THE CHARLATAN UNMASKED
There seemed for the next few minutes to be a somewhat singular
abstention from any desire to interfere with the two people who stood
in the centre of the little group, hand-in-hand. Saton, after his
first speech, and after Lois had given him her hands, had turned a
little defiantly toward Rochester, who remained, however, unmoved,
his elbow resting upon the broad mantelpiece, his face almost
expressionless. Vandermere, too, stood on one side and held his peace,
though the effort with which he did so was a visible one. Lady Mary
looked anxiously towards them. Pauline had shrunk back, as though
something in the situation terrified her.
Even Saton himself felt that it was the silence before the storm. The
courage which he had summoned up to meet a storm of disapproval, began
to ebb slowly away in the face of this unnatural silence. It was clear
that the onus of further speech was to rest with him.
Still retaining Lois' hand, he turned toward Rochester.
"You have forbidden me to enter your house, or to hold any
communication with your ward until she was of age, Mr. Rochester," he
said. "One of your conditions I have obeyed. With regard to the other,
I have done as I thought fit. However, to-day she is her own
mistress. She has consented to be my wife. I do not need to ask for
your consent or approval. If you are not willing that she should be
married from your roof, I can take her at once to the Comtesse, who is
prepared to receive her."
"A very pleasant little arrangement," Rochester said, speaking for the
first time. "I am afraid, however, that you will have to alter your
plans."
"I do not admit your right to interfere in them," Saton answered. "If
you continue your opposition to my marriage with your ward, I shall
take her away with me this afternoon."
Rochester shook his head.
"I think not," he answered.
"Then we shall see," Saton declared. "Lois, come with me. It does not
matter about your hat. Your things can be sent on afterwards. Come!"
She would have followed him towards the door, but Rochester, leaning
over, touched the bell, and almost at once two men stepped into the
hall. One, Saton remembered in an instant. It was the man whom he had
found with Violet--the man who was there to have his fortune told. The
other was a stranger, but there was something in his demeanor, in the
very cut of his clothes, which seemed to denote his profession.
Saton was suddenly pale. He realized in a moment that it was not
intended that he should leave the room. He looked toward Rochester as
though for an explanation.
"My young friend," Rochester said, "when you leave this place, you
will leave it, unless I change my mind, in the company of those
friends of mine whom you see there. I don't want to terrify you
unnecessarily. These gentlemen are detectives, but they are in my
employ. They have nothing to do with Scotland Yard. I can assure you,
however, that there need not be ten minutes' delay in the issuing of a
warrant for your arrest."
"My arrest?" Saton gasped. "What do you mean?"
Rochester sighed.
"Ah!" he said. "Why should you force me for explanations? Ask
yourself. Once before you have stood in the dock, on the charge of
being connected with certain enterprises designed to wheedle their
pocket-money from over-credulous ladies. You got off by a fluke, but
you did not learn your lesson. This time, getting off will not be
quite so easy, for you seem to have added to your former profession
one which an English jury seldom lets pass unpunished. I am in a
position to prove, Bertrand Saton, that the offices in Charing Cross
Road, conducted under the name of Jacobson & Company, and which are
nothing more nor less than the headquarters of an iniquitous
blackmailing system, are inspired and conducted by you, and that the
profits are the means by which you live. A more despicable profession
the world has never known. There are a sheaf of cases against you. I
will remind you of one. My wife--Lady Mary here--left a private letter
in the rooms of a Madame Helga. The letter was passed on at once to
the blackmailing branch of your extremely interesting business, and
the sum of, I think, five hundred pounds, was paid for its recovery.
You yourself were personally responsible for this little arrangement.
And there are many others. If all the poor women whom you have
robbed," Rochester continued, "had had the common sense of my wife,
and brought the matter to their husbands, you would probably have been
a guest of His Majesty some time ago."
Such fear as had at first drawn the color from Saton's cheeks, and
filled his eyes with terror, passed quickly away. He stood upright,
his head thrown back, a faint smile upon his lips. He had some
appearance, even, of manhood.
"Mr. Rochester," he said, "I deny your charges. I have no connection
with the fortune-telling establishments to which you have alluded. I
know nothing of the blackmailing transactions you speak of. You have
been my enemy, my hopeless and unforgiving enemy. I am not afraid of
you. If this is your great blow, strike. Let me be arrested. I will
answer everything. Afterwards, you and I will have our reckoning.
Lois," he added, turning to her, "you do not believe--say that you do
not believe these things."
"I--do--not--believe--them--Bertrand," she answered slowly.
"You will come with me?"
"I--will--come--with--you," she echoed.
"By God, sir, she shan't!" cried Vandermere. "Take your hands off her,
sir, or you shall learn how mountebanks like yourself should be
treated."
Saton struck him full in the face, so that losing for a moment his
balance upon the slippery floor, Vandermere nearly fell. In a moment
he recovered himself, however. There was a struggle which did not last
half-a-dozen seconds. He lifted Saton off his feet and shook him, till
it seemed as though his limbs were cracking. Then he threw him away.
Rochester stepped forward to interfere.
"Enough of this, Vandermere," he said sternly. "Remember that the
fellow's career is over. He may try to bluff it out, but he is done
for. I have proofs enough to send him to prison a dozen times over."
Saton rose slowly to his feet. Unconsciously his fingers straightened
his tie. He knew very well that life--or rather the things which life
meant for him--was over. He had only one desire--the desire of the
born _poseur_--to extricate himself from his present position with
something which might, at any rate, seem like dignity.
"Do I understand," he asked Rochester, "that my departure from this
house is forbidden?"
Rochester shook his head.
"No!" he answered. "For what you are, for the ignoble creature that
you have become, I accept a certain amount of responsibility. For that
reason, I bid you go. Go where you will, so long as your name or your
presence never trouble us again. Let this be the last time that any
one of us hears the name of Bertrand Saton. I give you that chance.
Find for yourself an honest place in the world, if you can, wherever
you will, so that it be not in this country. Go!"
Saton turned toward the door with a little shrug of the shoulders.
"You need have no fear," he said. "The country into which I go is one
in which you will never be over-anxious to travel."
He passed out, amidst a silence which seemed a little curious when one
considered the emotions which he left behind. Lois' pale face seemed
all aglow with a sort of desperate thankfulness. Already she was in
Vandermere's arms. And then the silence was broken by a woman's
sobbing. They all turned towards her. It was Pauline who had suddenly
broken down, her face buried in her hands, her whole frame shaking
with passion.
Rochester moved towards her, but she thrust him aside.
"You are a brute!" she declared--"a brute!"
She staggered across the room towards the door by which Saton had
departed. Before she could reach it, however, they heard the crunching
of wheels as his car swept by the front on its way down the avenue.
* * * * *
Rochester pushed open the black gate which led from the road into the
plantation at the back of the hill, and they passed through and
commenced the last short climb. No word passed between them. The
silence of the evening was broken only by the faint sobbing of the
wind in the treetops, and the breaking of dried twigs under their
feet. They were both listening intently--they scarcely knew for what.
The far-away rumble of a train, the barking of a dog, the scurrying of
a rabbit across the path--these sounds came and passed--nothing else.
They neared the edge of the plantation. There was only a short climb
now, and a gray stone wall. Rochester passed his arm through his
companion's. Her breath was coming in little sobs.
"We shall be there in a moment, Pauline," he said. "It is only a fancy
of mine. Perhaps he is not here after all, but at any rate we shall
know."
She said nothing. She seemed to be bracing herself for that last
effort. Now they could see the bare rocky outline of the summit of the
hill. A few steps more, and they would pass through the gate. And then
the sound came, the sound which somehow they had dreaded. Sharp and
crisp through the twilight air came the report of a revolver. They
even fancied that they heard a little moan come travelling down the
hillside.
Rochester stopped short.
"We are too late," he said. "Pauline, you had better stay here. I will
go on and find him."
She shook her head.
"I am coming," she said. "It is my fault!--it is my fault!"
He held out his hand.
"Pauline," he said, "it may not be a fit sight for you. Sit here. If
you can do any good, I will call to you."
She brushed him aside and began to run. With her slight start she
outdistanced him, and when he scrambled up to the top, she was already
on her knees, kneeling down over the crouching form.
"He is not dead," she cried. "Quick! Tell me where the wound is."
Rochester stooped down on the other side, and Saton opened his eyes
slowly.
"I am a bungler, as usual!" he said.
Rochester opened his coat carefully.
"He has shot himself in the shoulder," he said to Pauline. "It is not
serious."
Saton pointed to the rock.
"Lift me up a little," he said. "I want to sit there, with my back to
it. Carefully!"
Rochester did as he was bid. Then he took his handkerchief and tried
to staunch the blood.
"I don't know why you came," Saton faltered--"you especially," he
added to Rochester. "Haven't you had all the triumph you wanted?
Couldn't you have left me alone to spend this last hour my own way? I
wanted to learn how to die without fear or any regret. Here I can do
it, because it is easier here to realize that failure such as mine is
death."
"We came to try and save you," said Rochester quietly.
"To save you!" Pauline sobbed. "Oh! Bertrand, I am sorry--I am very,
very sorry!"
He looked at her in slow surprise.
"That is kind of you," he said. "It is kind of you to care. You know
now what sort of a creature I am. You know that he was right--this
man, I mean--when he warned you against me, when he told you that I
was something rotten, something not worth your notice. Give me the
revolver again."
Rochester thrust it in his pocket, shaking his head.
"My young friend, I think not," he said. "Listen. I have no more
to say about the past. I am prepared to accept my share of the
responsibility of it. You are still young. There is still time for you
to weave fresh dreams, to live a new life. Make another start. No!
Don't be afraid that I'm going to offer you my help. There was a curse
upon that. But nevertheless, make your start. It isn't I who wish it.
It is--Pauline."
Saton looked at her wonderingly.
"She doesn't care," he said. "She knows now that I am really a
charlatan. And I needn't have been," he added, with a sudden fury. "It
was only that cursed taste for luxury which seemed somehow or other to
creep into my blood, which made me so dependent upon money. Naudheim
was right! Naudheim was right! If only I had stayed with him! If only
I had believed in him!"
"It is not too late," she whispered, stooping low over him. "Be a man,
Bertrand. Take up your work where you left it, and have done with the
other things. This slipping away over the edge, slipping into
Eternity, is the trick of cowards. For my sake, Bertrand!"
He half closed his eyes. Rochester was busy still with his shoulder,
and the pain made him faint.
"Go back to Naudheim," she whispered. "Start life from the very bottom
rung, if he will have it so. Don't be afraid of failure. Keep your
hands tight upon the ladder, and your eyes turned toward Heaven. Oh!
You can climb if you will, Bertrand. You can climb, I am sure. Don't
look down. Don't pause. Be satisfied with nothing less than the great
things. For my sake, Bertrand! My thoughts will follow you. My heart
will be with you. Promise!"
"I promise," he murmured.
His head sank back. He was half unconscious.
"We will stay with him for a moment," Rochester whispered. "As soon as
he comes to, I will carry him down to the car."
In a moment or two he opened his eyes. His lips moved, but he was half
delirious.
"Anything but failure!" he muttered to himself, with a little groan.
"Death, if you will--a touch of the finger, a stroke too far to
seaward. Oh! death is easy enough! Death is easy, and failure is
hard!"
Her lips touched his forehead.
"Don't believe it, dear," she whispered. "There is no real failure if
only the spirit is brave. The dead things are there to help you climb.
They are rungs in the ladder, boulders for your feet."
He leaned a little forward. It seemed as though he recognised
something familiar amongst the treetops, or down in the mist-clad
valleys.
"Naudheim!" he cried hoarsely. "I shall go to Naudheim!"
EPILOGUE
THE MAN
About half-way up, where the sleighs stopped, Lady Mary gave in.
Pauline and Rochester went forward on foot, and with a guide in front.
Below them was a wonderful unseen world, unseen except when the snow
for a moment ceased to fall, and they caught vague, awe-inspiring
glimpses of ravines and precipices, tree-clad gorges, reaching down a
dizzy height to the valley below. Above them was a plateau, black with
pine trees. Higher still, the invisible mountain tops.
"It is only a few hundred yards further," Rochester said, holding his
companion by the arm. "What a country, though! I wonder if it ever
stops snowing."
"It is wonderful!" she murmured. "Wonderful!"
And then, as though in some strange relation to his words, the storm
of whirling snow-flakes suddenly ceased. The thin veil passed away
from overhead like gossamer. They saw a clear sky. They saw, even, the
gleam of reflected sunshine, and as the mist lifted, the country above
and beyond unrolled itself in one grand and splendid transformation
scene: woods above woods; snow-clad peaks, all glittering with their
burden of icicles and snow; and above, a white chaos, where the
mountain-peak struck the clouds.
They paused for a moment, breathless.
"It is like Naudheim himself," she declared. "This is the land he
spoke of. This is the place to which he climbed. It is wonderful!"
"Come," Rochester said. "We must be up before the darkness."
Slowly they made their way along the mountain road, which their guide
in front was doing all he could to make smooth for them. And then at
the corner they found a log hut, to which their guide pointed
triumphantly.
"It is there!" he exclaimed--"there where they live, the two madmen.
Beyond, you see, is the village of the woodhewers."
Rochester nodded. They struggled a few steps upwards, and then paused
to look with wonder at the scene below. The one log cabin before which
they were now standing, had been built alone. Barely a hundred yards
away, across the ravine, were twenty or thirty similar ones, from the
roofs of which the smoke went curling upwards. It seemed for a moment
as though they had climbed above the world of noises--climbed into the
land of eternal silence. Before they had had time, however, to frame
the thought, they heard the crashing of timber across the ravine, and
a great tree fell inwards. A sound like distant thunder rose and
swelled at every moment.
"It is the machinery," their guide told them. "The trees fall and are
stripped of their boughs. Then they go down the ravine there, and
along the slide all the way to the river. See them all the way, like a
great worm. Day and night, month by month--there is never a minute
when a tree does not fall."
Again they heard the crashing, and another tree fell. They heard the
rumble of the slide in the forest. The peculiar scent of fresh sap
seemed like a perfume in the air. Then suddenly the snow began to fall
again. They could not see across the ravine.
The guide knocked at the door and opened it. Rochester and Pauline
passed in....
There was something almost familiar about the little scene. It was, in
many respects, so entirely as she had always imagined it. Naudheim,
coatless, collarless, with open waistcoat, twisted braces, and unkempt
hair, was striding up and down the room, banging his hands against his
side, dictating to the younger man who sat before the rude pine table.
"So we arrive," they heard his harsh, eager tones, "so we arrive at
the evolution of that consciousness which may justly be termed
eternal--the consciousness which has become subject to these primary
and irresistible laws, the understanding of which has baffled for so
many ages the students of every country. So we come----"
Naudheim broke off in the middle of his sentence. A rush of cold air
had swept into the room. He thrust forward an angry, inquiring
countenance toward the visitors. The young man sprang to his feet.
"Pauline!" he exclaimed.
He recognised Rochester, and stepped back with a momentary touch of
his old passionate repugnance, not unmixed with fear. He recovered
himself, however, almost immediately, Rochester gazed at him in
amazement. It would have been hard, indeed, to have recognised the
Bertrand Saton of the old days, in the robust and bearded man who
stood there now with his eyes fixed upon Pauline. His cheeks were
weather-beaten but brown with health. He wore a short, unkempt beard,
a flannel shirt with collar but no tie, tweed clothes, which might
indeed have come, at one time or another, from Saville Row, but were
now spent with age, and worn out of all shape.
Pauline's heart leaped with joy. Her eyes were wet. It had been worth
while, then. He had found salvation.
"We hadn't the least right to come, of course," she began, recognising
that speech alone could dissolve that strange silence and discomposure
which seemed to have fallen upon all of them. "Mr. Rochester and Lady
Mary and I are going to St. Moritz, and I persuaded them to stay over
here and see whether we couldn't rout you out. What a wonderful
place!" she exclaimed.
"It is a wonderful place, madam!" Naudheim exclaimed glowering at them
with darkening face. "It is wonderful because we are many thousands of
feet up from that rotten, stinking little life, that cauldron of
souls, into which my young friend here had very nearly pitched his own
little offering."
"It was we who sent him to you," Pauline said gently.
"So long as you have not come to fetch him away," Naudheim muttered.
Pauline shook her head.
"We have come," she said, "because we care for him, because we were
anxious to know whether he had come to his own. We will go away the
moment you send us."
"You will have some tea," Naudheim growled, a little more graciously.
"Saton, man, be hospitable. It is goat's milk, and none too sweet at
that, and I won't answer for the butter."
Saton spoke little. Pauline was content to watch him. They drank tea
out of thick china cups, but over their conversation there was always
a certain reserve. Naudheim listened and watched, like a mother
jealous of strangers who might rob her of her young. After tea,
however, he disappeared from the room for a few moments, and Rochester
walked toward the window.
"It is very good of you to come, Pauline," Saton said. "I shall work
all the better for this little glimpse of you."
"Will the work," she asked softly, "never be done?"
He shook his head.
"Why should it? One passes from field to field, and our lives are not
long enough, nor our brains great enough, to reach the place where we
may call halt."
"Do you mean," she asked, "that you will live here all your days?"
"Why not?" he answered. "I have tried other things, and you know what
they made of me. If I live here till I am as old as Naudheim, I shall
only be suffering a just penance."
"But you are young," she murmured. "There are things in the world
worth having. There is a life there worth living. Solitude such as
this is the greatest panacea the world could offer for all you have
been through. But it is not meant to last. We want you back again,
Bertrand."
His eyes were suddenly on fire. He shrank a little away from her.
"Don't!" he begged. "Don't, Pauline. I am living my punishment here,
and I have borne it without once looking back. Don't make it harder."
"I do not wish to make it harder," she declared, "and yet I meant what
I said. It is not right that you should spend all your days here. It
is not right for your own sake, it is not right----"
She held out her hands to him suddenly.
"It is not right for mine," she whispered.
Rochester stepped outside. Again the snow had ceased. In the forest he
could hear the whirl of machinery and the crashing of the falling
timber. He stood for a moment with clenched hands, with unseeing eyes,
with ears in which was ringing still the memory of that low,
passionate cry. And then the fit passed. He looked down to the little
half-way house where he had left his wife. He fancied he could see
someone waving a white handkerchief from the platform of pine logs. It
was all so right, after all, so right and natural. He began to descend
alone.
Saton brought her down about an hour later. Their faces told all that
there was to say.
"Bertrand is going to stay here for another year," Pauline said,
answering Lady Mary's unspoken question. "The first part of his work
with Naudheim will be finished then, and we think he will have earned
a vacation."
Saton held out his hands to Rochester.
"Mr. Rochester," he said, "I have never asked you to forgive me for
all the hard things I have said and thought of you, for my
ingratitude, and--for other things."
"Don't speak of them," Rochester interrupted.
"I won't," Saton continued quickly. "I can't. That chapter of my life
is buried. I cannot bear to think of it even now. I cannot bear to
come in contact with anything which reminds me of it."
Rochester took his hand and grasped it heartily.
"Don't be morbid about it," he said. "Every man should have at least
two chances in life. You had your first, and it was a rank failure.
That was because you had unnatural help, and bad advice. The second
time, I am glad to see that you have succeeded. You have done this on
your own. You have proved that the real man is the present man."
Saton drew Pauline towards him with a gesture which was almost
reverent.
"I think that Pauline knows," he said. "I hope so."
Early in the morning their sleigh rattled off. Saton stood outside the
cottage, waving his hand. Naudheim was by his side, his arm resting
gently upon the young man's shoulder. A fine snow was falling around
them. The air was clean and pure--the air of Heaven. There was no
sound to break the deep stillness but the tinkle of the sleigh-bells,
and behind, the rhythmic humming of the machinery, and the crashing of
the falling trees.
"Naudheim is a great master," Rochester said.
Pauline smiled through her tears.
"Bertrand isn't such a very bad pupil."
THE END
E. Phillips Oppenheim's Novels
He possesses the magic art of narration.--_New York Herald._
Mr. Oppenheim never fails to entertain us.--_Boston Transcript._
The author has acquired an admirable technique of the sort demanded by
the novel of intrigue and mystery.--_The Dial, Chicago._
Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing ingenious
plots and weaving them around attractive characters.--_London Morning
Post._
By all odds the most successful among the writers of that class of
fiction which, for want of a better term, maybe called "mystery
stories."--_Ainslee's Magazine._
E. Phillips Oppenheim has a very admirable gift of telling good
stories, thoroughly matured, brilliantly constructed, and convincingly
told.--_London Times._
Readers of Mr. Oppenheim's novels may always count on a story of
absorbing interest, turning on a complicated plot, worked out with
dexterous craftsmanship.--_Literary Digest_, New York.
We do not stop to inquire into the measure of his art, any more than
we inquire into that of Alexandre Dumas, we only realize that here is
a benefactor of tired men and women seeking relaxation.--_The
Independent_, New York.
E. Phillips Oppenheim's Novels
=The Moving Finger.=
A mystifying story dealing with unexpected results of a
wealthy M. P.'s experiment with a poor young man.
=Berenice.=
Oppenheim in a new vein--the story of the love of a novelist
of high ideals for an actress.
=The Lost Ambassador.=
A straightforward mystery tale of Paris and London, in which
a rascally maitre d'hotel plays an important part.
=A Daughter of the Marionis.=
A melodramatic romance of Palermo and England, dealing with
a rejected Italian lover's attempted revenge.
=Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown.=
A murder-mystery story rich in sensational incidents.
=The Illustrious Prince.=
A narrative of mystery and Japanese political intrigue.
=Jeanne of the Marshes.=
Strange doings at an English house party are here set forth.
=The Governors.=
A romance of the intrigues of American finance.
=The Missioner.=
Strongly depicts the love of an earnest missioner and a
worldly heroine.
=The Long Arm of Mannister.=
A distinctly different story that deals with a wronged man's
ingenious revenge.
=As a Man Lives.=
Discloses the mystery surrounding the fair occupant of a
yellow house.
=The Avenger.=
Unravels an intricate tangle of political intrigue and
private revenge.
=The Great Secret.=
Unfolds a stupendous international conspiracy.
=A Lost Leader.=
A realistic romance woven around a striking personality.
=A Maker of History.=
"Explains" the Russian Baltic fleet's attack on the North
Sea fishing fleet.
=Enoch Strone: A Master of Men.=
The story of a self-made man who made a foolish early
marriage.
=The Malefactor.=
An amazing story of a man who suffered imprisonment for a
crime he did not commit.
=The Traitors.=
A capital romance of love, adventure and Russian intrigue.
=A Prince of Sinners.=
An engrossing story of English social and political life.
=A Millionaire of Yesterday.=
A gripping story of a wealthy West African miner.
=The Man and His Kingdom.=
A dramatic tale of adventure in South America.
=Anna the Adventuress.=
A surprising tale of a bold deception.
=Mysterious Mr. Sabin.=
An ingenious story of a world-startling international
intrigue.
=The Yellow Crayon.=
Containing the exciting experiences of Mr. Sabin with a
powerful secret society.
=The Betrayal.=
A thrilling story of treachery in high diplomatic circles.
=A Sleeping Memory.=
A remarkable story of an unhappy girl who was deprived of
her memory.
=The Master Mummer.=
The strange romance of beautiful Isobel de Sorrens.
Little, Brown, & Co., _Publishers_, Boston
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.
2. In the advertising pages at the end of this book, titles were set
in bold typeface; this is noted by the = at the beginning and end of
the title.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Moving Finger, by E. Phillips Oppenheim