Ragobah paused, and coolly bared his right arm to the elbow. There wasa studied deliberation in his movements, which said only too plainly:“There is no hurry in killing you, for you cannot escape.” I grasped mystick firmly as my only hope, and awaited his onslaught. My early milimy life. Without the knowledge which I had derived from the use ofthe broadsword, I should have been all but certain to have attemptedto strike him a downward blow upon the head. This is just what he wasexpecting, and it would have cost me my life. He would have had only tothrow up his left arm to catch the blow, while with his right hand heplunged the knife into my heart. My experience had taught me how mucheasier it is to protect one’s self from a cutting blow than from athrust, and I determined to adopt this latter means of assault. Ragobahadvanced upon me slowly, much as a cat steals upon an unsuspecting bird.I raised my stick as if to strike him, and he instinctively threw up hisleft arm, and advanced upon me. My opportunity had come; I lowered thepoint of my cane to the level of his face, and made a vigorous lungeforward, throwing my whole weight upon the thrust. As nearly as I couldtell, the point of my stick caught him in the socket of the lefteye, just as he sprang forward, and hurled him backward, blinded andstupefied. Before he had recovered sufficiently to protect himself, Idealt him a blow upon the head that brought him quickly to the earth.Without stopping to ascertain whether or not I had killed him, I fledprecipitately to my lodgings, hastily packed my belongings, and set outfor Matheron Station by the same train I had so fondly believed wouldconvey Lona and me to our nuptial altar. Words cannot describe thesuffering I endured upon that journey. For the first time since myterrible desertion I had an opportunity to think, and I did think, ifthe pulse of an overwhelming pain, perpetually recurring like the beatof a loaded wheel, can be called thought. Although there is no insanityin our family nearer than a great-uncle, I marvel that I retained mywits under this terrible blow. I seriously contemplated suicide, andprobably should have taken my life had not my mental condition graduallyundergone a change. I was no longer conscious of suffering, nor of adesire to end my life. I was simply indifferent. It was all one to mewhether I lived or died. The power of loving or caring for anythingor anybody had entirely left me, and when I would reflect how utterlyindifferent I was even to my own father and mother, I would regardmyself as an unnatural monster. I tried to conceal my lack of affectionby a greater attention to their wishes, and it was in this way thatI yielded, without remonstrance, to those same views regarding mymarriage, to which, but a little while before, I had made such strenuousobjections as to quite enrage my father. I was an only child, and (asoften happens in such cases) my father never could be brought to realisethat I had many years since attained my majority. It had been his wish,ever since my boyhood, that I should marry your mother, and he made use,when I was nearly forty, of the selfsame insistent and coercive methodswith which he had sought to subdue my will when I was but twenty, and atlast he attained his end. I had learned from friends in Bombay thatnot only had Rama Ragobah recovered from the blows I had given him, butthat, shortly after my encounter with him, he had married Lona, she whomI had loved, God only knows how madly! It was all one to me now whetherI was married or single, living or dead. So it was all arranged. Imyself told the lady that, so far as I then understood my feelings, Ihad no affection for any person on earth; but it seemed only to piqueher, and I think she determined then and there to make herself anexception to this universal rule. This is how I came to marry yourmother. There was not the slightest community of thought, sentiment, orinterest between us. The things I liked did not interest her; what sheliked bored me; yet she was pre-eminently a sensible woman, and when shelearned the real state of affairs was the first to suggest a separation,which was effected. We parted with the kindliest feelings, and, as youknow, remained fast friends up to her death.
It was nearly a year after the affair on Malabar Hill before I had the heart to return with your mother to Bombay. I had thought all emotion forever dead within me, but, ah! how little do we understand ourselves. Twelve months had not passed, and already I was conscious of a vague ache—a feeling that something, I scarcely knew what, had gone wrong, so terribly wrong! I told myself that I was now married, and had a duty both to my wife and society, and I tried hard to ignore the ache, on the one hand, and not to permit myself to define and analyse it on the other. But a man does not have to understand anatomy in order to break his heart, and so my longing defined itself even by itself. The old fire, built on a virgin hearth, was far from out. Society had heaped a mouthful of conventional ashes upon it, but they had served only to preserve it. From the fiat of the human heart there is no court of appeal.
One night, to my utter amazement, I received a letter from Lona which you will find filed away among my other valuable documents.
It was addressed in her own quaint little hand, and I trembled violently as I opened the envelope. It was but a brief note, and ran as follows:
“I am dying, and have much to explain before I go. Be generous, and do not think too harshly of me. Suspend your judgment until I have spoken. You must come by stealth, or you will not be permitted to see me. Follow my directions carefully and you will have no trouble in reaching me. Go at once to the cave on Malabar Hill, whistle thrice, and one will appear who will conduct you safely to me. Follow him, and whatever happens, make no noise. Do not delay—I can last but little longer.
“LONA.”
I did not even pause to re-read the letter, or to ask why it was necessary to follow such singular directions in order to be led to her. I simply knew she had written to me; that she was dying; that she wanted me; that was all, but it was enough. Dazed, filled with a strange mixture of dread and yearning, I hurried to the cave. It was already night when I reached it—just such a moonlit night as that on which, nearly a year before, Lona and I had planned our elopement; and now that heart, which then had beaten so wildly against mine, was slowly throbbing itself into eternal silence,—and I—I had been more than dead ever since.
I looked about on all sides, but no human being was visible. I whistled thrice, but no sound came in response. Again I whistled, with the same result. Where was my guide? Perhaps he was in the cave and had not heard me. I entered it to see, but had barely passed the narrow portal when a voice said close behind me: “Did you whistle, Sahib?” The suddenness, the strangeness of this uncanny appearance, so close to me that I felt the breath of the words upon my neck, sent a chill over me. I shall never forget that feeling! Many times since then have I dreamt of a hand that struck me from out the darkness, while the same unspeakable dread froze up my life, until, by repetition, it has sunk deep into my soul with the weight of a positive conviction. I know, as I now write, that this will be my end, and his will be the hand that strikes. The fibre of our lives is twisted in a certain way, and each has its own fixed mode of unravelling,—this will be mine.
When I had recovered from the first momentary shock I turned and looked behind me. There, close upon me, with his huge form blocking the narrow entrance, stood Rama Ragobah, my rival, his face hideous with malignant triumph! I was trapped, and that, too, by a man whom my hatred, could it have worked its will, would have plunged into the uttermost hell of torment. I felt sure my hour had come, but my assassin should not have the satisfaction of thinking I feared him. I did not permit myself to betray the slightest concern as to my position—indeed, after the shock of the first surprise, I did not care so very much what fate awaited me. Why should I? Had I not seriously thought of taking my own life? Was it not clear now that Lona, whose own handwriting had decoyed me, had most basely betrayed me into her husband’s hands? If I had wished to end my own life before, surely now, death, at the hands of another, was no very terrible thing. Could I have dragged that other down with me, I would have rejoiced at the prospect!
Ragobah broke the silence. “You have left your stick this time, I see,” he said, as he unsheathed the long knife I had once before escaped, and ostentatiously felt its edge as if he were about to shave with it.
“You were in haste, Sahib, when you left me last time, or I should not now have the pleasure of this interview. Be assured I shall do my work more thoroughly this time. Behind you there is a hole partly filled with water. If you drop a stone into this well, it is several seconds before you hear the splash, and there is a saying hereabouts that it is bottomless. I am curious to know if this be true, and I am going to send you to see. Of course, if the story is well founded, I shall not expect you to come back. That would be unreasonable, Sahib.”
All this was said with a refined sarcasm which maddened me, and, as he concluded, he began to edge stealthily toward me. So strong is the instinct of self-preservation within us that I doubt not a would-be suicide, caught in the act of hanging himself, would struggle madly for his life were someone else to forcibly adjust the noose about his neck. At all events, I found myself unwilling, at the last moment, to have someone else launch me into eternity and, as I wished to gain time to think what I should do to escape, I said to him:
“Why do you bear me such malice? Can you not see that any injury I may have done you was purely in self-defence? You sought the quarrel, and I took the only means at hand to protect myself. I did not, as you know, seek to kill you, a thing I could easily have done, but was content merely to make good my escape. I—”
“Bah!” he said, interrupting me savagely. “That has nothing to do with it. Had you only pounded my head you might live, but you have pounded my heart! It is for that I hate you, and for that you die!”
“What have I done?” I asked.
“What have you done?” he roared, furious with rage. “I will tell you. You have by magic possessed the mind of my wife. Your name, your cursed name is ever upon her lips! My entreaties, my supplications are answered by nothing else. Even in her sleep she starts up and calls for you. You have cast a spell upon her. Day by day she droops and withers like a lotus-flower whose root is severed; yet ever and always, is your cursed name upon her lips, goading me to madness, until at last I have registered a sacred oath to kill you, and remove the accursed spell you have thrown upon her.”
Had he advanced upon me at this moment he would have found me as helpless as a child, so overcome was I by the sudden joy which seized upon me, and seemed to turn my melancholy inside out. Those words of hatred had been as a torch illumining the gloom of my despair, for they had shown me that my existence was not altogether barren and unproductive. The life which has known the heaven of true love cannot be called a failure. There is no wall so high, no distance so great, no separation so complete as to defy the ineffable commerce of two loving hearts! Lona, then, was still mine, despite all obstacles. What a change this knowledge made! In an instant life became an inexpressible benefaction, for it permitted me to realise I was beloved,—and death was dowered with a new horror—the fear that I should cease to know it.
I was roughly aroused from my reflections by Rama Ragobah.
“Come, Sahib,” he said, as his thick lips curled sneeringly, “suppose you try your spells upon me? You will never have a better chance than now to show your power,” and again he made a slight movement toward me with the gleaming knife. The moon, low down upon the horizon, sent a broad beam of light into the entrance of the cave and over the head and shoulders of the Indian. Its cold light shimmered along the blade which was now held threateningly toward me. The crisis had been reached.
In times of such great urgency one has frequently an inspiration—instantaneous, disconnected, unbidden—which no amount of quiet, peaceful thought would suggest. Such extraordinary flashes are the result of reasoning too rapid for consciousness to note. The Indian had already laid bare his right arm to the elbow before I had determined upon the desperate course I would pursue, and upon which I must hazard all. As he advanced upon me I seized the large, white sola hat from my head, and hurled it full in his face. It was a schoolboy trick, yet upon its success depended my life. Instinctively, and in spite of himself, Ragobah dodged, closed his eyes, and raised his right hand, knife and all, to shield his face. I sprang upon him at the same instant I threw my hat, and so was able to reach him before he opened his eyes. I had well calculated his movements, and had made no mistake. As I reached him his head was bent downward and forward to let the hat pass over him. His position could not have been better for my purpose. I “swung on him,” as we used to say at the gymnasium, catching him under his protruded jaw, not far from the region of the carotid artery. The blow was well placed, and desperation lent me phenomenal strength. It raised him bodily off his feet, and hurled him backward out of the cave, where he lay motionless. He was now in my power. I seized his knife and bent over him. Words cannot express the hatred, the loathing I felt for him then and always. Between me and the light of my happiness he had ever stood, an impenetrable black mass. Twice had he sought my life, yet now, when he was in my power, I could not plunge his weapon into his heart. Would it not be just, I thought, to drag him into the cave, and hurl him down the abyss he had intended for me? Yes; he certainly merited it; yet I could not do that either. I wished the snake a thousand times dead, yet I could not stamp it into the earth.
He was beginning to slightly move now, and something must be done. It was useless to run, for the way was long, and he could easily overtake me. You may wonder why I did not take to the thicket, but if you had ever had any experience with Indian jungles you would know that, without the use of fire and axe, they are practically impenetrable. Professor Haeckel, botanising near that same spot, spent an hour in an endeavour to force his way into one of these jungles, but only succeeded in advancing a few steps into the thicket, when, stung by mosquitoes, bitten by ants, his clothing torn from his bleeding arms and legs, wounded by the thousands of sharp thorns of the calamus, hibiscus, euphorbias, lantanas, and myriad other jungle plants, he was obliged, utterly discomfited, to desist. If this were the result of his efforts, made in broad daylight, and with deliberation, what might I expect rushing into the thicket at night, as a refuge from a pursuer far my superior in physical strength and fleetness of foot, and who, moreover, had known the jungle from his boyhood? Once overtaken by my enemy, the long knife in my hands would be of no avail against a stick in his. I saw all this clearly, and realised that he must be prevented from following me.
There was no time to be lost, for he was rapidly recovering possession of his powers. I seized a large rock and hurled it with all the force I could command upon his left foot and ankle. Notwithstanding his immense strength his hands and feet were scarcely larger than a woman’s, and the small bones cracked like pipe-stems. Though I had not the will to kill him, my own safety demanded that I should maim him as the only other means of making good my escape. As the rock crushed his foot the pain seemed to bring him immediately into full possession of his faculties, and he roared like an enraged bull. I turned and looked back as I beat a hasty retreat down the hill. He had seized one of the air-roots of the banyan tree, and raised himself upon his right leg. The expression of his face as the moonlight fell upon it was something never to be forgotten. It riveted me to the spot with the fascination of horror. He shook his fist at me fiercely, as he shrieked from the back of his throat:
“You infidel cur! You may as well try to brush away the Himalyas with a silk handkerchief as to escape the wrath of Rama Ragobah. Go! Bury yourself in seclusion at the farthermost corner of the earth, and on one night Ragobah and the darkness shall be with you!”
These were the last words this fiend incarnate ever spoke to me, but I know they are prophetic, and that he will keep his oath.
The next day I learned that Lona was dead. She had died with my name upon her lips, and her secret—the explanation of her strange conduct on that night—died with her. I shall never know it. Bitterly did I repent my inability to reach her. The thought that she had waited in vain for me, that with her last breath she had called upon me, and I had answered not, was unendurable torture, and I fled India and came to America in the futile endeavour to forget it all. Out of my black past there shone but one bright star—her love! All these long years have I oriented my soul by that sweet, unforgettable radiance, prizing it above a galaxy of lesser joys.
There is little more to be said. I shall meet death as I have stated—I am sure of it—and no man will see the blow given. Remember, as I loved that Indian maiden with a passion which death has not chilled, so I loathe my rival with a hatred infinite and all-consuming; for, somehow, I know that demon crushed out the life of my fragile lotus-flower. He will work his will upon me, but if his cunning enable him to escape the gallows, my soul, if there be a conscious hereafter, will never rest in peace. Remember this, my dear child, and your promise, that God may bless you even as I bless you.
It was some time after Gwen had finished this interesting document before any of us spoke. The narrative, and the peculiar circumstances under which it had been read, deeply impressed us. At length Maitland said in a subdued voice, as if he feared to break some spell:
“The Indian girl’s letter; let us find that, and also the will.”
Gwen went to the drawer in which her father kept his private papers, and soon produced them both. Maitland glanced hastily at the letter, and said: “You have already heard its contents”; then turning to Gwen, he said: “I will keep it with your permission. Now for the will.” It was handed to him, and his face fell as he read it. In a moment he turned to us, and said: “The interest on the insurance money is to go to Miss Darrow, the entire principal to be held in trust and paid to the person bringing the assassin to justice, unless said person shall wed Miss Darrow, in which case half of the fund shall go to the husband, and the other half to the wife in her own right. The balance of the estate, which, by the way, is considerable, despite the reports given to Osborne, is to go to Miss Darrow. This is all the will contains having any bearing upon the case in hand. Let us proceed with the rest of the papers.” We made a long and diligent search, but nothing of importance came to light. When we had finished Maitland said:
“Our friend Osborne would say the document we have just perused made strongly for his theory, and was simply another fabrication to blind the eyes of the insurance company. That’s what comes of wedding one’s self to a theory founded on imperfect data.”
“And what do you think?” Gwen inquired.
“That Rama Ragobah has small hands and feet,” he replied. “That his left foot has met with an injury, and is probably deformed; that most likely he is lame in the left leg; that he had the motive for which we have been looking; that he may or may not have the habit of biting his nails; that he is crafty, and that if he were to do murder it is almost certain his methods would be novel and surprising, as well as extremely difficult to fathom—in short, that suspicion points unmistakably to Rama Ragobah. That is easily said, but to bring the deed home to him is quite another thing. I shall analyse the poison of the wound and microscopically examine the nature of the abrasion this afternoon. To-night I take the midnight train for New York. To-morrow I shall sail for Bombay, via London and the Continent. I will keep you informed of my address. While I am away I would ask that you close the house here, leaving everything just as it is now dismiss the servants, and take up your abode with the Doctor and his sister.” He rose to go as he said this, and then continued, as he turned to me: “I shall depend upon you to look after Miss Darrow’s immediate interests in my absence.” I knew this meant that I was to guard her health, not permitting her to be much by herself, and I readily acquiesced.
The look of amazement which had at first overspread Gwen’s face at the mention of this precipitate departure gave place to one of modest concern, as she said softly to Maitland: “Is it necessary that you should encounter the dangers of such a journey, to say nothing, of the time and inconvenience it will cost?” He looked down at her quickly, and then said reassuringly: “Do you know one is, by actual statistics, safer in an English railway carriage than when walking the crowded streets of London? I am daily subjecting myself to laboratory dangers which, I believe, are graver than any I am likely to meet between here and Bombay, or, for that matter, even at Bombay in the presence of our recent acquaintance Ragobah.”
“I deeply appreciate,” she replied, “the generous sacrifice you would make in my interests—but Bombay is such a long way—and—”
“If suspicion directed me to the North Pole,” he interrupted, “I should start with equal alacrity,” and he held out his hand to her to bid her farewell. She took it in a way that bespoke a world of gratitude, if nothing more. He retained the small hand, while he said: “Have you forgotten, my friend, your promise to your father? Do you not see in what terrible relations it may place you? How important, then, that no effort should be spared to prevent you from becoming indebted to one unmanly enough to take advantage of your position. I shall use every means within my power to myself discover your father’s murderer, and you may comfort yourself with the assurance that, if successful, I shall make no demand of any kind whatsoever upon your gratitude. I think you understand me.”
As he said this Gwen looked him full in the face. A little nervous tremor seized the corners of her mouth, and the tears sprang to her eyes. “Good-bye” was all she could say before she was compelled to turn aside to conceal her emotion.
Maitland, observing her agitation, said to her tenderly: “Your gratitude for the little that I have already done is reward, more than ample, for all I shall ever be able to do. Good-bye,” and he left the room.
Oh, man with your microscope! How is it that you find the smallest speck of dust, yet miss the mountain? Does the time seem too short? It would not if you realised that events, not clocks, were the real measure thereof.
Life is but a poor accountant when it leaves the Future tobalance its entries long years after the parties to thetransactions are but a handful of insolvent dust. When, in suchwise, the chiefest item of one side of the sheet fails to explainitself to the other, the tragic is attained.
On the day following Maitland’s departure for New York, Mr. Darrow was buried. The Osborne theory seemed to be universally accepted, and many women who had never seen Mr. Darrow during his life attended his funeral, curious to see what sort of a person this suicide might be. Gwen bore the ordeal with a fortitude which spoke volumes for her strength of character, and I took good care, when it was all over, that she should not be left alone. In compliance with Maitland’s request, whose will, since her promise to him, was law to her, she prepared to close the house and take up her abode with us.
It was on the night of the funeral, just after the lamps were lighted, that an event occurred which made a deep impression upon Gwen, though neither she nor I fully appreciated its significance till weeks afterward.
Gwen, who was to close the house on the morrow, was going from room to room collecting such little things as she wished to take with her. The servants had been dismissed and she was entirely alone in the house. She had gathered the things she had collected in a little heap upon the sitting-room table, preparatory to doing them up. She could think of but one thing more which she must take—a cabinet photograph of her father. This was upon the top of the piano in the room where he had met his death. She knew its exact location and could have put her hand right upon it had it been perfectly dark, which it was not. She arose, therefore, and, without taking a light with her, went into the parlour. A faint afterglow illumined the windows and suffused the room with an uncertain, dim, ghostly light which lent to all its objects that vague flatness from which the imagination carves what shapes it lists. As Gwen reached for the picture, a sudden conviction possessed her that her father stood just behind her in the exact spot where he had met his death,—that if she turned she would see him again with his hand clutching his throat and his eyes starting from their sockets with that never-to-be-forgotten look of frenzied helplessness.
It would be difficult to find a woman upon whom superstition has so slight a hold as it has upon Gwen Darrow, yet, for all that, it required an effort for her to turn and gaze toward the centre of the room. A dim, ill-defined stain of light fell momentarily upon the chair in which the dead man had sat, and then flickered unsteadily across the room and, as it seemed to her, out through its western side, the while a faint, rustling sound caught her ear. She was plainly conscious, too, of a something swishing by her, as if a strong draught had just fallen upon her. She was not naturally superstitious, as I have said before, yet there was something in the gloom, the deserted house, and this fatal room with its untold story of death which, added to her weird perceptions and that indescribable conviction of an unseen presence, caused even Gwen to press her hand convulsively upon her throbbing heart. For the first time in her life the awful possibilities of darkness were fully borne in upon her and she knew just how her father had felt.
In a moment, however, she had recovered from her first shock and had begun to reason. Might not the sound she had heard, and the movement she had felt, both be explained by an open window? She knew she had closed and locked all the windows of the room when she had finished airing it after the funeral, and she was not aware that anyone had been there since, yet she said to herself that perhaps one of the servants had come in and opened a window without her knowledge. She turned and looked. The lower sash of the eastern window—the one through which she felt sure death had approached her father—was raised to its utmost.
“How fortunate,” she murmured, “that I discovered this before leaving.”
She was all but fully reassured now, as she stepped to the window to close it. Remembering how the sash stuck in the casing she raised both hands to forcibly lower it. As she did so a strong arm caught the sash from the outer side, and a stalwart masculine form arose directly in front of her. His great height brought his head almost to a level with her own, despite the fact that he was standing upon the ground outside. He was so near that she could feel his breath upon her face. His eyes, like two great coals of fire, blazed into hers with a sinister and threatening light. His countenance seemed to utterly surpass any personal malignancy and to exhibit itself as a type of all the hatreds that ever poisoned human hearts.
Only a moment before Gwen had felt a creepy, sickening sensation stealing over her as the result of an ill-defined and apparently causeless dread. Now an actual, imminent, and fearful peril confronted her. Under such circumstances most women would have fainted, and, indeed, if Gwen had herself been asked how she would have acted under such a supreme test, she would have prophesied the same maidenly course as her own, yet, in the real exigency—how little do we know of ourselves, save what actual experience has taught us!—this is precisely what she did not do. When the horrible apparition first rose in her very face, as it were, a momentary weakness caught her and she clung to the sash for support. Then the wonderful fire of the malignant eyes, green, serpentine, opalescent, with the wave-like flux of a glowworm’s light seen under a glass, riveted her attention. She had ceased to tremble. Our fear of death varies with our desire for life. Dulled by a great grief, she did not so very much care what became of her. The future’s burden was heavy, and if it were necessary she now put it down, there would still be a sense of relief. As this thought passed like a shadow over her consciousness she felt herself irresistibly attracted to the awful face before her. Her assailant’s gaze seemed to have wound itself about her own till she could not disentangle it. She was dimly conscious that she was falling under a spell and summoned all her remaining strength to break it. Quick as the uncoiling of a released spring, and without the slightest movement of warning, she threw her entire weight upon the sash in a last endeavour to close the window, but the man’s upraised arm held both her weight and it, as if its muscles had been rods of steel. Gwen saw a long knife in his free hand,—saw the light shimmer along its blade, saw him raise it aloft to plunge it into her bosom, yet made no movement to withdraw beyond his reach and uttered no cry for help. It seemed to her that all this was happening to another and that she herself was only a fascinated spectator. She was wondering whether or not the victim would try to defend herself when the knife began its descent. It seemed ages in its downward passage,—so long, indeed, that it gave her time to think of most of the main experiences of her life. At last it paused irresolutely within an inch of her bosom. She wondered that the victim made no attempt to escape, uttered no cry for help. Suddenly she felt something whirling and buzzing in her brain, while a wild fluttering filled both her ears; then the swirling, fluttering torment rose in a swift and awful crescendo which seemed to involve all creation in its vortex; then a pang like a lightning-thrust and a crash like the thunder that goes with it, and she saw a tall man striding rapidly from the window. She was still sure it was no personal concern of hers, yet an idle curiosity noted his great height, his dark, mulatto-like skin, and a slight halt in his walk as he passed through a narrow beam of light and off into the engulfing darkness.
It was many minutes before Gwen regained any considerable command of her faculties, and she afterwards told me that she was even then more than half inclined to consider the whole thing as a weird dream of an overwrought mind. At length, however, she realised that she had had an actual experience, and that it was of sufficient importance to make it known at once. She accordingly hastened to lay the whole matter before me, and I, in my turn, notified the police, who, at once instituted as thorough a search as Gwen’s description made possible. She had told me that her assailant was dark-skinned, yet with straight hair, and a cast of features that gave no hint of any Ethiopian taint. This, and his halting gait and great stature, were all the police had in the way of description, and I may as well add that the information was insufficient, for they never found any trace of Gwen’s assailant.
I had had some hopes of this clue, but they were doomed to disappointment. It seemed evident to us that if anything were ever done in bringing Mr. Darrow’s assassin to justice, Maitland would have to do it, unless, indeed, M. Godin solved the problem. Osborne, Allen, and their associates were simply out of the question.
We debated for some time as to whether or not we should write Maitland about Gwen’s strange experience, and finally decided that the knowledge would be a constant source of worriment without being of the least assistance to him while he was so far away. We, therefore, decided to keep our own counsel, for the present at least.
Maitland had written us a few lines from New York telling us the result of his analysis, and ended by saying:
There is no doubt that Mr. Darrow died of poison injected into the blood through the slight wound in the throat. This wound was not deep, and seemed to have been torn rather than cut in the flesh. What sort of weapon or projectile produced that wound is a question of the utmost importance, shrouded in the deepest of mysteries. Once this point is settled, however, its very uniqueness will be greatly in our favour. I have an idea our friend Ragobah might be able to throw some light upon this subject, therefore I am starting on my way to visit him this afternoon, and shall write you en route whenever occasion offers. My kindest regards to Miss Darrow.
Yours sincerely,
GEORGE MAITLAND.
P. S. I shall have leisure now on shipboard to set tie that question of atomic pitches, which is still a thorn in my intellectual flesh.
I handed this letter to Gwen, and, after she had read it through very carefully, she questioned me about this new theory of Maitland’s. I went through the form of telling her, after the usual practice of amiable men discoursing to women, feeling sure she would be no wiser when I had finished, and was dumfounded when she replied: “It looks very reasonable. Professor Bjerknes, if I remember the name, has produced all the phenomena of magnetic attraction, repulsion, and polarisation, by air vibrations corresponding, I suppose, to certain fixed musical notes. Why might not something similar to this be true of atomic, as well as of larger, bodies?”
If the roof of my house had fallen in, I should not have been more surprised than at this quiet remark. How many times had I said: “You can always count on a young woman, however much she flutter over the surface of things, being ignorant of all the great underlying verities of existence”? I promptly decided, on all future occasions, to add to that—“When not brought up by her father.” I was convinced that of the attainments of a girl educated by her father absolutely nothing could be definitely predicted.
We had a short note from Maitland written at Trieste. He excused its brevity by saying he had been obliged to travel night and day in order to reach this port in time to catch the Austrian Lloyd steamer Helois, bound for Aden, Bombay, Ceylon, Singapore, and Hong Kong. From Aden I received the following:
MY DEAR DOCTOR:
We have just been through the Red Sea, and I know now the real origin of the Calvinistic hell. Imagine it! A cloudless sky; the sun beating down with an intolerable fierceness; not a breath stirring, and the thermometer registering 120 degrees F. in the shade! It seemed as though reason must desert us. The constant motion of the punkas in the saloons, and an unlimited supply of ice-water was all that saved us. Sleep was hardly to be thought of, for at no time during the night did the mercury drop below 100 deg. F. Apart from the oppressive heat referred to, the entire voyage has been exceedingly pleasant. I have not solved the atomic-pitch problems, as attendance at meals has left me little time for anything else. They seem to eat all the time on these boats. At 8 A. M. coffee and bread; at ten a hearty breakfast of meat, eggs, curry and rice, vegetables and fruit; at 1 P. M. a luncheon, called “tiffin,” of cold meats, bread and butter, potatoes, and tea; at five o’clock a regular dinner of soups, meats with relishes, farinaceous dishes, dessert, fruits, and coffee, and lastly, at 8 P. M., the evening meal of tea, bread and butter, and other light dishes. Five meals a day, and there are some English people who fill up the gaps between them by constantly munching nuts and sweets! Verily, if specialisation of function means anything, some of these people will soon become huge gastric balloons with a little wart on top representing the atrophied brain structure. They run their engines of digestion wholly on the high-pressure system.
After eight days’ voyage on the Indian Ocean we shall be in Bombay. I must close now, for there is really nothing to say, and, besides, I am wanted on deck. My engagement is with a Rev. Mr. Barrows, who is bound as missionary to Hong Kong. This worthy Methodist gentleman is very much exercised because I insist that potentiality is necessity and rebut his arguments on free-will. He got quite excited yesterday, and said to me severely: “Do you mean to say, young man, that I can’t do as I please?” I must say I don’t think his warmth was much allayed by my replying: “I certainly mean to say you can’t please as you please. You may eat sugar because you prefer it to vinegar, but you can’t prefer it just because you will to do so.” He has probably got some new arguments now and is anxious to try their effect, so, with kind regards to Miss Darrow—I trust she is well—I remain,
Cordially your friend,
GEORGE MAITLAND.
P. S. (Like a woman I always write a postscript.) You shall hear again from me as soon as I reach Bombay.
This last promise was religiously kept, though his letter was short and merely announced his safe arrival early that morning. He closed by saying: “I have not yet breakfasted, preferring to do so on land, and I feel that I can do justice to whatever is set before me. I intend, as soon as I have taken the edge off my appetite, to set out immediately for Malabar Hill, as I believe that to be our proper starting-point. I inclose a little sketch I made of Bombay as we came up its harbour, thinking it may interest Miss Darrow. Kindly give it to her with my regards. You will note that there are two tongues of land in the picture. On the eastern side is the suburb of Calaba, and on the western our Malabar Hill. Good-bye until I have something of interest to report.”
I gave the sketch to Gwen, and she seemed greatly pleased with it.
“Are you aware,” she said to me, “that Mr. Maitland draws with rare precision?”
“I am fully persuaded,” I rejoined, “that he does not do anything which he cannot do well.”
“I believe there is nothing,” she continued, “which so conduces to the habit of thoroughness as the experiments of chemistry. When one learns that even a grain of dust will, in some cases, vitiate everything, he acquires a new conception of the term ‘clean’ and is likely to be thorough in washing his apparatus. From this the habit grows upon him and widens its application until it embraces all his actions.”
This remark did not surprise me as it would have a few weeks before, for I had come to learn that Gwen was liable at any time to suddenly evince a very unfeminine depth of observation and firmness of philosophical grasp.
Maitland had been gone just six weeks to a day when we received from him the first news having any particular bearing upon the matter which had taken him abroad. I give this communication in his own words, omitting only a few personal observations which I do not feel justified in disclosing, and which, moreover, are not necessary to the completeness of this narrative:
MY DEAR DOCTOR:
I have at last something to report bearing upon the case that brought me here, and perhaps I can best relate it by simply telling you what my movements have been since my arrival. My first errand was to Malabar Hill. I thought it wise to possess myself, so far as possible, of facts proving the authenticity of Mr. Darrow’s narrative. I found without difficulty the banyan tree which had been the trysting-place, and close by it the little cave with its mysterious well,—everything in fact precisely as related, even to the “Farsees’” garden or cemetery, with its “Tower of Silence,” or “Dakhma,” as it is called by the natives. The cave and the banyan are among the many attractions of what is now Herr Blaschek’s villa. This gentleman, with true German hospitality, asked me to spend a few days with him, and I was only too glad to accept his invitation, as I believed his knowledge of Bombay might be of great service to me. In this I did not mistake. I told him I wished to ascertain the whereabouts of a Rama Ragobah, who had been something between a rishi and a fakir, and he directed me at once to a fakir named Parinama who, he said, would be able to locate my man, if he were still alive and in Bombay.
You can imagine how agreeably surprised I was to find that Parinama knew Ragobah well. I had anticipated some considerable difficulty in learning the latter’s whereabouts, and here was a man who could—for a sufficient consideration—tell me much, if not all, about him. I secured an interpreter, paid Parinama my money, and proceeded to catechise him. I give you my questions and his answers just as I jotted them down in my notebook:
Q. What is Ragobah’s full name?
A. Rama Ragobah.
Q. How long have you known him?
A. Thirty-five year.
Q. Has he always lived in Bombay?
A. No, Sahib,
Q. Where else?
A. For a good many year he have travel all the time.
Q. Is he in Bombay now?
A. No, Sahib.
Q. Where is he?
A. Over the sea, Sahib.
Q. Do you know where?
A. He sail for America; New York.
Q. When?
A. About eleven week ago.
Q. Do you know for what he undertook this journey?
A. Some personal affair of long time ago which he wish to settle—the same which make him so many year travel through India.
Q. Was he in search of someone?
A. Yes, Sahib.
Q. Some Indian woman?
A. No, Sahib.
Q. Some other woman, then?
A. No, Sahib.
Q. A man, then; an Englishman,
A. Yes, Sahib.
Q. What kind of a man is this Ragobah?
A. He very big man.
Q. What is his disposition? Is he generally liked?
A. No. His temper bad. He cruel, revengeful, overbearing, and selfish. He most hated by those who best know him.
Q. He is a friend of yours, you say?
A. I say no such thing! Do you think I sell secret of friend? I have great reason for hating him, or I not now be earning your money.
Q. Ah! I see. What did you say he wanted of this Englishman?
A. I no say, Sahib.
Q. You said some personal affair of long standing, I believe.
A. Yes, Sahib.
Q. Do you know its nature?
A. No; I not know it, but I have not much doubt about it, Sahib.
Q. What do you think, then?
A. I think there but one passion strong enough in Ragobah to make plain his hunt like dog for last twenty year. Such persevere mean strong motive, and as I have good reason to remember how quick he forget a kindness, I know he not moved by friendship, Sahib.
Q. His motive then is—
A. Revenge.
Q. Have you any idea why he cherishes this malice?
A. I think it because some old love affair; some rival in his wife’s love.
Q. Indeed! Then he has been married?
A. Yes, Sahib.
Q. Where shall I find his wife?
A. All that is left of her is in the bottomless well in the cave on Malabar Hill.
Q. Did Ragobah kill her?
A. No; that is, not with his own hand.
Q. How long ago did she die?
A. More than twenty year, Sahib.
Q. Are any of her relatives living?
A. Her husband, Sahib, and a cousin, that is all.
Q. Is there anyone else who could tell me of this woman?
A. Moro Scindia could, but he not do it.
Q. Why? Is he Ragobah’s friend?
A. Ragobah has no friends, Sahib.
Q. Why, then?
A. He under oath to tell what was told him only to one person. He has keep his secret out of every year for more as twenty year, and can no be expect to tell to you, Sahib.
Q. Can you bring this man to me? You will both be well paid for your time, of course.
A. I bring him, Sahib, but I not make him speak.
Q. Let me see you both, then, to-night at eight, at Herr Blaschek’s villa on Malabar Hill. Ask for Mr. Maitland.
A. We be there. Anything more, Sahib?
Q. Yes. When is Ragobah expected to return?
A. He write that he think he return on the Dalmatia. She due next day after to-morrow.
Q. Has Ragobah any physical peculiarities?
A. His hands and feet they very small for man so big and strong.
Q. Anything else?
A. His left leg been hurt. The foot very bad shape, and the whole leg some bad, and,—what you call—halt when he walk.
Q. Has he the habit of biting his finger nails?
A. I not know he has, Sahib.
This completed the list of questions which I had desired to ask him, so, after once more receiving his assurance that he would meet me in the evening with his friend Scindia, I left him. As you know, I am not wont to draw conclusions until all the evidence is in, but I must confess that, looking at the whole matter from start to finish, there seems to have fallen upon Ragobah a net of circumstantial evidence so strong, and with a mesh of detail so minute, that it does not seem possible a mosquito could escape from it. Look at it a moment from this standpoint. Ragobah alone, so far as we know, has a motive for the murder. His victim has related the feud existing between them and foretold, with an air of the utmost assurance, just such an outcome thereof. Add to this that this man leaves India on a mission which those about him do not hesitate to pronounce one of vengeance, at just such a time as would enable him to reach Boston just a little before the commission of the murder; that this mission is the culmination of twenty years of unremitting search for revenge; that this malignity is supposed to be directed against some rival in his wife’s affections, and the chain of circumstantial evidence possesses, so far as it extends, no weak link. Then, too, Ragobah has very small hands, a deformed left foot, and a limping gait,—everything almost which we had already predicted of the assassin. So sure am I that Ragobah is the guilty man that I shall ask for his arrest upon his arrival day after to-morrow should he return then, a thing which, I regret to say, does not impress me as altogether likely. Should he not come I shall cable you to institute a search for your end of the line. The next thing in order which I have to relate is my interview with Moro Scindia. I had engaged an interpreter, but was able to dismiss him as my guest spoke English with more ease and fluency than he, being an intelligent and well-to-do member of the Vaisya caste. I thought it wise to see the venerable Scindia alone, and accordingly sent Parinama out of the room with the interpreter. As before; I give you what passed between us as I jotted it down in my notebook.
Q. You are a friend of Rama Ragobah, are you not?
A. No, Sahib; he has no friends.
Q. You speak as if you disliked him.
A. It is not Mono Scindia’s habit to play the hypocrite. I have good reason to hate him.
Q. You would not, then, had he committed a crime, assist him to escape justice?
A. I would track him like a bloodhound to the ends of the earth.
Q. You knew Ragobah’s wife?
A. She was my cousin, Sahib.
Q. Were your relations friendly?
A. They were more than friendly. I loved her dearly, and would have tried to win her had I not been so much her senior.
Q. Did she live happily with Ragobah?
A. No, Sahib.
Q. Why?
A. I cannot answer. I have sworn to reveal the last experiences of my cousin to but one person.
Q. And that person is?
A. I must decline to answer that also, Sahib.
Q. If I succeed in naming him will you acknowledge it?
A. You will not succeed, Sahib.
Q. But if I should?
A. I will acknowledge it.
Q. The person is John Hinton Darrow.
The old man started as if he had been stabbed, and looked at me in amazement. He seemed at first to think I had read his thoughts and riveted his dark eyes upon me as if, by way of return, he would read my very soul. I think he did so, for his scrutiny seemed to satisfy him. He replied, somewhat reassured: “I can speak only to John Hinton Darrow.”
“John Darrow is dead,” I said.
“Dead!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet; “Darrow Sahib dead!” and he fell back into his chair, covering his face with his hands. “Ah, my poor Lona!” he muttered feebly; “I have failed to keep my promise. Do not reproach me, for I have done my best. For twenty years have I searched in vain for this man that I might fulfil your last request, and the very first information I receive is the news of his death. I have been no less vigilant than Ragobah, yet I have failed, even as he has failed.”
I took this opportunity to again question him.
Q. Are you sure Ragobah failed?
A. Yes; had he found Darrow Sahib he would have killed him. His mission was one of revenge; mine one of love and justice; both have failed utterly since their object is dead. My pledge is broken!
Q. In its letter, yes; but the chance is still left you to keep the spirit of your covenant.
A. I do not understand you, Sahib.
Q. I will explain. Lona Ragobah confided to you certain facts in explanation of her conduct toward John Darrow. She loved him passionately, and it was her desire to stand acquitted in his sight. Were she alive now, any wish he had expressed during his life would be fulfilled by her as a sacred and pleasurable duty. This, then, as one who lovingly performs her will, should be your attitude also. John Darrow was the only man she ever loved, and, were she living, every drop of her loyal blood would rise against anyone who had done him injury. Do I not speak the truth?
A. Yes; she was loyal unto death and so shall I be. My hand has ever been against all who have done her harm; Ragobah knows that full well.
Q. Were she alive, you certainly would aid her in bringing to justice one who has done her the most cruel of wrongs and, at the same time, fulfilling the dying request of the man who to her was more than life.
A. I should do her bidding, Sahib.
Q. How much more need, then, now that the poor woman is dead, that you should act for her as she would, were she here.
A. You have not told me all; speak your mind freely, Sahib. You may depend upon my doing whatever I believe Lona would do were she here.
Q. I ask nothing more, and am now prepared to fully confide in you. As you doubtless know, Rama Ragobah left Bombay for New York about eleven weeks ago. He went, I have been told, on an errand of revenge. Six weeks ago John Darrow was murdered. He left behind him a written statement describing his wooing of Lona Scindia and his experiences with Rama Ragobah. He asserted, furthermore, his belief that he would die by Ragobah’s hand,—the hand which twice before had attempted his life. Even as he loved your cousin, so he hated her husband, and, confident that he would ultimately be killed by him, he was haunted by the fear that he would escape the just penalty for his crime. He bound his heir by the most solemn of promises to use, in the event of his murder, every possible means to bring the assassin to justice. There can, of course, be little doubt that the assassin and Rama Ragobah are one and the same person. The last request John Darrow ever made—it was after he had been attacked by the assassin—had for its object the punishment of his murderer. Were your cousin living, do you think she would be deaf to that entreaty?
A. No. She would make its fulfilment the one object of her life, and, acting in her stead, I shall do all in my power to see justice done. If I can render you any aid in that direction you may command me, Sahib.
Q. You can assist me by telling me all you know of your cousin’s married life, and, more especially, the message she confided to you.
A. In doing this I shall break the letter of my oath, but, were I not to do it, I should break the spirit thereof, therefore listen:
You have, I suppose, already learned from the statement of Darrow Sahib what occurred at his last meeting with my cousin on Malabar Hill. Her act, in throwing a venomous serpent in his face, was one which doubtless led him to believe she wished to kill him, although it must have puzzled him to assign any reason for such a desire. Not long after this incident my cousin married Ragobah, a man for whom she had always cherished an ill-concealed hatred. I saw but little of her at this time, yet, for all that, I could not but observe that she was greatly changed. But one solution suggested itself to me, and that was that she had discovered her lover false to her and had, out of spite as it is called, hastily married Ragobah. I confess that when this conclusion forced itself home upon me, I felt much dissatisfied with Lona, for I thought such a course unworthy of her. As I saw more of her I noted still greater changes in her character. As I had known her from childhood, she had been most uniform in her temper and her conduct; now all this was changed. To-day, perhaps, she would be like her old self,—only weaker and more fragile,—to-morrow a new being entirely, stronger and more restless, with a demoniac light in her eyes, and a sort of feverish malignancy dominating her whole personality. When I noticed this I studied to avoid her. If the Lona I had known were merely an ideal of which no actual prototype existed, I wished to be allowed to cherish that ideal rather than to have it cruelly shattered to make room for the real Lona. I had not seen her for many weeks when one day, to my surprise, I received a note from her. It was short, and so impressed me that I can remember every word of it.
“My DEAR COUSIN:
“I send this note to you by Kandia that you may get it before it is too late for you to do what I wish. I am a caged bird in my husband’s house. My every movement is watched, and they would not let you come to me were my husband at home, so, I beseech you, come at once lest he should return before I have had time to intrust to you my last request. I am dying, Moro, and it is within your power to say whether my spirit shall rest in peace, or be torn forever and ever by the fangs of a horrible regret. My secret is as lead upon my soul and to you only can I tell it. Come—come at once!