CHAPTER XVI.

A FRESH LINE OF INQUIRY.

Once more Philip Winslade found himself under the necessity of journeying down to Solchester. It took him no long time after his arrival to discover that Mr. Noyes was the secretary and manager of a certain Loan and Discount Corporation well known to not a few of the good people of the town.

No sooner had he ascertained this than he made it his business to call upon Mr. Noyes. Having explained who he was and that he was prosecuting the inquiry on behalf of Mr. Robert Melray, he produced his copy of the letter of the 4th of September, and asked the manager to inform him whether he remembered the receipt of the original, to which Mr. Noyes, having glanced his eye over the copy, replied that he remembered it very well indeed.

"In that case," resumed Winslade, "will you be good enough to enlighten me, and Mr. Robert Melray through me, as to the precise nature of the transaction to which it refers, in view of the fact that no note or memorandum of any kind has been found among the late Mr. Melray's papers which helps in the slightest degree to explain it?"

Mr. Noyes toyed for some seconds with his watch-chain before answering. Then he said: "I need scarcely tell you, Mr. Winslade, that it is a matter of principle with me never to open my lips about any confidential matters of which I may become the depositary in the ordinary course of business. Seeing, however, that the case to which this letter refers is of a very exceptional kind, that Mr. Melray is dead, and that the information is asked for by his brother as his partner and successor, I think that, for once, I shall be justified in taking an exceptional course. Here is the 'Times.' If you will kindly engage yourself with it for a matter of five or six minutes, I shall then be at liberty to tell you all I know of the affair."

"It was about the middle of last August," began the manager a few minutes later, as he wheeled his chair half round so as more directly to confront his auditor, "that a young man called upon me whom I had never to my knowledge seen before. (I can verify the exact date for you, should it be necessary to do so.) His name, he told me, was Richard Dyson, and that he was a relative of Mr. Melray, the well-known shipowner of Merehampton. His object in calling on me was to negotiate, on the part of that gentleman, a loan of three hundred pounds, of which sum, he gave me to understand, Mr. Melray was in immediate need; the security offered for the same being a fully paid-up life policy for two thousand pounds. That Mr. Melray, although in a large way of business, should be in pressing want of the sum in question did not surprise me in the least. Many prosperous merchants and tradesmen whose capital is locked up, or otherwise not available at a moment's notice, are occasionally pressed for a comparatively small amount of ready money. Consequently what I did was to take down the particulars of the required loan and tell Mr. Dyson that I would lay the application before my directors and communicate with him at the earliest possible moment.

"Well, sir, the terms of the loan having been acceded to, a communication to that effect was sent under cover to Mr. Dyson. Next day saw him at my office again, his object in coming being to settle with me the details for the completion of the affair. Mr. Melray having an objection to being seen entering or leaving an office the chief business of which was the lending of money, it was arranged between Dyson and myself that I should wait upon his relative at half-past seven on the evening of the next day but one, at the George and Dragon Hotel, where a private room would be engaged by him.

"I was at the hotel punctually at the time agreed upon, and on asking for Mr. Melray was at once ushered into his room. I found the shipowner, whom I had never seen before, to be a thin, grey-haired man, somewhat prim and old-fashioned in his attire, and wearing smoke-tinted spectacles. After a brief greeting we at once entered on the business which had taken me there. The evening was closing in and the room was in semi-darkness. I thought Mr. Melray would have rung for lights, but he did not. There were pen and ink on the table. At his request I stationed myself by him, and pointed out the particular spot on the assignment and other documents where his signature was required. That done, I folded up the papers and handed him a cheque for three hundred pounds; he, in return, presented me with the policy, which, till the sum lent should be repaid, together with interest as agreed on, would remain in my custody. The whole affair was over in five or six minutes at the most. At this distance of time there can be no harm in my confessing that I thought it rather stingy treatment on the part of Mr. Melray not to offer me as much as a glass of wine.

"Now, one of the two people who, twice every year, audit the Corporation's accounts and verify their securities, is Mr. Dunning, a lawyer well known both at Solchester and Merehampton, At the half-yearly audit, which took place about three weeks after my interview with Mr. Melray, the policy of assurance, together with other documents bearing on the transaction, came, in due course, under Mr. Dunning's inspection. You will readily imagine, then, that I was not a little surprised when he came to me with the papers in his hand and asked me to tell him all I knew of the transaction to which they referred. Taking into account his official connection with the Corporation, there was no breach of confidence in my complying with his request. It was then my turn to put certain questions to him, and the surprise I had felt before was in nowise lessened when he told me that he had been Mr. Melray's lawyer, and, in certain matters, his confidential adviser, for something like a quarter of a century; that, from his knowledge of that gentleman's affairs, he could aver that it was next to impossible that he should have been in need of such a sum as three hundred pounds; that, so far as he was aware, Mr. Melray, whose eyes were remarkably good for his age, had never worn spectacles in his life; and, finally, that he, Mr. Dunning, believed the signatures which I had witnessed to be neither more nor less than unblushing forgeries of his client's name. Thereupon it was agreed that he should take the suspected documents away with him and see Mr. Melray on the morrow.

"Of what passed between the two I have no knowledge, but when I tell you that, as far as I am concerned, the sequel of the affair was the letter of which you have this morning shown me a copy, you are at liberty, just as I was, to think what you like. Having got my 'pound of flesh,' as I suppose you would term it, I returned the policy as requested, and from that day to this have never sought to pry further into the affair."

The first thing Winslade did after leaving Mr. Noyes was to despatch a telegram to Mr. Melray, which served to bring that gentleman to Solchester by the next train. It is not needful to dilate on the grieved astonishment with which he listened to the other's recital of what had passed between himself and the money-lender. Dyson had been a favourite with both the brothers, not merely because he was the only son of an orphan cousin--of whom, as a girl, they had been both proud and fond--but also by reason of certain pleasant qualities of his own, which, if they did not spring from any genuine depth or sincerity of feeling, had all the appearance of doing so and answered their purpose equally as well.

"We must go at once and find Dunning," were Mr. Melray's first words when he had in some measure regained his composure. "So far we have only heard half the story. It rests with him to tell us the remainder."

They were fortunate enough to find Mr. Dunning at home and disengaged. A very few minutes sufficed to acquaint the lawyer with the nature of their errand.

"We know all that Mr. Noyes has to tell," said Mr. Melray in conclusion. "We want you to supplement his narrative from the point where his information comes to an end."

"That I can very readily do," said the lawyer. "When I showed Mr. James Melray the loan-office documents, with what purported to be three separate signatures of his attached thereto, he at once, in the most emphatic and indignant terms, denounced the whole affair as an audacious mixture of forgery and fraud. He had never seen Noyes in his life, much less applied to him for a loan, or pledged his policy of assurance. But when he had reached that point of his disclaimer I said to him, 'Would it not be as well to satisfy yourself that the policy is still in your possession?' 'Why, I had it in my hand no longer ago than yesterday,' was his reply. 'It lies where it has always lain, on the top shelf in the large safe, one of a bundle of documents tied round with red tape.' Thereupon, as if to make assurance doubly sure, he rose, crossed the room, unlocked the safe, and produced from the interior the bundle of papers of which he had spoken and extracted from the rest a large oblong envelope, which he brought to the table. It was labelled in his own writing, 'Paid-up Policy of Assurance on Own Life for 2,000_l_.; 'There,' he said, with a little triumph in his tone, 'whatever else the rogue may have been guilty of he has not succeeded in making away with this.' 'I hope you won't think me unreasonable,' I replied, 'if I ask you to open the envelope and examine its contents.' Scarcely had the words left my lips before, with his office knife, he had slit open one end of the envelope and drawn forth the enclosure. An instant later he sank back in his chair with a groan. All that the envelope contained was some blank sheets of engrossing paper.

"For a few moments I was afraid that Mr. Melray was about to have a seizure of some kind, so colourless was his face and so glassy were his eyes. He would not, however, let me ring for help, and gradually he came round. A careful examination of the envelope revealed the _modus operandi_ by which the fictitious contents had been substituted for the genuine. The large black seal, with its impression of Mr. Melray's monogram, had not been meddled with beyond the point of detaching it bodily, probably with the help of a sharp penknife, from the thick paper of the envelope. Then, after the substitution had been effected, the seal had been reaffixed in its place with the help of a little gum; and, finally, a thin rim of melted wax had been run round it so as completely to hide any evidence of the envelope having been tampered with. In the confidential position held by Dyson under his kinsman, he had free access to the safe and its contents. When once he had got the policy into his possession and had put everything in train with Mr. Noyes, it was a comparatively simple matter, with the aid of a wig and a few other accessories, to pass himself off in the half-light of the August evening for a man double his own age. What puzzled me then, and not only me, but Mr. Melray, and what puzzles me still, is, why he contented himself with the comparatively small sum of three hundred pounds, when he might have borrowed double that amount on the security of the policy had he been so minded. But it may have been that he saw, or thought he saw, the means of repaying a small sum, and so of redeeming the policy, while it might have been impossible for him to do so in the case of a more considerable loan.

"I have already told you, gentlemen," continued the lawyer, "how terribly Mr. Melray was put about by the discovery of his young relative's treachery and ingratitude, not to call his conduct by a stronger name. In the first excess of his resentment he vowed that the moment Dyson returned (just then he happened to be away on his annual holiday) he would cause him to be arrested, and would prosecute him with the most extreme rigour of the law. But, after a while, the flame of his anger began to burn less fiercely. He called to mind that the culprit was the only son of his favourite cousin, to whom he had passed his word when she lay on her death-bed that he would act a parent's part by the lad. He remembered, too, his unfortunate bringing-up, and that his father had been a dissolute spendthrift, bankrupt of all moral principle. Nor did he forget that young men often flounder into difficulties almost unwittingly and through no very grave dereliction on their part, and that, in order to get rid of one difficulty, they sometimes succumb to the first temptation that comes in their way, and thereby saddle themselves with an incubus of a far more onerous kind. Finally, he decided that on Dyson's return he would confront him with the evidences of his crime, but that, instead of handing him over to the arm of the law, he would insist on his quitting England for a certain term of years, and would forgive him to the extent of finding him the means wherewith to make a fresh start in life on the other side of the world. Me he bound to secrecy, while, either on the same or the following day, he forwarded the three hundred and fifty pounds to Noyes and thereby redeemed his policy.

"As we all know," said Robert Melray, "the interview between my brother and Richard never took place. The latter did not get back from his holidays till the third day after James's death; but it seems somewhat remarkable, in view of my brother's intention, as avowed to you, of confronting Richard with the evidence of his guilt, that the criminatory documents should not have been found by Mr. Cray among his papers."

"The absence of the papers in question, as it seems to me, can only be explained by one of two suppositions. Either your brother afterwards changed his mind and himself destroyed them, or else Dyson, either suspecting or knowing that his crime had been brought to light during his absence, contrived to find and appropriate them in advance of Mr. Cray."

"Your last supposition seems to me the more likely of the two," said Mr. Melray. "I recollect now that it was not till after the funeral that Mr. Cray set about a systematic examination of my brother's papers, so that, in the interim, Richard would have plenty of opportunity to search for and find what he wanted. I declare that, next to my poor brother's death, to-day's revelation is the most distressing thing I have had to contend with in the whole course of my life!"

"You say, Mr. Dunning, that my brother bound you to secrecy," resumed Robert Melray after a pause. "Would it not have been better if you had looked upon his death as virtually absolving you from your promise, thereby enabling you to bring under my notice certain facts which I have learnt to-day for the first time?"

"The point is one which I have debated with myself not once, but many times. The conclusion I finally came to was that, having regard to certain special features of the case, your brother's death did not absolve me from my promise. That a grievous crime had been committed could not be gainsaid; but if Mr. Melray chose to condone it that was no business of mine. In all probability, as he said, it was the one great sin of the young man's life, and who should say that it had not been bitterly repented of? Further, how was I to be sure in what light you would look at the affair? You might have chosen to prosecute the culprit, which would have made it a very difficult matter for me ever to forgive myself. In any case his character would have been blasted, and his career, almost of necessity, ruined. Still, I am not prepared to state positively what I might or might not have done, had it been your intention to carry on the business of Melray Brothers, which, almost as a matter of course, would have involved the retention of your kinsman in your service. Knowing, however, as I have from the first, that it is your resolve to get rid of the business as speedily as possible and retire into private life, in which case you and he would part, probably for ever, I deemed it best to keep the secret of his delinquencies locked up in my own breast, where, I can assure you, it had no lack of other secrets to keep it company."

"I will not say but that you have perhaps acted for the best," remarked Mr. Melray. "Still---- But at this stage of the affair it would be futile to dwell on suppositions. What I have now to decide upon is the nature of the steps which it behoves me to take after what has been told me to-day. That, however," he added with a sigh, "is a problem which requires consideration."

"May I ask whether Mr. Dyson is entitled to any bequest under his late cousin's will?" It was Winslade who put the question.

"His name is down in the late Mr. Melray's will for a legacy of three thousand pounds," replied the lawyer. "The reason he has not been paid it before now is because the estate has not yet been finally wound up."

Presently Mr. Melray and Winslade went their way, the former to the railway station, the latter to prosecute certain inquiries on his own account.

The first thing he did was to retrace his steps to the office of Mr. Noyes.

"I must ask you to excuse me for troubling you again," he said to the money-lender; "but what I am desirous of knowing is whether any communication passed between Dyson and yourself after his return from his holidays?"

"I wrote to him the day after the funeral, asking him to come and see me. He came. Thereupon I proceeded to tell him of Mr. Melray's discovery of the payment by the latter of the three hundred and fifty pounds (principal and interest of the loan), and of my return to him of the policy of assurance. What, however, I positively declined to tell him, although he pressed me hard to do so, was how and by whose agency the discovery had been brought about. From that day to this I have seen nothing of Mr. Dyson, neither do I care if I never set eyes on him again."

Philip Winslade thanked Mr. Noyes and took his leave. "There can be little doubt," he said to himself as he walked along, "that, as Dunning suggested, Dyson obtained access to the dead man's papers before Mr. Cray had an opportunity of going through them, and abstracted the promissory note and other documents which bore Mr. Melray's signature as forged by himself."

In the course of the interview with Mr. Dunning the question had suggested itself to him whether it was really a fact that Dyson did not get back from his holidays till the third day after Mr. Melray's death. In order to answer it, it would be needful for him to go to Merehampton; but, as he had still another inquiry to make in Solchester, he resolved to take that in hand first.

It was not till late in the evening that he got back to his hotel, after having brought his inquiry to a successful issue. The nature of it and its result cannot be told more succinctly than in the following note:

"My dearest Fanny,--In Mrs. Melray's statement there occurs the following passage: 'Evan was an especially handsome young man, with large, black, lustrous eyes, and a dark Italian-looking face.' Elsewhere she makes mention of his 'ebon brows.' Now, in face of this, I have ascertained to-day beyond the possibility of doubt, and not from one, but from three different sources, that Evan Wildash, instead of being a dark-complexioned man with black eyes and 'ebon brows,' had a particularly fair complexion, also that his eyes were blue-grey, and the colour both of his hair and eyebrows a light reddish brown.

"Solve me the problem which is involved in this contradiction if you can. For myself, I confess that it baffles me.

"For the present I have decided to say nothing of this to Mr. Melray. It would only unsettle him and cause him to imagine all sorts of things, and just now he has enough to occupy his thoughts, poor man!

"I will write you fully in the matter of R. D. in the course of a few days. I shall be in Merehampton for an hour or two to-morrow, but it is not advisable that we should meet.

"Ever and always yours,

"Phil."

In the dusk of the following evening Philip Winslade alighted at Merehampton station. Thence he made his way to the head constable's office, where he was already known, and where he found awaiting him certain information which, the day before, he had asked by letter might be obtained for him.

The information thus supplied him was to the effect that Richard Dyson, at the time of Mr. Melray's death, was lodging with a widow of the name of Parkinson, at No. 5 Lydd Place, but that he had removed to fresh rooms about a month later. It was to No. 5 Lydd Place that Winslade now betook himself.

Widow Parkinson proved to be quite willing to tell all she knew, which was not much, about her late lodger, and even to adorn her somewhat bald narrative with a little fanciful embroidery of her own invention. She considered that she had a grievance against Mr. Dyson. According to her account, he had left her, without any just cause or reason, in what she was pleased to term a very shabby way, and had taken himself and his belongings elsewhere; therefore did she feel herself at liberty to throw reticence to the winds.

That from the widow's flood of talk, which at times threatened, metaphorically, to wash him off his feet, Phil contrived to eliminate the particular bit of information he was in search of goes without saying. Mr. Melray came by his death on the evening of Friday, September 18. According to his landlady, Dyson, at that time on his holidays, did not put in an appearance at his lodgings till Monday, the 21st, early on the morning of which day--that is to say, somewhere between five and six o'clock--he knocked the widow up. The account of himself which he volunteered was to the effect that he had just arrived by an early train, having lengthened out his holiday to the last possible moment, and that he was due back at the office at nine o'clock that same morning. It was the widow herself who broke to him the news of his cousin's tragical fate. "And awfully cut up about it he was surely," she went on to remark. "He had always been a laughing, careless, easy-going sort of gent, and I did not think he had so much feeling in him."

Philip Winslade left No. 5 Lydd Place no wiser than he had entered it. While his inquiries of the last few days had served to bring to light many strange and hitherto unsuspected facts, they left the Loudwater Tragedy as much a mystery as before, and to Phil, in the mood in which he then was, it seemed likely to remain such for all time to come. But it sometimes happens that when everything seems at a standstill, when the way we would go is, as it were, blocked by a solid wall against which it would be folly to dash ourselves, silent forces of which we know nothing are at work, and in their own way and their own good time bring round the appointed end, which, as often as not, proves to be an end such as has not been dreamed of by us in any of our schemes of what the future might possibly bring to pass.