'Go,' said Hugo.
And they went.
And when they were gone he released the mechanism, and in the still solitude of the bedroom listened to the strange story of Francis Tudor, related in Francis Tudor's own voice. It occurred to him that the man must have been talking into a phonograph shortly before he died. He remembered the monotonous voice on that fatal night in August.
CHAPTER XIX
WHAT THE PHONOGRAPH SAID
In case I should die before I can complete my arrangements for the future (said the phonograph, reproducing the voice of Francis Tudor), I am making a brief statement of the whole case into this phonograph. I am exhausted with to-day's work, and I shall find it easier and much quicker to speak than to write; and I'm informed that I ought never to exert myself more than is necessary. Supposing I were to die within the next few days—and I have yet to go through the business of the funeral ceremonies!—circumstances might arise which might nullify part of my plan, unless a clear account of the affair should ultimately come into the hands of some person whom I could trust not to make a fool of himself—such as Polycarp, my solicitor, for instance.
Hence I relate the facts for a private record.
When I first met Camilla Payne she was shorthand clerk or private secretary, or whatever you call it, to Louis Ravengar. I saw her in his office. Curiously, she didn't make a tremendous impression on me at the moment. By the way, Polycarp, if it is indeed you who listen to this, you must excuse my way of relating the facts. I can only tell the tale in my own way. Besides meddling with finance, I've dabbled in pretty nearly all the arts, including the art of fiction, and I can't leave out the really interesting pieces of my narrative merely because you're a lawyer and hate needless details, sentimental or otherwise. But do you hate sentimental details? I don't know. Anyhow, this isn't a counsel's brief. What was I saying? Oh! She didn't make a tremendous impression on me at the moment, but I thought of her afterwards. I thought of her a good deal in a quiet way after I had left her—so much so that I made a special journey to Ravengar's a few days afterwards, when there was no real need for me to go, in order to have a look at her face again. I should explain that I was dabbling in finance just then, fairly successfully, and had transactions with Ravengar. He didn't know that I was the son of the man who had taken his stepmother away from his father, and I never told him I had changed my name, because the scandals attached to it by Ravengar and his father had made things very unpleasant for any bearer of that name. Still, Ravengar happened to be the man I wanted to deal with, and so I didn't let any stupid resentment on my part stop me from dealing with him. He was a scoundrel, but he played the game, I may incidentally mention. I venture to give this frank opinion about one of your most important clients, because he'll be dead before you read this, Polycarp. At least, I expect so.
Well, the day I called specially with a view to seeing her she was not there. She had left Ravengar's employment, and disappeared. Ravengar seemed to be rather perturbed about it. But perhaps he was perturbed about the suicide which had recently taken place in his office. I felt it—I mean I felt her disappearance. However, the memory of her face gave me something very charming to fall back on in moments of depression, and it was at this time something occurred sufficient to make me profoundly depressed for the remainder of my life. I was over in Paris, and seeing a good deal of Darcy, my friend the English doctor there. We were having a long yarn one night in his rooms over the Café Américain, and he said to me suddenly: 'Look here, old chap, I'm going to do something very unprofessional, because I fancy you'll thank me for it.' He said it just like that, bursting out all of a sudden. So I said, 'Well?' He said: 'It's very serious, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand I should be a blundering idiot to tell you.' I said to him: 'You've begun. Finish. And let's see whether I'll thank you.' He then told me that I'd got malignant disease of the heart, might die at any moment, and in any case couldn't live more than a few years. He said: 'I thought you'd like to know, so that you could arrange your life accordingly.' I thanked him. I was really most awfully obliged to him. It wanted some pluck to tell me. He said: 'I wouldn't admit to anyone else that I'd told you.' I never admired Darcy more than I did that night. His tone was so finely casual.