The Tigress

Upon Nina the veiled allusion was not lost.

"That is neither here nor there," she rejoined sharply. "We are only losing time in discussion. He must be saved from himself, whatever the cost."

Again there appeared that makeshift for a smile.

"If you had only thought of that sooner, Mrs. Darling," he murmured.

"I did not come here for your recriminations. I came for your aid," was her reply. "Will you come to Regent's Park and use your influence?"

But Mr. Widdicombe shook his head with some emphasis.

"Certainly not. I have no influence to use. I am a solicitor – neither an alienist nor a wet-nurse." He bowed for the third time. "I have the honor to bid you a very good morning."

Nina, in a state between rage and despair, rejoined Gerald Andrews in the visitors' room.

"He is a beast!" she said with trembling voice. "An abominable old boor! There is but one thing left for us to do. We must go alone, and pray God we are not too late to avert trouble."

They made all the haste possible, assisted and abetted by a well-driven taxicab with a fairly good engine. But they were too late to avert trouble, nevertheless.

There had been a disturbance in the tiger-house, and Lord Kneedrock had been seriously, perhaps mortally, injured.

CHAPTER XXIX

The Mantle of Heroism

It was generally conceded that the Earl of Dumphreys was eccentric. He was an ardent disciple of Tolstoy, and lived on his estate in the North in the simplest fashion, unshaven and unshorn, and affecting coarse girdled robes and sandals.

Despite his titles and his lands, he was as much out of the world as though he rested with his sires beneath the gray stones of Dumphreys Abbey.

"Of course," said Nina, her face drawn, "we must wire at once for the earl."

They were gathered in Kneedrock's suite in St. James's Square – the duke and his duchess, Lord and Lady Bellingdown – who had chanced to be in town – and Nina and Gerald Andrews, the latter a veritable tower of strength in emergency from the very first.

It was the morning following the episode at the Zoölogical Gardens, and the fate of poor Nibbetts hung, figuratively, on a cobweb.

"Much good it will do to send for the earl," returned the duke a little testily. "He wouldn't come to town for the king's funeral, and he won't come to stand at his only son's death-bed. Why, when Nibbetts went down to see him after his return from the South Seas the earl wouldn't admit him. I know that. Don't we know that, Doody?"

The duchess wiped her eyes, and nodded.

"Unnatural old beggar!" added the duke.

"Still," persisted Nina, "I think we should wire him."

"Do as you please," he granted; "but he won't come. He never comes. Hasn't put foot off his own lands in twenty years. If there was anything wrong with Nibbetts's brain it was hereditary."

"There wasn't anything wrong with it," Nina declared warmly. For eighteen hours she had been trying to convince herself there wasn't. "It was just his way."

"But it wasn't his way at all," contradicted his grace. "That's just the point. Nibbetts never did play the fool before, even for a purpose. He was too jolly indifferent."

"It's my opinion," put in Donty Down, "that he's been having trouble over that girl in Dundee."

"Nibbetts wouldn't let any girl make trouble for him," persisted the duke. "I say he's too indifferent."

"I am going to wire the earl," said Nina in an effort to quench the dispute.

"He won't come. I tell you he won't come. You try it and see," the duke flung after her as he crossed to the door.

In the adjoining room she encountered Andrews, and gave him the message. The experience had brought them very close together – closer than ever before – and the man had proved himself.

There had been great difficulty when they reached the gardens on the preceding afternoon to ascertain the facts. The guards evidently had been instructed by the management to hush the matter up.

Each and all professed entire ignorance. There had been some disturbance, but beyond that they knew nothing whatever. And the police were almost equally uncommunicative.

From a visitor, however, Andrews had learned that the scene of the affair was the tiger-house, and that a gentleman had been probably fatally injured.

More than that, his informant, who had seen the gentleman carried out, gave so graphic a description of the victim that, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there could be no doubt it was Kneedrock.

As temperately as possible Andrews had passed these tidings on to Mrs. Darling.

"And now," he said, "you'd best go home at once, since nothing can be gained by your stopping here. I'll get what additional facts I can, and follow as soon as possible."

With which he had put her again into the taxicab, and hurried back to intercept other visitors.

But the narratives, formed most of them from hearsay, were contradictory and confusing, and it was not until by sheer accident he ran into the identical guard he had interviewed in the morning that he obtained a veracious and circumstantial story of what had happened.

The tiger-house, owing to the accident, had been closed for the rest of the day; and this guard, whose name was Phipps, was among those relieved from duty.

With a warning finger, to indicate the seal of secrecy that was upon him while within the grounds, he led his inquirer out through the south gate, and directed his steps thence to the nearest public house, where over a pint of half-and-half, for which Andrews was but too glad to pay, he told his tale.

"It was a most un'appy business, sir," he began – "a most un'appy business; an' no one as I sees to blaime for it, either. It was like this, sir: 'E comes in – the gentleman we was speakink of this mornin', sir – an' str'ight 'e goes for the caige of the big Bengal tigress, just as usual, sir.

"I was displeased to see 'im back again. I was that, sir. For, as I said, I felt sooner or laiter there'd trouble come of 'is 'auntink the plaice. It 'appened, though, sir, the day bein' wettish, there wasn't more'n a 'andful of wisitors in the 'ouse, an' 'e speaks 'is little piece to the old Bengal gal without attractink much attention.

"I'm keepink me eye on 'im the while, you may be sure, sir. An' I see 'im leanink as far over the r'il as 'e can stretch, sir – smilink and laughink in 'is hodd, queer waiy; quiet enough, sir, but a bit creepy, all the saime.

"An' then, sir, I see the tigress stop 'er pacink, an' she draws up close to the bars, rubbink 'er sleek sides against 'em, while 'er eyes narrow, sleepylike, an' she begins purrink like as she was a great big babblink brook, sir. You could 'ear it all over the 'ouse; an' it wasn't in reason it shouldn't attrack attention, sir."

He paused to lift his pot of half-and-half, and Andrews sipped his whisky and water.

"A crowd began to gather," Phipps went on, "an' I see as 'ow it was time I was takink a 'and. So hup I steps, an' politely I says: 'Would you move on, kindly, sir?' 'E was a gentleman, sir, that 'e was. 'E never so much as looks round at me, but 'e moves on without a word.

"The crowd thins out after a minute or so, an', as I don't see 'im comink back, I turns awaiy to answer a wisitor wot wanted to be shown the American pumas, an' told about their 'abits.

"It's a fac', sir, as 'ow I'm uncommon interested in pumas, an' I clear forgot to be lookink after old Miss Bengal an' 'er gentleman admirer. So 'ow it 'appened I didn't see. But Jenkison says – 'e's the guard as 'as the other side, sir – that some'ow the two kiddies got separated, an' one – "

"The two kiddies?" Andrews interrupted. "I didn't know – "

"Yes, sir. There was two of 'em, sir. Two little girls – six an' seven, I should saiy, sir. One, runnink on a'ead, tripped an' fell an' let out a cry. She was the youngest, an' 'er mother, quite forgettink the other, runs after 'er to pick 'er up an' kiss the spot.

"Jenkison 'ad 'er up first, though, an' – 'e's a married man, is Jenkison, with little uns of 'is own – 'e was a soothink of 'er an' never lookink be'ind. You see, sir, it must 'a' been that it was then that the other got under the r'il an' begun climbink."

"Began climbing!" Andrews exclaimed. "Do you mean to say a child of seven – a girl – dared to climb up – "

"She did, sir. An' not a soul seeink her, either. It was the purrink of the tigress that did it, sir. That's what I think, sir. The kiddie 'ad a little pussy at 'ome, I dare say, sir, that purred when it was pleased, an' the tigress's purrink took all fear out of the little un. She wanted to pat Miss Bengal, an' – "

"Good God!" cried his listener. "She wasn't killed?"

"No fault of 'ers she wasn't, poor child!" Phipps answered. "I 'eard 'er scream. Jenkison, 'e 'eard 'er, too. An' there was no mistakink what it meant.

"We ran, an' so did the rest of the guards; but none of us 'ad a chance of gettink to 'er in time. The beast 'ad 'er by 'er little shoulder, and was draggink 'er between the bars even before the gentleman got there. An' 'e was the first that saw."

"He saved her!" breathed Andrews tremulously. "Lord Kneedrock saved her!"

The guard started in surprise. "Was that 'im?" he asked.

"Didn't you know? I thought – "

"I 'eard 'e was a wi'count, sir. But I never imagined 'e was – "

"Yes, yes!" the other interrupted. "What did he do? What happened?"

"'E was over the r'il like a shot, sir, talkink as 'e went. I never see the like before. The sound of 'is voice was as magic to the beast. She let the little un go at once; drew back an' – I give you my word, sir – begun purrink again.

"The rest of us just stood an' watched. The kiddie, you see, sir, 'ad fainted. 'Er body was on the floor of the caige, an' 'er little legs 'angink out. It was a most 'orrible moment, sir. I'd 'a' shot the brute then an' there, but I couldn't get a fair range by reason of the gentleman – 'is lordship – beink in the way; an' to miss would 'a' been sure death for the little un.

"Seeink as 'ow 'er arms was stretched, there was no chance of pulling 'er out by her feet, either. I saw that in a second, sir. 'Is lordship saw it, too. For 'e started to drag 'er that way – croonink like to the beast the while – an' then, of a sudden, 'e stopped.

"The next instant 'is arms was between the bars, an' 'e was drawink the little gal's 'ands down to 'er sides. An' there that Miss Bengal stood, watchink. I know the cat tribe pretty well, I do, sir; an' it was me as was watchink 'er while she watched 'im.

"She seemed as gentle as a kitten; but they're sly beasts, the cats is, an' not to be trusted second by second. Sometimes their tails give warnink, sir, an' often as not there's no warnink at all. There wasn't any with 'er to-day, sir. I saw it all an' there wasn't an eye-wink to act in.

"'E got the little un all out but 'er shoulders an' 'ead, an' 'e was easink 'er over a bit on 'er side for to get 'er shoulders between the bars, one of 'is arms inside an' one out, when it 'appened. The brute was on 'im in a flash. She caught 'is arm between 'er two great paws, sir, an' buried 'er teeth in it before you could see she 'ad moved.

"Yes, sir. She was quicker than any hye that belongs to man. But 'e'd turned the little girl over enough so that 'er weight was most outside, an' – no, sir, no one lent a 'and; no one 'ad time an' none was needed. The kiddie dropped clear and free."

"And – and he was fast?"

"Only for a minute, sir. Some one picked up the little girl, an' I jumped for'ard. Miss Bengal was close enough then for a sure slantin' aim, an' I took it str'ight between the bars. Three bullets in 'er 'ed, sir.

"But you'd never believe what she did to that poor arm of 'is lordship, sir. It was 'orrible, sir. 'Orrible, that's all I say."

That was the guard's story, simple and truthful, with its bare, meager comment; but a story of real heroism, nevertheless. And it was this feature of it that Gerald Andrews had carried back to Nina Darling in her Mayfair flat, where for the longest of long hours she had been awaiting him.

And now, as they stood together again in the suite in St. James's Square, it seemed to them both that weeks, rather than less than a day, had passed since that dread yet vital moment of yesterday.

"His father must come, Gerald," she said, "if we can possibly get him here. Word the wire as you please, but make it plain that he ventured his life for a little child. And sign it 'Nina.'"

Then she gave him the address and was hurrying him away when she checked him at the last moment to seek reassurance.

"Madmen don't do heroic deeds, do they, Gerald?"

"No, Nina," he declared. "They certainly do not. They do brutal deeds, rather."

"He was eccentric, like the earl. That was all."

"He was nothing more. You may be sure he was nothing more." And he was all the while forcing himself to believe it – for her sake.

When he was gone Nina shut herself up in what Kneedrock had chosen to call his "office." In her tense state the chatter of those in the little drawing-room was well-nigh unbearable.

The duke especially tortured her nerves to snapping. The tears of the duchess were contagious. And, despite the occasion, Lady Bellingdown and her lord were constantly bickering.

The mangled arm of poor Nibbetts had been amputated, of course. That was imperative. And the shock of the operation, following the shock of the accident, and coupled with an extraordinary loss of blood, had proved too much for a constitution already depleted.

From the first the surgeons and doctors had given them little hope. He had barely one chance in a hundred, they said; and recovery would be little short of a miracle. Since early morning he had been sinking despite every effort to rally his forces.

It was possible that before death came there would be a faint flare of energy, perhaps a brief moment of consciousness; but the chances favored a continuous coma.

"Even if the earl should come now," mused Nina, "I fear he will be too late. But it was my duty to send; and I've done it."

She moved restlessly about the little room. She sat on one chair and then on another. She stood for a time peering out between the drawn curtains. She picked up books, turned the pages, read lines, without understanding.

After a little she paused beside a writing-table that occupied a corner and began handling the moveable things that rested upon it – a small, framed calendar, certain dates on which she found ringed with black ink and others with red; a clock, which had stopped at twenty-two minutes to four, a box of postage stamps, pens, quills, a silver knife.

Thrust into a corner of the green blotting-pad was a sealed and stamped letter, ready for the post. Absently, without motive, she extracted it and glanced at the superscription.

The hand was his, Nibbetts's, and the fact startled and chilled her. In all probability he would never write again. And then something else caught her consciousness: "Dundee, Scotland." And at the same instant: "Miss Agnes Scripps."

Scripps! The name he had used to hide behind when he came to Umballa. The name which – she had always felt sure, though she never knew – he had gone by in Tahiti and the other islands of the South Pacific where he had spent his exile.

What did it mean? Who? What? A score of questions, scores of conjectures, assumptions, suppositions assailed her like an army.

For the moment she was absorbed, lost in a maze of the possible and the impossible; from which a knocking, thrice repeated, upon the room door caught her back with a start. It was a nurse, who said:

"Lord Kneedrock is conscious."

She went, at once glad and full of dread, to find all the rest there before her.

"He has recognized each of us," whispered the duke. "But he hasn't spoken."

The duchess, with her handkerchief pressed to her face, was vainly trying to suppress her sobs. Lord Bellingdown was clasping the sufferer's remaining hand and murmuring: "Good old Nibbetts!"

("You might have thought the poor chap was a dog," said Lady Bellingdown when she related it to Lord Waltheof in the privacy of her own home the next day.)

Nina drew near on the other side of the bed. There was very little light in the room, but Kneedrock seemed to note her presence instantly. His head didn't move – he was too weak for that – but his eyes turned to her. And she read the look in them. They beckoned. He wished to say something.

She leaned toward him, and his pale lips moved. There wasn't a sound though, not the faintest. Then Nina sat down softly on the side of the bed and bent her head until her ear felt his breath.

And on the breath came words – one word to each exhalation – faint, but quite audible:

"Don't – reproach – yourself. – I – wish – I'd – been – kinder."

Before it was finished her control was quite gone, and her salt tears were dropping, raining, from her face onto his.

Some one led her away. It may have been the duke, or Bellingdown, or one of the doctors. She never knew. Whoever it was took her to a lounge in the drawing-room, where she lay prostrate for a long time. When at length she sat up it was to find Gerald Andrews beside her.

"He is gone?" she asked.

"He is gone," he answered simply.

Late that afternoon a telegram was brought to her. It was from his father, and it read:

At the bottom of every man's soul there is a noble spark that may make a hero of him; but the spark cannot burn brightly all the time. When the critical moment arrives it flares up and illumines great deeds.

Some one said afterward that it was a quotation from Tolstoy, which may be true. But Nina wasn't interested in its authorship.

What gave her ground for thought was that it had been addressed to "Lady Kneedrock."

So the earl knew.

CHAPTER XXX

A Letter and a Legacy

On a January morning two months later, when all London was under a blanket of snow, a card was brought to Mrs. Darling – Mr. Widdicombe's card.

"I am not at home," she said petulantly. And when the maid had gone she added to herself: "He is the rudest man I know, and I refuse to see rude men."

But the maid was back before she was able to recompose herself.

"The gentleman says, ma'am, that he saw you at the window, and it's most important."

"Tell him that I shall take care not to let him see me at the window again, or any place else. I am engaged and cannot receive him."

But the maid, returning for a second time, presented a second card, bearing a scribbled line, which Nina was about to cast into the blazing grate when a single word of the penciling caught her eye and interest. The word was "Scripps."

"I must see you," he had written, "regarding Miss Agnes Scripps."

Had it not been for the puzzle of that addressed envelope so strangely discovered at so tragic a moment, yet forgotten in the stress of following events, it is a question whether even the scribbled line would have served its purpose.

As it was, however, Mrs. Darling reversed her decision at once, and the solicitor of the parchment cheeks was promptly admitted.

He found her a funereal-appearing young woman in deepest mourning, guarded by an equally funereal-appearing staghound, which lay between her feet and the fender.

"I trust you will pardon my persistency, Mrs. Darling," he began; "but the truth is that Lord Kneedrock's sudden death, coupled with another event, equally unexpected and unprovided for, has left me in a somewhat serious predicament."

"Another event?" questioned Nina coolly.

"Another death."

"Whose?" she asked bluntly.

"Old David Phipps died yesterday, in Dundee."

"I never heard of him. Who is he?"

Mr. Widdicombe appeared surprised.

"I was under the impression," he began, taking off his glasses and wiping the lenses on his enormous silk handkerchief, "that you were informed. He was – well, an associate of the late viscount's in Melanesia."

"No," she returned, "I was not informed. I fancied at the moment you alluded to Miss Scripps."

At this the solicitor brightened. "Ah, then you are informed concerning Miss Scripps. I am glad of that. I feared that, perhaps, you were not; which would make my mission the more embarrassing."

"I know that Lord Kneedrock visited and corresponded with a young lady of that name in Dundee, and I have always imagined that he was rather seriously attached to her."

And now Mr. Widdicombe looked surprised again.

"Then you don't know all?" he questioned, rubbing his lenses more vigorously.

"All?" she repeated. "Is there any more?"

The solicitor hesitated in apparent indecision.

"There is very much more," he said at length. "You know and I know – though the world doesn't – that the late viscount was, and yet after a fashion was not, a married man."

Nina Darling nodded. She had always supposed that Mr. Widdicombe knew, since he had all the Kneedrocks' secrets; but she had never been quite sure. Then, in spite of herself, she smiled.

"We were like a certain class of suburban villas," she said – "semi-detached."

The old gentleman did not smile. "Quite so," he agreed.

"I think I begin to understand," she continued. "He met Miss Scripps in Tahiti, when he had no thought of ever returning to England. She fancied that he meant to marry her, and when he came away – left her forlorn – she induced old David Phipps to accompany her and follow after. Isn't that it?"

But there was no answering gleam of affirmation in the pale eyes of the legal luminary. "No," he answered, "not exactly. You forget, if you ever have known, that the late viscount while in that far country assumed the name of Scripps himself."

"Oh, of course," she rejoined; "I know that. I've always wondered why he chose such a horrid name."

"He never knew why himself."

"Never knew why?"

"No. You see, when he recovered his memory after the incident at Spion Kop he found himself at Cape Town in a shipping office, and he was known there as Henry Scripps. For reasons best known to himself he retained it."

Nina looked confused. All those questions and conjectural answers that had sprung into her mind on the finding of the letter in the St. James's Square suite came flooding back.

Of a sudden she spoke.

"Shouldn't she be Mrs. Scripps?" she asked pointedly.

"Not at all," was the quick answer. "There was a Mrs. Scripps, you see. Miss Agnes Scripps is in her tenth year. Her mother died when she was four. Her mother was David Phipps's sister."

Nina sank a trifle lower in her chair. It was the very last thing she expected. The weight of the revelation robbed her for the moment of words.

She had married, believing Kneedrock dead. But he had married, knowing her to be living. All her blood seemed rushing to her face. She was never more incensed.

Mr. Widdicombe was quick to note her emotion. "You must not forget, Mrs. Darling, that at this time the viscount believed he had completely buried himself in his island home. He had no intention of ever returning to England."

Her long, tapering fingers, each a psychic index, were playing a tattoo on the arms of her chair.

"If he wished to bury himself," she said warmly, "he should have remained dead. But he took pains to send me word that he was alive."

"That was before he left Africa, however; and he did so after some protest at my advice. It was purely to avoid certain possible legal complications."

Nina continued her nervous tapping. Presently she asked: "What was his wife like?"

Mr. Widdicombe's yellow, seamed cheeks took on a deeper color. They blushed – brownly. He was a bachelor of rigid impeccability, and he was embarrassed.

"There was never any service or ceremony," he said, looking away. "The prefix 'Mrs.' was assumed rather than warranted. In Papeete the moral code is somewhat lightly held."

Oddly enough, Nina appeared much relieved.

"Ah, I see!" she said. "That, of course, makes a difference – a very great difference."

The solicitor's eyes came back to her. "It does indeed," he affirmed. "And it is because of that difference that I am here. The little girl in Dundee, now that her uncle is dead, is without friends and penniless."

Mrs. Darling stood up.

"Lord Kneedrock made no provision for her?"