THE MASK FALLS
The door had closed upon Inspector Quickjohn, and Herriard sat
motionless, as though dazed by this last turn of the situation. He had
been wandering blindfold in a maze, and had suddenly found the centre.
Or, rather, he felt as though he had been moving unsuspectingly over
the meshes of a great spider’s web, had reached at length the central
plexus, and was there held, uncertain from which point the fell spinner
of the web would dart down to attack him. Which was the safe way out of
this coil of evil? At least he would not wait paralyzed: he must act.
The chiming of a clock warned him of his engagement to Gastineau. No;
he could not go there again. The man might not, after all, be an actual
murderer, Martindale might have brought his death on himself. Still, if
anything in this world were sure, it was certain that Paul Gastineau
was a son of evil, as full of cunning malice as a man could be. How
should he meet him again, how could he touch that guilty hand? Never.
The breach must be made at once, and if a fight was inevitable, he must
declare it.
Herriard drew a case of telegraph forms towards him and filled one
in to Gastineau under his assumed name. “Detained in chambers, sorry
cannot see you to-night.” He went out and sent it off, then turned into
a restaurant hard by and ate his dinner with what appetite was left
him.
“He killed Martindale,” that was the one fact which kept crying aloud
in his brain. He could think of nothing else. How fate had completed
the circle! He tried to analyze the consequences. Was this knowledge a
weapon in his hand to crush Gastineau? Yes. No. At least, how could he
use it? Would it not mean that Gastineau with his devilish ingenuity
would probably turn aside the blow that looked so telling, and make a
swift, fierce counter attack to his opponent’s destruction? How could
he, Herriard, accuse of a terrible crime the man with whom he had had
such a questionable connection? He was the only man in the world who
knew that Gastineau had survived his injuries. What an incredible, and,
indeed, disreputable, tale he would have to tell if he ventured to
speak out.
Underlying the whole terrible perplexity was a novel dread of meeting
Gastineau. Herriard determined that he would return to his chambers
at once and write a letter which should break their acquaintance in
unmistakable terms once for all. Fortunately there would be no need to
touch upon this last reason; Gastineau’s expressed opinion of Alexia’s
guilt was quite sufficient to justify her future husband in ceasing to
be friendly with him; indeed it was the course which honour indicated.
So, turning over in his mind the most effective wording of the letter,
Herriard walked back to the Temple. He would write the letter and post
it at once; so it would be off his mind, and the sooner he could make
Gastineau show his hand the sooner would his suspense be at an end.
He went in, lighted a lamp and began the draft of his letter, the most
distasteful he had ever had to write, but as imperative a task as it
was repugnant. He wrote: “I have not been able to keep my appointment
with you this evening. I had a long consultation after the Courts
rose, and have been kept in chambers by other business which I did not
foresee. But there is another reason why I am not coming on to see you
to-night. Our meetings of late have shown me that we are no longer
working harmoniously together as formerly. Whose the fault it seems
scarcely worth considering, but the fact stands that our differences
are becoming daily more accentuated, and we are, above all, seriously
at issue upon one, to me, most vital point. I think, then, that it is
time our connection came to an end, as our friendship seems already
to have done. Your restoration to health and active life obviates
any reproach which I might otherwise incur. The time for separation
is apt, and you will understand that I could not continue to meet on
terms of friendship a man who accuses of a terrible crime the woman
who will shortly be my wife and of whose innocence I am absolutely
convinced. This determination, to which I see no alternative, in no way
contradicts the sense of my obligations to you. Your advice and help
in----” he stopped. He could hardly be churlish enough to part from
Gastineau without an acknowledgment of all he owed him. And yet was it
wise or safe to put down that indebtedness in black and white, and give
it to this abnormally unscrupulous man?
Herriard’s whole legal training and experience told him it was rash and
dangerous, nothing less than the forging of a very effective weapon to
be used against himself.
Yet if the fact of their partnership was ever to be brought up against
him, he told himself, he would not deny it, even could he do so
successfully. He had done with him now, he was resolved; and by the
truth he stood ready to atone for what had been false in his career.
Still that was no reason why he need make his acknowledgments to
Gastineau in so explicit a form that all the world might comprehend
exactly what their connection had been. He drew his pen through the
last words of the draft and began the passage again.
“To your advice----”
A knock came at the outer door. It startled him disagreeably,
ominously. He laid down his pen, wondering who this late visitor could
be. Opening the door he found himself face to face with the man on whom
he would have been glad never to set eyes again.
“You, Gastineau?” he exclaimed, in a negative tone.
“I,” came the almost jeering response. “I hope I have not startled you.”
As Herriard drew back, Gastineau walked past him into the entrance
lobby with the air of a man who could dispense with an invitation and
would take no refusal. Herriard closed the door, and, indicating the
way, followed him into the room.
“So you would not come to see me, Mr. Herriard,” Gastineau said, with
a sneer, as he turned abruptly, his keen eyes taking in all that was
in the room. “It was, however, necessary that I should confer with you
to-night--you know how I hate procrastination--so I have come to see
you. I wonder what the business was that kept you here. The composition
of a love-letter?”
The man’s contemptuous, malignant tone seemed to touch the utmost
limits of a sneer. His quick glance had noticed the letter to himself,
which lay half written on the desk.
“No,” Herriard answered quietly; “not a love-letter.”
“That’s well,” Gastineau returned, “for it is about this love affair of
yours that I want to talk to you.”
“Holding as we do such different opinions of Countess Alexia, I would
rather the subject were not mentioned between us,” Herriard replied. He
felt that the crisis had come, and that it would not do for him to show
weakness. He must face this man, and, after all, with the knowledge
just gained, he was not defenceless.
“But,” objected Gastineau, in his quick, peremptory way, “it must be
mentioned. You say we are at issue upon the subject. We are--more
seriously than you suppose. And for that very reason we must come to an
understanding, and without delay.”
He had taken his stand opposite Herriard on the farther side of the
writing table, ignoring the chair which the other had pulled round for
him.
“Very well, then,” Herriard responded simply.
Gastineau took out a cigarette and lighted it thoughtfully, with the
air of a man considering how best he should frame what he had to say.
Herriard sat and watched him in expectant silence.
“The case I have to put to you, my dear Herriard, is somewhat
involved,” Gastineau began, in a tone whose lightness rather surprised
his listener; “and I shall have to touch upon a subject or two which
I would rather avoid. But, you see, when a man performs the feat of a
veritable resurrection such as mine he is bound to find the line of his
life tangled into certain awkward complications. That is inevitable;
you will grant that?”
The demand was made in the same easy, buoyant tone. Herriard nodded.
“No doubt it is,” he answered curtly.
“So long as I lay in my living grave on that couch,” pursued Gastineau,
exhaling a long whiff of smoke, “I looked upon my past life, my former
existence as a closed book. I anticipated no reason ever to unclasp it.
But I reckoned without our Dr. Hallamar.”
“Yes,” Herriard responded, as the other man paused.
“Now,” Gastineau continued, always in his tone of airy argument,
“it being agreed that my coming to active life again must upset all
calculations, the question, among others, of its interference with our
reciprocal arrangement, our partnership, comes up.”
“Naturally,” Herriard acquiesced readily.
“Naturally.” Gastineau took up the word. “I wake to life to find you
filling the place which rightly belongs to me, and which I want, or, at
least, might want to occupy myself.”
“Yes,” replied Herriard quietly, “and which in common justice I should
have no wish to keep from you.”
Gastineau took the cigarette from his lips with a deprecating wave of
the hand. “Don’t be in a hurry, Mr. Geoffrey Herriard,” he said, with
a patronizing laugh. “I am not at all sure that I want your place, and
if I did, I fancy there is room in the world, legal and political, for
both of us. It is not there, in the House, or at the Bar, that we are
likely to be rivals.”
Naturally he would not guess how clear the significance of his last
words was to Herriard who sat watching and wondering what place there
could be in the world for this callous, gibing man-slayer. “I don’t
see why we should be rivals at all,” he observed tentatively.
Gastineau was lighting another cigarette. “No, my dear fellow, you
don’t. Because the book I just spoke of has been kept closed to you. I
must open it at a certain page, and show you why.”
“Yes?”
Gastineau took a step forward and seated himself on the corner of the
writing table. He was half turned away from Herriard. For a few seconds
he smoked meditatively and there was silence between them. At length he
spoke. “Once upon a time, before my ill-luck,” he laughed,--“I refer
to the railway accident--brought me into connection with Mr. Geoffrey
Herriard, I was in love, deeply in love, with a certain lady whom I
will name in a moment. When I became dead to the world all idea of
that sort of thing was out of the question; but the _status quo_ has
very strangely and unexpectedly cropped up again. You have followed?
Since our acquaintance, my mantle has fallen upon the said Mr. Geoffrey
Herriard, and on the whole he has worn it worthily. It is curious that
he should moreover have lighted upon a certain favour which I had
proposed to pin to the said mantle, and had lost. My friend is welcome
to keep the serviceable cloak, but the particular ornament with which
he proposes to adorn it I must ask him to give up.”
He paused, and a dead, tense silence followed. Gastineau smoked on
nonchalantly, waiting for the other man to speak.
At length the reply came in a low voice.
“You ask me to give it up on the assumption that you have more right to
it than I?”
Gastineau nodded. “Just so.”
“I deny it.”
Gastineau rose to his feet and flung the cigarette-end into the
fire-place. “I was afraid you might,” he said coolly, as he turned and
faced Herriard; then added, “afraid for your sake, not my own.”
The preliminaries were over now, and the fight was to begin in real
earnest. Nevertheless Gastineau’s manner was as cool and easy as ever.
It was like a light comedian playing, with his characteristic methods,
a strong, dramatic part.
“I deny,” Herriard repeated, leaning back and meeting his look, “I deny
that the prior claim you allege is valid.”
“Allege?”
“Allege. Were you ever engaged to the Countess Alexia von Rohnburg?”
“Practically, yes.”
“I take upon myself to deny that also.” How he had come to loathe this
man whose manifest character fitted in every moment more closely with
his recently gained knowledge of him.
“You do?” Gastineau laughed, but it was an ugly laugh now. “On what
grounds, pray?”
“I think,” Herriard answered, “the Countess Alexia would support my
denial. Anyhow, I am content to maintain my position on the assumption
that she was never engaged to you.”
“And if you find you are wrong?”
“To retire in your favour, at the Countess’s bidding.”
“I think,” Gastineau returned, in a set tone of determination, “we need
not wait for that.”
Herriard thought of Alexia, then of the man before him, and his
obvious intention to renew the old persecution. He rose and faced him.
“I do not understand you, Gastineau,” he said steadily. “You say you
believe Countess Alexia guilty of Martindale’s death, yet it seems you
want to marry her.”
Gastineau gave an ugly laugh, the scoffing, derisive note of
intellectual evil. “Why not, my good Herriard? _L’un n’empèche pas
l’autre._ The devil in a woman has an irresistible attraction for
some men; men of a certain enterprise and courage. You remember the
notorious Raymond case? I forget the average number of offers of
marriage Mrs. Raymond received every day during the inquest and trial.
The Countess is much more suited to be my wife than yours. Anyhow, I
mean to claim her.”
Herriard flushed with indignation. Alexia the wife of this cold-blooded
schemer, this incarnation of militant spite? The idea was hideous,
unbearable.
“The Countess Alexia is engaged to me,” he said with restraint. “I do
not mean to give her up to you or any man.”
Gastineau just let his eyes rest on Herriard’s face for an instant.
Then, laughing, he turned and lighted another cigarette. “I am sorry
to hear it for your own sake, my dear Geoffrey,” he replied, with the
dangerous suavity of the feline’s velvet paw. “You mean to fight?”
Herriard laughed now, bitterly enough.
“You surely can scarcely expect me to give up the Countess at your cool
request.”
Gastineau shrugged. “Perhaps not,” he returned slowly. “It may need
more than a request. In the meantime--you are an ungrateful dog,
Geoffrey Herriard. It only shows even I can be a fool sometimes; I
actually thought I might expect gratitude from you.”
“I am grateful, very grateful to you,” Herriard returned sturdily. “I
am fully sensible of all you have done for me and of the debt I owe
you. But when you talk of my giving up to you the woman who is going to
be my wife you are asking more than is reasonable, you are asking me to
pay you by robbing another.”
“Indeed?” Gastineau, still in his mood of devilish coolness, raised his
brows in a sneer. “I did not think it was as bad as that. What a change
the point of view makes. Now my idea is that I am simply asking you, in
return for the benefits you have received from me, not to make a fuss
about returning some lost property of mine which you have accidentally
found.”
“I must deny that,” Herriard returned, with set face.
“Deny what?” was the bland inquiry.
“That the property, that the Countess Alexia, ever was yours.”
Gastineau’s face assumed a look of tolerant protest. It was as though
he were considering what argument he could use with a man whose
reasoning was so dense and trivial. So for a few moments he smoked in
silence. Then he asked, “She has told you so?”
“Practically.”
“Ah!” Gastineau affected to see his way clear once more. “The Countess
has mentioned my name to you?”
“Yes.”
The other nodded receptively. “What, may I ask, has she told you?”
The question was pertinent enough; more critical than Gastineau let his
manner indicate.
“Merely,” Herriard answered, “that you made love to her, and that she
did not return the feeling. That should explain my refusal to yield my
claim to yours.”
“It might,” Gastineau sneered, “to a shallow mind.” Manifestly, he
was pricked disagreeably by Herriard’s pointed answer; his coolness
was now maintained by an effort. “You might,” he continued, “by this
have known me better than to suppose that I should allow myself to be
defrauded of what I choose to set my heart upon. But we shall see. So
the Countess told you she did not reciprocate my feeling. That was a
somewhat gratuitous and easy statement to make about a dead man. Don’t
you think so. By the way,” he gave Herriard no time to answer the
question, fixing his piercing eyes upon him with the look that seemed
to penetrate all prevarication, all evasion, to scorch up the mere
fencing of the tongue, “I presume the Countess has no idea that I am
alive?”
“None,” came the ready answer. “She certainly believes you to be dead.”
Obviously frank though the reply was, Gastineau demanded again, “You
have not told her that I am alive?”
“No, I tell you.”
“Or even half alive?”
“No, no. I should be sorry to.”
“Would you?” he snapped suspiciously. “Why?”
The question was an awkward one, seeing that Herriard had no desire to
irritate Gastineau unnecessarily. He gave a shrug. “It might cause her
the embarrassment of an unpleasant _arrière pensée_.”
“Why embarrassment? Why unpleasant?” The sharp questions came with the
insistence not merely of a keen cross-examiner, but of a jealous man.
“The thought that she could never return your affection,” Herriard
answered, as plausibly as he could.
“That,” Gastineau returned, with quiet incisiveness, “is a matter you
may leave to me.”
The cool superiority of his tone stung Herriard, giving him the
necessary spur to stand up to his dangerous adversary. “Understand,
Gastineau,” he retorted, “that I decline to leave it to you.”
“You do?”
“As Countess Alexia’s affianced husband, I do--naturally.”
“Naturally!” Gastineau repeated the word with an infinity of mocking
scorn. “You would. It was only to be expected. And, as the expected, I
am prepared to meet it.”
“Very well,” Herriard replied. “We now know how we stand. I am, at
least, glad you pay me the compliment of anticipating that I should not
be ready to give up the Countess.”
“It is scarcely a compliment from my point of view,” Gastineau
rejoined, with a vicious drawing back of the lips into the semblance
of a smile. “If you were not a fool, Geoffrey Herriard, you would know
better than to oppose yourself to a man who lets nothing thwart him.”
“We may be equally determined in this affair,” Herriard returned with
restraint; “you to persecute the Countess, I to protect her.”
“Persecute?” Gastineau cried, with a short, high-pitched laugh.
“Persecute is a strong word, Herriard.”
“Yet, I fancy, the correct one.”
“Where did you learn it? From the Countess?”
“Perhaps.”
Gastineau drew in his breath sharply through his clenched teeth. “Very
well. And so we are going to fight. My last piece of advice to my apt
pupil,” he sneered, “might be to consider the consequences of joining
issue with a man who, he knows, never submits to defeat, who, he might
imagine, will let nothing stand in his way, even a life, when once his
resolve is taken.”
“I quite understand that; it needs no effort of the imagination,”
Herriard retorted, as for a moment his temper and his repugnance for
the man who, with such glib assurance, stood threatening him, got the
better of his restraint.
The slight hit told. The only question was whether it had not been a
chance one from a bow drawn at a venture. Into Gastineau’s eyes there
sprang that fierce look of piercing enquiry which was characteristic
of the man’s avid mind. “You know that,” he snarled, the effort at
sneering coolness ousted by the obtrusion of a dark suspicion. “You
know that,” he repeated insolently, “do you?”
But the other man was now on his guard. “Evidently, by your own
showing, I ought to believe you capable of anything,” he answered, with
almost a sneer bred of his consciousness of power in reserve.
“You meant more than that,” Gastineau insisted.
“Could I mean more than that?” came the obvious retort.
Gastineau for a moment was silent. Only his fierce eyes seemed to
scorch into Herriard’s mind, to read the working of his secret soul.
Then with a snatch he took up his hat. “Enough of this,” he exclaimed
with vicious impatience. “I am never sorry when words fail and we come
to action. I have your answer, Herriard? You will not break off this
engagement and make way for me?”
“Decidedly not. The question is hardly worth answering.”
The words, considering to whom spoken, were bold, but Gastineau seemed
scarcely to hear them. On his way towards the door he had moved round
to the side of the writing table. His eyes were fixed upon a card which
lay on it, a card which announced the visit of Detective Inspector
Quickjohn. Herriard had gone towards the door to open it, and now
turned to see why his visitor lingered. Gastineau’s glance had shifted
from Quickjohn’s card to the unfinished letter to himself which still
lay open on the desk. In an instant he had grasped the fact that he had
surprised Herriard in the act of writing to him.
“A letter to me,” he exclaimed, as with a swift movement he caught up
the paper. “I may read it, and so save trouble, or, at least, delay.”
As he spoke his eyes were rapidly running down the page. The purport of
the letter was already his when Herriard put forth a protesting hand.
“It is of no importance now,” he said hastily. “Your visit has rendered
it needless for me to write.”
But Gastineau kept the paper from the other’s hand. His face as he read
grew dark and sneering, and a sneer was but that cynic’s handy mask.
“It is written to me, intended for me,” he maintained, turning to evade
Herriard’s effort to snatch the letter. “I have surely a right to read
it.”
“You have none,” Herriard objected.
The sharp eyes had got the pith of the letter, and Gastineau threw
it on the table. “So!” He seemed to reflect for a few moments, to be
making a swift resolve. Herriard, intending to let him out, had left
the door ajar. Gastineau moved suddenly forward, and, instead of, as
the other expected, passing out, he quickly shut the door and locked
it.