Reginald Ainsley Duke had lived a happy and contented life until a terrible calamity befell him—his wife’s brain gave way, and with splendid physical health she had to be removed to an asylum, a dangerous and incurable lunatic. Though he had never been passionately in love with her, they had been sincerely attached, and for some time he was crushed beneath the blow. But in his case, as in others, time softened the sharpness of his grief, and this terrible period of his life gradually became a hideous though fading nightmare. Then he saw Miss Cissie Winter act at the Comedy, and feeling attracted to her, he arranged a meeting. The attraction proved to be mutual, and other meetings followed, as a result of which he fell violently, overwhelmingly in love with her. To his unbounded and ecstatic delight, he found his passion was returned.
Their problem then was a common one. Obviously they could not marry, so after much thought they did what a good many other people would have done in their place—set up an unconventional household. Their difficulty was Duke’s daughter. Had it not been for her, they would have taken no trouble to hide their predicament. But Duke did not want any stigma to rest on her, and with Miss Winter’s approval he decided to live a double life and keep two establishments. A simple disguise being necessary, he took for his model Vanderkemp, partly because the traveller was somewhat of his own height and build, and partly in the hope that were he at any time followed from the office to his second dwelling, he might be mistaken for Vanderkemp. With the help of the actress, he evolved a makeup, consisting of a wig, a false moustache and glasses, and exchanged his own upright carriage for Vanderkemp’s stoop. As Duke he retained his own personality, as Vane he wore the makeup. Their plan had met with such success that no suspicions were aroused. To his daughter he explained his frequent absences by saying he had to keep in constant touch with the Amsterdam branch, and the servants at Pennington, the forerunner of Crewe Lodge, were given to understand he was a traveller for a firm of engineers.
The arrangement worked successfully until the war began to interfere with the profits of his business, and then the keeping up of his two homes became a burden greater than he could bear. For a time he struggled on, but an insidious temptation had begun to haunt him, and the greater his difficulties grew the stronger it became. Here was he virtually in control of the business. His partners gave it but little attention. Peabody was old and doddering, and Sinnamond was well-off and spent most of his time travelling. A little juggling with figures, a few slight alterations to the books, and he would have all the money he wanted. He resisted with all his strength, but even in doing so he saw fresh ways in which the thing could be carried out—with absolute safety, as he believed—and eventually he fell. His plans worked as he had expected, his financial difficulties were met, and he congratulated himself that all would be well.
But there was one thing on which he had not reckoned. He forgot that a man cannot start a deceit or a swindle and stop when he likes. He soon discovered that each falsified entry required some further manipulation to buttress it up, and in spite of all his efforts he found himself becoming more and more deeply involved. And then came the inevitable unforeseen catastrophe. His head clerk, Charles Gething, began to suspect. He made an investigation, confirmed his suspicions, and with characteristic straightforwardness showed his discoveries to his employer, declaring that his duty required him to call in the other partners.
Duke, seeing he was up against it, played for time by stoutly swearing that Gething had made a mistake and promising him a complete explanation and proof that all the books were in order, if the clerk would only wait until he got some balancing figures from the Amsterdam office. He left that evening for Crewe Lodge, and there he told Miss Winter the whole story. That astute lady saw that though through the simple expedient of wearing a wedding ring she had covered up their first departure from orthodoxy, this was a different matter. Here discovery would mean prison for her lover and destitution for herself. It did not take her long to make up her mind that there should be no discovery.
Exercising all her arts, she succeeded after a struggle in bringing Duke round to her way of thinking, and the two set their wits to work to devise a scheme by which to safeguard themselves. Miss Winter supplied the main idea of the plan; Duke, who was thorough rather than brilliant, worked out the details. In short, the scheme was to stage a robbery at the office, murder Gething, get hold of as many stones as possible, and then make a leisurely departure for distant and more healthy spheres.
Miss Winter had a complete and firsthand knowledge both of Brazil and the United States. Her father was English, but having as a young man been sent to Rio as representative of his firm, he had settled down there, married a Portuguese wife, and made his home in the Brazilian capital. His daughter had a genius for acting, and on her parents’ death while she was yet in her teens, she succeeded in getting
