Tarbot could not help shivering.
“Do you allude to Lady Pelham?”
“I do, Luke. She was here this afternoon. How splendidly she spoke, and how grand was her trust in her husband! Are you quite sure that Dick—Dick, who has the most open face in the world—did commit such a dastardly crime?”
“Think for yourself. Go over the evidence,” said Tarbot.
“Oh, I have; but somehow lately I cannot think about it. My head gets giddy, and I am leaving it all to you. I wish I were dead and in the grave with my murdered boy.”
“I pity you sincerely,” said Tarbot. “You must stay quiet and hope for the best. It is too late to change matters now, and it would be very wrong, very wrong indeed, to leave the child’s death unavenged.”
He stayed for a few moments longer, and then took his leave.
On the following morning, amongst several letters which lay on his breakfast table, Tarbot received one from his wife. He had not noticed Clara’s absence on the previous evening. She was often away from dinner lately, her health being far from good. Occasionally she spent whole days in bed. He used to hear her coughing, but he never went to her. When he saw her letter, however, on the breakfast table, he could not help giving a start. It bore a country postmark. He opened it and read the following words:
“I told you, Luke Tarbot, that there was such a thing as the last straw. There is also such a thing as the worm turning. I have reached the last straw, and, to employ the other metaphor, I am the worm, much trodden on and much suffering, who has at last turned. Now listen to what I am going to say. I am on my way to Haversham. From there I shall go straight to Pelham Towers. Do you know why? To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was always your good pleasure to laugh at my mesmeric powers. When you read this letter you will no longer smile at them.
“I am about to explain to you what I meant when I spoke of possessing the ace of trumps. Read and consider my words carefully. You often told me that Dr. Weismann of Paris was a humbug. Listen and tremble. He was no humbug. He was a man who possessed a marvelous personality, a strange and occult power. He imparted his knowledge to me, and I also found after some practise that I possessed the same intangible power. When you thought the child was dead he was not dead at all—he never died. That time when you wrote a certificate of his death he was only in a mesmeric sleep or trance. With care and cunning I had brought him to that pass. I never gave him a drop of the hyocene which you had provided me with. From time to time I subjected him to certain influences which produced trance. He got quickly and completely under my power.