Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  “How’s this?” he asked. “Some new tantrum? What do you mean by wandering about the house? Why don’t you go to bed? “

  “I could not sleep,” she answered. She spoke languidly and wearily. If she was an actress once, she had not forgotten her calling.

  “Might I suggest,” said he, in the same mocking kind of voice, “that a good conscience is an excellent aid to sleep?”

  “That cannot be true,” she answered, “for you sleep very well.”

  “I have only one thing in my life to be ashamed of,” said he, and his hair bristled up with anger until he looked like an old cockatoo. “You know best what that is. It is a mistake which has brought its own punishment with it.”

  “To me as well as to you. Remember that!”

  “You have very little to whine about. It was I who stooped and you who rose.”

  “Rose!”

  “Yes, rose. I suppose you do not deny that it is promotion to exchange the music-hall for Mannering Hall. Fool that I was ever to take you out of your true sphere!”

  “If you think so, why do you not separate?”

  “Because private misery is better than public humiliation. Because it is easier to suffer for a mistake than to own to it. Because also I like to keep you in my sight, and to know that you cannot go back to him.”

  “You villain! You cowardly villain!”

  “Yes, yes, my lady. I know your secret ambition, but it shall never be while I live, and if it happens after my death I will at least take care that you go to him as a beggar. You and dear Edward will never have the satisfaction of squandering my savings, and you may make up your mind to that, my lady. Why are those shutters and the window open?”

  “I found the night very close.”

  “It is not safe. How do you know that some tramp may not be outside? Are you aware that my collection of medals is worth more than any similar collection in the world? You have left the door open also. What is there to prevent any one from rifling the cases?”

  “I was here.”

  “I know you were. I heard you moving about in the medal room, and that was why I came down. What were you doing?”

  “Looking at the medals. What else should I be doing?”

  “This curiosity is something new.” He looked suspiciously at her and moved on towards the inner room, she walking beside him.

  It was at this moment that I saw something which startled me. I had laid my clasp-knife open upon the top of one of the cases, and there it lay in full view. She saw it before he did, and with a woman’s cunning she held her taper out so that the light of it came between Lord Mannering’s eyes and the knife. Then she took it in her left hand and held it against her gown out of his sight. He looked about from case to case — I could have put my hand at one time upon his long nose — but there was nothing to show that the medals had been tampered with, and so, still snarling and grumbling, he shuffled off into the other room once more.

  And now I have to speak of what I heard rather than of what I saw, but I swear to you, as I shall stand some day before my Maker, that what I say is the truth.

  When they passed into the outer room I saw him lay his candle upon the corner of one of the tables, and he sat himself down, but in such a position that he was just out of my sight. She moved behind him, as I could tell from the fact that the light of her taper threw his long, lumpy shadow upon the floor in front of him. Then he began talking about this man whom he called Edward, and every word that he said was like a blistering drop of vitriol. He spoke low, so that I could not hear it all, but from what I heard I should guess that she would as soon have been lashed with a whip. At first she said some hot words in reply, but then she was silent, and he went on and on in that cold, mocking voice of his, nagging and insulting and tormenting, until I wondered that she could bear to stand there in silence and listen to it. Then suddenly I heard him say in a sharp voice, “Come from behind me! Leave go of my collar! What! would you dare to strike me?” There was a sound like a blow, just a soft sort of thud, and then I heard him cry out, “My God, it’s blood!” He shuffled with his feet as if he was getting up, and then I heard another blow, and lie cried out, “Oh, you she-devil!” and was quiet, except for a dripping and splashing upon the floor.

  I ran out from behind my curtain at that, and rushed into the other room, shaking all over with the horror of it. The old man had slipped down in the chair, and his dressing-gown had rucked up until lie looked as if he had a monstrous hump to his back. His head, with the gold glasses still fixed on his nose, was lolling over upon one side, and his little mouth was open just like a dead fish. I could not see where the blood was coming from, but I could still hear it drumming upon the floor. She stood behind him with the candle shining full upon her face. Her lips were pressed together and her eyes shining, and a touch of colour had come into each of her cheeks. It just wanted that to make her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

  “You’ve done it now!” said I.

  “Yes,” said she, in her quiet way, “I’ve done it now.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. “They’ll have you for murder as sure as fate.”

  “Never fear about me. I have nothing to live for, and it does not matter. Give me a hand to set him straight in the chair. It is horrible to see him like this!”

  I did so, though it turned me cold all over to touch him. Some of his blood came on my hand and sickened me.

  “Now,” said she, “you may as well have the medals as any one else. Take them and go.”

  “I don’t want them. I only want to get away. I was never mixed up with a business like this before.”

  “Nonsense!” said she. “ You came for the medals, and here they are at your mercy. Why should you not have them? There is no one to prevent you.”

  I held the bag still in my hand. She opened the case, and between us we throw a hundred or so of the medals into it. They were all from the one case, but I could not bring myself to wait for any more. Then I made for the window, for the very air of this house seemed to poison me after what I had seen and heard. As I looked back, I saw her standing there, tall and graceful, with the light in her hand, just as I had seen her first. She waved good-bye, and I waved back at her and sprang out into the gravel drive.

  I thank God that I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I have never done a murder, but perhaps it would be different if I had been able to read that woman’s mind and thoughts. There might have been two bodies in the room instead of one if I could have seen behind that last smile of hers. But I thought of nothing but of getting safely away, and it never entered my head how she might be fixing the rope round my neck. I had not taken five steps out from the window skirting down the shadow of the house in the way that I had come, when I heard a scream that might have raised the parish, and then another and another.

  “Murder!” she cried. “ Murder! Murder! Help!” and her voice rang out in the quiet of the night-time and sounded over the whole country-side. It went through my head, that dreadful cry. In an instant lights began to move and windows to fly up, not only in the house behind me, but at the lodge and in the stables in front. Like a frightened rabbit I bolted down the drive, but I heard the clang of the gate being shut before I could reach it. Then I hid my bag of medals under some dry fagots, and I tried to get away across the park, but some one saw me in .the moonlight, and presently I had half a dozen of them with dogs upon my heels. I crouched down among the brambles, but those dogs were too many for me, and I was glad enough when the men came up and prevented me from being torn into pieces. They seized me, and dragged me back to the room from which I had come.

  “Is this the man, your Ladyship?” asked the oldest of them — the same whom I found out afterwards to be the butler.

  She had been bending over the body, with her her handkerchief to her eyes, and now she turned upon me with the face of a fury. Oh, what an actress that woman was!

  “Yes, yes, it is the very man,” she c
ried. Oh, you villain, you cruel villain, to treat an old man so!”

  There was a man there who seemed to be a village constable. He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

  “What do you say to that?” said he.

  “It was she who did it,” I cried, pointing at the woman, whose eyes never flinched before mine.

  “Come! come! Try another!” said the constable, and one of the men-servants struck at me with his fist.

  “I tell you that I saw her do it. She stabbed him twice with a knife. She first helped me to rob him, and then she murdered him.”

  The footman tried to strike me again, but she held up her hand.

  “Do not hurt him,” said she. “I think that his punishment may safely be left to the law.”

  “I’ll see to that, your Ladyship,” said the constable. “Your Ladyship actually saw the crime committed, did you not?”

  “Yes, yes, I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible. We heard the noise and we came down. My poor husband was in front. The man had one of the cases open, and was filling a black leather bag which he held in his hand. He rushed past us, and my husband seized him. There was a struggle, and he stabbed him twice. There you can see the blood upon his hands. If I am not mistaken, his knife is still in Lord Mannering’s body.”

  “Look at the blood upon her hands!” I cried.

  “She has been holding up his Lordship’s head, you lying rascal,” said the butler.

  “And here’s the very sack her Ladyship spoke of,” said the constable, as a groom came in with the one which I had dropped in my flight. “And hero are the medals inside it. That’s good enough for me. We will keep him safe here to-night, and tomorrow the inspector and I can take him into Salisbury.”

  “Poor creature,” said the woman. “For my own part, I forgive him any injury which lie has done me. Who knows what temptation may have driven him to crime? His conscience and the law will give him punishment enough without any reproach of mine rendering it more bitter.”

  I could not answer — I tell you, sir, I could not answer, so taken aback was I by the assurance of the woman. And so, seeming by my silence to agree to all that she had said, I was dragged away by the butler and the constable into the cellar, in which they locked me for the night.

  There, sir, I have told you the whole story of the events which led up to the murder of Lord Mannering by his wife upon the night of September the 14th, in the year 1894. Perhaps you will put my statement on one side as the constable did at Mannering Towers, or the judge afterwards at the county assizes. Or perhaps you will see that there is the ring of truth in what I say, and you will follow it up, and so make your name for ever as a man who does not grudge personal trouble where justice is to be done. I have only you to look to, sir, and if you will clear my name of this false accusation, then I will worship you as one man never yet worshipped another. But if you fail me, then I give you my solemn promise that I will rope myself up, this day month, to the bar of my window, and from that time on I will come to plague you in your dreams if ever yet one man was able to come back and to haunt another. What I ask you to do is very simple. Make inquiries about this woman, watch her, learn her past history, find out what use she is making of the money which has come to her, and whether there is not a man Edward as I have stated. If from all this you learn anything which shows you her real character, or which seems to you to corroborate the story which I have told you, then I am sure that I can rely upon your goodness of heart to come to the rescue of an innocent man.

  THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS AND OTHER TALES OF LONG AGO

  CONTENTS

  THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS

  THE LAST GALLEY

  THROUGH THE VEIL

  THE COMING OF THE HUNS

  THE CONTEST

  THE FIRST CARGO

  AN ICONOCLAST

  GIANT MAXIMIN

  THE RED STAR

  THE SILVER MIRROR

  THE HOME-COMING

  A POINT OF CONTACT

  THE CENTURION

  THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS

  Pontus, the Roman viceroy, sat in the atrium of his palatial villa by the Thames, and he looked with perplexity at the scroll of papyrus which he had just unrolled. Before him stood the messenger who had brought it, a swarthy little Italian, whose black eyes were glazed with want of sleep, and his olive features darker still from dust and sweat. The viceroy was looking fixedly at him, yet he saw him not, so full was his mind of this sudden and most unexpected order. To him it seemed as if the solid earth had given way beneath his feet. His life and the work of his life had come to irremediable ruin.

  “Very good,” he said at last in a hard dry voice, “you can go.”

  The man saluted and staggered out of the hall. A yellow-haired British major-domo came forward for orders.

  “Is the General there?”

  “He is waiting, your excellency.”

  “Then show him in, and leave us together.”

  A few minutes later Licinius Crassus, the head of the British military establishment, had joined his chief. He was a large, bearded man in a white civilian toga, hemmed with the Patrician purple. His rough, bold features, burned and seamed and lined with the long African wars, were shadowed with anxiety as he looked with questioning eyes at the drawn, haggard face of the viceroy.

  “I fear, your excellency, that you have had bad news from Rome.”

  “The worst, Crassus. It is all over with Britain. It is a question whether even Gaul will be held.”

  “Saint Albus save us! Are the orders precise?”

  “Here they are, with the Emperor’s own seal.”

  “But why? I had heard a rumour, but it had seemed too incredible.”

  “So had I only last week, and had the fellow scourged for having spread it. But here it is as clear as words can make it: ‘Bring every man of the Legions by forced marches to the help of the Empire. Leave not a cohort in Britain.’ These are my orders.”

  “But the cause?”

  “They will let the limbs wither so that the heart be stronger. The old German hive is about to swarm once more. There are fresh crowds of Barbarians from Dacia and Scythia. Every sword is needed to hold the Alpine passes. They cannot let three legions lie idle in Britain.”

  The soldier shrugged his shoulders.

  “When the legions go no Roman would feel that his life was safe here. For all that we have done, it is none the less the truth that it is no country of ours, and that we hold it as we won it by the sword.”

  “Yes, every man, woman, and child of Latin blood must come with us to Gaul. The galleys are already waiting at Portus Dubris. Get the orders out, Crassus, at once. As the Valerian legion falls back from the Wall of Hadrian it can take the northern colonists with it. The Jovians can bring in the people from the west, and the Batavians can escort the easterns if they will muster at Camboricum. You will see to it.” He sank his face for a moment in his hands. “It is a fearsome thing,” said he, “to tear up the roots of so goodly a tree.”

  “To make more space for such a crop of weeds,” said the soldier bitterly. “My God, what will be the end of these poor Britons! From ocean to ocean there is not a tribe which will not be at the throat of its neighbour when the last Roman Lictor has turned his back. With these hot-headed Silures it is hard enough now to keep the swords in their sheaths.”

  “The kennel might fight as they choose among themselves until the best hound won,” said the Roman Governor. “At least the victor would keep the arts and the religion which we have brought them, and Britain would be one land. No, it is the bear from the north and the wolves from oversea, the painted savage from beyond the walls and the Saxon pirate from over the water, who will succeed to our rule. Where we saved, they will slay; where we built, they will burn; where we planted, they will ravage. But the die is cast, Crassus. You will carry out the orders.”

  “I will send out the messengers within an hour. This very morning there has come news that the Barbarians are through the old
gap in the wall, and their outriders as far south as Vinovia.”

  The Governor shrugged his shoulders.

  “These things concern us no longer,” said he. Then a bitter smile broke upon his aquiline clean-shaven face. “Whom think you that I see in audience this morning?”

  “Nay, I know not.”

  “Caradoc and Regnus, and Celticus the Icenian, who, like so many of the richer Britons, have been educated at Rome, and who would lay before me their plans as to the ruling of this country.”

  “And what is their plan?”

  “That they themselves should do it.”

  The Roman soldier laughed. “Well, they will have their will,” said he, as he saluted and turned upon his heel. “Farewell, your excellency. There are hard days coming for you and for me.”

  An hour later the British deputation was ushered into the presence of the Governor. They were good, steadfast men, men who with a whole heart, and at some risk to themselves, had taken up their country’s cause, so far as they could see it. At the same time they well knew that under the mild and beneficent rule of Rome it was only when they passed from words to deeds that their backs or their necks would be in danger. They stood now, earnest and a little abashed, before the throne of the viceroy. Celticus was a swarthy, black-bearded little Iberian. Caradoc and Regnus were tall middle-aged men of the fair flaxen British type. All three were dressed in the draped yellow toga after the Latin fashion, instead of in the bracæ and tunic which distinguished their more insular fellow-countrymen.

  “Well?” asked the Governor.

  “We are here,” said Celticus boldly, “as the spokesmen of a great number of our fellow-countrymen, for the purpose of sending our petition through you to the Emperor and to the Roman Senate, that we may urge upon them the policy of allowing us to govern this country after our own ancient fashion.” He paused, as if awaiting some outburst as an answer to his own temerity; but the Governor merely nodded his head as a sign that he should proceed. “We had laws of our own before ever Cæsar set foot in Britain, which have served their purpose since first our forefathers came from the land of Ham. We are not a child among the nations, but our history goes back in our own traditions further even than that of Rome, and we are galled by this yoke which you have laid upon us.”