Chapter Twenty Seven.
The Tempter.
The small-eyed man, to whom I had sold myself that fateful day, caught sight of Beryl, and, raising his grey felt hat in recognition, pulled up, and swung himself down from the trap. I glanced at my love and saw that her face was blanched to the lips. The meeting was, to her, evidently a most unexpected one.
Beneath the seat I saw a well-worn kit-bag, and a gun-case, which showed that he had come on a visit. Smartly dressed in light grey, he wore a button-hole of pink carnations, which gave him an air of gaiety and irresponsibility scarcely in keeping with his age.
“Ah, my dear Miss Wynd!” he cried, advancing to her with outstretched hand. “I’m so delighted to find you here. It is a long time since we met.”
“Yes,” she answered in a voice which trembled with suppressed excitement. “But I had no idea that you were coming down,” she added. “Nora told me nothing.”
“I too had no idea of visiting you, until the day before yesterday,” he said. “I’ve been abroad for nearly a year, and only arrived back in town three days ago, when I found Sir Henry’s, invitation, a month old, lying at my club. I wired to ask if I might still accept it, and here I am.”
He stood with his legs apart, his hat set rather jauntily upon his head, looking an entirely different person to that crabbed, strange old fellow who sat behind the bar of sunlight, with the banknotes in his claw-like fingers, every detail of that scene was as vivid in my memory as though it had occurred but yesterday. Again, I looked into his face. Yes, I had no doubt whatever that it was he.
“I—I am the first to bid you welcome to Atworth,” Beryl said. “Nora has gone over with some of the people to visit the Haywards, at Dodington. There’s a flower-show there.”
“I quite remember,” he exclaimed, “I went over there last year. Lady Dyrham drove us. Do you recollect?”
“Of course,” she laughed. “And how it rained too. My new frock was quite spoilt, and I had a bad cold for a fortnight afterwards. I’m not likely to easily forget that drive home.”
“Because of the spoilt frock?” he laughed, raising his small eyes to me.
“Yes, I suppose that’s what has impressed itself upon my memory. We women are never forgetful where clothes are concerned.”
“And who’s here? Anybody I know?” he inquired.
“Oh, there are the Pirries and the Tiremans, as usual, and, of course, Lady Dyrham,” she answered. Then, a moment later she added, “This is Doctor Colkirk—Mr Ashwicke. Let me introduce you, if you have not already met before.”
“We have not had that pleasure,” said the Tempter, turning to me and raising his hat.
He remained perfectly calm, betraying no sign whatever of recognition. In this I saw an intention on his part to deny all knowledge of our previous acquaintance.
His keen eyes glanced at me quickly, and, as though in that moment he gauged exactly my strength of character, he expressed his pleasure at our meeting, and hoped that we should all spend as pleasant a time as he had done last year.
“Here one has not an hour for leisure,” he laughed. “Sir Henry and his wife are really a wonderful pair as host and hostess. You’ve already found them so, I’ve no doubt.”
“Yes,” I responded mechanically, his marvellous self-control staggering me. “The house-party is a very jolly one.”
“I’ve been abroad,” he went on. “But I’m pleased to be at home again. There’s nothing like an English country house in summer. It is an ideal existence.”
“How long have you been away?” I inquired, anxious to ascertain his tactics.
“Nearly a year. After leaving here last summer, I spent a week in London and then left for Vienna. Afterwards I went south, spending greater part of the winter in Cairo, thence to Bombay, and returned for the late spring in Florence, and afterwards wandered about France, until three days ago I found myself again back in England.”
“And you did not return once during the whole year?” I asked, with affected carelessness.
His small eyes darted quickly to mine, as though in suspicion.
“No,” he responded promptly. “It is almost a year to-day since I was in England.”
Then, noticing Barton waiting with the trap, he ordered him to take the luggage to the house, while all three of us walked up the drive together.
A sudden change had passed over Beryl. She knew this man Ashwicke, her attitude towards him was that of fear. The looks they had exchanged at first meeting were sufficient to convince me that there was some hidden secret between them.
“Nora cannot be aware of your arrival,” Beryl said, as we walked together up the sunny drive to the house. “Otherwise she would either have told me, or she certainly would have remained at home to receive you.”
“Why should she?” he laughed lightly. “Surely we are old enough friends to put aside all ceremony. I’m a rolling stone, as you know, and I hate putting people out.”
“Yes,” she said; “you are a rolling stone, and no mistake. I don’t think any one travels further afield than you do. You seem to be always travelling.”
“I’ve only spent six months in England these last eight years,” he responded. “To me, England is only bearable in August or September. A little shooting, and I’m off again.”
“You only come back because you can’t get decent sport on the Continent?” I said, for want of other observation to make.
“Exactly,” he answered. ”‘La Chasse,’ as the French call it, is never a success across the Channel. Some rich Frenchman started a fox-hunt down at Montigny, in the Seine and Marne, not long ago, and part of the paraphernalia was an ambulance wagon flying the red-cross flag. A fact! I went to the first meet myself.”
“The French are no sportsmen,” I said.
“The same everywhere, all over the Continent. Sport is chic, therefore the get-up of sportsmen must be outrageous and striking. No foreigner enjoys it. He shoots or hunts just because it’s the correct thing to do. Here in England one kills game for the love of the thing. To the Frenchman in patent leather, sport is only a bore.”
He had all the irresponsible air of the true cosmopolitan, yet his assertion that he had been absent from England a year was an unmitigated lie. Knowing this, I was doubtful of all his chatter.
On entering the hall, Beryl, as mistress of the house in her cousin’s absence, rang for the servants and told them to take Mr Ashwicke’s baggage to the same room he had occupied last year, sending Barton round to the kennels to find Sir Henry and inform him of the arrival of his guest.
In the meantime, Ashwicke had tossed his hat aside, and seated himself cross-legged, in one of the low cane-chairs, making himself thoroughly at home.
“Well,” he said, stretching himself, “it is really very pleasant, Miss Wynd, to be here once again. I have so many pleasant recollections of last year—when I spent three weeks with you. What a merry time we had!”
“I hope you’ll remain here longer this time,” she said in a dry, unnatural voice.
“You’re awfully kind—awfully kind,” he answered.
“I always enjoy myself under Sir Henry’s roof, both here and in town.”
The baronet entered, and the greeting between the two men was a cordial one.
“You’ll forgive me, Ashwicke, won’t you?” Sir Henry said a moment later. “I quite forgot to tell my wife, and she’s gone off to the flower-show at Dodington; must support the local things, you know.”
“Of course, of course,” responded the other. “I quite understand, and I know I’m welcome.”
“That you certainly are,” Sir Henry said, turning and ordering the man to bring whisky and sodas. “Let’s see, the last letter I had from you was from Alexandria, back in the Spring. Where have you been since then?”
“Oh, knocking about here and there, as usual. I can’t stay long in one place, you know. It’s a bad complaint I have.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you—very glad,” the baronet declared heartily. “I hope you’ll stay some time. Have you brought your gun?”
“Of course,” the other laughed. “I shouldn’t think, of coming to Atworth without it.”
While they were chatting thus, I looked at him, recalling every feature. Yes, it was the same face, scarcely perhaps the same sinister countenance as it had appeared to me on that well-remembered day, but nevertheless the face of the Tempter.
I lounged back in my chair, close to that of my well-beloved, filled with wonderment.
That the new-comer recognised me was certain, for I had been introduced by name. And that he had been unaware of my presence as guest there was equally certain. Yet he had, on encountering us together, preserved a self-control little short of marvellous.
I glanced at Beryl. She was sitting listening to the conversation of the two men, and regarding Ashwicke covertly from beneath her lashes. I knew by her manner that, although she had outwardly affected pleasure at his arrival, she, in her heart, regarded him as an enemy. He, on his part, however, was perfectly confident, and sat sipping his drink and laughing merrily with his host.
What, I wondered, was passing within Beryl’s mind. She knew this man as Ashwicke, while I knew him as her own father, Wyndham Wynd. The latter were evidently a name and position both assumed, and, after all, as he sat there with the easy refined air of a gentleman, I could scarcely believe him to be an adventurer. Surely Sir Henry knew him well, or they would not be on terms of such intimate friendship.
But now I had discovered him, I meant, at all hazards, to probe the truth.
Beryl, who had spoken but little after Sir Henry’s entrance, rose at last, announcing her intention of going out beneath the trees again. Her words conveyed an invitation to accompany her; therefore I strolled out at her side, anxious to learn from her what I could regarding the man to whom she had introduced me.
How curiously events occur in our lives. Many of the ordinary circumstances of everyday existence which we pass by unnoticed seem to be governed by some laws of which we have absolutely no knowledge whatever. Reader, in your own life, there has occurred some strange combinations of circumstances quite unaccountable, yet by them the whole course of your existence has been altered. You may have noticed them, or you may not. You may call it Fate, or you may be a follower of that shadowy religion called Luck, yet it remains the same—the unexpected always happens.
Who indeed would have expected that my wife herself would have introduced me to the man who had so cleverly baited the trap into which I had fallen? And yet it is always so. There is a mysterious all-ruling spirit of perversity ever at work in that complicated series of events which go to make up what we term life.
“You were telling me that you know my husband,” she said quickly, as we crossed the grass together. “Our conversation was interrupted by that man’s arrival.”
Such reference to the new-comer showed me that she was not well-disposed towards him.
“Do you know,” I said, “I believe that we’ve met somewhere before. I know his face.”
“Possibly. But why Sir Henry should have invited him here again, I can’t imagine.”
“Was his company so disagreeable?” I asked.
“Disagreeable?” she echoed. “He is detestable.”
“Why?”
“Oh, for many reasons,” she responded ambiguously; “I have never liked him.”
“He says that he is always abroad,” I remarked. “But I’m confident that we have met somewhere in England.”
“He did not apparently recognise you, when I introduced you.”
“No. He didn’t wish to. The circumstances of our meeting were not such as to leave behind any pleasant recollections.”
“But you told me that you knew the identity of my husband,” she said, after a pause, as we strolled together in the shadow of the great oaks. “Were you really serious?”
“No, I was not serious,” I answered quickly, for the unexpected arrival of this man who called himself Ashwicke, and whose name appeared in the London Directory as occupier of the house in Queen’s-gate Gardens, caused me to hesitate to tell her the truth. The manner in which they had met made it quite plain that some secret understanding existed between them. It seemed possible that this man had actually occupied the house before the present owner, Mrs Stentiford.
“Then why did you say such a thing?” she asked, in a tone of reproach. “My position is no matter for joking.”
“Certainly not,” I hastened to declare. “Believe me, Miss Wynd, that you have all my sympathy. You are unfortunately unique as one who is married and yet without knowledge either of her husband or his name.”
“Yes,” she sighed, a dark shadow of despair crossing her handsome face. “There is a shadow of evil ever upon me, just as puzzling and mysterious as the chill touch of that unseen influence which at intervals strikes both of us.”
“And the presence of this man adds to your uneasiness. Is that not so?”
She nodded, but no word escaped her.
“I noticed when you met and he descended from the trap that he was not your friend.”
“What caused you to suspect that?” she inquired quickly.
“The man’s face betrayed his feeling towards you. He is your enemy.”
“Yes,” she answered slowly, as though carefully weighing each word; “he is my enemy—my bitterest enemy.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a firm suspicion that he has discovered the secret of my marriage—that he alone knows who my unknown husband really is.”
And turning her wonderful eyes to mine, her troubled breast slowly rose and fell.
When, oh, when should I succeed in solving the maddening problem and be free to make confession of the truth?
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Sought Out.
With untiring astuteness I watched every movement of the new-comer, but detected nothing suspicious in his actions. We lunched together, only five of us, the others being away at Dodington, and were a merry party. The man with the small eyes was excellent company, full of witty sayings and droll stories, and was really an acquisition to our party.
Yet I noticed that he spoke little with Beryl, as, though some secret understanding existed between them. And when he did address her she answered him vacantly, as though her thoughts were afar off.
That night, on the return of the party from the flower-show, his arrival was hailed with delight. At all events he was a very popular person at Atworth. He seemed rejuvenated since we had last met, and appeared fully twenty years younger than on the night when he had tempted me.
I had many chats with him. I played him at billiards, and was afterwards his partner at whist before we parted for the night. I did this in order to put him off his guard, if possible, and to induce him to believe that I had not recognised him. I had not yet decided how to act.
When at midnight I left my companions, entered my room, and closed the door, that strange, weird influence again made itself felt upon me. My lower limbs became benumbed, my blood seemed frozen in my veins.
I stood glancing around the bedroom in fear and wondering. There was nothing supernatural there, and yet this unseen influence was as the finger of Evil. The strange sensation was not of long duration, but gradually faded until I found myself in my normal state. I tested my temperature with my thermometer, and saw that I had just a slight tendency to fever—due, I supposed, to alarm and excitement.
Then, having satisfied myself that my motor nerves, which had become partially paralysed, had regained their strength, and that the sensitive portion of the spinal nervous system, that had been affected, had returned to its normal capacity, I turned in and tried to sleep.
I say I tried to sleep, but I think, if the truth were told, I did not try. My brain was too perturbed by the events of that day. Beneath that very roof the Tempter was actually sleeping. I had shaken his hand, and played billiards with him. Truly, I had been patient in my efforts to analyse and dissect the various complications of that extraordinary mystery.
At sunrise I dressed, and on stepping from my room out into the fresh air of the corridor, I again felt that bewildering influence upon me, quite distinctly; yet not so strong as to cause me any inconvenience. The feeling was a kind of cold, creepy one, without any sudden shock.
During the day I lounged at Beryl’s side, endeavouring to obtain from her the truth of her midnight escapade. But she would tell me absolutely nothing. The man who had posed as her father was undoubtedly her enemy, and she held him in deadly fear. It was this latter fact that caused me at last to make a resolution, and in the idle hour before the dressing-bell went for dinner, I contrived to stroll alone with him out across the park.
With a good cigar between his lips, he walked as jauntily as a man of twenty, notwithstanding his grey hairs. He laughed and chatted merrily, recounting to me all the fun of last year’s house-party, with its ill-natured chatter and its summer flirtations.
Suddenly, when we were a long way from the house, skirting the quiet lake that lay deep in a hollow surrounded by a small wood, I turned to him resolutely, saying—
“Do you know that I have a distinct recollection that we have met before?”
He started almost imperceptibly, and glanced at me quickly with his small round eyes.
“I think not,” he answered. “Not, at least, to my knowledge.”
“Defects of memory are sometimes useful,” I replied. “Cannot you recall the twenty-fourth of July?”
“The twenty-fourth of July,” he repeated reflectively. “No. There is no event which fixes the date in my memory.”
His face had grown older. The light of youthfulness had gone out of it, leaving it the grey, ashen countenance of the Tempter.
“You were in London on that date,” I asserted.
“No. I was in Alexandria. I sailed from there on the twenty-second.”
“Then, at the outset, you deny that you were in London on the date I have mentioned? Good! Well, I will go a step further in order to refresh your memory. On that July night you met your friend, Tattersett.”
“My dear fellow,” he cried, laughing outright, “I have no idea of what you’re driving at. Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“No,” I answered angrily, “I have not, fortunately for myself. Therefore it is useless to deny the truth.”
“I am not denying the truth,” he replied. “I am denying the extraordinary assertion you are making.”
“Because you fear to face the truth.”
“I fear nothing,” he responded defiantly. “What, in Heaven’s name, have I to fear?”
“The consequences of the cleverly-planned conspiracy against myself.”
He smiled superciliously, and answered, “I don’t understand you. What conspiracy?”
“Listen!” I cried furiously. “It is useless for you to affect either ignorance or indifference. This is no case of mistaken identity. You forget that I am a medical man, and that my eye can detect a mark upon the flesh where the layman sees nothing. That crinkled depression on the inside of your wrist is a mark left in infancy. It cannot be imitated, neither can it be obliterated. You may alter your facial expression, or the outline of your figure; but you cannot alter that.”
He glanced at his wrist, and I saw that he had never before noticed the indelible mark upon the flesh.
“You bore that mark on the day we met three months ago, and you bear it now,” I went on. “Do you still deny your presence in London on the date I have mentioned?”
“Of course I do,” he said.
“Then, you are a liar, and I will treat you as such!” I responded firmly.
We were standing facing one another, and I saw in his eyes an evil glint which told me plainly that he was no mean antagonist.
“You pay me a compliment,” he said coolly. “I cannot see what motive you have in thus insulting me.”
“It is no insult,” I cried. “You are my enemy. You and your accomplice, Tattersett, devised an ingenious trap, and then called me in for professional consultation. The trap was well baited, and, as you intended, I fell into it. I thank God for one thing—namely, that I did not commit murder at your instigation.”
He smiled again, but no word escaped him.
“You cannot think that I am in ignorance of the plot, or that I am unaware that, owing to the deception you have practised upon me, Beryl Wynd is my wife.”
“And what connexion have I with all this?” he demanded. “If Beryl Wynd is your wife, what is it to do with me, pray?”
“The marriage was effected by conspiracy,” I answered. “She was your victim—just as I unfortunately was. The penalty for such conspiracy is penal servitude.”
“Well?” he inquired, smiling again. “And I take it that you suspect me of being implicated in the conspiracy? All I can reply is that you are entirely mistaken.”
“I am not mistaken,” I said hotly. “It was yourself who tempted me, holding the banknotes in your hand—”
“And if you consented, as you allege, you became equally implicated in the conspiracy,” he observed, interrupting me.
I had never before looked at the matter in such a light. His words were true. I had sold myself to the conspirators—had become an accessory, and was therefore just as liable to prosecution as they were!
“You attempted to suborn me to commit murder,” I added.
“It’s a lie,” answered the Tempter flatly.
“But I can prove it,” I asserted.
“How?”
“I have proof,” I replied ambiguously, for I did not intend to show my hand.
“Then you are at liberty to use it for whatever purpose you like,” he answered defiantly. “But we were alone.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed quickly. “Then you admit your identity?”
“I admit nothing.”
“Until I can show proof positive, eh? Until I can bring those who will bear witness that, on the twenty-fourth of June, you were at number 94, Queen’s-gate Gardens; that you sent for me; that on my arrival you tempted me to marry Beryl Wynd; that you accompanied me to the church of St. Ann’s, and that, having accepted the promise of payment, you afterwards attempted to induce me to take her life.”
“Lies—all of it.”
“We shall see. You tried to take my life. Revenge is now mine,” I added in a hard, distinct voice.
It may have been only my fancy, yet I could not help noticing that the word revenge caused him to shrink, and regard me with some misgiving.
“How?” he inquired.
“No,” I responded firmly; “we are enemies. That is sufficient. I have discovered the whole plot, therefore rest assured that those who victimised both Beryl and myself, and have made dastardly attempts upon our lives, shall not go unpunished.”
I had altered my tactics, deeming it best to assume a deeper knowledge of the affair than that which I really possessed. It was a delicate matter; this accusation must be dealt with diplomatically.
“My private opinion of you, sir, is that you are a confounded fool,” he said.
“I may be,” I responded. “But I intend that you, who enmeshed into your plot a defenceless woman, and who abducted me aboard so cleverly, in order to gain time, shall bear the exposure and punishment that you merit.”
He nodded slowly as though perfectly comprehending my meaning.
“Then I take it that Beryl is aware of your actual alliance with her?” he asked, his small eyes flashing at me.
But I made no satisfactory answer. I was wary of him, for I knew him to be a clever miscreant. His tone betrayed an anxiety to know the exact extent of Beryl’s knowledge.
“Beryl is my wife, and my interests are hers,” I replied. “It is sufficient that I am aware of the whole truth.”
“You think so,” he laughed with sarcasm. “Well, you are at liberty to hold your own opinion.”
“The fact is,” I said, “that you accepted Sir Henry’s invitation here, never dreaming that you would come face to face with me. I am the last person in the world you desired to meet.”
“The encounter has given me the utmost pleasure, I assure you,” he replied with a sneer.
“Just as it will not only to yourself but to a certain other.”
“Who?”
“A person whom you know well—an intimate friend of yours.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“It is a woman. Think of your female friends.”
“What is her name?”
“La Gioia.”
“La Gioia?” he gasped glaring at me.
His face was livid and his surprise apparent. I saw that he had never dreamt that I knew of her existence.
“You see, I may be a confounded fool, as you have declared,” I said. “But I have not been idle during these past months. La Gioia’s revenge is mine also.”
He made no response. My words had, as I intended, produced an overwhelming effect upon him. He saw, that if La Gioia’s secret was out he stood in deadliest peril. I had impressed him with an intimate knowledge of the whole affair.
It was at that moment he showed himself full of resourceful villainy.
“The vengeance of La Gioia will fall upon the woman who is your wife—not upon yourself.”
“And through whom?” I cried. “Why, through yourself and your accomplice, Tattersett, who betrayed Beryl into her hands. The mystery of Whitton is to me no mystery, for I know the truth.”
He glared at me as though I were some evil vision, and I knew that by these words I was slowly thrusting home the truth.
“What have I to do with the affair at Whitton?” he cried. “I know nothing of it?”
“I may, perhaps, be enabled to prove differently,” I said.
“Do you then allege that I am implicated in the Colonel’s death?” he exclaimed furiously.
“I have my own opinion,” I responded. “Remember that you once made a desperate and dastardly, attempt to kill me, fearing lest I should denounce you as having tried to bribe me to commit murder.”
His eyes glittered, and I saw that his anger was unbounded. We stood there in the calm sunset near the lakeside, and I could see that he would rid himself of me, if such a course was possible. But I thought of Beryl. Ah! how I loved her. That she had fallen a victim of the cleverly contrived conspiracy incensed me, and I resolved to show the scoundrel no quarter.
“Well,” he said at last, in a tone of defiance, “and after all these wild allegations, what can you do? Surely you do not think that I fear any statement that you can make?”
“You may not fear any statement of mine, but I do not anticipate that you will invite La Gioia to reveal all she knows. The latter might place you in enforced confinement for a few years.”
“La Gioia is at liberty to say whatever she likes,” he answered. “If she is actually a friend of Beryl’s she will, no doubt, assist you; but at present she is her deadliest antagonist. Therefore, if you take my advice, you’ll just calm yourself and await another opportunity for revenge at a latter date.”
His cool words caused my blood to boil.
“You treat this affair as though it were a matter of little importance, sir!” I cried. “Let me tell you, however, that I have been your victim, and I intend to probe the matter to the bottom and ascertain your motives.”
“That you’ll never do,” he laughed.
“I tell you I will!” I cried. “I am Beryl’s husband, and she is no longer defenceless. You have to answer to me!”
“I have answered you by saying that in future you are at liberty to act as you think fit. I merely warn you that La Gioia is no more your friend than she is your wife’s.”
“You contrived to entrap me into marriage. Why? Answer me that question,” I demanded.
“I refuse. You have threatened me with all sorts of pains and penalties, but I defy you!”
From his silver case he took a cigar, and, biting off the end, leisurely lit it. His countenance had changed. Again it was the same grey sinister face that had so long haunted me in my dream—the face of the Tempter.
“Have you finished?” he asked, with mock politeness.
“For the moment, yes,” I answered. “But yours is an ill-advised defiance, as you will very soon see.”
He burst forth into a peal of strained, unnatural laughter, whereat I turned upon my heel and left him standing there a dark silhouette in the crimson sunset. Blindly I walked on to the house, dressed mechanically, and descended late for dinner. But the Tempter was not in his place; he had been called away to London, it was said, and had been compelled to catch the 07:30 train from Corsham.
I glanced at my watch; it was already 07:35. I had blundered, and had allowed him to slip through my fingers. I bit my lip in mad vexation.
Beryl’s beautiful eyes were fixed upon me, and in her face I detected deep anxiety. She looked perfectly charming in a gown of pale pink crêpe-de-chine. Had he sought her before departure, I wondered?
“It’s an awful disappointment that he has had to leave,” said the baronet’s wife. “I endeavoured to persuade him to remain until the morning, but he received a letter by the afternoon post making it imperative that he should return to London. But he says he will be back again either on Monday or Tuesday.”
“I do hope he will return,” observed some one at the end of the table, and then the subject dropped. When the ladies had left the room Sir Henry remarked—“Queer fellow, Ashwicke—a bit eccentric, I always think. His movements are most erratic—a regular rolling stone.”
I embraced that opportunity to inquire regarding his antecedents, but my host appeared to know very little beyond the fact that he was wealthy, good company, a keen sportsman, and moved in a very smart set in town.
“I’ve known him a couple of years or so; he’s a member of my club,” he added. “My wife declares that none of the parties are complete without him.”
“Do you know his friend, Tattersett—Major Tattersett?”
“No,” responded Sir Henry; “never met him.” With the others I went along to the drawing-room and found Beryl alone in a cozy corner, obviously awaiting me. She twisted a lace scarf about her shoulders and we strolled out upon the terrace, as was our habit each evening if fine and starlight. When we had gained the further end she suddenly halted, and turning to me said, in a low, husky voice that trembled with emotion—
“Doctor Colkirk, you have deceived me!”
“Deceived you, Miss Wynd?” I exclaimed, taken completely aback by her allegation. “How?”
“I know the truth—a truth that you cannot deny. I—I am your wife.”
“I do not seek to deny it,” I answered in deep, solemn earnestness, taking her small white hand in mine. “It is true, Beryl, that you are my wife—true also that I love you.”
“But it cannot be possible!” she gasped. “I knew that I was a wife, but never dreamed that you were actually my husband.”
“And how did you discover it?”
“I was down by the waterside this evening, before dinner, and overheard your conversation with Mr Ashwicke.”
“All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. I know that I am your wife;” and she sighed, while her little hand trembled within mine.
“I love you, Beryl,” I said, simply and earnestly. “I have known all along that you are my wife, yet I dared not tell you so, being unable to offer sufficient proof of it and unable to convince you of my affection. Yet, in these few weeks that have passed, you have surely seen that I am devoted to you—that I love you with a strange and deeper love than ever man has borne within his heart. A thousand times I have longed to tell you this, but have always feared to do so. The truth is that you are my wife—my adored.”
Her hand tightened upon mine, and unable to restrain her emotions further, she burst into tears.
“Tell me, darling,” I whispered into her car—“tell me that you will try to love me now that you know the truth. Tell me that you forgive me for keeping the secret until now, for, as I will show you, it was entirely in our mutual interests. We have both been victims of a vile and widespread conspiracy, therefore we must unite our efforts to combat the vengeance of our enemies. Tell me that you will try and love me—nay, that you do love me a little. Give me hope, darling, and let us act together as man and wife.”
“But it is so sudden,” she faltered. “I hardly know my own feelings.”
“You know whether you love me, or whether you hate me,” I said, placing my hand around her slim waist and drawing her towards me.
“No,” she responded in a low voice, “I do not hate you. How could I?”
“Then you love me—you really love me, after all!” I cried joyously.
For answer she burst again into a flood of tears, and I, with mad passion, covered her white brow with hot kisses while she clung to me—my love, my wife.
Ah! when I reflect upon the ecstasy of those moments—how I kissed her sweet lips, and she, in return, responded to my tender caresses, how she clung to me as though shrinking in fear from the world about her, how her heart beat quickly in unison with my own, I feel that I cannot properly convey here a sufficient sense of my wild delight. It is enough to say that in those tender moments I knew that I had won the most beautiful and graceful woman I had ever beheld—a woman who was peerless above all—and that she was already my wife. The man who reads this narrative, and whose own love has been reciprocated after long waiting, as mine has been, can alone understand the blissful happiness that came to me and the complete joy that filled my heart.
We stood lost in the ecstasies of each other’s love, heedless of time, heedless of those who might discover us, heedless of everything. The remembrance of that hour remains with me to-day like a pleasant dream, a foretaste of the bliss of paradise.
Many were the questions that I asked and answered, many our declarations of affection and of fidelity. Our marriage had been made by false contract on that fateful day, months before, but that night, beneath the shining stars, we exchanged solemn vows before God as man and wife.
I endeavoured to obtain from her some facts regarding Ashwicke and his accomplice, Tattersett, but what she knew seemed very unsatisfactory. I related to her the whole of the curious circumstances of our marriage, just as I have recounted it in the opening chapters of my narrative, seeking neither to suppress nor exaggerate any of the singular incidents.
Then, at last, she made confession—a strange amazing confession which held me dumb.
Chapter Twenty Nine.
Put to the Test.
“I remember very little of the events of that day,” my love said, with some reluctance. “I know Ashwicke, he having been a guest here last year, and a frequent visitor at Gloucester Square. With Nora and Sir Henry I returned to London in early May, after wintering in Florence, and one morning at the end of June I met Major Tattersett unexpectedly in the Burlington. He told me that his sister and niece from Scotland were visiting him at his house in Queen’s-gate Gardens, and invited me to call and make their acquaintance.”
“Had you never been to his house previously?”
“Never. He, however, gave me an invitation to luncheon for the twenty-fourth of July, which I accepted. On arrival I found the Major; his sister and his niece were out shopping, therefore I sat alone awaiting them in the drawing-room, when of a sudden I experienced for the first time that curious sensation of being frozen. I tried to move, but was unable. I cried out for help, but no one came. My limbs were stiff and rigid as though I were struck by paralysis, while the pain was excruciating. I fought against unconsciousness, but my last clear recollection of those agonising moments was of an indistinct, sinister face peering into mine. All then became strangely distorted. The balance of my brain became inverted and I lost my will-power, being absolutely helpless in the hands of those who directed my movements. I could not hold back, for all my actions were mechanical, obeying those around me. I remember being dressed for the wedding, the journey to the church, my meeting with my future husband—whose face, however, I was unable to afterwards recall—the service, and the return. Then came a perfect blank.”
“And afterwards?”
“Night had fallen when I returned to my senses, and the strange sensation of intense cold generally left me. I looked around, and, to my amazement, saw the pale moon high in the sky. My head was resting upon something hard, which I gradually made out to be a wooden seat. Then, when I sat up, I became aware of the bewildering truth—that I was lying upon one of the seats in Hyde Park.”
“In Hyde Park? And you had been placed there while in a state of unconsciousness?”
“Yes. Upon my finger I found a wedding-ring. Was it possible, I wondered, that I was actually married to some unknown man?”
“You saw nothing of Ashwicke?”
“I saw no one except the maid-servant who showed me into the drawing-room, and cannot in the least account for the strange sensation which held me helpless in the hands of my enemies. I saw the man I married at the church, but so mistily that I did not recognise you when we met again.”
“But you knew the house in Queen’s-gate Gardens. Did you not afterwards return there, and seek an explanation of Tattersett?”
“On discovering my whereabouts I rose and walked across the park to Gloucester Square. It was then nearly one o’clock in the morning, but Nora was sitting up in anxiety as to what had become of me. I had, however, taken the ring from my finger, and to her told a fictitious story to account for my tardy return. Two days later I returned to the house to which Tattersett had invited me, but on inquiry found, to my amazement, that it was really occupied by a lady named Stentiford, who was abroad, while the man left in charge knew nothing whatever either of the Major or of his sister and niece. I told him how I had visited there two days previously, but he laughed incredulously; and when I asked for the maid-servant who had admitted me, he said that no maid had been left there by Mrs Stentiford. In prosecution of my inquiries I sought to discover the register of my marriage, but, not knowing the parish in which it had taken place, my search at Somerset House was fruitless. They told me that the registers were not made up there until six months or so after the ceremony.”
“You did not apply at Doctors’ Commons?”
“No,” she responded; “I thought the entry would be at Somerset House.”
“What previous knowledge had you of the Major?”
“He was a friend of Ashwicke’s, who had been introduced to us one night in the stalls at Daly’s. He afterwards dined several times at Gloucester Square.”
“But Sir Henry does not know him.”
“It was while he was away at the Cape.”
“Then you have not the faintest idea of the reason of our extraordinary marriage, darling?” I asked, holding her hand. “I have told you all that actually occurred. Can you form no conclusion whatever as to the motive?”
“Absolutely none,” she answered. “I am as utterly in the dark as yourself. I cannot understand why you were selected as my husband.”
“But you do not regret?” I asked tenderly.
“Regret? No,” she repeated, raising her beautiful face to mine, perfect in its loveliness and purity. “I do not regret now, Richard—because I love you.” And our lips met again in fervent tenderness.
“It is still an absolute mystery,” I observed at last. “We know that we are wedded, but there our knowledge ends.”
“We have both been victims of a plot,” she responded. “If we could but discern the motive, then we might find some clue to lead us to the truth.”
“But there is a woman called La Gioia,” I said; and, continuing, explained my presence in the park at Whitton, and the conversation I had overheard between herself and Tattersett.
Her hand, still in mine, trembled perceptibly, and I saw that I had approached a subject distasteful to her.
“Yes,” she admitted at last, in a hard, strange voice, “it is true that he wrote making an appointment to meet me in the park that night. I kept it because I wished to ascertain the truth regarding my marriage. But he would tell me nothing; he only urged me to secure my own safety because La Gioia had returned.”
“And who is La Gioia?”
“My enemy—my bitterest enemy.”
“Can you tell me nothing else?” I asked in a tone of slight reproach.
“I know nothing else. I do not know who or what she is, or where she lives. I only know that she is my unseen evil genius.”
“But you have seen her. She called upon you on that evening at Gloucester Square when she assumed the character of your dressmaker, and a few nights ago she was here—in this house.”
“Here?” she echoed in alarm. “Impossible!”
Then I related how I had seen her, and how her evil influence had fallen upon me when afterwards I had entered my room.
“The thing is actually beyond belief,” she declared. “Do you really think you were not mistaken?”
“Most assuredly I was not. It was the woman who called upon you in London. But you have not told me the reason you were absent from your room that night.” She was silent for a few moments, then answered, “I met Tattersett. He demanded that I should meet him, as he wished to speak with me secretly. I did so.”
“Why did he wish to see you?”
“In order to prove to me that he had no hand in the tragic affair at Whitton. I had suspected all along that he was responsible for the Colonel’s death, and my opinion has not altered. I begged him to tell me the reason of the plot against me, the motive of my marriage, and the identity of my husband. But he refused point-blank, telling me to ask La Gioia, who knew everything.”
“Have you no idea of her whereabouts?”
“None whatever.”
“If we could but find her,” I said, “she might tell us something. Ah! if we could but find her.”
My love was trembling. Her heart was filled to overflowing with the mystery of it all. Yet I knew that she loved me—yes, she loved me.
How long we lingered there upon the terrace I know not, but it was late ere we re-entered the drawing-room. Who among those assembled guests would have dreamt the truth—we were man and wife!
As I went upstairs I found a letter lying upon the hall table in the place where the guests’ letters were placed. Barton had, I suppose, driven into Corsham and brought with him the mail which would, in the usual course, have been delivered on the following morning. The note was from Hoefer, a couple of awkwardly scribbled lines asking me to come and see him without a moment’s delay.
Eager to hear whether the queer old fellow had made any discovery, I departed next morning by the eight o’clock express for London, having left a note with Beryl’s maid explaining the cause of my sudden journey, and soon after eleven was seated with the old German in his lofty laboratory. The table was, as usual, filled with various contrivances—bottles of liquids and test-tubes containing fluids of various hues—while before him, as I entered, a small tube containing a bright blue liquid was bubbling over the spirit-lamp, the heat causing the colour to gradually fade.
“Ah, my frient,” he said, with his strong accent, holding out his big fat hand encased in a stout leather glove, “I am glad you have come—very glad. It has been a long search, but I haf discovered something, after all. You see these?”—and he indicated his formidable array of retorts and test-tubes. “Well, I have been investigating at Gloucester Square, and have found the affair much more extraordinary than I believed.”
“And you have discovered the truth?” I demanded.
“Yes,” he responded, turning down the flame of the lamp and bending attentively to the bubbling fluid from which all colour had disappeared while I had been watching. “Shall I relate to you the course of my investigations?”
“Do. I am all attention.”
“Well,” he said, leaning both elbows upon the table and resting his chin upon his hands, while the tame brown rat ran along the table and scrambled into his pocket, “on the first evening you sought my assistance I knew, from the remote effects which both of us experienced, that the evil influence of that mysterious visitor in black, was due to some unknown neurotic poison. It was for that reason that I was enabled to administer an antidote without making an exact diagnosis. Now, as you are well aware, toxicology is a very strange study. Even common table-salt is a poison, and has caused death. But my own experiments have proved that, although the various narcotic poisons produce but little local change, their remote effects are very remarkable. Certain substances affect certain organs in particular. The remote action of a poison may be said to be due, in every instance, to its absorption into the veins or lymphatics, except when there is a direct continuity of effect traceable from the point where the poison was applied to the point where the remote effect is shown. It is remarkable that the agents which most affect the nervous system do not act at all when applied to the brain or trunks of nerves. Poisonous effects result from absorption of the poisoning body, and absorption implies solution; the more soluble, therefore, the compound is, the more speedy are its effects. Do you follow me?”
“Quite clearly.”
“The rapid, remote effect produced on leaving that room made it plain that I must look for some powerful neurotic poison that may be absorbed through the skin,” he went on. “With this object I searched microscopically various objects within and without the room, but for a long time was unsuccessful, when, one morning, I made a discovery that upon the white porcelain handle of the door a little colourless liquid had been applied. Greater part of it had disappeared by constant handling, but there was still some remaining on the shaft of the handle, and the microscope showed distinct prism-shaped crystals. All these I secured, and with them have since been experimenting. I found them to be a more deadly poison than any of the known paralysants or hyposthenisants, with an effect of muscular paralysis very similar to that produced by curare, combined with the stiffness about the neck and inability to move the jaws so apparent in symptoms provoked by strychnia. The unknown substance—a most deadly, secret poison, and, as I have since proved, one of those known to the ancients—had been applied to the door-handle on the inside, so that any person in pulling open the door to go out must absorb it in sufficient quantity to prove fatal. Indeed, had it not been for the antidote of chlorine and the mixed oxides of iron which I fortunately hit upon, death must have ensued in the case of each of us.
“To determine exactly what was the poison used was an almost insurmountable task, for I had never met with the substance before; but, after working diligently all this time, I have found that by treating it with sulphuric acid it underwent no change, yet by adding a fragment of bichromate of potassium a series of blue, violet, purple, and red tints were produced, very similar to those seen in the tests for strychnia. The same results were brought about, also, by peroxide of lead and black oxide of manganese. I dried the skin of a frog and touched it with a drop of solution containing a single one of the tiny crystals, when strong tetantic convulsions ensued and the animal died in ten seconds. At last, however, after many other experiments, the idea occurred to me that it was an alkaloid of some plant unknown in modern toxicology. I was, of course, aware of the action of the calabar bean of the West Coast of Africa, the akazga, the datura seeds of India, and such-like poisons, but this was certainly none of these. It was a substance terribly deadly—the only substance that could strike death through the cuticle—utterly unknown to us, yet the most potent of all secret poisons.”
“And how did you determine it at last?”
“By a reference I discovered in an ancient Latin treatise on poisons from the old monastery at Pavia, now in the British Museum. It gave me a clue which ultimately led me to establish it as the alkaloid of the vayana bean. This bean, it appears, was used in the tenth and eleventh centuries by a sect of the despotic Arab mystics called the Fatimites, who had made Cairo their capital, and held rule over Syria as well as the northern coast of Africa. The last Fatimite was, at a later date, dethroned by Saladin, conqueror of the Koords, and who opposed Richard the First of England. The poison, introduced from Egypt into Italy, was known to the old alchemists as the most secret means of ridding one of undesirable acquaintances. Its effect, it was stated, was the most curious of any known drug, because, for the time being, it completely altered the disposition of the individual and caused him to give way to all sorts of curious notions and delusions, while at the same time he would be entirely obedient to the will of any second person. Afterwards came fierce delirium, a sensation as though the lower limbs were frozen, complete loss of power, exhaustion, and death. But in modern toxicology even the name of the vayana was lost.
“My first step, therefore, was to seek assistance of the great botanist who is curator of Kew Gardens, and, after considerable difficulty and many experiments, we both arrived at the conclusion that it was the bean of a small and very rare plant peculiar to the oasis of the Ahir in the south of the Great Sahara. At Kew there was a stunted specimen, but it had never borne fruit, therefore we both searched for any other specimen that might exist in England. We heard of one in the wonderful gardens of La Mortola, near Mentone, and, after diligent inquiries, discovered that a firm of importers in Liverpool had sold a specimen with the beans in pod, which was delivered to a person named Turton, living in Bishop’s-wood Road, Highgate, and planted in a small greenhouse there. I have not been idle,” he added with a grin. Then, taking from a drawer in the table before him a photograph, he handed it to me, saying, “I have been able to obtain this photograph of Mrs Turton—the lady who purchased the plant in question.”
He held it out to me, and in an instant I recognised the face. It was that of the woman who had crept so silently through the rooms at Atworth—La Gioia!
Briefly, I told him all that had transpired on that night, and declared that I recognised her features, whereat he grunted in satisfaction.
“You have asked me to try and solve the mystery, and I have done so. You will find this woman living at a house called ‘Fairmead’ in the road I have indicated. I have not only established the cause of the phenomena, but I have, at the same time, rediscovered the most extraordinary and deadly substance known in toxicology. As far as the present case is concerned, my work is finished—I have succeeded in making some of the vayana alkaloid. Here it is?” and, taking a small yellow glass tube, securely corked and sealed, he handed it to me.
In the bottom I saw half a grain of tiny white crystals. I knew now why he was wearing gloves in his laboratory.
“And have you seen this woman?” I asked the queer old fellow, whose careful investigations had been crowned with such success. “How did you know, on the following day, that it was La Gioia who had come in the guise of a dressmaker?”
“I have seen her, and I have seen the plant. It is from one of the beans which I secured secretly that I have been able to produce that substance. I knew her by overhearing a conversation between Miss Wynd and her cousin on the following morning.”
“And the woman is in ignorance that you know the truth?”
“Entirely. I have finished. It is for you now to act as you think fit.”
I expressed admiration for his marvellous patience and ingenuity in solving the mystery, and, when I left, it was with the understanding that, if I required his further assistance he would willingly render it.