WHO KILLED MODRED?
In the instant of realization, as I stood near, death-stricken, where
I had stopped, I felt the whole room shake and tremble as the torrent
leaped upon the wheel with a flinging shock, heard a clanking screech
rise from the monster as it turned, slowly at first, but quickly
gathering speed under the awful pressure; heard one last bubbling
scream waver up from the depths and die within the narrow vault; then
all sense was whelmed and numbed in the single booming crash of water.
Already, indeed, the choked water, hurled high by the paddles, was
gushing through the opening in cascades upon the floor. How long would
the ancient rafters and beams and walls resist the terrible pressure?
I had no thought or desire to escape. What had taken me long to
describe, all passed in a few seconds. But Providence, that here
included so many actors in the tragedy in one common ruin, had not
writ my sentence, and my young suffering soul it spared to this dark
world of memories.
Insatiable yet, however, it claimed a last victim.
He came running back now, breathing hateful triumph in the lust of his
wickedness--came to gloat over the work of his evil hands.
I heard him splash into the water that poured from the wheel--dance in
it--laugh and scream out:
“Tit for tat, and the devil pipes! Caught in his own net! You, there,
in the dark! Do you hear? Where are you? Where?--my arms hunger for
you!”
The paralysis of my senses left me.
“Man or fiend?” I shrieked above the thunder of the water. “Down on
your knees! It is the end for both of us! Down, and weep and pray--for
I believe, before God, you have just murdered your son!”
There was a brief fearful pause; he seemed to be listening--then,
without preface or warning, there came a sudden surging crash,
deafening and appalling and I thought “Is it upon us?”
Still I stood unscathed, though a cracking volley of sounds, rending
and shattering, succeeded the crash, and one wild, dreadful cry that
pierced through all. Then silence fell, broken only by the smooth,
washing sweep of a great body of water through the channel below.
Silence fell and lapped me in a merciful unconsciousness; for, with
the relaxing of the mental pressure I went plump down upon the floor
where I stood and lay in a long faint.
* * * * * *
When I came to myself a dim wash of daylight soaking through the
blurred window had found my face as I lay prone upon the boards, and
was crawling up to my eyes like a child to open them. An ineffable
soft sense of peace kept still my exhausted limbs in the first waking
moments, and only by degrees occurred to me the horror and tragedy of
the previous night.
Still I made no attempt to rise, hoping only in forlorn self-pity that
death would come to me gently as I lay and take me by the hand,
saying: “With the vexing problems of life you need nevermore trouble
yourself.”
All around, save for the deep murmur of water, was deathly quiet, and
I prayed that it might remain so; that nothing might ever recall me to
weariful action again.
Then a faint groan came to my ears and the misericordious spell was
broken.
Slowly and feebly I gathered myself together to rise. But a second
moan dissipated the selfish shadow and stung me to some reluctant
action.
Leaning upon my hand I looked about me and could hardly believe the
evidence of my senses when I saw the walls and rafters of the fateful
room stretching about me unaltered and unscathed. The crash, that had
seemed to involve all in one splintering ruin, had left, seemingly, no
evidence of its nature whatsoever. Only, for a considerable distance
from the mouth of the cupboard, the floor was stained with a sop of
water; and, not a dozen feet from me, huddled in the darkest of it,
lay a heaped and sodden mass that stirred and sent forth another moan
as I looked.
Painfully, then, I got upon my feet and stole, with no sentiment but a
weak curiosity, to the prostrate thing. It was as if I had died and my
dissatisfied ghost postponed its departure, seeking the last
explanation of things. Thus, while my soul was sensitive to the least
expression of the tragedy that absorbed it, in the human world outside
it seemed no longer to feel an interest.
And here, under my eyes, was tumbled the latest grim victim of this
house accursed--the engineer of much diabolical machinery mangled by
the demon he had himself evoked. What a pitiful, collapsed ruin, that,
for all its resourcefulness, could only moan and suffer!
Only a thin thread of crimson ran from the corner of his mouth, and
where it had made during the night a little pool on the floor under
his head it looked like ink.
Near him lay a great jagged block of wood green with slime. I crept to
the cupboard opening and looked down.
The wheel was gone!
Then I knew what had happened. The house had triumphed over the
stubborn monster that had so long proved its curse. At the supreme
moment the vast dam had yielded and saved the building. It had gone,
leaving not a trace of wreckage but this--this, and the single torn
fragment that had struck down the wretch who set it in motion--had
gone, bearing away with it in one boiling ruin the crushed and twisted
bodies of the last two victims of its insensate fury.
But one further sign was there of its mighty passing--a ragged rent a
foot square driven through the very wall of the house within the
vault.
And here a thin shaft of light came in and fell, like the focus of an
awful eye, full upon the miniature where it lay nailed, face upward,
upon the axle--fell, also, upon that empty niche in the brickwork
where once had stood the treasure for which Jason had given his life.
I turned to the shattered man, leaned over him, touched him. He gave a
gasp of agony and opened his eyes. The white stare of horror was in
them and the blood ran faster from his mouth.
“Water!” he cried, with a dry, clacking sound in his throat.
I hurried from the room, although he called after me feebly not to
leave him, drew a jugful from the tap in the kitchen and returned. I
heard no sound in the house. A glimmer of flood came in through the
gaping door to the yard. No immediate help was possible in the rising
of that direful morning after the storm. I was alone with my many
dead.
I put the jug to his lips and he sucked down a long, gluttonous
draught. Then he looked at me with eager inquiry breaking through his
mortal torment.
“My chest is all broken in,” he said, straining out his voice in
bitter anguish. “When I move the end will come. Quick!--you said
something--at the last moment--what was it?”
“That I believed it was your son you sent to his death down there.”
“I have no son. Once--yes--but he died--was poisoned--or drowned.”
“Oh! God forgive this man!” I cried, lifting my face in terror, and in
that sick moment inspiration, I think, was given me.
“He never died. He was saved, to grow up a hopeless cripple, and that
was he you murdered last night.”
He closed his eyes again, and I saw his ashen lips moving.
“Oh, man,” I cried, “are you praying? Take grace of repentance and
humble your wicked soul at the last. I can’t believe you innocent of a
share in the wretchedness of this wretched house. I am the only one
left of it--broken and lost to hope, but I forgive you--do you
understand?--I forgive you.”
“I never killed the boy,” he muttered in a low, suffering tone, and
with his eyes still closed.
“Will you tell me all you know about it? If you are guiltless, be
merciful as you hope for mercy.”
“Modred found the cameo--picked it up--he told me himself--in this
very room--where--your father must have dropped it.”
I cried “yes” passionately, and implored him to go on.
“He--the old man--that night--accused me of stealing it. It was the
first--I’d heard of it. Presently--he fell asleep--in his chair. I
thought I would--seize the opportunity to--look for it over the
house--quietly. Finding myself--outside--the boy’s room--I went in to
see--how--he--was getting on. He was awake--and--there was the very
thing--in his hand. I asked him how--he had come by it. He told me. I
demanded it--of him--said--your father had--promised it me.
Nothing--availed--availed.”
He was gasping and panting to such a degree that I thought even now he
would die, leaving the words I maddened for unspoken. Brutally, in my
torment, I urged him on.
“He--wouldn’t give it up. I rushed at him--he put it in his
mouth--and--as I seized him, tried to swallow it--and choked. It had
stuck at--the entrance to his gullet. In a few moments--in his state
he was too--weak to expel it--he was dead. Perhaps--I might have saved
him--but the trinket--the beautiful trinket!”
My heart seemed scarcely to beat as I listened. At last I knew the
truth--knew it wicked and inhuman; yet--thank God--less atrocious than
I had dreaded.
“But afterward,” I whispered--“afterward?”
“There was a plan,” he moaned, and his speech came with difficulty,
“inspired me. I dissuaded--your father--from encouraging--any inquiry.
A post-mortem, I knew--would lay open the secret--and lose me--the
cameo. He was buried--on my certificate. I got--the man--George
White--under my thumb--fed him on fire--lent him money--made him--my
tool. One dark--stormy--night--we opened the grave--the coffin. The
devil--lent a hand. A new grave--had to be dug--a foot away. It was
only--necessary--to--make a hori--horizontal opening--in the
intervening soil. I had--my tools--and sliced open the dead boy’s
throat--and found what I wanted. Only the sexton knew.
Nothing--afterward--would persuade--the mad fool--that the boy--hadn’t
been buried alive--and that--I--hadn’t murdered him. Only his fear--of
me--kept his mouth--shut. This is--the truth.”
He lay quite still, exhausted with his long, cruel effort. I touched
him gently with my hand.
“As I hope for rest myself,” I said, “I forgive you, now that you have
spoken, for all this long, hideous misery. The treasure you staked
against your soul is passed in fire and water and lost forever.
Nothing remains to you here; and, for the future--oh, pray, man, pray,
while there is time!”
My voice broke in a sob. He strove to lift himself, leaning upon his
hand, and immediately his mouth was choked with blood.
“Where’s he?” he cried, in a stifled voice--“Down there?”
“That way he went. The waters have him now--him, and my brother Jason,
who was on the wheel also when you raised the hatch. God knows, their
bodies may be miles away by this time.”
He looked up at me with an awful expression; then, without another
word, dragged himself inch by inch along the floor to the pit mouth
and, reaching it, looked down--and immediately a great sputtering cry
burst from him:
“Who put that there?--that? the miniature? I gave it to--who did it, I
say? It’s a trick! My soul burns--it burns already! Tear it off! My
own portrait--Minna!”
Thus and in such manner I heard my mother’s name spoken for the first
time; felt the awful foundering truth burst upon my heart. Uttering
it, the soul of this fearful man tore free with a last dying scream of
agony, and he dropped upon his face over the threshold of the running
vault.
One moment, fate-stricken, I heard in the silence the heavy drip of
something going pattering down into the pit--the next, darkness
overwhelmed and the world ceased for me.
* * * * *
Did I ever see Zyp again? I know that some one came to me, lying
entranced in a long, sick dream, who bore her resemblance, at least,
and who spoke gentle words to me and put cold, sweet drink to my lips.
But, when I woke at last, she was not there--only a kind, soft woman,
a ministering nurse, who moved without noise, and foresaw all my
fretful wants.
If she came, she went and left no trace; and I know in my heart I am
never to see her more.
And here, month by month, I sit alone in the old haunted, crazy
place--alone with my memories and my ghosts and my ancient fruitless
regrets.
Dolly and my father--the doctor, and those other two, found far away,
welded in a dead embrace, and crushed and dinted one into the
other--the fair and the ugly, all, all gone, and I am alone.
I am not thirty, yet my hair is white and it is time I was gone.
And to hear death knock at my door this very night would be ecstasy.
[THE END.]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
The edition published by John Long (London, 1902) was referenced for
most of the changes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ finger-tips/finger tips,
footfalls/foot-falls, etc.) and obsolete spellings (_e.g._ clew,
grewsome, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Add TOC.
Assorted punctuation corrections.
[Chapter V]
Change (“It’s awful and _its_ grand, but there are always”) to _it’s_.
“and she _fell_ at home among the flowers at once” to _felt_.
“forever and a day, Mr. _Ralf_ Trender” to _Ralph_.
“_Its_ naught that concerns you,” to _It’s_.
[Chapter VIII]
“on the _wash hand stand_ a rush candle” to _wash-hand stand_.
[Chapter X]
(glancing at me, “_Dad_ thought there ought to be) to _dad_.
[Chapter XIV]
“on which a protruding red _upperlip_ lay like” to _upper lip_.
“I had been with him getting on a a year” delete one _a_.
[Chapter XV]
“eye to find flaws in my _phrasology_” to _phraseology_.
[Chapter XVII]
“something the fascinating figure she always was” add _of_ after
_something_.
[Chapter XVII]
(“passion of the past” the _poet_ strove to explore) to _poets_.
[Chapter XXI]
“another weekly dissipation on _Hampsted_ heath is over” to
_Hampstead_.
[Chapter XXIII]
(“Well, _its_ best,” I muttered at last) to _it’s_.
[Chapter XXX]
(“I mean it _to_,” I said) to _too_.
[Chapter XLI]
“It is the man’s _were wolf_, my good friend” to _werewolf_.
[Chapter XLII]
(“question, mon _frere_, and I will answer.”) to _frère_.
[Chapter XLIII]
“and sobbing like _an_ hysterical school-girl.” to _a_.
[Chapter XLV]
“I was doing so _matter-in-fact_ as to half-cure me” to
_matter-of-fact_.
[Chapter XLVI]
“and well out of the _perdendicular_” to _perpendicular_.
[Chapter LI]
(to a patient I once attended. _Good night_.”) to _Good-night_.
[Chapter LII]
“held the paper in such position that he could write” add _a_ after
_such_.
[Chapter LIV]
“_Good morning_ to you. May I remind you that” to _Good-morning_.
[Chapter LV]
“the _damned_ water spurted and leaped from” to _dammed_.
[Chapter LVII]
“I have not been _mere_ active in your succor” to _more_.
[Chapter LVIII]
“Some insane fancy had drawn _his_ off the scent” to _him_.
[End of Text]