Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by G. A. Henty (intellectual books to read .txt) 📗

“Yes, but it does not affect us, though it does affect Ramoo. Now clear your brow, dear, and dismiss the subject from your mind, else our guests will fancy that our marriage has not been altogether so satisfactory as they had hoped.”

“As if they could think such a thing as that, Mark,” she said indignantly. “But there is the sound of wheels; it is Mr. Chetwynd's gig.”

The three visitors all came in together, having met at the door. Mark, with a great effort, put aside the letter from his mind, and a cheerful evening was spent. They had much to tell of their travels, many questions to ask about the parish and their mutual friends and the neighborhood generally, and when they rose to go Mark said:

“Would you mind riding over again tomorrow morning, Dick? I have a letter to read to you that will interest you greatly.”

“Certainly. What time shall I be here?”

“Say at eleven o'clock. It is a long epistle, and will take us an hour to get through; after that we can stroll round, and, of course, you will stop to lunch.

“I should be glad if you and Mrs. Greg can come over too,” he added, turning to the Rector; “you will be much interested also in the matter.”

The next day the party met in the library at the hour named. “I may tell you, Mr. Greg, that I specially asked you and your wife here because this letter throws some light on Arthur Bastow's connection with my father's murder; you were friends with his father, and I think you ought to know. As to you, Dick, the letter will interest you from beginning to end, and will surprise as much as it will interest you.”

“Even I don't know what it is, Mrs. Greg,” Millicent said. “I know it quite upset Mark yesterday, but he said he would sooner I did not know anything about it until today, as he did not want me to be saddened on the first evening of our return home. Now, please go on, Mark; you have said quite enough to excite us all.”

Mark had read but a short distance when Dick Chetwynd exclaimed:

“Then Ramoo was at the bottom of that Indian business, after all. I almost wonder you never suspected it, Mark.”

“Well, I hardly could do so,” Mark said, “when my uncle was so fond of him, and he had served him so faithfully.”

As he approached the point at which he had laid down the letter on the previous evening, Millicent's color faded.

Suddenly an exclamation of horror broke from her when he read the last line.

“Oh, Mark,” she said, with quivering lips, “don't say it was Ramoo. He always seemed so kind and good.”

“It was here I stopped last night,” he said, “but I fear there can be no doubt about it. I must say that it is evident from this letter, that no thought of doing my father harm was in his mind when he placed that ladder against the window. Now I will go on.”

The letter continued as follows:

“Having placed the ladder, I clambered to the window and quietly entered the room. It was quite dark, but I knew the place of every piece of furniture so well that I was able to go without hesitation to the cabinet. Your father was speaking very slowly and distinctly when he told you how it was to be opened, and I was able to do it easily, but I did not know that the back opened with a sharp click, and the noise startled me and woke your father. In an instant he was out of bed and seized me by the throat. Now, he was a much stronger man than I was. I struggled in vain. I felt that in a moment I should become insensible; my vow and my duty to the god flashed across me, and scarce knowing what I did, I drew a little dagger I always carried, and struck blindly. He fell, and I fell beside him. For a time I was insensible. When I recovered I was seized with the bitterest remorse that I had killed one I loved, but I seemed to hear the voice of the god saying, 'You have done well, Ramoo. I am your great master, and you are bound to my service.'

“I got up almost blindly, felt in the cabinet, and found a coin and a piece of paper, and a feeling of exultation came over me that, after nearly twenty years, I should succeed in carrying out my vow and taking his bracelet back to the god. I descended the ladder, crept in the back door by which I had come out, went up to my room, where I had kept a light burning, and examined my treasures. Then I saw that all had been in vain. They were doubtless a key to the mystery, but until a clew was given they were absolutely useless. I sat for hours staring at them. I would have gone back and replaced them in the cabinet and left all as it had been before, but I dared not enter the room again. The next day I heard you say that you suspected that the talk with your father had been overheard, and that the man who had earlier in the evening before shot at him had returned, and while listening had heard something said about the hiding place, and thought that he would find some sort of treasure there. I thought that in the talk your father might have told you how to use these things, though I had not caught it, and it was therefore important that you should have them back again, so I went into the room after the inquest was over, and placed the things in their hiding place again.

“Then, thinking it over, I determined to leave your service. You would be trying to find the treasure, and I must watch you, and this I could not do as long as I was a house servant; so I came up to London, and you thought I had sailed for India, but I did not go. I hired four Lascars, men of my own religion, and paid them to watch every movement that you made, to see where you visited and where you went. I paid them well, and they served me well; it was so that I was able to bring those men to your help when but for that you would have lost your life. It was for this to some extent that I had you followed; for I soon found out that you were on the search for the man who had fired through the window, and who you believed had killed your father, rather than for the jewels. I knew that you might run into danger, and partly because I loved you, and partly because it was possible that it would be essential for that coin and piece of paper to be produced in order that the treasure might be obtained, I kept guard over you.

“When the 18th of August approached we were all on the watch. I felt sure that you would take every possible precaution while you had the bracelet in your possession. We knew who were your principal friends, the banker's son and Mr. Chetwynd. On the 18th of August everything went on as usual. On the following day the banker's son came to you, and as soon as he left you, you went to the lawyer's, and afterwards to the banker's. I felt sure now that it was at that bank that the jewels had been placed, and that you had been waiting till the young memsahib's birthday for the news that they might be taken out; then