The detective suited the action to the word. He pushed back the chair and rose to his feet. They saw he held a large automatic pistol in his hand.

"He has had this threatening letter, remember, so he takes his pistol with him. And he reaches the window ..."

The detective was at the window now, his back to the room.

"He speaks to Jeekes, angrily, maybe--the butler heard the sound of loud voices--they have words. And then ..."

There came a knock at the library door. It was not a loud knock. It was in reality scarcely more than a gentle tap. But it fell upon a silence of Manderton's own creating, a rapt silence following a pause which preceded the climax of his narrative. So the discreet knocking resounded loud and clear through the library.

"Who is that? What is it?" rapped out Dr. Romain irritably.

"Don't let any one disturb us, Inspector!" called out Horace Trevert to Inspector Humphries, who had opened the door.

Bude's face appeared in the doorway. He had a short altercation with the Inspector, who resolutely interposed his ma.s.sive form between the butler and the room.

"What is it, Bude?" asked Robin, going to the door.

"It's a letter for Miss Trevert, sir!" said Bude.

"Well, leave it in the hall. Miss Trevert can't be disturbed at present ..."

"But ... but, sir," the butler protested. Then Robin noticed that he was trembling with excitement and that his features were all distraught.

"What's the matter with you, Bude?" Robin demanded.

Humphries had stood on one side and Robin now faced the butler.

"It's a letter from ... that Jeekes!" faltered Bude, holding out a salver. "I know his writing, sir!"

"For Miss Trevert?"

Robin gathered up the plain white envelope. It bore a Dutch stamp. The postmark was Rotterdam. He gave the letter to Mary. It was bulky and heavy.

"For you," he said, and stood beside her while she broke the seal. By this they had all gathered round her.

The envelope fluttered to the floor. Mary was unfolding a wad of sheets of writing-paper folded once across. She glanced at the topmost sheet, then handed the bundle to Robin.

"It's a confession!" she said.

From beyond the grave the little secretary had spoken and spoiled Mr.

Manderton's _denouement_.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DEATH OF HARTLEY PARRISH

"For Miss Trevert."

Thus, in Jeekes's round and flowing commercial hand, the doc.u.ment began:

Last Statement of Albert Edward Jeekes, made at Rotterdam, this twenty-first Day of January, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and...

Mr. Bardy, the solicitor, to whom, by common consent, the reading of the confession had been entrusted, raised his eyebrows, thereby letting his eyegla.s.s fall, and looked round at the company.

"Pon my soul," he remarked, "for a man about to take his own life, our friend seems to have been the coolest customer imaginable. Look at it!

Written in a firm hand and almost without an erasure. Very remarkable!

Very remarkable, indeed!..."

"Hm!" grunted Mr. Manderton, "not so uncommon as you suppose, Mr. Bardy, sir. Hendriks, the Palmers Green poisoner, typed out his confession on cream inlaid paper before dosing himself. But let's hear what the gentleman has to tell us...."

This was the last digression. Thenceforth Mr. Bardy read out the confession to the end without interruption.

_For Miss Trevert_:

_Madam_,

I slew, but I am not a murderer: I Killed, but without deliberation.

Victor Marbran has gone and left me to meet a shameful death. But I cannot face the scaffold. As men go, I do not believe I am a coward and I am not afraid to die. But the inexorable deliberation of justice appals me. When I have written what I have to write, I shall be hangman to myself. My pistol they have taken away.

Victor Marbran has abandoned me. He had prepared everything for his flight. Even if the law can indict him as the virtual murderer of Hartley Parrish, the law will never lay hands on him. Victor Marbran neglects no detail. He will never be caught. But from the Great Unknown for which I shall presently set out, I shall stretch forth my hand and see that, here or there, he does not escape the punishment he merits for bringing down shame and disgrace upon me.

Just now he bade me stay in the office and finish burning the papers in his desk. He promised he would take me with him to a secure hiding-place which he had made ready for some such emergency as this. I believed him and, unsuspecting, stayed. And now he has slipped away. He is gone and the house is empty.

I cannot follow him even did I know where he has gone. I have only a very little money left and I am tired. Very tired. I feel I cannot support the hue-and-cry they will raise. Everything is still about me.

The quiet of the country is very soothing. To die like this, with darkness falling and no sound but the rustling rain, is the better way ...

Hartley Parrish was the man behind the great syndicate which systematically ran the British blockade of Germany in the war. He financed Marbran and the international riff-raff of profiteers with whom Marbran worked. Parrish supplied the funds, often the goods as well,--at any rate, until they tightened up the blockade,--while Marbran and the rest of the bunch in neutral countries did the trading with the enemy.

Parrish was a deep one. I say nothing against him.

He was a kind employer to me and I played him false, for which I have been bitterly punished. To have swindled Victor Marbran--I count it as nothing against him, for that heartless, cruel man is deserving of no pity ...

Parrish was the heart and soul, brains and muscle of the syndicate. He lurked far in the background.

Any and every trail which might possibly lead back to him was carefully effaced. He was secure as long as Marbran and one or two other big men in the business kept faith with him. Now and then, when the British Intelligence were too hot on the trail, Parrish and Marbran would give away one of the small fry belonging to the organization and thus stave off suspicion.

They could do this in complete safety, for so perfect was their organization that the small fry only knew the small fry in the shallows and never the big fish in the deep ...

But Hartley Parrish was in Marbran's hands. They stood or fell together. Parrish knew this. But he was a born gambler and insanely self-confident. He took a chance with Marbran. It cost him his life.

All payments were made to Parrish. He was treasurer and banker of the syndicate. Money came in by all sorts of devious routes, sometimes from as far afield as South or Central America. Parrish distributed the profits. Everything was in his hands.

By the time the armistice came, the game had got too hot. All the big fish except Marbran had cleared out with their pile. But Marbran, like Parrish, was a gambler. He stuck it out and stayed on.

Parrish played fair until the war was over. The armistice, of course, put an end to the business. But some months after the armistice a sum of 150,000 was paid to Parrish through a Spanish bank in settlement, Marbran told me, for petrol indirectly delivered to the German Admiralty. Parrish pouched the lot. Not a penny did Marbran get.

Parrish and Marbran were old friends. They were young men together on the Rand gold-fields in the early days. In fact, I believe they went out to South Africa together as penniless London lads. But Marbran hated Parrish, though Parrish had, I believe, been his benefactor in many ways. Marbran was fiercely envious of the other because he realized that, starting with an equal chance, Parrish had left him far behind. Everything that Parrish touched prospered, while Marbran was in perpetual financial straits. He was Parrish's equal in courage, but not in judgment.