‘It depends upon what you call serious.’ I paused to allow the spirit to take effect. It did me good. ‘You remember what I told you about the strange sound which was uttered by the creature which robbed me in the train? I have heard that sound again.’
‘Indeed!’ He observed me attentively. I had thought he would be sceptical; he was not. ‘Can you describe the sound?’
‘It is difficult to describe, though when it is once heard it is impossible not to recognise it when it is heard again.’ I shuddered as I thought of it. ‘It is like the cry of some wild beast when in a state of frenzy – just a short, jerky, half-strangled yelp.’
‘May I ask what were the circumstances under which you heard it?’
‘I was looking at the sea in front of Hesketh Crescent. I heard it close behind me, not once, but twice; and the second time I – I saw the face which I saw in the train.’
I took another drink of brandy. I fancy that Mr Davis saw how even the mere recollection affected me.
‘Do you think that your assailant could by any possibility have been a woman?’
‘A woman!’
‘Was the face you saw anything like that?’
He produced from his pocket a pocketbook, and from the pocket-book a photograph. He handed it to me. I regarded it intently. It was not a good photograph, but it was a strange one. The more I looked at it the more it grew upon me that there was a likeness – a dim and fugitive likeness, but still a likeness, to the face which had glared at me only half an hour before.
‘But surely this is not a woman?’
‘Tell me, first of all, if you trace in it any resemblance.’
‘I do, and I don’t. In the portrait the face, as I know it, is grossly flattered; and yet in the portrait it is sufficiently hideous.’
Mr Davis stood up. He seemed a little excited. ‘I believe I have hit it!’
‘You have hit it?’
‘The portrait which you hold in your hand is the portrait of a criminal lunatic who escaped last week from Broadmoor.’
‘A criminal lunatic!’ As I looked at the portrait I perceived that it was the face of a lunatic.
‘The woman – for it is a woman – is a perfect devil – as artful as she is wicked. She was there during Her Majesty’s pleasure for a murder which was attended with details of horrible cruelty. She was more than suspected of having had a hand in other crimes. Since that portrait was taken she has deliberately burnt her face with a red-hot poker, disfiguring herself almost beyond recognition.’
‘There is another circumstance which I should mention, Mr Davis. Do you know that this morning I saw the young gentleman too?’
The detective stared. ‘What young gentleman?’
‘The young fellow who got into the train at Swindon, and who offered me his flask.’
‘You saw him! Where?’
‘Here, in the hotel.’
‘The devil you did! And you spoke to him?’
‘I tried to.’
‘And he hooked it?’
‘That is the odd part of the thing. You will say there is something odd about everything I tell you; and I must confess there is. When you left me this morning I wrote a letter; when I had written it I left the room. As I was going along the corridor I saw, in front of me, the young man who was with me in the train.’
‘You are sure it was he?’
‘Certain. When first I saw him he had his back to me. I suppose he heard me coming. Anyhow, he turned, and we were face to face. The recognition, I believe, was mutual, because as I advanced—’
‘He cut his lucky?’
‘He turned into a room upon his right.’
‘Of course you followed him?’
‘I did. I made no bones about it. I was not three seconds after him, but when I entered, the room was empty.’
‘Empty!’
‘It was an ordinary sitting-room like this, but on the other side of it there was a door. I tried that door. It was locked. I rapped with my knuckles. A woman answered.’
‘A woman?’
‘A woman. She not only answered, she came out.’
‘Was she anything like that portrait?’
I laughed. The idea of instituting any comparison between the horror in the portrait and that vision of health and loveliness was too ludicrous. ‘She was a lady who is stopping in the hotel, with whom I already had had some conversation, and who is about as unlike that portrait as anything could possibly be – a Mrs Jaynes.’
‘Jaynes? A Mrs Jaynes?’ The detective bit his fingernails. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. ‘And did you see the man?’
‘That is where the oddness of the thing comes in. She declared that there was no man.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She declared that no one had been near her bedroom while she had been in it. That there was no one in it at that particular moment is beyond a doubt, because she opened the door to let me see. I am inclined to think, upon reflection, that, after all, the man may have been concealed in the outer room, that I overlooked him in my haste, and that he made good his escape while I was knocking at the lady’s door.’
‘But if he had a finger in the pie, that knocks the other theory upon the head.’ He nodded towards the portrait which I still was holding in my hand. ‘A man like that would scarcely have such a pal as Mary Brooker.’
‘I confess, Mr Davis, that the whole affair is a mystery to me. I suppose that your theory is that the flask out of which I drank was drugged?’
‘I should say upon the face of it that there can’t be two doubts about that.’ The detective stood reflecting. ‘I should like to have a look at this Mrs Jaynes. I will have a look at her. I’ll go down to the office here, and I think it’s just possible that I may be treated to a peep at her room.’
When he had gone I was haunted by the thought of that criminal lunatic, who was at least so far sane that she had been able to make good her escape from Broadmoor. It was only when Mr Davis had left me that I discovered that he had left the portrait behind him. I looked at it. What a face it was! ‘Think,’ I said to myself, ‘of being left at the mercy of such a woman as that!’
The words had scarcely left my lips when, without any warning, the door of my room opened, and, just as I was taking it for granted that it was Mr Davis come back for the portrait, in walked the young man with whom I had travelled in the train! He was dressed exactly as he had been yesterday, and wore the same indefinable but unmistakable something which denotes good breeding.
‘Excuse me,’ he observed, as he stood with the handle of the door in one hand and his hat in the other, ‘but I believe you are the gentleman with whom I travelled yesterday from Swindon?’ In my surprise I was for a moment tongue-tied. ‘I do not think I have made a mistake.’
‘No,’ I said, or rather stammered, ‘you have not made a mistake.’
‘It is only by a fortunate accident that I have just learnt that you are staying in the hotel. Pardon my intrusion, but when I changed carriages at Exeter I left behind me a cigar-case.’
‘A cigar-case?’
‘Did you notice it? I thought it might have caught your eye. It was a present to me, and one I greatly valued. It matched this flask.’ Coming a step or two towards me he held out a flask – the identical flask from which I had drunk! I stared alternately at him and at his flask.
‘I was not aware that you changed carriages at Exeter.’
‘I wondered if you noticed it. I fancy you were asleep.’
‘A singular thing happened to me before I reached my journey’s end – a singular and a disagreeable thing.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I was robbed.’
‘Robbed?’
‘Did you notice anybody get into the carriage when you, as you say, got out?’
‘Not that I am aware of. You know it was pretty dark. Why, good gracious! is it possible that after all it wasn’t my imagination?’
‘What wasn’t
your imagination?’
He came closer to me – so close that he touched my sleeve with his gloved hand. ‘Do you know why I left the carriage when I did? I left it because I was bothered by the thought that there was someone in it besides us two.’
‘Someone in it besides us two?’
‘Someone underneath the seat. I was dozing off as you were doing. More than once I woke up under the impression that someone was twitching my legs beneath the seat; pinching them – even pricking them.’
‘Did you not look to see if anyone was there?’
‘You will laugh at me, but – I suppose I was silly – something restrained me. I preferred to make a bolt of it, and become the victim of my own imagination.’
‘You left me to become the victim of something besides your imagination, if what you say is correct.’
All at once the stranger made a dart at the table. I suppose he had seen the portrait lying there, because, without any sort of ceremony, he picked it up and stared at it. As I observed him, commenting inwardly about the fellow’s coolness, I distinctly saw a shudder pass all over him. Possibly it was a shudder of aversion, because, when he had stared his fill, he turned to me and asked, ‘Who, may I ask, is this hideous-looking creature?’
‘That is a criminal lunatic who has escaped from Broadmoor – one Mary Brooker.’
‘Mary Brooker! Mary Brooker! Mary Brooker’s face will haunt me for many a day.’ He laid the portrait down hesitatingly, as if it had for him some dreadful fascination which made him reluctant to let it go. Wholly at a loss what to say or do, whether to detain the man or to permit him to depart, I turned away and moved across the room. The instant I did so I heard behind me the sharp, frenzied yelp which I had heard in the train, and which I had heard again when I had been looking at the sea in front of Hesketh Crescent. I turned as on a pivot. The young man was staring at me. ‘Did you hear that?’ he said.
‘Hear it! Of course I heard it.’
‘Good God!’ He was shuddering so that it seemed to me that he could scarcely stand. ‘Do you know that it was that sound, coming from underneath the seat in the carriage, which made me make a bolt of it? I – I’m afraid you must excuse me. There – there’s my card. I’m staying at the Royal. I will perhaps look you up again tomorrow.’
Before I had recovered my presence of mind sufficiently to interfere he had moved to the door and was out of the room. As he went out Mr Davis entered; they must have brushed each other as they passed.
‘I forgot the portrait of that Brooker woman,’ Mr Davis began.
‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ I exclaimed.
‘Stop whom?’
‘Didn’t you see him – the man who just went out?’
‘Why should I stop him? Isn’t he a friend of yours?’
‘He’s the man who travelled in the carriage with me from Swindon.’
Davis was out of the room like a flash of lightning. When he returned he returned alone.
‘Where is he?’ I demanded.
‘That’s what I should like to know.’ Mr Davis wiped his brow. ‘He must have travelled at the rate of about sixty miles an hour – he’s nowhere to be seen. Whatever made you let him go?’
‘He has left his card.’ I took it up. It was inscribed ‘George Etherege, Coliseum Club’. ‘He says he is staying at the Royal Hotel. I don’t believe he had anything to do with the robbery. He came to me in the most natural manner possible to inquire for a cigar-case which he left behind him in the carriage. He says that while I was sleeping he changed carriages at Exeter because he suspected that someone was underneath the seat.’
‘Did he, indeed?’
‘He says that he did not look to see if anybody was actually there because – well, something restrained him.’
‘I should like to have a little conversation with that young gentleman.’
‘I believe he speaks the truth, for this reason. While he was talking there came the sound which I have described to you before.’
‘The sort of bark?’
‘The sort of bark. There was nothing to show from whence it came. I declare to you that it seemed to me that it came out of space. I never saw a man so frightened as he was. As he stood trembling, just where you are standing now, he stammered out that it was because he had heard that sound come from underneath the seat in the carriage that he had decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and, instead of gratifying his curiosity, had chosen to retreat.’
III
The Secret of the Mask
Table d’hôte had commenced when I sat down. My right-hand neighbour was Mrs Jaynes. She asked me if I still suffered any ill effects from my fatigue.
‘I suppose,’ she said, when I assured her that all ill effects had passed away, ‘that you have not thought anything of what I said to you this morning – about my theory of the mask?’ I confessed that I had not. ‘You should. It is a subject which is a crotchet of mine, and to which I have devoted many years – many curious years of my life.’
‘I own that, personally, I do not see exactly where the interest comes in.’
‘No? Do me a favour. Come to my sitting-room after dinner, and I will show you where the interest comes in.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Come and see.’
She amused me. I went and saw. Dinner being finished, her proceedings, when together we entered her apartment – that apartment which in the morning I thought I had seen entered by my fellow-passenger – took me a little by surprise.
‘Now I am going to make you my confidant – you, an entire stranger – you, whom I never saw in my life before this morning. I am a judge of character, and in you I feel that I may place implicit confidence. I am going to show you all my secrets; I am going to induct you into the hidden mysteries; I am going to lay bare before you the mind of an inventor. But it doesn’t follow because I have confidence in you that I have confidence in all the world besides, so, before we begin, if you please, I will lock the door.’
As she was suiting the action to the word I ventured to remonstrate. ‘But, my dear madam, don’t you think—’
‘I think nothing. I know that I don’t wish to be taken unawares, and to have published what I have devoted the better portion of my life to keeping secret.’
‘But if these matters are of such a confidential nature I assure you—’
‘My good sir, I will lock the door.’
She did. I was sorry that I had accepted so hastily her invitation, but I yielded. The door was locked. Going to the fireplace she leaned her arm upon the mantelshelf.
‘Did it ever occur to you,’ she asked, ‘what possibilities might be open to us if, for instance, Smith could temporarily become Jones?’
‘I don’t quite follow you,’ I said. I did not.
‘Suppose that you could at will become another person, and in the character of that other person could move about unrecognised among your friends, what lessons you might learn!’
‘I suspect,’ I murmured, ‘that they would for the most part be lessons of a decidedly unpleasant kind.’
‘Carry the idea a step further. Think of the possibilities of a dual existence. Think of living two distinct and separate lives. Think of doing as Robinson what you condemn as Brown. Think of doubling the parts and hiding within your own breast the secret of the double; think of leading a triple life; think of leading many lives in one – of being the old man and the young, the husband and the wife, the father and the son.’
‘Think, in other words, of the unattainable.’
‘Not unattainable!’ Moving away from the mantelshelf she raised her hand above her head with a gesture which was all at once dramatic. ‘I have attained!’
‘You have attained? To what?’
‘To the multiple existence. It is the secret of the mask. I told myself some years ago that it ought to be possible to make a mask which should in every respect so closely resemble the human countenance that it would be difficult, if not
impossible, even under the most trying conditions, to tell the false face from the real. I made experiments. I succeeded. I learnt the secret of the mask. Look at that.’
She took a leather case from her pocket. Abstracting its contents, she handed them to me. I was holding in my hand what seemed to me to be a preparation of some sort of skin – gold-beater’s skin, it might have been. On one side it was curiously, and even delicately, painted. On the other side there were fastened to the skin some oddly-shaped bosses or pads. The whole affair, I suppose, did not weigh half an ounce. While I was examining it Mrs Jaynes stood looking down at me.
‘You hold in your hand,’ she said, ‘the secret of the mask. Give it to me.’
I gave it to her. With it in her hand she disappeared into the room beyond. Hardly had she vanished than the bedroom door reopened, and an old lady came out.
‘My daughter begs you will excuse her.’ She was a quaint old lady, about sixty years of age, with silver hair, and the corkscrew ringlets of a bygone day. ‘My daughter is not very ceremonious, and is so wrapt up in what she calls her experiments that I sometimes tell her she is wanting in consideration. While she is making her preparations, perhaps you will allow me to offer you a cup of tea.’
The old lady carried a canister in her hand, which, apparently, contained tea. A tea service was standing on a little side table; a kettle was singing on the hob. The old lady began to measure out the tea into the teapot.
‘We always carry our tea with us. Neither my daughter nor I care for the tea which they give you in hotels.’
I meekly acquiesced. To tell the truth, I was a trifle bewildered. I had had no idea that Mrs Jaynes was accompanied by her mother. Had not the old lady come out of the room immediately after the young one had gone into it I should have suspected a trick – that I was being made the subject of experiment with the mysterious ‘mask’. As it was, I was more than half inclined to ask her if she was really what she seemed to be. But I decided – as it turned out most unfortunately – to keep my own counsel and to watch the sequence of events. Pouring me out a cup of tea, the old lady seated herself on a low chair in front of the fire.
Dracula’s Brethren Page 24