the word an instant--"that little medicament--you know what I mean--in
your waistcoat pocket, my friend?"
He perceptibly flinched. "I don't quite--quite understand," he began
to stammer. Then he changed his tone and went on rapidly, "No! I will
be frank with you, Mr.--Mr.----"
"George," I said calmly.
"Ah, indeed?" a trifle surprised, "Mr. George! Well, it is something
Bristowe gave me this morning to be administered to my father--without
his knowledge, if possible--whenever he grows excited. I did not think
that you had seen it."
Nor had I. I had only inferred its presence. But having inferred
rightly once, I was inclined to trust my inference farther. Moreover,
while he gave this explanation, his breath came and went so quickly
that my former suspicions returned. I was ready for him when he said,
"Now I will trouble you, if you please, for those papers?" and held
out his hand.
"I cannot give them to you," I replied, point-blank.
"You cannot give them to me now?" he repeated.
"No. Moreover, the packet is sealed. I do not see, on second thoughts,
what harm I can do you--now that it is out of your father's hands--by
keeping it until to-morrow, when I will return it to your brother,
from whom it came."
"He will not be in London," he answered doggedly. He stepped between
me and the door with looks which I did not like. At the same time I
felt that some allowance must be made for a man treated in this way.
"I am sorry," I said, "but I cannot do what you ask. I will do this,
however. If you think the delay of importance, and will give me your
brother's address in Liverpool, I will undertake to post the letters
to him at once."
He considered the offer, eying me the while with the same disfavor
which he had exhibited in the drawing room. At last he said slowly,
"If you will do that?"
"I will," I repeated. "I will do it immediately."
He gave me the direction--"George Ritherdon, at the London and
Northwestern Hotel, Liverpool"--and in return I gave him my own name
and address. Then I parted from him, with a civil good-night on either
side--and little liking, I fancy--the clocks striking midnight, and
the servants coming in as I passed out into the cool darkness of the
square.
Late as it was I went straight to my club, determined that, as I had
assumed the responsibility, there should be no laches on my part.
There I placed the packet, together with a short note explaining how
it came into my possession, in an outer envelope, and dropped the
whole, duly directed and stamped, into the nearest pillar box. I could
not register it at that hour, and rather than wait until next morning,
I omitted the precaution; merely requesting Mr. Ritherdon to
acknowledge its receipt.
Well, some days passed; during which it may be imagined that I thought
no little about my odd experience. It was the story of the Lady and
the Tiger over again. I had the choice of two alternatives at least. I
might either believe the young fellow's story, which certainly had the
merit of explaining in a fairly probable manner an occurrence of so
odd a character as not to lend itself freely to explanation. Or I
might disbelieve his story, plausible in its very strangeness as it
was, in favor of my own vague suspicions. Which was I to do?
Well, I set out by preferring the former alternative. This,
notwithstanding that I had to some extent committed myself against it
by withholding the papers. But with each day that passed without
bringing me an answer from Liverpool, I leaned more and more to the
other side. I began to pin my faith to the Tiger, adding each morning
a point to the odds in the animal's favor. So it went on until ten
days had passed.
Then a little out of curiosity, but more, I gravely declare, because I
thought it the right thing to do, I resolved to seek out George
Ritherdon. I had no difficulty in learning where he might be found.
I turned up the firm of Ritherdon Brothers (George and Gerald),
cotton-spinners and India merchants, in the first directory I
consulted. And about noon the next day I called at their place of
business, and sent in my card to the senior partner. I waited five
minutes--curiously scanned by the porter, who no doubt saw a likeness
between me and his employer--and then I was admitted to the latter's
room.
He was a tall man with a fair beard, not one whit like Gerald, and yet
tolerably good looking; if I say more I shall seem to be describing
myself. I fancied him to be balder about the temples, however, and
grayer and more careworn than the man I am in the habit of seeing in
my shaving glass. His eyes, too, had a hard look, and he seemed in ill
health. All these things I took in later. At the time I only noticed
his clothes. "So the old gentleman is dead," I thought, "and the young
one's tale is true, after all?" George Ritherdon was in deep mourning.
"I wrote to you," I began, taking the seat to which he pointed, "about
a fortnight ago."
He looked at my card, which he held in his hand. "I think not," he
said slowly.
"Yes," I repeated. "You were then at the London and Northwestern
Hotel, at Liverpool."
He was stepping to his writing table, but he stopped abruptly. "I was
in Liverpool," he answered, in a different tone, "but I was not at
that hotel. You are thinking of my brother, are you not?"
"No," I said. "It was your brother who told me you were there."
"Perhaps you had better explain what was the subject of your letter,"
he suggested, speaking in the weary tone of one returning to a painful
matter. "I have been through a great trouble lately, and this may well
have been overlooked."
I said I would, and as briefly as possible I told the main facts of my
strange visit in Fitzhardinge Square. He was much moved, walking up
and down the room as he listened, and giving vent to exclamations from
time to time, until I came to the arrangement I had finally made with
his brother. Then he raised his hand as one might do in pain.
"Enough!" he said abruptly. "Barnes told me a rambling tale of some
stranger. I understand it all now."
"So do I, I think!" I replied dryly. "Your brother went to Liverpool,
and received the papers in your name?"
He murmured what I took for "Yes." But he did not utter a single word
of acknowledgment to me, or of reprobation of his brother's deceit. I
thought some such word should have been spoken; and I let my feelings
carry me away. "Let me tell you," I said warmly, "that your brother is
a----"
"Hush!" he said, holding up his hand again. "He is dead."
"Dead!" I repeated, shocked and amazed.
"Have you not read of it in the papers? It is in all the papers," he
said wearily. "He committed suicide--God forgive me for it!--at
Liverpool, at the hotel you have mentioned, and the day after you saw
him."
And so it was. He had committed some serious forgery--he had always
been wild, though his father, slow to see it, had only lately closed
his purse to him--and the forged signatures had come into his
brother's power. He had cheated his brother before. There had long
been bad blood between them; the one being as cold, businesslike, and
masterful as the other was idle and jealous.
"I told him," the elder said to me, shading his eyes with his hand,
"that I should let him be prosecuted--that I would not protect or
shelter him. The threat nearly drove him mad; and while it was hanging
over him, I wrote to disclose the matter to Sir Charles. Gerald
thought his last chance lay in recovering this letter unread. The
proofs against him destroyed, he might laugh at me. His first attempts
failed; and then he planned, with Barnes' cognizance, to get
possession of the packet by drugging my father's whisky. Barnes'
courage deserted him; he called you in, and--and you know the rest."
"But," I said softly, "your brother did get the letter--at Liverpool."
George Ritherdon groaned. "Yes," he said, "he did. But the proofs were
not inclosed. After writing the outside letter I changed my mind, and
withheld them, explaining my reasons within. He found his plot laid in
vain; and it was under the shock of this disappointment--the packet
lay before him, resealed and directed to me--that he--that he did it.
Poor Gerald!"
"Poor Gerald!" I said. What else remained to be said?
It may be a survival of superstition, yet, when I dine in Baker Street
now, I take some care to go home by any other route than that through
Fitzhardinge Square.
THE END.