Potterism Part 16

'Yes--yes?' I bent forward eagerly, as she paused and seemed to brood over the clear depths where, as I knew, she saw shadows forming and reforming.

'They talk,' she murmured. 'They talk.'

(Knowing that she could not, unfortunately, hear what they said, I did not ask.)

'They are excited.... They are quarrelling.... Oh, G.o.d!' She hid her eyes for a moment, then looked again.

'The dark man strikes the fair man.... He is taken by surprise; he steps backward and falls ... falls backwards ... down ... out of my vision....

The dark man is left standing alone.... He is fading ... he is gone.... I can see him no more.... Leila, I have come to an end; I am overdone; I must rest.'

She had fallen back with closed eyes.

A little later, when she had revived, we had had tea together, and I had put a few questions to her. She had told me little more than what she had revealed as she gazed into the crystal. But it was enough. She knew the fair man for Oliver, for she had seen him at the wedding. She had not seen the dark man's face, nor had she ever met Arthur Gideon, but her description of him was enough for me.

I had left the house morally certain that Arthur Gideon had murdered (or anyhow manslaughtered) Oliver Hobart.

7

I told Percy that evening, after Clare had gone to bed. I had confidence in Percy: he would believe me. His journalistic instinct for the truth could be counted on. He never waived things aside as improbable, for he knew, as I knew, how much stranger truth may be than fiction. He heard me out, nodding his head sharply from time to time to show that he followed me.

When I had done, he said, 'You were right to tell me. We must look into it. It will, if proved true, make a most remarkable story. Most sensational and remarkable.' He turned it over in that acute, quick brain of his.

'We must go carefully,' he said. 'Remember we haven't much to go on yet.'

He didn't believe in the crystal-gazing, of course, so had less to go on than I had. All he saw was the inherent possibility of the story (knowing, as he did, the hatred that had existed between the two men) and the d.a.m.ning fact of Gideon's presence at the house that evening.

'We must be careful,' he repeated. 'Careful, for one thing, not to start talk about the fellow's friendship with Jane. We must keep Jane out of it all.'

On that we were agreed.

'I think we must ask Clare a few questions,' said Percy.

He did so next day, without mentioning our suspicion. But Clare could still scarcely bear to speak of that terrible evening, poor child, and returned incoherent answers. She knew Mr. Gideon had been in the house, but didn't know what time he had gone, nor the exact time of the accident.

I resolved to question Emily, Jane's little maid, more closely, and did so when I went there that afternoon. She was certainly more circ.u.mstantial than she had been when she had told me the story before, in the first shock and confusion of the disaster. I gathered from her that she had heard her master and Mr. Gideon talking immediately before the fall; she had been surprised when her mistress had said that Mr.

Gideon had left the house before the fall. She thought, from the sounds, that he must have left the house immediately afterwards.

'It is possible,' I said, 'that Mrs. Hobart did not know precisely when Mr. Gideon left the house. It was all very confusing.'

'Oh, my lady, indeed it was,' Emily agreed. 'I'm sure I hope I shall never have such a night again.'

I said nothing to Jane of my suspicion. If I was right in thinking that the poor misguided child was shielding her husband's murderer, from whatever motives of pity or friendship, the less said to disturb her the better, till we were sure of our ground.

But I talked to a few other people about it, on whose discretion I could rely. I tried to find out, and so did Percy, what was this man's record.

What transpired of it was not rea.s.suring. His father was, as we knew before, a naturalised Russian Jew, presumably of the lowest cla.s.s in his own land, though well educated from childhood in this country. He was, as every one knew, a big banker, and mixed up, no doubt, with all sorts of shady finance. Some people said he was probably helping to finance the Bolsheviks. His daughter had married a Russian Jewish artist. Jane knew this artist and his wife well, at that silly club of hers. Arthur Gideon, on coming of age, had reverted to his patronymic name, enamoured, it seemed, of his origin. He had, of course, to fight in the war, loath though he no doubt was. But directly it was over, or rather directly he was discharged wounded, he took to shady journalism.

Hardly a rea.s.suring record! Add to it the ill-starred influence he had always attempted to exert over Johnny and Jane (he had, even in Oxford days, brought out their worst side) his quarrels with Oliver in the press, his unconcealed hatred of what he was pleased to call 'Potterism'

(he was president of the foolish so-called 'Anti-Potter League'), his determined intimacy with Jane against her husband's wishes, and Jane's own implication that he at times drank too much--and you had a picture of a man unlikely to inspire confidence in any impartial mind.

Anyhow, most of the people to whom I broached the unpleasant subject (and I saw no reason why I should not speak freely of my suspicion) seemed to think the man's guilt only too likely.

Some of my friends said to me, 'Why not bring a charge against him and have him arrested and the matter thoroughly investigated?' But Percy told me we had not enough to go on for that yet. All he would do was to put the investigation into the hands of a detective, and entrust him with the business of collecting evidence.

The only people we kept the matter from were our two daughters. Clare would have been too dreadfully upset by this raking up of the tragedy, and Jane could not, in her present state, be disturbed either.

8

About three weeks after my visit to Amy Ayres, I had rather a trying meeting with that young clergyman, Mr. Juke, another of the children's rather queer Oxford friends. He is the son of that bad old Lord Aylesbury, who married some dreadful chorus girl a year or two ago, and all his family are terribly fast. We met at a bazaar for starving clergy at the dear Bishop of London's, to which I had gone with Frank. I think the clergy very wrong about many things, but I quite agree that we cannot let them starve. Besides, Peggy had a stall for home-made jam.

I was buying some Armenian doily, with Clare at my side, when a voice said, 'Can I speak to you for a moment, Lady Pinkerton?' and, turning round, Mr. Juke stood close to us.

I was surprised, for I knew him very little, but I said, 'How do you do, Mr. Juke. By all means. We will go and sit over there, by the missionary bookstall.' This was, as it sometimes is, the least frequented stall, so it was suitable for quiet conversation.

We left Clare, and went to the bookstall. When we were seated in two chairs near it, Mr. Juke leant forward, his elbows on his knees, and said in a low voice, 'I came here to-day hoping to meet you, Lady Pinkerton. I wanted to speak to you. It's about my friend, Gideon....'

'Yes,' I helped him out, my interest rising. Had he anything to communicate to me on that subject?

The young man went on, staring at the ground between his knees, and it occurred to me that his profile was very like Granville Barker's. 'I am told,' he said, in grave, quick, low tones, 'that you are saying things about him rather indiscriminately. Bringing, in fact, charges against him--suspicions, rather.... I hardly think you can be aware of the seriousness of such irresponsible gossip, such--I can't call it anything but slander--when it is widely circulated. How it grows--spreads from person to person--the damage, the irreparable damage it may do....'

He broke off incoherently, and was silent. I confess I was taken aback.

But I stood to my guns.

'And,' I said, 'if the irresponsible gossip, as you call it, happens to be true, Mr. Juke? What then?'

'Then,' he said abruptly, and looked me in the face, '_then,_ Lady Pinkerton, Gideon should be called on to answer to the charge in a court of law, not libelled behind his back.'

'That,' I said, 'will, I hope, Mr. Juke, happen at the proper time.

Meanwhile, I must ask to be allowed to follow my own methods of investigation in my own way. Perhaps you forget that the matter concerns the tragic death of my very dear son-in-law. I cannot be expected to let things rest where they are.'

'I suppose,' he said, rising as I rose, 'that you can't.'

'And,' I added, as a parting shot, 'it is always open to Mr. Gideon to bring a libel action against any one who falsely and publicly accuses him--_if he likes_.'

'Yes,' a.s.sented the young man.

I left him standing there, and turned away to speak to Mrs. Creighton, who was pa.s.sing.

I considered that Mr. Juke had been quite in his rights to speak to me as he had done, and I was not offended. But I must say I think I had the best of the interview. And it left me with the strong impression that he knew as well as I did that 'his friend Gideon' would in no circ.u.mstances venture to bring a libel action against any one in this matter.

I believed that the young clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that his crime deserved.

Clare said to me when I rejoined her. 'What did Mr. Juke want to speak to you about, mother?'

'Nothing of any importance, dear,' I told her.

She looked at me in the rather strange, troubled, frowning way she has now sometimes.