THE THREE ACCOMPLICES
On that same evening the three accomplices--probably on the proceeds of
their iniquities--were dining together at the _Savoy_. After dinner they
sat on the verandah overlooking the river and the embankment. 'Tis
sweet, what time the evening shades prevail, while one is still in the
stage of physical comfort and mental peace attendant upon an artistic
little banquet, to view from the serene heights of a balcony at that
hotel the unquiet figures of those who flit backwards and forwards
below. They--alas!--have not dined so well, or they could not walk so
fast, or drag their limbs so hopelessly, or lean over the wall so sadly.
Elsie leaned her head upon her hands, looking down upon this scene,
though not quite with these thoughts. Young ladies who are quite happy,
and are going to be married next week, do not make these comparisons.
Happiness is selfish. When one is quite happy, everybody else seems
quite happy too--even Lazarus and the leper. We must never be happy if
we do not wish to be selfish.
Coffee was on the table. Athelstan had a cigar. They were all three
silent. During dinner they had talked gaily, because everybody knows
that you cannot talk with strange people listening. After dinner they
sat in silence, because it is only when the waiters are gone that one is
free to talk.
'Elsie,' said George presently, 'you have something to tell
us--something you have discovered. For my own part, since I handed the
case over to anybody else, I feel as if I were not interested in it. But
still, one would like to know--just for curiosity's sake--when Checkley
is to be "run in."'
'Yes,' said Elsie, 'I must tell you. Perhaps I ought to have told you
before. Yet there was a reason. Now--you will be greatly astonished,
George.'
'Before you begin, Elsie '--Athelstan removed his cigar--'I must tell
you that yesterday evening I, too, made a discovery--what the Americans
call a pivotal discovery--a discovery that discovers everything. I
should have told you last night, but you announced your communications
for this evening, and I thought we would expose our discoveries at the
same time.'
'You have found out too!' Elsie cried. 'I see by your face that you
have. Well, Athelstan, so much the better. Now, tell your discovery
first, and I will follow.'
'It is this. I have discovered Edmund Gray. I have sat with him and
discoursed with him, in Freddy Carstone's Chambers. He came in, sat
beside me, and conversed for more than an hour.'
'Oh!' said Elsie. 'Then you know all--as much as I know.'
'Observe,' George interposed, 'that I know nothing as yet.'
'Wait a moment, George. Learn that I have myself known Mr. Edmund Gray
for a fortnight. You will think, perhaps, that I ought to have told you
before. Well--but there is a reason--besides, the way, to begin with,
did not lie quite clear before me. Now the time has come when you should
advise as to the best course to follow.'
'You have certainly been more mysterious than any oracle, Elsie. Yet you
will bear witness, if it comes to bearing witness, that I accepted your
utterances and believed in them.'
'You certainly did, George.--And now, Athelstan, tell him the whole.'
'In one word then--Edmund Gray, the man we have been looking after so
long, is none other than Edward Dering, of 12 New Square, Lincoln's Inn,
Solicitor.'
'I don't understand,' said George, bewildered. 'Say it all again.'
Athelstan repeated his words.
'That is my discovery, too,' said Elsie. 'Now you know all, as you
understand.'
'But I don't understand. How can one man be another man?'
'I sat beside one man,' Athelstan added, 'for an hour and more; and lo!
all the time he was another man.'
'And still I am fogged. What does it mean?'
'It means, George, what you would never suspect. The one man received me
as a stranger. He knew nothing about me: he had never heard my name,
even. Yet the other man knows me so well. It was very odd at first. I
felt as if I was talking to a sleep-walker.'
'Oh!' cried George, 'I know now. You have seen Mr. Dering in a kind of
sleep-walking state-- I too have seen him thus. But he said nothing.'
'You may call it sleep-walking if you like. But, George, there is
another and a more scientific name for it. The old man is mad. He has
fits of madness, during which he plays another part, under another name.
Now, do you understand?'
'Yes--but--is it possible?'
'It is more than possible; it is an actual certainty. Wait. Let Elsie
tell her story.'
Then Elsie began, with a little air of triumph, because it is not given
to every young lady to find out what all the men have failed to find.
'Well--you see--I was always thinking over this business, and wondering
why nothing was found out about it, and watching you look this way and
that, and it occurred to me that the first thing of all was to find out
this Mr. Edmund Gray and lay hands upon him. At first I thought I would
just go and stand outside his door all day long and every day until he
came. But that seemed a waste of time. So I remembered how you found his
door open, and went in and spoke to the laundress. I thought that I
would do the same thing, and sit down there and wait until he should
come. But I was afraid to sit in the rooms of a strange man all
alone--no, I could not do it. So I just found out the old woman--the
laundress--as you did, George, and I gave her money, and she told me
that Mr. Gray was at his Chambers almost every Saturday afternoon. Very
well; if anybody chose to wait for him all Saturday afternoon, he would
certainly be found. So on Saturday afternoon I took a cab and drove to
Holborn, and got to the place before his arrival. But again, as it was
not quite nice to stand at an open doorway in a public Square, I thought
I would wait on the stairs. So I mounted--the doors were all
closed--nobody was left in the place at all--I thought I should be
perfectly safe and undisturbed, when I heard the noise of footsteps
overhead--a tramp, tramp, tramp up and down, with every now and then a
groan--like a hungry creature in a cage. This kept on for a long time,
and frightened me horribly. I was still more frightened when a door
overhead opened and shut and the footsteps came down-stairs. They
belonged to a man--an elderly man--who seemed as much frightened at
seeing me as I was at seeing him. He asked me whether I wanted any one;
and when I said I wanted Mr. Edmund Gray, he said that he was a friend
of Mr. Gray's, and that, since I was a friend too, I might act for
Edmund Gray and lend him some money. He looked desperately poor and
horribly hungry and thin and shabby, the poor old man!'
'So you acted for Edmund Gray. That was old Langhorne. He is a
barrister, who lives in the garret, and is horribly down on his
luck.--Go on.'
'Poor Elsie!' said George. 'Think of her, all alone on the staircase!'
'When he was gone, there was no sound at all. The place was perfectly
quiet. The time passed so slowly--oh! so slowly. At last, however, I
heard a step. It came up the stairs. Oh! my heart began to beat. Suppose
it should be Mr. Edmund Gray. Suppose it was some other person. Suppose
it was some horror of a man! But I had not long to wait, because Mr.
Edmund Gray himself stood on the landing. He stared at me, rather
surprised to find a young lady on the stairs, but he showed no sign of
recognition whatever. I was a complete stranger to him.'
'And was the man Mr. Dering?'
'He was--Mr. Dering. There was just the least little change in him. He
wore his coat open instead of buttoned. He had no gloves, his hat was
not pulled over his eyes, and his face was somehow lighter and brighter
than usual.'
'That is so,' said Athelstan. 'Exactly with these little changes he
presented himself to me.'
'Perhaps there is another man in the world exactly like him.'
'Futile remark!--Go on, Elsie.'
'Then I guessed in a moment what it meant. I stepped forward and asked
him if he was Mr. Edmund Gray. And then I followed him into his
rooms.--George, there is no manner of doubt whatever. Mr. Dering has
periods, whether regular or not I cannot tell, when he loses himself and
becomes in imagination another man. He is mad, if you like, but there is
method in his madness. The other man is just himself turned inside out.
Mr. Dering believes in the possible wickedness of everybody: the other
man believes in the actual goodness of every man. Mr. Dering considers
Property the only stable foundation of Society: the other man considers
Property the root of all evil. Mr. Dering is hard and jealous: the other
man is full of geniality and benevolence. Mr. Dering is Justice: the
other man is Mercy.'
'Very neatly put, Elsie. There is quite an eighteenth-century balance
about your sentences and sentiments. So far'--Athelstan contributed his
confirmation--'so far as I could judge, nothing could be more true. I
found my man the exact opposite of himself.'
'Can such a thing be possible? If I were to speak to him, would he not
know me?'
'You forget, George. You have seen him in that condition, and he did not
know you.'
'Nothing is more common'--Athelstan the Journalist began to draw upon
the encyclopaedic memory which belongs to his profession--'than such a
forgetfulness of self. Have you ever been into a Lunatic Asylum? I
have--for professional purposes. I have discoursed with the patients,
and been instructed by the physicians. Half the time many of the
patients are perfectly rational: during the other half they seem to
assume another mind with other memories. It is not real possession, as
the ancients called it, because they never show knowledge other than
what they have learned before. Thus, a sane man who cannot draw would
never in insanity become an artist. So Mr. Dering, when he is mad,
brings the same logical power and skill to bear upon a different set of
maxims and opinions. Said a physician to me at this asylum of which I
speak: "There are thousands of men and women, but especially men, who
are mad every now and then, and don't know it. Most of the crimes are, I
believe, committed in moments of madness. A young fellow steals
money--it is because at the moment he is so mad that he even persuades
himself that borrowing is not stealing: that he is only borrowing: that
he can get it back, and put it back before it is found out. What is
uncontrollable rage but sudden madness? There are the men who know that
they are mad on some point or other, and cunningly hide it, and are
never found out. And there are the men who are mad and don't know it. In
their mad times they commit all kinds of extravagances and follies, yet
somehow they escape detection." So he talked; and he told me of a man
who was a lawyer in one town with a wife and family, and also a lawyer
in another with a different wife and family. But one lawyer never found
out the other; and the thing was only discovered when the man got a
paralytic stroke and died in a kind of bewilderment, because, when the
time came for him to be the other man, he found himself lying in a
strange bedroom with a strange family round him. I had long forgotten
the asylum. I did the place for my paper three or four years ago, and
scored by the description. Since last night I have been recalling my
experience and applying it. You see there can never be any physical
change. This is no Hyde and Jekyll business. Whatever happens must be
conducted with the same body and the same mind. The same processes of
mind in which the man is trained remain, but his madness requires a new
setting.'
'One cannot understand,' said Elsie.
'No. But then one cannot understand everything. That's the real beauty
of this world: we are planted in the midst of things: we can give names
to them--Adam began that way, didn't he?--but we can't understand any of
them; and most people think that when we have given a name we have
succeeded in understanding. Well, Elsie--we don't understand. But we may
find out something. I take it that the other man grew up by degrees in
his brain, so that there is no solution in the continuity of thought and
recollection. The Edmund Gray developed himself. He has been developed
for nearly ten years, since he has occupied the same Chambers all the
time.'
'But about the forgeries?' George sprang to his feet. 'I declare,' he
cried, 'that I had quite forgotten the real bearing on our case.'
'Edmund Gray,' said Elsie, 'says that his own lawyer who manages his
affairs is Edward Dering. If he were to write letters while Edmund Gray,
he would not impose upon Edward Dering.'
'He cannot write to two men,' said Athelstan. 'There must be a
border-land between the waking and the dreaming, when the two spirits of
Edmund Gray and Edward Dering contend for the mastery, or when they
command each other--when Edmund Gray endorses cheques and Edward Dering
writes letters and conducts transfers for his client--his
double--himself.'
'I have seen him in such a state,' said George. 'At the time I never
suspected anything but a passing trouble of mind, which caused him to be
so wrapped up in his thoughts as not to be able to distinguish anything.
He was then, I doubt not now, carrying out the instructions of Edmund
Gray, or he was Edmund Gray acting for himself. Checkley whispered not
to disturb him. He said that he had often seen him so.'
'I have never tried to understand,' said Elsie. 'But I saw that Edmund
Gray was Mr. Dering gone mad, and that he himself, and nobody else, was
the perpetrator of all these forgeries; and I have been trying to
discover the best way--the kindest way to him--the surest way for us, of
getting the truth known.--George, this is the secret of my mysterious
movements. This is why I have not given you a single evening for a
whole fortnight. Every evening--both Sundays--I have spent with this
dear old man. He is the most delightful--the most gentle--the most
generous--old man that you ever saw. He is full of ideas--oh! quite
full--and they carry you out of yourself, until you awake next morning
to find that they are a dream. I have fallen in love with him. I have
had the most charming fortnight--only one was always rather afraid that
he might come to himself, which would be awkward.'
'Well, Elsie, have you found a way?'
'I think I have. First, I have discovered that when he is surrounded
with things that remind him of Edmund Gray, he remains Edmund Gray.
Next, I have found out that I can, by talking to him even at his office,
when he has his papers before him, turn him into Edmund Gray.'
'You are a witch, Elsie.'
'She is,' said George, looking at her in the foolish lover's way. 'You
see what she has turned me into--a long time ago, and she has never
turned me back again.'
'I have been thinking too,' said Athelstan. 'For our purposes, it would
be enough to prove the identity of Edmund Gray and Edward Dering. That
explains the resemblance of the handwriting and of the endorsement. My
commissionaire's recollection of the man also identifies the cheque as
drawn by himself for himself under another name. It explains the
presence of the notes in the safe. It also shows that the long series of
letters which passed between him and the broker were written by himself
for himself. Here, however, is a difficulty. I can understand Edward
Dering believing himself to be Edmund Gray, because I have seen it. But
I cannot understand Edward Dering believing himself to be the Solicitor
to Edmund Gray and writing at his command.'
'But I have seen him in that condition,' said Elsie. 'It was while he
was changing from one to the other. He sat like one who listens. I think
that Edmund Gray was at his elbow speaking to him. I think I could make
him write a letter by instruction from Edmund Gray. That he should
believe himself acting for a client in writing to the broker is no more
wonderful than that he should believe himself another man altogether.'
'Show me, if you can, the old man acting for an imaginary client.
Meantime, I mentioned the point as a difficulty. Prove, however, to Mr.
Dering and to the others concerned that he is Edmund Gray, and all is
proved. And this we can do by a host of witnesses.'
'I want more than this, Athelstan,' said Elsie. 'It would still be open
to the enemy to declare that George, or you, or I, had made use of his
madness for our own purposes. I want a history of the whole case written
out by Edmund Gray himself--a thing that we can show to Mr. Dering and
to everybody else. But I dread his discovery. Already he is suspicious
and anxious. I sometimes think that he is half conscious of his
condition. We must break it to him as gently as we can. But the shock
may kill him. Yet there is no escape. If the forgeries were known only
to ourselves, we might keep the discovery a secret; and only if
necessary--but it would not be necessary--keep some sort of watch over
him and warn the Bank. But Checkley has told the clerks and the people
at the Bank, and there are ourselves to think of and my mother and
Hilda.--No; we must let them all know.'
'And if one may mention one's self,' said Athelstan, 'my own little
difficulty presses. Because, you see, I don't know how long I may be
kept here. Perhaps to-morrow I might go on to St. Petersburg or to
Pekin. Before I go, Elsie, I confess that I should like my mother to
understand that--that she was a little hasty--that is all.'
'You are not going to St. Petersburg, brother.' Elsie took his hand.
'You are not going to leave us anymore. You are going to stay. I have
made another discovery.'
'Pray, if one may ask----'
'Oh! you may ask. I saw a letter to-day--Mr. Dering showed it to me. It
was written from the States three or four years ago. It showed where you
were at that time and showed me more, Athelstan--it showed me how you
lost the pile of money that you made over that silver mine--you
remember, Athelstan?'
He made no reply.
'Oh! do you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice? George, you
do not know. The donor of that great sum of money which Mr. Dering held
for me--we have often wondered who it was. I have only found out
to-day--it was Athelstan. He gave me all he had for such a trifling
thing--only because I would not believe that he was a villain--all he
had in the world--and went out again into the cold. He said he dropped
his money down a gully or a grating on the prairie--some nonsense. And
he sent it all to me, George.--What shall we do?'
'Is this really true, Athelstan? Did you really give up all this money
to Elsie?'
'She says so.'
'It is quite true, George. I saw the letter--Mr. Dering showed it to
me--in which he sent that money home, and begged Mr. Dering to take care
of it, and to give it to me on the day when I should be one-and-twenty.
He cannot deny it. Look at him. He blushes--he is ashamed--he hangs his
head--he blows tobacco-smoke about in clouds, hoping to hide his red
cheeks. And he talks of going on to St. Petersburg, when we know this
secret, and have got the money! What do you call this conduct, George?'
'Athelstan--there is no word for it. But you must have it back. You
must, and shall. There can be no discussion about it. And there is not
another man in the world, I believe, who would have done it.'
'Nonsense. I should only have lost it, if I had kept it,' Athelstan
replied after the Irish fashion.
'You hear, Athelstan. It is yours. There can be no discussion. That's
what I like a man for. While we women are all talking and disputing, the
man puts down his foot and says: "There can be no discussion." Then we
all stop, and the right thing is done. It is yours, brother; and you
shall have it, and you shall stay at home with us always and always.'
She laid her hand upon his shoulder, and her arm round his neck,
caressing him with hand and voice.
The man who had wandered alone for eight years was not accustomed to
sisterly caresses. They moved him. The thing itself moved him.
'All this belongs to another chapter,' he said huskily. 'We will talk of
it afterwards, when the business in hand is despatched.
'Well, then--that is agreed. You are to have your money back: my mother
is to take her suspicions back: Mr. Dering is to have his certificates
back and his dividends: Checkley is to take his lies back: Sir Samuel is
to have his charges back: George and I are going to have our peace of
mind back. And we are all going to live happy ever afterwards.'
'As for Wednesday now,' said George. 'It is not an unimportant day for
us, you know.'
'Everything is ready. On Sunday morning my mother is always at home
before Church. I will see her then, and acquaint her with the news that
the wedding will take place as originally proposed, at her house. This
will astonish her very much, and she will become angry and polite and
sarcastic. Then I shall tell her to prepare not only for a wedding
feast, but also for a great, a very great surprise. And I shall also
inform her that I shall be given away by my brother. And then--then--if
I know my mother aright, she will become silent. I shall do that
to-morrow morning.--In the evening, George, you will get your best-man,
and I will get your sisters, my bridesmaids, and we will come here, or
go to Richmond or somewhere--and have dinner and a cheerful evening.--Am
I arranging things properly?'
'Quite properly. Pray go on.'
'Sunday afternoon I have promised to spend with my master--Edmund Gray.
He is going to read me a new Paper he has just finished, in which he
shows that Property can be destroyed by a painless process--Athelstan,
put all your money into your pocket and keep it there--in less than a
twelvemonth, and with it all crime--all sweating, all injustice.--No,
Athelstan, he is not mad. When he argues on this theme he is persuasive
and eloquent. He convinces everybody. I shall hear him out, and then I
shall try to make him write down all that has happened. If we can only
get such a confession, it would be better than anything else. But it may
be difficult. He does not like being questioned about himself. If I do
succeed--I don't know quite what I ought to do next. He must be told.
Some time or other he must have the truth. I thought of asking all the
people mentioned to meet at his office on Monday morning at noon when
Mr. Dering is always himself. On Sunday I would not. He has to address
his people on Sunday evening. Let him do so undisturbed. I will leave
him in happiness that one night longer. But you two--you will be
anxious. Come on Sunday evening--between eight and nine--to the Hall of
Science. Then you will hear him and see me. And I will let you know how
I have prospered.'
'Sunday evening,' said George. 'Monday comes next, then Tuesday, and
before Wednesday, my Elsie, the character of these two convicts has to
be completely whitewashed, even to the satisfaction of Hilda herself.
Are we not running it pretty close?'
'Unbeliever! Doubter! I tell you that you shall be married with all your
friends round you, and that Athelstan shall give me away. And you shall
go away on your holiday with a quiet heart and nothing to trouble you.
What a foolish boy not to be able to trust his bride even for such a
simple thing as getting a confession out of a madman!'
'Do you sport a crest, old man?' asked Athelstan.
'I believe there is some kind of a sort of a thing somewhere around. But
crests are foolishness.'
'Not always. Take a new one, George--a real one. Stamp it on your spoons
and forks and in your books and on your carriage. Let it be simply the
words, "Dux Femina Facti."'