"As Monsieur pleases!" replied the beldame, and with a look of ghoulish delight she hurried off, doubtless to gloat over the corpses in the operating room.
Left alone, I leaned over the unconscious girl, and softly pressed my lips upon her beautiful, but clay cold brow. An angel could not have been the worse for that caress, for in my heart there was no thought save of pitiful and tender reverence.
A moment later I was traversing the passage, on my way to the staircase. Someone called to me as I passed the chamber of death, but I paid no heed, and I descended the steps as quickly as I could. The hall door stood before me. The latch yielded to my touch. Issuing forth I banged it shut, and ran out into the night as though I were pursued with furies. On alighting from my cab at the Marble Arch I glanced at my watch. To my astonishment it pointed barely to midnight. I thought it must have stopped, but the public-houses were still open.
A second cab took me to Bruton Street, whence having changed my attire, I drove to my master's house. As I entered I noted upon the floor at my feet a paste-board visiting card, which had evidently been slipped beneath the door by a disappointed caller. I picked it up and held it to the light, uttering, as I read, a long, low whistle of surprise. It was inscribed with three printed words: "Mr. Sefton Dagmar."
V
THE CAMPAIGN OPENS
That paste-board gave me a shock; it sent a chill, creepy feeling down my spine. It smelt dangerous. I read the name again: "Mr. Sefton Dagmar!" So, while my master was away journeying down to Newhaven to keep the appointment, I had fabricated, with his nephew; by a snarl of chance, his nephew had called at his house in London. Perhaps they had passed each other on the road.
I turned over the card and received a second shock. Across it was scrawled in pencil:—"Will call to-morrow morning at 10. Urgent."
"Curse the luck!" I muttered. "Uncle and nephew will meet and my master will learn that, in spite of his injunction not to leave the house, I disobeyed him. Subsequent discoveries will infallibly re-excite his first and easily smothered distrust of myself!" It seemed to be more than ever important that the secret of the identity of my master's impersonator should be preserved and that not the remotest breath of suspicion should attach to me. Otherwise it would be impossible to improve my fortunes without assuming the naked and hideous character of a blackmailer, the very idea of which was bitterly repugnant to my disposition. I hurried into Sir William Dagmar's library, lit the gas and caught up a time-table. It informed me that the first passenger train from Newhaven would arrive in London on the following morning at 10.15. I made a hasty calculation. It would take Sir William fifteen minutes to drive from the station, and the train might be a little late, trains often are. If Mr. Sefton Dagmar therefore might be relied on to be punctual, I should have at least half an hour wherein to smoothe out the snarl of fate arranged for my undoing. Much might be done in half an hour! Relieved by the reflection, I put out the light and went upstairs to bed. I was very tired, but I cannot truthfully declare that I slept. Whenever my eyes closed I saw horrid visions. Mr. Cavanagh lying on the floor with his skull shattered and blood oozing from the hole in his head; or a white faced man stretched upon a marble slab with a dreadful bloody cavity in his chest; sometimes a hairy chested ape similarly situated! God defend me from such another night! At dawn I arose from my bed of torture and lay for an hour in a plunge bath filled with hot water. A subsequent ice cold shower and a careful toilet restored to my appearance its pristine freshness, but there were many grey hairs about my temples which I had never seen before. I am not a lover of wine, but I dared not face the day without support, and I derived the stimulus I needed from a bottle of my master's champagne. Afterwards I felt better, but I also felt that I should never be able to smile light-heartedly again. The hours that followed I devoted to thoughts of Marion Le Mar. I admitted to myself that I loved her, and deep down in my heart I knew that for her sake and at her bidding I would sacrifice, if need arose, anything, even my life. It was a strange conviction that, to be entertained by a man like me—a man whose motto had ever been—"First person paramount." And yet I speedily recognized that it was as much a part of me as my hand, and might only as easily be combated or parted with. I had no hope of winning her, however, no hope at all, hardly even a wish. She seemed set as far beyond my reach as the stars, and her contemplation inspired me with a realization of my unworthiness and her divinity which was neither humiliating nor discomforting. "For," thought I, "the stars shine upon us all, the noble and the base alike, and who shall say that they discriminate between the ardent looks of worshippers?"