The Darrow Enigma Part 4

"I do not understand you. He played a good game; my father did not enjoy doing anything that he could not do well."

"I mean to ask if his positions were steadily sustained--or if, on the other hand, his manoeuvres were swift, and what you might call brilliant."

"I think you would call them brilliant."

"Hum! How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"Tell me your relations with your father."

"We were most constant companions. My mother--she and my father --they were not altogether companionable--in short, they were ill-mated, and, being wise enough to find it out, and having no desire to longer embitter each other's lives, they agreed to separate when I was only four. They parted without the slightest ill-feeling, and I remained with father. He was very fond of me, and would permit no one else to teach me. At seven I was drawing and painting under his guidance. At eight the violin was put into my hands and my studies in voice began. In the meantime father was most careful not to neglect my physical training; he taught me the use of Indian clubs, and how to walk easily. At eight I could walk four miles an hour without fatigue. The neighbours used to urge that I be put to school, but my father would reply--many a time I have heard him say it--'a child's brain is like a flower that blossoms in perceptions and goes to seed in abstractions.

Correct concepts are the raw material of reason. Every desk in your school is an intellectual loom which is expected to weave a sound fabric out of rotten raw material. While your children are wasting their fibre in memorising the antique errors of cla.s.sical thought my child is being fitted to perceive new truths for herself.'

It is needless to say his friends considered these views altogether too radical. But for all that I was never sent to school. My father's library was always at my disposal, and I was taught how to use it. We were constantly together, and grew so into each other's lives that "--but her voice failed her, and her eyes moistened. Maitland, though he apparently did not notice her emotion, so busy was he in making notes, quickly put a question which diverted her attention.

"Your father seemed last night to have a presentiment of some impending calamity. Was this a common experience?"

"Of late, yes. He has told me some six or seven times of dreaming the same dreams--a dream in which some a.s.sa.s.sin struck him out of the darkness." "Did you at any of these times notice anything which might now lead you to believe this fancied repet.i.tion was the result of any mental malady?"

"No."

"Was his description of the dreams always the same?"

"No; never were they twice alike, save in the one particular of the unseen a.s.sa.s.sin."

"Hum!, Did the impression of these dreams remain long with him?"

"He never recovered from it, and each dream only accentuated his a.s.surance that the experience was prophetic. When once I tried to dissuade him from this view, he said to me: 'Gwen, it is useless; I am making no mistake. When I am gone you will know why I am now so sure--I cannot tell you now, it would only '--here he stopped short, and, turning abruptly to me, said with a fierceness entirely alien to his disposition: 'Hatred is foreign to my nature, but I hate that man with a perfect h.e.l.l of loathing! Have I been a kind father to you, Gwen? If so, promise me '--and he seized me by the wrist--' promise me if I'm murdered--I may as well say when I'm murdered--you will look upon the man who brings my a.s.sa.s.sin to justice--the thought that he may escape is d.a.m.ning--as your dearest friend on earth! You will deny him nothing. You will learn later that I have taken care to reward him. My child, you will owe this man a debt you can never repay, for he will have enabled your father's soul to find repose. I dreamed last night that I came back from the dead, and heard my avenger ask you to be his wife. You refused, and at your ingrat.i.tude my restless soul returned to torment everlasting. Swear to me, Gwen, that you'll deny him nothing, nothing, nothing!' I promised him, and he seemed much rea.s.sured.

'I am satisfied,' he said, 'and now can die in peace, for you are an anomaly, Gwen,--a woman who fully knows the nature of a covenant,'

and he put his arm about me, and drew me to him. His fierceness had subsided as quickly as it had appeared, and he was now all tenderness."

Maitland, who appeared somewhat agitated by her recital, said to her: "After the exaction of such a promise you have, of course, no doubt that your father was the victim of a mental malady--at least, at such times as those of which you speak?"

Gwen replied deliberately: "Indeed, I have grave doubts. My father was possessed by a strange conviction, but I never saw anything which impressed me as indicating an unsound mind. I am, of course, scarcely fitted to judge in such matters."

Maitland's face darkened as he asked: "You would not have me infer that you would consider your promise in any sense binding?"

"And why not?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in astonishment.

"Because," he continued, "the request is so unnatural as to be in itself sufficient evidence that it was not made by a man in his right mind."

"I cannot agree with you as to my father's condition," Gwen replied firmly; "yet you may be right; I only know that I, at least, was in my right mind, and that I promised. If it cost me my life to keep that pledge, I shall not hesitate a moment. Have you forgotten that my father's last words were, 'remember your promise'?" She glanced up at Maitland as she said this, and started a little as she saw the expression of pain upon his face. "I seem to you foolishly deluded," she said apologetically; "and you are displeased to see that my purpose is not shaken. Think of all my father was to me, and then ask yourself if I could betray his faith. The contemplation of the subject is painful at best; its realisation may, from the standpoint of a sensitive woman, be fraught with unspeakable horror, --I dare not think of it! May we not change the subject?"

For a long time Maitland did not speak, and I forbore to break the silence. At last he said: "Let us hope, if the supposed a.s.sa.s.sin be taken, the discovery may be made by someone worthy the name of man--someone who will not permit you to sacrifice either yourself or your money." Gwen glanced at him quickly, for his voice was strangely heavy and inelastic, and an unmistakable gloom had settled upon him. I thought she was a little startled, and I was considering if I had not better call her aside and explain that he was subject to these moods, when he continued, apparently unaware of the impression he had made: "Do you realise how strong a case of suicide the authorities have made out? Like all of their work it has weak places. We must search these in order to overthrow their conclusion.

The insurance policies they were 'too busy' to read we must peruse.

Then, judging from your story, there seems little doubt that your father has left some explanation of affairs. .h.i.therto not confided to you--some doc.u.ment which he has reserved for your perusal after his death. No time should be lost in settling this question. The papers may be here, or in the hands of his attorney. Let us search here first."

"His private papers," Gwen said, rising to lead the way, "are in his desk in the study."

"One moment, please," Maitland interrupted, calling her back, "I have something I have been trying to ask you for the last hour, but have repeatedly put off. I believe your father's death to have resulted from poisoning. You know the result of the post-mortem inquest. It is necessary to make an a.n.a.lysis of the poison, if there be any, and an absolutely thorough microscopic examination of the wound. I--I regret to pain you--but to do this properly it will be necessary to cut away the wounded portion. Have we your permission to do so?"

For a moment Gwen did not answer. She fell upon her knees before her father's body, and kissed the cold face pa.s.sionately. For the first time since the tragedy she found relief in tears. When she arose a great change had come over her. She was very pale and seized a chair for support as she replied to Maitland's question between the convulsive sobs which she seemed powerless to check: "I--I have bidden him good-bye. We shall but obey his command in sparing no pains to reach the a.s.sa.s.sin. You--you have my permission to do anything--everything--that may be--necessary to that end.

I--I know you will be as gentle--" But she could not finish her sentence. The futility of gentleness--the realisation that her father was forever past all need of tenderness, fell like a shroud about her soul. The awakening I had dreaded had come. Her hand fell from the chair, she staggered, and would have fallen to the floor had not Maitland caught her in his arms.

THE EPISODE OF THE SEALED DOc.u.mENT

CHAPTER 1

Father of all surveyors, Time drags his chain of rust through every life, and only Love--unaging G.o.d of the Ages--immeasurable, keeps his untarnished youth.

Maitland carried the unconscious girl into the study, and for some time we busied ourselves in bringing her to herself. When this task was accomplished we did not feel like immediately putting any further tax upon her strength. Maitland insisted that she should rest while he and I ransacked the desk, and, ever mindful of her promise to obey his instructions, she yielded without remonstrance. Our search revealed the insurance policies, and a sealed envelope bearing the inscription: "To Miss Gwen Darrow, to be opened after the death of John Darrow," and three newspapers with articles marked in blue pencil. I read the first aloud. It ran as follows:

I have reason to believe an attempt will sooner or later be made upon my life, and that the utmost cunning will be employed to lead the authorities astray. The search for the a.s.sa.s.sin will be long, expensive, and discouraging--just such a task as is never successfully completed without some strong personal incentive.

This I propose to supply in advance. My death will place in my daughter's hands a fund of fifty thousand dollars, to be held in trust by her, and delivered, in the event of my being murdered, to such person or persons as shall secure evidence leading to the conviction of the murderer.

(Signed) JOHN HINTON DARROW.

I glanced at the other two papers--the marked article was the same in each. "I wonder what your friend Osborne would say to that," I said to Maitland.

"How old are the papers?" he replied.

"March 15th,--only a little over a month," I answered.

"Let me see them, please," he said. "Hum! All of the same date, and each in the paid part of the paper! It is clear Mr. Darrow inserted these singular notices himself. I will tell you what Osborne will say when he learns of these articles. He will say they strengthen his theory; that no sane man would publish such a thing, except as a weak attempt to deceive the insurance companies.

As for the money all being paid to the discoverer of the a.s.sa.s.sin, instead of to his daughter, he will simply dispose of that by saying: 'No a.s.sa.s.sin, no reward, and the fund remains intact.' If now, the other papers permit Miss Darrow to use the interest of this fund while holding the princ.i.p.al in trust, we do not at present know enough of this matter to successfully refute Osborne's reasoning.

This mystery seems to grow darker rather than lighter. The one thing upon which we seem continually to get evidence is the question of sanity. If Mr. Darrow's suspicions were directed against no one in particular, then it is clear his dreams, and all the rest of his fears for that matter, had a purely subjective origin, which is to say that upon this one subject, at least, he was of unsound mind."

"I cannot think so," Gwen interrupted. "He was so rational in everything else."

"That is quite possible," I replied. "I have known people to be monomaniacs upon the subject of water, and to go nowhere without a gla.s.s of it in their hands. There is also a well-authenticated case of a man who was as sane as you or I until he heard the words 'real estate.' One day while quietly carving the meat at a dinner to which he had invited several guests, a gentleman opposite him inadvertently spoke the fatal words, when, without a word of warning, he sprang at him across the table, using the carving-knife with all the fury of the most violent maniac; and yet, under all other conditions, he was perfectly rational."

"If, on the other hand," said Maitland, continuing his remarks as if unaware of our interruption, "Mr. Darrow's suspicions had any foundation in fact, it is almost certain they must have been directed against some specific person or persons. If so, why did he not name them?--but, stay--how do we know that he did not? Let us proceed with our examination of the papers," and he began perusing the insurance policies. Neither Gwen nor I spoke till he had finished and thrown them down, when we both turned expectantly toward him.

"All in Osborne's favour so far," he said. "Princ.i.p.al to be held in trust by Miss Darrow under the terms of a will which we have yet to find; the income, until the discharge of the trust, to go to Miss Darrow. Now for this," and he pa.s.sed Gwen the sealed envelope addressed to her.

She broke the seal with much agitation. "Shall I read it aloud?"

she asked.

We signified our desire to hear it, and she read as follows:

MY DEAR GWEN: