Kitabı oku: «The Seven Secrets», sayfa 15
CHAPTER XXXI.
CONTAINS THE PLAIN TRUTH
A sudden idea occurred to me, and I acted instantly upon its impulse. There was a second entrance through the morning room; and I dashed round to the other door, which fortunately yielded.
The sight that met my gaze was absolutely staggering. I stood upon the threshold aghast. Sir Bernard, his dark eyes starting from his ashen face, stood, holding a woman within his grasp, pinning her to the wall, and struggling to cover her mouth with his hands and prevent her cries from being overheard.
The woman was none other than Ethelwynn.
At my unexpected entry he released his hold, shrinking back with a wild, fierce look in his face, such as I had never before seen.
“Ralph!” cried my love, rushing forward and clinging to my neck. “Ralph! For God’s sake save me from that fiend! Save me!”
I put my arm around her to protect her, at the same instant shouting to Jevons, who entered, as much astounded as myself. My love had evidently come to town and kept an appointment with the old man. The situation was startling, and required explanation.
“Tell me, Ethelwynn,” I said, in a hard, stern voice. “What does all this mean?”
She drew herself up and tried to face me firmly, but was unable. I had burst in upon her unexpectedly, and she seemed to fear how much of the conversation I had overheard.
Noticing her silence, my friend Jevons addressed her, saying:
“Miss Mivart, you are aware of all the circumstances of the tragedy at Kew. Please explain them. Only by frank admission can you clear yourself, remember. To prevaricate further is quite useless.”
She glanced at the cringing old fellow standing on the further side of the room – the man who had raised his hand against her. Then, with a sudden resolution, she spoke, saying:
“It is true that I am aware of many facts which have been until to-day kept secret. But now that I know the horrible truth they shall remain mysteries no longer. I have been the victim of a long and dastardly persecution, but I now hope to clear my honour before you, Ralph, and before my Creator.” Then she paused, and, taking breath and drawing herself up straight with an air of determined resolution, went on:
“First, let us go back to the days soon after Mary’s marriage. I think it was about a year after the wedding when I suddenly noticed a change in her. Her intellect seemed somehow weakened. Hitherto she had possessed a strong, well-defined character; this suddenly developed into a weak, almost childish balance of the brain. Instead of possessing a will of her own, she was no longer the mistress of her actions, but as easily led as an infant. Only to myself and to my mother was this change apparent. To all her friends and acquaintances she was just the same. About that time she consulted this man here – Sir Bernard Eyton, her husband’s friend – regarding some other ailment, and he no doubt at once detected that her intellect had given way. Although devoted to her husband, nevertheless the influence of any friend of the moment was irresistible, and for that reason she drifted into the pleasure-seeking set in town.”
“But the tragedy?” Jevons exclaimed. “Tell us of that. My own inquiries show that you are aware of it all. Mrs. Courtenay murdered her husband, I know.”
“Mary – the assassin!” I gasped.
“Alas! it is too true. Now that my poor sister is dead, concealment is no longer necessary,” my love responded, with a deep sigh. “Mary killed her husband. She returned home, entered the house secretly, and, ascending to his room, struck him to the heart.”
“But the wound – how was it inflicted?” I demanded eagerly.
“With that pair of long, sharp-pointed scissors which used to be on poor Henry’s writing-table. You remember them. They were about eight inches long, with ivory handles and a red morocco case. The wound puzzled you, but to me it seems plain that, after striking the blow, in an endeavour to extricate the weapon she opened it and closed it again, thereby inflicting those internal injuries that were so minutely described at the inquest. Well, on that night I heard a sound, and, fearing that the invalid wanted something, crept from my room. As I gained the door I met Mary upon the threshold. She stood facing me with a weird, fixed look, and in her hand was the weapon with which she had killed her husband. That awful moment is fixed indelibly upon my memory. I shall carry its recollection to the grave. I dashed quickly into the room, and to my horror saw what had occurred. Then my thoughts were for Mary – to conceal her guilt. Whispering to her to obey me I led her downstairs, through the back premises, and so out into the street. A cab was passing, and I put her into it, telling the man to drive to the Hennikers’, with whom she had been spending the evening. Then, cleaning the scissors of blood by thrusting them several times into the mould of a garden I was passing, I crossed the road and tossed them over the high wall into the thick undergrowth which flanks Kew Gardens. At that spot I felt certain that they would never be discovered. As quickly as possible I re-entered the house, secured the door by which I had made my exit, and returned again to my room with the awful knowledge of my sister’s crime upon my conscience.”
“What hour was that?”
“When I retired again to bed my watch showed that it was barely half-past one. At two o’clock Short, awakened by his alarum clock, made the discovery and aroused the house. What followed you know well enough. I need not describe it. You can imagine what I felt, and how guilty was my conscience with the awful knowledge of it all.”
“The circumstances were certainly most puzzling,” I remarked. “It almost appears as though matters were cleverly arranged in order to baffle detection.”
“To a certain extent they undoubtedly were. I knew that the Hennikers would say nothing of poor Mary’s erratic return to them. I did all in my power to withdraw suspicion from my sister, at the risk of it falling upon myself. You suspected me, Ralph. And only naturally – after that letter you discovered.”
“But Mary’s homicidal tendency seems to have been carefully concealed,” I said. “I recollect having detected in her a strange vagueness of manner, but it never occurred to me that she was mentally weak. In the days immediately preceding the tragedy I certainly saw but little of her. She was out nearly every evening.”
“She was not responsible for her actions for several weeks together sometimes,” Sir Bernard interrupted. “I discovered it over a year ago.”
“And you profited by your discovery!” my love cried, turning upon him fiercely. “The crime was committed at your instigation!” she declared.
“At my instigation!” he echoed, with a dry laugh. “I suppose you will say next that I hypnotised her – or some bunkum of that sort!”
“I’m no believer in hypnotic theories. They were exploded long ago,” she answered. “But what I do believe – nay, what is positively proved from my poor sister’s own lips by a statement made before witnesses – is that you were the instigator of the crime. You met her by appointment that night at Kew Bridge. You opened the door of the house for her, and you compelled her to go in and commit the deed. Although demented, she recollected it all in her saner moments. You told her terrible stories of old Mr. Courtenay, for whom you had feigned such friendship, and for weeks you urged her to kill him secretly until, in the frenzy of insanity to which you had brought her, she carried out your design with all that careful ingenuity that is so often characteristic of madness.”
“You lie, woman!” the old man snapped. “I had nothing whatever to do with the affair! I was at home at Hove on that night.”
“No! no! you were not,” interrupted Jevons. “Your memory requires refreshing. Reflect a moment, and you’ll find that you arrived at Brighton Station at seven o’clock next morning from Victoria. You spent the night in London; and further, you were recognised by a police inspector walking along the Chiswick Road as early as half-past three. I have not been idle, Sir Bernard, and have spent a good deal of time at Hove of late.”
“What do you allege, then?” he cried in fierce anger, a dark, evil expression on his pale, drawn face. “I suppose you’ll declare that I’m a murderer next!”
“I allege that, at your instigation, a serious and desperate attempt was made, a short time ago, upon the life of my friend Boyd by ruffians who were well paid by you.”
“Another lie!” he blurted forth defiantly.
“What?” I cried. “Is that the truth, Ambler? Was I entrapped at the instigation of this man?”
“Yes. He had reasons for getting rid of you – as you will discern later.”
“I tell you it’s an untruth!” shouted the old man, in a frenzy of rage.
“Deny it if you will,” answered my friend, with a nonchalant air. “It, however, may be interesting to you to know that the man ‘Lanky Lane,’ one of the desperate gang whom you bribed to call up Boyd on the night in question, is what is known at Scotland Yard as a policeman’s ‘nose,’ or informer; and that he made a plain statement of the whole affair before he fell a victim to your carefully-laid plan by which his lips were sealed.”
In an instant I recollected that the costermonger of the London Road was one of the ruffians.
The old man’s lips compressed. He saw that he was cornered.
The revelation that to his clever cunning was due the many remarkable features of the mystery held me utterly bewildered. At first it seemed impossible; but as the discussion grew more heated, and the facts poured forth from the mouth of the woman I loved, and from the man who was my best friend, I became convinced that at last the whole of the mysterious affair would be elucidated.
One point, however, still puzzled me, namely, the inexplicable scene I had witnessed on the bank of the Nene.
I referred to it; whereupon Ambler Jevons drew from his breast-pocket two photographs, and, holding them before the eyes of the trembling old man, said:
“You recognise these? For a long time past I’ve been making inquiries into your keen interest in amateur theatricals. My information led me to Curtis’s, the wigmakers; and they furnished me with this picture, showing you made up as as Henry Courtenay. It seems that, under the name of Slade, you furnished them with a portrait of the dead man and ordered the disguise to be copied exactly – a fact to which a dozen witnesses are prepared to swear. This caused me to wonder what game you were playing, and, after watching, I found that on certain nights you wore the disguise – a most complete and excellent one – and with it imposed upon the unfortunate widow of weak intellect. You posed as her husband, and she believed you to be him. So completely was the woman in your thrall that you actually led her to believe that Courtenay was not dead after all! You had a deeper game to play. It was a clever and daring piece of imposture. Representing yourself as her husband who, for financial reasons, had been compelled to disappear and was believed to be dead, you had formed a plan whereby to obtain the widow’s fortune as soon as the executors had given her complete mastery of it. You had arranged it all with her. She was to pose as a widow, mourn your loss, and then sell the Devonshire estate and hand you the money, believing you to be her husband and rightly entitled to it. The terrible crime which the unfortunate woman had committed at your instigation had turned her brain, as you anticipated, and she, docile and half-witted, was entirely beneath your influence until – ” and he paused.
“Until what?” I asked, utterly astounded at this remarkable explanation of what I had considered to be an absolutely inexplicable phenomenon.
He spoke again, quite calmly:
“Until this man, to his dismay, found that poor Mrs. Courtenay’s intellect was regaining its strength. They met beside the river, and, her brain suddenly regaining its balance, she discovered the ingenious fraud he was imposing upon her.” Turning to Sir Bernard, he said, “She tore off your disguise and declared that she would go to the police and tell the truth of the whole circumstances – how that you had induced her to go to the house in Kew and kill her husband. You saw that your game was up if she were not silenced; therefore, without further ado, you sent the poor woman to her last account.”
“You lie!” the old man cried, his drawn face blanched to the lips. “She fell in – accidentally.”
“She did not. You threw her in,” declared Ambler Jevons, firmly. “I followed you there. I was witness of the scene between you; and, although too far off to save poor Mrs. Courtenay, I was witness of your crime!”
“You!” he gasped, glaring at my companion in fear, as though he foresaw the horror of his punishment.
“Yes!” responded Jevons, in his dry, matter-of-fact voice, his sleepy eyes brightening for a moment. “Since the day of the tragedy at Kew until this afternoon I have never relinquished the inquiry. The Seven Secrets I took one by one, and gradually penetrated them, at the same time keeping always near you and watching your movements when you least expected it. But enough – I never reveal my methods. Suffice it to say that in this I have succeeded by sheer patience and application. Every word of my allegation I am prepared to substantiate in due course at the Old Bailey.” Then, after a second’s pause, he looked straight at the culprit standing there, crushed and dumb before him, and declared: “Sir Bernard Eyton, you are a murderer!”
With my love’s hand held in mine I stood speechless at those staggering revelations. I saw how Ethelwynn watched the contortions of the old doctor’s face with secret satisfaction, for he had ever been her enemy, just as he had been mine. He had uttered those libellous hints regarding her with a view to parting us, so as to give him greater freedom to work his will with poor Mary. Then, when he had feared that through my love I had obtained knowledge of his dastardly offence, he had made an attempt upon my life by means of hired ruffians. The woman who had been in his drawing-room at Hove on the occasion of my visit was Mary, as I afterwards found out, and the attractive young person in the Brighton train had also been a caller at his house in connection with the attempt planned to be made upon me.
“You – you intend to arrest me?” Sir Bernard gasped at last, with some difficulty, his brow like ivory beneath the tight-drawn skin. A change had come over him, and he was standing with his back to a bookcase, swaying unsteadily as though he must fall.
“I certainly do,” was Ambler Jevons’ prompt response. “You have been the means of committing a double murder for the purposes of gain – because you knew that your friend Courtenay had left a will in your favour in the event of his wife’s decease. That will has already been proved; but perhaps it may interest you to know that the latest and therefore the valid will is in my own possession, I having found it during a search of the dead man’s effects in company with my friend Boyd. It is dated only a month before his death, and leaves the fortune to the widow, and in the event of her death to her sister Ethelwynn.”
“To me!” cried my love, in surprise.
“Yes, Miss Ethelwynn. Everything is left to you unreservedly,” he explained. Then, turning again to the clever impostor before him, he added: “You will therefore recognise that all your plotting, so well matured and so carefully planned that your demoniacal ingenuity almost surpasses the comprehension of man, has been in vain. By the neglect of one small detail, namely to sufficiently disguise your identity when dealing with Curtis, I have been enabled, after a long and tedious search, to fix you as the man who on several occasions was made up to present in the night the appearance of the dead Courtenay. The work has taken me many tedious weeks. I visited every wig-maker and half the hairdressers in London unsuccessfully until, by mere chance, the ruffian whom you employed to entrap my friend Boyd gave me a clue to the fact that Curtis made wigs as well as theatrical costumes. The inquiry has been a long and hazardous one,” he went on. “But from the very first I was determined to get at the bottom of the mystery, cost me what it might – and I have fortunately succeeded.” Then, turning again to the cringing wretch, upon whom the terrible denunciation had fallen as a thunderbolt, he added: “The forgiveness of man, Sir Bernard Eyton, you will never obtain. It has been ever law that the murderer shall die – and you will be no exception.”
The effect of those words upon the guilty man was almost electrical. He drew himself up stiffly, his keen, wild eyes starting from his blanched face as he glared at his accuser. His lips moved. No sound, however, came from them. The muscles of his jaws seemed to suddenly become paralysed, for he was unable to close his mouth. He stood for a moment, an awful spectacle, the brand of Cain upon him. A strange gurgling sound escaped him, as though he were trying to articulate, but was unable; then he made wild signs with both his hands, clutched suddenly at the air, and fell forward in a fit.
I went to him, loosened his collar, and applied restoratives, but in ten minutes I saw that he was beyond human aid. What I had at first believed to be a fit was a sudden cessation of the functions of the heart – caused by wild excitement and the knowledge that punishment was upon him.
Within fifteen minutes of that final accusation the old man lay back upon the carpet lifeless, struck dead by natural causes at the moment that his crimes had become revealed.
Thus were the Seven Secrets explained; and thus were the Central Criminal Court and the public spared what would have been one of the most sensational trials of modern times.
The papers on Monday reported “with deepest regret” the sudden death from heart disease of Sir Bernard Eyton, whom they termed “one of the greatest and most skilful physicians of modern times.”
Just two years have passed since that memorable evening.
You, my reader, are probably curious to know whether I have succeeded in obtaining the quiet country practice that was my ideal. Well, yes, I have. And what is more, I have obtained in Ethelwynn a wife who is devoted to me and beloved by all the countryside – a wife who is the very perfection of all that is noble and good in woman. The Courtenay estate is ours; but I am not an idle man. Somehow I cannot be.
My practice? Where is it? Well, it is in Leicestershire. I dare not be more explicit, for Ethelwynn has urged me to conceal our identity, in order that we may not be remarked as a couple whose wooing was so strangely tragic and romantic.
Ambler Jevons still carries on his tea-blending business in the City, the most confirmed of bachelors, and the shrewdest of all criminal investigators. Even though we have been so intimate for years, and he often visits me at – I was nearly, by a slip, writing the name of the Leicestershire village – he has never explained to me his methods, and seldom, if ever, speaks of those wonderful successes by which Scotland Yard is so frequently glad to profit.
Only a few days ago, while we were sitting on the lawn behind my quaint old-fashioned house awaiting dinner, I chanced to remark upon the happiness which his ingenuity and perseverance had brought me; whereupon, turning to me with a slight, reflective smile, he replied:
“Ah, yes! Ralph, old fellow. I gave up that problem in despair fully a dozen times, and it was only because I knew that the future happiness of you both depended upon its satisfactory solution that I began afresh and strove on, determined not to be beaten. I watched carefully, not only Eyton, but Ethelwynn and yourself. I was often near you when you least suspected my presence. But that crafty old scoundrel was possessed of the ingenuity of Satan himself, combined with all the shrewd qualities that go to make a good detective; hence in every movement, every wile, and every action he was careful to cover himself, so that he could establish an alibi on every point. For that reason the work was extremely difficult. He was a veritable artist in crime. Yes,” he added, “of the many inquiries I’ve taken up, the most curious and most complicated of them all was that of The Seven Secrets.”
