"Unfortunately, yes. Poor Bellairs was a brilliant and promising officer, a man destined to make a distinct mark in the world. It was a pity, perhaps, that he was such a lady-killer."

"A pity that he fell victim to what was evidently a clever plot, and yet--yet--I cannot bring myself to believe that your surmise can be actually correct. He surely would never have sent for the very person who was his enemy and who had plotted to kill him--it doesn't seem feasible, does it?"

"Quite as feasible as any of the strange and crooked circ.u.mstances which one finds every day in life's undercurrents," was the quiet rejoinder.

"Remember, he was very fond of her--fascinated by her remarkable beauty."

"But he was engaged to Lady Blanche?"

"He intended to marry her, probably for wealth and position. The woman a man of Harry's stamp marries is seldom, if ever, the woman he loves,"

added the chief with a somewhat cynical smile, for he was essentially a man of the world.

"But what secret could Enid Orlebar desire to hide?" exclaimed Fetherston wonderingly. "If he loved her, he certainly would never have threatened exposure."

"My dear fellow, I've told you briefly my own theory--a theory formed upon all the evidence I could collect," replied the tall, dark-eyed man, as he thrust his hands deeply into his trousers pockets and looked straight into the eyes of his friend.

"If you are so certain that Enid Orlebar is implicated in the affair, if not the actual a.s.sa.s.sin, why don't you interrogate her?" asked Walter boldly.

"Well--well, to tell the truth, our inquiries are not yet complete. When they are, we may be in a better position--we probably shall be--to put to her certain pointed questions. But," he added quickly, "perhaps I ought not to say this, for I know she is a friend of yours."

"What you tell me is in confidence, as always, Trendall," he replied quickly. "I knew long ago that Enid was deeply attached to Bellairs. But much that you have just told me is entirely fresh to me. I must find Barker and question him."

"I don't think I'd do that. Wait until we have completed our inquiries,"

urged the other. "If Bellairs was killed in so secret and scientific a manner that no trace was left, he was killed with a cunning and craftiness which betrays a jealous woman rather than a man. Besides, there are other facts we have gathered which go further to prove that Enid Orlebar is the actual culprit."

"What are they? Tell me, Trendall."

"No, my dear chap; you are the lady's friend--it is really unfair to ask me," he protested. "Where the usual mysteries are concerned, I'm always open and above-board with you. But in private investigations like this you must allow me to retain certain knowledge to myself."

"But I beg of you to tell me everything," demanded the other. "I have taken an intense interest in the matter, as you have, even though my motive has been of an entirely different character."

"You have no suspicion that Bellairs was in possession of any great secret--a secret which it was to Miss Orlebar's advantage should be kept?"

"No," was the novelist's prompt response. "But I can't see the drift of your question," he added.

"Well," replied the keen, alert man, who, again seated in his writing-chair, bent slightly towards his visitor, "well, as you've asked me to reveal all I know, Fetherston, I will do so, even though I feel some reluctance, in face of the fact that Miss Orlebar is your friend."

"That makes no difference," declared the other firmly. "I am anxious to clear up the mystery of Bellairs' death."

"Then I think that you need seek no farther for the correct solution,"

replied Trendall quietly, looking into the other's pale countenance.

"Your lady friend killed him--_in order to preserve her own secret_."

"But what was her secret?"

"We have that yet to establish. It must have been a serious one for her to close his lips in such a manner."

"But they were good friends," declared Fetherston. "He surely had not threatened to expose her?"

"I do not think he had. My own belief is that she became madly jealous of Lady Blanche, and at the same time, fearing the exposure of her secret to the woman to whom her lover had become engaged, she took the subtle means of silencing him. Besides----" And he paused without concluding his sentence.

"Besides what?"

"From the first you suspected Sir Hugh's stepdaughter, eh?"

Fetherston hesitated. Then afterwards he nodded slowly in the affirmative.

"Yes," went on Trendall, "I knew all along that you were suspicious. You made a certain remarkable discovery, eh, Fetherston?"

The novelist started. At what did his friend hint? Was it possible that the inquiries had led to a suspicion of Sir Hugh's criminal conduct? The very thought appalled him.

"I--well, in the course of the inquiries I made I found that the lady in question was greatly attached to the dead man," replied Fetherston rather lamely.

Trendall smiled. "It was to Enid Orlebar that Harry sent when he felt his fatal seizure. Instead of sending for a doctor, he sent Barker to her, and she at once flew to his side, but, alas! too late to remedy the harm she had already caused. When she arrived he was dead!"

Fetherston was silent. He saw that the inquiries made by the Criminal Investigation Department had led to exactly the same conclusion that he himself had formed.

"This is a most distressing thought--that Enid Orlebar is a murderess!"

he declared after a moment's pause.

"It is--I admit. Yet we cannot close our eyes to such outstanding facts, my dear chap. Depend upon it that there is something behind the poor fellow's death of which we have no knowledge. In his death your friend Miss Orlebar sought safety. The letter he wrote to her a week before his a.s.sa.s.sination is sufficient evidence of that."

"A letter!" gasped Fetherston. "Is there one in existence?"

"Yes; it is in our possession; it reveals the existence of the secret."

"But what was its nature?" cried Fetherston in dismay. "What terrible secret could there possibly be that could only be preserved by Bellairs'

silence?"

"That's just the puzzle we have to solve--just the very point which has mystified us all along."

And then he turned to his correspondence again, opening his letters one after the other--letters which, addressed to a box at the General Post Office in the City, contained secret information from various unsuspected quarters at home and abroad.

Suddenly, in order to change the topic of conversation, which he knew was painful to Walter Fetherston, he mentioned the excellence of the opera at Covent Garden on the previous night. And afterwards he referred to an article in that day's paper which dealt with the idea of obtaining exclusive political intelligence through spirit-bureaux. Then, speaking of the labour unrest, Trendall p.r.o.nounced his opinion as follows:

"The whole situation would be ludicrous were it not urged so persistently as to be a menace not so much in this country, where we know too well the temperaments of its sponsors, but abroad, where public opinion, imperfectly instructed, may imagine it represents a serious national feeling. The continuance of it is an intolerable negation of civilisation; it is supported by no public men of credit; it has been disproved again and again. Ridicule may be left to give the menace the _coup de grace_! And this," he laughed, "in face of what you and I know, eh? Ah! how long will the British public be lulled to sleep by anonymous scribblers?"

"One day they'll have a rude awakening," declared Fetherston, still thinking, however, of that letter of the dead man to Enid. "I wonder," he added, "I wonder who inspires these denials? We know, of course, that each time anything against enemy interests appears in a certain section of the Press there arises a ready army of letter-writers who rush into print and append their names to a.s.surances that the enemy is nowadays our best friend. Those 'patriotic Englishmen' are, many of them, in high positions.

"When responsible papers wilfully mislead the public, what can be expected?" Walter went on. "But," he added after a pause, "we did not arrive at any definite conclusion regarding the tragic death of Bellairs.

What about that letter of his?"

Trendall was thoughtful for a few minutes.

"My conclusion--the only one that can be formed," he answered at last, disregarding his friend's question--"is that Enid Orlebar is the guilty person; and before long I hope to be in possession of that secret which she strove by her crime to suppress--a secret which I feel convinced we shall discover to be one of an amazing character."

Walter stood motionless as a statue.

Surely Bellairs had not died by Enid's hand!