They continued on their way, arriving at the house in a few minutes. There they found Mr. Proudleigh relating his wonderful experiences at the scene of the fire. He and Catherine had been separated in the crowd, and he related how the police had tried to induce him to assist in extinguishing the fire, and with what arguments he had effectually prevented them from laying sacrilegious hands upon his venerable person. A story which showed that the old man had in him the makings of an ingenious newspaper reporter, and which was listened to by his sister with every manifestation of profound disbelief.
CHAPTER V
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
Mr. Thomas Wooley had never been credited with strong moral convictions by anyone who knew him. Among his mild boasts, uttered in the company of congenial companions, certain alleged breaches by him of the seventh commandment had frequently flourished: to gain a reputation for gallantry he had not scrupled to libel himself. But on that night when he saw Susan and Jones together in the streets of Colon the sacredness of the marriage tie appealed to him strongly; he felt that a great wrong was being done to marriage as a civil and religious institution, and he remembered that he himself had been badly treated by Susan and by Jones. That, he decided in his mind, had been freely forgiven. He was magnanimous. But Susan was now a wife, and it was clearly wrong that she should have anything whatever to do with Jones, who was, in Tom’s opinion, a desperate and malignant character who pretended to be friendly with you at first for the purpose of ill-treating you afterwards.
Tom argued that, shocked though he was, he had no right to interfere personally with Jones. He would not remonstrate with him on the evil tenor of his way. But he reflected with intense satisfaction that Mackenzie was, if anything, Jones’s physical superior, as well as the rightful lord and master of Susan. Mackenzie, then, could read to Jones a much-needed moral lesson, could deal with Susan as an outraged husband should, and, generally, could do all those things which Tom wanted to see done, but could not do himself.
The problem was, how to acquaint Mackenzie with the atrocious actions of Susan and her lover? Tom felt that he had been a martyr. He had suffered much because of Susan. But martyrdom, he was convinced, should not be allowed to go beyond reasonable limits, and should, as a general rule, be carefully avoided whenever possible. He had lost his situation in Kingston, he had been roughly handled and fined in Colon. These things he had endured without murmuring. He was now prepared to become an active agent in the work of Susan’s moral redemption, and, incidentally, in the deserved punishment of Jones; he had no doubt whatever that in endeavouring to call Mackenzie’s attention to the wrongs of which that injured man was still ignorant, he would be performing a highly meritorious act. But caution must be displayed. Jones was very likely to take a singularly narrow-minded view of his action, if he should ever think that he, Tom, had meddled with his affairs. There was only one way in which to approach Mackenzie, and that was through the medium of an anonymous letter—a letter so worded that suspicion could not possibly fall on Tom Wooley. Tom had been removed to Christobal. Early the next morning, with a fine feeling of noble endeavour, somewhat mingled with apprehension lest, in spite of all his efforts, his identity should be disclosed, he sat down and wrote to Mackenzie.
The morning after this, on calling at the Post Office on his way to work, Mackenzie was handed a letter which he opened and read as he slowly walked away.
“Dear Sir,” it ran, “this is to inform you that things are not quite straight. Everybody has a respect for you, and it would be a shame if a friend of yours do not let you know that your wife is not behaving towards you as she should.” Here Mackenzie stopped reading and glanced at the end of the letter to see from whom it came. It was signed, “A True Friend,” a signature that left him none the wiser. He continued reading.
“Your wife is always in Colon with Jones, the young man she was with when you married her. I see them together over and over, and this is not right, for she is your wife and should think of your feelings. I therefore take this opportunity of making you acquainted with the facts.”
Mackenzie read the letter twice, then studied the handwriting: it told him nothing. He folded the letter, carefully placed it in its envelope, put it away in his pocket, and went thoughtfully to his work.
Susan had returned the day before. She had told him all about the fire, of which he had already read a sensational account in that morning’s papers. She had told him that she and her relatives had run out to see the fire (which is what he knew they would have done), that they had met Jones in the crowd, and that she had spoken to Jones. There was nothing improbable whatever in her story. He remembered that he himself had advised her to speak to Jones if she should ever meet him. This anonymous letter said that she was often in Colon with Jones. But he, Mackenzie, knew that Susan had only been twice to Colon since she had been his wife. So that assertion was a lie. The person who had written the letter, whoever it was, must have seen Susan speaking to Jones on the night of the fire, but Susan had not kept that a secret. This man too, who signed himself “A True Friend,” must surely bear Susan a grudge, and perhaps was also an enemy of himself. For the fellow evidently wanted to make mischief, and that no true friend would do. Mackenzie did not like the letter; it worried him a little. He did not care to have Susan’s name coupled with that of Jones: the association was not pleasant. But he did not, for he could not, believe the story. He decided he would show the letter to Susan later on.