But what was the alternative? His thoughts turned to Margaret—sweet-faced, sweet-natured, gracious-mannered, the perfect type of an English gentlewoman—and he thought of the fine, handsome, high-minded gentleman who had just gone away. These two loved one another; loved as only persons of character can love. Their marriage, if it could be achieved, would secure to them a lifelong happiness, in so far as such happiness is attainable by mortals. But between them and their happiness stood the fiction of Daniel Purcell. In order that they might marry, Purcell must either be proved to be dead or assumed to be alive.
Could he be proved to be dead? If he could, that were the better way, because it would demonstrate the truth. But was it possible? In a scientific sense it probably was. Science can accept a conclusion with reservations. But the law has to say “yes” or “no” without any reservations at all. This was not a case of death merely presumed. It was a death alleged to have occurred at a specific time and place and in a specific manner; and inseparably bound up with it was a charge of murder. If Purcell was dead, Varney had murdered him, and the murder was the issue that would be tried. But no jury would entertain for a moment the guilt of the accused on such evidence as Thorndyke could offer. And an acquittal would amount to a legal decision that Purcell was not dead. On that decision Margaret’s marriage to Rodney would be impossible.
Thus Thorndyke’s reflections led him back, as they always did, to the conclusion that Purcell’s death was incapable of legal proof, and must ever remain so, unless by some miracle, new and conclusive evidence should come to light. But to wait for a miracle to happen was an unsatisfactory policy. If Purcell could not be proved to be dead, and if such failure of proof must wreck the happiness of two estimable persons, then it would appear that it might be allowable to accept what was the actual legal position and assume that he was alive.
So, once again, Thorndyke decided that he had no choice but to continue to share with Varney the secret of Purcell’s death and to hold his peace. And if this must be the petition must take its course, aided and abetted, if necessary, by him. After all, nobody would be injured and nothing done which was contrary either to public policy or private morals. There were only two alternatives, as matters stood. The fiction of Purcell as a living man would either keep Margaret and Rodney apart, as it was now doing; or it would be employed (with other fictions) to enable them to be united. And it was better that they should be united.
Chapter XIII.
In Which the Medico-legal Worm Arrives
Romance lurks in unsuspected places. As we go our daily round, we are apt to look distastefully upon the scenes made dull by familiarity, and to seek distraction by letting our thoughts ramble far away into time and space, to ages and regions in which life seems more full of colour. In fancy, perchance, we thread the ghostly aisles of some tropical forest, or linger on the white beach of some lonely coral island, where the cocoanut palms, shivering in the sea-breeze, patter a refrain to the song of the surf; or we wander by moonlight through the narrow streets of some southern city and hear the thrum of the guitar rise to the shrouded balcony; and behold! all the time Romance is at our very doors.
It was on a bright afternoon early in March that Thorndyke sat with Phillip Rodney by his side on one of the lower benches of the lecture theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons. Not a likely place, this, to encounter Romance. Yet there it was—and Tragedy, too—lying unnoticed at present on the green baize cover of the lecturer’s table, its very existence unsuspected.
Meanwhile Thorndyke and Phillip conversed in quiet undertones, for it still wanted some minutes to the hour at which the lecture would commence.
“I suppose,” said Phillip, “you have had no report from that private detective fellow—I forget his name?”
“Bagwell. No, excepting the usual weekly note stating that he is still unable to pick up any trace of Purcell.”