by Grant Allen
Linda clapped her hands to her ears, aghast with horror, and rang the bell instantly in the fierce fever of her excitement. She must know the worst. A footman answered it.
‘Go out and get me that paper,’ she cried, in a voice chilly with awe. ‘The paper the boy’s crying. The Evening Standard. He’s calling out something dreadful about the Duke. I must see it immediately.’
The man hesitated. ‘I beg your grace’s pardon,’ he said, with obvious reluctance either to obey or to refuse, ‘but I don’t think ... I fancy your grace would rather not see what’s printed in the papers.’
‘Have you seen them, George?’ Linda cried, turning round upon him point-blank.
‘Ye-es, your grace,’ the man faltered out, uncertain how to reply under these embarrassing circumstances.
‘And what do they say?’ Linda exclaimed, growing pale, and clutching at the nearest chair to support herself.
‘I think, perhaps,’ the man responded cautiously, thus driven to bay, ‘I’d better go out and get one for your grace. Then your grace can see for yourself what it is they’re saying about it.’
Linda staggered back to the sofa in breathless dismay. This was too, too terrible. She wondered what these scandal-mongers could have made out of her conduct. Even yet she had no idea of the full strength of the case against her. She sat waiting for the paper with bloodless hands clasped in front of her in agony. It seemed an age before the man came back. But at last he arrived, bringing the paper with him.
Linda tore the sheet open, and turned to the middle page. There it was, sure enough, in sober earnest, displayed in the very biggest leaded type: ‘A Belgravian Mystery. Death of the Duke of Powysland. Suspicious Circumstances. An Inquest to be Held. Attitude of the Duchess. Rumours of Poison.’
It made her blood run cold, but she never flinched externally. Her eye glanced rapidly down the column, taking it in at first but vaguely, and then slowly assimilating the full meaning piecemeal. And this is how the paper described the events that had lately been happening to the House of Montgomery:
‘We regret to have to announce the death of the Duke of Powysland, which took place at an early hour this morning at his grace’s temporary residence in Onslow Gardens. The Duke, as we have already informed our readers, returned from Norway a few days since with the virus of typhoid fever thoroughly imbedded in his system. He has been attended throughout his illness by Sir Frederick Weston, the eminent specialist on typhus and the allied zymotic complaints, and up to Tuesday last Sir Frederick had formed a most favourable opinion of his patient’s condition. On that day, however, a change for the worse unexpectedly occurred; symptoms of a curious lethargic character set in by degrees, and the noble patient’s state became gradually such as to arouse grave suspicions in Sir Frederick’s mind of some serious form of narcotic poisoning. Nothing is yet known with certainty as to the facts of the case, but rumours of a very disquieting nature have been flying about town and the clubs this morning. It is even stated in some well-informed quarters that an inquest will be held, at which facts of a most startling and sensational character are expected to be made public. London is promised an unusual excitement.’
So much was in large type. Then came a paragraph of less absorbing interest, beginning: ‘The deceased nobleman, Adalbert Owen Trefaldwyn Montgomery, ninth Duke of Powysland, who has thus just been removed by death in the prime of life, was the second son of Leopold Augustus, seventh Duke, by his wife Amelia, only daughter of Sir Leoline Watkins, the well-known head of the distinguished brewing firm of Watkins, Brown, Traies, and Walbury.’ And so forth, and so forth. All that Linda skipped; she knew it well before. It was the common information vouchsafed to the public in the official works of Burke, Debrett, and Foster. But below it came a second paragraph in more important type, with a leaded heading: ‘Latest Details. Suspected Murder!’
Linda turned to this part with a certain eager awe and horror. It read as follows, as far as she could gather:
‘Inquiries made at the deceased nobleman’s residence in Onslow Gardens disclose the fact that very suspicious circumstances surround the Belgravia Mystery, as the Duke of Powysland’s sudden death is now already called throughout the entire neighbourhood. The servants and other employés of the late Duke observe the strictest reticence, and it is difficult to discover the exact truth in the midst of the contradictory rumours which are everywhere freely put about and publicly debated upon. Little of certainty has yet transpired, and the police decline to yield any information. However, a representative of the Central Press Agency vouches for the general accuracy of the following startling statement:
‘About three days since Sir Frederick Weston, who has been in constant attendance upon the Duke, began to notice very distinct signs of opium-poisoning in his patient’s condition. He inquired of the Duke whether he was in the habit of privately taking any form of morphia or other narcotic, an inquiry to which the Duke returned an emphatic negative. Sir Frederick then began watching his patient’s food with close attention, and saw grounds for believing that large quantities of morphia were being surreptitiously introduced into it from some unknown quarter. As soon as the presence of morphia in any food or medicine was reasonably suspected, the object was at once impounded and laid aside, and the strictest watch was kept upon the nurses and other attendants. Still, no clue could be obtained to the perpetrator of the outrage. Meanwhile, the Duke grew feebler and feebler, though every precaution was taken to prevent any of the poisoned food being administered to him unawares. Sir Frederick Weston, however, became more and more convinced that the slow decline in the Duke’s strength must be due to the improper administration of some form of opiate, and could not possibly be assigned to the normal course of the fever, whose progress throughout has been thoroughly understood, in all its complications, ever since the classical researches of Sir William Jenner. He determined, therefore, to keep a still closer guard upon the food and medicine, and to allow nobody to have access to the Duke’s room except the Duchess herself and two trained nurses of his own choosing.
‘Now comes the most sensational part of the common rumour, which we publish under all reserve, and without in any way guaranteeing the truth of any portion of the statement. It is currently reported that last night, about eight o’clock, the Duke desired to see his medical attendant alone, without the presence of any third party, and conjecture has it that his grace then confided to Sir Frederick’s ear the gravest suspicions as to the Duchess’s conduct. At any rate, it is certain that Sir Frederick immediately after this interview forbade the Duchess her husband’s room, and left the Duke under the care of his own two nurses only. In the course of the evening, however, it is asserted that the Duchess, taking advantage of the temporary absence of both attendants, forced her way, against the doctor’s orders, into his grace’s room, and administered to him a dose of medicine from a bottle she carried in her own pocket. On the return of the nurses, a few minutes later, they found the Duke lapsing into a comatose and almost dying condition, while the Duchess, taking her stand upon her rights as mistress in her own house, positively refused to leave the sick-chamber. The unfortunate nobleman fell at once into a deep and lethargic stupor, from which he never rallied, and passed quietly away a little after half-past four this morning.
‘Rumour adds that the contents of the Duke’s barley-water and other foods and drinks supplied by the Duchess have already been subjected to a hasty analysis, and that extravagant quantities of morphia have been found in all of them. A bottle of the same drug, containing a sufficient amount to kill a whole household, but harmlessly labelled as “Best Violet Powder,” has also been unearthed among the valuables in the Duchess’s jewel-case, which lay accidentally in a drawer of the Duke’s bedroom. If these rumours prove true, it is probable that London will soon be called upon to witness one of the most sensational trials of recent years. It is not often that a Duchess has figured in court as the accused in a case of this character. We understand, indeed, on inquiry, th
at her grace’s nerves are temporarily shattered by the painful events of the last fortnight.’
There was much more to the same general effect, but Linda had no eyes left to read it. Her sight failed her. One of the most sensational trials of recent years! That was all the paper had to say about this atrocious attempt to make the world believe she had deliberately planned to poison Bertie!
CHAPTER XL.
IN DEADLY PERIL.
For the next ten days London spoke, wrote, thought, and dreamt about nothing else on earth but what the newspapers called the Belgravia Mystery. Since Pigott’s flight, indeed, no sensation had so universally enchained attention. It was the common talk of clubs and tea-tables how the Duke of Powysland had been poisoned in his food — and it was the Duchess herself who had deliberately poisoned him.
At first, to be sure, the few compassionate souls who took Linda’s part — either because she was a woman, or because she was a Duchess, or because she was young and beautiful, or because (though this was the rarest class of all) they hated to hear any case prejudged on insufficient evidence — objected with apparent truth that no adequate motive could be shown for so terrible a crime against the supposed criminal’s own newly-wedded husband. But cynics replied, with an ugly smile, that nobody could ever guage anybody else’s motives — [not gauge, a vile dictionary blunder] — that each of us knew his own business, and his own alone; that one never could tell what might remain behind; that Powysland was a gambler and a roué who married his wife for her money, and spent the money like water as soon as he got it; that the Duchess herself was a pretty upstart, raised suddenly from the very dregs of the people to position and affluence; and that her rapid accession, first to wealth and then to the highest rank in the land, had probably turned her head till she fancied she could do whatever she chose with impunity. Wealth and title had intoxicated her brain. She found too late she had made a mistake in marrying the Duke, who neither loved nor respected her. Within the first year of their marriage he had squandered a large part of her immense fortune, and then treated her with studied and ostentatious neglect by going off alone on an inadequate pretext for six weeks to Norway. As soon as he returned, the Duchess, stung to the quick by this slight to her charms — (‘Notumque furens quid fœmina possit,’ said a famous talker at the Reform) — had seized the opportunity of his illness to get rid of him outright, and had carried out her plans with all the reckless openness of an ignorant and hasty half-educated woman.
For, of course, as soon as Linda’s action came to be publicly discussed, the facts about Clandon Street soon leaked out. And, as always happens in such cases, they were grossly exaggerated, till a totally new complexion was put upon the Duchess’s character and position. She had begun life, it was currently reported, as a lodging-house slavey, and had been raised to sudden wealth by the good luck of her brother, a journeyman mechanic, who had learnt his trade as a blacksmith’s boy or a layer-down of gas-pipes. Many people were positive on the point that the Duchess could neither read nor write; while others hinted that her change of name on going to America was necessitated by causes of a most unmentionable character. Altogether, it was looked upon as certain, both in West-End drawing-rooms and in the free-and-easy at every London public-house, that ‘the Powysland’ had poisoned her husband because she was tired of his gambling and his continual extravagance, and because he had let her see all too plainly and too soon it was her money, not herself, he had wooed and wedded.
In fact, the only question the world seemed to ask itself was, Why did she poison him? The prior question, Did she poison him at all? never for one moment occurred to anybody.
The newspapers had leaders about Lucrezia Borgia and Beatrice Cenci; they discussed Brinvilliers and the Duchess of Kingston; they raked up all instances, British and foreign, of high-placed poisoners or distinguished murderesses. They prejudged the case by suggestion, and prejudiced people’s minds by parallel stories, introduced without comment, as bearing upon a question now very much talked about in all circles of society.
Then, by-and-by, other facts, one by one, leaked out. It began to be whispered about that there were reasons below the surface; well — the usual reasons, you know; h’m, yes, exactly so. This mystery was of a piece with all similar mysteries elsewhere. Somebody else was really at the bottom of it. ‘A gentleman’s name,’ said the cautious newspaper reports two days after the occurrence, ‘was freely mentioned in the clubs yesterday in connection with the Duke of Powysland’s sudden death;’ and that gentleman, people muttered in West-End drawing-rooms, was Mr. Basil Maclaine, of the Board of Trade, the handsome young man with the killing moustache, who used to lodge in the Duchess’s house some years ago at Bloomsbury. Private detectives, it was noised abroad, had been set by the Duke to watch this gay Lothario’s relations with his too lively Duchess; and the result of the watching had been — well — eh — so unfavourable to the suspected persons that the lady had taken an heroic way out of it.
In clubland, ever ready to believe the worst of anybody, this plausible explanation was accepted at once with a cynical sneer of complete comprehension. The whole thing, my dear fellow, is as clear as mud. Nothing on earth could hang together more naturally. This is how we look at it in our set, don’t you see? The Duke picks up a young woman in New York, of enormous wealth, of course, and handsome — very — but of the shadiest possible social antecedents. Girl started in life in a London lodging-house, and we all know what that means; the morals of lodging-houses, to put it mildly, can seldom endure a close censorial scrutiny. There she knocked up against this young man, Maclaine — you must recollect the fellow by sight — a good-looking chap, in a Government office, with a fashionable drawl and a black moustache, and, from Miss Figgins’s point of view — oh yes, I assure you, the Duchess’s original name, when history first turns its bright bull’s-eye upon her, was positively Figgins — no more than that, a most plebeian Figgins — well, from Miss Figgins’s point of view, Maclaine would naturally seem ‘a perfect gentleman.’ She would see him with the admiring eyes of the lodging-house slavey. To her he would have position, money, social prestige, fascination; he could bring her home a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up her bonny brown hair, or some cheap tawdry jewellery from a shop in the Palais Royal; and to Miss Figgins, no doubt, in her Bloomsbury garret, such things would appear in the light of most munificent presents. You can guess the rest. A mutual attachment springs up between the young people, left-handed so far as one of the parties involved is concerned; the ordinary consequences supervene; and one fine morning, hi presto! Miss Figgins disappears as if by magic to New York — Mr. Basil Maclaine, no doubt, for sufficient reasons best known to himself, having paid her passage-money. That closes chapter the first, don’t you see? Chapter the second opens a little later under different auspices.
Here we have a complete fairy transformation scene. Miss Figgins has disappeared through a hidden trapdoor, and, enter in her place, with totally new dresses, scenery, and properties, a very much redecorated and whitewashed Miss Amberley. The brother with the gas-pipes has ‘struck ile’; he turns out on examination to be one of your genuine unsuspected working-men geniuses. Having gone over to New York in disgrace with his pretty sister — bought off, no doubt, for a fifty-pound note by the prudent Maclaine — he finds himself suddenly an electrical engineer of the first water, on the strength of this small capital so ill-acquired, and rises offhand, with true American haste, to incredible wealth and social position. The pretty sister, who had thus indirectly been the founder of his fortunes, naturally claims her share in the proceeds. ‘Give, give!’ she says, like the daughters of the horse-leech; and Amberley-Figgins, being an austere man, admits the justice of her claim, and buys her off with her clear half-million.
Just at this juncture, poor Powysland goes over in search of tin to pay his debts for a year or so, and marries, as he imagines, an American heiress. In an evil hour he brings his bride to London. At a party at the Simpsons’ — I was there myself
and saw it — the girl meets her discarded lover unexpectedly. In a moment the old flame revives. The forgotten lover returns. Maclaine thinks better of her now he sees her a Duchess in a diamond necklet. Cœtera quis nescit? Intrigue, detectives, disgrace, exposure. The Duke makes a feint of going to Norway, just to give them rope enough to hang themselves. They blandly accept the rope with child-like innocence, and Powysland comes back to find the lodging-house maiden has flown to the arms of her former lodger. He threatens divorce. The Duchess gets frightened and takes to poison. She gives him morphia — by the bucketful, like a little fool that she is — and he dies of the dose under Sir Frederick’s eyes, announcing to the doctor with his last breath that her grace has done for him. A very pretty tragedy indeed, as tragedies go; but what can you expect if a man of his rank mud-rakes the slums, and sells himself without inquiry to a young woman of no education and doubtful antecedents, picked up at random out of a New York gutter?
To us, who know and understand Linda, it’s hateful even to have to write or read such vile insinuations. But such is the way of Pall Mall. You have only to suggest to the denizens of those princely palaces that line the main thoroughfare of clubland some disgraceful motive or some ugly desire as the key of any problem then under discussion, and straightway, as men of the world! — by George! yes, my dear sir, they see at a glance you’ve hit by instinct upon the true solution. So all London explained in this way Linda’s reasons for wishing to get rid of her superfluous husband, the moment it began to be generally known that the Duke had set private detectives to watch over her intercourse with Maclaine while he was away in Norway.
To Linda herself, of course, those anxious days of suspense and waiting were inexpressibly terrible. Yet they wore away somehow. The inquest was held, and Linda, habited in very deep mourning, sat on one side of the court, tearless and firm, but pale as death, while a hundred opera-glasses were turned upon her mercilessly. Many people, whose acquaintance she had made in the short whirl of her one London season, were there to look on; but few of them gave her more than a distant salutation. She felt terribly alone in the world. No real friend was near her. She rather wondered Douglas Harrison hadn’t come to see her in her hour of need; but her good sense suggested to her at once the true explanation — Douglas was afraid of further prejudicing her case by seeming too attentive. Two things alone cheered her up in her agony. One was that Sabine Harrison, like a true woman as she was, sat close to her all through, a true woman’s instinct telling her plainly that Linda must be innocent. The other was the receipt of a telegram from Cecil in Montana:
