News for Mr. Tatton.
What Mr. Detective Tatton's future proceedings would have been, or to
what untoward catastrophe, as connected with this history, they might
have led had his stay at Foxwood been prolonged to an indefinite
period, cannot here be known. He remained on. Social matters had
resumed their ordinary groove. The Maze was left undisturbed; Mr.
Cattacomb was well again; St. Jerome's in full force.
It might be that Mr. Tatton was waiting--like a certain noted
character with whom we all have the pleasure of an acquaintance--for
"something to turn up." That he was contemplating some grand coup,
which would throw his prize into his hands, while to the world and
Mrs. Jinks he appeared only to be enjoying the salubrious Kentish air,
and amusing himself with public politics generally, we may rest pretty
well assured of. But this agreeable existence was suddenly cut short.
One morning when Mr. Tatton's hopes and plans were, like Cardinal
Wolsey's greatness, all a-ripening, he received a communication from
Mr. Superintendent Game at Scotland Yard, conveying the astounding
intelligence that the real Philip Salter had not been in Foxwood at
all, but had just died in Canada.
Mr. Tatton sat contemplating the letter. He could not have been much
more astonished had a bombshell burst under him. Of the truth of the
information there could be no question: its reliability was
indisputable. One of the chief officers in the home police force who
was in Canada on business, and had known Salter well, discovered him
in the last stage of a wasting sickness, and saw him die.
"I've never had such a fool's game to play at as _this_," ejaculated
Mr. Tatton when sufficiently recovered to speak; "and never wish to
have such another. What the deuce, then, is the mystery connected with
the Maze?"
Whatever it might be, it was now no business of his; though could he
have afforded to waste more time and money, he would have liked very
well to stay and track it out. Summoning the Widow Jinks to his
presence, he informed her that he was called away suddenly on
particular business; and then proceeded to pack up. Mrs. Jinks
resented the departure as quite a personal injury, and wiped the soft
tears from her eyes.
On his way to the station he chanced to meet Sir Karl Andinnian: and
the latter's heart went up with a great bound. The black bag in Mr.
Tatton's hand, and the portmanteau being wheeled along beside him,
spoke a whole volume of hope.
"Good morning, Sir Karl. You have misled us finely as to the Maze."
"Why, what do you mean, Mr. Tatton?" asked Karl.
"Salter has turned up in Canada. Or, one might perhaps rather say,
turned down; for he is dead, poor fellow."
"Indeed!"
"Indeed and in truth. One of our officers is over there, and was with
him when he died. It was too bad of you to mislead us in this way, Sir
Karl."
"Nay, you misled yourselves."
"A fine quantity of time I have wasted down here! weeks upon weeks;
and all for nothing. I never was so vexed in my life."
"You have yourself to blame--or those who sent you here. Certainly not
me. The very first time I had the honour of speaking to you, Mr.
Tatton, I assured you on the word of a gentleman that Salter was not
at Foxwood."
"Well, come, Sir Karl--what is the secret being enacted within the
place over yonder?" pointing his finger in the direction of the Maze.
"I am not in the habit of enquiring into the private affairs of my
tenants," was the rather haughty answer. "If there be any secret at
the Maze--though I think no one has assumed it but yourself--you may
rely upon it that it is not in any way connected with Salter. Are you
taking your final departure?"
"It looks like it, Sir Karl"--nodding towards the luggage going
onwards. "When the game's at the other end of the world, and dead
besides, it is not of much use my staying to search after it in this.
I hope the next I have to hunt will bring in more satisfaction."
They said farewell cordially. The detective in his natural
sociability; Karl in his most abundant gratitude for the relief it
would give his brother. And Mr. Detective Tatton, hastening on in the
wake of the portmanteau, took the passing up-train, and was whirled
away to London.
A minute or two afterwards Karl met his agent. He was beginning to
impart to him the tidings about Salter, when Smith interrupted him.
"I have heard it, Sir Karl. I got a letter from a relative this
morning, which told me all. The information has taken Tatton off the
land here, I expect: I saw you speaking to him."
"You are right."
"As to poor Salter, the release is probably a happy one. He is better
off than he ever could have been again in this world. But what on
earth put Scotland Yard on the false scent that he was at Foxwood,
will always be a problem to me. Tatton's gone for good, I suppose,
sir!"
"He said so."
"And Sir Adam is, in one sense, free again. There will be less danger
in his getting away from Foxwood now, if it be judged desirable that
he should go."
Karl shook his head. There was another impediment now to his getting
away--grievous sickness.
That Sir Adam Andinnian, the unfortunate fugitive, hiding in peril at
the Maze, had some very grave disorder upon him could no longer be
doubtful to himself or to those about him. It seemed to develop itself
more surely day by day. Adam took it as calmly as he did other evils;
but Karl was nearly out of his mind with distress at the complication
it brought. Most necessary was it for Adam to have a doctor; to be
attended by one; and yet they dare not put the need in practice. The
calling in of Dr. Cavendish had entailed only too much danger and
terror.
The little baby, Charles Andinnian, was lying at rest in Foxwood
churchyard, within the precincts consecrated to the Andinnian family.
Ann Hopley chose the grave, and had a fight over it with the clerk.
That functionary protested he would not allot it to any baby in the
world. She might choose any spot except that, but that belonged to the
Foxwood Court people exclusively. Ann Hopley persisted the baby should
have that, and no other. It was under the weeping elm tree, she urged,
and the little grave would be shaded from the summer's sun. Sir Karl
Andinnian settled the dispute. Appealed to by the clerk, he gave a
ready and courteous permission, and the child was laid there. Ann
Hopley then paid a visit to the stonemason, and ordered a little
white marble stone, nothing to be inscribed on it but the initials
"C. A." and the date of the death. Poor Rose had only her sick husband
to attend to now.
He was not always sick. There were days when he seemed to be as well,
and to be almost as active, as ever; and, upon that would supervene a
season of pain and dread, and danger.
One afternoon, when Karl was driving his wife by in the pony-chaise,
Ann Hopley had the gate open, and was standing at it. It was the day
following the departure of Mr. Tatton. Something in the woman's
face--a kind of mute, appealing anguish--struck Karl forcibly as she
looked at him. In the sensation of freedom and of safety brought by
the detective's absence, Karl actually pulled up.
"Will you pardon me, Lucy, if I leave you for one moment? I think Ann
Hopley wants to speak to me."
He leaped out of the little low chaise, leaving the reins to Lucy. Her
face was turning scarlet. Of all the insults he had thrust upon her,
this seemed the greatest. To pull up at that very gate when _she_ was
in the carriage! Mr. Smith and his churchwarden-pipe were enjoying
themselves as usual at Clematis Cottage, looking out on the world in
general, and no doubt (as Lucy indignantly felt) making his private
comments.
"He is very ill again, sir," were the few whispered words of Ann
Hopley. "Can you come in? I am not sure but it will be for death."
"Almost immediately," returned Karl; and he stepped back to the chaise
just in time. Lucy was about to try her hand at driving, to make her
escape from him and the miserable situation.
Since the night of the baby's death, Karl and his wife had lived a
more estranged life than ever. Lucy avoided him continually. When he
spoke to her, she would not answer beyond a monosyllable. As to any
chance of explanation on any subject, there was none. It is true he
did not attempt any; and if he had, she would have waived him away,
and refused to listen to it. This day was the first for some time that
she had consented to let him drive her out.
It had happened on their return. Lucy's eminently ungracious manner as
he took his seat again would have stopped his speaking, even if he had
had a mind to speak; but he was deep in anxious thought. The resentful
way in which she had from the first taken up the affair of his
unfortunate brother, served to tie his tongue always. He drove in,
stood to help her out--or would have helped, but that she swept by
without touching him--left the pony to the waiting groom, and walked
back to the Maze.
Adam was in one of his attacks of pain, nay, of agony. It could be
called nothing less. It was not, however, for death; the sharpness of
the paroxysm, with its attendant signs, had misled Ann Hopley. Rose
looked scarcely less ill than her husband. Her most grievous position
was telling upon her. Her little child dead, her husband apparently
dying, danger and dread of another sort on all sides. More like a
shadow was she now than a living woman.
"Do you know what I have been thinking, Rose?" said Karl, when his
brother had revived. "That we might trust Moore. You hear, Adam. I
think he might be trusted."
"Trusted for what?" returned Adam; not in his sometimes fierce voice,
but in one very weak and faint.
He was lying on the sofa. Rose sat at the end of it, Karl in a chair
at the side.
"To see you; to hear who you are. I cannot help believing that he
would be true as steel. Moore is one of those men, as it seems to me,
that we might trust our lives with."
"It won't do to run risks, old fellow. I do not want to be captured in
my last hours."
Karl believed there would be no risk. Mr. Moore was a truly good man,
sensible and benevolent. The more he dwelt on the idea, the surer grew
his conviction that the surgeon might be trusted. Rose, who was almost
passive in her distress, confessed she liked him. Both he and his
sister gave her the impression of being, as Karl worded it, true as
steel. Ann Hopley was in favour of it too. She put the case with much
ingenuity.
"Sir, I should think there's not a doctor in the world--at least, one
worthy the name--who would not keep such a secret, confided to him of
necessity, even if he were a bad man. And Mr. Moore's a good one."
And the decision was made. Karl was to feel his way to the confidence.
He would sound the surgeon first, and act accordingly.
"Not that it much signifies either way," cried Sir Adam, his careless
manner reviving as his strength and spirits returned. "Die I soon
must, I suppose, now; but I'd rather die in my bed here than on a
pallet in a cell. So, Karlo, old friend, if you like to see what
Moore's made of, do so."
"I wish it had occurred to me before," cried Karl. "But indeed, the
outer dangers have been so imminent as to drive other fears away."
"It will never matter, bon fère. I don't suppose all the advice in the
kingdom could have saved me. What is to be will be."
"Master," put in Ann Hopley, "where's the good of your taking up a
gloomy view of it, all at once? _That's_ not the way to get well."
"Gloomy! not a bit of it," cried Sir Adam, in a voice as cheery as a
lark's on a summer's morning. "Heaven is more to be desired than
Portland Prison, Ann."
So Karl went forth, carrying his commission. In his heart he still
trembled at it. The interests involved were so immense; the stake was
so heavy for his unfortunate brother. In his extreme caution, he did
not care to be seen going to the surgeon's house, but sent a note to
ask him to call at the Court.
It was the dusk of evening when Mr. Moore arrived. He was shown in to
Sir Karl in his own room. Giles was appearing with two wax-lights in
massive silver candlesticks, but his master motioned them away.
"I can say what I have to say better by this light than in a glare,"
he observed to the doctor: perhaps as an opening preliminary, or
intimation that the subject of the interview was not a pleasant one.
And Giles shut them in alone. Karl sat sideways to the table, his
elbow leaning on it; the doctor facing him with his back to the
window.
"Mr. Moore," began Karl, after a pause of embarrassment, "did it ever
occur to you to have a secret confided to your keeping involving life
or death?"
Mr. Moore paused in his turn. The question no doubt caused him
surprise. He took it--the "life or death"--to be put in a professional
point of view. A suspicion came over him that he was about to be
consulted for some malady connected with the (evident) fading away of
Lady Andinnian.
"I do not suppose, Sir Karl, there is a single disease that flesh is
heir to, whether secret or open, but what I have been consulted upon
in my time."
"Not disease," returned Karl hastily; finding he was misunderstood. "I
meant a real, actual secret. A dangerous secret, involving life or
death to the individual concerned, according as others should hold it
sacred or betray it."
A longer pause yet. Mr. Moore staring at Karl through the room's
twilight.
"You must speak more plainly, Sir Karl, if you wish me to understand."
And Karl continued thoughtfully, weighing every word as he spoke it,
that it might not harm his brother.
"The case is this, Mr. Moore. I hold in my keeping a dangerous secret.
It concerns a--a friend: a gentleman who has managed to put himself in
peril of the law. For the present he is evading the law; keeping
himself, in fact, concealed alike from enemies and friends, with the
exception of one or two who are--I may say--helping to screen him. If
there were a necessity for my wishing to confide this secret to you,
would you undertake to keep it sacred? Or should you consider it lay
in your duty as a conscientious man to betray it?"
"Goodness bless me, no!" cried the doctor. "I'm not going to betray
people: it's not in my line. My business is to heal their sickness.
You need not fear me. It is a case of debt, I suppose, Sir Karl?"
Karl looked at him for a moment steadily. "And if it were not a case
of debt, but of crime, Moore? What then?"
"Just the same. Betraying my fellowmen, whether smarting under the ban
of perplexity or of sin, does not rest in my duty, I say. I am not a
detective officer. By the way, perhaps that other detective--who turns
out to be named Tatton, and to belong to Scotland Yard--may have been
down here looking after the very man."
Mr. Moore spoke lightly. Not a suspicion rested upon him that the sad
and worn gentleman before him held any solemn or personal interest in
this. Karl resumed, his voice insensibly taking a lower tone.
"An individual is lying in concealment, as I have described. His
offence was not against you or against me. Therefore, as you observe,
and as I judge, it does not lie even in our duty to denounce him. I am
helping to screen him. I want you to undertake to do the same when you
shall know who he is."
"I'll undertake it with all my heart, Sir Karl. You have some motive
for confiding the matter to me."
"The motive arises out of necessity. He is grievously ill; in urgent
need of medical care. I fear his days are already numbered: and in
that fact lies a greater obligation for us to obey the dictates of
humanity."
"I see. You want me to visit him, and to do what I can for him. I am
ready and willing."
"He is--mind, I shall shock you--a convicted felon."
"Well?--he has a body to be tended and a soul to be saved," replied
the surgeon, curiously impressed with the hush of gravity that had
stolen over the interview. "I will do my best for him, Sir Karl."
"And guard his secret?"
"I will. Here's my hand upon it. What would my Maker say to my
offences at the Last Day, I wonder, if I could usurp His functions and
deliver up to vengeance my fellowman?"
"I may trust you, then?"
"You may. I perceive you are over anxious, Sir Karl. What more
assurance can I give you? You may trust me as you trust yourself. By
no incautious word or action of mine shall his peril be increased, or
harm come nigh him: nay, I will avert it from him if I can. And
now--who is he? The sick man at the Maze--to whom Dr. Cavendish was
called? Taking one thing with another, that Maze has been a bit of a
puzzle in my mind lately."
"The same."
"Ay. Between ourselves, I was as sure as gold that some one was there.
Is it Mr. Grey? The poor young lady's husband; the dead baby's
father?"
"Just so. But he is not Mr. Grey."
"Who is he, then?"
Karl glanced around him, as though he feared the very walls might
contain eaves-droppers. Mr. Moore saw his dread.
"It is a most dangerous secret," whispered Karl with agitation. "You
will keep it with your whole heart and life?"
"Once more, I will, I will. You cannot doubt me. Who is it?"
"My brother. Sir Adam Andinnian."
The doctor leaped to his feet. Perhaps he had a doubt of Karl's
sanity. He himself had assisted to lay Sir Adam in his grave.
"Hush!" said Karl. "No noise. It is indeed my most unfortunate
brother."
"Did he come to life again?--Did Sir Adam come to life again?"
reiterated the wondering surgeon in his perplexity.
"He did not die."
They went together to the Maze after dark, Karl letting the doctor in
with his own key. The whole history had been revealed to him. Nothing
was kept back, save a small matter or two connected with the means of
Sir Adam's daily concealment: of those no living soul without the Maze
was cognisant, save three: Karl, Hewitt, and Smith the agent. Mr.
Moore was entrusted with it later, but not at first. During the
lifetime of a medical man, it falls to his lot to hear some curious
family secrets, as it had to Mr. Moore; but he had never met with one
half so strange and romantic as this.
Sir Adam had dismissed the signs of his illness, and--it will hardly
be credited--attired himself in evening dress. With the departure of
Mr. Tatton, old habits resumed their sway, with all their surrounding
incaution. Mr. Moore saw the same tall, fine man, with the white and
even teeth, that he had caught the transient glimpse of in the
uncertain twilight some weeks before. The same, but with a difference:
for the face was shrunken now, little more than half the size it had
been then. In the past week or two he had changed rapidly. He met them
when they entered--it was in the upstairs sitting-room: standing at
the door erect, his head thrown back. Mr. Moore put out his hand; but
the other did not take it.
"Do you know all, sir?" he asked.
"All, Sir Adam."
"And you are not my enemy?"
"Your true friend, Sir Adam. Never a truer one shall be about you than
I."
Their hands met then. "But I am not Sir Adam here, you know; I am Mr.
Grey. Ah, doctor, what a life it has been!"
"A life that has done its best to kill him," thought the doctor, as he
sat down. "Why did you not call me in before?" he asked.
"Well, we were afraid. You would be afraid of everybody if you were in
my place and position. Besides, this disease, whatever it may turn out
to be, has developed itself so rapidly that but little time seems to
have been lost. I do not see how you will come in now, if it is to be
a daily visit, without exciting the curiosity of the neighbourhood."
"Oh, nonsense," said the surgeon. "Mrs. Grey has a renewal of illness
and I come in to see her. The curious neighbours will understand if
they are exacting upon the point. Or old Hopley, your gardener--I'm
sure his rheumatism must need a doctor sometimes."
Sir Adam laughed. "Hopley will do best," he said. "And then you know,
doctor, if--if the worst comes to the worst; that is, the worst so far
as sickness is concerned, I can be carried out as Hopley."
"What do you think of him, Mr. Moore?" enquired Karl gravely when the
interview was over.
"I will tell you more about it when I have seen more of him," was the
surgeon's answer. But his face and tone both assumed, or seemed to
Karl to assume, an ominous shade as he gave it.