Mortmain Part 5

A drowsiness had come over the baronet and he pressed close to the nurse, terrified and shaken by the dread of some approaching peril. This hired man seemed nearer to him than any other living soul. He cried softly, fearing to be observed, and the tears coursed down his hot cheeks and lost themselves in his furs. Now and then he would listen intently for the sound of some one running, but he could hear nothing save the crunch of the wheels and the jingle of the harness. Yet he knew that just behind them, clinging to their wheel, was pressing that mysterious figure that had leaped into the darkness beside the station.

After what seemed an hour, a bend in the road disclosed a single light not far ahead and in a few moments the wagons stopped before a high wall. The party got out and Crisp opened the gate. Mortmain stared fixedly down the road, waiting for the unbidden guest to creep swiftly into view.

"Here we are!" cried Sir Penniston. "Wait a moment until I notify the farmer."

As the surgeon hastened up the paved walk to the cottage, the wagons turned and started back at a brisk trot, like a home-going funeral procession. All the windows were dark and Mortmain clung sobbing to the nurse's arm.

"Hit's all right, sir," whispered the latter sympathetically. "Hit's all right!"

Slowly the party made their way to the porch. A light appeared in the lower windows, then the door was opened. The nurse, half carrying the baronet, helped him into the hall and seated him upon a wooden chair. As the door closed Mortmain saw a shadow at the gate.

"Look! Look!" he cried. The warm air swallowed him up; he felt a rush of blood to his neck and face; the figures about him swayed and swam in the dim light; there was a stabbing pain in his hand and he knew no more.

V

When Mortmain was able to reappear in society he was astonished to find that the murder of Lord Russell was no longer a matter of interest or of discussion. The temporarily shocked and horrified community had apparently within a short time placidly accepted it, and apart from occasional references in the newspapers, it was rapidly becoming a mere matter of history, taking its proper chronological place in the long list of London's unsolved mysteries. It had been given out at the time that the horrible death of his old friend had so prostrated the baronet that he had been threatened with total collapse, and had only been restored to health by remaining in bed under the constant care of a certain distinguished physician. At times Mortmain was almost inclined to believe this himself, for the ghastly night at the lonely farmhouse, his ensuing illness and slow recovery, seemed, in the full swing of the London season and contrasted with the brilliant colors of its festivities, less actuality than a dreadful nightmare which continually obtruded itself upon his recollection. He had resumed his place in fashionable life with his old a.s.surance, picking up his cards where he had left them lying face downward upon the table. Within a week he was again "among those present" at every gathering of note, and he had dropped hints of his intention to give a new and unique musical entertainment which was to surpa.s.s anything of the kind theretofore attempted. He had also resumed his attentions to Lady Bella Forsythe with a definite purpose--that of rendering himself financially impregnable.

But Sir Richard was not the same. His gla.s.s showed him to be paler than of yore, his eyes more deeply sunken, his hair touched at the edges with a ghost of white, the lines of his mouth more firmly marked. His friends jokingly told him that he was growing old. He had paid a heavy price for what he had bought, yet it was not loss of vitality, not physical shock alone that had thus aged him, but a ghastly, d.a.m.ning fact that never left him for an instant, waking or sleeping: _the fact that the man had died_. They had not told him at first--it might have affected his cure.

The result upon his spiritual being when he learned of it had been no less disastrous. _The man had died._ There was no longer any pensioner to claim his annuity; no creditor even to demand the price of his awful bargain; no witness to testify to its hideous terms--he had fled the jurisdiction of all earthly courts. Sir Richard was free. But the thought of that life forfeited to his own egotism was a millstone about his neck, bowing him forever to the ground.

He intentionally talked frankly of Lord Russell. The old man had been highly respected and, indeed, moderately prominent in philanthropic circles. Mortmain had made a point of going personally to see the bas-relief erected to his memory. He learned that the next of kin was a Devon man who never came up to town, and that the executors had taken possession almost immediately and disposed of the house to an American millionaire, who was even now remodeling the historic mansion, inserting Grecian columns and putting on a Chateau de Nevers roof. Of course he inspected this with friends, was properly disgusted, and seized the opportunity to gratify his curiously morbid hunger for the details of the murder. He learned that, though few of the facts were known to the public, opinion had crystallized into a settled acceptance that the murderer had made good his escape and that the ident.i.ty of the murderer was known. In fact, the silence of Scotland Yard was rendered nugatory by the reward of 1,000 offered by the County Council for the apprehension of Saunders Leach, the recently discharged secretary of the philanthropist. Nothing had been heard of him since Lord Russell's butler had admitted him to the house, an hour or two before the murder, upon his representation that he had come to look over some papers at the request of his erstwhile master. The butler, a most respectable person, had introduced him into the library, where Lord Russell was, and departed. He had recalled afterwards--it had come out at the hearing at the Central Criminal Court--that he had heard the sound of voices raised at a high pitch, but, as his master was at times somewhat querulous, this had not particularly attracted his attention. An hour later, when he had brought the evening papers, he had discovered the aged man lying face downward upon his desk, and a window, bearing the b.l.o.o.d.y traces of the a.s.sa.s.sin, open to the night. And Leach had vanished--as if he had never lived.

The thing most puzzling to Sir Richard, as to everybody else, was the failure of any apparent motive for so ghastly a deed. Leach, according to old Floyd the butler, had been a very decent sort of fellow, rather sickly Floyd took him to be, without any particular faults or virtues.

It seemed to outrage reason to suppose that an anaemic little clerk could have murdered a helpless old man simply out of revenge for having lost his place. And then nothing had been stolen--that is, n.o.body but Sir Richard knew that anything had been stolen. Yet the public and the London County Council p.r.o.nounced unhesitatingly as established fact that Saunders Leach was the a.s.sa.s.sin, and that he should be hunted down to the very ends of the world and, if need be, followed into the next. Only Scotland Yard remained silent after annexing the contents of the room, the windows, the carpet, and even portions of the faded paper from the very walls themselves. Then Parliament went into a convulsion over a proposed excise alteration and London forgot the murder of Lord Russell in its feverish interest in the expected legislative abortion. There was an appeal to the country; a premier retired to Italy; some few thousands were added to the credit column of the national ledger at the expense of a ministry, and once more the advent of royalty at St. James's dazzled the c.o.c.kney eye and filled the c.o.c.kney mouth to the stultification of the c.o.c.kney brain. Lord Russell was forgotten--as completely as Saunders Leach--as totally as an isle sunk beneath the waters of oblivion.

The first time Sir Richard had essayed to write he had been deliciously horrified at the ease with which his pencil had followed the pressure of his new fingers. His recent clothes added an extra inch to his sleeves, and his broad cuffs fully concealed the white seam that ran around his wrist. The hand itself served his purposes well enough, but unmistakably it was not his own. He never laid the two together--never let his eyes fall upon the vicarious fingers if he could avoid it, for inevitably a sickening sensation of repulsion followed. His own fingers were long and tapering, the nails fine with p.r.o.nounced "crowns," the back of the hand slender and smooth; the new one was broader and hairy, the fingers shorter and square at the ends, the nails thick and dull with no "crowns," and the veins blue and prominent. There were too many pores!

He loathed the thing, tell himself as often as he would that it was nothing but a mechanical device to supplement Nature. Physically he felt as if he were wearing a glove that was too small for him, into which he had been forced to stuff his hand. This seemed to produce a tight, swollen sensation which was the only indication of his abnormal condition. He ate, drove, used his keys, articulated his fingers, and even wrote with the same muscular freedom as before. His chirography actually and undeniably exhibited the same general characteristics, only intensified and with less certainty of stroke and pen-pressure. The letters which had previously been merely somewhat original in structure as suited a man of fashion, now became humpbacked and deformed. It was as though the spiritual qualities of Sir Richard's penmanship had shrunk away, leaving only the grotesque residue of a dwarfed and evil nature.

But apart from the question of chirography one other manifestation constantly reminded Mortmain of his crime. This was an itching in the grafted hand whenever its possessor became angry or excited. Even hard physical exercise produced the same phenomenon. It seemed as if Nature, having provided for the circulation of a certain amount of blood, found on reaching this particular extremity that the supply exceeded the power of reception. If angered, he found himself indulging in ungovernable fits of pa.s.sion, with his eyes suffused and his head buzzing. At times he experienced an almost irresistible impulse to throttle somebody. On the slightest provocation the fingers of his right hand would curve and clutch, and a fierce longing seize him to compa.s.s the extinction of life in some animate being--to feel the slackening of the muscles in some victim--an emotion elemental, barbarous, cruel, but keen, masterful and pervading. He had an exhilarating sensation of strength and vitality new to him. Moreover, his att.i.tude toward his fellow-men had imperceptibly altered. Before his operation he had hated all evil doers and been strongly loyal to government and law; now he sympathized with the lawbreakers. In defying society and deliberately violating its statutes, he had allied himself with its enemies.

This he realized and accepted. At any moment he might be called upon to face a criminal prosecution for the felony of mutilation; and there was still the peculiar and inexplicable silence of Flaggs in regard to the papers which he had taken away with him on the morning after the murder.

No word had ever pa.s.sed between them on the subject, and yet the notes were outstanding and in the hands of a more dangerous holder than even Lord Russell himself. By merely handing them to the executors, Flaggs could not only throw Sir Richard into bankruptcy, but could place him in the awkward position of having suppressed the notes at the time of Lord Russell's death. That, too, would lead to a still further and more delicate complication. He would naturally be asked how he had secured possession of the notes. It would be clear that they were in Lord Russell's hands at the time of the murder. Flaggs would explain that _he_ had procured them from Sir Richard. So far as _he_ was concerned, he had been safely "jugged" at the time of the murder. He could call a score of sergeants, matrons, and bobbies to prove that, and establish it by the police records themselves. Where, then, people would want to know, had Sir Richard obtained them? It would be a hard question to answer in such a way that the answer would carry any sort of conviction with it.

No one, of course, would believe that he had found them, as in fact was the case. Any such explanation would excite instant suspicion. If he should say that he had paid them and had received the notes from Lord Russell's lawyers, inquiry would at once demonstrate that the lawyers had never had possession of the notes, or received any money from Sir Richard. If he said that he had taken the money to Lord Russell and received the notes _from him_, his own evidence would place him upon the scene of the murder at approximately the moment of it. Further, no draft in payment of the notes would be found among Lord Russell's papers, and the suspicion would immediately arise that he had proffered a forged draft to secure possession of the notes, and then murdered the old man to get it back.

It was indeed a predicament of the worst sort. In Sir Richard the horrible unfairness of it bred a hatred for a society in which such things were possible. He looked at any moment to find himself made the defendant in a criminal prosecution, just or unjust--the unjust the more difficult of the two to escape. He needed money--money to fight with, money to live on, money to keep up his hollow pretense of respectability. And as his att.i.tude toward society gradually changed, the dead-alive thing at his wrist with the white seam throbbed and itched until Mortmain longed fiercely to tear it off. At night he would dream--and this dream repeated itself over and over again--that he was fastened to some miserable convict, shackled by the wrist in such a way that somehow they two had grown together, and as he struggled in his sleep his fellow would turn into the grinning, jeering image of Flaggs--Flaggs fastened to him by a bond of burning, itching flesh--Flaggs joined to him like a Siamese twin, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood--until by some unnatural evolution _he_ became Flaggs and could see his own wretched shape writhing at the other end of their mutual arm. Then shaking, chilled, and covered with perspiration he would awake and look for Flaggs beside him, and hold his hand to the blue night-light only to find the seam about his wrist and the dead-white hand throbbing until he thought he should go mad.

By day he was haunted by the vision of Flaggs watching his house and following him along the streets. He could not get the fellow out of his mind. This terror of the drunken clerk became a positive obsession. As he walked the streets or drove in his brougham through the park he was constantly planning out what he should say when they should finally come together--when Flaggs should call for him, summon him as his own. Could he defy him? Could he palliate him? The hand twitched at the thought of it. He fancied that Flaggs followed him everywhere in various disguises, running swiftly behind, dodging into doorways and up side streets when he turned around. And this habit of turning around and glancing furtively up and down grew on Sir Richard, and with it grew the itching in his hand, until he suspected that people shook their heads and said that his illness had undermined his health more than they had supposed.

It was no bodily illness that thus affected Sir Richard, but spiritual degeneration. He went from dinner party to dinner party and from musicale to musicale, paying court to Lady Bella Forsythe as if no grotesque face were peering from behind the arras of his brain. Yet in reality he was preparing to meet Flaggs in the final struggle for supremacy. Flaggs, like death and the tax man, was coming--_when_? He could not tell, but inevitably. And he must be ready, armed _cap-a-pie_ to meet him on every ground. He had at last resolved to marry Lady Bella. It was an essential in his campaign to defeat Flaggs. There must be plenty of money--money, that was what he needed, what he wanted. It was partly for Lady Bella that he had planned his musical entertainment, for, in addition to its practical desirability, if he purposed to retain his position in the social world, it would afford an excellent opportunity for presenting himself to her as a person worthy of her own high station and acquaintance. His own music--! Alas! the brain was willing, but the fingers were powerless. Where before he had produced the most delicate of harmonies there now resulted nothing but harsh discords. The hand would not stretch an octave!

The Milbank Street house blazed into the early evening with a thousand lights. All day long wagons of roses and asters had stood before the doors, and ap.r.o.ned men had staggered into the hall with pots of flowers and stands of palms. Confectioners' wagons, loads of camp chairs, and now a large awning were the indubitable evidences of what was afoot.

Night came on. The white cloth on the carpet across the sidewalk was trampled to a dirty gray. The orchestra began to arrive, and, shedding their coats in the servants' entrance, toiled up the back stairs and tentatively made their way through the flower-banked halls to the conservatory. Sir Richard sitting in his den and awaiting the arrival of his first guests could hear the musicians tuning their ba.s.ses and testing the wood winds. But there was no music in Sir Richard's soul.

All day long he had been haunted by the ghost of Flaggs scuttling behind him, and his hand had seemed swollen and discolored. Well, if he could but get through the night, could succeed in his suit with Lady Bella, he would go away and rest. Perhaps he would leave London forever--Lady Bella was very fond of Rome. The sounds of the instruments grew more confused and louder, the violins mingling with the others. Occasionally the trombones would boom out and the kettles rumble ominously. Outside splashes of rain began to fall against the windows, and the wind, catching in the hollow column of the awning, swept into the halls and through the open door into the den. Mortmain looked at his watch and found it was ten o'clock. People would be arriving soon. His hand twitched and he lighted a cigarette. There was a great deal of traffic in the front hall--too much. He closed the door and poured out a thimbleful of brandy. Well, a day or two and he would be rid of Flaggs forever! Then he heard a low knock. He tried to cheat himself into the belief that it was Joyce.

"Come in," he cried, but his voice was husky.

Flaggs stood before him.

"I have been expecting you," said Mortmain. It did not seem strange that he should make this declaration.

"Yes?" queried Flaggs.

"What do you want?" demanded the baronet.

"Ten thousand pounds," answered the clerk. "To-morrow."

Mortmain broke into a harsh laugh.

"Ha! my good fellow! What do you think I am--a Crsus? Come, come, I'll give you fifty--and I get the notes, eh?"

"Ten thousand pounds," repeated Flaggs stubbornly, "by to-morrow noon, or I hand you over to the police."

The blood jumped into Sir Richard's face and his dexter hand throbbed and tingled.

"You miserable rascal!" he cried. "You wretched blackmailer! How dare you come into my house? Do you know that I could _kill_ you? And no one would ever be the wiser! Take a few pounds and be off with you or I'll summon the police myself."

"Not so fast, not so fast, Sir Richard," muttered Flaggs. "I don't think you'll call the police."

The look on the white scowling face before him told Sir Richard that the fellow meant to do his business. A haunting fear seized hold upon him like that which he had experienced in the depot wagon--a feeling that behind this grotesque, dwarfed figure of a man lurked the hand of Fate.

"That's right. Be reasonable," said Flaggs soothingly. "Some folks would think ten thousand pounds was cheap to escape the gallows," he added in lower tones.

"Gallows!" cried Sir Richard, his anger rising. He knew the fellow's game now. He was being lied to. Flaggs was trying to frighten, to bully him. "The gallows, my friend, ceased to be the punishment for felony in 1826--even for blackmail!"

"But not for murder," retorted Flaggs with a ghastly smile. "Not for murder!"

"Enough of this!" exclaimed Sir Richard, but his knees were trembling.

"Here are a hundred pounds. Go!" He put his hand to his breast pocket.

Flaggs laughed.

"Look!" he cried, pulling from the lining of his hat a printed slip which he unfolded and handed to the baronet.

Mortmain took it in dread and held it to the light.

"_Murder in the first degree defined._

"_The taking of the life of a human being by another with malice prepense or in the commission of a felony._"

The last six words were underlined in red ink.

"Well?" he asked, but the word stuck in his throat.