The Ivory Gate, a new edition

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 encyclopædic 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."'