The Crime and the Criminal

CHAPTER XLI

TAKING LEAVE

It was a handsome room, that in which Mr. Townsend, when at home, passed the larger portion of his waking hours-large, lofty, well-proportioned. The walls were wainscoted. Here and there was a piece of tapestry. Curtains suggested, rather than screened, an occasional recess. Veiled, too, were entrances to rooms beyond. A window, running from floor to ceiling, extended on one side of the room, almost from wall to wall. Had it been daytime, one would have seen that it overlooked Hyde Park.

On his entrance Mr. Townsend went immediately to the portrait of the girl which stood up on his mantelboard. He looked at it long and earnestly. He took it out of its frame. He kissed it, not once or twice, but a dozen times at least. He regarded it with something of the veneration which the religious Russian peasant regards his Icon.

"Dora!" he murmured. "Dora!" Then, with a smile, "What might have been!"

Gripping the portrait with both his hands, he began to tear it into two; then stopped.

"It seems almost like sacrilege." He kissed the face again. "It would be a sacrilege to let it fall into their hands as evidence that she had endured the contamination of my acquaintance."

He tore the portrait, not only into halves, but into fragments, and the fragments he cast upon the fire. As the flames consumed them he made a little gesture towards them with his hands.

"Good-bye!"

He picked up several knick-knacks which were about the room and examined them, as if he were considering what ought to be their fate. Some of them, which bore unmistakable traces of feminine handiwork and taste, he threw, after the portrait, into the fire. He opened a large despatch-box which stood upon a table at one side. From among its varied contents he took all sorts of things-a glove, a knot of ribbon, a menu card, some programmes of dances, a chocolate bonbon, a variety of trivial impedimenta with which one would hardly have thought such a man would have cared to be troubled. Last of all he took out four or five envelopes addressed to himself in what was evidently a woman's hand.

"My love letters! – love letters! I doubt if there was a word of love in one of them, except that which came to me this morning. In our courtship hitherto love letters have scarcely entered. There has been no opportunity. It is another case of what might have been-and yet these are my love letters, for they were written by her hand, and these are my love tokens, because they are tokens of certain passages which she has had with me. Nor must they become their spoil. These sort of tales find their way into so many sorts of papers that, for her sake, it is well that I have had time enough to destroy what might tend to show that I ever was engaged-save the mark! – to marry Miss Jardine."

He threw the letters and the various trivialities together into the fire, breaking up the coals to enable them to burn the faster. He stood watching their destruction. When they were entirely consumed he turned away, the finger of his right hand in his waistcoat pocket, apparently feeling for something which was there.

"I think that that is all; now I'm ready."

"That, young man, is just as well, because so am I."

The voice came from behind his back. Mr. Townsend showed no sign of being startled, nor did he evince any anxiety to turn and inquire into the speaker's personality. He stood, for a moment, as if he was endeavouring to recall to his memory the tones of the speaker's voice. He turned at last, at his leisure, and with a smile-

"Mr. Haines?"

It was Mr. Haines. His sudden appearance was explained by the fact that he had obviously just stepped from behind a pair of curtains which concealed the entrance to an inner room. He still held one of the curtains in his hand. He eyed Mr. Townsend in silence, one hand being in suggestive proximity to the hip pocket in his trousers in which the Westerner is apt to keep his gun.

"Yes, I am Mr. Haines."

"I am glad to have the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Haines. Might I ask you to be good enough to select your own chair?"

Mr. Haines took no notice of Mr. Townsend's gesture of almost exaggerated courtesy. Manner and tone alike were dogged.

"I've been watching you."

"I am gratified to think that any action of mine should have been esteemed worthy your attention."

"The woman said that you weren't in. I said I'd wait. I knew you'd come. She fidgeted. So I stepped behind the curtains. I thought trouble might be saved."

"It was very thoughtful, Mr. Haines, of you, indeed."

Mr. Haines moved away from the curtains. He came farther into the room, his hand still in the neighbourhood of his pistol pocket, his eyes never wandering from Mr. Townsend's face.

"Last night I reckoned with your brother."

"My brother?"

"He says he is your brother. He let it out as I was laying into him. And he's about your style all over. He calls himself Stewart Trevannion, and he's a thief, but not near such a thief as you."

"Is that so? May I inquire, Mr. Haines, what I have done that you should say I am a thief?"

"You've stole my girl."

"Your girl?" Mr. Townsend raised his eyebrows slightly, but still sufficiently for the movement to be perceptible. "Are you alluding to Mrs. Carruth?"

"Mrs. Carruth? No, young man, I am not alluding, as you call it, to Mrs. Carruth."

"I thought that Mrs. Carruth could hardly be adequately described as a girl."

"Is it sneering at Mrs. Carruth you are?"

Mr. Haines's idiom, on the sudden, became flavoured with, as it were, a reminiscence of Ireland.

"I trust that I never, Mr. Haines, shall be guilty of so heinous a crime as sneering at a lady. I believe that I am merely asserting a fact in venturing to express an opinion that Mrs. Carruth can hardly be adequately described as a girl."

Mr. Townsend's exaggeration of courtesy, suggesting more than it expressed, seemed to be something for which Mr. Haines was unprepared. He hesitated, as if in doubt; then repeated his previous assertion.

"You've stole my girl, and I've come to call you to account."

"I am unconscious of having conveyed from you any property of the kind. Of whom are you speaking as your girl?"

"My Loo."

"Your-" Mr. Townsend obviously started, regaining his self-possession only after a momentary pause. "I am still, Mr. Haines, so unfortunate as to be unable to follow you."

"Whether she was known to you as Louisa Haines, or Louise O'Donnel, or Milly Carroll, she was my girl. You stole her. You killed her. I am here to kill you for it."

There was silence. The two men eyed each other. Mr. Haines with that sullen, dogged look upon his face which it was used to wear; Mr. Townsend with the natural expression of the man who has just been told a sudden startling, wholly unexpected piece of news. He seemed to find it so startling a piece of news as to be almost incredible.

"Is it possible, Mr. Haines, that the lady whom I knew as Louise O'Donnel was your child?"

"She was: my only child-my one ewe lamb. You took her life. What have you to say why I shouldn't have your life for hers?"

"Only that it is the unexpected happens. I may tell you, twice I have been advised to beware of you. I had no notion what was your cause of quarrel. Now that I do know, I admit its perfect justice."

"Put up your hands."

Mr. Haines flashed a revolver in the air. Mr. Townsend remained unmoved; he simply looked at Mr. Haines and smiled.

"I am afraid that I must decline to obey you, literally, Mr. Haines. We do not do it quite that way this side. To an English taste the method seems a little bizarre. But I will undertake to offer no resistance. Nor to move. So far as I am concerned, you may shoot. I'm ready."

Mr. Haines moved a step or two forward. He pointed his revolver at Mr. Townsend's head, pointed it with a hand which did not tremble. There was an interval of silence. They steadfastly regarded each other, neither moving so much as an eyelash.

"You've grit. Which is what your brother'd like to swallow."

"It pleases you to say so. I would not wish to put you to inconvenience, but if you will permit me to advise you you will shoot and waste no time. Time is precious. I happen to know that, if you waste it, others may cheat you of your prey."

Mr. Haines lowered his revolver.

"I reckoned to shoot you on sight. It's not because you've grit I don't. Don't you think it. I've seen men like you before. A few. Some of them with grit enough to dare the devil to do his level worst when he gets them down to hell. Grit's just an accident. It don't count with me neither one way nor the other. Young man, I'm going to make you an offer."

"Make it."

"There are two things I've had to live for. Just two. No more. You've robbed me of them both. My girl, and the heart which I reckoned to have one day for mine."

"If, as I presume, this time it is Mrs. Carruth to whom you are referring, I do protest with all my heart that you are welcome to her heart, Mr. Haines."

"It's not your consent I should be asking. No. It's hers. I've asked for it. In vain. I reckon that with nothing to live for living isn't worth it. I've another gun in here." Mr. Haines produced a second revolver from one of his tail pockets. Mr. Townsend smiled. "What are you laughing at, young man?"

"You must forgive me. You reminded me for a moment of a pirate king of whom I used to read in my boyish days, whose habit it was to carry an arsenal about with him wherever he might go."

"Laugh on. One of these guns is for you, the other gun's for me. We are going to shoot each other."

"Excuse me, we are not."

"I say we are." Mr. Townsend slightly shrugged his shoulders. The gesture seemed to anger Mr. Haines. He went still closer to him. "You are going to put the muzzle of one gun to my forehead, and I'm going to put the muzzle of the other gun to yours, and we're going to fire together on the word."

"I beg ten thousand pardons for being constrained to contradict you, but-we are not."

"I say we are." Again the only response was a movement of Mr. Townsend's shoulders. "Take hold of the gun."

Mr. Haines endeavoured to thrust one of the revolvers into Mr. Townsend's hand.

"Not I."

"Take hold of the gun!"

Mr. Haines, on Mr. Townsend's betraying an inclination to remove himself from too near neighbourhood, caught him by the shoulder.

"Remove your hand, sir. I have no objection to your shooting me. But to your touching me while I am still alive I have."

"You hearken to what I say, young man. Take hold of this gun!"

Mr. Haines endeavoured to subject Mr. Townsend to what, in the nursery, is called a shaking.

"If you attempt to do that again, Mr. Haines, I shall be under the disagreeable necessity of knocking you down-before the shooting."

Mr. Haines attempted to do it again. Mr. Townsend tried to knock Mr. Haines down. Mr. Haines was not to be easily felled. Bursting into sudden passion, he seized Mr. Townsend by both shoulders. His two "guns" fell, unnoticed, to the ground. With commendable promptness Mr. Townsend returned the compliment which had been accorded him by clutching Mr. Haines. They clenched, struggled, and together fell to the floor.

On the floor they continued to discuss to the best of their ability the side issue which Mr. Haines had raised.

So engrossed were they with their own proceedings that they failed to notice the sudden opening of the door, followed by the unannounced entrance into the room of four or five men. One of them moved quickly to where the two combatants were contending on the floor. He placed his hand on Mr. Townsend's shoulder.

"You are my prisoner, Mr. Townsend. I arrest you on the charge of murder."

The sound of Mr. Holman's voice-for Matthew Holman was the speaker-did produce a diversion of the interest. The two men ceased to struggle. Then, being suffered to do so by Mr. Haines, Mr. Townsend rose to his feet. As he did so, some one who had come into the room with the police broke into laughter as he pointed at him with his finger. It was Mr. Pendarvon.

"Yes, officer, that's your man. That's Townsend, the Three Bridges murderer."

Mr. Pendarvon's merriment seemed out of place. He had cause to exchange it for something else a moment afterwards.

Mr. Townsend turned to Mr. Holman.

"As this person says, I am the man you want. And-" He paused; before they had a notion of what it was he intended to do, rushing forward, he had caught Mr. Pendarvon in his arms and borne him completely from his feet. "You are just the man I want."

Mr. Townsend's movements were so rapid that, before they could do anything to stop him, he had carried his victim right across the room, and, brushing aside the curtains, with a tremendous splintering of glass, had crashed with him through the closed windows into the night beyond.

"All right," cried Mr. Holman, as, too late to check his progress, the constables rushed after him. "There are some of the other chaps out there. They'll have him."

From Mr. Holman's point of view it proved to be all right. The drop from the window was only six or seven feet. By the time Mr. Holman had reached it Mr. Townsend was already again in the hands of the police. The detective shouted his instructions through the shattered pane.

"Put the handcuffs on him."

A voice replied from below-

"They are on him. He has almost killed this other man."

Mr. Townsend was heard speaking with a most pronounced drawl.

"Almost! Not quite! That's a pity. Still, 'twill serve. Officer, will you allow me to use my handkerchief; my mouth is bleeding?"

He succeeded, in spite of his handcuffed wrists, in withdrawing a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his coat. He pressed it, for a moment, to his lips. When he removed it, he tossed something into the air.

"Done you!" he cried. "Hurrah!"

There was an exclamation from the officer who was in charge of him.

"He has taken something. I can smell it."

"Yes," said Mr. Townsend, "I have taken leave." There was a small commotion. Mr. Townsend, reeling, would have fallen to the ground had he not been supported by the sergeant's arms. The man leaned over him to smell his breath. He, probably, was something of a chemist. "Hydrocyanic acid!" he exclaimed. "He is dead."

CHAPTER XLII

HAND IN HAND

Mrs. Tennant had obtained permission to see her husband in prison once before he was hung to say good-bye. She was starting upon the errand now-alone.

She had resolved to go alone. She had battled out the question with herself, upon her knees, in prayer, and it seemed to her that, of many alternatives, she had not chosen the worst. She would have with her neither his mother, nor hers, nor any of their kith and kin. The horror of the memory of that parting should be hers alone.

Nor would she take their little child, their Minna. That was for the child's sake. The father might, perhaps, be glad to see, once more, his darling, even though it was through iron bars. But the child must be considered. The picture of that last parting might, and probably would, be impinged upon the retina of the child's brain, never to be obliterated. It might haunt her through the years, colour the whole of her life.

When Mrs. Tennant was ready to start, while she was still in the privacy of her own room, she knelt upon the floor and drew the little child into her arms.

"Minna, I am going to see papa. Shall I tell him that you send your love?"

A small, pleading face looked into hers.

"Can't I come with you? I want to see him too."

"I cannot take you with me, Minna, but I will take your love. I think it would please papa to know you sent it."

"Of course you are to tell papa I love him. He knows I do. And, mamma, you're to give him that." The child kissed her mother. "And you're to tell him that he is to come back soon."

Mrs. Tennant went with the little one downstairs, not daring to trust herself in further speech. Her mother came to receive the child, and to put to her a last inquiry.

"Are you quite sure, Lucy, that you would not like to have me with you-nor any one-even as far as Lewes? Consider, dear, all you are undertaking, and think before you speak." Mrs. Tennant's answer was quietly conclusive. "I would rather go quite alone, mother, thanking you." There was a knocking at the hall door. Since bad news had come crowding so fast upon the household, every fresh knock had seemed to be the precursor of more ill-tidings. The two women looked at each other with frightened faces, a question in their very silence. While they still were looking there came, bursting into the room, no less a personage than that eminent counsel, Bates, Q.C., who had defended Mr. Tennant at his trial.