CHAPTER XXIX
HOW LADY DYKE DISAPPEARED
(Being the Manuscript left by Sir Charles Dyke, Bart., and addressed to Claude Bruce, Esq., Barrister-at-law)
It is customary, I believe, for poor wretches who are sentenced to undergo the last punishment of the law to be allowed a three weeks’ respite between the date of their sentence and that on which they are executed. I am in the position of such a one. The difference between me and the convicted felon lies merely in environment; in most respects I am worse situated than he. My period of agony is longer drawn out, I am condemned to die by my own hand, I am mocked by the surroundings of luxury, taunted by the knowledge that though life and even a sort of happiness are within my reach I must not avail myself of them.
There may come a time in the affairs of any man when he is compelled to choose between a dishonored existence and voluntary death. These unpleasant alternatives are now before me. You, who know me, would never doubt which of them I should adopt, nor will you upbraid me because our judgments coincide. There is nothing for it, Bruce, but quiet death – death in the least obtrusive form, and so disposed that it may be possible for you, chief among my friends and the only person I can trust to fulfil my wishes, to arrange that my memory may be speedily forgotten. My virtues, I fear, will not secure me immortality; my faults, I hope, will not be spread broadcast to cram the maws of the gaping crowd.
I do not shirk this final issue, nor do I crave pity. In setting forth plainly the history of my wife’s death and its results, I am actuated solely by a desire to protect others from needless suspicion. Having resolved to pay forfeit for my own errors, I claim to have expiated them. This document is an explanation, not a confession.
I have not much time left wherein fittingly to shape my story so as to be just to all, myself included. If I am not mistaken, the officers of the law are in hot chase of me, but my statement shall not be made to an earthly judge. The words of a man about to die may not be well chosen; they should at least be true. I will tell of events as nearly as possible in their sequence of time. If I leave gaps through haste or forgetfulness you will, from your own knowledge of the facts, readily fill them up once you are in possession of the salient features.
Mensmore and his sister were the friends of my early years. We played together as children. Gwendoline Mensmore was two years younger than I, and I well remember making love to her at the age of eleven. Her mother died when she was quite a baby, and her father married again, so her step-brother Albert is her junior by four years. I taught him how to ride and swim and play cricket. My father’s place in Surrey – we did not acquire the Yorkshire property until the death of my grandfather – adjoined the estate General Mensmore occupied after his retirement from the army.
We children always called Gwendoline “Dick,” to avoid the difficulty of her long-sounding name, I suppose, and I honestly believe that our respective parents entertained the idea that a marriage between us was quite a natural thing. I went to school at Brighton, and Mensmore, being a somewhat precocious lad, joined the same school before I left. The headmaster, the Rev. Septimus Childe, was an old friend of my father’s, and when he wished to purchase a house at Putney – the terrible house which has figured in my dreams for the past three months as a Place of Skulls – my parents put pressure on my mother’s trustees to make the transaction an easy one. Of course, I knew it well. We regarded it in those early days as a town house, and always lived there during the season.
My father’s succession to the title and estates changed all that. We quitted Surrey for Yorkshire, and Wensley House, Portman Square, was a step upwards from the barrack-like building which so admirably suited Mr. Childe’s requirements.
When I was at Sandhurst General Mensmore got into difficulties. He quitted Surrey, and we gradually lost sight of him and his children. Afterwards I knew that he struggled on for a few years, placed his son in the army, and then came a complete collapse, ending in his death and the boy’s resignation of his commission. Of Gwendoline Mensmore’s whereabouts I knew nothing. Her memory never quitted me, but the new interests in my life dulled it. I imagined that I could laugh at a childish infatuation.
Then I married. I did so in obedience to my father’s wishes, and Alice was, I suppose, an ideal wife – far too ideal for a youngster of my lower intellectual plane. I know now that I never had any real affection for her. I was always somewhat awed by her loftier aspirations. My interests lay in racing, hunting, sports generally, and having what I defined as “a good time.” She, though an excellent horsewoman, and in every sense an admirable hostess, thought Newmarket vulgar, treated Ascot as a social necessity, and turned up her eyebrows at me when I failed to see any utility in schemes for the reclamation of the submerged tenth.
Thus, though we never quarrelled, we gradually drifted apart. She knew she bored me if she asked me to inspect a model dwelling; I knew she hated the people who were the companions of a coaching tour or a week at Goodwood. Unfortunately, we were not blessed with offspring. Had it been otherwise, we might have found a common object of interest in our children.
Insensibly, we agreed to a separate existence. We lived together as friends rather than as husband and wife. We parted without regret and met without cordiality. Do not think we were unhappy. If our marriage was not bliss, it was at least comfortable. I think my wife was proud of my successes on the turf in a quiet kind of way, and I certainly was proud of her and of the high reputation she enjoyed among all classes of society. I even reverenced her for it, and I well knew that the enthusiastic receptions given us by our Yorkshire tenantry were not due to my efforts in their behalf, but to hers.
So we lived for nearly six years, and so we might have continued for sixty had I not met Gwendoline Mensmore again, under vastly changed circumstances. She was a chorus-girl in a variety theatre, earning a poor living under wretched conditions. I discovered the fact by mere chance.
I met her, and she told me her story – how she had married a man named Hillmer, whom her father had trusted, and whom she believed to be able to save them from ruin. Then the crash came. Her father died; her husband also broke down financially, took to drink and ill-treated her; her brother was swallowed up somewhere in the Far West. She had no alternative but to live apart from her husband and try to support herself by the first career that suggests itself to a young, talented, and beautiful woman. But she was already weary of the stage and its distasteful surroundings. Her nature was too delicate for the rude friendships of the dressing-room. She shuddered at the thought of a mild carousal in a bar when the labors of the night were ended.
In a word, were I differently constituted, were she cast in more common mould, there was apparently ready to hand all the material for a vulgar liaison.
My respect for my wife, however, no less than Mrs. Hillmer’s fine disposition, saved both of us from folly. Yet I could not leave her exposed to the exigencies of a life in which she was rapidly becoming disillusioned. Away in the depths of my heart I knew that this sweet woman was my true mate, separated from me by adverse chance. There was nothing unfair to Alice in the thought. Were she questioned at any time, I suppose, she must have admitted that we were, in some respects, as ill-matched a couple as we were well-matched in others. You will say that I understood but little of feminine nature – nothing at all of my wife’s.
How best to help Mrs. Hillmer – that was the question. It was at this stage I made the initial mistake to which I can, too late, trace a host of succeeding misfortunes. I did not consult my wife. Trying now to analyze my reasons for this lamentable error of judgment I imagined that it arose from some absurd disinclination on my part to admit that I went to the stage-door of a theatre to inquire about the identity of a young woman whom I had recognized from the front of the house.
Don’t you see, my dear Bruce, it is almost as bad to fear your wife as to suspect her.
As, at that time, my own life was free from the slightest cloud of sorrow, I took keen interest in the troubles of Mrs. Hillmer, and I amused myself by playing, in her behalf, the part of a modern magician. I felt intuitively that she would resent any direct attempt on my part to place funds at her disposal, and I found a great deal of harmless fun in helping her with her consent, but without her actual knowledge.
I am, as you know, a rich man. At this hour I cannot sum up my available assets to within £100,000. Altogether I must be worth nearly a million sterling – yet my money cannot purchase me another day’s existence such as I would tolerate. Strange, is it not?
Well, the close of the year before last was a period of unexampled activity on the Stock Exchange, and, by way of a joke, I made some purchases on Mrs. Hillmer’s account, with the intention of pretending to pay myself out of the profits, while handing her such balances as might accrue. She is a shrewd woman, and quick at figures, so I might have experienced some difficulty in deceiving her. But the mad record of the past twelve months was in no wise belied by its inception. My purchases were those of a man inspired by the Goddess of Fortune. Stocks which I bought commenced suddenly to inflate. I astounded my brokers by the manner in which I ferreted out neglected bonds, mines which struck the mother lode next week, railway companies whose directors were even then secretly conspiring to water the stock.
Mrs. Hillmer became infected with the craze like myself. Twice we plunged heavily in American Rails and came out triumphantly. To end this part of my story, after five months of excitement I had contrived not only to swell my own deposits to a large extent, but I had secured on Mrs. Hillmer’s account a sufficient quantity of reliable stock to bring her in an average income of £1,500 per annum.
My greatest difficulty was to persuade Mrs. Hillmer to break off the habit of speculation once she had contracted it. I found that she perused the late editions of the evening papers with the same eagerness that a bookmaker looks for the starting prices of the day’s races. By the exercise of firmness and tact I was able to stop her from further dealings.
At the close of this period I need hardly say that two things had happened. Mrs. Hillmer and I were fast friends, with common objects and interests in life; and, concurrently, the ties between Alice and myself had loosened still more.
I also carelessly made another blunder. Under the pretence that secrecy was requisite for Stock Exchange transactions, I persuaded Mrs. Hillmer to allow me to pass under the name of Colonel Montgomery.
Mrs. Hillmer, of course, was now able to live in comparative luxury. I came to regard her house as an abode of rest. I was more at home in her drawing-room than in my own house. She often spoke to me of my wife, and obviously wished to see her, but here I did a cowardly thing. I represented my married existence as far less comfortable than it really was, and gradually Mrs. Hillmer ceased all allusion to Alice. She misunderstood our relations. I knew it, and did not explain. Not a very worthy proceeding for a man whose sense of honor is so keen that he prefers death to disgrace. But one can deceive no other so easily as oneself.
Occasionally, when opportunities offered, we went out together. It was foolish, you will say, and I agree with you. If folly were not pleasant it would not be so fashionable. But, to this hour, the relations between us are those only of close friendship. Never in my life have I addressed her by other than her married name, never have I touched her arm save by way of casual politeness.
I really think I flattered myself upon my superior virtues. I could see all the excellence but none of the stupidity of my behavior.
About this time, Mrs. Hillmer’s husband died. Thenceforth she became slightly reserved in manner. When life was a defiance she fought convention, but with safety came prudence. In fact, she told me that my frequent visits to her house would certainly be ill-construed if they became known. I was seeking for a pretext to introduce her to her own set in society, when a double catastrophe occurred.
My wife discovered, as she imagined, that I was clandestinely occupied with another woman, and Mrs. Hillmer’s brother returned from America.
It will best serve my hurried narrative if I relate events exactly as they happened, and not as they look in the light of subsequent knowledge.
Mensmore was naturally astounded to find his sister so well provided for, and gratefully accepted the help she gave him towards resuscitating his own fortunes. But it did not occur to either of us that he would take the ordinary view of the bond existing between us, and I shall never forget his rage when he found out that I was not known to his sister’s servants by my right name. It was an awkward position for all three. He was loth to allege that which we did not feel called upon to deny. But between him and me there was a marked coolness, arising from suspicion on his part and resentment on mine, coupled, I must add, with an unquiet consciousness that his attitude was not wholly unreasonable.
Mrs. Hillmer and he discussed the matter several times. He urged that this compromising friendship should be discontinued. She – a determined woman when her mind was made up – fought the suggestion on the ground of unfairness, though, like myself, she would have been glad of any accident which would alter the position of affairs.
He interpreted her opposition to different motives. Finally, as his financial position was a dangerous one, as we afterwards learned, and he despaired of setting things straight in Raleigh Mansions – judging them from his own point of view – he resolved to leave England again.
And now I come to the night of November 6.
It was, as you will remember, a foggy and unpleasant day. I had some business in the city which detained me until darkness set in. I had not seen Mrs. Hillmer for two days, so I resolved to drive to Sloane Square – travelling by the Underground was intolerable in such weather – and have tea with her.
I did not know then that she had gone with her maid to Brighton – intending to return that evening. It was a sudden whim, she told me subsequently, and she had not even informed the other servants of her intention.
The pavements in the City were slimy with the dampness of the fog, and as an empty four-wheeler passed through Cornhill I hailed it, a most unusual choice on my part. The cabman, I noticed, was fairly elevated, but as these fellows often drive better when drunk than sober, I simply told him to be careful, and jumped in. I reached Sloane Square all right, and detained the cab for my intended journey home in time for dinner.
At the door of Mrs. Hillmer’s flat I met the cook and housemaid, both going out to do some shopping, probably, in the spare hour before it was time to prepare dinner.
They knew me well, of course, and admitted me to the drawing-room, telling me that Mrs. Hillmer was out, but would surely return very soon.
I had not been in the room a minute before the sharp double knock of a telegraph messenger brought the coachman, whom the girls left in charge of the house, to the door, and I startled the man by appearing in the hall, as he did not know of my presence.
“What is it, Simmonds?” I said, as I correctly guessed the message to be from Mrs. Hillmer.
“The missus is in Brighton, sir,” he answered. “She wants the carriage to meet her at Victoria at seven o’clock. It’s six now, and I ought to go around to the stables at once, but both these blessed girls have gone out. I’m in a fair fix.”
“No fix at all,” I said. “I want to see Mrs. Hillmer, so I will wait here until she arrives – or, at all events, till the servants come back.”
The man scratched his head, but he could think of no better plan, so he, too, went off, and I was left alone, for the first time in my life, in Mrs. Hillmer’s abode. It is the small events that govern our lives, Claude, not those that stand out prominently. The shopping expedition of a couple of servant girls, intent on securing a new cap or a few yards of calico, brought about my wife’s death, caused misery to many people, and ends, I sincerely hope, in my own speedy leap into oblivion.
I picked up a novel, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” hit upon the terrible episode that culminates on Salisbury Plain, and was soon deeply interested, when another knock – this time an imperative summons long drawn out – caused me to hasten to the door.
I opened it, and in the dim light of the staircase landing, for a second did not recognize the lady who stood outside. Heaven help me, I was soon enlightened. My wife’s voice was bitterly contemptuous as she said:
“You don’t keep a footman, it appears, in your new establishment, Charles.”
Had I been suddenly struck blind, or paralyzed, I could not have been more dumfounded than by Alice’s unexpected appearance. A thorough scoundrel might, perhaps, have thought of the best thing to say. I blurted out the worst.
“What are you doing here?” I stammered when my tongue recovered its use.
“No doubt you resent my appearance,” she cried, in a high, shrill tone I had never before heard from her, “but I shall not trouble you further. I merely came to confirm with my own eyes what my ears refused to entertain. Now, I am satisfied.”
She half turned with the intention of reaching the street, but, rendered desperate by the absurdity of my position, I gripped her arm and pulled her forcibly into the entrance-hall, closing and bolting the door behind us.
“You have seen too much not to see more,” I cried. “I will not allow you to ruin both our lives by a mere suspicion.”
She was in a furious temper, but her sense of propriety – for she did not know that the servants’ quarters were empty – restrained her until we had both entered the drawing-room.
Then she burst upon me with a torrent of words.
CHAPTER XXX
SIR CHARLES DYKE ENDS HIS NARRATIVE
“A mere suspicion, indeed!” she said, and there was that in her voice which warned me that I had better try unarmed to control a tigress than a wife who deemed herself wronged; “these are pretty suspicions that surround you. A house tenanted by another woman where you are evidently master! A mistress who left the ranks of the ballet, or something of the sort, living in luxury on means supplied by you! A married woman who casts off her husband with her poverty, to take up a paramour and riches! Do you think you can blind my eyes further? I have the most convincing proofs of your infamy. Do not imagine that on any specious pretext I will condone your conduct. I despise you from the depths of my heart. Henceforth I will strive to forget your very existence.”
“Alice,” I said, and if she had not been blinded by passion she must have been affected by my earnestness, “will you listen to me?”
“Why should I? What respect have you shown to me that I should now seem even to accept your excuses?”
“I appeal to you not to do anything in anger. You have good reason to be enraged with me. I only ask you to suspend your final judgment. Hear what I have to say, take time for deliberation, for further inquiry, and then condemn me to any punishment you think fit.”
She did not answer me. Her eyes were roving round the room and taking stock of every indication of poor Mrs. Hillmer’s artistic aptitude. The place was eminently home-like, much more so than our elegant mansion in Portman Square, and my wife noted the fact with momentarily increasing bitterness. Yet I essayed my desperate task with failing nerve and terrible consciousness of a bad cause.
“Notwithstanding all that you have seen and heard,” I said, “I am not guilty of the crime you accuse me of. Mrs. Hillmer is an old friend of mine, whom I have helped from a state of misery to one of comfort and comparative happiness. She is as pure-minded in thought, as spotless in character, as you are yourself. You are doing her a grievous injustice by doubting the relations between her and me. If you only knew her – ”
My wife laughed scornfully.
“Pray spare yourself, Charles. I have never seen you so interested before, but you lie badly, nevertheless.”
“I do not lie. Before heaven I am telling you the truth.”
“You are even willing to perjure yourself, Colonel Montgomery?”
My poor armor was ill-fitted for this stroke. I suppose I must have flinched before it, for she went on:
“You see I am well posted. My detectives have done their work well. Oh, Heaven, that I should ever have learned to love a vile wretch like you. I thought you respected me, at least. I tried hard to bend my own wishes to sympathy with yours, and I dreamt even of ultimate success. I knew you didn’t care much for me, but the devotion of a slave has at times been rewarded by the affection of her master. Fortunately, I am a slave by choice. It only required experience to break my bonds, and you have supplied the experience.”
For the first time in my life did it dawn on me that my self-contained and haughty wife harbored other thoughts than a sentiment of respect for an indulgent and easily controlled husband. It was a shock to me, a deeper humiliation than she dreamed of. How could I expiate the past, wipe out this record of error and folly, but not of ill-doing, and live happily with her so long as Providence was pleased to spare us? While these things ran through my brain she suddenly turned on me.
“You fear exposure in the law courts! You dread your name figuring in a society scandal! How little you know me. You naturally compare me by your own contemptible standard. I left your house to-night determined never to return to it should I find you here, as in all probability, I was told, would be the case. I will go to my sister until I have determined upon my future life. You, at least, will never, by my desire, see or hear from me again. Thus far, I presume, I will fall in with your views.”
She would have passed me, but I held fast to the inside of the door. If once she got away from me I might never be able to set affairs even tolerably right. Better, I deemed, have one trying scene in the hope that she would calm down in the face of facts, than allow her to carry the quarrel to her relatives and strengthen her attitude by their natural support.
“Alice,” I said, “you shall not go.”
“How can you dare to detain me?” she shrieked, and the glint in her eyes showed how thoroughly her passions were aroused.
“You can separate from me if you will. I shall not venture to hinder you. But I swear you shall not do this rash act without knowledge. I tell you you must remain here. When you leave this house you do so in my company.”
“And why am I to be kept a prisoner?”
“Mrs. Hillmer will return in less than an hour. You have sought this meeting yourself. Very well. You shall have it. When your charges have been thoroughly thrashed out in the presence of Mrs. Hillmer and myself I will then accompany you where you will, and leave you under the protection of your sister, or any one else you choose, should you still persist in leaving me.”
Of course my action was unwise to the last degree. But remember, Claude, that during these last awful five minutes I had seen a side of my wife’s nature hidden from me six long years. And I was a man suddenly plunged into a raging sea, drifting helplessly I knew not whither. All that consumed me was a wild desire for such scant justice as I deserved. I had erred, but my faults were not those my wife alleged against me.
If she was angry before she was now absolutely uncontrollable.
“What?” she screamed. “Remain to meet your – your mistress? Never, while I have life!”
She flung herself upon me so suddenly that she tore me away from the door. She was a strong and athletic woman, and I suppose she expected some resistance, for she used such force as to drag me forward into the middle of the room, overturning a chair in the effort. I was so utterly taken by surprise that I yielded to her violence more completely than she expected.
She staggered, let go her hold, and fell heavily backwards, tripping over the fallen chair. I made a desperate attempt to save her, but only caught the end of a fur necklet, and it tore like a spider’s web.
Her body crashed against a Venetian fender, and her head came with awful force against a sort of support for the fire-irons that stood up a foot from the ground.
Then she rolled over, her eyes and face undergoing a ghastly change, and instantly became, as I thought, unconscious.
I knelt beside her, raising her head with my right hand, and brokenly besought her to speak to me, when I would at once do anything she demanded. But she gave no sign of animation. In a frenzy of despair, I forced myself to examine her injuries, and my heart nearly stopped beating when I discovered that a large piece of iron had been driven into her brain through the back of her head.
I knew in a moment that she was dead. Although I have not had much experience of that terrible epoch in the human being, I have seen far too much of death in animal life not to know that she who had been my honored and respected wife now lay before me a mere soulless entity – a symbol only of the splendid vital creature who, a minute earlier, was angrily protesting against the supposed faithlessness of her mate.
Looking back now upon the events of that fateful night, I marvel at the appalling coolness which came to my aid as soon as I realized the extent of the misfortune which had befallen both Alice and myself. I can fully understand what is meant by the callousness of a certain class of criminals, or the indifference to inevitable death betrayed by Eastern races. No sooner was I quite assured that my wife was dead – dead beyond hope or doubt – than I regained the use of my reasoning faculties in the most marvellously cold-blooded degree.
The actual difficulties of my position were enormous. I arraigned myself before the judge and jury, and saw clearly that every circumstance which contributed to Alice’s suspicions in the first instance were now magnified a hundred-fold by the manner and scene of her death.
Before me, in ghostly panorama, moved the dread crowd of witnesses against me, the degradation of my family, the bitter and vengeful feelings of my wife’s relatives, the suffering of poor, unconscious Mrs. Hillmer, the whole avalanche of horror and misery which this unfortunate accident had precipitated upon every person who claimed my relationship or friendship.
My mental attitude was quite altruistic. Could I have undone the past, I would cheerfully have undergone a painful and protracted death forthwith.
But no possible atonement on my part would restore Alice to life. I knew it was quite improbable that I should be convicted of murdering her, strong as the circumstantial testimony against me must be. The mere legal consequences did not, however, weigh with me for a second. From that awful hour I felt that I was doomed personally. My only thought was to seek oblivion, not only for myself, but for all whom Alice’s death might affect.
Reasoning in this way, I rapidly resolved to make a bold effort to conceal forever the time and place of the fatality. If I failed, I could tell the truth; if I succeeded, I might, at my own expense, save a vast amount of unnecessary sorrow.
The desperate expedient came to me of carrying off the body to the untenanted house at Putney where my old master had resided until his death, utilizing the four-wheeled cab with its half-drunken driver for the purpose.
If I reached Putney unhindered, I could dispose of my terrible burden easily, for the river flowed past the grounds, and every inch of the locality was known to me.
It occurred to me that perhaps the body might be found and recognized. Our personal linen was never marked, by reason of the fact that our laundry work was done upon our Yorkshire estate, but as a temporary safeguard I resolved to take some different and less valuable outer clothes from Mrs. Hillmer’s residence.
Her maid was of a similar build to my wife, so I hastened to the girl’s room, and laid hands upon a soiled coat and skirt which were relegated to the recesses of the wardrobe.
I glanced at my watch as I came along the corridor. It was 6.15 P.M. All the incidents I have related to you had happened within a quarter of an hour. Oh, heaven! it seemed longer than all the preceding years of my life.
Having resolved upon a line of conduct, I pursued it with the sang-froid and accuracy of one of the superior scoundrels delineated by Du Boisgobey. The door of the flat was locked. If the servants, hardly due yet, returned unexpectedly, I would send them off to Victoria Station on some imaginary errand of their mistress’s.
I knelt beside my poor wife’s body once more, and with great difficulty took off her costume and loosely fastened on the maid’s garments.
In her purse there were some bulky documents, which I afterwards discovered to be the reports furnished by a firm of private detectives, detailing all my movements with reference to Raleigh Mansions with surprising accuracy. But she had concealed her name. These men themselves only knew me as “Colonel Montgomery.”
How Alice first came to suspect me I can only guess. Perhaps my indifference, my absence from home at definite hours, a chance meeting in the street unknown to me – any of these may have supplied the initial cause, and led her to verify her doubts before taxing me with my supposed iniquity.