A Duel Part 38

She shrank from him, with what seemed to be a gesture of involuntary and almost unconscious repulsion.

"Ay, the very worst. Only don't draw yourself from me like that, la.s.sie--for the love of Christ; for I'm but a poor old man that's sinned, and that's very near his end, and that would do all he can to repair his sin before death has him by the throat."

"I--I didn't mean to be unkind, but--what were you going to say?"

"One thing's about his money--Cuthbert Grahame's money. Several times he spoke to me about you--more than kindly. I believe he had it in his mind--as I had, and have it, in mine--to repair the wrong he'd done you. I have reason to think that it was his intention to leave you at least a large portion of his fortune, to re-make the will I had helped him break. I believe that, with one of his cranky notions to be revenged on her for the part she'd played, he communicated his intention to her; that he went so far as to instruct her to draw up such a form of will as he required. My own impression is that she either actually did do this, or pretended to, and that, when the time came for him to affix his signature, she performed some feat of jugglery, which, under the circ.u.mstances, was easy enough, and so got him to sign a doc.u.ment which expressed the exact opposite of his wishes."

"Do you mean that he thought he was leaving me his money when actually he was leaving it to her?"

"That's about the truth of it--I believe it strongly. I am persuaded that the will she produced she got from him by means of a trick. But that is not the worst."

"Doctor, you're--you're like the old fable, you pile Pelion on Ossa."

"I believe that when she had got the will into her possession, all signed and witnessed, she was confronted by the fact that exposure of its contents might render it invalid at any moment.

That is probably what would have happened, and in a very short time, so that to make sure, she killed him then and there."

"Killed him!"

"I am convinced that Cuthbert Grahame was killed by the woman who called herself his wife, and that within ten minutes of the signing of his will. She propped him up with pillows, then, by suddenly withdrawing those which supported his head, she let it hang down, and so choked him. In order to avoid suffocation it was always necessary to keep his head well raised, a fact with which no doubt she had made herself acquainted."

"Doctor! But was there no inquest?"

"Certainly; and I gave evidence. But what could I say? I had no proof--not an iota. I could only express my conviction that it was impossible for him to have moved the pillows himself; and I did. I doubt if that bare statement had any effect upon the verdict. She was a very clever woman."

"Clever! you call her!--clever! If you are right she was an awful woman--you mustn't call her clever. That sort of thing's not cleverness."

"Isn't it? I don't know what it is then. If we had realised her cleverness from the first we might have been prepared for her; she might have met her match. It is only by fully recognising the fact that we have to deal with an uncommonly clever woman that we shall have the slightest chance of getting the better of her, and bringing her to book."

"Bringing her to book! Doctor! where is she? Is she at Pitmuir?"

"That's not the least strange part of the whole strange business--where she is. I've been wondering if it's a sign that G.o.d's finger has been slowly moving to set on her His brand. The young gentleman in whom, I presume, you take a certain amount of interest, since, one day, you design to honour him by allowing him to make of you his wife--Mr. Harry Talfourd--told me that he acts as secretary to a lady."

"I know."

"The lady's name is Lamb--Mrs. Gregory Lamb."

"Yes."

Margaret, as she uttered the word, was conscious of a catching in her breath; she herself did not know why.

"Mrs. Gregory Lamb is the woman I found by the roadside; who told me that her name was Isabel Burney; who called herself Mrs.

Cuthbert Grahame; who juggled into existence the will under which she inherits; who murdered the man out of whom she got it by a trick."

Margaret was silent, curiously silent. Then she drew a long breath, and she said--

"Now I understand".

The doctor was struck by something in her intonation which was odd.

"Just what is it you understand?"

She repeated her own words.

"Now I understand. The veil which seemed to obscure my sight is being torn away; things are getting plainer and plainer. She was not mad, as we thought; it was we who were ignorant. Doctor, I believe that the finger of G.o.d, of which you spoke just now, has moved already."

"It is likely. It is some time since I looked for it to move, but He chooses His own time. As for what you say about your understanding, to me your words are cryptic--unriddle them, young lady, if you please."

Margaret, in her turn, told her tale: of her visit to Mrs.

Gregory Lamb; of its abrupt and singular termination. The doctor listened with every sign of the liveliest interest.

"As you observe," he cried, when she had done, "it would seem that the finger of G.o.d has moved already. She knew you although you did not know her, and the sight of you was as though one had risen from the grave; it filled her with unescapable terror."

"It's difficult to explain--I've not been able to explain it to myself until this minute--but I did know her, that is, I felt as if I ought to know her. Directly Harry pointed her out to me, something struck at my heart and set me trembling. I don't often tremble, but I did then. It was as if I were confronted by some dreadful danger, which had threatened me before, and from which I had then only escaped by the skin of my teeth. And yet I don't know that the feeling which affected me most strongly was terror. No, I don't think it was. It was something else--something which I can't describe. I believe--doctor, I believe it was hatred. I hated that woman with a hatred which was altogether beyond anything of which I had dreamed as possible, of which I had supposed myself to be capable. I don't hate people as a rule; I don't remember ever having met any one whom I seriously disliked. I do think that in almost every one I have come across I have seen something which I liked. But--in her! I didn't want Harry to introduce me, to take me nearer, because I was filled with what seemed even to me an insane, indeed a demoniacal desire to kill her where she stood."

While the girl was speaking her appearance seemed to gradually change, till, when she stopped, she seemed to stand before the old man like some rhadamanthine, accusatory spirit, ready to p.r.o.nounce judgment and to execute the judgment which she herself p.r.o.nounced. The doctor watched her with a visage which remained immobile, almost expressionless.

"Your words suggest a kind of justice which has become extinct--in politer circles."

"Yet justice shall be done!--it shall be done! I will see to it.

I never did her a harm, nor wished her one. Yet she has done me all the mischief that she could, for wickedness' sake. If she killed Cuthbert Grahame, she should have killed me also, for, if I live, I will bring her to the judgment-seat. You say she is in enjoyment of the money which she won from him by a trick, and whose safe possession she insured to herself by murder----"

"Pardon me; to her that's the fly in the ointment. It's precisely the money which she hasn't got--which is doubly hard, since, to gain it, she did all that she did."

"I thought you said that she had it."

"She has the will under which she inherits, but, so far, she has inherited comparatively little. Did Grahame ever talk to you about his money?"

"In those latter days, when I began to be a woman, there were only two things about which he would talk, one was his money, the other his desire that I should be his wife. I loved him dearly! No daughter ever loved her father better than I loved him, but not like that!--not like that! When I said no, he would talk of his money, holding it out as a bait."

"Did he ever tell you how much of it there was?"

"He was always saying all sorts of things; I cannot remember all he said. I know he told me again and again that he had been saving his money for years for my sake, for me to use when I became his wife--his wife! He said more than once that there were fifty thousand pounds a year waiting for me if--if I would only say the word."

"Fifty thousand pounds a year? A nice little bait with which to cover the hook. Some girls would have swallowed the bait and never minded the hook."

"Doctor!"

"Calm yourself, young lady; don't blast me with the lightning of your eyes. I'm but saying what's well known to all the world.

And did he say where that snug little income came from?"

"From his investments. He was always boasting of the lucky investments he had made."

"Did he ever tell you in what?"

"He wanted to often, but I wouldn't listen. I daresay he did mention some of the names, but I paid no attention and have forgotten them if he did. I hated to hear of his money. I knew what it meant to him, and I couldn't get him to understand that it didn't--and never would!--mean the same to me. His talk about his money helped to poison my life."

"One knows that to a young girl money has a way of not meaning so much as to some of us older folk, so I humbly ask your pardon if I seem to dwell on it too long. Yet I would ask you to cast back in your mind and think if he ever dropped a hint as to where the securities, the doc.u.ments which represented these investments, might be found?"