THE TELEGRAM
Mr Arnecliffe regarded the girl, in silence, for a second or two, as
if puzzled; when he did speak it seemed, from the question he put,
that he had not grasped her meaning.
"Then, from your post of vantage, you did not see all that occurred?"
"I saw you hit him."
"And with that blow I killed him. If, by your words, you mean that
this was a case in which killing was no murder--that's another story.
Should I be asked, in the dock, if my intent were homicidal, I doubt
if, even with the rope dangling in front of me, I should be able to
say that it was not. With a clear conscience I could not confidently
assert that the design to kill him did not come into my heart the
moment Billson told me that he was at 'The Bolton Arms Hotel.'"
"All the same, you did not kill him."
"You say that, having seen me? I am not afraid to bear the
consequences of what I did; I am even not ashamed of what I did. I
will certainly not seek salvation by attempting to conceal plain
facts."
"But you have your facts all wrong. You know only half the story; I
know it all. I doubt if I'm not as much responsible for his death as
you are."
"Child, you're dreaming. How can that be, since, when I found him he
was alive, and when I left him he was dead?"
"In the first place, I believe I knew, all along, that you were going
to kill him; I had, in a way I can't describe, a premonition of what
was going to happen."
"So, even from behind your curtain, you perceived, from the first, my
homicidal intention--which makes it bad for me."
"But still worse for me; because I might have saved him had I chose;
but I didn't choose. My one feeling was that you were going to help me
to escape; and--I was glad."
"Is that what you meant when you said that part of the responsibility
was yours, you fantastic child?"
"No; I will tell you what I meant, if you will listen--and you will
see that I'm not fantastic."
She told him what had happened after he left the sitting-room, having
propped George Emmett up in his chair. Of how the supposed dead man
had been laid on the table; of how, when she was left alone with him
in the darkness, she had heard sounds which unmistakably showed that
he was coming back to life; and of how, in his struggles, he had
fallen from the table on to the floor. He heard her with growing
amazement; interrupting her now and then with exclamations. When she
had finished he was silent; as if he were turning over what she had
said in his mind; then, looking her very straight in the face, he
asked her, with that queer smile of his:
"Are you quite sure that imagination played no part in this strange
story; and that you've not told it me in the hope that it might do me
a service?"
As she answered him her manner was disdainful.
"In other words, you are asking if I have not deliberately told you
what I know to be false. It is no use your pretending that is not what
you asked; because, as you're very well aware, that's what your
question comes to. It so happens that there's a sequel to what you
call my strange story which may perhaps convince even you. That person
in the boat who just now advised us to take refuge here was the one
who took me from Newcaster to Mrs Vernon's house. It was he who gave
me shelter when at last I escaped from 'The Bolton Arms.'"
"Then in that case he's a man I should very much like to know. What is
his name?"
"He told me, Eric Frazer; but it seems that, really and truly, he's
the Earl of Strathmoira."
She spoke as if she felt that such a style and title only ought to be
uttered in tones of reverential awe--but it was not with any show of
reverence that he heard it.
"Strathmoira? I know something of the man. He's an eccentric."
"Pray what do you mean by that?"
This sterner manner suggested something very like indignation; as if
she resented what she suspected might be an imputation. He laughed at
her.
"I assure you that I mean nothing to his disadvantage; only that he's
a person who has ideas of his own, and who puts them into practice."
"Well, and why shouldn't he? If the ideas are not bad ones?"
"Why shouldn't he--indeed! If more of us followed his example we might
be both happier and wiser. But--what's that sequel you were speaking
of?"
She eyed him as if she were still in doubt as to whether or not he
hinted depreciation of the absent Mr Frazer.
"I'm coming to it, if you'll have a second's patience. Yesterday
morning, early, he went into Newcaster, and there he learnt not only
that Mr Emmett had fallen from the table to the floor--in fact, and
not in my imagination only--but also that it was the fall which had
actually killed him, and not your blow at all."
"How came Strathmoira to discuss the subject with you?"
"He knew all; and I told him everything."
"Wasn't that rather a risky thing to do?"
"I didn't tell him anything till he had found out for himself all that
I had to tell. Besides, are you hinting that he might have betrayed
me? You say you know something of him; you can't know much! So far
from betraying me he nearly got himself into the most frightful
trouble through trying to keep me what he thought safe. I don't know
what he wouldn't have done rather than let any what he would have
called harm come to me. It frightens me when I think of it now."
"Lucky man!"
"I don't know why you say that. It seems to me that he was very
unlucky ever to have come across me--I bring ill-luck to everyone! It
is I who am lucky altogether beyond anything I deserve. However, I
didn't mean to discuss Mr Frazer--I mean the Earl of Strathmoira--it
seems such an extraordinary thing that an actual earl should have done
all that he did for me."
"It does!"
"Yes, it does! I don't know what you mean, but it is an extraordinary
thing! You can laugh at me."
"But I wasn't!"
"You were very nearly--however, I don't care. I was about to say that
the point is that you can see for yourself that, since it was the fall
from the table which was the cause of Mr Emmett's death, it's quite
plain that, as I said, you didn't kill him."
"Miss Gilbert, you would make an excellent lawyer."
"You are laughing at me again. Pray why now?"
"I assure you that I am not doing so in any opprobrious sense. Only,
while I quite see your point, it seems to me that it's one rather for
lawyers than for a plain man."
"Why? It is a plain statement of a plain fact!"
"Still, the fact remains--doesn't it?--that if it had not been for the
blow I struck him he would not have died?"
"It doesn't follow; if they hadn't put him on the table he might have
been alive now."
"Who might have been alive now? Excuse me if I startle you; but you
were so interested in each other's conversation that, in the din of
this orchestral display with which the elements are favouring us, my
modest knocking went unnoticed. I knocked even twice; then, as I was a
little damp, I thought it possible that you might forgive me if I came
in out of the wet."
The speaker was the _soi-disant_ Eric Frazer, whose tapping, in the
heat of their discussion, had gone unnoticed. Not alone was he, as he
put it, a little damp; he was obviously soaking wet. His clothes stuck
to him as if they were glued to his skin; looking the more remarkable
because, originally, they had been very nice clothes indeed--the
cherished productions of a fashionable tailor. His hair and moustache
were plastered to his head and face. Water trickled from him in
rivulets on to the pretty carpet which covered the cabin floor. At
sight of the spectacle which he presented Dorothy gave a cry of
dismay.
"Oh, what has happened?"
The new-comer looked at her with that twinkle in his eyes which she
had already found it so difficult to meet. In spite of the singularity
of his appearance, his manner was as imperturbable as ever.
"My dear Miss Gilbert, the greatest joke. I have always wondered what
it would feel like to swim in your best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes,
and now I've had such a chance of finding out. Only you can take it
from me that, in the water, patent-leather buttoned boots are a
mistake. I had to take mine off. And as I'm not quite sure where I
left them, I must beg you to forgive me if, for the moment, my feet
are only concealed from your sight by socks. May I ask you to do me
the honour of making me known to this gentleman, and this gentleman to
me."
Dorothy looked as if she did not know what to make of him; one had a
notion that she had not once known what to make of him, since the
moment of their first meeting.
"But you--you look as if you had been nearly drowned."
"Not at all; merely moistened. Between ourselves, I am not sure
whether, on a night like this, it is drier in the river, or out of it.
What did you say was this gentleman's name?"
"This is Mr Arnecliffe."
"And I am the Earl of Strathmoira. May I take it, Mr Arnecliffe, that
you are an old friend of Miss Gilbert's?"
"I am an old friend of her father's; and I should have hoped, if
time had permitted, to have become also a friend of his daughter's;
but--time doesn't permit."
"Doesn't it? Is that so? Why doesn't time permit?"
Dorothy burst out, with sudden warmth: "I wish you wouldn't talk like
that! I wish you wouldn't!"
Strathmoira glanced from one to the other. "If Miss Gilbert wishes you
wouldn't talk like that, why do you, Mr Arnecliffe? And what might be
the meaning of your cryptic observation, anyhow?"
"Referring to what I see the papers speak of as 'the Newcaster
tragedy'; Miss Gilbert informs me that you are already acquainted with
part of the story; her part. If I supplement it with my part, you will
find that my observation at once ceases to by cryptic."
Strathmoira regarded the speaker as if he were endeavouring to find
out what kind of man he was; then he shook his head.
"A cryptogram is so often spoilt by the solution; it ceases to be
mysterious directly you know what it means; and it generally means so
little. With your sanction, Miss Gilbert, I think I will hang my coat
over the back of a chair; I fancy it may dry more quickly off me than
on. I imagine, Mr Arnecliffe, that your supplement merely amounts to
the fact that you're the bottle man."
"Practically; so you will perceive for yourself in what sense time,
for me, is limited."
"I'm dull, Mr Arnecliffe, dull. I don't see."
"Then I will try to make myself more explicit. As I propose,
presently, to hand myself over to the custody of the police, I am not
likely to be able to do much more in the way of making friends."
Dorothy made as if to speak; but the earl stopped her.
"Pardon me, Miss Gilbert, but--may I conduct what promises to be this
pleasant little discussion with Mr Arnecliffe? Why, sir, do you show
this predilection for the society of the police? And as I am rather
disposed to put myself, at the earliest possible moment, into some of
the garments which I am hopeful Mr Vernon, or his son, keeps somewhere
on the premises, will you be so good as to make your answer brief, and
to the point?"
"You know what is the charge against me; why should I run away?--why
shouldn't I face it?"
"You take something for granted; because, it so happens, that I don't
know there is a charge against you. I know that there is a charge
against Miss Gilbert; and also another, rather a droll one, against
me."
"Against you!" cried the girl. "What is the charge against you?"
His lordship waved his hand airily.
"My dear Miss Gilbert, the police, on occasion, are such humorists, it
is not a matter of the slightest consequence. Rest easy in your mind;
I am in danger neither of penal servitude nor of execution. What I
wish to explain is, I am not aware that Mr Arnecliffe has been
explicitly mentioned in the matter at all; therefore, as I have
already remarked, it appears to me that he takes a good deal for
granted."
"Doesn't what you have yourself said more than justify the course I
propose to pursue?"
"How? Pray how? Do, sir, explain!"
"You admit that a charge of complicity is being made against Miss
Gilbert, of which she is entirely innocent."
"I am not entirely innocent! I am not!"
"'Ssh, Miss Gilbert, 'ssh! please permit the gentleman to continue;
and we'll take the lady's innocence for granted, sir."
"But that's just what you sha'n't do--that's just what I won't have--I
know that I'm not innocent!"
"Very good; since the young lady apparently prefers it, we will take
her guilt for granted, Mr Arnecliffe. I don't suppose that a little
trifle of that sort will seriously affect the line of reasoning you
were about to follow. Pray, Miss Gilbert, suffer the gentleman to make
his meaning clear--I do so want to get into a suit of somebody else's
clothes. Now, Mr Arnecliffe, you were saying?"
"If I go to the nearest policeman, and say, as I intend to do, I am
the man who murdered George Emmett, so far as Miss Gilbert is
concerned, the matter will be at an end."
"Your reason is based upon more than one fallacy, really. Consider--a
warrant has been issued for Miss Gilbert's arrest--good! or, if you
prefer it, bad. Do you suppose the police won't execute that warrant,
if they get a chance, merely because you say she's innocent? They'll
keep her under lock and key until there is some more substantial proof
of her innocence than your bare word; if it can be avoided you surely
don't wish to subject her to the inconvenience of spending even a few
hours in jail. There is another point. From what I can gather she is
the only material witness of your guilt; yet she assured me that,
though they put her in the witness-box, she wouldn't give evidence
against you."
"I wouldn't--I'd die first!"
"You hear? There's a refractory position to take up! From what I have
seen of the young lady I shouldn't be surprised if she kept her word,
to the extent of defying judge and jury--conceive the pains and
penalties which your inconsiderate action would bring down on her
devoted head."
"What do you suggest? You know that she has already been arrested
once, and that she only escaped----"
"Through your dropping the unfortunate policeman into the river--I
know."
"He is hardly likely to let the matter rest where it is in
consequence."
"Poor man! he was so wet! I've a sort of idea that I'm beginning to
get dry."
"The probability is that the whole countryside is looking out for her
at this moment; if she manages to evade pursuit to-night the odds are
that she will be taken again in the morning. Do you suggest that I
shall stand by, and suffer her to be taken, and keep silent?"
"Mr Arnecliffe, I have not yet touched on the point which tells most
against the course of action you are proposing to pursue. You say you
are going to tell the first policeman you are so fortunate as to
encounter that you're the man who murdered George Emmett. Let me tell
you, sir, that in making that statement you will be incurring a very
grave responsibility; since it is by no means certain that you did
murder George Emmett."
"That's what I said! That's what I told him! That's what I was trying
to explain to him when you came in!"
"Am I to understand that you hesitated to give Miss Gilbert's
statement the weight it deserved?"
Arnecliffe laughed.
"You surely don't propose to associate yourself with Miss Gilbert in
splitting hairs!"
"Splitting hairs, sir? No! That is a process in which I propose to
associate myself with no one. If you will have the goodness to permit
me to finish what I have to say it will shortly become quite clear
that nothing is farther from my mind than any species of equivocation.
You will probably have heard that that genius of a local doctor was
prepared to certify that the man was dead when he wasn't."
"Of course he heard; I told him--I suppose that's what he calls my
hair-splitting."
"Then, Miss Gilbert, in that case he is a singular person; unless we
can put it down to mere ignorance of the meaning of his own
language--because, sir, the man was not dead. On the contrary, he was
so much alive that he contrived, shortly afterwards, to throw himself
off a table on to the floor. There, face downwards, on the floor they
found him; whereupon, it seems, a second local genius decided that he
had been killed by the fall--in spite of which pronouncement, let me
assure you, quite between ourselves, that it is by no means sure that
he is dead even yet."
"Mr Frazer! I mean----"
What the girl did mean she did not herself seem to be certain.
Arnecliffe eyed the speaker as if he were searching for outward and
visible signs that he was indulging in some recondite jest; then
asked:
"Are you serious?"
"When I was in Newcaster yesterday morning I made all possible
inquiries; I was in Newcaster again to-day, and inquired still
further. I honestly believe, without being, I think, unduly conceited,
that I have nearly as much medical knowledge as the local sawbones. I
put two and two together. I returned to town; then, this afternoon, I
saw the man who, so far as I know, is the greatest surgeon living. I
told him the whole story, as I knew it; and, also, as I suspected it.
Without pledging himself in any way, he agreed with me in thinking
that it was at least possible that the last diagnosis was as defective
as the first--he has gone down to Newcaster to find out. I meant to
say nothing till I had heard from him, one way or the other; but my
hand has been forced. He has promised to let me have a telegram,
directed to Mr Vernon's house, so soon as he himself is certain. It
may come at any moment; it may have come already. I would suggest to
you, Mr Arnecliffe, that you do nothing, except sit tight, until we
know what the contents of that promised telegram are. It was with that
idea in my mind that I sent you here; and, before starting to join
you, I managed to convey a hint that, if a telegram did arrive for me,
it was to be brought to me here, with the least possible delay." As he
finished speaking the door was opened--to admit Jim Vernon. "Why,"
exclaimed Strathmoira, "I shouldn't be surprised if this is the bearer
of tidings. Jim, you're kindly welcome to the family houseboat;
especially as I'm hopeful that, somewhere on board, you've some sort
of a suit which you can lend me."
The new-comer stared at the speaker in undisguised amazement.
"My hat, what a sight you are! Why ever have you been trying to drown
yourself, rigged out like that?"
"My dear Jim, suit first; questions afterwards. What is that I see in
your hand?"
"You've been and let us in for no end of a jolly nice thing--they're
in a pretty state of fluster round at our place--the police seem to
have taken the whole house into custody--I'd no end of a job to get
away, I can tell you that. I left the mater in hysterics on the couch;
the pater waltzing about like a tiger in a fit; and Frances using
language hot enough to singe your hair--you can bet your life there's
no place like home to-night!"
"I think I asked you what that is you're holding in your hand."
"This? So far as I know it's a telegram; but as it's addressed to you
I haven't opened the envelope to inquire, so you can look for
yourself."
Jim handed the yellow envelope to Strathmoira, who promptly tore it
open, glanced at its contents, then held the slip of pink paper above
his head, with the somewhat singular exclamation, which suggested--if
it suggested nothing else--that, at last, even his imperturbability
was moved:
"What ho, she bumps!"
"Hollo!" observed Jim. "Does she? What's up now?"
"Nothing's up, my dear Jim, nothing whatever." He turned to Arnecliffe
and the girl. "This is the telegram which, as I told you, I expected
to receive from that famous surgeon. It's brief, and to the point.
This is what he says; and it's all he says: 'The dead man is still
alive." As you will notice, he seems to be a man who economises
words."