It was that Tyler cat who made the trouble between us, and Mark was so weak and silly—half crazy, I think, with his morphia and over-study—that he cleared right out, and I never knew where he had gone to.
When I saw that notice about the murdered man in Geneva Square, who called himself Berwin, and was marked on the cheek, I thought he might be my husband.
When the coffin was opened, I really believed I saw poor Mark's dead body.
The face was just like his, and scarred in the same way."
"What about the missing finger, Mrs. Vrain?
If I remember, you even gave a cause for its loss."
"Well, it was this way," replied Lydia, somewhat discomposed. "I knew that Mark hadn't lost a finger when he left, but Ferruci said that if I denied it the police might refuse to believe that the body was that of my husband.
So, as I was sure it was Mark's corpse, I just said he had lost a finger out West.
I didn't think there was any harm in saying so, as for all I knew he might have got it chopped off after leaving me.
But the face of the dead man was—as I thought—Mark's, and he called himself Berwin, which, you know, Diana, is the name of the Manor, and the scar was on the cheek. I know now it was all contrived by Ercole; but then I was quite ignorant."
"When did you find out the truth?"
"After that cloak business.
Ferruci came to me, and I told him what that girl at Baxter's had said, and insisted that he should tell me the truth. Well, he did, in order to force me to marry him, and then I told him to go and make it right with the girl, so that when Mr. Denzil went again she'd deny that Ercole had bought the cloak."
"She denied it, sure enough," said Lucian grimly. "Ferruci, before he died, told me he had bribed her to speak falsely.
What more did the Count reveal to you, Mrs. Vrain?—the conspiracy?"
"Yes. He said he'd found Mark hiding at Salisbury, half mad with morphia, and had taken him up to Mrs. Clear's, where it seems he went mad altogether, so they locked him up as her husband in a lunatic asylum.
Ferruci also told me that he had seen Michael Clear on the stage, and that as he was so like Mark, and was likely to die of drink and consumption, he got him to play the part of Mark in Geneva Square, under the name of Berwin.
Mrs. Clear visited her husband there by climbing over a back fence, and getting down a cellar, somehow."
"I know that," said Lucian. "It was Mrs. Clear's shadow I saw on the blind.
She was fighting with her husband, and when I rang the bell they were both so alarmed that they left the house by the back way and got into Jersey Street.
Then Mrs. Clear went home, and the man himself came round into the Square by the front way.
That was how I met him.
I wondered how people were in the house during his absence. Mrs. Clear told me all."
"Did she say why her husband made you examine the house?" asked Diana.
"No.
But I expect he made me do so that I should not have my suspicions about that back entrance. But, Mrs. Vrain, when Ferruci confessed that your husband was alive, why did you not tell it to the world?"
"Well, I'd got the assurance money, you see," said Lydia, with shrewd candour, "and I thought the company would make a fuss and take it back—as I suppose they will now.
Ferruci wanted me to marry him, but I wasn't so bad as that.
I did not want to commit bigamy.
But I really held my tongue because Ferruci told me who killed Clear."
"He knew, then?" cried Lucian, "and denied it to me!
Who killed the man?"
"Wrent did—the man who lived in Jersey Street."
"And who is at the bottom of the whole plot!" said Lucian furiously. "Do you know where he is to be found?"
"Yes," said Lydia boldly, "I do; but I'm not going to tell where he is!"
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want him punished."
"But I do," said Diana angrily. "He is a wretch who ought to suffer!"
"Very well," said Lydia, loudly and spitefully, "then make him suffer, for this Wrent is your own father!
It was Mark who killed Michael Clear!"
CHAPTER XXIX LINK SETS A TRAP
In the course of their acquaintance, Diana had put up with a great deal from the little American adventuress, owing to her position of stepmother, but when she heard her accusing the man she had ruined of murder, the patience of Miss Vrain gave way.
She rose quickly, and walking over to where Lydia was shrinking in her chair, towered in righteous indignation above the shameless little woman.
"You lie, Mrs. Vrain!" she said in a low, distinct voice, with a flushed face and indignation in her eyes. "You know you lie!"
"I—I only repeat what Ferruci told me," whimpered Lydia, rather alarmed by the attitude of her stepdaughter. "I'm sure I hope Mark didn't kill the man, but Ercole said that he was in Jersey Street for that purpose."
"It is not true!
My father was in the asylum at Hampstead!"
"Indeed he wasn't—not at the time Clear was killed!" protested Lydia.
"He was not put into the asylum until at least two weeks after Christmas.
Is that not so, Mr. Denzil?"