Part 85

"He remained there till nearly two o'clock in the morning. Then he returned on foot to his hotel. My information is that on his walk back he was whistling to himself, as though in high spirits."

"But that is surely no extraordinary circumstance!" I remarked. "Did I not tell you that De Gex is as friendly with Sanz as he was with Despujol?"

"I know. But in face of other facts I have learnt, the problem presented is an amazing one."

As he spoke a tap came upon the door, and a page-boy handed in a card.

"Show the gentleman up," Rivero said in his broken English.

"Here is someone who will relate some very strange facts. He is my friend Gonzalez Maura, an advocate who practised in Madrid before his appointment to our Consulate here. I called at the Consulate yesterday and saw him, when he related to me some curious facts which I have asked him to repeat to you. He is here for that purpose."

A few moments later the page-boy ushered in a middle-aged, well-dressed, black-bearded man who bowed elegantly when we were introduced.

"Now, my dear friend," exclaimed Rivero, when we were all three seated. "Will you please tell Mr. Garfield what you explained to me yesterday."

"Certainly. I merely tell you what I know," he replied in very fair English. "It is like this. Before I left Madrid I was very friendly with a country lawyer named Ruiz Serrano, who lived at Valladolid. For some reason the late Count de Chamartin took a great fancy to my friend, and constituted him his legal adviser, an appointment which brought him in quite a large income. To the lawyer of a great financier fees are always rolling in. The Count naturally took Serrano into his confidence and told him how, years ago, he had married the daughter of an Englishman in rather humble circumstances, living in Madrid. A daughter was born to them, but later he divorced his wife, who died soon afterwards, and then he married a lady of the Madrid aristocracy, the present widow. Apparently he made a will leaving the whole of his fortune to his daughter by his first wife--save for a small annuity to his second wife--and according to the will, on the death of his daughter the fortune was to go to his trusted partner, your English financier, Mr. Oswald De Gex."

I sat staring at the stranger, but uttered no word, for I was reflecting deeply.

"Señor Serrano arrived in London a week ago, and came to consult me regarding the will, because it seems that the Count's daughter--who came here to learn English, she having lived in Madrid all her life--is dead."

"Hence De Gex has inherited the Count's fortune?" I gasped. "What was the girl's name?"

"Her name was, of course, Chamartin, but in obedience to her father's wish, after the divorce she took her mother's maiden name, and was known as Gabrielle Engledue."

"Gabrielle Engledue!" I echoed. "Gabrielle Engledue!"

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

LOVE THE CONQUEROR

The sudden revelation of the motive of the crime at Stretton Street staggered me.

An hour later I saw the Count's lawyer, Señor Serrano, at his hotel in Russell Square, and from him learned much more regarding his late client's disposition of his property. The Count had apparently not been on very affectionate terms with his second wife, which accounted for him leaving the bulk of his fortune to his daughter Gabrielle, and in case of her death, to his partner De Gex, whom he had, of course, believed to be an honest man.

The Count had died suddenly several months before his daughter. He had died from orosin, no doubt administered by someone in De Gex's pay. Then almost before the will could be proved in the girl's favour, Señor Serrano learned that the girl herself had died in England. Since then he had been constantly occupied in straightening out his late client's affairs, and had now come to London for the first time in order to see Oswald De Gex, who had been constantly pressing for a settlement of the estate. He had seen him on the previous day, when he appeared to be anxious that the affair should be cleared up.

"As he spoke of his late partner, and of his daughter, tears came to his eyes," said the Spanish lawyer, speaking in French.

Tears in the eyes of Oswald De Gex! I smiled at the thought.

As for Rivero he now became just as puzzled as I was myself.

To me the motive of poor Gabrielle Engledue's death was now quite apparent, and, moreover, it seemed that the reason De Gex required a forged death certificate was because he was not exactly certain whether by a post-mortem examination any trace of the drug could be found. He was not quite sure that one or other of the great London pathologists might not identify orosin. With the Count's death on the Continent he had taken the risk, well knowing that any ordinary doctor would pronounce death as being due to heart failure, as indeed it was. In London, however, he felt impelled to take precautions, and they were very elaborate and cunning ones, as I now knew.

With the motive thus apparent, I felt myself on the verge of triumph. Yet without full knowledge of what occurred to my poor beloved on that night how could I denounce the arch-criminal whose favours were now being sought by the great ones of the land.

I was still in a quandary. I had established to my own satisfaction that Tito Moroni, the doctor of the Via Cavezzo, was the person who had distilled the orosin, and who had no doubt introduced it to his wealthy but unscrupulous patient as a means of ridding himself of unwanted persons and enriching himself at the same time. Indeed, these facts were eventually proved up to the hilt.

The motives for the deaths of the Conde de Chamartin, his daughter, and the philanthropic Dutch financier, were all quite plain, but, of course, I had said nothing to Rivero, or to anybody else, regarding my acceptance of a bribe to assist De Gex in the committal of a crime.

I confess that on that night of horror I had no suspicion of foul play, for knowing the great financier as a person of very high standing, I naturally believed the story of his niece's sudden death. It was not until I found myself in the hospital at St. Malo that I realized how cleverly I had been tricked. The drug had been administered to me in just sufficient dose to ensure that my brain should be affected, and that any story I might afterwards tell should be discredited.

Happily, however, I had now nearly completely recovered. I was the third person known to return to their normal senses after a dose of orosin. Would there be a fourth?