Helen Vardon's confession 22 – Freeman · Library Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Helen Vardon's confession 22Romance · A Dreadful Inheritance
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Helen Vardon's confession 22
Romance · A Dreadful Inheritance
FreemanEnglish
It has always been, and still is, somewhat of a puzzle to me to account for the sudden and complete change in my point of view in regard to my union with Jasper. Lilith would doubtless have explained it as a case of subconscious reflection, and probably she would have been right. My impression is that Peggy’s matter-of-fact attitude towards marriage unsanctioned by law had a more profound effect than I was aware of; that her words--which I had certainly recalled from time to time--had remained in my mind subconsciously exercising a continuous influence. Or it may be that I had found a life of separation impossible, and had realised it consciously only when I found myself once more in Jasper’s presence.
But, however it may have happened, the fact remains that I accepted the new order without a qualm. The conditions that I had scouted as unthinkable now seemed entirely reasonable and acceptable. The only twinge of misgiving that I ever had, was produced by the draft of the declaration that Jasper sent for my approval and criticism. For that well-meant document, with its half-defiant, half-protesting phrases, did certainly bring home to me with uncomfortable vividness the fact that this marriage was not like any other marriage, and that I was not as other married women were. But I sent it back approved and tried to forget it, and quietly went on with my preparations for the new life.
Outwardly, however, I made no change in my habits, and even tried to suppress the gaiety and buoyancy of spirit that I felt, lest the sudden change from my recent depressed condition should attract notice. I still lived my life apart, only too happy in my solitude, and spent most of my time in the workshop conning over Jasper’s letters, or meditating on the happy days that were drawing so near. For a time the candlestick was sadly neglected, until I had the sudden inspiration of finishing it as a wedding-gift to Jasper. And then all the joy of work revived and blossomed into unsuspected skill. Tracer and punch seemed to travel along their appointed paths unguided; the spindle-shanked chasing hammer became a familiar demon and appeared to develop a volition of its own, and the little enamel furnace roared with glee.
So the days sped by, each bringing me nearer to the golden gate of my enchanted garden, and each so filled with quiet happiness that I could not wish it shorter. About the end of the first week came a letter from Jasper saying that the bandages had been discarded, and that he had taken a walk and had appeared quite well and strong. Then, a day or two later, came another fixing the date and time of our meeting. It was to be on the following Thursday--only five days ahead--at six o’clock in the evening. The formalities were to be carried out immediately on my arrival; we should then dine quietly at the club, spend the evening at a concert or the theatre, and take the boat train either to Flushing or Calais, whichever I preferred.
The arrival of this letter, though I had been daily expecting it, came as quite a shock, and turned my tranquil happiness into feverish excitement which I had some difficulty in concealing. The fixing of an actual date and the selection of a definite region in which to spend the honeymoon (I chose the north of France) gave a reality to this Great Adventure and brought it out of the undefined future into the present. For now I had to carry out the final preparations. Lightly as I might travel, I must take some luggage, and this would entail a conveyance; and this in its turn involved something in the nature of a public departure, so that, if I had desired to disappear secretly--which I did not--the thing would have been impossible. Yet I was, naturally, loath to say much about my immediate intentions, preparing to make my explanations by letter after the event; and this the prevailing good manners of the little community rendered quite easy. I notified Miss Polton and my more intimate friends that I was going away on a visit of uncertain duration, and, whatever curiosity they may have felt, no further particulars were asked for. I went about my immediate preparations--the packing of those few things that I must needs take away with me--unnoticed, or at least uncommented on, and then began unobtrusively to arrange the rest of my possessions for the final removal.
On Wednesday--the day before that of my departure--a letter arrived from Mr. Otway. It reached me just after lunch, and I glanced at it before rising from the table. The subject was the same as that of previous ones, but it was evident that something in the nature of a crisis was approaching. The extreme agitation of the writer was shown not only in the matter and the impassioned, rather incoherent manner, but even in the handwriting; which was ill-formed and slovenly, in great contrast to Mr. Otway’s usual business-like neatness.
“My dear Helen,” it began, “I have not troubled you for quite a long time with my miserable affairs--which are to some extent your affairs too. But they are going from bad to worse, and now I feel that I am coming to the limits of endurance. I cannot bear this much longer. My health is shattered, my peace of mind is wrecked, and my brain threatens to give way. Death would be a boon, a relief, and I feel that it is not far off. I cannot go on like this. Those wretches leave me no peace. Hardly a week passes but I get some new menace; and now--but I can’t tell you in a letter. It is too horrible. Come to me, Helen, for the love of God! I am in torment. Have pity on me, even though you have never forgiven me. I cannot come to you, for I am now unable to leave my bed. I am a wreck, a ruin. Come to me just this once, and if you cannot help me, at least give me the comfort of your sympathy. You will not be troubled by me much longer.
“Your distracted husband,
“Lewis Otway.”
The emotions that this letter aroused were mixed and rather conflicting. Never had I felt a deeper loathing of Mr. Otway than now that I was being forced to accept what I knew in my heart to be but a counterfeit of marriage. I had been robbed of my birthright, and he had robbed me. Never was I less in a mood to offer him sympathy in the troubles that he had created for himself and me by his callous selfishness. And yet I decided to go to him. Whether the decision was due to some sort of compunction for the blow that I was going to strike on the morrow; or whether to curiosity, or to a desire to verify his foreboding of approaching death, I cannot say. Certainly the last consideration entered into the mixture of motives, and probably was the determining factor. At any rate, I decided to go. Dimly, I perceived that I ought to have consulted Jasper, though I was unaware of the possible legal significance that my visit might acquire. I formed my decision at once, and early in the afternoon set forth westward with the letter in my pocket.
I did not go direct to Mr. Otway’s chambers. Promptly as I had made up my mind, I felt the necessity of thinking over the circumstances and forecasting the possibilities. On my way westward I made a halt at a tea-shop, and while I awaited the leisurely service I drew out the letter and read it through again. Clearly the blackmailers were becoming more urgent and possibly more definite. It seemed as though they had adopted some new tactics. But it was not the blackmailers who interested me. I found my eye travelling again and again to those two sentences that hinted at the possibility of Mr. Otway’s death.
“I feel that it is not far off.” And again, “You will not be troubled by me much longer.” Had he any solid grounds for these forebodings? Or were they merely the offspring of abiding terror, or perchance simply rhetorical flourishes designed to arouse my sympathy? These were questions of no small moment to me, for Mr. Otway’s death would set me free and in an instant unravel the tangled skein of my relations with Jasper.
As I drank my tea with reflective deliberation I turned these questions over in my mind, not disguising from myself the cool, impassive, egoism of my attitude. My feeling in respect of Mr. Otway was devoid of any trace of sentimentalism. I viewed him as the insurance director views the generalised “proposer,”--but inversely; for I was interested in his decease, not in his survival. I loathed him, but I did not hate him. I did not wish him ill. If I could have saved him from suffering I would have done so, even at the cost of some considerable effort. But if he had stood in the peril of instant death, and I could have averted that peril by moving a finger, I would not have moved a finger.
That was my position. As I rose from the table and returned the letter to my pocket, what was in my mind was that Mr. Otway seemed to think that he was going to die, and I hoped that he was right.
When I reached Lyon’s Inn Chambers the sun was already low and the gloom of the evening was beginning to settle on the closed-in block of buildings. I ascended the ill-lit stone stairs to the second floor, where the light on the landing was so dim that I had difficulty in deciphering Mr. Otway’s name above the door of his “set”; and as I did so I noted with surprise that the inscription was faded and obscure, and had the appearance of having been in existence for many years, whereas Mr. Otway had, as I believed, but recently entered on his tenancy.
The door was opened by Mrs. Gregg, who stood in the gloom of the entry confronting me without a word.
“Good evening, Mrs. Gregg,” I said. “Mr. Otway has asked me to call on him----”
“Ye need make no excuses,” she interrupted, “for coming to see your lawful husband.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gregg,” I replied. “Is Mr. Otway disengaged?”
“No,” she answered; “he is expecting a visitor.”
“How very unfortunate,” said I. “He wanted particularly to see me, I know.”
“Perhaps you could look in some time to-morrow?” she suggested.
“No, I am afraid I can’t. If Mr. Otway is unable to see me this evening I must write to him. I shall not have another opportunity to call for some considerable time.”
She reflected for a few moments, and I gathered that she was unwilling to take the responsibility of cancelling the interview.
“Could you call again a little later?” she asked, at length. “He will have finished with his visitor by about half-past seven, or say a quarter to eight. Could you look in again at eight?”
I had not wanted to be out as late as this would make me, but if I was to see Mr. Otway at all, it would have to be to-night. Eventually I accepted the arrangement, somewhat, I think, to Mrs. Gregg’s relief.
As I descended the stairs I heard the footsteps of two persons--apparently a man and a woman--ascending. On the first-floor landing I met the man, who turned out to be the lamplighter. Just as I had passed him he lit the landing lamp, and its light, which came from behind me, fell full on the woman who was coming up. It was only a momentary glimpse that I caught as she passed me on the stairs, but I recognised her instantly. She was Mrs. Campbell, the wife of the Wardour Street dealer.
It was an odd meeting, and it gave me the material for a good deal of thought and speculation. Mr. Otway’s chambers were the only ones on the second floor; from which it seemed probable that Mrs. Campbell was the visitor whom he was expecting. This was a rather queer coincidence; but it was not the only one. That sudden recognition of the face, thrown into strong relief against the dark background by the bright lamplight, had set my memory working. I remembered how, when I had seen Mrs. Campbell in the shop and had heard her speak, her face had seemed to suggest something familiar, and her accent and the intonation of her voice had called up some accent and tone that I had heard before. It had been but a vague impression at the time; but now, in the new setting and aided by association, the impression became quite definite. The face that hers had suggested was Mr. Otway’s face; but the really odd thing was that her voice and accent suggested not Mr. Otway’s but Mrs. Gregg’s. And this very queer resemblance was made yet more queer by a singular discrepancy. Mrs. Gregg spoke with a distinct Scottish accent. It was a peculiar one, different from that of any other Scots person whom I had ever heard speak; but it was quite pronounced. Mrs. Campbell, on the other hand, had no trace whatever of a Scottish accent; of that I was quite sure. But I was equally sure of the resemblance between the two, subtle and elusive as it was.
Here, then, was a problem the consideration of which gave me quite a considerable amount of occupation, and helped me to while away the hour and a half that I had to wait. The almost fantastic oddity of the coincidence might have made me reject my impressions as mere delusions; but, on the one hand, there was Mrs. Campbell evidently making for Mr. Otway’s chambers, and, on the other, was the fact that it was Mr. Otway who had introduced me to the shop in Wardour Street. However, I could get no farther than speculation; and, as speculation tends rapidly to exhaust its limited material, I presently dismissed the problem and returned to the consideration of Mr. Otway’s health and its bearing on my own future.
The hour and a half I spent in a leisurely survey of Lincoln’s Inn and the Temple. My perambulations with Jasper had brought home to me that London is an entertainment in itself; that no observant person need be dull who has access to its historic streets and picturesque backwaters. And now it was very pleasant to revisit the scenes of former rambles--to be repeated often in the future--and meanwhile to reflect on the happenings of the present and let my thoughts stray to the new life that was about to open; and the time slipped away so agreeably that when the three-quarter chime was struck in a polite undertone by the genteel clock in the Inner Temple, it came to me as quite a surprise.
On the stroke of eight I rang the bell of Mr. Otway’s chambers, and was forthwith admitted by the taciturn Mrs. Gregg. In silence she conducted me along a narrow corridor that led from the entrance lobby, across a largish room furnished partly as a library, partly as a dining-room and by a communicating door into the bedroom, when--still without uttering a word--she departed, shutting the door after her.
Mr. Otway half rose in bed as I entered, and made a vague gesture of welcome, finally extending his hand, which I shook formally.
“This is really good of you, Helen,” said he, “to come and see me, and to come so promptly. I am sorry Mrs. Gregg sent you away. There was no need. My other visitor could have been put off.”
“It is of no consequence,” said I. “My time was my own to-night. What is the new trouble--for I infer from your letter that there is some new development. Is there any definite threat?”
Again he half rose in bed, and looking at me with anxious intensity said, in a low, suppressed tone: “Helen, just see that the door is properly shut.”
I did so, and he then begged me to draw the chair, which had been placed for me, closer to him. This I also did, and, having seated myself, looked at him expectantly.
Still half raised in bed, he bent his head as near to me as he could, and in a whisper said, “Helen, I want to ask you a question. What became of your father’s stick?”
The question, whispered with such strange secrecy, and accompanied by a singular look compounded of eagerness, fear and suspicion, somewhat startled me; for I remembered, even as he spoke, that the same question had been asked by Dr. Thorndyke.
“I haven’t the least idea,” I replied. “Haven’t you got it?”
“No. I never had it. I have never seen it since the--ah--the occasion when--ah--you remember----”
“Of course I remember. I have good reason to.”
“Ah--no doubt. Yes. But are you quite sure--I thought you might have taken it away with you.”
“But, Mr. Otway, you let me out of the house yourself. You saw me go, and you must have seen that I was not taking it. And you know that I never came to the house again.”
He sank back on his pillow with a gesture of despair.
“Yes,” he murmured, “that seems to be so. It must be so, I suppose.”
“It is so,” I said. “There is no question about it. When I went away that morning the stick was in your house. But why are you asking me about it? Is it of any importance?”
He turned towards a table that stood by the opposite side of the bed, and taking up a bunch of keys, unlocked a deed-box that was on the table, and took from it a sheet of paper.
“Read that,” said he, handing me the paper.
The document was a type-written letter of a similar character to the previous ones, and of about the same length. It ran thus:
“Mr. Lewis Otway,
“Some funny questions are being asked. What about Mr. Vardon’s stick--the loaded stick with the silver knob to hide the lead loading? Where is it? Somebody says they know where it is and who’s got it. And they say there is a bruise on the silver top, and they say something about a smear of blood and a grey hair sticking to it. Do you know anything about it? If you don’t, you’d better find out. Because I think you’ll hear from that somebody before you are many weeks older or else from the police.
“A Well-Wisher.”
As I came to the end of this document I raised my eyes and met Mr. Otway’s fixed on me with a very singular expression. But he quickly averted his gaze, possibly embarrassed by the steady intensity of my own. For this letter, together with Mr. Otway’s agitated questionings, had revived the old doubts in my mind. Could there be any truth in this veiled accusation? Was it possible that I had really made a hideous mistake in shielding this man? As these doubts flashed through my mind, some reflection of them may have appeared in my expression as I steadily looked Mr. Otway in the face. At any rate, he looked away as I have said; and when I handed him back the letter, he took it in a hand that shook like a dipsomaniac’s, and replaced it in the deed-box without a word.
For a space we were both silent, and I sat looking at him and his surroundings with profound distaste. The close, stuffy air of the room aroused a faint disgust; the objects on the bedside table--the cigarette box--the large spirit decanter and siphon and a bottle of veronal tablets--conveyed a disagreeable impression of drinking and drug-taking. And the man himself, with his pasty face, his baggy eyelids, creased with multitudinous wrinkles, his drooping, tremulous underlip, was distinctly repellant. The whole atmosphere of the place and its occupant was unwholesome, sordid and abnormal.
Yet, unwholesome and unhealthy as he looked, there was no striking change in Mr. Otway’s appearance; nothing new to justify, so far as I could judge, his alarming account of himself. His aspect supported the suggestions of the spirit-bottle, the cigarettes and the veronal; he looked distracted, terrified, nerve-shaken; but he did not, to my eye, look like a dying man. I inspected him critically during that interval of silence, and arrived, almost regretfully, I fear, at the conclusion that his forebodings were merely the result of a chronic state of fear--if they were real and not deliberately assumed to excite my sympathy.
I think he must have had a feeling that I was regarding him with disfavour, for presently he turned towards me with a deprecating air and sighed wearily.
“I am afraid, Helen,” said he, “that you are very tired of me and my troubles. But you must try to be patient. It may not be for long.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked. “Is your health really bad, apart from the worry of these letters?”
“My health gets worse from week to week,” he replied. “Not that I am suffering from any definite disease. But the constant alarm and anxiety, the shocks which keep coming one on top of another, are breaking me up. I get no interval of peace in which to recover. I am in a constant state of worry and depression by day, which leads to that,” and he pointed to the spirit-decanter, “and it is even worse at night unless I secure a little rest by those things,” pointing to the veronal bottle; “and cigarettes, whisky and veronal don’t make for a long life or robust health.”
“Still,” I said, “you mustn’t exaggerate or alarm yourself unnecessarily. You are not in very good condition, I can see; but there is no reason to suppose that you are in a dangerous state. Couldn’t you cut off these drugs and the whisky and go away for a change?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t go away,” he said. “They would find me out and follow me. And as to cutting off the stimulants and the sedatives, that is impossible. Bad as they are, they are the last bulwark against something worse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He did not answer immediately, but seemed to be considering my question and debating whether he should make any further confidences. At length he turned to me somewhat abruptly with an expression which I had never seen on his face before: a wild expression strangely unlike his usual, heavy stolidity, suggesting excitement and terror, with yet a curious dash of exultation.
“Helen,” he said with a singular intensity of voice and manner, “there are men who are born into this world under sentence of death. The black cap hangs over their cradles. Throughout their lives they have continually to watch--to evade the execution of the sentence if they can. But the time comes when they can escape no longer. They are tired of evasion, of the struggle to escape; and then they give themselves up; and that is the end.
“I am one of those men, Helen. My mother put an end to her own life. My only brother put an end to his life. My mother’s father made away with himself. It is in the blood. My mother was found hanging from a tree in an orchard. My brother disappeared and was found a month later hanging from a peg in a disused wardrobe. My grandfather hanged himself from a beam in the loft. Perhaps there were others. At any rate, there it is. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
He paused, and I sat looking with uneasy surprise at the unwonted animation in his face: the faint flush, the awakening light in his eyes, the suppressed eagerness of his manner. There was something weirdly unpleasant about this new phase.
“You mustn’t allow these fancies to disturb you,” I said feebly.
“They are not fancies,” he retorted. “They are weighty realities. I thought for a long time that the inheritance had passed me by. But when the first of those letters came, I knew that the legacy had fallen in. And every new menace sets the impulse working. Whenever one of those letters come I feel it; I find myself thinking of my mother and my brother, and wondering if they felt the same. Then I take a stiff whisky, and the feeling goes off. But I don’t care, nowadays, to go to bed until I have taken a dose of veronal.”
“Why not?” I asked.
He drew himself to the edge of the bed, and, thrusting his head out, peered into a shadowy corner of the room with a sort of half-terrified, half-exultant leer that seemed to stir the very marrow of my bones.
“What is it, Mr. Otway?” I asked, staring into the corner but seeing nothing.
“Do you see it, Helen?” he said, rolling his eyes at me and then looking back into the corner, which was in a line with the bed-head; “that great hook, or bent peg. I can’t imagine what it was put there for; but there it is, like a great metal finger, beckoning--beckoning.”
I looked at the object that he indicated--a massive curved peg or hook fixed to the wall about seven feet from the floor--and shivered slightly. Its appearance was horribly suggestive.
“When I used to lie awake,” Mr. Otway continued, still gazing into the corner, “after the first letters came, I could lie on my left side, because then it was behind me and I seemed to feel it drawing me. I had to turn so that I could see it; and whenever I looked at it, it seemed to beckon. And so it does now.”
“I should have it unscrewed and taken away,” said I.
“Yes,” he replied, reflectively, “perhaps it might be--and yet I don’t know. Perhaps I might be more restless if it were not there. It is, in a way, a satisfaction to know that--ah--that I hold a trump card that I can play if--ah--if all the other cards are against me.”
As he spoke, he looked at me with that same curious half-frightened, half-exultant expression that made me wonder whether perhaps his inheritance included a dash of insanity. Then he rolled back to the middle of the bed and lay staring at the ceiling; and by degrees the excitement faded out of his face and he recovered his usual stolid gravity of expression.
Presently he glanced at the little carriage clock that stood on the table, and, turning to me, said: “I usually take my veronal about this time. Would you mind giving me a glass of water and the tablets?”
I rose from my chair, and as I did so my little wrist-bag, which had been reposing, forgotten, on my lap, slipped to the floor. I picked it up and hung it on the knob of the chair-back, and then fetched the water-bottle and tumbler from the wash-stand. Having filled the tumbler and handed it to Mr. Otway, I picked up the veronal bottle, and seeing that it was a new one, broke the seal, withdrew the cork and pulled out the cotton-wool packing.
“Three tablets, please,” said Mr. Otway.
I handed him the bottle, and as he took it and shook out the three tablets he smiled grimly.
“You are the most cautious woman I have ever met,” he remarked. “But you are quite right to make me responsible for my own poison.”
He took the tablets one at a time, crunching each between his teeth very thoroughly before washing it down with water. Then he mixed what looked to me a very stiff allowance of whisky, with a very little soda water, and swallowed it at a draught.
“I find that the stimulant makes the veronal act more rapidly,” he explained. “I shall be asleep in about half-an-hour. Do you mind staying with me until I drop off?”
I agreed to this, although it was getting late; but, conscious that it was probably the last service I should ever render him, I did not feel that I could refuse. So I sat down again in the chair and watched him, noting that already--probably as a result of the stimulant--he was quieter in manner and more peaceful in appearance. Even when he reverted to the subject that had occasioned my visit, his manner was quite calm.
“There is something very mysterious about that stick,” he remarked. “Recalling the circumstances, I remember putting it down in the corner by the writing-table. I never saw it again, and never gave its whereabouts a thought. I assumed that you had taken it, but I now realise that I was mistaken. Apparently it has got into undesirable hands and we haven’t heard the last of it, I fear.”
“You had better not think any more about it, Mr. Otway,” I said. “There is nothing to be done, and the less you worry the less harm these people will be able to do you.”
“Yes,” he agreed; “that is good advice, and I can follow it now. But if I should wake up in the small hours of the morning it will be very different. That is the worst time, Helen. Then this persecution seems beyond bearing. The horror of it makes me sweat with fear. I seem to hear the police on the stairs. I find myself listening for the sound of the bell. It is horrible--horrible! And then I think of that wardrobe, unnoticed all those weeks, and the figure inside in the dark. And then----”
He made a motion of his eyes towards the shadowy corner, and involuntarily I glanced at the great peg high up on the wall.
He did not speak again for some time, and I sat silently watching him and thinking--thinking of his dreadful heritage and all that it might mean. Was it a reality, this legacy of death that he saw coming to him? Was it true that even now the black cap hung over his bed? Supposing it were? Supposing that this very night, in the chilly middle watch, he should wake with all his terrors clutching at his heart! Should creep out of his bed and---- Here my glance stole into the shadowy corner, and, as I looked, my mind seemed to picture a dim shape filling the wall space below the big, massive peg. There were no details and hardly any form; it was just a shape, vague and rather horrible. I shivered slightly, but I did not try to blot out the mental picture. It was a gruesome thing, that dim, elongated shape, but it did not disturb me much; for it set going other associated trains of thought. There was the ceremony to-morrow evening, the witnesses with their doubtful rights of attestation, protesting that all was in order--and protesting in vain. There were two Ishmaelites going forth hand-in-hand into the wilderness, ready to meet scorn with defiance--but still Ishmaelites. And at the thought, the shape upon the wall space below the peg seemed to grow less dim, to loom out more distinctly. That shape was Mr. Otway--dead. The late Mr. Otway. No longer a legal impediment, but just a fiction that had ceased to exist.
From the dark corner I turned my eyes on to the living man as he lay motionless, breathing softly with an occasional faint snore, and now and again puffing out his cheeks. He was not asleep, for I could see his eyes open and close at intervals; but he was evidently growing somnolent. I watched him with deep interest, almost with fascination, as one might look on a condemned man making his last journey in the hangman’s cart. This was a condemned man, too: a potential suicide. At any moment he might set forth on his last journey; and his arrival at his destination would set the Ishmaelites free. He was ready to go; but he awaited the determining influence that would start him on his journey. What form would that final cause take? Would it be some sudden shock of alarm? Or the cumulative effect of prolonged, abiding fear?
I leaned forward and spoke softly to him.
“Do you know, Mr. Otway, what caused your brother----”
He opened his eyes and looked at me, dully. “What did you say, Helen?” he asked.
“I was wondering if you knew--if there was anything in particular that caused your brother to take his life.”
He cogitated sleepily for a while before replying. At length he answered, in a drowsy voice: “I am not very clear about it. He had had a good deal of worry of one kind and another, financial and domestic. I don’t know that anything unusual had occurred; but he had been in a nervous, depressed state for some time.”
Having made this reply, Mr. Otway closed his eyes and took a deep breath; and I reflected on the significance of his answer. There had apparently been no specific cause of his brother’s suicide, but just the accumulating effects of nervousness and depression, which exploded when they reached a certain degree of intensity. His condition, in fact, seemed to have been almost identical with Mr. Otway’s present condition.
Once more my eyes wandered away to the shadowy corner; and again the wall space below the great hook-like peg became occupied by that elongated shape. Now I seemed to visualise it more completely. It was no longer a mere shape. It had parts--recognisable members. There were the limp-dangling arms, the downward-pointing toes, the shadowy head lolling sideways. It was very horrible, yet I found myself viewing it without horror, but rather with a certain detached interest. I was getting used to it, and was disposed to consider it in terms of its significance.
It was not a person. It was a thing which had replaced a person who had ceased to exist. That person had had a wife. But the wife had ceased to exist, too. In her place was a widow--a free, unattached woman in whom were vested all the rights and liberties of spinsterhood, including the power to contract a valid and regular marriage. The shape was an ugly and forbidding thing; but it held precious and desirable gifts.
From the shape projected by my own imagination my eyes turned to the actual man--the man who was convertible into such a shape. He was fast asleep now; lying on his back, breathing a little stertorously and blowing out his cheeks at each breath. He was an unpleasant spectacle, and the sound of his breathing was disagreeable. He ought not to be lying on his back; for sleepers who lie on their backs are apt to dream, and dreams are not good for men with a tendency to suicide. And sleepers who breathe stertorously are apt to dream ugly dreams.
This consideration set my thoughts working afresh. Supposing this man should have a dream presenting his waking terrors with all the added intensity and vividness of a nightmare; the heavy footfalls of the police upon the stairs, the hands groping in the darkness of the landing for the bell-pull! Or if his dream should show him that wardrobe with its dreadful occupant! What would happen? And even as I put the question to myself my imagination supplied with startling vividness the answering picture. I saw the affrighted sleeper suddenly awaken in uncontrollable panic, scramble from his bed and shuffle hurriedly towards the corner under the peg.
The mental construction of the scene was singularly complete and orderly. I even found myself filling in the details of the means. There, indeed, was the peg. But a man cannot hang himself without some means of suspension. And these must be immediately available or the impulse might die away before they were found. I glanced around the room to see what means were to hand; and at once my eye lighted on an old-fashioned bell-rope that hung beside the head of the bed. Its perfect suitability was evident at a glance--provided that it could be detached without ringing the bell. But the necessity for cutting it rather than pulling it down would be obvious, even to a suicide.
The means, then, were all ready to hand. And there was the man, charged with this self-destructive tendency, sleeping in the very posture calculated to start it into action.
I sat still, watching him with absorbing interest, and as these thoughts shaped themselves with more and more distinctness, an impulse of which I was barely conscious formed itself and steadily grew in intensity. At length I leaned forward and spoke in a low voice.
“Mr. Otway, you should not lie in that position.”
There was no answer, and he made no sign. The heavy breathing went on with uninterrupted regularity, the eyes remained closed. Again I spoke, this time more loudly, clearly and distinctly.
“Mr. Otway, can you hear me? If you lie as you are lying, you will probably dream. You may have bad, dangerous dreams. You may dream of your mother and your brother. You may dream that the peg on the wall is beckoning to you. And then you may wake in a panic and think that the peg is still beckoning. And then----”
I stopped suddenly. What was this that I was doing? Was it a warning to avert disaster? So the words were framed. But I knew it was nothing of the kind. It was suggestion, pure and almost undisguised. The dreadful truth struck me like a blow and seemed to turn me into stone. I sat rigid as a statue, still leaning forward with my lips parted as if to complete that awful sentence, every moment more appalled by this frightful thing that I had done. There came to me in a flash a vision of my own automatism after the séance; I heard Lilith telling me how the sleep of the drugged resembles the hypnotic trance; and again it came to me how I had been sitting looking at that terrible peg on the wall and--without conscious intention--creating by my will the awful shape beneath it.
How long I should have sat, bent forward as if frozen into rigid immobility by the horror of this hideous thing, it is impossible to say. The realization of what I had done, that had fallen on me like a thunderbolt, had petrified me in a posture of arrested action. It seemed to have deprived me of the power of movement.
The place was intensely silent. The monotonous breathing of the sleeping man--the snoring intake alternating with the soft, blowing expiration--made no impression on the profound quiet, and the rapid ticking of the little carriage clock on the table seemed only to make it more intense.
Suddenly something stirred in the outer room. I sprang to my feet with a gasp that had almost been a shriek. Probably it was only Mrs. Gregg, but in my overwrought state the sound was vaguely alarming. I stood for a few moments, my heart thumping and my breath coming short and fast; then I stole on tip-toe across the room and softly opening the door, peered into the outer room. It was in darkness except that a bright beam of moonlight poured in at the window; but this gave enough light to show that there was nobody in the room.
Still fearful of I knew not what, I stepped softly through the doorway and looked about me suspiciously. The moonlight struck on a large cupboard or wardrobe, which instantly suggested the lurking-place of some eavesdropper and at the same time aroused horrible associations connected with Mr. Otway’s brother; so that, in spite of my alarm, I was impelled to pluck at the handle to satisfy myself that no figure was hidden within. But the cupboard was locked, or, at any rate, would not open.
Then I looked under the table and peered into the darker corners of the room, growing--naturally--more and more nervous every moment, and pausing from time to time to listen, or to look back through the doorway into the bedroom, where I could see Mr. Otway lying motionless like a sepulchral effigy.
Suddenly something stirred softly quite near to me--the sound seemed to come from the cupboard. I could have screamed with terror. The last vestige of my self-possession was gone, and in sheer panic I fled across the room and down the corridor to the entrance lobby. This place was in utter darkness, and as I frantically groped for the latch, I felt my skin creep and break out into a chilly sweat. At last I found the latch, dragged the door open and darted out; and as the clang of the closing door filled the building with hollow echoes, I ran swiftly down the stairs.
Once out in the inhabited streets, my alarm subsided somewhat; but still the image of that motionless figure in the bedroom, the sinister-looking peg on the wall and the recollection of those dreadful words that I had spoken into the sleeper’s ears pursued me with an abiding horror. I walked quickly out into the Strand, and I was in the act of hailing a cab when I remembered that I had left my wrist-bag hanging on the chair-back by Mr. Otway’s bedside. My purse was in that bag. But if it had contained my entire worldly possessions I could not have summoned up courage enough to go back for it.
The cab drew up by the kerb. I hesitated a moment, but reflecting that it was yet hardly ten o’clock, and that someone would be waiting up from whom I could borrow the fare, I gave the cabman the address, with the necessary explanations, entered the cab and shut the door. But as the crazy vehicle--it was an ancient four-wheeler--rattled over the uneven roadways of the side streets, the scene in that warm and stuffy bedroom was re-enacted again and again. And yet again I looked on that ill-omened cupboard in the ghostly moonlight; speculated on the mysterious sounds in the living-room; wondered uncomfortably if there had been a watcher or a listener, and if so, whether that eavesdropper knew the meaning of silent willing and suggestion.
