"Then you make murder one of the conditions of payment?" I said, facing
him.
"I have only said she must die before sunset," he answered. "She cannot
live, in any case, longer than a few hours. It is easy for you, a
doctor, to render her agony brief."
"To speak plainly," I said, with rising indignation, "you wish me to
kill her! You offer me twenty thousand pounds, not for marriage, but
for the committal of the capital sin."
His thin lips twitched nervously and his brows contracted.
"Ah!" he responded, still quite cool. "I think you view the matter in a
wrong light. There are various grades of murder. Surely it is no great
crime, but rather a humane action, to put a dying girl out of her
agony."
"To shorten her life a single minute would be a foul assassination," I
replied, regarding him with loathing. "And further, sir, you do not
appear to fully realise your own position, or that it is a penal offence
to attempt to bribe a person to take another's life."
He laughed a short, defiant laugh.
"No, no," he said. "Please do not waste valuable time by idle chatter
of that kind. I assure you that I have no fear whatever of the result
of my action. There is no witness here, and if you endeavoured to bring
me before a judge, who, pray, would believe you?" There was some truth
in those defiant words, and I saw by his attitude that he was not to be
trifled with.
"I take it that you have objects in both your propositions--in your
daughter's marriage, and in her death?" I said, in a more conciliatory
tone, hoping to learn something further of the motive of his dastardly
proposal.
"My object is my own affair," he snapped.
"And my conscience is my own," I said. "I certainly do not intend that
it shall be burdened by the crime for which you offer me this payment."
He fixed me with flaming eyes. "Then you refuse?" he cried.
"Most certainly I refuse," I responded. "Moreover, I intend to visit
your daughter upstairs, and strive, if possible, to save her."
"Save her?" he echoed. "You can't do that, unless you can perform
miracles. But perhaps," he added with a sneer, "such a virtuous person
as yourself may be able to work marvels."
"I may be able to save her from assassination," I answered meaningly.
"You intend to oppose me?"
"I intend to prevent you from murdering your own daughter," I said
warmly. "Further, I forbid you to enter her room again. I am a medical
man, and have been called in by you to attend her. Therefore, if you
attempt to approach her I shall summon the police."
"Rubbish!" he laughed, his sinister face now ashen pale. "You cannot
prevent me from approaching her bedside."
"I can, and I will," I said. "You have expressed a desire that she
should, for some mysterious reasons, die before sunset. You would kill
her with your own hand, only you fear that when the doctor came to give
his certificate he might discover evidence of foul play."
"Exactly," he responded with perfect coolness, thrusting his hands into
his pockets. "It is because of that I offer you twenty thousand pounds.
I am prepared to pay for your scientific knowledge."
"And for a death certificate?"
"Of course."
"Well, to speak plainly, I consider you an inhuman scoundrel," I said.
"If your daughter's dying hour is not sacred to you, then no man's
honour or reputation is safe in your hands."
"I thank you for your compliment," he replied with a stiff bow. "But I
might reply that you yourself are not very remarkable for honour, having
in view the fact that, in the hope of gaining a sufficient price, you
have married a woman upon whom you have never set eyes."
"You tempted me!" I cried furiously. "You held the money before my
gaze and fascinated me with it until I was helpless in your power.
Fortunately, however, the spell is broken by this inhuman suggestion of
yours, and I wash my hands clean of the whole affair."
"Ah, my dear sir, that is not possible. Remember you are my daughter's
husband."
"And yet you ask me to kill her."
"Who has greater right to curtail her sufferings than her husband?"
"And who has greater right to endeavour to save her life?"
"But you cannot. It is impossible."
"Why impossible?"
"She is doomed."
"By you. You have resolved that she shall not live till morning," I
said, adding: "If, as you tell me, her mysterious illness must prove
fatal, I see no reason why you should offer me a bribe to encompass her
death. Surely a few hours more or less are of no consequence."
"But they are," he protested quickly. "She must die before sundown, I
tell you."
"Not if I can prevent it."
"Then you will forgo the money I have offered you," he inquired
seriously.
"I have no intention of touching a single farthing of it."
"Until you are forced to."
"Forced to!" I exclaimed. "I don't understand your meaning."
"You will understand one day," he answered with a grin--"one day when it
may, perhaps, be too late. It would be best for us to act in unison, I
assure you."
"For you, possibly; not for me."
"No--for you," he said, fixing his crafty, evil-looking eyes upon me.
"You have taken one step towards the goal, and you cannot now draw back.
You have already accepted your price--twenty thousand pounds."
"Enough!" I cried indignantly. "If I were to give information to the
police regarding this conversation, you would find yourself arrested
within an hour."
"As I have already told you, my dear sir, I am not at all afraid of such
a contretemps; I am no blunderer, I assure you."
"Neither am I," I answered quickly, resolving to remain there no longer
discussing such a subject. From the first moment of our meeting I had
entertained a suspicion of him. Several facts were evident. He had
some strong motive, first in marrying his daughter Beryl, secondly in
encompassing her death before sundown, and thirdly in implicating me so
deeply that I should be unable to extricate myself from the net which he
set to entrap me.
A fourth fact, apparently small in itself, had caused me considerable
reflection: the hand that I had held and on the finger of which I had
placed the bond of matrimony, was in no sense chilly or clammy. It was
not the wasted hand of a moribund invalid, but rather that of a healthy
person. While I had held it I felt and counted the pulsations. The
latter had told me that my mysterious bride was without fever, and was
apparently in a normal state of health. It was curious that she should
have walked and acted involuntarily, if only half conscious of her
surroundings.
The Tempter was endeavouring to deceive me in this particular. But it
was in vain.
"Cannot we come to terms?" he asked in a low, earnest voice. "There is
surely no object to be gained in our being enemies; rather let us act
together in our mutual interests. Recollect that by your marriage you
have become my son-in-law and heir."
"Your heir!" I echoed. I had not thought of that before. His house
betokened that he was wealthy. "You are very generous," I added, not
without some sarcasm. "But I do not feel inclined to accept any such
responsibility from one whose name even I do not know."
"Of course," he said easily. "I was stupid not to introduce myself. In
the excitement it quite slipped my memory. Pray forgive me. My name is
Wynd--Wyndham Wynd."
"Well, Mr Wynd," I said with some forced politeness, "I think we may as
well conclude this interview. I wish to make the acquaintance of my
wife."
"Quite natural," he answered, smiling good-humouredly. "Quite natural
that you should wish to see her; only I beg you, doctor, to prepare for
disappointment."
"Your warning is unnecessary," I responded as carelessly as I could.
My curiosity had been aroused by the healthfulness of that small,
well-formed hand, and I intended to investigate for myself. That house
was, I felt certain, a house of mystery.
I had turned towards the door, but in an instant he had reached it and
stood facing me with his back to it resolutely, saying--
"You will go to her on one condition--the condition I have already
explained."
"That I take her life seriously, and give a certificate of death from
natural causes," I said. "No, Mr Wynd, I am no murderer."
"Not if we add to the sum an extra five thousand?"
"I will not harm her for an extra fifty thousand. Let me pass!" I
cried with fierce resolution.
"When you have promised to accede to my request."
"I will never promise that."
"Then you will not enter her room again."
Almost as the words left his lips there was a low tap at the door, and
it opened, disclosing Davies, who announced--
"The Major, sir."
"Show him in."
The visitor, who entered jauntily with his silk hat still set at a
slight angle on his head, was the well-groomed man who had led my bride
up the aisle of the church. I judged him to be about forty-five,
dark-complexioned, good-looking, but foppish in appearance, carrying his
monocle with ease acquired by long practice.
"Well, Wynd," he said, greeting his friend, cheerily, "all serene?"
"Entirely," answered the other. And then, turning to me, introduced the
newcomer as "Major Tattersett."
"This, Major, is Dr Colkirk, my new son-in-law," he explained. "Permit
me to present him."
"Congratulate you, my dear sir," he responded laughing good-humouredly,
while the Tempter remarked--
"The Major is, of course, fully aware of the circumstances of your
marriage. He is our nearest friend."
"Marriage rather unconventional, eh?" the other remarked to me. "Poor
Beryl! It is a thousand pities that she has been struck down like that.
Six months ago down at Wyndhurst she was the very soul of the
house-parties--and here to-day she is dying."
"Extremely sad," I remarked. "As a medical man I see too vividly the
uncertainty of human life."
"How is she now?" inquired the Major of her father. "The same, alas!"
answered the Tempter with well-assumed sorrow. "She will, we fear, not
live till midnight."
"Poor girl! Poor girl!" the new-comer ejaculated with a sigh, while the
Tempter, excusing himself for an instant left the room.
I would have risen and followed, but the Major, addressing me
confidentially, said--
"This is a strange whim of my old friend's, marrying his daughter in
this manner. There seems no motive for it, as far as I can gather."
"No, none," I responded. "Mr Wynd has struck me as being somewhat
eccentric."
"He's a very good fellow--an excellent fellow. Entirely loyal to his
friends. You are fortunate, my dear fellow, in having him as a
father-in-law. He's amazingly well off, and generosity itself."
I recollected his dastardly suggestion that my wife should not live
longer than sundown, and smiled within myself. This friend of his
evidently did not know his real character.
Besides, being an observant man by nature, I noticed as I sat there one
thing which filled me with curiosity. The tops of the Major's fingers
and thumb of his right hand were thick and slightly deformed, while the
skin was hardened and the nails worn down to the quick.
While the left hand was of normal appearance, the other had undoubtedly
performed hard manual labour. A major holding her Majesty's commission
does not usually bear such evident traces of toil. The hand was out of
keeping with the fine diamond ring that flashed upon it.
"The incident of to-day," I said, "has been to me most unusual. It
hardly seems possible that I am a bridegroom, for, truth to tell, I
fancied myself the most confirmed of bachelors. Early marriage always
hampers the professional man."
"But I don't suppose you will have any cause for regret on that score,"
he observed. "You will have been a bridegroom and a widower in a single
day."
I was silent. His words betrayed him. He knew of the plot conceived by
his friend to bribe me to kill the woman to whom I had been so strangely
wedded!
But successfully concealing my surprise at his incautious words, I
answered--
"Yes, mine will certainly have been a unique experience."
He courteously offered me a cigarette, and lighting one himself, held
the match to me. Then we sat chatting, he telling me what a charming
girl Beryl had been until stricken down by disease.
"What was her ailment?" I inquired.
"I am not aware of the name by which you doctors know it. It is, I
believe, a complication of ailments. Half a dozen specialists have seen
her, and all are agreed that her life cannot be saved. Wynd has spared
no expense in the matter, for he is perfectly devoted to her."
His words, hardly coincided with the truth, I reflected. So far from
being devoted to her, he was anxious, for some mysterious reason, that
she should not live after midnight.
"To lose her will, I suppose, be a great blow to him?" I observed, with
feigned sympathy.
"Most certainly. She has been his constant friend and companion ever
since his wife died, six years ago. I'm awfully sorry for both poor
Beryl and Wynd."
I was about to reply, but his words froze upon my lips, for at that
instant there rang through the house a shrill scream--the agonised
scream of a woman.
"Listen!" I cried. "What's that?"
But my companion's jaw had dropped, and he sat immovable, listening
intently.
Again the scream rang out, but seemed stifled and weaker.
The Tempter was with his daughter whom he had determined should die.
The thought decided me, and turning, without further word, I dashed from
the room, and with quickly-beating heart ran up the wide
thickly-carpeted staircase.