The Seven Secrets

CHAPTER XV.
I AM CALLED FOR CONSULTATION

The incident was certainly a puzzling one, for when, a few minutes later, my chief entered the study, his face, usually ashen grey, was flushed with excitement.

“I’ve been having trouble with a lunatic,” he explained, after greeting me, and inquiring why I had come down to consult him. “The woman’s people are anxious to place her under restraint; yet, for the present, there is not quite sufficient evidence of insanity to sign the certificate. Did you overhear her in the next room?” And, seating himself at his table, he looked at me through his glasses with those keen penetrating eyes that age had not dimmed or time dulled.

“I heard voices,” I admitted, “that was all.” The circumstance was a strange one, and those words were so ominous that I was determined not to reveal to him the conversation I had overheard.

“Like many other women patients suffering from brain troubles, she has taken a violent dislike to me, and believes that I’m the very devil in human form,” he said, smiling. “Fortunately, she had a friend with her, or she might have attacked me tooth and nail just now,” and leaning back in his chair he laughed at the idea – laughed so lightly that my suspicions were almost disarmed.

But not quite. Had you been in my place you would have had your curiosity and suspicion aroused to no mean degree – not only by the words uttered by the woman and Sir Bernard’s defiant reply, but also by the fact that the female voice sounded familiar.

A man knows the voice of his love above all. The voice that I had heard in that adjoining room was, to the best of my belief, that of Ethelwynn.

With a resolution to probe this mystery slowly, and without unseemly haste, I dropped the subject, and commenced to ask his advice regarding the complicated case of Lady Twickenham. The history of it, and the directions he gave can serve no purpose if written here; therefore suffice it to say that I remained to dinner and caught the nine o’clock express back to London.

While at dinner, a meal served in that severe style which characterised the austere old man’s daily life, I commenced to talk of the antics of insane persons and their extraordinary antipathies, but quickly discerned that he had neither intention nor desire to speak of them. He replied in those snappy monosyllables which told me plainly that the subject was distasteful to him, and when I bade him good-bye and drove to the station I was more puzzled than ever by his strange behaviour. He was eccentric, it was true; but I knew all his little odd ways, the eccentricity of genius, and could plainly see that his recent indisposition, which had prevented him from attending at Harley Street, was due to nerves rather than to a chill.

The trains from Brighton to London on Sunday evenings are always crowded, mainly by business people compelled to return to town in readiness for the toil of the coming week. Week-end trippers and day excursionists fill the compartments to overflowing, whether it be chilly spring or blazing summer, for Brighton is ever popular with the jaded Londoner who is enabled to “run down” without fatigue, and get a cheap health-giving sea-breeze for a few hours after the busy turmoil of the Metropolis.

On this Sunday night it was no exception. The first-class compartment was crowded, mostly be it said, by third-class passengers who had “tipped” the guard, and when we had started I noticed in the far corner opposite me a pale-faced young girl of about twenty or so, plainly dressed in shabby black. She was evidently a third-class passenger, and the guard, taking compassion upon her fragile form in the mad rush for seats, had put her into our carriage. She was not good-looking, indeed rather plain; her countenance wearing a sad, pre-occupied expression as she leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed out upon the lights of the town we were leaving.

I noticed that her chest rose and fell in a long-drawn sigh, and that she wore black cotton gloves, one finger of which was worn through. Yes, she was the picture of poor respectability.

The other passengers, two of whom were probably City clerks with their loves, regarded her with some surprise that she should be a first-class passenger, and there seemed an inclination on the part of the loudly-dressed females to regard her with contempt.

Presently, when we had left the sea and were speeding through the open country, she turned her sad face from the window and examined her fellow passengers one after the other until, of a sudden, her eyes met mine. In an instant she dropped them modestly and busied herself in the pages of the sixpenny reprint of a popular novel which she carried with her.

In that moment, however, I somehow entertained a belief that we had met before. Under what circumstances, or where, I could not recollect. The wistfulness of that white face, the slight hollowness of the cheeks, the unnaturally dark eyes, all seemed familiar to me; yet although for half an hour I strove to bring back to my mind where I had seen her, it was to no purpose. In all probability I had attended her at Guy’s. A doctor in a big London hospital sees so many faces that to recollect all is utterly impossible. Many a time I have been accosted and thanked by people whom I have had no recollection of ever having seen in my life. Men do not realise that they look very different when lying in bed with a fortnight’s growth of beard to when shaven and spruce, as is their ordinary habit: while women, when smartly dressed with fashionable hats and flimsy veils, are very different to when, in illness, they lie with hair unbound, faces pinched and eyes sunken, which is the only recollection their doctor has of them. The duchess and the servant girl present very similar figures when lying on a sick bed in a critical condition.

There was an element of romantic mystery in that fragile little figure huddled up in the far corner of the carriage. Once or twice, when she believed my gaze to be averted, she raised her eyes furtively as though to reassure herself of my identity, and in her restless manner I discerned a desire to speak with me. It was very probable that she was some poor girl of the lady’s maid or governess class to whom I had shown attention during an illness. We have so many in the female wards at Guy’s.

But during that journey a further and much more important matter recurred to me, eclipsing all thought of the sad-faced girl opposite. I recollected those words I had overheard, and felt convinced that the speaker had been none other than Ethelwynn herself.

Sometimes when a man’s mind is firmly fixed upon an object the events of his daily life curiously tend towards it. Have you never experienced that strange phenomenon for which medical science has never yet accounted, namely, the impression of form upon the imagination? You have one day suddenly thought of a person long absent. You have not seen him for years, when, without any apparent cause, you have recollected him. In the hurry and bustle of city life a thousand faces are passing you hourly. Like a flash one man passes, and you turn to look, for the countenance bears a striking resemblance to your absent friend. You are disappointed, for it is not the man. A second face appears in the human phantasmagoria of the street, and the similarity is almost startling. You are amazed that two persons should pass so very like your friend. Then, an hour after, a third face – actually that of your long-lost friend himself. All of us have experienced similar vagaries of coincidence. How can we account for them?

And so it was in my own case. So deeply had my mind been occupied by thoughts of my love that several times that day, in London and in Brighton, I had been startled by striking resemblances. Thus I wondered whether that voice I had heard was actually hers, or only a distorted hallucination. At any rate, the woman had expressed hatred of Sir Bernard just as Ethelwynn had done, and further, the old man had openly defied her, with a harsh laugh, which showed confidence in himself and an utter disregard for any statement she might make.

At Victoria the pale-faced girl descended quickly, and, swallowed in a moment in the crowd on the platform, I saw her no more.

She had, before descending, given me a final glance, and I fancied that a faint smile of recognition played about her lips. But in the uncertain light of a railway carriage the shadows are heavy, and I could not see sufficiently distinctly to warrant my returning her salute. So the wan little figure, so full of romantic mystery, went forth again into oblivion.

I was going my round at Guy’s on the following morning when a telegram was put into my hand. It was from Ethelwynn’s mother – Mrs. Mivart, at Neneford – asking me to go down there without delay, but giving no reason for the urgency. I had always been a favourite with the old lady, and to obey was, of course, imperative – even though I were compelled to ask Bartlett, one of my colleagues, to look after Sir Bernard’s private practice in my absence.

Neneford Manor was an ancient, rambling old Queen Anne place, about nine miles from Peterborough on the high road to Leicester. Standing in the midst of the richest grass country in England, with its grounds sloping to the brimming river that wound through meadows which in May were a blaze of golden buttercups, it was a typical English home, with quaint old gables, high chimney stacks and old-world garden with yew hedges trimmed fantastically as in the days of wigs and patches. I had snatched a week-end several times to be old Mrs. Mivart’s guest; therefore I knew the picturesque old place well, and had been entranced by its many charms.

Soon after five o’clock that afternoon I descended from the train at the roadside station, and, mounting into the dog-cart, was driven across the hill to the Manor. In the hall the sweet-faced, silver-haired old lady, in her neat black and white cap greeted me, holding both my hands and pressing them for a moment, apparently unable to utter a word. I had expected to find her unwell; but, on the contrary, she seemed quite as active as usual, notwithstanding the senile decay which I knew had already laid its hand heavily upon her.

“You are so good to come to me, Doctor. How can I sufficiently thank you?” she managed to exclaim at last, leading me into the drawing-room, a long old-fashioned apartment with low ceiling supported by black oak beams, and quaint diamond-paned windows at each end.

“Well?” I inquired, when she had seated herself, and, with the evening light upon her face, I saw how blanched and anxious she was.

“I want to consult you, Doctor, upon a serious and confidential matter,” she began, leaning forward, her thin white hands clasped in her lap. “We have not met since the terrible blow fell upon us – the death of poor Mary’s husband.”

“It must have been a great blow to you,” I said sympathetically, for I liked the old lady, and realised how deeply she had suffered.

“Yes, but to poor Mary most of all,” she said. “They were so happy together; and she was so devoted to him.”

This was scarcely the truth; but mothers are often deceived as to their daughters’ domestic felicity. A wife is always prone to hide her sorrows from her parents as far as possible. Therefore the old lady had no doubt been the victim of natural deception.

“Yes,” I agreed; “it was a tragic and terrible thing. The mystery is quite unsolved.”

“To me, the police are worse than useless,” she said, in her slow, weak voice; “they don’t seem to have exerted themselves in the least after that utterly useless inquest, with its futile verdict. As far as I can gather, not one single point has been cleared up.”

“No,” I said; “not one.”

“And my poor Mary!” exclaimed old Mrs. Mivart; “she is beside herself with grief. Time seems to increase her melancholy, instead of bringing forgetfulness, as I hoped it would.”

“Where is Mrs. Courtenay?” I asked.

“Here. She’s been back with me for nearly a month. It was to see her, speak with her, and give me an opinion that I asked you to come down.”

“Is she unwell?”

“I really don’t know what ails her. She talks of her husband incessantly, calls him by name, and sometimes behaves so strangely that I have once or twice been much alarmed.”

Her statement startled me. I had no idea that the young widow had taken the old gentleman’s death so much to heart. As far as I had been able to judge, it seemed very much as though she had every desire to regain her freedom from a matrimonial bond that galled her. That she was grief-stricken over his death showed that I had entirely misjudged her character.

“Is she at home now?” I asked.

“Yes, in her own sitting-room – the room we used as a schoolroom when the girls were at home. Sometimes she mopes there all day, only speaking at meals. At others, she takes her dressing-bag and goes away for two or three days – just as the fancy takes her. She absolutely declines to have a maid.”

“You mean that she’s just a little – well, eccentric,” I remarked seriously.

“Yes, Doctor,” answered the old lady, in a strange voice quite unusual to her, and fixing her eyes upon me. “To tell the truth I fear her mind is slowly giving way.”

I remained silent, thinking deeply; and as I did not reply, she added:

“You will meet her at dinner. I shall not let her know you are here. Then you can judge for yourself.”

The situation was becoming more complicated. Since the conclusion of the inquest I had seen nothing of the widow. She had stayed several days with Ethelwynn at the Hennikers’, then had visited her aunt near Bath. That was all I knew of her movements, for, truth to tell, I held her in some contempt for her giddy pleasure-seeking during her husband’s illness. Surely a woman who had a single spark of affection for the man she had married could not go out each night to theatres and supper parties, leaving him to the care of his man and a nurse. That one fact alone proved that her professions of love had been hollow and false.

While the twilight fell I sat in that long, sombre old room that breathed an air of a century past, chatting with old Mrs. Mivart, and learning from her full particulars of Mary’s eccentricities. My hostess told me of the proving of the will, which left the Devonshire estate to her daughter, and of the slow action of the executors. The young widow’s actions, as described to me, were certainly strange, and made me strongly suspect that she was not quite responsible for them. That Mary’s remorse was overwhelming was plain; and that fact aroused within my mind a very strong suspicion of a circumstance I had not before contemplated, namely, that during the life of her husband there had been a younger male attraction. The acuteness of her grief seemed proof of this. And yet, if argued logically, the existence of a secret lover should cause her to congratulate herself upon her liberty.

The whole situation was an absolute enigma.

CHAPTER XVI.
REVEALS AN ASTOUNDING FACT

Dinner was announced, and I took Mrs. Mivart into the room on the opposite side of the big old-fashioned hall, a long, low-ceilinged apartment the size of the drawing-room, and hung with some fine old family portraits and miniatures. Old Squire Mivart had been an enthusiastic collector of antique china, and the specimens of old Montelupo and Urbino hanging upon the walls were remarkable as being the finest in any private collection in this country. Many were the visits he had made to Italy to acquire those queer-looking old mediæval plates, with their crude colouring and rude, inartistic drawings, and certainly he was an acknowledged expert in antique porcelain.

The big red-shaded lamp in the centre of the table shed a soft light upon the snowy cloth, the flowers and the glittering silver; and as my hostess took her seat she sighed slightly, and for the first time asked of Ethelwynn.

“I haven’t seen her for a week,” I was compelled to admit. “Patients have been so numerous that I haven’t had time to go out to see her, except at hours when calling at a friend’s house was out of the question.”

“Do you like the Hennikers?” her mother inquired, raising her eyes inquiringly to mine.

“Yes, I’ve found them very agreeable and pleasant.”

“H’m,” the old lady ejaculated dubiously. “Well, I don’t. I met Mrs. Henniker once, and I must say that I did not care for her in the least. Ethelwynn is very fond of her, but to my mind she’s fast, and not at all a suitable companion for a girl of my daughter’s disposition. It may be that I have an old woman’s prejudices, living as I do in the country always, but somehow I can never bring myself to like her.”

Mrs. Mivart, like the majority of elderly widows who have given up the annual visit to London in the season, was a trifle behind the times. More charming an old lady could not be, but, in common with all who vegetate in the depths of rural England, she was just a trifle narrow-minded. In religion, she found fault constantly with the village parson, who, she declared, was guilty of ritualistic practices, and on the subject of her daughters she bemoaned the latter-day emancipation of women, which allowed them to go hither and thither at their own free will. Like all such mothers, she considered wealth a necessary adjunct to happiness, and it had been with her heartiest approval that Mary had married the unfortunate Courtenay, notwithstanding the difference between the ages of bride and bridegroom. In every particular the old lady was a typical specimen of the squire’s widow, as found in rural England to-day.

Scarcely had we seated ourselves and I had replied to her question when the door opened and a slim figure in deep black entered and mechanically took the empty chair. She crossed the room, looking straight before her, and did not notice my presence until she had seated herself face to face with me.

Of a sudden her thin wan face lit up with a smile of recognition, and she cried:

“Why, Doctor! Wherever did you come from? No one told me you were here,” and across the table she stretched out her hand in greeting.

“I thought you were reposing after your long walk this morning, dear; so I did not disturb you,” her mother explained.

But, heedless of the explanation, she continued putting to me questions as to when I had left town, and the reason of my visit there. To the latter I returned an evasive answer, declaring that I had run down because I had heard that her mother was not altogether well.

“Yes, that’s true,” she said. “Poor mother has been very queer of late. She seems so distracted, and worries quite unnecessarily over me. I wish you’d give her advice. Her state causes me considerable anxiety.”

“Very well,” I said, feigning to laugh, “I must diagnose the ailment and see what can be done.”

The soup had been served, and as I carried my spoon to my mouth I examined her furtively. My hostess had excused me from dressing, but her daughter, neat in her widow’s collar and cuffs, sat prim and upright, her eyes now and then raised to mine in undisguised inquisitiveness.

She was a trifle paler than heretofore, but her pallor was probably rendered the more noticeable by the dead black she wore. Her hands seemed thin, and her fingers toyed nervously with her spoon in a manner that betrayed concealed agitation. Outwardly, however, I detected no extraordinary signs of either grief or anxiety. She spoke calmly, it was true, in the tone of one upon whom a great calamity had fallen, but that was only natural. I did not expect to find her bright, laughing, and light-hearted, like her old self in Richmond Road.

As dinner proceeded I began to believe that, with a fond mother’s solicitude for her daughter’s welfare, Mrs. Mivart had slightly exaggerated Mary’s symptoms. They certainly were not those of a woman plunged in inconsolable grief, for she was neither mopish nor artificially gay. As far as I could detect, not even a single sigh escaped her.

She inquired of Ethelwynn and of the Hennikers, remarking that she had seen nothing of them for over three weeks; and then, when the servants had left the room, she placed her elbows upon the table, at the risk of a breach of good manners, and resting her chin upon her hands, looked me full in the face, saying:

“Now, tell me the truth, Doctor. What has been discovered regarding my poor husband’s death? Have the police obtained any clue to the assassin?”

“None – none whatever, I regret to say,” was my response.

“They are useless – worse than useless!” she burst forth angrily; “they blundered from the very first.”

“That’s entirely my own opinion, dear,” her mother said. “Our police system nowadays is a mere farce. The foreigners are far ahead of us, even in the detection of crime. Surely the mystery of your poor husband’s death might have been solved, if they had worked assiduously.”

“I believe that everything that could be done has been done,” I remarked. “The case was placed in the hands of two of the smartest and most experienced men at Scotland Yard, with personal instructions from the Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department to leave no stone unturned in order to arrive at a successful issue.”

“And what has been done?” asked the young widow, in a tone of discontent; “why, absolutely nothing! There has, I suppose, been a pretence at trying to solve the mystery; but, finding it too difficult, they have given it up, and turned their attention to some other crime more open and plain-sailing. I’ve no faith in the police whatever. It’s scandalous!”

I smiled; then said:

“My friend, Ambler Jevons – you know him, for he dined at Richmond Road one evening – has been most active in the affair.”

“But he’s not a detective. How can he expect to triumph where the police fail?”

“He often does,” I declared. “His methods are different from the hard-and-fast rules followed by the police. He commences at whatever point presents itself, and laboriously works backwards with a patience that is absolutely extraordinary. He has unearthed a dozen crimes where Scotland Yard has failed.”

“And is he engaged upon my poor husband’s case?” asked Mary, suddenly interested.

“Yes.”

“For what reason?”

“Well – because he is one of those for whom a mystery of crime has a fascinating attraction.”

“But he must have some motive in devoting time and patience to a matter which does not concern him in the least,” Mrs. Mivart remarked.

“Whatever is the motive, I can assure you that it is an entirely disinterested one,” I said.

“But what has he discovered? Tell me,” Mary urged.

“I am quite in ignorance,” I said. “We are most intimate friends, but when engaged on such investigations he tells me nothing of their result until they are complete. All I know is that so active is he at this moment that I seldom see him. He is often tied to his office in the City, but has, I believe, recently been on a flying visit abroad for two or three days.”

“Abroad!” she echoed. “Where?”

“I don’t know. I met a mutual friend in the Strand yesterday, and he told me that he had returned yesterday.”

“Has he been abroad in connection with his inquiries, do you think?” Mrs. Mivart inquired.

“I really don’t know. Probably he has. When he takes up a case he goes into it with a greater thoroughness than any detective living.”

“Yes,” Mary remarked, “I recollect, now, the stories you used to tell us regarding him – of his exciting adventures – of his patient tracking of the guilty ones, and of his marvellous ingenuity in laying traps to get them to betray themselves. I recollect quite well that evening he came to Richmond Road with you. He was a most interesting man.”

“Let us hope he will be more successful than the police,” I said.

“Yes, Doctor,” she remarked, sighing for the first time. “I hope he will – for the mystery of it all drives me to distraction.” Then placing both hands to her brow, she added, “Ah! if we could only discover the truth – the real truth!”

“Have patience,” I urged. “A complicated mystery such as it is cannot be cleared up without long and careful inquiry.”

“But in the months that have gone by surely the police should have at least made some discovery?” she said, in a voice of complaint; “yet they have not the slightest clue.”

“We can only wait,” I said. “Personally, I have confidence in Jevons. If there is a clue to be obtained, depend upon it he will scent it out.”

I did not tell them of my misgivings, nor did I explain how Ambler, having found himself utterly baffled, had told me of his intention to relinquish further effort. The flying trip abroad might be in connection with the case, but I felt confident that it was not. He knew, as well as I did, that the truth was to be found in England.

Again we spoke of Ethelwynn; and from Mary’s references to her sister I gathered that a slight coolness had fallen between them. She did not, somehow, speak of her in the same terms of affection as formerly. It might be that she shared her mother’s prejudices, and did not approve of her taking up her abode with the Hennikers. Be it how it might, there were palpable signs of strained relations.

Could it be possible, I wondered, that Mary had learnt of her sister’s secret engagement to her husband?

I looked full at her as that thought flashed through my mind. Yes, she presented a picture of sweet and interesting widowhood. In her voice, as in her countenance, was just that slight touch of grief which told me plainly that she was a heart-broken, remorseful woman – a woman, like many another, who knew not the value of a tender, honest and indulgent husband until he had been snatched from her. Mother and daughter, both widows, were a truly sad and sympathetic pair.

As we spoke I watched her eyes, noted her every movement attentively, but failed utterly to discern any suggestion of what her mother had remarked.

Once, at mention of her dead husband, she had of a sudden exclaimed in a low voice, full of genuine emotion:

“Ah, yes. He was so kind, so good always. I cannot believe that he will never come back,” and she burst into tears, which her mother, with a word of apology to me, quietly soothed away.

When we arose I accompanied them to the drawing-room; but without any music, and with Mary’s sad, half-tragic countenance before us, the evening was by no means a merry one; therefore I was glad when, in pursuance of the country habit of retiring early, the maid brought my candle and showed me to my room.

It was not yet ten o’clock, and feeling in no mood for sleep, I took from my bag the novel I had been reading on my journey and, throwing myself into an armchair, first gave myself up to deep reflection over a pipe, and afterwards commenced to read.

The chiming of the church clock down in the village aroused me, causing me to glance at my watch. It was midnight. I rose, and going to the window, pulled aside the blind, and looked out upon the rural view lying calm and mysterious beneath the brilliant moonlight.

How different was that peaceful aspect to the one to which I was, alas! accustomed – that long blank wall in the Marylebone Road. There the cab bells tinkled all night, market wagons rumbled through till dawn, and the moonbeams revealed drunken revellers after “closing time.”

A strong desire seized me to go forth and enjoy the splendid night. Such a treat of peace and solitude was seldom afforded me, stifled as I was by the disinfectants in hospital wards and the variety of perfumes and pastilles in the rooms of wealthy patients. Truly the life of a London doctor is the most monotonous and laborious of any of the learned professions, and little wonder is it that when the jaded medico finds himself in the country or by the sea he seldom fails to take his fill of fresh air.

At first a difficulty presented itself in letting myself out unheard; but I recollected that in the new wing of the house, in which I had been placed, there were no other bedrooms, therefore with a little care I might descend undetected. So taking my hat and stick I opened the door, stole noiselessly down the stairs, and in a few minutes had made an adventurous exit by a window – fearing the grating bolts of the door – and was soon strolling across the grounds by the private path, which I knew led through the churchyard and afterwards down to the river-bank.

With Ethelwynn I had walked across the meadows by that path on several occasions, and in the dead silence of the brilliant night vivid recollections of a warm summer’s evening long past came back to me – sweet remembrances of days when we were childishly happy in each other’s love.

Nothing broke the quiet save the shrill cry of some night bird down by the river, and the low roar of the distant weir. The sky was cloudless, and the moon so bright that I could have read a newspaper. I strolled on slowly, breathing the refreshing air, and thinking deeply over the complications of the situation. In the final hour I had spent in the drawing-room I had certainly detected in the young widow a slight eccentricity of manner, not at all accentuated, but yet sufficient to show me that she had been strenuously concealing her grief during my presence there.

Having swung myself over the stile I passed round the village churchyard, where the moss-grown gravestones stood grim and ghostly in the white light, and out across the meadows down to where the waters of the Nene, rippling on, were touched with silver. The river-path was wide, running by the winding bank away to the fen-lands and beyond. As I gained the river’s edge and walked beneath the willows I heard now and then a sharp, swift rustling in the sedges as some water-rat or otter, disturbed by my presence, slipped away into hiding. The rural peace of that brilliant night attracted me, and finding a hurdle I seated myself upon it, and taking out my pipe enjoyed a smoke.

Ever since my student days I had longed for a country life. The pleasures of the world of London had no attraction for me, my ideal being a snug country practice with Ethelwynn as my wife. But alas! my idol had been shattered, like that of many a better man.