VAN DUREN'S DREAM.
Max Van Duren's stay on the Continent, instead of lasting for four or
five days only, extended itself to a fortnight. During the whole of
that time, Jonas Pringle remained in charge of the premises in Spur
Alley. At any other time, the sudden departure of Byrne and his
daughter, taken in conjunction with what else Pringle either knew or
suspected, would have formed food sufficient for many an hour's
restless pondering, it being a matter of principle with Pringle to
suspect everybody and everything. But at present his own affairs were
quite enough to occupy his thoughts. He had been waiting patiently,
week after week, for an occasion to arise which should call Van Duren
from home, and so give him an opportunity of bringing to a climax a
certain hidden scheme at which he had been patiently working for
upwards of a year. The wished-for opportunity was now here, but the
advantage he had intended to derive from it seemed as utterly beyond
his reach as before. In other words, the key at which he had laboured
so long and so patiently, and which, he had fondly hoped, needed but a
few more touches of the file to bring it to perfection, still
refused--obstinately and maliciously refused--to open the lock of Van
Duren's safe. And rarely could there have been a more opportune time to
open it than the present. There were notes and gold in it to the amount
of two thousand pounds, as Pringle knew full well. If he could only
have obtained possession of these notes and this gold within a few
hours of Van Duren's departure for Paris, he would have had time to
change the notes and get three or four days' clear start before the
faintest suspicion that there was anything wrong could have got abroad.
It was for this that he had been biding his time so long; it was for
this that he had put up with Van Duren's hard words and starvation
salary. He had promised himself all along that he would have a day of
glorious revenge; that at one bold sweep he would make himself master
of enough, if judiciously invested, to secure for himself a comfortable
little income for life. But all his delicate manipulation with the
file, all his added touches, had hitherto proved ineffective and of no
avail. The wards of the lock that held the iron door stubbornly
refused to be coaxed; the Open Sesame was not yet found. Pringle was
terribly chagrined. Still he never allowed himself to altogether
despair. He felt that success was only a matter of time; but he would
not have cared for success to come at a moment when there might chance
to be little or nothing to reward his labours: he was anxious that it
should come now, when the reward would be great. But Van Duren could
not stay away for ever, and one afternoon brought the long-expected
telegram, announcing that he might be looked for in Spur Alley before
bed-time next night.
"Curse him for coming back so soon!" said Pringle to himself, as he
tore the telegram to shreds. "If he had only stayed away another day
or two, I should have got my key to fit and open the lock. It may be
months before he goes out of town again. It may be months before
there's as much money in the safe again as there is now. But it's just
like my luck!"
Mr. Van Duren reached home about ten o'clock next evening. Pringle was
there to receive him, and while Mrs. Bakewell was getting supper
ready, the two men went into the discussion of sundry business
details. But not more than ten minutes had passed before Van Duren,
changing the subject, suddenly said: "By-the-by, I have not made any
inquiry after my lodgers. How is Mr. Byrne?--Better, I hope. And Miss
Byrne, is she quite well?"
There was a deep longing in his heart to see Miriam again. She had
promised to give him a definite yes or no immediately after his
return, and he flattered himself that if he read the signs aright, he
had little or nothing to fear. He had brought back with him several
expensive presents for her. Never in his life before had he bought
presents for anybody, his natural instincts being those of a miser;
and it was not without a sharp pang that he had brought himself, even
in the present instance, to part from his dearly-loved money. These
presents had been in his thoughts all the way coming home. He would
spread them out before Miriam, and watch her unfold them from their
wrappers one by one; and in imagination he saw the sparkle in her eyes
and the smile on her lips as she clasped the bracelet on her wrist, or
posed before the glass while trying the effect of her new ear-rings.
Then, before the freshness and surprise had time to evaporate, he
would take her hand and press it passionately to his lips, and implore
her to give him her answer once for all. If she condescended to accept
his presents, how could he doubt what that answer would be? They would
be married before summer was over; and when once Miriam was his wife,
he would know how to bend her will to his--know how to teach her what
was best for her comfort and his--from his own point of view.
His first look from the cab, when he got in sight of the house, had
been to the windows of his lodgers' sitting-room. But all was dark
there, and his heart had chilled a little at the sight. It was almost
too early for them to have gone to bed: probably they had gone out
somewhere to spend the evening. He had secretly flattered himself that
Miriam would be there to welcome him--that the least she could do
would be to open the door of her sitting-room, ready to greet him with
a smile and a pressure of the hand as he went upstairs to his own part
of the house. But no Miriam was there to-night, evidently; and then
the thought struck him that perhaps no one had told her of his
expected return. This thought was not without its consolation; so,
hiding his impatience under his usual impassive demeanour, he went
indoors as if nothing were amiss, and not till he and Pringle had been
talking together for ten minutes did he seem to recollect the
existence of any such persons as Mr. Byrne and his daughter.
Pringle had been expecting the question for some time, and was ready
with his answer.
"Mr. Byrne and Miss Byrne went away together in a cab two or three
days after you left home."
"Went away together in cab!" cried Van Duren. "But at least they left
word where they were going, and when they might be expected back?"
"Miss Byrne said they were going to the seaside for the benefit of the
old gentleman's health; but there was nothing said about when they
might be expected back."
"Strange--very strange!" muttered Van Duren. Some presage of coming
evil seemed to touch him already. He looked from side to side of the
ill-lighted room, and shuddered. Pringle was watching him narrowly.
"Did they take much luggage with them?" he asked.
"I heard Mrs. Bakewell say that there was nothing left in their rooms
but the bare furniture."
"Have any letters been received here for them since they left?"
"Not one, sir."
"How was it you did not send me word, either by telegram or letter,
when you discovered that they were going away?"
"Because I was under the impression that they had told you, before you
went out of town, that they were going away."
This was not true, but it was necessary that Pringle should excuse
himself somehow.
"But did nobody ask them when they might be expected back?"
"Yes; Mrs. Bakewell did. Miss Byrne's answer was that everything
depended on the state of the old gentleman's health, and that they
might be away only a week, or they might be away a month."
"I would give twenty pounds this very minute to know where they are
gone to!" cried Van Duren, emphatically, as he pushed away his chair,
and began to pace the room with restless strides.
Pringle sat watching him for a minute or two. That Van Duren was
terribly chagrined, he could see plainly enough, and it pleased him to
see it. The question with him now was, should he, or should he not
tell Van Duren that he knew to what place his lodgers were gone? On
the one hand, to keep Van Duren in ignorance of what he, Pringle,
knew, would be a source of great gratification to him. But, on the
other hand, if he were to reveal what he knew, was there not a faint
probability that Van Duren might go in search of them--might leave him
alone in the house for a few days longer, and so afford him another
opportunity of making himself master of the treasure in the iron safe?
This latter thought decided him.
"I can tell you where Mr. and Miss Byrne are gone to, sir," he said,
speaking very quietly, "and I won't charge you twenty pounds for the
information, either."
"Where are they gone?" asked Van Duren, abruptly, as he brought his
walk to a sudden stand.
"Their luggage was labelled for Marhyddoc, in North Wales."
Jonas Pringle certainly never anticipated the effect which his words
would have on Max Van Duren. The latter seemed like a man suddenly
turned to stone. All the colour fled from his face, his lips turned
blue, while into his eyes there came an expression of unspeakable
terror. For a few minutes he stood like a man who neither knew where
he was nor what he was doing, who had no thought for anything in the
wide world but the terrible news he had just heard. Then he put out a
hand, and seemed to be feeling for a chair, without knowing what he
was about. Pringle took his arm and guided him to a seat.
"A sudden spasm--nothing more," he said. "I shall be better
presently."
"Shall I get you a glass of water?" asked Pringle.
Van Duren shook his head. "I have been taken like this once or twice
lately," he stammered. "I must talk to my doctor about it."
Mrs. Bakewell came in to lay the cloth for supper. This seemed to
rouse him. "I shall not want any supper; I've changed my mind. You
need not bring it in," he said. Then turning to Pringle, "To what
place did you say that Mr. Byrne and his daughter were gone?" he
asked.
"To Marhyddoc, in North Wales."
"Some little fishing or bathing place, I suppose--quiet and
salubrious, suitable for an old man like Mr. Byrne. Strange, though,
that they never told me they were going. You don't know, Pringle, do
you, what their particular reason might be for choosing Marhyddoc, out
of all places in the world?"
"I don't know that, sir; they gave no hint on that point," said
Pringle. "But I know this for a fact, that old Mr. Byrne was no more
deaf than you or me, sir; that his long white hair was nothing but a
wig, and his hump nothing but a sham; and that when he liked he could
be as active on his feet as any gentleman of fifty or fifty-five can
be."
Max Van Duren sat and stared at his clerk like a man thoroughly
stupefied. "How do you know all this?" he said, speaking in a low,
hoarse voice.
"Because I've seen it with my own eyes," answered Pringle. Then he
told him all about the Euston Square episode.
"But what possible object could Mr. Byrne have in disguising himself
in the way you mention? and what could be his motive in trying to
deceive me?"
"Don't know, sir, I'm sure. But mightn't it all be a plant--a
try-on--to get something out of you, either money or information, or
something else?"
"They got no money out of me--not a single penny," answered Van Duren.
"And as for information----"
In a moment it flashed across his mind that Miriam Byrne had indeed
got certain information out of him, which information seemed to
connect itself, in some mysterious way, with the journey to Wales.
Would she and her father ever have gone to any such out-of-the-way
place as Marhyddoc, if he had not told Miriam the story of the
shipwreck? But even in that case, what possible object could be gained
by their visit to Marhyddoc? The key to the great secret of his life
lay there at the bottom of the sea, as far beyond their reach, even
supposing them to have known of its existence, as it was beyond his.
After all, it was perhaps nothing more than a singular coincidence
that had taken them to that particular spot in Wales. Could it be that
Miriam had grown to take so deep an interest in him that she wanted to
see the very place where he had been shipwrecked? This was a thought
that made his heartbeat wildly for a moment or two; but it was quickly
succeeded by a feeling of deadly apprehension. What Pringle had told
him about Byrne and his disguise, smote him with a sense of some
hidden danger which he could not overcome. Why had Miriam pressed him
so earnestly to give her all the details of the shipwreck? And why had
they said nothing to him of their contemplated journey before he left
home?
He could not shake off the feeling that he was in the midst of some
great peril. It was quite out of the question, that he should sit
quietly down in Spur Alley, and have no knowledge of what was
happening in Wales. Even at that moment, what terrible events might be
taking place on which his fate might hang as on a thread! And yet
again, how was it possible that any harm could happen to him having
its origin in what he had told Miriam? He had simply told her that he
had lost a box containing the whole of his worldly possessions; but he
had given no hint as to the special contents of the box. How was she
or her father to connect the Max Van Duren of to-day with the Max
Jacoby of twenty years ago? And even granting that they knew his
secret so far, there would not, even in that case, be the slightest
link to connect him with the murder of Paul Stilling. But more than
all else was he rendered uneasy by the fact of Byrne's disguise. There
was something in that which he altogether failed to comprehend. He
questioned Pringle again and again as to what he had seen at Euston
Square, but with no other result than to add a more positive
confirmation to what he had been told at first.
"Pringle, I shall go down to Marhyddoc by the next fast train."
"There is one at ten in the morning, sir."
"That will suit me. Mr. Byrne and I have sundry business transactions
together which necessitate my seeing him as soon as possible. I need
not tell you how annoyed I am to find that he has gone away without
leaving a message of any kind for me."
He paused and looked at his watch. "I am terribly tired, and I must
try to get a few hours' sleep before starting. You are a light
sleeper, I know, and I will trust you to call me at six."
"All right, sir."
"You may also see Mrs. Bakewell for me, and arrange for breakfast at
eight. You had better sleep here to-night, and I will go through the
remaining letters with you during breakfast."
Then, without another word, he left the room and marched slowly
upstairs to bed. Van Duren had spoken no more than the truth when he
said that he was terribly tired. He had been travelling continuously
for eighteen hours, and was thoroughly worn out. The news told him by
Pringle had taken away whatever appetite he might otherwise have had,
while leaving the need of some refreshment strongly upon him.
He was never without cognac in his bedroom. Of this he now took a
powerful dose, and then flinging himself upon the bed, dressed as he
was, in three minutes he was fast asleep.
While sleeping thus, he had a dream--a dream more strangely vivid,
more realistic in all its details, than any that he had ever had
before.
In this dream he himself was as it were an impersonal being, the
spectator of a drama in which he was called upon to play no part. The
scene of the drama in question was the bottom of the sea. Through the
green and limpid twilight, the floor, covered with sand and shells,
and huge, smooth-washed boulders, could be seen stretching away on
every side till lost in the dim distance. Fishes of various kinds,
some such as are never seen by mortal eye, swam silently to and fro in
the liquid depths. The middle distance of the sea was filled up with a
huge mass of wreckage and broken timber. There was no need to tell the
dreamer of what good ship the wreck was now before him. Even in his
sleep, his lips murmured, "That is the _Albatross_." In and out of the
broken bulks, and rotting portholes, and shattered hatchways, strange
monsters of the sea, big and little, kept crawling continually.
But presently there was a quick, frightened movement among the fishes,
and the dreamer beheld descending slowly from unknown heights a ladder
made of stout rope and weighted heavily at the bottom. In a little
while the weights touched the ground, and the ladder became stationary
and firm. Soon there could be seen, coming down slowly and heedfully,
a man in the full costume of a diver, and looking in it no unfit
companion for the strange creatures whose haunts he had for a little
while invaded. In a few minutes he was joined by another man similarly
attired. Together the two men bent their steps towards the wreck.
There was no need to tell the dreamer what they were there to look
for. Would they find it, or would they not? But in his impersonality
he had no further interest in having this question answered than a
spectator at a play might have; indeed, so slightly was he interested,
that he laughed aloud more than once as he watched the strange,
awkward movements of the two men as they clambered around and about
the wreck.
Round and about, in and out, they moved without any apparent success.
Evidently, the object they had come in search of was not to be found.
At length, as if by mutual consent, they walked back to the ladder.
One of them had got his foot on the lowermost rung, when his mate
touched him on the shoulder and pointed back to the wreck. The
sleeper's eyes followed the direction of the man's finger, and saw
there--what? The spectral figure of a man standing on the broken
bulwarks of the ship, and pointing downwards with outstretched finger
to a heap of rotting timber and loose wreckage at its feet. The figure
was diaphanous; the broken stump of a mast in front of which it was
standing could be clearly seen through it. It seemed to have a
wavering motion, very slight, but still perceptible, like that of a
flame which quivers by the intensity of its own heat. Although its
finger pointed downwards, the face of the figure was bent full on the
face of the sleeping man--the same face that he had seen in the glass,
haggard, deathlike, with a thin line of black moustache; while its
black, inscrutable eyes gazed down through his eyes into his very
soul. There was no laughter, no cynicism left in the dreamer
now--nothing but an unspeakable horror that stirred his hair and
chilled the beating of his heart even while he slept. He could not turn
away his eyes from those other eyes that were staring into his; but for
all that he could see, as we do see in dreams, everything that was
going on around him. He could see the men moving slowly back towards
the wreck, in obedience to the invitation of the spectre, of whom they
seemed to have no dread. He could see them searching and turning over
the heap of mouldering débris at which the finger was so persistently
pointed, and presently he could see them drag from the midst of it a
small square oaken box, the silver clamps of which were all tarnished
and black with the action of the sea. How well he remembered that box!
what cause he had to remember it!
Carrying the box carefully for fear lest it should fall to pieces, one
of the men brought it presently to the foot of the ladder, close to
which, let down from the heights above, hung a cord with a hook at the
end of it. To this hook the box was now fastened by one of the men,
then a tug was given to the cord, and next moment the box began slowly
to ascend, drawn up by unseen hands above.
The finger of the spectre now pointed upward. Soon the box was lost to
view, and as it disappeared, the twilight of the scene seemed to
darken and deepen and the water to lose somewhat of its limpid
clearness. It was as though night were reaching down with its hand of
blackness to the bottom of the sea. Slowly but surely the whole scene
grew blurred and indistinct as though one filmy veil of darkness after
another were being drawn between it and the dreamer's eyes, till at
length the familiar walls of the dreamer's bedroom began to grow out
of the darkness, and Max Van Duren knew that he was awake, and that
the dawn of another day was beginning to broaden in the east. From
head to foot he was bathed in perspiration, and he was trembling in
every limb. He sat up on the bed and gazed timidly around, as half
expecting to see the eyes of the spectre staring at him from some dim
corner of the room; but presently he heard a welcome footstep on the
stairs outside, and then came the voice of Pringle, telling him that
it was time to get up.