Miss Dorothy Johnson, balancing herself on the edge of the table, was playing catch-ball with a pair of gloves.
"Margaret Wallace, you're one of the sillies!"
"Evidently you are not the only person who is of that opinion."
"That's right--put the worst construction on everything I say, and think yourself smart."
"It's just as well that some one should think so. Dollie, sometimes I'm very near to the conviction that it's no good--that nothing's any good, and, especially, that I'm no good; that I might as well own myself beaten right away."
"Well, you are beaten this time, that's sure. What ought to be just as sure is that you don't mean to be beaten every time--there's the whole philosophy of life for you in a nutshell."
"But suppose I'm dragging Harry down? I shouldn't be surprised if it's all through me that his MSS. keep on being returned. I said to him, 'Let me make drawings to illustrate your stories--I'd love to'. And I do love to! 'Then we'll send the stories and the drawings to the editors together.' But they nearly all come back. I've a horrid feeling that it's my drawings which ruin them."
"Stuff! It's Harry's work that's no good."
"No good? How dare you! You've said yourself over and over again that it's splendid."
"That's what's against it--it's splendid." Miss Johnson, stretching her right arm to its extreme length, dangled her gloves between the tips of her fingers. "Margaret Wallace, literature means to me at least three pounds a week, it may be four, if possible, five. I can live on three, be comfortable on four, a swell on five. The problem being thus stated in all its beautiful simplicity, it only remains for me to discover the quickest and easiest solution. I have learned, from experience, that theHome Muddleris willing to give me half a guinea for a column of drivel, and theHearthstone Smasherfifteen shillings for another. TheFamily Fluttererprints eight or ten thousand words of an endless serial at five shillings a thousand--one of these days I mean to strike for seven-and-six. But in the meantime there you are--the pursuit of literature has brought me bread and cheese. Why doesn't your Harry tread the same path?"
"The idea!"
"Of course!--the idea!--and that's where he gets left. It's my experience that in literature----"
"Literature!"
"I said literature. I was observing, when you interrupted, that it is my experience that in literature"--Miss Johnson paused, Miss Wallace was contemptuously silent--"men always get paid at least twice as much as the women. I don't know why; it seems to be one of the rules of the game. It therefore follows that if your Harry did as I do he would earn six, eight, ten pounds a week, which, with management, would keep two--not to speak of your drawings, which ought to bring in something. I believe theFamily Fluttererpays as much as seven-and-six for a full page."
"My dear Dollie, you know as well as I do that we both of us would rather starve."
"Sweet Meg, I'm not saying you're right or wrong, only, if you have resolved to eschew the easily earned loaves and fishes, don't revile because, having set out on the track of the rarer creatures, you discover--what every one knows, and you know!--that they are difficult to find. My private opinion is that Harry will find them one day--if he keeps on long enough--though I don't know when."
"You're a comforting sort of person."
"I'm a practical sort of person, which is better. Cheer up, Meg! he'll get there--and perhaps you will too--though of course his stories are better than your drawings."
"I don't need you to tell me that."
Miss Johnson, descending from the table, put her arm round the girl who was seated on the other side.
"You poor darling! I'm a perfect pig! I say, Meg, are you hard up?"
"I always am."
"Beyond the ordinary, I mean?"
"If you mean, can you lend me, or give me, any money, you can't--thank you very much. I'm going to hoe my own furrow, right to the end."
"How about Harry? He gets some of his stuff accepted; then there's the three hundred pounds a year certain which he gets for being that party's secretary. I call that practicality, if you like! He ought to be getting on first-rate."
"He doesn't seem to think so, anyhow. As for what you call the three hundred pounds a year certain, I doubt if anything could be more uncertain, the engagement may terminate any day. I believe that Harry is really more worried than I am, and--and that's saying a good deal."
"Then the marriage is not coming off just yet?"
"Marriage!--and you call yourself a practical person!--how can you be so absurd?"
"I am not sure that I am absurd. If I ever loved a man--which I am never likely to do, men are such beings!--really loved him, and knew that he loved me, I shouldn't hesitate to marry him on a pound a week. Marriage, properly understood, is a spur; it's not, necessarily, anything like the clog romantic people like you seem to think it is."
When Miss Johnson had gone Margaret Wallace went and stood before a photograph which hung over the mantelpiece--the photograph of a man.
"I think, Cuthbert Grahame, it's possible that you'll shortly be revenged; if you knew just how things are I fancy you'd be of opinion that you're revenged already. If you'd been even a shadowy semblance of the father you once professed to be, I--I shouldn't be wondering where I'm to get my dinner from."
She examined the physiognomy of the man in front of her as if, instead of being the most familiar of faces, she saw it now for the first time. Going back to her seat at the table, she was examining the drawings which had accompanied the returned MS., as if desirous of learning what improvement she could make in them, when there came a tap at the door.
"Come in." Mr. Talfourd entered. In a moment she was in his arms. "Harry!"
"Meg!--more roses for you." He handed her the La France roses which had been presented to him by Mrs. Lamb. "What are you doing?"
She was eyeing the roses, without any great show of enthusiasm, which was possibly lacking because she knew from whom they had originally come.
"Harry, I've more bad news for you--I never seem to have anything else. The story's back from theSearchlight."
"What does it matter?"
"I don't like to hear you talk like that, because, you see, we both know that it matters, dear. Harry, do you think that it may have been returned because my drawings aren't up to the mark--honestly?"
"Honestly, I am certain it has not. Your drawings are at least as good as my story. I have never met any one who can illustrate me as well as you do."
"You mean that? If I weren't Margaret Wallace would you say so still?"
"I should. I should congratulate myself on having met some one who could illustrate me as I like to be illustrated. You misunderstood me just now. I said what does it matter, because it doesn't matter, in view of something of much greater importance which I have to say to you."
"Harry! what is it?"
"I hardly know how to begin, it's such a queer position. It's this--in a way, my play's accepted."
"'The Gordian Knot'?--by Mr. Winton?"
"No, not by Winton, by Mrs. Lamb."
"Mrs. Lamb?--Harry!" He told her how the play had come into Mrs. Lamb's hands, and how that lady had expressed her willingness to give it immediate production, on the understanding that she was to create Lady Glover. "But I didn't know she could act. Why should she want to anyhow?--she a rich woman!--especially such a part! Lady Glover's a horrible creature! I suppose you think she'd make a mess of it--and of course she would. She must be a very conceited person."
"Sweetheart, shall I tell you, quite frankly, what I really think?"
"You hadn't better tell me anything else."
"Then I'll make you my father confessor. I've a strong feeling, amounting to a positive conviction, that she'd make a magnificent Lady Glover. That's one reason why I hesitate."
"Now I don't understand. If she makes a success of the part, what else do you want?"
"I'll endeavour to explain. For one thing, I think it possible that she'll make it the part of the play, and so put Winton in the shade entirely. In the theatre he proposes to manage I'm certain he's no intention to be overshadowed by any one. Not that, in such a matter, I'm likely to be too sensitive about his feelings--but there it is. What, from my point of view, would be more serious, is that it is extremely probable that, by her rendition of Lady Glover, she'll warp the play out of what I intended to be its setting. As she was talking just now it dawned upon me that, in her hands, the play might become transformed--something altogether different to what I meant it to be."
"But if it's a success?"
"Meg, I find it difficult to put into words just what's in my mind. Of course if it's successful it will mean----"
"It will mean everything."
"It will mean a good deal; but it will mean everything I'd rather it didn't mean if the success is owing to her."
"But it will be your play. In one sense its success will always be dependent upon others. Really, Harry, I don't follow you. What is your objection to Mrs. Lamb? She's never done you any harm."
"No, she hasn't done me any harm--as yet."
"As yet! Do you think she means to? Considering that she proposes to produce your play, and bids fair to make a great success of it, it doesn't look as if she did."
"Meg--you'll laugh at me--I'm afraid of her."
"Afraid of her?--of Mrs. Lamb!--Harry!"
"I've never been comfortable in her presence since the first moment I've met her. When she's there I have the sort of feeling which I imagine a nervous person might have in the neighbourhood of a dangerous lunatic. I don't know when or how she will break out, but I feel that sometime, somehow, she will, and that then I shall have to struggle with her for my life."
"Harry! are you in earnest?"
He laughed oddly.
"Meg, upon my word, I can't tell you. She hypnotises me, that woman--she hypnotises me. Her influence is on me even after I have left her."
"She must be a curious person. I should like to meet her."
"Meet her?"
He shuddered, involuntarily. "Rather than that you should meet her I'd---- If I can prevent it you shall not meet her."
"Why not? I know plenty of people who have met her, and who seem to think her a distinctly agreeable person--hospitable, good company, amusing, kindhearted, generous to a degree. Tell me, Harry, has she ever behaved to you in any way as she ought not to have done?"
"She has not, in one jot or tittle."
"To your knowledge has she ever done, or even said, anything wrong?"
"No. Still, I would rather she did not produce my play, especially if she is to act Lady Glover."
"Will she produce it if she doesn't?"
"I doubt it."
"There is something at the back of your mind which you're keeping to yourself. When I think of all that the success of 'The Gordian Knot' would mean to us, of how you've looked forward to its production, of how we've talked and talked of it, your present attitude is incomprehensible. It doesn't follow that because Mrs. Lamb produces your play--and even acts in it!--that you need therefore make of her a bosom friend if you'd rather not. I don't suppose it's only generosity which impels her; I daresay she has an axe of her own to grind."
"You may be sure of it."
"Then so have you. I don't see how it matters if it's A, B, or C who grinds it, so long as it's ground--properly ground; and you seem sure that it will be that."
"I have little doubt of it."
"Then tell me, Harry, what is the real, downright reason why you don't wish Mrs. Lamb to produce your play, and act in it?"
"Because, Meg, I'm afraid of her."
"Afraid of her!--of a woman!--who you yourself admit has never done you anything but good! Harry, you're beyond my comprehension."
Before he could answer there was a knock at the door. A servant entered with a card on a tray.
"A gentleman wishes to see you, miss."
She looked at the card.
"'David Twelves, M.D., Edin.'. It can't be Dr. Twelves of Pitmuir?"
A voice came from the door.
"It's that same man."
In appearance the doctor had altered but little since we saw him last. He was the same little wizened old man, with the slight stoop, and the sunken eyes which looked out so keenly from under the thick, overhanging thatch of his shaggy eyebrows. When she heard his voice, and saw him, Margaret, running to him--before Harry, before the servant--put her arms about his neck (she could easily do it, since he was the shorter), and, after looking at him fixedly, as if to make sure that he was still the same man, kissed him on the lips.
"Dr. Twelves, to think of your coming to see me after all these years!"
"And whose fault is it that I haven't come before? whose fault I'd like to know?"
"It certainly isn't mine."
"Not yours? when I hadn't a notion where to look for you, and you took care that I hadn't? It's only by the grace of God I've chanced upon you now. I was looking in a bit of a magazine, at an illustration which seemed to me to be pretty fair, when I saw your name in the corner--Margaret Wallace--in your own handwriting. I can tell you I jumped--there, in the railway carriage--so that I daresay my fellow-passengers thought that I'd a sudden gouty twinge or, maybe, rheumatism, for none can say that I look like a gouty subject. I went straight to the office where the magazine is published, and I asked them to tell me where you might be found. I believe they thought I'd designs upon your life, or, at least, upon your purse. I had to tell them such a yarn before they'd tell me. Then I took care to follow the girl up the stairs, so that, if you meant to deny yourself, you shouldn't have a chance."
"Deny myself?--to you?--doctor! what a notion!--as if I should!" By now the servant had retired; Miss Wallace, who still retained a hand upon her visitor's shoulder, had brought him into the room. "Harry, this is Dr. Twelves, of whom you have so often heard me speak. Doctor, this is Mr. Talfourd, whose wife I hope one day to be."
"I trust, young gentleman, that your deserts are equal to your good fortune, and that you're properly conscious how great that is. I've known this lassie since the time she seemed all hair and legs, for those were the parts of her you noticed most, and there hasn't been a day on which I haven't wanted her to be my wife."
"Now, doctor, that's contrary to the fact; you know you told me more than once that Providence had marked you out to be a bachelor."
"And wasn't that self-evident, since you wouldn't have me? Now, Margaret Wallace, what have you been doing?"
"Doing? I was talking to Harry when you came in."
"I'll be bound that it's plenty of talking to Harry that you do, and will do--particularly later on, when you're Mrs. Harry."
"Doctor!"
"What I mean was, have you made your fortune? or are you drawing pictures for your daily bread?"
She looked at Mr. Talfourd quizzically.
"I have one eye upon my daily bread."
"And it isn't too much of it you see, by the looks of you. You're peaked, and you're thin."
"Oh, doctor! I'm sure I'm not."
"And I'm sure you are, and by virtue of my profession I ought to know. It's a pretty market to which you've brought your pigs. You might be one of the richest women in England, instead of being half-starved--with white cheeks and tired eyes."
"Doctor, how dare you say such things! It's not true! You've not improved!"
"I'm thinking you've not improved either. You've a stubborn heart. Why, all this time, haven't you let some of us know something about you?--if it was only where a line might reach you."
"You know very well why, and I did go to see Mr. Grahame."
"You went to see Cuthbert Grahame? When?" She mentioned the date. "Girl, you're dreaming. It was the day after that he died."
"The day after that he died? I knew he was dead. I heard of it long afterwards by a side wind; but I have never heard any particulars. You none of you told me anything."
"How were we to, when you'd hidden yourself from us in this great city?"
"Of what did he die?"
"If you ask what was on the certificate I can tell you; but if you want to know how death came to him you must inquire of his wife."
"His wife?"
"When he died he was a married man, according to the law of Scotland."
"Dr. Twelves, are you jesting?"
"I'm not. On the day he died he made a will leaving her all that he had in the world--and she had it."
"Who was she?"
"Beyond saying that she was no better than she ought to be, I can tell you nothing."
"Was she some one from the neighbourhood?"
"She was not; she was from England. She dropped from the clouds. I should say--if I may be allowed to do so in this company--on her road to hell. What passed between you and Cuthbert Grahame when you saw him on that day before he died?"
"I didn't see him. Nannie wouldn't let me."
"Nannie wouldn't let you?"
"She would not. She said that Mr. Grahame had forbidden her to admit me into the house."
"She's never spoken a word to me about it. What's been the matter with the woman? But there's something ails your story. That day, and for many days afterwards, she was lying in bed with a broken leg. Was it from her bedroom that she shouted out to you?"
"From her bedroom?--nothing of the kind. She told me through the front door that Mr. Grahame had forbidden her to let me in. When I said that I would come in, and began to break the window to show that I was in earnest, she went to the window above, and poured two buckets of boiling water over me."
"Margaret Wallace! it's dreaming you must have been."
"It was a curious kind of dream. The water scalded my neck, and left a scar which was visible for weeks--wasn't it?"
She turned to Mr. Talfourd, as if for corroboration.
"It was. When I saw it I was disposed to go straight off to Scotland, and give the old harridan a taste of my quality."
"It's as queer a story as any I've heard. Seeing that Nannie was as if she had been glued to her bed, how could she walk about the house as you say, and pour buckets of boiling water on to you through a window?"
"I only know that she did."
"Did you see her?"
She considered a moment.
"No, I didn't. She took care not to show herself."
"She took care not to show herself?"
"She hadn't the courage to let me see her face, but she let me hear her voice, and plenty of it. It was not necessary for me to see her when I heard her. I've been acquainted with Nannie Foreshaw's voice for too many years to be likely to mistake it for any one else's."
"You're sure? I doubt----" The doctor seemed to be considering in his turn. "I can't put the pieces of the puzzle together so that they just fit, but I've a notion that I'm on the way. Margaret Wallace, I've a suspicion that I've been a greater fool even than I thought. After the chances I've had to get wisdom, to get understanding, that's not a nice feeling to have. Between us--you've had a hand!--we've muddled things to a marvel. I'll communicate with Nannie with reference to that little conversation you say you had with her; when I've heard from her I'll talk to you again." He turned to Mr. Talfourd.
"And you, sir, do you make drawings?"
"No; I write stories."
The doctor looked him up and down as if he were a specimen of a species which was new to him.
"Stories? Oh! and is that a man's work? I come of a good old Scottish stock. My forebears have always held that a man should do a man's work. Is writing stories that?"
"It isn't easy, if that's what you mean."
"Not easy? I should have thought you would have found it as easy as lying. I've written them myself; I didn't find it hard. It's just a waste of time. However, I'm not judging you. Is that all you do, write stories?"
"Just at present I'm doing something else as well. I'm acting as private secretary to a lady."
"Private secretary to a lady? You've your own notions of what's a man's work, Mr. Talfourd."
Harry flushed; Margaret laughed.
"And you country Scotchmen have your own ideas of what you're entitled to say."
"You're Scotch yourself, my lassie, on the best side of you; don't gird at your own birth. I ask your pardon, Mr. Talfourd, if I've said anything I ought not to say; but I've known this lassie all her days. She's been to me as the apple of my eye, and--she tells me that you're to be her husband. Would it be going too far, Mr. Talfourd, if I were to ask you what's the name of the lady to whom you're acting as private secretary?"
"Mrs. Lamb--Mrs. Gregory Lamb."
"Mrs. Gregory Lamb? That's odd."
"How is it odd? I hope there's nothing improper about the name."
"It's not that it's improper; it's that I once met a Gregory Lamb. What sort's your Gregory Lamb?"
"He's about my own age, perhaps a little older; not ill-looking; not, I should imagine, a bad fellow in his way."
"Is he a poor man?"
"I believe his wife is very rich."
"His wife? Of course, there's the wife--and she's very rich. The rich woman who married the Gregory Lamb I know would be a very foolish female."
"Mrs. Lamb is certainly not that."
"Then her Gregory's not mine, though it's an unusual conjunction of names. I'm thinking that none but a fool of a woman would ever have married him."
That evening Dr. Twelves dined with a fellow Scot, J. Andrew McTavish, of McTavish & Brown. Mr. McTavish lived in Mecklenberg Square. Although a bachelor he liked plenty of house room, and in Mecklenberg Square he had it. His house was perhaps the largest in the Square, and certainly not the least comfortable. Comfort was to Mr. McTavish a sort of fetish: excepting money he set it above everything. He looked as if he did. Of medium height, he was of more than average size, his waist measurement was approaching a significant figure; his neck loved a generous collar, his chin overlapped; he had slight side whiskers, dark gray in hue, and the top of his head was so completely bald that one wondered if it could ever have been anything else. He and his guest presented an amazing contrast: three or four replicas of Dr. Twelves could have been contained in Mr. McTavish.
They dinedtête-à-têteat a small round table which stood in the centre of a big room. Mr. McTavish liked big rooms; he was never comfortable in a small one. During the meal the conversation was of a desultory character, principally hovering around Pitmuir, where Mr. McTavish had lived till he came to London. Questions were asked and answered touching every soul in the parish Mr. McTavish could think of, and his memory was extensive. There was hardly a man, woman or child about Pitmuir whose name had not been mentioned before dinner was finished. If the inquiries were slightly acid, so were the replies. It seemed as if these two gentlemen had made it a point of honour to say nothing nice of any one. According to them the folk about Pitmuir were a very human lot--at least they had most of humanity's failings.
After dinner they retired to the study, another fine apartment. There they had a cup of coffee, a liqueur, and a cigar apiece. The doctor seemed lost in the huge chair which he had been invited to fill. His host regarded him with twinkling eyes.
"Have you had a good dinner, David?"
"You feed yourself too well; you're a hundred years behind the age."
"How do you show it?"
"Our great-grandfathers pampered their bellies. We know better; we have learnt that it is the part of wisdom to starve them. You're still where our grandsires were."
"And where are you?"
"I'm on the high road to as fine an attack of indigestion as a man need have, and live."
"I can give you the name of one of the greatest authorities on indigestion."
"I dare swear you can give me the names of one or two. I shouldn't be surprised if that sucking-pig proves to be the death of me, beyond the skill of all your authorities."
"It was cooked to a turn."
"I ought to know how it was cooked, considering the way that I behaved to it. It's wicked to set such meat before a man. And now, I've something which I wish to say to you."
"You've said one or two things already--what's the other?"
The doctor, taking the cigar out of his mouth, regarded the ash on the tip.
"You remember Wallace's daughter?"
"Cuthbert Grahame's girl?"
The doctor nodded.
"I've seen her this afternoon."
"No? I wondered what had become of her, more than once. I've seen and heard nothing of her since he turned her out."
"He didn't turn her out, she turned herself out. I had the story from his own lips."
"So had I. To all intents and purposes he turned her out, however he may have put it to himself or to you."
"He asked her to marry him, and she wouldn't."
"He asked her not once or twice, but again and again, until he made it plain that his house was no place for her unless she meant to be his wife. So, as she didn't, there was nothing for her but to go."
"It was a fool business."
"On both sides. Why he wanted to marry her I don't know. I never do know why a man wants to marry. I'd sooner have a buzz saw in every room in the house than a wife in one. Why she wouldn't marry him, I know still less."
"There was the difference in their years. Then he was already threatening to be what he afterwards became--physically, I mean."
"Well, what of it? If a girl in her position has to marry, I should say that there are two things which she ought to look for first of all--money, and a sick husband; if possible, one who is already sick unto death. In Grahame she'd have had both."
There was silence, as if both parties were giving to Mr. McTavish's words the consideration due to a profound aphorism. It was the doctor who spoke next.
"He always believed that she would come back again, saying yes."
"I'd no patience with the man, he was all kinds of a fool. If he wanted her to be his wife, he didn't go the right way to get her. When she said no, instead of thanking God for his undeserved escape, he stormed and raved, fretted and fumed, until he became only fit to be exhibited in a booth at a fair."
"When he heard that she was in love with some one else, it was that that was the death of him."
"A good thing too. It'd have been a good thing if it had been the death of both of them. I've no bowels for such tomfoolery. Where is she? What's she doing? Is she married to the other fool? If she is, don't they both wish that they were dead?"
"You've a sharp tongue, Andrew--if your wits were like it! Not all married folks wish that they were dead; there's just as much desire to live among the married as among the single--maybe more. To hear you talk one would suppose that one had only to remain single to be happy. You and I know better than that."
"Speak for yourself, David, speak for yourself--I'm happy enough."
"Then your looks belie you."
"What's the matter with my looks, you old croaker?"
"I'm a doctor of medicine, Andrew McTavish; I've learned to turn the smoothest side to a patient; so you must excuse me if to your inquiry I return no answer."
"After the dinner I've given him!"
"It's the ill-assorted food you have caused me to cram down my throat that I'm beginning to fancy has given me a touch of the spleen."
"Something has. The next time you dine in this house it will be off porridge."
"We'll leave the next time till it comes. To return to Margaret Wallace. She's not married yet, and, so far as I can judge, she's not likely to be. It's want of pence, both with him and with her. If she had some of Cuthbert Grahame's money, as she ought to have, it'd make all the difference."
"It's in part your fault that she hasn't."
"I'm not denying it, and I'm not forgetting it. If I've been guilty of the unforgivable sin, it was when I brought that woman to Cuthbert Grahame's bedside. I sometimes think that I'll see it chalked up against me in letters of fire when I'm brought up before the throne."
"Stuff!"
"Maybe--to you. You're devoid of decent feeling, Andrew McTavish; to you all's stuff. What's become of the woman?"
"What woman?"
"She who calls herself Mrs. Grahame?"
"She calls herself Mrs. Grahame no longer."
"How's that?"
"She's married again."
"The creature! The poor fool she's married! What is his name?"
"Gregory Lamb."
Dr. Twelves rose from his chair as if impelled by a spring. Opening his mouth in apparent forgetfulness of what was between his lips, his cigar fell to the floor, where it remained apparently unnoticed.
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"What name was that you said?"
"Why, man, what's the matter now? I'm wondering whether the sucking-pig's mounted to your head instead of descending to your stomach. David, you're easily upset these days. Pick up your cigar, it's burning a hole in my floor covering."
"Damn the cigar!"
"And welcome! It's not that I mind. What I object to is your cigar damning my carpet. Pick it up at once, sir."
"You're fussy about your old carpet."
"Old carpet! it cost me a guinea a yard not twelve months since."
"You're wasteful with your money."
"I am, when I spend it entertaining such as you."
"What's the name of the man you say that woman married?"
"Gregory Lamb."
"It's past believing!"
"Is it? I haven't found it so."
"That's because you're walking in darkness. Do you know that the youngster Margaret's plighted to is private secretary to Mrs. Gregory Lamb?"
"Is he? Then I should say that that's presumptive evidence that he's not bad looking. She has an eye for a good-looking man."
"Gregory Lamb was staying at Pitmuir when she was at Cuthbert Grahame's, calling herself his wife. A half-bred, ill-conditioned young scamp he was."
"I should imagine that Mr. Lamb was not born in the caste of Vere de Vere."
"Were they acquainted then? What was there between them? How come they to be married now?--he without a penny, to my knowledge, she with all that money. She'd not marry such a creature as he was--for love, that I'll swear. They were birds of a feather, only he was more fool than knave, and she more knave than fool."
"That about describes them now--if a lawyer may say as much--under privilege."
"Andrew, can you keep a still tongue?"
"If I couldn't I shouldn't be sitting here."
"I've always had a suspicion that there was something wrong about that will."
"Do you mean the one under which she inherits? You needn't confine yourself to suspicion upon that point--it's about as wrong as it could be. If there had been substantial opposition she'd have found it hard to bring it in."
"I'm not meaning it in your sense. I know that Grahame signed it in the presence of those two daft lassies; but I don't believe that he knew what he was signing, although the evidence is all the other way. I've kept my doubts to myself until this moment, and even now I can't tell you just why I don't believe it--but I don't."
"Quite possibly you're right, but you can't prove it."
"I know I can't, and there's something else that I can't prove."
"What's that?"
"I believe she murdered him."
"David!"
"She was equal to it; and I'm beginning to see more clearly how she brought herself to the sticking point. The day before his death Margaret Wallace called----"
"Margaret Wallace? you don't say!"
"She told me so herself this afternoon. She was refused admission as she supposed by Nannie Foreshaw. I happen to know that Nannie couldn't have got out of bed and gone downstairs to save her life--that woman had taken care of that. Before I came to you I wrote to Nannie asking if she did, to make sure. I believe that woman played at being Nannie, imitating her voice. She may have known Margaret's story, probably Grahame had told her, and was aware that if she returned and saw him her reign was at an end. So she precipitated matters. She juggled that will into existence, and, directly she had done so, killed him."
"It's a weighty charge you're making, David; be careful how you make it."
"Do you think I don't know that it's a weighty charge? I'm not making it. I'm only telling you what's in my mind, as between friends. I'll not breathe a word of the matter to any one but you till I can bring it into court, and prove it. At present, in your lawyer's sense, I've not proof enough to cover a pin's point. But, Andrew, though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind surely, and exceeding fine. Maybe one day God's finger will press her in between the stones, then you'll know that the conviction which is implanted in my breast is of the nature of the prophetic vision. God has shown me, though I cannot tell you how."
There was silence. The doctor, still standing, bent over the table on which stood the coffee and liqueurs, pointing with one skinny finger upwards. He continued in that attitude for a perceptible period after he had ceased to speak. Then Mr. McTavish's voice broke the spell which he seemed to have cast upon the air.
"David, you use big words. I don't--it's not my way. But confidence begets confidence. I'll tell you something in return--and that without insulting you by asking if you can keep a still tongue--because I know you can."
The doctor returned to a more normal attitude, seeming to do so with an effort, as if he were shaking something from him. He spoke in his ordinary tones.
"Let me light another cigar before you begin. This sort of talk's disquieting, especially after such a dinner as I've had. I think a tonic might not be amiss." He sipped his liqueur. "Andrew, this is not bad brandy."
"A hogshead wouldn't hurt you."
"Wouldn't it? Is it your custom to drink brandy by the hogshead? I thought you didn't use big words."
"It's a figure of speech, David--a figure of speech. If you have that cigar properly lighted, and will sit down like a decent creature, I'll have my say--that is, if you have not had enough of the matter under discussion."
"You're not more ready to talk than I am to listen. Now, Andrew, I'm at your service."
"Well, you suspect this lady of something more than misdemeanour. I may tell you that I doubt if she would have done what she did do--if she did it!--if she had known what she knows now."
"You speak in parables."
"I'll be plain enough. Did you know anything about Cuthbert Grahame's affairs?--his financial affairs, I mean."
"Something."
"Had you any idea how much he was worth?"
"He told me himself, not once but frequently, that he was worth nearer three hundred thousand pounds than two hundred thousand. He said, moreover, that his investments brought him in an average interest of over ten per cent. He had made several lucky hits."
"That's what he told us; it seems that that's what he told her. Did you see on what amount probate duty was paid?"
"Not I; I took no interest in the matter then. I was too disgusted with myself and everything. My one desire was to get the whole business out of my head; the trouble is that I haven't been able to do it."
"Under forty thousand pounds; and I may tell you that it was well under forty thousand pounds."
"What's become of the rest?"
"That's the mystery which we should like to solve--which she especially would like to solve; and what she's subjected us to in her efforts to arrive at a solution no language at my command is adequate to describe. She's a remarkable woman--a very remarkable woman. Because she has long since passed the limits of our endurance is one reason why I am rounding on her to you. It is not often that I am conscious of such a yearning, but we have arrived at a position in which I should actually like to have your advice. That's why I asked you here tonight."
"Then it wasn't just for old friendship's sake."
The doctor glowered from the recesses of the huge chair, expelling the smoke of his cigar from his lips and nostrils. Mr. McTavish laughed.
"Well--in a measure. Did you ever think he was romancing when he talked about his moneys?"
"I did not--and I don't. He was in earnest. I never knew him tell a lie when he was in earnest. I'd match his veracity against my own."
"Then it's queer--it's queer. At the time of his death we held securities for him representing some ten thousand pounds lent on mortgage; the bankers held about as much more. His widow turned into cash everything that there was to turn, with the exception of the house, which she will neither sell nor let."
"I know. It's going to rack and ruin; they say no one's set foot in it since the day he was buried."
"I daresay--it's one of her notions--she'll let no one even talk of it; it's her bogey. Altogether she's had scarcely thirty thousand pounds."
"It's in the house."
"Not it. It's been thoroughly searched by competent hands; she herself has overhauled it more than once."
"The money must be somewhere; I'm convinced he had it."
"Have you any notion where it is? Can you give me any sort of clue as to its possible whereabouts?"
"Not I. I know no more about it than--this cigar. Is it likely? I wasn't his man of business--you were."
"She says we have it."
"No!"
"Yes. She says we have it, or that we know where it is, and are joined in a conspiracy to keep it out of her possession. The way she's talked--and treated us! David, she's a remarkable woman."
"She is that. Don't I know it?--to my cost!"
"We've had to change the lock on our office door. She let herself into it with a pass-key--my own, I fear, for I lost it, though I don't know how; I've never seen it since. She ransacked everything the place contained. Got into the safe. By some extraordinary mischance, in which it is quite possible she had a hand, that night it wasn't locked. She went right through it. She saw a good deal we had rather she hadn't seen, but she saw nothing of Grahame's money."
"Did you catch her in the act?"
"Catch her! We've never been able to prove it against her yet, but the presumption's as strong as Hercules. She went to Brown's, and made him swear by all his gods that he knew nothing about it; then she made him open his safe, and went through all his private papers."
"Brown must be a fine sort of a man."
"She's a fine sort of a woman. She drugged me in my own house."
"No?"
"I say yes! She came here one night. I offered her a little something to drink--I was having something to drink, and I couldn't see her sitting dry. I've no doubt that when my back was turned she put something into my glass which took away my senses in a flash. When I came to it was early morning; the daylight was streaming through the blinds; she was gone; the whole place was upside down."
"You're a lawyer: didn't you give her a taste of the law?"
"What was the use? She'd pose as an injured woman--her grievance is real enough. We'd get no good; it might do us harm. The mischief is that she's got what she chooses to regard as some sort of groundwork for her suspicions. It's this way. She met the secretary of the Hardwood Company. The Hardwood Company's paid dividends averaging thirty per cent, ever since it started. The fellow got friendly with her--as plenty of men do get within five minutes of their meeting her. He told her that only one original shareholder remained on their lists, and, since the shares rushed to a premium directly the issue was made, that therefore he was the only person who received the full benefit of the thirty per cent. He added that the shareholder's name was Grahame--Cuthbert Grahame (you may see her pricking her ears at that!)--and (she always leading him by the nose!) that the dividends had not been paid to him direct, but to his solicitors, Messrs. McTavish & Brown, of Southampton Row. He was a talkable body, that secretary man--men are apt to be talkative when she gets them alone with her in a corner. He told her something else: that the queerest part of the business was that while the shares still stood in Grahame's name, the dividends had remained unclaimed for quite a while, so that a considerable sum was waiting for some one to take it. The next morning she came to us running over with the story. Now I remembered those shares--an investment which returns thirty per cent, these hard times one has to remember. He had ten thousand of them; they were in our charge; we did collect the dividends. But one day he wrote asking us to send them to him, which we did do. My lady of course wanted proof. Do you know we couldn't give it her."
"I don't see why."
"Under ordinary circumstances nothing could have been simpler. Such a thing has never before happened in the whole course of my experience, but by some infernal accident we couldn't lay our hands on either his letter of instructions, or his acknowledgment of receipt."
"There was still the letter advising their despatch."
"David, ever since that woman appeared on the scene we have been persecuted by a malignant fate."
"Big words, Andrew, big words."
"She moves me to them. On the day Grahame's letter came I happened to be going abroad. Brown sent a clerk here with his letter and the shares, so that I might check them and see that they were right. I packed the clerk back, and sent the shares myself; but in my haste--I was running the boat train pretty close!--I was idiot enough not to take a copy of my own letter, and what I did with Grahame's I have not the dimmest recollection."
"Very unbusiness-like."
"Don't I know it, man! Of course she declined to credit a word of the story; said that she believed it was a fabrication from beginning to end; and that she was more than ever convinced that she was dealing with a set of rogues. The climax is to come! The day after she had drugged me she came to my office, and produced a Hardwood Company's share, which she had the assurance to assert that she had taken out of my own safe when I was in a state of unconsciousness!--think of it! She had taken it round to the Company's offices, and it had there been identified as one of the shares which were standing in Cuthbert Grahame's name."
"Was it one of his shares?"
"It was, beyond a doubt."
"And had she taken it out of your safe?"
"David, I can only tell you that she swore she had; and I'm bound to admit that if she hadn't, I don't know where she got it from. On the other hand, if she did I have not the vaguest notion how it got there. Plague take the thing!"
Mr. McTavish, emptying his liqueur glass, immediately refilled it.
"Don't you know what's in your own safe?"
"Do you take me for a feather-brain? I knew every trifle it contained, or thought I did. She says that she took up a bundle of papers, and that the share dropped out of one of them. If it did, no one knows less than I do who put it there. The only conclusion at which I can arrive is that, in returning the shares to Grahame, I overlooked one of them, and that, in my hurry, it got mixed up with some of the papers which I keep in my safe, and which were lying on my table at the time. Of all the evil chances that ever befel a man!"
"And what was the inference she drew?"
"The inference she drew! What do you suppose? Why, of course, that the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine shares were hidden somewhere in my house, exactly as that one had been. She had brought a solicitor with her to the office--think of it, David!--a pettifogging rascal of the name of Luker, who'd do anything for six-and-eightpence; and in his presence--picture it, David!--she told me that if I didn't permit her to subject my private premises to a thorough examination she should immediately commence proceedings for the recovery of the missing shares. And the creature Luker had the audacity to advise me to accede to her reasonable request--he called it her reasonable request! And I complied!--I complied! She, the wretched Luker, Brown, and myself, we went through every nook and cranny in the house, all of us together. The humiliation of it!--the maddening humiliation!"
With his handkerchief Mr. McTavish wiped his capacious brow, which was moist with indignant sweat.
"And did they find the missing shares?"
"David! Do you want me to make an end of you? The reptile Luker wrote that if restitution of the shares was not made at once he was instructed to immediately commence proceedings for their recovery. And that's only the beginning! If something isn't done to stop her it's very possible that she'll try to jockey us, by legal process, out of all the money that she supposes Cuthbert Grahame to have had. The law on such matters is in such a state--when twisted by such as Luker!--that there's no knowing what may be the issue; the one thing certain being that she may be the occasion to us of the gravest injury." The doctor emitted a sound which forced a startled inquiry from the other. "What's the matter with you, man?"
"I was laughing, to think that a couple of lawyers should be so mishandled by one of the laity! It's the funniest thing that ever I heard."
"It's no laughing matter, David, I can tell you that. Think of the scandal--that at the age to which I'm come I should be used as if I were a misbegotten rogue! She's a devil of a woman! And what's driving her is that she's come to the end of her tether."
"Do you mean that she's spent all her cash?"
"I've reason to know she has, or nearly all. She lives in a great house, has an expensive establishment, spends money like a queen. She took it for granted that long before this the bulk of Grahame's money would turn up. Now that it hasn't she's desperate. She means to get it out of somebody, somehow--or as much of it as she can--if it's only out of such poor creatures as McTavish and Brown."
"You're a pair of weans, you and Brown."
"So you see, David, how it is I have come to you for help--to you, my oldest friend. Why it is that I ask you to search your brain and see if you can give us no clue as to what Cuthbert Grahame did with his money. No one was more intimate with him than you, and on such a point there is no one who is more likely to be able to give us help."
"If that's so then you'll get help from no one, for it's certain you'll get none from me. I tell you I know nothing of the matter."
"Do you think Miss Wallace could help us? She had an intimate knowledge of Grahame and of his peculiarities. She might be able to tell us something which would prove to be of assistance."
"I'll ask her, if you wish it. But I doubt if you'll gain."
"Do, David, do. And"--Mr. McTavish tapped his forefinger on the arm of his chair--"the sooner the better. As to advice, David, you know this woman; you've had dealings with her before; in a sense, so far as we're concerned, you're responsible for her existence. You see the dilemma we are in. What advice have you to offer?"
"None--not a ha'porth. I'm not advising."
"David!"
"I tell you I'm not, and it's just because I've had dealings with the woman already. I've tried one fall with her, and I'm suffering from it still."
"She's an awful creature!--awful!"
"There's only one thing I can say to you, Andrew, and that I've said already, and then you sort of sniggered. But to my mind it's a comfortable thought when we come to deal with persons like Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame, or Mrs. Gregory Lamb, or whatever she calls herself, and it's this, that if the mills of God do grind slowly, they also do grind surely, and they grind exceeding small."