Lancelot’s Ultimatum
October 6. 11.25 A.M.
Was he, I wondered, in the room at all? So far, since eight o’clock, I
had not been able to detect the slightest sound from within the
chamber. For longer and longer periods I listened with my ear to the
door, all senses alert. I thought of knocking, but refrained, for Aire
had counselled against it. But that inhuman stillness inside the room!
Suddenly footsteps resounded crossing the floor, no secret footsteps,
but blatant and decisive ones. I had hardly time to draw back a little
from the entrance when the door opened and Maryvale stood on the
threshold.
I was shocked, for with the exception of two days’ bristle he looked
so much himself. When he saw me, he tossed his head back in a laugh
that had the natural ring.
“Ah, you, Mr. Bannerlee. I wondered which of the gentlemen was
protecting me this morning.”
Yes, he seemed quite the same as when I had first met him and we paced
the walk outside the Hall of the Moth. Quiet and courteous, sane and
substantial, he smiled on my embarrassment.
“Aren’t you coming in? You’ve had a long wait.”
I was trying to meet his cheerful eye and to think at the same time.
“I should rather expect you’d wish to come out.”
“No, thank you; I have been out.”
“You have? No one told me.”
“Of course not,” he said with his fluent ease of manner. “Last night
my oils weren’t quite right, and I looked for some common varnish in
the stable supply room.”
“Well,” I laughed, “I should think you’d have thought of food before
varnish.”
“True, I have not been eating very heartily. Some carrots and raw
cabbage from the kitchen garden was all I could obtain. The darkness
rather hindered me.”
“But I heard nothing of this. Who let you out?”
“Let me out? My dear sir, I go out when I choose, by the window!”
“But you couldn’t have climbed down the wall.”
“Mr. Bannerlee, we seldom know our latent powers. What I set myself to
do, I do. It is a great deal easier than you suppose when the windows
have cornices and the ivy is reasonably firm.”
“But climbing back?”
“You have observed the ladder, of course. For the present, I find it
obviates much of the difficulty. Later—” His voice trailed out, and he
changed the subject with a renewed invitation to enter. “I am glad it
is you who are the first to see my work. I think you will know how to
evaluate it.”
Perhaps I was not prudent, but I was bitterly curious to see what was
the product Maryvale had taken extraordinary measures to create. I
stepped inside, noted the broad, slant-shouldered room to be in order,
saw lying across a chair the thin sword, a mere rapier, with which the
man had threatened to make a ghost of any who interrupted him. A stout
walking-stick would have smashed the blade to splinters in a
twinkling. The bed had not been slept in, or on. The only litter in
the room was near the casement, where easel and canvas stood and rags
and brushes were scattered on the floor.
“The pigments are not dry yet, of course,” said Maryvale. “Still, the
work is done.”
Maryvale’s canvas was about four feet each way, and save for an
irregular space in the centre, every inch had been drawn and coloured
with minute care. Almost it might be said that the one derogatory
criticism was that overloaded detail diminished the interest of the
principal subject. For the picture was no mere daub of good
intentions. Though even my inexpert eye saw deficiencies in technique,
they were faults due to a long unpractised hand—they were nothing.
Once on a time, indeed, Maryvale must have studied his art to
advantage, for now in spite of imperfect materials at his command, and
in spite of long unacquaintance with the medium, the power of his idea
overrode the difficulties, and the magnificent though intentionally
uncompleted painting drove its impression home.
Only, as I have said, the background and lesser adjuncts demanded a
greater share of interest than usual. A peculiar circumstance abetted
this fact. The central figure had no face.
The scene was above a valley so deep that its bottom was lost in
darkness, where the whole middle air was drenched with rain to the
colour of smoke, through which the sun, westering and low, sent a
shaft of dripping light. Higher, against a black and sullen
mountain-side, the thunder-heads were gathered in inky monochrome, and
down the sky wriggled a huge worm of lightning, so dazzling that it
affected the eye with torture keen as that which a loud shrill sound
inflicts upon the ear. And round about, outside the clouds and within
them, flickered the suggestions of menacing shapes, skinny arms,
abysmal eyes, demonic smiles.
In the centre, a solitary figure hung in the track of the storm, not
upright, not poised as if for swooping flight, but horizontal in the
turgid air, resting with four limbs widespread, like some unholy ghost
brooding over the nether gulfs of hell—Parson Lolly. The pitch-black
cloak flapped restless in the tempest, and from the indistinguishable
murk below came up the scarlet gleams from unknown forges.
Parson Lolly’s neck was twisted upward and the face turned toward the
beholder, save that there was no face. Examining closely, I saw that
not the faintest lines had been drawn for one, that Maryvale had
simply ceased at that place in his design. The sinister suggestion was
enforced by the bulk of the decapitated figure against the livid
storm, by the hands with their hint of feline claws, by the shadows
cast downward by those hands, like the doom of pestilence scattered
down the gulf.
The artist stood by the window, his back to the light, but I could see
the high glint of satisfaction in his eye.
“You _do_ approve, I can tell.”
“Maryvale, this is—well, it’s beyond anything I expected. Where did
you study?”
“Two years with Coselli in Milan. But that was long ago; I could not
have done this then.”
“What are you going to do about the face?”
“I doubt that I shall ever finish it,” he said, looking at his
handiwork. “No.” He shook his head and his eyes contracted to points
of light. “It may be the only picture I shall ever paint—”
“Surely not!” I cried with much feeling. “You have the incommunicable
gift.”
But Maryvale was far aloof. His voice had changed into that distant
tone that suggested withdrawal beyond the sphere of ordinary mortals.
And when he spoke, I became as cold as ice.
“I know now why Cosgrove passed away, with all the embroilments and
hubbub he used to cause.”
I responded with a sense of rigid self-control: “You aren’t, er,
implying he terminated his own existence?”
“He was killed so that I could paint. When all this excitement and
investigation is over, that is what they will find. I think it is well
his life is ended.”
“Come now, Mr. Maryvale, without cavil or casuistry, tell me who
performed this beneficial murder.”
“Someone, I do not know who, of the house of Kay.”
Same day. 4.30 P.M.
For some reason the Superintendent appeared highly gratified and very
lenient toward the universe. Alberta Pendleton, though perhaps no more
curious than the rest of the table, was the only one who ventured to
find out why. Wheedling, she persisted from the fish to the fruit, and
at length wore out Salt’s defences by attrition.
The table grew still while the Superintendent opened a wallet capable
of holding a couple of folios and very carefully withdrew a piece of
notepaper which he held by a sheath of blotter fastened with a clip.
“Take it by the corner, _if_ you please, and mind it don’t catch fire.
That was a neat trick somebody played on me last evening, but I’ll
thank you not to repeat it,” he admonished a trifle grimly, opening
the note and handing it to Mrs. Bartholomew, whose eyes grew twice
their size within two seconds while they were fixed on the writing.
“What does it say?” chorused half a dozen voices, but Mrs. Bartholomew
could only give a huge swallow and an audible sigh, and handed the
paper to Maryvale without looking at him.
“Read it to us,” besought Crofts, who sat at the far end of the table
and whose turn would not come for at least a couple of minutes.
Maryvale complied. “‘Sir,—Will no plain speech cause you or your
principals to understand that the die is cast and the snowball is
rolling downhill!’” A long low whistle broke from the reader’s lips.
“Go on!” (from Crofts.)
“Oh, Mr. Maryvale, that’s not fair!”
“Don’t stop, please.”
“For God’s sake, go on!”
“I will go on,” said the man of business. “‘My deeds be on my head!’”
After that perhaps prophetic sentence the silence seemed to sway and
swirl. Alberta asked in a small voice, “Is that all?”
“No, there is another paragraph, equally concise: ‘I have acquainted
Mr. Oxford sufficiently with the particulars, and I do not see that
there is any need for you and me to discuss the situation. It remains
simply for you to take what measures you consider best, or to accept
the inevitable. You cannot stem the tide.’”
About twenty-four startled eyes suddenly turned full glare on Charlton
Oxford.
“No signature?” asked Aire.
“Yes, the message is signed ‘Lancelot,’ and a postscript adds, ‘These
notes and their method of delivery are an unnecessary risk. I suggest
that your answer be the last, since on my side the question is past
debate.’ That _is_ the end.”
Oxford sat between Miss Mertoun and Lib Dale, on my side of the board.
Lib promptly struck a finger into his waistcoat, so that he squirmed,
while the English girl looked at her cousin with wide wonder, or a
clever imitation of it, in her fine black eyes.
“What in thunder have _you_ got to do with this mess?” demanded
Pendleton.
“Yes, Oxey, old sport,” appended Lib, “what’s all this secret stuff?
Are you a great man and we didn’t know it all the time?”
But Oxford, his eyes very uncomfortable, made no answer than to shrug
his modish shoulders, and Salt came to his rescue.
“Don’t press Mr. Oxford, if you please. He is bound in confidence to
me.”
“This, I believe, is an admissible question,” said Aire. “Is the note
a recent discovery of yours?”
“Found it an hour ago.”
“But surely you couldn’t have overlooked it in your previous search in
Mr. Cosgrove’s room.”
“Right you are. But I didn’t discover this in Mr. Cosgrove’s room.”
“Oh?”
“No. It had been delivered.”
“Delivered? What the devil do you mean?” asked Crofts.
“It was put where Sir Brooke told Mr. Cosgrove to leave it.”
“In the mail!” I exclaimed, a great dawn rising in my brain. “Wait a
moment, Superintendent. I’ll tell you where you found that paper!”
“Gumme, if you haven’t guessed it or something.”
“In the armoury!”
“Right.”
“In the armoury?” Crofts echoed dully, his brow scowling down.
How clear the recollection was: the armoury in misty bluish light, the
three vague shapes of men, the one with the white tuft and shirt-front
picking the pockets of the other two, the narrow face at the candle
before the room was turned to darkness. Unsuccessful that search must
have been; Cosgrove must have “posted” this letter afterward. But what
was Lord Ludlow’s part in this muddle? Surely he played an extra hand,
perhaps a lone hand. I looked at his guileless countenance and would
have given a guinea to know what was going on behind it.
I shifted my attention to Salt again. “But there must have been some
disturbance, Superintendent. I don’t believe that even you—”
“Cleanin’,” acknowledged Salt. “Miss Carmody—Jael, that is—was dustin’
about. No question she shook it loose, for it was lyin’ on the floor
under the newer suit of armour when I passed through at twelve
o’clock.”
“But I don’t see—why, the mail is—” commenced Mrs. Bartholomew
diffidently.
“The coat of mail, the coat of mail,” growled Bob Cullen.
“That’s it,” said Salt. “You see, Mr. Pendleton, you had a little Post
Office here after all. This note was tucked away between the
chain-mail and the cuirass. Couldn’t have been a better hidin’-place,
as long as there were no children in the house to pick things to
pieces.”
The ladies had passed from the room, and we were on the point of
following, when Salt recalled us with a casual remark. “Well, I’m
poppin’ off now, gentlemen.”
“Eh!” exclaimed Crofts. “I thought Dr. Niblett—”
“We’re off together, sir. The Coroner’s conductin’ the bodies, and I’m
conductin’ the Coroner.”
“For heaven’s sake, send us some newspapers to read,” I urged.
“I will, I will.” Salt cast his eye somewhat sardonically about the
circle. “Any more small commissions from any of you gentlemen?”
We clustered at the doorway where the melancholy caravan set out in
charge of Dr. Niblett. The bodies of Cosgrove and of the unknown,
stitched in sheets and laid along improvised stretchers, were to be
carried by motor as far as the temporary bridge, across which they
must be borne by hand. The undertaker’s van was waiting across the
Water to convey them to the mortuary, where to-morrow they will be
“viewed” by the Coroner’s juries impanelled to sit on the bodies.
They were gone.