The Seven Secrets

CHAPTER XXI.
WOMAN’S WILES

“Look sharp!” cried the black-bearded ruffian who had feigned illness. “Give him a settler, ’Arry. He wants his nerves calmin’ a bit!”

The fellow had seized my wrists, and I saw that one of the men who had sprung from his place of concealment was pouring some liquid from a bottle upon a sponge. I caught a whiff of its odour – an odour too familiar to me – the sickly smell of chloroform.

Fortunately I am pretty athletic, and with a sudden wrench I freed my wrists from the fellow’s grip, and, hitting him one from the shoulder right between the eyes, sent him spinning back against the chest of drawers. To act swiftly was my only chance. If once they succeeded in pressing that sponge to my nostrils and holding it there, then all would be over; for by their appearance I saw they were dangerous criminals, and not men to stick at trifles. They would murder me.

As I sent down the man who had shammed illness, his two companions dashed towards me with imprecations upon their lips; but with lightning speed I sprang towards the door and placed my back against it. So long as I could face them I intended to fight for life. Their desire was, I knew, to attack me from behind, as they had already done. I had surely had a narrow escape from their bullets, for they had fired at close range.

At Guy’s many stories have been told of similar cases where doctors, known to wear valuable watches, diamond rings or scarf pins, have been called at night by daring thieves and robbed; therefore I always, as precaution, placed my revolver in my pocket when I received a night call to a case with which I was not acquainted.

I had not disregarded my usual habit when I had placed my thermometer and stethoscope in my pocket previous to accompanying the girl; therefore it reposed there fully loaded, a fact of which my assailants were unaware.

In much quicker time than it takes to narrate the incident I was again pounced upon by all three, the man with the sponge in readiness to dash it to my mouth and nostrils.

But as they sprang forward to seize me, I raised my hand swiftly, took aim, and fired straight at the holder of the sponge, the bullet passing through his shoulder and causing him to drop the anæsthetic as though it were a live coal, and to spring several feet from the ground.

“God! I’m shot!” he cried.

But ere the words had left his mouth I fired a second chamber, inflicting a nasty wound in the neck of the fellow with the black beard.

“Shoot! shoot!” he cried to the third man, but it was evident that in the first struggle, when I had been seized, the man’s revolver had dropped on the carpet, and in the semi-darkness he could not recover it.

Recognising this, I fired a pot shot in the man’s direction; then, opening the door, sprang down the stairs into the hall. One of them followed, but the other two, wounded as they were, did not care to face my weapon again. They saw that I knew how to shoot, and probably feared that I might inflict a fatal hurt.

As I approached the front door, and was fumbling with the lock, the third man flung himself upon me, determined that I should not escape. With great good fortune, however, I managed to unbolt the door, and after a desperate struggle, in which he endeavoured to wrest the weapon from my hand, I succeeded at last in gripping him by the throat, and after nearly strangling him flung him to the ground and escaped into the street, just as his associates, hearing his cries of distress, dashed downstairs to his assistance.

Without doubt it was the narrowest escape of my life that I have ever had, and so excited was I that I dashed down the street hatless until I emerged into Lisson Grove. Then, and only then, it occurred to me that, having taken no note of the house, I should be unable to recognise it and denounce it to the police. But when one is in peril of one’s life all other thoughts or instincts are submerged in the one frantic effort of self-preservation. Still, it was annoying to think that such scoundrels should be allowed to go scot free.

Breathless, excited, and with nerves unstrung, I opened my door with my latch-key and returned to my room, where the reading-lamp had burned low, for it had been alight all through the night. I mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda, tossed it off, and then turned to look at myself in the glass.

The picture I presented was disreputable and unkempt. My hair was ruffled, my collar torn open from its stud, and one sleeve of my coat had been torn out, so that the lining showed through. I had a nasty scratch across the neck, too, inflicted by the fingernails of one of the blackguards, and from the abrasion blood had flowed and made a mess of my collar.

Altogether I presented a very brilliant and entertaining spectacle. But my watch, ring and scarf-pin were in their places. If robbery had been their motive, as no doubt it had been, then they had profited nothing, and two of them had been winged into the bargain. The only mode by which their identity could by chance be discovered was in the event of those wounds being troublesome. In that case they would consult a medical man; but as they would, in all probability, go to some doctor in a distant quarter of London, the hope of tracing them by such means was but a slender one.

Feeling a trifle faint I sat in my chair, resting for a quarter of an hour or so; then, becoming more composed, I put out the study lights, and after a refreshing wash went to bed.

The morning’s reflections were somewhat disconcerting. A deliberate and dastardly attempt had been made upon my life; but with what motive? The young woman, whose face was familiar, had, I recollected, asked most distinctly whether I was Doctor Boyd – a fact which showed that the trap had been prepared. I now saw the reason why she was unable to describe the man’s sham illness, and during the morning, while at work in the hospital wards, my suspicions became aroused that there had been some deeper motive in it all than the robbery of my watch or scarf-pin. Human life had been taken for far less value than that of my jewellery, I knew; nevertheless, the deliberate shooting at me while I felt the patient’s pulse showed a determination to assassinate. By good fortune, however, I had escaped, and resolved to exercise more care in future when answering night calls to unknown houses.

Sir Bernard did not come to town that day; therefore I was compelled to spend the afternoon in the severe consulting-room at Harley Street, busy the whole time. Shortly before six o’clock, utterly worn out, I strolled round to my rooms to change my coat before going down to the Savage Club to dine with my friends – for it was Saturday night, and I seldom missed the genial house-dinner of that most Bohemian of institutions.

Without ceremony I threw open the door of my sitting-room and entered, but next instant stood still, for, seated in my chair patiently awaiting me was the slim, well-dressed figure of Mary Courtenay. Her widow’s weeds became her well; and as she rose with a rustle of silk, a bright laugh rippled from her lips, and she said:

“I know I’m an unexpected visitor, Doctor, but you’ll forgive my calling in this manner, won’t you?”

“Forgive you? Of course,” I answered; and with politeness which I confess was feigned, I invited her to be seated. True to the promise made to her husband, she had lost no time in coming to see me, but I was fortunately well aware of the purport of her errand.

“I had no idea you were in London,” I said, by way of allowing her to explain the object of her visit, for, in the light of the knowledge I had gained on the Nene bank two nights previously, her call was of considerable interest.

“I’m only up for a couple of days,” she answered. “London has not the charm for me that it used to have,” and she sighed heavily, as though her mind were crowded by bitter memories. Then raising her veil, and revealing her pale, handsome face, she said bluntly, “The reason of my call is to talk to you about Ethelwynn.”

“Well, what of her?” I asked, looking straight into her face and noticing for the first time a curious shifty look in her eyes, such as I had never before noticed in her. She tried to remain calm, but, by the nervous twitching of her fingers and lower lip, I knew that within her was concealed a tempest of conflicting emotions.

“To speak quite frankly, Ralph,” she said in a calm, serious voice, “I don’t think you are treating her honourably, poor girl. You seem to have forsaken her altogether, and the neglect has broken her heart.”

“No, Mrs. Courtenay; you misunderstand the situation,” I protested. “That I have neglected her slightly I admit; nevertheless the neglect was not wilful, but owing to my constant occupation in my practice.”

“She’s desperate. Besides, it’s common talk that you’ve broken off the engagement.”

“Gossip does not affect me; therefore why should she take any heed of it?”

“Well, she loves you. That you know quite well. You surely could not have been deceived in those days at Kew, for her devotion to you was absolute and complete.” She was pleading her sister’s cause just as Courtenay had directed her. I felt annoyed that she should thus endeavour to impose upon me, yet saw the folly of betraying the fact that I knew her secret. My intention was to wait and watch.

“I called at the Hennikers’ a couple of days ago, but Ethelwynn is no longer there. She’s gone into the country, it seems,” I remarked.

“Where to?” she asked quickly.

“She’s visiting someone near Hereford.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, as though a sudden light dawned upon her. “I know, then. Why, I wonder, did she not tell me. I intended to call on her this evening, but it is useless. I’m glad to know, for I don’t care much for Mrs. Henniker. She’s such a very shallow woman.”

“Ethelwynn seems to have wandered about a good deal since the sad affair at Kew,” I observed.

“Yes, and so have I,” she responded. “As you are well aware, the blow was such a terrible one to me that – that somehow I feel I shall never get over it – never!” I saw tears, genuine tears, welling in her eyes. If she could betray emotion in that manner she was surely a wonderful actress.

“Time will efface your sorrow,” I said, in a voice meant to be sympathetic. “In a year or two your grief will not be so poignant, and the past will gradually fade from your memory. It is always so.”

She shook her head mournfully.

“No,” she said, “for in addition to my grief there is the mystery of it all – a mystery that grows each day more and more inscrutable.”

I glanced sharply at her in surprise. Was she trying to mislead me, or were her words spoken in real earnest? I could not determine.

“Yes,” I acquiesced. “The mystery is as complete as ever.”

“Has no single clue been found, either by the police or by your friend – Jevons is, I think, his name?” she asked, with keen anxiety.

“One or two points have, I believe, been elucidated,” I answered; “but the mystery still remains unsolved.”

“As it ever will be,” she added, with a sigh which appeared to me to be one of satisfaction, rather than of regret. “The details were so cleverly arranged that the police have been baffled in every endeavour. Is not that so?”

I nodded in the affirmative.

“And your friend Jevons? Has he given up all hope of any satisfactory discovery?”

“I really don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve not seen him for quite a long time. And in any case he has told me nothing regarding the result of his investigations. It is his habit to be mute until he has gained some tangible result.”

A puzzled, apprehensive expression crossed her white brow for a moment; then it vanished into a pleasant smile, as she asked in confidence:

“Now, tell me, Ralph, what is your own private opinion of the situation?”

“Well, it is both complicated and puzzling. If we could discover any reason for the brutal deed we might get a clue to the assassin; but as far as the police have been able to gather, it seems that there is an entire absence of motive; hence the impossibility of carrying the inquiries further.”

“Then the investigation is actually dropped?” she exclaimed, unable to further conceal her anxiety.

“I presume it is,” I replied.

Her chest heaved slightly, and slowly fell again. By its movement I knew that my answer allowed her to breathe more freely.

“You also believe that your friend Jevons has been compelled, owing to negative results, to relinquish his efforts?” she asked.

“Such is my opinion. But I have not seen him lately in order to consult him.”

In silence she listened to my answer, and was evidently reassured by it; yet I could not, for the life of me, understand her manner – at one moment nervous and apprehensive, and at the next full of an almost imperious self-confidence. At times the expression in her eyes was such as justified her mother in the fears she had expressed to me. I tried to diagnose her symptoms, but they were too complicated and contradictory.

She spoke again of her sister, returning to the main point upon which she had sought the interview. She was a decidedly attractive woman, with a face rendered more interesting by her widow’s garb.

But why was she masquerading so cleverly? For what reason had old Courtenay contrived to efface his identity so thoroughly? As I looked at her, mourning for a man who was alive and well, I utterly failed to comprehend one single fact of the astounding affair. It staggered belief!

“Let me speak candidly to you, Ralph,” she said, after we had been discussing Ethelwynn for some little time. “As you may readily imagine, I have my sister’s welfare very much at heart, and my only desire is to see her happy and comfortable, instead of pining in melancholy as she now is. I ask you frankly, have you quarrelled?”

“No, we have not,” I answered promptly.

“Then if you have not, your neglect is all the more remarkable,” she said. “Forgive me for speaking like this, but our intimate acquaintanceship in the past gives me a kind of prerogative to speak my mind. You won’t be offended, will you?” she asked, with one of those sweet smiles of hers that I knew so well.

“Offended? Certainly not, Mrs. Courtenay. We are too old friends for that.”

“Then take my advice and see Ethelwynn again,” she urged. “I know how she adores you; I know how your coldness has crushed all the life out of her. She hides her secret from mother, and for that reason will not come down to Neneford. See her, and return to her; for it is a thousand pities that two lives should be wrecked so completely by some little misunderstanding which will probably be explained away in a dozen words. You may consider this appeal an extraordinary one, made by one sister on behalf of another, but when I tell you that I have not consulted Ethelwynn, nor does she know that I am here on her behalf, you will readily understand that I have both your interests equally at heart. To me it seems a grievous thing that you should be placed apart in this manner; that the strong love you bear each other should be crushed, and your future happiness be sacrificed. Tell me plainly,” she asked in earnestness. “You love her still – don’t you?”

“I do,” was my frank, outspoken answer, and it was the honest truth.

CHAPTER XXII.
A MESSAGE

The pretty woman in her widow’s weeds stirred slightly and settled her skirts, as though my answer had given her the greatest satisfaction.

“Then take my advice, Ralph,” she went on. “See her again before it is too late.”

“You refer to her fresh lover – eh?” I inquired bitterly.

“Her fresh lover?” she cried in surprise. “I don’t understand you. Who is he, pray?”

“I’m in ignorance of his name.”

“But how do you know of his existence? I have heard nothing of him, and surely she would have told me. All her correspondence, all her poignant grief, and all her regrets have been of you.”

“Mrs. Henniker gave me to understand that my place in your sister’s heart has been filled by another man,” I said, in a hard voice.

“Mrs. Henniker!” she cried in disgust. “Just like that evil-tongued mischief-maker! I’ve told you already that I detest her. She was my friend once – it was she who allured me from my husband’s side. Why she exercises such an influence over poor Ethelwynn, I can’t tell. I do hope she’ll leave their house and come back home. You must try and persuade her to do so.”

“Do you think, then, that the woman has lied?” I asked.

“I’m certain of it. Ethelwynn has never a thought for any man save yourself. I’ll vouch for that.”

“But what object can she have in telling me an untruth?”

The widow smiled.

“A very deep one, probably. You don’t know her as well as I do, or you would suspect all her actions of ulterior motive.”

“Well,” I said, after a pause, “to tell the truth, I wrote to Ethelwynn last night with a view to reconciliation.”

“You did!” she cried joyously. “Then you have anticipated me, and my appeal to you has been forestalled by your own conscience – eh?”

“Exactly,” I laughed. “She has my letter by this time, and I am expecting a wire in reply. I have asked her to meet me at the earliest possible moment.”

“Then you have all my felicitations, Ralph,” she said, in a voice that seemed to quiver with emotion. “She loves you – loves you with a fiercer and even more passionate affection than that I entertained towards my poor dead husband. Of your happiness I have no doubt, for I have seen how you idolised her, and how supreme was your mutual content when in each other’s society. Destiny, that unknown influence that shapes our ends, has placed you together and forged a bond between you that is unbreakable – the bond of perfect love.”

There seemed such a genuine ring in her voice, and she spoke with such solicitude for our welfare, that in the conversation I entirely forgot that after all she was only trying to bring us together again in order to prevent her own secret from being exposed.

At some moments she seemed the perfection of honesty and integrity, without the slightest affectation of interest or artificiality of manner, and it was this fresh complexity of her character that utterly baffled me. I could not determine whether, or not, she was in earnest.

“If it is really destiny I suppose that to try and resist it is quite futile,” I remarked mechanically.

“Absolutely. Ethelwynn will become your wife, and you have all my good wishes for prosperity and happiness.”

I thanked her, but pointed out that the matrimonial project was, as yet, immature.

“How foolish you are, Ralph!” she said. “You know very well that you’d marry her to-morrow if you could.”

“Ah! if I could,” I repeated wistfully. “Unfortunately my position is not yet sufficiently well assured to justify my marrying. Wedded poverty is never a pleasing prospect.”

“But you have the world before you. I’ve heard Sir Bernard say so, times without number. He believes implicitly in you as a man who will rise to the head of your profession.”

I laughed dubiously, shaking my head.

“I only hope that his anticipations may be realized,” I said. “But I fear I’m no more brilliant than a hundred other men in the hospitals. It takes a smart man nowadays to boom himself into notoriety. As in literature and law, so in the medical profession, it isn’t the clever man who rises to the top of the tree. More often it is a second-rate man, who has private influence, and has gauged the exact worth of self-advertisement. This is an age of reputations quickly made, and just as rapidly lost. In the professional world a new man rises with every moon.”

“But that need not be so in your case,” she pointed out. “With Sir Bernard as your chief, you are surely in an assured position.”

Taking her into my confidence, I told her of my ideal of a snug country practice – one of those in which the assistant does the night-work and attends to the club people, while there is a circle of county people as patients. There are hundreds of such practices in England, where a doctor, although scarcely known outside his own district, is in a position which Harley Street, with all its turmoil of fashionable fads and fancies, envies as the elysium of what life should be. The village doctor of Little Perkington may be an ignorant old buffer; but his life, with its three days’ hunting a week, its constant invitations to shoot over the best preserves, and its free fishing whenever in the humour, is a thousand times preferable to the silk-hatted, frock-coated existence of the fashionable physician.

I had long ago talked it all over with Ethelwynn, and she entirely agreed with me. I had not the slightest desire to have a consulting-room of my own in Harley Street. All I longed for was a life in open air and rural tranquillity; a life far from the tinkle of the cab-bell and the milkman’s strident cry; a life of ease and bliss, with my well-beloved ever at my side. The unfortunate man compelled to live in London is deprived of half of God’s generous gifts.

“Though this unaccountable coldness has fallen between you,” Mary said, looking straight at me, “you surely cannot have doubted the strength of her affection?”

“But Mrs. Henniker’s insinuation puzzles me. Besides, her recent movements have been rather erratic, and almost seem to bear out the suggestion.”

“That woman is utterly unscrupulous!” she cried angrily. “Depend upon it that she has some deep motive in making that slanderous statement. On one occasion she almost caused a breach between myself and my poor husband. Had he not possessed the most perfect confidence in me, the consequences might have been most serious for both of us. The outcome of a mere word, uttered half in jest, it came near ruining my happiness for ever. I did not know her true character in those days.”

“I had no idea that she was a dangerous woman,” I remarked, rather surprised at this statement. Hitherto I had regarded her as quite a harmless person, who, by making a strenuous effort to obtain a footing in good society, often rendered herself ridiculous in the eyes of her friends.

“Her character!” she echoed fiercely. “She’s one of the most evil-tongued women in London. Here is an illustration. While posing as Ethelwynn’s friend, and entertaining her beneath her roof, she actually insinuates to you the probability of a secret lover! Is it fair? Is it the action of an honest, trustworthy woman?”

I was compelled to admit that it was not. Yet, was this action of her own, in coming to me in those circumstances, in any way more straightforward? Had she known that I was well aware of the secret existence of her husband, she would assuredly never have dared to speak in the manner she had. Indeed, as I sat there facing her, I could scarcely believe it possible that she could act the imposture so perfectly. Her manner was flawless; her self-possession marvellous.

But the motive of it all – what could it be? The problem had been a maddening one from first to last.

I longed to speak out my mind then and there; to tell her of what I knew, and of what I had witnessed with my own eyes. Yet such a course was useless. I was proceeding carefully, watching and noting everything, determined not to blunder.

Had you been in my place, my reader, what would you have done? Recollect, I had witnessed a scene on the river-bank that was absolutely without explanation, and which surpassed all human credence. I am a matter-of-fact man, not given to exaggerate or to recount incidents that have not occurred, but I confess openly and freely that since I had walked along that path I hourly debated within myself whether I was actually awake and in the full possession of my faculties, or whether I had dreamt the whole thing.

Yet it was no dream. Certain solid facts convinced me of its stern, astounding reality. The man upon whose body I had helped to make an autopsy was actually alive.

In reply to my questions my visitor told me that she was staying at Martin’s, in Cork Street – a small private hotel which the Mivarts had patronised for many years – and that on the following morning she intended returning again to Neneford.

Then, after she had again urged me to lose no time in seeing Ethelwynn, and had imposed upon me silence as to what had passed between us, I assisted her into a hansom, and she drove away, waving her hand in farewell.

The interview had been a curious one, and I could not in the least understand its import. Regarded in the light of the knowledge I had gained when down at Neneford, it was, of course, plain that both she and her “dead” husband were anxious to secure Ethelwynn’s silence, and believed they could effect this by inducing us to marry. The conspiracy was deeply-laid and ingenious, as indeed was the whole of the amazing plot. Yet, some how, when I reflected upon it on my return from the club, I could not help sitting till far into the night trying to solve the remarkable enigma.

A telegram from Ethelwynn had reached me at the Savage at nine o’clock, stating that she had received my letter, and was returning to town the day after to-morrow. She had, she said, replied to me by that night’s post.

I felt anxious to see her, to question her, and to try, if possible, to gather from her some fact which would lead me to discern a motive in the feigned death of Henry Courtenay. But I could only wait in patience for the explanation. Mary’s declaration that her sister possessed no other lover besides myself reassured me. I had not believed it of her from the first; yet it was passing strange that such an insinuation should have fallen from the lips of a woman who now posed as her dearest friend.

Next day, Sir Bernard came to town to see two unusual cases at the hospital, and afterwards drove me back with him to Harley Street, where he had an appointment with a German Princess, who had come to London to consult him as a specialist. As usual, he made his lunch off two ham sandwiches, which he had brought with him from Victoria Station refreshment-room and carried in a paper bag. I suggested that we should eat together at a restaurant; but the old man declined, declaring that if he ate more than his usual sandwiches for luncheon when in town he never had any appetite for dinner.

So I left him alone in his consulting-room, munching bread and ham, and sipping his wineglassful of dry sherry.

About half-past three, just before he returned to Brighton, I saw him again as usual to hear any instructions he wished to give, for sometimes he saw patients once, and then left them in my hands. He seemed wearied, and was sitting resting his brow upon his thin bony hands. During the day he certainly had been fully occupied, and I had noticed that of late he was unable to resist the strain as he once could.

“Aren’t you well?” I asked, when seated before him.

“Oh, yes,” he answered, with a sigh. “There’s not much the matter with me. I’m tired, I suppose, that’s all. The eternal chatter of those confounded women bores me to death. They can’t tell their symptoms without going into all the details of family history and domestic infelicity,” he snapped. “They think me doctor, lawyer, and parson rolled into one.”

I laughed at his criticism. What he said was, indeed, quite true. Women often grew confidential towards me, at my age; therefore I could quite realize how they laid bare all their troubles to him.

“Oh, by the way!” he said, as though suddenly recollecting. “Have you met your friend Ambler Jevons lately?”

“No,” I replied. “He’s been away for some weeks, I think. Why?”

“Because I saw him yesterday in King’s Road. He was driving in a fly, and had one eye bandaged up. Met with an accident, I should think.”

“An accident!” I exclaimed in consternation. “He wrote to me the other day, but did not mention it.”

“He’s been trying his hand at unravelling the mystery of poor Courtenay’s death, hasn’t he?” the old man asked.

“I believe so?”

“And failed – eh?”

“I don’t think his efforts have been crowned with very much success, although he has told me nothing,” I said.

In response the old man grunted in dissatisfaction. I knew how disgusted he had been at the bungling and utter failure of the police inquiries, for he was always declaring Scotland Yard seemed to be useless, save for the recovery of articles left in cabs.

He glanced at his watch, snatched up his silk hat, buttoned his coat, and, wishing me good-bye, went out to catch the Pullman train.

Next day about two o’clock I was in one of the wards at Guy’s, seeing the last of my patients, when a telegram was handed to me by one of the nurses.

I tore it open eagerly, expecting that it was from Ethelwynn, announcing the hour of her arrival at Paddington.

But the message upon which my eyes fell was so astounding, so appalling, and so tragic that my heart stood still.

The few words upon the flimsy paper increased the mystery to an even more bewildering degree than before!