darkness was falling, and jim, whose heart was in his boots, was beginning to feel cold in spite of the mildness of the day, when smiley-face made his appearance, touching his forelock ingratiatingly.
“i been a long time, sir,” he explained, “but you know what that there ted barnes is. slow to talk and wanting a power of persuading. but i got the address from ’im: ’ere it is, wrote on this paper.”
he handed jim a slip of paper, upon which the address of a kensington hotel was written. he was grinning triumphantly, as though he had performed some great service for his friend.
“good lad,” said jim. “that’s very smart of you. i say, smiley: i’ve had the deuce of a time while you were in the village. i met my wife!”
the poacher smiled from ear to ear. “o lordee!” he chuckled. “i reckon that ’ud give her a bit of a turn, like.”
jim told him something of what had occurred, but smiley’s attitude of frank amusement caused him to cut the story short; and it was not long before he brought the interview to an end.
as they shook hands at the edge of the wood, smiley suddenly paused and raised his finger. “did you hear anything?” he asked.
“no,” said jim, after listening for a few moments.
[241]
“thought i heard a step,” the poacher went on. “there’s a heap o’ tramps about these days. i seen ’em in the woods sometimes, but i don’t allow no one to poach there except me....”
he was in a loquacious mood, and jim found it necessary to make a resolute interruption of the flow of his words by shaking him warmly by the hand once more and setting off down the dark lane in the direction of oxford.
he reached london, somewhat dazed, in time for dinner, and by nine o’clock he was driving out to kensington to pay a visit to mrs. darling. now that dolly knew that he was alive, it would be as well for him to enlist the services of her mother as soon as possible. he could, perhaps, make it worth her while to aid him in regard to the divorce.
upon arriving at the small private hotel where she was staying he was shown into an unoccupied sitting-room.
“what name, sir?” asked the page.
“mr. tundering-west,” said jim, apprehensive of the jolt the announcement would cause, but feeling that since a shock could not be avoided, it would be better for her to receive it before she entered the room.
he had not long to wait: after a few minutes of uncomfortable fiddling with his hat, mrs. darling suddenly bounced in, as though she had been kicked from behind. then, with astonished eyes fixed on jim, she shut the door and stood staring at him in complete silence.
“yes,” he said, nervously smiling, “it’s me, mrs. darling!”
[242]
“good gracious!” she gasped. “jim! you—you—you lunatic! what on earth are you doing in the land of the living? you’re supposed to be dead and buried.”
“no, not buried,” he corrected her. “i was knifed, you remember, and dropped into the sea.”
she passed her hand across her forehead. “you mean you swam back home?” her voice was awed.
“something like that,” he laughed. “anyway, here i am; and i’ve come to you to ask what i’m to do next. i’ve just had a talk with dolly.”
mrs. darling threw up her hands, and therewith she set about his cross-examination, asking him a number of questions in regard to his life, and receiving a number of evasive replies. “my good man,” she said at length, “do you realize that dolly is an established widow, on the look out, in fact, for another husband? do you realize that we’ve had a solemn memorial service for you, and put a tablet up in the church?”
“yes, i’ve seen it,” he answered. “it made me blush for shame.”
“i’m very glad to hear it,” she said. “you may well be ashamed that you have fallen so far short of the virtues attributed to you. i always think it is such a wonderful thing in nature that the only creatures who can blush are the only creatures who have occasion to.”
considering that it was her daughter’s future which was at stake, mrs. darling seemed to jim to be treating matters very lightly.
“do you realize,” she went on, her voice rising, “that your will has been read, and dolly owns every[243] penny you had, and gives me three hundred pounds a year allowance?”
“only three hundred?” he remarked. “that’s mean. i’ll give you four.”
“it’s not yours to give,” she answered. “you’re dead—dead as mutton. you can’t play fast and loose with death like that, you know. when you’re murdered, you’re murdered, and there’s an end of it. it would make things absolutely impossible if people could go popping in and out of their graves like you are doing. surely you can see that. what did dolly say?”
“oh, she was very upset,” he told her. “she stormed at me and called me every name under the sun; said she had always hated me; told me she was going to marry george merrivall.”
“well, what else did you expect? she says you ill-treated her horribly.”
“that’s a lie,” said jim, sharply.
“yes, so i told her,” mrs. darling replied. “i know you. you’re perfectly mad, but i always felt you were very decent to dolly, considering what a little fraud she is.”
“anyhow, i don’t mind her saying i ill-treated her,” he added, “if that’s any use for the purpose of our divorce.”
“divorce?” cried mrs. darling. “do you want her to divorce you? what for?”
“so that i can be quit of her, and marry again if i find the right woman.”
mrs. darling held up her hands. “what sublime courage! but you mustn’t let marriage become a habit, for the divorce courts are very slow, you know.[244] i have a woman friend who is already three marriages ahead of her divorces. i should have thought that a man like you, who is something of a philosopher and thinker, would now shun marriage like the plague. but i suppose even the cleverest men.... there is the famous case of socrates, who died of an overdose of wedlock.”
“hemlock,” he corrected her.
“ah, yes, to be sure. perhaps it is simply your youth: you still look very young, in spite of your recent death. i remember, in the days before my bright future had resolved itself into a shady past, i, too, was an optimist about marriage. but i was soon cured. so long as he liked me, my husband was so terribly jealous of me. it was quite intolerable. he would not even let my eyes wander from him. why, i remember once turning my head away from him for a moment because i had hiccups, and being instantly cured by his seizing my throat in a consequent fit of passion.... were you ever jealous of dolly?”
“no,” said jim; “and this afternoon i saw her making love to george merrivall without any feeling except annoyance with myself for ever having believed in her.”
“poor dolly,” sighed her mother. “i am devoted to her, as you know; but i do realize her faults, and i know what you had to put up with.”
for some time they discussed the possibilities of divorce, and mrs. darling was frankly business-like in regard to the financial side of the affair.
“of course,” she said, “it is very hard to do business with you, my dear jim, because you are an[245] honest man. i prefer dealing with crooks. it is so simple, because you always know that at some stage of the game they are going to try to trip you up. but with honest men, you never know what they’ll do next.”
the upshot of their conversation was an understanding that mrs. darling should go down next day to eversfield and win her daughter over to the idea of divorce; and, this being arranged, he rose to go.
“good-bye,” he said, warmly shaking her hand. “i can’t begin to thank you for your kindness, and generosity of mind.”
“oh, nonsense!” she laughed. “i’m just a scheming old woman, jim. as i’ve often told you, i’d sell my soul for an income; and in this case it is obvious that, since you are alive, you hold the family purse-strings. that’s why i am nice to you.”
“i don’t believe it,” he answered.
“well, anyway,” she said, “i wish you well, dead or alive. good-bye, my dear. may you be with the rich in this world and with the poor in the world to come.”
jim arrived back at his hotel in a somewhat happier frame of mind, and went at once to his bedroom, tired after the adventures of the day. when he was in bed, however, he found that sleep had deserted him; and for some time he lay on his back, vainly endeavouring to quell the turbulence of the mob of his thoughts. the figure of dolly kept presenting itself to his mind, and his inward ears heard her voice continuously railing at him and reproaching him.
[246]
her pretty, silly little face seemed to push in upon his thoughts of monimé; and suddenly he sat up, scared by the vividness of the impression, and wondering whether it were some sort of portent of coming calamity in regard to the new life for which he hoped so passionately. he switched on the light, and, kicking off the bedclothes, went across to the washstand and poured himself out a dose of whisky from his flask. the radiator was too hot, and the room felt stuffy; but, throwing open the window, a blast of cold air and wet sleet searched him to the skin, and obliged him to shut it again.
“oh, what a god-forsaken country!” he muttered; and therewith fetched his guitar from its case, and sitting cross-legged upon the bed in his pyjamas, began twanging the strings and singing old songs in a minor key which sounded like dirges for the dead. the music soothed him, and soon he was pouring his whole heart into the melodies, oblivious to all around him. they were songs of love now, and as he sang his thoughts went out over the seas to cairo where monimé at this moment was probably lying asleep in her bed, her black hair spread upon the pillow.
there was a sharp knock upon the door. “come in,” he called out, pausing in his song, but remaining seated upon the bed, with his fingers upon the strings of his guitar.
a red-faced, grey-moustached man of military appearance stumped into the room, clad in a brown dressing-gown. “confound you, sir!” he roared. “if you don’t put that damned banjo away and go to bed, i’ll ring for the manager.”
[247]
“what’s it to do with you?” jim asked, twanging the strings dreamily.
“it’s disturbing the whole hotel,” he answered. “nobody can get a wink of sleep with that blasted noise going on. damn it, sir!—have you no sense of duty to your neighbour?”
the question hit home: once again he had been proved wanting in consideration. “i’m most awfully sorry,” he said, with genuine contrition. “i’d clean forgotten i was in a hotel. please forgive me. have a whisky and soda? have a cigar?”
his visitor did not deign to reply. he stared at jim with hot, scowling eyes, and then, making a contemptuous gesture, left the room again, slamming the door after him.
“well, that’s that,” jim muttered, thereafter returning to bed, annoyed with himself and distressed that he should have caused annoyance to others. “what a swine i am,” he thought.
matthew arnold’s lines:—
weary of myself, and sick of asking
what i am, and what i ought to be....
came into his brain, and gloomily he repeated them half aloud. would monimé marry him? or would she, too, find him impossible? what a mess he had made of his life! perhaps dolly had been justified in her dislike of him.
with such thoughts as these he at last fell off to sleep.
next morning, after breakfast, he picked up a newspaper in the smoking-room, and for some minutes read the foreign news without much interest.[248] then suddenly a set of headlines caught his attention, and caused him to sit up, aghast, in his chair. the printed words swayed before his eyes as he read the appalling news.
“last night,” the story began, “the body of mrs. dorothy tundering-west, widow of the late james tundering-west, of the manor, eversfield, near oxford, was found in a wood adjoining the grounds of the manor. the back of the skull was smashed in, probably by a blow from a large stone which was found near by with bloodstains upon it. mrs. west had been missing since four o’clock in the afternoon, and medical evidence indicates that death must have occurred at about that hour....”
with desperate haste his eyes travelled down the column. there was no doubt that she had been murdered, said the report, but the thick carpeting of damp leaves upon the ground had retained no impression of the offender’s footprints. she was lying on her face, and a second wound upon her forehead was probably caused by her fall. the motive was not apparent, for there had been no robbery, and there were no signs of a struggle.
the police, he read, attached some significance to the presence of a man of foreign appearance who was seen in the early afternoon picking berries from a hedge in the neighbourhood. in this connection it was recalled that mr. tundering-west had died by the hand of an assassin in italy only a few months ago, and it was possible that the two crimes were both the outcome of some secret vendetta. what had induced the unfortunate lady to go into[249] the woods was a mystery, and perhaps indicated that she had been lured to her doom.
jim’s first emotions were those of extreme horror at the crime, and pity for dolly. the manner of her death appalled him; and though he was not conscious of any binding relationship to her, the catastrophe of her murder swept across his being like a fierce wind, as it were, uprooting the plantations of his overstocked brain, or like a breaking wave thundering on to the shingle of his multitudinous thoughts.
it was fortunate that he was alone in the smoking-room, for his agitation was such that his exclamations were uttered audibly, and soon he was pacing the floor, the newspaper crumpled in his hand. it seemed to be his fate that the crises of his life should be announced to him through the columns of the daily press. in this manner he had read of his inheritance, of his supposed murder at pisa, and now of the death of his wife. it was as though roguish powers had selected him as a victim on whom thus to spring surprises.
who could have committed the crime? the thought of smiley-face came immediately to his mind, but was as quickly dismissed again. the poacher, he knew, had been busy in the village getting mrs. darling’s address from the postman; and, moreover, his behaviour when they had met again clearly proclaimed his innocence. possibly some tramp had been lurking in the woods, as smiley had suspected, and dolly had been assaulted by him as she ran from jim. he remembered now with awe the sudden silence which had followed[250] her loud flight through the crackling undergrowth.
the wretched merrivall, he realized, would have to keep his movements well hidden; for if it were known that he had been in the woods with dolly he would most assuredly be suspected, motive or no motive. if anybody had seen him running across the manor garden on his way to the forgotten whist-drive it would go hard with him.
suddenly, following this thought, came the awful realization of his own peril. he, jim, was the last man to see her alive; and in his own case a motive would not be lacking. smiley-face would be certain to suspect him, and by some mistake might give the secret away.
and then—mrs. darling! she knew he had seen dolly in the woods, she knew they had quarrelled violently! of course, she would accuse him! the thought blared at him like a discordant trumpet, proclaiming his guilt to the world, while his heart drummed a wild accompaniment.
in bewilderment he ran blindly up the stairs to his bedroom and locked the door behind him.
