Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  His signature followed — better written than the rest — a touching effort to “finish up a man.” All the last pages were blurred with the condemned man’s tears; and now, after seventeen months, her tears were raining, raining, on the same paper, on the same words, that bore the blots of his.

  This postscript remained —

  “Reprieved at the last moment! I shall not send this now — but I hope that it may reach you when I am gone.”

  Claire went to the window, and the rings rattled along the rod as she flung the curtains back. The sky swam with stars, her heart yearned for Heaven, and to the sweet stars her voice went up in broken and involuntary utterance of her soul’s pain.

  “Oh, Tom,” it cried, “if you had died then it would be better now! I should be dead too. We should both be at peace. Oh, Tom, we might be together now!”

  The hotel garden lay very still below. It was the back of the house, and now the hour was late. Suddenly there was a movement on the gravel underneath.

  “Claire — is it your voice?”

  His whispered — it was Tom.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “Come up. I want to speak to you.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes! how is it you are still in the town?”

  “I lost something. I have been hunting for it on the beach. I came back to have another look here.”

  “I have it. Come straight up to the room you were in this afternoon.”

  He appeared to hesitate.

  “You — you are not alone?”

  But Claire had left the window, and was waiting impatiently at the open door. How long he kept her! It seemed an age before his halting step was heard upon the stairs, while she, on fire to crave his forgiveness, and mindful of nothing else, could not imagine what held him back. Even when he came his eye was timid and his feet slow to cross the threshold: in fact, the inveterate conventionality of the male was not a little fluttered at her receiving him alone, at this hour of the night, and that night her marriage eve. Yet his qualms were entirely on her account. Nor could they quench the inextinguishable love-light in his honest eyes.

  As for Claire, however, she forgot everything but the cruel wrong she had done the man before her, the sufferings cut so deep upon his bronzed face, and her own new and blinding realisation of his innocence and heroism. For a space she could but stand and gaze upon him with burning eye-balls; then, with the noble unconsciousness of a woman stirred to the soul, she took him by both hands, and drew him into the room, and besought his forgiveness upon her knees, but with his hands still clasped in hers.

  Tom released his hands, shut the door nervously, and then almost brusquely asked her what he had to forgive.

  “I thought you guilty,” she sobbed. “I said so — and you were innocent all the time! Oh, thank God—”

  “Wait,” he interrupted. “How db you know that?”

  “What you lost I found. I have it here. Oh, Tom, I have read every word! Oh, why did you not send it at the time? You were innocent — innocent! Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Get up,” he said. “You have forgotten something.”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “Your marriage has no more to do with it than mine.”

  “My marriage! With whom, pray?”

  “The wife you applied for — at some factory!”

  She could not help her tone: it stung Tom into telling her the facts, and so inadvertently exposing Daintree’s chicanery. He instantly defended it as the accepted course.’

  “But that’s not what I meant at all,” he added hurriedly. “You must have forgotten what I told you the other day in the boat-shed!”

  Claire had indeed forgotten that. The great truth had swallowed up the little lie, but true and false were now as plain to her as day and night. Moreover, she saw the meaning of the false.

  “My hero!” she whispered. “You thought it best that I should never know. And so you said you were not an innocent man.”

  “Nor was I,” he faltered. “You soon saw that for yourself. They may hang me yet!”

  “And you wouldn’t have me think of you any more,” continued Claire, a spasm of pain crossing her face at his words. “But I will — I will! I’ll think of you till I die: my own hero!”

  He fidgeted horribly, looking towards the door. She would compromise herself — she would do herself harm. That was still his first thought; she saw it, and it floated her to the crest of that emotional wave in whose trough he trembled.

  “I believed you guilty — may God forgive me!” she cried. “But — shall I tell you something?”

  “Well?”

  “I loved you all the same!”

  “I won’t believe it,” he said at last.

  “I did — I know it now.”

  “Then forget it!” he cried hoarsely. “For God’s sake, remember nobody but the man you are to marry to-morrow morning. What? Claire?” He started from her; she had shaken her head. She shook it more passionately for that; but she did not speak. So he began — hardly knowing what he said — but pleading for his best friend — pleading for her honour — pleading for sacred duty as his male eye saw it. She was going to marry a generous and brave man, to whom he owed, not only his life twice over, but any good that was left in him. Yet neither was the other a faultless man, though so generous and so brave, and his one great anchor to good sense and good living was his love for Claire.

  Tom spoke plainly, even eloquently, as he went on. He would have gone on longer, but there was no need. Claire sat meekly weeping; he bent over her — his face wrung with anguish now that hers was hidden — and so took her hand in his for the last time.

  “God bless you always,” he whispered in a broken voice; “and make you good to him — and make him good to you!”

  She clung passionately to his hand; she held it to her bosom, and looked piteously up into his face. The tears sparkled in her eyes and on her cheeks. Her sweet lips quivered; it was more than man could bear. He fell upon his knees, he threw his arms about her, and for a very little space these two torn hearts beat and sobbed as one.

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  THE MAN IN THE MASK

  THE master was busy at his desk, but there was no rhyming dictionary at his elbow, and the book of synonyms was suffocating under a pile of papers that were stuffed into a drawer as Tom entered guiltily. The clock — an athletic trophy in the form of a kettle-drum — was then striking midnight, and Daintree wheeled round in his chair with the eleventh stroke. The eye nearest the lamp looked wild, but it was his wedding-day, and plainly he was in tremendous spirits.

  “Shut the window,” said he. “I have two things to tell you which I don’t want the girl to hear; if her windows are open she might.”

  Peggy happened to be listening at the door.

  “In the first place,” proceeded Daintree, “tell me frankly and finally whether you mean to marry the girl or not. Yes or no?”

  “No, sir; it is impossible.”

  “You shall do just exactly what you like. At the same time, she tells me you did ask her!”

  “I did. I wronged her in doing so, but she had the sense to refuse me, and I’m not going to wrong her worse by asking her again.”

  “That settles it. I’ve found a captain who’s willing to smuggle you over to America for a consideration. All details to be arranged before I leave Sydney to-morrow. Will you go?”

  “Will I not! Thank God for the chance!”

  “Then that settles that — for the present You shall be spirited aboard to-morrow night, and by Monday morning you shall have seen the last of New South Wales for ever.”

  Peggy crept away from the door. Her mind was made up.

  “The other thing’s a trifle,” said Daintree. “A pretty place this New South Wales! I go to the bank and cash a cheque, come in and shove the notes into one of these drawers, and a man breaks into the house and all but into my desk while I am sitting in the next room at my dinner! Look at this—” and he pointed out the m
arks of a jemmy on the polished mahogany. The circumstance did not appear to excite him in the least. He smiled loftily on Tom’s concern, and at once exaggerated an attitude which had been perfectly genuine before.

  “Ah, Thomas,” he remarked, “even you don’t know your Sydney yet, or you would be like me, and think nothing of such trifles. I was eating my dinner, as I say, when I heard him at his work; unfortunately I let him hear me; still, I chased him out of that and some way down the road, and could have caught him if I hadn’t preferred to come back and finish my dinner. I played a better knife and fork for the exercise.”

  “And you gave chase unarmed?” said Tom.

  “To be sure, except with these arms,” responded Daintree with equal truth and bravado, as he tapped an enviable biceps. “Your man of muscle has no business with any other, if he but know how to use his hands as I do. It would have gone hard with our friend, I promise you, if I had laid hold of him!”

  “I wish you had,” said Tom. “The blackguard must have dogged you from the bank, and hung about the Pulteney both times you were there.” Tom paused. His heart was back at the hotel, and his gratitude to the man was once more repelling his jealousy and distrust of the bridegroom, when a second thought sprang from his words. “By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I wonder whether it was the fellow who turned up on the beach almost at the instant we went down!”

  “What!” cried Daintree. “Did you see him?”

  “Yes, I caught a glimpse of somebody as we heeled over. Depend upon it that’s our man!”

  Daintree turned nasty in a moment.

  “Why depend upon it?” he snapped. “Did you see the man’s face? Would you know him again? Oh, you wouldn’t; then let me recommend you not to make a fool of yourself, my good fellow. Nobody but a fool would connect the two men.”

  His ill-temper was inexplicable; yet to treat an attempt upon his property as a joke, and an inoffensive theory of the attempt as something of an insult, was but in accord with the capricious character of the man. And, indeed, Tom would have gone to bed like a lamb, and thought no more about the matter; but yet another caprice detained him. Daintree would not hear of his going; it was their last night together; they most sit up and talk, and he apologised for what he had said. So they sat up once more, but the conversation languished for the first time on these occasions. Something had unnerved and depressed Tom’s master; he was never himself until the last night of his single life was at an end, and in the first light of dawn a full-rigged ship sailed in just as the Rosamund had done on the previous Sunday afternoon..

  “Letters!” he cried. “Letters for my wedding-day! Who knows but what I may get the best of news to crown my joys? What if my wife were never to be Mrs. Daintree at all? Yonder ship may dub me baronet; open a bottle, Thomas, and we will drink to all she brings me!”

  Then at last they lay down; but sleep came neither to the happy man nor to his miserable valet; and by ten o’clock the one was helping the other into his wedding garments. A few minutes before the hour the coach arrived which was to take the bridegroom in state to church; a few minutes after, a man was observed rowing in the bay, and Daintree insisted on taking a look at him through his spy-glass. Evidently the rower saw him, for he shot out of sight behind a headland, but not before Daintree had brought his telescope to bear upon the rower; and now the glass joggled between fingers which seemed smitten with an ague; and was lowered from a white face that glistened in the sun.

  “That was the man,” whispered Daintree; “and he’s after me still! I — I didn’t mind last night — I suppose it takes less to turn one queer on one’s wedding morning.” He was struggling in vain against some growing terror. “Brandy, man, brandy!” he gasped, and subsided in a chair.

  Tom rushed downstairs for the decanter, and returning found the terrified man fumbling with his pocket-pistol. He tossed off the spirit and handed the pistol to Tom.

  “There,” said he, “better withdraw and reload to make sure. Stop, give it back!” He snatched the pistol and fired excitedly through the open window. “That’ll show him I’m armed,” he cried; “now load up again!”

  “You are not going armed—”

  “With that fiend at my heels? You must take me for a fool!”

  “You would be married with a loaded pistol in your pocket, when you yourself said the only arms—”

  “Obey me, sirrah!” thundered Daintree. “Do you know that I could hang you like a dog? Yet you dare to argue with me on my wedding morning!”

  He seemed beside himself with excitement. Tom went out without a word, and on his return handed back the pocket-pistol with the same air of tacit disapproval. Daintree cocked it and felt the trigger.

  “I’ve a good mind to fire through the window again,” he snarled, “to see if you have loaded it; but I’ll trust you, Thomas; you’re the one man in this world I do trust. And now put on your hat and come in with me to Sydney!”

  Tom drew back. This was not in the programme; on the contrary, he was to stay and mind the house.

  “Damn the house!” cried Daintree. “The girl can look after the house; your place is at your master’s side, or else you are the foulest ingrate in New South Wales! But you are; I have always known you were; you have only waited for this hour to turn and rend me!”

  “You are wrong,” said Tom grimly. “I do not leave your side again.” For the man must be mad: and Tom no longer shirked the ceremony, but for one instant had a mad design himself; the next, his right hand was warmly held.

  “Thank God!” cried Daintree in a breaking voice. “I knew you didn’t mean it; no more did I mean anything I said; forgive me, Thomas, and don’t desert me at the last!”

  And Tom’s heart sank as it once more softened to the man who was not mad but only unstrung; and again he longed to eschew the church; but he kept his word, and fortune was yet to prove his friend. A mile they had driven when a loud cry broke from Daintree. In his agitation he had forgotten the ring. He burst into tears at the discovery.

  “Never mind — never mind!” cried Tom in his oldest rôle. “We can turn back — what, isn’t there time? No, I know it would never do to keep her waiting! Then look here, I’ll run back and gallop in again on your horse; I’ll be there almost as soon as you; and the ring isn’t wanted till quite the end.”

  Daintree thanked him through his tears — the first Tom had ever seen in those fiery eyes — and he sped back strangely touched, but strangely comforted too. At least he loved her! The man might be egotistical and vain and overbearing, all three to the verge of lunacy, but that he was marrying for sheer love was even more palpable than it had been before. Tears in those eyes! Tears at the thought of losing her for one more day! Then God grant that with Claire at least he might be unselfish, meek and gentle, though an egotist, a coxcomb and a tyrant to all the world beside!

  So praying as he ran — forgetful of his own debt to Daintree — for the moment self-forgetting altogether — Tom was at the bungalow gate in time that would not have shamed the bridegroom in his athletic youth. And in the very gateway he stopped dead. He had caught a glimpse of ragged coat-tails disappearing through the study windows; a crazy skiff lay hauled up on the strand.

  Tom kicked off his shoes. He made no sound on the verandah, but he wasted some seconds, and heard two drawers burst open as he crept nearer and nearer. He was totally unarmed; his one chance lay in taking the thief by surprise.

  The verandah on this side was in deep shadow all the morning. In the cool dusk of the study a masked man was rifling drawer after drawer and tossing the contents right and left. The floor was strewn with papers as Tom leapt across it and hurled himself upon the thief. They crashed to the ground together: the man’s head caught the corner of the bookshelf, and he lay supine, with a mouthful of crumbling teeth grinning horribly below the mask.

  His nerveless fingers still clutched a packet of bluish letters half-torn from their wrapper. Tom took them from him, and rose up panting. A moment later they might h
ave heard his shout at Piper’s Point.

  All but one letter had slipped from his trembling hand: on the back of that letter a few lines had been scrawled with a lead-pencil.

  It was the Receipt I Pencilled by Blaydes on the back of a letter, signed by Tom in the moonlit Hampstead fields, and taken by the murderer from his victim’s person, it was neither more nor less than the missing document whose production would have acquitted Erichsen at the Old Bailey. And now after eighteen months, and here on these outlandish shores, it had cast up at his very feet; he held it — held his freedom — in his own trembling hands.

  The words spun like midges as the paper rustled and shook. He had to set it on the chimney-piece to read it through: —

  “Received from J. Montgomery Blaydes (late Captain, Coldstream Guards) his watch and chain, etc., in settlement of all claims, and in consideration of which I undertake to return pawnticket for same to said J. M. Blaydes, Ivy Cottage, West End, within three days from this date. — (Signed) T. Erichsen, April 27th, 1837.”

  Words and chirography were as familiar as though lie had studied them the night before; the very flourishes were old friends; and the glimmer of a mild London moon seemed still to lurk in the shiny blue paper.

  He forgot the wedding-ring, forgot the wedding: he was an innocent man: he could prove it now before all the world, by this incomparable testimony, this inanimate witness that could not lie. That was Tom’s first reflection. His first emotion was a rush of thankfulness, ineffable and unmixed. Curiosity succeeded: how came the receipt here? But as he wondered, as his thoughts flew from the broken-headed robber to his friend Daintree, it was not the bridegroom that they pursued to the church, but Tom’s benefactor that they followed back to Avenue Lodge. Did Daintree know who had committed the murder, and was that the secret of his belief in Tom? Inconceivable; but the document? Tom turned it over in his hand, and the address on the missive came uppermost. It began — Nicholas Harding, Esquire, M.P.

  This name plunged Tom in a vortex of new suspicions; it neither recalled the bride as such, nor the marriage, nor the ring. Yet the clock stared him in the face, the short hand almost on the eleven, the long hand rapidly overtaking the short. It was ticking loud enough for dead of night; he both saw the time and heard it flying. But he had forgotten his errand: he could prove his innocence at last. Suddenly there was a groan, then a movement behind him, and as he wheeled round the man in the mask sat up.