Tinman

"My dear, you have news for me?" she whispered, looking straight into my eyes. "Tell me everything."

"First tell me if you have seen the boy – young Millard?"

"Yes, I've seen him; he's happy enough now. I saw him go to Barbara; there seemed a perfect understanding between them in a moment. They trust each other so completely."

"They trust each other so completely," I replied mechanically. "Well – perhaps that is well. Now for my news, Barbara. What would you wish me to tell you?"

"The truth," she whispered, still looking at me intently.

I thought of the boy, with the brand of Cain upon him, who was at that moment doubtless holding the child of this Barbara in his arms, and whispering that he loved her; and she trusted him so completely! "You want the truth?" I responded with a smile. "Then I have no news for you."

She took me in her arms – there, in that quiet country lane; she spoke to me, as I knew, out of the depth of her great love for me. "The truth, Charlie – the truth to me, at least," she pleaded.

I saw that it had come once again to the parting of the ways for us, just as it had done twenty years before; I knew that for the boy's sake, and for the sake of the girl who loved him, I must again thrust myself out of life. For I must lie to this woman, who held me in her arms and pleaded for the truth. And in giving her that which she must for ever believe to be the truth, I must wound her again, as I had wounded her long ago. "You shall know the truth," I said slowly – "if you will promise to do what I ask. Promise."

"I will promise anything – and everything."

"I went away from you, meaning to kill Murray Olivant," I said, like one repeating a lesson. "You should know that I do not fail in such a matter. I have killed him." She clapped her hand upon my lips, and looked round her quickly; I took the hand, and drew it away, and kissed it, and went on with what I had to say. "All the world believes that he sails this morning for the Mediterranean; it is possible that the murder will not be discovered. That's the truth."

She clung to me, shuddering; she asked me in a whisper what it was that I wanted her to do.

"Go back to your husband," I said. "It is not he that needs you, so much as the girl. She needs you more than she ever needed you in her life before. Will you keep your promise to me?"

"Yes," she said in a whisper, as her arms fell to her sides – "I will go back to him."

She turned away, and left me standing there, looking after her as she went.

CHAPTER XII

The Haunted Man

While I stood there in that country lane, looking after the woman who was going from me for the last time, I had time for many thoughts. For now I stood in the world more absolutely alone than I had ever been; there was no hand I could touch again in friendship, for even this dear hand that I loved most of all was withheld from me. I had killed a man once, long ago; it was my strange fate to take the place of another man who had killed his fellow – to bear the blame for that, even in the eyes of the woman I loved – to suffer death for it, if necessary.

So much I owed to my memories – so much I owed to the new Barbara, and to the boy who loved her, and whom I must save from the fate that had befallen a certain Charlie Avaline.

But a strange thing was to happen – something showing the very irony of Fate – before I left that old life behind me for ever. Some mad desire to see again these people for whom, in a sense, I was laying down my life – or so much of it as mattered – came upon me; I went on, unsteadily and hesitatingly, towards the house. It was a bleak winter day, with a rough and surly wind playing havoc with the dead leaves in the grounds, and whirling them up in clouds, and tossing them upon the terrace, and against the windows. As I pushed open the gate – to look into that place of my dreams for the last time – I saw a little picture before me that seemed, as it were, to round off all that had happened there, or all that might happen in the future.

I saw young Arnold Millard and the girl standing, arm in arm; the girl's disengaged hand was stretched out to the woman who was her mother. That elder Barbara seemed to be saying something to them both, and pointing to the house. The girl was smiling; and suddenly she turned, and drew the elder woman towards the terrace, with the boy following. Scarcely knowing what I did, I crept through the neglected garden, and went towards the terrace after them; they did not turn their heads, and they did not see me.

I knew, of course, that the woman who was supposed to have died so many years before was but keeping her promise to me, and was on her way to confront her husband. I felt that I must know what happened – must understand under what circumstances, whether of possible happiness or of misery, I left her. I crept nearer until, as the girl and Arnold Millard opened the narrow door at the end of the terrace, and passed into that room I knew so well, I was close at hand. The elder Barbara waited outside, looking into the room, and evidently hesitating what to do. I was within a dozen yards of her.

Inside the room I saw Lucas Savell seated; the girl was on her knees beside him, talking to him. In the silence I heard her voice quite clearly.

"Dear father – only a good, kind friend, who has been almost like a mother to me – who has helped and protected me. I want you to see her."

Even as Lucas Savell feebly got to his feet, and stared in bewilderment at his daughter, I understood that Barbara had not told her child of the relationship between them; that was to be left for the moment when she should greet her husband. The elder Barbara had passed through the doorway, and was now inside the room; Lucas Savell was still staring in a dazed fashion at his daughter.

"I – I don't understand," I heard him say.

The elder woman stepped forward into the room. "Lucas! – Lucas Savell!" she said falteringly; and stood still.

I was totally unprepared for what happened; it was all over in a mere matter of seconds. Savell swung round quickly, with a cry, and then took a step towards the woman who stood just within the doorway of the room; cried out her name in a terrible voice, and dropped to his knees —

"Barbara! Oh! – my God! – Barbara!"

She made a swift movement towards him; I saw him put up his hands, as though he would beat her off; then he plunged forward on his face at her feet. The girl was the first to reach him, and she raised him, and called to him wildly. But he hung limply in her arms.

"Father! – you called me, father!"

He slowly raised his head; I saw his mouth open, the while he made a frantic effort to speak; he even smiled, and seemed to try to raise himself in the girl's arms. As the elder woman moved towards him, he shrank away from her, with horror written in every line of his face, and seemed to dread that she might touch him; when she did, in order to assist the girl to raise him, it was curious to see the way in which he looked at her, like a dumb stricken thing that did not understand. By that time I was in the room, and my presence seemed to stir young Millard at once to action.

"I'll go and get a doctor," he said. "He's had a stroke."

The elder woman and I contrived to get him upstairs to his room, assisted by the woman who acted as servant in the house. And while we moved him he strove always to keep his eyes fixed on the wife who had so mysteriously come back to him from the grave; he watched her incessantly. More than once he contrived to move a hand, to touch hers; and again that puzzled expression would come over his face. Now and then, too, his mouth would slowly open, in that effort to speak, and then would close again.

The doctor came at last, and very gravely shook his head; muttered something to the boy about old habits and Time's revenges; predicted that the man might live for a long time, or might die at any moment. "One thing is very certain," said the doctor, as he pulled on his gloves – "he'll never speak again."

There was nothing that I could do there, and there was work waiting for me in London. I felt that I must not then leave ragged ends; I must settle firmly upon my shoulders the burden I had taken up. I whispered to the elder Barbara that I was going; she came with me out of the house, and only left me at the gate.

"This is the end for us, Charlie," she said; and yet she spoke quite bravely. "My place is here, and I shall not leave him again. I come here as the unknown woman – the friend of my own child; for he will never be able to say who I am, and I shall never tell any one on my own account. And you, my dear" – she wound her fingers about mine for a moment, and looked at me with the old steadfast look – "what will you do – alone?"

"I don't know, Barbara," I said. "I shall go back, to meet whatever fate is in store for me – and it does not really matter, after all. I have been greatly blessed; I have seen the dear woman I love again, and I hold her hands now; and I once looked upon a dreary world that held her not, because she was supposed to be dead. And the child you love is near you, and happiness beckons her with a sure hand. It might have been ever so much worse, Barbara."

"If it should never happen that we meet again, Charlie, let it at least be understood that I have forgotten and forgiven and understood all that you have done," she said. "And now good-bye – good-bye – for the last time!"

I did not dare to look back, although I knew that she stood there, watching me as I went. It might have unnerved me had I seen her again; and I had need of all my nerve for what was before me. I got to the station, and once more took train for London. For I felt that, in the first place, I must solve the mystery of the steamer tickets.

I blamed myself bitterly that I had not destroyed them, as I had first intended. The thought that they had got into other hands, or had even been dropped by me in that closed room in Lincoln's Inn Fields, haunted me; I seemed to see them found, and inquiries made about them; and so a gradual tracing back, to find a certain Mr. Murray Olivant who should have sailed on the Eaglet. I had two causes for dread: the one, so far as Jervis Fanshawe was concerned, because I knew that he believed I had killed Olivant; the second, as regarded the boy, because I feared that he would not hesitate to fling the blame upon me, if it happened that he was driven into a tight corner. And, above all things, I wanted to know what had happened behind the door of that room in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or if any discovery had yet been made.

When I got to London I found myself in the position again of that poor Charlie Avaline who had wandered about with the shadow of murder hanging over him, watching for newspaper placards. I scanned each one I came across, expecting every moment to see a flaring headline that should seem to point directly to me; but I saw nothing.

I bought a morning paper, thinking that it might be possible for something to be in that; but again I saw nothing. And then it struck me that, even if the body had not been found yet, I might be running my neck into the noose if I went back to those rooms, and was discovered there. I remembered horribly enough that I had a key of the outer door, and that the only other keys were doubtless in the pocket of the dead man. And yet I must go back there – I must know what had happened, or if anything had yet been discovered.

Exactly how many times I walked up and down the stones of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and round about the neighbourhood, I should not like to say. For I knew that behind the windows of one particular set of rooms that I could see from the pavement on the opposite side there lay a dead man; and already some one might have been hammering at the door of those rooms – might even have beaten it in, and cried out what was there for all men to see. Twice I actually walked to the door of the house, and twice turned back, for no better reason than that a clerk or a whistling office boy marched in at the door, and began to climb the stairs to some office above. Once, as I stood there irresolutely, a policeman sauntered along towards me; stopped for a moment to look in at the doorway of the house, and then turned his back and stood there, staring at the cab rank opposite, as though waiting. Sick and faint, I hurried away, and went again on that round I had taken so many times already.

It was dark, and the lamps had long been lighted, and the last clerks and office boys had dashed out of the various doorways, with letters for post, or intent upon trains to be caught, when at last I summoned up courage to creep in at that doorway, and to begin to climb the stairs. Even then I looked back, again and again; paused as I got to each landing, with the absolute certainty in my own mind that some one was following me stealthily. Once, as I stopped like that, a door was flung open within a yard of me, and a man, after staring at me for a moment, slammed the door, and raced off down the stairs. Almost I think I shrieked after him to stop, and to listen to what I had to say. But that shriek was only, fortunately for me, in my own imagination.

I reached the door at last; it seemed that I had been travelling for hours to get to it. I listened intently for a minute or two; then I slipped my key into the lock, and opened the door. The little lobby in which I stood after I had closed that outer door was in complete darkness; for a second or two I know that I stood there afraid to open the door of the inner room, and yet afraid to remain where I was.

I opened the door at last, and stepped in boldly. You may perhaps have some faint idea of what my feelings were when I saw that the candle standing on the table was alight, and the whole room flooded with the glow from it!

I know that I stood for quite half a minute, staring at the thing stupidly, and wondering what had happened, or if I were going mad. I had found the outer door locked, and now, when I was in the room, a death-like silence reigned; yet here was the candle alight. When at last I mustered courage to take a step or two into the place, and to look round the corner of the table, I think I fully expected to see the man with the knife in him gone, and to know, in some horrible fashion, that he was in that inner room, waiting for me. It took me a long time, even after I had seen him lying there, with that stiff hand still gripping the hilt of the knife, to realize that he was dead, and that he could not possibly have lighted the candle. Even in the horror of that moment, when it dawned upon me slowly and dreadfully that some one else was hidden in those rooms, I know that I laughed softly at the absurdity of the notion that the dead man could have lighted the candle.

There was no sound in the place – no movement of any kind. The chambers were very small – just the lobby outside, and the little sitting-room, and a bedroom beyond. The lobby was empty; the sitting-room contained only the dead man and myself; whoever was there must be in the bedroom beyond. I began to form conjectures as to who might be hidden there – going over in my mind this one and that, who might by any possibility be interested in this matter, or in me. Once, as I watched the door of that inner room, there was a mad feeling in my mind that I would blow out the candle, and make a bolt for it; for the door of the bedroom was closed, and whoever was there could not have seen me. Finally I did nothing at all, but just to stand very still, wondering what I should do. In those few minutes I seemed to live a lifetime – to touch the depths of hope and fear, and life and death, and even madness.

My horror was not decreased by seeing the door of the bedroom begin slowly to open. It took a long time; because whoever was opening that door half repented of their purpose more than once. For the door would jerk an inch or two open, and then an inch or two back, and then would close again entirely – and all this quite noiselessly. The thing was getting on my nerves to that extent that I know I was on the verge of screaming out, when I saw a hand grasp the lintel of the doorway – a thin bony hand, that gripped the wood tenaciously. Then the door flew open with startling suddenness, and a face – ghastly white, and with a dropping jaw – was thrust out into the room – the face of Jervis Fanshawe.

Even while he stared at me, I found it suddenly necessary that I should rearrange all my ideas. Jervis Fanshawe had not entered into my considerations at all in regard to the murder. I had fixed inevitably upon Arnold Millard – had followed in imagination his every action in the matter; had reasoned out why he should do this or that to the point of actual certainty. And here, in these rooms that I had left locked, was Jervis Fanshawe, whom by no possibility could I believe had had anything to do with the matter. I leaned upon the table, and stared at him; and after a moment or two he came slowly out into the room.

He was so afraid of me, and so appalled at the fact of my coming there at all, that he came slowly towards me, never taking his eyes from my face, and looking at nothing else. It was only when, horribly enough, he stumbled over the feet of the dead man, that he jumped back with a cry, and seemed to recover himself. Then he looked at me again, and over his face stole a smile.

"Why, Charlie – what's wrong?" he whispered; and the whisper seemed to shatter the silences of the place, and to bring us both back in a moment to the hard and stern realities of things.

"How did you get in here?" I demanded.

He did not answer in words; he stared down at the dead man for a moment or two, and while he did so he fumbled in his pockets. Very slowly he drew out something that jingled; still looking at the dead man, he dropped on the table the three keys, tied together with a piece of black tape. I recognized them in a moment as the keys that had been given me when I first paid for the rooms.

He looked at me as though he did not understand the question; looked again at the keys. Then he pointed to the dead man – and I understood. It seemed then as though some extraordinary process went on in my mind, so that old carefully constructed ideas were hurled out of it, and new ones hastily formed. I gasped, and looked at Fanshawe, and looked at the keys; then I cried out at him. – "My God! – you?"

He nodded slowly; it seemed as though he stood there, thinking about something else, and only coming back slowly and with difficulty to the situation he had to face. When at last he began to speak, it was at first in a slow dull whisper, like a man talking to himself, and not realizing that another is listening. It was only later, after the first moment or two, that he began, as it were, to take me into his confidence.

"She seemed to call to me to do it. You remember when she went past me like a spirit in the dark garden – the night we knew the girl was in peril; I first thought of it then. I put it aside for a time; I never had any real courage for such a matter as this. Then I saw the spirit of her again in London here – that Barbara we both had loved, and who died years and years ago. And then I knew clearly enough what I had to do."

He stopped, and looked down at the dead man; it seemed almost as though he went on talking to that ghastly thing that lay at his feet.

"I don't think I killed you out of any real hatred of you; it was only because I was afraid for myself. I saw that you, if only with your lips and your lying tongue, would harm this child, just as another man long ago had harmed the Barbara who was dead; and I felt that you would have to die for it, just as that other man had died. I did not kill you because I was afraid of what you might do; I killed you to save my own soul. Yes – that was it; to save my own soul."

He had been speaking very slowly, and quite without emotion; but now his manner suddenly changed, and he turned to me, and gripped my arm, and went on speaking eagerly, in a pathetic, wistful desire to make me understand.

"Yes, Charlie – I saw in that the only way to atone. Look at me, Charlie: an old man that has suffered, and behind whom lie so many years that are broken and unhallowed, and worse than useless. I felt that someday – quite soon – I might be called to meet my God; and that there – radiant, as we knew her years ago, Charlie, in her young and innocent beauty – there might rise up against me the woman we both loved. She's dead, but she had nothing to fear from death. I knew that when I died it would be different; there were accusing eyes that would spring alive with old fires to stare at me – accusing hands that would point at me out of the darkness into which I was going. And I prayed, or tried to pray, that God would show me some way – some sacrifice to be offered up in the old Bible fashion – that should atone. I pushed that thought away from me more than once – the thought of killing him; but I could not get rid of it. It was always with me – and that was why I tried to learn from you, who had done the thing once, what it was like, and how best to set about it. For I felt that if I could kill this man – if I could cry to the uneasy spirit of the dead woman – 'This have I done to make atonement; this man have I killed, who would have harmed the child so like yourself in the old years that are gone' – why, then I felt that all would be well for me, and that I should not see always her accusing eyes in the darkness, or in my dreams when I slept."

I stared at him for what seemed a long time; it was difficult at first for my mind to grasp this thing, to realize what he had done. At last I asked: "Why have you come back here?"

"I could not stay away," he whispered. "I wanted to know what had happened – whether they had found him; I was even afraid that the blow might not have been strong enough, and that he might have crept out – bloody and horrible – to cry out what had been done, and to tell men who had done it. It has taken me a long time to get back here; I've been afraid."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going away – far away," he said, looking at me cunningly. "I haven't your courage, Charlie; I couldn't face what they might do to me if they found out anything about it. When I was coming here first to kill him I did not think of that; but now I can't bear even to try to understand in my own mind what the rope would be like about my neck – and the cap pulled over me – and the grey morning shut out – and then – No – no – I can't bear to think of that. I shall escape."

"I think you possibly may escape unsuspected," I assured him gravely. "I do not think there is any one likely to point a finger at you, and suggest that you did it."

"You think not, Charlie?" His voice was eager, and something very like a smile was on his face. "Do you think I might get away? I think so too; I'm going to try. And when you come to think of it, Charlie," he went on, with rising spirits – "it was bravely done – finely done. For I'm a weak old man – see these thin hands and arms of mine – and he full of life and vigour. Yet look at him now."

"Tell me how you did it," I said.

"It was after I had talked to you, Charlie – when I spoke about a knife, you know – that I made up my mind how best it could be done. I bought the knife – a long way from here, where no one would be likely to know me – and I chose the very night of his coming here. It was a simple matter, after all. I came up the stairs, and knocked at the door; after a moment or two he opened it, cursed me for disturbing him, and went in, with his back to me. The knife was in my breast pocket, and I had my hand upon it; I could have done it then – easily. But I was afraid; I did not know where to strike. Then, when he came into the room, and I was there with him, he suddenly turned round, and asked me what I wanted. And courage came back to me. I stepped up close to him, and I said suddenly that this was what I wanted; and I drove it in with all my force. He stood staring at me for quite a moment, with that thing sticking in him – staring stupidly, as if he didn't understand what had happened. And then he laughed (or so it seemed to me), and dropped, and died. It was horrible."

"And then?"

"It suddenly occurred to me that I might need to come back here again; I must have that power, at least. I did not dare go near him; but I found that he had dropped the keys on the table, just where they are now. So I took them – and I went away."