The Great Secret
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E. Phillips Oppenheim >> The Great Secret
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"Professor Kauppmann was unfortunately indisposed," Rust explained; "but
he has sent this gentleman down--Dr. Kretznow, Mr. Courage. Curiously
enough, Dr. Kretznow has already been called in to attend our friend
upstairs."
"Mr. Courage no doubt remembers me," the newcomer remarked. "I am sorry
to find our patient no better."
I looked him steadily in the face.
"You think that he will die?" I asked.
"I must admit," the doctor answered, "that I think he has very little
chance of recovery. His constitution has gone. He has no recuperative
powers."
Rust drew me a little on one side.
"You will be relieved to hear," he said, "that Dr. Kretznow considers
his state quite a natural one. He does not encourage in any way the
suspicions which, I must admit, I had formed."
"Indeed!" I answered.
"We are going to try an altogether new treatment," Rust continued, as we
stood together upon the landing. "I think perhaps you ought to know,
however, that our friend here gives very little hope."
I nodded.
"I shall leave you to entertain Dr. Kretznow," I said, "for a few
minutes. I want to see Mr. Guest!"
I found him anxiously awaiting me. He had ceased writing but he held a
roll of papers in his hand, and there was an ominous bulge in the pocket
of his dressing-gown. He had more color than I had yet seen him with, and
his eyes were unusually bright.
"For Heaven's sake come in, Courage, and close the door," he said
irritably. "You see the result of your little doctor meddling with things
he does not understand. I could have told you that no one would be
allowed to enter these doors who might possibly give them away."
"We sent for Kauppmann," I explained.
"Of course! You will not realize what you are up against. You might as
well have sent for the Angel Gabriel. Now will you do exactly as I ask
you?"
"Go on," I said.
"Ring for your man and let him sit in the room with me. Go downstairs and
get rid of those doctors. Then come up yourself, and be prepared to spend
at least three hours here."
I obeyed him. I kept silent as to the fact that Stanley was in the house.
I thought that he was already sufficiently excited. Downstairs I found
that Dr. Kretznow was on the eve of departure. I did not seek to detain
him for a moment. Rust, I think, wondered a little at my apparent lack of
courtesy; but I almost bundled them out of the house.
He offered me his hand as he climbed up into the dog-cart, which I
pretended, however, not to see.
"Mind, I give you very little hope, Mr. Courage," he said. "I studied the
case very seriously in London, and I perceived symptoms which our friend
here has not yet had the opportunity of observing. My own opinion is that
his time is short."
"I am sorry to hear you say so, doctor," I answered; "for I quite believe
that you are in a position to know."
He blinked at me for a moment from behind his thick spectacles, and I
fancied that he was going to say something more. Apparently, however, he
changed his mind, and the carriage drove off. I made my way at once into
the library. Mr. Stanley was still awaiting me.
"My mission," I announced, "has been a failure. He declines even to
discuss the matter."
Mr. Stanley knocked the ash off his cigar and rose to his feet. His face
showed neither disappointment nor surprise.
"The lady, I am afraid," he remarked, "will be sorry."
"It will be a great blow to her," I answered, "if he should die!"
Mr. Stanley shrugged his shoulders.
"He will die, and very soon," he declared. "You and I know that very
well. You are a young man, Mr. Courage," he added very slowly, and with
his eyes fixed intently upon me. "You have a beautiful home and a simple,
useful life--a long one, I trust--before you! Mr. Guest is not by any
means old, but he made enemies! It is never wise to make enemies."
"Is this a warning?" I asked.
"Accept it as one, if a warning is necessary," he answered. "Take my
advice. If Leslie Guest, or the man who is dying upstairs, has a legacy
to leave, let him choose another legatee! There is death in that legacy
for you!"
"Death comes to all of us," I answered. "We must take our risks."
He picked up his hat.
"Number 317, was it not?" he repeated thoughtfully, "an unlucky number
for you, I fear! ... By the bye, Mademoiselle is in the neighborhood."
"What of it?" I asked.
He looked at me long and curiously. Then he sighed and lit still another
of my finest Havanas as he prepared to depart.
"You will be better off," he said, "without that legacy!"
CHAPTER XVI
I TAKE UP MY LEGACY
Towards dawn I lit another lamp in my study and chanced to catch a
glimpse of my face in a small mirror which stood upon my writing-table.
Almost involuntarily I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to find
another man there. It was a moment's madness, but as a matter of fact I
did not recognize myself. It seemed to me that the change in the man
upstairs, who had passed from the world of living things with breath in
his body and life in his brain to the cold negation of death, was a
change no greater than had come to me. For I was passing, as I knew very
well, from behind the fences of my somewhat narrow but well-contained
life into the great world of tragical happenings, where life and death
are but small things, and one's self but a pawn in the great game. This,
because I believed, because I had accepted the trust of the man who, a
few hours ago, had closed his eyes with his hand in mine, and the faint
welcoming smile upon his lips of a brave but weary man, who finds nothing
terrible in death.
There was something almost fearful in a change so absolute and vital as
that which had come over my life. I realized this as I allowed myself a
few moments' rest, and threw myself upon the sofa. The old outlook, the
old ideas had been torn up by the root. The things which had seemed to be
of life itself only a few hours ago seemed now to have lapsed into the
insignificance of trifles. I thought of myself and my old life with the
tolerance of one who watches a child at play. Sport and all its kindred
delights--the whole glorification of the physical life--I viewed as a
Stock Exchange man might view the gambling for marbles of his youth. It
was incredible that I had ever even fancied myself content. My brain was
still in a whirl, but it seemed to me that I was already conscious of new
powers. My thoughts travelled more quickly, I felt a greater alertness of
brain, a swifter rush of ideas. But it seemed to me, also, that something
had gone, that never again would I find my way lie through the rose
gardens of life.
I must have dozed for a time upon the sofa, and was awakened by a soft
tapping upon the low, old-fashioned windows, which opened upon the
terrace. I sprang up, and, for a moment, it seemed to me that I must be
dreaming. It was Adele who stood there, all in white, with sunlight
around her.... I gasped for a moment, and then recovered myself. It was
Adele sure enough, in a white linen riding habit, and morning had come
while I slept. But I knew then that one link at least remained with the
old life.
She tapped upon the window-pane a little imperiously, and I threw open
the sash. Her eyes were fixed upon my face. I think that she, too, saw
the change. With the opening of the window came a rush of sweet fresh
air. She stepped into the room.
"Don't look at me as though I were something unreal!" she exclaimed. "I
told them that I was fond of early morning rides, and I saw your light
burning here from the park. Tell me--is he worse?"
I was suddenly calm. I realized that this was the beginning.
"He is dead," I answered. "He died about midnight."
There was a momentary horror in her face, for which I was grateful--I
scarcely knew why.
"Dead," she repeated softly, "so soon!"
She looked around the room and back at me.
"Turn out the lamps," she said. "This light is ghastly."
There was little more color in her face than mine. Even the sunlight
seemed cold and cheerless. She came a little nearer to me.
"He was conscious--at the end?"
"Yes!" I answered.
Her breath seemed to be coming a little faster. Her eyes were full of
eager questioning.
"You were with him?"
"Yes!"
Again there was a pause. I was steadfastly silent.
"Don't keep me in suspense," she muttered. "He told you?"
"Yes!" I answered, "he told me--certain things."
She drew a long breath of relief. I could see that she was trembling all
over. She sank into a chair.
"I felt that he would," she declared. "I knew that he could not carry his
secret to the grave. Is the door locked?"
"Yes!" I answered. "The door is locked."
She was still pale, but her eyes were burning.
"Go on!" she said; "don't lose a moment. I am waiting."
"For what?" I asked calmly.
"To hear everything," she answered quickly.
"I have nothing to tell you," I said.
She stamped her foot with the petulance of a spoilt child.
"Oh! how dense you are!" she exclaimed. "Repeat to me exactly what he
said to you--now, before you forget a single word!"
"I cannot do that," I said.
She leaned a little forward in her chair. Even then she did not
understand.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean that the things which he told me with his last breath were for my
own ear and my own knowledge alone," I answered. "I cannot share that
knowledge even with you."
It seemed to me that there was something unreal, almost hideous, about
the silence which followed. Through the open window there drifted into
the room the early morning sounds of an awakening world--the whistling of
birds in the shrubberies and upon the lawn, the more distant whir of a
reaping machine at work in the cornfields. But between us--silence. I
could not move my eyes from her face. There was no anger there, only a
slowly dawning horror. She seemed to be looking upon me as a man doomed.
I lit a match, and, taking some papers from my pocket, I slowly destroyed
them.
"There go the last records," I said, blowing the ashes away, "I have
learnt them by heart."
"I never thought of this," she murmured. "I never thought that you might
be--oh! you cannot understand," she broke off. "You cannot know what you
are doing."
"I have an idea," I answered grimly. "He warned me."
"Yet you cannot understand," she persisted. "Do you know that, even in
saying this much to me, you are signing your death-warrant--that from
this moment your life will not be safe for a single moment?"
"I know that there is danger," I answered; "but I am not an easy person
to kill. I have had narrow escapes before, and escaped without a
scratch."
She rose to her feet.
"If only I could make you understand," she muttered.
"Leslie Guest did his best," I answered. "He told me what the last few
years of his life had been. I know that I have to face great odds. I can
but do my best. We only die once."
Then she came swiftly over to me and laid her hands upon my shoulders.
There was now something more human in her face. Her eyes seemed to plead
with mine, and the joy of her near presence was a very real and subtle
thing. I felt my eyes kindle and my heart beat fast. There was no other
danger to be compared with this.
"I did not dream that this might happen," she said softly. "I meant to
use you as a tool, I even thought that you had consented. Oh! I am sorry.
I shall be sorry all my life that I asked you to bring him here. Will you
listen to me for a moment?"
"I am listening all the time," I answered, taking one of her hands in
mine.
"Have you realized what all this means?" she continued. "Are you prepared
to give up your life here, your sports, your beautiful home, to feel
that you have spies and enemies on every side, working always in the
dark against you? The man who lies dead upstairs knew every move of the
game--yet you see what has happened to him. How can you hope to succeed
when he failed? Forget last night, my friend! I Believe that it was a
nightmare, and I, too, will forget what you have told me. Come, it is not
too late. We will say that he died suddenly in a stupor, and that,
whatever his secrets were, he carried them with him. Is it agreed?"
I shook my head.
"One cannot break faith with the dead," I answered. "That is amongst the
impossible things. Let us speak no more of it."
She leaned towards me. Her breath was upon my cheek, and her eyes shone
into mine.
"Men have done more than this," she murmured, "when a woman has
pleaded--and--it is for your own sake. Think! Must I count you amongst
my enemies?"
"God only knows why you should," I answered. "I am no judge of others;
but if I betrayed the trust of a dead man, even for the sake of the woman
I loved, I should put a bullet in my brain sooner or later. What I cannot
understand, dear, is why you are not on my side. You are practically an
Englishwoman. What have you to do with Leslie Guest's enemies?"
She turned away sadly.
"There are some things," she said, "which cannot be altered. You and I
are on opposite sides. We may as well say good-bye. We shall never meet
again like this."
"I cannot believe it," I answered. "There are many things which seem dark
enough in the future to me, but I shall never believe that this is our
good-bye."
It seemed to me strange afterwards, that of the immediate future neither
of us spoke. I did not even ask her how long she was going to stay with
Lady Dennisford; she did not speak to me of my plans. As she had come, so
she went, silently and unexpectedly. She would not even let me follow her
out onto the terrace; from the window I watched her mount her horse and
ride away. Only just before she went she had looked back.
"I must see you again," she said. "You, too, must have time to think. I
am going to forget this morning, I am going to forget that I have seen
you. You, too, must do the same!"
Forget! She asked a hard thing.
CHAPTER XVII
NAGASKI'S INSTINCT
I was busy all the morning sending and receiving telegrams, and making
certain plans on my own account. Rust was with me a good deal of the
time; but the visitor whose coming I was expecting every minute did not
arrive till early in the afternoon. I sent out word to Mr. Stanley that I
was exceedingly busy, and should be glad to be excused; but, as I had
confidently expected, he was insistent. In about a quarter of an hour I
received him in the library.
He sank softly into the chair towards which I had pointed. For a moment
he sat and blinked at me behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
"So our friend," he murmured, "has passed away! It is very sad--very sad
indeed."
I leaned back in my chair and regarded him steadfastly.
"Mr. Stanley," I said, "you did not come here to express your sympathy
with the man whom you have done your best, if not to kill, at least to
frighten to death. Ask me all the questions you want to--say anything you
think necessary. Only finish it up. When you leave this room, let me feel
that circumstances will not require any further meeting between us."
My words seemed to afford Mr. Stanley matter for thought. His brows were
slightly puckered. I knew that from behind his glasses I was being
subjected to a very keen examination.
"I only trust, Mr. Courage,"' he said softly, "that the wish you have
expressed may become a possibility. I myself have always regretted your
intervention in this affair. You are, if you will forgive my saying so,
in strange waters."
"I don't know about that," I answered curtly. "I don't see now how I
could have done other than I have done. But anyhow, I'm sick of it. I
don't want to seem discourteous, but if you could manage to say to me, in
the course of a quarter of an hour, all that you have to say, and ask all
the questions you want to, I should be glad to have done with the whole
business, once and for all!"
My visitor nodded thoughtfully.
"Very good, Mr. Courage," he said. "I will endeavor to imitate your
frankness. Is there to be a post-mortem?"
"There is not," I answered. "Dr. Rust does not consider it necessary, and
I am forced to confess that I cannot see anything to be gained by it. You
and your friends may have been responsible for his death. I cannot say!
At any rate, I am sure that we should never be able to fix the guilt in
the proper quarter."
Mr. Stanley shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"I must congratulate you upon your common sense, Mr. Courage," he said.
"I pass on now to a more important question. Did our friend, before he
died, impart to you any of the hallucinations under which he suffered?
Are you his legatee?"
"I am not," I answered. "I believe that he meant me to be; but his death,
when it came, was quite sudden. All the secret information I had from him
was his name, and the address of his lawyers."
There was a short silence. I was able to bear with perfect calmness the
keen scrutiny to which my visitor was subjecting me.
"I congratulate you heartily, Mr. Courage," he said at last. "Mr. Guest's
story, if he had told it to you, would have been a mixture of stolen
facts and hallucinations, which might have influenced your life very
forcibly for evil. I wished for his death! I admit it freely. But I
wished it for this reason: because in all Europe yesterday, there did not
breathe a more dangerous man than the man who called himself Leslie
Guest."
"Well, he has gone," I said, "and his life, so far as I know of it, has
been a very sad one. I have already explained to you my wishes in the
matter. I want to forget as speedily as possible the events of the last
eight days."
"I should like," Mr. Stanley said, "to see him."
"I am sorry," I answered, "but that is impossible. The nurses are busy in
the room now, and apart from that, the dead, at least, should have peace
from their enemies. Of one thing I can assure you. Every scrap of paper
he had with him is burnt. There is nothing about him or the room which
could be of interest to you. I have sent for his lawyer, and am making
arrangements for the funeral. There is nothing more to be said or done,
except to say good afternoon to you, Mr. Stanley,"
He rose slowly up from his chair.
"You are a little precipitate, Mr. Courage," he said, "but I do not know
that I can blame you. Do you object to telling me when the funeral will
be?"
"I am not myself informed, at present," I answered. "I am waiting for the
arrival of the lawyer."
I had risen to my feet, and was standing with the handle of the door in
my hand. Mr. Stanley took the hint, yet I fancied that he departed
unwillingly.
"I should like," he admitted, "to have seen--him, and also the lawyer."
"Then you can find another opportunity," I answered stiffly. "Mr. Guest's
friends would receive every consideration from me. His enemies, I must
admit, I cannot, under the circumstances, see the back of too quickly."
Mr. Stanley had no alternative but to depart, which he did with as good a
grace as possible. I was glad to be alone for a few minutes. My ordinary
share of the vices of life, both great and small, I was, without a doubt,
possessed of. But I had never been a liar. I had never looked a man in
the face and made statements which I had known at the time were
absolutely and entirely false. This was my first essay in a new role.
My next visitor was a very different sort of person, a fair, florid
little man, with easy, courteous manners, and dressed in deep mourning.
He introduced himself as Mr. Raynes, of Raynes and Bishop, Solicitors,
Lincoln's Inn, and alluded to the telegram which I had sent him earlier
in the morning.
"May I inquire," he asked, after we had exchanged a few commonplaces, "if
you are aware that Mr. Leslie Guest was an assumed name of the deceased?"
"I was in his confidence towards the last," I answered. "He told me a
good deal of his history."
The lawyer nodded sympathetically.
"A very sad one, I fear you found it," he remarked.
"Very sad indeed," I assented.
"I have here," he continued, "Lord Leslie's will, and instructions as to
his burial. I presume you would like me to take entire charge of all the
arrangements?"
"Certainly," I answered.
"His Lordship wished to be buried very quietly in the nearest churchyard
to the place where he died," the lawyer continued. "I presume that can be
arranged."
"Quite easily," I answered. "The clergyman is waiting to see you now; if
you like I will take you to him."
In the hall we met Lady Dennisford. She was plainly dressed in black, and
she carried a great bunch of white roses. I introduced Mr. Raynes to the
vicar, and hurried back to her.
"You would like to see him?" I asked.
She nodded, and I led the way upstairs. I opened the door and closed it
again softly, leaving them alone....
I descended into the hall, and there upon the steps, looking at me with
black, beady eyes, deep set in his wrinkled face, was my friend, or
rather my enemy, Nagaski. He eyed my approach with gloomy disfavor.
He opened his mouth in a seeming yawn, a little, red tongue shot out from
between his ivory teeth. Then I heard him called by a familiar voice, and
passing out, I found his mistress leaning back in the corner of Lady
Dennisford's victoria.
She welcomed me with a slow, curious smile.
"I will get out," she said. "There is something I should like to say to
you."
I handed her down. She led the way on to the terrace. A few paces behind,
Nagaski, with drooping head and depressed mien, followed us. When we
halted, he sat upon his haunches and watched me.
"Nagaski," I remarked, "does not seem to be quite himself to-day."
"It is your presence," she answered, "which affects him. He dislikes
you."
I looked at him thoughtfully. If Nagaski disliked me, I was very sure
that I returned the sentiment to a most unreasonable extent.
"I wonder why," I said. "I have always been decent to him."
"Nagaski has antipathies," she said quietly. "It is a good thing that we
are not in his own country. There his breed are supposed to have some of
the qualities of seers, and his dislike would be a very ominous thing."
"Are you superstitious?" I asked.
"I am not sure," she answered gravely. "If I were, I should certainly
avoid you. His attitude is a distinct warning."
I drew a little nearer to her. It seemed to me that she was very pale,
and there was trouble in her face.
"Do you think it possible?" I asked, "that I could bring sorrow upon
you?"
"Very possible indeed," she murmured, avoiding my eyes, and looking
steadily across the park.
"Since when have you discovered this?" I asked.
"Within the last hour," she answered.
I laid my hand upon hers. She withdrew it at once. There was a distinct
change in her manner towards me.
"I suppose," she remarked, "that I ought to congratulate you. You are
certainly cleverer than I gave you credit for. You have deceived Mr.
Stanley, and he is not at all an easy person for a beginner to deceive."
I kept silence. I began to see the trouble into which I was drifting.
"But," she continued, "you did not attempt to deceive me. And in this
matter, Mr. Stanley and I are one!"
"You have told him!" I exclaimed.
"Not yet," she answered, "but I am forced to do so, unless--"
"Unless what?"
She looked me in the face.
"Unless you give me your word of honor that you make no attempt to carry
on the task which Leslie Guest had assigned himself, that you do not
regard yourself in any shape or form as his successor. Don't you see that
it must be so? You plead that you must keep faith with the dead. I, at
least, must keep faith with the living. I offer you a chance of safety,
and I beg you to take it. I can do no more."
There was a sharp, little yap from Nagaski. We looked around, Lady
Dennisford had come out. We turned towards her. Nagaski trotted on ahead.
His demeanor was generally more brisk, and his expression one of relief.
A cloud of anxiety seemed to have rolled away from his small brain. Adele
pointed to him significantly.
"You see," she said, "his instinct is right. There are evil things
between you and me. If I speak, there is no hope for you, and if I keep
silent, there is danger for me, and I am a woman forsworn. If only I had
never gone to Lord's and seen you play cricket!"
"Would that have helped us?" I asked.
"Of course! I should never have counted upon you as a possible tool! I
saw you strain every nerve in your body to catch a ball, and I judged you
by your pursuits, and--all this has come of it. Nagaski was right. We go
ill together, you and I, and one of us must suffer."
"I can only pray then," I answered, as I handed her into the carriage,
"that it may be I."
Nagaski sprang upon his mistress' lap, and his was the only farewell I
received as the carriage drove away. His upper lip was drawn back over
his red gums; there was something fiendish and uncanny in his snarl, and
the hatred which shone from his tiny black eyes. I watched the carriage
until it disappeared. He had not moved. He was still looking back at me.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE DEATH CHAMBER
I sat up suddenly in bed and turned on the light. It was barely two
o'clock by my watch, but I felt sure that I had not been mistaken. Some
one had knocked at my door.
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