4
Bertrand allowed himself to be sent to bed at midnight, but George and I took it in turns to watch by Beresford's side. We had a doctor in, but the danger was past before he arrived, and his only orders were that we must report any change. Until dawn we tried sleeping for an hour and watching for an hour, but, as an opal light came to warm the rafters on the west side of the room, George sacrificed his turn to sleep and joined me on the sofa.
We looked at each other for some moments without speaking, both equally tired, dishevelled, unshaven and perplexed.
"Well?" I said at length.
"Well?" he echoed. "By the way, I promised to report progress to Raney; and I never did. I don't see what we can say at present. We've got to clear this up before he comes down."
"What do you think?" I asked.
George hesitated.
"The fact of the fellow's coming here at all——" he began slowly.
I nodded.
"We must wait till we can question him direct," he went on evasively.
"But, if we're right, he mustn't know," I put in.
"Till everyone knows," sighed George.
Beresford stirred restlessly, and the sound of a moan silenced us.
"If—" George began again in a whisper. I nodded. "God above! if we hadn't managed to pull him off in time!"
I put my finger to my lips, as Beresford stirred again.
"He's waking."
We were sitting in a line with his head and outside his field of vision, unless he raised himself on his elbow, which at present he was incapable of doing. We saw his eyes open and close again, open and close again, the opening each time growing brisker than the faint closing, until he was strong enough to stare about him and take in two-thirds of the room. I saw wonder dawning in his face as he found himself unexpectedly in familiar surroundings; he carried his hand to his head in the effort to remember how he had got there; then his fingers mechanically slid down to his throat, and I watched him gingerly exploring certain purple marks. Abruptly his eyes closed for another long quiescence, but he was gaining strength and at the next opening he dragged himself unsteadily to a sitting posture, clapped both hands to his temples and slowly turned his head until he had brought the whole room under observation.
"Where's Sonia?" he demanded abruptly, looking at me with flickering eyelids.
"She's not here at the moment," I answered.
He stared uncomprehendingly until a pain at the bruised back of his head made him wince and despatch one hand to assess the danger.
"How long——" He winced again. "How long have I been here?"
"Since last night," I told him. "You had a fall."
He continued to stare at me without comprehension and then grew suddenly indignant.
"Had a fall?" he repeated. "I didn't have a fall. What d'you mean? It's all coming back to me now. I was dining—I don't know where I was dining, but afterwards I thought I'd come round and see Sonia.... Why did O'Rane attack me like that? Was he mad?"
George's foot pressed lightly against mine.
"What do you mean—'attack' you?" he asked with fine simulation of surprise.
"He attacked me," Beresford persisted doggedly. "He knocked me down." His eyes closed once more. "Where's Sonia?" he asked again.
"She's staying with friends," George answered. "I say, I shouldn't talk too much, if I were you. You're looking rather cheap, and I hear you've been pretty bad."
For the first time Beresford was able to twist his features into a malevolent grin.
"I'm putting on weight again now," he boasted. "You'd look cheap, if you'd gone through what I have."
"How long were you in prison?" I asked.
Beresford sighed and shook his head.
"I don't know. I was unconscious for some days at the end. They arrested me on the third, the trial was on—I forget...." He lowered himself till he was lying full length on the sofa.
"They arrested you on the fourth, you say," I began with a glance at George.
"The third. My birthday," he corrected me, caressing his bruised throat with one hand. "There was a ring at the bell, and I got out of bed and went to the door, expecting to find the postman. Instead of that, there was an inspector with a warrant. He asked whether I was Mr. Peter Beresford, read me the warrant. He wouldn't let me shave, I remember; I suppose he was afraid I might cut my throat; and I was only allowed to have a bath on condition that he was in the room. I don't know which was the more embarrassed...."
He paused to laugh feebly, and I withdrew to the window and checked his date by my engagement book. George raised his eyebrows to me and at my nod tiptoed to the door and made his way to O'Rane's room.
"What happened last night?" Beresford demanded, covering his eyes with the hand that had been feeling his throat and rubbing his bruised head with the other. "Was everyone drunk?"
"I can't quite explain now," I said.
Whether O'Rane had been to bed or not, he was washed and shaved, dressed and booted, when George went into his room at five o'clock. Beresford was reported out of danger, and after some hesitation George asked again to be given the fullest account of O'Rane's unexpected return two months before.
"I'll tell you my reason now," he said, as O'Rane's expression hardened. "I want to make certain—I'm advocatus diaboli,—I want your evidence that it was Beresford at all."
"Evidence? I heard him, she admitted it! Who else could it be? And he comes back here——"
"Steady on, Raney, this is no way to conduct a trial. I'm going to get Stornaway up here, if I can, and we're going into this very thoroughly."
Beresford was sleeping so tranquilly that I left him without compunction. Upstairs the court of enquiry had been joined by Bertrand in pyjamas, dressing-gown, and slippers; George was sitting on the bed with a blotter and writing-pad on his knee, O'Rane walked to and fro with the noiseless tread of a cat. We were all grey-faced and haggard in the diamond, five-o'clock-in-the-morning light. I found myself a chair, and the proceedings opened with a repetition of the story which Bertrand had given me as second-hand. It was more temperate and less dramatic, as O'Rane told it two months after the events; it was slightly fuller, but in no respect did it vary substantially from the earlier account.
"I'm not a lawyer." George said at the end, looking up from his notes, "whether you'd get a divorce on that, assuming you wanted one ..." he added quickly, as O'Rane's eyes narrowed. "We haven't finished yet, though. You say Sonia admitted it?"
O'Rane nodded and then seemed to repent his nod.
"She didn't deny it," he said to correct himself. "I say, you fellows don't want me to go into this part of it, do you? It's not very pleasant for me. I'll just tell you that I assumed it was Beresford——"
"Why did you assume it?" I interrupted.
"She was very intimate with him. She used to talk—I thought it was in joke, of course, a silly joke that I didn't like—she used to talk about going off and living with him, if we ever had a disagreement about anything. Besides, I'd heard him hopping out of here and down the stairs on one leg. I naturally assumed.... And she accepted it. I—I can't tell you what we said to each other, but it was never in doubt, it never has been in doubt till this moment."
George pursed up his mouth and shook his head reflectively.
"This is only telling us what the sergeant said," he observed. "However, let's get every shred of evidence before we let Beresford open."
He looked enquiringly at his uncle, who shrugged his shoulders a little impatiently.
"It's not evidence," Bertrand began. "I'm old-fashioned, I daresay I attach too much importance to trifles; I can only give you what I've seen and heard."
It was indeed not direct evidence, it was not even circumstantial evidence. Mrs. O'Rane had been very intimate with Beresford; when he was lying ill at "The Sanctuary," she would sit stroking his hand; they sometimes remained together until a very late hour, and she thought nothing of kissing him good-night. On his side Beresford made no secret of his infatuation.
"Neither made any secret of anything!" growled Bertrand, thumping his fist on his knee.... "I suppose it's the modern method.... I don't understand it. That's why I say my evidence is no use. If you get up and tell them they've no business to be kissing, they'll retort that it was all open and above-board, that I was present as often as not.... And it's true. I used to come in late from the House, I used to come in at all hours when I was on Special Constable duty; there they were, billing and cooing and not in the least embarrassed by me. You'd have said they rather liked an audience."
The unhappy O'Rane was wincing at every sneer or word of disapproval. Two months before he would have turned it off with a laugh, as everyone else did, and protested that it was Sonia's way and that we did not know Sonia.... But, if he could have been induced to speak frankly, he would probably have agreed with me that some of his wife's friends and a good deal of his wife's behaviour were meretricious.
"I'd better add my testimony, while we're about it," I said. The boy winced again, and I could see him bracing himself.
I told him how at his request I had called on Beresford to warn him against running his head any further into the trap which was being laid for him. I described his obvious anxiety to get rid of me, the embarrassment of our meeting, when Mrs. O'Rane came in, her light-hearted assurance that I should be really shocked, or something of the kind, if I knew how often she had visited her patient at such an hour. It was not pleasant work, but I spared O'Rane nothing that my memory retained.
At the end George crumpled his notes into a ball and rose from the bed with a yawn of mental and physical exhaustion.
"As I said, I'm not a lawyer," he observed. "If Raney were bringing a petition, there's a hundred-to-one chance in favour of his getting a decree; I suppose there's a six-to-four chance on circumstantial evidence that you could bring the charge of misconduct home to Beresford." He paused to frown in perplexity, unconscious that the word "misconduct" had cut O'Rane like a lash across the face. "If it weren't for last night," he muttered. "It's—almost incomprehensible. Unless he came to make a clean breast of it, to tell Raney to divorce her and be damned...."
O'Rane stopped short in his cat-like prowl and faced us.
"The only thing is to see Beresford," he said. "You'd better come with me. I can tell something from his voice, but of course I can't see him. Watch his mouth, don't look at his eyes; it's the mouth that gives a man away, when he's lying."
The library was stale with cigar-smoke after our long vigil. Beresford was asleep, but the noise of our feet roused him, and he sat up blinking at O'Rane, who was a pace before the rest of us.
"Why did you attack me last night?" he demanded the moment that we were in sight.
O'Rane came to a standstill with his hands in his pockets, swaying slightly from heel to toe.
"We'll go into that in a moment, if you don't mind," was the answer. "What was your motive in coming here?"
I had Beresford under vigilant scrutiny, and his surprise was real or uncommonly well assumed.
"To see Sonia, of course," he replied. "I didn't know you were at home. Do you usually try to murder people who come to see her?" he demanded with weak truculence. "I know, of course, that you neglect her and ill-treat her yourself."
O'Rane rocked contemplatively to and fro, nodding thoughtfully to himself.
"When did you last see my wife?" he asked suddenly.
"I can't tell you."
"You've got to tell me, Beresford."
"I'm afraid I can't. I spent six weeks in prison and I've had another fortnight getting convalescent. It was some time before that."
"You have got to tell me the day, the hour and the place."
Beresford lay back with his mouth obstinately shut.
"Come along!" O'Rane cried.
"I can't and I won't. It was some time shortly before I was arrested. If you want to find out any more, you can ask her."
I refreshed my memory with a glance at my pocket-book.
"You were arrested on the third of May, you told me," I said. "Going back three weeks, I can definitely trace one occasion on which you met Mrs. O'Rane——"
Beresford's pale face suddenly flushed.
"If you're going to drag in your foul-minded suspicions about that," he cried, "have the decency to wait till Sonia's here."
"I told you that Mrs. O'Rane was away," I reminded him. Then I took O'Rane by the arm. "I want to have a word with you."
I was too tired to labour upstairs again, and we could be by ourselves outside. There was a haze over the river, rising almost before my eyes, as the sun climbed higher. A succession of young factory girls hurried along the Embankment on their way to work; one or two early carts rumbled over the cobble-stones in the neighbouring streets, and a chain of three black barges glided noiselessly towards Westminster Bridge. All else was still. I caught sight of my dusty boots, the cigar-ash on my waistcoat and a pair of grimy hands,—the whole desecrating the clean clarity of the summer morning.
"Well?" said O'Rane.
I put my arm through his and walked towards the river.
"I'm prepared to bet that the last time Beresford saw your wife was when I spoiled their tête-à-tête in his rooms," I said. "He doesn't know I've told you already and he's in dread that I'm going to. Didn't you feel that? And it's not that he's afraid of you—I don't think he's physically afraid of anyone;—he doesn't want you to know that she was foolish enough to come to his rooms at such an hour."
O'Rane disengaged his arm and rested his elbows on the parapet and his chin on his hands.
"This was three weeks—before?" he asked.
"I don't believe he's met her since. I don't believe it was him."
He shook his head slowly.
"I couldn't see him, of course; I've told you I didn't get near enough to touch him, but I heard him going across the room and down the stairs on one leg. You aren't in a mood then to weigh your suspicions very judicially.... I taxed Sonia with it. My God! I can't go through it again, we were both of us out of our minds, I don't know what we said! But I assumed it was Beresford—I remember I kept on using his name. She never denied it. If it wasn't Beresford ...?"
"Let's first of all establish whether it was Beresford," I suggested.
He hesitated a moment longer and then pulled himself abruptly erect, took my arm and walked quickly back to the house. Bertrand and George, a pair of strangely disreputable figures, were dozing in arm-chairs; Beresford had his eyes open and fixed on us the moment we were inside the room.
"You wanted to know a few minutes ago why I attacked you," began O'Rane. "I'm going to tell you, but I should like to ask one question first. Are you aware that my wife is no longer here?"
"So Stornaway told me—twice," Beresford answered wearily.
"Do you know she's—left me?"
"I'm not surprised. I'm only surprised she ever came back. I don't know why she ever married you."
O'Rane paused to steady himself.
"I believed until recently that she had left me for you," he went on. "Now you can understand, perhaps, why I behaved as I did last night. I can't offer any apology worth having."
As he stopped speaking, he held out his hand almost timidly. Beresford stared at it contemptuously for a moment; then his cheeks flushed, and he took it.
"You can imagine I don't want this to go any further," said O'Rane in a matter-of-fact voice.
Beresford pulled him close to the couch.
"I—I don't think I'm there yet," he whispered. "Say it all over again, will you? Sonia's left you? She used to say she was going to, but that was only to tease you."
O'Rane's lips were quivering, and his voice trembled.
"I'm afraid it's all grim earnest," he said.
"She's left you? O'Rane, she couldn't! She loved you so much! I—I often thought you didn't treat her properly, you were frightfully unsympathetic sometimes, but there was nothing you could do to force her to this!"
Bertrand roused himself to control the excitement of Beresford's voice, which was beginning to react on O'Rane.
"Deal with realities, young man," he grunted. "The facts are as stated."
Beresford disregarded him and turned to O'Rane.
"But where is she?"
"We don't know."
"You don't know who she's with?" His face became suddenly more hopeful. "You've no proof that she's with anyone? She went away once before, remember."
A smothered sigh broke from O'Rane.
"I think I may say positively that she's with someone. She's not merely staying with friends. I'm afraid I thought it was you and I must beg you to forgive me."
He tried to smile and again held out his hand.
"You needn't have thought it was me, O'Rane," said Beresford quietly.
"No. But I only heard a lame man hopping away on one leg. And I was seeing red."
"But you could both of you trust me! If there'd been a moment's danger, I'd never have seen Sonia again. I'm not the only lame man in London. You might have picked on Grayle before me, if she hadn't hated him so much."
O'Rane covered his eyes with his hand.
"I thought of you both," he said. "When I heard the man going short on one leg, I felt certain that it must be one of you.... It's extraordinary how quickly you think at a time like that. I remember wondering whether I should be equal to tackling Grayle, if it were him.... Then I knew it couldn't be, because he'd insulted Sonia in some restaurant, and they'd had a row. Besides, he was in France at the time. And so I decided that it must be you. I'm sorry. You couldn't expect me to behave quite—dispassionately, could you? I'm only glad it has been cleared up. I'm afraid you'll have to stay with me again till we've patched up last night's damage. You can understand that for Sonia's sake this mustn't be talked about. When people want to know where she is, I—I usually say she's staying away and I—don't—quite know—when she's coming back...."