The dead man’s manuscript was gone. But how? A phantom might delude my
eye, a human will, though exerted at a distance, might, if the tales
of mesmerism be true, deprive me of movement and of consciousness; but
neither phantom nor mesmeric will could surely remove from the table
before me the material substance of the book that had vanished! Was I to
seek explanation in the arts of sorcery ascribed to Louis Grayle in the
narrative? I would not pursue that conjecture. Against it my reason rose
up half alarmed, half disdainful. Some one must have entered the room,
some one have removed the manuscript. I looked round. The windows were
closed, the curtains partly drawn over the shutters, as they were before
my consciousness had left me: all seemed undisturbed. Snatching up one
of the candles, fast dying out, I went into the adjoining library, the
desolate state-rooms, into the entrance-hall, and examined the outer
door, barred and locked! The robber had left no vestige of his stealthy
presence.
I resolved to go at once to Strahan’s room and tell him of the loss
sustained. A deposit had been confided to me, and I felt as if there
were a slur on my honour every moment in which I kept its abstraction
concealed from him to whom I was responsible for the trust. I hastily
ascended the great staircase, grim with faded portraits, and found
myself in a long corridor opening on my own bedroom; no doubt also on
Strahan’s. Which was his? I knew not. I opened rapidly door after door,
peered into empty chambers, went blundering on, when to the right,
down a narrow passage. I recognized the signs of my host’s
whereabouts,--signs familiarly commonplace and vulgar; signs by
which the inmate of any chamber in lodging-house or inn makes himself
known,--a chair before a doorway, clothes negligently thrown on it,
beside it a pair of shoes. And so ludicrous did such testimony of common
every-day life, of the habits which Strahan would necessarily have
contracted in his desultory unluxurious bachelor’s existence,--so
ludicrous, I say, did these homely details seem to me, so grotesquely at
variance with the wonders of which I had been reading, with the wonders
yet more incredible of which I myself had been witness and victim, that
as I turned down the passage, I heard my own unconscious half-hysterical
laugh; and, startled by the sound of that laugh as if it came from some
one else, I paused, my hand on the door, and asked myself: “Do I dream?
Am I awake? And if awake what am I to say to the commonplace mortal I
am about to rouse? Speak to him of a phantom! Speak to him of some weird
spell over this strong frame! Speak to him of a mystic trance in which
has been stolen what he confided to me, without my knowledge! What will
he say? What should I have said a few days ago to any man who told such
a tale to me?” I did not wait to resolve these questions. I entered the
room. There was Strahan sound asleep on his bed. I shook him roughly. He
started up, rubbed his eyes. “You, Allen,--you! What the deuce?--what ‘s
the matter?”
“Strahan, I have been robbed!--robbed of the manuscript you lent me. I
could not rest till I had told you.”
“Robbed, robbed! Are you serious?”
By this time Strahan had thrown off the bed-clothes, and sat upright,
staring at me.
And then those questions which my mind had suggested while I was
standing at his door repeated themselves with double force. Tell this
man, this unimaginative, hard-headed, raw-boned, sandy-haired North
countryman,--tell this man a story which the most credulous school-girl
would have rejected as a fable! Impossible!
“I fell asleep,” said I, colouring and stammering, for the slightest
deviation from truth was painful to me, “and-and--when I awoke--the
manuscript was gone. Some one must have entered and committed the
theft--”
“Some one entered the house at this hour of the night and then only
stolen a manuscript which could be of no value to him! Absurd! If
thieves have come in it must be for other objects,--for plate, for
money. I will dress; we will see!”
Strahan hurried on his clothes, muttering to himself and avoiding my
eye. He was embarrassed. He did not like to say to an old friend what
was on his mind; but I saw at once that he suspected I had resolved to
deprive him of the manuscript, and had invented a wild tale in order to
conceal my own dishonesty.
Nevertheless, he proceeded to search the house. I followed him in
silence, oppressed with my own thoughts, and longing for solitude in
my own chamber. We found no one, no trace of any one, nothing to
excite suspicion. There were but two female servants sleeping in the
house,--the old housekeeper, and a country girl who assisted her. It was
not possible to suspect either of these persons; but in the course of
our search we opened the doors of their rooms. We saw that they were
both in bed, both seemingly asleep: it seemed idle to wake and question
them. When the formality of our futile investigation was concluded,
Strahan stopped at the door of my bedroom, and for the first time fixing
his eyes on me steadily, said,--
“Allen Fenwick, I would have given half the fortune I have come
into rather than this had happened. The manuscript, as you know, was
bequeathed to me as a sacred trust by a benefactor whose slightest wish
it is my duty to observe religiously. If it contained aught valuable to
a man of your knowledge and profession, why, you were free to use its
contents. Let me hope, Allen, that the book will reappear to-morrow.”
He said no more, drew himself away from the hand I involuntarily
extended, and walked quickly back towards his own room.
Alone once more, I sank on a seat, buried my face in my hands, and
strove in vain to collect into some definite shape my own tumultuous
and disordered thoughts. Could I attach serious credit to the marvellous
narrative I had read? Were there, indeed, such powers given to man, such
influences latent in the calm routine of Nature? I could not believe
it; I must have some morbid affection of the brain; I must be under an
hallucination. Hallucination? The phantom, yes; the trance, yes. But
still, how came the book gone? That, at least, was not hallucination.
I left my room the next morning with a vague hope that I should find the
manuscript somewhere in the study; that, in my own trance, I might
have secreted it, as sleep-walkers are said to secrete things, without
remembrance of their acts in their waking state.
I searched minutely in every conceivable place. Strahan found me still
employed in that hopeless task. He had breakfasted in his own room, and
it was past eleven o’clock when he joined me. His manner was now hard,
cold, and distant, and his suspicion so bluntly shown that my distress
gave way to resentment.
“Is it possible,” I cried indignantly, “that you, who have known me
so well, can suspect me of an act so base, and so gratuitously base?
Purloin, conceal a book confided to me, with full power to copy from it
whatever I might desire, use its contents in any way that might seem to
me serviceable to science, or useful to me in my own calling!”
“I have not accused you,” answered Strahan, sullenly. “But what are
we to say to Mr. Jeeves; to all others who know that this manuscript
existed? Will they believe what you tell me?”
“Mr. Jeeves,” I said, “cannot suspect a fellow-townsman, whose character
is as high as mine, of untruth and theft. And to whom else have you
communicated the facts connected with a memoir and a request of so
extraordinary a nature?”
“To young Margrave; I told you so!”
“True, true. We need not go farther to find the thief. Margrave has been
in this house more than once. He knows the position of the rooms. You
have named the robber!”
“Tut! what on earth could a gay young fellow like Margrave want with
a work of such dry and recondite nature as I presume my poor kinsman’s
memoir must be?”
I was about to answer, when the door was abruptly opened, and the
servant-girl entered, followed by two men, in whom I recognized the
superintendent of the L---- police and the same subordinate who had
found me by Sir Philip’s corpse.
The superintendent came up to me with a grave face, and whispered in my
ear. I did not at first comprehend him. “Come with you,” I said, “and to
Mr. Vigors, the magistrate? I thought my deposition was closed.”
The superintendent shook his head. “I have the authority here, Dr.
Fenwick.”
“Well, I will come, of course. Has anything new transpired?”
The superintendent turned to the servant-girl, who was standing with
gaping mouth and staring eyes.
“Show us Dr. Fenwick’s room. You had better put up, sir, whatever things
you have brought here. I will go upstairs with you,” he whispered again.
“Come, Dr. Fenwick, I am in the discharge of my duty.”
Something in the man’s manner was so sinister and menacing that I felt
at once that some new and strange calamity had befallen me. I turned
towards Strahan. He was at the threshold, speaking in a low voice to
the subordinate policeman, and there was an expression of amazement and
horror in his countenance. As I came towards him he darted away without
a word.
I went up the stairs, entered my bedroom, the superintendent close
behind me. As I took up mechanically the few things I had brought
with me, the police-officer drew them from me with an abruptness that
appeared insolent, and deliberately searched the pockets of the coat
which I had worn the evening before, then opened the drawers in the
room, and even pried into the bed.
“What do you mean?” I asked haughtily.
“Excuse me, sir. Duty. You are-”
“Well, I am what?”
“My prisoner; here is the warrant.”
“Warrant! on what charge?”
“The murder of Sir Philip Derval.”
“I--I! Murder!” I could say no more.
I must hurry over this awful passage in my marvellous record. It is
torture to dwell on the details; and indeed I have so sought to chase
them from my recollection, that they only come back to me in hideous
fragments, like the incoherent remains of a horrible dream.
All that I need state is as follows: Early on the very morning on which
I had been arrested, a man, a stranger in the town, had privately sought
Mr. Vigors, and deposed that on the night of the murder, he had been
taking refuge from a sudden storm under shelter of the eaves and
buttresses of a wall adjoining an old archway; that he had heard men
talking within the archway; had heard one say to the other, “You still
bear me a grudge.” The other had replied, “I can forgive you on one
condition.” That he then lost much of the conversation that ensued,
which was in a lower voice; but he gathered enough to know that the
condition demanded by the one was the possession of a casket which the
other carried about with him; that there seemed an altercation on this
matter between the two men, which, to judge by the tones of voice, was
angry on the part of the man demanding the casket; that, finally, this
man said in a loud key, “Do you still refuse?” and on receiving the
answer, which the witness did not overhear, exclaimed threateningly, “It
is you who will repent,” and then stepped forth from the arch into the
street. The rain had then ceased, but by a broad flash of lightning
the witness saw distinctly the figure of the person thus quitting the
shelter of the arch,--a man of tall stature, powerful frame, erect
carriage. A little time afterwards, witness saw a slighter and older man
come forth from the arch, whom he could only examine by the flickering
ray of the gas-lamp near the wall, the lightning having ceased, but whom
he fully believed to be the person he afterwards discovered to be Sir
Philip Derval.
He said that he himself had only arrived at the town a few hours before;
a stranger to L----, and indeed to England, having come from the United
States of America, where he had passed his life from childhood. He had
journeyed on foot to L----, in the hope of finding there some distant
relatives. He had put up at a small inn, after which he had strolled
through the town, when the storm had driven him to seek shelter. He had
then failed to find his way back to the inn, and after wandering about
in vain, and seeing no one at that late hour of night of whom he could
ask the way, he had crept under a portico and slept for two or three
hours. Waking towards the dawn, he had then got up, and again sought to
find his way to the inn, when he saw, in a narrow street before him,
two men, one of whom he recognized as the taller of the two to whose
conversation he had listened under the arch; the other he did not
recognize at the moment. The taller man seemed angry and agitated, and
he heard him say, “The casket; I will have it.” There then seemed to be
a struggle between these two persons, when the taller one struck down
the shorter, knelt on his breast, and he caught distinctly the gleam of
some steel instrument. That he was so frightened that he could not stir
from the place, and that though he cried out, he believed his voice was
not heard. He then saw the taller man rise, the other resting on the
pavement motionless; and a minute or so afterwards beheld policemen
coming to the place, on which he, the witness, walked away. He did not
know that a murder had been committed; it might be only an assault; it
was no business of his, he was a stranger. He thought it best not to
interfere, the police having cognizance of the affair. He found out his
inn; for the next few days he was absent from L---- in search of his
relations, who had left the town, many years ago, to fix their residence
in one of the neighbouring villages.
He was, however, disappointed; none of these relations now survived. He
had now returned to L----, heard of the murder, was in doubt what to
do, might get himself into trouble if, a mere stranger, he gave
an unsupported testimony. But, on the day before the evidence was
volunteered, as he was lounging in the streets, he had seen a gentleman
pass by on horseback, in whom he immediately recognized the man who,
in his belief, was the murderer of Sir Philip Derval. He inquired of a
bystander the name of the gentleman; the answer was “Dr. Fenwick.” That,
the rest of the day, he felt much disturbed in his mind, not liking to
volunteer such a charge against a man of apparent respectability and
station; but that his conscience would not let him sleep that night,
and he had resolved at morning to go to the magistrate and make a clean
breast of it.
The story was in itself so improbable that any other magistrate but
Mr. Vigors would perhaps have dismissed it in contempt. But Mr. Vigors,
already so bitterly prejudiced against me, and not sorry, perhaps,
to subject me to the humiliation of so horrible a charge, immediately
issued his warrant to search my house. I was absent at Derval Court; the
house was searched. In the bureau in my favourite study, which was left
unlocked, the steel casket was discovered, and a large case-knife, on
the blade of which the stains of blood were still perceptible. On
this discovery I was apprehended; and on these evidences, and on the
deposition of this vagrant stranger, I was not, indeed, committed to
take my trial for murder, but placed in confinement, all bail for my
appearance refused, and the examination adjourned to give time for
further evidence and inquiries. I had requested the professional aid of
Mr. Jeeves. To my surprise and dismay, Mr. Jeeves begged me to excuse
him. He said he was pre-engaged by Mr. Strahan to detect and prosecute
the murderer of Sir P. Derval, and could not assist one accused of the
murder. I gathered from the little he said that Strahan had already been
to him that morning and told him of the missing manuscript, that Strahan
had ceased to be my friend. I engaged another solicitor, a young man of
ability, and who professed personal esteem for me. Mr. Stanton (such
was the lawyer’s name) believed in my innocence; but he warned me that
appearances were grave, he implored me to be perfectly frank with him.
Had I held conversation with Sir Philip under the archway as reported by
the witness? Had I used such or similar words? Had the deceased said, “I
had a grudge against him”? Had I demanded the casket? Had I threatened
Sir Philip that he would repent? And of what,--his refusal?
I felt myself grow pale, as I answered, “Yes; I thought such or similar
expressions had occurred in my conversation with the deceased.”
“What was the reason of the grudge? What was the nature of this casket,
that I should so desire its possession?”
There, I became terribly embarrassed. What could I say to a keen,
sensible, worldly man of law,--tell him of the powder and the fumes, of
the scene in the museum, of Sir Philip’s tale, of the implied identity
of the youthful Margrave with the aged Grayle, of the elixir of life,
and of magic arts? I--I tell such a romance! I,--the noted adversary of
all pretended mysticism; I,--I a sceptical practitioner of medicine! Had
that manuscript of Sir Philip’s been available,--a substantial record
of marvellous events by a man of repute for intellect and learning,--I
might perhaps have ventured to startle the solicitor of L------ with my
revelations. But the sole proof that all which the solicitor urged me
to confide was not a monstrous fiction or an insane delusion had
disappeared; and its disappearance was a part of the terrible mystery
that enveloped the whole. I answered therefore, as composedly as I
could, that “I could have no serious grudge against Sir Philip, whom I
had never seen before that evening; that the words which applied to
my supposed grudge were lightly said by Sir Philip, in reference to a
physiological dispute on matters connected with mesmerical phenomena;
that the deceased had declared his casket, which he had shown me at the
mayor’s house, contained drugs of great potency in medicine; that I had
asked permission to test those drugs myself; and that when I said he
would repent of his refusal, I merely meant that he would repent of
his reliance on drugs not warranted by the experiments of professional
science.”
My replies seemed to satisfy the lawyer so far, but “how could I account
for the casket and the knife being found in my room?”
“In no way but this; the window of my study is a door-window opening on
the lane, from which any one might enter the room. I was in the habit,
not only of going out myself that way, but of admitting through that
door any more familiar private acquaintance.”
“Whom, for instance?”
I hesitated a moment, and then said, with a significance I could not
forbear, “Mr. Margrave! He would know the locale perfectly; he would
know that the door was rarely bolted from within during the daytime:
he could enter at all hours; he could place, or instruct any one to
deposit, the knife and casket in my bureau, which he knew I never kept
locked; it contained no secrets, no private correspondence,--chiefly
surgical implements, or such things as I might want for professional
experiments.”
“Mr. Margrave! But you cannot suspect him--a lively, charming young man,
against whose character not a whisper was ever heard--of connivance with
such a charge against you,--a connivance that would implicate him in the
murder itself; for if you are accused wrongfully, he who accuses you is
either the criminal or the criminal’s accomplice, his instigator or his
tool.”
“Mr. Stanton,” I said firmly, after a moment’s pause, “I do suspect
Mr. Margrave of a hand in this crime. Sir Philip, on seeing him at the
mayor’s house, expressed a strong abhorrence of him, more than hinted
at crimes he had committed, appointed me to come to Derval Court the
day after that on which the murder was committed. Sir Philip had known
something of this Margrave in the East; Margrave might dread exposure,
revelations--of what I know not; but, strange as it may seem to you,
it is my conviction that this young man, apparently so gay and so
thoughtless, is the real criminal, and in some way which I cannot
conjecture has employed this lying vagabond in the fabrication of a
charge against myself. Reflect: of Mr. Margrave’s antecedents we know
nothing; of them nothing was known even by the young gentleman who first
introduced him to the society of this town. If you would serve and
save me, it is to that quarter that you will direct your vigilant and
unrelaxing researches.”
I had scarcely so said when I repented my candour, for I observed in the
face of Mr. Stanton a sudden revulsion of feeling, an utter incredulity
of the accusation I had thus hazarded, and for the first time a doubt of
my own innocence. The fascination exercised by Margrave was universal;
nor was it to be wondered at: for besides the charm of his joyous
presence, he seemed so singularly free from even the errors common
enough with the young,--so gay and boon a companion, yet a shunner of
wine; so dazzling in aspect, so more than beautiful, so courted, so
idolized by women, yet no tale of seduction, of profligacy, attached
to his name! As to his antecedents, he had so frankly owned himself
a natural son, a nobody, a traveller, an idler; his expenses, though
lavish, were so unostentatious, so regularly defrayed; he was so wholly
the reverse of the character assigned to criminals, that it seemed as
absurd to bring a charge of homicide against a butterfly or a goldfinch
as against this seemingly innocent and delightful favourite of humanity
and nature.
However, Mr. Stanton said little or nothing, and shortly afterwards left
me, with a dry expression of hope that my innocence would be cleared
in spite of evidence that, he was bound to say, was of the most serious
character.
I was exhausted. I fell into a profound sleep early that night; it might
be a little after twelve when I woke, and woke as fully, as completely,
as much restored to life and consciousness, as it was then my habit to
be at the break of day. And so waking, I saw, on the wall opposite
my bed, the same luminous phantom I had seen in the wizard’s study
at Derval Court. I have read in Scandinavian legends of an apparition
called the Scin-Laeca, or shining corpse. It is supposed in the northern
superstition, sometimes to haunt sepulchres, sometimes to foretell doom.
It is the spectre of a human body seen in a phosphoric light; and
so exactly did this phantom correspond to the description of such an
apparition in Scandinavian fable that I knew not how to give it a better
name than that of Scin-Laeca,--the shining corpse.
There it was before me, corpse-like, yet not dead; there, as in the
haunted study of the wizard Forman!--the form and the face of Margrave.
Constitutionally, my nerves are strong, and my temper hardy, and now
I was resolved to battle against any impression which my senses might
receive from my own deluding fancies. Things that witnessed for the
first time daunt us witnessed for the second time lose their terror.
I rose from my bed with a bold aspect, I approached the phantom with a
firm step; but when within two paces of it, and my hand outstretched to
touch it, my arm became fixed in air, my feet locked to the ground. I
did not experience fear; I felt that my heart beat regularly, but an
invincible something opposed itself to me. I stood as if turned to
stone. And then from the lips of this phantom there came a voice, but a
voice which seemed borne from a great distance,--very low, muffled, and
yet distinct; I could not even be sure that my ear heard it, or whether
the sound was not conveyed to me by an inner sense.
“I, and I alone, can save and deliver you,” said the voice. “I will do
so; and the conditions I ask, in return, are simple and easy.”
“Fiend or spectre, or mere delusion of my own brain,” cried I, “there
can be no compact between thee and me. I despise thy malice, I reject
thy services; I accept no conditions to escape from the one or to obtain
the other.”
“You may give a different answer when I ask again.”
The Scin-Laeca slowly waned, and, fading first into a paler shadow, then
vanished. I rejoiced at the reply I had given. Two days elapsed before
Mr. Stanton again came to me; in the interval the Scin-Laeca did not
reappear. I had mustered all my courage, all my common-sense, noted down
all the weak points of the false evidence against me, and felt calm and
supported by the strength of my innocence.
The first few words of the solicitor dashed all my courage to the
ground; for I was anxious to hear news of Lilian, anxious to have
some message from her that might cheer and strengthen me, and my first
question was this,--
“Mr. Stanton, you are aware that I am engaged in marriage to Miss
Ashleigh. Your family are not unacquainted with her. What says, what
thinks she of this monstrous charge against her betrothed?”
“I was for two hours at Mrs. Ashleigh’s house last evening,” replied
the lawyer; “she was naturally anxious to see me as employed in your
defence. Who do you think was there? Who, eager to defend you, to
express his persuasion of your innocence, to declare his conviction
that the real criminal would be soon discovered,--who but that same Mr.
Margrave; whom, pardon me my frankness, you so rashly and groundlessly
suspected.”
“Heavens! Do you say that he is received in that house; that he--he is
familiarly admitted to her presence?”
“My good sir, why these unjust prepossessions against a true friend? It
was as your friend that, as soon as the charge against you amazed
and shocked the town of L----, Mr. Margrave called on Mrs. Ashleigh,
presented to her by Miss Brabazon, and was so cheering and hopeful
that--”
“Enough!” I exclaimed,--“enough!”
I paced the room in a state of excitement and rage, which the lawyer in
vain endeavoured to calm, until at length I halted abruptly: “Well, and
you saw Miss Ashleigh? What message does she send to me--her betrothed?”
Mr. Stanton looked confused. “Message! Consider, sir, Miss Ashleigh’s
situation--the delicacy--and--and--”
“I understand, no message, no word, from a young lady so respectable to
a man accused of murder.”
Mr. Stanton was silent for some moments, and then said quietly, “Let us
change this subject; let us think of what more immediately presses. I
see you have been making some notes: may I look at them?”
I composed myself and sat down. “This accuser! Have inquiries really
been made as to himself, and his statement of his own proceedings? He
comes, he says, from America: in what ship? At what port did he land? Is
there any evidence to corroborate his story of the relations he tried to
discover; of the inn at which he first put up, and to which he could not
find his way?”
“Your suggestions are sensible, Dr. Fenwick. I have forestalled them. It
is true that the man lodged at a small inn,--the Rising Sun; true
that he made inquiries about some relations of the name of Walls, who
formerly resided at L----, and afterwards removed to a village ten
miles distant,--two brothers, tradesmen of small means but respectable
character. He at first refused to say at what seaport he landed, in what
ship he sailed. I suspect that he has now told a falsehood as to these
matters. I sent my clerk to Southampton, for it is there he said that
he was put on shore; we shall see: the man himself is detained in close
custody. I hear that his manner is strange and excitable; but that he
preserves silence as much as possible. It is generally believed that
he is a bad character, perhaps a returned convict, and that this is the
true reason why he so long delayed giving evidence, and has been since
so reluctant to account for himself. But even if his testimony should
be impugned, should break down, still we should have to account for the
fact that the casket and the case-knife were found in your bureau; for,
granting that a person could, in your absence, have entered your study
and placed the articles in your bureau, it is clear that such a person
must have been well acquainted with your house, and this stranger to
L---- could not have possessed that knowledge.”
“Of course not. Mr. Margrave did possess it!”
“Mr. Margrave again! oh, sir!”
I arose and moved away with an impatient gesture. I could not trust
myself to speak. That night I did not sleep; I watched impatiently,
gazing on the opposite wall for the gleam of the Scin-Laeca. But the
night passed away, and the spectre did not appear.