Providing for the Worst
Though Inspector Fay had disclosed no more than was necessary for the purpose of the initial charge, the arrest of James Layton was popularly considered to have solved the mystery of the murder of Christine Manderson.
No one realized more fully than Layton himself the overwhelming strength of the case against him. He was as good as condemned already. Beyond his own assertion of innocence, he was utterly defenseless against a sequence of evidence that might well have shattered the strongest reply. And he was without any reply at all, except his own denial. He could only admit the truth of the damning train of circumstances, in face of which his mere word was hopelessly—and, he was compelled to acknowledge, justly—inadequate. The secret of his identity—most crushing factof all—was lost. He was the Michael Cranbourne whom Christine Manderson, then Thea Colville, had drawn on to ruin and disgrace. He had threatened her, in the presence of witness, with just such an end as she had met with. He had been seen lurking in the garden at the time of the crime. He had been beside himself. And to all that he had no more convincing answer than the plea of not guilty. He placed himself, quite dispassionately, in the position of his own judge and jury. There could be only one result.
The strange message of hope, brought to him by Jenny West, from a mysterious foreigner who had declared knowledge of his innocence and of half the truth, aroused his curiosity, if no more. That one person, at all events, had discovered, and was apparently pursuing, an alternative to his own guilt was interesting, if a slender encouragement to build on. He was not disposed to cling to flimsy hopes. He accepted his position with perfect calmness. Since the confession of his identity to Inspector Fay a load seemed to have been lifted from his mind, and with it had passed the revivalof mad passion which the sight of Christine Manderson's fatal beauty had aroused. He found himself able to dwell on her memory—even to contemplate her death—with a cold detachment which surprised himself. He no longer shrank from conjuring up her image—but now it was a dead image from a dead world. And—not without surprise also, and perhaps a certain satisfaction—he found himself looking forward to a visit from Jenny West.
She came to him at the appointed time. She was very white. The deep shadows of sleepless grief and anxiety were round her eyes—but in them shone the fire of a dogged, dauntless courage. Her great untamed soul was aflame with revolt against the implacable circumstances that had placed the man whose name a thousand had blessed on the highroad to the gallows. She threw herself against the wall of facts with all the force of her primitive love. She was one of those whose trust rises to its greatest heights when opposed to reason.
He greeted her kindly. He was cheerfuland composed. He showed that he was glad to see her.
"We shall save you, Jim!" she declared, straining back the tears that sprang to her eyes at his kindness. "I know we shall! I know it!"
"God will save His workman," he returned quietly—"if it is His will."
He looked at her closely. And something very like affection came into his face.
"You are pale," he said. "You are over strained. You haven't slept."
She bent her head, to hide her brimming eyes.
"My child...." he said gently.
"What does it matter," she sobbed, "if I haven't slept? How can I sleep—when you are ... here?"
"Listen, my dear," he said—"we must face this thing squarely. It's no use trying to shut our eyes to the truth, however unpleasant it may be. As the case stands at present, no jury in the world could acquit me. I have no reply to the charge, except to declare thatI did not kill Christine Manderson—and that will not help me. The evidence is more than enough to satisfy any impartial, clear-thinking man or woman. It would satisfy me. That I know myself to be innocent will not assist me to establish my innocence. Thousands of things may happen in the meantime—but I must prepare to suffer the penalty for a crime that I did not commit."
"You shall not!" she cried passionately. "If there is justice in heaven or earth, you shall not!"
"I do not cling to life," he returned. "It has very little to give me, or to take away. Men may find me guilty—but I shall stand before God innocent. It will not be the first time I have stood before God."
A spark of his old fanaticism flashed into his eyes for a moment, then faded.
"I shall be ready," he said steadily, "for whatever He sends."
"Men shall not find you guilty," she declared. "There are three people working for you. The truth will be discovered."
"Your mysterious Frenchman?" he smiled. "What has he done?"
"I don't know," she confessed. "He tells me nothing—except to keep on promising that you will be saved. And that is enough for me."
A frown darkened Layton's face.
"I wish you would not put yourself so completely into the hands of a stranger," he said doubtfully. "Who and what, is this man? And how does he come to be mixed up in this affair?"
"I know nothing whatever about him," she replied. "But there is something that makes me trust him. I believe he will keep his promise."
"I don't like it," he insisted.
"If I didn't help him," she said, "I could do nothing. And I should go mad."
"What has he given you to do?" he asked.
"I promised not to tell any one," she hesitated.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You had better tell me. You have no one else to protect you."
"It is something I can't understand," she said slowly. "This morning I had to write out the names and addresses of all the Art and Picture Dealers from theDirectory, and this afternoon I am to go round in a car to as many of them as I can, with a letter from the French Embassy, to ask if any articles have ever been supplied to, or orders taken from, a Miss Masters, of 35, De Vere Terrace, Streatham, and if so, what."
Layton stared at her in astonishment.
"What possible connection can that have with the case?" he exclaimed.
"I don't know," she said again. "I've tried to think."
"The French Embassy," he mused. "That is strange...."
He checked himself, and looked at his watch.
"You time is nearly up," he said. "Listen to me carefully. There is one very important thing that I want you to understand. Whatever may develop in the meantime, I intend to prepare for the worst."
He kept her silent with a firm gesture.
"My work must go on. No matter whathappens to me, my work must go on. And it must be carried on as I have begun it, by some one who has worked with me, and understands my objects—by some one who is human, and unlimited by sect or creed. I don't want to make people religious—it would spoil most of them. I want to make them healthy and happy. I would rather they were clean pagans than unclean Christians. No soul is saved or lost because it happens to take a certain view of the Mysteries of God. It is the bodies I care for—the bodies I want to build. Humanity should be a song of thanksgiving, not a prayer for alleviation."
The fires kindled again. His face was lit up.
"You must continue my work. If I should have to leave it ... you will find everything yours. There is over a million. Use it as I have taught you. Use it to help children to grow into men and women, and men and women to grow into old men and women. Use it to help human beings against the cruelties they inflict on each other—and animals against the cruelties inflicted on them. Promise methat if the worst happens, you will go on where I leave off."
Tears blinded her. She could not speak.
"Promise," he insisted.
"I will," she sobbed. "I will go on—as long as I can live after you."
He stood still, looking at her fixedly. There was the dawn of an awakening on his face.
"My God!" he whispered, "I was wrong. I do cling to life. I want to live. O God, save me!"
And the girl uttered a great sigh of thankfulness, and fell fainting against the wire partition that stood between them.
The Disappearance of Tranter
At one o'clock on the following day, Monsieur Dupont sat in his room waiting for Tranter. At half-past one he had become impatient. At two he seized the telephone directory, and, a minute later, the instrument. At two-thirty he obtained his number.
The answer to his first question stiffened him into an attitude of rigid tensity.
"Mr. Tranter is not in, sir," a voice told him. "He has disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Monsieur Dupont echoed sharply.
"We do not know what has happened to him. He went out last night at nine o'clock, and has not returned."
"Not returned...." the listener muttered.
"We are getting anxious," the voice wenton. "He left orders for his supper, and there is no doubt that he intended to return. We have telephoned to the hospitals and the police stations, but nothing has been heard of him. Do you happen to know where he was going?"
There was a moment's pause. Monsieur Dupont's hands were clenched so tightly round the instrument that the veins stood out on them like cords.
"Yes," he said slowly, "I know where he was going."
He rose quickly.
"I will find him," he promised and rang off.
He replaced the instrument, and stood still. For the first time since his arrival in London fear found a place in the expression of his face.
"Dieu," he whispered—"that Crooked House...."
He seized his hat and stick, and hurried out to his car.
Remarkable changes were in progress whenhe arrived at the Crooked House. A small army of workmen swarmed over the whole place in a condition of feverish energy. There were stacks of tools, dozens of machines, and cartloads of material. At first sight it might have appeared as if nothing less than the effects of an earthquake could have been in process of repair—but, as Monsieur Dupont stood staring about him in amazement, it became apparent that the men were engaged in eliminating the crookedness of the garden, and must have been so engaged from a very early hour. Many of the twisting paths had been shorn of their high maze-like walls of hedge, and the paths themselves were in varying stages of conversion or disappearance. Under rapid and ruthless hands straightness was already appearing out of the confusion. Monsieur Dupont looked positively frightened.
"Mon Dieu," he exclaimed aloud, "they are making it a human garden!"
The house itself presented a no less startling aspect. It was no longer gloomy, deserted, and silent. It was teeming with life. Every window was open, and from within camesounds of rapacious cleaning. A hundred painters had commenced a vigorous assault upon the exterior, and representatives of every branch of house decoration were attacking the interior. It was a scene of resurrection.
Monsieur Dupont almost ran to the open front door. Copplestone's manservant was at work in the hall, and came forward with a sphinx-like expression.
"Mr. Copplestone?" said Monsieur Dupont.
"Mr. Copplestone is away, sir."
"Away...?"
"He left in the car early this morning, sir, without saying where he was going or when he would be back."
Monsieur Dupont was plainly staggered.
"Was he alone?"
"I do not know, sir."
"You do not know?"
"I did not see him leave, sir. He gave me my instructions in the library, and ordered me to remain there until he had gone."
Monsieur Dupont took a threatening step towards him.
"Where is Mr. Tranter?" he demanded, with sudden fierceness.
The man met his challenging gaze steadily.
"Mr. Tranter, sir?"
"Mr. Tranter came here last night—between ten and eleven o'clock."
"I think you must be mistaken, sir. If he had come here, I should have seen him."
Monsieur Dupont clenched his fists.
"I am not mistaken! I say that he came here last night!"
"I did not see him, sir."
"Since then he has disappeared. He has not returned to his house, and nothing has been heard of him. Where is he?"
"I know nothing of Mr. Tranter, sir."
"That is not true!" Monsieur Dupont almost shouted.
"Sir!"
"I say that is not true!"
The man drew himself up.
"It certainly is true, sir."
"It is not! Will you tell the truth to me—or to the police?"
"I have nothing to tell," the man insisted doggedly.
Monsieur Dupont appeared to be beside himself.
"Dieu!" he cried, "if any harm has come to Mr. Tranter, you shall pay for it—all of you!"
The man shrugged his shoulders.
"I can only repeat, sir, that I have not seen Mr. Tranter, and that, so far as I know, he has not been to this house. He is certainly not here now. You are welcome to search every room for him if you like. Mr. Copplestone left word that the house was to be open to any one who might wish to go over it."
"He said that?" Monsieur Dupont exclaimed, his anger giving place to astonishment.
"Yes, sir."
Monsieur Dupont turned away without another word, and walked slowly to the gates. Reaching them, he stopped, and looked back.
"In the name of heaven," he muttered, "what happened in that house last night?"
He went back to his car. Amazement and anxiety were blended on his face. It was plain that his calculations had received an unexpected check, the meaning of which he could not at present grasp. The sudden transformation of the house and garden was a development that had not entered into his scheme of procedure. It presented him with an entirely new and unlooked-for problem. After a moment's indecision, he took out his pocket-book, referred to an address, and gave it to his chauffeur.
During the return journey he sat with his face between his hands, buried in thought. When the car stopped before a house in Grosvenor Gardens, he lifted his head slowly and heavily, as if rousing himself from a stupor.
"Mrs. Astley-Rolfe, if you please," he said to the footman who answered his summons.
"Mrs. Astley-Rolfe is not at home, sir."
"It is most important," said Monsieur Dupont. "I wished to speak to her of a matter connected with Mr. George Copplestone."
"She went away early this morning, sir."
"Away?" Monsieur Dupont repeated.
"With Mr. Copplestone."
Monsieur Dupont started back.
"With Mr. Copplestone?"
"Yes, sir. Just before eight o'clock."
"With Mr. Copplestone...."
"He came in his car, sir, and insisted on Mrs. Astley-Rolfe getting up to see him. She went away with him ten minutes afterwards, without telling us where she was going or when to expect her back."
Monsieur Dupont's face had become blanker and blanker. He stared at the man speechlessly then turned from the door, and gazed in a helpless fashion up and down the street.
"Mille diables!" he murmured, "what does it mean...."
He got into his car again. He looked about him like a man dazed by a heavy blow. Returning to the Savoy, he went up to his room.
There was a telegram on the table. He opened it, and read:
"The name was George Copplestone Winslowe,Lessing."
"The name was George Copplestone Winslowe,
Lessing."
Monsieur Dupont uttered an extraordinary sound. In a flash the gloom and uncertainty that had held him gave place to a seething excitement. Crushing the telegram into his pocket, he rushed from the room. Two minutes later he was on his way to Scotland Yard.
In Pursuit
Inspector Fay was occupied with the arrangement of the evidence to be presented at the inquest on the body of Christine Manderson. He disliked interruptions when at work, but the appearance of Monsieur Dupont banished his annoyance, and called forth a smile of complacent triumph.
"My friend," said Monsieur Dupont, "you know me well enough to be sure that I would not mislead you?"
There was that in the look of him that caused the smile to fade from the inspector's face.
"Of course," he replied, laying down his papers.
"There is not a moment to lose. You must come with me."
"Come with you?"
"Now—immediately."
"But where?"
"Wherever it may be necessary to go. I do not yet know myself. I only know that we must go."
"Impossible," the inspector declared. "I must be ready for the inquest."
"If you do not come with me," Monsieur Dupont retorted, "you will not be ready for the inquest." He allowed his excitement to overflow. "Why do you stand there?" he cried. "I tell you, there is not a moment to lose. Cannot you see that I am serious? In all the years that you have known me I have never been more serious. Come!"
"What for?" demanded the inspector sharply.
"To discover the truth of the death of Christine Manderson."
"The truth is discovered," returned the inspector, looking down at his papers.
"The truth isnotdiscovered," said Monsieur Dupont.
"It is a perfectly clear case," the inspector retorted. "There cannot be the smallest doubt that Layton killed her."
"Layton did not kill her. At the beginning I warned you to ignore the obvious. But you did not. Layton is no more guilty of the crime than you are."
"I am satisfied," the inspector said shortly.
"You must please yourself," said Monsieur Dupont. "I cannot wait. There are two lives to save—his and another. I came here to keep my word to you. I promised that if I succeeded in solving the mystery, I would hand the rest to you. I do not want credit from this affair. There is another meaning in it for me. I am ready to hand the rest to you, if you will come and take it. If you will not come—I must go on to the end myself. The choice is to you."
Inspector Fay looked at him steadily for a moment. Then he turned back to his desk, and locked up his papers.
"I will come," he said.
Ethics of Killing
They swung out from Scotland Yard into Whitehall.
"What has happened?" the inspector asked.
Monsieur Dupont leant forward, controlling his excitement with an effort.
"Mon Dieu," he said, "I wish I knew!"
He took the telegram from his pocket.
"It is an hour only that I have returned from Richmond. I found the house of George Copplestone in course of transformation. I found all the windows open. I found men and women cleaning—painting—making new. I found a hundred men ... making the crooked garden straight."
"Well?" said the inspector—"why not?"
Monsieur Dupont brought his hands together impatiently.
"Why not? There are a thousand reasons why not. But the reason why...."
"Is it an extraordinary thing for a man to open his windows, paint his house, and straighten his garden?"
"It is!" exclaimed Monsieur Dupont. "It is more than an extraordinary thing—it is a gigantic, a brain-splitting thing—if he has kept his windows closed, his house unpainted, and his garden crooked for twenty years. The house of a man is the reflection of his soul. It was the reflection of George Copplestone's soul yesterday. But ... something happened in it last night. And to-day...."
He broke off, and began to smooth out the telegram on his knee.
"The moment I entered that house," he continued, "I knew it was a wicked house. And when that dreadful thing happened, I felt positively that the wickedness of the house had some direct connection with the crime in the garden. I felt that it would be impossible to solve one without solving the other. I knew, also, that you would certainly be satisfied with the evidence against James Layton, and wouldconsider no other possibility. That evidence, I admit, was unanswerable—but I, with some previous knowledge to help me, knew that Layton was innocent. The difficulty in front of me was to prove the guilt of the real criminal in time. My friend Tranter, and that remarkable young protégée of Layton, Jenny West, agreed to help me. Together we began to draw the nets, and the criminal was aware of our movements. In the country yesterday I discovered the identity of the most important witness in the case—but when I went to find her in the evening, she had been snatched away. I instructed Tranter to discover and bring to me the secret of the Crooked House, whatever it might be. He set out to do so at nine o'clock last night. And he has disappeared."
"Disappeared?" the inspector exclaimed.
"Without a trace. I, only, knew where he was going. And not only has he disappeared—but Copplestone and Mrs. Astley-Rolfe have disappeared with him."
Inspector Fay began to show more interest.
"They will be wanted for the inquest," he said sharply.
"If we do not find them in time for the inquest," Monsieur Dupont returned, "there will be two inquests to hold."
"Two inquests?" the inspector echoed.
"I could not understand it," continued Monsieur Dupont. "It was contrary to all my calculations. I was bewildered—and you may recollect that I am not often bewildered. But when I returned to my hotel, I found this." He held out the telegram. "It is the answer to a certain inquiry I have made."
"What does it mean?" the inspector asked, handing it back.
"It means," said Monsieur Dupont slowly, "that we shall be lucky if we find Tranter alive."
"Where can they have gone?"
"I do not know. I can only guess—and if I have not guessed rightly, we shall not see him again."
"Are you telling me," the inspector demanded, "that Copplestone killed the woman he had just become engaged to?"
"I shall tell you who killed her within twelvehours," Monsieur Dupont replied. "I will tell you why she was killed now."
He paused.
"Why," he asked, "did the murderer, whoever it was, kill her so horribly? Why was it not enough to deprive her of life? Could one have desired more? Why was she stamped on, and torn, and crushed?"
"It was obviously done in the madness of jealousy and revenge," replied the inspector.
"It was done in madness," said Monsieur Dupont—"but it was not the madness of jealousy or revenge. It was the madness of a strange and terrible hatred. It was done—because the killer hated her beauty and not her."
The inspector stared at him blankly.
"Hated her beauty, and not her...?"
"Twenty years ago," said Monsieur Dupont, "there was in France a very beautiful woman. She was named Colette d'Orsel. It was said that she was the most beautiful woman in the country. She was also very rich, very generous, and very kind. She was always doing good actions. She had not an enemy in theworld. There was no one who could have wished her a moment's pain. She was only twenty-five. With several of her friends she went to stay at Nice. One night she was found in the gardens of her hotel—almost torn to pieces."
"I remember the case," said the inspector. "It was a ghastly affair."
"There appeared no motive. She was wearing some splendid jewels. They had been crushed with her, but nothing was missing—not a stone. She had just returned from the tables, and had not troubled to deposit her winnings of the evening with the cashier of the hotel. Forty thousand francs were found on the body. Not a note had been touched. The greatest detectives of France were called in to solve the mystery—but they solved nothing. They made the mistake of trying to find a motive. They looked for a person who could have had a reason to kill her. But it was time lost. They should have looked among the people who had no reason to kill her. The weeks became months, and still they discovered nothing. That crime is a mystery to-day."
The inspector's attention was rivetted. He remained silent.
"Ten years ago," Monsieur Dupont proceeded, "there was in Boston a young girl named Margaret McCall. She was wonderfully beautiful. Her parents were poor people, and she worked for her living. She was quiet and reserved by nature. She made few friends, and cared little for the society of men. Naturally there were hundreds who regretted, and attempted to overcome, that characteristic; but she went her own way quietly and firmly. One evening her body was found in a lonely part of one of the public parks torn and crushed in the most terrible manner. The police were helpless. The thing that baffled them completely was the absence of any motive for the crime. They tried to find one—but all that they found was what I have said, that she had been a good, honest girl—that she had had no enemies—that she had not jilted a man, or wronged a woman—that she had never flirted, or encouraged men to pay attentions to her. Yet there she had been found—broken and mutilated. The small sumof money she carried had remained untouched. The crime was never solved."
His voice had sunk lower. He had dwelt on each detail with impassive deliberation.
"This week, Christine Manderson—without doubt the most beautiful woman of the three—was found in that crooked garden at Richmond, if possible in a more horrible condition than either of the others."
"You mean," exploded the inspector, "that the murderer of Colette d'Orsel at Nice twenty years ago also killed Margaret McCall in Boston ten years after?"
"I do," replied the low voice.
"And Christine Manderson here three days ago?"
"And Christine Manderson here three days ago. But this time there was a difference. An unfortunate chain of circumstances provided clear evidence against an innocent man—James Layton. I admit that as the case stood you had no option but to arrest him. But in doing so you committed the same mistake that your French and American brothers had committed before you. They had lookedfor a motive, and could not find one. You found a motive, and devoted yourself to the man with the motive. You should have looked for the Destroyer."
There was something of awe in the silence that followed, like the hush that succeeds the passing of a storm.
"My friend," said the inspector slowly, "what utterly monstrous thing are you telling me?"
Monsieur Dupont turned to him a face of massive innocence.
"Is it monstrous?" he said mildly. "If a man is born with a longing to kill elephants, he is a daring sportsman. If the longing is to kill beetles, he is a scientist. But if the inclination is to kill men—or women—he is a criminal lunatic. Why? If the desire to kill is not in itself monstrous, the desire to kill a particular thing, whatever it may be, cannot be monstrous. It can only be illegal. If it is dreadful to kill a young child, it must be dreadful to kill anything young. If it is cowardly for a man to kill a woman, it is cowardly for a man to kill the female sex inany shape or form. Yet, what scientist allows the matter of sex to interfere with the impalement of his beetle? Nor would he do so if his hobby were to impale human beings. If he searches for a beautiful beetle to kill, it only requires a broadening of his particular outlook for him to search for a beautiful woman to kill. There may be a perfectly sane and moral country in the world (although I have never heard of it) in which it would be criminal to kill the beetle, and scientific to kill the woman. I confess that a well-mounted collection of beautiful women would be very much more interesting to me than the finest collection of beautiful beetles. But if I have the one, I am made a member of a Royal Society—and if I have the other, I am executed. And the only reason for that is that the human beings make the laws, and not the beetles."
The car swung round a sharp corner, and the inspector's amazement was interrupted by the sudden necessity of keeping his position. Monsieur Dupont continued slowly.
"But the monstrousness of this case is notthat three people have been killed—but that three people have been more than killed. It is monstrous because we have none of the simple dignity of the primitive slayer, and all the morbid excesses of the modern despoiler. While it might be an entirely respectable thing to kill a woman to preserve her beauty, it is an entirely monstrous thing to kill her to destroy it. That is the only reason why the collector of beetles and butterflies is not the most cold-blooded of murderers. That is the only——"
"What in the name of all that's unholy," gasped the inspector, "are you going to say next?"
Monsieur Dupont leant forward as the car stopped, and opened the door.
"Next," he replied gravely, "I am going to inform you that we have arrived at Paddington, and request you to get out."
Monsieur Dupont's Task
He bought the tickets, and conducted the inspector to a train.
"Where are we going?" demanded the bewildered officer, as Monsieur Dupont settled himself in a corner, and produced his cigar case.
"We are going," said Monsieur Dupont, "to a delightful little village, hidden away in the hills of the country—far from the sins of cities—where they do not even know that Paris is the center of the world."
Fortunately they had the carriage to themselves. Monsieur Dupont smoked in silence for some minutes.
"I will explain to you," he began, at last, "how I came to be concerned in this affair. The reason was that, after my retirement, I had the honor to marry a cousin of Coletted'Orsel. The brother of my wife had been one of the party at Nice at the time of the crime, and, though there was not the least evidence against him, the police had allowed it to be known that they looked upon him as the guilty person. You know how ready certain people are to discuss and even to credit the wildest theories—and you know also that after sufficient discussion the wildest theories become not only possibilities, but probabilities. The cloud of suspicion hung over him, ruining his health and his life, and casting a shadow over the whole family. When I married my wife, I determined that the shadow should be removed. And for the past two years I have devoted myself to that object.
"You can imagine," he went on, after a pause, "the difficulties that confronted me. Eighteen years had elapsed since the crime had been committed. Men, women, and even buildings, had passed, and been replaced—records had been lost—memories failed. But money, perseverence, and imagination slowly conquered. Step by step the years were overcome. With the aid of a small army ofassistants, I succeeded in isolating a certain person. I placed that person beside the dead body of Colette d'Orsel, and began my pursuit.Mon Dieu, how I worked! After the hardest year of my life, I at last established a link between the death of Colette d'Orsel and the death of Margaret McCall—and that link was the personality I had isolated in the first place at Nice. But it had changed itself. I followed scent after scent—trail after trail. When I came to London a few days ago, I had sufficient information to allow me to commence the final stage of the adventure. I had solved the most difficult question of all—the present identity of my quarry. The second most difficult question remained to be solved—proofs of guilt. How could I obtain them? How could I prove that this person—living here in all the security of time—was the person who had torn those two women to pieces in America and France ten and twenty years ago? I had certain clues to follow up, but the results could not possibly have been sufficient to prove such an accusation. What was I to do? To rely upon observation? To search for—andwait for—a proof in this person's daily intercourse with the world? To place a beautiful woman within reach, and watch for a betrayal? That was actually the object in my mind when I called on my friend Tranter, and requested him to open to me the doors of London society. Sooner or later, I should have found, or brought about, the situation I was looking for. It might have been years—doubtless it would have been years—if he had not, by the most remarkable chance, taken me direct to that house at Richmond. Then came the death of Christine Manderson. It was horrible—appalling! And to think that I, who had detected and tracked the Destroyer, had been there in the same garden, within a few yards of the third death, and yet was no nearer my proofs! And to add to my difficulties, there was the certainty that an innocent man would suffer unjustly if I could not succeed in time."
He paused, looking grimly out at the passing scenery.
"And if I had not sent Tranter to the Crooked House yesterday, I do not know how I could have succeeded in time."
He turned abruptly from the window, put his feet up on the seat, and closed his eyes.
"I am a little tired," he said. "If you will excuse me, I will take a nap."
He slept for an hour.
They got out at a small country station. The shadows of the hot twilight were merging into darkness. A few minutes walking brought them to an inn, at which Monsieur Dupont demanded, and obtained, a conveyance.
For half an hour they drove through the heavily scented air of the country. Scarcely a word was spoken until they reached another village. There, Monsieur Dupont requested the inspector to alight and they proceeded on foot.
The red rear-light of a motor-car appeared at the turn of a corner. Monsieur Dupont drew a deep breath.
"Le bon Dieube thanked!" he muttered.
The car was stationary and empty. Monsieur Dupont laid a hand on the radiator.
"It is hot," he said. "They have only been here a few minutes. Do not make a sound."
He opened a gate. The long low shape of a house was in front of them. They stood still, listening. There was no sound, no light.
"To the back," Monsieur Dupont whispered.
What They Heard
They crept round the house. At the back a pair of French windows were open, but heavy curtains were drawn across them. No light was visible. They listened. A voice was speaking—slowly, scarcely above a whisper, but a whisper of contemptuous pride.
"Yes," it said, "I am the Destroyer! I was born to kill. It was the curse of my birth."
The silence of the room was broken only by the faint sound of a woman sobbing. Monsieur Dupont and the inspector drew nearer to the window.
"You fools!" said the arrogant voice. "What are your laws of Right and Wrong to me? IamRight and Wrong. What are your Codes of Sin? IamSin. Who are you to judge me? Who are you to set your little laws against My Madness?"
There was a long pause. Then the voice continued, in a tone of dull bitterness.
"Ever since I had strength to break, I have broken—to tear, I have torn. The disease took command of me long before I knew its meaning. When I was a child the sight of pretty things frightened me. I used to shrink from them, and hide my face. I was only quiet and normal when there were plain, colorless things about me. As I grew older the fear developed into hatred—and with hatred grew, slowly and subtly, the inclination to destroy. At first the opposition of all that was normal in me sufficed to keep the desire in check, but day by day it grew stronger and stronger, and day by day the power to resist became less and less. The increase of the hatred into madness followed the growth of the impulse towards the first surrender. It came upon me for the first time when I was twelve. How well I remember that day! My sanity had fought its strongest battle, and my head was still throbbing and swimming with the strain of it. I was taken to a strange house, and left alone in a bright room. On the wall there was a picture of avery beautiful woman. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I couldn't move from in front of it. New passions, that I had never felt before, were tearing me. The picture seemed to be alive, to be mocking me. I hated it. I felt that it was cruel and loathsome—that it had wronged me. My whole body was on fire—my brain was flaming. Then something seemed to snap in my head. I lost myself. Irresistible forces took possession of me, and used me. When I came to myself ... the picture was lying at my feet ... in fragments."
The voice settled down into an expressionless monotone, pursuing its story without emotion.
"From that moment my doom lay on me. I had made the initial submission. Any attempt at resistance after that was futile. I was helpless. Out of my hatred of beauty in any shape or form came the desire to obtain the most beautiful things I could find to enjoy the mad ecstasy of shattering them. I had all the morbid secret longing to induce attacks of my own madness—to enjoy the awful exaltation, the triumph of destruction. I was notashamed. I found myself entirely without scruple, without conscience, incapable of remorse. When the periods of desire were upon me, I hesitated at nothing to gratify them. At first they were frequent—sometimes there were only a few days between—but as I grew older the intervals lengthened, until sometimes I dared to think myself free. But, sooner or later, it came again. I knew all the warning signals—the creeping in of uncontrollable thoughts—the brain pictures—the quickening of mind and body—then the grip of the madness. All I could do at such times was to collect a number of things sufficiently beautiful to satisfy my lust, and lock myself in to an orgy of destruction. Then I was normal again for another period. So I grew up. When I was twenty, I learnt the truth."
"I told him," a woman's broken voice said. "I hadn't the heart to tell him before. I was hoping against hope that the curse would pass away as he grew into manhood. But when I saw that it would not ... I told him."
"Then I knew there was no escape," the dull voice went on. "The results of my father'svices and my mother's madness were my inheritance. God! ... what a legacy!"
The voice flamed for an instant—then subsided again into its previous monotony.
"The intervals became longer and longer, but each time the madness recurred it tightened its clutches. Each time it made me more and more its own property. Whenever the warnings showed themselves I fled to the refuge of Miss Masters's house. She bought and kept there things on which, when the mania was at its height, it satisfied me to expend my lust. But those inanimate things, though sufficient for that purpose, had no power in themselves to produce an attack of the madness. The capability to do that was reserved to a woman's beauty—the effect of which, so far, I had had no opportunity to experience. That opportunity came to me for the first time at Nice—twenty years ago. I had never seen a really beautiful woman before I saw Colette d'Orsel."
Another pause followed the name. The room behind the curtains remained in tense silence until the voice resumed.
"I can remember it now—as if it were yesterday.How she stood there—in the soft shaded light—terribly beautiful. And I—the Destroyer—watched her paralyzed—knowing for the first time the pinnacle of my madness. The sight of her numbed all my sanity. I could no more have torn myself away from that place than I could have resisted the new flood of my disease that broke over me like a nightmare wave. I was introduced to her. As I bent over her hand I almost laughed at the thought of what her horror would have been if she had known the impulses that surged through me. Her voice—the touch of her—burnt into me like flames. I knew what the end would be, but I was powerless in the grip of my inheritance. And she—in the pitiless irony of it—liked me! Three evenings later I met her in the gardens of the hotel. We sat together ... alone for the first time. I struggled. My God, I struggled! But it was useless. The white shape of her next to me—the dim outline of her features—the whole nearness of her beauty.... Then it came on me, as I knew it would—the final rush of irresistible hatred. When I knew myself again... she was lying on the ground ... smashed ... my first living victim."
The woman sobbed.
"God forgive him!" she cried. "He was innocent himself. It wasn't really him...."
Light footsteps moved across the floor.
"Let me be," said the voice hardly. "What God does with me is for God to do. Sit down again."
The footsteps returned.
"I left her there, and went back to the hotel. I sat down in my room, and analyzed my feelings. The madness had left me. My mind was perfectly clear and steady. I felt no horror at what I had done—no remorse—only a sense of impersonal regret at the death of an innocent woman, and a faint detached pity for her misfortune in crossing my path. I carefully considered my position, and certainty that there could be no evidence against me dispelled any fears for myself—but my cold-blooded sanity realized that the odds were tremendously against a recurrence of the same good fortune, and that the avoidance of the opposite sex must become the chief care of mylife. Then I went to bed, and slept soundly. The discovery of Colette d'Orsel's body early the next morning provided the sensation of the year at Nice. The police were confounded. There was no motive—no clue. It is an unsolved mystery to-day."
The callousness of the story was so revolting that even the inspector, seasoned as he was, allowed a muttered expression of disgust to escape him. But Monsieur Dupont remained as silent and still as the house itself.
"Ten years later," continued the voice, "I went to America. For five years I had been free from any return of the madness. You can imagine the longing to be like other men—to presume on the years of immunity. I felt unshakably sane. I even felt that I had never been mad. I gloried in the keenness of my intellect, the absolute order and control of my thoughts. What had I to do with madness? But in Boston ... I saw Margaret McCall. In an instant I was mad. In an instant——"
A cry tore the air—a cry so awful in its inhuman fury that the two listeners shrank back horrified. For a moment the roomseethed with confusion. The voices of men and women were blended in rage, terror, and command. Then the curtains were wrenched aside, and two figures rushed out shrieking into the darkness of the garden.
The Beauty-Killer
Four more figures dashed out through the curtains—two women and two men. The inspector and Monsieur Dupont joined them. Guided by the sounds in front of them, they dashed across the garden at the top of their speed.
A black wall of earth loomed up before them, like the rising of a gigantic wave. It was strongly rivetted, and must have been at least ten feet high. It was quite inaccessible from where the pursuers stopped beneath it.
"Look! Look!" a woman screamed.
They looked up.
"My God!" the inspector exclaimed.
On the height above them, silhouetted against the pale sky of the summer night, they saw a figure—its arms uplifted in an attitude of majesty, of triumphant defiance. The whitelight of the moon lit up a face terrible beyond words in its pride, its sin, and its utter madness.
"I am the Beauty-Killer! I killed Colette d'Orsel! I killed Margaret McCall. I killed Christine Manderson...."
Another figure scrambled up out of the darkness on to the height, and the silver head of Oscar Winslowe gleamed in the light. For a moment he crouched—then sprang forward with a yell. The two figures swayed backwards in a fierce struggle.
"They will go down!" a man's voice cried. "It is the edge of a gravel pit. The fence will not bear. There is a sheer drop of fifty feet."
"Let them go," another woman sobbed. "It is the best way."
And, even as she spoke, there was the sound of tearing woodwork. The struggling figures stood out for an instant with startling clearness—then disappeared like the sudden shutting off of a moving picture. And the whole night seemed to wince at the thud that followed.
"We must go down," the man's voice said, breaking the silence in an awestruck whisper. "There is a way round the other side."
They followed him round the edge of the pit. It seemed like walking round the world. They descended a steep slope—and then, in the vast gray silence, a circle of pale faces surrounded the dead bodies of Oscar Winslowe, and John Tranter.
Last Truths
"My friends," said Monsieur Dupont, "you have already heard a great part of the story. John Tranter was the son of Oscar Winslowe. He was mad. He was, as he called himself truly, a Beauty-Killer. That strange lust he inherited from his mother, who had been robbed of all she cared for, and hoped for, in life by a beautiful woman, and rendered insane three months before his birth. It was a most pathetic tragedy. We shall now hear——"
"One moment," Inspector Fay interrupted. "As I represent the police here, I should be glad to know, before we go any further, whose house I am in."
"Pardon me," Monsieur Dupont apologized. "I had forgotten. You are in the house of Doctor Lessing," he inclined himself towardsthe doctor, "who will in due course repeat to you a statement which he made to me yesterday. This lady is Miss Masters, who was Tranter's nurse. Mrs. Astley-Rolfe and Mr. Copplestone—which, I fancy, is not his correct name—you know already."
He added a high compliment to the inspector's present position and past achievements, and then turned to Copplestone.
"Mr. Copplestone, when Tranter did not return to me at the appointed time this afternoon, I went to your house. I found great changes. I found it, as you say, upside down."
Copplestone was radiant with happiness. Every trace of the old gloom had left him. He was a new man.
"I should think you did!" he retorted. "And you'd have found the earth upside down as well, if I'd been able to turn it."
"I was puzzled," Monsieur Dupont admitted. "I could not understand it. But I knew this—that when the shadows roll away from a man's house, they roll away from his life. When he draws the blinds and throws open the windows of his house to the light and the air, he drawsthe blinds and throws open the windows of his soul. When he straightens his garden, he straightens himself. I knew that before you would lift the cloud from your house something must have lifted the cloud from you. You had been delivered——"
"There was a fellow in the Bible," said Copplestone—"I think he was a king—who was cured of leprosy by taking a dip in a river. I don't know what happened afterwards, but I am quite sure that he turned his palace upside down when he got back."
He sprang up, his face illuminated with all the wonder of his new birth.
"I am free!" he cried. "Free! That's what my house told you. I had been brought out into the light after half a life of darkness. I had been released after forty years of prison, of torment that all the tortures of the Inquisition at once couldn't have equalled!"
He stared about him, like an intoxicated man.
"This room is too small!" he almost shouted. "Everything is too small. I want to dance on the Universe. I want the world to be a football. I want to play enormous games withgiants—" He checked himself abruptly, and sat down. "Forgive me," he said. "You would understand, if you knew what I have suffered."
"I can, for one," agreed the doctor heartily.
"And I, indeed," said Monsieur Dupont. "But to proceed with the story—I think it would be better to commence with what Miss Masters has to tell us."
He bowed to a gray-haired, grief-stricken woman. There was a pause before she overcame her emotion sufficiently to speak.
"I took charge of Mary Winslowe's child from its birth," she began, at last. "She entrusted it to me in her sane moments, and I kept my trust faithfully. Perhaps it would have been better if I had not."
"You did your duty," the doctor said.
"It was a condition that he should never come under his father's influence, or even know his real name. He was to be kept in complete ignorance of the tragedy of his birth. It was necessary for him to be christened in his proper name to legalize the inheritance of his mother's fortune, but after that I took him away, andbrought him up in strict accordance with my promises. He was told that both his parents had been drowned at sea. I gave him the name of John Tranter—Tranter was an old family name of mine. He was a bonny little fellow. I never thought that he might have inherited his mother's madness."
"The Laws of Nature are inexorable," said the doctor. "If only the Second Commandment were given to people as the Law of Nature instead of the threat of God, it would be of some value."
"I hardly realized it," she went on, "even when the symptoms had unmistakably developed. But it increased too plainly to be denied. I hoped and prayed that the horrible disease would pass away from him as he grew up—but it grew stronger and stronger with him. At last he made me tell him what it really was. It was against my promise, but he had to know. I pledged my word that I would keep his secret, and it was arranged that whenever he felt the approach of an attack he would come to me. I kept things for him. At first smaller things satisfied him. He was content to destroyflowers, pictures, prettily colored china, anything that was beautiful. But after that visit to France, when he was twenty, there was a change. He never told me what had happened—that he had killed a woman—but from that time only a woman's beauty would satisfy him. The attacks became few and far between, but when they came he would have died with the very force of his madness if he had not had some representation of a beautiful woman to expend it on."
"It's frightful—incredible," the inspector exclaimed.
"It was all the more pitiful," she said, "because his sanity was so wonderful. He had a towering intellect. He succeeded in anything he put his hand to."
"He was looked upon as one of the greatest authorities on finance in the country," said the inspector.
"He could have been a Member of Parliament before he was thirty if he had cared for politics. He refused a title. To be a Privy Councillor was the only honor he accepted. And he—one of England's great men—cameto my little house at Streatham to gratify his madness to destroy."
She looked round at them defiantly, anger displacing the sorrow on her face.
"But he was not guilty," she declared. "His hands may have killed those three women—but he was not guilty. Nor was that poor innocent woman, his mother, who died in the madhouse. They were both clean of sin. It was on his wicked father that the guilt lay. It was Oscar Winslowe who was responsible for the lives that have fallen to his sins. Oscar Winslowe, and no one else."
"I bear witness to that," agreed Doctor Lessing. "Mary Winslowe was the gentlest, the sweetest, and the most patient woman that ever walked this earth, as you will see when I tell you my story. And he was the biggest blackguard that ever blasphemed the likeness of his Maker."
"It is true," said the woman.
She drew back in her chair, and pressed a hand to her forehead.
"That is all I have to tell you," she concluded.
"Last night," said Monsieur Dupont, "I called at your house, and was told by the lady who lives next door that you had left in a hurry two hours before."
"Yes," she said.
"I presume that you did so on instructions from Tranter?"
"Yes."
"Evidently he shadowed me to Paddington Station, as I expected he would, and decided to remove you in case I should get on the right track."
"He sent me an urgent message," she said, "saying that a great disaster hung over his head, and that I must go away without leaving any trace. He told me where to go, and promised to come to me and explain."
"He knew that it was only you who could give any proof against him?"
"After forty years," she returned, with a touch of bitterness, "he ought to have known that I should not betray him."
"Even if one had told you of those three dreadful crimes that he had committed, andthat an innocent man was accused of the last one?"
She locked her hands together.
"Don't ask me," she cried. "I don't know what I should have done."
"He foresaw that problem," said Monsieur Dupont. "His sanity was, as you have said, wonderful. But the sanity of madness is always wonderful—that is why madmen are such superb criminals. It is only a madman who can be really sane. Although I allowed him to see that I knew already something of the truth, he never betrayed himself by even a tremor. He had all the grand egotism of the born criminal. His disguise was impenetrable. He was never sure how far my knowledge went, but not a sign of anxiety did he ever show. We played a game of cross purposes. I used him, under the pretense of requiring his assistance, to keep him by my side, and in the hope that as he saw me draw nearer to him step by step, he would break down. He, on his side, allowed himself to be used in order to keep watch on my moves, and safeguard himselfagainst them, as he did in the case of Miss Masters. He dared not leave me. In all my conversations with him, I placed him more and more at his wit's end to know how much I really knew. As much from curiosity as from anything, I instructed him to discover the secret of Mr. Copplestone's house, for I was convinced that it did contain an interesting secret. He was quite willing to make the attempt. It did not promise to lead me any nearer to him. He little thought when he went—and I had little thought when I sent him—that he was going to his own undoing."
"And my salvation," Copplestone added.
"There," said Monsieur Dupont, "it passes to you to enlighten me."
"First," returned Copplestone, "I should like to know what caused you to be so positive, after being in my house only two or three hours, that there was a secret in it."
"My instinct for the mysterious is seldom at fault," said Monsieur Dupont. "Have you not observed how, by their characters, their habits, and their desires, human beings draw to themselves certain events and conditions oflife? And it is equally true that houses draw to themselves certain contents and certain kinds of inhabitants. If a house is particularly adapted to contain a secret, in the course of time will certainly contain one. By a few strokes of his pencil an architect can condemn a house to become the scene of a murder, as surely as he can make it a convenient or inconvenient dwelling. Your house was constructed to hide a secret. And I was not only sure that it did hide one, but that it hid one which was in some way connected with the crime in the garden."
"I have had some experience of that instinct of yours," the inspector remarked, with a somewhat rueful smile.
"Well," said Copplestone, "instinct or no instinct, it certainly did hide a secret, and that secret was that Oscar Winslowe lived in it—if his condition could be called living. For the last five years he had been practically a helpless imbecile. He seldom uttered a sound beyond a gibber, and hardly seemed to be conscious. He was suffering the natural consequences of his vices. He had been gradually reachingthat condition since nature had dealt him her first stroke of vengeance more than thirty years ago. One by one his faculties had rotted. He was a living mass of decay."
"It was a sure thing," the doctor said. "Such a condition was bound to come. I prophesied it to his face when I first knew him."
"That was the secret of my house," Copplestone proceeded. "My own secret was that I believed myself to be his son—the inheritor of the curse that really belonged to Tranter. And the horror of it, the helplessness, the constant contemplation of the awful state of the man I knew as my father, and the morbid certainty that sooner or later I must come to the same state, actually drove me to the madness that was not really in me at all."
"But how had you come to believe yourself to be his son?" the inspector asked.
"That was the last of Winslowe's diabolical acts. He inherited a large fortune on condition that a child of his, to whom it could succeed, was alive at the time of the testator's death. He did not know anything of his own child, and did not want to. He was afraidthat if he made public inquiries for it, he might learn publicly that it was dead, and lose his claim. Also, he was afraid of other complications and exposures."
"And with good reason," said the doctor grimly.
"He wanted a child of five to produce as his son, George Copplestone Winslowe—and possibly make away with in due course after the business was settled. I am quite sure that would have been my fate if nature had not come to my rescue by striking him. He knew, from his knowledge of the underworld of London, how such things could be arranged without risk. No doubt he bought me for a few pounds. I am not the first heir to an estate who has been produced by such means."
"True enough," agreed the inspector. "The heir to a million has been bought for a fiver."
"But a few years after taking possession of the fortune, he was struck down, as I have said, by the first instalment of nature's retribution, and was incapable of carrying out his plans. No one cared for me. No one thought of removing me from the sight and influence of hisgrowing imbecility. I was brought up under the shadow of it. And so the horror was born in me—the belief that I was mad. What chance had I to resist it, in those surroundings? When I came to an age to do so, I searched out the story of my birth, of my father's excesses and my mother's madness, and my doom crashed upon me. Can you wonder that I became what I was?"
"No, indeed," said Monsieur Dupont.
"I dropped the name of Winslowe. It was loathsome to me. I used my other two names, George Copplestone. They, at least, had come from my mother's side. My old manservant and his wife stuck to me, and kept my secrets. The income devolved on me in consequence of Winslowe's incapability. And so things went on. In my morbid demoralization I saw myself growing nearer and nearer to that wretched creature day by day."
"Dreadful!" shuddered the doctor. "It must have been a living hell."
"Then, last night, Tranter came. He climbed up on the ivy, and tried to spy into Winslowe's room. But I was there, and heardhim. I dragged him in through the window. I suppose it was some look, some likeness to his mother, that stirred Winslowe's memory. He recognized him, and a flash of sanity came back to him. Under that sudden mental stimulation he recovered his power of movement, and was able to confess at least a part of the truth. Tranter was taken off his guard, and I forced him to admit his madness. I compelled him to take Winslowe and myself to Miss Masters, and she, in her turn, brought us here."
"I imagined she would," Monsieur Dupont remarked.
Copplestone drew a deep breath, and laughed aloud.
"And I am like other men! I can live as other men live. I can do what other men do. I can——" His eyes rested on the woman beside him, and his face grew tender. "Yes," he repeated slowly, "I can ... I can...."
There was a pause.
"And it was Tranter who killed Christine Manderson...." the inspector said, almost to himself.
"It was," said Monsieur Dupont. "He admittedto you on the night of the crime that he had known her in America years ago. And here we have a curious study in conflicting emotions. When he first met her, he had already killed two beautiful women. She was certainly more beautiful than either—yet he was able to associate with her on intimate terms for a considerable time, and even to tear himself away from her at last, without adding her to the victims of his madness. How was he able to do that? It was undoubtedly because he loved her. He had not loved either of the other two, so there had been no opposing emotion to his mania. But he loved Christine Manderson, and love was capable of holding the madness in check, because love, in its full strength, is the strongest of all human emotions. Love is stronger than madness, and ten times stronger than sanity. But after he left her the love faded to a certain extent, while the madness increased. Therefore, when he was suddenly confronted with her extraordinary beauty a few nights ago, the love that had faded was unable to restrain the madness that had not. And he killed her."