“May I ask who your companion is?” inquired the other, with a slight inclination towards Gerridge.
“A friend; one who is in my confidence.”
“Then I will answer you without any further hesitation. My presence may have disturbed your wife, it very likely did, but I was not to blame for that. No man is to blame for the bad effects of an unfortunate accident.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that,” Mr. Ransom hastened to protest. “The cause of her very evident agitation was not personal. It had a deeper root than that. It led, or so I believe, to her flight from a love she cherished, at a moment when our mutual life seemed about to begin.”
The impassive, I might almost say set features of this man of violent passions but remarkable self-restraint failed to relax or give any token of the feelings with which he listened to this attack.
“Then the news given of your wife in the papers tonight is false,” was his quiet retort. “It professes to give a distinct, if somewhat fantastic, reason for her flight. A reason totally different from the one you suggest.”
“A reason you don’t believe in?”
“Certainly not. It is too bizarre.”
“I share your incredulity. That is why I seek the truth from you rather than from the columns of a newspaper. And you owe me this truth. You have broken up my life.”
“I? That’s a strange accusation you make, Mr. Ransom.”
“Possibly. But it’s one which strikes hard on your conscience, for all that. This is evident enough even to a stranger like myself. I am convinced that if you had not come into her life she would have been at my side today. Now, who are you? She told me you were a relative.”
“She told you the truth; I am. Her nearest relative. The story in the paper has a certain amount of truth in it. Her brother, not her sister, has come back from the grave. I am that brother. She was once devoted to me.”
“You are—”
“Yes. Oh, there’ll be no difficulty in my proving this relationship. I have evidence upon evidence of the fact right in this room with me; evidence much more convincing and far less disputable than this surprising twin can bring forward if her identity is questioned. Georgian had a twin sister, but she was buried years ago. I was never buried. I simply did not return from a well-known and dangerous voyage. The struggle I had for life—you cannot want the details now—has left its indelible impress in the scar which has turned me from a personable man into what some people might call a monstrosity. And it is this scar which has kept me so long from home and country. It has taken me four years to make up my mind to face again my family and friends. And now that I have, I find that it would have been better for us all if I had stayed away. Georgian saw me and her mind wavered. In no other way can I account for her wild behavior since that hour. That is all I have to say, sir. I think I am almost as much an object of pity as yourself.”
And for a moment he appeared to be so, not only to Gerridge, but to Mr. Ransom himself. Then something in the man—his unnatural coldness, the purpose which made itself felt through all his self-restraint—reawakened Mr. Ransom’s distrust and led him to say:
“Your complaint is natural. If you are Mrs. Ransom’s brother, there should be sympathy between us and not antagonism. But I feel only antagonism. Why is this?”
A shrug, followed by an odd smile.
“You should be able to account for that on very reasonable grounds,” said he. “I do not expect much mercy from strangers. It is hard to make your good intentions felt through such a distorted medium as my expression has now become.”
“Mrs. Ransom has been here,” Ransom suddenly launched forth. “Within two hours of your encounter under Mr. Fulton’s roof, she was talking with you in this hotel. I have proof positive of that, sir.”
“I have no wish to deny the fact,” was the steady answer. “She did come here and we had a talk; it was necessary; I wanted money.”
The last phrase was uttered with such grim determination that the exclamation which had risen to Mr. Ransom’s lips died in a conflict of feeling which forbade any rejoinder that savored of sarcasm. Hazen, however, must have noted his first look, for he added with an air of haughty apology:
“I repeat that we were once very fond of each other.”
Ransom felt his perplexities growing with every moment he talked with this man. He remembered the money which both he and Gerridge had seen in her bag—an amount too large for her to have retained very much on her person—and following the instinct of the moment, he remarked:
“Mrs. Ransom is not the woman to hesitate when a person she loves makes an appeal for money. She handed you immediately a large sum, I have no doubt.”
“She wrote me out a check,” was the simple but cold answer.
Mr. Ransom felt the failure of his attempt and stole a glance at Gerridge.
The doubtful smile he received was not very encouraging. The same thought had evidently struck both. The money in the bag was a blind—she had carried her check-book with her and so could draw on her account for whatever she wished. But under what name? Her maiden one or his? Ransom determined to find out.
“I do not begrudge you the money,” said he, “but Mrs. Ransom’s signature had changed a few hours previous to her making out this check. Did she remember this?”
“She signed her married name promising to notify the bank at once.”
“And you cashed the check?”
“No, sir; I am not in such immediate need of money as that. I have it still, but I shall endeavor to cash it tomorrow. Some question may come up as to her sanity, and I do not choose to lose the only money she has ever been in a position to give me.”
“Mr. Hazen, you harp on the irresponsible condition of her mind. Did you see any tokens of this in the interview you had together?”
“No; she seemed sane enough then; a little shocked and troubled, but quite sane.”
“You knew that she had stolen away from me—that she had resorted to a most unworthy subterfuge in order to hold this conversation with you?”
“No; I had asked her to come, and on that very afternoon if possible, but I never knew what means she took for doing so; I didn’t ask and she didn’t say.”
“But she talked of her marriage? She must have said something about an event which is usually considered the greatest in a woman’s life.”
“Yes, she spoke of it.”
“And of me?”
“Yes, she spoke of you.”
“And in what terms? I cannot refrain from asking you, Mr. Hazen, I am in such ignorance as to her real attitude towards me; her conduct is so mysterious; the reasons she gives for it so puerile.”
“She said nothing against you or her marriage. She mentioned both, but not in a manner that would add to your or my knowledge of her intentions. My sister disappointed me, sir. She was much less open than I wished. All that I could make out of her manner and conversation was the overpowering shock she felt at seeing me again and seeing me so changed. She didn’t even tell me when and where we might meet again. When she left, she was as much lost to me as she was to you, and I am no less interested in finding her than you are yourself. I had no idea she did not mean to return to you when she went away from this hotel.”
Mr. Ransom sprang upright in an agitation the other may have shared, but of which he gave no token.
“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that you cannot tell me where the woman you call your sister is now?”
“No more than you can give me the same necessary information in regard to your wife. I am waiting like yourself to hear from her—and waiting with as little hope.”
Had he seen Ransom’s hand close convulsively over the pocket in which her few strange words to him were lying, that a slight tinge of sarcasm gave edge to the last four words?
“But this is not like my wife,” protested Ransom, hesitating to accuse the other of falsehood, yet evidently doubting him from the bottom of his heart. “Why deceive us both? She was never a disin
genuous woman.”
“In childhood she had her incomprehensible moments,” observed Hazen, with an ambiguous lift of his shoulders; then, as Ransom made an impatient move, added with steady composure: “I have candidly answered all your questions whether agreeable or otherwise, and the fact that I am as much shocked as yourself by these mad and totally incredible statements of hers about a newly recovered sister should prove to you that she is not following any lead of mine in this dissemination of a bare-faced falsehood.”
There was truth in this which both Mr. Ransom and Gerridge felt obliged to own. Yet they were not satisfied, even after Mr. Hazen, almost against Mr. Ransom’s will, had established his claims to the relationship he professed, by various well-attested documents he had at hand. Instinct could not be juggled with, nor could Ransom help feeling that the mystery in which he found himself entangled had been deepened rather than dispelled by the confidences of this new brother-in-law.
“The maze is at its thickest,” he remarked as he left a few minutes later with the perplexed Gerridge. “How shall I settle this new question? By what means and through whose aid can I gain an interview with my wife?”
CHAPTER VI
THE LAWYER
The answer was an unexpectedly sensible one.
“Hunt up her man of business and see what he can do for you. She cannot get along without money; nor could that statement of hers have got into the papers without somebody’s assistance. Since she did not get it from the fellow we have just left, she must have had it from the only other person she would dare confide in.”
Ransom answered by immediately hailing a down-town car.
The interview which followed was certainly a remarkable one. At first Mr. Harper would say nothing, declaring that his relations with Mrs. Ransom were of a purely business and confidential nature. But by degrees, moved by the persuasive influence of Mr. Ransom’s candor and his indubitable right to consideration, he allowed himself to admit that he had seen Mrs. Ransom during the last three days and that he had every reason to believe that there was a twin sister in the case and that all Mrs. Ransom’s eccentric conduct was attributable to this fact and the overpowering sense of responsibility which it seemed to have brought to her—a result which would not appear strange to those who knew the sensitiveness of her nature and the delicate balance of her mind.
Mr. Ransom recalled the tenor of her strange letter on this subject, but was not convinced. He inquired of Mr. Harper if he had heard her say anything about the equally astounding fact of a returned brother, and when he found that this was mere jargon to Mr. Harper, he related what he knew of Hazen and left the lawyer to draw his own inferences.
The result was some show of embarrassment on the part of Mr. Harper. It was evident that in her consultations with him she had entirely left out all allusion to this brother. Either the man had advanced a false claim or else she was in an irresponsible condition of mind which made her see a sister where there was a brother.
Ransom made some remark indicative of his appreciation of the dilemma in which they found themselves, but was quickly silenced by the other’s emphatic assertion:
“I have seen the girl; she was with Mrs. Ransom the day she came here. She sat in the adjoining room while we talked over her case in this one.”
“You saw her—saw her face?”
“No, not her face; she was too heavily veiled for that. Mrs. Ransom explained why. They were too absurdly alike, she said. It awoke comment and it gave her the creeps. But their figures were identical though their dresses were different.”
“So! there is someone then; the girl is not absolutely a myth.”
“Far from it. Nor is the will which Mrs. Ransom has asked me to draw up for her a myth.”
“Her will! she has asked you to draw up her will!”
“Yes. That was the object of her visit. She had entered the married state, she said, and wished to make a legal disposition of her property before she returned to you. She was very nervous when she said this; very nervous through all the interview. There was nothing else for me to do but comply.”
“And you have drawn up this will?”
“According to her instructions, yes.”
“But she has not signed it?”
“Not yet.”
“But she intends to?”
“Certainly.”
“Then you will see her again?”
“Naturally.”
“Is the time set?”
The lawyer rose to his feet. He understood the hint implied and for an instant appeared to waver. There was something very winsome about Roger Ransom; some attribute or expression which appealed especially to men.
“I wish I might help you out of your difficulty,” said he. “But a client’s wishes are paramount. Mrs. Ransom desired secrecy. She had every right to demand it of me.”
Mr. Ransom’s face fell. Hope had flashed upon him only to disappear again. The lawyer eyed him out of the corner of his eye, his mouth working slightly as he walked to and fro between his desk and the door.
“Mrs. Ransom will not always feel herself hampered by a sister, or, if you prefer it, a brother who has so inconveniently come back from the dead. You will have the pleasure of her society some day. There is no doubt about her affection for you.”
“But that isn’t it,” exclaimed the now thoroughly discouraged husband. “I am afraid for her reason, afraid for her life. There is something decidedly wrong somewhere. Don’t you see that I must have an immediate interview with her if only to satisfy myself that she aggravates her own danger? Why should she make a will in this underhanded way? Does she fear opposition from me? I have a fortune equal to her own. It is something else she dreads. What? I feel that I ought to know if only to protect her against herself. I would even promise not to show myself or to speak.”
“I am sorry to have to say good afternoon, Mr. Ransom. Have you any commands that I can execute for you?”
“None but to give her my love. Tell her there is not a more unhappy man in New York; you may add that I trust her affection.”
The lawyer bowed. Mr. Ransom and Gerridge withdrew. At the foot of the stairs they were stopped by the shout of a small boy behind them.
“Say, mister, did you drop something?” he called down, coming meanwhile as rapidly after them as the steepness of the flight allowed. “Mr. Harper says, he found this where you gentlemen were sitting.”
Mr. Ransom, somewhat startled, took the small paper offered him. It was none of his property but he held to it just the same. In the middle of a torn bit of paper he had read these words written in his own wife’s hand:
Hunter’s Tavern,
Sitford, Connecticut.
At 9 o’clock April the 15th.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “no one will ever hear me say again that lawyers are devoid of heart?”
CHAPTER VII
RAIN
Mr. Ransom had never heard of Sitford, but upon inquiry learned that it was a small manufacturing town some ten miles from the direct route of travel, to which it was only connected by a stage-coach running once a day, late in the afternoon.
What a spot for a meeting of this kind! Why chosen by her? Why submitted to by this busy New York lawyer? Was this another mystery; or had he misinterpreted Mr. Harper’s purpose in passing over to him the address of this small town? He preferred to think the former. He could hardly contemplate now the prospect of failing to see her again which must follow any mistake as to this being the place agreed upon for the signing of her will.
Meantime he had said nothing to Gerridge. This was a hope too personal to confide in a man of his position. He would go to Sitford and endeavor to catch a glimpse of his wife there. If successful, the whole temper of his mind might change towards the situation, if not toward her. He would at least have the satisfaction of seeing her. The detective had enough to do in New York.
April the fifteenth fell on Tuesday. He was not minded to wait so long but took the boat on Mon
day afternoon. This landed him some time before daylight at the time-worn village from which the coach ran to Sitford. A railway connected this village with New York, necessitating no worse inconvenience than crossing the river on a squat, old-fashioned ferry boat; but he calculated that both the lawyer and Mrs. Ransom would make use of this, and felt the risk would be less for him if he chose the slower and less convenient route.
He had given his name on the boat as Roger Johnston, which was true so far as it went, and he signed this same name at the hotel where he put up till morning. The place was an entirely unknown one to him and he was unknown to it. Both fortuitous facts, he thought, in the light of his own perplexity as to the position in which he really stood towards this mysterious wife of his.
The coach, as I have said, ran late in the afternoon. This was to accommodate the passengers who came by rail. But Mr. Ransom had not planned to go by coach. That would be to risk a premature encounter with his wife, or at least with the lawyer. He preferred to hire a team, and be driven there by some indifferent livery-stable man. Neither prospect was pleasing. It had been raining all night, and bade fair to rain all day. The river was clouded with mist; the hills, which are the glory of the place, were obliterated from the landscape, and the road—he had never seen such a road, all little pools and mud.
However, there was no help for it. The journey must be made, and seeing a livery-stable sign across the road, lost no time in securing the conveyance he needed. At nine o’clock he started out.
The rain drove so fiercely from the northwest—the very direction in which they were traveling—that enjoyment of the scenery was impossible. Nor could any pleasure be got out of conversation with the man who drove him. Rain, rain, that was all; and the splash of mud over the wheels which turned all too slowly for his comfort. And there were to be ten miles of this. Naturally he turned to his thoughts and they were all of her.
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 146
