William Le Queux

“ I had long ago talked it all over with Ethelwynn, and she entirely agreed with me. I had not the slightest desire to have a consulting-room of my own in Harley Street. All I longed for was a life in open air and rural tranquillity; a life far from the tinkle of the cab-bell and the milkman’s strident cry; a life of ease and bliss, with my well-beloved ever at my side. The unfortunate man compelled to live in London is deprived of half of God’s generous gifts. ”

“ I was a unit among a hundred thousand others engaged in the practice of medicine, not more skilled than the majority, even though Sir Bernard’s influence and friendship had placed me in a position of prominence. But in this brief life of ours it is woman who makes us dance as puppets on our miniature stage, who leads us to brilliant success or to black ruin, who exalts us above our fellows or hurls us into oblivion. ”

“ I knew always when she had received one by the traces of secret tears upon her cheeks. Forgive me for saying so, Doctor, but you men, either in order to test the strength of a woman’s affection, or perhaps out of mere caprice, often try her patience until the strained thread snaps, and she who was a good and pure woman becomes reckless of everything—her name, her family pride, and even her own honour. ”

“ Such a treat of peace and solitude was seldom afforded me, stifled as I was by the disinfectants in hospital wards and the variety of perfumes and pastilles in the rooms of wealthy patients. Truly the life of a London doctor is the most monotonous and laborious of any of the learned professions, and little wonder is it that when the jaded medico finds himself in the country or by the sea he seldom fails to take his fill of fresh air. ”

“ Since the conclusion of the inquest I had seen nothing of the widow. She had stayed several days with Ethelwynn at the Hennikers’, then had visited her aunt near Bath. That was all I knew of her movements, for, truth to tell, I held her in some contempt for her giddy pleasure-seeking during her husband’s illness. Surely a woman who had a single spark of affection for the man she had married could not go out each night to theatres and supper parties, leaving him to the care of his man and a nurse. That one fact alone proved that her professions of love had been hollow and false. ”

“ That it was no chimera of the imagination was proved by the fact that their footsteps sounded upon the path, and just as they had passed I heard Courtenay address his wife by name. The transformation of her countenance from the ineffable picture of grief and sorrow to the calm, sweet expression of content had been marvellous, to say the least—an event stranger, indeed, than any I had ever before witnessed. In the wild writings of the old romancers the dead have sometimes been resuscitated, but never in this workaday world of ours. There is a finality in death that is decisive. ”

“ At mid-day I called at the neighbour’s house close to Kew Gardens Station, where the widow and her sister had taken refuge. Mrs. Courtenay was utterly broken down, for Ethelwynn had told her the terrible truth that her husband had been murdered, and both women pounced upon me eagerly to ascertain what theory the police now held.
I looked at the woman who had held me so long beneath her spell. Was it possible that one so open-faced and pure could be the author of so dastardly and cowardly a crime? ”

“ Ethelwynn was a woman of extraordinary character, full of picturesque charm and glowing romance. To be tremblingly alive to the gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart, amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity. ”

“ The scratch on the face that Govitt had described was undoubtedly a post-mortem injury, and, with the exception of another slight scratch on the ball of the left thumb, I could find no trace whatever of violence. And yet, to me, the most likely theory was that she had again met her husband in secret, and had lost her life at his hands. To attribute a motive was utterly impossible. I merely argued logically within myself that it could not possibly be a case of suicide, for without a doubt she had met clandestinely the eccentric old man whom the world believed to be dead. ”

“ With his friend, a man named Jevons, he has been endeavouring to solve the problem.”
“A curse on Ambler Jevons!” he blurted forth in anger, as though he were well acquainted with my friend.
“If between them they managed to get at the truth it would be very awkward,” she said.
“No fear of that,” he laughed in full confidence. “A man once dead and buried, with a coroner’s verdict upon him, is not easily believed to be alive and well. No, my dear; rest assured that these men will never get at our secret—never.” ”

“ Her sister, on the contrary, had been one of those giddy women who follow every frill and furbelow of Fashion, and who take up all the latest crazes with a seriousness worthy of better objects. In temperament, in disposition, in character, and in strength of mind they had been the exact opposite of each other; the one sister flighty and thoughtless, the other patient and forbearing, with an utter disregard for the hollow artificialities of Society. ”

“ I have asked her to meet me at the earliest possible moment.”
“Then you have all my felicitations, Ralph,” she said, in a voice that seemed to quiver with emotion. “She loves you—loves you with a fiercer and even more passionate affection than that I entertained towards my poor dead husband. Of your happiness I have no doubt, for I have seen how you idolised her, and how supreme was your mutual content when [Pg 217] in each other’s society. Destiny, that unknown influence that shapes our ends, has placed you together and forged a bond between you that is unbreakable—the bond of perfect love.” ”

“ I observed, a trifle annoyed.
“Why should I?” asked my friend, Ambler Jevons, with a deep pull at his well-coloured briar. “What you’ve told me shows quite plainly that you have in the first place viewed one little circumstance with suspicion, then brooded over it until it has become magnified and now occupies your whole mind. Take my advice, old chap, and think nothing more about it. Why should you make yourself miserable for no earthly reason? You’re a rising man—hard up like most of us—but under old Eyton’s wing you’ve got a brilliant future before you. ”

“ To me, as to Ambler Jevons who knew her well, it seemed almost inconceivable that old Mr. Courtenay should allow her to live there after receiving such a wild communication as that final letter. Especially curious, too, that Mary had never suspected or discovered her sister’s jealousy. Yet so skilfully had Ethelwynn concealed her intention of revenge that both husband and wife had been entirely deceived.
Love, considered under its poetical aspect, is the union of passion and imagination. ”

“ The young woman, whose face was familiar, had, I recollected, asked most distinctly whether I was Doctor Boyd—a fact which showed that the trap had been prepared. I now saw the reason why she was unable to describe the man’s sham illness, and during the morning, while at work in the hospital wards, my suspicions became aroused that there had been some deeper motive in it all than the robbery of my watch or scarf-pin. Human life had been taken for far less value than that of my jewellery, I knew ”

“ Taking her into my confidence, I told her of my ideal of a snug country practice—one of those in which the assistant does the night-work and attends to the club people, while there is a circle of county people as patients. There are hundreds of such practices in England, where a doctor, although scarcely known outside his own district, is in a position which Harley Street, with all its turmoil of fashionable fads and fancies, envies as the elysium of what life should be. ”

“ It is his habit to be mute until he has gained some tangible result.”
A puzzled, apprehensive expression crossed her white brow for a moment; then it vanished into a pleasant smile, as she asked in confidence:
“Now, tell me, Ralph, what is your own private opinion of the situation?”
“Well, it is both complicated and puzzling. If we could discover any reason for the brutal deed we might get a clue to the assassin; but as far as the police have been able to gather, it seems that there is an entire absence of motive; hence the impossibility of carrying the inquiries further.” ”

“ In conspiracy with her “dead” husband it was impossible to be apart from him for long together. The undue accentuation of her daughter’s feigned grief had alarmed the old lady—and justly so. Now that I recollected, her conduct at table on the previous night was remarkable, having regard to the true facts of the case. I confess I had myself been entirely deceived into believing that her sorrow at Henry Courtenay’s death was unbounded. In every detail her acting was perfect, and bound to attract sympathy among her friends and arouse interest among strangers. ”

“ A kiss on arrival and another on departure was all the demonstration of affection that now passed between us. I doubted her; and though I strove hard to conceal my true feelings, I fear that my coldness was apparent, not only to her but to the Hennikers also. She had complained of it when she called at my rooms, and certainly she had full reason for doing so. I am not one of those who can feign love. Some men can; I cannot.
Thus it will be seen that although a certain coolness had arisen between us, in a manner that seemed almost mutual, we were nevertheless the best of friends. ”

“ Rest assured that she will never betray us,” answered Courtenay, with a light reassuring laugh. “True, you are not very friendly, yet you must recollect that she and I are friends. Her interests are identical with our own; therefore to expose us would be to expose herself at the same time.”
“A woman sometimes acts without forethought.”
“Quite true; but Ethelwynn is not one of those. She’s careful to preserve her own position in the eyes of her lover, knowing quite well that to tell the truth would be to expose her own baseness. ”

“ Courtenay and her husband—he sixty-two and she only twenty-nine—they had but few ideas in common.
That she nursed him tenderly I was well aware, but from her manner I had long ago detected that her devotedness was only assumed in order to humour him, and that she possessed little or no real affection for him. Nor was it much wonder, after all. A smart young woman, fond of society and amusement, is never the kind of wife for a snappy invalid of old Courtenay’s type. ”

“ The inquiry has been a long and hazardous one,” he went on. “But from the very first I was determined to get at the bottom of the mystery, cost me what it might—and I have fortunately succeeded.” Then, turning again to the cringing wretch, upon whom the terrible denunciation had fallen as a thunderbolt, he added: “The forgiveness of man, Sir Bernard Eyton, you will never obtain. It has been ever law that the murderer shall die—and you will be no exception.” ”