alt a
blow.

Walter watched her in blank wonderment.

CHAPTER XXXI

IN WHICH SIR HUGH TELLS HIS STORY

"YOU know the truth, don't you, dearest?" Walter asked at last in that
quiet, sympathetic tone which he always adopted towards her whom he loved
so well.

Enid nodded in the affirmative, her face hard and drawn.

"He was killed, was he not--deliberately murdered?"

For a few seconds the silence was unbroken save for a whir of a taxicab
passing outside.

"Yes," was her somewhat reluctant response.

"You went to his rooms that afternoon," Walter asserted point blank.

"I do not deny that. I followed him home--to--to save him."

There was a break in her voice as she stammered out the last words, and
tears rushed into her dark eyes.

"From what? From death?"

"No, from falling a prey to a great temptation set before him."

"By whom?"

"By the doctor, to whom my stepfather had introduced him," was the girl's
reply. "I discovered by mere chance that the doctor, who had somewhat got
him into his clutches, had approached him in order to induce him to allow
him to take a wax impression of a certain safe key belonging to a friend
of his named Thurston, a diamond broker in Hatton Garden. He had offered
him a very substantial sum to do this--a sum which would have enabled him
to clear off all his debts and start afresh. Harry's younger brother Bob
had got into a mess, and in helping him out Harry had sadly entangled
himself and was practically face to face with bankruptcy. I knew this,
and I knew what a great temptation had been placed before him. Fearing
lest, in a moment of despair, he might accept, I went, by appointment, to
his chambers as soon as I arrived in London. Barker, his man, had been
sent out, and we were alone. I found him in desperation, yet to my great
delight he had defied Weirmarsh, saying he refused to betray his friend."

"And what did Bellairs tell you further?"

"He expressed suspicion that my stepfather was in the doctor's pay," she
replied. "I tried to convince him to the contrary, but Weirmarsh's
suggestion had evidently furnished the key to some suspicious document
which he had one day found on Sir Hugh's writing-table."

"Well?"

"Well," she went on slowly, "we quarrelled. I was indignant that he
should suspect my stepfather, and he was full of vengeance against Sir
Hugh's friend the doctor. Presently I left, and--and I never saw him
again alive!"

"What happened?"