here to tell it to me. You would take them and go where no one ever even heard of a lost casket."
"I daresay that is what you would do, but you and I are two different characters, you see. You have not hesitated to shed blood already to gain possession of what I offer you; but I am so terrified of a rope that I will not even be a thief lest it brings me to the gallows."
Under the listener's apparent firmness there was the heart of a coward, and at this allusion to the death of a felon he grew paler than was his wont.
"I don't know who or what you are," he said, at last, as he vainly tried to scan Joseph Werner's features; "but if it is really true that you know the whereabouts of the casket of diamonds, and want to sell the secret, tell me the price of it."
"Now you are talking sense. I know where the casket is, and I will lead you to it for one thousand pounds down; but the money must be in my hand ere I put one foot before the other on the way to it."
"The sum is a large one; but even if I could raise it, how am I to know that you will hand me over the treasure afterward?"
"You cannot know it, you will have to take my word for it; but you wear a dagger and you know how to use it. If I deceive you, you can serve me as you served Joseph Werner and Geoffrey Sexiter."
"Mille tonnerres!" almost shouted the impostor. "Who are you, and how came you by your knowledge? You know too much, and if you hang me diamonds would be of little value to my carcass!"
"I will not hang you, nor will you ever be hanged. I am a bit of a fortune-teller, and I divine that cold steel will cut the thread of your life short. But time is flying—do we come to an understanding or not? There is one to sail for Europe tomorrow who would give me more than the sum I ask for what I offer you."
"Why did you not give him the chance then?"
"Because I cannot sell him what is already his own, for the casket is on his land, as well as his by inheritance."
"That is but a poor reason," said Barjoss.
"I may have a better—perhaps I hate the young whelp, and would be sorry to see him take your betrothed wife from you at the very altar. Perhaps!—but all that is wide of the question, do you close with my offer?"
"Will you tell me one thing? How did you discover where the box was? I have searched for it for years. There is not a yard of Broadview that my hands have not passed over, and all to no purpose."
"I know it; yet what both you and Devann failed to accomplish, accident did for me. I was Devann's personal attendant, and at his death gained access to some private papers belonging to the murdered Sexiter. There I got my clue; what it was you will know when you pay me my reward. You had one key of the box, there is the other, and it is yours when money matters are settled between you and I."
As he spoke Joseph laid his hand on the table with the key Gerald had entrusted him with resting on his palm, and Croix recognized its peculiar wards at once, and a great flush of delight rushed up into his swarthy Countenance.
"I cannot understand why you should part with a treasure that would set you above the princes of the earth, but I close with you at your own price," said he, "and if you fail me—you have said that I can use a dagger."
"I am agreed. I will not leave your side until you can lay your hand on the casket. If I deceive you, there is my life for you—if you can take it."
"When is this to be accomplished?"
"Tomorrow night. Meet me at the cliff where you landed one night a month ago at Broadview, and I will lead you to the spot."
"Stay, one moment more. Who are you? You are evidently well acquainted with my life, yet I do not know you. Won't you tell me your name?"
"I am the ghost you met at Broadview, and I will tell you my name when I meet you again there. Do not fail me tomorrow night, and mind my thousand must be in sound gold!" He was standing as he said this, and then he opened the door and passed into the bar.
"Has he agreed?" whispered Smith.
"Yes, it is to be done tomorrow night;" and so Joseph Werner passed out into the darkness and went on his way.
Croix, alias Barjoss, sat still where he had been left with Joseph's last words ringing in his ears.
"I thought it was but imagination," he said to himself, "for I was nervous, and had been drinking hard, but it was a living man with the face of a dead one. Who can he be? But away with such thoughts; what does it matter to me if he keeps his word? But it will push me hard to borrow the money he wants. Smith! Smith, I say! Bring in the decanter and a couple of glasses. I want to have a talk with you."
IN consequence of the late death of Mr. Devann, the marriage of Marcella Jossiter to the Baron Von Barjoss was to be a considerably more private affair than was at all agreeable to the proud girl, who would have been only too glad could she have heard the whole world congratulating her at the "Baroness Von Barjoss." Still there was quite a sufficient number invited to make the event the topic of the day, and gossip was unbounded in retailing the magnificence of the wedding presents and the richness of the bride's trousseau. The fortunate man behaved admirably as far as outward appearances went; but there was a load on his heart that all his efforts could not shake off, and intimate acquaintances once or twice inquired as to his health, averring that he was not looking well.
"How can I look well," he thought, "with the face of Silas Werner day and night before me? I don't know what's come over me, for even in the presence of Marcella, and with the certainty of, in a few days, laying my hands upon her magnificent dowry, I feel as though my days were numbered. Do what I will, I cannot keep my thoughts from Broadview; yet I dread to go there. Would to heaven it was all over."
And at last came the night of his appointed meeting with his unknown visitor. The Baron had spent the day in preparations for the ceremony of the following morning, and had, in a short interview with his bride, overdone himself in protestations that he was the happiest of men; yet he was very far from feeling so, as he dismounted from his horse at a watering-place just across the inlet from his destination, and entered the boat he had often used before to row himself to Broadview.
The night was, like himself, overshadowed by a rolling mass of clouds, that had not yet culminated in the storm they threatened. Even the wind seemed to know his secret, and whisper it to the waves that grew angry, and broke into fierce cresting foam, which they lashed upon him as they heard it. Every darker wave that swept past him seemed to his conscience-stricken fancy to carry a dead man on its bosom, and every imaginary corpse had the face of Silas Werner.
"I am a fool!" he said, as at last he stranded his boat under the Broadview cliffs, and took a long drink from a pocket-flask. "I am afraid of my own shadow tonight, as if my arm was not so strong as ever it was, and my blade as sharp! I am not afraid of the dead at this time of day, and as for the living let them look to themselves if they try to play me false!"
He examined a poignard as he spoke, and satisfied himself of the safety and convenience of a revolver he carried; then he made the boat fast, and commenced his climb up the steep face of the cliff.
At the spot where he had at his last visit almost encountered the spirit of Silas Werner, as he had imagined, he could not help pausing and glancing fearfully among the rocks around him. Even on the open sea the moonlight was obscured by clouds, but under the shadow of the cliff everything was so indistinct that he could not even distinguish in the darkness the form of his own boat from the surrounding objects; while nearer to him, on the face of the cliff, he vainly tried to discern the shapes taken by the rocks, or whether they might not hide the phantom he feared.
And as he paused with his back against the cliff it occurred to him to wonder why it was always the face of Werner that haunted him, Werner who had died at the other side of the world; while here, here at Broadview, Geoffrey Sexiter had perished under his hand. How was it that he never, even in his dreams, saw that young man's handsome features; while now, even as he climbed the remainder of the rocks, and stood upon the summit, a straggling moonbeam fell upon the face of Werner as he stood facing him on the short grass?
"Take care, you will cheat the hangman!" cried Joseph, with a mocking laugh, as he seized the trembling man and dragged him back from the cliff. "A fall from the cliff would put you where the secret of the keys would be of very little use to you."
"Thanks; the half-light is deceiving, and a storm is threatening, so the sooner you and I complete our bargain the better, for I have to cross in the boat."
"Yes, and a boat is a frail thing to trust a box of diamonds to, eh? Well, you have brought the money?"
"Yes, in gold as you wished for it. Come, lead the way to your hiding place, for I am anxious to get back as soon as possible."
"Yes, I daresay you are; but wait a little. See, there is the moon breaking out like a shield of silver from the dark clouds! See how her rays glitter on the long bright track leading from the beach to herself! How beautiful is, that track—it might be of scattered diamonds, such as the secret of the keys were of! How softly the wave breaks upon the shingly shore! How sweet is the breath of the sea on a heated brow! Take off your hat and feel it—it seems to put new life into a man, and new strength into his arm!"
"It seems to put a new tongue into you at any rate, mate. If you are a poetaster, pray keep your high-faluting talk for some more propitious occasion, for l have no time to spare now."
"No time to spare! Who has any time to spare? Yet we generally value it as its last sands ebb away from our grasp. You, Croix, in your anxiety to seize a dead man's treasure, care less for the gleam of that moonlit water and the fresh breath sweeping over its surface than you do for the blade of grass under your feet. But don't you think that either Silas Werner or Geoffrey Sexiter would gladly forfeit every diamond in the world to stand here where we do and feel a living heart beating within their breasts?"
"I tell you what I think!" cried Croix, whose anger completely overcame his fear as he flashed a revolver in the moonlight. "I think you are either mad or trying to make a fool of me! Lead the way this instant, or I will put a bullet through you."
"The knife would be more in your line, wouldn't it?" sneered Joseph, as he presented another pistol at Croix. "Fire! But no, you are too big a coward to attack a man with his eyes wide open and a revolver in his fist! Put away that shooter, or by heaven I'll kill you before you make another step toward the diamonds!"
At the mention of the jewels the pistol was dropped toward the ground, and the face of Jean Croix, white and cowardly in the pale moonlight, was turned anxiously toward Joseph.
"I don't know what you're driving at," he said. "If it was to pick a quarrel with me you brought me to this dismal place, you could have accomplished your purpose just as well nearer town!"
"I brought you here to show you where the diamonds have lain all those years of vain crime and search on your part. I brought you here to lay your hand upon them, and to receive from you one thousand pounds in gold. I brought you here to tell you my name ere I bid you adieu for ever. What else I brought you for you will know before another hour passes over your head. Follow me now, if you still think that you have no time to spare for one last look at that midnight sea beneath us."
He paused a moment and then went on, as, for reply, he saw an impatient gesture of the hand from Croix, who could not help fearing treachery on the part of his companion, but whose avarice overcame his terror while his hand was on the weapon in his belt.
It was toward the eminence in which Gerald had so accidentally discovered the long lost casket that Joseph took his way, and when he reached the sheltering scrub he lighted a lamp that he had left prepared near the cave. Where Gerald had sunk into the subterranean hiding place the rocks and soil had been rearranged so as to conceal any entrance; so it was between some of the upper rocks, where light and air entered, that Joseph prepared to drop himself to the lower level.
"It is not deep," he explained with a grim look, as he held up the lantern and gazed into Croix's face, "scarcely deeper than a decent grave, and you need not be afraid to follow where I lead."
As he spoke he allowed himself to drop into the aperture, and ere the lantern was settled on the sandy floor Croix stood beside him. Directly, in the full light of the lantern, stood upon the sand, and partially covered with it, the precious casket for which Croix had sold his soul in a double murder, yet all unsuccessfully, and a cry of astonishment and delight escaped from him as he recognized it.
"And has it been here all this time!" he cried; "so near, and yet undiscovered. It seems like a dream. Are you sure you are not deceiving me?"
"You give me my money and I hand you the key. Then I go my ways and leave you and your precious box alone forever, for I would not stand in your shoes for a thousand caskets in this spot."
"Why?"
"Why! Are you not afraid that Geoffrey Sexiter will stand between you and his treasure, even as you reach out your hand to grasp it? Will not the face of Silas Werner turn you to stone while you raise the lid?"
"Bah! Take your gold! I am not afraid of dead men! Count it. Is it right?"
"It is right."
"Then go and leave me. I am not, I tell you, afraid of dead men."
"Fear living ones then!" and the speaker's dagger was buried in the murderer's breast—once, twice, thrice, as he staggered, and, with an awful oath on his lips, fell bleeding upon the sand.
Joseph raised the lamp, and bent over the wounded man.
"Now do you know me, bastard and vile murderer? I told you I was the ghost you saw at Broadview. I am the son of your first victim, Silas Werner. I have followed you for years by land and by sea, and at last I have avenged my father! Ay, writhe and groan! Let the faces of the dead men you have cause to dread gibber round you here in the darkness of death, for never again shall you see the upper world. Have you any time now to look at the moonlit sea, and the dancing boat that I shall send out to the ocean that it may tell no tales of your whitening bones? Die! Jean Croix, in loneliness and darkness, and may your death be as the entrance to that accursed dwelling your deeds have won."
GREAT was the excitement in the world of fashion, on the following morning, when those invited to the marriage of the wealthy Baron Von Barjoss and the haughty Marcella Jossiter assembled at the church, as the hour appointed for the celebration of the ceremony approached, and among the crowd of sightseers were two strange men who had been within the hour dispatched from the police depot to arrest the Baron Von Barjoss.
The bride had arrived, and, escorted by her father and train of bridesmaids, advanced up the aisle; but there was no bridegroom awaiting them! Then followed some moments of humiliation, which Marcella Jossiter never forgot, when all her pride was trailed in the dust, and she was made to drink the very dregs of degradation in her own eyes.
There was a whisper between the two men I have alluded to, and then one of them left the building, while the other advanced to Mr. Jossiter and addressed him in a low tone:
"It will be as well to take the young lady home, sir, as he will not put in an appearance. I have a warrant in my pocket for the arrest of Jean Croix, alias the Baron Von Barjoss, on a charge of murder. Doubtless he has got a hint of our intention, and has bolted."
"What! A murderer? Good Lord, you cannot mean it!" cried the unhappy father, as his proud girl sank back into the arms of her bridesmaids.
"There is no doubt whatever, sir. The villain is identical with the murderer of Geoffrey Sexiter, whom you will remember. We have incontestable proof of it. He is an impostor and a villain of the lowest type, and there is not a man in the force but will lose himself rather than the chance of bringing him to justice."
And that was the end of Marcella Jossiter's dreams of greatness; but it was years before a trace of Croix was discovered. Joseph Werner, unsuspected, and respected as a faithful attendant of the Devann's, waited weeks to give his evidence; but it was never needed, so he, as it was supposed, erroneously, followed Gerald to Europe, and at about the same time the Black Magpie changed hands, and its master also disappeared.
It was four years after that Gerald returned to the land of his birth, and brought a young and lovely wife home with him to Broadview. One morning, when the sun lay bright upon a wavy sea, and the birds sang sweetly in the rocky shrubbery, he strolled to the cliff, wondering if Joseph had carried out his instructions regarding the cave, and, observing the strange disposition of the sunken rocks, he entered, as the two men had entered on that night of horror, to drop on his feet besides the moldering remains of Jean Croix. It was an awful sight, but sufficient evidence remained to identify the body, and the search for the murderer was over. The avenger had overtaken him beside the very casket for the possession of which he had pursued a life of crime. Gerald had all traces of the cave destroyed, and nothing now remains at Broadview to remind a visitor of the Secret of the Keys.