King of the Castle

Volume Two – Chapter Fourteen.

Wimble finds a Curiosity

Any one who could have watched Michael Wimble shaving himself at early morn would have wondered whether the man were really sane, for, as he performed the operation upon himself, he worked as if it was for practice – to keep his hand in, just as acrobats and instrumentalists go through their tasks constantly, so as to keep a tight hold upon that which has taken them so much time and labour to acquire.

Being a barber, he considered that those who shaved should shave well, and that the wearing of moustache, or the very smallest morsel of whisker was but a wreak pandering to the savages who had introduced or followed the moustache movement in the time of the Crimean war.

“It’s filthy, that’s what it is, filthy,” Wimble used to say; “and how a man can go about with his face like the back of a wild beast, beats me.”

Consequently, soon after springing from his solitary bed, the owner of the Museum used to set light to a spirit lamp to boil a small shaving pot of water, and then, as there were signs of ebullitions at the side, the brush was dipped in, and the performance commenced with a tremendous lathering.

There were no half-measures. Wimble passed the brush deftly all over his quaintly wrinkled face, till masses of lather hung on to his ears, and covered his cheeks, so that only his eyes were seen. Then, as he glared at himself in a shaving glass, he set to and scraped and scraped his countenance all over, applied the brush again and again in obstinate places, and finished off by grinning hideously in the little mirror, as he stood, with the razor passing over the skin in a way that would have suggested horrors about to be perpetrated by a maniac, weary of his life, to any one who could have seen the process.

Clever as he was, too, in the manipulation, there were at times, however, suggestions that a looker-on might have been right in his ideas. As, for instance, upon the morning in question, when a slip or a pimple – it is needless to say which – necessitated the use of sponge and sticking-plaster.

Then the task was done, and Michael Wimble finished dressing, talking to himself rapidly the while, sundry words which were spoken more loudly than others, giving the key to the subject of the man’s thoughts – the old, old theme, love. Other words told too of disappointment and jealousy, and all this tended to make Mr Wimble go the wrong way when he started for his regular morning walk along the shore.

His way was always west, but he went east, so as to pass Chris Lisle’s lodgings; and as he did so, staring hard at the drawn-down blinds, and the chimney pot innocent as yet of smoke, he gnashed his teeth softly, for there were two new flowers in Chris’s bedroom window – a fuchsia and a geranium, in pots of dazzling red, and the mignonette box, full of nasturtiums, which flowed over and hung down, had been newly painted a delicate green.

Fresh attentions to the lodger. The previous week clean muslin curtains had been put up, and the week before there was a new cover over the little table in the window upon which lay the big History of England which Mrs Sarson had taken in, or been taken in with, in shilling numbers, by a book canvasser, and had bound afterwards for one pound fifteen and sixpence, gilt lettered, and blind tooled, the canvasser had said.

That table cover, when Wimble saw it through the half-open window, was composed of crochet work and green satin, and must have been the widow’s handiwork, and a delicate compliment to her lodger.

That was bad enough, but the two new flower pots in the bedroom window were beyond all bearing.

“But wait a bit,” said Wimble to himself. “I can wait;” and he went on, turned up the glen path, struck off to the left, where he reached the bridge, and, by passing along by the backs of the cottages, he made his way to the alley by the public-house at the harbour head, and from there round by the boats and down to the sea shore.

Mr Wimble thought of the widow, and walked fast, gathering shells and scraps of weeds washed up by the tide, and paused from time to time to examine fragments of driftwood and pieces of rotten rope.

Everything was thrown away though, for he had plenty of duplicates at home, and only exceptional finds were now worthy of a place in the museum.

So limpets, and turritellas, and pectens were passed as unworthy of notice. A pelican’s foot shell was transferred to his pocket, but nothing more; and growing quite low-spirited at last, for three reasons – his ill-luck, love, and the want of his breakfast – he turned at last, made for the cliffs, and came along close under the land, in and out among the rocks where the soft sand lay thick and smooth, past the hollows where the old boots and shoes were washed up in company with the other disjecta membra with which shore-dwellers insult the ocean, in the belief that the tide will play the part of scavenger and sweep everything away, a task that the sea mostly scorns.

And so it was that in sundry corners beneath the mighty granite rocks, piled high like titanic walls, Michael Wimble thought of the widow, and made his way among old baskets, fish-heads, scraps of worn-out netting and tangles of rusty steel, half-covered with rotten fabric suggesting female attire.

No objects these for his museum, for, though old, they were not old enough. Had a few centuries passed since they were cast into the waves, that would have made all the difference, and a thousand years would have made them treasures great as gold.

But it was a barren hunt that morning. There had been no storm to tear away the sand and sweep bare the rock, to leave exposed tarnished old coins once cast ashore from an Armada galley; no serpula encrusted gem; nothing worthy of notice; and Wimble, with his thoughts turning eagerly now from the widow and her lodger to the toast and the rasher of bacon, he passed over his bachelor rival and stepped out till he came beneath the rocky point upon which Gartram had built his home, and was half-way by when a ray of sunshine flashed from something lying among the rocks in a little patch of soft, dry sand.

It might be a diamond, or at least a crystal ground out of the rocks!

But it was only a clear phial bottle – short, unlabelled, tightly corked, and holding about a teaspoonful of some clear fluid at the bottom.

A disappointment; but a clean bottle was always useful, and, after a brief examination, the barber transferred it to his pocket, but not until he had removed the cork, sniffed, replaced it, and looked round, asking himself whether it had floated there in the last spring tide.

No; it seemed too fresh. The cork was too new and dry. It could only have come from about – been thrown from Gartram’s windows, and —

Wimble got no further in his chain of reasoning. The vacuum which his nature abhorred was giving him strong hints which he was glad to obey; and the breakfast he had that morning was excellent for a jealous man in love.

Afterwards he rose, took off his coat to put on his apron, found the bottle in his pocket, put it carelessly in a drawer to wait till it could be washed, and declared himself ready for business. He had not long to wait, for one of his regular customers came for a shave. “Heard the news, of course?”

“News? no,” said Wimble, stopping short in the stropping of a razor. “What news? What is it?”

“The King of the Castle – dead.”

Volume Two – Chapter Fifteen.

The Dead tell no Tales

“What’s the matter with him?” said one of the men who had come off from the shore to Glyddyr’s yacht, after performing the duty he had in hand.

“Well,” said the steward, laughing, “he’s my boss, so it ain’t for me to say; but if it had been you, I should have said you had been looking into a brandy glass till you were too giddy to stand.”

“Well; that’s what I thought,” said the coroner’s officer, “but being a gentleman, I held my tongue. Thought gents never did take too much.”

“Oh, no; never,” said the steward, sarcastically. “But don’t talk about it; the guvnor’s a good deal upset about the affair at Mr Gartram’s.”

“’Nough to upset any one. Who’d have thought it. Well, good morning.”

“Don’t want me as a witness, do you?”

The officer laughed, and was rowed back to the shore, while Glyddyr sat in his cabin watching the progress of the boat, and asking himself, as he glanced from time to time at the summons to the inquest which he held in his hand, whether he had committed himself in any way by word or look in the presence of the coroner’s officer.

Twice over he turned to the brandy decanter in search of courage, but he shrank from it with a fresh chill of dread.

“It may make me talk too much,” he said; “I might say something I couldn’t take back.”

Hurriedly thrusting the temptation from him, he well bathed his burning temples, and felt refreshed by the cold water.

“Now,” he said, setting his teeth and trying to be firm; “there’s only one man who knows the rights of this case, and I am that man. If I go straight no one can find it out, and there’s a rich wife for me at the end of a few months, and freedom from this cursed load of debt. Well, I’ll go through it in spite of everything. I will face it out.”

But even as he tried to screw himself up his own words struck him with terrible force —

“A rich wife!”

How would he dare to continue his advances towards the child of the man he had murdered?

“I can’t do it. I dare not do it,” he said in a despairing way. “She will be looking me through and through, and some day she might find out. No; Gellow must do his worst, I can’t go on.”

But as he thought all this his eyes were directed towards the Fort, with its blank-looking casements, and though he shuddered as he thought of the dead man lying there behind one of those blank windows – his work – the man whose hand he had grasped only the night before in friendship, and whom he had cut off by that one act – though he thought of all this with shudders, and vainly tried to screen himself from the darts of conscience by holding up as shield the word accident – the place had a terrible fascination, and he felt that he must go on now, for there was the sweet young girl heiress to so great a property, there was the ideal seaside home for a man who had yachting proclivities. The place was pretentious, and the mockery of an old Norman castle jarred upon his tastes; but there was the place waiting for him, ready to be his if he only had patience and manly force enough to keep his own counsel.

“And I will,” he said, as he clenched his fists. “It isn’t cowardice; it’s overstrung sensibility. I have the strength, and I will face it all out, come what may.”

He felt cooler now, and began to hesitate as to what he should do. The coroners inquest was to him the enemy, and he would have to view the body.

“No, no,” he muttered, “how confused I am – that is, for the jury. I am only a witness called because – Yes, I remember, what the man said now, because I saw the deceased last night.”

“Yes, I saw him last night,” groaned Glyddyr; “and I feel as if I shall always be seeing him now.”

Once more he made an effort to collect himself, and took the situation in the full. He had nearly been committing the grave error of running away, but he had fortunately paused.

“It would have been madness,” he thought, “and only inviting pursuit by attracting attention to my actions.”

He walked on deck, his nervous excitement having completely counteracted the effect produced by the spirits and wine, and ordered his men into the boat to row him ashore.

He had made up his mind what to do, and as soon as they reached the landing steps he walked straight up to the Fort for the second time that morning.

He was cool now, for he was fully awake to the fact that his life depended upon his calmly facing facts.

Half-way up, towards the bridge, he met Doctor Asher and his colleague, the latter bowing and passing on, but Asher stopped short, and took Glyddyr’s extended hand.

“Going in?” he said.

“Yes; how is she – Miss Gartram?”

“Terrible state, poor girl; broken-hearted; I only saw her for a few moments. Dreadful accident, is it not?”

Glyddyr felt his blood run cold, and his eyes seemed to him to be vacant, as he gazed straight at the doctor. “Accident?” he said, huskily.

“Oh, yes; no doubt about that. But you understand, do you not?”

“No – yes – I think I do,” said Glyddyr, whose throat felt dry.

“Of course. Poor fellow, I warned him against it over and over again, but it is of no use with a man who once becomes a slave to a drug.”

“Yes, I see,” said Glyddyr, staring hard at the doctor, but not seeing him.

“I feel as if I were to blame, but, on dispassionate consideration, what could I do?”

“Of course,” answered Glyddyr, “what could you do?”

“It was better that he should take the drug under my supervision than recklessly alone.”

“Yes; much,” said Glyddyr, vacantly.

“And yet on the face of it one can’t say that it seems so. But what could a medical man do in such a case? ‘I am suffering for want of sleep,’ he used to say, ‘and I must have this stuff.’ ‘It is madness to take it,’ I said. ‘If you don’t give it me, I shall get it myself at the druggists.’ So, of course, I had to give way and exhibit safe doses, but no foresight can prevent a man taking double or triple the quantities prescribed.”

“No; I see,” said Glyddyr, in the same vacant way. “But do you think he did get more at the druggist’s?”

“That was my first thought, and I telegraphed to the two nearest and most likely men, but they say in each case, ‘no.’ Most awful accident, Mr Glyddyr. It ought to be a warning to people not to tamper with drugs which they do not understand, eh?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How can anyone know how much to prescribe or take? A medical man of long experience has to go very cautiously, for what is a safe dose for one constitution is certain death to another. But, there: I must go. My colleague, to whom I have every reason to be grateful for his loyal aid, is waiting for me. I wanted help, for I cannot recall when I have been so overcome as by this case. The shock was terrible. Dining with him – called away – returning to find that he was asleep. Let me see you were with him, were you not?”

“Yes, part of the time,” faltered Glyddyr, as he felt a thrill of dread run through him under the doctor’s searching eyes, which seemed to be reading his inmost thoughts; and he found himself wondering whether this man had really been called away upon two occasions, or had made excuses, so as to watch his every act.

“And did you notice anything particular?”

“N-no,” faltered Glyddyr; and then, in response to the sharply applied goad of dread, “no, nothing; only that he breathed rather heavily.”

“To be sure; yes. But, there: good-bye. We shall meet again at the inquest, I suppose I I am not surprised at you looking so pale and overcome.”

“Do I look pale and overcome?” said Glyddyr hastily, the words slipping from his lips.

“Terribly, my dear sir, terribly. Good morning.”

Glyddyr stood looking after him as the doctor walked away, and a fit of trembling came on.

“He was pumping me, and he is suspicious,” thought Glyddyr. “Curse him! These doctors have a way of reading a man, and seeing through you. But he could only suspect; and what is suspicion where they want certainty?”

“What could he say,” he thought; “and how does it stand? He gave him chloral; Gartram took it himself, and if a little more was given, well, what could they prove unless they saw?”

“No; unless I betray myself, I am safe,” he muttered, as he walked up to the principal entrance and rang; but as the loud clangour of the bell ran through the place, the shiver of dread returned, and he was conscious from his sensations that he must be looking ghastly, and that his lips be white and cracked.

The door was opened by one of the maids.

“Ask Miss Gartram if she can see me for a few minutes,” he said, in a voice he hardly knew as his own.

The maid drew back for him to enter, and showed him into the drawing-room, where the yellow gloom of the light passing through the drawn-down blinds seemed to add to the oppression from which he suffered. Then, as he stood there, his hot eyes fixed themselves upon the chair which had been occupied by Claude when he was there the previous night; and he found himself wondering what he should say to her; and then a singular feeling of confusion came over him as he asked himself why he had come.

A footstep in the hall made him tremble, and he felt as if he could have given anything to be away from the place, for now, in its full force, he felt the terror of the interview he had to go through with the child of the man he had murdered, and who must now be lying still and stark not many yards away, while in the spirit, where was he? – perhaps about to be present to guard his child.

“If I only had more strength of mind!” groaned Glyddyr, as he vainly tried to string himself up. Then the door was opened, and he was face to face with Mary Dillon.

He drew a breath of relief, and his brain began to grow clearer, as if a mist had been wafted away, and, recovering himself, he advanced with extended hand.

“Will you be seated, Mr Glyddyr?” said Mary, ignoring the extended hand, and sinking wearily on the couch to half close her eyes and wrinkle up her brow.

“Thank you,” he said in a whisper; “I ought to apologise for coming, but – at such a time – dear Claude must – ”

His words began to trail off slowly into silence, and he sat gazing at Mary helplessly, as if he could not command the flow of that which he wished to say.

“It is very good of you to come,” said Mary slowly, as if she were repeating a lesson when her thoughts were far away. “But poor Claude is completely prostrate. She cannot see you. It is cruel of you to ask for such a thing.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said meekly. “But, occupying the position as I do – she in such distress – I felt it a duty, let alone my own warm feelings. Miss Dillon, is there nothing I can do?”

He stopped short now, wondering at his own words, for they had come quickly, and sounded thoroughly natural in their ring.

“No,” said Mary, looking at him piercingly now; but he seemed nerved by the instinct of self-preservation, and the knowledge that everything depended upon him being calm.

Mary paused, and appeared to be struggling with her emotion for a few moments. Then, in a cold, hard way, she faced Glyddyr, as if she were defending her cousin from attack.

“No,” she said, in clear firm tones. “My cousin is seriously ill, Mr Glyddyr. Broken-hearted at our terrible loss, and anyone who feels respect for her, and wishes to be helpful at such an hour as this will leave her in peace till time has done something toward blunting the agony she is in.”

“Yes,” said Glyddyr, “you are quite right.”

He stood for a moment undecided, and as if he were about to go; but as he looked straight before him at the door, he saw mentally Gartram’s study; and a vision of wealth greater than any of which he had ever dreamed, appeared to be lying there waiting for him to call it mine; and the dazzling prospect began to drive away his terrors, and strengthen him in his belief that he was safe. No, he could not go back now, he felt, even if the figure of the dead were to rise up before him in defence of his hoards.

The dead tell no tales, he fancied he heard something within him say; and then – can the dead know?

Mary was looking at him inquiringly, and as he became conscious of this, he turned to her sadly and gravely.

“Yes; you are right,” he said, “it must be the kindest treatment to leave her to herself. It was my love for her that brought me here. Tell her, please, from me that my heart bleeds for her, and that I will wait until she can see me. I can say no more now. I trust you to be my faithful messenger. Good-bye.”