THE STATEMENT CONCLUDED.
"For the next few days there was an uneasy feeling at my heart, a
sense of impending misfortune, of which I could not rid myself. 'It is
_au revoir_,' he had said, and that despite my telling him that on no
account would I consent to meet him again. What motive was at the
bottom of his persistence? When and how would he attempt to force his
presence on me? For three days I never left the precincts of the house
and garden.
"I now come to the fatal 18th of September. About ten o'clock on the
morning of that day, after breakfast was over and my husband had shut
himself up in his office, a note was brought me with word that the
messenger had been instructed to wait for an answer. Even before I
opened it I guessed but too surely who it was from. As nearly as I can
recollect, it ran almost word for word as under:
"'You _must_ see me once more and to-day. I have made up my mind to
leave England in less than a week from now, probably never to return;
but I cannot go without bidding you farewell. Besides, I have some
letters of yours, written years ago, which I will give you when I see
you. Should you refuse me this last request, you must abide by the
consequences. To-morrow at daybreak my body will be found in front of
Loudwater House. There will be a bullet in my brain and on my lifeless
heart will be found your letters.--E. W.'
"Such a message, coming from a man whom I believed to be half
demented, was enough to frighten any woman, and it frightened me. I
scribbled a line in answer, saying when and where I would meet him.
"All that day I was a prey to the most dismal forebodings. It was
Friday. My husband, who was as regular in his habits as a piece of
clockwork, made an invariable point of leaving home punctually at
eight o'clock every Tuesday and Friday evening, in order to make one
at a rubber of whist at the house of his friend, Mr. Arbour. Being
thus aware that from eight till half-past ten my time would be at my
own disposal, and being unwilling to meet Evan again by daylight in
the Ladies' Walk, from fear lest the fact of my doing so should
somehow reach my husband's ears, in my reply to him I had named nine
o'clock as the time, and the corner of the graveyard of St. Mary's
Church (a lonely spot at that hour and not more than three hundred
yards from Loudwater House) as our place of meeting.
"I had fully made up my mind that this our last interview should be as
brief a one as possible. I was morbidly anxious to regain possession
of my letters. Unless I did so there was no knowing into whose hands
they might fall nor what use might be made of them. And then for Evan
Wildash to have committed suicide at the door of my husband's house
would have been a dreadful thing indeed!
"The clock struck eight as my husband was putting on his overcoat in
the hall. I tied a muffler round his throat, and at the door he kissed
me, as he always did, even if he were not going to be more than an
hour away. Alas and alas! how little did I dream that it was the last
time he would ever press his lips to mine!
"After he was gone I scarcely blow how the time passed till nine
o'clock. As I look back in memory, everything that happened that night
after my husband's departure seems as far removed from reality as is
the recollection of some hideous nightmare. It is enough to say that I
was at the corner of the churchyard within five minutes of the
appointed hour, where I found Evan already waiting for me.
"Of what passed between us I have only the vaguest
recollection--after-events seem almost to have blotted the record from
my mind. I remember with what a feeling of relief my fingers closed
over my letters, which, however, he did not yield up without evident
reluctance. Half a minute later his clenched hand went up to his
heart, and, with a low cry, he staggered backward, and would have
fallen had not his other hand instinctively gripped one of the
churchyard railings. 'That accursed pain again!' he exclaimed with a
groan. 'Brandy!--I must have brandy! or I shall die.'
"I gazed around in despair. As I have said, the place was a lonely
one. There was no tavern in sight, nor, indeed, was I sure in which
direction the nearest one lay. By this time he was resting his back
against the railings, and even by that dim light I could discern that
his features were warped by agony. Then a thought struck me. I had
planned so as to leave Loudwater House unknown to anyone, having made
my exit not by way of the front door, but through my husband's private
office, one door of which opens into a side lane. My intention
was to go back the same way, which the latch-key I had brought with
me--applicable to both the front and side doors--would allow of my
doing. It now struck me that if only Evan could walk as far as the
office I might be able to get him some brandy from the liqueur-case
upstairs unseen by anybody. I told him my idea, and he assented to it
eagerly. How in the agony he was in he contrived to get as far as
Loudwater House I cannot tell; but there we were at last. I opened the
door with my key and went in first, he following. The place was in
darkness; but I knew where matches were always to be found. 'Wait by
the door till I get a light,' I said, being afraid lest he might
stumble over something in the dark. Whether he did not heed me, or did
not hear me, I have no means of knowing. In any case, he groped his
way forward into the room, and a moment later an exclamation broke
from his lips. He had half fallen over some obstruction on the floor.
As I struck a match, and the gas-jet leapt up, I turned my head to see
what had happened. By that he had recovered his footing, and, the
instant the room became flooded with light, I saw that he was staring
intently at his outstretched hands. Without my being aware of it, my
eyes followed the direction of his. Then I saw that his hands were
wet--nay, more; that they were bedabbled with blood. A moment I gazed,
horror-stricken, then my eyes travelled downward, and the dread
knowledge burst upon me that the object over which Evan had stumbled
was none other than the murdered body of my husband!
"Frozen, I stood there gazing at the ghastly object--all the currents
of life seeming, for the time being, to stand still. As for Evan, his
gaze wandered from his hands to the body, and thence back to his
hands. Then, all at once, he burst into a harsh, discordant, maniacal
laugh, almost more dreadful to hear than was that which lay so white
and still on the floor to look upon.
"'Blood!--blood on my hands--and his blood!' he cried with a half
shriek. 'They will say that I did it--I--I!' Again his madman's laugh
rang through the room. Then, with a last stare at his crimsoned hands,
he turned, and, as I verily believe, without as much as another look
at me, he flung wide the door and, passing with staggering strides out
into the night, vanished from my sight for ever.
"But before that I was down on my knees by the side of my dead
husband. How did I know he was dead? you may possibly ask. My first
glance at his face had been enough to assure me that no faintest spark
of life animated the marble-like image at my feet. On it was stamped
the indescribable seal of death. For all that, as I now knelt by him
my hand felt for his heart, but not the slightest fluttering responded
to the pressure of my palm. He must have been dead some time. Already
the hand I took in mine, and the brow to which I pressed my lips, were
of an icy coldness.
"Presently I stood up and asked myself what I ought to do next. An
unnatural calm possessed me. My eyes were dry and burning, but it
seemed to me as if my limbs were as cold as those of the corpse at my
feet. Tears would come later on, tears in abundance, but just then the
fountains were fast sealed. I knew, no one better, that what I ought
to have done was there and then to raise an alarm and summon the
police with all possible speed. 'But if I do that,' I said, 'how can I
explain away my presence at this untimely hour? And what if Evan, in
his half-demented condition, and with his blood-imbrued hands, should
be arrested and confronted with me? Would it not, in such a case, go
hard with the pair of us, innocent though we are?' My poor dear
husband was dead, of that there could be no doubt. It could do him no
good, but might do me infinite harm, were the slightest shadow of
suspicion to fall upon me in connection with the mystery of his
murder, as would almost inevitably be the case were I found in that
room at that hour with my outdoor things on, without anyone in the
house dreaming that I was otherwhere than in my own chamber.
"Such were some of the thoughts that surged through my brain while one
might have counted a dozen slowly. My mind was made up. After one last
shuddering glance at my poor dear one, I put out the gas, opened the
inner door without noise, satisfied myself that no one was about, sped
upstairs and reached my own room unseen. A quarter of an hour later I
rang the bell, to which Charlotte, the housemaid, responded. Under the
pretence of being without an envelope in which to enclose a letter I
had just written, I asked her to take a lighted candle, go down to Mr.
Melray's office, and bring me one from there. The rest is known.
"As already stated, I never saw Evan Wildash after that night, nor did
the slightest tidings of him ever reach me. After having read the
story 'How, and Why,' and after having heard from Miss Sudlow by what
strange chance the MS., of which the first half of the story professes
to be a faithful copy, came into the hands of a certain Mr. Timmins, I
can only conclude that the unknown stranger who met his death in the
railway accident could have been none other than Evan. As to whether
his partial derangement (for that his brain was affected I cannot
doubt) was temporary or permanent, and by what motive he was possessed
in describing under fictitious names, but not without sundry
exaggerations and erroneous deductions, some portion of that which
passed between himself and me, I am no more able to divine than the
veriest stranger who may read these lines.
"Of the murder of my dear husband (surely such a crime cannot go for
ever unpunished!) I know nothing more than is here set down.
"And that I aver to be the solemn truth.
"Denia Melray."