"You are mad!" I hissed. "What claim has that woman upon you?"
"The woman I love?" He sprang to his feet and faced me with just such a look as a tiger might defend his mate. "The woman I should have married, but for the accursed laws of the society which you enticed me into joining!"
"You are a consumptive, a death"s head!" I sneered. "A nice man you to marry any woman! Fool that you are, ask yourself would she have married you?"
He gave me a look of almost sublime contempt. "She loves me!" he said, and there was in his bearing a dignity so proudly self-conscious, yet compa.s.sionate, that my heart went out to the man; I began to pity him profoundly, ay, and wish to help him. I could hardly understand myself.
I had never felt like that for any living creature prior to that instant. But I had work to do, pressing work, and I put my feelings resolutely aside.
"George Cavanagh," said I, "you reproach me with having bound you to a society whose laws forbid your marrying the woman you love. But it seems to me you aspire to break another of its laws in giving her this money. What of that?"
"Fear nothing," he replied in tones of ice. "I shall pay the penalty.
When next the society foregathers at your house, Fulton will announce your numbers lessened by one death."
In spite of myself I started. Aha! thought I--I grow hot upon the track.
"You will kill yourself?" I demanded.
He bowed his head, and sat down again. He had once more fallen to trembling. A curious man this, a mixture of strength and weakness. He was past redemption, wedded to the grave by his disease, and yet he shivered at the thought of death. And yet again, he could deliberately resolve to shorten his life.
I frowned down at him. "Cavanagh," said I, "I wish you to be good enough to repeat to me, word for word, the rule you dare to dream of breaking."
"Useless!" he retorted. "I have well considered it. For G.o.d"s sake leave me, Dagmar, I am done and desperate. I believe you mean me well, but you are killing me."
I saw indeed that he was desperate, and straight away I changed my tactics.
"George," I murmured in a soft and winning voice, "I have come here to-night to save you if I can, not to break you. Listen to me--it has been well said that no rule or law was ever yet devised by human ingenuity which might not be evaded by a criminal with brains enough.
You seek to be a criminal. Well, well!" I nodded my head mysteriously.
"It is a pity--but I like you, boy--I don"t want you to die just yet.
There may be a way out, in spite of all. Now--trust me and obey me."
A curious pang altogether strange to my experience shot through my breast, as I watched the glow of hope that flashed into the poor fellow"s eyes, and the colour flame into his ashen cheeks.
"Dagmar!" he gasped, "Dagmar!" and he stretched out his shaking hands as a child might do.
"Repeat it word for word!" I commanded. "Come, calm yourself--that is better; now!"
He could hardly articulate at first, but he grew calmer as he proceeded.
"Whosoever shall win!" he began, "shall win the proceeds of one completed month"s joint contributions, shall--during--the succeeding month, apply the gold so gifted him by hazard of the dice unto the--the--purpose that--that is--is provided for by rule three. Should he, on the contrary, apply it--to--to--Ah! you know, Dagmar, you know."
"Ay!" said I, "I know what follows--it spells suicide in brief. But, my dear George--there is hope for you in rule three."
"Impossible!" he gasped. "Impossible!"
I smiled. "There is no such word in my vocabulary," I answered firmly.
"Now, George, give me all your mind, every atom of your attention, and I shall show you a path from your dilemma--an honourable expedient.
Repeat rule three!"
He knitted his brows together, and a curiously strained introspective look came into his eyes.
"You are trying me!" he muttered. "Dagmar--if you dared----"
"Fool!" I interrupted hoa.r.s.ely--for my suspense was painfully intense.
"What object could I serve? Do as I bid you! Do as I bid you!" I pressed his hands more tightly, and with all my strength I strove to subordinate his will to mine. I succeeded.
"I"ll trust you!" he muttered in a tense trembling whisper. "I"ll trust you, Dagmar. G.o.d forgive you if you play me false!"
There was something so infectious in his emotion that I felt myself tremble too, and involuntarily I followed the terrified suspicious glances that he darted about the room.
"Amen!" I cried. "Now Cavanagh--"
But he uttered an exclamation. "Oh! You are hurting me!" he cried.
In my excitement I had forgotten the man"s womanish physique, and I had cruelly crushed his hands. Upon such trifling incidents does an ironical malicious fate love to hang tremendous issues! I do not remember if I have previously mentioned the fact that the thumb of Sir William Dagmar"s right hand lacks a joint. But such is the case. He had lost it through a gunshot when a lad. Now this circ.u.mstance const.i.tuted the one flaw in my disguise, for my hands are perfect. In the earlier part of the interview I had been careful to conceal them from view, but startled by Cavanagh"s cry of pain and words of reproach I did an unpardonably foolish thing. I permitted myself, for one second, to be victimized by a human impulse. Forgetting everything except that I had hurt him and was sorry, I opened my hands--and looked down at his delicate crumpled fingers from which my brutal grasp had driven all the blood. On the instant I realized my own fatuity and attempted to repair my error. It was, however, too late.
Mr. Cavanagh staggered back a pace. At first he looked dazed, almost stunned, but his face turned livid as I watched it and his eyes filled with flame. They swept over me with glances that scorched, that wished intemperately to harm, to avenge--to kill! Finally they met my eyes, and for a long moment we gazed into each other"s souls. His was full of rage, despair and terror--mine of savage self-contempt and baffled hope, and fiery but impotent regret.
"Who are you?" he hissed. "Curse you--who are you?"
Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. Already there floated before my eyes visions of police, of handcuffs, courthouses and gaols.
I saw myself a prisoner serving sentence for criminal impersonation. A shudder of horror shot through my frame. Then came a blessed inspiration. "Mr. Cavanagh belongs to a society--" cried my thoughts--"which must have a criminal foundation, since its laws dare impose such a penalty as suicide for their infraction." I set my teeth together with a grim snap and hoa.r.s.ely retorted to his question. "You wish to know who I am, sir. Well, I shall answer you in part. I am a detective from Scotland Yard!"
The effect of my announcement was completely terrible.
Mr. Cavanagh threw up his hands, and with a deep groaning gasp sank limp and insensible to the floor. His face was so ghastly that I thought him dead. I sprang to his side, and kneeling down pressed my ear to his breast. I could not hear his heart beat. With a moan of agony I stood erect. I was shaking like a man in an ague--and for the first time in my life fear took hold of me, sharp, senseless fear. My mastering wish was to escape quickly and without being seen. Darting to the door, I waited but to open it without sound, and then hurried through the hall, thanking Providence in my heart that I still wore my felt-soled shoes. No one hindered, no one saw me. In another second I was out of the house, and seated in my waiting hansom.
"Marble Arch!" I muttered to the driver, "and quickly man, quickly, if you wish to earn a double fare!"
When I reached the Marble Arch I was still panic-stricken and incapable of coherent thought. I do not wish it to be supposed that I am in any sense a craven. But this was the first great crisis of my career, and, like certain brave soldiers I have read of who had fled from the field during their first battle at the first fire, I was governed by an overwhelming blind impulse impossible to withstand immediately. I believe now that my excited imagination convinced me that I stood in peril of being caught and hanged for murder. At any rate, it seemed terribly necessary to hide myself, and adopt every conceivable expedient to shake all possible pursuers off my trail. Running down Oxford Street, I hailed the first cab I met and drove to London Bridge.
There I took another hansom and doubled back to Piccadilly Circus. A third took me to Tottenham Court Road. A clock chimed two as I stepped upon the footpath. I was a good deal calmer then, although still in a wreck of jangling nerves. But I found that I could both control my thoughts and think. I set off at once at a brisk walk towards Holborn, growing more tranquil at every step. I racked my brain for a plan of action. I felt that I must get out of England at once and start life anew in some foreign land. Fear, you see, was still my tyrant. But how to effect my purpose? I had only three pounds in the world, for the cabs had run away with a sovereign. Bitterly I cursed my folly and the panic which had prevented me from rifling Mr. Cavanagh"s pockets. They would have yielded me a golden harvest I doubted not! Of a sudden, as I strode along, I caught sight of my reflection in a tailor"s window. I stopped short, shocked--horrified. I was still Sir William Dagmar to the life! For two minutes I stood there paralyzed in body and mind, then came a second inspiration. I swung on my heel and glanced about me. The street was almost deserted, but a belated hansom was approaching. I hailed the driver. "200 Harley Street," I cried and sprang inside. I had given the fellow Sir Charles Venner"s address. In a very few minutes I was ringing at Sir Charles Venner"s bell. After a long wait and three successive summons, the physician himself attired in an eiderdown dressing gown and slippers opened the door.
"What, Dagmar!" he cried, in great astonishment. "Come in. Whatever is the matter?"
"A call of private urgency!" I replied. "The fact is, Venner, you can do me a favour, if you will. A very dear friend of mine must get away from England before morning on a matter of life and death, and he needs more money in cash than I have by me in the house. If you"ll be so good as to let me have three hundred pounds immediately, I shall post you a cheque within the next hour."
We were standing confronting each other in the hall beneath a low turned swinging gas jet. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
"Will three hundred do?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you!"
"Then excuse me for a moment."
I waited in breathless suspense, but he returned almost immediately, carrying a bag of gold and notes from which he counted three hundred pounds into my hand--you may be sure--into my left hand. I kept my right behind me.
I curtly thanked him, begged him to excuse me, and hastily withdrew.
But he stood at the door and watched me enter the cab.
I was therefore obliged to give the cabby Sir William Dagmar"s address.