ISSUE JOINED
Punctually at the appointed time Gervase Henshaw was shown into
Gifford's room. Kelson had received from his friend a hint of what was
afoot and had naturally offered his services to back Gifford up, but
they were refused.
"It is very kind of you, Harry," Gifford had said, "and just what one
would have expected from you. But, as you shall hear later, this is not a
business in which you or any one could usefully intervene. In fact it
would be dangerous for me, considering the man I am dealing with, to say
what I have to say before a third person."
So Kelson went off to spend the afternoon at the Tredworths'.
When Henshaw came in his expression bore no indication of the terms on
which he and Gifford had lately parted. The keen face was unruffled and
almost genial; but Gifford was not the man to be deceived by that outward
seeming. Henshaw bowed and took the chair the other indicated. There was
a short pause as though each waited for the other to begin. In the end it
was Gifford who spoke first.
"I should like to come to an understanding with you, Mr. Henshaw, with
regard to a very serious annoyance, not to say persecution, to which Miss
Morriston has been subjected at your hands." Henshaw drew back his thin
lips in a smile. "I have to tell you," Gifford continued, "once and for
all that it must cease."
"Miss Morriston authorizes you to tell me that?" The question was put
with something like a sneer.
"I should hope it requires no authority," Gifford retorted. "Having
cognizance of what has been going on, it is my plain duty--"
"Why yours?" Henshaw interrupted coolly.
"For a very good reason," Gifford replied; "one which I may have to tell
you presently."
He saw Henshaw flush and dart a glance of hate at him. It was plain he
had misinterpreted the reply. But the exhibition was only momentary.
"Admitting in the meantime your right to interfere," Henshaw said, now
with perfect coolness, "allow me to tell you that you are taking a very
foolish course."
"I shall be glad to know how."
"The reason is, that if you have any regard, as you suggest, for Miss
Morriston, you are going the right way to do her a terrible injury."
Gifford rose and stood by the fire-place. "To come to the point at once
without further preliminary fencing," he said quietly, "you mean, I take
it, that I am forcing you to denounce her as being guilty of your
brother's death."
For an instant Henshaw seemed taken aback by the other's directness.
"There can be no doubt, holding the evidence I do, that she was guilty of
it," he retorted uncompromisingly.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Henshaw," Gifford objected with decision, "there
can be, and is, a very great deal more than a doubt of it."
Henshaw shot a searching glance at the man who spoke so confidently, as
though trying to probe what, if anything, was behind his words.
"Perhaps you know then," he returned with his sneering smile, "how
otherwise, if the lady had no hand in it, my brother came by his death?"
"I do," was the quiet answer.
"Then," still the smile of sneering incredulity, "it is clearly your duty
to make it known."
"Clearly," Gifford assented in a calm tone. "That is why I asked you to
come here this afternoon."
Henshaw was looking at him with a sort of malicious curiosity. In spite
of his smartness he seemed at a loss to divine what the other was driving
at, unless it were a well-studied line of bluff. But that Gifford could
have, apart from what Edith Morriston might have told him, any intimate
knowledge of the tragedy was inconceivable.
"I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Gifford," he
responded, in perhaps much greater curiosity than he chose to show.
"Then I have to inform you positively," Gifford answered, "that your
brother's fatal wound was the result of a pure accident."
Coming from Edith Morriston's champion, there was nothing surprising in
that assertion. Certainly if that were the other's strong suit he could
easily beat it. It was therefore in a tone of confidence and relief that
he demanded, "You can prove it?"
"I can."
"By Miss Morriston's testimony?"
"Not at all. By my own."
"Your own?" Henshaw's question was put with a curling lip.
"My own," Gifford repeated steadfastly.
"May one ask what you mean by that?"
Henshaw's contemptuous incredulity was by no means diminished even by the
other's confident attitude.
Gifford gave a short laugh. "Naturally you do not take my meaning.
Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing
except by hearsay. You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong.
My testimony would be of nothing but what I myself saw and heard."
"What do you mean?" Henshaw had for a moment seemed to be calculating the
probability of this monstrous suggestion being a fact, and had dismissed
it with the contempt which showed itself in his question.
"I mean," Gifford replied with quiet assurance, "that I happened to be a
witness of the interview in the tower-room between your brother and Miss
Morriston, that I was there when he received his death-wound, and that it
was I whom the girl Haynes saw descending by a rope from the top window."
Henshaw had started to his feet, his face working with an almost
passionate astonishment. "You--you tell me all that," he cried, "and
expect me to believe it?"
"I have told you and shall tell you nothing," was the cool reply, "that I
am not prepared to state on oath in the witness-box."
For a while Henshaw seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as
his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration.
"It seems to me," he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely
master, "that, whether your statement is true or otherwise, you are
placing yourself in an uncommonly dangerous position, Mr. Gifford."
"I am aware that I am inviting a certain amount of ugly suspicion,"
Gifford agreed, "but the truth, which might have remained a mystery, has
been forced from me by the necessity of protecting Miss Morriston.
Perhaps you had better hear a frank account of the whole story, and the
explanation of what I admit you are so far justified in setting down as
concocted and wildly improbable."
"I should very much like to hear it," Henshaw returned in a tone which
held out no promise of credence.
Thereupon Gifford gave him a terse account of the events and the chance
which had led him into the tower and to be a secret witness of what
happened there. Remembering that he was addressing the dead man's
brother, he recounted the details of the interview without feeling;
indeed he threw no more colour into it than if he had been opening a
case in court. He simply stated the facts without comment. Henshaw
listened to the singular story in an attitude of doggedly unemotional
attention. Lawyer-like he restrained all tendency to interrupt the
narrative and asked no question as it proceeded. Nevertheless it was
clear he was thinking keenly, eager to note any weak points which he
could turn to use.
When the recital had come to an end he said coolly--
"Your story is a very extraordinary one, Mr. Gifford; I won't call it, as
it seems at first sight, wildly improbable, but it is at any rate an
almost incredible coincidence. With your knowledge of the law I need
scarcely remind you that the facts as you have just recounted them place
you in a rather unenviable position."
"As I have already said," Gifford replied, "my story is calculated to
suggest suspicion against me. But I am prepared to risk that
consequence."
"In court," Henshaw observed, with a malicious smile, "handled by a
counsel who knew his business, your statement could be given a very ugly
turn indeed."
"As I have just told you," Gifford returned quietly, "I would take that
risk rather than allow Miss Morriston to remain longer under suspicion.
As for myself I should have every confidence in the result."
"It is well to be sanguine," Henshaw sneered. "If you have not already
done so, are you prepared to repeat your story to the police?"
"Most certainly I am, if necessary," was the prompt answer. "But I do not
fancy you will wish me to do so."
Henshaw's look was one of surprise, real or affected. "Indeed? Why so?"
"I will tell you," Gifford replied with a touch of sternness. "Because it
would be absolutely against your interest. For one thing it would, short
of absolute proof, leave still the shadow of doubt over your brother's
death, it would effectually put a stop to your designs on Miss Morriston,
which in any case must come to an end, and it would show up your dead
brother's character and conduct in a very disreputable light. Now what I
have to say to you is this. I know that, following in your brother's
footsteps, you have been subjecting Miss Morriston to an amount of very
hateful persecution. There may have been a certain excuse for it, at any
rate a degree of temptation, but your designs have not been welcome to
the lady, and they must forthwith come to an end. Now unless you
undertake to cease your attentions to Miss Morriston, in short to put an
end at once and for all to this persecution, I shall effectually remove
the hold you imagine you have over her by going straight to the police,
giving them the real story of what happened in the tower that night and
as a natural consequence shall give evidence to that effect at the
adjourned inquest. You will know best whether it would be worth your
while to force me to do this. I simply state the position."
He waited for Henshaw's answer. The man was plainly cornered and seemed
to be divided between a desire to let Gifford go on and place himself in
a dangerous situation, and the more expedient course of raising a scandal
which would touch him as well as disgrace his dead brother.
"This is a clever piece of bluff, Mr. Gifford," he said at
length; "but--"
"It is no bluff at all," Gifford interrupted firmly. "I am merely
determined to take the obvious course to save Miss Morriston from
something a good deal worse than annoyance. I have no wish to discredit
the dead, but I must remind you that the persecution of Miss Morriston by
your brother had gone on for a very considerable time, and had latterly
developed into an atrocious system of bullying. It is not an occasion for
mincing one's expressions, and I must say that in my opinion your own
conduct has been very little, if any, better; and that will be the
judgment of every decent man if the truth comes out, as come out it
shall, unless you agree to my terms before you leave this room."
For a while Henshaw made no reply. He sat thinking strenuously, evidently
weighing his chances, estimating the strength of his adversary's
position. Now and again he shot a glance, half probing, half sullen, at
Gifford, who leaned back against the mantelpiece coolly awaiting his
answer. At length he spoke.
"This is a very fine piece of bravado, Mr. Gifford. But I am not such a
fool as it pleases you to think me. It is very good of you to explain to
me my position in this affair; I am, however, quite capable of seeing
that for myself. And you can hardly expect me to look upon your
gratuitous advice as disinterested."
The man was talking to gain time; Gifford shrewdly guessed that. "I
might be pardoned for supposing you do not altogether realize how you
stand," he replied quietly. "But, after all, that is, as you suggest,
your affair."
Henshaw forced a smile. "The point of view is everything," he said in a
preoccupied tone; "and ours, yours and mine, are diametrically opposed."
"The point of view which perhaps ought most to be considered," Gifford
retorted with rising impatience, "is that of the honourable profession to
which we both belong. If you are prepared to face the odium, professional
and social, of an exposure--"
Henshaw interrupted him with a wave of the hand. "You may apply that to
yourself and to your friend, Miss Morriston," he said sharply. "I can
take care of myself, thank you."
Gifford shrugged. "Very well, then. There is no more to be said." He
crossed the room and took up his hat. "I will go and see Major Freeman at
once." At the door he turned, to see with surprise and a certain
satisfaction that Henshaw, although he had risen from his chair, seemed
in no hurry to move. "You are coming with me," he suggested. "It would be
quite in order, I think, for you to be present at my statement--unless
you prefer not."
It seemed clear that the rather foxy Gervase Henshaw had really more than
suspected a studied game of bluff. But now Gifford's attitude tended to
put that out of the question.
"In the circumstances, as your statement will consist mainly of a slander
against me and my dead brother," Henshaw replied sullenly, "I prefer to
keep out of the business for the present. I fancy," he added with an ugly
significance, "that the police will be quite equal to dealing with the
situation without any assistance or intervention from me."
Gifford ignored the covert threat. "Very well, then," he said, throwing
open the door and standing aside for Henshaw to pass out; "I will go
alone. Yes; it will be better."
But Henshaw did not move.
"I don't quite gather," he said in answer to Gifford's glance of inquiry,
"exactly what your object is in taking this step."
"I should have thought--" Gifford began.
"Is it," Henshaw proceeded, falling back now to his ordinary lawyer-like
tone--"is it merely to checkmate what you are pleased to call my designs
upon Miss Morriston?"
"That will be a mere incidental result," Gifford answered, shutting the
door and coming back into the room. "My object is to put it, at once and
for all, out of your power to hold over Miss Morriston the threat that
she is at any moment liable to be accused--by you of all people--of your
brother's murder, and so suggest that she is in your power."
"Why do you say by me, of all people?"
"You who profess an affection for her."
"Your word profess scarcely does me justice, Mr. Gifford," Henshaw
returned, drawing back his shut lips. "I had, and have, a very sincere
affection for Edith Morriston, which, it seems, I am not to be allowed to
declare or even have credit for. As a man of the world you can hardly
pretend to be ignorant of what a man will do when his happiness is at
stake. What he does under such a stress is no guide to his real feelings.
But we need not labour that point. My affection, genuine or not, seems to
be in no fair way to be requited, and I had already made up my mind to
leave it at that. I have merely kept up the game to this point out of
curiosity to see how far your--shall we say knight-errantry?--would lead
you. I will now relieve you from the necessity of going through an act of
Quixotic folly which would assuredly, sooner or later, have unpleasant
consequences for you."
So Gifford realized with a thrill of pleasure that he had won. He felt
that in much of his speech the man was lying; that no consideration of
mere unrequited affection had induced him to abandon his design.
"I am glad to hear you have come to a sensible conclusion," he said as
coolly as the sense of triumph would let him. "Whatever happened you
could hardly have expected your--plans to succeed."
"I don't know that," Henshaw retorted, with a touch of a beaten man's
malice. "Anyhow I have my own ideas on the subject. But looking into the
future with my brother's blood between us I think it might have turned
out a hideous mistake."
"A safe conjecture," Gifford commented, between indignation and amusement
at the cool way the man was now trying to save his face.
"Anyhow there's an end of it," Henshaw said with an air and gesture of
half scornfully dismissing the affair. "And so I bid you good afternoon."
As he walked towards the door Gifford intercepted him.
"Not quite so fast, Mr. Henshaw," he said resolutely. "We can't leave the
affair like this."
"What do you mean?" Henshaw ejaculated, with a look which was half
defiant, half apprehensive.
"You have heard my story," Gifford pursued with steady decisiveness,
"and have, I presume, accepted it."
"For what it is worth." The smart of defeat prompted the futile reply.
"That won't do at all," Gifford returned with sternness. "You either
accept the account I have just given you, or you do not."
There was something like murder in Henshaw's eyes as he replied, "This
bullying attitude is what I might expect from you. To put an end,
however, to this most unpleasant interview you may take it that I accept
your statement."
"To the absolute exoneration of Miss Morriston?"
"Naturally."
"I must have your assurance in writing."
Henshaw fell back a step and for a moment showed signs of an
uncompromising refusal. "You are going a little too far, Mr. Gifford,"
he said doggedly.
"Not at all," Gifford retorted. "It is imperatively necessary."
"Is it?" Henshaw sneered. "For what purpose?"
"For Miss Morriston's protection."
The sneer deepened. "I should have thought that purpose quite negligible,
seeing how valiantly the lady is already protected. But I have no
objection," he added in an offhand tone, "as you seem to distrust the
lasting power of bluff, to give you an extra safeguard. Indeed I think it
just as well, all things considered, that Miss Morriston should have it.
Give me a pen and a sheet of paper." Henshaw's manner was now the
quintessence of insolence, but Gifford could afford, although it cost him
an effort, to ignore it. With the practised pen of a lawyer Henshaw
quickly wrote down a short declaration, signing it with a flourish and
then flicking it across the table to Gifford. "That should meet the
case," he said, leaning back confidently and thrusting his hands into his
pockets. Dealing with one who, like himself, was learned in the law he
had, to save trouble, written a terse declaration which he knew should be
quite acceptable. It simply stated that from certain facts which had come
to his knowledge he was quite satisfied that his brother's death had been
caused by an accident, and that no one was to blame for it, and he
thereby undertook to make no future charge or imputation against any one,
in connexion therewith.
"Yes, that will do," Gifford answered curtly when he had read the
few lines.
Henshaw rose with a rather mocking smile. "I congratulate you on
your--luck, Mr. Gifford," he said with a studied emphasis, and so
left the room.