The thoughts of these two persons, when each was alone, were strangely different. In Margaret’s mind there was no doubt that the man on the steamer was her unworthy husband. But what did Varney think? That a man of the world should have failed to perceive that an unexplained disappearance was most probably an elopement seemed to her incredible. Varney could not be such an innocent as that. The only alternative was that he, like Mr. Penfield, was trying to shield Dan; to hush up the disreputable elements of the escapade. But whereas the lawyer’s obstinate reticence had aroused some slight resentment, she felt no resentment towards Varney. For he was Dan’s friend first of all and it was proper that he should try to shield his “pal.” And he was really serving husband and wife equally. To hush things up would be the best for both. She wanted no scandal. Loyal and faithful wife as she had been, her feelings towards her husband were of that somewhat tepid quality that would have allowed her to receive him back without reproaches and to accept the lamest explanations without question or comment. Varney’s assumed policy was as much to her interest as to Dan’s; and he was certainly playing the part of a devoted friend to them both.
One thing did, indeed, rather puzzle her. Her marriage had been—on her husband’s side—undoubtedly a love-match. It was for no mercenary reasons that he had forced the marriage on her and her father; and up to the last he had seemed to be, in his rather brutal way, genuinely in love with her. Why, then, had he suddenly gone off with another woman? To her constant, faithful nature the thing was inexplicable.
Varney’s reflections were more complex. A vague consciousness of the cumulative effects of actions was beginning to steal into his mind; a faint perception that he was being borne along on the current of circumstance. He had gone to Falmouth with the express purpose of losing Purcell. But it seemed necessary to pick up some trace of the imaginary fugitive; for the one essential to Varney’s safety was that Purcell’s disappearance must appear to date from the landing at Penzance. That landing must be taken as an established fact. There must be no inquiry into or discussion of the incidents of that tragic voyage. But to that end it was necessary that Purcell should make some reappearance on shore; must leave some traces for possible pursuers to follow. So Varney had gone to Falmouth to find such traces—and to lose them. That was to have been the end of the business so far as he was concerned.
But it was not the end; and as he noted this, he noted too, with a curious interest unmixed with any uneasiness, how one event generates others. He had invented Purcell’s proposed visit to Falmouth to give a plausible colour to the disappearance and to carry the field of inquiry beyond the landing at Penzance. Then the Falmouth story had seemed to commit him to a visit to Falmouth to confirm it. That visit had committed him to the fabrication of the required confirmatory traces, which were to be found and then lost. But he had not quite succeeded in losing them. Margaret’s question had seemed to commit him to tracing them further; and now he had got to find and lose Purcell at Ipswich. That, however, would be the end. From Ipswich Purcell would have to disappear for good.
The account that he had given Margaret was founded on facts. The ship that he had described was a real ship which had sailed when he had said that she sailed and for the ports that he had named. Moreover, she had carried one or two passengers. But the red-faced man with the suit case and his female companion were creatures of Varney’s imagination.
Thus we see Varney already treading the well-worn trail left by multitudes of wrongdoers; weaving around himself a defensive web of illusory appearances, laying down false tracks that lead always away from himself; never suspecting that the web may at last become as the fowler’s snare, that the false tracks may point the way to the hounds of destiny. It is true that, as he fared on his way to Ipswich, he was conscious that the tide of circumstance was bearing him farther than he had meant to travel; but not yet did he recognize in this hardly-perceived compulsion the abiding menace of accumulating consequences that encompasses the murderer.
Chapter IV.
In Which Margaret Confers with Dr. Thorndyke
The sun was shining pleasantly on the trees of King’s Bench Walk, Inner Temple, when Margaret approached the handsome brick portico of number 5A and read upon the jamb of the doorway the name of Dr. John Thorndyke under the explanatory heading “First pair.” She was a little nervous of the coming interview, partly because she had met the famous criminal lawyer only twice before, but more especially by reason of a vague fear that her uneasy suspicions of her husband might presently be turned into something more definite and disagreeable.
Her nervousness on the first score was soon dispelled, for her gentle summons on the little brass knocker of the inner door—the “oak” was open—was answered by Dr. Thorndyke himself, who greeted her as an old friend and led her into the sitting-room, where tea-things were set out on a small table between two armchairs. The homely informality of the reception, so different from the official stiffness of Mr. Penfield, instantly put her at her ease; and when the tea-pot arrived in the custody of a small gentleman of archdiaconal aspect and surprisingly crinklyness of feature, she felt as if she were merely paying some rather unusual kind of afternoon call.
Dr. Thorndyke had what would, in his medical capacity, have been called a fine bedside manner; pleasant, genial, sympathetic, but never losing touch with the business on hand. Insensibly a conversation of pleasing generality slipped into a consultation, and Margaret found herself stating her case, apparently of her own initiative. Having described her interview with Mr. Penfield and commented on the old lawyer’s very unhelpful attitude, she continued: