Dead Man's Love
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"I have given you the last chance," the doctor was saying, "and now I shall trouble you no more. There is another way, and perhaps a better one. I have treated you well. I have offered to make you my wife – to place you in the position your father would have been glad to see you occupy. Now I have done with you, and we must try the other way. Look into my eyes!"
Then I saw a curious thing happen. At first, while the man looked intently at her with those extraordinarily bright eyes of his, she covered her own with her hands, and strove to look away; but after a moment or two she dropped her hands helplessly, and shivered, and looked intently at him full. It was like the fascination of some helpless bird by a snake. I saw her sink slowly into a chair behind her; and still she never took her eyes from those of the doctor, until at last her lids fell, and she seemed to lie there asleep. Then I heard the man's voice saying words that had no meaning for my ears at that time.
"You will not sleep well to-night, little one," he said, in a curious crooning voice. "You will rise from your bed, and you will come out in search of something. Is it not so?"
Very softly she answered him: "Yes, I understand."
"You will be restless, and you will seek to get out into the air. But all the doors will be bolted, and the windows fastened. So you will turn to the eastern corridor and will pass along there to the end wall. Do you understand?"
And again she murmured: "Yes, I understand."
"And then you will walk on – into the air. You will do this at midnight."
She murmured, "At midnight"; and on a sudden he snapped his fingers violently three times before her eyes, and she sprang up, wide awake, and stared at him, looking at him in perplexity.
"You've been asleep for ever so long," he said, with a smile. "You must be tired; go to your room."
She looked at him in a dazed fashion, and passed her hand across her forehead. "What were we speaking of?" she asked him, as though referring to the conversation they had had before he had sent her into that species of trance.
"Nothing – nothing that matters now," he said, moving towards the door.
Fearing that he might come in my direction after he had sent her from the room, I vaulted over the railing of the verandah, which was only raised a few feet above the level of the ground. And so presently came round by the side entrance into the house, and, as was my custom, went up to the doctor's study to smoke with him.
I found him pacing up and down, chewing the butt of a cigar that had long gone out. He glanced up quickly when I entered, and jerked his head towards the open drawer in the desk where the cigars were.
"I must ask you to take your cigar and smoke it elsewhere to-night," he said. "I have work to do, and I am very busy. Good-night."
I longed to stop and talk with him – cursed my own impotent position, which gave me no chance of trying conclusions with him and befriending the girl. I remembered bitterly the words she had said to me at the foot of the staircase on the previous night, when she had begged me not to leave her alone in that house. So I went away, reluctantly enough, to smoke my cigar elsewhere.
I wandered down into the dining-room, and dropped into a chair, and closed my eyes. Suddenly I remembered that it was that chair into which the girl had dropped when the doctor had said those words I did not understand. I sat up, very wide awake, remembering.
She was to walk along the eastern corridor, and was to come to a wall at the end. And yet she was to walk out into the air! What did it all mean? What trick was the man about to play upon her? What devilry was afoot?
I got up at once, and threw away my cigar, and set off to explore the house. I wanted to know where this eastern corridor was, if such a place existed, and what was meant by the doctor's words. I went up to my own room first, and made out, as well as I could, by remembering which way the sun rose, and other matters, in what direction the house was situated; and so came to the conclusion that the room to which I had been assigned was at the end of the eastern corridor, nearest to the great bulk of the house. Which is to say, that if I stood in the doorway of my room, and faced the corridor, the other rooms of the house would be on my right hand, while on my left the corridor stretched away into darkness, past rooms that, so far as I knew, were unoccupied.
Lest by any chance my windows should be watched, I lit the lamp in my room and left it; then I came out into the corridor, and closed the door. I looked over the head of the great staircase; the house was in complete silence, though not yet in darkness. Listening carefully, I moved away swiftly into the gathering darkness to the left, until at last, at the end of the corridor, my outstretched hand touched the wall. This was exactly as it should be, according to the doctor's words. I now turned my attention to the wall itself, and found that it was recessed – much as though at some time or other it had been a window that had been bricked up. I could make nothing of it, and I went back to my room, sorely puzzled.
I must have a torpid brain, for I was ever given to much sleeping. On this occasion I sank down into a chair, intending to sit there for a few minutes and think the matter out. In less than five, I was asleep. When I awoke I felt chilled and stiff, and I blamed myself heartily for not having gone to bed. While I yawned and stretched my arms, I became aware of a curious noise going on in the house. With my arms still raised above my head, I stopped to listen.
Whatever noise it was came from the end of the corridor where I had found that blank wall. Some instinct made me put out the light; then in the darkness I stole towards the door, and cautiously opened it. Outside the corridor was dark, or seemed to be at my first glance; I dropped to my knees, and peered round the edge of the door, looking to right and left.
To the right all was in darkness; the servants had gone to bed, after extinguishing the lights and locking up. To the left, strangely enough, a faint light shone; and as I turned my eyes in that direction I saw that a small hand-lamp was standing on the floor, and that above it loomed the figure of a man, casting a grotesque shadow on the walls and ceiling above him. I made enough of the figure to know that it was the doctor, and that he was working hard at that end wall.
I was puzzling my brains to know what he was doing, and was striving hard to connect his presence there with what he had said to the girl, when I heard a grinding and a creaking, and suddenly the lamp that stood beside him was blown out in a gust of wind that came down the corridor and touched my face softly as I knelt there. Then, to my utter amazement, I saw the night sky and the stars out beyond where that end wall had been.
I had just time to get back into my room and to close the door, when the doctor came tiptoeing back along the corridor, and vanished like a shadow into the shadows of the house. I waited for a time, and then struck a match, and looked at the little clock on the mantelpiece. It wanted four minutes of midnight.
I opened the door again, and looked out into the corridor; then, on an impulse, I stole along towards that newly-opened door, or whatever it was, and, coming to it, looked out into the night. It was at a greater height from the ground than I had thought possible, because on that side of the house the ground shelved away sharply, and there was in addition a deep, moat-like trough, into which the basement windows looked. More than ever puzzled, I was retracing my steps, when I heard a slight sound at the further end, like the light rustle of a garment mingled with the swift patter of feet.
I will confess that my nerves were unstrung, and they were therefore scarcely prepared for the shock they had now to endure. For coming down the corridor, straight towards where I stood drawn up against the wall, was a little figure in a white garment, and with fair flowing hair over its shoulders; and that figure came swiftly straight towards that new door which opened to the floor. While I stood there, paralysed by the sight, certain words floated back to my mind.
"You will be restless, and you will seek to get out into the air. But all the doors will be bolted, and the windows fastened. So you will turn to the eastern corridor, and will pass along there to the end wall … and then you will walk on into the air… You will do this at midnight!"
With a great horror upon me, I leapt in a moment, though dimly, to what was meant. The girl was walking to her death, and walking in her sleep. In what devilish fashion Bardolph Just had contrived the thing, or what ascendency he had gained over her that he could suggest the very hour at which she should rise from her bed and do it, I did not understand; but here was the thing nearly accomplished. She was within a couple of feet of the opening, and was walking straight out into the air at that giddy height, when I sprang forward and caught her in my arms.
She shrieked once – a shriek that seemed to echo through the night; then, with a long sobbing cry, she sank into my arms, and hid her face on my shoulder. And at the same moment I heard a door open down below in the house, and heard running footsteps coming towards me. I knew it was the doctor, and I knew for what he had waited.
CHAPTER V.
I AM DRAWN FROM THE GRAVE
You are to picture me, then, standing in that wind-swept corridor, open at one end to the stars, and holding in my arms the sobbing form of Debora Matchwick, and waiting the coming of Dr. Bardolph Just. I awaited that coming with no trepidation, for now it seemed as though I stood an equal match for the man, by reason of this night's work; for if someone had shouted "Murder!" in the silence of the house, the thing could not have been proclaimed more clearly. I saw now that in that trance into which he had thrown her he had by some devilish art suggested to the girl what she should do, and at what hour, and then had thrown open the end of the corridor, that she might step out to her death.
Exactly how much she suspected herself, or how much she had had time to grasp, since the moment when I had so roughly awakened her, I could not tell; but she clung to me, and begged me incoherently not to let her go, and not to let the man come near her. Feeling that the thing must be met bravely, I got my arm about her, and advanced with her down the corridor to meet the doctor.
He came with a light held above his head; he was panting from excitement and hurry. I know that he expected to run to the end of that corridor, and to look out, and to see what should have lain far below him; but he came upon us advancing towards him instead, and he stopped dead and lowered his light.
"What's the matter?" he stammered.
"You should know that best," I answered him boldly. "Death might have been the matter. With your leave, I'll take this lady to her room."
He stood back against the wall, and watched us as we went past him. His brows were drawn down, and his eyes were glittering, and the faint white line of his teeth showed between his lips. In that attitude he remained, like some figure turned to stone, while I drew the girl along, and down the stairs; I had to ask her the way to her room, for, of course, I did not know it. Coming to it at last, I took her cold hands in mine and held them for a moment, and smiled as cheerfully as I could.
"This is not the time for explanations," I said; "leave all that till the morning. Go to bed, and try not to remember anything that has happened; and lock your door."
I heard the key turn in the lock before I came away; not till then did I retrace my steps back to the corridor. I was scarcely surprised to find the man standing almost in the same attitude – only now his head had lowered a little, and he seemed to be musing. Without moving he looked up at me, and a queer sort of grin spread over his features.
"Smart man!" he whispered, with a sneer. "How did it happen? How much do you know?"
"More than you would have me know?" I replied. "Would it not be well to fasten up that door again?" I jerked my head in the direction of the end of the corridor.
Without a word he handed the lamp to me, and started towards the opening. He went so quickly that I thought for the moment he meant to hurl himself upon that death he had intended for the girl; but he stopped at the end, and seemed to be fumbling with the doors.
By that time I had reached him, and, with the aid of the lamp, I could see that there were two heavy doors opening inwards and fastened with a great bar that dropped across them, and with bolts at the top and at the bottom. Quite as though he had forgotten the incidents of the night, he turned to me, and gave an explanation of the doors.
"There used to be an iron staircase against the wall of the house, leading down from here at one time," he said. "It was the whim of some former owner. I found these doors by accident."
"And opened them with a purpose," I reminded him.
He said nothing in reply. Having secured the doors, he motioned to me to go in front, which I did, carrying the light, and in that order we came to my room. I would have handed him the lamp at the door, but he motioned to me to go in, and, following himself, closed the door. I set down the lamp, and waited for what he had to say. He was a long time coming to it; he wandered about the room for a time, stopping now and then, with his back to me, and with his finger tracing out the pattern of the wall paper. When at last he spoke he was still tracing that pattern, and he did not look round.
"You have done me a service to-night, and one I'm not likely to forget," he said.
"A service?" I asked in amazement. "I should scarcely have thought you'd call it that."
"I do – I do!" he exclaimed, swinging round upon me suddenly. "I meant to kill her, and you've saved me from that. I thank my God for it!"
"I don't believe you," I said doggedly. "You planned the thing too well for that."
"I did not plan it, except by the opening of the doors," he said. "I knew that she walked in her sleep sometimes, and I thought – "
"You lie!" I exclaimed fiercely. "I watched you, and heard you while you suggested to her that she should walk in this eastern corridor at midnight, and should come to the end wall. And you knew that there would be no wall there."
He looked at me in a bewildered fashion for what seemed a long time; then he nodded slowly twice. "So you heard that, did you? Well, I suppose there's nothing for it but confession. I did plan the thing; it was by a method you don't understand – what we call hypnotic suggestion. That means that you tell a person that they are to do a certain thing at a certain hour, and when that hour arrives they must inevitably set about to do it."
"Why did you want to kill her?"
"Why do we always desire to crush the thing that we can't possess?" he snapped back at me. "Because I love her – because I would sell my immortal soul – if I have one – to bend her or break her to my will. You are a sleepy dolt, understanding nothing of passions such as sway stronger men; you are not likely to understand this. But she maddens me when she sticks that pretty chin of hers in the air, and I see the contempt flash out of her eyes. If you saw so much, you probably saw the beginning of it, when she said she would have nothing further to do with me, and threatened to get away out of the house. Then the thought came over me that I would put an end to it all; and I made that suggestion to her that she should walk here to-night; and I came first, and opened the old doors. I thank God you saved her!"
He suddenly dropped his head in his hands and groaned aloud; and my heart melted a little with pity for him. I guessed something of what a stormy nature was hidden in the man; and I, who thought I had read something of love in her eyes for me, could afford to pity the man to whose pleadings she turned a deaf ear. Fool that I was, I did not realise the cunning of the creature who stood with hidden face before me; I did not understand that this was but a bit of play-acting, to put me off my guard. I was to learn all that later.
"Do you think you'll help your case by such a business as this of to-night?" I asked. "It's a poor way to make love, to strive to kill the woman."
"She won't know anything about it; she won't guess," he exclaimed eagerly, looking up at me. "She does not know that I suggested to her what to do; she will only wonder at finding the doors open. I can give some explanation of that, if necessary."
"And what will you do now?" I asked him, as I lighted my own lamp and put his into his hand.
"Give up the game," he replied, with a faint smile. "This has taught me a lesson to-night; it has shown me how near the best of us may come to a crime. I am sincere in that; I thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you've done. The lover in me is gone; henceforth I'm her guardian and the friend of her dead father. There's my hand on it!"
I looked into his eyes, and once again I believed him; I began to feel that I had misjudged the man. True, his hand was cold enough in my grasp, but I paid no heed to that; I seemed to see only before me a changed and humbled man. He wished me "Good-night!" with much cordiality, and went off to his own room. For my part, I felt something of a missionary, and congratulated myself upon the night's work.
I had made up my mind that I would see Debora as early as possible on the following morning. I was anxious to know what impression that startling occurrence of the previous night had made upon her. I wanted to see her before there was any possibility of Bardolph Just confronting her; and in that I was successful.
It was a very fine morning, and I supposed that I should find her in the grounds. I felt that I might reasonably expect that she would make her way to that summer-house in which we had met and talked before; and in that also I was right. Quite early, before breakfast was announced, I came upon her in the morning sunlight; and for a long time, as it seemed, we held hands without a word.
"You slept well?" I asked her.
She nodded brightly. "Better than I should have done, I suppose," she said, with a smile; "but then, I was sure of my friend – certain that no harm could come to me. How much have you to tell me of last night?"
"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "There is nothing that you need be told, now that everything is ended. For the future you have to trust to me – just as you trusted last night. You said I was your friend; and I am going to look after you."
"That makes me very happy. By the way, what am I to call you?" she asked artlessly.
I felt the colour mounting in my cheeks. "You know my name," I said.
"Yes – John," she replied, and we both laughed.
Now this is, of course, all very shameful, and I had no right to be standing there, holding her hands, and letting her talk to me in that fashion; but I did not remember then what I was, or from what I had come. Indeed, it is more than possible that if I had remembered I should scarcely have changed my attitude, for but little joy had ever come into my life. I merely set this down here, in order to record the fact that, save for one lamentable lapse, we were "John" and "Debora" to each other from that day forward.
But I had some instructions to give her for her own safety. She listened attentively while I gave them.
"You had better not refer to last night at all," I said. "Let the doctor imagine that you have forgotten about it, or at least have believed that it was some ugly dream. Meet him as usual – show him, if anything, a little more kindness than you have done."
"I can't do that," she said hastily.
"You must; it is imperative," I urged. "I can tell you this, at least: I have his promise that he will not molest you again, and that he will be for the future simply your guardian, and nothing else."
"He said that?" she asked in astonishment.
"Yes, and I believe he means it," I answered steadily.
"I don't believe it, John; it's a trick," she said, shaking her head. "I've seen too much of him; I know him too well. He is trying to throw you off the scent. Don't you understand how helpless we both are? You tell me that you are in his power, because he knows something about your past life: how can you fight against him, or help me?"
"I can, and I will," I assured her. "And you can help, by being discreet, and by waiting until we have an opportunity to do something in concert."
She promised faithfully that she would do that, and she left me, with a smile and a wave of the hand. I followed her slowly to the house, and found the doctor in his usual place at the breakfast table, talking quietly to her. The woman Leach was behind him, as usual.
It became obvious, in a minute or two, that Bardolph Just was anxious to find out how much she remembered, or how much she understood, of the events of the previous night; he had already begun to question Debora cautiously. He appeared to be in a genial mood, and yet in a softened mood; he gave me a smile as I took my place.
"So you slept well?" said Bardolph Just to the girl, as he leaned towards her. "Not disturbed by anything?"
She shook her head, and looked at him with raised eyebrows of perplexity; truly I felt that she had learnt her lesson well. "What should disturb me?"
"Nothing, nothing!" he replied, evidently at a loss. "Only I thought that there was some noise in the house last night; I almost went out to investigate. But, of course, if you heard nothing – "
It happened that at that moment I glanced up over his head, and I saw the woman behind him turn a swift glance out of those dark eyes of hers at the girl; it was but a momentary thing, and then her eyes were cast down in the usual humble fashion; but in that instant I had read something that I had not understood before. I read not only hatred of the girl, and defiance of her; I saw, as clearly as though it had been written, that she knew of the events of the night before, and that she knew that the girl was not speaking the truth. I wondered exactly what had happened, or in what way she had gained her knowledge: I was to learn that swiftly enough.
Somewhat later in the forenoon, I was practically alone in the house. I knew that Debora had gone off into the grounds with a book, and I did not care to disturb her. Bardolph Just had gone down into London on business. I was lounging at my full length in an easy chair in the dining-room, smoking, and reading the newspaper, when the door opened softly, and Martha Leach came in. I did not turn my head, but I saw her moving round the room in a large mirror hanging on the wall opposite my chair. Indeed, our eyes met in that mirror, before they met elsewhere. She stopped, and, somewhat to my surprise, spoke.
"You are a very brave man," she said, with a quick glance at the long windows, as though fearing interruption. "And a strong man, too."
"Who told you that?" I asked, without shifting my position.
"No one tells me anything, and I don't need to be told," she answered. "I find out things for myself; I watch, and discover."
I seemed to have a dim inkling of what was coming, but I think my face betrayed nothing. I lowered the newspaper to my knee, and went on smoking, and watching her in the mirror.
"I saw you last night in the eastern corridor; I saw you catch that girl just in time," she went on, in the same breathless sort of whisper. "A moment later, and that would have been death."
"You seem to know a great deal about it," I answered. "Perhaps you can tell me something else."
She laughed insolently, and shrugged her shoulders. I kept my eyes upon her in the mirror. "Anything you like," she replied.
"Then tell me how you could see anything that happened in the eastern corridor last night," was my answer.
"I was in the grounds – I had been there a long time," she whispered, her eyes growing more excited. "I did not know about the door; I only knew that something was going to happen, because the doctor kept moving about all the evening. I watched him go out of his room – I mean that I saw the light disappear, and knew that he had not put it out; I saw it go across the windows as he moved. I thought he was going to your room, and so I went round there; and then I saw your light go out. And then, as by a miracle, I saw that wall open, and the doctor stood there, like a spirit. I saw him before the light was puffed out. Then I waited to see what would happen."