HE AND I
As I returned to my chambers my whole being seemed to be a
battlefield on which conflicting thoughts and feelings were fighting
to a finish. I had not supposed that my nature could have been utterly
disorganized by occurrences such as those which had come crowding upon
me during the last few hours.
I am a hard man. My life has been lived, for the most part, in odd
corners of the world, where, single-handed, I have fought the fight
for fortune; in places where human life is not held of much account,
and where one would have thought as little of killing such a man as
Edwin Lawrence appeared to have been, as destroying any other noxious
animal. I have ever been a fighter. Men have called me “Fighting
John.” I have had to defend my own life, and have not hesitated, when
circumstances required, to take the lives of others. I learnt, long
ago, that there are occasions when killing is not alone the best, but
the only cure.
But I have had nothing to do with women. I have never been on familiar
terms with one of them. I have always been aware that they are better
than I, and that consciousness has made me shy of them, as of a
church. But while one knows that a church is a place for sinners,
one’s sense of decency tells one that evil ought not to come into
contact with a woman. So I have kept clear. Until that night.
Now Providence alone knew what had happened. Since I had seen her
standing in the moonlight at my window, the foundations of my life
seemed to have been going under. It was absurd; yet true. What could
she care for such as I--an adventurer from the four corners of the
world, soiled with something of the grime from each of them. What
right had I to think of such as she--a young girl, in the first
fulness of her wondrous beauty, mentally, morally, socially far above
my reach; the idol of the town, with, at her feet, some of the
greatest in the land. It was midsummer madness; which, in my case, was
the less excusable since, for me, it was the time of autumn.
But she had called me “John.” That was in her hour of sorrow, of which
I had taken advantage. The hour would pass, and then I should not even
be “Mr. Ferguson,” but simply one of the crowd in the street. I might
take a seat at the theatre, to watch her play, but she would not even
glance to see if I was in it. That would be a black hour for me. But
with her all would be well.
But would the hour of her sorrow quickly pass? Back in my own room I
tried to think; but, like her, I was afraid. I had been an idiot to
let her return to Hailsham Road. What kind of an ass would he be who
placed his trust in Inspector Symonds. I had had my experiences of the
police. In all countries of the world they were the same--fools when
they were not knaves. If he, or any of his myrmidons, laid a hand on
her, what could I do? I was in a country where, even if you knocked a
policeman down, it was regarded as a crime. And Miss Adair--she had
her doubts. Great powers! what could the woman be made of, to have
lived so long with such an angel, and yet doubt her perfect innocence!
Apart from such thick-headedness on the part of a woman of common
sense, it was dreadful to think of the girl living in an atmosphere of
suspicion, when complete confidence was the one thing needful.
Why had I let her return to Hailsham Road? She would have been safer
with Mrs. Peddar, or--God forgive me for thinking that she would have
been safer still with me.
On what did the woman found her doubts? And the Inspector his? That
was the mischief. On the surface the thing looked doubtful; if I were
to speak of certain things, I knew they might look worse. A dozen knew
now that she was present in the room. She could be dragged into the
witness-box, at any rate, and then--then what might she not be forced
to say. She had gone with unfriendly intentions; he had been killed
while she was there; she ran away without a whisper to any one of what
had been done. What deductions might not be drawn, by an unfriendly
critic, from that bare statement of the facts. I dared not think of
the risks she would run till all the truth was told.
“What is the truth?” I cried.
Unconsciously, I spoke aloud. Though, had I thought, I should not have
hesitated, since I supposed I was alone. But, no sooner had I spoken,
than my bedroom door was opened, and some one stood on the threshold,
looking out at me.
“It’s you, is it? Come here!”
Hume was the speaker. He spoke and looked as if I were the intruder;
not he. His presence took me by surprise; so that at first, in my
bewilderment, I could only stare. Then I moved towards him.
“What are you doing there?”
“Come, and you shall see.”
I pushed past him into the room. As I looked round, in my amazement at
the man’s audacity, I was speechless. The whole place was in
confusion. He had been turning my belongings topsy-turvy--searching
drawers, examining cupboards, scrutinising everything of mine which he
could lay his hands upon. My property was scattered everywhere--on
chairs, on tables, on the floor. On the rail of the bed were laid my
pyjamas and a towel; and on the bed itself was displayed, at its
widest, the plum-coloured cloak.
When I realised that he had unearthed that piece of apparently damning
evidence, it was enough.
“You hound!”
I would have taken him by the throat; but, springing back, he pointed
a revolver at my face.
“Stop that! I’ve had to deal with men like you before, John Ferguson.
Attempt to touch me, and I’ll save the hangman his pains.”
I, also, on previous occasions had had to deal with men like him; more
dangerous men than he was, free from all the restraints of
civilisation, whom use had made handy with a pistol. There was
something in the way in which he gripped his weapon which told me that
he was not yet acquainted with all its capabilities. I dodged; struck
up; the pistol went flying through the air. I took him by the waist;
lifted him off his feet; held him tight; and shook him. If you have
the trick of it, it is surprising how quickly you can shake the breath
clean out of a man’s body, or, if you wish to go so far, by shaking
him you can break his back, and make an end. My desires were less
extensive. I shook him till I had him quiet; then I lowered him till
his face was on a level with mine.
“Now, Dr. Hume, please tell me why I shouldn’t kill you?”
He could but gasp, and that with pain.
“You can--kill me--if you like. You killed him. Killing’s--your line.”
“And what’s your line? Sneaking, like a thief, into a man’s room, and
prying into his possessions like some dirty nigger? However, since you
are here, we’ll come to an understanding, you and I, before you go.”
I dropped him on to the floor, where he lay like a log, struggling to
get back some of his breath. I picked up his revolver. It was a natty
little thing, though not of the kind one carries where a gun is one of
the chief necessities of existence. There a gun, to be worth anything,
should send a bullet through an inch board at the distance of a dozen
yards; it was all his would do to send a bullet through the skin of a
man, I locked the door, and I waited for him to get his breath again.
“When you are ready, Dr. Hume.”
I sat and watched him. He had followed me with his eyes as I moved
about the room; starting as I picked up his pistol. Now he returned me
glance for glance. He was getting the better of his breathlessness;
and presently raised himself to a sitting posture.
“You should be in a freak museum, Ferguson.”
“Indeed. Why?”
“You’re a prodigy of bone and muscle.”
“You should remember it.”
“I’ve but just now made the discovery. I shall have to refurbish my
faith in the labours of Hercules and the story of Samson.” He was, as
it were, arranging himself inside his clothes. “I don’t resent your
physical configuration; it’s educative, as showing what the strength
of a man may be. It’s a pity you should be a----Are you only a fool,
or are you something else as well?” He stood up, still arranging
himself inside his clothes. He pointed to the plum-coloured cloak.
“What’s this?”
“It’s what I’m going to wring your neck for.”
“Is that so? I don’t doubt your capacity, but why exercise it in this
particular instance?”
“Then you must satisfy me that, though the heavens fall, no one
outside this room shall ever learn there is such a garment in
existence--and that you’ll find it difficult to do.”
“You wish me to tell no one of what I’ve found?”
“It’s not an affair of a wish.”
“Ferguson, you’re stark mad.”
“You’ve told me so before. You’re a specialist. You should know that a
homicidal lunatic is not the sort to trifle with. Label me like that.”
“But you’re mad in the wrong direction.”
“What’s the right direction to be mad?”
“That cloak’s Miss Moore’s.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Let me inform you that to save her from harm I’d give my life.”
“Say that again.”
“To save her from harm I’d give my life. It sounds like bombast, but
it’s plain truth.”
“Hume, I may be mad, but I’m not so mad as you think.”
“You’re madder, if you don’t believe me I don’t know why I should make
a confidant of you, of all men; but there are illogical moments in
which men feel constrained to strip themselves bare. Perhaps this is
such a moment in my life. Miss Moore is the only woman I ever loved.
That’s a line from a play, but it’s true, for all that.”
“Why do you say it to me?”
“What’s the meaning of that cloak being in your wardrobe?”
“Why did you go to my wardrobe to look for it?”
“Man, I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for something with
which to hang you. And I found this, and those. This is a towel.
There’s blood on it. See! The marks of bloody fingers. You wiped your
hands on it when, last night, you came from Lawrence’s room.”
“That is what you make of it. I see.”
“Those are the pyjamas which you were wearing. There are stains on
them. See here, on the front of the jacket; on the breeches, too.”
“What is the deduction which you draw from that?”
“I don’t know. I did know. But now I don’t.”
His tone was one of intense dejection. He looked towards the bed. I
considered for a moment. Then I spoke.
“You’re quite right, Hume. The cloak is Miss Moore’s.”
He turned round quickly.
“Do you want to hang her now instead of Philip? Or do you want to hang
them both?”
“You talk too much of hanging. I mean you and I to understand each
other before you leave this room; and we shan’t get there by blinking
facts. I say that the cloak’s Miss Moore’s. You perceive that it’s
caked with blood.”
“I see.”
“I believe that blood to be Edwin Lawrence’s. The proof is easy; you
have only to subject it to a microscopical examination you will know.
The stain on my pyjamas came off her cloak. That on the towel was
where she wiped her hands, not where I wiped mine. The water in which
she washed them I threw into the road. It was bright red. Not only
were her hands reeking wet, there were smears upon her face as well.”
“Ferguson!”
“Those are the facts. I’ve made it a rule of my life never to dodge a
fact which I don’t like; I hit at it. And it’s because I hit at those
facts that I know they don’t mean she killed him; I know she didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
I laughed.
“Because I know her; perhaps you don’t.”
“I’ve known her the better part of my life.”
“And I only since last night, when she came through my window with
shining hands.”
“But how can you know she didn’t, unless you know who did? Did you?”
I laughed again.
“I did not. Lawrence sharped me; I suspected it last night, now I’m
sure; but I shouldn’t have killed him merely because he was too
clever; at least, not like that. You’re a poor judge of character if
you suppose I should.”
“I care nothing for you, or for your character. It’s of her I’m
thinking. She might have done it in a fit of temporary insanity.”
“She might; but she didn’t.”
“Then what was the meaning of her conduct in his room just now?”
“You’re a mental pathologist; you should know better than I.”
“It’s because I’m a mental pathologist that I--fear. Symonds suspects.
I shouldn’t be surprised if he arrests her within four and twenty
hours. He’ll hang her if he finds this cloak.”
“Oh no, he won’t. Nor, if Symonds is the idiot you suppose--he may be,
since you’re a judge of idiots--will she remain long under arrest. I
shall free her.”
Hume had been pacing up and down like an unquiet spirit. Now he
stopped to snarl at me like an angry wolf.
“If you think brawn and muscle can prevail against the police you are
a fool.”
“As it happens I am not a fool on those particular lines, because I
think nothing of the kind. I shall use other means to free her.”
“What other means?”
“I shall confess.”
“But I thought you said you didn’t do it.”
“Nor did I; nor did she. If Symonds must have a victim, better I than
she. To go to the gallows for her sake would be heaven well won.”
Hume stared. I might have been shaking him again, his breath came so
hardly.
“What--do you mean?”
“My good Hume, don’t you be afraid for Miss Moore. I assure you she’s
in no danger.”
“You say you only saw her for the first time last night.”
“But that’s a century ago. A myriad things have taken place since, so
now it’s just as if I’d known her all my life.”
He kept his head averted, looking at me sideways; it was the first
time he had shown an indisposition to meet me face to face.
“It’s like that? I see.” He drew in his lips to moisten them. “A case
of the world well lost for her.”
“You’ve hit it, Hume.”
“Suppose, for illustration’s sake, that this and that were fitted
together so as to make it seem--only seem, you understand--that you
actually did kill Lawrence, what then?”
“I don’t know what it is, but, in this instance, something seems to be
warping your natural intelligence, or I’m persuaded that you’d
perceive, as I perceive, that the truth will out, and that before very
long.”
“Then am I to take it you’ll walk away with banners flying?”
“I don’t know about the banners flying, but I’ll walk away.”
“With her?”
“You’ve no right to say that.”
“And what right do you suppose you have to say what you’ve been
saying, when you know that she’s to me the light of my eyes, the
breath of my nostrils? when, these dozen years and more, since she was
a little child in little frocks, I’ve waited on her will, won for her
a place upon the stage I hate because she loved it, blazoned abroad
her fame, because to be famous was her pleasure, although I knew that
every cry of applause took her farther from me still, and farther! And
now you come and say that you saw her for the first time last night,
yet talk glibly of having known her all your life, and brag of being
ready to sacrifice yourself for her. Do you think if she were herself
she’d accept your sacrifice?--you speak of knowing her, and yet think
that? Go to!--But, see here, if you burn with a desire to make
yourself a scapegoat, I am willing.”
“You are willing?”
“She’ll never be. But if we put together here a little, there a
little, line upon line, we’ll make out your guilt so clearly that
there’s not a jury which wouldn’t see it, nor a judge who wouldn’t
hang you. Shall we arrange it between us, you and I?”
“You are very good.”
“That she’ll be in gaol by this time to-morrow is pretty positive; I
shouldn’t be surprised if Symonds was applying for a warrant at this
moment. If you think that you will free her by merely going and
saying, ‘I did it, it wasn’t she,’ you are under a delusion. She’ll
not be freed like that; they’ll need chapter and verse. You’ll have to
tell a plain tale plainly; how you planned the thing, how you did it,
how you sought to hide your guilt by throwing the blame of it on her.
“Your tale will want corroboration; the support of independent
evidence. I could say a thing or two, with perfect truth, which would
go some way towards hanging you. Your concealment of the fact that you
were in the room would look ugly, if treated well, and there’s the
girl who saw you flying from it as if the devil were behind you.
There’s the tell-tale marks upon the towel, on the pyjamas; there are
a dozen things, without invention. And with--oh, we could manufacture
a good round tale which would bear the strictest investigation, and
which, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, would set her free for
ever. Shall we set about it now?”
I was silent.
“There’s some one knocking at my door.”
Some one was beating a tattoo upon the panel.
“So there is; and some one in a hurry, it would seem. Perhaps it’s
Symonds. If so, you might make a clean breast of it at once. I’ll
corroborate with what I know. Then she need never fear arrest at all.”