First Person Paramount Part 14

"Then come back in an hour or two. But be sure, sir, and say nothing about your having been here before. He's a terribly suspicious man, and if he thought that you and I had been conferring, he would dismiss me straight off the reel!"

"Never fear, Brown. I wouldn't have you sacked for the world. You'll be too useful to me here."

"I really believe I shall, sir."

In another moment he had gone, and I watched him walking up the street, through a slit in the blind, until he had disappeared. It was exactly twenty minutes past ten. I hurried to my master's study and, quick as thought, turned the whole place topsy turvy. I ransacked his private drawers and scattered their contents broadcast, I even overturned his heap of reference books. I heard the latch turn in the front door as I descended the stairs.

"Oh, it is you at last, sir. Thank G.o.d!" I cried as Sir William Dagmar appeared.

He was looking like a ghost, white and utterly wearied out, and his chin was sunk upon his chest; but my words startled him, and he turned on me with compressed lips, in sudden energy.

"What is the matter, Brown?" he demanded.

"Oh, if you please, sir, I have had a terrible night!" (I poured out the words in a perfect stream.) "Just as I was going to bed, sir, it was about eight o'clock, sir, for I was uncommon tired, the bell rang.

I went down to open the door and there you were standing, at least I thought it was you, sir. He looked exactly like you, and he spoke like you, sir, and he called me 'Brown,' sir----"

"Great G.o.d!" exclaimed my master, and he fell to trembling like a leaf.

"What is that you say, but wait! wait!----"

He staggered into the dining room and clutched a decanter of spirit, which he held up with a shaking hand to his lips. He took a deep draught, and then broke into a frightful fit of coughing. I tended upon him as gently as a woman, and half led, half carried him to a sofa, where I forced him to lie down. But his anxiety was in flames, and as soon as he could he sat up and commanded me to proceed.

"What did this--this double of me say and do?" he gasped. "Tell me quickly!"

"He went straight up stairs, sir. He was there about half an hour, and then your study bell rang. He was standing by your desk with your time-table in his hand, sir. He said to me--'I suppose, Brown, you thought I had gone to Newhaven!'

"'Yes, sir,' said I, and he laughed like anything, just as though he was very much amused about something, and all the while I thought he was you, sir. The only thing was, sir, that he wore a different overcoat, and I kept wondering what you had done with your fur coat, sir. He was searching the time-table, and presently, sir, he looked over at me and he said--'Why, Brown, if I'd gone to Newhaven, I couldn't have got back until ten fifteen to-morrow morning.'

"'Indeed, sir!' says I. And at that he simply roared out laughing.

'Brown,' he cries, 'you'll be the death of me!' I was very much astonished, sir, and I thought that you'd taken leave of your senses, sir, but after you--that is to say--_he_--after he'd got over his laughing--he looks me in the face and says--says he--'Brown, you fool, 'can't you see I'm not your master! Here look at my thumbs!' And sure enough, sir, he had both his thumbs quite complete, sir, and then I knew he couldn't be you, sir! I was that dumbfounded for a bit, sir, that I was ready to sink through the floor, and all I could do was just gape at his hands. Then of a sudden he whips one of them into his pocket, sir, and he pulled out a pistol, which he clapped to my head.

'Listen to me, Brown!' says he, very quiet like, but in a terrible voice, sir, 'Listen to me, Brown!' says he. 'Your master is in Newhaven by now, and he can't get back till the morning. When he comes tell him from me, that his double will find out to-night all he wants to know, and that he'll hear from me within a week. Tell him, too, that he needn't bother suspecting young Sefton, I could have got the young a.s.s to help me if I'd wanted, but he was too great a fool, and I scorn to have him blamed. Tell Sir William I'm playing a lone hand, and that it rests with him to keep it a lone hand. And now, Brown, you just stay here for the next half hour, while I go through the house, and don't you budge, or as sure as death I'll plug a bullet through your brains!'

"With that, sir, he dragged me into a corner, and put my face to the wall--and--and--I stayed there, sir!"

"What!" thundered my master. "How long?"

I began to whimper. "I--I--take shame to admit I played the coward, sir," I blubbed out.

"But if--if you'd heard him--speak, sir--and seen the look in his eyes--sir--you--you--may be----'"

"Enough!" he interjected very sharply. "I'm not blaming you, my man, I'm asking for information. How long did you stay in the corner where he put you?"

"A long while, sir."

"How soon did he leave the house?"

"I don't know, sir. I seemed to hear noises for hours and hours, sir--and--and--" here I broke down with a really artistic sob. "It's turned me quite grey, sir--all about the temples--and I was brown as brown--last evening, sir!"

Sir William got to his feet and placed a hand upon my shoulder.

"There, there, Brown, compose yourself!" he said in kinder tones. "I can see that you have had a great fright, and you were right to run no risks. But tell me did you send for the police after you discovered that the man had gone?"

"I--no, sir," I stammered. "You told me on no account to leave the house!"

"Brown!" he cried indignantly.

"Well, sir--I--I--I--simply daren't venture outside the house, sir!" I blurted out.

My master frowned and shook his head. "Just as well, perhaps!" he muttered to himself. He added in a louder key. "Well, my man, you have given me much to think over, and I have trouble enough upon my hands already."

"Trouble, sir!" I repeated.

"A dear friend of mine is dead. You know him, Brown, Mr. George Cavanagh. He shot himself last night in his studio!"

It was on the tip of my tongue to scream out--"in his studio!" I was so surprised, but I restrained myself just in time and cried instead:--

"Good heavens! sir, how awful! Why did he do it, sir?"

Sir William shrugged his shoulders. "They say that it was in a fit of despair, because the great picture he was painting was accidentally destroyed by fire. But you may read for yourself, Brown, the morning papers are full of it!"

The papers! I had never even thought to look at one. I had been so preoccupied. My master went on speaking. "I'll go upstairs, Brown, and have a bath," he said, "after which I shall attend the inquest!"

"But your double, sir!" I cried. "Ought not we to tell the police at once about him, sir?"

He shook his head. "No, no, Brown. Better not, better not. He is probably some friend of mine who has been playing a practical joke at my expense. Keep what has happened to yourself, Brown. I do not wish to be laughed at!"

"Very good, sir," I muttered dubiously. "But all the same I don't think he was joking, sir. I'll be bound you'll find he has robbed you. The study is just upside down! I have not tried to put it in order, sir, so that you might see it as he left it!"

Sir William gave me a wan smile. "I keep no valuables in the house, Brown," he replied, "except my ma.n.u.scripts, and they are worthless to anyone but myself."

Without another word he left the room, and I also hurried out in order to prepare his bath. I did not venture to converse with him again, for he had fallen into one of his impenetrable silent moods which inevitably stirred him to wrath against any interrupter. As soon as I had dressed him he left the house, still steeped in speechless thought.

He looked ten years older than he had the previous day, and I felt really sorry to remember the additional cup of fear and horror he would be called upon to drink when he and the others had ascertained the full extent and import of my most recent impersonation.

After he had gone, I s.n.a.t.c.hed open the first paper that came to my hand. It was the _Morning Mail_. I discovered the black scare headline in a second. Yes, sure enough it related how Mr. Cavanagh's valet had found his master lying on the studio floor a little after midnight, stone dead, with a revolver clutched in his right hand. The man had not heard the shot, but he had been awakened by some noise, and he had thought his master had called out to him. He admitted that he was a heavy sleeper, and he did not remember hearing Mr. Cavanagh enter the house. The artist's great picture upon which he had been working for a year, and which was almost finished, was half destroyed by fire, and it looked as though by accident, for a naked gas jet burned perilously close to the easel. The bullet which had killed Mr. Cavanagh had been found by the police embedded in the plaster of a distant wall, near the ceiling. The writer of the article had ingeniously concluded that the artist on entering his studio and observing the fruit of his ardent labours destroyed beyond repair, had, in the first sharp flush of his despair, committed suicide!

As for me, when I scanned the page and considered one by one the circ.u.mstantial dove-tailing details of that ghastly history--I confess that for a moment I doubted my senses' evidence. A little reflection, however, brought me to a realization of the truth, and a greater respect than ever for a certain eminent surgeon--to wit--Sir Charles Venner. I saw in everything I read, his calm, cold-blooded scheming. On my last glimpse he had been languidly smoking a cigarette, which he must have lighted before the breath had quite departed from poor Cavanagh's mutilated corpse. Perhaps nay, undoubtedly, he had even then been planning how to act, and so arrange matters that no scandal might be a.s.sociated with the name of his accursed hospital.

As clearly as though I had been present I saw him ordering that dreadful funeral; saw him take Cavanagh's latch-key from his chain; saw him direct one of the negroes to prepare a conveyance; saw him lead the negroes carrying the body to a waiting vehicle--and that silent cortege move across the Heath to St. John's Wood. I saw him then open Mr.

Cavanagh's door and noiselessly motion the negroes to bear the corpse within. I watched him dispose the body on the floor with scientific calculation as to the proper direction of the bullet, and then climbing upon a chair or perhaps on the negroes' shoulders force the bullet through the curtain into the plaster. Perhaps that noise had awakened Cavanagh's drowsy headed servant! I saw him approach the easel and set fire to the great picture, so as to supply the world with a motive for the suicide--and finally I saw him steal away with his ebony attendants from the house--three dark malignant spirits, veritable caterers of death!

Somehow I shuddered to think of Sir Charles Venner. I felt him to be a foeman more worthy of my steel than all his fellows, and I half wished, half feared to cross swords with him. It is true that already I had twice managed to out-wit him, and he had not dreamed in either case of doubting my a.s.sumed ident.i.ty. But I could not claim much credit in the latter bout, nor feel much satisfaction, since throughout that awful evening Sir Charles had been too occupied to do more than throw a hasty glance in my direction. What would happen, I wondered, in a real fair battle of wits, each of us forewarned of the encounter? I had profound faith in my powers and resources, but I dared not forecast that issue!

Twice we had met, and twice I had succeeded. Would we strive again, and who would win on the third and fatal meeting?

Such were the questions I asked myself unceasingly; but I could answer none of them.

It was not until almost four o'clock in the afternoon that my master returned home, and he was accompanied by Sir Charles Venner and Dr.

Fulton. I was at once called into the study and put through a rigid cross-examination, by all three, regarding my pretended visitor of the previous evening. But I had expected such an ordeal, and I came through with colours flying. I was much concerned, however, to perceive that Sir William Dagmar looked very ill. He coughed incessantly and so haggard and careworn was his visage that I believed he would presently collapse. My prognostications were justified by the event. Soon after I had been dismissed the bell rang violently, and I hurried upstairs to see the two surgeons carrying my master's unconscious body to the bedroom. I undressed him there and put him to bed; whereupon they carefully examined him, and held a long and anxious consultation over his condition. An hour pa.s.sed before he recovered from his swoon, but even when he awoke it was not to his proper senses, for he immediately began to babble a stream of meaningless nonsense. The surgeons looking very grave agreed to administer an opiate, and they injected some fluid hypodermically into his arm.

Sir Charles then informed me that they feared a serious attack of meningitis, and he promised to send a trained nurse within an hour to look after the sick man. He left at once, but Dr. Fulton remained until my master went to sleep. The nurse arrived half an hour later, and I prepared one of the spare bed-rooms for her use. She was an angular hard-featured woman named Hargreaves, but she had a soft voice and pleasing manners, and she seemed to know her business. Mr. Sefton Dagmar arrived at about seven o'clock. As soon as he heard that his uncle was ill and likely to die, he went half crazy with joy and insisted upon staying in the house. I did not wish him to at all, but there was nothing for me to do except put up with the infliction, and prepare another bed-room. However, he sent me out soon after dinner to despatch a telegram to Newhaven for his baggage, and for that little involuntary service that he did me, I became reconciled to his presence. The fact was, I needed an excuse to quit the house upon business of my own. Ever since my master had swooned I had been thinking very hard, and it seemed to me that if I wished to improve my fortunes, I must strike at once before all the geese, whom I expected to lay me golden eggs, should die. Having sent Mr. Sefton Dagmar's wire, I took a cab to Cheapside and sought out a cheap stationer's shop. I bought some common note paper and envelopes, and begging the loan of a pen, I scratched in straggling print the following epistle to Sir Charles Venner:--