HUSBAND AND WIFE
Brett did not hurry on his way to the Hall. Already things were in a
whirl, and the confusion was so great that he was momentarily unable to
map out a definite line of action.
The relations between Capella and his wife were evidently strained almost
to breaking point, and it was this very fact which caused him the greatest
perplexity.
They had been married little more than six months. They were an
extraordinarily handsome couple, apparently well suited to each other by
temperament and mutual sympathies, whilst their means were ample enough to
permit them to live under any conditions they might choose, and gratify
personal hobbies to the fullest extent.
What, then, could have happened to divide them so completely?
Surely not Capella's new-born passion for Helen Layton. Not even a
hot-blooded Southerner could be guilty of such deliberate rascality, such
ineffable folly, during the first few months after his marriage to a
beautiful and wealthy wife.
No, this hypothesis must be rejected. Margaret Capella had drifted apart
from her husband almost as soon as they reached England on their return as
man and wife. Capella, miserable and disillusioned, buried alive in a
country place--for such must existence in Beechcroft mean to a man of his
inclinations--had discovered a startling contrast between his passionate
and moody spouse, and the bright, pleasant-mannered girl whose ill-fortune
it was to create discord between the inmates of the Hall.
This theory did not wholly exonerate the Italian, but it explained a good
deal. The barrister saw no cause as yet to suspect Capella of the young
baronet's murder. Were he guilty of that ghastly crime, his motive must
have been to secure for himself the position he was now deliberately
imperilling--all for a girl's pretty face.
The explanation would not suffice. Brett had seen much that is hidden from
public ken in the vagaries of criminals, but he had never yet met a man
wholly bad, and at the same time in full possession of his senses.
To adopt the hasty judgment arrived at by Hume and Mrs. Eastham, Capella
must be deemed capable of murdering his wife's brother, of bringing about
the death of his wife after securing the reversion of her vast property to
himself, and of falling in love with Helen--all in the same breath. This
species of criminality was only met with in lunatics, and Capella
impressed the barrister as an emotional personage, capable of supreme good
as of supreme evil, but quite sane.
The question to be solved was this: Why did Capella and his wife quarrel
in the first instance? Perhaps, that way, light might come.
He asked a footman if Mrs. Capella would receive him. The man glanced at
his card.
"Yes, sir," he said at once. "Madam gave instructions that if either you
or Mr. David called you were to be taken to her boudoir, where she awaits
you."
The room was evidently on the first floor, for the servant led him up the
magnificent oak staircase that climbed two sides of the reception hall.
But this was fated to be a day of interruptions. The barrister, when he
reached the landing, was confronted by the Italian.
"A word with you, Mr. Brett," was the stiff greeting given to him.
"Certainly. But I am going to Mrs. Capella's room."
"She can wait. She does not know you are here. James, remain outside until
Mr. Brett returns. Then conduct him to your mistress."
Capella's tone admitted of no argument, nor was it necessary to protest.
Brett always liked people to talk in the way they deemed best suited to
their own interests. Without any expostulation, therefore, he followed his
limping host into a luxuriously furnished dressing-room.
Capella closed the door, and placed himself gently on a couch.
"Does your friend fight?" he said, fixing his dark eyes, blazing with
anger, intently on the other.
"That is a matter on which your opinion would probably be more valuable
than mine."
"Spare me your wit. You know well what I mean. Will he meet me on the
Continent and settle our quarrel like a gentleman, not like a hired
bravo?"
"What quarrel?"
"Mr. Brett, you are not so stupid. David Hume, notwithstanding his past,
may still be deemed a man of honour in some respects. He treated me
grossly this morning. Will he fight me, or must I treat him as a cur?"
Brett, without invitation, seated himself. He produced a cigarette and lit
it, adding greatly to Capella's irritation by his provoking calmness.
"Really," he said at last, "you amuse me."
"Silence!" he cried imperatively, when the Italian would have broken out
into a torrent of expostulations. "Listen to me, you vain fool!"
This method of address had the rare merit of achieving its object. Capella
was reduced to a condition of speechless rage.
"You consider yourself the aggrieved person, I suppose," went on the
Englishman, subsiding into a state of contemptuous placidity. "You neglect
your wife, make love to an honourable and pure-minded girl, stoop to the
use of unworthy taunts and even criminal innuendos, lose such control of
your passion as to lay sacrilegious hands upon Helen Layton, and yet you
resent the well-merited punishment administered to you by her affianced
husband. Were I a surgeon, Mr. Capella, I might take an anatomical
interest in your brain. As it is, I regard you as a psychological study in
latter-day blackguardism. Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly. You have not yet answered my question. Will Hume fight?"
"I should say that nothing would give him greater pleasure."
"Then you will arrange this matter? I can send a friend to you?"
"And if you do I will send the police to you, thus possibly anticipating
matters somewhat."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that my sole purpose in life just now is to lay hands on the man
who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer. Until that end is achieved, I will take
good care that your crude ideas of honour are dealt with, as they were
to-day, by the toe of a boot."
Capella was certainly a singular person. He listened unmoved to Brett's
threats and insults. He gave that snarling smile of his, and toyed
impatiently with his moustache.
"Your object in life does not concern me. Your courts tried their best to
hang the man who was responsible for his cousin's death, and failed. I
take it you decline this proffered duel?"
"Yes."
"Then I will fight David Hume in my own way. You have rejected the fair
alternative on his behalf. Caramba! We shall see now who wins. He will
never marry Helen."
"What did you mean just now when you said that he was 'responsible for his
cousin's death'? Is that an Italian way of describing a cold-blooded
murder?"
Capella leaned back and snarled silently again. It was a pity he had
cultivated that trick. It spoilt an otherwise classically regular set of
features.
"James!" he shouted.
The footman entered.
"Take this gentleman to your mistress. I have done with him."
"For the present, James," said Brett.
The astonished servant led him along a corridor and knocked at a door
hidden by a silk curtain. Mrs. Capella rose to receive her visitor. She
was very pale now, but quite calm and dignified in manner.
"Davie did not come with you?" she said when Brett was seated near to her
in an alcove formed by an oriel window.
"No. He is with Miss Layton."
"Ah, I am not sorry, I prefer to talk with you alone."
"It is perhaps better. Your cousin is impulsive in some respects, though
self-contained enough in others."
"It may be so. I like him, although we have not seen much of each other
since we were children. I knew him this morning principally on account of
his likeness to Alan. But you are his friend, Mr. Brett, and I can discuss
with you matters I would not care to broach with him. He is with Helen
Layton now, you say?"
"Yes, and let me add an explanation. Those two young people are devoted to
each other. No power on earth could separate them."
"Why do you tell me that?"
"Because I think you wished to be assured of it?"
"You are clever, Mr. Brett. If you can interpret a criminal's designs as
well as you can read a woman's heart you must be a terror to evil-doers."
A slight colour came into her cheeks. The barrister leaned forward, his
hands clasped and arms resting on his knees.
"I have just seen your husband," he said.
She exhibited no marked sign of emotion but he thought he detected a
frightened look in her eyes.
"Again I ask," she exclaimed, "why do you tell me?"
"The reason is obvious. You ought to know all that goes on. There was a
quarrel this morning between him and David Hume. Your husband wished me to
arrange a duel. I promised him a visit from the police if I heard any more
of such nonsense."
"A duel! More bloodshed!" she almost whispered.
"Do not have any alarm for either of them. They are quite safe. I will
guarantee so much, at any rate. But your husband is a somewhat curious
person. He is prone to strong and sudden hatreds--and attachments."
Margaret pressed her hands to her face. She could no longer bear the
torture of make-believe quiescence.
"Oh, what shall I do!" she wailed. "I am the most miserable woman in
England to-day, and I might have been the happiest."
"Why are you miserable, Mrs. Capella?" asked Brett gently.
"I cannot tell you. Perhaps it is owing to my own folly. Are you sure that
David and Helen intend to get married?"
"Yes."
"Then, for Heaven's sake, let the wedding take place. Let them leave
Beechcroft and its associations for ever."
"That cannot be until Hume's character is cleared from the odium attached
to it."
"You mean my brother's death. But that has been settled by the courts.
David was declared 'Not guilty.' Surely that will suffice! No good purpose
can be gained by reopening an inquiry closed by the law."
"I think you are a little unjust to your cousin in this matter, Mrs.
Capella. He and his future wife feel very grievously the slur cast upon
his name. You know perfectly well that if half the people in this county
were asked, 'Who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer?' they would say 'David
Hume.' The other half would shake their heads in dubiety, and prefer not
to be on visiting terms with David Hume and his wife. No; your brother was
killed in a particularly foul way. He died needlessly, so far as we can
learn. His death should be avenged, and this can only be done by tracking
his murderer and ruthlessly bringing the wretch to justice. Are not these
your own sentiments when divested of all conflicting desires?"
Brett's concluding sentence seemed to petrify his hearer.
"In what way can I help you?" she murmured, and the words appeared to come
from a heart of stone.
"There are many items I want cleared up, but I do not wish to distress you
unduly. Can you not refer me to your solicitors, for instance? I imagine
they will be able to answer all my queries."
"No. I prefer to deal with the affair myself."
"Very well. I will commence with you personally. Why did you quarrel with
your brother in London a few days before his death?"
"Because I was living extravagantly. Not only that, but he disapproved of
my manner of life. In those days I was headstrong and wilful. I loved a
Bohemian existence combined with absurd luxury, or rather, a wildly
useless expenditure of money. No one who knows me now could picture me
then. Yet now I am good and unhappy. Then I was wicked, in some people's
eyes, and happy. Strange, is it not?"
"Not altogether so unusual as you may think. Was any other person
interested in what I may term the result of the dispute between your
brother and yourself?"
"That is a difficult question to answer. I was very careless in money
matters, but it is clear that the curtailment of my rate of living from
£15,000 to £5,000 per annum must make considerable difference to all
connected with me."
"Had you been living at the former rate?"
"Yes, since my father's death. What annoyed Alan was the fact that I had
borrowed from money-lenders."
"Who else knew of your disagreement with him besides these money-lenders
and his solicitors?"
"All my friends. I used to laugh at his serious ways, when I, older and
much more experienced in some respects, treated life as a tiresome joke.
But none of my friends were commissioned to murder my brother so that I
might obtain the estate, Mr. Brett."
"Not by you," he said thoughtfully.
He knew well that to endeavour to get Margaret to implicate her husband
would merely render her an active opponent. She loved this Italian scamp.
She was profoundly thankful that David Hume had come back to claim the
hand of Helen Layton, the woman who had been the unwilling object of
Capella's wayward affections. She would be only too glad to give half her
property to the young couple if they would settle in New Zealand or
Peru--far from Beechcroft.
Yet it was impossible to believe that she could love a man whom she
suspected of murdering her brother. Why, then, had husband and wife
drifted apart? Assuredly the pieces of the puzzle were inextricably mixed.
"Where did you marry Mr. Capella?" asked Brett suddenly.
"At Naples--a civil ceremony, before the Mayor, and registered by the
British Consul."
"Had you been long acquainted"
"I met him, oddly enough, in Covent Garden Theatre, the night my brother
was killed"
It was now Brett's turn to be startled.
"Are you quite certain of this?" he asked, his surprise at the turn taken
by the conversation almost throwing him off his guard.
"Positive. Were you led to believe that Giovanni was the murderer?"
Her voice was cold, impassive, marvellously under control. It warned him,
threw him back into the safe rôle of Hume's adviser and friend.
"I am led to believe nothing at present," he said slowly. "This inquiry
is, as yet, only twenty-four hours old so far as I am concerned. I am
seeking information. When I am gorged with facts I proceed to digest
them."
"Well, what I tell you is true. There are no less than ten people, all
living, I have no doubt, who can testify to its correctness. I had a box
at the Fancy Dress Ball that New Year's Eve. I invited nine guests. One of
them, an attaché at the Italian Embassy, brought Giovanni and introduced
him to me. We were together from midnight until 4.30 a.m. Whilst poor Alan
was lying here dead, I was revelling at a _bal masqué_. Do you think I am
likely to forget the circumstances?"
The icy tones thrilled with pitiful remembrance. But the barrister's task
required the unsparing use of the probe. He determined, once and for all,
to end an unpleasant scene.
"Will you tell me why you and your husband have, shall we say, disagreed
so soon after your marriage? You were formed by Providence and nature to
be mated. What has driven you apart?"
The woman flushed scarlet under this direct inquiry.
"I cannot tell you," she said brokenly, "but the cause--in no
way--concerns--either my brother's death--or David's innocence. It is
personal--between Giovanni and myself. In God's good time, it may be put
right."
Brett, singularly enough, was a man of quick impulse. He was moved now by
a profound pity for the woman who thus bared her heart to him.
"Thank you for your candour, Mrs. Capella," he exclaimed, with a fervour
that evidently touched her. "May I ask one more question, and I have done
with a most unpleasant ordeal. Do you suspect any person of being your
brother's assassin?"
"No," she said. "Indeed I do not."