The Tempting of Tavernake Part 48

"Your loving husband!" he answered.

She sprang for the door but even as she moved she heard the click of the bolt shot back. He touched the electric switch and the room was suddenly in darkness. She heard him coming towards her, she felt his hot breath upon her cheek.

"My loving wife!" he whispered. "At last!"

CHAPTER XXV. THE MADMAN TALKS

Tavernake turned on the light. Pritchard, with a quick leap forward, seized Wenham around the waist and dragged him away. Elizabeth had fainted; she lay upon the floor, her face the color of marble.

"Get some water and throw over her," Pritchard ordered.

Tavernake obeyed. He threw open the window and let in a current of air.

In a moment or two the woman stirred and raised her head.

"Look after her for a minute," Pritchard said. "I Il lock this fierce little person up in the bathroom."

Pritchard carried his prisoner out. Tavernake leaned over the woman who was slowly coming back to consciousness.

"Tell me about it," she asked, hoa.r.s.ely. "Where is he?"

"Locked up in the bathroom," Tavernake answered. "Pritchard is taking care of him. He won't be able to get out."

"You know who it was?" she faltered.

"I do not," Tavernake replied. "It isn't my business. I'm only here because Pritchard begged me to come. He thought he might want help."

She held his fingers tightly.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"In the bathroom when you arrived. Then he bolted the door behind and we had to come round through your bedroom."

"How did Pritchard find out?"

"I know nothing about it," Tavernake replied. "I only know that he peered through the latticework and saw you sitting there at supper."

She smiled weakly.

"It must have been rather a shock to him," she said. "He has been convinced for the last six months that I murdered Wenham, or got rid of him by some means or other. Help me up."

She staggered to her feet. Tavernake a.s.sisted her to an easy chair. Then Pritchard came in.

"He is quite safe," he announced, "sitting on the edge of the bath playing with a doll."

She shivered.

"What is he doing with it?" she asked.

"Showing me exactly, with a shawl pin, where he meant to have stabbed you," Pritchard answered, drily. "Now, my dear lady," he continued, "it seems to me that I have done you one injustice, at any rate. I certainly thought you'd helped to relieve the world of that young person. Where did he come from? Perhaps you can tell me that."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose I may as well," she said. "Listen, you have seen what he was like to-night, but you don't know what it was to live with him. It was h.e.l.l!"--she sobbed--"absolute h.e.l.l! He drank, he took drugs, it was all his servant could do to force him even to make his toilet. It was impossible. It was crushing the life out of me."

"Go on," Pritchard directed.

"There isn't much more to tell," she continued. "I found an old farmhouse--the loneliest spot in Cornwall. We moved there and I left him--with Mathers. I promised Mathers that he should have twenty pounds a week for every week he kept his master away from me. He has kept him away for seven months."

"What about that story of yours--about his having gone in swimming?"

Pritchard asked.

"I wanted people to believe that he was dead," she declared defiantly.

"I was afraid that if you or his relations found him, I should have to live with him or give up the money."

Pritchard nodded.

"And to-night you thought--"

"I thought he was his brother Jerry," she went on. "The likeness was always amazing, you know that. I was told that Jerry was in town. I felt nervous, somehow, and wired to Mathers. I had his reply only last night.

He wired that Wenham was quite safe and contented, not even restless."

"That telegram was sent by Wenham himself," Pritchard remarked. "I think you had better hear what he has to say."

She shrank back.

"No. I couldn't bear the sight of him again!"

"I think you had better," Pritchard insisted. "I can a.s.sure you that he is quite harmless. I will guarantee that."

He left the room. Soon he returned, his arm locked in the arm of Wenham Gardner. The latter had the look of a spoilt child who is in disgrace.

He sat sullenly upon a chair and glared at every one. Then he produced a small crumpled doll, with a thread of black cotton around its neck, and began swinging it in front of him, laughing at Elizabeth all the time.

"Tell us," Pritchard asked, "what has become of Mathers?"

He stopped swinging the doll, shivered for a moment, and then laughed.

"I don't mind," he declared. "I guess I don't mind telling. You see, whatever I was when I did it, I am mad now--quite mad. My friend Pritchard here says I am mad. I must have been mad or I shouldn't have tried to hurt that dear beautiful lady over there."

He leered at Elizabeth, who shrank back.

"She ran away from me some time ago," he went on, "sick to death of me she was. She thought she'd got all my money. She hadn't. There's plenty more, plenty more. She ran away and left me with Mathers. She was paying him so much a week to keep me quiet, not to let me go anywhere where I should talk, to keep me away from her so that she could live up here and see all her friends and spend my money. And at first I didn't mind, and then I did mind, and I got angry with Mathers, and Mathers wouldn't let me come away, and three nights ago I killed Mathers."

There was a little thrill of horror. He looked from one to the other. By degrees their fear seemed to become communicated to him.

"What do you mean by looking like that, all of you?" he exclaimed.