Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Nobility -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction
The gypsy sauntered toward it, clutching her shawl and gritting her
white teeth together. "Oh, I go my ways, my rye, but I have not done
with you yet, may the big devil rack my bones if I have. You win
to-day--I win to-morrow, and so good day to you, and curses on you for
a bad one. The devil is a nice character--and that's you!" she screamed,
beside herself with rage. "The puro beng is a fino mush, if you will
have the kalo jib!" and with a wild cry worthy of a banshee she
disappeared and was seen running unsteadily across the lawn. Lambert
shrugged his shoulders again and turned to his miserable cousin, who had
sat down with a dogged look on his fat face. "I have got rid of her
because I wish to save the family name from disgrace," said Lambert
quietly.
"There is no disgrace on my part. Remember to whom you are speaking."
"I do. I speak to the head of the family, worse luck! You have done your
best to trail our name in the mud. You altered a check which Pine gave
you so as to get more money; you forged his name to a mortgage--"
"Lies, lies, the lies of Agnes!" screamed Garvington, jumping up and
shaking his fist in puny anger. "The wicked--"
"Speak properly of my wife, or I'll wring your neck," said Lambert
sharply. "As to what she told me being lies, it is only too true, as you
know. I read the letter you wrote confessing that you had lured Pine
here to be shot by telling falsehoods about Agnes and me."
"I only lured him to get his arm broken so that I might nurse him when
he was ill and get some money," growled Garvington, sitting down again.
"I am well aware of what you did and how you did it. But you gave that
forged letter to Silver so that it might be passed on to Pine."
"I didn't! I didn't! I didn't! I didn't!"
"You did. And because Silver knew too much you gave him the Abbot's Wood
Cottage at a cheap rent, or at no rent at all, for all I know. To be
quite plain, Garvington, you conspired with Silver to have Pine killed."
"Winged--only winged, I tell you. I never shot him."
"Your accomplice did."
"He's not my accomplice. He was in the house--everything was locked up."
"By you," said Lambert quickly. "So it was easy for you to leave a
window unfastened, so that Silver might get outside to hide in the
shrubbery."
"Oh!" Garvington jumped up again, looking both pale and wicked. "You
want to put a rope round my neck, curse you."
"That's a melodramatic speech which is not true," replied the other
coldly. "For I want to save you, or, rather, our name, from disgrace.
I won't call in the police"--Garvington winced at this word--"because
I wish to hush the matter up. But since Chaldea and Silver accuse me
and accuse Agnes of getting rid of Pine so that we might marry, it is
necessary that I should learn the exact truth."
"I don't know it. I know nothing more than I have confessed."
"You are such a liar that I can't believe you. However, I shall go at
once to Silver and you shall come with me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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