Mr. Fortescue Part 46

Yes, I believe I shall finish my century--without becoming senile either in body or mind--if I can escape the Griscelli. I was in hopes that I had escaped them by coming here; but I never stay long in Europe that they don't sooner or later find me out. I think I shall have to spend the remainder of my life in America or the East. The consciousness of being continually hunted, that at any moment I may be confronted with a murderer and perchance be murdered, is too trying for a man of my age. To tell the truth, I am beginning to feel that I have nerves; though my elixir delays death, it does not insure perpetual youth; and propitiating these people is out of the question--I have tried it.

Three years after my return from Venezuela, Guiseppe, son of the man whom I killed at Caracas, tried to kill me at Amsterdam, fired at me point-blank with a duelling pistol, and so nearly succeeded that the bullet grazed my cheek and cut a piece out of my ear. Yet I not only pardoned him, but bribed the police to let him go, and gave him money.

Well, seven years later he repeated the attempt at Naples, waylaid me at night and attacked me with a dagger, but I also happened to be armed, and Guiseppi Griscelli died.

At Paris, too--indeed, while the empire lasted--I found it expedient to shun France altogether. At that time Corsicans were greatly in favor; several members of the Griscelli family belonged to the secret police and had great influence, and as I never took an _alias_ and my name is not common, I was tracked like a criminal. Once I had to leave Paris by stealth at dead of night; another time I saved my life by simulating death. But why recount all the attempts on my life? Another time, perhaps.

The subject is not a pleasant one, but this I will say: I never spared a Griscelli that I had not cause to regret my clemency. The last I spared was the young man who tried to murder me down in the wood there; and if he does not repay my forbearance by repeating the attempt, he will be false to the traditions of his race.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

EPILOGUE.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that the deciphering of Mr.

Fortescue's notes and the writing of his memoirs were not done in a day.

There were gaps to be filled up, obscure pa.s.sages to be elucidated, and parts of several chapters and the whole of the last were written to his dictation, so that the summer came and went, and another hunting-season was "in view," before my work, in its present shape, was completed. I would fain have made it more complete by giving a fuller account of Mr.

Fortescue's adventures (some of which must have been very remarkable) between his first return from South America and his appearance at Matching Green, and I should doubtless have been able to do so (for he had promised to continue and amplify his narrative during the winter, as also to give me the recipe of his elixir), had not our intercourse been abruptly terminated by one of the strangest events in my experience and, I should think, in his.

But, before going further, I would just observe that Mr. Fortescue's cynicism, which, when I first knew him, had rather repelled me, was only skin-deep. Though he held human life rather cheaper than I quite liked, he was a kind and liberal master and a generous giver. His largesses were often princely and invariably anonymous, for he detested everything that savored of ostentation and parade. On the other hand, he had no more tolerance for mendicants in broadcloth than for beggars in rags, and to those who asked he gave nothing. As an instance of his dislike of publicity, I may mention that I had been with him several months before I discovered that he had published, under a pseudonym, several scientific works which, had he acknowledged them, would have made him famous.

After Guiseppe Griscelli's attempt on his life, I prevailed on Mr.

Fortescue never to go outside the park gates unaccompanied; when he went to town, or to Amsterdam, Ramon always went with him, and both were armed.

I also gave strict orders to the lodge-keepers to admit no strangers without authority, and to give me immediate information as to any suspicious-looking characters whom they might see loitering about.

These precautions, I thought, would be quite sufficient to prevent any attack being made on Mr. Fortescue in the daytime. It was less easy to guard against a surprise during the night, for the park-palings were not so high as to be unclimbable; and the idea of a night-watchman was suggested only to be dismissed, for the very sufficient reason that when he was most wanted he would almost certainly be asleep. I had no fear of Griscelli breaking in at the front door; but the house was not burglar-proof, and, as it happened, the weak point in our defence was one of the windows of Mr. Fortescue's bedroom. It looked into the orchard, and, by climbing a tree which grew hard by, an active man could easily reach it, even without a ladder. The danger was all the greater, as, when the weather was mild, Mr. Fortescue always slept with the window open. I proposed iron bars, to which he objected that iron bars would make his room look like a prison. And then I had a happy thought.

"Let us fix a strong bra.s.s rod right across the window-frame," I said, "in such a way that n.o.body can get in without laying hold of it, and by connecting it with a strong dynamo-battery inside, make sure that the man who does lay hold of it will not be able to let go."

The idea pleased Mr. Fortescue, and he told me to carry it out, which I did promptly and effectively, taking care to make the battery so powerful that, if Mr. Griscelli should try to effect an entrance by the window, he would be disagreeably surprised. The circuit was, of course, broken by dividing the rod in two parts and interposing a non-conductor between them.

To prevent any of the maids being "shocked," I told Ramon (who acted as his master's body servant) to connect the battery every night and disconnect it every morning. From time to time, moreover, I overhauled the apparatus to see that it was in good working order, and kept up its strength by occasionally recharging the cells.

Once, when I was doing this, Mr. Fortescue said, laughingly: "I don't think it is any use, Bacon; Griscelli won't come in that way. If, as some people say, it is the unexpected that happens, it is the expected that does not happen."

But in this instance both happened--the expected and the unexpected.

As I mentioned at the outset of my story, the habits of the Kingscote household were of an exemplary regularity. Mr. Fortescue, who rose early, expected everybody else to follow his example in this respect, and, as a rule, everybody did so.

One morning, at the beginning of October, when the sun rose about six o'clock, and we rose with it, I got up, donned my dressing-gown, and went, as usual, to take my matutinal bath. In order to reach the bath-room I had to pa.s.s Mr. Fortescue's chamber-door. As I neared it I heard within loud exclamations of horror and dismay, in a voice which I recognized as the voice of Ramon. Thinking that something was wrong, that Mr. Fortescue had perchance been taken suddenly ill, I pushed open the door and entered without ceremony.

Mr. Fortescue was sitting up in bed, looking with startled gaze at the window; and Ramon stood in the middle of the room, aghast and dismayed.

And well he might, for there hung at the window a man--or the body of one--his hands convulsively grasping the magnetized rod, the distorted face pressed against the gla.s.s, the lack-l.u.s.tre eyes wide open, the jaw drooping. In that ghastly visage I recognized the features of Giuseppe Griscelli!

"Is he dead, doctor?" asked Mr. Fortescue.

"He has been dead several hours," I said, as I examined the corpse.

"So much the better; the brood is one less, and perhaps after this they will let me live in peace. They must see that so far as their attempts against it are concerned, I bear a charmed life. You have done me a great service, Doctor Bacon, and I hold myself your debtor."

Ramon and I disconnected the battery and dragged the body into the room.

We found in the pockets a butcher's knife and a revolver, and round the waist a rope, with which the would-be murderer had doubtless intended to descend from the window after accomplishing his purpose.

This incident, of course, caused a great sensation both at Kingscote and in the country-side, and, equally of course, there was an inquest, at which Mr. Fortescue, Ramon, and myself, were the only witnesses. As Mr.

Fortescue did not want it to be known that he was the victim of a _vendetta_, and detested the idea of having himself and his affairs discussed by the press, we were careful not to gainsay the popular belief that Griscelli was neither more nor less than a dangerous and resolute burglar, and, as his possession of lethal weapons proved, a potential murderer. As for the cause of death I said, as I then fully believed (though I have since had occasion to modify this opinion somewhat), that the battery was not strong enough to kill a healthy man, and that Griscelli had died of nervous shock and fear acting on a weak heart. In this view the jury concurred and returned a verdict of accidental death, with the (informal) rider that it "served him right." The chairman, a burly farmer, warmly congratulated me on my ingenuity, and regretted that he had not "one of them things" at every window in his house.

So far so good; but, unfortunately, a London paper which lived on sensation, and happened at the moment to be in want of a new one, took the matter up. One of the editor's jackals came down to Kingscote, and there and elsewhere picked up a few facts concerning Mr. Fortescue's antecedents and habits, which he served up to his readers in a highly spiced and amazingly mendacious article, ent.i.tled "old Fortescue and his Strange Fortunes." But the sting of the article was in its tail. The writer threw doubt on the justice of the verdict. It remained to be proved, he said, that Griscelli was a burglar, and his death accidental. And even burglars had their rights. The law a.s.sumed them to be innocent until they were proved to be guilty, and it could be permitted neither to Mr. Fortescue nor to any other man to take people's lives, merely because he suspected them of an intention to come in by the window instead of the door. By what right, he asked, did Mr. Fortescue place on his window an appliance as dangerous as forked lightning, and as deadly as dynamite? What was the difference between magnetized bars in a window and spring-guns on a game-preserve? In conclusion, the writer demanded a searching investigation into the circ.u.mstances attending Guiseppe Griscelli's death, likewise the immediate pa.s.sing of an act of Parliament forbidding, under heavy penalties, the use of magnetic batteries as a defence against supposed burglars.

This effusion (which he read in a marked copy of the paper obligingly forwarded by the enterprising editor) put Mr. Fortescue in a terrible pa.s.sion, which made him, for a moment, look younger than ever I had seen him look before. The outrage rekindled the fire of his youth; he seemed to grow taller, his eyes glowed with anger, and, had the enterprising editor been present, he would have pa.s.sed a very bad quarter of an hour.

"The fellow who wrote this is worse than a murderer!" he exclaimed. "I'll shoot him--unless he prefers cold steel, and then I shall serve him as I served General Griscelli; and 'pon my soul I believe Griscelli was the least rascally of the two! I would as lief be hunted by blood-hounds as be stabbed in the back by anonymous slanderers!"

And then he wanted me to take a challenge to the enterprising editor, and arrange for a meeting, which rendered it necessary to remind him that we were not in the England of fifty years ago, and that duelling was abolished, and that his traducer would not only refuse to fight, but denounce his challenger to the police and gibbet him in his paper. I pointed out, on the other hand, that the article was clearly libellous, and recommended Mr. Fortescue either to obtain a criminal information against the proprietor of the paper, or sue him for damages.

"No, sir!" he answered, with a gesture of indignation and disdain--"no, sir, I shall neither obtain a criminal information nor sue for damages.

The man who goes to law surrenders his liberty of action and becomes the sport of chicaning lawyers and hair-splitting judges. I would rather lose a hundred thousand pounds!"

Mr. Fortescue pa.s.sed the remainder of the day at his desk, writing and arranging his papers. The next morning I heard, without surprise, that he and Ramon were going abroad.

"I don't know when I shall return," said Mr. Fortescue, as we shook hands at the hall door, "but act as you always do when I am from home, and in the course of a few days you will hear from me."

I did hear from him, and what I heard was of a nature so surprising as nearly to take my breath away.

"You will never see me at Kingscote again," he wrote; "I am going to a country where I shall be safe, as well from the attacks of Corsican a.s.sa.s.sins as from the cowardly outrages of rascally newspapers." And then he gave instructions as to the disposal of his property at Kingscote.

Certain things, which he enumerated, were to be packed up in cases and forwarded to Amsterdam. The furniture and effects in and about the house were to be sold, and the proceeds placed at the disposal of the county authorities for the benefit of local charities. Every outdoor servant was to receive six months' pay, every in-door servant twelve months' pay, in lieu of notice. Geirt was to join Mr. Fortescue in a month's time at Damascus; and to me, in lieu of notice, and as evidence of his regard, he gave all his horses, carriages, saddlery, harness, and stable equipments (not being freehold) of every description whatsoever, to be dealt with as I thought fit for my personal advantage. His solicitors, with my help, would wind up his affairs, and his bankers had instructions to discharge all his liabilities.

His memoirs, or so much of them as I had written down, I might (if I thought they would interest anybody) publish, but not before the fiftieth year of the Victorian era, or the death of the German emperor, whichever event happened first. The letter concluded thus: "I strongly advise you to buy a practice and settle down to steady work. We may meet again. If I live to be a hundred, you shall hear from me. If I die sooner you will probably hear of my demise from the house at Amsterdam, to whom please send your new address."

I was exceedingly sorry to lose Mr. Fortescue. Our intercourse had been altogether pleasant and agreeable, and to myself personally in a double sense profitable; for he had taught me many things and rewarded me beyond my deserts. Also the breaking up of Kingscote and the disposal of the household went much against the grain. Yet I freely confess that Mr.

Fortescue's splendid gift proved a very effective one, and almost reconciled me to his absence.

All the horses and carriages, except five of the former, and two traps, I sent up to Tattersall's. As the horses, without exception, were of the right sort, most of them perfect hunters, and it was known that Mr.

Fortescue would not have an unsound or vicious animal in his stables, they fetched high prices. The sale brought me over six thousand pounds.

Two-thirds of this I put out at interest on good security; with the remainder I bought a house and practice in a part of the county as to which I will merely observe that it is pleasantly situated and within reach of three packs of hounds. The greater part of the year I work hard at my profession; but when November comes round I engage a second a.s.sistant and (weather permitting) hunt three and sometimes four days a week, so long as the season lasts.

And often when hounds are running hard and I am well up, or when I am "hacking" homeward after a good day's sport, I think gratefully of the man to whom I owe so much, and wonder whether I shall ever see him again.