MR SIM TELLS THE TRUTH
Titus Sim returned home with the spirit of a conqueror. The long struggle
was over and the battle won. Minnie Sweetland had promised to marry him,
if only by so doing her late husband could be proved innocent; and he
well knew there was no alternative. She would keep her word: that he also
knew.
At supper in the servants’ hall of Middlecott Court, Titus, who arrived
as the others were finishing their meal, showed such evident lightness of
heart that Mr Hockaday, the butler, inquired the cause. Sim ate and spoke
together. He announced his approaching marriage with the widow of Daniel
Sweetland; and Dan, who sat smoking his pipe in a corner of the kitchen
by the fire, heard his friend’s news and witnessed his joy.
“At last!” said Mr Hockaday. “Well, she have taken her time, no doubt;
but you can’t wonder at that. It had to be; an’ she was worth waiting
for. So there’ll be more changes, and you’ll leave Middlecott, no doubt?
When’s the nupshalls?”
“I don’t know. That’s for her to say. Soon, I hope. I can’t believe it,
Hockaday; ’tis almost too good to be true. My cup’s full.”
Dan Sweetland’s pipe went out, and he rose, knocked the ashes from it,
and retired to his room. It was in the servants’ quarters, and he always
took good care to lock the door. None of the domestics had ever seen
the inside of the chamber since Dan became occupant. Had they done so,
it must have much surprised them to find a little photograph of Minnie
Sweetland upon the mantelpiece.
To this secluded den “Obi” now departed, and his thoughts were a strange
mixture of grave and gay. He was to see his wife in the morning, for
that day had gone the letter from Henry Vivian. But Minnie could not
yet have read the great news, since it seemed that within the hour she
had engaged herself to Titus Sim. The fact struck with petrifying force
upon Daniel’s mind. It woke a wide uneasiness and a great sorrow for the
awful disappointment that must await his friend. Minnie’s own attitude
puzzled him deeply. Could it be true that she had accepted Sim? Could it
be possible that his return to life would not please her? This thought
came and went like a flash of lightning. It left in his mind shame and
wonder that it could have come. Even at that moment he felt joy. She
knew now; the letter must have reached her from Warren Inn after Sim had
gone. She would be waiting for him in the dawn light; she would open her
arms for him before another sun had risen. Only hours remained between
their meeting; but Dan felt that those hours must be occupied with Titus
Sim. To hide his secret from Titus was no longer possible. Often and
often he had blamed himself for doing so. Sim’s love for Minnie had long
been general knowledge and a frequent theme of conversation among men
and maidens at Middlecott Court. Not seldom had Daniel risen and taken
himself beyond earshot. One thing he remembered: that Sim had never in
his hearing spoken an unkind word of him, or an improper one concerning
his wife. Now, upon this night, Sim’s joy hurt and stabbed the man with
the black face. To see Titus thus glad at the possibility of bliss
impossible, was a tragic spectacle for Sweetland. He thought deeply, then
resolved with himself that, despite the terrific shock of it, he would
break the truth to Sim. To delay was the greater cruelty. He had, indeed,
desired from the moment of his landing to let Titus into the great
secret; but Henry Vivian refused to allow him to do so.
It was past midnight when Daniel, acting upon this new impulse, dressed
himself and went to the room near his own in which Titus slept. A light
was burning and Mr Sim, who had not retired, turned from the writing of a
letter to see the black man standing in the door.
“Hullo, Obi! Whatever do you want?” he asked; then made the sign of a
question.
But Daniel answered and Sim fell back speechless upon his bed to hear the
long silent tones.
“What nightmare’s this? You can speak--speak in that voice? What are you
then?”
“One as be your friend always--always--one as can’t live this lie no
more--not for you, Titus. It have hurt me to the soul doing it; it have
tormented me day by day to see your honest face and hear your honest
speech. But you must forgive me for coming to life, old pal. ’Twas time
an’ more than time I did so seemingly. After to-night I couldn’t hide
myself behind this black face and this blank silence no more--not from
you. Say you forgive me, Titus. ’Twas life or death, remember.”
“Your life is my death,” answered the other, slowly. “Do you understand
that?”
Sim had turned deathly white, and perspiration made his face shine like
ivory.
“Don’t say such things. You’re a free, honest man as no living soul can
say one word against,” replied Daniel. “Your record be clean, an’ you can
stand up in the face of the nation, and no man can cast a word at you.
Don’t talk of death. ’Tis true I’ve got her--Minnie--my own wife; but
that’s all I have got in the world; an’ God only knows if I shall ever be
able to call her mine afore the people. Don’t grudge me my sole, blessed
joy. Think what I be, Titus--an outcast, a wanderer, a man that have had
to black his face an’ shut his mouth to escape the gallows. Don’t--but
why should I say these things to you? Right well I know the steel you
be forged of. Right well I know you never change. You’m my side still,
Titus? Say you’m my side still. Say you’ve forgived me. ’Twas my neck I
was playing for--I never thought to break your heart by this trick. An’
you must forgive Minnie, too. ’Twas only yesterday morn that Mr Henry’s
letter went to her. He wouldn’t let me see her before, and he wrote to
break it to her that I was alive an’ not far off. Of course, not knowing
that, she said ‘Yes’ to you. To-morrow--to-day, I should say--at first
glimmer of light, he’ve given me leave to go up along an’ hear what
she’ve got to tell me. Shake my hand--I ban’t black except my face. My
heart’s white an’ well you know it, Titus.”
He offered his hand and the other took it mechanically.
“You’ve knocked me all of a heap,” he said. “Let me hear your tale.
’Twill give my heart time to still an’ beat level again. You at my elbow!
And she--this very night--promised to marry me. ’Tis more than a man’s
brain can hold.”
“Afore she knowed that I was back in life again.”
Sim desired to think. The crash of this news confused him and unsettled
his mind.
“Tell your tale from the beginning, Daniel,” he said. “Let me hear it
all: then I’ll tell you mine, and give you some idea of what I’ve been
doing while you was away.”
“You haven’t cleared up the job in Middlecott Lower Hundred?”
“Speak your speech,” repeated Sim. “What I’ve got to say I’ll say
afterwards.”
Thereupon Daniel told his long story from the beginning. He described his
escape, his visit to Minnie, his journey to Plymouth, his experiences in
the _Peabody_. He told of life in the West Indies, of his meeting with
Henry Vivian and the tragedy of Jesse Hagan and Jabez Ford. He finally
explained the reasons for his present disguise, and his hopes how, during
the next few months, that might happen which would clear his name and
prove him an innocent and injured man.
To this recital, which occupied above an hour, Sim appeared to pay full
heed, but in reality his thoughts were far away. He nodded from time
to time, uttered an ejaculation or expression of wonder or regret, and
suggested that he was devoting his whole mind to his friend’s sensational
story, but in truth the man’s thought was otherwise engaged. Desperation
and malice and hate were the furies that now drove him forward. While
he lent his ear to Daniel, his brains were full of seething wrath, and
he plotted how best to use that night, how best to ruin for ever this
being who had returned thus inopportunely from the grave. He shook in
secret, his rage nearly choked him unseen; and at last caution was
thrown to the winds, craft was forgotten, passion whirled Sim out of
himself, he played his part no more, and as Daniel to his friend had
proclaimed the living truth behind the black veil that hid it, so now
Titus also revealed himself, spoke in a frenzy of disappointed passion,
and stripped his heart to the other’s horrified gaze. Even in the full
tempest and springtime of his fury, Sim perceived that he held the upper
hand, and made that clear to Sweetland. The truth, indeed, he told,
but without a witness, and it was beyond the listener’s power to prove
anything. He might repeat Sim’s infamous confession, but there were none
to substantiate the story. Only one man could have done so, and he lay
waiting for his funeral on the morrow.
“I’ve heard you, now hear me,” said the footman. “The Devil’s kept you
for the rope, Dan Sweetland; and ’twas I wove the rope and shall live to
know you’ve worn it. Your friend once, your bitter enemy to the death
from the day that woman put you before me and chose you for her husband.
After that I cursed your shadow when you passed and only waited the
right moment to get you out of my road for evermore. In the nick of time
the chance fell, and I--that you trusted as a pig trusts the butcher--I
caught you like a rabbit in a snare. Glare at me! Stare your damned black
eyes out of your head! I did it--did it all! And I’ve not done with you
yet--remember that. Rix Parkinson’s a dead man now--gone to have it out
in hell with Adam Thorpe. ’Twas Rix that shot him, and ’twas I that
thrashed your father the same night. We worked very well together--Rix
and me. Look out of the window. Only a six-foot drop--you’ll have the
same drop presently--with a rope round your neck. Down that wall I’ve
gone a hundred times. Rix drank damnation with his money; I put my share
away and let it grow. You was the black sheep in everybody’s mouth.
I--that was twice and twenty times the skilled sportsman you was--I went
my way quiet and unsuspected. Many and many and many’s the night me and
Parkinson thinned the pheasants. Then came that hour when your old fool
of a father and Adam Thorpe blundered on us. The best men will make a
mistake now and again; yet after all’s said, the mistake was theirs, for
one lost his life and t’other got his grey head broken. And then ’twas,
after we’d gathered our birds again and gone, that the thought of what
might be came to me. ‘Sweetland’s the man for this dirty work,’ says the
Devil to me; and in an hour, when Rix was away with the birds, I went up
over to your new home and found you at hand. You almost walked on top of
me as you went away; then I slipped into the hovel by unlatching a back
window with a bit of wire, and there was your gun waiting for me, with
cartridges in it as had just been fired! I saw you hanging in Exeter gaol
from that moment, if Thorpe died. The rest you know. I hid the gun that
night afore the hue and cry, and, come morning, found it put away very
carefully where ’twas supposed you meant to come for it some other day.
Meantime Thorpe died in hospital. ’Twas all as easy as lying. And now you
stand where you stood the hour that you were arrested. You’re a doomed
man, for only I can prove your innocence, and that I never will. That’s
what it is to come between a man and a woman he loves. If I don’t have
her, nobody shall have her--least of all you.”
The other rose and gasped in amazement at this narrative.
“Be it Sim I hear, or some cold-blooded Dowl as have got into his shape?”
“You know well enough, ruin seize you! Wrecked my life--that’s what
you’ve done; but the last word’s mine. I haven’t worked and toiled by
night and day for this. I’ll have her yet. Why not? You’re dead already!
Go--get out of my sight--sleep your last easy sleep. Go, I say, or I’ll
do for you with my own hand! ’Tis time you were in hell. An’ there I’ll
follow you; but not yet--not yet. Many a long year’s start of me you’ll
have. I must marry and get children; and if I live long enough, I’ll
cheat the Devil yet; but you--your thread’s spun; dead and buried in
quicklime you shall be!”
Nothing could have exceeded the frantic passion with which Sim uttered
this whirl of words. They burst from him with explosions and nearly
choked him. His eyes blazed, his limbs worked spasmodically. For the time
he behaved like a malignant lunatic.
Sweetland perceived that little was to be gained by further speech with
one insane. Therefore he rose and went away, that Titus might have
time to reflect and recover his senses. How much of this confession to
believe, Daniel did not know. At first, though dazed by such dreadful
tidings, he had credited the story and set it down to love run mad;
but when real madness blazed on Sim’s white face and he ceased to
be coherent--when the baffled rascal, in his storm and hurricane of
disappointment, raved of death and hell, Dan began to suppose him insane
in earnest. The wish was father to the thought. Even in his bewilderment
and consternation at this result of his confession to his friend, there
came sorrow for Titus Sim, and grief that such an awful catastrophe had
overtaken him. He longed to believe the whole dreadful story was spun of
moonshine; but he could not. There was too much method in it. Sim had
been responsible for all, and still too clearly desired his destruction.
For a few moments Sweetland stood irresolute at the door of the footman’s
room. Then he crept back to his own. No sign of day had yet dawned. As
he stood in profound thought, a clock below struck two.
At last the determination to see his master overcame Daniel. The gravity
of his position was such that he did not hesitate. In a few moments he
knocked at Henry Vivian’s door and was admitted.
The young man had now reached convalescence, but still kept his room. A
fire was burning, and Vivian rose and lighted a lamp.
“Come in,” he said. “I cannot sleep. I suppose you can’t either, Dan.
Well, an hour or two more and you’re in her arms! Be cautious and get
back before the house is stirring. Put that soup on the fire and give me
a cigarette. I wish you could take your wife some good news; but we hope
the good news may come from her. You know what my father’s opinion is. He
believes in you stoutly and will not raise a finger against you. But of
course he thinks I left you in Tobago.”
Dan waited for his master to finish speaking, and then told him what had
happened. Sweetland was so impressed with this new peril now sprung upon
him, that he had not thought how the story of Sim would strike another
listener. But Vivian’s attitude was naturally of a sort to relieve the
innocent man not a little.
“Of all the infernal scoundrels I ever heard, this knave is the worst!”
he cried. “But there’s no time to waste. We must strike instantly, or
it may be too late. Even now precious time has been wasted. Confound my
weakness! I can’t help you. Will you wake John, or Hockaday, or are you
equal to tackling him single-handed?”
“Tackling Sim? Of course I can do it, sir. Come to think of it, he
ought to be thrashed for thrashing my old father. But what good will a
thrashing do?”
“None. I don’t mean that. Only he must be made fast before he can take
any steps against you. I must see him. Go! Go! It was madness to leave
him. Bring him to me, and if he refuses to come, shout and rouse the
house.”
Sweetland started instantly, but his master called him back.
“Take this pistol,” he said. “This man’s a thousand times more dangerous
than you dream of. Either mad or sane, it would be better for you to be
in a cage with a tiger than with him. If he touches you, fire on him--and
fire first. If he obeys you, bring him here, and let him walk in front of
you. Be quick!”
Dan took the weapon and hurried back to Sim’s room, but it was empty. For
a moment he stood staring round it, and, in that silence, he heard a
horse gallop out of the stable yard not far distant. Henry Vivian’s fears
were confirmed, and Titus had made first move in the grim game now to be
played.
Dan rushed back with his news.
“You were right, sir; he’s gone--just galloped out of the yard. He’s off
to the police station!”
“Not he,” answered the other. “Run for your life--or her life--your wife,
Dan! That’s where he’s gone, and that’s where you’ll find him. Fly--take
my horse; but I’m afraid he has; and, if so, you’ll never catch him.
Nothing we’ve got will overtake my gelding.”
But his last words were spoken to air, for Dan, albeit he had been slow
to rouse, was indeed alive at last. In two minutes he had left the house.
There was no difficulty, for the doors stood open as Sim had left them.
But Vivian’s fast hack was not in the stable, and nothing else there,
under Dan’s heavy weight, stood the smallest chance of catching it.
The first tremor of dawn was in the sky, and its ghastly ray touched a
circle of plate glass. The glass belonged to the great front lamp of
Henry Vivian’s new motor-car, and it stood there, the incarnation of
sleeping strength and speed. There was no time to ask leave or return
to the house, but Daniel knew his master’s only regret would be that
he could not accompany him. He understood the great machine well, and
had already driven it on several occasions. It was of forty horse-power
and easily able to breast the steep acclivities that stretched between
Middlecott Court and the Moor; but the road was dangerous and a good
horse had power to proceed more swiftly over half of the ground than any
vehicle on wheels. Once in the Moor, however, it might be possible to
make up lost ground. For four or five miles Daniel calculated that he
could drive the car many times as fast as a horse could gallop. Thus he
might get even with Sim at the finish.
As quickly as possible he lighted the lamp, set the motor in motion, and
went upon his way. As he departed he hooted loudly, that Henry Vivian
might know the thing he had done.