Volume Three—Chapter Eighteen.
The Lawyer is Busy.
John Trevithick would, in an ordinary way, have finished the little business in connection with Mrs Sarson’s savings in a very short time, but he quite fluttered the widow by the importance he attached to the deed, and the way in which he was going to invest the money.
“You will not have any savings left, Mrs Sarson, when he sends in his bill,” Chris said to her grimly; and, on Trevithick’s next visit, the poor woman, in an agitated way, touched upon the topic of the bill of costs.
“Nonsense!” said Trevithick, smiling. “My dear Mrs Sarson, I always charge what the legal men call pro rata.”
“Oh, do you, sir?” she said. “Then that way is not very expensive?”
“Certainly not. You don’t understand. If you were very rich, the bill would be high; but in your case, if you trust to me, your costs shall be very small indeed.”
“Thank you kindly, sir; and will you take the money to-day?”
“No; you have kept it safely so far, and a few days will not hurt. I’ll take it next time.”
When “next time” came, John Trevithick said the same, and at his next visit he once more put her off.
“What a shame!” he said to himself on his next visit to Danmouth. “It is imposing on the poor woman. I must find some other excuse for coming over. By George!”
He slapped his great knee, and laughed with delight at his happy thought.
“I’ll open an office here in Danmouth; take Mrs Sarson’s second parlour, and come over twice a week. Do her good and do me good, and, who knows, it may bring clients.”
Full of this idea, he called upon Mrs Sarson one morning about a fortnight before the incidents of the last chapter, and on being closeted with her, opened out his business at once in a quick, legal way.
“Now, then, my dear madam, if you will hand me that money, I’ll take charge of it, complete the little mortgage, and you can have the deeds of the premises upon which your money is to be lent at five per cent, or I will keep them for you—which you please.”
“Oh, I should like, if you don’t think it would be wrong, Mr Trevithick, to keep the deeds myself, as I shall not have the money.”
“Very good.”
Mrs Sarson, who had recovered from the rheumatic attack which had frightened her into making arrangements about her savings, rose from her chair, and, in a very feminine way, sought for the key, which was kept hidden in an under pocket—one of the make of a saddle bag—whose security depended on the strength of two tape strings.
The lawyer smiled to himself, and thought of his own iron safe, built in the wall of the office, as the widow brought out her key, and opened a large tea-caddy standing upon a side table.
“Not a very safe place, Mrs Sarson, eh?”
“Ah, you don’t know, sir,” said the woman, with a smile, as she threw up the lid, took up a large cut glass sugar basin full of white lumps from the centre compartment, and then first one and then the other of the two oblong receptacles, each well filled with fragrant black and green, for she opened them, and laughingly displayed their contents.
This done, she thrust her hand down into the round velvet-lined hole from which the sugar basin had been lifted, gave it a knock sideways, and then lifted out the whole of the internal fittings of the caddy, set it on the table, and held it on one side, showing that the bottom was the exact size of a Bank of England note, one for ten pounds being visible.
“There!” she said, with a sigh; “that was my dear husband’s idea. He was a cabinetmaker, sir, and he was quite right. They have always been safe.”
“Yes, Mrs Sarson,” said the lawyer; “but you have lost your interest.”
“Lost what, sir?”
“Your interest! How many years have they been lying here?”
“Oh, a many, sir. Some were put there by my poor husband, and I’ve gone on putting in more as often as I could save up another ten pounds, for I kept the sovereigns in my pocket till I had ten, and then I used to change them for notes.”
“Humph, yes!” said Trevithick, wetting a finger, bank-clerkly, and counting the notes. “Twenty-seven. All tens. Two hundred and seventy pounds. I only want two hundred and fifty, Mrs Sarson. You shall put two back for nest eggs.”
He took the two top notes off, before turning the parcel over and looking at the bottom note, one that looked old and yellow, and he read the date.
“Forty years old that one, Mrs Sarson.”
“Yes, sir; but that don’t matter, does it?”
“Oh, no; the Bank of England never refuses its paper. And this top one is dated—let me see. Ah! two years old, and pretty new—Good God!”
The number had struck his eye, and he had turned it over, and read a name written upon the back.
“Oh, Mr Trevithick! Don’t, pray don’t say it’s a bad one!”
“Eh? Bad?” cried the lawyer absently. “Where did you get this note?”
“From the hotel, sir,” cried the poor woman, in a broken voice. “They always change my gold for me there. But they shall give me a good one, for I can swear that I got it there.”
“Wait a moment,” cried Trevithick excitedly. “No; those are quite right.”
“Oh, thank goodness for that!” cried Mrs Sarson, who was trembling so that the notes she took back rustled in her hand. “But do, do look again at the others and see if they are good.”
“Yes, yes, all good, Mrs Sarson,” said Trevithick, looking over them hurriedly.
“Then give me that one, sir, and I’ll take it back to them at once.”
“No, no, Mrs Sarson, the note is quite good,” said the lawyer, putting on his business mask, and looking quite calm, though his heart was thumping heavily.
“Oh, dear! and you gave me such a fright, sir. You are sure it is a good one?”
“So good, Mrs Sarson, that I’d give you ten golden sovereigns for it. Five hundred if it were necessary,” he said to himself; and after being witness to the replacing of two notes in the caddy, and giving a receipt for those confided to his charge, he made his way back to Toxeter in a state of excitement that was new to him, and did not rest till he was locked up in his own private room.
“It seems impossible,” he thought, as he compared the note with the closely written figures he had in his pocket-book, and then examined the signature at the back.
“Yes; there’s the clue I have sought for so long—dropped into my hands like this. Oh!”
He sat back with the perspiration gathering on his forehead, and the look of excitement on his face changing slowly into horror as bit by bit the meaning of the name on the back of that note gradually unfolded itself till he was gazing upon a picture of horror that appalled him.
“No, no, no! It’s too shocking,” he cried at last, as he wiped his brow. The man could not be such a wretch.
“But he is a wretch! A cold-blooded, swearing, drinking brute; and with all his flash and show, and yacht, I know that he was always hard up for money, and being hunted by that usurious scoundrel Gellow.”
Trevithick wiped his brow again.
“Why, he must have had it all. Robbed the poor old man who had taken him to his hearth. Yes, I daresay to pay off that scoundrel and get time. Yes, there’s his name to the note. He must have changed it at the hotel. I knew that money was missing. Robbed him—the man who welcomed him as a son, and encouraged him to win his daughter. The black-hearted traitor. I always hated him. A cowardly, despicable thief, stealing the money that some day would have been his.”
Trevithick leaped from his seat, and in his excitement struck a penholder, and knocked over the ink.
“Good Heaven!” he exclaimed, “he murdered him!”
Trevithick stood with his hands pressed upon his brow, trying to think calmly, but his head became hotter as the idea grew strong.
“Yes,” he said, “died of an overdose of chloral, they said. He could never have taken that money without. He must have got to know, and—yes, he must have drugged him to death, so as to get the heavy sum. Christopher Lisle! Bah! This was the man!
“No, no; I’m growing wild—I must be calm.”
He caught a glass, and poured out some water from a table-filter, drank it hastily, and began to walk up and down the room for a time, till, feeling more himself, he took a seat to try and think the matter out, raising up every point strongly in Glyddyr’s favour.
“No man could be such a wretch as to murder another, and then marry his child,” he said at last firmly; but the accusation came more strongly, and with supporting evidence, as something began to whisper to him, “But what was the meaning of all that drinking—of that conduct on the wedding-day—of the abject dread of Gartram’s picture, and of the delirious wanderings about being haunted?
“He is the man!” cried Trevithick at last, as he brought his fist down heavily into his left palm. “Gartram was murdered—accidentally, perhaps—but murdered, and—Great Heavens! what shall I—what ought I to do?”
He sat long, turning the matter over and over, viewing it from every point, and at last coldly and clearly it all seemed to stand out before him.
“No,” he said, “I cannot keep silence. He is a curse to that poor girl. Poor blind old Gartram favoured him, and the fiend played upon the poor girls filial duty. Yes, I know that well enough. Poor Claude would almost give her life to be free from the wretch who is dissipating her property to clear off debts to Gellow. And is he an accomplice?
“Accomplice in forcing on the marriage; but that wretch must have done the deed, and, Heaven helping me, I’ll bring it home to him, and set the poor girl free.
“Stop. I’m going on too fast. It may be remorse and horror for the robbery. He could not have murdered Gartram. Poor fellow, he did indulge in chloral, and the doctor said it was an overdose. No, Gartram was too clever and experienced in his treatment of himself for that. I can’t help it; something seems to impel me. I must go.
“And Claude!
“I can’t help it. I feel so sure. Better the shock and be free, than be slowly tortured to death by a man who is little better than a devil.
“Yes,” he cried finally, “I am sure, but I’ll take other advice before I proceed very much further.”
The consequence was that poor Mrs Sarson was horrified at not receiving her mortgage deed to hide away, and shivered as she credited the lawyer with going off to London to spend her savings of a life, for she could only obtain from his office the news that he was out on business.
As shown, Mrs Sarson was not the only one who had misjudged Trevithick, for, in his abstraction and earnest following of the quest upon which he was now engaged, there were no more meetings with Mary; and his avoidance of her when they met was for very special reasons of his own.
“I can save her from the scene,” he had said, “though I cannot save poor Claude.”
He was wrong, for he found her hurrying back with Sarah Woodham, and when he hurriedly tried to stay her, she turned upon him angrily, and refused to hear.
And so it was that Claude was seated alone in the library that day, sick at heart, as she thought of her future, and asking herself what she could do to win her husband’s love and bring herself to love him, when one of the maids announced that a gentleman wanted to see master.
“Yes, Mr Glyddyr,” said a quiet, firm voice, and the man, who had followed the servant, stepped in, signed to the girl to go, closed the door after her, and then turned to face Claude, who had risen and was standing trembling, as if from a suspicion of some terrible trouble to come.
The visitor took in her agitation directly.
“Sort of body who will try to screen him,” he said to himself.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” said Claude, trying to be calm.
“Business, ma’am. Sorry to trouble you. Where’s Mr Glyddyr?”
“Mr Glyddyr is out.”
The man smiled pityingly.
“You will excuse me, ma’am—Mrs Glyddyr?”
“Yes; I’m Mrs Glyddyr.”
“Servant did not say he was out. Too ill to go out. Where is he, please? You see I know.”
“I told you Mr Glyddyr was out. What do you want?”
“Business, ma’am—important business. Must see him at once.”
“You must call when he is at home.”
“Sorry to be rude to a lady, but your face, ma’am, says he is at home, and will not show up.”
“What do you want?”
The man looked sharply round, and his eyes rested on the ajar door of the safe, with its casing of books, its old purpose being now at an end.
“Way into another room,” he said to himself; “he’s there.—I want Mr Glyddyr,” he continued firmly. “Now, look here, ma’am; I can feel for you, though I am a police officer, but I have my duty to do.”
“Your duty?”
“Yes, ma’am, my duty; and Mr Glyddyr is in there; he may as well come out like a gentleman, and let it all be quietly done. He must know that the game is up, and that any attempt at getting away from me is worse than folly. Will you let me pass?”
“Stop!” cried Claude excitedly, as, like lightning, thought after thought flashed through her mind; for at that moment she heard a cough and a step that she recognised only too well. And this man—police—it must be to arrest.
“Tell me,” she cried quickly, “what is it? Why have you come?”
“I’ll tell Mr Glyddyr himself, ma’am, please. Stand aside. I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve got my duty to do, and do it I will.”
He passed Claude sharply, brushing against her arm, and seized the thick door to draw it open, while the thought flashed through her brain—
“I am his wife. I prayed for a way to win his love—to give him mine. This man will arrest him, and I must save him if I can.”
Without pausing to consider as to the folly of her impulse, she turned on the man as he threw open the door and bent forward, and, thrusting with all her might, she sent him staggering in.
The door closed upon him with a loud clang.
“He is my husband,” panted Claude, mad with dread and excitement. “O Heaven help me! what has he done?”
At that moment, wild with jealous rage and doubt, Glyddyr came into the room, and ended, as she clung to him, speechless with emotion, by striking her savagely with such force as he possessed.
Claude uttered a low moan, and fell insensible across the entrance to the safe; while, after wrenching out the key, Glyddyr hurried panting from the library, closed and locked the door, and stood thinking.
“Yes,” he said, with a malignant look; “I’ll do that. Witnesses—witnesses! They shall all know.”
He crossed the hall to the drawing-room, and dragged at the bell so violently that, as he returned, the servants came hurrying through the swing-door.
“Here, quick, I want you,” he said hoarsely. “Ah, just in time,” he cried, as at that moment the entrance door was darkened, and Mary Dillon entered, with Trevithick trying to detain her, and closely followed by Sarah Woodham. “Better and better,” he said, with a grin. “This way—this way, witnesses, please.”
He unlocked and threw open the library door, and drew back for the others to go past.
“John Trevithick, quick! there is something wrong,” cried Mary, as she ran in—to shriek wildly and loudly, “Help! he has murdered her!”
“You villain!” roared Trevithick, seizing Glyddyr, but he wrested himself free.
“Bah! great idiot!” he cried. “There, look, she is only fainting—with joy, can’t you see?” he continued, as Claude uttered a sigh, and moved one hand. “Now then, witnesses,” he cried, with a savage laugh, “I have been out; I have just returned. This is my dear wife, who wishes for a divorce; and this,” he almost yelled, as he threw open the great book-covered door of the safe, “is our dear friend Mr—”
He ceased speaking, with the malignant grin frozen upon his face, as the quick, stern-looking man staggered panting, half-suffocated from the safe, stared wildly for a few moments, and then, before Glyddyr could realise his position, recovered himself sufficiently to clap his hand upon the scoundrel’s shoulder.
“Mr Parry Glyddyr,” he cried, “you are my prisoner. I arrest you for murder!”
Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.
Two Wives.
Chris Lisle caught Trevithick, too, by the shoulder as he was leaving Danmouth that day, and, half wild with excitement, implored him to say whether the rumour was true.
“True enough, Mr Lisle. Mr Glyddyr is arrested, and his friend, who is believed to be an accomplice, was taken yesterday in London.”
Chris fell back, staring like one who has received some mental shock, and then walked slowly along the main street of the place to get to the bridge and go up the glen, so as to try and think quietly of all that it might mean to him.
As he went along he became dimly conscious of the fact that first one and then another touched his cap, or gave him a friendly nod; but he was too much dazed to pay any heed, and he could only come to one conclusion: that there must be as great a mistake here as there was over the rumour about himself.
“It is too horrible to be true,” he said, with a shudder.
At the Fort, Claude lay prostrate, unable to realise the truth of what had taken place, and shuddering from time to time as the terrible scene kept coming back.
“I would have spared her if I could,” Trevithick had whispered to Mary before leaving; “but it was better that she should suffer sharply for a time than all her life.”
Mary could not speak—she dared not trust herself for fear of saying words of which she would afterwards repent, for there was a great joy in her heart now that she knew the reason for Trevithick’s silence, and she could not even go to Sarah Woodham’s side, lest she should open her heart there.
Then came days of wild excitement in the place, with event after event occurring to keep the gossip at white heat. There were the examinations of Glyddyr, at which he preserved a stubborn silence. And a fresh excitement in the presence, at the second examination, of a handsome, sharp-looking woman fashionably dressed, who took up her abode after the examination at the hotel.
She had seated herself in the court by the help of a friendly—made friendly—policeman, where she could face Glyddyr; and when, at last, their eyes met, he started and changed colour, but composed himself directly, for another trouble was but a trifle compared to that overhanging his life.
It was no friendly look that he had encountered, neither was the keen glance directed at Gellow, who, upon the second morning, was placed beside Glyddyr in the dock. For Denise showed her teeth slightly in the malicious smile, watching and listening intently to the end.
“I did not know that I should find him through the newspapers,” she said to herself. “I was fooled by that man into believing that he was gone abroad, when I might have come down and seen this madam whom he has married. But it is well.”
Then came fresh fuel to keep the excitement at white heat. A gentleman was down from London, and it was known that orders had been given from high quarters that Gartram’s remains were to be taken from the vault. That there was to be a post mortem examination, and a great chemist in London was to assist in bringing the crime home to the prisoner under remand.
This was true enough, and Doctor Asher and his colleague were called upon to assist. Two other doctors were also going to be present, on behalf of the prisoner and the Government.
When Asher received his instructions he shuddered, and the paper dropped from his hand.
“It is too horrible!” he muttered. “I will not be dragged into it again.” But he had hardly uttered the words when his colleague arrived to talk the matter over with him.
“It is as horrible as it is absurd,” Asher said.
“Yes, but we have received our instructions, and cannot refuse.”
“But we performed our examination for the inquest,” protested Asher. “It is so unnecessary. The man is innocent. We know well enough the cause of death.”
The other shrugged his shoulders, and finally went away; while the next night it was being whispered, with bated breath, that the examination had been made, and there was talk of sealed bottles and the analytical chemist in London.
A week later, while the prisoners were lying under remand at the county gaol, Mrs Sarson tapped softly at Chris Lisle’s door, and entered.
He did not move, for he was thinking deeply of how he would give the world if he dared go to the Fort as a friend and say a few words to Claude.
“And I can make no sign; I dare make no sign,” he was muttering, as his landlady’s hand was laid upon his arm.
“I thought you’d like to hear the news, sir,” she said respectfully.
“Yes. What news?”
“I have just heard, sir, that Mrs Glyddyr is going over to Toxeter this morning to see Mr Glyddyr. Mr Trevithick has come to fetch her.”
A spasm ran through Chris, and he turned away his head.
“Yes,” he said; “suppose it is her duty.”
“And Doctor Asher is very bad indeed, sir, this morning, and two other doctors are there. He is worse than when I spoke to you last night.”
“Did you speak to me about him last night?”
“Why, surely, sir, you don’t forget? But I have heard this morning what is the matter.”
“Yes?” said Chris vacantly.
“It is very horrible, sir; but the new doctor told one of his patients that Doctor Asher’s knife slipped during the terrible examination of Mr Gartram the other day, and the cut has gone bad with some name he called it.”
“Blood poisoning!” exclaimed Chris, startled by the news; “how shocking.”
“Shocking indeed, sir. I didn’t think poor little Danmouth could have had such trouble as all this; but the Lord be thanked that the whole truth has come out at last, and you can hold up your head once more. Poor fellow!” she muttered softly, “he don’t seem to hear a word I said.”
But Chris had heard; and, as soon as he was alone, he slipped a small glass in his pocket, and tramped out to the back of the place, and up the highest piece of cliff, where he could lie upon his breast and watch the Fort.
He did not wait long, for the carriage soon drew up to the front entrance, and directly after Trevithick appeared, leading out Claude, in deep mourning and thickly veiled. Then Mary came out, to step into the carriage; and it was driven away, while Sarah Woodham, thin and sallow-looking, stood on the steps watching till it had disappeared, and at last Chris saw her as she turned, holding her hands to her temples, as if they throbbed.
“Will she come back to-night?” said Chris to himself. “I’ll wait and see.”
A couple of hours later, Trevithick led Claude slowly up towards the prison gates, for his companion had to cling to his arm for support, and he could feel the struggle that was going on as she strove to perform this duty to her husband.
They were within about fifty yards of the place, when Claude reeled and would have fallen but for the lawyer’s strong arm.
“Take my advice,” he whispered gently. “You can do no good, and you are not strong enough to go through such an interview as this.”
“I am better now,” she said feebly. “A little faint, that is all.”
“Put it off till another day.”
“No,” she said more faintly. “It is a duty to him. I will not believe that it can be true.”
Trevithick was silent.
“Let us go on now,” she said; and they had nearly reached the prison gates when there was a quick step, and a tall, fashionably-dressed woman stepped before them.
“Where are you going?” she said sharply in a strangely accented way.
“To see Mr Glyddyr, madam,” said Claude, meekly. “I am his wife.”
“You! Bah! You are nothing, girl,” cried the woman, her dark eyes blazing with vindictive spite. “He is mine. He married me five years ago from his yacht, in Marseilles. Yes, I, Denise Leschalles. Yes. And you, my faith, what could I not do to you?”
Claude uttered a faint cry and threw up her veil, to gaze wildly at the woman.
“My faith, you look. Yes, I am his wife, I tell you again. You are nothing.”
“Woman, is this true?” said Trevithick sternly.
“Bah! I say it not again. Go ask him, but he will only lie. Aha! and he could leave me to marry that! She is poor and weak. Take her away. I have the power to go and see my husband. This woman shall not pass.”
“Tell me where you are staying,” whispered Trevithick quickly. “Ah, I remember now. I saw you at Danmouth, at the hotel.”
The woman made no reply, but went on up to the gate, while Claude clung to the strong arm which supported her.
“Mr Trevithick, can this be true?” she whispered.
“Heaven only knows,” he said; “but you cannot go there now.”
Chris Lisle’s watch proved to be far shorter than he could have hoped, his patience being rewarded by the sight of the young mistress of the Fort as she was supported back into her home.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty.
The Truth.
The next day was a more eventful one still in the annals of Danmouth, and people stood in knots about the place discussing the new horror.
Doctor Asher was dying, and his colleague had sent for the nearest magistrate that morning, to take down the dying man’s deposition in the presence of witnesses, Trevithick being of those summoned to the bed.
The deposition was brief, but convincing, telling how the dying man had, when attending Gartram, found in his pocket-book sundry directions to his executors, explaining how his wealth was bestowed. The temptation had been too great for him, and after waiting long for an opportunity, he had taken advantage one evening of being at the house to add a certain drug to the chloral Gartram was in the habit of taking from time to time.
“As a dying man about to appear before my Maker,” he said, “I swear I had no intention of taking his life. I wished to make his sleep so sure that I could easily take what notes I wished, and this I did, to the amount of forty thousand pounds, but I did not calculate that the drug would be so strong, and I was horrified when I found that I could not bring him back from his deadly sleep.”
“What was the drug?” asked the magistrate, in the midst of a terrible silence.
“Better that it should not be known,” said the dying man feebly. “I have told the truth. The money is in the iron safe in my study. All but a few hundred pounds or so I sent abroad, and a note or two I passed beside. I gave Glyddyr that one by mistake, and—”
The words that would have followed were never uttered, for insensibility supervened, and Doctor Asher never spoke again.
The law moves slowly, but it is pretty sure, and in due course the two men accused of complicity in Gartram’s death were discharged without a stain upon their character, so it was said, but Glyddyr was re-arrested upon another charge.
A guilty conscience had kept him silent about the accusation of murder, for he had added to the draught Gartram was in the habit of taking, but other hands had thrown this away. Still, he had always suffered mentally from the idea that he had murdered the man who had chosen him as a son.
Against the charge of bigamy he fought savagely, for there was the impending punishment to dread, and the loss of an almost princely fortune; but Denise made good her claim. The pleas of her being an alien fell to the ground, and the law cut asunder the tie that held Claude Gartram to one who passed for ever from her sight. Glyddyr’s term of imprisonment was but short, for his health had been so shattered that he was shortly after set at liberty, to die in Denise’s arms.
Of the rest of the actors who played their parts in this life drama, no more need be said than is contained in the French proverb: Cela va sans dire.