Читать книгу Tales of Men and Ghosts - Edith Wharton - Страница 10

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IT was after midnight when Ascham left.

His hand on Granice’s shoulder, as he turned to go—“District Attorney be hanged; see a doctor, see a doctor!” he had cried; and so, with an exaggerated laugh, had pulled on his coat and departed.

Granice turned back into the library. It had never occurred to him that Ascham would not believe his story. For three hours he had explained, elucidated, patiently and painfully gone over every detail—but without once breaking down the iron incredulity of the lawyer’s eye.

At first Ascham had feigned to be convinced—but that, as Granice now perceived, was simply to get him to expose himself, to entrap him into contradictions. And when the attempt failed, when Granice triumphantly met and refuted each disconcerting question, the lawyer dropped the mask suddenly, and said with a good-humoured laugh: “By Jove, Granice you’ll write a successful play yet. The way you’ve worked this all out is a marvel.”

Granice swung about furiously—that last sneer about the play inflamed him. Was all the world in a conspiracy to deride his failure?

“I did it, I did it,” he muttered sullenly, his rage spending itself against the impenetrable surface of the other’s mockery; and Ascham answered with a smile: “Ever read any of those books on hallucination? I’ve got a fairly good medico-legal library. I could send you one or two if you like …”

Left alone, Granice cowered down in the chair before his writing-table. He understood that Ascham thought him off his head.

“Good God—what if they all think me crazy?”

The horror of it broke out over him in a cold sweat—he sat there and shook, his eyes hidden in his icy hands. But gradually, as he began to rehearse his story for the thousandth time, he saw again how incontrovertible it was, and felt sure that any criminal lawyer would believe him.

“That’s the trouble—Ascham’s not a criminal lawyer. And then he’s a friend. What a fool I was to talk to a friend! Even if he did believe me, he’d never let me see it—his instinct would be to cover the whole thing up … But in that case—if he did believe me—he might think it a kindness to get me shut up in an asylum …” Granice began to tremble again. “Good heaven! If he should bring in an expert—one of those damned alienists! Ascham and Pettilow can do anything—their word always goes. If Ascham drops a hint that I’d better be shut up, I’ll be in a strait-jacket by to-morrow! And he’d do it from the kindest motives—be quite right to do it if he thinks I’m a murderer!”

The vision froze him to his chair. He pressed his fists to his bursting temples and tried to think. For the first time he hoped that Ascham had not believed his story.

“But he did—he did! I can see it now—I noticed what a queer eye he cocked at me. Good God, what shall I do—what shall I do?”

He started up and looked at the clock. Half-past one. What if Ascham should think the case urgent, rout out an alienist, and come back with him? Granice jumped to his feet, and his sudden gesture brushed the morning paper from the table. Mechanically he stooped to pick it up, and the movement started a new train of association.

He sat down again, and reached for the telephone book in the rack by his chair.

“Give me three-o-ten … yes.”

The new idea in his mind had revived his flagging energy. He would act—act at once. It was only by thus planning ahead, committing himself to some unavoidable line of conduct, that he could pull himself through the meaningless days. Each time he reached a fresh decision it was like coming out of a foggy weltering sea into a calm harbour with lights. One of the queerest phases of his long agony was the intense relief produced by these momentary lulls.

“That the office of the Investigator? Yes? Give me Mr. Denver, please … Hallo, Denver … Yes, Hubert Granice. … Just caught you? Going straight home? Can I come and see you … yes, now … have a talk? It’s rather urgent … yes, might give you some first-rate ‘copy.’ … All right!” He hung up the receiver with a laugh. It had been a happy thought to call up the editor of the Investigator—Robert Denver was the very man he needed …

Granice put out the lights in the library—it was odd how the automatic gestures persisted!—went into the hall, put on his hat and overcoat, and let himself out of the flat. In the hall, a sleepy elevator boy blinked at him and then dropped his head on his folded arms. Granice passed out into the street. At the corner of Fifth Avenue he hailed a crawling cab, and called out an up-town address. The long thoroughfare stretched before him, dim and deserted, like an ancient avenue of tombs. But from Denver’s house a friendly beam fell on the pavement; and as Granice sprang from his cab the editor’s electric turned the corner.

The two men grasped hands, and Denver, feeling for his latch-key, ushered Granice into the brightly-lit hall.

“Disturb me? Not a bit. You might have, at ten to-morrow morning … but this is my liveliest hour … you know my habits of old.”

Granice had known Robert Denver for fifteen years—watched his rise through all the stages of journalism to the Olympian pinnacle of the Investigator’s editorial office. In the thick-set man with grizzling hair there were few traces left of the hungry-eyed young reporter who, on his way home in the small hours, used to “bob in” on Granice, while the latter sat grinding at his plays. Denver had to pass Granice’s flat on the way to his own, and it became a habit, if he saw a light in the window, and Granice’s shadow against the blind, to go in, smoke a pipe, and discuss the universe.

“Well—this is like old times—a good old habit reversed.” The editor smote his visitor genially on the shoulder. “Reminds me of the nights when I used to rout you out … How’s the play, by the way? There is a play, I suppose? It’s as safe to ask you that as to say to some men: ‘How’s the baby?’ ”

Denver laughed good-naturedly, and Granice thought how thick and heavy he had grown. It was evident, even to Granice’s tortured nerves, that the words had not been uttered in malice—and the fact gave him a new measure of his insignificance. Denver did not even know that he had been a failure! The fact hurt more than Ascham’s irony.

“Come in—come in.” The editor led the way into a small cheerful room, where there were cigars and decanters. He pushed an arm-chair toward his visitor, and dropped into another with a comfortable groan.

“Now, then—help yourself. And let’s hear all about it.”

He beamed at Granice over his pipe-bowl, and the latter, lighting his cigar, said to himself: “Success makes men comfortable, but it makes them stupid.”

Then he turned, and began: “Denver, I want to tell you—”

The clock ticked rhythmically on the mantel-piece. The room was gradually filled with drifting blue layers of smoke, and through them the editor’s face came and went like the moon through a moving sky. Once the hour struck—then the rhythmical ticking began again. The atmosphere grew denser and heavier, and beads of perspiration began to roll from Granice’s forehead.

“Do you mind if I open the window?”

“No. It is stuffy in here. Wait—I’ll do it myself.” Denver pushed down the upper sash, and returned to his chair. “Well—go on,” he said, filling another pipe. His composure exasperated Granice.

“There’s no use in my going on if you don’t believe me.”

The editor remained unmoved. “Who says I don’t believe you? And how can I tell till you’ve finished?”

Granice went on, ashamed of his outburst. “It was simple enough, as you’ll see. From the day the old man said to me, ‘Those Italians would murder you for a quarter,’ I dropped everything and just worked at my scheme. It struck me at once that I must find a way of getting to Wrenfield and back in a night—and that led to the idea of a motor. A motor—that never occurred to you? You wonder where I got the money, I suppose. Well, I had a thousand or so put by, and I nosed around till I found what I wanted—a second-hand racer. I knew how to drive a car, and I tried the thing and found it was all right. Times were bad, and I bought it for my price, and stored it away. Where? Why, in one of those no-questions-asked garages where they keep motors that are not for family use. I had a lively cousin who had put me up to that dodge, and I looked about till I found a queer hole where they took in my car like a baby in a foundling asylum … Then I practiced running to Wrenfield and back in a night. I knew the way pretty well, for I’d done it often with the same lively cousin—and in the small hours, too. The distance is over ninety miles, and on the third trial I did it under two hours. But my arms were so lame that I could hardly get dressed the next morning …

“Well, then came the report about the Italian’s threats, and I saw I must act at once … I meant to break into the old man’s room, shoot him, and get away again. It was a big risk, but I thought I could manage it. Then we heard that he was ill—that there’d been a consultation. Perhaps the fates were going to do it for me! Good Lord, if that could only be! …”

Granice stopped and wiped his forehead: the open window did not seem to have cooled the room.

“Then came word that he was better; and the day after, when I came up from my office, I found Kate laughing over the news that he was to try a bit of melon. The house-keeper had just telephoned her—all Wrenfield was in a flutter. The doctor himself had picked out the melon, one of the little French ones that are hardly bigger than a large tomato—and the patient was to eat it at his breakfast the next morning.

“In a flash I saw my chance. It was a bare chance, no more. But I knew the ways of the house—I was sure the melon would be brought in over night and put in the pantry ice-box. If there were only one melon in the ice-box I could be fairly sure it was the one I wanted. Melons didn’t lie around loose in that house—every one was known, numbered, catalogued. The old man was beset by the dread that the servants would eat them, and he took a hundred mean precautions to prevent it. Yes, I felt pretty sure of my melon … and poisoning was much safer than shooting. It would have been the devil and all to get into the old man’s bedroom without his rousing the house; but I ought to be able to break into the pantry without much trouble.

“It was a cloudy night, too—everything served me. I dined quietly, and sat down at my desk. Kate had one of her usual headaches, and went to bed early. As soon as she was gone I slipped out. I had got together a sort of disguise—red beard and queer-looking ulster. I shoved them into a bag, and went round to the garage. There was no one there but a half-drunken machinist whom I’d never seen before. That served me, too. They were always changing machinists, and this new fellow didn’t even bother to ask if the car belonged to me. It was a very easy-going place …

“Well, I jumped in, ran up Broadway, and let the car go as soon as I was out of Harlem. Dark as it was, I could trust myself to strike a sharp pace. In the shadow of a wood I stopped a second and got into the beard and ulster. Then away again—it was just eleven-thirty when I got to Wrenfield.

“I left the car in a dark lane behind the Lenman place, and slipped through the kitchen-garden. The melon-houses winked at me through the dark—I remember thinking that they knew what I wanted to know. … By the stable a dog came out growling—but he nosed me out, jumped on me, and went back … The house was as dark as the grave. I knew everybody went to bed by ten. But there might be a prowling servant—the kitchen-maid might have come down to let in her Italian. I had to risk that, of course. I crept around by the back door and hid in the shrubbery. Then I listened. It was all as silent as death. I crossed over to the house, pried open the pantry window and climbed in. I had a little electric lamp in my pocket, and shielding it with my cap I groped my way to the ice-box, opened it—and there was the little French melon … only one.

“I stopped to listen—I was quite cool. Then I pulled out my bottle of stuff and my syringe, and gave each section of the melon a hypodermic. It was all done inside of three minutes—at ten minutes to twelve I was back in the car. I got out of the lane as quietly as I could, struck a back road that skirted the village, and let the car out as soon as I was beyond the last houses. I only stopped once on the way in, to drop the beard and ulster into a pond. I had a big stone ready to weight them with and they went down plump, like a dead body—and at two o’clock I was back at my desk.”

Granice stopped speaking and looked across the smoke-fumes at his listener; but Denver’s face remained inscrutable.

At length he said: “Why did you want to tell me this?”

The question startled Granice. He was about to explain, as he had explained to Ascham; but suddenly it occurred to him that if his motive had not seemed convincing to the lawyer it would carry much less weight with Denver. Both were successful men, and success does not understand the subtle agony of failure. Granice cast about for another reason.

“Why, I—the thing haunts me … remorse, I suppose you’d call it …”

Denver struck the ashes from his empty pipe.

“Remorse? Bosh!” he said energetically.

Granice’s heart sank. “You don’t believe in—remorse?”

“Not an atom: in the man of action. The mere fact of your talking of remorse proves to me that you’re not the man to have planned and put through such a job.”

Granice groaned. “Well—I lied to you about remorse. I’ve never felt any.”

Denver’s lips tightened sceptically about his freshly-filled pipe. “What was your motive, then? You must have had one.”

“I’ll tell you—” And Granice began again to rehearse the story of his failure, of his loathing for life. “Don’t say you don’t believe me this time … that this isn’t a real reason!” he stammered out piteously as he ended.

Denver meditated. “No, I won’t say that. I’ve seen too many queer things. There’s always a reason for wanting to get out of life—the wonder is that we find so many for staying in!”

Granice’s heart grew light. “Then you do believe me?” he faltered.

“Believe that you’re sick of the job? Yes. And that you haven’t the nerve to pull the trigger? Oh, yes—that’s easy enough, too. But all that doesn’t make you a murderer—though I don’t say it proves you could never have been one.”

“I have been one, Denver—I swear to you.”

“Perhaps.” He meditated. “Just tell me one or two things.”

“Oh, go ahead. You won’t stump me!” Granice heard himself say with a laugh.

“Well—how did you make all those trial trips without exciting your sister’s curiosity? I knew your night habits pretty well at that time, remember. You were very seldom out late. Didn’t the change in your ways surprise her?”

“No; because she was away at the time. She went to pay several visits in the country soon after we came back from Wrenfield, and was only in town for a night or two before—before I did the job.”

“And that night she went to bed early with a headache?”

“Yes—blinding. She didn’t know anything when she had that kind. And her room was at the back of the flat.”

Denver again meditated. “And when you got back—she didn’t hear you? You got in without her knowing it?”

“Yes. I went straight to my work—took it up at the word where I’d left off—why, Denver, don’t you remember?” Granice suddenly, passionately interjected.

“Remember—?”

“Yes; how you found me—when you looked in that morning, between two and three … your usual hour … ?”

“Yes,” the editor nodded.

Granice gave a short laugh. “In my old coat—with my pipe: looked as if I’d been working all night, didn’t I? Well, I hadn’t been in my chair ten minutes!”

Denver uncrossed his legs and then crossed them again. “I didn’t know whether you remembered that.”

“What?”

“My coming in that particular night—or morning.”

Granice swung round in his chair. “Why, man alive! That’s why I’m here now. Because it was you who spoke for me at the inquest, when they looked round to see what all the old man’s heirs had been doing that night—you who testified to having dropped in and found me at my desk as usual. … I thought that would appeal to your journalistic sense if nothing else would!”

Denver smiled. “Oh, my journalistic sense is still susceptible enough—and the idea’s picturesque, I grant you: asking the man who proved your alibi to establish your guilt.”

“That’s it—that’s it!” Granice’s laugh had a ring of triumph.

“Well, but how about the other chap’s testimony—I mean that young doctor: what was his name? Ned Ranney. Don’t you remember my testifying that I’d met him at the elevated station, and told him I was on my way to smoke a pipe with you, and his saying: ‘All right; you’ll find him in. I passed the house two hours ago, and saw his shadow against the blind, as usual.’ And the lady with the toothache in the flat across the way: she corroborated his statement, you remember.”

“Yes; I remember.”

“Well, then?”

“Simple enough. Before starting I rigged up a kind of mannikin with old coats and a cushion—something to cast a shadow on the blind. All you fellows were used to seeing my shadow there in the small hours—I counted on that, and knew you’d take any vague outline as mine.”

“Simple enough, as you say. But the woman with the toothache saw the shadow move—you remember she said she saw you sink forward, as if you’d fallen asleep.”

“Yes; and she was right. It did move. I suppose some extra-heavy dray must have jolted by the flimsy building—at any rate, something gave my mannikin a jar, and when I came back he had sunk forward, half over the table.”

There was a long silence between the two men. Granice, with a throbbing heart, watched Denver refill his pipe. The editor, at any rate, did not sneer and flout him. After all, journalism gave a deeper insight than the law into the fantastic possibilities of life, prepared one better to allow for the incalculableness of human impulses.

“Well?” Granice faltered out.

Denver stood up with a shrug. “Look here, man—what’s wrong with you? Make a clean breast of it! Nerves gone to smash? I’d like to take you to see a chap I know—an ex-prize-fighter—who’s a wonder at pulling fellows in your state out of their hole—”

“Oh, oh—” Granice broke in. He stood up also, and the two men eyed each other. “You don’t believe me, then?”

“This yarn—how can I? There wasn’t a flaw in your alibi.”

“But haven’t I filled it full of them now?”

Denver shook his head. “I might think so if I hadn’t happened to know that you wanted to. There’s the hitch, don’t you see?”

Granice groaned. “No, I didn’t. You mean my wanting to be found guilty—?”

“Of course! If somebody else had accused you, the story might have been worth looking into. As it is, a child could have invented it. It doesn’t do much credit to your ingenuity.”

Granice turned sullenly toward the door. What was the use of arguing? But on the threshold a sudden impulse drew him back. “Look here, Denver—I daresay you’re right. But will you do just one thing to prove it? Put my statement in the Investigator, just as I’ve made it. Ridicule it as much as you like. Only give the other fellows a chance at it—men who don’t know anything about me. Set them talking and looking about. I don’t care a damn whether you believe me—what I want is to convince the Grand Jury! I oughtn’t to have come to a man who knows me—your cursed incredulity is infectious. I don’t put my case well, because I know in advance it’s discredited, and I almost end by not believing it myself. That’s why I can’t convince you. It’s a vicious circle.” He laid a hand on Denver’s arm. “Send a stenographer, and put my statement in the paper.”

But Denver did not warm to the idea. “My dear fellow, you seem to forget that all the evidence was pretty thoroughly sifted at the time, every possible clue followed up. The public would have been ready enough then to believe that you murdered old Lenman—you or anybody else. All they wanted was a murderer—the most improbable would have served. But your alibi was too confoundedly complete. And nothing you’ve told me has shaken it.” Denver laid his cool hand over the other’s burning fingers. “Look here, old fellow, go home and work up a better case—then come in and submit it to the Investigator.”