SPRINGFIELD'S PROGRESS
After lunch, I got my chance of a few minutes' chat with Springfield. I
think I managed it without arousing any suspicions; certainly he did not
manifest any, neither did he appear in the slightest degree ruffled when
I talked with him about Edgecumbe's strange illness.
'You have been in India, I think, Springfield?' I said.
'Who told you that?'
'I have almost forgotten. Perhaps it was St. Mabyn, or it might have
been Buller. Were you there long?'
'A couple of years,' he replied. 'I was glad to get away, too. It is a
beastly part of the world.'
'I asked,' I said, 'because Edgecumbe had just come from India when I
first saw him, and I was wondering whether you could throw any light upon
his sudden illness.'
'My dear chap, I'm not a doctor. What does McClure say?'
'He's in a bit of a fog,' I replied, 'so is Merril.'
'Doctors usually are,' he laughed. 'For my own part, I think that a
great deal of fuss has been made about the whole business. After all,
what did it amount to?'
'It was a very strange illness,' I replied.
'Was it? Certainly the fellow was taken bad suddenly, and he fell down
in a sort of fit, but that is nothing strange.'
'It is to a man whose general health is as good as that of Edgecumbe.'
'Yes, but India plays ducks and drakes with any man's constitution,' he
replied. 'You see, you know nothing about Edgecumbe, and his loss of
memory may be a very convenient thing to him.'
'What do you mean?
'I mean nothing, except this: Edgecumbe, I presume, has been a man of the
world; how he lost his memory--assuming, of course, that he _has_ lost
it--is a mystery. But he has lived in India, and possibly, while there,
went the whole hog. Excuse me, Luscombe, but I have no romantic notions
about him. He seems to be on the high moral horse just now, but what his
past has been neither of us know. As I said, life in India plays ducks
and drakes with a man's constitution, especially if he has been a bit
wild. Doubtless the remains of some old disease is in his system,
and--and--we saw the results.' He lit a cigarette as he spoke, and I
noticed that his hand was perfectly steady.
'Is that your explanation?' I asked.
'I have no explanation,' he replied, 'but that seems to me as likely as
any other.'
'Because, between ourselves,' I went on, 'both McClure and Merril think
he was poisoned.'
He was silent for a few seconds, as though thinking, then he asked quite
naturally, 'How could that be?'
'McClure, as you know, was an Army doctor in India,' I said.
'Well, then, if any one ought to know, he ought,' and he puffed at his
cigarette; 'but what symptoms did he give of being poisoned?'
I detailed Edgecumbe's condition, his torpor, and the symptoms which
followed.
'Is there anything suggestive of poisoning in that?' he asked, like a man
curious.
'McClure seems to think so.'
'Of course he may be right,' he replied carelessly, 'but I don't know
enough about the subject to pass an opinion worth having. All the same,
if he were poisoned, it is a wonder to me how he got well so quickly';
and he hummed a popular music-hall air.
'The thing which puzzles McClure,' I went on, 'and he seems to know a
good deal about Indian poisons, is the almost impossibility of such a
thing happening here in England. He says that the Indians have a trick
of poisoning their enemies by pricking them with some little instrument
that they possess, an instrument by which they can inject poison into the
blood. It leaves no mark after death, but is followed by symptoms almost
identical with those which Edgecumbe had. During the time the victim is
suffering, there is a little blue mark on the spot where the injection
was made.'
I looked at him steadily as I spoke, trying to see whether he manifested
any uneasiness or emotion. But he baffled me. I thought I saw his lips
twitch, and his eyes contract, but I might easily have been mistaken. If
he were a guilty man, then he was the greatest actor, and had the most
supreme command over himself, of any one I had ever seen.
'And did you find such a mark on your friend?' he asked, after a few
seconds' silence.
'Yes,' I replied, 'close to the elbow.'
He showed no emotion whatever, and yet I could not help feeling that he
was conscious of what was in my mind. Of course this might be pure
imagination on my part, and I do not think any detective of fiction fame
would have gained the slightest inkling from his face that he was in any
way connected with it.
Springfield took his cigarette case-from his tunic, and extracted another
cigarette. 'It seems a bit funny, doesn't it? but I don't pretend to
offer an explanation. By the way, will he be well enough to go back to
duty when his leave is up?'
'I don't know,' I replied. 'McClure will have to decide that.'
'I should think you will be glad to get rid of him, Luscombe.'
'Why?' I asked.
'The fellow seems such an impossible bounder. Excuse me, but that is how
he struck me.'
'You didn't seem to think so when you thanked him for saving your life,'
was my reply.
'No, of course that was different'; and his voice was somewhat strained
as he spoke. 'I--I ought not to have said that, Luscombe. When one man
owes another his life, he--he should be careful. If I can do the fellow
a good turn, I will; and since in these days anybody can become an
officer in the British Army, I--I----' He stammered uneasily, and then
went on: 'Of course it is different when you have to meet a man as an
equal in a friend's house. But there,--I must be going. I have to get
back to town to-night.'
In spite of what I had said to Edgecumbe, I was angry at seeing that
Springfield spent two hours that afternoon with Lorna Bolivick. There
could be no doubt about it, the fellow had broken down all her antagonism
towards him, and was bent on making a good impression on her. I found,
too, that Sir Thomas Bolivick regarded him with great favour. By some
means or another, the news had come to him that Springfield was a
possible heir to a peerage, and that while he was at present poor, he
would on the death of a distant relative become a very rich man. This
fact had doubtless increased his interest in Springfield, and perhaps had
lessened his annoyance at the fact that Lorna had failed to fall in with
his previous wishes concerning her.
'Remarkably clever fellow.' he confided in me; 'the kind of man who makes
an impression wherever he goes. When I saw him at St. Mabyn's more than
a year ago, I did not like him so much, but he grows on one.'
'By the way, what peerage is he heir to?' I asked. 'I never heard of it
until yesterday.'
'Oh, he'll come into Lord Carbis's title and estates.'
'Carbis? Then it's not an old affair?'
'Oh no,--the present Lord Carbis was created a peer in 1890.'
'A brewer, isn't he?' I asked.
'Yes,' and I thought Sir Thomas looked somewhat uneasy. 'Of course there
are very few old peerages now,' he went on; 'the old families have a way
of dying out, somehow. But Carbis is one of the richest men in the
country. I suppose he paid nearly a million for the Carbis estates.
Carbis Castle is almost medieval, I suppose, and the oldest part of the
building was commenced I don't know how many hundreds of years ago. Oh,
Springfield will be in a magnificent position when the present Lord
Carbis dies.'
'Beer seems a very profitable thing,' I could not help laughing.
'Personally I have no prejudice against these beer peerages,' replied Sir
Thomas somewhat warmly. 'Of course I would prefer a more ancient
creation, but these are democratic days. If a man creates a great
fortune by serving the State, why shouldn't he be honoured? When you
come to think about it, I suppose the brewing class has provided more
peerages than any other during the last fifty years. Come now,
Luscombe,' and Sir Thomas looked at me almost angrily.
Just before Colonel McClure left, he drew me aside, and asked me if I had
spoken to Springfield, and on my describing our conversation, he looked
very grave.
'I can't make it out, Luscombe,' he said. 'If my twelve years'
experience in India goes for anything, your friend Edgecumbe was
poisoned. He had every symptom of a man who had a subtle and deadly
poison injected into his blood. And the way he responded to the
treatment I gave him coincided exactly with what I have seen a dozen
times in India.'
'Might it not be merely a coincidence?' I asked.
'Of course almost anything is possible,' he replied, 'and I could not
swear in a court of law that he had been poisoned. I gather you are fond
of Edgecumbe,' he added.
'Yes,' I replied; 'it may be it is owing to the peculiar circumstances by
which we were brought together, and from the fact that more than once he
saved my life. And no man could love his brother more than I love him.'
'Then,' said Colonel McClure earnestly, 'watch over him, my friend; guard
him as if he were your own son.'
I spent a good deal of time in Edgecumbe's room that night, but we
scarcely spoke. He was sleeping most of the time, and I was warned
against exciting him. The following day, however, he was quite like his
natural self, and expressed his determination to get up. As Colonel
McClure had encouraged this, I made no attempt to oppose him, and the
afternoon of the Monday being fine and sunny, we walked in the park
together.
'Springfield's gone to London, hasn't he?' he asked.
'Yes,' I replied; and then I blurted out, 'He spent yesterday afternoon
with Miss Bolivick. I am inclined to think you are right about his
intentions concerning her.'
'Do you think he has spoken to her?'
'I shouldn't be surprised, and for that matter I am inclined to think he
has had a serious conversation with her father.'
I was almost sorry, when I saw the look on his face, that I had spoken in
this way. He became very pale, and his lips quivered as though he were
much moved. 'Of course,' I went on, trying to make the best of my _faux
pas_, 'it may be a good thing for you.'
'Why?' he asked.
'If he has been successful, it will make you see how foolish your
thoughts are.'
'Do you know me so little as that?' he asked.
'But surely, my dear fellow,' I said, 'in the face of what I said
yesterday, you will not think of entertaining such impossible ideas?'
'You mean about my having a wife somewhere,' and he laughed.
'I mean that, under the most favourable circumstances, no honourable man
could, in your position, ask a woman to marry him.'
'I mean to ask her, though,' was his reply.
'But, my dear fellow----'
'Luscombe,' and there was a steady look in his eyes as he spoke, 'I have
thought it all out. Almighty God never put such a love in a man's heart
as He has put in my heart for Lorna Bolivick, to laugh at him. At the
very first opportunity I shall tell her everything.'
'And if she refuses you,' I said, 'as most likely she will?'
'I shall still love her, and never give up hoping and striving.'
'You mean----?'
'I mean that nothing will turn me aside from my determination,
nothing,--nothing.'
'But supposing you have a wife,--supposing that when you were a boy,
before you lost your memory, you married some one, what then?'
'Don't talk rubbish, old man,' was his reply.
'After all,' I reflected that night when I went to bed, 'perhaps it is
best that he should speak to her. She will regard his declaration as
madness, and will tell him so. He never saw her until three hours ago,
and if, as I suspect, Springfield has fascinated her, she will make him
see what a fool he has been. Then he will give up his madness.'
That was why I left them together the next day. All the same, there was
a curious pain in my heart as I saw them walk away side by side, for I
knew by the light in his eyes that he meant to carry out his
determination.