Incarnate or Reincarnate
Nina saw him first; for she was facing that way. Most women would have
screamed; she only became rigid. It was the situation in the Umballa
bungalow over again--save that there was no pistol at hand, and Andrews
knew now that the cobra was made of bronze.
Nina became rigid; Gerald sensed the unexpected. He looked over his
shoulder and caught the glare of Kneedrock's eyes piercing the gloomy
half-light.
They weren't sane eyes. He saw that at once. And a creepy shiver ran
along his spine.
Nina's rigidity gave way to trembling, and all in the brief space of two
seconds at the most--two seconds that were as taut as a fiddle-string.
Then the staghound sprang up, snarling, his fangs bared, and the hair
along his back bristling. But he didn't spring. He pressed close against
Nina's legs and cowered as though he had seen a ghost.
And then Kneedrock laughed. It was the very last thing that they
expected, and the strain tightened to the point of snapping.
Because of everything--the whole wretched ensemble--the laugh seemed
wilder, madder, weirder, possibly, than it was. It broke off in a sort
of choking gurgle, and in a flash the laugher had wheeled about and was
swallowed up in the murk of the passage.
This only, probably, could have aroused Nina to action. Swiftly as light
itself she sped after him with an imploring cry of:
"Hal! Hal!"
Andrews, too, pulled himself together--shook himself free, as it were,
of the dread, deathlike inertia that had held him passive and followed
to the room door. And there Nina's voice came back to him from the
lighted entrance-hall.
"You mustn't go! You must not! I want to see you. I want to make it all
clear."
"It's clear enough as it is," he heard Kneedrock say. "Infernally clear,
and--funny. You'd try to take the fun out of it. I know what you'd do. I
always know what you'd do. You've never fooled me yet. That's because I
never let you shut my eyes with your kisses--because I'm strong enough
to keep you out of my arms."
There was silence for the briefest moment, and it was Kneedrock's voice
that resumed: "Keep your hands off me. Good Lord, if there's one thing I
fear it's your velvet paws! I've seen the sharp claws too often. For
God's sake, Nina, keep them off, I say!"
"You'll come back?" she pleaded.
"I'll come back if you won't touch me."
"But your mackintosh is dripping, and your hat. Give them to me."
Andrews heard their steps approaching and withdrew from the doorway. He
wished to avoid the madman, yet feared to leave Nina alone with him.
Then he noticed that Tara was still in the room--on guard, as it
were--and seeing a connecting door ajar, he slipped through it, closing
it after him.
The staghound snarled again as Nibbetts returned; but at a word from
Nina he retreated and lay down, stretched at full length, his watchful
eyes still fixed, however, on the viscount, who took a stand before the
fireplace, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his morning coat,
and his gaze on the floor.
Nina chose the end of a couch, and faced him over its piled pillows, on
which, half-reclining, she rested her arms. To her own amazement, now
that she was with him alone, all her fear had gone. Her poise and
address were perfect.
Yet the change that had been wrought in him since the Monday she parted
from him at Bellingdown struck her to the heart.
He must have lost twenty pounds in weight. His clothes, then so
well-fitting, hung on his almost gaunt frame. His cheeks were hollow,
and his eyes gleamed with that odd, lurid, uncanny light from deepening
sockets.
"If I had known you came to Bath I should surely have seen you," she
said.
"They told me you saw no one," he returned, "and yet you had your lover
there at that moment."
"You know I have no lover--that I never have had."
"Why quibble over terms?" he asked. "I saw you in his arms in India. I
saw you in his arms to-day. That's enough for me."
"He did me a great service," she tried to explain. "I didn't even know
he was in Bath. It was my surgeon who brought him. He gave the skin that
restored my poor burned face."
Her visitor chuckled cynically.
"You hadn't any poor burned face at Umballa," he sneered. "What had he
sacrificed there?"
"His happiness, his faith in women, for my idle amusement."
"One of a thousand," he muttered. "You were never so considerate of the
rest."
"I'm not altogether without heart."
"You amaze me."
"It's you who are heartless. You could save us both."
He looked at her then for the first time since they had come in. "Save
us both?" he queried. "From what, pray?"
"From wretchedness. I've never been loved as I want to be. And you--you
won't let me--"
"Good God!" he caught her up suddenly. "I didn't come here for that!
Keep your tongue off me, Nina, as well as your hands, or--I'll cut it!"
She stretched herself farther across the pillows. "Make everything
right," she pleaded earnestly, ignoring his rebuke. "Marry me over
again--acknowledge me--be my husband in fact--as you've always been
legally--just for a year."
Her voice was low, but thrilling in its eagerness of appeal. And in the
dining-room, with ear close to the door, guarding her against a sudden
outbreak from her unbalanced companion, Andrews heard all--every uttered
word--and understood.
He had imagined it from her words the night before. But now,
unwittingly, she had made it plain. What Kneedrock had told Carleigh was
true.
Nina was his wife--the wife of his youth--and her marriage with Colonel
Darling had been bigamy, committed in ignorance of the truth.
Lord Kneedrock stood motionless and silent. Again his eyes--those eyes
so strangely changed--were bent upon the rug at his feet.
And the woman went on: "Just for a year, Hal. That's all. And if I'm not
a good wife--if I look aside even a hair's breadth--you may kill me, or
I'll kill myself when you give the word."
Then the man before the fireplace seemed to rouse himself out of a
dream. There was no question that her entreaty had held him. It had
indeed touched the depths of him.
In his mentally dulled state, such a culmination as she begged for had
seemed not only desirable, but possible.
But now, all at once, there had floated back a memory of another face
and another voice--a face and a voice too recently seen and heard to be
quite clouded and hushed by the present.
Figuratively he shook himself, drew his hands from his pockets, lifted
his tawny head, and turned upon her his unfamiliar eyes.
"Very, very pretty," he sneered cruelly. "But it's too late. I've
another love--all my own, too, and not tarnished and worn thin by
general use. You're no wife of mine--remember that--you sacrificed all
claim. Besides, you're--you're--"
The blood was pounding in his neck, and he paused to jerk at his collar
in an effort to free his throat.
"You're not a woman," he went on scornfully. "You're only half woman.
You're other half tigress. Oh, I know you. I've been reading up on your
breed, and I've met a few in my time. Lately I've been looking over some
at the Zoo. And when all's said and done, I prefer the incarnate to the
reincarnate." He stepped back a pace and viewed her appraisingly.
As she half-sat, half-lay there on the cushioned couch, all her lithe
length stretched in beautiful outline, there was indeed a suggestion of
the grace of the cat tribe at rest, long, sinuous, lazy. And to
Kneedrock's obsessed vision this became more than a suggestion, more
than a similarity.
"By gad," he exclaimed, "I've seen my old girl in her cage just like
that, only a thousand times more beautiful! And she's safe, too! That's
the best of it. She only gets what's fed to her. Pity you weren't barred
up while you were a cub.
"I go there just to see her eat. She has your table manners to a dot.
It's very amusing to me to see her claws come out of their silken
sheaths, and clutch and tear, and her teeth rend, while her lips seem to
run blood.
"Beautiful exhibition, I can tell you. Wouldn't miss it for a bag of
sovereigns. 'Ah,' I say, 'there's Nina over again!' Only Nina gets 'em
alive, and goes for their hearts first. That's her special titbit.
Man-eater, is Nina! Nothing else satisfies her."
Nina buried her face in her arms, and her body quivered. For a little
she had almost fancied him unchanged. But there was no question now. He
had railed at her before. But never like this. The idea seemed to carry
him away. He went on, repeating himself, growing more impassioned with
each outburst.
Finally he jerked out his watch and glanced at it hurriedly.
"Haven't a minute to spare. They feed her at three--three sharp now.
Winter schedule's on, you know."
But Nina didn't move. Her body had ceased to quiver. She lay as one
dead. Kneedrock's tirade, reasonless, rhymeless, with its seemingly
endless iteration and reiteration of ideas, phrases, words; all
combining to form one great outpouring volume of contemptuous,
reproachful, mad rebuke, had stunned her--deafened her.
Andrews, listening, heard the abrupt break from harangue to expressed
purpose, and noted that there was, from his companion, no response. It
was not his desire to disturb Nina, nor to again show himself to
Kneedrock.
From the dining-room he sought the servants' quarters, and directed the
housemaid to go at once to the drawing-room with the caller's mackintosh
and hat, lest by some quick mental switch the madman revert to the
subject of his mania and forget his intention of departure.
As it happened, the girl met the viscount in the passage. He accepted
his proffered apparel without so much as a word, brushed past her,
hurried through the entrance-hall, and was gone--forgetting even to
close the door.
It seemed that the impulse to visit the tiger-house, once awakened, was
as irresistible as the tides of ocean.
Andrews, having heard the maid close the door, went at once to Mrs.
Darling. She recognized his step, and looked up in pleased surprise.
"You here still? I am so glad."
"Did you think I could leave you with him--alone?" he asked.
"But your business?"
"My business can wait. You needed me."
She gave him her hand.
"I am sick to my very soul," she said miserably. "I have abased myself
and been kicked in the face."
"But he is not responsible," he reminded her; "you know that. I can
conceive of nothing more pitiable."
She straightened herself, sitting erect.
"I know it. For just a little I thought only of myself. Something must
be done. But what? I feel so helpless."
"He'll probably be refused admission to the gardens," said Andrews.
"Then he's sure to make trouble," Nina declared. "There will be a scene
and exposure. He may be hurt, too."
"Why not try the sphinx solicitor yourself? I'll go with you."
She sprang up at that.
"It's the only way," she agreed. "He must do something. I'll make him do
something."
Five minutes later they were in a taxicab together, rolling through the
rain to Fleet Street. Arrived at the Inner Temple, old Mr. Widdicombe
received Nina with chilling politeness. She was painfully nervous and
obviously distressed.
"I've come about Lord Kneedrock," she said, fingering her handkerchief.
"Have you seen him recently?"
Mr. Widdicombe nodded. "I have, Mrs. Darling," he said.
"How recently?"
"Within the month."
"Did you observe anything singular in his manner? Did he appear--"
"His manner has always been more or less singular."
"Did he appear less rational than usual, I mean?" she persisted.
"He was quite rational. Quite so."
"Well, he isn't now," said Nina bluntly. "He's quite the reverse. It may
be simply a nervous disorder--I sincerely trust so--but he appears to be
mad."
Mr. Widdicombe rubbed together his lean hands.
"You sent me that message this morning," he reminded her. "His lordship
was then in my office."
"Here--then?" Her surprise was manifest.
"In an inner room. The door was ajar, and I fancy he heard every word of
your messenger's statement."
"Is that what you meant by 'within the month'?" She felt somehow that
she had been trapped.
"This morning was within the month. I made a statement of fact, did I
not?"
His skin was like yellow parchment, crisscrossed with incised lines.
Those at the sides of his mouth moved outward, which was as near as Lord
Kneedrock's solicitor ever came to a smile.
Nina sprang to her feet in a rage. "You are quite impossible, Mr.
Widdicombe!" she flared. "There are none so blind as those that won't
see. I came to you for assistance, and you treat the matter--the very
grave matter--as though it were a joke."
"I treat all matters just as I find them, Mrs. Darling," was his calm
retort.
"Viscount Kneedrock is mad," she affirmed, mincing the manifest fact no
longer.
The solicitor bowed.
"If so, I deplore it," he said; "but he has had quite enough in his life
to make him so."
Upon Nina the veiled allusion was not lost.
"That is neither here nor there," she rejoined sharply. "We are only
losing time in discussion. He must be saved from himself, whatever the
cost."
Again there appeared that makeshift for a smile.
"If you had only thought of that sooner, Mrs. Darling," he murmured.
"I did not come here for your recriminations. I came for your aid," was
her reply. "Will you come to Regent's Park and use your influence?"
But Mr. Widdicombe shook his head with some emphasis.
"Certainly not. I have no influence to use. I am a solicitor--neither an
alienist nor a wet-nurse." He bowed for the third time. "I have the
honor to bid you a very good morning."
Nina, in a state between rage and despair, rejoined Gerald Andrews in
the visitors' room.
"He is a beast!" she said with trembling voice. "An abominable old boor!
There is but one thing left for us to do. We must go alone, and pray God
we are not too late to avert trouble."
They made all the haste possible, assisted and abetted by a well-driven
taxicab with a fairly good engine. But they were too late to avert
trouble, nevertheless.
There had been a disturbance in the tiger-house, and Lord Kneedrock had
been seriously, perhaps mortally, injured.