Читать книгу A Secret of the Sea (Vol. 1-3) - T. W. Speight - Страница 8

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Gerald Warburton did not leave London for Pembridge next day, nor for several days afterwards.

When Ambrose Murray learned that Gerald was the nephew of Jacob Lloyd, the man who had so befriended his daughter, and that Gerald's mother was the Minna Lloyd whom he remembered, and who had been one of his wife's dearest friends, he clung to him as a man who is being carried away by the tide will cling to the life-buoy which his hands have unexpectedly grasped. And, indeed, this man, who, after having been closely shut up from the world for twenty years, found himself thrown again on the great stream of life, seemed as helpless and bewildered as some weak swimmer who contends in vain against the resistless tide that is fast carrying him away. He was more than bewildered--he was frightened by the vast whirlpool of London life in which he found himself such an infinitesimal atom. There had always been an element of weakness, of vacillation, in his character. He had always been one of those men who are inevitably crushed into the background in the great rush and struggle for life with which they are mixed up--men not lacking talent, but simply from want of energy and physique, and power of elbowing their way to the front, drifting year after year helplessly into the rear, seeing themselves distanced by younger and fleeter feet, and seeing the prizes that in the flush of youth seemed so close at hand and easy of attainment, receding hopelessly into the distance. Sometimes disappointment and bitterness of heart sour such men for ever; sometimes they sink into mere dreamers and idealists, who console themselves for the buffets of the real world by living as much as possible an inner life of their own, in which destiny is carved out by them in accordance with their varying fancies, and in which they grasp--in imagination--whatever prizes please them best.

If at twenty-five years of age Ambrose. Murray had been ill-fitted to withstand the rubs of fortune, it was hardly to be expected that his armour should be stronger or his sword brighter after his twenty years of incarceration from the world. It was, indeed, evident from the first, both to Miss Bellamy and to Gerald, that he would have to be treated in many ways as if he were neither more nor less than a grown-up child. He had forgotten so much, and he had so much to learn! The march of events had left him so terribly in the rear, that it seemed doubtful whether he would ever be able to reach the world's full stride again.

Then, again, as time went on and they grew to know him better, a doubt would sometimes make itself felt, both with Miss Bellamy and Gerald, as to whether some shadow of the terrible affliction which had overclouded his mind for years did not linger there still. On ninety-nine topics out of a hundred he would talk as sanely and sensibly as anyone; but the introduction of the hundredth would elicit from him some observation so bizarre, so outrageous, or, on the other hand, so childishly simple, that his hearers could only look at each other in dismay, and change the conversation as quickly as possible.

Ambrose Murray's chief employment in prison since the recovery of his reason would seem to have been the cleaning and repairing of all the clocks and watches in the establishment. When a boy of twelve at home he had been able to take his father's watch to pieces, clean it, and put it together again. The delicacy of the workmanship, and the exquisite adjustment of each part with reference to the whole, had for him, even at that age, a fascination, a charm, that might have led him, step by step, into the highest walks of mechanics, had not a stern parental will decided for him that he was born to be a doctor.

As a result of his labours on the prison clocks and watches, Mr. Murray had contrived, little by little, to save up the sum of twelve pounds. Ten pounds of this amount he placed in the hands of Miss Bellamy the morning after his arrival in London, with a request that she would act as cashier for him in every way as far as the money would go, and that when it was exhausted she would not fail to let him know--although what he would have done in such a case to replenish his purse it would have puzzled him to say. Just then, however, no such consideration troubled his mind. In his best days he had not understood or troubled himself much about money matters, and nowadays ten pounds seemed amply sufficient to last him for an indefinite length of time. And it did last him a very long time, thanks to Miss Bellamy's remarkable management; for when, at the end of two months, he said to her, "I think the ten pounds must be getting rather low, Maria"--he had always been in the habit of calling Miss Bellamy by her Christian name--she only answered with a smile: "That shows how little you know about money matters. There's more than half of it left yet." Ambrose Murray was quite content to think that it was so, and troubled himself no further about the matter.

That first night Gerald took him to his own rooms; but the question that had to be settled next morning was, where he should live for the future. In London he would undoubtedly be safer from pursuit and detection than in the country; besides which, he wanted to be near Miss Bellamy. She was the one link that connected him with the past: away from her he would have felt as helpless as a being who had wandered by mistake on to a wrong planet. As it happened, there were two furnished rooms to be let in the next house to that in which Miss Bellamy lodged, and it was decided that there, for awhile at least, the fugitive should pitch his tent. It was highly necessary that he should both change his name and disguise himself to a certain extent--not that Murray himself would ever have thought of adopting any such precautions, but would have gone about as openly and unsuspiciously as the freest man in England. That some pursuit would be attempted, that some effort would be made to recapture him, there could be no manner of doubt; and both to Miss Bellamy and Gerald it seemed quite evident that unless some few obvious precautions should be adopted, his whereabouts could not long remain unknown to the police. It was accordingly agreed that for the time being he should change his name from Murray to Greaves--that having been his wife's maiden name; and that he should pass as a cousin of Miss Bellamy, who had come to London to look after some property that was in Chancery. The next thing to do was to reduce the length of his flowing white beard and of his long white hair. What was left was then died black--its normal colour--and this simple change was enough to disguise him beyond the chance of recognition by any one who had only seen him as he was when he first took off his hat and plaid in Miss Bellamy's room.

As he was still barely fifty years old, there was nothing incongruous about his black hair and beard; and when his sartorial needs had been duly attended to, the world saw him as a rather tall, frail-looking man, with a thin, scholar-like face, who stooped a little as he walked, and who seemed ever more intent on his own secret thoughts than concerned with anything that was passing around him. Not that the world, as exemplified by Ormond Square and its neighbourhood, ever saw much of him. He rarely stirred out of the house till dusk, and more frequently than mot it was ten or eleven at night before he crossed the threshold, except when he went to see Miss Bellamy--which he did every day; but as he had only to step from one house into the next in order to do that, it could hardly be considered as going out. The noise and bustle of the streets distracted him--even daylight itself, except when it came winnowed through the interstices of the venetian blinds, seemed distasteful to him. The friendly silence of the long, dark suburban streets, where were no gaudy shops or glaring gin-palaces, suited him best. There he could think his inmost thoughts and commune with his strange fancies in silence and peace. There he could feel sure that no keen eyes were prying into his, and trying to find therein some gleam, some lurking trace, of that terrible demon whose fingers had scorched his brain once already, and who still, at times, seemed terribly near at hand, waiting--as in his childish days he believed robbers used to wait for him--round some dark corner no great distance away, with his black cloak in his hands, ready to throw it over his victim's head the moment he passed that way.

After awhile both Gerald and Miss Bellamy were able to tell when this demon was haunting Murray's steps more closely than common. At such times, when not conversing with others, he would talk inaudibly to himself for hours together, unless interrupted, his lips moving as though in earnest assertion, but no sound coming therefrom. At such times, when walking out, he would turn his head slowly from side to side, but without raising his eyes from the ground, as though in search of something.

On the first occasion that Gerald noticed this peculiarity, they were walking together, and he said to him, "Have you lost something, Mr. Murray?"

Murray started, looked up, smiled, and pressed his companion's arm more closely.

"Yes, I have lost something," he said, with a little sigh. "I don't exactly know what it is--but it's something. I shall find it again one of these days, I do not doubt."

His voice was full of pathos as he spoke. Gerald never mentioned the subject again.

"Now that you are settled for some time to come, I presume that you will not be long before you break the news to Eleanor? You must remember that as yet she knows absolutely nothing."

So spoke Miss Bellamy to Ambrose Murray one evening across the tea-table. Gerald was also there. This was the first time that Eleanor's name had been mentioned since Murray's arrival, and Miss Bellamy could bear the father's strange silence no longer.

"It is not my intention to tell my daughter anything at present. Why should I?" said Murray.

Miss Bellamy looked at him as though she could scarcely believe her ears.

"Why should you not?" she said. "It seems to me that one of the very first things you ought to do is to tell everything to your only child."

Murray stirred his tea slowly for a few moments before answering.

"Eleanor is well and comfortable, I hope," he said at last.

"Quite well and quite comfortable."

"She is still living among her friends at Pembridge?"

"She is."

"And wants for nothing?"

"And wants for nothing, so far as I know."

"That is well. And she still believes that Jacob Lloyd was her father?"

"I am not aware that anyone has undeceived her on that point."

"Why should I be the first to undeceive her?"

"Jacob Lloyd is dead. You are her father, and you are now a free man."

"Precisely so. I am a free man because I have broken my prison bonds. I am a free man who is liable to recapture at any moment. I am a free man to whose name the stain of murder still clings."

"But Eleanor would never believe you to be guilty, as I have never believed you, to be guilty."

"Possibly not. But why distress her by making her the recipient of so painful a revelation?"

"She is your daughter, and she has a right to be told the truth."

"As you say, she is my daughter, and perhaps she has a right to be told. But seeing that her ignorance has lasted for twenty years, it cannot matter greatly if she be kept in the same ignorance for a few weeks or a few months longer. That ultimately everything will be told her, I do not doubt; but not now--not till--till----" Overcome by some hidden emotion, he faltered, and was dumb.

"Not till what, Ambrose?" said Miss Bellamy very gently.

"Not till I have proved my innocence to the world."

Miss Bellamy sighed, but said nothing. If Eleanor was not to be told her father's story till his innocence should be proved, then would it remain untold for ever.

"Do not think," resumed Ambrose Murray, "that I have not thought over, times without number, all that can be urged either for or against the telling of my story to Eleanor, but I have come to the conclusion that for a little while to come it had better remain untold."

"And do you think, Ambrose, that after such a length of time there is any chance, however remote, of your being able to prove your innocence?"

"I don't know: I cannot tell. I can simply hope. The world is full of apparent wonders, and Providence works out its ends in a way that we cannot fathom. I know how vain and futile must seem to you the prospect of my ever being able to prove my innocence; but it is for that purpose, and that alone, that I am now here. Had I not been sustained by such a hope, I believe that I should not have cared to seek my freedom. Years since, the desire for freedom, for freedom's own sake, burnt itself to a cinder in my heart by its very intensity. I came at last to cling to the narrow walls that had been my home for so long a time, as a limpet clings to its boulder on the beach, neither knowing nor caring for any horizon beyond its own few inches of rock and sand. How is it possible for me to make you comprehend what simple things may become dear to a man who has been cut off from the world as I have been? The pair of robins that I used to feed, the candy-tuft that grew outside my bedroom window, the head-warder's motherless child, the laurel-walk in the garden, my box of tools--the source of so many happy hours: it was not without a pang of bitter anguish that I cast these behind me for ever, even though freedom itself was beckoning to me from the hill-tops!

"But an inner voice seemed to urge me forward, a will superior to my own seemed to guide my footsteps. In saying this I may be merely the victim of self-delusion. My hopes and wishes in this matter may have no better foundation than a few incoherent dreams. Once already my mind has been like an empty room that is open to every wind that blows; and sometimes even now--Heaven help me!--I seem as if I had hardly strength enough to hold the door against the troop of demons that press and hustle to get in, and complain that I have dispossessed them of their home. But be this as it may, I am held and sustained by the hope of which I have spoken. It may prove to be nothing better than a broken reed, but till it is so proved, I will in no wise let it go: and till that time shall come, my daughter and I must remain to each other the strangers we have hitherto been."

"Have you no desire to see Eleanor--to kiss her--to clasp her to your heart?"

"Do not ask me!" he said, with a sudden shrillness in his voice. Then, in a moment, he broke down utterly, and began to cry in a helpless, broken-hearted way that was painful to see.

Miss Bellamy went round to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder.

"Oh, Ambrose, forgive me!" she said, with tears in her eyes. "I did not think to hurt your feelings. I cannot tell you how sorry I am."

"It is I who am so foolishly weak," he said; "but I shall be better in a minute or two." He held out one of his hands. Miss Bellamy pressed it affectionately between both hers, and then went softly back to her seat. For a little while no one spoke.

Ambrose Murray was the first to break the silence. "Upwards of twenty years have gone by," he said, "since Paul Stilling was murdered one night at the Pelican Hotel, Tewkesbury, and the prospect of my being able to prove my innocence after such a lapse of time would to most people appear an utterly hopeless one; and even to me, in my most sanguine moments, the chances of success seem very faint and far away indeed. Still, it is for this hope alone that I now live."

"Has any fresh evidence been discovered since the trial?" asked Miss Bellamy; "anything tending to exculpate you and fix the crime on the real murderer?"

"So far as I know, nothing has been discovered. The case virtually came to an end with my condemnation. The world believed me to be guilty--no one cared to sift further into the matter, and I was left to my fate."

"We none of us believed you to be guilty," said Miss Bellamy, with much earnestness. "But the evidence was so terribly against you, and events followed each other so quickly, and we poor women were all so bewildered and heart-broken, that--that we felt as if we could do nothing."

"As you say, Maria--you could do nothing; and I have never wronged any of those who were my friends at that sad time by thinking that more could have been done for me than was done. What was wanted was time, and that the law would not grant: time, and a man of strong will and clear brain, and then, perhaps, the mystery might have been fathomed."

"Then what it is now requisite to do," said Gerald, joining in the conversation for the first time, "is to reopen the case; to set to work on it, in fact, as if the murder had been committed only last week, instead of twenty years ago."

"That is precisely what I propose to do," said Murray.

"And the first step is----?"

"To find out whether Max Jacoby is living or dead."

"Max Jacoby?" said Miss Bellamy. "I have not heard that name for years; but what a flood of painful reminiscences the mention of it recalls!"

"Who was the man you speak of?" asked Gerald.

"He was the man who murdered Paul Stilling!"

"You stare at me as if you believed me to be still mad," he added, after a pause, addressing himself to Miss Bellamy: "and you ask me in your thoughts, if you do not with your lips, what evidence I can bring to prove the truth of what I have just stated. My answer is, that I cannot adduce one tittle of evidence that would be considered worth a moment's notice in a court of law: but not the less sure am I that he was the man."

Neither Gerald nor Miss Bellamy could help being impressed by his earnestness, however disposed they might be to think that nothing but disappointment could ever issue from it.

"Have you any clue by means of which it may be possible to trace the present whereabouts of this man, Max Jacoby?" asked Gerald presently.

"I have no clue of any kind." He said this, not despondently, but as cheerfully as though the point involved were of no consequence whatever.

"As you said just now, Gerald, we must go into the case ab initio," he resumed. "I say we, because it may chance that now and then I shall claim your assistance in the matter; and should I have to do so, I know that I shall not claim it in vain."

"That you will not," said Gerald warmly. "You may count on my poor services in any and every way."

"You must bear in mind," said Miss Bellamy to Murray, "that Gerald has not such an intimate knowledge of the case as either you or I have. He has heard a bare outline of the facts from me; but would it not be as well if you were to tell him the story in detail from your own point of view, and so enable him to judge for himself as to the mode in which he might be best able to assist you?"

"You are right, Maria, as you always are," said Murray. "Gerald shall have the story. It will not take long to tell. As a narrative of events, nothing could appear more clear, simple, and straightforward; and yet, underneath it, there still lurks the foul mystery that poisoned my life--that condemned me to a horrible death--that broke my wife's heart--and that made of me the wretched creature I am now!"

He rested his head in his hands, and was silent for a little while, calling up the memories of a bitter past.

"As you are no doubt already aware," he began, "I was brought up, at my father's request, to be a surgeon. I was in practice for myself, and had been married about two years, when my health, which had always been delicate, broke down. I was ordered to Malvern to try the hydropathic system, and there I stayed for four months, gathering strength daily. At length I found myself well enough to start for home. I had always been fond of walking, and on the present occasion I determined to shun the railways and do the entire distance on foot, going by easy stages so as not to over-fatigue myself. In pursuance of this plan I got as far as Tewkesbury, where I had made up my mind to stay all night. But already I found I was doing myself more harm than good by walking, and it was evident that I should have to finish my journey by rail. I sought and found shelter for the night at the Pelican Hotel. My purse was not very heavy, and I joined the company in the coffee-room. The company in question consisted but of two individuals,--Paul Stilling, a young Englishman, and Max Jacoby, a Dutch or German Jew of about the same age as myself. Stilling was a tall, slim, handsome young-fellow, with closely cropped black hair and a thin silky moustache. He was junior partner in a firm of Birmingham jewellers, and it transpired that he was then on his way, with a parcel of valuable jewellery, to the house of a well-known nobleman, resident no great distance from Tewkesbury. There was about to be a wedding in the family, and he was taking a selection of goods from which sundry bridal presents were to be chosen. He had engaged a bed at the Pelican for that night, and had ordered a fly to be ready at ten next morning to take him forward to his destination. Jacoby was a broad-built, resolute-looking man, with a thick sandy beard and ear-rings. He was travelling for a firm of Sheffield cutlers.

"The two men had been dining together, and the meal was just over when I entered the room. Stilling at once entered into conversation with me, but the German only sat and looked at us. After I had finished my steak I joined them over cigars and a bottle of port. The evening was chilly, and we all drew up close to the fire. Stilling had evidently been drinking earlier in the day, and his voluble tongue had been made more voluble still by his potations. He did not fail to tell us who and what he was, and the object of his visit to Tewkesbury; in fact, he had the conversation pretty much to himself. I joined in occasionally, but Jacoby did little except smoke and turn his keen eyes from one to the other of us, interjecting now and then a gruff Nein or Ja when a point-blank question was put to him by the jeweller.

"At length nothing would satisfy Stilling but showing us the wedding jewellery, on the beauty of which he descanted in glowing terms. So he ran upstairs as nimbly as a lamplighter, and presently came back, carrying a small, square leather case under his arm. This case, when unlocked, was found to contain a small box, made of polished oak, clamped with silver, and having the initials P.S. outlined on the lid with silver nails. The box was duly opened, and was found to be lined with purple velvet, and divided into compartments which were filled with jewels of various kinds. One after another Stilling lifted them tenderly out of their soft resting-place, in order that we might examine them. They flashed and scintillated in the gaslight, and threw out a thousand brilliant rays. Happening to turn my head, I could not help being struck with the change in Jacoby. He had put down his cigar in order that he might examine the jewels more closely, and was at that moment holding in his hairy, muscular hands a necklace of magnificent brilliants. But his hands were trembling as he held it, and his face had taken a yellow tinge, and his forehead had become clammy, and he was biting his under lip; and while I was looking, he flashed across at Stilling a look which said plainly enough: 'To make these mine I would kill you and a thousand like you!' That was how I read his look then; that is how I read it now. If ever there was murder in a man's eyes, there was in Jacoby's at that moment.

"When the jewels had been sufficiently admired, they were put back into their resting-place and locked up. A little later we bade each other goodnight, and went off to our several rooms. I had ordered an early breakfast, and I left Tewkesbury by the seven a.m. train, having taken a ticket through to Bristol. By the time I reached Gloucester, however, I had changed my mind. The weather was brilliant, and I should not be looked for at home for several days. Why not go down Hereford way, and explore the scenery of the Wye, and by so doing gratify a wish that dated back for several years? I accordingly quitted the Bristol train at Gloucester, and booked myself through by another line to Hereford, which place I reached late in the afternoon. I was sitting next morning in the coffee-room of the hotel, plodding through my breakfast, when the door was opened, and a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder, and next moment I found myself arrested on a double charge of robbery and murder. Stilling had been found dead in his bed at the Pelican Hotel: the silver-clamped box could not be found, and I was charged with the double crime.

"But I must not weary you. At the very bottom of my travelling bag was found a bracelet set with turquoises and diamonds, that had been the property of Stilling. In the murdered man's room was found a handkerchief marked with my initials. I had taken a railway ticket to Bristol, but had left the train at Gloucester, and had gone forward by another line in order to baffle pursuit--so they said. Taken in conjunction, these facts were enough to condemn any man, and they condemned me. Twelve men unanimously found me guilty, and the judge told me that he quite concurred in their verdict. And then I saw the black cap put on, and heard my own death-sentence pronounced, and heard my wife's wild shriek for mercy, where no mercy could be shown. Can you wonder that my brain gave way?"

He paused. In the silence they heard the clocks strike twelve.

"The same hand that put the bracelet into my bag put my handkerchief into the murdered man's room. It was the hand of Jacoby! How I know that--how I feel so sure of it--I cannot explain to either of you, and if I could you would only smile at me. In this world much of our highest knowledge comes to us intuitively, and by intuition only do I know that it was Max Jacoby who compassed the death of Paul Stilling--but that suffices for me."

"Then your idea," said Gerald, "is to find out whether this Max Jacoby is still alive?"

"It is. And I want you, out of your knowledge of the world, to advise me as to the best mode of setting about this business."

"I am going out of town to-morrow for a couple of days. I will think over very carefully all that you have said, and will make a point of seeing you immediately upon my return."

With this agreement they separated for the night, and early next morning Gerald set out for Pembridge.

Miss Bellamy had not deemed it necessary to say anything to Ambrose Murray as to the fact of Eleanor still passing as Jacob Lloyd's daughter, and still believing herself to be the heiress to his property. To have told him would only have unsettled his mind still further, and would have served no useful purpose. Besides which, Gerald's visit to Pembridge was for the express purpose of seeing Mr. Kelvin, and of ascertaining from him why he had omitted to carry out the instructions conveyed to him in the sealed packet. In a few days more at the most, Eleanor would learn that she was not the daughter of Jacob Lloyd, and not the heiress she believed herself to be. Meanwhile, it was better, as far as Ambrose Murray was concerned, that these matters should remain untold.