The Law and the Lady Part 55

"Do you really understand what those words mean?" I asked.

"I look back into my own experience," he answered, "and I understand perfectly what the words mean."

"And can you make me understand them too?"

"Easily. In those incomprehensible sentences Dexter's memory has correctly recalled certain facts. I have only to tell you the facts, and you will be as wise as I am. At the time of the Trial, your husband surprised and distressed me by insisting on the instant dismissal of all the household servants at Gleninch. I was instructed to pay them a quarter's wages in advance, to give them the excellent written characters which their good conduct thoroughly deserved, and to see the house clear of them at an hour's notice. Eustace's motive for this summary proceeding was much the same motive which animated his conduct toward you. 'If I am ever to return to Gleninch,' he said, 'I cannot face my honest servants after the infamy of having stood my trial for murder.' There was his reason. Nothing that I could say to him, poor fellow, shook his resolution. I dismissed the servants accordingly. At an hour's notice, they quitted the house, leaving their work for the day all undone. The only persons placed in charge of Gleninch were persons who lived on the outskirts of the park--that is to say, the lodge-keeper and his wife and daughter. On the last day of the Trial I instructed the daughter to do her best to make the rooms tidy. She was a good girl enough, but she had no experience as a housemaid: it would never enter her head to lay the bedroom fires ready for lighting, or to replenish the empty match-boxes. Those chance words that dropped from Dexter would, no doubt, exactly describe the state of his room when he returned to Gleninch, with the prisoner and his mother, from Edinburgh. That he tore up the mysterious letter in his bedroom, and (finding no means immediately at hand for burning it) that he threw the fragments into the empty grate, or into the waste-paper basket, seems to be the most reasonable conclusion that we can draw from what we know. In any case, he would not have much time to think about it. Everything was done in a hurry on that day. Eustace and his mother, accompanied by Dexter, left for England the same evening by the night train. I myself locked up the house, and gave the keys to the lodge-keeper. It was understood that he was to look after the preservation of the reception-rooms on the ground-floor; and that his wife and daughter were to perform the same service between them in the rooms upstairs. On receiving your letter, I drove at once to Gleninch to question the old woman on the subject of the bedrooms, and of Dexter's room especially. She remembered the time when the house was shut up by a.s.sociating it with the time when she was confined to her bed by an attack of sciatica. She had not crossed the lodge door, she was sure, for at least a week (if not longer after Gleninch had been left in charge of her husband and herself). Whatever was done in the way of keeping the bedrooms aired and tidy during her illness was done by her daughter. She, and she only, must have disposed of any letter which might have been lying about in Dexter's room. Not a vestige of torn paper, as I can myself certify, is to be discovered in any part of the room now. Where did the girl find the fragments of the letter? and what did she do with them? Those are the questions (if you approve of it) which we must send three thousand miles away to ask--for this sufficient reason, that the lodge-keeper's daughter was married more than a year since, and that she is settled with her husband in business at New York. It rests with you to decide what is to be done.

Don't let me mislead you with false hopes! Don't let me tempt you to throw away your money! Even if this woman does remember what she did with the torn paper, the chances, at this distance of time, are enormously against our ever recovering a single morsel of it. Be in no haste to decide. I have my work to do in the city--I can give you the whole day to think it over."

"Send the man to New York by the next steamer," I said. "There is my decision, Mr. Playmore, without keeping you waiting for it!"

He shook his head, in grave disapproval of my impetuosity. In my former interview with him we had never once touched on the question of money.

I was now, for the first time, to make acquaintance with Mr. Playmore on the purely Scotch side of his character.

"Why, you don't even know what it will cost you!" he exclaimed, taking out his pocket-book with the air of a man who was equally startled and scandalized. "Wait till I tot it up," he said, "in English and American money."

"I can't wait! I want to make more discoveries!"

He took no notice of my interruption; he went on impenetrably with his calculations.

"The man will go second-cla.s.s, and will take a return-ticket. Very well.

His ticket includes his food; and (being, thank G.o.d, a teetotaler) he won't waste your money in buying liquor on board. Arrived at New York, he will go to a cheap German house, where he will, as I am credibly informed, be boarded and lodged at the rate--"

By this time (my patience being completely worn out) I had taken my check-book from the table-drawer, had signed my name, and had handed the blank check across the table to my legal adviser.

"Fill it in with whatever the man wants," I said. "And for Heaven's sake let us get back to Dexter!"

Mr. Playmore fell back in his chair, and lifted his hands and eyes to the ceiling. I was not in the least impressed by that solemn appeal to the unseen powers of arithmetic and money. I insisted positively on being fed with more information.

"Listen to this," I went on, reading from Benjamin's notes. "What did Dexter mean when he said, 'Number Nine, Caldershaws. Ask for Dandie. You shan't have the Diary. A secret in your ear. The Diary will hang him?'

How came Dexter to know what was in my husband's Diary? And what does he mean by 'Number Nine, Caldershaws,' and the rest of it? Facts again?"

"Facts again!" Mr. Playmore answered, "muddled up together, as you may say--but positive facts for all that. Caldershaws, you must know, is one of the most disreputable districts in Edinburgh. One of my clerks (whom I am in the habit of employing confidentially) volunteered to inquire for 'Dandie' at 'Number Nine.' It was a ticklish business in every way; and my man wisely took a person with him who was known in the neighborhood. 'Number Nine' turned out to be (ostensibly) a shop for the sale of rags and old iron; and 'Dandie' was suspected of trading now and then, additionally, as a receiver of stolen goods. Thanks to the influence of his companion, backed by a bank-note (which can be repaid, by the way, out of the fund for the American expenses), my clerk succeeded is making the fellow speak. Not to trouble you with needless details, the result in substance was this: A fortnight or more before the date of Mrs. Eustace's death, 'Dandie' made two keys from wax models supplied to him by a new customer. The mystery observed in the matter by the agent who managed it excited Dandie's distrust. He had the man privately watched before he delivered the keys; and he ended in discovering that his customer was--Miserrimus Dexter. Wait a little!

I have not done yet. Add to this information Dexter's incomprehensible knowledge of the contents of your husband's diary, and the product is--that the wax models sent to the old-iron shop in Caldershaws were models taken by theft from the key of the Diary and the key of the table-drawer in which it was kept. I have my own idea of the revelations that are still to come if this matter is properly followed up. Never mind going into that at present. Dexter (I tell you again) is answerable for the late Mrs. Eustace's death. _How_ he is answerable I believe you are in a fair way of finding out. And, more than that, I say now, what I could not venture to say before--it is a duty toward Justice, as well as a duty toward your husband, to bring the truth to light. As for the difficulties to be encountered, I don't think they need daunt you. The greatest difficulties give way in the end, when they are attacked by the united alliance of patience resolution--_and_ economy."

With a strong emphasis on the last words, my worthy adviser, mindful of the flight of time and the claims of business, rose to take his leave.

"One word more," I said, as he held out his hand. "Can you manage to see Miserrimus Dexter before you go back to Edinburgh? From what the gardener told me, his brother must be with him by this time. It would be a relief to me to hear the latest news of him, and to hear it from you."

"It is part of my business in London to see him," said Mr. Playmore.

"But mind! I have no hope of his recovery; I only wish to satisfy myself that his brother is able and willing to take care of him. So far as _we_ are concerned, Mrs. Eustace, that unhappy man has said his last words."

He opened the door--stopped--considered--and come back to me.

"With regard to that matter of sending the agent to America," he resumed--"I propose to have the honor of submitting to you a brief abstract--"

"Oh, Mr. Playmore!"

"A brief abstract in writing, Mrs. Eustace, of the estimated expenses of the whole proceeding. You will be good enough maturely to consider the same, making any remarks on it, tending to economy, which may suggest themselves to your mind at the time. And you will further oblige me, if you approve of the abstract, by yourself filling in the blank s.p.a.ce on your check with the needful amount in words and figures. No, madam! I really cannot justify it to my conscience to carry about my person any such loose and reckless doc.u.ment as a blank check. There's a total disregard of the first claims of prudence and economy implied in this small slip of paper which is nothing less than a flat contradiction of the principles that have governed my whole life. I can't submit to flat contradiction. Good-morning, Mrs. Eustace--good-morning."

He laid my check on the table with a low bow, and left me. Among the curious developments of human stupidity which occasionally present themselves to view, surely the least excusable is the stupidity which, to this day, persists in wondering why the Scotch succeed so well in life!

CHAPTER XLII. MORE SURPRISES.

The same evening I received my "abstract" by the hands of a clerk.

It was an intensely characteristic doc.u.ment. My expenses were remorselessly calculated downward to shillings and even to pence; and our unfortunate messenger's instructions in respect to his expenditure were reduced to a nicety which must have made his life in America nothing less than a burden to him. In mercy to the man, I took the liberty, when I wrote back to Mr. Playmore, of slightly increasing the indicated amount of the figures which were to appear on the check. I ought to have better known the correspondent whom I had to deal with.

Mr. Playmore's reply (informing me that our emissary had started on his voyage) returned a receipt in due form, and the whole of the surplus money, to the last farthing!

A few hurried lines accompanied the "abstract," and stated the result of the lawyer's visit to Miserrimus Dexter.

There was no change for the better--there was no change at all. Mr.

Dexter, the brother, had arrived at the house accompanied by a medical man accustomed to the charge of the insane. The new doctor declined to give any definite opinion on the case until he had studied it carefully with plenty of time at his disposal. It had been accordingly arranged that he should remove Miserrimus Dexter to the asylum of which he was the proprietor as soon as the preparations for receiving the patient could be completed. The one difficulty that still remained to be met related to the disposal of the faithful creature who had never left her master, night or day, since the catastrophe had happened. Ariel had no friends and no money. The proprietor of the asylum could not be expected to receive her without the customary payment; and Mr. Dexter's brother "regretted to say that he was not rich enough to find the money." A forcible separation from the one human being whom she loved, and a removal in the character of a pauper to a public asylum--such was the prospect which awaited the unfortunate creature unless some one interfered in her favor before the end of the week.

Under these sad circ.u.mstances, good Mr. Playmore--pa.s.sing over the claims of economy in favor of the claims of humanity--suggested that we should privately start a subscription, and offered to head the list liberally himself.

I must have written all these pages to very little purpose if it is necessary for me to add that I instantly sent a letter to Mr. Dexter, the brother, undertaking to be answerable for whatever money was to be required while the subscriptions were being collected, and only stipulating that when Miserrimus Dexter was removed to the asylum, Ariel should accompany him. This was readily conceded. But serious objections were raised when I further requested that she might be permitted to attend on her master in the asylum as she had attended on him in the house. The rules of the establishment forbade it, and the universal practice in such cases forbade it, and so on, and so on. However, by dint of perseverance and persuasion, I so far carried my point as to gain a reasonable concession. During certain hours in the day, and under certain wise restrictions, Ariel was to be allowed the privilege of waiting on the Master in his room, as well as of accompanying him when he was brought out in his chair to take the air in the garden. For the honor of humanity, let me add that the liability which I had undertaken made no very serious demands on my resources. Placed in Benjamin's charge, our subscription-list prospered. Friends, and even strangers sometimes, opened their hearts and their purses when they heard Ariel's melancholy story.

The day which followed the day of Mr. Playmore's visit brought me news from Spain, in a letter from my mother-in-law. To describe what I felt when I broke the seal and read the first lines is simply impossible. Let Mrs. Macallan be heard on this occasion in my place.

Thus she wrote:

"Prepare yourself, my dearest Valeria, for a delightful surprise.

Eustace has justified my confidence in him. When he returns to England, he returns--if you will let him--to his wife.

"This resolution, let me hasten to a.s.sure you, has not been brought about by any persuasions of mine. It is the natural outgrowth of your husband's grat.i.tude and your husband's love. The first words he said to me, when he was able to speak, were these: 'If I live to return to England, and if I go to Valeria, do you think she will forgive me?' We can only leave it to you, my dear, to give the answer. If you love us, answer us by return of post.

"Having now told you what he said when I first informed him that you had been his nurse--and remember, if it seem very little, that he is still too weak to speak except with difficulty--I shall purposely keep my letter back for a few days. My object is to give him time to think, and to frankly tell you of it if the interval produce any change in his resolution.

"Three days have pa.s.sed, and there is no change. He has but one feeling now--he longs for the day which is to unite him again to his wife.

"But there is something else connected with Eustace that you ought to know, and that I ought to tell you.

"Greatly as time and suffering have altered him in many respects, there is no change, Valeria, in the aversion--the horror I may even say--with which he views your idea of inquiring anew into the circ.u.mstances which attended the lamentable death of his first wife. It makes no difference to him that you are only animated by a desire to serve his interests.

'Has she given up that idea? Are you positively sure she has given up that idea?' Over and over again he has put these questions to me. I have answered--what else could I do in the miserably feeble state in which he still lies?--I have answered in such a manner as to soothe and satisfy him. I have said, 'Relieve your mind of all anxiety on that subject: Valeria has no choice but to give up the idea; the obstacles in her way have proved to be insurmountable--the obstacles have conquered her.'

This, if you remember, was what I really believed would happen when you and I spoke of that painful topic; and I have heard nothing from you since which has tended to shake my opinion in the smallest degree. If I am right (as I pray G.o.d I may be) in the view that I take, you h ave only to confirm me in your reply, and all will be well. In the other event--that is to say, if you are still determined to persevere in your hopeless project--then make up your mind to face the result. Set Eustace's prejudices at defiance in this particular, and you lose your hold on his grat.i.tude, his penitence, and his love--you will, in my belief, never see him again.

"I express myself strongly, in your own interests, my dear, and for your own sake. When you reply, write a few lines to Eustace, inclosed in your letter to me.

"As for the date of our departure, it is still impossible for me to give you any definite information. Eustace recovers very slowly; the doctor has not yet allowed him to leave his bed; and when we do travel we must journey by easy stages. It will be at least six weeks, at the earliest, before we can hope to be back again in dear Old England.

"Affectionately yours,

"CATHERINE MACALLAN."

I laid down the letter, and did my best (vainly enough for some time) to compose my spirits. To understand the position in which I now found myself, it is only necessary to remember one circ.u.mstance: the messenger to whom we had committed our inquiries was at that moment crossing the Atlantic on his way to New York.

What was to be done?