The Man Who Knew - Edgar Wallace (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

He stamped the snow from his boots and ran up the steps of the veranda to meet her.

"This is a very pleasant surprise," she said, giving him both her hands and looking at him approvingly. He had lost much of his pallor, and his face was tanned and healthy, though a little fine drawn.

"It was rather a mad thing to do, wasn't it?" he confessed ruefully.

"You are such a confirmed bachelor, Jasper, that I believe you hate doing anything outside your regular routine. Why did you come all the way from Holland to the Haute Savoie?"

He had followed her into the warm and cozy sitting room, and was warming his chilled fingers by the big log fire which burned on the hearth.

"Can you ask? I came to see you."

"And how are all the experiments going?"

She turned him to another topic in some hurry.

"There have been no experiments since last month; at least not the kind of experiments you mean. The one in which I have been engaged has been very successful."

"And what was that?" she asked curiously.

"I will tell you one of these days," he said.

He was staying at the Hotel des Alpes, and hoped to be a week in Chamonix. They chatted about the weather, the early snow which had covered the valley in a mantle of white, about the tantalizing behavior of Mont Blanc, which had not been visible since May had arrived, of the early avalanches, which awakened her with their thunder on the night of her arrival, of the pleasant road to Argentieres, of the villages by the Col de Balme, which are buried in snow, of the sparkling, ethereal green of the great glacier--of everything save that which was nearest to their thoughts and to their hearts.

Jasper broke the ice when he referred to Frank's visit to Geneva.

"How did you know?" she asked, suddenly grave.

"Somebody told me," he said casually.

"Jasper, were you ever at Montreux?" she asked, looking him straight in the eye.

"I have been to Montreux, or rather to Caux," he said. "That is the village on the mountain above, and one has to go through Montreux to reach it. Why did you ask?"

A sudden chill had fallen upon her, which she did not shake off that day or the next.

They made the usual excursions together, climbed up the wooded slopes of the Butte, and on the third morning after his arrival stood together in the clear dawn and watched the first pink rays of the sun striking the humped summit of Mont Blanc.

"Isn't it glorious?" she whispered.

He nodded.

The serene beauty of it all, the purity, the majestic aloofness of mountains at once depressed and exalted her, brought her nearer to the sublimity of ancient truths, cleansed her of petty fears. She turned to him unexpectedly and asked:

"Jasper, who killed John Minute?"

He made no reply. His wistful eyes were fixed hungrily upon the glories of light and shade, of space, of inaccessibility, of purity, of coloring, of all that dawn upon Mont Blanc comprehended. When he spoke his voice was lowered to almost a whisper.

"I know that the man who killed John Minute is alive and free," he said.

"Who was he?"

"If you do not know now, you may never know," he said.

There was a silence which lasted for fully five minutes, and the crimson light upon the mountain top had paled to lemon yellow.

Then she asked again:

"Are you directly or indirectly guilty?"

He shook his head.

"Neither directly nor indirectly," he said shortly, and the next minute she was in his arms.

There had been no word of love between them, no tender passage, no letter which the world could not read. It was a love-making which had begun where other love-makings end--in conquest and in surrender. In this strange way, beyond all understanding, May Nuttall became engaged, and announced the fact in the briefest of letters to her friends.

A fortnight later the girl arrived in England, and was met at Charing Cross by Saul Arthur Mann. She was radiantly happy and bubbling over with good spirits, a picture of health and beauty.

All this Mr. Mann observed with a sinking heart. He had a duty to perform, and that duty was not a pleasant one. He knew it was useless to reason with the girl. He could offer her no more than half-formed theories and suspicions, but at least he had one trump card. He debated in his mind whether he should play this, for here, too, his information was of the scantiest description. He carried his account of the girl to Frank Merrill.

"My dear Frank, she is simply infatuated," said the little man in despair. "Oh, if that infernal record of mine was only completed I could convince her in a second! There is no single investigation I have ever undertaken which has been so disappointing."

"Can nothing be done?" asked Frank, "I cannot believe that it will happen. Marry Jasper! Great Caesar! After all--"

His voice was hoarse. The hand he raised in protest shook.

Saul Arthur Mann scratched his chin reflectively.

"Suppose you saw her," he suggested, and added a little grimly: "I will see Mr. Cole at the same time."

Frank hesitated.

"I can understand your reluctance," the little man went on, "but there is too much at stake to allow your finer feelings to stop you. This matter has got to be prevented at all costs. We are fighting for time. In a month, possibly less, we may have the whole of the facts in our hands."

"Have you found out anything about the girl in Camden Town?" asked Frank.

"She has disappeared completely," replied the other. "Every clew we have had has led nowhere."

Frank dressed himself with unusual care that afternoon, and, having previously telephoned and secured the girl's permission to call, he presented himself to the minute. She was, as usual, cordiality itself.

"I was rather hurt at your not calling before, Frank," she said. "You have come to congratulate me?"

She looked at him straight in the eyes as she said this.

"You can hardly expect that, May," he said gently, "knowing how much you are to me and how greatly I wanted you. Honestly, I cannot understand it, and I can only suppose that you, whom I love better than anything in the world--and you mean more to me than any other being--share the suspicion which surrounds me like a poison cloud."

"Yet if I shared that suspicion," she said calmly, "would I let you see me? No, Frank, I was a child when--you know. It was only a few months ago, but I believe--indeed I know--it would have been the greatest mistake I could possibly have made. I should have been a very unhappy woman, for I have loved Jasper all along."

She said this evenly, without any display of emotion or embarrassment. Frank, narrating the interview to Saul Arthur Mann, described the speech as almost mechanical.

"I hope you are going to take it nicely," she went on, "that we are going to be such good friends as we always were, and that even the memory of your poor uncle's death and the ghastly trial which followed and the part that Jasper played will not spoil our friendship."

"But don't you see what it means to me?" he burst forth, and for a second they looked at one another, and Frank divined her thoughts and winced.

"I know what you are thinking," he said huskily; "you are thinking of all the beastly things that were said at the trial, that if I had gained you I should have gained all that I tried to gain."

She went red.

"It was horrid of me, wasn't it?" she confessed. "And yet that idea came to me. One cannot control one's thoughts, Frank, and you must be content to know that I believe in your innocence. There are some thoughts which flourish in one's mind like weeds, and which refuse to be uprooted. Don't blame me if I recalled the lawyer's words; it was an involuntary, hateful thought."

He inclined his head.

"There is another thought which is not involuntary," she went on, "and it is because I want to retain our friendship and I want everything to go on as usual that I am asking you one question. Your twenty-fourth birthday has come and gone; you told me that your uncle's design was to keep you unmarried until that day. You are still unmarried, and your twenty-fourth birthday has passed. What has happened?"

"Many things have happened," he replied quietly. "My uncle is dead. I am a rich man apart from the accident of his legacy. I could meet you on level terms."

"I knew nothing of this," she said quickly.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Didn't Jasper tell you?" he asked.

"No--Jasper told me nothing."

Frank drew a long breath.

"Then I can only say that until the mystery of my uncle's death is solved you cannot know," he said. "I can only repeat what I have already told you."

She offered her hand.

"I believe you, Frank," she said, "and I was wrong even to doubt you in the smallest degree."

He took her hand and held it.

"May," he said, "what is this strange fascination that Jasper has over you?"

For the second time in that interview she flushed and pulled her hand back.

"There is nothing unusual in the fascination which Jasper exercises," she smiled, quickly recovering, almost against her will, from the little twinge of anger she felt. "It is the influence which every woman has felt and which you one day will feel."

He laughed bitterly.

"Then nothing will make you change your mind?" he said.

"Nothing in the world," she answered emphatically.

For a moment she was sorry for him, as he stood, both hands resting on a chair, his eyes on the ground, a picture of despair, and she crossed to him and slipped her arm through his.

"Don't take it so badly, Frank," she said softly. "I am a capricious, foolish girl, I know, and I am really not worth a moment's suffering."

He shook himself together, gathered up his hat, his stick, and his overcoat and offered his hand.

"Good-by," he said, "and good luck!"

In the meantime another interview of a widely different character was taking place in the little house which Jasper Cole occupied on the Portsmouth Road. Jasper and Saul Arthur Mann had met before, but this was the first visit that the investigator had paid to the home of John Minute's heir.

Jasper was waiting at the door to greet the little man when he arrived, and had offered him a quiet but warm welcome and led the way to the beautiful study which was half laboratory, which he had built for himself since John Minute's death.

"I am coming straight to the point without any beating about the bush, Mr. Cole," said the little man, depositing his bag on the side of his chair and opening it with a jerk. "I will tell you frankly that I am acting on Mr. Merrill's behalf and that I am also acting, as I believe, in the interests of justice."

"Your motives, at any rate, are admirable," said Jasper, pushing back the papers which littered his big library table, and seating