"To sell the property if you can't pay him. He has already given you several months' grace. And besides, you've never answered any letters, nor have you paid any interest on the loan."

"Because the money is not yet due," declared the Rector of Little Farncombe. "If you knew the facts you would never make this illegal demand."

"I know all the facts. Gordon means to sell the property if you cannot pay at once."

Norton Homfray bit his lip. Only during the past two years had he suspected his whilom friend Gordon Gray, and that suspicion had that night been confirmed by the presence there of that vampire woman, Freda Crisp, whose dark, handsome face he had hoped never to look upon again.

Gray, the son of a rich City merchant, had long been the black sheep of his family, and had, when at Oxford, been sent down from Balliol for forging a cheque to a tailor in the Broad. A few years later Homfray, who had recently taken Holy Orders, met him and, ignorant of his past, had become his bosom friend. After six years Gordon went to America, and not until fifteen years afterwards did the pair see each other, when one day they found themselves staying at the Bath Hotel in Bournemouth and resumed their close friendship.

Now old Mr Homfray was at that moment in serious difficulties, partly owing to his business instinct and his innocent generosity and trustfulness. He was a real upright and pious man who, unlike many parsons, practised what he preached. He had, in fact, stood security for an old college chum who had died suddenly from pneumonia and "let him in."

He had been compelled to confess to Gray that he was ruined, whereupon his old friend had at once told him not to worry, and offered to lend him the sum upon his little piece of house property in the steep main street of Totnes, in Devon, from which he derived his slender income, the stipend at Little Farncombe being hardly sufficient to pay the housekeeper and the gardener at the Rectory.

But by the sudden appearance of the woman and her demands he realised that there was some sinister design afoot. That woman who stood before him he had strong cause to hate, yet hatred never entered his soul--even at that moment.

He now realised with blank amazement that her friend Gordon Gray, the man returned from the grave, was trying to swindle him, and that the date of the deed--the copy of which he had mislaid--had been altered and pre-dated a year.

"If your friend Gray dares to sell my little property--all I have--then I shall inst.i.tute criminal proceedings against him," he told the woman frankly, whereupon his unwelcome visitor opened her little brown leather handbag and from it produced a crumpled envelope, out of which she took three tattered newspaper cuttings, saying coldly:

"Perhaps you had better read these before you utter threats," and she handed them to him.

He held his breath, and the light died from his thin countenance. He pushed them aside with trembling hands.

"You know to what they refer, Mr Homfray--to your appearance under another name!" sneered Freda Crisp. "You are the highly respected rector of this picturesque, though obscure, little parish, but if your parishioners knew the truth I fancy that they and your bishop would have something to say about it. Is it just to the public that a man such as yourself should dare to wear a surplice and have the audacity to preach sermons?"

The Rector of Little Farncombe remained silent. His face was deathly white, his hands trembled, and his eyes were staring. He had suspected that the one great secret of his life was known. But it appeared that not only was it known to the unscrupulous man who had once been his friend, but also to the woman before him, who was his bitterest enemy!

"So the pair of you have learnt my secret!" he said in a low, hard voice. "And I suppose you intend to blackmail me--eh?"

The dark-haired woman laughed.

"Gordon only wants his money back, that's all."

"And you have forced him to take up this hostile att.i.tude," he said.

"You are my enemy. I know it. Well, what do you intend to do?"

"It isn't my affair," she declared. "Gray now knows that the money you borrowed from him was in order to help your fellow-criminal--a man who once did him an evil turn--after he had served his sentence. He wants his money back, and he is going to take it. The property will be up for auction in a week or so."

"But I won't be swindled in this way!" cried old Mr Homfray.

"Act just as you wish--but remember, if you make any move it will be the worse for you. Gordon is not a man to stick at trifles," the woman said.

"I know that," said the rector.

"And it is a very ugly skeleton you have in your cupboard," remarked the woman with a sinister smile.

"The property at Totnes is worth over four thousand pounds," he said.

"You have only to repay the money with interest and the matter is ended."

Mr Homfray paused.

Then, looking straight into the woman's evil face, he said:

"It is you, woman, who once swore to ruin me because I would not a.s.sist you in that vile plot of yours! You thought to trap me, a minister of the Church, into a.s.sisting you to entice that fly into the web you had so cunningly spun for him. But you were mistaken! I saw through your evil game, and because I did so you vowed vengeance upon me. And this is the hour of your triumph!" he added bitterly in a deep, hoa.r.s.e voice, and one quite unusual to him.

The woman's thin lips were pressed together, but she made no immediate reply.

At last she said:

"I am only here on Mr Gray's behalf."

"But it is you who have goaded him to do this--to take this action, well knowing that at the moment I cannot pay."

"That surely is not my affair," snapped the woman, while old Mr Homfray stood aghast at the sudden blow which had fallen to crush him.

What would his son Roddy think if he learnt the truth concerning that closed chapter of his father's past? What would the parish of Little Farncombe say if they knew that their respected rector had fallen among thieves?

"Won't Gray come here himself and talk over the matter?" he asked presently.

"No. He motored back to London as soon as the service was over. He had a fancy to see you and hear you preach to your dear parishioners, who, in all their innocence, believe in you, Mr Homfray," and again the woman laughed sardonically. "So he sent me to see you in private, and to tell you his intentions."

"Are you quite certain he will not come and see me?"

"I urged him to do so, but he refused," said the woman.

"Because he fears to face me!" exclaimed the rector. "He fears lest I, on my part, should speak the truth. I trusted Gordon Gray--trusted him as my friend--but I have been sadly disillusioned to-night, for I have found that he is my enemy, and I am now forearmed."

"That is no concern of mine whatever. I have given you his message."

The Rector of Little Farncombe looked straight into her face with his calm grey eyes behind his s.h.a.ggy brows.

"Then I will send a message back to him," he slowly replied. "As he refuses to come here and deliver his ultimatum in person, I will, in return, deliver my ultimatum to him. Go back and tell him that I defy him. Tell him that if either he or you lift a finger against me, then the truth concerning the death of young Hugh Willard will be known to Scotland Yard, and the affair of Hyde Park Square will be cleared up by the arrest of the a.s.sa.s.sin. Tell him that though he thinks there was no witness, yet one still exists--one who will come forward with indisputable proof. You know his name. Gordon Gray and I were friends until to-night. But we are no longer so. We are enemies. And you know to much of the affair as I do?"

The woman staggered as though he had dealt her a blow. Her evil face went ashen in an instant, and her dark eyes started from her head.

"What--what do you mean?" she gasped.

"What I have said! You heard my message to Gordon Gray; go and deliver it. Remember that if either of you molest me, or attempt to swindle me as you are now doing, then I shall reveal all that I know. My silence depends upon you both. So begone!" he added calmly, with firm resolve.

For a few moments the woman in furs stood motionless and silent.

"You will regret those words, Mr Homfray!" she said at last, threateningly. "I will deliver your message, but you will regret it.

Remember that!"

"I a.s.sure you I have no fear," laughed the old rector. "While Gordon Gray acted honestly as the friend I believed him to be, I remained his friend. Now that we are enemies it is I who can--and will--speak in self-defence. He threatens me with ruin, but little does he dream what I know concerning the young fellow's death and who was implicated in it--how the snare was set to ruin him, and afterwards to close his lips!"

The handsome woman shrugged her shoulders, but her face had entirely changed. She had been taken entirely aback by the open defiance of the man who, in her fierce vindictiveness, she had intended should be her victim. She had believed the hour of her triumph to be at hand, instead of which she saw that an abyss had opened before her--one into which she and her accomplice Gray must a.s.suredly fall unless they trod a very narrow and intricate path.