Kitabı oku: «The House of the White Shadows», sayfa 2

CHAPTER IV
JACOB HARTRICH, THE BANKER, GIVES HIS REASONS FOR BELIEVING GAUTRAN THE WOODMAN GUILTY OF THE MURDER OF MADELINE

Jacob Hartrich, by birth a Jew, had reached his sixtieth year, and was as hale and strong as a man of forty. His face was bland and full-fleshed, his eyes bright and, at times, joyous, his voice mellow, his hands fat and finely-shaped, and given to a caressing petting of each other, denoting satisfaction with themselves and the world in general. His manners were easy and self-possessed-a characteristic of his race. He was a gentleman and a man of education.

He gazed at the Advocate with admiration; he had an intense respect for men who had achieved fame by force of intellect.

"Mr. Almer," he said, "prepared me for your arrival, and is anxious that I should forward your views in every possible way. I shall be happy to do so, and, if it is in my power, to contribute to the pleasure of your visit."

"I thank you," said the Advocate, with a courteous inclination of his head. "When did you last see Mr. Almer?"

"He called upon me this day three weeks-for a few minutes only, and only concerning your business."

"He is always thoughtful and considerate. I suppose he was on his road to Paris when he called upon you."

"No; he had no intention of going to Paris. I believe he had been for some time in the neighbourhood of Geneva before he favoured me with a visit. He is still here."

"Here!" exclaimed the Advocate, in a tone of pleasure and surprise.

"At least in Switzerland."

"In what part?"

"I cannot inform you, but from the remarks he let fall, I should say in the mountains, where tourists are not likely to penetrate." He paused a moment before he continued: "Mr. Almer spoke of you, in terms it was pleasant to hear, as his closest, dearest friend."

"We are friends in the truest sense of the word."

"Then I may speak freely to you. During the time he was with me I was impressed by an unusual strangeness in him. He was restless and ill at ease; his manner denoted that he was either dissatisfied with himself or was under some evil influence. I expressed my surprise to him that he had been for some time in this neighbourhood without calling upon me, but he did not offer any explanation of his neglect. He told me, however, that he was tired of the light, the gaiety, and the bustle of cities, and that it was his intention to seek some solitude to endeavour to rid himself of a terror which had taken possession of him. No sooner had he made this strange declaration than he strove, in hurried words, to make light of it, evidently anxious that it should leave no impression upon my mind. I need scarcely say he did not succeed. I have frequently thought of that declaration and of Christian Almer in connection with it."

The Advocate smiled and shook his head.

"Mr. Almer is given to fantastic expression. If you knew him as well as I do you would be aware that he is prone to magnify trifles, and likely to raise ghosts of the conscience for the mere pleasure of laying them. His nature is of that order which suffers keenly, but I am not disposed on that account to pity him. There are men who would be most unhappy unless they suffered."

"My dear sir," said Jacob Hartrich, "I have known Christian Almer since he was a child. I knew his father, a gentleman of great attainments, and his mother, a refined and exquisitely beautiful woman. His child-life probably made a sad impression upon him, but he has mixed with the world, and there is a bridge of twenty years between then and now. A great change has taken place in him, and not for the better. There is certainly something on his mind."

"There is something on most men's minds. I have remarked no change in Mr. Almer to cause me uneasiness. He is the same high-minded gentleman I have ever known him to be. He is exquisitely sensitive, responsive to the lightest touch; those who are imbued with such qualities suffer keenly and enjoy keenly."

"The thought occurred to me that he might have sustained a monetary loss, but I dismissed it."

"A monetary loss would rather exalt than depress him. He is rich-it would have been a great happiness for him if he had been poor. What are termed misfortunes are sometimes real blessings; many fine natures are made to halt on their way by worldly prosperity. Had Christian Almer been born in the lower classes he would have found a worthy occupation; he would have made a name for himself, and in all probability would have won a wife-who would have idolised him. He is a man whom a woman might worship."

"You have given me a clue," said Jacob Hartrich; "he has met with a disappointment in love."

"I think not; had he met with such a disappointment I should most surely have heard of it from his own lips."

Interesting as this conversation was to both the speakers it had now come to a natural break, and Jacob Hartrich, diverging from it, inquired whether the Advocate's visit was likely to be a long one.

"I have pledged myself," said the Advocate somewhat wearily, "to remain here for at least three months."

"Rest is a necessary medicine." The Advocate nodded absently. "Pray excuse me while I attend to your affairs. Here are the local and other papers."

He left the room, and returning soon afterwards found the Advocate engaged in the perusal of a newspaper in which he appeared to be deeply interested.

"Your business," said Jacob Hartrich, "will occupy about twenty minutes. There are some trifling formalities to be gone through with respect to signatures and stamps. If you are pressed for time I will send to you at your hotel."

"With your permission I will wait," said the Advocate, laying aside the paper with a thoughtful air.

Jacob Hartrich glanced at the paper, and saw the heading of the column which the Advocate had perused, "The Murder of Madeline the Flower-girl."

"You have been reading the particulars of this shocking deed."

"I have read what is there written."

"But you are familiar with the particulars; everybody has read them."

"I am the exception, then. I have seen very few newspapers lately."

"It was a foul and wicked murder."

"It appears so, from this bare recital."

"The foulest and most horrible within my remembrance. Ah! where will not the passions of men lead them?"

"A wide contemplation. Were men to measure the consequences of their acts before they committed them, certain channels of human events which are now exceedingly wide and turbulent would become narrow and peaceful. It was a girl who was murdered?"

"Yes."

"Young?"

"Barely seventeen."

"Pretty?"

"Very pretty."

"Had she no father to protect her?"

"No."

"Nor mother?"

"No-as far as is known."

"A flower-girl, I gather from the account."

"Yes. I have occasionally bought a posy of her-poor child!"

"Did she trade alone?"

"She had a companion, an elderly woman, who, unhappily, left her a few days before the murder."

"Deserted her?"

"No; it was an amicable parting, intended to last but a short time, I believe. It is not known what called her away."

"This young flower-girl-was she virtuous?"

"Undoubtedly, in my belief. She was most modest and child-like."

"But susceptible to flattery. You hesitate. Why? Do you not judge human passions by human standards? She was young, pretty, in humble circumstances; her very opposite would be susceptible to flattery; therefore, she."

"Why, yes, of course; I hesitated because it would pain me to say anything concerning her which might be construed into a reproach."

"In such matters there is but one goal to steer for-the truth. I perceive that a man, Gautran, is in prison, charged with the murder."

"A man?" exclaimed Jacob Hartrich, with indignant warmth. "A monster, rather! Some refined punishment should be devised to punish him for his crime."

"His crime! I have, then, been reading an old paper." The Advocate referred to the date. "No-it is this morning's."

"I see your point, but the proofs of the monster's guilt are irrefragable."

"What proofs? The statements of newspaper reporters-the idle and mischievous tattle of persons who cannot be put into the witness-box?"

"It is well that you express yourself to me privately on this matter. In public it would not be credited that you were in earnest."

"Then the facts are lost sight of that the man has to be tried, that his guilt or innocence has yet to be established."

"The law cannot destroy facts."

"The law establishes facts, which are often in danger of being perverted by man's sympathies and prejudices. Are you acquainted with this Gautran?"

"I have no knowledge of him except from report."

"And having no knowledge of him, except from report, you form an opinion upon hearsay, and condemn him offhand. It is justice itself, therefore, that is on its trial, not a man accused of a frightful deed. He is already judged. It is stated in the newspaper that the man's appearance is repulsive."

"He is hideous."

"Then you have seen him."

"No."

"Calmly consider what value can be placed upon your judgment under the circumstances. You say the girl was pretty. Her engaging manners have tempted you to buy posies of her, not always when you needed them. In making this statement of a fact which, trivial as it appears to be, is of importance, I judge a human action by a human standard. Thus, beauty on one side, and a forbidding countenance on the other, may be the means of contributing-nay, of leading-to a direct miscarriage of justice. This should be prevented; justice must have a clear course, which must not be blocked and choked up by passion and prejudice. The opinion you express of Gautran's guilt may be entertained by others to whom he is also a stranger."

"My opinion is universal."

"The man, therefore, is universally condemned before he is called upon to answer the charge brought against him. Amidst this storm, in the wild fury of which reason has lost its proper functions, where shall a jury be found to calmly weigh the evidence on either side, and to judge, with ordinary fairness, a miserable wretch accused of a foul crime?"

"Gautran is a vagabond," said Jacob Hartrich feebly, feeling as though the ground were giving way under his feet, "of the lowest type."

"He is poor."

"Necessarily."

"And cannot afford to pay for independent legal aid."

"It is fortunate. He will meet with his deserts more surely and swiftly."

"You can doubtless call to mind instances of innocent persons being accused of crimes they did not commit, and being made to suffer."

"There is no fear in the case of Gautran."

"Let us hope not," said the Advocate, whose voice during the conversation had been perfectly passionless, "and in the meantime, do not lose sight of this principle. Were Gautran the meanest creature that breathes, were he the most repulsive being on earth, he is an innocent man until he is declared guilty by the law. Equally so were he a man gifted with exceeding beauty of person, and bearing an honoured name. And of those two extremes, supposing both were found guilty of equal crimes, it is worthy of consideration, whether he who walks the gutters be not better entitled to a merciful sentence than he who lives on the heights."

At this moment a clerk brought some papers into the room. Jacob Hartrich looked over them, and handed them, with a roll of notes, to the Advocate, who rose and prepared to go.

"Have you a permanent address?" asked the banker. "We take up our quarters at once," replied the Advocate, "at the House of White Shadows."

Jacob Hartrich gazed at him in consternation. "Christian Almer's villa! He made no mention of it to me."

"It was an arrangement entered into some time since. I have a letter from Master Pierre Lamont informing me that the villa is ready for us."

"It has been uninhabited for years, except by servants who have been kept there to preserve it from falling into decay. There are strange stories connected with that house."

"I have heard as much, but have not inquired into them. The probability is that they arise from credulity or ignorance, the foundation of all superstition."

With that remark the Advocate took his leave.

CHAPTER V
FRITZ THE FOOL

As the little wooden clock in the parlour of the inn of The Seven Liars struck the hour of five, Fritz the Fool ran through the open door, from which an array of bottles and glasses could be seen, and cried:

"They are coming-they are coming-the great Advocate and his lady-and will arrive before the cook can toss me up an omelette!"

And having thus delivered himself, Fritz ran out of the inn to the House of White Shadows, and swinging open the gates, cried still more loudly:

"Mother Denise! Dionetta, my pearl of pearls! Haste-haste! They are on the road, and will be here a lifetime before old Martin can straighten his crooked back!"

Within five minutes of this summons, there stood at the door of the inn of The Seven Liars, the customers who had been tippling therein, the host and hostess and their three children; and ten yards off, at the gates of the villa. Mother Denise, her pretty granddaughter, Dionetta, and old Martin, whose breathing came short and quick at the haste he had made to be in time to welcome the Advocate and his lady. The refrain of the breaking-up song sung in the little village school was dying away, and the children trooped out, and waited to witness the arrival. The schoolmaster was also there, with a look of relief on his face, and stood with his hand on the head of his favourite pupil. The news had spread quickly, and when the carriage made its appearance at the end of the lane, which shelved downward to the House of White Shadows, a number of villagers had assembled, curious to see the great lord and lady who intended to reside in the haunted house.

As the carriage drove up at the gates, the courier jumped down from his seat next to the driver, and opened the carriage door. The villagers pressed forward, and gazed in admiration at the beautiful lady, and in awe at the stern-faced gentleman who had selected the House of White Shadows for a holiday residence. There were those among them who, poor as they were, would not have undertaken to sleep in any one of the rooms in the villa for the value of all the watches in Geneva. There were, however, three persons in the small concourse of people who had no fears of the house. These were Mother Denise, the old housekeeper, her husband Martin, and Fritz the Fool.

Mother Denise, the oldest servant of the house, had been born there, and was ghost and shadow proof; so was her husband, now in his eighty-fifth year, whose body was like a bent bow stretched for the flight of the arrow, his soul. Not for a single night in sixty-eight years had Mother Denise slept outside the walls of the House of White Shadows; nothing did she know of the great world beyond, and nothing did she care; a staunch, faithful servant of the Almer family, conversant with its secret history, her duty was sufficient for her, and she had no desire to travel beyond the space which encompassed it. For forty-three years her husband had kept her company, and to neither, as they had frequently declared, had a supernatural visitant ever appeared. They had no belief whatever in the ghostly gossip.

Fool Fritz, on the contrary, averred that there was no mistake about the spiritual visitants; they appeared to him frequently, but he had no fear of them; indeed, he appeared to rather enjoy them. "They may come, and welcome," he said. "They don't strike, they don't bite, they don't burn. They reveal secrets which you would like nobody to find out. If it had not been for them, how should I have known about Karl and Mina kissing and courting at the back of the schoolhouse when everybody was asleep, or about Dame Walther and her sly bottle, or about Wolf Constans coming home at three in the morning with a dead lamb on his back-ah, and about many things you try and keep to yourselves? I don't mind the shadows, not I." There was little in the village that Fritz did not know; all the scandal, all the love-making, all the family quarrels, all the secret doings-it was hard to keep anything from him; and the mystery was how he came to the knowledge of these matters. "He is in affinity with the spirits," said the village schoolmaster; "he is himself a ghost, with a fleshly embodiment. That is why the fool is not afraid." Truly Fritz the Fool was ghostlike in appearance, for his skin was singularly white, and his head was covered with shaggy white hair which hung low down upon his shoulders. From a distance he looked like an old man, but he had not reached his thirtieth year, and so clear were his eyes and complexion that, on a closer observance, he might have passed for a lad of half the years he bore. A shrewd knave, despite his title of fool.

Pretty Dionetta did not share his defiance of ghostly visitors. The House of White Shadows was her home, and many a night had she awoke in terror and listened with a beating heart to soft footsteps in the passage outside her room, and buried her head in the sheets to shut out the light of the moon which shone in at her window. Fritz alone sympathised with her. "Two hours before midnight," he would say to her; "then it was you heard them creeping past your door. You were afraid, of course-when one is all alone; I can prescribe a remedy for that-not yet, Dionetta, by-and-by. Till then, keep all men at a distance; avoid them; there is danger in them. If they look at you, frown, and lower your eyes. And to-night, when you go to bed, lock your door tight, and listen. If the spirits come again, I will charm them away; shortly after you hear their footsteps, I will sing a stave outside to trick them from your door. Then sleep in peace, and rely on Fritz the Fool."

Very timid and fearful of the supernatural was this country beauty, whom all the louts in the neighbourhood wanted to marry, and she alone, of those who lived in the House of White Shadows, welcomed the Advocate and his wife with genuine delight. Fool Fritz thought of secretly-enjoyed pleasures which might now be disturbed, Martin was too old not to dislike change, and Mother Denise was by no means prepared to rejoice at the arrival of strangers; she would have been better pleased had they never shown their faces at the gates.

The Advocate and his wife stood looking around them, he with observant eyes and in silence, she with undisguised pleasure and admiration. She began to speak the moment she alighted.

"Charming! beautiful! I am positively in love with it. This morning it was but a fancy picture, now it is real. Could anything be more perfect? So peaceful, and quaint, and sweet! Look at those children peeping from behind their mother's gown-she can be no other than their mother-dirty, but how picturesque! – and the woman herself, how original! It is worth while being a woman like that, to stand as she does, with her children clinging to her. Why does Mr. Almer not like to live here? It is inexplicable, quite inexplicable. I could be happy here for ever-yes, for ever! Do you catch the perfume of the limes? It is delicious-delicious! It comes from the grounds; there must be a lime-tree walk there. And you," she said to the pretty girl at the gates, "you are Dionetta."

"Yes, my lady," said Dionetta, and marvelled how her name could have become known to the beautiful woman, whose face was more lovely than the face of the Madonna over the altar of the tiny chapel in which she daily prayed. It was not difficult to divine her thought, for Dionetta was Nature's child.

"You wonder who told me your name," said the Advocate's wife, smiling, and patting the girl's cheek with her gloved hand.

"Yes, my lady."

"It was a little bird, Dionetta."

"A little bird, my lady!" exclaimed Dionetta, her wonderment and admiration growing fast into worship. The lady's graceful figure, her pink and white face, her pearly teeth, her lovely laughing mouth, her eyes, blue as the most beautiful summer's cloud-Dionetta had never seen the like before.

"You," said the Advocate's wife, turning to the grandmother, "are Mother Denise."

"Yes, my lady," said the old woman; "this is my husband, Martin. Come forward, Martin, come forward. He is not as young as he was, my lady."

"I know, I know; my little bird was very communicative. You are Fritz."

"The Fool," said the white-haired young man, approaching closer to the lady, and consequently closer to Dionetta, "Fritz the Fool. But that needn't tell against me, unless you please. I can be useful, if I care to be, and faithful, too, if I care to be."

"It depends upon yourself, then," said the lady, accepting the independent speech in good part, "not upon others."

"Mainly upon myself; but I have springs that can be set in motion, if one can only find out how to play upon them. I was told you were coming."

"Indeed!" with an air of pleasant surprise. "By whom, and when?"

"By whom? The white shadows. When? In my dreams."

"The white shadows! They exist then! Edward, do you hear?"

"It is not so, my lady," interposed Mother Denise, in ill-humour at the turn the conversation was taking; "the shadows do not exist, despite what people say. Fritz is over-fond of fooling."

"It is my trade," retorted Fritz. "I know what I know, grandmother."

"Is Fritz your grandson, then?" asked the Advocate's wife, of Mother Denise.

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Mother Denise.

"What is not," remarked Fritz sententiously, "may be. Bear that in mind, grandmother; I may remind you of it one day."

The Advocate, upon whom not a word that had passed had been lost, fixed his eyes upon Fritz, and said:

"A delusion can be turned to profit. You make use of these shadows."

"The saints forbid! They would burn me in brimstone. Yet," with a look both sly and vacant, "it would be a pity to waste them."

"You like to be called a fool. It pleases you."

"Why not?"

"Why, rather?"

"I might answer in your own words, that it can be turned to profit. But I am too great a fool to see in what way."

"You answer wisely. Why do you close your eyes?"

"I can see in the dark what I choose to see. When my eyes are open, I am their slave. When they are closed, they are mine-unless I dream."

The Advocate gazed for a moment or two in silence upon the white face with its closed eyes raised to his, and then said to his wife:

"Come, Adelaide, we will look at the house."

They passed into the grounds, accompanied by Mother Denise, Martin, and Dionetta. Fritz remained outside the gate, with his eyes still closed, and a smile upon his lips.

"Fritz," said the host of the inn of The Seven Liars, "do you know anything of the great man?"

Fritz rubbed his brows softly and opened his eyes.

"Take the advice of a fool, Peter Schelt. Speak low when you speak of him."

"You think he can hear us. Why, he is a hundred yards off by this time!"

Fritz pointed with a waving finger to the air above him.

"There are magnetic lines, neighbours, connecting him with everything he once sets eyes on. He can see without seeing, and hear without hearing."

"You speak in riddles, Fritz."

"Put it down to your own dulness, Peter Schelt, that you cannot understand me. Master Lamont, now-what would you say about him? That he lacks brains?"

"A long way from it. Master Lamont is the cleverest man in the valley."

"Not now," said Fritz, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction taken by the Advocate; "his master has come. Master Lamont is a great lawyer, but we have now a greater, one who is a more skilful cobbler with his tongue than Hans here is with his awl; he can so patch an old boot as to make it better than a new one, and look as close as you may, you will not see the seams. Listen, Master Schelt. When I stood there with my eyes shut I had a dream of a stranger who was found murdered in your house. An awful dream, Peter. Gather round, neighbours, gather round. There lay the stranger dead on his bed, and over him stood you, Peter Schelt, with a bloody knife in your hand. People say you murdered him for his money, and it really seemed so, for a purse stuffed with gold and notes was found in your possession; you had the stranger's silver watch, too. Suspicious, was it not? It was looking so black against you that you begged the great man who has come among us to plead for you at your trial. You were safe enough, then. He told a rare tale. Forty years ago the stranger robbed your father; suddenly he was struck with remorse, and seeking you out, gave you back the money, and his silver watch in the bargain. He proved to everybody's satisfaction that, though you committed the murder, it was impossible you could be guilty. Don't be alarmed, Madame Schelt, it was only a dream."

"But are you sure I did it?" asked Peter Schelt, in no way disturbed by the bad light in which he was placed by Fritz's fancies.

"What matters? The great man got you off, and that is all you cared for. Look here, neighbours; if any of you have black goats that you wish changed into white, go to him; he can do it for you. Or an old hen that cackles and won't lay, go to him; she will cackle less, and lay you six eggs a day. He is, of all, the greatest."

"Ah," said a neighbour, "and what do you know of his lady wife?"

"What all of you should know, but cannot see, though it stares you in the face."

"Let us have it, Fritz."

"She is too fair. Christine," to a stout young woman close to him, "give thanks to the Virgin to-night that you were sent into the world with a cast in your eye, and that your legs grow thicker and crookeder every day. You will never drive a man out of his senses with your beauty."

Fritz was compelled to beat a swift retreat, for Christine's arms were as thick as her legs, and they were raised to smite. Up the lane flew the fool, and Christine after him, amid the laughter of the villagers.