Jim Harley leaned forward, clutched the old man"s shoulder, and shook it violently.
"What do you know about those cards?" he cried. "Tell me that--quick!"
"You seem to be in a terrible hurry, all of a sudden," replied the captain. "Oh, well, it does not matter; but if you really knew just who I am--if you fully realized who I am--you"d treat me with more consideration. I am the chosen husband of your sister. I am her _destiny_."
"Who _are_ you?" asked Harley, scarcely above a whisper.
"I am the instrument of the Fate that haunts the steps of your mother"s daughter," replied Wigmore. "I am the chosen instrument. I deal the cards--and the blow falls. I do not have to soil my hands--to strike the blows. I mark the cards, and deal them--and Fate does the rest, through such tools as come to her hand."
He leered at d.i.c.k Goodine.
"Then you admit that you marked and dealt the cards!" cried Harley.
"Certainly, my dear boy. It was my duty to do so--just as it was my duty to quiet Banks when he came blundering into my affairs. I am the keeper of the curse--the instrument of Fate--the--the----"
He pressed both hands to his forehead, and sighed.
"The star boarder at the Fairville Insane Asylum," snarled Timothy Fletcher, "an" may the devil catch that fool doctor who said you was cured!" he added.
Wigmore lifted his face.
"I am John Edward Jackson," he said pleasantly, as if introducing himself to strangers, "Captain Jackson--the exile."
"Jackson!" cried Jim Harley. "Jackson? What do you mean? Not _the_ Jackson?"
The old man nodded. "That"s right, Jim. That"s why I marked the cards. I came here on purpose to look after Nell, you know. It was my duty."
"He is mad," said Banks. "He is not responsible for what he says or does. He must be taken back to Fairville."
"Yes, I am Captain Jackson," continued old Wigmore. "I had to go away from my home, so I took to seafaring for a while. What was the trouble?
Sometimes I remember and sometimes I forget. I got hold of a mine and made money. Then I made a voyage back to my own country, on very important business."
"That"s one of the stories he used to tell me when I was his keeper in the lunatic asylum," said Timothy Fletcher. "Sometimes he was Jackson an" sometimes he was the Grand Turk."
"_You_ keep your mouth shut till you are spoken to," screamed Wigmore, in sudden fury.
Harley stooped and gazed anxiously at the old man.
"Did you murder my father?" he asked, his voice shaking.
For a second the other stared at him blankly.
"Certainly not!" he cried indignantly. "All I have to do is place the card! I engaged an old sailor, or something of the kind, to dispatch your father. I indicate. Fate destroys."
Then he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DEATH OF THE CURSE
Jim Harley"s face twisted and stiffened like a grotesque and hideous mask; his honest eyes narrowed and reddened; for a little while he stood there, motionless as a figure of wood; then his tongue flickered out and moistened his dry lips, and the fingers of his big hands opened and closed several times. The strong fingers closed so desperately that the nails furrowed the skin of his palms and came away with a stain of red.
"d.a.m.n you!" he cried, in a voice so terrible and unnatural that it startled his hearers like a gun-shot in the small room. "d.a.m.n you, you accursed murderer! You tell me that you murdered my father--and you sit there and laugh. You devil! I"ll kill you where you sit--with my empty hands."
He sprang forward; but Banks threw out an arm like iron and grappled with him in the nick of time. Of the others Rayton alone moved to help in the protection of the old man who sat laughing in the chair. Dr. Nash looked on with interest, d.i.c.k Goodine folded his arms and Fletcher snarled, "Kill the old devil. Crazy or sane, he stinks to Heaven an"
c.u.mbers the earth."
Banks and Harley staggered like drunken men within a foot of the old man"s chair. Harley was blind with rage. Every drop of blood, every muscle, leapt to be at the slayer of his father. Nell, who had fled from the room a moment before, now returned and ran to her brother, crying out to him to be reasonable. Rayton followed the stumbling and reeling of the wrestlers, too weak to a.s.sist Banks but plucking constantly at a coat or shoulder. This time Harley was no child in the big sportsman"s arms. He fought like a mad man, possessed and a-fire with the determination to destroy his father"s murderer.
"It is a devil!" he cried. "Let me at him, I say," and twice he tripped Banks and had him down with one knee on the floor. But he could not get clear of the big fellow, nor overthrow him. And still Captain Wigmore sat in the chair and laughed as if he should die of unholy mirth.
The superior weight of Mr. Banks told at last. He crushed Jim Harley to the carpet and held him there, staring down at him with a flushed, moist face. Harley glared up at him, still squirming and wriggling.
"Lie still," said Banks, breathlessly. "Do you want to add another murder to the list of tragedies?"
"That"s what I want to do," gasped Jim. "But it wouldn"t be murder to clean the face of the earth of that devil. Let me up, you big slob."
"You"ll thank me for this, some day," replied Mr. Banks, sitting firmly and heavily upon Jim Harley"s heaving chest. By this time, Nell Harley had subsided into Reginald"s anxious and ready arms.
Captain Wigmore stopped laughing suddenly and glanced from Banks and Jim on the floor to the girl and her lover.
"It"s as good as a play," he said. "Banks, all this unseemly and ungentlemanly struggle is thrown away. My young friend Jim was powerless to do me any injury. I am beloved of the G.o.ds. I am the chosen instrument of fate--of the fate of the Harley family. Reginald, you silly young a.s.s, I see you hold that lady in your arms with no other feeling than that of pity for yourself. The fates have ordained that I am to be her husband. Timothy, you glowering old fool, bring me a drink of whisky. Don"t stand there, sir! Step lively when I speak to you, or I"ll send for the bosun to put you in irons."
"Forget it," snarled Timothy Fletcher. "You"ll never set yer lips to another taste of whisky in this world, you old reprobate. I see death in yer eyes now--an" already the flare of h.e.l.l fire. It"s a drink of water ye"ll be hollerin" for pretty soon."
"Let me up," said Jim Harley. "I promise you I won"t touch him."
So Mr. Banks and Jim arose stiffly from the floor.
Captain Wigmore, or Captain Jackson, or the Sultan of Turkey--call him what you will--glared at Timothy in silence for several seconds, with hate and despair in his eyes. His long, slender fingers plucked at his ashen lips. Again, as suddenly as a change of thought, he burst into mad laughter; this laughter grew and thinned to shrieking, then fell presently to sobbing and muttering. He seemed to crumple and shrink; and slowly he slid from the low chair to the floor. The company looked on without moving or speaking, some in a state of helpless horror, the doctor and old Timothy Fletcher with harsh curiosity. Nell Harley hid her face against Reginald"s shoulder.
The murderer squirmed on the floor, sobbing and muttering; and by the time Doctor Nash had decided that he was really having a fit the old devil had finished having it. He was dead! Nash turned him over and felt for his heart. The heart was still.
"The ugliest death I ever saw," said Nash, glancing up at the horrified company.
"And the ugliest life," said old Timothy Fletcher.
Reginald led the girl from the room. They stumbled along the hall and sat side by side upon the bottom step of the stairs. Then the girl began to weep and the shaken young man to comfort her.
Old Wigmore"s secret had not escaped with his wild and twisted spirit.
"Hoist him onto the sofa," said the doctor. "We"ll sit on him here and now."
All agreed that the so called Captain Wigmore had died in a fit. Then d.i.c.k Goodine left the house, saying that a little fresh air would make him feel cleaner. Mr. Banks lit a cigar, remarking that he would fumigate this chamber of horrors. Then Dr. Nash, as coroner, and Jim Harley, who was a justice of the peace, agreed that they had the authority to search the belongings of the deceased. Timothy Fletcher said that he knew where the old devil kept all his private papers. So Rayton took Nell home, and Nash, Banks, Harley and the old servant drove over to the dead man"s house, taking the shrunken and stiffened clay along with them in the back of the pung. They entered the empty house and Timothy lit a candle and led the way upstairs to the captain"s bedroom. He pointed to a large, iron-bound wooden chest which stood at the foot of the bed.