A Duel

"I-I didn't mean to be unkind, but-what were you going to say?"

"One thing's about his money-Cuthbert Grahame's money. Several times he spoke to me about you-more than kindly. I believe he had it in his mind-as I had, and have it, in mine-to repair the wrong he'd done you. I have reason to think that it was his intention to leave you at least a large portion of his fortune, to re-make the will I had helped him break. I believe that, with one of his cranky notions to be revenged on her for the part she'd played, he communicated his intention to her; that he went so far as to instruct her to draw up such a form of will as he required. My own impression is that she either actually did do this, or pretended to, and that, when the time came for him to affix his signature, she performed some feat of jugglery, which, under the circumstances, was easy enough, and so got him to sign a document which expressed the exact opposite of his wishes."

"Do you mean that he thought he was leaving me his money when actually he was leaving it to her?"

"That's about the truth of it-I believe it strongly. I am persuaded that the will she produced she got from him by means of a trick. But that is not the worst."

"Doctor, you're-you're like the old fable, you pile Pelion on Ossa."

"I believe that when she had got the will into her possession, all signed and witnessed, she was confronted by the fact that exposure of its contents might render it invalid at any moment. That is probably what would have happened, and in a very short time, so that to make sure, she killed him then and there."

"Killed him!"

"I am convinced that Cuthbert Grahame was killed by the woman who called herself his wife, and that within ten minutes of the signing of his will. She propped him up with pillows, then, by suddenly withdrawing those which supported his head, she let it hang down, and so choked him. In order to avoid suffocation it was always necessary to keep his head well raised, a fact with which no doubt she had made herself acquainted."

"Doctor! But was there no inquest?"

"Certainly; and I gave evidence. But what could I say? I had no proof-not an iota. I could only express my conviction that it was impossible for him to have moved the pillows himself; and I did. I doubt if that bare statement had any effect upon the verdict. She was a very clever woman."

"Clever! you call her! – clever! If you are right she was an awful woman-you mustn't call her clever. That sort of thing's not cleverness."

"Isn't it? I don't know what it is then. If we had realised her cleverness from the first we might have been prepared for her; she might have met her match. It is only by fully recognising the fact that we have to deal with an uncommonly clever woman that we shall have the slightest chance of getting the better of her, and bringing her to book."

"Bringing her to book! Doctor! where is she? Is she at Pitmuir?"

"That's not the least strange part of the whole strange business-where she is. I've been wondering if it's a sign that God's finger has been slowly moving to set on her His brand. The young gentleman in whom, I presume, you take a certain amount of interest, since, one day, you design to honour him by allowing him to make of you his wife-Mr. Harry Talfourd-told me that he acts as secretary to a lady."

"I know."

"The lady's name is Lamb-Mrs. Gregory Lamb."

"Yes."

Margaret, as she uttered the word, was conscious of a catching in her breath; she herself did not know why.

"Mrs. Gregory Lamb is the woman I found by the roadside; who told me that her name was Isabel Burney; who called herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame; who juggled into existence the will under which she inherits; who murdered the man out of whom she got it by a trick."

Margaret was silent, curiously silent. Then she drew a long breath, and she said-

"Now I understand".

The doctor was struck by something in her intonation which was odd.

"Just what is it you understand?"

She repeated her own words.

"Now I understand. The veil which seemed to obscure my sight is being torn away; things are getting plainer and plainer. She was not mad, as we thought; it was we who were ignorant. Doctor, I believe that the finger of God, of which you spoke just now, has moved already."

"It is likely. It is some time since I looked for it to move, but He chooses His own time. As for what you say about your understanding, to me your words are cryptic-unriddle them, young lady, if you please."

Margaret, in her turn, told her tale: of her visit to Mrs. Gregory Lamb; of its abrupt and singular termination. The doctor listened with every sign of the liveliest interest.

"As you observe," he cried, when she had done, "it would seem that the finger of God has moved already. She knew you although you did not know her, and the sight of you was as though one had risen from the grave; it filled her with unescapable terror."

"It's difficult to explain-I've not been able to explain it to myself until this minute-but I did know her, that is, I felt as if I ought to know her. Directly Harry pointed her out to me, something struck at my heart and set me trembling. I don't often tremble, but I did then. It was as if I were confronted by some dreadful danger, which had threatened me before, and from which I had then only escaped by the skin of my teeth. And yet I don't know that the feeling which affected me most strongly was terror. No, I don't think it was. It was something else-something which I can't describe. I believe-doctor, I believe it was hatred. I hated that woman with a hatred which was altogether beyond anything of which I had dreamed as possible, of which I had supposed myself to be capable. I don't hate people as a rule; I don't remember ever having met any one whom I seriously disliked. I do think that in almost every one I have come across I have seen something which I liked. But-in her! I didn't want Harry to introduce me, to take me nearer, because I was filled with what seemed even to me an insane, indeed a demoniacal desire to kill her where she stood."

While the girl was speaking her appearance seemed to gradually change, till, when she stopped, she seemed to stand before the old man like some rhadamanthine, accusatory spirit, ready to pronounce judgment and to execute the judgment which she herself pronounced. The doctor watched her with a visage which remained immobile, almost expressionless.

"Your words suggest a kind of justice which has become extinct-in politer circles."

"Yet justice shall be done! – it shall be done! I will see to it. I never did her a harm, nor wished her one. Yet she has done me all the mischief that she could, for wickedness' sake. If she killed Cuthbert Grahame, she should have killed me also, for, if I live, I will bring her to the judgment-seat. You say she is in enjoyment of the money which she won from him by a trick, and whose safe possession she insured to herself by murder-"

"Pardon me; to her that's the fly in the ointment. It's precisely the money which she hasn't got-which is doubly hard, since, to gain it, she did all that she did."

"I thought you said that she had it."

"She has the will under which she inherits, but, so far, she has inherited comparatively little. Did Grahame ever talk to you about his money?"

"In those latter days, when I began to be a woman, there were only two things about which he would talk, one was his money, the other his desire that I should be his wife. I loved him dearly! No daughter ever loved her father better than I loved him, but not like that! – not like that! When I said no, he would talk of his money, holding it out as a bait."

"Did he ever tell you how much of it there was?"

"He was always saying all sorts of things; I cannot remember all he said. I know he told me again and again that he had been saving his money for years for my sake, for me to use when I became his wife-his wife! He said more than once that there were fifty thousand pounds a year waiting for me if-if I would only say the word."

"Fifty thousand pounds a year? A nice little bait with which to cover the hook. Some girls would have swallowed the bait and never minded the hook."

"Doctor!"

"Calm yourself, young lady; don't blast me with the lightning of your eyes. I'm but saying what's well known to all the world. And did he say where that snug little income came from?"

"From his investments. He was always boasting of the lucky investments he had made."

"Did he ever tell you in what?"

"He wanted to often, but I wouldn't listen. I daresay he did mention some of the names, but I paid no attention and have forgotten them if he did. I hated to hear of his money. I knew what it meant to him, and I couldn't get him to understand that it didn't-and never would! – mean the same to me. His talk about his money helped to poison my life."

"One knows that to a young girl money has a way of not meaning so much as to some of us older folk, so I humbly ask your pardon if I seem to dwell on it too long. Yet I would ask you to cast back in your mind and think if he ever dropped a hint as to where the securities, the documents which represented these investments, might be found?"

"Weren't they at the bank? or with his lawyers?"

"They were not. Cannot you recall a hint which he may at sometime have let fall as to their whereabouts?"

She put her hands up to her temples, either to ease her throbbing temples or to aid her memory in its task of looking back.

"I can't think! I can't think! – not now! There are so many things of which I have to think, that they seem to have left me no power to think of anything else. Some day something which he once said may come back; I haven't forgotten much he did say to me; it's all somewhere in my brain, only I can't tell you just where-not at this very moment. At this moment I can only think of her."

"Of whom?"

The voice which made the inquiry was Harry Talfourd's. He stood in the open doorway with his hat in his hand. Perceiving that his appearance seemed to have taken them by surprise he proceeded to explain.

"I did knock-twice; but I presume that you were so much engrossed by what you were saying to each other that my modest raps went unheeded. I heard you say, Meg, in tragic, not to say melodramatic tones, that you can only think of her. Shall I be impertinent if I venture to ask who is the lucky person who so fully occupies your thoughts?"

"The lucky person, as you call her, is Mrs. Gregory Lamb. Harry, they say that in England the duelling days are over. They may be-that is, so far as so-called 'affairs of honour' are concerned-but for duels of another sort the day is never over. I am going to engage in a duel with Mrs. Gregory Lamb. You and Dr. Twelves here will be my seconds. I shall need all the assistance that seconds may honourably give to their principal, for it will be a duel to the death."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE INTERIOR

Rather a curious state of things prevailed in Mrs. Lamb's residence in Connaught Square. The largest and best regulated establishments are apt to be disorganised when festival has been kept the night before-that is true enough. But in this case the disorganisation was something altogether out of the common. Mr. Lamb, who never attended his wife's receptions, and so pleased himself and the lady, had come home with the milk, just sober enough to wonder why the place was in such a state of singular confusion. The servants seemed to be occupying the reception rooms, enjoying themselves in a fashion in which servants are not supposed to do. He had a vague recollection of having a drink with a footman or some such menial while endeavouring to ascertain what was the meaning of the proceedings, and of pledging a housemaid's health in what he was convinced was a glass of his wife's champagne. But as, later, he was only too glad to be assisted upstairs by any one and every one, his memory of what took place was scarcely to be relied upon.

His wife had shut herself in her room, constraining her guests to take their departure without affording them an opportunity of saying good-bye to their hostess, and offering her their thanks for a very pleasant evening. Exactly what occurred behind that locked door she alone knew. When her senses returned she was still in her splendour of the previous night. She half lay, half sat, upon her boudoir floor, with her head upon a couch. A broken wine-glass was at her side. A decanter which had held ether was overturned on a buhl table. The day streamed through the windows.

It was some seconds before she recognised these facts. Then she rose to her feet and looked about her. The first thing she did was to go to the boudoir door and try if it was locked. When she found that it was, and that the key was nicely adjusted in the keyhole, so as to prevent any one peeping in from without, she strode through another door, which stood ajar, into her bedroom, which adjoined. She tried the outer door of that, to find that it also was locked. She glanced at a silver clock which stood upon the mantelpiece. According to it the time was twenty minutes to one, so that more than half of the day had already gone. Then she went to a cheval glass, which mirrored her from head to foot, and glanced at herself.

What she saw seemed to afford her a grim sort of amusement. Her hair was all in disorder, one long tress trailed down her neck. Her eyes were dull and heavy. Her cheeks were smeared; such "aids to beauty" as she patronised had become misplaced. Her gown was all creased and crumpled; a stain straggled right across the bodice. In a few curt words she recognised the situation so far as the dress was concerned.

"That's done for."

It looked as if it were, it might have been worn twenty times instead of only once. She removed her jewels-her bracelets from her wrists, rings from her fingers, her necklace, ornaments from her hair. When they were all off she took them in her hands and stared at them.

"At any rate, you're worth money. I daresay I could get something on you if I tried, though perhaps not so much as some might think."

She tossed them on to the dressing-table with a mirthless laugh. Disrobing herself, donning her nightdress, she ensconced herself between the sheets. There she tossed and tumbled about in such a fashion that one was almost disposed to suspect her of indulging in some new form of physical exercise. When she had got the bed into a condition which suggested that it had been occupied throughout the entire night by some peculiarly restless person, ceasing to turn and twist, for some minutes she lay quite still, as if she listened.

"Those servants of mine don't seem to be making much noise; there aren't many sounds of their moving about the house. I should like to know where Stephanie is; she ought to have woke me long before this."

Stretching out her arm she pressed the electric button which was by her bedside-once, twice, thrice, indeed half-a-dozen times, on each occasion for an unusual length of time, and with a fair interval between each pressure. Nothing, however, transpired to show that she had rung at all, certainly no one answered her summons. As she began to realise that apparently she was not meeting with attention of any sort or kind, her temper did not improve. She kept up a continuous ringing; still no one answered, nor was there aught to show that there was any that heard. She began to be concerned.

"Has every one taken French leave, and am I alone in the house? What's it mean?"

She kept her finger on the button for another good five minutes, then she decided that the moment had arrived when it would probably be desirable that she should make some inquiries on her own account. Rising, she put on some clothes, over them a dressing-gown. Then, unlocking the bedroom door, she went out on to the landing. Nothing could be heard. She descended to the floor below, on which were the drawing-rooms. No attempt to tidy them had been made since the guests departed; they were in a state of almost picturesque confusion. Not even the electric lights had been turned off; they were blazing away as merrily as if it were still the middle of the night. The apartments contained certain articles which, as refreshments were provided in the dining-room, could scarcely have been there when the guests retired. Bottles and glasses were everywhere-all kinds of bottles and all kinds of glasses, indeed Mrs. Lamb had nearly stumbled over what looked like an empty brandy bottle as she came out of her bedroom door. To Mrs. Lamb the sight of those various empty receptacles was pregnant with meaning.

"The beauties! I suppose they're sleeping it off. They shall smart for this, every one of them."

She turned towards the staircase which led to the servants' quarters, with the intention, no doubt, of making them smart, when she encountered one of them. An unkempt, untidy figure, clad in a nondescript costume, consisting of checked tweed trousers, carpet slippers, dress-coat and waistcoat, crumpled shirt and collar and no necktie, came strolling leisurely down the stairs as Mrs. Lamb was about to ascend them. It was James Cottrell, the butler, in general, so far as appearances went, the most immaculate of beings. His mistress stared at him in not unnatural surprise.

"Cottrell! – you! – in that state! – at this time of day! – why, you're not even dressed."

So far from showing any signs of being ashamed or disconcerted, Mr. Cottrell's manner was not only self-possessed, it was affability itself. Thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, he tilted himself on his heels, till his legs touched the stair behind, and he smiled.

"No, Mrs. Lamb, I am not dressed-that is, my costume is not in that perfect state of completeness which I prefer. It is not my habit to make personal remarks, but since we are on the subject, I may observe that you're not dressed either. I shouldn't call that dressing-gown full dress-would you? Your hair don't look-to me-as if it had been done for days, and you really must excuse my mentioning that your complexion seems to have got itself all mixed up anyhow."

"Cottrell, you're drunk; how dare you speak to me like that?"

"No, Mrs. Lamb, I am not drunk; I do assure you that I am at least as sober as you are. If you want to know what drink can do for a man, I recommend you to go and look at your husband-there is a drunkard, if you like; he's like a perambulating sponge. Last night it took six of us to get him upstairs; that man ought to be black-listed. As for daring to speak to you, Mrs. Lamb, there may be some folks whom you inspire with awe, but you don't inspire me with any."

"Don't you think I'll let you speak to me like that, although you are a man and I'm a woman. You'll leave my service at once-and without a character."

"As for a character, any character which you might give me, Mrs. Lamb, would, in all human probability, do me more harm than good. It will be my constant endeavour to conceal the fact that I ever occupied a position in your establishment; it might do me a serious injury were it to become known. As to leaving your service, I shall be only too glad to do so inside sixty seconds; only there's a little formality which I should like to have completed before I go. I should like to have my overdue wages, Mrs. Lamb. They are more than three months overdue, and I should like to see the colour of my money, Mrs. Lamb."

"You shall have your wages; you needn't be afraid."

"Thank you; that is good news. Because, to be quite frank, I was beginning to be afraid-in fact, we all were."

"You impertinent brute! Where are those other creatures?"

"Other creatures? You refer to my colleagues, male and female? We are all of us creatures, Mrs. Lamb-including you. I believe that two or three of them have already quitted your service, including the young Frenchwoman who was supposed to be your own particular maid. She said that she never bargained to wait on a woman of your class, so she's gone. I noticed two young women in the kitchen when I was down there just now. They seemed to be in a more or less tearful condition. Poor wretches! perhaps they never expected to find themselves in such a place as this. As for the rest of my colleagues, I fancy they are still in bed. I do not doubt that if you take them their overdue wages they'll get up, and get out of the house also, as quickly as you like. I imagine they'll be only too glad of the chance."

Mrs. Lamb looked at Mr. Cottrell as if she were meditating measures of a distinctly active kind. Although he might not have been conscious of it, for some seconds he stood in imminent peril of realising that, at least physically, his mistress was more than a match for the average man. But, apparently, after thinking things over she changed her mind and postponed hostilities.

"You shall be paid for this, my man-they all shall-just wait a bit." She moved, as if to return to her bedroom, then paused. "There's some one at the door."

There did seem to be some one at the front door, some one who saluted with equal vigour both the bell and the knocker. Mr. Cottrell was philosophical.

"Ah! there's been one or two already this morning. You've perhaps been in such a queer state yourself that you didn't hear them, though they made noise enough; but there have been several visitors. Jones the fishmonger wants his little account, and Franks the butcher wants his, and Murphy the greengrocer, and the baker, and the grocer, and the milkman, and, I think, the laundry, and three or four more besides. They all want their little accounts-good big ones some of them are. I peeped through the dining-room window, but I didn't notice just who was there, and I didn't open to them either. I've had about enough of opening to those kind of people; they won't go round to the side entrance, and it's no use asking them to. But that sounds as if it was the landlord come to put the brokers in for rent. A landlord always thinks himself entitled to make as much noise as he likes at his own front door."

Some one seemed to consider himself at liberty to make as much clatter as he liked.

"Cottrell, go down at once and see who is at the door."

"Wouldn't you like to go and see yourself, Mrs. Lamb?"

"If you don't obey my orders and go at once I'll throw you out of the house with my own hands, and you shall whistle for your wages."

"Like this? Do I look as if I were in a fit state of attire to open the door of even such a lady as yourself, Mrs. Lamb?"

"Are you going?"

The lady mounted two or three steps; there was something so significant in her manner that Mr. Cottrell temporised.

"I shall be only too happy to open the door as I am! – if you will allow me to pass." She allowed him, and he passed, firing a passing shot as he went. "You must understand that I intend to be perfectly frank with whoever's there-perfectly frank, and truthful. I have had more than sufficient of telling lies on your account, Mrs. Lamb." At this point, throwing the hall-door wide open, he addressed some unseen individuals who were without in tones which were perhaps unnecessarily loud. "If any of you people want money-and by the look of you I can see you do-it's no use your asking me, and so I may tell you at once, because I want money too, and from the same person, and that's Mrs. Lamb; and as Mrs. Lamb happens to be standing at this moment at the top of the staircase, in her dressing-gown and with her hair all over the place, perhaps you'll step in right away, and just say to her what you've got to say. Well, sir, and what might you happen to be wanting? Oh, it's Mr. Luker, is it? May I ask, sir, what you mean by pushing me about as if I was a mechanical toy?"

It was indeed Mr. Isaac Luker, who had come into the hall with complete disregard of the fact that Mr. Cottrell was standing in the doorway. Being in, the visitor regarded the voluble butler with characteristic impassivity. Then, stretching out the forefinger of his right hand, he tapped at the centre of Mr. Cottrell's crumpled shirt-front, and he delivered himself thus: -

"My advice to you is to put your head under the pump if there is one, and under the tap if there isn't, and let the water run for a good half-hour, for a complaint like yours it's the best medicine you can possibly have".

It seemed that Mr. Cottrell was so taken aback by the proffer of this very handsome advice that for a moment or two he was at a loss for a retort; before he found one his mistress had interposed.