Corner House — Chapter LXI, Logic; Chapter LXII, Confession; Chapter LXIII, A Final Verdict

"Just a moment," Leona said eagerly.

"Suppose I deny that.

How are you going to prove that I did so?"

"I am coming to that," Lawrence said, lighting a fresh cigarette.

"As soon as Bruce was in trouble and the plot began to reel off I saw that it was mine.

Of course there were large varyings in the details, but the scheme was mine.

It was even laid on the same spot as my skeleton story.

When I grasped that, I knew quite well that somebody must have stolen my plot."

"But why must it have been me?"

Leona asked.

"Well, in the first place, because woman's instinct helped me.

My niece said for some time that you were deeply in love with Dr. Bruce and that she feared for him--item the first.

Then I recollected telling you some details of my story plot--item the second.

I came to the conclusion you had stolen my plot.

And you stole it on the very night that I told you the main incidents."

"How did you find that out?"

Leona cried, startled off her balance.

"Glad you admit it," Lawrence said calmly.

"When I went to look for the synopsis I knew perfectly well that I should not find it.

And yet it was there only the day before, as I recollected afterwards.

Now, how did you get it?

The night in question you were only out of the room a little time, and yet in that little time you contrived to lay your hands on my notes."

"This," Leona murmured, "this is quite thrilling."

"Well, I promise you I shall be more thrilling later on," said Lawrence.

"I had to settle that part before I went any further.

I

tried to recall the conversation.

How could you have got into my rooms?

Then it came to me like a flash.

A journalist who stood by asked me where I carried my latchkey--a joking suggestion that he would steal my plot.

I said that it was in the ticket pocket of my overcoat."

"Then I began to understand.

You were only a little time from the room.

Why did you go from the room?

Ostensibly to see Captain Gifford off in his new autocar.

Here was a possible solution.

I saw Gifford later, and he told me that you had been larking off in his car for twenty minutes--long enough at that time of night to get to my chambers and back easily.

"That is logical, at any rate.

But to go further.

You borrowed a man's coat to put over your shoulders.

And the coat you borrowed was mine with the latchkey in the pocket.

That I got from a footman.

And when I came to look for my skeleton plot, it was gone.

Then I knew where I had to search.

Leona Lalage was at the bottom of the Corner House mystery.

It was her hand that I had to force.

Once that was done the rest was easy."

"So far you have made it quite plain," Leona murmured, "but I fail to see that all the rest was easy."

"Easy to me," said Lawrence, "whose plot had been stolen.

Remember it was really I who planned that business of palming the notes on to Bruce."

"Of course, of course," Leona murmured with her hand to her head.

"My mind has not been quite so clear for the last few days.

Go on."

"Well, a man had been murdered at the Corner House which was not a detail of my plot.

I saw that man, and Miss Lawrence had seen him, too.

She saw him, you will remember, one night in one of the windows of the Corner House.

She saw a struggle go on there.

The other man was no doubt Balmayne."

Leona inclined her head as if in consent.

"Afterwards, which is much more to the point, my niece saw Leon Lalage here.

I had better call him your husband, because really there is no denying that.

The man was in your house in the morning room, and Hetty saw him.

After the business of the notes came out and the story of the Spanish gipsy was told, I knew perfectly well what had taken place.

You had called Bruce in to your drunken husband by means of your new motor, with Balmayne playing the deaf mute.

After Bruce was gone you killed the man with a knife you procured at Rosser's, in Regent Street.

I find the knife in the dry well behind the house."

Leona said nothing.

There was a queer, strained look, half of admiration, on her face.

But she uttered no protest, no denial.

"Now we come to the marvellous evidence against Bruce.

There you had stolen my plot, body and boots.

Bruce is poor, so was my hero.

You find out all about that picture he bought, and Balmayne or somebody--it does not in the least matter who--in the guise of a Dutchman puts Bruce in possession of £200. These notes he places in his pocket.

"Later on he is called to the Corner House, where he is received by the Spanish lady, and then he has to handle a man in the last stage of collapse.

The latter part of the plot is your own, and from an artistic point of view, a great improvement on mine.

Murder and robbery make a fine combination.

You had previously arranged the proceedings, the notes and their numbers--adopted or suggested doubtless by you as a precaution--the letter to René Lalage and all to be found on the body.

If you can plant those numbered notes on Bruce, then he is ruined for all time.

"Having gone so far, the rest is easy.

And this is where my scheme comes in again.

Bruce has to take his coat off.

In the guise of the Spanish lady--a slight variation of my mysterious woman--you hang his coat up carefully in a closet for him.

You knew that £200 in notes was in that pocket, notes that Bruce had come by quite honestly.

The rest is easy."

Leona bent forward to listen.

Even Charlton seemed to have forgotten his troubles for the moment.

A beam of light illuminated his sombre face.

"Go on," said Leona.

"Nothing seems to be concealed from you.

Now please tell me what happens next."

"The simplest thing in the world.

You took the packet of notes from Bruce's pocket and supplied their place with the forty £5 notes, the numbers of which were sent out in the letter which Leon Lalage had intended for his brother.

And when Bruce went away he had that damning evidence in his pocket.

And that is how that vile, shameless thing was done."

CHAPTER LXII. CONFESSION.

For the first time Lawrence showed signs of indignation.

Cool and logical as he had hitherto been, he could not quite restrain himself in the presence of this woman, who had no shame or remorse, or anything save admiring curiosity.

"Directly Bruce told his story," he went on presently, "I knew exactly what had happened.

I knew all about the motor car also.

Then it was time for me to act.

I was using the house as a kind of trap for you one night when Mr. Charlton appeared.

He was good enough to pardon the liberty we had taken and to tell us his story.

Then I began to see my way pretty clear.

It was I who caused you to be informed about the missing diamonds being still in the well.

I had found out that you were in desperate need of money.

Isidore let me into that, also through him I got to know Maitrank.

You came for the diamonds, but you did not get the real ones, for the simple reason that I had already been down the well and got them for myself.

They were simply and plainly set, so that I had no trouble in getting paste imitations.

"So far, so good.

Maitrank comes on the scene and asks for his money.

You have no money, therefore you give him your diamonds.

You try to get them back from him, but you fail in the long run, owing to the courage of a young girl, who has watched the whole proceedings.

I have purposely refrained from dwelling upon the valuable aid Miss Lawrence has given us all through."

Leona passed her tongue over her dry lips.

"I wish I had known," she murmured.

"Oh, I wish I had known."

"I dare say," said Lawrence, drily, "but you didn't know.

There would have been another murder on your soul had it not been for my niece.

Maitrank was furious.

But he was a valuable ally to me, in fact I calculated on that.

By his means I forced a confession from you that it was yourself who paid the rest of those notes to Isidore, and this I can prove out of your own mouth, by the production of that tuberose perfume.

You were mad and desperate that night to part with the last of your store."

"How did you know it was the last of my store?"

Leona cried.

"Why, it could not logically have been otherwise.

Would you have produced those notes above all others if they had not been the last you possessed?"

"True," Leona murmured, "true.

You are too strong for me."

"Meanwhile the clouds were gathering around you.

Prout finds your husband's brother by a happy chance.

Once he has done this, things become easy for us.

The more easy they become for us the more desperate they grow for you.

Then you decide that you must recover those notes from Isidore.

You take out your motor car, so cunningly disguised in blacklead----" "That is true; but how did you know?"

"From Miss Lawrence's evidence at the first inquest.

Also the evidence of the reporter.

The car was draped, they said.

In places it shone.

Those places were where the lead was rubbed off; you could make the car sombre black and brilliantly light at will.

"You used to lock it up in the yard here.

We find a fresh cake of blacklead in the scullery, which completely puzzled me for a little time.

When I heard about the autocar I knew.

But we are getting away from the point.

When luck turned against you it did so completely.

You got into Isidore's rooms, only to find Mr. Charlton there, who was waiting for him.

Again fortune favoured us.

Mr. Charlton gave the alarm, and you had to fly.

At length the motor was abandoned, and its secret disclosed.

You disappeared.

Sooner or later I was certain of seeing you again."

"You were.

Why?

I was quite certain----" "Because my desperate woman hides by the scene of her crime.

I was a little dubious about you because that comes out in my plot.

Perhaps you counted upon that, and the fact I should not look for you here, after all.

It was a game of subtle cross-purposes.

But I did look for you here, and I found you.

It is a rather long story that I have had to tell, but it has been necessary.

And if I repeated it in a court of law I am afraid it would cause you serious inconvenience."

"It would hang me," Leona cried.

"Why should I be afraid to confess it?

You have been too strong for me.

Every word you have said is true, every step you have taken has been fully justified.

I was going to defy you at first, but I am not such a weak and silly fool as that.

I

have had a clever antagonist who has beaten me all along.

I have been criminally careless.

If I had taken the trouble I could have evolved as good a plot as one of your own."

"I fancy you could," said Lawrence.

"I am absolutely certain of it.

I took you for a dreamer.

I argued that if I used this thing you would not be an atom the wiser.

People who talk so much about their own work as you do are generally very foolish."

Lawrence looked a little confused for a moment.

He knew his own weakness in that respect.

"I have little more to say," he went on.

"I have written out a confession for you in a more condensed form than I have explained to you.

I thought that you might like to sign it.

Not that it much matters whether you do or not."

"The more reason why I should do so," Leona sneered.

"If it did really matter, I would see my right arm rotting off before I put a pen to paper.

But I have had a most worthy antagonist, and I know the game too well not to play it correctly.

Give me a pen and let me finish it."

Lawrence took a fountain pen from his pocket.

Without the slightest hesitation and in a good dashing hand Leona Lalage appended her signature.

It was a great deal more firm and true than either of the witnessing signatures.

"Now you go and leave me," she cried.

"I am sick of the sight of your faces.

Give me a chance.

Let me have an hour's start."

Charlton spoke for the first time.

"Never," he cried, "there is another name to clear----" "Which I shall be able to do," Lawrence interrupted.

"And let that woman go?

I tell you never.

The very stones in the street would cry out at me!

You hear that knocking at the door?

Go and open it."

Lawrence crossed and opened the street door.

Prout stood before him.

CHAPTER LXIII. A FINAL VERDICT.

"Got a message from Mr. Charlton to follow him here," Prout gasped.

"You don't mean to say that you've got her here, sir?"

"Indeed, he has, Mr. Prout," Leona said coolly.

"Will you come in?

We have been having a pleasant conversation with some pleasing confessions.

Have you come for me?"

The woman was smiling now quite freely.

All traces of passion and anxiety were gone.

She knew the end had come, and she was prepared to accept it without complaint.

Prout looked a little awkward as he bowed.

"I shall not slip through your fingers in the same way as before," said Leona.

"I flatter myself I did you very neatly when you called upon me in Lytton Avenue.

But all the same I am going to escape you."

"It's my duty, madame," Prout began, "to ask you to----" "Accompany you.

Presently, but not quite in the way you imagine.

I

have made my confession in a way that Mr. Lawrence thoroughly appreciates.

It was I who murdered Leon Lalage, my husband, in this house; it was I who palmed those notes off on Dr. Bruce.

No reason to tell you why now.

And it was I in this very house who robbed my late mistress of her jewels and forged the letter from her husband that caused her to take poison.

After that I have no more to say.

Gentlemen, I am much obliged by your kind attention, and I say farewell to you, thus."

There was a warning shout from Lawrence, who dashed forward and grasped the speaker by the wrist.

But she wrenched herself away from him, and placed the table between them.

Prout was looking on in a confused kind of way.

"Close with her," yelled Lawrence, "she's got poison in her hand."

Leona Lalage laughed aloud.

She threw back her head, and a few drops from the little bottle were tilted between her teeth.

Almost instantly she grew livid.

"Swift and sure," she said, "it's prussic----" She said no more.

The ashy pallor of her skin grew whiter, there was a look of horror, swift as summer lightning, in her splendid eyes.

Then she pitched forward, there was a thud and a cloud of dust, and she lay there rigid, motionless.

"Dead," whispered Prout, "dead instantly.

It was prussic acid.

The whole room reeks of it.

Perhaps it was as well to finish it this way.

There'll be an inquest now, and the whole business will come out."

They laid the body on a sofa, and the trio left the Corner House.

They were very silent as they walked along.

"Some houses are accursed," Charlton said at length.

"Mine has been the abode of mystery and crime for years.

I shall never enter it again.

"And may this be the last of the evils connected with my house."

[Illustration: "Swift and sure," she said, "it's prusic----" --_Page 314_] "Must attend the inquest, sir," said the practical Prout.

"Still, if that was my house, I'd pull it down if I couldn't sell it."

Gordon Bruce was returning from an important consultation when he first heard the news.

It was the sensation of the hour.

Public attention in the Corner House mystery had never relaxed; on the flight of Countess Lalage it had doubled.

Where had she gone, and what was the true solution of the mystery were the only questions asked.

And here it was all out in the lurid light of day.

Dramatic arrest of the Countess.

The suicide and confession.

It was flaring in the evening papers--the boys were yelling at the top of their voices in the street.

The din of it filled Bruce's ears.

"Confession of the crime."

"The confession of the murder."

"The mystery of the motor explained."

"Dr. Bruce cleared of the cruel charge."

It seemed strange to Gordon to hear his name yelled out like this in his own ears.

He had a paper thrust into his hands.

He bought one eagerly enough, and stood spellbound on the pavement whilst he read.

It was all here, even down to a signed copy of the confession.

Lawrence had seen to that.

Bruce turned into his club in a dazed kind of way.

The smoking-room was full, he was the centre of a group, all of which seemed eager to shake hands.

It was all so sudden that Bruce was not himself yet.

He got away at length to his own room.

The servants greeted him with smiling faces, the housekeeper was in tears.

"Not that I ever believed it," she said, "Never from the first.

And now you'll have the finest practice in London.

I'd quite forgot, sir, to say that there is a young lady waiting for you."

There was no need for Lawrence to ask who was waiting for him.

He closed the door behind him, and a second later Hetty was in his arms.

Then there was a long, clinging caress, and their lips met in the sweetest of embraces.

It was a long time before either of them spoke.

Hetty's eyes were full of happy tears.

"I shall realise it presently," Bruce said at length.

"My darling, I should never have had my good name cleared thus but for you.

You are the bravest girl in the world.

And all those dangers for me!"

"I was not afraid, dearest," Hetty said.

"I thought of you.

I knew it would come right.

I felt from the first that the truth would come out.

And now all those people have gone.

Bruce, you will not be sorry for this after----" The telephone jangled sharply.

Bruce listened to the message with a smile.

"The Duchess wants me to see her boy at once," he said.

"The Duchess, you know; the one who so annoyed you at Lady Longmere's party."

Hetty clapped her hands joyfully.

"That is a good omen," she said.

"They will be all after you now, dear."

Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with happiness.

Bruce looked at her with pride and love in his eyes.

"I dare say," he said.

"And it has been a long, trying time.

Hetty, we shall be able to get married as I planned.

What do you say to July or----" "You had better," Hetty said demurely--"you had better run away and see to your Duchess."

The End *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE ***

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