“But I — I — cannot allow you to do that — to me. I can never respect myself again.”
“Why — Anne — what have you done?” he asked in amazement.
She looked at him with wide-opened eyes. “Jerome — perhaps at least I may call you that — did you ever get near an exploding shell when you were in France?”
“Well — yes,” he said slowly. “I did once. I was jarred up a bit — but I wasn’t hit.”
“Are you sure?” She traced a finger across his left eyebrow. “Are you sure? I’m afraid you don’t know it — that you never have known it — but there is a thin white scar there straight across the eyebrow and projecting forth from it a quarter of an inch or so. A slender splinter like a needle must have grazed you there and left this little wound which healed up before even the trench mud and dirt were removed.
He felt dazedly with his finger. “And you knew all the time? You — ”
“I had seen it more than once in those days you lay in old Dr. Harrow’s hospital in Sydney,” she said, “when I straightened out the bandage that was kept perpetually over your eyes and brow. I wondered what had caused it, but I never asked, for nothing could have been a greater breach of courtesy than to make mention of a scar — on another person’s face.” She flushed embarrassedly. “And so when long after I read in the Denver papers here in these States about the man who exactly resembled Jerome H. Middleton, and who was sent to an asylum, I realised that I at least knew of one detail in which they differed. I thought I should like to see you again — and so — I came on to Chicago. But to my amazement when I did, through Mr. Fortescue, obtain an interview with you — in reality your usurper — the scar was absent. Then — then I knew that he was spurious. And that I alone knew the truth. But I knew still one more thing. And that was this: If they had gone to these desperate extremes of incarcerating you — a sane man — the real Jerome H. Middleton, there must be big money — tremendous issues involved. I didn’t know how many men were involved — I thought at the time that there might be as many as a dozen in the plot, including even some of the physicians out here as well as Trust Company officials — but nevertheless I came on out here to Birkdale, knowing almost before I came that I would find the right Jerome Middleton here.
“And you found the scar on my eyebrow?” he queried.
“I noted it at once,” she replied. “And then — then, my plans were complete. Oh, Jerome, I wasn’t playing for that insignificant nine hundred dollars for which I made you sign a note. I was trying — trying to trap you into marrying me. I knew that your father’s estate was worth ten million dollars. I was absolutely certain in my own mind that sooner or later you would come into it. And” — she reddened — ”I — oh, it is so hard to say — there is in this country a law of dower rights. If I married you and this estate turned up eventually as yours, I would own one third of it, three and a third million dollars of it — that much could never be taken from me by law, death, or any process whatsoever. I — I would be rich. I — ”
His arms had dropped. “Then — then — it was only money you were gambling for? You didn’t love me?”
“I did not say that,” she replied quietly. “But I knew you cared nothing particular for me. The unhappy part of it all was that my caring would not get me your love — the real kind of love that went to Miss — Miss Martindale. And so I had to put aside such considerations and make it business: to go after your fortune.”
He heard her through, smiling a bit as she neared the end. Then he stepped forward and seized her against her will. “Little outside worker,” he said fondly “what would I have done without you? Of course, I love you — I loved you in those Australian days — and you may rest assured that when one loves someone he can’t see there’s nothing superficial about it. And as for Pamela Martindale — oh, dearest, every time I thought of my forthcoming marriage to Pamela I thought of you — and I was the most unhappy and troubled person on the face of the earth. I love you, and always have, and to-day, free to come and go as I am, free to own my estate and to spend it, I still want you to marry me.”
She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “Oh Jerome — it feels so good to be loved. And I was a little jealous too of that beautiful golden-haired girl.” She paused. “But — now that I have been such a brazen adventuress, I could not marry you and take a one-third interest in that immense estate which is yours. You — you would have to let me waive all dower rights.”
“You will waive nothing,” he said. “We’ve simply both come into a fortune to-day. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.” He opened the velvet handbag on her arm. “Eight — nine — ten whole dollars. All right. I take dower rights in all your money too, you know.”
She laughed. “You are charmingly generous,” she replied. “Have your way. I have cleansed my soul by confession. But really — three and a third millions for three and a third dollars is a very poor bargain for you.”
“Not when I get you with it,” he said smilingly.
He leaned over her and kissed her full and tenderly on the lips. And thus they stood, when the door to the adjoining office opened, and a voice coughed apologetically.
“Beg pardon, folks, but we’ve got to hurry to the car-line one mile away if we want to get into the town of Birkdale and catch the 2.10 into Chicago.”
And a moment later they two and the lawyer from Chicago were hurrying over the Birkdale grounds towards the gate, guided by a young clerk from the superintendent’s office, himself summoned to conduct them to the car-line. As they passed the superintendent’s house at the very outlet to the grounds, a figure in one of the upper windows which was writing, writing, writing, peering furiously and myopically between times at its paper through black-corded, shell-rimmed glasses, stroking its beard as it wrote and wrote and wrote, gazed momentarily down on the lawn below, bowed stiffly and absently to them, and then fell to furious writing again. Middleton turned to the clerk at his side.
“Who is that?” he asked. “Is that not — ”
“That is Herr Doctor Meister-Professor von Zero,” said the other, with a brief laugh. “He is preparing a paper in German, so I am told, on the first authentic American case of Auto-Hypnotic Pseudo-Paranoia.”
Jerry Middleton turned to the others with finger on lips. “Tread quietly, fellow mortals,” he said, “don’t let us wake the Professor up!”
THE END.
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This is a work of fiction.
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ISBN 10: 1-4405-4828-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4828-4
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4322-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4322-7
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The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro Page 33