Kitabı oku: «The Wiles of the Wicked», sayfa 10
Chapter Eighteen
Mystery Inexplicable
Britten was, I immediately detected, one of those men whose well-feigned air of fussy sympathy, whose unruffled good humour, and whose quick perception enabled him to gauge to a nicety his patient’s character, and to thus ingratiate himself. By the younger people he was, no doubt, pronounced clever on account of his age and known experience, while old ladies – those whose very life depended upon regularly seeing the doctor – declared him to be “such a dear, kind man.” Upon the family doctor’s manner alone depends the extent of his popularity and the size of his practice. The most ignorant charlatan who ever held a diploma can acquire a wide practice if he is only shrewd enough to humour his patients, to take pains to feign the deepest interest in every case, and assume an outward show of superior knowledge. In medicine be the man ever so clever, if he has no tact with his patients his surgery bell will remain for ever silent.
Dr Britten was a shrewd old fellow; a bit of a bungler, who made up for all defects by that constant good humour which people like in a medical man. “Don’t worry, my dear sir; don’t worry,” he urged, when he had finished. “Rest well, and you’ll be right again very soon.”
“But the events of last night?” I said. “A man made a dastardly attempt upon my life, and I intend to secure his arrest.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” he answered, patting me on the shoulder with a familiarity curious when I reflected that I had never set eyes upon him till half an hour before. “But take my advice, and don’t reflect upon it.”
“If you know, then perhaps you’ll kindly give me some explanation?” I said, resenting his manner. He was treating me as he would a child.
“I only know what you’ve told me,” he responded. “It’s a strange story, certainly. But don’t you think that it is, greater part of it, imagination?”
“Imagination!” I cried, starting up angrily. “I tell you, Doctor Britten – or whatever your name is – that it is no imagination. The wound on my head is sufficient proof of that.”
“The wound was inflicted by yourself,” he answered calmly. “You accidentally ran against the statue.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said, bluntly. “It’s all a confounded conspiracy, and, moreover, you are staking your professional reputation by assisting in it.”
He shrugged his shoulders and raised his grey eyebrows with an expression of regret.
“I have been called to you, my dear sir, because you have met with an accident,” he said. “I have merely given you the best of my advice – namely, to remain quiet, and not trouble about anything that has passed. Your brain requires rest after the severe shock it has received.”
“Doctor Britten,” I said determinedly, “I quite understand the meaning of your vague words. You believe that I’m not quite right in my mind.”
“No, no,” he assured me quickly. “I did not say that. Pray do not misunderstand me. I merely advise rest and perfect quiet. Indeed, you would be far better in bed for a few days – far better.”
“I know my own feelings best, thanks,” I replied, for his manner, although it might impress nervous old ladies, aroused within me a strong resentment.
“Exactly. But surely you should, for your own sake, attend to the suggestions of your medical adviser?”
“You have formed wrong conclusions – entirely wrong conclusions,” I laughed. “Is it likely that I shall take notice of anything you say when you believe that I’m not responsible for my actions?”
I had watched his face carefully, and I knew that, like the dark-faced young man and Gill, the servant, he believed my brain unbalanced.
“I assure you, my dear sir, you entirely misunderstand me,” he protested. “I merely say – ”
“Oh, enough!” I cried angrily, turning upon my heel and leaving the room abruptly. I was sick of the chattering old idiot, who evidently believed that I was not responsible for my actions.
Down the wide oak stairs I passed, and in the great hall, which seemed to run the whole length of the house, and was filled with stands of armour, tattered banners, and trophies of the chase, I encountered the pale-faced man who had sent for old Britten.
I was passing him by, intent upon exploring this strange house in which I found myself, when, approaching me, he said —
“Would you please come into the library for one moment?”
“The library?” I asked, looking at him, puzzled. “Where is it?”
He opened a door close by, and I followed him into a comfortable study, lined with books from floor to ceiling. In the centre was a large writing-table littered with papers, while close beside was another smaller table, very severe and business-like.
“Well?” I inquired. “What do you want?”
“This telegram has just arrived,” he answered excitedly, unlocking a drawer in the smaller writing-table, and taking out a telegram, which he handed to me.
Puzzled, I took the flimsy paper and read the words written thereon, as follows: —
“We are to-day in receipt of following telegram from our Vancouver branch – ‘Inform Wilford Heaton that Charles Mawson, Dawson City, has struck it seven dollars to pan.’ Bank of British North America, London.”
Such a message was utterly unintelligible to me.
“Well?” I inquired, raising my eyes and looking at him, surprised. “I don’t see why this Charles Mawson, whoever he is, need hasten to tell me that. What does it matter to me?”
“Matter? My dear sir? Matter?” he cried, staring at me, as though in wonder. “There must, I think, be something the matter with you.”
“Well, perhaps you’ll kindly explain what it means?” I said, “I have, I assure you, no idea.”
“Why, it means,” he said, his face betraying his intense excitement – “it means that Woodford’s report is correct, that there is, after all, rich gold on the concession; in short, that, being owner of one of the most valuable placer concessions, you are a millionaire!”
“That’s all very interesting,” I remarked with a smile, while he stood staring at me in abject wonder.
“I fear,” he said, “that you’re not quite yourself to-day. The injury to your head has possibly affected you.”
“No, it hasn’t,” I snapped quickly. “I’m quite as clear-headed as you are.”
“Then I should have thought that to any man in his sane senses such a telegram as that would have been extremely gratifying,” he observed.
“Now, tell me,” I said; “do you know who I am?”
“I think I do. You are Mr Wilford Heaton.”
“And you tell me that I’m a millionaire?”
“I do, most certainly.”
“Then, much as I regret to be compelled to say it, young man,” I answered, “I am of opinion that you’re a confounded liar.”
“But Mawson has struck the gold seven dollars to the pan,” he pointed out in protest.
“Well, what in the name of Fortune has it to do with me if he’s struck it a thousand dollars to the handful?” I cried.
“I should be inclined to say it had a great deal to do with you as holder of the concession,” he answered quite coolly.
“Oh, bother the concession,” I said hastily. “I don’t understand anything whatever about it, and, what’s more, I don’t want to be worried over any mining swindles.” Then I added, sinking into the padded chair before the writing-table. “You seem to know all about me. Tell me, now – what’s your name?”
“My name?” he echoed, staring at me blankly, as though utterly puzzled. “Well, I thought you knew it long ago. I’m Gedge – Reginald Gedge.”
“And what are you, pray?”
“I’m your secretary.”
“My secretary!” I echoed, gasping in amazement. Then I added, “Look here, you’re trying to mislead me, all of you. I have no secretary – I’ve never had one. All this chatter about mines and concessions and such things is pure and simple rubbish.”
“Very well,” he answered with a slight sigh. “If you would have it so it must be. Britten has already said that you are somewhat confused after your accident.”
“Britten be hanged!” I roared. “I’m no more confused than you are. All I want is a straightforward explanation of how I came here, in this house.”
He smiled, pityingly I thought. That old medical idiot had apparently hinted to both the servant and this young prig, who declared himself my secretary, that I was not responsible for my actions; therefore, what could I expect?
“The explanation is one which I regret I cannot give you,” he answered. “All I want is your instructions what to wire to Mawson.”
“Oh, bother Mawson!” I cried angrily. “Wire him whatever you like, only don’t mention his name again to me. I don’t know him, and don’t desire to make any acquaintance either with him or his confounded pans.”
“I shall send him congratulations, and tell him to remain in Dawson City pending further instructions.”
“He can remain there until the Day of Judgment, for all I care,” I said, a remark which brought a smile to his pale features.
A brief silence fell between us. All this was absolutely bewildering. I had been struck down on the previous night in a street at Chelsea, to find myself next day in a country house, and to be coolly informed by a man who called himself my secretary that I was owner of a great gold concession and a millionaire. The whole thing seemed too utterly incredible.
I felt my head, and found it bandaged. There was no mistake about the reality of it all. It was no curious chimera of the imagination.
Before me upon the blotting-pad were some sheets of blank notepaper. I turned them over in idle curiosity, and found embossed upon them the address in bold, black characters: “Denbury Court, near Budleigh-Salterton.”
“Is this place Denbury Court?” I inquired.
“Yes.”
“And whose guest am I, pray?”
“You are no one’s guest. This is your own house,” was his amazing response.
I turned towards him determinedly, and in a hard voice said —
“I think, Mr Gedge, that you’ve taken leave of your senses. I’ve never heard of this place before, and am certainly not its owner. Are you certain you are not confounding me with some one else – some one resembling me in personal appearance?”
“Absolutely certain,” he replied. “Your name is Wilford Heaton, and I repeat that I am your confidential private secretary.”
I shook my head.
“Well,” he said quickly, “here is some further proof,” and bending beside me he opened one of the drawers of the big writing-table, and took therefrom a number of blank memorandum forms, which he placed before me. In eagerness I read their printed heading. It was “From Wilford Heaton, 103A, Winchester House, Old Broad Street, London, E.C.”
“Well, what are those used for?” I asked in wonder. “They are used at the City office,” he answered, tossing them back into the drawer.
“And you tell me I am wealthy?” I said, with a cynical laugh.
“Your banker’s pass-book should be sufficient proof of that,” he answered; and taking the book from an iron safe let into the opposite wall, he opened it and placed it before me.
I glanced at the cover. Yes, there was no mistake. It was my own pass-book.
My eyes fell upon the balance, standing to my credit, and the largeness of the figures held me open-eyed in astonishment.
It was wealth beyond all my wildest dreams.
“And that is mine – absolutely mine?” I inquired, when at last I found tongue.
“Certainly,” he replied, a moment later adding: “It is really very strange that I have to instruct you in your own private affairs.”
“Why have I an office in the City?” I asked, for that point was puzzling.
“In order to carry on your business.”
“What business?”
“That of financial agent.”
I smiled at the absurdity of the idea. I had never been a thrifty man; in fact, I had never had occasion to trouble my head about finance, and, truth to tell, had always been, from a lad, a most arrant dunce at figures.
“I fear I’m a sorry financier,” I remarked for want of something better to say.
“You are acknowledged to be one of the shrewdest and the soundest in the City of London,” Gedge answered.
“Well,” I remarked, closing the pass-book, securing the flap, and handing it back to him, “all I have to say is that this last hour that has passed has been absolutely replete with mystery. I can make nothing of all these things you tell me – absolutely nothing. I shall begin to doubt whether I’m actually myself very soon.”
“It would be better to rest a little, if I might advise,” he said, in a more deferential tone than before. “Britten suggested repose. That blow has upset you a little. To-morrow you’ll be quite right again, I feel sure.”
“I don’t intend to rest until I’ve cleared up this mystery,” I said determinedly, rising from the table.
At that moment, however, the door opened, and turning quickly, I was confronted by an angular, bony-faced, lantern-jawed woman, whose rouged and powdered face and juvenility of dress struck me as utterly ludicrous. She was fifty, if a day, and although her face was wrinkled and brown where the artificial complexion had worn off, she was nevertheless attired in a manner becoming a girl of twenty.
“Oh, my dear Wilford! Whatever has happened?” she cried in alarm, in a thin, unmusical voice, when she beheld the bandages around my head.
I looked at her in mingled surprise and amusement; she was so doll-like and ridiculous in her painted juvenility.
“Mr Heaton accidentally struck his head against the statue in the drawing-room, madam,” explained Gedge. “Doctor Britten has assured me that the injury is not at all serious. A little rest is all that is necessary.”
“My dear Wilford! Oh, my dear Wilford! Why didn’t you call me at once?”
“Well, madam,” I answered, “that was scarcely possible, considering that I had not the honour of your acquaintance.”
“What!” she wailed. “You – you can’t really stand there and coolly tell me that you don’t know me?”
“I certainly assert, madam, that I have absolutely no knowledge whatever of whom you may be,” I said with some dignity.
“Is your brain so affected, then, that you actually fail to recognise me – Mary, your wife!”
“You!” I gasped, glaring at her, dumbfounded. “You, my wife! Impossible!”
Chapter Nineteen
My Unknown Wife’s Story
“My dear Wilford!” exclaimed the thin-faced, angular woman. “I really think you must have taken leave of your senses.”
“My dear madam,” I cried excitedly, “I haven’t the slightest notion of your name. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you before this moment. Yet you have the boldness to assert that you are my wife! The thing is absolutely preposterous!” I laughed cynically.
“You must be mad to talk like this!” the woman answered with some asperity.
“I tell you that I’m not mad, madam,” I protested, “and further, I declare that I have never married.”
“What rubbish you talk!” she said. “This accident to your head has evidently affected your intellect. You must rest, as Doctor Britten has ordered.”
“The doddering old idiot thinks, like yourself, that I’m not quite responsible for my actions,” I laughed. “Well, we shall see.”
“If you were in your right senses you would never deny that I am your wife,” answered the overdressed woman. “The thing’s too absurd.”
“My dear madam,” I cried, growing angry, “your allegations are utterly ridiculous, to say the least. All this is either some confounded conspiracy, or else you mistake me for somebody else. I tell you that I am Wilford Heaton, of Essex Street, Strand, a bachelor who has neither thought nor inclination of marrying.”
“And I tell you that you are Wilford Heaton, my husband, and owner of this house,” she answered, her face growing redder with excitement.
The situation was certainly stranger than any other in which a man could possibly be placed. That it was no dream, but a stern reality, was entirely plain. I glanced around the comfortable library, and saw there evidences of wealth and refinement, while through the window beyond my gaze fell upon the wide park sloping away to a large lake glistening in the sunshine, and through the trees beyond could be seen a distant glimpse of the blue waters of the English Channel.
I stood utterly nonplussed by the startling declaration of this artificial-looking person, who aped youth so ridiculously, and yet spoke with such an air of confidence and determination.
“And you actually expect me to believe this absurd story of yours, that I am your husband, when only last night I dined at The Boltons, and was then a bachelor? Besides, madam,” I added with a touch of sarcasm, for I confess that my anger was now thoroughly aroused, “I think the – well, the difference in our ages is sufficient to convince any one that – ”
“No, no,” she hastened to interrupt me, as though that point were very distasteful to her. “Age is entirely out of the question. Am I to understand that you distinctly deny having made me your wife?”
“I do, most decidedly,” I laughed, for the very idea was really too ridiculous to entertain.
She exchanged a pitying look with Gedge, who stood at a little distance, watching in silence.
“Poor Wilford! poor Wilford?” she ejaculated in a tone of sympathy, and, addressing the man who called himself my secretary, said, “It seems quite true what the doctor has declared; the blow has upset the balance of his mind.”
“Madam,” I cried very determinedly, “you will oblige me by not adding further insult to your attempted imposture – for such sympathy is insulting to me.”
She clasped her hands, turned her eyes upwards, and sighed in the manner of the elderly.
“You believe that I’m mad. Therefore you are trying to impose upon me!” I went on furiously. “But I tell you, my dear madam, that I am just as sane as yourself, and am fully prepared to prove that I am not your husband.”
“Ask Mr Gedge whether I speak the truth or not,” she said, turning to the secretary.
“Certainly,” answered the man addressed, looking straight into my face. “I have no hesitation whatever in bearing out Mrs Heaton’s statement.”
“It’s all humbug!” I cried, turning savagely upon him. “I don’t know this woman from Adam!”
“Well,” he laughed cynically, “you ought to know her pretty well, at any rate.”
It was apparent from his tone that he had no very high opinion of her.
“I’m pleased to say that until this present moment we have been strangers,” I said, for I was not in a humour to mince words.
“You are extremely complimentary, Wilford,” she observed resentfully.
“It appears to me that compliments are entirely unnecessary in this affair,” I said. “You are endeavouring to thrust yourself upon me as my wife, in order, I suppose, to achieve some object you have in view. But I tell you once and for all, madam, that any such attempt will be futile. To speak plainly, I don’t know you, neither have I any desire to add you to my list of acquaintances.”
“Well,” she cried; “of all the stories I’ve ever heard, this is the most extraordinary!”
“I think, madam, I may say the same,” I remarked coldly. “Your story is the wildest and most incredible that I’ve ever heard. Last night, as a bachelor, I dined with friends in Kensington, and left at a late hour, calling at a house in Chelsea on my way home to Essex Street. To-day I awake to be told that I am the owner of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; master of this house – in Devonshire, I believe, isn’t it; and your lawful husband. Now, if you think me capable of swallowing such a pack of palpable fictions as these, you must certainly consider me absolutely insane, for none but a madman would give credence to such a tissue of lies.”
“Doctor Britten considers that your brain is unbalanced, because you do not know the truth,” she said calmly. “I quite agree with him.”
“He’s a fool – a drivelling idiot,” I cried, forgetting myself in the heat of the moment, and using an unwriteable word. Mention of that pottering old fossil’s name was to me as a red rag to a bull. “I surely know who and what I am!” I cried.
“No, my dear Wilford, that’s just it. You don’t know who you are,” the woman answered with a smile.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Then perhaps you’ll kindly inform me. All this may be very amusing to you, but I assure you that to me it’s the very reverse.”
“I can only tell you who you are as I know you to be,” answered the powdered-faced, doll-like old lady, whose attempts at juvenile coquetry sickened me.
“Go on,” I said, preparing myself for more attempts to befool me.
“I ask you first whether you are not Wilford Heaton, of Heaton Manor, near Tewkesbury?”
“Certainly.”
“And you were once stricken by blindness?”
“That is so, unfortunately.”
“And you are now carrying on business as a financier in the City of London?”
“I know nothing of finance,” I answered. “This Mr Gedge – or whatever his name is – has told me some absurd fairy tale about my position in London, but knowing myself, as I do, to be an arrant duffer at figures, I’m quite positive that the story is all bunkum.”
“Then how do you account for these memorandum forms?” inquired Gedge, taking some from the table, “and for these letters? Are they not in your handwriting?”
I glanced at the letters he held. They referred to some huge financial transaction, and were certainly in a hand that appeared wonderfully like my own.
“Some one has been imposing upon you, I tell you. This is a case of mistaken identity – it must be, my dear sir.”
“But I tell you it isn’t,” protested Gedge. “All that your wife has said is the absolute truth.”
“My wife!” I cried angrily. “I have no wife – thank Heaven!”
“No, no,” whined the painted old woman, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, very lightly, however, so as not to disturb their artificiality. “No, don’t say that, my dear Wilfred, don’t say that! You know that you are my husband – you know you are!”
“I know, my dear madam, quite well that I do not occupy that distinguished position,” I responded very firmly.
“But I can prove it – I can prove it!” she cried, with a futile effort at tears.
“Then I shall be most interested to see this extraordinary fiction proved,” I said. “Perhaps we shall then get down to facts.”
“The facts are as already stated,” Gedge remarked.
“Then let me see proof. There must be a certificate or official entry somewhere if what this lady says is really correct. Where is it?”
“My certificate was stolen when my jewel-case was rifled in the train between Waterloo and Exeter,” she answered. “But, of course, a copy can easily be obtained. Your solicitor in London can get a copy at once from Somerset House.”
“Certificate stolen!” I cried. “A most ingenious excuse. I quite anticipated it, although it, unfortunately, exhibits no originality. Thieves don’t usually steal marriage certificates. They can’t pawn them, you know.”
The woman before me glanced around the room with an air of bewilderment, and I then knew that I had cornered her.
“And where did this extraordinary marriage between us take place, pray?” I inquired, not without some bitter irony.
“At St. Andrew’s, Wells Street.”
“Wells Street, in London?”
“Yes. You surely remember it, don’t you? The church is close by Oxford Circus.”
“I know the church quite well,” I answered. “But I most firmly and distinctly deny ever having been inside it in my life.”
“If you examine the marriage register there you’ll find your signature, together with that of your wife,” Gedge observed, with a confidence that rather surprised me.
“I shall certainly take no trouble in such a matter,” I declared. “It is alleged that I am the husband of this lady, therefore it is for her to bring proof – not for me to seek it.”
“Very well, then,” cried the woman who called herself Mrs Heaton. “Within three days a copy of the certificate shall be placed in your hands.”
“I’m not very partial to copies of documents,” I observed very dubiously. “I always prefer originals.”
“The original is, unfortunately, lost.”
“Stolen, or strayed away of its own accord – eh?” I added with a doubtful laugh.
“Are you content to wait until the certificate can be obtained from Somerset House?” she inquired.
“No,” I responded. “If you are actually my wife as you allege, madam, perhaps you will kindly explain the mystery of my presence here, in a house that until an hour ago I had never seen in all my life.”
The woman and the secretary again exchanged glances. I saw they considered me an utterly irresponsible agent. They believed me to be demented.
“None of us can explain it,” Gedge answered. “There is some mystery, but what it is we can’t yet fathom.”
“Mystery!” I echoed. “I should think there was some mystery – and devilishly complicated it must be too, when I find myself in this amazing position. Why, it’s sufficient to turn the brain of any man to be told of one’s marriage to a – to a woman one has never set eyes upon before, and – well, old enough to be his own mother!”
“Hush, hush!” said the secretary, who apparently wished to avoid a scene. He evidently knew that this angular woman, notwithstanding her affected juvenility, possessed a fiendish temper. I had detected it by the keen look in her eyes and the twitchings of her thin, hard lips.
“If I’m in my own house,” I cried wrathfully, “I am surely permitted to say what I like. Am I master here, or not?”
“Certainly you are, sir,” he responded, instantly humbled.
“Then listen,” I said. “Until the arrival of the certificate from London I have no wish to meet this lady who alleges that she is my wife.”
Then, turning to her, I made her a mock bow, adding, ironically —
“I think, madam, that it will avoid any further words of a disagreeable nature if we remain apart for the present.”
“Certainly, Wilford,” she cried, putting her hands out to me with an imploring gesture. “Go and rest, there’s a dear, and carry out Doctor Britten’s orders. You will soon be right again if you do. You’ve been puzzling your head too much over your figures, and the blow has affected you. Go and rest. But before you go I would ask you one favour.”
“Well?” I inquired in a hard voice.
She drew nearer to me, and with that detestable artificial coquetry lifted her face to mine that I might kiss her.
“No!” I cried roughly, for I was beside myself with anger. “Let me remain in peace. I don’t want to meet you again, my dear madam, until – until I know the worst.”
“What have I done, Wilford, that you should treat me thus?” she wailed bitterly, bursting into a torrent of tears. “Oh, what have I done? Tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’ve done, and I’m sure I’m not interested in it,” I responded. “All I know is that when you declare that you are my wife you tell a deliberate and downright lie.”
For a moment she stood in hesitation, then, with tears flowing fast, she covered her face with her hands and staggered from the room.
Was she only acting the broken-hearted wife, or was that emotion real? Which, I could not decide.
If all this were part of some conspiracy, it was certainly one of no ordinary character. But what a confounded old hag the woman was! I shuddered. Surely she could not be my wife! The suggestion was too utterly preposterous to be entertained for a single moment, and within myself I laughed her allegation to scorn.
