When Logotheti and his doctor had taken Mr. Feist away from the hotel, to the no small satisfaction of the management, they had left precise instructions for forwarding the young man's letters and for informing his friends, if any appeared, as to his whereabouts. But Logotheti had not given his own name.
Sir Jasper Threlfall had chosen for their patient a private establishment in Ealing, owned and managed by a friend of his, a place for the treatment of morphia mania, opium-eating, and alcoholism.
To all intents and purposes, as Logotheti had told Margaret, Charles Feist might as well have been in gaol. Every one knows how indispensable it is that persons who consent to be cured of drinking or taking opium, or whom it is attempted to cure, should be absolutely isolated, if only to prevent weak and pitying friends from yielding to their heart-rending entreaties for the favourite drug and bringing them 'just a little'; for their eloquence is often extraordinary, and their ingenuity in obtaining what they want is amazing.
So Mr. Feist was shut up in a pleasant room provided with double doors and two strongly barred windows that overlooked a pretty garden, beyond which there was a high brick wall half covered by a bright creeper, then just beginning to flower. The walls, the doors, the ceiling, and the floor were sound-proof, and the garden could not in any way be reached without passing through the house.
As only male patients were received, the nurses and attendants were all men; for the treatment needed more firmness and sometimes strength than gentleness. It was uncompromising, as English methods often are. Except where life was actually in danger, there was no drink and no opium for anybody; when absolutely necessary the resident doctor gave the patient hypodermics or something which he called by an unpronounceable name, lest the sufferer should afterwards try to buy it; he smilingly described it as a new vegetable poison, and in fact it was nothing but dionine, a preparation of opium that differs but little from ordinary morphia.
Now Sir Jasper Threlfall was a very great doctor indeed, and his name commanded respect in London at large and inspired awe in the hospitals. Even the profession admitted reluctantly that he did not kill more patients than he cured, which is something for one fashionable doctor to say of another; for the regular answer to any inquiry about a rival practitioner is a smile—'a smile more dreadful than his own dreadful frown'—an indescribable smile, a meaning smile, a smile that is a libel in itself.
It had been an act of humanity to take the young man into medical custody, as it were, and it had been more or less necessary for the safety of the public, for Logotheti and the doctor had found him in a really dangerous state, as was amply proved by his attempting to cut his own throat and then to shoot Logotheti himself. Sir Jasper said he had nothing especial the matter with him except drink, that when his nerves had recovered their normal tone his real character would appear, so that it would then be possible to judge more or less whether he had will enough to control himself in future. Logotheti agreed, but it occurred to him that one need not be knighted, and write a dozen or more mysterious capital letters after one's name, and live in Harley Street, in order to reach such a simple conclusion; and as Logotheti was a millionaire, and liked his doctor for his own sake rather than for his skill, he told him this, and they both laughed heartily. Almost all doctors, except those in French plays, have some sense of humour.
On the third day Isidore Bamberger came to the door of the private hospital and asked to see Mr. Feist. Not having heard from him, he had been to the hotel and had there obtained the address. The doorkeeper was a quiet man who had lost a leg in South Africa, after having been otherwise severely wounded five times in previous engagements. Mr. Bamberger, he said, could not see his friend yet. A part of the cure consisted in complete isolation from friends during the first stages of the treatment. Sir Jasper Threlfall had been to see Mr. Feist that morning. He had been twice already. Dr. Bream, the resident physician, gave the doorkeeper a bulletin every morning at ten for the benefit of each patient's friend; the notes were written on a card which the man held in his hand.
At the great man's name, Mr. Bamberger became thoughtful. A smart brougham drove up just then and a tall woman, who wore a thick veil, got out and entered the vestibule where Bamberger was standing by the open door. The doorkeeper evidently knew her, for he glanced at his notes and spoke without being questioned.
'The young gentleman is doing well this week, my lady,' he said. 'Sleeps from three to four hours at a time. Is less excited. Appetite improving.'
'Can I see him?' asked a sad and gentle voice through the veil.
'Not yet, my lady.'
She sighed as she turned to go out, and Mr. Bamberger thought it was one of the saddest sighs he had ever heard. He was rather a soft-hearted man.
'Is it her son?' he asked, in a respectful sort of way.
'Yes, sir.'
'Drink?' inquired Mr. Bamberger in the same tone.
'Not allowed to give any information except to family or friends, sir,' answered the man. 'Rule of the house, sir. Very strict.'
'Quite right, of course. Excuse me for asking. But I must see Mr.Feist, unless he's out of his mind. It's very important.'
'Dr. Bream sees visitors himself from ten to twelve, sir, after he's been his rounds to the patients' rooms. You'll have to get permission from him.'
'But it's like a prison!' exclaimed Mr. Bamberger.
'Yes, sir,' answered the old soldier imperturbably. 'It's just like a prison. It's meant to be.'
It was evidently impossible to get anything more out of the man, who did not pay the slightest attention to the cheerful little noise Mr. Bamberger made by jingling sovereigns in his waistcoat pocket; there was nothing to do but to go away, and Mr. Bamberger went out very much annoyed and perplexed.
He knew Van Torp well, or believed that he did, and it was like the man whose genius had created the Nickel Trust to have boldly sequestrated his enemy's chief instrument, and in such a clever way as to make it probable that Mr. Feist might be kept in confinement as long as his captor chose. Doubtless such a high-handed act would ultimately go against the latter when on his trial, but in the meantime the chief witness was locked up and could not get out. Sir Jasper Threlfall would state that his patient was in such a state of health, owing to the abuse of alcohol, that it was not safe to set him at liberty, and that in his present condition his mind was so unsettled by drink that he could not be regarded as a sane witness; and if Sir Jasper Threlfall said that, it would not be easy to get Charles Feist out of Dr. Bream's establishment in less than three months.
Mr. Bamberger was obliged to admit that his partner, chief, and enemy had stolen a clever march on him. Being of a practical turn of mind, however, and not hampered by much faith in mankind, even in the most eminent, who write the mysterious capital letters after their names, he wondered to what extent Van Torp owned Sir Jasper, and he went to see him on pretence of asking advice about his liver.
The great man gave him two guineas' worth of thumping, auscultating, and poking in the ribs, and told him rather disagreeably that he was as healthy as a young crocodile, and had a somewhat similar constitution. A partner of Mr. Van Torp, the American financier? Indeed! Sir Jasper had heard the name but had never seen the millionaire, and asked politely whether he sometimes came to England. It is not untruthful to ask a question to which one knows the answer. Mr. Bamberger himself, for instance, who knew that he was perfectly well, was just going to put down two guineas for having been told so, in answer to a question.
'I believe you are treating Mr. Feist,' he said, going more directly to the point.
'Mr. Feist?' repeated the great authority vaguely.
'Yes. Mr. Charles Feist. He's at Dr. Bream's private hospital in WestKensington.'
'Ah, yes,' said Sir Jasper. 'Dr. Bream is treating him. He's not a patient of mine.'
'I thought I'd ask you what his chances are,' observed Isidore Bamberger, fixing his sharp eyes on the famous doctor's face. 'He used to be my private secretary.'
He might just as well have examined the back of the doctor's head.
'He's not a patient of mine,' Sir Jasper said. 'I'm only one of the visiting doctors at Dr. Bream's establishment. I don't go there unless he sends for me, and I keep no notes of his cases. You will have to ask him. If I am not mistaken his hours are from ten to twelve. And now'—Sir Jasper rose—'as I can only congratulate you on your splendid health—no, I really cannot prescribe anything—literally nothing—'
Isidore Bamberger had left three patients in the waiting-room and was obliged to go away, as his 'splendid health' did not afford him the slightest pretext for asking more questions. He deposited his two guineas on the mantelpiece neatly wrapped in a bit of note-paper, while Sir Jasper examined the handle of the door with a stony gaze, and he said 'good morning' as he went out.
'Good morning,' answered Sir Jasper, and as Mr. Bamberger crossed the threshold the single clanging stroke of the doctor's bell was heard, summoning the next patient.
The American man of business was puzzled, for he was a good judge of humanity, and was sure that when the Englishman said that he had never seen Van Torp he was telling the literal truth. Mr. Bamberger was convinced that there had been some agreement between them to make it impossible for any one to see Feist. He knew the latter well, however, and had great confidence in his remarkable power of holding his tongue, even when under the influence of drink.
When Tiberius had to choose between two men equally well fitted for a post of importance, he had them both to supper, and chose the one who was least affected by wine, not at all for the sake of seeing the match, but on the excellent principle that in an age when heavy drinking was the rule the man who could swallow the largest quantity without becoming talkative was the one to be best trusted with a secret; and the fact that Tiberius himself had the strongest head in the Empire made him a good judge.
Bamberger, on the same principle, believed that Charles Feist would hold his tongue, and he also felt tolerably sure that the former secretary had no compromising papers in his possession, for his memory had always been extraordinary. Feist had formerly been able to carry in his mind a number of letters which Bamberger 'talked off' to him consecutively without even using shorthand, and could type them afterwards with unfailing accuracy. It was therefore scarcely likely that he kept notes of the articles he wrote about Van Torp.
But his employer did not know that Feist's memory was failing from drink, and that he no longer trusted his marvellous faculty. Van Torp had sequestrated him and shut him up, Bamberger believed; but neither Van Torp nor any one else would get anything out of him.
And if any one made him talk, what great harm would be done, after all? It was not to be supposed that such a man as Isidore Bamberger had trusted only to his own keenness in collecting evidence, or to a few pencilled notes as a substitute for the principal witness himself, when an accident might happen at any moment to a man who led such a life. The case for the prosecution had been quietly prepared during several months past, and the evidence that was to send Rufus Van Torp to execution, or to an asylum for the Criminal Insane for life, was in the safe of Isidore Bamberger's lawyer in New York, unless, at that very moment, it was already in the hands of the Public Prosecutor. A couple of cables would do the rest at any time, and in a few hours. In murder cases, the extradition treaty works as smoothly as the telegraph itself. The American authorities would apply to the English Home Secretary, the order would go to Scotland Yard, and Van Torp would be arrested immediately and taken home by the first steamer, to be tried in New York.
Six months earlier he might have pleaded insanity with a possible chance, but in the present state of feeling the plea would hardly be admitted. A man who has been held up to public execration in the press for weeks, and whom no one attempts to defend, is in a bad case if a well-grounded accusation of murder is brought against him at such a moment; and Isidore Bamberger firmly believed in the truth of the charge and in the validity of the evidence.
He consoled himself with these considerations, and with the reflection that Feist was actually safer where he was, and less liable to accident than if he were at large. Mr. Bamberger walked slowly down Harley Street to Cavendish Square, with his head low between his shoulders, his hat far back on his head, his eyes on the pavement, and the shiny toes of his patent leather boots turned well out. His bowed legs were encased in loose black trousers, and had as many angles as the forepaws of a Dachshund or a Dandie Dinmont. The peculiarities of his ungainly gait and figure were even more apparent than usual, and as he walked he swung his long arms, that ended in large black gloves which looked as if they were stuffed with sawdust.
Yet there was something in his face that set him far beyond and above ridicule, and the passers-by saw it and wondered gravely who and what this man in black might be, and what great misfortune and still greater passion had moulded the tragic mark upon his features; and none of those who looked at him glanced at his heavy, ill-made figure, or noticed his clumsy walk, or realised that he was most evidently a typical German Jew, who perhaps kept an antiquity shop in Wardour Street, and had put on his best coat to call on a rich collector in the West End.
Those who saw him only saw his face and went on, feeling that they had passed near something greater and sadder and stronger than anything in their own lives could ever be.
But he went on his way, unconscious of the men and women he met, and not thinking where he went, crossing Oxford Street and then turning down Regent Street and following it to Piccadilly and the Haymarket. Just before he reached the theatre, he slackened his pace and looked about him, as if he were waking up; and there, in the cross street, just behind the theatre, he saw a telegraph office.
He entered, pushed his hat still a little farther back, and wrote a cable message. It was as short as it could be, for it consisted of one word only besides the address, and that one word had only two letters:
'Go.'
That was all, and there was nothing mysterious about the syllable, for almost any one would understand that it was used as in starting a footrace, and meant, 'Begin operations at once!' It was the word agreed upon between Isidore Bamberger and his lawyer. The latter had been allowed all the latitude required in such a case, for he had instructions to lay the evidence before the District Attorney-General without delay, if anything happened to make immediate action seem advisable. In any event, he was to do so on receiving the message which had now been sent.
The evidence consisted, in the first place, of certain irrefutable proofs that Miss Bamberger had not died from shock, but had been killed by a thin and extremely sharp instrument with which she had been stabbed in the back. Isidore Bamberger's own doctor had satisfied himself of this, and had signed his statement under oath, and Bamberger had instantly thought of a certain thin steel letter-opener which Van Torp always had in his pocket.
Next came the affidavit of Paul Griggs. The witness knew the Opera House well. Had been in the stalls on the night in question. Had not moved from his seat till the performance was over, and had been one of the last to get out into the corridor. There was a small door in the corridor on the south side which was generally shut. It opened upon a passage communicating with the part of the building that is let for business offices. Witness's attention had been attracted by part of a red silk dress which lay on the floor outside the door, the latter being ajar. Suspecting an accident, witness opened door, found Miss Bamberger, and carried her to manager's room not far off. On reaching home had found stains of blood on his hands. Had said nothing of this, because he had seen notice of the lady's death from shock in next morning's paper. Was nevertheless convinced that blood must have been on her dress.
The murder was therefore proved. But the victim had not been robbed of her jewellery, which demonstrated that, if the crime had not been committed by a lunatic, the motive for it must have been personal.
With regard to identity of the murderer, Charles Feist deposed that on the night in question he had entered the Opera late, having only an admission to the standing room, that he was close to one of the doors when the explosion took place and had been one of the first to leave the house. The emergency lights in the corridors were on a separate circuit, but had been also momentarily extinguished. They were up again before those in the house. The crowd had at once become jammed in the doorways, so that people got out much more slowly than might have been expected. Many actually fell in the exits and were trampled on. Then Madame Cordova had begun to sing in the dark, and the panic had ceased in a few seconds. The witness did not think that more than three hundred people altogether had got out through the several doors. He himself had at once made for the main entrance. A few persons rushed past him in the dark, descending the stairs from the boxes. One or two fell on the steps. Just as the emergency lights went up again, witness saw a young lady in a red silk dress fall, but did not see her face distinctly; he was certain that she had a short string of pearls round her throat. They gleamed in the light as she fell. She was instantly lifted to her feet by Mr. Rufus Van Torp, who must have been following her closely. She seemed to have hurt herself a little, and he almost carried her down the corridor in the direction of the carriage lobby on the Thirty-Eighth Street side. The two then disappeared through a door. The witness would swear to the door, and he described its position accurately. It seemed to have been left ajar, but there was no light on the other side of it. The witness did not know where the door led to. He had often wondered. It was not for the use of the public. He frequently went to the Opera and was perfectly familiar with the corridors. It was behind this door that Paul Griggs had found Miss Bamberger. Questioned as to a possible motive for the murder, the witness stated that Rufus Van Torp was known to have shown homicidal tendencies, though otherwise perfectly sane. In his early youth he had lived four years on a cattle-ranch as a cow-puncher, and had undoubtedly killed two men during that time. Witness had been private secretary to his partner, Mr. Isidore Bamberger, and while so employed Mr. Van Torp had fired a revolver at him in his private office in a fit of passion about a message witness was sent to deliver. Two clerks in a neighbouring room had heard the shot. Believing Mr. Van Torp to be mad, witness had said nothing at the time, but had left Mr. Bamberger soon afterwards. It was always said that, several years ago, on board of his steam yacht, Mr. Van Torp had once violently pulled a friend who was on board out of his berth at two in the morning, and had dragged him on deck, saying that he must throw him overboard and drown him, as the only way of saving his soul. The watch on deck had had great difficulty in overpowering Mr. Van Torp, who was very strong. With regard to the late Miss Bamberger the witness thought that Mr. Van Torp had killed her to get rid of her, because she was in possession of facts that would ruin him if they were known and because she had threatened to reveal them to her father. If she had done so, Van Torp would have been completely in his partner's power. Mr. Bamberger could have made a beggar of him as the only alternative to penal servitude. Questioned as to the nature of this information, witness said that it concerned the explosion, which had been planned by Van Torp for his own purposes. Either in a moment of expansion, under the influence of the drug he was in the habit of taking, or else in real anxiety for her safety, he had told Miss Bamberger that the explosion would take place, warning her to remain in her home, which was situated on the Riverside Drive, very far from the scene of the disaster. She had undoubtedly been so horrified that she had thereupon insisted upon dissolving her engagement to marry him, and had threatened to inform her father of the horrible plot. She had never really wished to marry Van Torp, but had accepted him in deference to her father's wishes. He was known to be devoting himself at that very time to a well-known primadonna engaged at the Metropolitan Opera, and Miss Bamberger probably had some suspicion of this. Witness said the motive seemed sufficient, considering that the accused had already twice taken human life. His choice lay between killing her and falling into the power of his partner. He had injured Mr. Bamberger, as was well known, and Mr. Bamberger was a resentful man.
The latter part of Charles Feist's deposition was certainly more in the nature of an argument than of evidence pure and simple, and it might not be admitted in court; but Isidore Bamberger had instructed his lawyer, and the Public Prosecutor would say it all, and more also, and much better; and public opinion was roused all over the United States against the Nickel Tyrant, as Van Torp was now called.
In support of the main point there was a short note to Miss Bamberger in Van Torp's handwriting, which had afterwards been found on her dressing-table. It must have arrived before she had gone out to dinner. It contained a final and urgent entreaty that she would not go to the Opera, nor leave the house that evening, and was signed with Van Torp's initials only, but no one who knew his handwriting would be likely to doubt that the note was genuine.
There were some other scattered pieces of evidence which fitted the rest very well. Mr. Van Torp had not been seen at his own house, nor in any club, nor down town, after he had gone out on Wednesday afternoon, until the following Friday, when he had returned to make his final arrangements for sailing the next morning. Bamberger had employed a first-rate detective, but only one, to find out all that could be discovered about Van Torp's movements. The millionaire had been at the house on Riverside Drive early in the afternoon to see Miss Bamberger, as he had told Margaret on board the steamer, but Bamberger had not seen his daughter after that till she was brought home dead, for he had been detained by an important meeting at which he presided, and knowing that she was dining out to go to the theatre he had telephoned that he would dine at his club. He himself had tried to telephone to Van Torp later in the evening but had not been able to find him, and had not seen him till Friday.
This was the substance of the evidence which Bamberger's lawyer and the detective would lay before the District Attorney-General on receiving the cable.
When Lady Maud stopped at Margaret's house on her way to the theatre she had been dining at Princes' with a small party of people, amongst whom Paul Griggs had found himself, and as there was no formality to hinder her from choosing her own place she had sat down next to him. The table was large and round, the sixty or seventy other diners in the room made a certain amount of noise, so that it was easy to talk in undertones while the conversation of the others was general.
The veteran man of letters was an old acquaintance of Lady Maud's; and as she made no secret of her friendship with Rufus Van Torp, it was not surprising that Griggs should warn her of the latter's danger. As he had expected when he left New York, he had received a visit from a 'high-class' detective, who came to find out what he knew about Miss Bamberger's death. This is a bad world, as we all know, and it is made so by a good many varieties of bad people. As Mr. Van Torp had said to Logotheti, 'different kinds of cats have different kinds of ways,' and the various classes of criminals are pursued by various classes of detectives. Many are ex-policemen, and make up the pack that hunts the well-dressed lady shop-lifter, the gentle pickpocket, the agile burglar, the Paris Apache, and the common murderer of the Bill Sykes type; they are good dogs in their way, if you do not press them, though they are rather apt to give tongue. But when they are not ex-policemen, they are always ex-something else, since there is no college for detectives, and it is not probable that any young man ever deliberately began life with the intention of becoming one. Edgar Poe invented the amateur detective, and modern writers have developed him till he is a familiar and always striking figure in fiction and on the stage. Whether he really exists or not does not matter. I have heard a great living painter ask the question: What has art to do with truth? But as a matter of fact Paul Griggs, who had seen a vast deal, had never met an amateur detective; and my own impression is that if one existed he would instantly turn himself into a professional because it would be so very profitable.
The one who called on Griggs in his lodgings wrote 'barrister-at-law' after his name, and had the right to do so. He had languished in chambers, briefless and half starving, either because he had no talent for the bar, or because he had failed to marry a solicitor's daughter. He himself was inclined to attribute his want of success to the latter cause. But he had not wasted his time, though he was more than metaphorically threadbare, and his waist would have made a sensation at a staymaker's. He had watched and pondered on many curious cases for years; and one day, when a 'high-class' criminal had baffled the police and had well-nigh confounded the Attorney-General and proved himself a saint, the starving barrister had gone quietly to work in his own way, had discovered the truth, had taken his information to the prosecution, had been the means of sending the high-class one to penal servitude, and had covered himself with glory; since when he had grown sleek and well-liking, if not rich, as a professional detective.
Griggs had been perfectly frank, and had told without hesitation all he could remember of the circumstances. In answer to further questions he said he knew Mr. Van Torp tolerably well, and had not seen him in the Opera House on the evening of the murder. He did not know whether the financier's character was violent. If it was, he had never seen any notable manifestation of temper. Did he know that Mr. Van Torp had once lived on a ranch, and had killed two men in a shooting affray? Yes, he had heard so, but the shooting might have been in self-defence. Did he know anything about the blowing up of the works of which Van Torp had been accused in the papers? Nothing more than the public knew. Or anything about the circumstances of Van Torp's engagement to Miss Bamberger? Nothing whatever. Would he read the statement and sign his name to it? He would, and he did.
Griggs thought the young man acted more like an ordinary lawyer than a detective, and said so with a smile.
'Oh no,' was the quiet answer. 'In my business it's quite as important to recognise honesty as it is to detect fraud. That's all.'
For his own part the man of letters did not care a straw whether Van Torp had committed the murder or not, but he thought it very unlikely. On general principles, he thought the law usually found out the truth in the end, and he was ready to do what he could to help it. He held his tongue, and told no one about the detective's visit, because he had no intimate friend in England; partly, too, because he wished to keep his name out of what was now called 'the Van Torp scandal.'
He would never have alluded to the matter if he had not accidentally found himself next to Lady Maud at dinner. She had always liked him and trusted him, and he liked her and her father. On that evening she spoke of Van Torp within the first ten minutes, and expressed her honest indignation at the general attack made on 'the kindest man that ever lived.' Then Griggs felt that she had a sort of right to know what was being done to bring against her friend an accusation of murder, for he believed Van Torp innocent, and was sure that Lady Maud would warn him; but it was for her sake only that Griggs spoke, because he pitied her.
She took it more calmly than he had expected, but she grew a little paler, and that look came into her eyes which Margaret and Logotheti saw there an hour afterwards; and presently she asked Griggs if he too would join the week-end party at Craythew, telling him that Van Torp would be there. Griggs accepted, after a moment's hesitation.
She was not quite sure why she had so frankly appealed to Logotheti for help when they left Margaret's house together, but she was not disappointed in his answer. He was 'exotic,' as she had said of him; he was hopelessly in love with Cordova, who disliked Van Torp, and he could not be expected to take much trouble for any other woman; she had not the very slightest claim on him. Yet she had asked him to help her in a way which might be anything but lawful, even supposing that it did not involve positive cruelty.
For she had not been married to Leven four years without learning something of Asiatic practices, and she knew that there were more means of making a man tell a secret than by persuasion or wily cross-examination. It was all very well to keep within the bounds of the law and civilisation, but where the whole existence of her best friend was at stake, Lady Maud was much too simple, primitive, and feminine to be hampered by any such artificial considerations, and she turned naturally to a man who did not seem to be a slave to them either. She had not quite dared to hope that he would help her, and his readiness to do so was something of a surprise; but she would have been astonished if he had been in the least shocked at the implied suggestion of deliberately torturing Charles Feist till he revealed the truth about the murder. She only felt a little uncomfortable when she reflected that Feist might not know it after all, whereas she had boldly told Logotheti that he did.
If the Greek had hesitated for a few seconds before giving his answer, it was not that he was doubtful of his own willingness to do what she wished, but because he questioned his power to do it. The request itself appealed to the Oriental's love of excitement and to his taste for the uncommon in life. If he had not sometimes found occasions for satisfying both, he could not have lived in Paris and London at all, but would have gone back to Constantinople, which is the last refuge of romance in Europe, the last hiding-place of mediaeval adventure, the last city of which a new Decameron of tales could still be told, and might still be true.
Lady Maud had good nerves, and she watched the play with her friends and talked between the acts, very much as if nothing had happened, except that she was pale and there was that look in her eyes; but only Paul Griggs noticed it, because he had a way of watching the small changes of expression that may mean tragedy, but more often signify indigestion, or too much strong tea, or a dun's letter, or a tight shoe, or a bad hand at bridge, or the presence of a bore in the room, or the flat failure of expected pleasure, or sauce spilt on a new gown by a rival's butler, or being left out of something small and smart, or any of those minor aches that are the inheritance of the social flesh, and drive women perfectly mad while they last.
But Griggs knew that none of these troubles afflicted Lady Maud, and when he spoke to her now and then, between the acts, she felt his sympathy for her in every word and inflection.
She was glad when the evening was over and she was at home in her dressing-room, and there was no more effort to be made till the next day. But even alone, she did not behave or look very differently; she twisted up her thick brown hair herself, as methodically as ever, and laid out the black velvet gown on the lounge after shaking it out, so that it should be creased as little as possible; but when she was ready to go to bed she put on a dressing-gown and sat down at her table to write to Rufus Van Torp.
The letter was begun and she had written half a dozen lines when she laid down the pen, to unlock a small drawer from which she took an old blue envelope that had never been sealed, though it was a good deal the worse for wear. There was a photograph in it, which she laid before her on the letter; and she looked down at it steadily, resting her elbows on the table and her forehead and temples in her hands.
It was a snapshot photograph of a young officer in khaki and puttees, not very well taken, and badly mounted on a bit of white pasteboard that might have been cut from a bandbox with a penknife; but it was all she had, and there could never be another.
She looked at it a long time.
'You understand, dear,' she said at last, very low; 'you understand.'
She put it away again and locked the drawer before she went on with her letter to Van Torp. It was easy enough to tell him what she had learned about Feist from Logotheti; it was even possible that he had found it out for himself, and had not taken the trouble to inform her of the fact. Apart from the approval that friendship inspires, she had always admired the cool discernment of events which he showed when great things were at stake. But it was one thing, she now told him, to be indifferent to the stupid attacks of the press, it would be quite another to allow himself to be accused of murder; the time had come when he must act, and without delay; there was a limit beyond which indifference became culpable apathy; it was clear enough now, she said, that all these attacks on him had been made to ruin him in the estimation of the public on both sides of the Atlantic before striking the first blow, as he himself had guessed; Griggs was surely not an alarmist, and Griggs said confidently that Van Torp's enemies meant business; without doubt, a mass of evidence had been carefully got together during the past three months, and it was pretty sure that an attempt would be made before long to arrest him; would he do nothing to make such an outrage impossible? She had not forgotten, she could never forget, what she owed him, but on his side he owed something to her, and to the great friendship that bound them to each other. Who was this man Feist, and who was behind him? She did not know why she was so sure that he knew the truth, supposing that there had really been a murder, but her instinct told her so.
Lady Maud was not gifted with much power of writing, for she was not clever at books, or with pen and ink, but she wrote her letter with deep conviction and striking clearness. The only point of any importance which she did not mention was that Logotheti had promised to help her, and she did not write of that because she was not really sure that he could do anything, though she was convinced that he would try. She was very anxious. She was horrified when she thought of what might happen if nothing were done. She entreated Van Torp to answer that he would take steps to defend himself; and that, if possible, he would come to town so that they might consult together.
She finished her letter and went to bed; but her good nerves failed her for once, and it was a long time before she could get to sleep. It was absurd, of course, but she remembered every case she had ever heard of in which innocent men had been convicted of crimes they had not committed and had suffered for them; and in a hideous instant, between waking and dozing, she saw Rufus Van Torp hanged before her eyes.
The impression was so awful that she started from her pillow with a cry and turned up the electric lamp. It was not till the light flooded the room that the image quite faded away and she could let her head rest on the pillow again, and even then her heart was beating violently, as it had only beaten once in her life before that night.
Sir Jasper Threlfall did not know how long it would be before Mr. Feist could safely be discharged from the establishment in which Logotheti had so kindly placed him. Dr. Bream said 'it was as bad a case of chronic alcoholism as he often saw.' What has grammar to do with the treatment of the nerves? Mr. Feist said he did not want to be cured of chronic alcoholism, and demanded that he should be let out at once. Dr. Bream answered that it was against his principles to discharge a patient half cured. Mr. Feist retorted that it was a violation of personal liberty to cure a man against his will. The physician smiled kindly at a view he heard expressed every day, and which the law shared, though it might not be very ready to support it. Physically, Mr. Feist was afraid of Dr. Bream, who had played football for Guy's Hospital and had the complexion of a healthy baby and a quiet eye. So the patient changed his tone, and whined for something to calm his agitated nerves. One teaspoonful of whisky was all he begged for, and he promised not to ask for it to-morrow if he might have it to-day. The doctor was obdurate about spirits, but felt his pulse, examined the pupils of his eyes, and promised him a calming hypodermic in an hour. It was too soon after breakfast, he said. Mr. Feist only once attempted to use violence, and then two large men came into the room, as quiet and healthy as the doctor himself, and gently but firmly put him to bed, tucking him up in such an extraordinary way that he found it quite impossible to move or to get his hands out; and Dr. Bream, smiling with exasperating calm, stuck a needle into his shoulder, after which he presently fell asleep.
He had been drinking hard for years, so that it was a very bad case; and besides, he seemed to have something on his mind, which made it worse.
Logotheti came to see him now, and took a vast deal of trouble to be agreeable. At his first visit Feist flew into a rage and accused the Greek of having kidnapped him and shut him up in a prison, where he was treated like a lunatic; but to this Logotheti was quite indifferent; he only shook his head rather sadly, and offered Feist a very excellent cigarette, such as it was quite impossible to buy, even in London. After a little hesitation the patient took it, and the effect was very soothing to his temper. Indeed it was wonderful, for in less than two minutes his features relaxed, his eyes became quiet, and he actually apologised for having spoken so rudely. Logotheti had been kindness itself, he said, had saved his life at the very moment when he was going to cut his throat, and had been in all respects the good Samaritan. The cigarette was perfectly delicious. It was about the best smoke he had enjoyed since he had left the States, he said. He wished Logotheti to please to understand that he wanted to settle up for all expenses as soon as possible, and to pay his weekly bills at Dr. Bream's. There had been twenty or thirty pounds in notes in his pocket-book, and a letter of credit, but all his things had been taken away from him. He concluded it was all right, but it seemed rather strenuous to take his papers too. Perhaps Mr. Logotheti, who was so kind, would make sure that they were in a safe place, and tell the doctor to let him see any other friends who called. Then he asked for another of those wonderful cigarettes, but Logotheti was awfully sorry—there had only been two, and he had just smoked the other himself. He showed his empty case.
'By the way,' he said, 'if the doctor should happen to come in and notice the smell of the smoke, don't tell him that you had one of mine. My tobacco is rather strong, and he might think it would do you harm, you know. I see that you have some light ones there, on the table. Just let him think that you smoked one of them. I promise to bring some more to-morrow, and we'll have a couple together.'
That was what Logotheti said, and it comforted Mr. Feist, who recognised the opium at once; all that afternoon and through all the next morning he told himself that he was to have another of those cigarettes, and perhaps two, at three o'clock in the afternoon, when Logotheti had said that he would come again.
Before leaving his own rooms on the following day, the Greek put four cigarettes into his case, for he had not forgotten his promise; he took two from a box that lay on the table, and placed them so that they would be nearest to his own hand when he offered his case, but he took the other two from a drawer which was always locked, and of which the key was at one end of his superornate watch-chain, and he placed them on the other side of the case, conveniently for a friend to take. All four cigarettes looked exactly alike.
If any one had pointed out to him that an Englishman would not think it fair play to drug a man deliberately, Logotheti would have smiled and would have replied by asking whether it was fair play to accuse an innocent man of murder, a retort which would only become unanswerable if it could be proved that Van Torp was suspected unjustly. But to this objection, again, the Greek would have replied that he had been brought up in Constantinople, where they did things in that way; and that, except for the trifling obstacle of the law, there was no particular reason for not strangling Mr. Feist with the English equivalent for a bowstring, since he had printed a disagreeable story about Miss Donne, and was, besides, a very offensive sort of person in appearance and manner. There had always been a certain directness about Logotheti's view of man's rights.
He went to see Mr. Feist every day at three o'clock, in the most kind way possible, made himself as agreeable as he could, and gave him cigarettes with a good deal of opium in them. He also presented Feist with a pretty little asbestos lamp which was constructed to purify the air, and had a really wonderful capacity for absorbing the rather peculiar odour of the cigarettes. Dr. Bream always made his round in the morning, and the men nurses he employed to take care of his patients either did not notice anything unusual, or supposed that Logotheti smoked some 'outlandish Turkish stuff,' and, because he was a privileged person, they said nothing about it. As he had brought the patient to the establishment to be cured, it was really not to be supposed that he would supply him with forbidden narcotics.
Now, to a man who is poisoned with drink and is suddenly deprived of it, opium is from the beginning as delightful as it is nauseous to most healthy people when they first taste it; and during the next four or five days, while Feist appeared to be improving faster than might have been expected, he was in reality acquiring such a craving for his daily dose of smoke that it would soon be acute suffering to be deprived of it; and this was what Logotheti wished. He would have supplied him with brandy if he had not been sure that the contraband would be discovered and stopped by the doctor; but opium, in the hands of one who knows exactly how it is used, is very much harder to detect, unless the doctor sees the smoker when he is under the influence of the drug, while the pupils of the eye are unnaturally contracted and the face is relaxed in that expression of beatitude which only the great narcotics can produce—the state which Baudelaire called the Artificial Paradise.
During these daily visits Logotheti became very confidential; that is to say, he exercised all his ingenuity in the attempt to make Feist talk about himself. But he was not very successful. Broken as the man was, his characteristic reticence was scarcely at all relaxed, and it was quite impossible to get beyond the barrier. One day Logotheti gave him a cigarette more than usual, as an experiment, but he went to sleep almost immediately, sitting up in his chair. The opium, as a moderate substitute for liquor, temporarily restored the habitual tone of his system and revived his natural self-control, and Logotheti soon gave up the idea of extracting any secret from him in a moment of garrulous expansion.
There was the other way, which was now prepared, and the Greek had learned enough about his victim to justify him in using it. The cypher expert, who had been at work on Feist's diary, had now completed his key and brought Logotheti the translation. He was a rather shabby little man, a penman employed to do occasional odd jobs about the Foreign Office, such as engrossing documents and the like, by which he earned from eighteenpence to half-a-crown an hour, according to the style of penmanship required, and he was well known in the criminal courts as an expert on handwriting in forgery cases.
He brought his work to Logotheti, who at once asked for the long entry concerning the night of the explosion. The expert turned to it and read it aloud. It was a statement of the circumstances to which Feist was prepared to swear, and which have been summed up in a previous chapter. Van Torp was not mentioned by name in the diary, but was referred to as 'he'; the other entries in the journal, however, fully proved that Van Torp was meant, even if Logotheti had felt any doubt of it.
The expert informed him, however, that the entry was not the original one, which had apparently been much shorter, and had been obliterated in the ordinary way with a solution of chloride of lime. Here and there very pale traces of the previous writing were faintly visible, but there was not enough to give the sense of what was gone. This proved that the ink had not been long dry when it had been removed, as the expert explained. It was very hard to destroy old writing so completely that neither heat nor chemicals would bring it out again. Therefore Feist must have decided to change the entry soon after he had made it, and probably on the next day. The expert had not found any other page which had been similarly treated. The shabby little man looked at Logotheti, and Logotheti looked at him, and both nodded; and the Greek paid him generously for his work.
It was clear that Feist had meant to aid his own memory, and had rather clumsily tampered with his diary in order to make it agree with the evidence he intended to give, rather than meaning to produce the notes in court. What Logotheti meant to find out was what the man himself really knew and what he had first written down; that, and some other things. In conversation, Logotheti had asked him to describe the panic at the theatre, and Cordova's singing in the dark, but Feist's answers had been anything but interesting.
'You can't remember much about that kind of thing,' he had said in his drawling way, 'because there isn't much to remember. There was a crash and the lights went out, and people fought their way to the doors in the dark till there was a general squash; then Madame Cordova began to sing, and that kind of calmed things down till the lights went up again. That's about all I remember.'
His recollections did not at all agree with what he had entered in his diary; but though Logotheti tried a second time two days later, Feist repeated the same story with absolute verbal accuracy. The Greek asked him if he had known 'that poor Miss Bamberger who died of shock.' Feist blew out a cloud of drugged tobacco smoke before he answered, with one of his disagreeable smiles, that he had known her pretty well, for he had been her father's private secretary. He explained that he had given up the place because he had come into some money. Mr. Bamberger was 'a very pleasant gentleman,' Feist declared, and poor Miss Bamberger had been a 'superb dresser and a first-class conversationalist, and was a severe loss to her friends and admirers.' Though Logotheti, who was only a Greek, did not understand every word of this panegyric, he perceived that it was intended for the highest praise. He said he should like to know Mr. Bamberger, and was sorry that he had not known Miss Bamberger, who had been engaged to marry Mr. Van Torp, as every one had heard.
He thought he saw a difference in Feist's expression, but was not sure of it. The pale, unhealthy, and yet absurdly youthful face was not naturally mobile, and the almost colourless eyes always had rather a fixed and staring look. Logotheti was aware of a new meaning in them rather than of a distinct change. He accordingly went on to say that he had heard poor Miss Bamberger spoken of as heartless, and he brought out the word so unexpectedly that Feist looked sharply at him.
'Well,' he said, 'some people certainly thought so. I daresay she was.It don't matter much, now she's dead, anyway.'
'She paid for it, poor girl,' answered Logotheti very deliberately.'They say she was murdered.'
The change in Feist's face was now unmistakable. There was a drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and a lowering of the lids that meant something, and the unhealthy complexion took a greyish shade. Logotheti was too wise to watch his intended victim, and leaned back in a careless attitude, gazing out of the window at the bright creeper on the opposite wall.
'I've heard it suggested,' said Mr. Feist rather thickly, out of a perfect storm of drugged smoke.
It came out of his ugly nostrils, it blew out of his mouth, it seemed to issue even from his ears and eyes.
'I suppose we shall never know the truth,' said Logotheti in an idle tone, and not seeming to look at his companion. 'Mr. Griggs—do you remember Mr. Griggs, the author, at the Turkish Embassy, where we first met? Tall old fellow, sad-looking, bony, hard; you remember him, don't you?'
'Why, yes,' drawled Feist, emitting more smoke, 'I know him quite well.'
'He found blood on his hands after he had carried her. Had you not heard that? I wondered whether you saw her that evening. Did you?'
'I saw her from a distance in the box with her friends,' answeredFeist steadily.
'Did you see her afterwards?'
The direct question came suddenly, and the strained look in Feist's face became more intense. Logotheti fancied he understood very well what was passing in the young man's mind; he intended to swear in court that he had seen Van Torp drag the girl to the place where her body was afterwards found, and if he now denied this, the Greek, who was probably Van Torp's friend, might appear as a witness and narrate the present conversation; and though this would not necessarily invalidate the evidence, it might weaken it in the opinion of the jury. Feist had of course suspected that Logotheti had some object in forcing him to undergo a cure, and this suspicion had been confirmed by the opium cigarettes, which he would have refused after the first time if he had possessed the strength of mind to do so.
While Logotheti watched him, three small drops of perspiration appeared high up on his forehead, just where the parting of his thin light hair began; for he felt that he must make up his mind what to say, and several seconds had already elapsed since the question.
'As a matter of fact,' he said at last, with an evident effort, 'I did catch sight of Miss Bamberger later.'
He had been aware of the moisture on his forehead, and had hoped that Logotheti would not notice it, but the drops now gathered and rolled down, so that he was obliged to take out his handkerchief.
'It's getting quite hot,' he said, by way of explanation.
'Yes,' answered Logotheti, humouring him, 'the room is warm. You must have been one of the last people who saw Miss Bamberger alive,' he added. 'Was she trying to get out?'
'I suppose so.'
Logotheti pretended to laugh a little.
'You must have been quite sure when you saw her,' he said.
Feist was in a very overwrought condition by this time, and Logotheti reflected that if his nerve did not improve he would make a bad impression on a jury.
'Now I'll tell you the truth,' he said rather desperately.
'By all means!' And Logotheti prepared to hear and remember accurately the falsehood which would probably follow immediately on such a statement.
But he was disappointed.
'The truth is,' said Feist, 'I don't care much to talk about this affair at present. I can't explain now, but you'll understand one of these days, and you'll say I was right.'
'Oh, I see!'
Logotheti smiled and held out his case, for Feist had finished the first cigarette. He refused another, however, to the other's surprise.
'Thanks,' he said, 'but I guess I won't smoke any more of those. I believe they get on to my nerves.'
'Do you really not wish me to bring you any more of them?' asked Logotheti, affecting a sort of surprised concern. 'Do you think they hurt you?'
'I do. That's exactly what I mean. I'm much obliged, all the same, butI'm going to give them up, just like that.'
'Very well,' Logotheti answered. 'I promise not to bring any more. I think you are very wise to make the resolution, if you really think they hurt you—though I don't see why they should.'
Like most weak people who make good resolutions, Mr. Feist did not realise what he was doing. He understood horribly well, forty-eight hours later, when he was dragging himself at his tormentor's feet, entreating the charity of half a cigarette, of one teaspoonful of liquor, of anything, though it were deadly poison, that could rest his agonised nerves for a single hour, for ten minutes, for an instant, offering his life and soul for it, parching for it, burning, sweating, trembling, vibrating with horror, and sick with fear for the want of it.
For Logotheti was an Oriental and had lived in Constantinople; and he knew what opium does, and what a man will do to get it, and that neither passion of love, nor bond of affection, nor fear of man or God, nor of death and damnation, will stand against that awful craving when the poison is within reach.
The society papers printed a paragraph which said that Lord Creedmore and Countess Leven were going to have a week-end party at Craythew, and the list of guests included the names of Mr. Van Torp and Señorita da Cordova, 'Monsieur Konstantinos Logotheti' and Mr. Paul Griggs, after those of a number of overpoweringly smart people.
Lady Maud's brothers saw the paragraph, and the one who was in the Grenadier Guards asked the one who was in the Blues if 'the Governor was going in for zoology or lion-taming in his old age'; but the brother in the Blues said it was 'Maud who liked freaks of nature, and Greeks, and things, because they were so amusing to photograph.'
At all events, Lady Maud had studiously left out her brothers and sisters in making up the Craythew party, a larger one than had been assembled there for many years; it was so large indeed that the 'freaks' would not have been prominent figures at all, even if they had been such unusual persons as the young man in the Blues imagined them.
For though Lord Creedmore was not a rich peer, Craythew was a fine old place, and could put up at least thirty guests without crowding them and without causing that most uncomfortable condition of things in which people run over each other from morning to night during week-end parties in the season, when there is no hunting or shooting to keep the men out all day. The house itself was two or three times as big as Mr. Van Torp's at Oxley Paddox. It had its hall, its long drawing-room for dancing, its library, its breakfast-room and its morning-room, its billiard-room, sitting-room, and smoking-room, like many another big English country house; but it had also a picture gallery, the library was an historical collection that filled three good-sized rooms, and it was completed by one which had always been called the study, beyond which there were two little dwelling-rooms, at the end of the wing, where the librarian had lived when there had been one. For the old lord had been a bachelor and a book lover, but the present master of the house, who was tremendously energetic and practical, took care of the books himself. Now and then, when the house was almost full, a guest was lodged in the former librarian's small apartment, and on the present occasion Paul Griggs was to be put there, on the ground that he was a man of letters and must be glad to be near books, and also because he could not be supposed to be afraid of Lady Letitia Foxwell's ghost, which was believed to have spent the nights in the library for the last hundred and fifty years, more or less, ever since the unhappy young girl had hanged herself there in the time of George the Second, on the eve of her wedding day.
The ancient house stood more than a mile from the high road, near the further end of such a park as is rarely to be seen, even in beautiful Derbyshire, for the Foxwells had always loved their trees, as good Englishmen should, and had taken care of them. There were ancient oaks there, descended by less than four tree-generations from Druid times; all down the long drive the great elms threw their boughs skywards; there the solemn beeches grew, the gentler ash, and the lime; there the yews spread out their branches, and here and there the cedar of Lebanon, patriarch of all trees that bear cones, reared his royal crown above the rest; in and out, too, amongst the great boulders that strewed the park, the sharp-leaved holly stood out boldly, and the exquisite white thorn, all in flower, shot up to three and four times a man's height; below, the heather grew close and green to blossom in the summer-time; and in the deeper, lonelier places the blackthorn and hoe ran wild, and the dog-rose in wild confusion; the alder and the gorse too, the honeysuckle and ivy, climbed up over rocks and stems; you might see a laurel now and then, and bilberry bushes by thousands, and bracken everywhere in an endless profusion of rich, dark-green lace.
Squirrels there were, dashing across the open glades and running up the smooth beeches and chestnut trees, as quick as light, and rabbits, dodging in and out amongst the ferns, and just showing the snow-white patch under their little tails as they disappeared, and now and again the lordly deer stepping daintily and leisurely through the deep fern; all these lived in the wonderful depths of Craythew Park, and of birds there was no end. There were game birds and song birds, from the handsome pheasants to the modest little partridges, the royalists and the puritans of the woods, from the love-lorn wood-pigeon, cooing in the tall firs, to the thrush and the blackbird, making long hops as they quartered the ground for grubs; and the robin, the linnet, and little Jenny Wren all lived there in riotous plenty of worms and snails; and nearer to the great house the starlings and jackdaws shot down in a great hurry from the holes in old trees where they had their nests, and many of them came rushing from their headquarters in the ruined tower by the stream to waddle about the open lawns in their ungainly fashion, vain because they were not like swallows, but could really walk when they chose, though they did it rather badly. And where the woods ended they were lined with rhododendrons, and lilacs, and laburnum. There are even bigger parks in England than Craythew, but there is none more beautiful, none richer in all sweet and good things that live, none more musical with song of birds, not one that more deeply breathes the world's oldest poetry.
Lady Maud went out on foot that afternoon and met Van Torp in the drive, half a mile from the house. He came in his motor car with Miss More and Ida, who was to go back after tea. It was by no means the first time that they had been at Craythew; the little girl loved nature, and understood by intuition much that would have escaped a normal child. It was her greatest delight to come over in the motor and spend two or three hours in the park, and when none of the family were in the country she was always free to come and go, with Miss More, as she pleased.
Lady Maud kissed her kindly and shook hands with her teacher before the car went on to leave Mr. Van Torp's things at the house. Then the two walked slowly along the road, and neither spoke for some time, nor looked at the other, but both kept their eyes on the ground before them, as if expecting something.
Mr. Van Torp's hands were in his pockets, his soft straw hat was pushed rather far back on his sandy head, and as he walked he breathed an American tune between his teeth, raising one side of his upper lip to let the faint sound pass freely without turning itself into a real whistle. It is rather a Yankee trick, and is particularly offensive to some people, but Lady Maud did not mind it at all, though she heard it distinctly. It always meant that Mr. Van Torp was in deep thought, and she guessed that, just then, he was thinking more about her than of himself. In his pocket he held in his right hand a small envelope which he meant to bring out presently and give to her, where nobody would be likely to see them.
Presently, when the motor had turned to the left, far up the long drive, he raised his eyes and looked about him. He had the sight of a man who has lived in the wilderness, and not only sees, but knows how to see, which is a very different thing. Having satisfied himself, he withdrew the envelope and held it out to his companion.
'I thought you might just as well have some more money,' he said, 'so I brought you some. I may want to sail any minute. I don't know. Yes, you'd better take it.'
Lady Maud had looked up quickly and had hesitated to receive the envelope, but when he finished speaking she took it quickly and slipped it into the opening of her long glove, pushing it down till it lay in the palm of her hand. She fastened the buttons before she spoke.
'How thoughtful you always are for me!'
She unconsciously used the very words with which she had thanked him in Hare Court the last time he had given her money. The tone told him how deeply grateful she was.
'Well,' he said in answer, 'as far as that goes, it's for you yourself, as much as if I didn't know where it went; and if I'm obliged to sail suddenly I don't want you to be out of your reckoning.'
'You're much too good, Rufus. Do you really mean that you may have to go back at once, to defend yourself?'
'No, not exactly that. But business is business, and somebody responsible has got to be there, since poor old Bamberger has gone crazy and come abroad to stay—apparently.'
'Crazy?'
'Well, he behaves like it, anyway. I'm beginning to be sorry for that man. I'm in earnest. You mayn't believe it, but I really am. Kind of unnatural, isn't it, for me to be sorry for people?'
He looked steadily at Lady Maud for a moment, then smiled faintly, looked away, and began to blow his little tune through his teeth again.
'You were sorry for little Ida,' suggested Lady Maud.
'That's different. I—I liked her mother a good deal, and when the child was turned adrift I sort of looked after her. Anybody'd do that, I expect.'
'And you're sorry for me, in a way,' said Lady Maud.
'You're different, too. You're my friend. I suppose you're about the only one I've got, too. We can't complain of being crowded out of doors by our friends, either of us, can we? Besides, I shouldn't put it in that way, or call it being sorry, exactly. It's another kind of feeling I have. I'd like to undo your life and make it over again for you, the right way, so that you'd be happy. I can do a great deal, but all the cursed nickel in the world won't bring back the—' he checked himself suddenly, shutting his hard lips with an audible clack, and looking down. 'I beg your pardon, my dear,' he said in a low voice, a moment later.
For he had been very near to speaking of the dead, and he felt instinctively that the rough speech, however kindly meant, would have pained her, and perhaps had already hurt her a little. But as she looked down, too, her hand gently touched the sleeve of his coat to tell him that there was nothing to forgive.
'He knows,' she said, more softly than sadly. 'Where he is, they know about us—when we try to do right.'
'And you haven't only tried,' Van Torp answered quietly, 'you've done it.'
'Have I?' It sounded as if she asked the question of herself, or of some one to whom she appealed in her heart. 'I often wonder,' she added thoughtfully.
'You needn't worry,' said her companion, more cheerily than he had yet spoken. 'Do you want to know why I think you needn't fuss about your conscience and your soul, and things?'
He smiled now, and so did she, but more at the words he used than at the question itself.
'Yes,' she said. 'I should like to know why.'
'It's a pretty good sign for a lady's soul when a lot of poor creatures bless her every minute of their lives for fishing them out of the mud and landing them in a decent life. Come, isn't it now? You know it is. That's all. No further argument's necessary. The jury is satisfied and the verdict is that you needn't fuss. So that's that, and let's talk about something else.'
'I'm not so sure,' Lady Maud answered. 'Is it right to bribe people to do right? Sometimes it has seemed very like that!'
'I don't set up to be an expert in morality,' retorted Van Torp, 'but if money, properly used, can prevent murder, I guess that's better than letting the murder be committed. You must allow that. The same way with other crimes, isn't it? And so on, down to mere misdemeanours, till you come to ordinary morality. Now what have you got to say? If it isn't much better for the people themselves to lead decent lives just for money's sake, it's certainly much better for everybody else that they should. That appears to me to be unanswerable. You didn't start in with the idea of making those poor things just like you, I suppose. You can't train a cart-horse to win the Derby. Yet all their nonsense about equality rests on the theory that you can. You can't make a good judge out of a criminal, no matter how the criminal repents of his crimes. He's not been born the intellectual equal of the man who's born to judge him. His mind is biassed. Perhaps he's a degenerate—everything one isn't oneself is called degenerate nowadays. It helps things, I suppose. And you can't expect to collect a lot of poor wretches together and manufacture first-class Magdalens out of ninety-nine per cent of them, because you're the one that needs no repentance, can you? I forget whether the Bible says it was ninety-nine who did or ninety-nine who didn't, but you'll understand my drift, I daresay. It's logic, if it isn't Scripture. All right. As long as you can stop the evil, without doing wrong yourself, you're bringing about a good result. So don't fuss. See?'
'Yes, I see!' Lady Maud smiled. 'But it's your money that does it!'
'That's nothing,' Van Torp said, as if he disliked the subject.
He changed it effectually by speaking of his own present intentions and explaining to his friend what he meant to do.
His point of view seemed to be that Bamberger was quite mad since his daughter's death, and had built up a sensational but clumsy case, with the help of the man Feist, whose evidence, as a confirmed dipsomaniac, would be all but worthless. It was possible, Van Torp said, that Miss Bamberger had been killed; in fact, Griggs' evidence alone would almost prove it. But the chances were a thousand to one that she had been killed by a maniac. Such murders were not so uncommon as Lady Maud might think. The police in all countries know how many cases occur which can be explained only on that theory, and how diabolically ingenious madmen are in covering their tracks.
Lady Maud believed all he told her, and had perfect faith in his innocence, but she knew instinctively that he was not telling her all; and the certainty that he was keeping back something made her nervous.
In due time the other guests came; each in turn met Mr. Van Torp soon after arriving, if not at the moment when they entered the house; and they shook hands with him, and almost all knew why he was there, but those who did not were soon told by the others.
The fact of having been asked to a country house for the express purpose of being shown by ocular demonstration that something is 'all right' which has been very generally said or thought to be all wrong, does not generally contribute to the light-heartedness of such parties. Moreover, the very young element was hardly represented, and there was a dearth of those sprightly boys and girls who think it the acme of delicate wit to shut up an aunt in the ice-box and throw the billiard-table out of the window. Neither Lady Maud nor her father liked what Mr. Van Torp called a 'circus'; and besides, the modern youths and maids who delight in practical jokes were not the people whose good opinion about the millionaire it was desired to obtain, or to strengthen, as the case might be. The guests, far from being what Lady Maud's brothers called a menagerie, were for the most part of the graver sort whose approval weighs in proportion as they are themselves social heavyweights. There was the Leader of the House, there were a couple of members of the Cabinet, there was the Master of the Foxhounds, there was the bishop of the diocese, and there was one of the big Derbyshire landowners; there was an ex-governor-general of something, an ex-ambassador to the United States, and a famous general; there was a Hebrew financier of London, and Logotheti, the Greek financier from Paris, who were regarded as colleagues of Van Torp, the American financier; there was the scientific peer who had dined at the Turkish Embassy with Lady Maud, there was the peer whose horse had just won the Derby, and there was the peer who knew German and was looked upon as the coming man in the Upper House. Many had their wives with them, and some had lost their wives or could not bring them; but very few were looking for a wife, and there were no young women looking for husbands, since the Señorita da Cordova was apparently not to be reckoned with those.
Now at this stage of my story it would be unpardonable to keep my readers in suspense, if I may suppose that any of them have a little curiosity left. Therefore I shall not narrate in detail what happened on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, seeing that it was just what might have been expected to happen at a week-end party during the season when there is nothing in the world to do but to play golf, tennis, or croquet, or to ride or drive all day, and to work hard at bridge all the evening; for that is what it has come to.
Everything went very well till Sunday night, and most of the people formed a much better opinion of Mr. Van Torp than those who had lately read about him in the newspapers might have thought possible. The Cabinet Ministers talked politics with him and found him sound—for an American; the M.F.H. saw him ride, and felt for him exactly the sympathy which a Don Cossack, a cowboy, and a Bedouin might feel for each other if they met on horseback, and which needs no expression in words; and the three distinguished peers liked him at once, because he was not at all impressed by their social greatness, but was very much interested in what they had to say respectively about science, horse-breeding, and Herr Bebel. The great London financier, and he, and Monsieur Logotheti exchanged casual remarks which all the men who were interested in politics referred to mysterious loans that must affect the armaments of the combined powers and the peace of Europe.