The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  “That’s right,” said he, when she had painfully and with protruded tongue, executed the signature of ‘Ivy Stokes.’ “Now you will do the same with the other paper as soon as Mrs. Otway has signed.”

  The cook gazed curiously at me as I signed the second document, and then, in the same strained and laborious fashion, traced the scrawling characters over the name that I had lightly pencilled in for her guidance. Having watched with feverish interest while I marked the next space, she drew back and made way for Jessie, who, by watching her colleague, had learned what was required of her.

  When the formalities were completed and the two maids dismissed—to discuss these strange proceedings, doubtless, in the kitchen—Mr. Otway handed me the copy, bearing his signature, and, taking the other, rose to depart.

  “Before I go, Helen,” he said, “there is one matter to settle. In the document I thought it best to say nothing about an allowance—”

  “You were quite right,” I interrupted. “Of course, I should not ask for, or accept, any allowance under the circumstances.”

  “You won’t need one at present,” said he. “We know there are five thousand pounds lying to your father’s credit at his bank—”

  “That money was not his,” I said, “and it is not mine. As soon as the will is proved it will be paid to you on behalf of your clients.”

  “But that is quite unnecessary, Helen,” said he. “The use, for an unspecified time, of that sum of money was the consideration in respect of which you agreed to marry me. As the marriage has taken place, it is only fair and reasonable that you should receive the consideration. In effect, that five thousand is yours by the terms of our agreement.”

  I was on the point of replying that our agreement was null and void, and that I had no intention of carrying out its conditions; but prudence whispered that I had better keep my intentions to myself, at least as to my ultimate conduct. Besides which, Mr. Otway’s statement was not entirely correct, as I proceeded to point out.

  “The use of this money,” I said, “was to relieve my father, who was assumed to be insolvent. But it appears that he was not insolvent; and it is my intention that all his debts shall be paid, in so far as there are funds to meet them. It is certainly what he would have wished.”

  “But,” Mr. Otway protested, “supposing the payment of these debts should consume all the available assets? How are you going to live?”

  “I suppose I shall do as other women do when they have no independent means. I shall work for my living. But it is premature to discuss that until I have had Mr. Jackson’s report. I don’t suppose I shall be absolutely penniless.”

  He shook his head gloomily. “You are Quixotic, Helen, and wrong-headed, too. There is no reason why you should work for your living. As a married woman, you are entitled to maintenance, and I am willing, and even anxious, to maintain you. But I won’t press the matter now. If you want money, you know that you can have it, not as a favour but as a right, And now there is just one other matter that I want to speak about. In the deed of separation I said nothing about our relations other than was actually necessary. I made no stipulation as to your keeping me informed of your whereabouts; but I ask you now, if you should be leaving Maidstone, to let me have your address and to allow me to keep up communication with you. It is a reasonable request, Helen, and I am sure you will not hesitate to accede to it.”

  I did hesitate, however, for some time. In truth, I was not at all willing to agree to this proposal. My wish was to sponge Mr. Otway, once and for all, out of my life and to make a fresh start. Still, the request was a reasonable one, and could, I suspected, have been enforced as a demand; and, in the end, though very reluctantly, I yielded.

  “Thank you, Helen,” said he, holding out his hand; “then I won’t worry you any more just now. It is understood that I am not to lose sight of you, and that if you should want help, pecuniary or other, you will let me know. And I may rely on you to say no more at the inquest than is actually necessary?”

  I gave him the required assurance on this point, and, having somewhat frigidly shaken his hand, accompanied him to the hall door and let him out.

  As I stood in the open doorway, watching him walk away up the street in his heavy, elephantine fashion, a man entered at the gate, and, approaching with a deferential and rather uncomfortable air, took off his hat and offered me a small, blue envelope, which bore the superscription “Mrs. Lewis Otway.” I took it from him, and, closing the door, went back to the study, where I opened the envelope and extracted the little slip of blue paper that it enclosed; which turned out, as I had expected, to be the subpoena to the Inquest. I glanced through the peremptory phrases of the summons, and, laying the slip of paper on the table, went up to my own room to be quiet and think upon all that lay before me.

  But thought—orderly, useful thought—was impossible. Everything around me spoke of the life that had been so tragically broken off, rather than of the future that loomed so vague and empty before me. The open book on the reading-stand, the hastily scribbled notes upon the writing-block, the unanswered letters and a little pile of rough drawings on the table, all seemed to call to me to take up afresh the thread that had been dropped; seemed to interpose the unfinished past before the uncommenced future. Restlessly I wandered down to the workshop—where the coal scuttle still stood on the bench, a mute but eloquent memorial of that tragic final evening—only to gather a fresh sense of loss and desolation. And so, for the rest of the day, I haunted the house like some unquiet spirit, watched with pity, not unmixed with fear, by the awe-stricken servants, tearless and outwardly calm, but inwardly torn by grief and a sense of bereavement that seemed to intensify moment by moment.

  And yet, when, in the silence of the night, the tears came at last, and my sorrow, no longer mute, voiced itself in sobs and moans of pain, still, under the feeling of utter bereavement and desolation, was a half-felt sense of peace, of respite, and reprieve.

  CHAPTER IX

  Testimony and Counsel

  Those who are apt to refer in contemptuous terms to the artificiality of the plots of the novelist must have failed to observe the orderly way in which events arrange themselves in real life; how the circumstances of the vital and essential happenings of our lives may, if attentively considered, be separated out in a coherent group of causes and effects as closely knit and inevitably connected as the parts of the story-teller’s plot.

  The reflection is suggested to me by the distressing experiences of the inquest on my father’s death. Clearly enough, indeed, did I realise at the time that this would never have been but for those fateful words so calamitously overheard by me, and for my ill-considered, though well-meant, efforts to avert the apparently impending catastrophe. But I realised not at all—as, indeed, how should I?—that this day of sorrow, of shame and humiliation, was not only the harvest of the irrevocable past but the seed-time of an even more momentous future.

  As I approached the school-house in which the inquest was to be held, I observed Mr. Otway pacing slowly up and down the little court-yard. He was pale and haggard, and though he preserved his usual ponderously reposeful manner, it was not difficult to see that he was in a state of intense, nervous excitement and suppressed anxiety.

  He was evidently waiting for me, and turned to meet me as I entered the gate.

  “I thought we had better go in together, Helen,” he said, as we exchanged a formal greeting. “They know that we are married, and, of course, they don’t know that our—ah—our arrangements are in—ah—in suspense. And it would perhaps be as well if no reference were made to—ah—to those—ahem—temporary modifications which—ah—in short, to our provisional agreement.”

  He looked at me deprecatingly and I nodded. There would be quite enough painful detail to be dragged into the light of day without this sordid addition. Besides, any reference to the deed of separation would start enquiries which neither of us desired, as was plainly evident to Mr. Otway; for he continued in a husky u
ndertone, as we approached the schoolroom door:

  “And you will fulfil your part of our covenant faithfully, Helen, I am sure.”

  “Most undoubtedly I shall,” I replied. “But you will remember that our covenant does not include false evidence. I shall say as little as is possible, but if I am asked a direct question I must answer it, and answer it truthfully.”

  “Of course you must,” he agreed: “but it is often possible to ward off an inconvenient, question which may lead to others still more inconvenient.”

  “You make take it,” I said, “that I shall carry out my part of our bargain in the spirit as well as in the letter.”

  With this assurance he appeared to be satisfied, and we now moved slowly towards the door of the school-house. While we had been talking, a party of men—the coroner and his jury—had filed past us and entered; and when we followed a minute later, we found them already in their places and the proceedings about to begin. We seated ourselves on the two chairs placed for us, which were next to those of the two medical witnesses, and as I glanced round the Court, I observed Mr. Jackson sitting near the coroner, and by his side a gentleman whose face I seemed to recognise, but to whom I could not give a name. Some dim recollection connected the quiet, strong, intellectual face with my father and the happy past, but not until near the close of the inquiry was I able to bring my memory to a clear focus.

  The attitude of the coroner and jury alike—they were all local men and most of them known to me—made my difficult task as easy as was possible. They were all anxious to spare me to the utmost and to make the best of what the coroner described as “a grievous and terrible calamity.” Moreover, they restrained in the most delicate manner their evident curiosity as to the relations of Mr. Otway and myself. But, of course, the facts had to be given, and very distressing and humiliating it was to me to have to confess to what must have looked like a mere sordid intrigue with the uncouth creature at my side.

  As the only person present when the death occurred, Mr. Otway was necessarily the first witness; and a very nervous, hesitating witness he was; and very fortunate was it for him that he had so sympathetic a court. As he stammered out his evidence I noted, again and again, the searching, grey eye of the strange gentleman fixed upon him, not indeed with any obvious distrust, but with the most concentrated attention.

  “Do we understand,” asked the coroner, “that Mr. Vardon was angry and excited when he arrived at your house?

  “Yes—furiously angry.”

  “Do you know why he was angry and excited?”

  Yes, the witness did know. And as he proceeded to relate, in husky, uncertain tones, the circumstances of the secret marriage, more than one of the jurymen glanced from him to me with hardly-concealed astonishment; and I felt my face burning and my eyes filling with humiliation.

  “Was there any reason for this secrecy?” the coroner asked.

  “Yes. The deceased had already refused his consent to the marriage.”

  “But that is hardly a reason for secrecy in the case of an adult. Could he have prevented the marriage from taking place?”

  “No. But it seemed better to—ah—to avoid discussion and unpleasantness.”

  The coroner looked dissatisfied. He considered a few moments, and then asked: “Do you know why the deceased objected to the marriage?

  “I think he considered that the—ah—the inequality of age was undesirable,” Mr. Otway replied.

  Still the coroner looked dissatisfied, and as he paused to reflect, and the jurymen looked at him expectantly, Mr. Otway furtively wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Evidently, he was profoundly disturbed, as well he might be; for if this line of inquiry were pursued much farther, it must inevitably lay bare the real nature of the transaction.

  At length the coroner turned to the jury. “Well, gentlemen,” said he, “I suppose the question is not very material. It is clear that the deceased was extremely excited and angry. The ultimate cause of his anger is, perhaps, not very relevant to the subject of our inquiry.”

  To this the foreman of the jury readily agreed, and I could almost see the sigh of relief with which Mr. Otway hailed the passing of this perilous incident—a relief in which I participated to no small extent.

  The narrative was now resumed, and as it proceeded, Mr. Otway’s voice became more and more husky and his speech more hesitating. He had a difficult course to steer, and his nerves were at their utmost tension. He had to tell a consistent story without telling the whole truth, and he had to bear in mind that my evidence was yet to be given. It was a position that might have shattered the nerve of a much bolder man than Mr. Otway.

  “You tell us that the deceased was violent and threatening in his manner. Do you mean that he was physically violent?

  “Yes—at least he threatened to use physical violence.”

  “He did not actually assault you?”

  “Not actually. The blow that he aimed—at least that he was about to aim—ah—did not—er—did not take effect.”

  The coroner’s brows puckered into a puzzled frown. “This is not quite clear,” said he. “Did he or did he not aim a blow at you?”

  “He did—at least, that is to say, he appeared—” here Mr. Otway mopped his streaming forehead—“well, I think he actually raised his—ah—his—ah—his clenched fist.”

  “Did you have to restrain him?”

  “No,” replied Mr. Otway, with rather unnecessary emphasis. “No, I did not. I stepped back, and—ah—the incident—ah—passed. In fact, it was at this moment that the fatal attack occurred.”

  “Tell us exactly what happened then.”

  “He suddenly turned very pale,” said Mr. Otway, speaking now with more fluency as he got back to the narration of the actual events, “and seemed to stand unsteadily. Then he staggered backwards and fell, striking his head on the corner of the mantelpiece.”

  “Did he appear to have fainted before he struck his head?

  “I should say, yes, but—ah—I would not—ah—I was very agitated and alarmed—and—ah——”

  “Naturally. But you would say that the fainting attack preceded the blow on the head?”

  “There was no blow,” Mr. Otway exclaimed quickly; and then, perceiving his mistake, he added, hastily, “that is to say, you are referring to his striking the corner of the mantelpiece?”

  “That is what you were telling us about.”

  “Yes. I should say that he struck—or rather that he fainted and staggered and that he struck his head in falling.”

  Once more the coroner paused and seemed to reflect; and in the intense silence and stillness that enveloped the court my eye travelled from the huge, ungainly figure of the witness to the face of the tall stranger by Mr. Jackson’s side. And a very striking face it was: a handsome, symmetrical face, but strangely—almost unhumanly—reposeful and impassive. Yet, though it was as immobile as a mask of stone, it conveyed an impression of intense attention—almost of watchfulness; and the clear, grey eyes never moved from the face of the witness. To me there was something a little uncanny and disturbing in that immovable mask and that steady, unrelaxing gaze. I found myself hoping that those searching grey eyes would not be fixed on me in that relentless observation when my turn came to give my evidence. And even as this thought flitted through my mind, I remembered who this stranger was. He was a Dr. Thorndyke, an old, though not very intimate, friend of my father’s, a famous criminal lawyer and a great authority on medical jurisprudence. I had met him only once, when he had dined, many years ago, at our house; but I had often heard my father speak of him in terms of the highest admiration.

  When the coroner resumed his interrogation, it seemed that the crisis was past, so far as Mr. Otway was concerned, for his first question was: “What did you do when the deceased fell down?

  “For a moment or two,” was the reply, “I was too bewildered to do anything. Then his daughter—my wife—came into the room, and, as he appeared to be dying or dead, I went o
ff to fetch a doctor.”

  This virtually concluded his evidence, and the next name called was my own, which, in its new form—Helen Otway—I heard with a start of surprise and something like disgust. As I rose to approach the table, I caught an instantaneous glance—a terrified, imploring glance—from Mr. Otway; and as my eye lighted immediately afterwards on Dr. Thorndyke’s face, I felt that this momentary look, too, had been noted by that inexorably attentive grey eye. But I was relieved to observe that he did not look at me, but, as I gave my evidence, fixed a steady, introspective gaze upon a spot upon the opposite wall.

  My task turned out to be easier than I had hoped, though perhaps it might have been less easy if I had had more time to reflect on the significance of the questions. The coroner began by expressing the sympathy of the court with my bereavement and apologizing for imposing on me the painful duty of attending the inquiry. Then he asked: “You have heard the evidence of Mr. Otway with reference to your marriage and your father’s attitude in regard to it. Do you confirm what he has said?

  “I do,” I replied.

  “You were not present at the interview of Mr. Otway with the deceased?”

  “No, I was not. When I entered the room my father was lying on the floor and appeared to be already dead.”

  “Had you seen your father since the solemnization of the marriage?”

  “I saw him from the window as he entered Mr. Otway’s garden.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual in his appearance?”

  “Yes; his appearance alarmed me very much. He seemed excessively excited, and his face was deeply flushed and of a strange, purplish colour.”

  “Had you any special reason to be alarmed?”