""I am going to marry Miss Denistoun," he repeated dully.
"I felt sure it would interest you to know." He was losing grip.
""Oh, yes," said I. "Whistle your dog, and let"s get out of this for a walk by the river. . . . There"s too many of us in this room, and we"re all too cheap. . . . d.a.m.n it! I believe I could forgive you for anything but for lowering our hate to _this_!""
"We went out past the sentry, and walked down by the sullen river"s edge, the dog padding behind us.
""You have been provocative," said Farrell, after a while, checking himself by an afterthought in the act of clearing his throat. "Considering our relative positions, I am rather surprised at your daring to take this line. . . . But you used a word just now. It was "forgive." I came not only to say that I am going to marry Miss Denistoun, but to propose that henceforth the account is closed between us. You must tell yourself that I have won; and, having won, I bear no further malice. I would even make some reparation on the shrine of my affection for Miss Denistoun. She would esteem it, I feel sure, as a tribute.
. . . Dear me, how fast we are walking! . . . You"ll excuse me if I stop and take off this coat. . . . In the old days, as a working-man, more than half my time I walked without a coat, and an overcoat to this day always sets up a perspiration. . . .
Well now, shall we shake hands at the end of it all and cry quits? . . . Say the word, and I"ll go one better. They"ve formed the syndicate for that island of ours. What do you say to a thousand shares, and to coming in on the Board?"
"He was on the river side of me, quite close to the brink. I had been playing for some minutes with the knife in my pocket; and as I leapt on him and drove it in over the breast, he fell straight backwards. All the end of Farrell was a gasp, a sharp cry, and a splash.
"And both cry and splash were drowned instantly by the raging yelp of the dog as he sprang for me. I fisted him off by his throat and he fastened his teeth in my right hand, tearing the flesh down as I slipped the knife into my left hand. Then with my left I jabbed sideways under his ribs, and his bite relaxed, and he dropped.
"The embankment was steep. I ran down a little way and came to a disused landing-stage--four or five planks on rotting piles.
Kneeling there, I lowered my bleeding hand, to bathe it.
. . . As I knelt the body of Farrell came floating down-stream and was borne in towards me by the eddy. It lodged against the piles, chest uppermost, its white, wide-open eyes turned up to the moon.
"--And I stared on it, Roddy, crouching there. _And I swear to G.o.d it was not Farrell"s face but my own that I stared into_.
"Yes . . . for I stared and stared at it--there, plain, looking up far beyond me, sightless--until a swirl of the tide washed it clear; and, as it pa.s.sed out into darkness, it seemed to be sinking slowly, slowly.
"I dragged myself away and ran back to the dead dog. Farrell"s overcoat lay close beside it, and his hat--which had fallen short of the edge of the embankment as he pitched backwards.
"I picked up the coat, put it on, and felt in its pockets.
They were empty, but for a railway ticket. I picked up the hat, and smiled to find that it fitted me. Lastly I stopped, lifted the dog"s corpse and flung it over to follow its master.
All accounts thus closed, I stepped out for the station and caught the last train for Charing Cross.
"You know the rest.
"I borrowed your clothes, yesterday, and went down to the inquest. They admitted me to see the body, on my pretence that I had missed a relative and might be able to identify it.
Farrell had gone back to his old features; death had made up its mind to hide the secret after all. . . . I am afraid that, having overtaxed my strength, I broke down on the revulsion, and may have given myself away.
"But it doesn"t matter. That dog has done for me. Your Dr.
Tredgold is a good fellow and has nursed me very prettily back from starvation. But I happen, as you know, to have studied canine virus with some attention, and I have an objection to rivalling some effects of it that I have witnessed. Before you receive this, I shall be dead. I shall not trouble your hospitable roof, and I am sorry to trouble Jephson. But the searchers may find my body in Bushey Park.
"So long!--and, on the whole, so best. . . . I find, having lost Farrell, that _I cannot do without him_.
"You have been endlessly good to me. Remember me as I was once on a time, and so I shall always be--Yours,"
"Jack."
That is the end of the tale [concluded Otway], except for this--
Twelve months later, being on leave and wanting to clear up the mystery of the newspaper report, I took a train down to C--, past Gravesend, made inquiries of the police, and finally hunted up the juryman who had shown so much emotion at the inquest. I found a little whiskered grocer, weighing out margarine in a shed that was half shop, half canteen. All I extracted from him was this--
"Yes, to be sure, sir, I remember it perfectly. I only wish I didn"t: for I dream of it at night: and, being a widower, I can"t confide the trouble. The fact is, I must suffer from nerves and-- what do they call "em, sir?--hallucinations--yes, that"s the word.
But I was fresh from inspecting the body, and when that person broke in, wearing a face like the corpse"s twin-brother, well, it knocked me clean out. Of course, it must have been a hallucination; none of the others saw the least resemblance--as they"ve told me since.
But at the moment, I"d have wagered my life. . . ."
EPILOGUE.
"Yes, that is the story," said Otway, sorting back the doc.u.ments into his dispatch-case.
"Is it quite all the story, sir?" asked Polkinghorne, breaking the silence that followed its close.
Otway frowned, re-sorted the last three or four papers, laid them in the case and closed it with a couple of snaps.
"That"s all," he answered, "that exists for publication. That is, unless you want a moral. I can give you _that_, all right: and if you have any use for it you may apply it to this blasted War.
As I see it, the more you beat Fritz by becoming like him, the more he has won. You may ride through his gates under an Arch of Triumph; but if he or his ghost sits on your saddle-bow, what"s the use?
You have demeaned yourself to him; you cannot shake him off, for his claws hook in you, and through the farther gate of Judgment you ride on, inseparables condemned.
"--And, oh, by the by! I am taking my leave next Wednesday.
Sammy has been nosing suspiciously, these five days, around a wine-case which on the 22nd he shall have the honour of opening.
It contains, if our friend the Transport Officer hasn"t been beforehand with you, some Pommery 1900; with which you are to do your best. For it turns out that, with luck, I am to be married on that day. No flowers, by special request."
Otway re-opened the dispatch-case and again made sure of his last two exhibits, which he had not exhibited. The first was a note, folded three-corner-wise, which ran:
"Dear Roddy--Your last word to me was that you had no patience with people so clever that they lacked sense to come out of the rain. Well, I am willing to learn that silly skill, if you remain willing to teach me.--Yours,"
"CONSTANTIA."
The second of these exhibits, not exhibited, was a creased envelope containing the shredded petals of a rose.
THE END.