When Sir Charles Fosbrook was told by Mr. Pepys that Tangier had been
surrendered to the Moors, he asked at once after the fate of his
gigantic mole; and when he was informed that his mole had been, before
the evacuation, so utterly blown to pieces that its scattered blocks
made the harbour impossible for anchorage, he forbade so much as the
mention in his presence of the name of Africa. But if he had done with
Tangier, Tangier had not done with him, and five years afterwards
he became concerned in the most unexpected way with certain tragic
consequences of that desperate siege.
He received a letter from an acquaintance of whom he had long lost
sight, a Mr. Mardale of the Quarry House near Leamington, imploring
him to give his opinion upon some new inventions. The value of the
inventions could be easily gauged; Mr. Mardale claimed to have
invented a wheel of perpetual rotation. Sir Charles, however, had his
impulses of kindness. He knew Mr. Mardale to be an old and gentle
person, a little touched in the head perhaps, who with money enough
to surfeit every instinct of pleasure, had preferred to live a shy
secluded life, busily engaged either in the collection of curiosities
or the invention of toy-like futile machines. There was a girl too
whom Sir Charles remembered, a weird elfin creature with extraordinary
black eyes and hair and a clear white face. Her one regret in those
days had been that she was not born a horse, and she had lived in the
stables, in as horse like a fashion as was possible. Her ankle indeed
still must bear an unnecessary scar through the application of a
fierce horse-liniment to a sprain. No doubt, however, she had long
since changed her ambitions. Sir Charles calculated her age. Resilda
Mardale must be twenty-five years old and a deuced fine woman into the
bargain. Sir Charles took a glance at his figure in his cheval-glass.
He had reached middle-age to be sure, but he had a leg that many a
spindle-shanked youngster might envy, nor was there any unbecoming
protuberance at his waist. He wrote a letter accepting the invitation
and a week later in the dusk of a June evening, drove up the long
avenue of trees to the terrace of the Quarry House.
The house was a solid square mansion built upon the side of a hill,
and the ground in front of it fell away very quickly from the terrace
to what Sir Charles imagined must be a pond, for a light mist hung at
the bottom. On the other side of the pond the ground rose again in a
steep hill. But Sir Charles had no opportunity at this moment to get
any accurate knowledge of the house and its surroundings. For apart
from the darkness, it was close upon supper-time and Miss Resilda
Mardale must assuredly not be kept waiting. His valet subsequently
declared that Sir Charles had seldom been so particular in the choice
of his coat and small-clothes; and the supper-bell certainly rang out
before he was satisfied with the set of his cravat.
He could not, however, consider his pains wasted when once he was set
down opposite to Resilda. She was taller than he had expected her to
be, but he did not count height a fault so long as there was grace
to carry it off, and grace she had in plenty. Her face had gained in
delicacy and lost nothing of its brilliancy, or of its remarkable
clearness of complexion. Her hair too if it was less rebellious, and
more neatly coiled, had retained its glory of profusion, and her big
black eyes, though to be sure they were grown a trifle sedate, no
doubt could sparkle as of old. Sir Charles set himself to make them
sparkle. Old Mr. Mardale prattled of his inventions to his heart's
delight--he described the wheel, and also a flying machine and besides
the flying machine, an engine by which steam might be used to raise
water to great altitudes. Sir Charles was ready from time to time with
a polite, if not always an appropriate comment, and for the rest he
paid compliments to Resilda. Still the eyes did not sparkle, indeed a
pucker appeared and deepened on her forehead. Sir Charles accordingly
redoubled his gallantries, he was slyly humorous about the
horse-liniment, and thereupon came the remark which so surprised him
and was the beginning of his strange discoveries. For Resilda suddenly
leaned towards him and said frankly:
"I would much rather, Sir Charles, you told me something of your great
mole at Tangier."
Sir Charles had reason for surprise. The world had long since
forgotten his mole, if ever it had been concerned in it. Yet here was
a girl whose thoughts might be expected to run on youths and ribands
talking of it in a little village four miles from Leamington as though
there were no topic more universal. Sir Charles Fosbrook answered her
gravely.
"I thought never to speak of Tangier and the mole again. I spent many
years upon the devising and construction of that great breakwater. It
could have sheltered every ship of his Majesty's navy. It was wife and
children to me. My heart lay very close to it. I fancied indeed my
heart was disrupted with the disruption of the mole, and it has at all
events, lain ever since as heavy as King Charles' Chest."
"Yes, I can understand that," said Resilda.
Sir Charles had vowed never to speak of the matter again. But he had
kept his vow for five long years, and besides here was a girl of a
remarkable beauty expressing sympathy and asking for information. Sir
Charles broke his vow and talked, and the girl helped him. A suspicion
that she might have primed herself with knowledge in view of his
coming, vanished before the flame of her enthusiasm. She knew the
history of its building almost as well as he did himself, and could
even set him right in his dates. It was she who knew the exact day on
which King Charles' Chest, that great block of mortised stones, which
formed as it were the keystone of the breakwater, had been lowered
into its place. Sir Charles abandoned all reserve, and talked freely
of his hopes and fears as the pier ran farther out and out into the
currents of the Straits, of his bitter disappointment when his labours
were destroyed. He forgot his gallantries, he showed himself the man
he was. Neither he nor Resilda noticed a low rumble of thunder or the
beating of sudden rain upon the windows, so occupied were they with
the theme of their talk; and at last Sir Charles, leaning back in his
chair, cried out with astonishment and delight.
"But how is it that my mole is so familiar a thing to you? Explain it
if you please! Never have I spent so agreeable an evening."
A momentary embarrassment seemed to follow upon his words. Resilda
looked at her father who chuckled and explained.
"Sir, an old soldier years ago came over the hill in front of the
house and begged for alms. He found my daughter on the terrace in a
lucky moment for himself. He had all sorts of wonderful stories of
Tangier and the great mole which was then a building. Resilda was set
on fire that day, and though the King and the Parliament might shut
their eyes to the sore straits of that town and the gallantry of its
defenders, no one was allowed to forget them in the Quarry House. To
tell the truth I sometimes envied the obliviousness of Parliament,"
and he laughed gently. "So from the first my daughter was primed with
the history of that siege, and lately we have had further means of
knowledge--" He began to speak warily and with embarrassment--"For two
years ago Resilda married an officer of The King's Battalion, Major
Lashley."
"Here are two surprises," cried Sir Charles. "For in the first place,
Madam, I had no thought you were wed. Blame a bachelor's stupidity!"
and he glanced at her left hand which lay upon the table-cloth with
the band of gold gleaming upon a finger. "In the second place I knew
Major Lashley very well, though it is news to me that he ever troubled
his head with my mole. A very gallant officer, who defended Charles
Fort through many nights of great suspense, and cleft his way back
to Tangier when his ammunition was expended. I shall be very glad to
shake the Major once more by the hand."
At once Sir Charles was aware that he had uttered the most awkward and
unsuitable remark. Resilda Lashley, as he must now term her, actually
flinched away from him and then sat with a vague staring look of pain
as though she had been shocked clean out of her wits. She recovered
herself in a moment, but she did not speak, neither had Sir Charles
any words. He looked at her dress which was white and had not so much
as a black riband dangling anywhere about it.
But there were other events than death which could make the utterance
of his wish a _gaucherie_. Sir Charles prided himself upon his tact,
particularly with a good-looking woman, and he was therefore much
abashed and confused. The only one who remained undisturbed was Mr.
Mardale. His mind was never for very long off his wheels, or his
works of art. It was the turn of his pictures now. He had picked up a
genuine Rubens in Ghent, he declared. It was standing somewhere in the
great drawing-room on the carpet against the back of a chair, and Sir
Charles must look at it in the morning, if only it could be found. He
had clean forgotten all about his daughter it appeared. She, however,
had a mind to clear the mystery up, and interrupting her father.
"It is right that you should know," she said simply, "Major Lashley
disappeared six months ago."
"Disappeared!" exclaimed Sir Charles in spite of himself, and the
astonishment in his voice woke the old gentleman from his prattle.
"To be sure," said he apologetically, "I should have told you before
of the sad business. Yes, Sir, Major Lashley disappeared, utterly from
this very house on the eleventh night of last December, and though the
country-side was scoured and every ragamuffin for miles round brought
to question, no trace of him has anywhere been discovered from that
day to this."
An intuition slipped into Sir Charles Fosbrook's mind, and though he
would have dismissed it as entirely unwarrantable, persisted there.
The thought of the steep slope of ground before the house and the mist
in the hollow between the two hills. The mist was undoubtedly the
exhalation from a pond. The pond might have reeds which might catch
and gather a body. But the pond would have been dragged. Still the
thought of the pond remained while he expressed a vague hope that the
Major might by God's will yet be restored to them.
He had barely ended before a louder gust of rain than ordinary smote
upon the windows and immediately there followed a knocking upon the
hall-door. The sound was violent, and it came with so opposite a
rapidity upon the heels of Fosbrook's words that it thrilled and
startled him. There was something very timely in the circumstances of
night and storm and that premonitory clapping at the door. Sir Charles
looked towards the door in a glow of anticipation. He had time to
notice, however, how deeply Resilda herself was stirred; her left hand
which had lain loose upon the table-cloth was now tightly clenched,
and she had a difficulty in breathing. The one strange point in her
conduct was that although she looked towards the door like Sir Charles
Fosbrook, there was more of suspense in the look than of the eagerness
of welcome. The butler, however, had no news of Major Lashley to
announce. He merely presented the compliments of Mr. Gibson Jerkley
who had been caught in the storm near the Quarry House and ten miles
from his home. Mr. Jerkley prayed for supper and a dry suit of
clothes.
"And a bed too," said Resilda, with a flush of colour in her cheeks,
and begging Sir Charles' permission she rose from the table. Sir
Charles was disappointed by the mention of a strange name. Mr.
Mardale, however, to whom that loud knocking upon the door had been
void of suggestion, now became alert. He looked with a strange anxiety
after his daughter, an anxiety which surprised Fosbrook, to whom
this man of wheels and little toys had seemed lacking in the natural
affections.
"And a bed too," repeated Mr. Mardale doubtfully, "to be sure! To be
sure!" And though he went into the hall to welcome his visitor, it was
not altogether without reluctance.
Mr. Gibson Jerkley was a man of about thirty years. He had a brown
open personable countenance, a pair of frank blue eyes, and the steady
restful air of a man who has made his account with himself, and who
neither speaks to win praise nor is at pains to escape dislike. Sir
Charles Fosbrook was from the first taken with the man, though he
spoke little with him for the moment. For being tired with his long
journey from London, he retired shortly to his room.
But however tired he was, Sir Charles found that it was quite
impossible for him to sleep. The cracking of the rain upon his
windows, the groaning trees in the park, and the wail of the wind
among the chimneys and about the corners of the house were no doubt
for something in a Londoner's sleeplessness. But the mysterious
disappearance of Major Lashley was at the bottom of it. He thought
again of the pond. He imagined a violent kidnapping and his fancies
went to work at devising motives. Some quarrel long ago in the crowded
city of Tangier and now brought to a tragical finish amongst the oaks
and fields of England. Perhaps a Moor had travelled over seas for his
vengeance and found his way from village to village like that
Baracen lady of old times. And when he had come to this point of his
reflections, he heard a light rapping upon his door. He got out of bed
and opened it. He saw Mr. Gibson Jerkley standing on the threshold
with a candle in one hand and a finger of the other at his lip.
"I saw alight beneath your door," said Jerkley, and Sir Charles made
room for him to enter. He closed the door cautiously, and setting his
candle down upon a chest of drawers, said without any hesitation:
"I have come, Sir, to ask for your advice. I do not wonder at your
surprise, it is indeed a strange sort of intrusion for a man to make
upon whom you have never clapped your eyes before this evening. But
for one thing I fancy Mrs. Lashley wishes me to ask you for the
favour. She has said nothing definitely, in faith she could not as you
will understand when you have heard the story. But that I come with
her approval I am very sure. For another, had she disapproved, I
should none the less have come of my own accord. Sir, though I know
you very well by reputation, I have had the honour of few words with
you, but my life has taught me to trust boldly where my eyes bid me
trust. And the whole affair is so strange that one more strange act
like this intrusion of mine is quite of apiece. I ask you therefore to
listen to me. The listening pledges you to nothing, and at the worst,
I can promise you, my story will while away a sleepless hour. If when
you have heard, you can give us your advice, I shall be very glad. For
we are sunk in such a quandary that a new point of view cannot but
help us."
Sir Charles pointed to a chair and politely turned away to hide a
yawn. For the young man's lengthy exordium had made him very drowsy.
He could very comfortably had fallen asleep at this moment. But Gibson
Jerkley began to speak, and in a short space of time Sir Charles was
as wide-awake as any house-breaker.
"Eight years ago," said he, "I came very often to the Quarry House,
but I always rode homewards discontented in the evening. Resilda at
that time had a great ambition to be a boy. The sight of any brown
bare-legged lad gipsying down the hill with a song upon his lips,
would set her viciously kicking the toes of her satin slippers against
the parapet of the terrace, and clamouring at her sex. Now I was not
of the same mind with Resilda."
"That I can well understand," said Sir Charles drily. "But, my young
friend, I can remember a time when Resilda desired of all things to be
a horse. There was something hopeful because more human in her wish to
be a boy, had you only known."
Mr. Jerkley nodded gravely and continued:
"I was young enough to argue the point with her, which did me no good,
and then to make matters worse, the soldier from Tangier came over the
hill, with his stories of Major Lashley--Captain he was then."
"Major Lashley," exclaimed Sir Charles. "I did not hear the soldier
was one of Major Lashley's men!"
"But he was and thenceforward the world went very ill with me. Reports
of battles, and sorties came home at rare intervals. She was the first
to read of them. Major Lashley's name was more than once mentioned. We
country gentlemen who stayed at home and looked after our farms and
our tenants, having no experience of war, suffered greatly in the
comparison. So at the last I ordered my affairs for a long voyage, and
without taking leave of any but my nearest neighbours and friends, I
slipped off one evening to the wars."
"You did not wish your friends at the Quarry House good-bye?" said
Fosbrook.
"No. It might have seemed that I was making claims, and, after all,
one has one's pride. I would never, I think, ask a woman to wait
for me. But she heard of course after I had gone and--I am speaking
frankly--I believe the news woke the woman in her. At all events there
was little talk after of Tangier at the Quarry House."
Mr. Jerkley related his subsequent history. He had sailed at his own
charges to Africa; he had enlisted as a gentleman volunteer in The
King's Battalion; he had served under Major Lashley in the Charles
Fort where he was in charge of the great speaking-trumpet by which
the force received its orders from the Lieutenant-Governor in Tangier
Castle; he took part in the desperate attempt to cut a way back
through the Moorish army into the town. In that fight he was wounded
and left behind for dead.
"A year later peace was made. Tangier was evacuated, Major Lashley
returned to England. Now the Major and I despite the difference
in rank had been friends. I had spoken to him of Miss Mardale's
admiration, and as chance would have it, he came to Leamington to take
the waters."
"Chance?" said Sir Charles drily.
"Well it may have been intention," said Jerkley. "There was no reason
in the world why he should not seek her out. She was not promised to
me, and very likely I had spoken of her with enthusiasm. For a long
time she would not consent to listen to him. He was, however, no
less persistent--he pleaded his suit for three years. I was dead you
understand, and what man worth a pinch of salt would wish a woman to
waste her gift of life in so sterile a fidelity.... You follow me?
At the end of three years Resilda yielded to his pleadings, and the
persuasions of her friends. For Major Lashley quickly made himself a
position in the country. They were married, Major Lashley was not a
rich man, it was decided that they should both live at the Quarry
House."
"And what had Mr. Mardale to say to it?" asked Fosbrook.
"Oh, Sir," said Gibson Jerkley with a laugh. "Mr. Mardale is a man of
wheels, and little steel springs. Let him sit at his work-table in
that crowded drawing-room on the first floor, without interruption,
and he will be very well content, I can assure you.... Hush!" and he
suddenly raised his hand. In the silence which followed, they both
distinctly heard the sound of some one stirring in the house. Mr.
Jerkley went to the door and opened it. The door gave on to the
passage which was shut off at its far end by another door from the
square tulip-wood landing, at the head of the stairs. He came back
into the bedroom.
"There is a light on the other side of the passage-door," said he.
"But I have no doubt it is Mr. Mardale going to his bed. He sits late
at his work-table."
Sir Charles brought him back to his story.
"Meanwhile you were counted for dead, but actually you were taken
prisoner. There is one thing which I do not understand. When peace was
concluded the prisoners were freed and an officer was sent up into
Morocco to secure their release."
"There were many oversights like mine, I have no doubt. The Moors were
reluctant enough to produce their captives. We who were supposed to be
dead were not particularly looked for. I have no doubt there is many
a poor English soldier sweating out his soul in the uplands of that
country to this day. I escaped two years ago, just about the time, in
fact, when Miss Resilda Mardale became Mrs. Lashley. I crept down
over the hillside behind Tangier one dark evening, and lay all night
beneath a bush of tamarisks dreaming the Moors were still about me.
But an inexplicable silence reigned and nowhere was the darkness
spotted by the flame of any camp-fire. In the morning I looked down
to Tangier. The first thing which I noticed was your broken stump of
mole, the second that nowhere upon the ring of broken wall could be
seen the flash of a red coat or the glitter of a musket-barrel. I came
down into Tangier, I had no money and no friends. I got away in a
felucca to Spain. From Spain I worked my passage to England. I came
home nine months ago. And here is the trouble. Three months after I
returned Major Lashley disappeared. You understand?"
"Oh," cried Sir Charles, and he jumped in his chair. "I understand
indeed. Suspicion settled upon you," and as it ever will upon the
least provocation suspicion passed for a moment into Fosbrook's brain.
He was heartily ashamed of it when he looked into Jerkley's face. It
would need, assuredly, a criminal of an uncommon astuteness to come at
this hour with this story. Mr. Jerkley was not that criminal.
"Yes," he answered simply, "I am looked at askance, devil a doubt of
it. I would not care a snap of the fingers were I alone in the matter;
but there is Mrs. Lashley ... she is neither wife nor widow ... and,"
he took a step across the room and said quickly--and were she known
for a widow, there is still the suspicion upon me like a great iron
door between us."
"Can you help us, Sir Charles! Can you see light?"
"You must tell me the details of the Major's disappearance," said Sir
Charles, and the following details were given.
On the eleventh of December and at ten o'clock of the evening Major
Lashley left the house to visit the stables which were situated in
the Park and at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the house. A
favourite mare, which he had hunted the day before, had gone lame,
and all day Major Lashley had shown some anxiety; so that there was a
natural reason why he should have gone out at the last moment before
retiring to bed. Mrs. Lashley went up to her room at the same time,
indeed with so exact a correspondence of movement that as she reached
the polished tulip-wood landing at the top of the stairs, she heard
the front door latch as her husband drew it to behind him. That was
the last she heard of him.
"She woke up suddenly," said Jerkley, "in the middle of the night, and
found that her husband was not at her side. She waited for a little
and then rose from her bed. She drew the window-curtains aside and by
the glimmering light which came into the room, was able to read the
dial of her watch. It was seven minutes past three of the morning. She
immediately lighted her candle and went to rouse her father. Her door
opened upon the landing, it is the first door upon the left hand side
as you mount the stairs; the big drawing-room opens on to the landing
too, but faces the stairs. Mrs. Lashley at once went to that room,
knowing how late Mr. Mardale is used to sit over his inventions, and
as she expected, found him there. A search was at once arranged; every
servant in the house was at once impressed, and in the morning every
servant on the estate. Major Lashley had left the stable at a quarter
past ten. He has been seen by no one since."
Sir Charles reflected upon this story.
"There is a pond in front of the house," said he.
"It was dragged in the morning," replied Jerkley.
Sir Charles made various inquiries and received the most
unsatisfactory answers for his purpose. Major Lashley had been a
favourite alike at Tangier, and in the country. He had a winning
trick of a smile, which made friends for him even among his country's
enemies. Mr. Jerkley could not think of a man who had wished him ill.
"Well, I will think the matter over," said Sir Charles, who had not an
idea in his head, and he held the door open for Mr. Jerkley. Both men
stood upon the threshold, looked down the passage and then looked at
one another.
"It is strange," said Jerkley.
"The light has been a long while burning on the landing," said Sir
Charles. They walked on tiptoe down the passage to the door beneath
which one bright bar of light stretched across the floor. Jerkley
opened the door and looked through; Sir Charles who was the taller man
looked over Jerkley's head and never were two men more surprised. In
the embrasure of that door to the left of the staircase, the door
behind which Resilda Lashley slept, old Mr. Mardale reclined, with his
back propped against the door-post. He had fallen asleep at his post,
and a lighted candle half-burnt flamed at his side. The reason of his
presence then was clear to them both.
"A morbid fancy!" he said in a whisper, but with a considerable anger
in his voice. "Such a fancy as comes only to a man who has lost his
judgment through much loneliness. See, he sits like any negro outside
an Eastern harem! Sir, I am shamed by him."
"You have reason I take the liberty to say," said Sir Charles
absently, and he went back to his room puzzling over what he had seen,
and over what he could neither see nor understand. The desire for
sleep was altogether gone from him. He opened his window and leaned
out. The rain had ceased, but the branches still dripped and the air
was of an incomparable sweetness. Blackbirds and thrushes on the
lawns, and in the thicket-depths were singing as though their lives
hung upon the full fresh utterance of each note. A clear pure light
was diffused across the world. Fosbrook went back to his old idea of
some vengeful pursuit sprung from a wrong done long ago in Tangier.
The picture of Major Lashley struck with terror as he got news of his
pursuers, and slinking off into the darkness. Even now, somewhere or
another, on the uplands or the plains of England, he might be rising
from beneath a hedge to shake the rain from his besmeared clothes, and
start off afresh on another day's aimless flight. The notion caught
his imagination and comforted him to sleep. But in the morning he woke
to recognise its unreality. The unreality became yet more vivid to
him at the breakfast-table, when he sat with two pairs of young eyes
turning again and again trustfully towards him. The very reliance
which the man and woman so clearly placed in him spurred him. Since
they looked to him to clear up the mystery, why he must do it, and
there was an end of the matter.
He was none the less glad, however, when Mr. Jerkley announced his
intention of returning home. There would at all events be one pair
of eyes the less. He strolled with Mr. Jerkley on the terrace
after breakfast with a deep air of cogitation, the better to avoid
questions. Gibson Jerkley, however, was himself in a ruminative
mood. He stopped, and gazing across the valley to the riband of road
descending the hill:
"Down that road the soldier came," said he, "whose stories brought
about all this misfortune."
"And very likely down that road will come the bearer of news to make
an end of it," rejoined Fosbrook sententiously. Mr. Jerkley looked at
him with a sudden upspringing of hope, and Sir Charles nodded with
ineffable mystery, never guessing how these lightly spoken words were
to return to his mind with the strength of a fulfilled prophecy.
As he nodded, however, he turned about towards the house, and a
certain disfigurement struck upon his eyes. Two windows on the first
floor were entirely bricked up, and as the house was square with level
tiers of windows, they gave to it an unsightly look. Sir Charles
inquired of his companion if he could account for them.
"To be sure," said Jerkley, with the inattention of a man diverted
from serious thought to an unimportant topic. "They are the windows of
the room in which Mrs. Mardale died a quarter of a century ago. Mr.
Mardale locked the door as soon as his wife was taken from it to the
church, and the next day he had the windows blocked. No one but he has
entered the room during all these years, the key has never left his
person. It must be the ruin of a room by now. You can imagine it, the
dust gathering, the curtains rotting, in the darkness and at times the
old man sitting there with his head running on days long since dead.
But you know Mr. Mardale, he is not as other men."
Sir Charles swung round alertly to his companion. To him at all events
the topic was not an indifferent one.
"Yet you say, you believe that he is void of the natural affections.
Last night we saw a proof, a crazy proof if you will, but none the
less a proof of his devotion to his daughter. To-day you give me as
sure a one of his devotion to his dead wife," and almost before he had
finished, Mr. Mardale was calling to him from the steps of the house.
He spent all that morning in the great drawing-room on the first
floor. It was a room of rich furniture, grown dingy with dust and
inattention, and crowded from end to end with tables and chairs and
sofas, on which were heaped in a confused medley, pictures, statues of
marble, fans and buckles from Spain, queer barbaric ornaments, ivory
carvings from the Chinese. Sir Charles could hardly make his way to
the little cleared space by the window, where Mr. Mardale worked,
without brushing some irreplaceable treasure to the floor. Once
there he was fettered for the morning. Mr. Mardale with all the
undisciplined enthusiasm of an amateur, jumping from this invention to
that, beaming over his spectacles. Sir Charles listened with here and
there a word of advice, or of sympathy with the labour of creation.
But his thoughts were busy elsewhere, he was pondering over his
discovery of the morning, over the sight which he and Jerkley had seen
last night, he was accustoming himself to regard the old man in a
strange new light, as an over-careful father and a sorely-stricken
husband. Meanwhile he sat over against the window which was in the
side of the house, and since the house was built upon a slope of hill,
although the window was on the first floor, a broad terrace of grass
stretched away from it to a circle of gravel ornamented with statues.
On this terrace he saw Mrs. Lashley, and reflected uncomfortably that
he must meet her at dinner and again sustain the inquiry of her eyes.
He avoided actual questions, however, and as soon as dinner was over,
with a meaning look at the girl to assure her that he was busy with
her business, he retired to the library. Then he sat himself down to
think the matter over restfully. But the room, walled with books upon
its three sides, fronted the Southwest on its fourth, and as the
afternoon advanced, the hot June sun streamed farther and farther into
the room. Sir Charles moved his chair back, and again back, and again,
until at last it was pushed into the one cool dark corner of the room.
Then Sir Charles closed his wearied eyes the better to think. But he
had slept little during the last night, and when he opened them again,
it was with a guilty start. He rubbed his eyes, then he reached a hand
down quickly at his side, and lifted a book out of the lowest shelf in
the corner. The book was a volume of sermons. Sir Charles replaced it,
and again dipped his hand into the lucky-bag. He drew out a tome of
Mr. Hobbes' philosophy; Sir Charles was not in the mood for Hobbes; he
tried again. On this third occasion he found something very much more
to his taste, namely the second Volume of Anthony Hamilton's Memoirs
of Count Grammont. This he laid upon his knee, and began glancing
through the pages while he speculated upon the mystery of the Major's
disappearance. His thoughts, however, lagged in a now well-worn
circle, they begot nothing new in the way of a suggestion. On the
other hand the book was quite new to him. He became less and less
interested in his thoughts, more and more absorbed in the Memoirs.
There were passages marked with a pencil-line in the margin, and
marked, thought Sir Charles, by a discriminating judge. He began to
look only for the marked passages, being sure that thus he would most
easily come upon the raciest anecdotes. He read the story of the
Count's pursuit by the brother of the lady he was affianced to. The
brother caught up the Count when he was nearing Dover to return to
France. "You have forgotten something," said the brother. "So I have,"
replied Grammont. "I have forgotten to marry your sister." Sir Charles
chuckled and turned over the pages. There was an account of how the
reprobate hero rode seventy miles into the country to keep a tryst
with an _inamorata_ and waited all night for no purpose in pouring
rain by the Park gate. Sir Charles laughed aloud. He turned over more
pages, and to his surprise came across, amongst the marked passages, a
quite unentertaining anecdote of how Grammont lost a fine new suit of
clothes, ordered for a masquerade at White Hall. Sir Charles read the
story again, wondering why on earth this passage had been marked; and
suddenly he was standing by the window, holding the book to the light
in a quiver of excitement. Underneath certain letters in the words of
this marked passage he had noticed dents in the paper, as though by
the pressure of a pencil point. Now that he stood by the light, he
made sure of the dents, and he saw also by the roughness of the paper
about them, that the pencil-marks had been carefully erased. He read
these underlined letters together--they made a word, two words--a
sentence, and the sentence was an assignation.
Sir Charles could not remember that the critical moment in any of his
great engineering undertakings, had ever caused him such a flutter
of excitement, such a pulsing in his temples, such a catching of his
breath--no, not even the lowering of Charles' Chest into the Waters
of Tangier harbour. Everything at once became exaggerated out of its
proportions, the silence of the house seemed potential and expectant,
the shadows in the room now that the sun was low had their message, he
felt a queer chill run down his spine like ice, he shivered. Then he
hurried to the door, locked it and sat down to a more careful study.
And as he read, there came out before his eyes a story--a story told
as it were in telegrams, a story of passion, of secret meetings, of
gratitude for favours.
Who was the discriminating judge who had marked these passages and
underlined these letters? The book was newly published, it was in the
Quarry House, and there were three occupants of the Quarry House. Was
it Mr. Mardale? The mere question raised a laugh. Resilda? Never.
Major Lashley then? If not Major Lashley, who else?
It flashed into his mind that here in this book he might hold the
history of the Major's long courtship of Resilda. But he dismissed the
notion contemptuously. Gibson Jerkley had told him of that courtship,
and of the girl's reluctance to respond to it. Besides Resilda was
never the woman in this story. Perhaps the first volume might augment
it and give the clue to the woman's identity. Sir Charles hunted
desperately through the shelves. Nowhere was the first volume to be
found. He wasted half-an-hour before he understood why. Of course the
other volume would be in the woman's keeping, and how in the world to
discover her?
Things moved very quickly with Sir Charles that afternoon. He had shut
up the volume and laid it on the table, the while he climbed up and
down the library steps. From the top of the steps he glanced about the
room in a despairing way, and his eyes lit upon the table. For the
first time he remarked the binding which was of a brown leather. But
all the books on the shelves were bound uniformly in marble boards
with a red backing. He sprang down from the steps with the vigour of a
boy, and seizing the book looked in the fly leaf for a name. There was
a name, the name of a bookseller in Leamington, and as he closed the
book again, some one rapped upon the door. Sir Charles opened it and
saw Mr. Mardale. He gave the old gentleman no time to speak.
"Mr. Mardale," said he, "I am a man of plethoric habits, and must
needs take exercise. Can you lend me a horse?"
Mr. Mardale was disappointed as his manner showed. He had perhaps at
that very moment hit upon a new and most revolutionary invention.
But his manners hindered him from showing more than a trace of
the disappointment, and Sir Charles rode out to the bookseller at
Leamington, with the volume beneath his coat.
"Can you show me the companion to this?" said he, dumping it down upon
the counter. The bookseller seized upon the volume and fondled it.
"It is not fair," he cried. "In any other affair but books, it would
be called at once sheer dishonesty. Here have been my subscribers
clamouring for the Memoirs for six months and more."
"You hire out your books!" cried Sir Charles.
"Give would be the properer word," grumbled the man.
Sir Charles humbly apologised.
"It was the purest oversight," said he, "and I will gladly pay double.
But I need the first volume."
"The first volume, Sir," replied the bookseller in a mollified voice,
"is in the like case with the second. There has been an oversight."
"But who has it?"
The bookseller was with difficulty persuaded to search his list. He
kept his papers in the greatest disorder, so that it was no wonder
people kept his volumes until they forgot them. But in the end he
found his list.
"Mrs. Ripley," he read out, "Mrs. Ripley of Burley Wood."
"And where is Burley Wood?" asked Sir Charles.
"It is a village, Sir, six miles from Leamington," replied the
bookseller, and he gave some rough directions as to the road.
Sir Charles mounted his horse and cantered down the Parade. The sun
was setting; he would for a something miss his supper; but he meant to
see Burley Wood that day, and he would have just daylight enough
for his purpose. As he entered the village, he caught up a labourer
returning from the fields. Sir Charles drew rein beside him.
"Will you tell me, if you please, where Mrs. Ripley lives?"
The man looked up and grinned.
"In the churchyard," said he.
"Do you mean she is dead?"
"No less."
"When did she die?"
"Well, it may have been a month or two ago, or it may have been more."
"Show me her grave and there's a silver shilling in your pocket."
The labourer led Fosbrook to a corner of the churchyard. Then upon
a head-stone he read that Mary Ripley aged twenty-nine had died on
December 7th. December the 7th thought Sir Charles, five days before
Major Lashley died. Then he turned quickly to the labourer.
"Can you tell me when Mrs. Ripley was buried?"
"I can find out for another shilling."
"You shall have it, man."
The labourer hurried off, discovered the sexton, and came back. But
instead of the civil gentleman he had left, he found now a man with a
face of horror, and eyes that had seen appalling things. Sir Charles
had remained in the churchyard by the grave, he had looked about him
from one to the other of the mounds of turf, his imagination already
stimulated had been quickened by what he had seen; he stood with the
face of a Medusa.
"She was buried when?" he asked.
"On December the 11th," replied the labourer.
Sir Charles showed no surprise. He stood very still for a moment, then
he gave the man his two shillings, and walked to the gate where his
horse was tied. Then he inquired the nearest way to the Quarry House,
and he was pointed out a bridle-path running across fields to a hill.
As he mounted he asked another question.
"Mr. Ripley is alive?"
"Yes."
"It must be Mr. Ripley," Sir Charles assured himself, as he rode
through the dusk of the evening. "It must be ... It must be ..." until
the words in his mind became a meaningless echo of his horse's hoofs.
He rode up the hill, left the bridle-path for the road, and suddenly,
and long before he had expected, he saw beneath him the red square of
the Quarry House and the smoke from its chimneys. He was on that very
road up which he and Gibson Jerkley had looked that morning. Down that
road, he had said, would come the man who knew how Major Lashley
had disappeared, and within twelve hours down that road the man was
coming. "But it must be Mr. Ripley," he said to himself.
None the less he took occasion at supper to speak of his ride.
"I rode by Leamington to Burley Wood. I went into the churchyard."
Then he stopped, but as though the truth was meant to come to light,
Resilda helped him out.
"I had a dear friend buried there not so long ago," she said. "Father,
you remember Mrs. Ripley."
"I saw her grave this afternoon," said Fosbrook, with his eyes upon
Mr. Mardale. It might have been a mere accident, it was in any case a
trifling thing, the mere shaking of a hand, the spilling of a spoonful
of salt upon the table, but trifling things have their suggestions.
He remembered that Resilda, when she had waked up on the night of
December the 11th to find herself alone, had sought out her father,
who was still up, and at work in the big drawing-room. He remembered
too that the window of that room gave on to a terrace of grass. A man
might go out by that window--aye and return without a soul but himself
being the wiser.
Of course it was all guess work and inference, and besides, it must be
Mr. Ripley. Mr. Ripley might as easily have discovered the secret
of the Memoirs as himself--or anyone else. Mr. Ripley would have
justification for anger and indeed for more--yes for what men who are
not affected are used to call a crime ... Sir Charles abruptly stopped
his reasoning, seeing that it was prompted by a defence of Mr.
Mardale. He made his escape from his hosts as soon as he decently
could and retired to his room. He sat down in his room and thought,
and he thought to some purpose. He blew out his candle, and stole down
the stairs into the hall. He had met no one. From the hall he went to
the library-door and opened it--ever so gently. The room was quite
dark. Sir Charles felt his way across it to his chair in the corner.
He sat down in the darkness and waited. After a time inconceivably
long, after every board in the house had cracked a million times, he
heard distinctly a light shuffling step in the passage, and after that
the latch of the door release itself from the socket. He heard nothing
more, for a little, he could only guess that the door was being
silently opened by some one who carried no candle. Then the shuffling
footsteps began to move gently across the room, towards him, towards
the corner where he was sitting. Sir Charles had had no doubt but that
they would, not a single doubt, but none the less as he sat there
in the dark, he felt the hair rising on his scalp, and all his body
thrill. Then a hand groped and touched him. A cry rang out, but it was
Sir Charles who uttered it. A voice answered quietly:
"You had fallen asleep. I regret to have waked you."
"I was not asleep, Mr. Mardale."
There was a pause and Mr. Mardale continued.
"I cannot sleep to-night, I came for a book."
"I know. For the book I took back to Leamington to-day, before I went
to visit Mrs. Ripley's grave."
There was a yet longer pause before Mr. Mardale spoke again.
"Stay then!" he said in the same gentle voice. "I will fetch a light."
He shuffled out of the room, and to Sir Charles it seemed again an
inconceivably long time before he returned. He came back with a single
candle, which he placed upon the table, a little star of light,
showing the faces of the two men shadowy and dim. He closed the door
carefully, and coming back, said simply:
"You know."
"Yes."
"How did you find out?"
"I saw the grave. I noticed the remarkable height of the mound. I
guessed."
"Yes," said Mr. Mardale, and in a low voice he explained. "I found the
book here one day, that he left by accident. On December 11th Mrs.
Ripley was buried, and that night he left the house--for the stables,
yes, but he did not return from the stables. It seemed quite clear to
me where he would be that night. People hereabouts take me for a
man crazed and daft, I know that very well, but I know something of
passion, Sir Charles. I have had my griefs to bear. Oh, I knew where
he would be. I followed over the hill down to the churchyard of Burley
Wood. I had no thought of what I should do. I carried a stick in my
hand, I had no thought of using it. But I found him lying full-length
upon the grave with his lips pressed to the earth of it, whispering to
her who lay beneath him.... I called to him to stand up and he did. I
bade him, if he dared, repeat the words he had used to my face, to
me, the father of the girl he had married, and he did--triumphantly,
recklessly. I struck at him with the knob of my stick, the knob was
heavy, I struck with all my might, the blow fell upon his forehead.
The spade was lying on the ground beside the grave. I buried him with
her. Now what will you do?"
"Nothing," said Sir Charles.
"But Mr. Jerkley asked you to help him."
"I shall tell a lie."
"My friend, there is no need," said the old man with his gentle
smile. "When I went out for this candle I ..." Sir Charles broke in
upon him in a whirl of horror.
"No. Don't say it! You did not!"
"I did," replied Mr. Mardale. "The poison is a kindly one. I shall be
dead before morning. I shall sleep my way to death. I do not mind, for
I fear that, after all, my inventions are of little worth. I have left
a confession on my writing-desk. There is no reason--is there?--why he
and she should be kept apart?"
It was not a question which Sir Charles could discuss. He said
nothing, and was again left alone in the darkness, listening to the
shuffling footsteps of Mr. Mardale as, for the last time, he mounted
the stairs.