CHAPTER IV.—CONCLUSION.
Amy did not greatly enjoy herself at Brighton. Her father was kind to her, but he was not the jovial, light-hearted companion whom she remembered of old. He was dull, heavy, and irritable, and was constantly engrossed in thought, muttering anxiously to himself. He did not sleep well, for she heard him walking about his room in the night; and he grew more haggard and weary-looking every day. He was clearly not benefiting by the sea-air. He spoke but little; and on the question of her relations with her husband, he, much to her surprise and disgust, declined to speak at all. When she once began to babble of her wrongs, he turned upon her with positive anger; told her that he had come there for rest, not to be worried; that it would no doubt all be arranged comfortably on their return; and that, till then, she was to preserve silence on the subject. All this made Mrs Ferrard extremely dignified and sulky; but being a young person of no great depth, she simply concluded that Pa had a fit of indigestion, and contrived to amuse herself fairly well with shopping, drives, and promenades, in the company of certain friends of her maiden days who chanced to be at Brighton, and who were by no means averse to the society of a lady of title. At all events, the life was a pleasant contrast to that which the Honourable Mrs Ferrard had enjoyed of late in the company of her lord and master.
The truth was that Mr Cross was very ill both in body and mind. He had, though he knew it not, been ailing ever since his daughter’s flight; and the perplexity and distress he was now enduring were telling upon him fearfully. He had quite lost faith in the success of his plans; calmer reflection told him that it would be vain to hope that the leopard could change his spots in the manner he had proposed. Ferrard’s blank silence at the breakfast-table, and the fact that no letter had been received from him since, bore out this opinion.
But what caused him greater trouble and alarm than anything else was the manner in which the idea of Ferrard’s death had taken hold upon his mind, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, until it had assumed the pitiless tyranny of a fixed idea. Night and day it was all before him—the uselessness of the man’s existence, the evils which would cease with it, the chances for and against its duration, the various causes which might perhaps terminate it. And through all, a fierce and devouring longing for its termination, such as he dared not now acknowledge to himself. He was maddened at the difficulties in his way, horrified at the tendency of his thoughts; and there were times when he felt that the safest and easiest thing to do would be to row himself out a mile or two from the beach and hide his troubles and temptations for ever under the careless waves.
They had only been at Brighton five days, when Mr Cross, to his daughter’s surprise and chagrin, announced his intention of returning to town at once. Amy expostulated, but in vain; he declared that he was sick of the place; that it was doing him no good—which was quite true; that he must get back to work and occupy his mind. Finding opposition useless, Mrs Ferrard made her preparations with the best grace she might, and they took the noon-train to London the same day.
On arrival, they drove first to the lodgings in Duke Street, and the auctioneer entered the house with his daughter. To their surprise, they found that Ferrard was not only absent, but had not been seen or heard of since the day of his wife’s departure, when he had remained indoors until ten o’clock at night, and had then gone out; leaving, according to his wont, no word as to when he should return. The people of the house had after a time concluded that he also must be at Brighton. Amy, being used to these absences, though never before of such duration, was less surprised than her father, who was not only astonished, but greatly cast down at what seemed to be an additional evidence of Ferrard’s rejection of his plans, and determination to continue the old courses.
‘There, it’s no use talking,’ he said at last. ‘He’ll come home some time, I suppose; and when he does, send him on to me at once, d’ye hear, Amy? Tell him—ay, tell him that I’ve altered my mind—that I have proposals to make to him which will suit him much better than the last. I must try and hit on something else. And if he’s not back to-morrow, come over and let me know in the evening, will you? There, good-bye; and keep up your spirits, my pet—father’ll see you all right, don’t you fear.’
He kissed her and departed. He must get home, and quietly think matters over. Suppose the fellow had bolted for good and all? What was to be done in that event? It required careful consideration, and should have it at once.
He called at the bank on the way home, to get his keys. The parcel, tied with string and sealed with his own seal, was delivered to him just as he had left it. He drove to his house, where he found several letters awaiting him. Like a good man of business, he set to work to dispose of all lighter matters, before addressing himself to the consideration of the weightier. He opened and glanced at the letters; he took up the parcel, once more examined the seal, tore off the paper, unlocked the wallet, and spread the keys on the table. All right. Was it? Surely there was something wrong?
What could it be?
He puzzled over the keys again and again, but without result. He seemed to be constantly on the verge of detecting the deficiency, whatever it was; but the clearness and readiness of his thinking powers had of late in great measure departed, and it continued to escape him. At last he thought that he must be the victim of a nervous delusion, and with an effort, turned his thoughts to other matters. He would first, according to custom, visit his diamonds; then he would answer such of the letters as required a reply; then he would be at leisure to reflect upon the next step to be taken with regard to his son-in-law. And once more the dominant wish rose in his mind, filling it like a poisonous mist.
He took his lantern and the keys, and went to the strong-room, which he entered, closing the doors as usual carefully behind him. What was it, as he turned towards the safe, that sent him staggering back to the wall, his eyes starting from his head, his hair crisping with horror? The drawer full of papers lay on the table. The iron semicircular handle projected from the orifice. It was in an upright position—it had not been turned to the horizontal one. And the safe was closed.
He saw the whole sequence of events in one agonising second of time, as drowning men are said to review instantaneously the whole course of their past lives. It was the absence of the duplicate keys which had puzzled him in the study; and their absence at once explained the absence of Ferrard. He now remembered how, while at breakfast, just before leaving the house, he had placed all his keys, as he had then supposed, into his wallet; how he had then and there put the locked wallet into his pocket, and had driven straight to the bank, where, without opening it, he had made it into a parcel, sealed it with his signet, and handed it to the manager, taking his receipt. The parcel had been given back to him exactly as he had left it—of that he had assured himself. Only one thing could have happened. The duplicates had never been in the wallet at all. Unused to their presence, he had doubtless left them behind; and the wretched man whom he had so insanely trusted had stolen them, had the same night entered the strong-room and the safe, and——
What would he have to face, when that massy door should glide away? The dingy face of the picture, guardian of the deadly trap and its awful secret, seemed to sneer and gibe at him, daring him to seek an answer to the question.
Stay! There was one hope. He might have carried away the keys in his hand or his pockets, and dropped them in the street, or left them on the bank counter. If this were so, some common marauder might have met with his deserts—or, if he had recently entered, might even now be waiting to make a dash for liberty!
He approached the door, and listened. All was silent. He called in a quavering voice, which rang weirdly in the vaulted roof, ‘Who is there?’ No reply—no movement.
He sat down in the one chair, and tried to remember whether on that fatal night he had withheld from his guest the ultimate secret, of the necessity for half-turning the handle before withdrawing it. In vain. All was confused and dream-like. Either he had disclosed the secret, or he had not. If he had not——
He dragged the table desperately to the corner of the room and mounted upon it. Pushing at one end a stone seemingly as firmly fixed as its fellows, it revolved on a pivot. Thrusting his hand through the gap, he withdrew the second handle, and the safe-door glided back. One look was enough. The next moment, he was groping blindly for the door—for escape from the horror which was behind him.
His wish was terribly fulfilled! His daughter was a widow!
He crept into the sunlit street, with difficulty closing the heavy door. White and ghastly, he leaned one hand on the wall as he went, and gasped for breath. Two or three passers-by stopped and looked after him, expecting to see him fall. He did not do so, but gained the house, let himself in, staggered into the dining-room, dropped into a chair, and, for a space, knew no more.
When he regained his senses, he contrived to get to the cellaret and to swallow a heavy dose of brandy. This restored him sufficiently to enable him to think over his discovery and to settle his plan of action. He rang the bell.
‘Something dreadful has happened,’ he said to the parlour-maid, who had uttered an exclamation on seeing him. ‘No, no; I’m not ill—only a bit upset. Get me a pen and ink and paper, and send John for a cab. I want him to take a letter.’
He wrote a line or two with difficulty, and addressed it to the Earl of Englethorpe. Having despatched his messenger, he remained in a kind of stupor until wheels were heard at the door and the earl was announced. Their greeting was of the briefest kind, though they remained together for a considerable time. Then they repaired to the strong-room. The auctioneer on his return was more composed than he had hitherto been, but his visitor was terribly agitated. Again they were closeted together. Various deputations from the kitchen, which by this time was in a ferment of the most unendurable curiosity, failed, in spite of enterprising approaches to the keyhole, to hear more than a low murmuring within. At length the earl departed; and then the dreadful event which had happened became known to the amazed and awe-stricken household. Mr Cross had, it was said, met Captain Ferrard just outside the door, and had been accompanied by him to the strong-room, where he had fallen down—in a fit, as the auctioneer had at first supposed; stone-dead, as he had perceived immediately afterwards. Without delay, Mr Cross had gone for a doctor, who had stated that death had been instantaneous—cause, apoplexy; and would in due course formally certify to that effect.
The body was put into a coffin within two hours, and removed to the Englethorpe town-house. The father of the deceased was the only mourner at the very plain and quiet funeral which took place soon after. There was no inquest, for the necessary medical certificate was actually obtained; how obtained, it is no concern of ours to relate. Money is powerful; in every profession and calling, there are those with whom it is all-powerful.
There was a little talk at first over James Ferrard’s death. People were found to say that there was something queer about the matter, and to comment on the fact that nothing had been seen of the dead man for some days before his death. But it was speedily known that he was a defaulter on the turf, which fully accounted for his disappearance from his usual haunts. Nothing, therefore, came of these suspicions, though others of a different kind were rife enough, if rather vague. The earl sternly forbade all reference to the subject, even in his own household; it was understood that something awkward was behind, which for family reasons was to be hushed up. Hushed up it accordingly was; and in a fortnight’s time James Ferrard, except to his creditors, was as though he had never been.
All this was, of course, distinctly wrong, and contrary to public policy. Yet a coroner’s jury could only have dragged to light matters the disclosure of which would have inflicted cruel shame and disgrace upon a noble and hitherto stainless house. The blame of the death could have attached to no one save the dead man himself; least of all to Mr Cross. His evidence would have been that he had shown the diamonds and explained the mechanism, but that he could not remember, owing to his state at the time, whether he had called attention to the secret connected with the handle. It would have been clear, either that he had not done so, or that Ferrard had forgotten it. Beyond this, there would have been absolutely nothing to connect him with the matter. He was in a different part of the kingdom during the whole period of the occurrence, as would have been conclusively proved. ‘Accidental death’ would have been the only possible verdict; and it would have been as clear as daylight that the felonious intention of the deceased had brought with it its own terrible punishment.
The auctioneer followed his son-in-law to the grave in little more than a year, a broken-hearted man. It was said that he never got over the shock received on the morning of his return from Brighton. This was undoubtedly the truth; yet, as we know, it was not all the truth. Though without his knowledge or design, yet in accordance with his morbid wish, and indirectly by his act, had Ferrard died a miserable death; and the auctioneer regarded himself as a murderer, though unpunishable by the laws of this world. An already enfeebled body was unable to resist the effect of the mental torture of ceaseless self-reprobation, and the end was not long in coming.
But he lived to see Amy married to such a husband as he would have chosen for her in the old happy days, and to bestow upon her by will the bulk of his fortune. This did not, however, include the diamonds or the proceeds of their sale, which he distributed before his death among the London hospitals. Amy and her husband lived in the house in the square; but the safe was sold, its ingenious mechanical arrangements destroyed, and the fatal vault and its ghastly associations bricked up together.
With much diminished hopes, owing to the death of the acceptor, the holders of the forged bill made their first cautious advances, in the hope that consideration for the honour of the family might still induce the relations of the deceased to pay a good price for silence. To their surprise, their exorbitant demands were paid in full without cavil or hesitation, and the acceptance redeemed. Where the money came from was a mystery; but it was observed that the earl always thenceforth spoke of the auctioneer as a most respectable and worthy man, to whom he was under the greatest obligations.