The Shadow of the Rope
Page 24
CHAPTER XXIV
ONE WHO WAS NOT BIDDEN
Langholm went north next morning by the ten o'clock express from King'sCross. He had been but four nights in town, and not four days, yet toLangholm they might have been weeks, for he had never felt so much andslept so little in all his life. He had also done a good deal; but it isthe moments of keen sensation that make up the really crowded hours, andLangholm was to run the gamut of his emotions before this memorable weekwas out. In psychological experience it was to be, for him, a littlelifetime in itself; indeed, the week seemed that already, while it wasstill young, and comparatively poor in incident and surprise.
He had bought magazines and the literary papers for his journey, but hecould concentrate his mind on nothing, and only the exigencies ofrailway travelling kept him off his legs. Luckily for Langholm, however,sleep came to him when least expected, in his cool corner of thecorridor train, and he only awoke in time for luncheon before thechange at York. His tired brain was vastly refreshed, but so far hecould not concentrate it, even on the events of these eventful days. Hewas still in the thick of them. A sense of proportion was as yetimpossible, and a consecutive review the most difficult of intellectualfeats. Langholm was too excited, and the situation too identical withsuspense, for a clear sight of all its bearings and potentialities; andthen there was the stern self-discipline, the determined bridling of theimagination, in which he had not yet relaxed. Once in the night,however, in the hopeless hours between darkness and broad day, he hadseen clearly for a while, and there and then pinned his vision down topaper. It concerned only one aspect of the case, but this was howLangholm found that he had stated it, on taking out his pocket-bookduring the final stages of his journey--
PROVISIONAL CASE AGAINST ---- ---- ----
1. Was in Sloane Street on the night of the murder, at an hotel about a mile from the house in which the murder was committed. This can be proved.
2. Left hotel shortly after arrival towards midnight, believed to have returned between two and three, and would thus have been absent at very time at which crime was committed according to medical evidence adduced at trial. But exact duration of absence from hotel can be proved.
3. Knew M. in Australia, but was in England unknown to M. till two mornings before murder, when M. wrote letter on receipt of which ---- ---- ---- came up to town (arriving near scene of murder as above stated, about time of commission). All this morally certain and probably capable of legal proof.
4. "So then I asked why a man he hadn't seen for so long should pay his debts; but M. only laughed and swore, and said he'd make him." C. could be subpoenaed to confirm if not to amplify this statement to me, with others to effect that it was for money M. admitted having written to "a millionaire."
5. Attended Mrs. M.'s trial throughout, thereafter making her acquaintance and offering marriage without any previous private knowledge whatsoever of her character or antecedents.
POSSIBLE MOTIVES
---- ---- ---- is a human mystery, his past life a greater one. He elaborately pretends that no part of that past was spent in Australia.
M. said he knew him there; also that "he'd make him"--pay up!
Blackmail not inconsistent with M.'s character.
Men have died as they deserved before to-day for threatening blackmail.
_Possible Motive for Marriage_
Atonement of the Guilty to the Innocent.
As Langholm read and re-read these precise pronouncements, withsomething of the detachment and the mild surprise with which heoccasionally dipped into his own earlier volumes, he congratulatedhimself upon the evidently lucid interval which had produced so muchorder from the chaos that had been his mind. Chaotic as its conditionstill was, that orderly array of impression, discovery, and surmise,bore the test of conscientious reconsideration. And there was nothingthat Langholm felt moved to strike out in the train; but, on the otherhand, he saw the weakness of his case as it stood at present, and washelped to see it by the detective officer's remark to him at ScotlandYard: "You find one [old Australian] who carries a revolver like this,and prove that he was in Chelsea on the night of the murder, with amotive for committing it, and we shall be glad of his name and address."Langholm had found the old Australian who could be proved to have beenin Chelsea, or thereabouts, on the night in question; but the pistol hecould not hope to find, and the motive was mere surmise.
And yet, to the walls of the mind that he was trying so hard to cleansefrom prejudice and prepossession--to school indeed to an inhumanfairness--there clung small circumstances and smaller details whichcould influence no one else, which would not constitute evidence beforeany tribunal, but which weighed more with Langholm himself than all thepoints arrayed in his note-book with so much primness and precision.
There was Rachel's vain appeal to her husband, "Find out who _is_ guiltyif you want people to believe that I am not." Why should so natural apetition have been made in vain, to a husband who after all had shownsome solicitude for his wife's honor, and who had the means to employthe best detective talent in the world? Langholm could only conceiveone reason: there was nothing for the husband to find out, buteverything for him to hide.
Langholm remembered the wide-eyed way in which Steel had looked at hiswife before replying, and the man's embarrassment grew automatically inhis mind. His lips had indeed shut very tight, but unconsciousexaggeration made them tremble first.
And then the fellow's manner to himself, his defiant taunts, his finalchallenge! Langholm was not sorry to remember the last; it relieved himfrom the moral incubus of the clandestine and the underhand; it bid himgo on and do his worst; it set his eyes upon the issue as betweenhimself and Steel, and it shut them to the final possibilities astouching the woman in the case.
So Langholm came back from sultry London to a world of smoke and rain,with furnaces flaring through the blurred windows, and the soot laidwith the dust in one of the grimiest towns in the island; but he soonshook both from his feet, and doubled back upon the local line to arural station within a mile and a half of his cottage. This distance hewalked by muddy ways, through the peculiarly humid atmosphere created bya sky that has rained itself out and an earth that can hold no more,and came finally to his dripping garden by the wicket at the back of thecottage. There he stood to inhale the fine earthy fragrance which atonedsomewhat for a rather desolate scene. The roses were all washed away.William Allen Richardson clung here and there, in the shelter of thesouthern eaves, but he was far past his prime, and had better haveperished with the exposed beauties on the tiny trees. The soakingfoliage had a bluish tinge; the glimpse of wooded upland, across thevalley through the gap in the hedge of Penzance briers, lay colorlessand indistinct as a faded print from an imperfect negative. A footstepcrunched the wet gravel at Langholm's back.
"Thank God you've got back, sir!" cried a Yorkshire voice in devoutaccents; and Langholm, turning, met the troubled face and tired eyes ofthe woman next door, who kept house for him while living in her own.
"My dear Mrs. Brunton," he exclaimed, "what on earth has happened? Youdidn't expect me earlier, did you? I wired you my train first thing thismorning."
"Oh, no, it isn't that, sir. It's--it's the poor young gentleman--"
And her apron went to her eyes.
"What young gentleman, Mrs. Brunton?"
"Him 'at you saw i' London an' sent all this way for change of air! Hewasn't fit to travel half the distance. I've been nursing of him allnight and all day too."
"A young gentleman, and sent by me?" Langholm's face was blank until aharsh light broke over it. "What's his name, Mrs. Brunton?"
"I can't tell you, sir. He said he was a friend of yours, and that wasall before he took ill. He's been too bad to answer questions all day.And then we knew you'd soon be here to tell us."
"A foreigner, I suppose?"
"I should say he was, sir."
; "And did he really tell you I had sent him?"
"Well, I can't say he did, not in so many words, but that was what Ithought he meant. It was like this, sir," continued Mrs. Brunton, asthey stood face to face on the wet gravel: "just about this timeyesterday I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to sendwith letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an'says, 'You're wanted.' So I went, and there was a young gentlemanlooking fit to drop. He'd a bag with him, and he'd walked all the wayfrom Upthorpe station, same as I suppose you have now; but yesterday wasthe hottest day we've had, and I never did see living face so like thedead. He had hardly life enough to ask if this was where you lived; andwhen I said it was, but you were away, he nodded and said he'd just seenyou in London; and he was sure he might come in and rest a bit. Well,sir, I not only let him do that, but you never will lock up anything, soI gave him a good sup o' your whiskey too!"
"Quite right," said Langholm--"and then?"
"It seemed to pull him together a bit, and he began to talk. He wantedto know about all the grand folks round about, where they lived and howlong they'd lived there. At last he made me tell him the way toNormanthorpe House, after asking any amount of questions about Mr. andMrs. Steel; it was hard work not to tell him what had just come out, butI remembered what you said before you went away, sir, and I left that toothers."
"Good!" said Langholm. "But did he go to Normanthorpe?"
"He started, though I begged him to sit still while we tried to get hima trap from the village; and his self-will nearly cost him his life, ifit doesn't yet. He was hardly out of sight when we see him comestaggering back with his handkerchief up to his mouth, and the blooddripping through his fingers into the road."
"A hemorrhage!"
"Yes, sir, yon was the very word the doctor used, and he says if he hasanother it'll be all up. So you may think what a time I've had! If he'sa friend of yours, sir, I'm sure I don't mind. In any case, poorgentleman--"
"He is a friend of mine," interrupted Langholm, "and we must do all wecan for him. I will help you, Mrs. Brunton. You shall have your sleepto-night. Did you put him into my room?"
"No, sir, your bed wasn't ready, so we popped him straight into our own;and now he has everything nice and clean and comfortable as I could makeit. If only we can pull him through, poor young gentleman, between us!"
"God bless you for a good woman," said Langholm, from his heart; "itwill be His will and not your fault if we fail. Yes, I should like tosee the poor fellow, if I may."
"He is expecting you, sir. He told Dr. Sedley he must see you the momentyou arrived, and the doctor said he might. No, he won't know you're hereyet, and he can't have heard a word, for our room is at t'front o't'house."
"Then I'll go up alone, Mrs. Brunton, if you won't mind."
Severino was lying in a high, square bed, his black locks tossed upon aspotless pillow no whiter than his face; a transparent hand came fromunder the bedclothes to meet Langholm's outstretched one, but it fellback upon the sick man's breast instead.
"Do you forgive me?" he whispered, in a voice both hoarse and hollow.
"What for?" smiled Langholm. "You had a right to come where you liked;it is a free country, Severino."
"But I went to your hotel--behind your back!"
"That was quite fair, my good fellow. Come, I mean to shake hands,whether you like it or not."
And the sound man took the sick one's hand with womanly tenderness; andso sat on the bed, looking far into the great dark sinks of fever thatwere human eyes; but the fever was of the brain, for the poor fellow'shand was cool.
"You do not ask me why I did it," came from the tremulous lips at last.
"Perhaps I know."
"I will tell you if you are right."
"It was to see her again--your kindest friend--and mine," saidLangholm, gently.
"Yes! It was to see her again--before I die!"
And the black eyes blazed again.
"You are not going to die," said Langholm, with the usual reassuringscorn.
"I am. Quite soon. On your hands, I only fear. And I have not seen heryet!"
"You shall see her," said Langholm, tenderly, gravely. He was rewardedwith a slight pressure of the emaciated hand; but for the first time hesuspected that all the scrutiny was not upon one side--that the sickyouth was trying to read him in his turn.
"I love her!" at last cried Severino, in rapt whispers. "Do you hear me?I love her! I love her! What does it matter now?"
"It would matter to her if you told her," rejoined Langholm. "It wouldmake her very unhappy."
"Then I need not tell her."
"You must not, indeed."
"Very well, I will not. It is a promise, and I keep my promises; it isonly when I make none--"
"That's all right," said Langholm, smiling.
"Then you will bring her to me?"
"I shall have to see her first, and the doctor."
"But you will do your best? That is why I am here, remember! I shalltell the doctor so myself."
"I will do my best," said Langholm, as he rose.
A last whisper followed him to the door.
"Because I worship her!" were the words.