Chapter XIII: A Thrilling Climax

“Well, Mr. Lynne, are you rested? Are you feeling better now?”

It was the detective who asked the question as they left Doctor Kuhn’s house together, with the doctor accompanying them, to walk the short distance back to Pleasantglades. The chief had gone on alone after the telephoning episode, saying that big as he was he had not the courage yet to meet that man without seizing him by the throat.

“Oh, yes,” said Lynne. “I am beginning to get better control of myself. I am glad that you have come. I want to visit the vault under the north wing, and I rather wanted you to accompany me when I did that.”

“Indeed?” said Nick. “Why so?”

The man shrugged his shoulders, then replied:

“I suppose I am nervous, that is all--and I cannot get it out of my head that somewhere there is an explanation for this sudden act of my daughter’s.”

“You don’t expect to find such an explanation in that vault, do you?” demanded the detective, in simulated surprise, for he had already assumed that this was what Lynne did expect to find, for the very good reason that he had arranged it, himself, to be found.

For that, and that only, could explain that paragraph of the letter which still was in hiding in one of Nick Carter’s pockets; that paragraph which was:

“The reasons why I have decided that there is no other way, you
will discover soon enough, and you will feel deep regret because I
did not go to you and tell you all about it, instead of doing this
thing.”

The clever forger--this man, of course--who had prepared that paragraph, had also prepared the evidence to establish the meaning of it; the evidence to explain what the forged letter pretended to refuse to explain; the thing that was meant to explain why she should kill herself.

Lynne claimed that he had not been at home until the time he stated in telling Nick Carter about it, but it was certain in the mind of the detective that he had been out here to Pleasantglades before he made his presence known in New York at all, and that he had prepared everything for the moment which had now arrived. The only upset in his plans was the strange absence of the letter that he had left on the table in the room where he had committed the murder.

That was, of course, preying upon his mind, but he did not dare to ask about it, since he could have no knowledge of it, and, doubtless, he consoled himself with the idea that the chief had found it and was holding it back for some purpose of his own.

But, when new evidence should be found in the vault that there was a reason why Edythe should have killed herself, then, of course, according to his hopes, the letter would be forthcoming.

So Nick followed him into the north wing of the house; saw him draw aside the circular rug that had been made for the semioctagonal room that was there; saw him insert a key into a lock in that floor and lift a ponderous trapdoor by adjusting a lever concealed in the wainscoating which applied weights to it to pull it up; saw him snap on electric lights from a switch, and then descend iron stairs to the regions below; saw him consult a small book that he carried in his pocket, and then attack the combination locks one after another until he had opened the two outer doors, and then the two inner ones of the vault; saw him step inside and use small, flat keys upon inner compartments of the great safe, for that is what it was, and presently step back again into the presence of the detective, and show him a beautiful string of pearls, which he drew slowly and lovingly through his hands.

“This is what I came here to get--what I was coming here to get, to give to Mrs. Babbington for her birthday,” he said. “Is it not exquisite?”

“It certainly is,” replied the detective.

Then Lynne left the pearls in the detective’s hands, and returned to the interior of the great safe.

“There are some securities that I think I will take away with me, now that I am here,” he remarked, as if casually, and he opened another compartment inside the safe--and Nick felt that the moment had arrived.

It had.

Lynne suddenly started back a half-suppressed exclamation; then he cried out, with all the theatrical art that he possessed:

“No, no! It is not possible! I will not believe it. Oh! oh! oh! This is the worst blow of all!” Then he turned slowly around, and added, as one who is overcome by sorrow: “Mr. Carter, I am very sorry now that I brought you here. I might have hidden all this, and now you must know. Look. Come here and look. It is best that you should.”

The compartment into which the detective peered when he stepped forward was about half filled with bonds, which Nick saw at a glance were negotiable ones; and on the top of them, unfolded, face up, was a short note in that same hand that had written the letter found in the room of death. Here was the evidence, then, that the fiend had prepared. The note was:

“Forgive me, papa. I have only taken half, but I had to do so. I
will not tell you why, only that it was not for myself, but for
another. I would die rather than that you should know all the
truth, and I have partly determined to die before you can know it.

“EDYTHE.”

So this fiend in human guise, not content with taking the life of that beautiful girl, that pure, sweet, young life, had attempted to steal her honor also, and had not hesitated to cast an unthinkable imputation upon her, even then.

Nick shut his fingers tightly together to keep himself from seizing the monster by the throat then and there.

But he controlled himself so that Lynne saw nothing of the danger he was in; and he reached into the compartment and took the note, folded it, and put it into his pocket.

“We must keep that out of sight for the present, Lynne,” he said, in explanation of his act. “Come; let us get out of here. The place gives me the shivers.”

As one who is bent and torn by grief unbearable, Lynne followed Nick up the stairs, after closing and locking the doors of the vault; and in that same attitude of a stricken man, he followed the detective through the north wing to the main part of the house--and they arrived at the front door just as an automobile drove into the inclosure and under the porte-cochère.

He did not even raise his eyes to discover who had arrived, since that was not in keeping with the part he was playing, and so he did not notice that it was Mrs. Babbington who was assisted from it, for Nick quickly turned him about and led him toward the room where the body of Edythe had not yet been disturbed.

The chief had his instructions from Nick, and would carry them out; and, true enough, it was only a moment later when Nick heard footsteps following them along the corridor.

The detective led Lynne into the room of death, partly closing the door after him--and a moment later it was pushed wider open again, and Mrs. Babbington stepped into the room with all the assured presence of the woman of fashion that she was.

Nick had turned Lynne so that he faced the door, and the sudden start and the awful gasp of terror that he gave when he saw and recognized the woman, could not be described.

“You, you, you!” he cried out, and she was startled, too, by his vehemence, which she had not anticipated, of course, since she believed that he expected her.

But before she could reply, or even make a gesture, a still more dramatic thing happened.

An old man, white and uncertain on his feet with age, pushed himself forward. He thrust out his right arm and pointed an accusing finger at the trembling man who faced him.

“You are not my master, Mr. J. Cephas Lynne; you are Thomas Lynne, his servant!” he half shouted in a voice that choked with rage. “And you murdered that girl--my beautiful little Edythe, whom I carried in my arms from the time that she was born. Oh, you--you----”

Shaking off restraint, he sprang at the throat of the man who cowered before him, and he would have reached him, too, had not Nick Carter interposed himself between them.

But Nick did another thing at that instant; he seized Lynne, whirled him about and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, and then he flung him into a chair near the chief, who had followed into the room; and the chief stood over the man, with his hands clenched tightly, as if he would have enjoyed tearing him apart.

And there was another sharp click that sounded in the room at the same instant, made by Patsy as he pulled Mrs. Babbington’s hands behind her, and snapped handcuffs upon her white wrists as well.

She shrieked out, then tottered; and then stood upright again at the sound of a shrill laugh from Lynne that was almost a snarl.

“They’ve got you, too, anyhow!” he yelled at her. “I won’t be alone in this. Look, Carter, she knew it all from the first. She recognized me at once when I went where she was, in Scotland. She had heard of my supposed death, and, when she saw me, she knew that I had killed my cousin Cephas. Oh, yes, she knew it, and she made the most of it. She made me say that I would marry her, and that she should share the fortune--and it was she, she, I tell you, who planned the murder of that poor girl on the couch. I didn’t want to do it, and I would not have done it, only that I saw she suspected me. She could not believe that her father would change so greatly in so short a time. Even when I had lured her here--Madge was with us last night in that car when we came here, and I took her home afterward--even when I had lured her here---- Oh, well, what is the use. I succeeded in inducing her to come here. She still thought I was her father, and that the accident and the illness had changed me; she trusted me, and I brought her in here, and I killed her. Now you have it. It is the truth, but that woman made me do it. And I forged a letter that I put on that table. I was always an expert penman, Carter. Cephas took me out of a prison when I went to him, and if it had not been for him I would have been back there again long before this, for another forgery. I wrote that note, too, that you have got in your pocket, that we found in the vault. Oh, I can write things; I can write things.”

The woman in the meantime had regained control of herself.

“The man is mad,” she said coldly. “I know nothing of the things he is talking about.”

“Mrs. Babbington,” said Nick slowly, “the man is not mad, and you do know all about the things he is talking about. More, I can prove many of them now, and will prove all of them within a week. Take her away, Chick, back to New York, and to headquarters. The chief and I will attend to this unspeakable scoundrel. You have the warrants?”

“Yes.”

“That is sufficient, then. Serve them now.”