Roden's Corner Part 41

"Yes; I will believe that," answered Cornish.

And they parted a second time. Cornish walked slowly back to the hotel.

He limped a little, for Von Holzen had in the struggle kicked him on the ankle. He suddenly felt very tired, but was not shaken. On the contrary, he felt relieved, as if that which he had been attempting so long had been suddenly taken from his hands and consummated by a higher power, with whom all responsibility rested. He went to bed with a mechanical deliberation, and slept instantly. The daylight was streaming into the window when he awoke. No one sleeps very heavily at The Hague--no one knows why--and Cornish awoke with all his senses about him at the opening of his bedroom door. Roden had come in and was standing by the bedside. His eyes had a sleepless look. He looked, indeed, as if he had been up all night, and had just had a bath.

"I say," he said, in his hollow voice--"I say, get up. They have found him--and we are wanted. We have to go and identify him--and all that."

While Cornish was dressing, Roden sat heavily down on a chair near the window.

"Hope you'll stick by me," he said, and, pausing, stretched out his hand to the washing-stand to pour himself out a gla.s.s of water--"I hope you'll stick by me. I'm so confoundedly shaky. Don't know what it is--look at my hand." He held out his hand, which shook like a drunkard's.

"That is only nerves," said Cornish, who was ever optimistic and cheerful. He was too wise to weigh carefully his reasons for looking at the best side of events. "That is nothing. You have not slept, I expect."

"No; I've been thinking. I say, Cornish--you must stick by me--I have been thinking. What am I to do with the malgamiters? I cannot manage the devils as Von Holzen did. I'm--I'm a bit afraid of them, Cornish."

"Oh, that will be all right. Why, we have Wade, and can send for White if we want him. Do not worry yourself about that. What you want is breakfast. Have you had any?"

"No. I left the house before Dorothy was awake or the servants were down. She knows nothing. Dorothy and I have not hit it off lately."

Cornish made no answer. He was ringing the bell, and ordered coffee when the waiter came.

"Haven't met any incident in life yet," he said cheerfully, "that seemed to justify missing out meals."

The incident that awaited them was not, however, a pleasant one, though the magistrate in attendance afforded a courteous a.s.sistance in the observance of necessary formalities. Both men made a deposition before him.

"I know something," he said to Cornish, "of this malgamite business. We have had our eye upon Von Holzen for some time--if only on account of the death-rate of the city."

They breathed more freely when they were out in the street. Cornish made some unimportant remark, which the other did not answer. So they walked on in silence. Presently, Cornish glanced at his companion, and was startled at the sight of his face, which was grey, and glazed all over with perspiration, as an actor's face may sometimes be at the end of a great act. Then he remembered that Roden had not spoken for a long time.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Didn't you see?" gasped Roden.

"See what?"

"The things they had laid on the table beside him. The things they found in his hands and his pockets."

"The knife, you mean," said Cornish, whose nerves were worthy of the blood that flowed in his veins, "and some letters?"

"Yes; the knife was mine. Everybody knows it. It is an old dagger that has always lain on a table in the drawing room at the Villa des Dunes."

"I have never been in the drawing room at the Villa des Dunes, except once by lamplight," said Cornish, indifferently.

Roden turned and looked at him with eyes still dull with fear.

"And among the letters was the one you wrote to me making the appointment. He must have stolen it from the pocket of my office coat, which I never wear while I am working." Cornish was nodding his head slowly. "I see," he said, at length--"I see. It was a pretty _coup_. To kill me, and fix the crime on you--and hang you?"

"Yes," said Roden, with a sudden laugh, which neither forgot to his dying day.

They walked on in silence. For there are times in nearly every man's life when events seem suddenly to outpace thought, and we can only act as seems best at the moment; times when the babbler is still and the busybody at rest; times when the cleverest of us must recognize that the long and short of it all is that man agitates himself and G.o.d leads him. At the corner of the Vyverberg they parted--Cornish to return to his hotel, Roden to go back to the works. His carriage was awaiting him in a shady corner of the Binnenhof. For Roden had his carriage now, and, like many possessing suddenly such a vehicle, spent much time and thought in getting his money's worth out of it.

"If you want me, send for me, or come to the hotel," were Cornish's last words, as he shut the successful financier into his brougham.

At the hotel, Cornish found Mr. Wade and Marguerite lingering over a late breakfast.

"You look," said Marguerite, "as if you had been up to something." She glanced at him shrewdly. "Have you smashed Roden's Corner?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Cornish, turning to Mr. Wade; "and if you will come out into the garden, I will tell you how it has been done. Monsieur Creil said that the paper-makers could begin supplying themselves with malgamite at a day's notice. We must give them that notice this morning."

Mr. Wade, who was never hurried and never late, paused at the open window to light his cigar before following Marguerite.

"Ah," he said placidly, "then fortune must have favored you, or something has happened to Von Holzen."

Cornish knew that it was useless to attempt to conceal anything whatsoever from the discerning Marguerite, so--in the quiet garden of the hotel, where the doves murmur sleepily on the tiles, and the breeze only stirs the flowers and shrubs sufficiently to disseminate their scents--he told father and daughter the end of Roden's Corner.

They were still in the garden, an hour later, writing letters and telegrams, and making arrangements to meet this new turn in events, when Dorothy Roden came down the iron steps from the verandah.

She hurried towards them and shook hands, without explaining her sudden arrival.

"Is Percy here?" she asked Cornish. "Have you seen him this morning?"

"He is not here, but I parted from him a couple of hours ago on the Vyverberg. He was going down to the works."

"Then he never got there," said Dorothy. "I have had nearly all the malgamiters at the Villa des Dunes. They are in open rebellion, and if Percy had been there they would have killed him. They have heard a report that Herr von Holzen is dead. Is it true?" "Yes. Von Holzen is dead."

"And they broke into the office. They got at the books. They found out the profits that have been made and they are perfectly wild with fury.

They would have wrecked the Villa des Dunes, but----"

"But they were afraid of you, my dear," said Mr. Wade, filling in the blank that Dorothy left.

"Yes," she admitted.

"Well played," muttered Marguerite, with shining eyes.

Cornish had risen, and was folding away his papers. "I will go down to the works," he said.

"But you cannot go there alone," put in Dorothy, quickly.

"He will not need to do that," said Mr. Wade, throwing the end of his cigar into the bushes, and rising heavily from his chair.

Marguerite looked at her father with a little upward jerk of the head and a light in her eyes. It was quite evident that she approved of the old gentleman.

"He's a game old thing," she said, aside to Dorothy, while her father collected his papers.

"Your brother has probably been warned in time, and will not go near the works," said Cornish to Dorothy. "He was more than prepared for such an emergency; for he told me himself that he was half afraid of the men. He is almost sure to come to me here--in fact, he promised to do so if he wanted help."

Dorothy looked at him, and said nothing. The world would be a simpler dwelling-place if those who, for one reason or another, cannot say exactly what they mean would but keep silence.

Cornish told her, hurriedly, what had happened twelve hours ago on the bank of the Queen's Ca.n.a.l; and the thought of the misspent, crooked life that had ended in the black waters of that sluggish tideway made them all silent for a while. For death is in itself dignified, and demands respect for all with whom he has dealings. Many attain the distinction of vice in life, while more only reach the mere mediocrity of foolishness; but in death all are equally dignified. We may, indeed, a.s.sume that we shall, by dying, at last command the respect of even our nearest relations and dearest friend--for a week or two, until they forget us.