"What!" I cried, "that quiet, studious, sad-faced man?"
"The greatest rip and debauchee in England! All between ourselves,
Colmore. But you understand now what I mean when I say that a woman's
voice in his room might even now give rise to suspicions."
"But what can have changed him so?"
"Little Beryl Clare, when she took the risk of becoming his wife. That
was the turning point. He had got so far that his own fast set had
thrown him over. There is a world of difference, you know, between
a man who drinks and a drunkard. They all drink, but they taboo a
drunkard. He had become a slave to it--hopeless and helpless. Then she
stepped in, saw the possibilities of a fine man in the wreck, took
her chance in marrying him, though she might have had the pick of a
dozen, and, by devoting her life to it, brought him back to manhood and
decency. You have observed that no liquor is ever kept in the house.
There never has been any since her foot crossed its threshold. A drop
of it would be like blood to a tiger even now."
"Then her influence still holds him?"
"That is the wonder of it. When she died three years ago, we all
expected and feared that he would fall back into his old ways. She
feared it herself, and the thought gave a terror to death, for she was
like a guardian angel to that man, and lived only for the one purpose.
By the way, did you see a black japanned box in his room?"
"Yes."
"I fancy it contains her letters. If ever he has occasion to be away,
if only for a single night, he invariably takes his black japanned box
with him. Well, well, Colmore, perhaps I have told you rather more than
I should, but I shall expect you to reciprocate if anything of interest
should come to your knowledge." I could see that the worthy man was
consumed with curiosity and just a little piqued that I, the new-comer,
should have been the first to penetrate into the untrodden chamber. But
the fact raised me in his esteem, and from that time onwards I found
myself upon more confidential terms with him.
And now the silent and majestic figure of my employer became an object
of greater interest to me. I began to understand that strangely human
look in his eyes, those deep lines upon his careworn face. He was a
man who was fighting a ceaseless battle, holding at arm's length, from
morning till night, a horrible adversary, who was for ever trying to
close with him--an adversary which would destroy him body and soul
could it but fix its claws once more upon him. As I watched the grim,
round-backed figure pacing the corridor or walking in the garden,
this imminent danger seemed to take bodily shape, and I could almost
fancy that I saw this most loathsome and dangerous of all the fiends
crouching closely in his very shadow, like a half-cowed beast which
slinks beside its keeper, ready at any unguarded moment to spring at
his throat. And the dead woman, the woman who had spent her life in
warding off this danger, took shape also to my imagination, and I saw
her as a shadowy but beautiful presence which intervened for ever with
arms uplifted to screen the man whom she loved.
In some subtle way he divined the sympathy which I had for him, and
he showed in his own silent fashion that he appreciated it. He even
invited me once to share his afternoon walk, and although no word
passed between us on this occasion, it was a mark of confidence which
he had never shown to anyone before. He asked me also to index his
library (it was one of the best private libraries in England), and I
spent many hours in the evening in his presence, if not in his society,
he reading at his desk and I sitting in a recess by the window reducing
to order the chaos which existed among his books. In spite of these
closer relations I was never again asked to enter the chamber in the
turret.
And then came my revulsion of feeling. A single incident changed all
my sympathy to loathing, and made me realize that my employer still
remained all that he had ever been, with the additional vice of
hypocrisy. What happened was as follows.
One evening Miss Witherton had gone down to Broadway, the neighbouring
village, to sing at a concert for some charity, and I, according to
my promise, had walked over to escort her back. The drive sweeps
round under the eastern turret, and I observed as I passed that the
light was lit in the circular room. It was a summer evening, and the
window, which was a little higher than our heads, was open. We were,
as it happened, engrossed in our own conversation at the moment, and
we had paused upon the lawn which skirts the old turret, when suddenly
something broke in upon our talk and turned our thoughts away from our
own affairs.
It was a voice--the voice undoubtedly of a woman. It was low--so low
that it was only in that still night air that we could have heard it,
but, hushed as it was, there was no mistaking its feminine timbre. It
spoke hurriedly, gaspingly for a few sentences, and then was silent--a
piteous, breathless, imploring sort of voice. Miss Witherton and I
stood for an instant staring at each other. Then we walked quickly in
the direction of the hall-door.
"It came through the window," I said.
"We must not play the part of eaves-droppers," she answered. "We must
forget that we have ever heard it."
There was an absence of surprise in her manner which suggested a new
idea to me.
"You have heard it before," I cried.
"I could not help it. My own room is higher up on the same turret. It
has happened frequently."
"Who can the woman be?"
"I have no idea. I had rather not discuss it."
[Illustration: "IT WAS THE VOICE UNDOUBTEDLY OF A WOMAN."]
Her voice was enough to show me what she thought. But granting that
our employer led a double and dubious life, who could she be, this
mysterious woman who kept him company in the old tower? I knew from my
own inspection how bleak and bare a room it was. She certainly did not
live there. But in that case where did she come from? It could not be
any one of the household. They were all under the vigilant eyes of Mrs.
Stevens. The visitor must come from without. But how?
And then suddenly I remembered how ancient this building was, and how
probable that some mediæval passage existed in it. There is hardly
an old castle without one. The mysterious room was the basement of
the turret, so that if there were anything of the sort it would open
through the floor. There were numerous cottages in the immediate
vicinity. The other end of the secret passage might lie among some
tangle of bramble in the neighbouring copse. I said nothing to anyone,
but I felt that the secret of my employer lay within my power.
And the more convinced I was of this the more I marvelled at the manner
in which he concealed his true nature. Often as I watched his austere
figure, I asked myself if it were indeed possible that such a man
should be living this double life, and I tried to persuade myself that
my suspicions might after all prove to be ill-founded. But there was
the female voice, there was the secret nightly rendezvous in the turret
chamber--how could such facts admit of an innocent interpretation? I
conceived a horror of the man. I was filled with loathing at his deep,
consistent hypocrisy.
Only once during all those months did I ever see him without that sad
but impassive mask which he usually presented towards his fellow-man.
For an instant I caught a glimpse of those volcanic fires which he had
damped down so long. The occasion was an unworthy one, for the object
of his wrath was none other than the aged charwoman whom I have already
mentioned as being the one person who was allowed within his mysterious
chamber. I was passing the corridor which led to the turret--for my own
room lay in that direction--when I heard a sudden, startled scream,
and merged in it the husky, growling note of a man who is inarticulate
with passion. It was the snarl of a furious wild beast. Then I heard
his voice thrilling with anger. "You would dare!" he cried. "You
would dare to disobey my directions!" An instant later the charwoman
passed me, flying down the passage, white faced and tremulous, while
the terrible voice thundered behind her. "Go to Mrs. Stevens for your
money! Never set foot in Thorpe Place again!" Consumed with curiosity,
I could not help following the woman, and found her round the corner
leaning against the wall and palpitating like a frightened rabbit.
[Illustration: "NEVER SET FOOT IN THORPE PLACE AGAIN!"]
"What is the matter, Mrs. Brown?" I asked.
"It's master!" she gasped. "Oh 'ow 'e frightened me! If you 'ad seen
'is eyes, Mr. Colmore, sir. I thought 'e would 'ave been the death of
me."
"But what had you done?"
"Done, sir! Nothing. At least nothing to make so much of. Just laid my
'and on that black box of 'is--'adn't even opened it, when in 'e came
and you 'eard the way 'e went on. I've lost my place, and glad I am of
it, for I would never trust myself within reach of 'im again."
So it was the japanned box which was the cause of this outburst--the
box from which he would never permit himself to be separated. What was
the connection, or was there any connection between this and the secret
visits of the lady whose voice I had overheard? Sir John Bollamore's
wrath was enduring as well as fiery, for from that day Mrs. Brown, the
charwoman, vanished from our ken, and Thorpe Place knew her no more.
And now I wish to tell you the singular chance which solved all these
strange questions and put my employer's secret in my possession.
The story may leave you with some lingering doubt as to whether my
curiosity did not get the better of my honour, and whether I did not
condescend to play the spy. If you choose to think so I cannot help it,
but can only assure you that, improbable as it may appear, the matter
came about exactly as I describe it.
The first stage in this _dénouement_ was that the small room on the
turret became uninhabitable. This occurred through the fall of the
worm-eaten oaken beam which supported the ceiling. Rotten with age,
it snapped in the middle one morning, and brought down a quantity of
the plaster with it. Fortunately Sir John was not in the room at the
time. His precious box was rescued from amongst the _débris_ and
brought into the library, where, henceforward, it was locked within
his bureau. Sir John took no steps to repair the damage, and I never
had an opportunity of searching for that secret passage, the existence
of which I had surmised. As to the lady, I had thought that this would
have brought her visits to an end, had I not one evening heard Mr.
Richards asking Mrs. Stevens who the woman was whom he had overheard
talking to Sir John in the library. I could not catch her reply, but I
saw from her manner that it was not the first time that she had had to
answer or avoid the same question.
"You've heard the voice, Colmore?" said the agent.