Kitabı oku: «The House 'Round the Corner», sayfa 10
CHAPTER X
ARMATHWAITE STATES A CASE
After endeavoring, with no marked success, to console a fretful invalid with promises of alleviation of his sufferings by a skilled hand – promises made with the best of intent, though doomed to disappointment, because the immediate use of a tight bandage was precisely the treatment which any doctor would have recommended – Armathwaite joined Marguérite in a belated meal.
The spirit of an infuriated cook must have raged in Mrs. Jackson's breast when she bade Betty "tell 'em to mak' the best of it, because everything is spiled." Nevertheless, they dined well, since Yorkshire love of good fare would not permit a real débâcle among the eatables.
Marguérite was utterly downcast when Armathwaite informed her that Percy Whittaker would be lucky if he could trust his weight on the injured ankle within the next month.
"What a load of misfortune I carried with me yesterday over the moor!" she cried bitterly. "Yet, how could I foresee that an interfering woman like Edith Suarez would send Percy hotfoot in pursuit?"
"I have formed a hazy idea of Mrs. Suarez from various remarks dropped by her brother and you," said Armathwaite. "If it is correct in the least particular, I am surprised that she ever let you leave Chester on such an errand."
"She didn't. I came away without her knowledge!"
"Ah!"
"You needn't say 'Ah!' in that disapproving way. Why shouldn't I visit Elmdale and this house if I wanted to?"
"You have quite failed to understand my exclamation. It was an involuntary tribute to my own powers."
"If you mean that Edith is a cat, I agree with you. When she hears that Percy has fallen downstairs and lamed himself, she won't believe a word of it. Before we know where we are she will be here herself."
"We have five bedrooms. The house will then be full," he said placidly.
"Five? Oh! you include my mother in your reckoning. Bob, don't you think I ought to telegraph early in the morning and tell her not to come?"
"No. If you adopt the scheme I have evolved for the routing of all Walkers and the like, the arrival of your mother will be the one thing requisite to insure its complete triumph."
Then he laid bare his project. Stephen Garth was dead and buried. Let him remain so. Mrs. Ogilvey herself would be the first to approve of any fair means which would save her husband from the probing and prying of the police. There was always the probability that he was innocent of any crime. Even if, from the common-sense point of view, they must assume that he knew of the ghastly secret which the house could reveal sooner or later, it did not necessarily follow that such cognizance was a guilty one. Thus did Armathwaite juggle with words, until his hearer was convinced that he could secure her a respite from the tribulations of the morrow, at least, though the graver problem would remain to vex the future.
They were yet talking earnestly when the iron hasp of the gate clicked in its socket.
"Dr. Scaife!" cried Marguérite, rising hurriedly. Then she bethought herself. "I suppose it doesn't really matter now who sees me," she added, "and I should so much like to meet him. He is one of our oldest friends in Yorkshire."
"Meet him, by all means; but don't forget your new rôle. In fact, it would be well if you rehearsed it at once. The doctor will be a valuable factor in the undoing of Walker."
The bell rang. Armathwaite himself went to the door. A slightly-built, elderly man, wearing a bowler hat and an overcoat, was standing there. In the lane beyond the gate gleamed the lamps of a dog-cart, and a groom was holding the horse's head.
"I'm Doctor Scaife," announced the newcomer. "I'm told you have had an accident of some sort here!"
"Yes," said Armathwaite. "Come in, doctor! You've probably heard my name – Armathwaite. I've just rented this place for the summer, and a young friend of mine, who arrived unexpectedly to-day, had the ill-luck to slip on the stairs and sprain his ankle. I've done what I could by way of first-aid. I hope you received my message correctly?"
"About the india-rubber bandage, do you mean? Yes, I've brought one. Lucky your man caught me. I was just starting for another village; but I can make the call on my way home. Where is the patient?"
At that minute the doctor set eyes on Marguérite, who had come to the door of the dining-room. Her face was in shadow, because the lamp on the table was directly behind her.
"Well, Uncle Ferdie, you dear old thing – don't you know me?" she cried.
Dr. Scaife was not a man of demonstrative habit; but, for once in his life, he literally gasped with surprise.
"Meg!" he stammered. "My own little Meg!"
He grasped her hands in both of his. A dozen questions were hovering on his lips, yet all he could find to say was:
"Is Mrs. Garth here, too?"
"No; mother comes to-morrow, or next day at latest."
"You intend remaining, I hope?"
"Well, our movements are rather erratic, but we shall have several opportunities of meeting you before we go."
Betty appeared, carrying a lamp, which she set on a bracket at the corner of the stairs. Scaife, still holding Meg's hand, drew her to the light.
"Come here!" he said. "Let me have a good look at you. Prettier than ever, 'pon me soul! And how is your dear mother? Where have you buried yourself all this time? How long is it? Two years! Never a line to a forlorn uncle, even at Christmas! I shan't forgive you to-morrow, but I'm so pleased to see you to-night that at present I'll forget your neglect."
"Uncle Ferdie, it was not my fault. Mother couldn't bear me to mention Elmdale or any of its associations."
"Ah, of course! of course! But time is the great healer. I'll pray for continued fine weather, so that her beloved moor may smile on her arrival. Well, well! I feel as though I had seen – er – seen a fairy. Mind you don't vanish before I come downstairs. I'm ready now, Mr. Armathwaite."
The worthy doctor had nearly blundered, but he had executed what Americans call a "side-step" neatly enough. Armathwaite smiled at the girl. She had passed this initial test with honors. A couple more such experiences, and James Walker would be flouted as a mischievous fool if he talked of Stephen Garth being alive.
As he piloted the doctor upstairs, Armathwaite glanced at the window of ill-omen. The light of the lamp had conquered the external gloaming. The leaded divisions of colored glass were apparently of one uniform tint. Even the somber figure in black armor had lost its predominance.
Whittaker, who was lying on his back, tried to turn when the two men entered his bedroom. He groaned, and said querulously:
"Couldn't you have got here sooner, doctor? I'm suffering the worst sort of agony. This confounded ankle of mine must have been tied up all wrong."
"We'll soon put that right," said Scaife, with professional cheerfulness. "Will you hold the lamp, Mr. Armathwaite, while I have a look? What time did the accident happen?"
"Exactly at half-past seven," said Armathwaite.
The doctor consulted his watch.
"Oh, come now, you're really very fortunate, Mr. – "
"Whittaker," put in Armathwaite.
"Ah, yes! Did you mention the name? The mere sight of Meg Garth drove everything else from my mind. But it's only a quarter to nine, Mr. Whittaker, and a messenger had to reach me at Bellerby, three miles away. Hello, who tied this bandage? You, Mr. Armathwaite? Have you had hospital training?"
"No; nothing beyond the rough and ready ways of a camp. A friend in the Indian Medical certainly taught me how to adjust a strip of lint."
"You shouldn't grumble, young man; you've been looked after in first-class style," said the doctor, smiling at Percy. "It may relieve your mind if I tell you that I couldn't have done any better myself. Or, perhaps, if the pain is very bad, you'll think that the poorest sort of consolation. Fortunately, Mr. Armathwaite warned me as to what had happened, so I've brought a lotion which will give you some relief. Now, tell me when I touch a sore place. I shan't hurt you more than is needed to find out exactly where the trouble lies."
In a few minutes Scaife had reached the same conclusion as Armathwaite. Indeed, he gave the latter a look which was easily understandable. If it were not for the moral effect of his presence on the sufferer, he need not have been summoned from Bellerby that night. He applied the soothing lotion, however, and substituted a thin, india-rubber strip for the linen bandage. Then he and Armathwaite assisted Whittaker to undress, and placed him in bed as comfortably as possible.
"Now, I want to assure you that the prompt attention you received prevented a very awkward swelling," said the doctor, before taking his departure. "You've sprained that ankle rather badly. If it had been allowed to swell it would have given you a very nasty time. As it is, if you're careful, you'll be able to hobble about in a fortnight."
"A fortnight!" Whittaker almost shrieked. "I can't lie here a fortnight!"
"Whether you remain here or not, you'll be lucky if you can put that foot on the ground within that time. You may be moved, if you're carried, though I don't advise it."
"But it's perfect rot to talk about being stewed up in this room all that time," protested the other, his eyes gleaming yellow, and his fingers plucking nervously at the bed-clothes. "This isn't my house. I'm a stranger here. Besides, there are things I must do. I have to be up and about to-morrow, without fail."
Dr. Scaife nodded. He was far too wise a person to argue with an excited patient.
"Well, wait till I examine you in the morning," he said. "Sometimes, injuries of the sprain order yield very rapidly to treatment. Take this, and you'll have a night's rest, at any rate."
He shook some crystals out of a small bottle into a little water, and watched Whittaker drinking the decoction.
"Lie quiet now," he went on soothingly. "You'll soon be asleep. If that bandage hurts when you wake, you must grin and bear it. I'll be here about ten o'clock."
Downstairs, he told Armathwaite that he had given Whittaker a stiff dose of bromide.
"Here's the bottle," he said. "If he's awake in half an hour's time, let him have a similar lot. Don't be afraid. He can stand any amount of it."
Armathwaite smiled, and Scaife smiled back at him. They understood, without further speech, that a youngster of pronounced neurotic temperament could withstand a quantity of the drug that would prove dangerous to the average man.
"Who is he?" continued the doctor. "I haven't seen him here before. Is there any difficulty about his remaining in the Grange?"
"He is a friend of Meg's," explained Armathwaite. "She was staying with his sister at Chester, and we all reached Elmdale within a few hours of one another."
Thus was another pitfall safely skirted. By the time Dr. Scaife was in the dining-room and talking to Meg, he had arrived at conclusions which were perfectly reasonable and thoroughly erroneous.
In response to Armathwaite, he promised to bring a nurse in the morning, as he was confident that the sprain would keep Whittaker bed-ridden at least a couple of weeks. Then he took his leave.
"I'll go and sit with Percy a little while now," said Marguérite. "Poor fellow! What a shame he should have met with this mishap after his gallant walk to-day. Perhaps that is why he fell. His muscles may have relaxed owing to over-exertion. Will you ever forgive me, Bob, for all the worry I have caused you?"
"No," he said. "I want you to remind me of it so often that we shall lose count of the number of times. But, before you go upstairs, let me warn you that Dr. Scaife gave our young friend about twenty grains of bromide in one gulp. He may be dozing. If he is, don't wake him."
In a couple of minutes she was back in the library, where Armathwaite was seated with a book and a pipe.
"He's asleep," she whispered.
"I'm glad to hear it. Now, come and sit down. Are you too tired to answer questions?"
"Try me."
"Concerning your change of name – can you explain more definitely how it came about?"
"I told you. It was on account of a legacy."
"But from whom? Who was the Ogilvey who left the money? A relative on your father's side, or your mother's?"
"Dad's, I understood."
"Did you ever hear of anyone named Faulkner?"
"Yes. Some people of that name lived here years ago. We were distantly related. In fact, that is how the property came into dad's possession. But he never really went into details. One day he said he had made a will, leaving me everything, subject to a life interest for mother, and that when he was dead a lawyer would tell me all that I ought to know. Then I cried at the horrid thought that he would have to die at all, and he laughed at me, and that was the last I ever heard of it. Why do you ask?"
"You remember that we promised not to hide anything from one another?"
"Of course I remember."
"Well, then, I think I have hit on a sort of a clew to the Ogilvey part of the mystery, at any rate. By the merest chance, while awaiting the return of Mr. Burt's man from the village, our talk turned on the history of this house. He spoke of the Faulkners, and mentioned the fact that the eldest son of a daughter of the family, a Mrs. Ogilvey, was born here. That would be some fifty odd years ago. How old is your father?"
"Fifty-four."
"The dates tally, at all events."
Meg knitted her brows over this cryptic remark.
"But," she said, "if you imply that my father may be the son of a Mrs. Ogilvey, that would mean that his name never was Garth."
"Exactly."
"Isn't such a guess rather improbable? I am twenty-two, and I was born in this very house, and I lived here twenty years except during school terms at Brighton and in Brussels, and we were known as Garths during all that long time."
Armathwaite blew a big ring of smoke into the air, and darted a number of smaller rings through it. The pattern, beautifully distinct at first, was soon caught in a current from an open window, and eddied into shapelessness. He was thinking hard, and had acted unconsciously, so it was with a sense of surprise that he heard the girl laugh half-heartedly.
"I've been forming mad and outrageous theories until my poor head aches," she said, answering the unspoken question in his eyes. "Some of them begin by being just as perfectly proportioned as your smoke-rings, but they fade away in the next breath."
"My present theory is nebulous enough," he admitted, "but it is not altogether demolished yet. Can you endure a brief analysis of my thoughts? You won't be afraid, and lie awake for hours?"
"No. I mean that I want to hear everything you wish to tell me."
"The man who died here two years ago must have resembled your father in no common degree. Dr. Scaife is not the sort of person who makes a mistake in such a vital matter as the identification of a dead body, especially when the subject is an old and valued friend of his. By the way, you called him uncle, but that, I take it, was merely an affectionate mode of address dating from your childhood?"
"Yes. It's a Yorkshire custom among intimates."
"Have you ever heard of a real uncle – your father's brother – or of a first cousin who was very like him?"
"No. I have asked my people about relatives but we seemed to have none. Even the Ogilvey of the legacy was never mentioned by either of them until mother read me a letter from dad received while we were in Paris."
"Exactly. This testamentary Ogilvey appeared on the scene soon after Stephen Garth died and was buried. Your father was well aware of that occurrence, because he contrived it. He knew that the man who died was coming here, so he sent your mother and you to Paris to get you safely out of the way. Now, don't begin to tremble, and frighten yourself into the belief that I am proving your father's guilt of some dreadful crime. You yourself are convinced that he is incapable of any such act. May I not share your good opinion of him, yet try to reach some sort of firm ground in a quagmire where a false step may prove disastrous? Suppose, Mr. Garth, as he was called at that time, merely got rid of his wife and daughter until an unwelcome guest had been received and sent on his way again, and that fate, with the crassness it can display at times, contrived that the visitor died, or was killed, or committed suicide, at the most awkward moment it is possible to conceive, can you not imagine a hapless, middle-aged scholar availing himself of the most unlikely kind of expedient in order to escape a scandal? Your father is a student, a writer, almost a recluse, yet such a man, driven suddenly into panic-stricken use of his wits, oft-times devises ways and means of humbugging the authorities which an ordinarily clever criminal would neither think of nor dare. I am insisting on this phase of the matter so that you and I may concentrate our intelligence on the line of inquiry most likely to yield results. Let me tabulate my contentions in chronological sequence:
A.– Mr. Garth received some news which led him to disturb the peaceful conditions of life which had obtained during twenty years. His first care was to send his wife and daughter to a place far removed from Elmdale.
B.– Mrs. Garth shared her husband's uneasiness, and agreed to fall in with the plan he had devised.
C.– In order to secure complete secrecy, the whole staff of servants was dismissed, practically at a moment's notice, and probably paid liberal compensation.
D.– After a week of this gradual obliteration of himself in Elmdale, Mr. Garth is missed, with the inevitable outcome that his dead body is found hanging in the hall, and, lest there should be any doubt as to his identity, a letter is left for the coroner, in which he asserts a thing, which his friend, Dr. Scaife, knew to be untrue, namely, that he was suffering from incurable disease. The statement, conveyed otherwise than in a letter, would have been received with skepticism; it was made with the definite object of giving a reason for an apparent suicide, and leaving testimony, in his own handwriting, that the disfigured body could be that of no other person than Stephen Garth. If a general resemblance of the dead to the living did not suffice – if the wearing of certain clothes, and the finding of certain documents and trinkets, such as a watch and chain, for instance – "
Marguérite, who had been listening intently, could no longer restrain her excitement.
"Yes," she cried, "that is so correct that it is quite wonderful. My father had a half-hunter gold watch and a chain of twisted leather which he wore as long as I can remember. Both had gone when he came to us in Paris; when I missed them, and asked what had become of them, he said they were lost, much to his annoyance, and he had been obliged to buy a new watch in London."
"There is nothing wonderful in treating a watch and chain as the first objects which would lead to a man's identification," said Armathwaite. "Now, don't let your admiration for the excessive wisdom of the court tempt you to interrupt again, because the court has not fully made up its own mind and is marshaling its views aloud in order to hear how they sound. Where were we? Still in Section D, I think. Well, granted that an obtuse policeman or a perplexed doctor refused to admit that Stephen Garth was dead, the letter would clinch the matter. Indeed, from the report of the inquest, we see that it did achieve its purpose. The remaining heads of the argument may be set forth briefly:
E.– Stephen Garth is buried at Bellerby, and Stephen Ogilvey steps into new life in Paris, wearing a literary cloak already prepared by many years of patient industry, though no one in Elmdale knew that its well-known resident was a famous writer on folk-lore.
F.– After some months of foreign travel, it was deemed safe to return to England, and Cornwall was chosen as a place of residence. The connection between rural Cornwall and rural Yorkshire is almost as remote as the influence of Mars on the earth. Both belong to the same system, and there would be trouble if they became detached, but, otherwise, they move in different orbits; they have plenty of interests in common, but no active cohesion. In a word, Stephen Ogilvey ran little risk in Cornwall of being recognized as Stephen Garth.
G.– Mrs. Ogilvey, a most estimable lady, and quite as unlikely as her scholar-husband to be associated with a crime, was a party to all these mysterious proceedings, and the combined object of husband and wife was to keep their daughter in ignorance of the facts for a time, at least, if not forever.
"I don't think I need carry the demonstration any further to-night. You are not to retire to your room and sob yourself into a state of hysteria because your coming to Elmdale has threatened with destruction an edifice of deceit built with such care and skill. I am beginning to recognize now a fatalistic element in the events of the past twenty-four hours that suggests the steady march of a Greek tragedy to its predestined end. But the dramatic art has undergone many changes since the days of Euripides. Let's see if we cannot avail ourselves of modern methods, and keep the tragic dénouement in the place where it has been put already, namely, in Bellerby churchyard."
The girl stood up, and gave him her hand.
"I'm almost certain, Bob, that if you and dad had five minutes' talk, there would be an end of the mystery," she said.
"And a commencement of a long friendship, I hope," he said.
Their eyes met, and Meg's steady gaze faltered for the first time. She almost ran out of the room, and Armathwaite sat many minutes in utter stillness, looking through the window at the dark crest of the moor silhouetted against a star-lit sky. Then he refilled his pipe, and picked up the book he had taken haphazard from the well-stored shelves of that curiously constituted person, Stephen Ogilvey.
It was a solid tome, entitled: "Scottish Criminal Trials," and lay side by side with "The Golden Bough," which Marguérite had spoken of, and a German work, "Geschichte des Teufels." Turning over the leaves, he found that someone had marked a passage with ink. The reference had been noted many years ago, because the marks were faded and brown, but the paragraph thus singled out had an extraordinary vivid bearing on the day's occurrences.
It read:
"A statute of James I., still in force, enacts that all persons invoking an evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding or rewarding any evil spirit, shall be guilty of felony and suffer death."
Instantly there flitted before Armathwaite's vision a picture of the besotted Faulkner offering libations of wine to the black figure scowling from the stained-glass window. Perhaps the old toper had been lifting his head in a final bumper when he fell backward down the stairs and broke his neck.
Armathwaite shut the book with a bang. When he went out, he found that Betty had forgotten to leave a candle in the hall, and he must either go upstairs in the dark or carry with him the lamp still burning on its bracket.
He glared steadily at the dull outline of the effigy in armor.
"I'm not superstitious," he muttered, "but if I could have my own way with you, my beauty, I'd smash you into little bits!"
Then, to show his contempt for all ghouls and demons, he extinguished the lamp, and felt his way by holding the banisters. It was creepy work. Once, he was aware of a curious contraction of the skin at the nape of his neck. He turned in a fury, and eyed the window. Now that no light came from the hall, some of its color was restored, and certain blue and orange tints in the border were so perfect in tone that he was moved from resentment to admiration.
"Not for the first time in the history of art, the frame is better than the picture," he thought. "Very well, you imp of darkness, some day, and soon, I hope, we'll dislodge you and keep your setting."
He did not ask himself whom he included in that pronoun "we." There was no need. The mighty had fallen at last. He loved Marguérite Ogilvey, and would marry her if she would accept him though her parents had committed all the crimes in the calendar, and her ancestors were wizards and necromancers without exception.
