Kitabı oku: «Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2», sayfa 28

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TRAIN

The up-train from Holyhead was a few minutes behind time at Chester, and the travellers who awaited its arrival manifested that mixture of impatience and anxiety which in our railroad age is inseparable from all delay. One stranger, however, displayed a more than ordinary eagerness for its coming, and compared the time of his watch repeatedly with the clock of the station.

At length from the far-away distance the wild scream of the engine was heard, and with many a cranking clash and many a heavy sob the vast machine swept smoothly in beneath the vaulted roof. As the stranger moved forward to take his place, he stopped to hear a few words that met his ear. It was a railroad official said: “Mr. Davenport Dunn delayed us about a quarter of an hour; he wanted to give a look at the new pier, but we have nearly made it up already.” “All right!” replied the station-master. The stranger now moved on till he came in front of a coupé carriage, whose window-blinds rigidly drawn down excluded all view from without. For an instant he seemed to fumble at the door, in an endeavor to open it, but was speedily interrupted by a guard calling out, “Not there, sir, – that’s a private carriage;” and thus warned, the traveller entered another lower down the line. There were two other travellers in the same compartment, apparently strangers to each other. As the stranger with whom we are immediately concerned took his place, he slipped into his pocket a small latch-key, of which, in the very brief attempt to try the door of the private carriage, he had successfully proved the utility, and, drawing his rug across his knees, lay calmly back.

“Here we are, detained again,” grumbled out one of the travellers. “I say, guard, what is it now?”

“Waiting for a telegram for Mr. Davenport Dunn, sir. There it comes! all right” A low bell rings out, a wild screech following, and with many a clank and shock the dusky monster sets out once more.

“Public convenience should scarcely be sacrificed in this manner,” grumbled out the former speaker. “What is this Mr. Dunn to you or to me that we should be delayed for his good pleasure?”

“I am afraid, sir,” replied the other, whose dress and manner bespoke a clergyman, “that we live in an age when wealth is all-powerful, and its possessors dictate the law to all poorer than themselves.”

“And can you tell me of any age when it was otherwise?” broke in the last arrival, with a half-rude chuckle. “It’s all very fine to lay the whole blame of this, that, and t’ other to the peculiar degeneracy of our own time; but my notion is, the world grows neither worse nor better.” There was that amount of defiance in the tone of the speaker that seemed to warn his companions, for they each of them maintained a strict silence. Not so with him; he talked away glibly about the influence of money, pretty plainly intimating that, as nobody ever met the man who was indifferent to its possession, the abuse showered upon riches was nothing but cant and humbug. “Look at the parsons,” said he; “they tell you it is all dross and rubbish, and yet they make it the test of your sincerity whenever they preach a charity sermon. Look at the lawyers, and they own that it is the only measure they know by which to recompense an injury; then take the doctors, and you ‘ll see that their humanity has its price, and the good Samaritan charges a guinea a visit.”

The individuals to whom these words were addressed made no reply; indeed, there was a tone of confident assumption in the speaker that was far from inviting converse, and now a silence ensued on all sides.

“Do either of you gentlemen object to tobacco?” said the last speaker, after a pause of some duration; and at the same time, without waiting for the reply, he produced a cigar-case from his pocket, and began deliberately to strike a light.

“I am sorry to say, sir,” responded the clergyman, “that smoking disagrees with me, and I cannot accustom myself to endure the smell of tobacco.”

“All habit,” rejoined the other, as he lighted his cigar. “I was that way myself for years, and might have remained so, too, but that I saw the distress and inconvenience I occasioned to many jolly fellows who loved their pipe; and so I overcame my foolish prejudices, and even took to the weed myself.”

The other travellers muttered some low words of dissatisfaction; and the clergyman, opening the window, looked out, apparently in search of the guard.

“It’s only a cheroot, and a prime one,” said the smoker, coolly; “and as you object, I ‘ll not light another.”

“A vast condescension on your part, sir, seeing that we have already signified our dislike to tobacco,” said the lay traveller.

“I did not remark that you gave any opinion at all,” said the smoker; “and my vast condescension, as you term it, is entirely in favor of this gentleman.”

There was no mistaking the provocation of this speech, rendered actually insulting by the mode in which it was delivered; and the traveller to whom it was addressed, enveloping himself in his cloak, sat moodily back, without a word. The train soon halted for a few seconds; and, brief as was the interval, this traveller employed it to spring from his place and seek a refuge elsewhere, – a dexterous manouvre which seemed to excite the envy of the parson, now left alone with his uncongenial companion. The man of peace, however, made the best of it, and, drawing his travelling-cap over his eyes, resolved himself to sleep. For a considerable while the other sat still, calmly watching him; and at last, when perfectly assured that the slumber was not counterfeited, he gently arose, and drew the curtain across the lamp in the roof of the carriage. A dim, half-lurid light succeeded, and by this uncertain glare the stranger proceeded to make various changes in his appearance. A large bushy wig of black hair was first discarded, with heavy eyebrows, and whiskers to match; an immense overcoat was taken off, so heavily padded and stuffed that when denuded of it the wearer seemed half his size; large heels were unscrewed from his boots, reducing his height by full a couple of inches; till, at length, in place of a large, unwieldy-looking man of sixty, lumbering and beetle-browed, there came forth a short, thick-set figure, with red hair and beard, twinkling eyes of a fierce gray, and a mouth the very type of unflinching resolution. Producing a small looking-glass, he combed and arranged his whiskers carefully, re-tied his cravat, and bestowed a most minute scrutiny on his appearance, muttering, as he finished, to himself, “Ay, Kit, you ‘re more like yourself now!” It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say this speech was addressed to our acquaintance Grog Davis, nor was it altogether what is called a “French compliment;” he did look terribly like himself. There was in his hard, stern face, his pinched-up eyes, and his puckered mouth, an amount of resolute vigor that showed he was on the eve of some hazardous enterprise. His toilet completed, he felt in his breastpocket, to assure himself that something there was not missing; and then, taking out his watch, he consulted the time. He had scarcely time to replace it in his pocket, when the train entered a deep cutting between two high banks of clay. It was, apparently, the spot he had waited for; and in an instant he had unfastened the door by his latch-key, and stood on the ledge outside. One more look within to assure himself that the other was still asleep, and he closed the door, and locked it.

The night was dark as pitch, and a thin soft rain was falling, as Davis, with a rapidity that showed this was no first essay in such a walk, glided along from carriage to carriage, till he reached a heavy luggage van, immediately beyond which was the coupé of Mr. Davenport Dunn.

The brief prayer that good men utter ere they rush upon an enterprise of deadly peril must have its representative in some shape or other with those whose hearts are callous. Nature will have her due; and in that short interval – the bridge between two worlds – the worst must surely experience intense emotion. Whatever those of Davis, they were of the briefest. In another second he was at the door of Dunn’s carriage, his eyes glaring beneath the drawn-down blind, where, by a narrow slip of light, he could detect a figure busily employed in writing. So bent was he on mastering every portion and detail of the arrangement within, that he actually crept around till he reached the front windows, and could plainly see the whole coupé lighted up brilliantly with wax candles.

Surrounded with papers and letters and despatch-boxes, the man of business labored away as though in his office, every appliance for refreshment beside him. These Davis noted well, remarking the pistols that hung between the windows, and a bell-pull quite close to the writing-table. This latter passed through the roof of the carriage, and was evidently intended to signalize the guard when wanted. Before another minute had elapsed Davis had cut off this communication, and, knotting the string outside, still suffered it to hang down within as before.

All that precaution could demand was now done; the remainder must be decided by action. Noiselessly introducing the latch-key, Davis turned the lock, and, opening the door, stepped inside. Dunn started as the door banged, and there beheld him. To ring and summon the guard was the quick impulse of his ready wit; but when the bell-rope came down as he pulled it, the whole truth flashed across him that all had been concerted and plotted carefully.

“Never mind your pistols. I’m armed too,” said Davis, coolly. “If it was your life I wanted, I could have taken it easily enough at any minute during the last ten or twelve.”

“What do you mean, then, sir, by this violence? By what right do you dare to enter here?” cried Dunn, passionately.

“There has been no great violence up to this,” said Davis, with a grin. “As to my right to be here, we’ll talk about that presently. You know me, I believe?”

“I want to know why you are here,” cried Dunn, again.

“And so you shall; but, first of all, no treachery. Deal fairly, and a very few minutes will settle all business between us.”

“There is no business to be settled between us,” said Dunn, haughtily, “except the insolence of your intrusion here, and for that you shall pay dearly.”

“Don’t try bluster with me, man,” said Grog, contemptuously. “If you just stood as high in integrity as I know you to stand low in knavery, it would n’t serve you. I’ve braved pluckier fellows than ever you were.”

With a sudden jerk Dunn let down the window; but Grog’s iron grip held him down in his place, as he said sternly, “I ‘ll not stand nonsense. I have come here for a purpose, and I ‘ll not leave it till it’s accomplished. You know me.”

“I do know you,” said Dunn, with an insolent irony.

“And I know you. Hankes – Simmy Hankes – has told me a thing or two; but the world will soon be as wise as either of us.”

Dunn’s face became deadly pale, and, in a voice broken And faint, he said, “What do you mean? What has Hankes said?”

“All, – everything. Why, bless your heart, man, it was no secret to me that you were cheating, the only mystery was how you did the trick; now Hankes has shown me that. I know it all now. You had n’t so many trumps in your hand, but you played them twice over, – that was the way you won the game. But that’s no affair of mine. ‘Rook’ them all round, – only don’t ‘try it on’ with Kit Davis! What brought me here is this: my daughter is married to Annesley Beecher that was, the now Viscount Lackington; there’s another fellow about to contest the title and the estates. You know all about his claim and his chances, and you can, they tell me, make it all ‘snag’ to either party. Now, I ‘m here to treat with you. How much shall it be? There’s no use in going about the bush, – how much shall it be?”

“I can be of no use to you in this business,” said Dunn, hesitatingly; “the papers are not in my keeping. Conway’s suit is in the hands of the first men at the bar – ”

“I know all that, and I know, besides, you have an appointment with Fordyce at Calvert’s Hotel, to arrange the whole matter; so go in at once, and be on the square with me. Who has these papers? Where are they?”

Dunn started at the sudden tone of the question, and then his eyes turned as quickly towards a brass-bound despatch-box at the bottom of the carriage. If the glance was of the speediest, it yet had not escaped the intense watchfulness of Davis, who now reiterated his question of “Where are they?”

“If you ‘d come to me after my interview with Fordyce,” said Dunn, with a slow deliberation, as though giving the matter a full reflection, “I think we might hit upon something together.”

“To be sure, we might,” said Grog, laughing; “there ‘s only one obstacle to that pleasant arrangement, – that I should find an inspector and two constables of the police ready waiting for my visit. No, Master Dunn, what we ‘re to do we ‘ll do here and now.”

“You appear to measure all men by your own standard, sir,” said Dunn, indignantly; “and let me tell you that in point of honor it is a scant one.”

“We’re neither of us fit for a grenadier-company of integrity, that’s a fact, Dunn; but, upon my solemn oath, I believe I ‘m the best man of the two. But what’s the use of this ‘chaff’? I have heard from Hankes how it stands about that Irish estate you pretended to buy for the late Lord, and never paid for. Now you want to stand all square upon that, naturally enough; it is a pot of money, – seven-and-thirty thousand pounds. Don’t you see, old fellow, I have the whole story all correct and clear; so once more, do be business-like, and say what’s your figure, – how much?”

Again did Dunn’s eyes revert to the box at his feet, but it was difficult to say whether intentionally or not Davis, however, never ceased to watch their gaze; and when Dunn, becoming suddenly conscious of the scrutiny, grew slightly red, Grog chuckled to himself and muttered, “You’re no match for Kit Davis, deep as you are.”

“Until we learn to repose some trust in each other, sir,” said Dunn, whose confusion still continued, “all dealing together is useless.”

“Well, if you mean by that,” retorted Davis, “that you and I are going to start for a ten years’ friendship, I declare off, and say it’s no match. I told you what brought me here, and now I want you to say how I ‘m to go back again. Where are these same papers? – answer me that.”

“Some are in the hands of Conway’s lawyers; some are in the Crimea, carded away surreptitiously by a person who was once in my confidence; some are, I suspect, in the keeping of Conway’s mother, in Wales – ”

“And some are locked up in that red box there,” said Grog, with a defiant look.

“Not one. I can swear by all that is most solemn and awful there’s not a document there that concerns the cause.” As Dunn spoke these words, his voice trembled with intense agitation, and he grew sickly pale.

“What if I wouldn’t believe you on your oath?” broke in Grog, whose keen eyes seemed actually to pierce the other’s secret thoughts. “It was n’t to-day, or yesterday, that you and I learned how to dodge an oath. Open that box there; I ‘ll have a look through it for myself.”

“That you never shall,” said Dunn, fiercely, as he grasped the bundle of keys that lay before him and placed them in his breast-pocket.

“Come, I like your pluck, Dunn, though it won’t serve your turn this time. I ‘ll either see that box opened before me now, or I’ll carry it off with me, – which shall it be?”

“Neither, by Heaven!” cried Dunn, whose passion was now roused effectually.

“We ‘ll, first of all, get these out of the way; they’re ugly playthings,” said Davis, as with a spring he seized the pistols and hurled them through the open window; in doing so, however, he necessarily leaned forward, and partly turned his back towards Dunn. With a gesture quick as lightning, Dunn drew a loaded pistol from his breast, and, placing the muzzle almost close to the other’s head, drew the trigger. A quick motion of the neck made the ball glance from the bone of the skull, and passing down amongst the muscles of the neck, settle above the shoulder. Terrible as the wound was, Davis sprang upon him with the ferocity of a tiger. Not a word nor a cry escaped his lips, as, in all the agony of his suffering, he seized Dunn by the throat with one hand, while, drawing from his breast a heavy life-preserver, he struck him on the head with the other. A wild scream, – a cry for help, half smothered in the groan that followed, rang out, and Dunn reeled from his seat and fell dead on the floor! Two fearful fractures had rent the skull open, and life was extinguished at once. Davis bent down, and gazed long and eagerly at the ghastly wounds; but it was not till he had laid his hand over the heart that he knew them to be fatal. A short shudder, more like the sense of sudden cold than any sentiment of horror, passed over him as he stood for a few seconds motionless; then, opening the dead man’s coat, he drew forth his keys and searched for that one which pertained to the red box. He carefully placed the box upon the table and unlocked it The contents were title-deeds of the Glengariff family, but all in duplicate, and so artfully imitated that it would have been scarcely possible to distinguish original from copy. Of the Lackingtons there was nothing but a release of all claims against Davenport Dunn, purporting to have been the act of the late Lord, but of which the signature was only indicated in pencil.

“The discovery was n’t worth the price,” muttered Davis, as he turned a half-sickly look upon the lifeless mass at his feet. “I ‘m not the first who found out that the swag did n’t pay for the smash; not,” added he, after a moment, “that I was to blame here: it was he began it!”

With some strange mysterious blending of reverence for the dead, with a vague sense of how the sight would strike the first beholders, Davis raised the corpse from the floor and placed it on the seat He then wiped the clotted gore from the forehead, and dried the hair. It was a gruesome sight, and even he was not insensible to its terrors; for, as he turned away, he heaved a short, thick sigh. How long he stood thus, half stunned and bewildered, he knew not; but he was, at length, recalled to thought and activity by the loud whistle that announced the train was approaching a station. The next minute they glided softly in beside a platform, densely crowded with travellers. Davis did not wait for the guard, but opened the door himself, and slowly, for he was in pain, descended from the carriage.

“Call the station-master here,” said he to the first official he met “Let some one, too, fetch a doctor, for I am badly wounded, and a policeman, for I want to surrender myself.” He then added, after a pause, “There’s a dead man in that carriage yonder!”

The terrible tidings soon spread abroad, and crowds pressed eagerly forward to gaze upon the horrible spectacle. No sooner was it announced that the murdered man was the celebrated Davenport Dunn, than the interest increased tenfold, and, with that marvellous ingenuity falsehood would seem ever to have at her disposal, a dozen artfully conceived versions of the late event were already in circulation. It was the act of a maniac, – a poor creature driven mad by injustice and persecution. It was the vengeance of a man whose fortune had been ruined by Dunn. It was the father of a girl he had seduced and abandoned. It was a beggared speculator, – a ruined trustee, – and so on; each narrative, strangely enough, inferring that the fatal catastrophe was an expiation! How ready is the world to accept this explanation of the sad reverses that befall those it once has stooped to adulate, – how greedily does it seek to repay itself for its own degrading homage, by maligning the idol of its former worship! Up to this hour no man had ever dared to whisper a suspicion of Dunn’s integrity; and now, ere his lifeless clay was cold, many were floundering away in this pseudo-morality about the little benefit all his wealth was to him, and wondering if his fate would not be a lesson! And so the train went on its way, the coupé with the dead body detached and left for the inspection of the inquest, And Davis on a sick-bed and in custody of the police.

His wound was far more serious than at first was apprehended; the direction the ball had taken could not be ascertained, and the pain was intense. Grog, however, would not condescend to speak of his suffering, but addressed himself vigorously to all the cares of his situation.

“Let me have some strong cavendish tobacco and a pint of British gin, pen, ink, and paper, and no visitors.”

The remonstrances of the doctor he treated with scorn.

“I’m not one of your West-end swells,” said he, “that’s afraid of a little pain, nor one of your Guy’s Hospital wretches that’s frightened by the surgeon’s tools; only no tinkering, no probing. If you leave me alone, I have a constitution that will soon pull me through.”

His first care was to dictate a telegraphic despatch to a well-known lawyer, whose skill in criminal cases had made him a wide celebrity. He requested him to come down at once and confer with him. His next was to write to his daughter, and in this latter task he passed nearly half the night. Written as it was in great bodily pain and no small suffering of mind, the letter was marvellously indicative of the man who penned it. He narrated the whole incident to its fatal termination exactly as it occurred; not the slightest effort did he make at exculpation for his own share in it; and he only deplored the misfortune in its effect upon the object he had in view.

“If Dunn,” said he, “hadn’t been so ready with his pistol, I believe we might have come to terms; but there’s no guarding against accidents. As matters stand, Annesley must make his own fight, for, of course, I can be of little use to him or to any one else till the assizes are over. So far as I can see, the case is a bad one, and Conway most likely to succeed; but there’s yet time for a compromise. I wish you ‘d take the whole affair into your own hands.”

To enable her to enter clearly upon a question of such complication, he gave a full narrative, so far as he could, of the contested claim, showing each step he had himself taken in defence, and with what object he had despatched Paul Classon to the Crimea. Three entire pages were filled with this theme; of himself, and his own precarious fortunes, he said very little indeed.

“Don’t be alarmed, Lizzy,” wrote he; “if the coroner’s inquest should find a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder’ against me, such a decision does not signify a rush; and as I mean to reserve all my defence for the trial, such a verdict is likely enough. There will be, besides this, the regular hue and cry people get up against the gambler, the leg, and who knows what else they ‘ll call me. Don’t mind that, either, girl. Let the moralists wag their charitable tongues; we can afford to make a waiting race, and, if I don’t mistake much, before the trial comes off, Davenport Dunn himself will be more ill thought of than Kit Davis. Above all, however, don’t show in public; get away from Rome, and stay for a month or two in some quiet, out-of-the-way place, where people cannot make remarks upon your manner, and either say, ‘See how this disgraceful affair has cut her up,’ or, ‘Did you ever see any one so brazen under an open shame?’

“I have sent for Ewin Jones, the lawyer, and expect him by the down train; if he should say anything worth repeating to you, I ‘ll add it ere I seal this.”

A little lower down the page were scrawled, half illegibly, the following few words: —

“Another search for the ball, and no better luck; it has got down amongst some nerves, where they ‘re afraid to follow it, – a sort of Chancery Court Jones is here, and thinks ‘we ‘ll do,’ particularly if ‘the Press’ blackguards Dunn well in the mean time. Remember me to A. B., and keep him from talking nonsense about the business, – for a while, at least, – that is, if you can, and

“Believe me, yours, as ever,

“C. Davis.”