"Masters. Miss Elizabeth Masters."
"Is she still alive?"
"So far as I know she is," the doctor replied. "But I should not have been likely to have heard of her death, if it had taken place."
"Can you assist me to discover her address?"
"She wrote to me periodically," Doctor Lessing returned. "She was an excellent nurse, and I got her some cases in town. But it is a long time since I last heard from her. There may be one or two old letters of hers in my desk. If you will excuse me for a moment, I will see if I can find them for you."
He left the room. Monsieur Dupont turned to the window, and gazed dreamily out into the sunshine.
"And so," he muttered—"in this corner of paradise the Destroyer was born."
A Hasty Flight
Doctor Lessing re-entered the room with a letter in his hand.
"The last address I can find," he said, "is 35, De Vere Terrace, Streatham. That is sixteen years old, but as it tells me that she had only just moved in, you might find her still there."
Monsieur Dupont made a note of the address.
"There remains only one question," he said, replacing his pocket-book. "Can you tell me the name of the child?"
The doctor shook his head.
"I'm afraid I can't. The child was christened in the church here, but I was away at the time, and when I returned Miss Masters had gone to London."
"It is very important," said Monsieur Dupont."Perhaps I can discover it at the church?"
"You will not find any one to tell you at this time," the doctor replied. "But, if you will leave me your address, I will send over to the parsonage this evening and ask Mr. Wickham to turn it up in the register, and let you know."
Monsieur Dupont delivered himself of profuse thanks. Five minutes later he had taken leave of the old doctor, and was returning to the station under the guidance of the sunburnt youth, who was obviously relieved when the expedition terminated.
He slept peacefully until the train reached Paddington.
It was five o'clock when he returned to the Savoy. The girl, Jenny West, was waiting for him. She was as white as death.
"They have charged him," she sobbed. "He is remanded for a week."
He laid a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Do not be afraid," he said. "He will be saved. I have given my word—the word of Dupont—that he will be saved."
He sat down at his writing table, and wrote rapidly for several minutes. He covered four or five sheets of paper, and placed them in an envelope.
"Here, mademoiselle," he said, rising, "are your instructions for to-morrow morning. Do not read them until you are alone. A car will be waiting for you here at ten o'clock in the morning. In the afternoon you will be at liberty to visit Monsieur Layton. I shall expect to see you here at one o'clock."
He bowed her out of the room. Half an hour later, he was on his way to Streatham.
A grim expression settled on his face as the journey proceeded, yet it was not altogether unmixed with pity. He was a man of ready sympathy. The doctor's story had evidently moved him to view his task with a new compassion.
As his car turned into De Vere Terrace, he became alert, and scrutinized the houses closely. They were small semi-detached villas. He alighted in front of number 35, passed upthe carefully kept front garden, and knocked at the door.
There was no response. He knocked again, several times, but the silence of the house remained undisturbed. He left the door, and glanced in at the front windows, but the room was so dark that he could discern nothing. He walked round to the back. Through the uncurtained kitchen windows he saw a fire in the range. It had almost burnt itself out. There were cooking utensils on the table. Some pastry was rolled out on a board. Apparently the household operations had been somewhat rudely interrupted, and very hastily abandoned. The back door and windows were securely fastened. Returning to the front, he carefully closed the gate, and knocked at the door of the adjoining house.
The name of the house was "Sans Souci," and the door was opened by a lady in rich purple, with a string of pearls.
Monsieur Dupont swept off his hat.
"Madame, I make a thousand apologies! Can you tell me when I shall find Miss Masters at home."
His extreme bulk and the fact that he was not an Englishman seemed to cause the lady considerable amusement.
"I'm sure I don't know," she said engagingly. "I think she's gone away."
"Away?" Monsieur Dupont echoed.
"She left in a great hurry two hours ago," the lady informed him. "In a motor."
Monsieur Dupont appeared somewhat staggered.
"Two hours ago...." he muttered.
"I heard a noise going on in the house," continued the lady, "as if she was packing quickly. She went off with a couple of boxes, and seemed very impatient."
"It is most unfortunate," said Monsieur Dupont mildly. "I have come all the way from the Strand to see her."
The lady laughed freely.
"I'm very sorry," she said good-naturedly. "Won't you come in and rest a bit?"
"Madame," he said, "you are very good, but I must return to the Strand. Would you allow me to ask you some questions, without finding me impertinent?"
"What are they?" she asked.
"Will you tell me if any particular person was in the habit of visiting Miss Masters?"
The lady stiffened slightly.
"Are you a friend of Miss Masters?" she inquired, shortly.
"I am not," Monsieur Dupont admitted frankly. "I have never seen her. It is a few hours ago that I heard her name for the first time."
"I really cannot answer any questions to a stranger," said the lady stiffly. "I don't know you."
Monsieur Dupont bowed.
"If you did, madame," he said, "I should be the proudest of men. Do me the favor to read this letter."
He produced the letter from the French Embassy, and handed it to her. She read it, and was duly impressed.
"Of course I'll do anything for the French Embassy," she said, returning the letter with dignity. "Miss Masters wasn't what you might call a friend of mine. I used to speak to her because she lived in the next house, butit didn't go beyond that. She kept very much to herself. I don't want to say anything at all unkind, but very few ladies in our set knew her. Of course it wasn't her fault, but she was not exactly classy. And when one lives in a neighborhood like this, it's class that tells."
Monsieur Dupont bowed again.
"Obviously, madame," he said.
"The only person that used to visit her," continued the gratified lady, "was a man who often used to arrive in the evening and stay the night. We understood she was an old nurse of his, or something of the kind, and that he more or less provided for her."
"And this man, madame—what was he like?"
"He was rather tall," she said, "and had a dark moustache. He was always well dressed, and looked quite a gentleman."
"You heard his name?"
"No—we never heard his name. I did tell my house-parlor-maid to try to find out once, but she couldn't. Miss Masters actually accused me of prying."
"Mon Dieu," said Monsieur Dupont.
"We had a bit of a row," said the lady candidly.
"Does she live alone, madame?"
"Yes, quite alone. She does everything for herself."
"My last question," said Monsieur Dupont, "may seem remarkable. It is this. Have strange things appeared to be happening in the house during the visits of the tall gentleman with the dark moustache?"
She started, looking at him curiously.
"Strange things?" she repeated slowly.
"Perhaps—violent things."
"Well, that's queer," she exclaimed. "As a matter of fact, we once heard the most extraordinary noises going on when he was there. My husband thought of sending in to ask if anything was the matter."
"What kind of noises, madame?"
"Like as it might be heavy things being thrown about and smashed," said the lady elegantly.
Monsieur Dupont swept off his hat again.
"Thank you, madame," he said—and went back to his car.
Tranter Attacks the Crooked House
In the evening, Tranter set off to the Crooked House.
It was dark when he reached it, and the roads were empty. Through the open lodge gates he slipped into the garden unseen. The place seemed deserted. The front of the house showed not a glimmer of light. The whole ugly shape of it stood out gauntly against the sky of the summer night. In the shadow of the trees, he stood watching it, alert to detect a sign of life. But no such sign appeared. The Crooked House was as dark and silent as a tomb.
He crept nearer, keeping under cover of the trees, and skirted the lawns to the back of the house. There, also, darkness reigned. No sound disturbed the stillness. Facing him were the dark shapes of the trees surrounding the wing of the house which extended fromthe opposite corner. The foliage was so dense that no part of the wing itself was visible. He moved quickly across the back of the house, and reached the trees. As he passed under them, it seemed that he was feeling his way among monstrous sentinels of a dark mystery.
A thick hedge loomed up in front of him. It appeared to surround the entire wing. He walked round, trying to find a place thin enough to allow him to push his way through—but the hedge was evidently there for the express purpose of defeating such an intention. It was impossible to penetrate it, to creep under it, or to climb over it. At the extremity of the wing, about which the trees were thickest, he saw a faint light, escaping round the edge of a blind.
He stopped beneath it. It was a meager, unpleasant light, too dim to be of any greater use in the room than to afford the barest relief from complete darkness. The window was half overgrown with ivy, and he could see that it was filthily dirty. The light continually flickered, and once or twice it seemed to have died out altogether. An eerie sensation beganto possess him. He felt very strongly the evil influence of the house. Curiosity to discover what sinister secret it really harbored increased and nerved him.
Again he tried to force a way through the hedge, but everywhere it was an impassable barrier. Slowly and noiselessly he worked his way round the wing, only to find it completely enclosed on all sides. He returned, and stood looking up at the window. Either the light was brighter, or the gap at the edge of the blind had widened. He thought he saw a faint shadow pass and re-pass.
It was not until, in moving to one side, he struck his head against a massive bough of one of the great trees that the possibility of utilizing them as a means of access to the forbidden enclosure occurred to him. He examined the bough. It extended well over the hedge, and would form a perfectly secure bridge. By creeping a few feet along it, he would be able to drop down on the other side of the hedge. Finding the main trunk, he tested his weight on a smaller bough, and swung himself up into the tree.
A few minutes later he stood within the barrier. The window was some twelve or fifteen feet above him. But the walls were thickly clad with ivy, and ivy is an excellent ladder. Carefully he began to climb.
He reached the window, found himself a secure footing, and peered round the edge of the blind. But the light was so poor, and the panes were so dirty, on both sides, that had there been anything to see he could have been very little the wiser. As it was, the small area of the room into which he could dimly peer seemed to be carpetless and unfurnished. There was no movement, no sound. The light itself apparently came from the further end of the room, from the level of a table. He clung on, undecided how to proceed. It appeared that the only thing to do was to wait and listen for some indication of the purpose of the dismal illumination.
He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty. After a wait of what seemed at least half an hour, he looked again. Ten minutes only had passed. No discernible movement had taken place in the room. Yet he felt perfectly, andvery unpleasantly, certain that it was occupied—that something was proceeding within it which, had the blind not intervened, would have revealed the secret of the house. Of what it might be he could form no idea—but, for the first time in his life, he was experiencing, in his mental tenseness and the sinister silence of the surroundings, that sensation which attests a proximity to evil. He was daunted. Fear was a condition to which he was a stranger, but a vivid nervousness was beginning to seize upon him. A sense of personal danger, an element which, so far, he had scarcely considered, was attacking him, and gaining ground. The perspiration was standing out on his face. He found that his hands were cold and wet. The pulses of his body were throbbing; he felt his strength growing less. Muttering a curse, he braced himself with a strong effort. He was accustomed to consider his nerves impregnable. Many times in his life he had known himself to be in far greater danger than he could attribute to the present situation, and such weakness had never assailed him. On four occasions he hadbeen aware that his life was hanging by a thread, and had gloried in his own coolness. And now ... without a doubt the Crooked House was evil.
Still he waited. Another twenty minutes slowly passed.
He started. His hands closed tightly on the trunk of the ivy to which he was clinging. The door of the room had been closed with a slam. He could hear heavy footsteps on the uncarpeted floor. A shadow blotted out the light.
A moment later, a voice—a man's voice, horribly strained and unnatural—rose in a shout of fury.
"Damn you!" it screamed. "Look at your work! Look at it again! Open your rotten eyes and look! Look! Look!"
Tranter was so startled that he almost lost his footing on the ivy. There was no mistaking the voice—it was the scream of madness. He listened for an answer, but there was no sound in response. Then the same voice laughed—a laugh of awful bitterness.
"Are you satisfied? The thing is creepingon. I am getting nearer to you hour by hour. I am more like you to-night. One more grain went yesterday—another to-day. Another will go to-morrow...." Again the voice rose to a shriek of rage and hatred. "Oh, God! There is no hope! No hope! Only on—and on—to that!"
The words trailed off into a sob of agony. Still Tranter could hear no reply.
Silence followed. The shadow again blotted out the light; then sprang aside, and the voice burst out into a fresh paroxysm of madness, yelling a stream of curses at the object of its fury. The madman's frenzy was utterly revolting to listen to, but Tranter searched it closely for some clue to the identity of the person, or thing, to whom it was addressed. The voice rose again to a shriek; then subsided as before into a feeble wail of misery.
"Oh God!" it moaned—"is there no way ... no way? No road but that road? No end but that end? Oh God, have mercy ... have mercy...."
It was a cry of unspeakable anguish—the prayer of a soul in torment. It seemed toTranter that the speaker had thrown himself down, and was beating the floor with his hands.
There was silence again. Then, for the first time, Tranter became aware of another presence in the room. Though he could neither see nor hear anything, he was conscious of a new, indefinable movement. For a moment horror almost overcame him. He trembled. His nerves failed. The support of the ivy seemed to be giving way under him. He clutched at the framework of the window itself.
The shadow of a figure leapt up from the floor and bounded to the window. The blind was wrenched aside, the window thrown open, and before Tranter had time to recover himself or attempt to escape, the livid, distorted face of George Copplestone was almost touching his own.
A hand closed on his throat in a murderous grip, another seized his wrist. In spite of his frantic struggles, he was dragged with superhuman strength through the window into the room.
A Duel
On the afternoon of the same day, an hour after the departure of Inspector Fay, Mrs. Astley-Rolfe had sped herself to Richmond, in a luxurious motor car, which was her's through the instrumentality of Mr. Gluckstein.
She had found the house of George Copplestone plunged into the darkness of a house of mourning. Every blind was drawn. Every particle of color had been removed or draped. Black reigned supreme.
Copplestone was not pleased to see her, and made no attempt to assume the contrary. He was sitting in his library, moody and melancholy, still in the half-dazed condition into which the death of Christine Manderson had cast him. His face was drawn, haggard, and sickly; his eyes were bloodshot. He looked upat her with a forbidding frown, and did not move from his chair.
"Well?" he said curtly.
She waved a hand round the black room.
"Isn't this ... a trifle theatrical?" she asked coolly.
He said nothing. She sat down opposite to him uninvited. She was perfectly self-possessed.
"Inspector Fay was kind enough to call on me this morning," she remarked pleasantly.
Again there was no reply.
"He may not be an example of dagger-like intelligence," she continued, looking at him steadily—"but he is just a little too sharp to play with."
He scowled at her.
"Have you come to tell me that?" he asked rudely.
"That—and other things," she returned unruffled.
"I don't want to hear them," he retorted.
"They concern you," she said—"rather closely."
"I don't want to hear them," he repeated.
Her lips tightened.
"It is scarcely pleasant to be such an obviously unwelcome visitor," she said evenly. "But I am afraid you must listen."
"I am not in the humor to talk to you," he declared roughly. "I don't want to talk to any one. I want to be left alone. Isn't it enough to be pestered by the police and the papers, and all the damnable business for the inquest? Don't you see that my house is in mourning? Can't you let me be—even for a few days?"
"If I had let you be," she replied easily, "Inspector Fay would probably be here in my place—with much less pleasant intentions."
His glance sharpened.
"What do you mean?" he growled.
"You were not wise," she proceeded tranquilly, "to treat his mental capabilities with quite so much contempt. They are possibly not startlingly brilliant, and he is perfectly easy to deceive. But even an official detective can see through a clumsy lie."
Uneasiness flashed across his face. She smiled slightly.
"And I am afraid, my friend, that you are a clumsy liar."
"I don't know what you are talking about," he snapped.
"Come," she said quietly—"however freely we may trifle with the very much overrated Arm of the Law, at least let us be honest with each other. For some reason or other, you did not tell Inspector Fay the truth."
He sat upright with a jerk, flamed with passion.
"What the devil is it to do with you?" he demanded fiercely.
"I will tell you in a moment," she returned smoothly. "When you accounted for your time to the inspector, you told him that you went into the house to refill your cigarette case?"
His lethargy had disappeared. He leant forward, staring at her, his hands clutching the arms of his chair.
"But, unfortunately, you did not take the elementary precaution of having a full case to support the story. In nine times out of tenyou would have got away with it. This was the tenth."
There was silence for a moment. She sat in an easy attitude, meeting his gaze with complete confidence. No trace of his previous dullness remained. He was alert and taut.
She went on, with delightful smoothness.
"With an unpardonable lack of respect for the statement of a gentleman, it occurred to the inspector to test the truth of that account. He did not want to smoke—but he asked you for a cigarette. It was a gentle trap. There were only two in your case."
He ground out an oath under his breath.
"Obviously you had not gone into the house to refill your case. Perhaps you went in for some other reason. Perhaps you didn't go in at all. Anyway, you lied—and when people deliberately lie in such serious cases as these, it may safely be imagined that they have some object to serve in doing so. The inspector was concerned to discover what your object was. So he came to me."
"To you...." he muttered.
"I told you," she returned, "that he is a little too sharp to play with—clumsily. He suspected, from what had been told him, that we might have had a stormy scene together, and had wished to keep it to ourselves. He was quite ready to believe that the time you had failed so lamentably to account for had really been passed with me in 'une petite scène de jalousie.' Fortunately, I had given him a true account of myself, which was that I had been alone. So after the necessary hesitation, and with just the right amount of annoyance, I was able to confess that we had both lied, and that we had in fact been together—and he went away satisfied. I am a better liar than you."
She regarded him serenely. His expression was ugly. There was that in the look of him that might have daunted any woman, but Phyllis Astley-Rolfe had lived chiefly by her wits for a sufficient time to be quite impervious where another would have been silenced. She was as completely without fear as she was without scruple. Her objects were objects to be gained, by the most convenient and speedymeans, and quite irrespective of considerations which might have withheld another from attempting to fulfill them. In furtherance of her present object, she gave Copplestone look for look.
"I return good for evil," she said. "It is not a habit of mine. It is really quite contrary to my usual practice. I told a lie to save you from further suspicion. Considering the circumstances, you must admit that it was exceedingly generous of me. And I expect you to be grateful."
Anything but an expression of gratitude confronted her. He remained silent, making a strong effort to mask his agitation. But his fingers twitched spasmodically, and there was unmistakable fear in his eyes. She watched him intently, losing no point of the effect she had created.
"Well...?" she said steadily.
There was no answer. She bent towards him.
"I said you were with me. You were not with me. Where were you?"
The man breathed heavily, his baleful gazefixed on her. She met it with unassailable composure.
"Listen," she said slowly—"there are strange things in this house. I know it. I've known it for some time. Things that the light of day never shines on. What are they?"
He sprang up, and stood over her with clenched hands, his face torn with fury.
"Damn you!" he cried hoarsely. "What is my house, or what happens in it, to you?"
"Sit down," she said firmly. "You are not frightening me. To threaten a woman is merely to increase her tenacity, and mine requires no fortification. Please move away from me."
He obeyed, muttering. Her calmness disarmed him.
"I am not sure," she continued, "that I wanted you to answer my question—anyway at present. Perhaps your secrets might be too much, even for my conscience—and that is saying a great deal."
He had resumed his chair. There was a moment's pause.
"You were foolish to mock me," she went on."Mockery is the one thing a woman cannot accept, or forgive. She can stand any amount of ill-treatment and cruelty, in a sufficient cause. But she cannot be mocked in any cause whatever. You made me certain promises, which honor bound you to fulfil—and then flung your renunciation of them in my face, before strangers who understood. It was a very mean and low-down thing to do."
A faint, sneering smile passed over his face. Her voice hardened.
"I am not a woman to defy—and I am still less a woman to mock. You are going to keep your promises."
"I'll see you in hell first!" he retorted brutally.
She laughed. "You will not see me in hell first," she said calmly. "You may quite possibly see me in hell after—because if there is a hell we shall certainly meet there. But in the meantime—you are going to redeem your word."
He made a slow gesture round the black room.
"You come to me now ... within a few hours...."
"Why not?" she returned hardly.
"Almost before her body is cold...."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Christine Manderson was an incident," she said indifferently. "A disagreeable episode. She merely infatuated you, as she might have infatuated any man. She has passed."
"Passed," he muttered. "Passed...."
"I do not profess to equal her in appearance," she admitted. "But I am not repulsive. I am considered to be extremely good-looking, and I am much more interesting to talk to than she was. Also, I am well-bred. Most people would find the balance in my favor. But, even if you do not, the difference can only be very small. You will have to make the best of it."
"Or else?" he snarled.
"Or else, if you prefer it, I will exchange your promises for the secrets of this house—with no undertaking to keep them."
He sat biting his nails in the suppression of his rage. She languidly corrected the folds of her dress, leant back in a charming attitude,and waited with unassailable self-possession. The silence was long.
"How much do you want?" he demanded, at last.
"I am not asking you for money," she replied coldly.
"I am offering it unasked," he retorted. "How much do you want?"
"If you had offered to buy back your promises a week ago," she said, "I might have sold them to you. I do not know that I particularly looked forward to their fulfilment. But you flaunted another woman in my face."
"Put it all in the bill," he said coarsely.
"Therefore I will give you nothing back. You shall have only your bond."
"Why waste your breath on heroics to me?" he sneered. "You would sell your soul for money. You have often boasted it."
"I would sell my soul for money any day," she agreed frankly—"but not my pride. I am too much of a sinner already to scruple over the disposal of my soul. But it would not profit me to gain the whole world, and lose my pride."
"Bosh!" he said contemptuously. "Pridepays no bills—and you owe too many to let it deprive you of the pleasure of getting rid of a few."
"That is as it may be," she returned. "I have told you the only exchange I will make."
He sprang up again. This time his anger was scornful.
"Fool!" he cried harshly. "Take your warning! Do you think my secrets—if I have any—are for you? Or that I, myself, am for you? Why do you try to force yourself on to dangerous ground? There are things in the world into which it is not good to pry."
"Plenty," she said, unmoved.
"I may have made you careless promises," he admitted. "I have made many women promises. It is a bad habit. I cannot keep them. I cannot, and will not, marry you, or any other woman. The only one I might have married ... is dead."
"Again you throw her in my face," she murmured, through closed teeth.
"I daresay I used you meanly," he acknowledged. "Ididuse you meanly. It was not the game to do what I did that night. I freelyadmit it. And I offer you reparation—the only reparation I can make. It would be the wisest act of your life to take it."
"You have heard my conditions," she replied. "I shall not change them. Unlike most women, I have been gifted with the faculty of being able to make up my mind. The time for compromise has passed."
"You don't care for me," he persisted. "You couldn't care for any man. You're not capable of it. It's not in you."
"Whether or not I care for you does not enter into the matter at all," she rejoined calmly. "My capability for affection has no bearing on the present question."
"You were relying on marrying me to pay your debts," he declared. "You could not have built a more forlorn hope. I should not pay your debts if I did marry you. I will give you five thousand pounds for your lie this morning."
She was very angry. The insult dashed all the color from her face, leaving it white and set in lines that made her look almost old. Her eyes glittered menacingly.
"You dare," she said slowly, "to offermefive thousand pounds?"
"And consider yourself damned lucky!" he retorted.
He took out his case, and lit a cigarette with a show of indifference.
"I am not bound to offer you anything," he said carelessly. "That small point seems to have escaped you. You have no claim on me. I consider my suggestion an exceedingly generous one. You can take it or leave it. It's all you'll get."
She rose.
"You insult me again," she said, in measured tones. "You are not wise."
He laughed easily.
"My dear Phyllis," he said, "you are adorable in a rage—but I am afraid I must steel myself against your gentle exactions. Let me convince you that I am really treating you in a highly preferential manner. During my career three women have attempted to blackmail me. They were all ugly—so they got nothing. You are charming—so you get five thousand pounds. That is the most I haveever paid for my smaller indiscretions. And I take the liberty of thinking it more than sufficient compensation for the few erroneous impressions I may have allowed you to contract."
"You are making the mistake," she said, in the same controlled tones, "of imagining that you are buying back your promises to me, which I can quite understand that you value lightly. But I have told you that those promises are not for sale. You have wandered from the real issue. You are not buying the promises of your heart—you are buying the secrets of your house. Are they not on a different scale of values?"
"You know nothing of my house," he returned. "You do not know whether there are secrets in it or not."
"I don't know," she confessed candidly. "Possibly there are not. But I am prepared to take a sporting chance that there are. And if I am wrong—so much the better for you."
He was silent, looking at her thoughtfully, as if carefully weighing his course of action.
"You were under the suspicion of ScotlandYard," she reminded him, "until I told my lie. You will be under it again if I admit my lie. Inspector Fay would certainly not rest until he had thoroughly investigated your reasons for giving a false account of yourself. He is by no means a fool—and I very much doubt that he is to be bought, anyway so reasonably as I am."
Copplestone's face wore a strange expression. There was now no animosity in it, but rather a mild resignation, in strange contrast to his previous anger.
"So," he said, after a pause, "you would put them on to me again...?"
"I need not have taken them off you," she replied.
"I have offered you five thousand pounds for that," he said slowly.
"I have refused them."
"Think over it well," he advised her impressively.
"I do not need to," she returned.
For a moment they faced each other steadily.
"You mean that—finally?" he asked.
"Finally," she answered.
He moved to a door at the further end of the room, and opened it.
"Come," he said quietly. "You have gone too far to draw back. You shall see the secrets of my house. Follow me."
The Secret of the House
She followed him out of the black room into a dark, narrow passage.
Her calmness and self-possession remained undisturbed. Without a tremor she accepted this unexpected invitation to the secrets of the Crooked House—quite ignorant of, and indifferent to, the danger to which she might be committing herself. That there were hidden things in the house she had for a long time been convinced, but of their nature she had been unable to form even a conjecture, in spite of many attempts to creep into the mystery. Copplestone's sudden decision to reveal them to her was a surprise, and an unpleasant check to the development of her schemes. Either he placed a much lower value on his secrets than she had expected, or her participation in them was by no means tobe dreaded to the extent that she had relied upon. In any case her position was considerably weakened, and the success of her plans was no longer the assured thing she had believed it to be.
In silence they ascended a flight of stairs, and reached a door which appeared to be the entrance into a separate part of the building. It was a massive oak door, fitted with double locks of remarkable strength for a private house. Copplestone held it open, motioning her to pass before him, and relocked it on the other side. She was still without any nervousness, but her curiosity increased with every step. He led the way on, and she followed him unhesitatingly. They traversed several corridors, and turned many corners. Her sense of direction told her that they had entered an extreme wing of the house, hidden away among the thickest trees of the garden, and to all appearances unused. The place was damp, dusty, and silent, with the intense silence of emptiness. Some of the doors were open, showing unfurnished, neglected rooms. The papers were peeling off the walls; thefittings were covered with the rust and dirt of years; the soiled blinds half covered the closed, uncleaned windows. The atmosphere was close and unhealthy.
"What a parable of waste!" she said.
He did not reply. They came to a square landing, and another heavy door faced them. Copplestone stopped, and for a moment stood looking at her intently. She did not flinch. He shrugged his shoulders, and took a key from his pocket. It was a peculiar key, and was attached to a strong chain. He fitted it into the lock, and opened the door. Then he turned to her again, and she saw a change coming over his face.
"Go in," he said curtly.
She hesitated, for the first time. He withdrew the key, and returned it to his pocket.
"You need not be afraid," he said.
"I will follow you," she returned, watching him carefully.
He shrugged his shoulders again, and went into the room. She entered after him.
It was a long, low room. There was awindow at the far end, but it was so dirty, and the curtains in front of it were so thick and discolored, that the place was in semi-darkness, and the air overwhelmingly heavy and unwholesome. There was a little rough furniture, a strip of worn carpet on the floor, and some untasted food on the table—but it was not any of those dismal objects that attached the woman's gaze. It was rather a white, pasty face that seemed to gleam at her from the darkest corner of the room—the drawn pallid face, and dull lifeless eyes, of a white-haired man, who was sitting in a huddled, contorted attitude on a bare wooden chair.
She shrank back with a startled exclamation, and turned to Copplestone. His face was convulsed with fury, his eyes aflame with hatred.
"Well?" he said harshly.
She drew away from him fearfully.
"What wickedness is this?" she shuddered.
"None of mine," he answered.
The vacant eyes rested on them with a fixed stare, completely devoid of intelligence. The huddled figure evinced no sign of life. It appearedto be unconscious of their presence. Copplestone advanced a few paces; but the woman hung back, horrified.
"Is that ... a living thing?" she whispered.
He laughed—an unnatural, metallic laugh.
"Yes," he said—"it's living ... with as much life as its sins have left it, and its rotten body can hold."
He turned back to her.
"Come nearer," he said. "There is nothing to be afraid of."
But the glassy stare of the motionless figure had unnerved her. She was white, and shaking.
"No, no," she muttered, shrinking further back.
He seized her arm.
"I warned you," he cried roughly, "but you wouldn't listen. You were brave enough then—when you thought I daren't stand up to you. You shall learn your lesson—you who talked so glibly of my secrets. Come closer."
He dragged her with him towards the corner.
"Look!" he commanded. "Look at that thing in front of you—that thing crouching there like an ape. It was once a man. It was once an active, intelligent, healthy human being—a strong handsome member of a strong handsome family. Everything was in its favor. There were no obstacles in its path. It had many more natural gifts than the average man is endowed with. It might have ruled an empire. It might have loaded its name with honor, and left it to its children. It had the capability, the power, and the opportunity to leave the world a better place than it found it. Look at it now."
She stood silent, her head turned away. He went on, with increasing rage.
"Look at that man now! He has brought himself to a state of gibbering insanity by a life of indulgence in every form of vice and depravity known to humanity. He knowingly and deliberately drained his mental and physical resources by every insult to nature that depraved men and women—the lowest creatures of the earth—have devised for the satisfaction of their diseased senses. He wasa drunkard and drug-fiend before he was twenty. Every effort was made to check and reclaim him, but he defied them all. He was fully warned. He knew what the consequences would be. He knew that nature cannot be violated continuously without exacting her penalty, sooner or later. But he plunged on. Step by step he brought himself to this. His brain and his body are decaying from the unnameable excesses he has committed with both. He is literally rotting in front of us at this moment."
She put her hands up to her face.
"Can he hear you?" she gasped.
"I don't know," he replied savagely. "Perhaps he can. I hope he can. I hope he can hear every word. It wouldn't be the first time he had heard the story of his shame. And it won't be the last. Curse him!"
She tried to draw him back.
"Come away," she cried. "How can you stand in front of the poor creature, and talk like that before his face?"
His iron grip closed on her wrist, and held her helpless.
"Why not?" he demanded, with dreadful bitterness. "Why should he be spared because he is suffering a fraction of the just and natural consequences of his own deliberate acts? What is there to pity in that? It is a merciful retribution. If you have any sympathy to show—show it to me."
"To you?" she echoed.
"To me," he repeated.
She screamed, and tried to wrench herself from his grasp. The horrible head had begun to move slowly from side to side. A faint, ghastly smile appeared round the twisted lips.
"Let me go," she cried. "It's too dreadful."
He dragged her round again.
"You forced yourself into my secrets," he said hardly. "It is too late to shrink back now. You shall know them to the full—and then you may go."
He paused, still holding her. In her horror, and under the sickly, stifling atmosphere of the room, she was almost fainting. But he paid no heed to her condition. His eyes were fixedmalignantly on the grinning object of his hatred.
"That man," he said slowly, "was free from any hereditary weakness. His viciousness was not inherent. He came of a good, clean stock. When he was thirty—although the inevitable results of his violations had already seized upon him—he committed the crime of marrying. It was the foulest sin of his life. He knew what the result would be—what it was bound by every natural law to be. He knew that the sins of the fathers must be visited on the children"—he clenched his hands, and she winced as her wrist was crushed in his grip—"and knowing that, he dared to marry."
His voice rose. His face began to work with passion.
"He married a good woman—who bore all the cruelties he heaped upon her because she loved him. Her money had been his only consideration—and when he had got all that he treated her like dirt. But there are limits even to what a woman can bear. He broke herheart, and she died ... mad. If only she had died a little sooner...."
She steadied herself with an effort.
"Who is he?" she asked. "Why is he here, in your house?"
A flood of fury shook him.
"His name is Oscar Winslowe," he said fiercely. "He is my father."
She uttered a sharp cry, and wrenched her hand away from him.
"Your father? That creature ... your father...."
"Yes," he cried wildly—"he is my father. I am George Copplestone Winslowe. Do you wonder that I hate him? I am the victim of his vices—the heir to his sins. He has left me the legacy of outraged nature. I am mad."
She recoiled from him, panting. He was beside himself. His face was distorted; madness glared in his eyes. Then, suddenly, the paroxysm left him. He turned to her weakly, with the appeal of his utter despair.
"Pity me," he said. "Oh, if you are capable of pitying anything in this dreadful world,pity me! My awful inheritance is closing in on me. Every day one more grain of reason leaves me. Like him, I might have been a leader of men. Like him, I have power and capability. I have a brain that could have raised me to the greatest heights. I have a body that can bear any strain. But I am mad."
His agony was pitiful. He sobbed, wringing his hands.
"I can feel the hideous thing growing in me, hour by hour—a little more—a little more. I can feel its clutch tightening on me. And I can't resist. I can't escape. The little mental balance I have is being dragged away from me. In a few years—if I let myself live to it—I shall be a babbling maniac. Nothing can save me. I knew it when I was a boy—before that thing there completely lost its reason. I knew I was born a madman for my father's sins. It crept on me gradually—one sign after another—one horrible secret impulse after another. The slow, sure growth of madness." He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, God! Oh, God!"
In the silence that followed the figure on the chair straightened itself with a jerk, and gibbered at him, twitching spasmodically. The woman turned away, shaking.
"I live in hell," he moaned—"in all the torment of the uttermost hell. I fly from one thing to another for respite, for relief—but there is no relief. I can only make madness of them all. Everything twists and turns in my hands. I can keep nothing straight." Then another gust of passion seized him. He shouted, beating his hands together. "What right," he cried furiously, "have men and women to marry and bequeath disease and madness to their children? What right have they to propagate the rottenness of their minds and bodies? It's worse than murder. It's the cruelest, the most wicked, of all crimes. What are the feelings of a child to such parents? Is it not to hate them—as I hate that foul thing there?—to curse them, as I curse him, with every breath?" His arms dropped limply to his sides. "What is the use of hating?" he said dully. "It can't cure me. It can't cure me."
He looked at her fixedly.
"Well?" he asked bitterly. "You know the secrets of my house. Are you satisfied?"
She laid a hand on his arm, and turned him gently towards the door. There were tears in her eyes.
"Come away," she said weakly. "Let us speak somewhere else."
He followed her. They went out, without another look at the figure behind them, and returned in silence to the black room.
Truer Colors
A great change had come over her. All the hardness had disappeared from her face. It was transformed by a wonderful new pity—a latent compassion, stirred for the first time by this miserable man's utter tragedy. And so transformed she was very lovely—with a loveliness that all the arts of an accomplished society woman had never bestowed upon her.
"Forgive me," she said gently. "I would not have said what I did if I had even thought ... of that."
He looked down at her, a world of agony in his tortured eyes.
"Well," he asked—"do you still want to marry me ... now?"
For an instant the old hardness flashed back.
"You would have marriedher," she returned.
"I wonder," he said slowly. "I wonder ... if I should."
His gaze wandered vacantly round the room.
"She intoxicated me," he said. "Her memory intoxicates me still. She set fire to all my passions. She made me forget the barrier. But I think I really hated her. Perhaps ... if she hadn't died in the garden ... I might have killed her...."
The madness was leaving him, and the weakness of reaction taking its place. He put a hand on her shoulder, and leant heavily on her. His face was mild and kind—the face of the normal man.
"Phyllis," he said softly, "I mocked you, and treated you badly. But it wasn't really I. Forgive a poor madman the sins of his madness."
She made no attempt to check her tears. He took her hand, as gently as a child.
"Don't cry," he begged. "See—I am all right now. Sit down, and let us talk."
Still leaning on her, he moved to a couch, and drew her down beside him.
"First," he said, "I will tell you why I lied to Inspector Fay. I did not go into the house to fill my cigarette case. I was mad. It came on me—as it often does—when I see sane people about me—a rush of hatred and despair."
He spoke dispassionately, without a trace of the terrible disorder that had possessed him a few minutes before. Only the gloom remained—the shadow that never left him.
"You can understand," he went on, "what my life has been since this cloud first settled on me. I tried to fight against it—but how could I fight against a thing that I knew to be there, creeping on me day after day—when I knew that in the end I must give way? Every hour seemed to bring some fresh proof of the madness that was in me—some proof that made resistance more and more futile and hopeless. A thousand times I have been tempted to kill myself—but always there was the dim, desperate hope that some miraculous twist of sanity might yet deliver me. I can'tconvey to you a tenth—a hundredth—part of the agony of that struggle. There were times when I shrank into the farthest corner of my darkest cellar, and prayed, as only a madman could pray, to be spared from the unjust curse. There were times when I stood out on the roof of my house, and defied the God I had prayed to...."
He stared straight out in front of him, a figure of unutterable pathos—a helpless accuser of Eternal Laws.
"If I were suffering for a fault of my own, I would bear my punishment uncomplaining. But I am innocent. I have done nothing to deserve this torture. And there is always the thought of what I might have been—of what I know I could have been. That is the cruelest torment of all. I have to see sane men and women wasting every minute of their lives—without the slightest appreciation of the value, or the responsibilities, of reason—who might as well be mad, for all the use they are to their fellow-creatures. And I...." He broke off. "That is enough about myself," he said. "I want to talk about you."
He looked at her in surprise, as if noticing the alteration in her for the first time.
"How changed you are," he said. "You have never looked like that before. You have always been so hard. Why have you never looked like that before?"
She was silent. She bent her head, as if ashamed of betraying herself.
"Was all that hardness ... only a cloak ... to hide yourself?"
He seized her hand tightly.
"You fool! You fool!" he cried—"to make yourself hard and unfeeling and unnatural—to try to stamp all the heart out of your life—to blaspheme your sex. Don't you know that a hard woman is the most terrible thing in the world? Don't you know that while men dare to think that they have the image of God, it is women who can really have the heart of God? And to think that all the time you have disguised yourself, you have been capable of looking like that."
"I have been up against the world," she said. "I have never had enough money to be soft-hearted. No woman with feeling can getfive hundred per cent. out of her income."
"What does it matter," he returned, "if she can get five hundred per cent. out of life?"
He still held her hand, his eyes fixed longingly on her face.
"If only I were not mad," he said, with all his sadness—"now I know that you are really a woman...."
"Let me go," she said brokenly, withdrawing her hand from his.
"Not yet," he returned, detaining her. "There is something more I want to do." He paused. "My dear," he said softly, "an hour ago I would not have married you even if I had been sane. Now I want to marry you although I am mad. But, since that cannot be, there is something else." He released her, and stood up. "I want you always to look like that," he said. "I want you to forget that you have ever tried to disguise yourself. I want to make it possible for you to go through the rest of your life with your heart in its proper place."
He took his check book from his pocket.
"No, no," she said quickly—"not that."
"Please," he insisted.
"I would have taken it before," she said, forcing back her tears. "But not now."
"You must," he declared. "My money is no use to me. I can't do anything worth doing with it. With all my fantastic extravagancies, I only spend a small part of my income. The rest has been accumulating for years. I shall never use it, and when I die it will pass to some one I have never seen. It is doing no good—and I want it to do some good. What better thing could I do with it than give it ... to the woman I would marry if I could?"
She sprang up.
"For God's sake," she cried, "don't say that! I can't bear it!"
He laid a hand again on her shoulder.
"Do you care?" he asked slowly. "I don't think you cared before. I thought you were only sorry for me now. Do you really care?"
"I do care!" she cried recklessly. "I care—and care—and care. My God, how I care!"
He turned his face upwards, and over it passed a dreadful, mocking smile.
"O God of Mercy!" he muttered—"another torment!"
He drew away from her.
"I shall do this for you," he said firmly. "I intend to do this. And then we must not see each other again. I hope that when you marry, as you must, you will marry a good, clean man—a man who can stand out among his fellow-creatures, and need not shrink away from them, as I must. I want you to be very happy and bring happy children to the world...." His voice shook. "And forget there are unfortunate people in it ... who may only gaze hungrily over the gulf that they can never cross."
He left her sobbing, and went to his writing table.
"No one will know," he said. "I will draw it to myself. The bank is quite close here. I will walk there and cash it at once."
He wrote the check, and rose.
"Wait for me here," he said. "I shall only be a few minutes." And he went out with the face of a stricken man.