The Ashiel mystery : $b a detective storyBryce, Marion
General
The Ashiel mystery : $b a detective story
Bryce, Marion
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
Sir Arthur Byrne took his adopted daughter back to Belgium on the
following day, since, although she would have to return to England to
give evidence against Mark in due course, some time must elapse before
his trial came on, and he judged it best to remove her as far as possible
from a place whose associations must always be painful.
Then ensued a series of weary long weeks for Juliet, in which she had no
trouble in convincing herself that David had forgotten her. She heard
nothing from him directly, though indirectly news of him filtered through
in letters they received from Lady Ruth and Gimblet. He had not, it
appeared, taken his cousin's guilt as proved so readily as Mark had
affected to do in his own case, refusing absolutely to hear a word of the
evidence against him, and maintaining that the whole thing was a mistake
as colossal as it was ghastly.
Only when he was persuaded unwillingly, but finally, that it was Juliet's
word which he must doubt if he were to continue to believe in Mark's
innocence, did he give in, and sorrowfully acknowledged himself
convinced.
All this Lady Ruth wrote to the girl, together with the fact that Sir
David was still in attendance on his mother, now happily recovering from
the nervous shock she had sustained.
From Gimblet, and from Messrs. Findlay & Ince, they heard that by the
will which the detective had found all Lord Ashiel's money and estate
were left to the adopted daughter of Sir Arthur Byrne, known hitherto as
Juliet Byrne, with a suggestion that she should provide for his nephews
to the extent she should think fit.
The will, though not technically worded, was perfectly good and legal,
and Juliet could have all the money she was likely to want for the
present by accepting the offer of an advance which the lawyers begged to
be allowed to make.
Gimblet wrote, further, that the list of names of members of the Nihilist
society entitled the "Friends of Man" which he had discovered at the same
time as the will and, contrary to Lord Ashiel's wishes, sent off by
registered post to Scotland Yard, had been communicated to the heads of
the police in Russia and the other European countries in which many of
those designated were now scattered, with the result that a large number
of arrests had been quietly made, and the society practically wiped out.
The foreign guest of the Crianan Hotel was still at large. The name of
Count Pretovsky was not on the list and nothing could be proved against
him. He had moved on to another hotel farther west, where he was lying
very low and continuing to practise the gentle art of the fisherman. A
member of the Russian secret police was on his way to Scotland, however,
and it was likely that Count Pretovsky would be recognized as one of the
persons on Lord Ashiel's list who were as yet unaccounted for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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