Flames Part 71

THE DEATH OF RIP

Although Dr. Levillier's visit to Victoria Street had been such a painful one, he had no intention whatever of letting the two young men drift away out of his acquaintance. He wanted especially to be with them in public places, and to see for himself, if possible, whether Cuckoo's accusation against Valentine were true. That a frightful change had taken place in Julian's life, and that he was rapidly sinking in a slough of wholly inordinate dissipation was clear enough. But did Valentine, this new, strange Valentine, lead him, or merely go with him, or stand aloof smiling at him and letting him take his own way like a foolish boy? That question the doctor must decide for himself. He could only decide it satisfactorily by ignoring Valentine's impertinence to himself, and endeavouring to resume his former relations of intimacy with these old friends who were strangers. He began by asking them both to dinner.

Rather to his surprise they accepted and came. The mastiffs were shut close in their den below, lest they should repeat their performance of the summer. The dinner pa.s.sed off with some apparent cheerfulness, but it served to show the doctor the gulf that was now fixed between him and his former dear a.s.sociates. He was on one sh.o.r.e, they on another. Their faces were altered as if by the desolate influence of distance. Even their voices sounded strange and far away. Great s.p.a.ces had widened between their minds and his. He endeavoured at first to cover those s.p.a.ces, to bridge that gulf; but he soon came to learn the vanity of such an attempt. He could not go to them, nor would they return to him.

He could only pretend to bridge the gulf by the exercise of a suave diplomacy, and by carefully banis.h.i.+ng from his manner every trace of that dispraising elderliness which seems to the young the essence of prudery arising, like an appalling Phoenix, from the ashes of past imprudence.

In this way he drew a little nearer to Julian, who obviously feared at first to suffer condemnation at his hands, but, finding only geniality, lost his uneasiness and suffered himself to become more natural.

But this thawing of Julian, the quick response of humanity to the adroit treatment of it, only threw into harsher relief the immobility of Valentine, and to him the doctor drew no nearer, but seemed, with each moment, more distant, more absolutely divided from him. And the gulf between them was full of icebergs, which filled the atmosphere with the breath of a deadly frost. This was what the doctor felt. What Valentine, the new Valentine, felt could not be ascertained. He wore a brilliant mask, on whose gay mouth the society smile was singularly well painted.

He wore a manner edged with tinkling bells of brilliancy. Happiness and ease beamed in his eyes. Yet his look, his voice, his smile, his gaiety chilled the doctor and set him mentally s.h.i.+vering. And with each bright saying and merry laugh he struck a blow upon the former friends.h.i.+p.

The doctor fancied he could actually hear the sound of the hammer at its work.

The simile of the hammer was peculiarly consonant with his present view of the new Valentine, for, despite the latter's gaiety, ease, and self-possession, his smiling sociability and expansiveness, the doctor was perpetually conscious of a lurking violence, an incessant and forcible exigence in him. It might be a fancy, but the doctor was not, as a rule, the prey of fancies. Yet Valentine gave no outward hint of inward turmoil. Rather did the doctor divine it as by a curious intuition that guided him to that which lay in hiding. And it was this apprehension of a deep violence and peculiar, excessive animation in Valentine that woke the doctor's deepest wonder, and set the gulf between them so widely. For all violence had once been so specially abhorred by Valentine. He had so loved and sought all calm. The calm, he had often said, were the true aristocrats of life. Fury and any wild movements of the pa.s.sions were of the gutter.

That dinner was returned. The doctor dined with Valentine and Julian more than once, and accompanied them to the theatre. But he was unable to make certain of Valentine's precise att.i.tude towards Julian, although he saw easily that the influence of the one over the other had rather waxed than waned. This being so, it followed that Julian, having completely changed, the influence that guided him must have completely changed also.

The pendulum had swung back. That often happened in the record of men's lives. But not in such a way as this. The doctor, like Cuckoo, recognized the existence of a mystery. But he was by no means prepared to accept her fantastic and ignorantly vague explanation of it. That was a wild fable, a fairy tale for a child, not a reasonable elucidation for a man and a doctor. The most curious thing of all was that she declared that Valentine had actually told her the truth about the matter, knowing that she could not understand it. The doctor resolved to see her later, and to question her more minutely on this point. Meanwhile he began to watch Valentine carefully, and with the most sedulous attention to every detail and _nuance_ of manner, look, and word. He understood Julian. His sad case was to an extent due to his long happiness and freedom from the bondage in which so many men move wearily. It was as if his pa.s.sions had been dammed up by the original influence of Valentine. Through the years, behind the height of the dam, the waters had been rising, acc.u.mulating, pressing. Suddenly the dam was removed, and a devastating flood swept forth, uncontrollable, headlong, and furious. Julian needed rescue, but the only way to rescue seemed to lie through Valentine, within whose circle of influence he was so closely bound. The mystery of Valentine must be laid bare.

And so the doctor watched and wondered, bringing all his knowledge of the world and of the minds and bodies of men to help him.

And meanwhile the lady of the feathers was seen nightly in Piccadilly.

And Julian went his way steadily downwards.

One night there was a flicker of snow over London, and the air was chill with the breath of coming winter. The dreary light of snow illumined the faces of all who walked in the streets, painting the brightest cheeks with a murky grey pigment, and making the sweetest eyes hollow and expressive of depression. Heavily the afternoon went by and the evening came sharply, like a blow.

Dr. Levillier was engaged to dine with Julian and Valentine at the former's rooms in Mayfair. Of late Valentine had seemed to seek him out, and especially to enjoy seeing him in the company of Julian. And the doctor fancied he detected something of a triumph that was almost blatant in Valentine's manner when they three were together, and when the doctor's eyes rested sorrowfully upon that crumbling wall, which had once been so fair and strong. Of late, too, the doctor, ever watching for the signs of change in Valentine, had grown more and more aware that he was an utterly, through and through, different man from the youth men had called the Saint of Victoria Street. He felt the transformation to be inhuman, and, by slow and reluctant degrees, he was beginning to form an opinion. It was only in embryo as yet, a shadow hesitating in the background of his mind. He shrank from holding it. He shuddered at its coming. Yet, if it were right, it might explain everything, might make what was otherwise incredible clear and comprehensible.

Was this vile change in his friend caused by a radical distortion of mind? Was Valentine a madman?

Lunacy turns temperaments upside down, transforms the lamb into the tiger, the saint into the murderer.

Was Valentine then mad? and was the monstrous distortion of his brain playing upon the life of Julian, who, like the rest of the world, believed him sane?

The thought came to the doctor, and once it had been born it was often near to him. Yet he would not encourage it unless he could rest it upon facts. That a man should change was not a proof of his madness, however unaccountable the change might seem. The doctor watched Valentine, and was compelled to admit to himself that in every way Valentine seemed perfectly sane. His cynicism, his love of ordinary life, his toleration of common and wretched people, might seem amazing to one who had known him well years ago, but there were many perfectly sane men of the same habits and opinions, of the same modes of speech and of action. If the doctor's strange thought were to become a definite belief, much more was needed, something at least of proof, something that would carry conviction not merely to the imagination, but to the cool and searching intellect.

On this night of the first snow the doctor's thought moved a step forward towards conviction.

When he arrived at Julian's rooms, he was greeted by Valentine alone.

"Our host has deserted us," he said, leading the doctor into the fire.

"What, is he ill?"

"He has not returned. He went away last night--on a quest of a certain pleasure. This afternoon he wired, asking me to entertain you. He was unavoidably detained, but hoped to arrive in time for dessert. His present love's arms are very strong. They keep him."

"Oh!" the doctor said, slipping out of his cloak; "we dine here then?"

"We do, alone. I don't think we've dined alone since Julian and I came back from abroad, and you deserted your Russian."

"No. I will consider myself your guest."

It struck the doctor that here was an excellent opportunity for confirming or abandoning his dreary suspicion. Alone with Valentine, he would be able to lead the conversation in any direction he chose. He was glad that Julian had not returned, and resolved to use this opportunity.

They went into the dining-room and sat down to dinner. Valentine was apparently rather amused at playing the host in another man's house.

It was novel, and entertained him. He was obviously in splendid spirits, ate with good appet.i.te and drank the champagne with an elation not unlike the elation of the dancing wine. More than once, too, he alluded to Julian's absence and probable occupation, as if both the one and the other were bouquets in his cap, or laurels in some crown which he alone could wear. Dr. Levillier noticed it and sought to draw him on in that direction, and to lead him to some open acknowledgment of his share in Julian's rapidly proceeding ruin. But Valentine changed the conversation into another channel without apparently observing his companion's intention, or deliberately frustrating it. He chattered of a thousand things, mostly of topics that are the common converse of London dinner-tables. The doctor joined in. To a listening stranger the two men would have seemed old friends, pleasantly at ease and secure with one another. Yet the doctor was doing detective duty all the time.

And Valentine! was he not secretly revelling in that destruction of a human soul that was galloping apace?

Course succeeded course. At last dessert was placed upon the table.

Valentine raised his gla.s.s with a smile:

"Let us drink the health of Julian's absence," he said. "For you and I get on so perfectly together."

"Rather a cruel toast in Julian's own rooms," said the doctor.

"Ah, but he's happy enough where he is."

"You know where that is?"

"No--I only suspect," Valentine cried gaily. "In the wilds of South Kensington, in a tiny house, all Morris tapestry and Burne-Jones stained gla.s.s, dwells the latest siren who has been calling to our Ulysses. He is there, I suspect. Wait a moment, though. His telegram might tell us.

Where was it sent from?"

He sprang up, went to the writing-table near the window, and caught up the crumpled thin paper that he had flung down there. Smoothing it out, he read, holding the paper close to a wax candle:

"Handed in at the Marylebone Road office at 5:50."

His brow clouded.

"Marylebone Road," he repeated, looking at the doctor. "Why should he be there?"

His words immediately set the doctor on the track.

"Does not Cuckoo Bright live there?" he said.

"Yes, she does."

"May he not be with her?"

Valentine had dropped the telegram. He was standing at the table, and he pressed his two fists, clenched, upon the white cloth.

"I have told him he must give Cuckoo up," he said, almost in a snarl.

The doctor glanced at him quickly.

"You have told him?"

"Advised him, I mean."