If you think of it, she had a good deal to consider. She had, in fact, a tremendous weapon, an eighty-ton Woolwich, in her possession; a thing which had to be handled so that when it was fired it should not produce a general ma.s.sacre. All those who had maligned and spoken and thought evil of her brother and her lover should, she thought, be laid prostrate by the mere puff and whiff of the discharge. Checkley should fall backwards, and raise a b.u.mp at the back of his head as big as an egg. Sir Samuel and Hilda should be tumbled down in the most ignominious fashion, just as if they had no money at all. And her mother should be forced to cry out that she had been wrong and hasty.
She held in her own hands nothing less than the complete demolition of all this erection of suspicion and malignity. Nothing less. She could restore to her brother that which he had never lost, save in the eyes of his own people, who should have been the most jealous to preserve it. No greater service could be rendered to him. And she could clear from her lover"s name whatever shreds and mists had been gathered round it by the industrious breath of Checkley--that humble Cloud Compeller. You see, we all have this much of Zeus in us, even in the compelling of Clouds: every man by the exercise of a little malignity, a little insinuation and a few falsehoods, can raise quite a considerable mist about the head or the name or the figure or the reputation of anyone. Women--some women, that is--are constantly engaged in this occupation; and after they have been at their work, it is sometimes hard for the brightest sunshine to melt those mists away.
To be able to clear away clouds is a great thing. Besides this, Elsie had found out what the rest had failed to find out--and by the simplest method. She had learned from the only person who knew at what hour she should be most likely to find the mysterious Edmund Gray, and she had then waited on the stairs until he came. No method more direct--yet n.o.body thought of it except herself. She had done it. As the result, there was no longer any mystery. The man who forged the first cheque: the man who wrote those letters and conducted their transfer: was, as they all thought at first, Edmund Gray. No other. And Edmund Gray was Edward Dering, one and the same person--and Edward Dering was a Madman, and this discovery it was which so profoundly impressed her. There were no confederates: there was no one wanted to intercept the post: no one had tampered with the safe: the Chief himself had received the letters and conducted the correspondence alternately as Edmund Gray himself, or Edmund Gray acting unconsciously for Edward Dering.
Perfectly impossible-- Perfectly simple-- Perfectly intelligible. As for the impossibility, a fact may remain when its impossibility is established. Elsie was not a psychologist or a student of the brain. She knew nothing about mental maladies. She only said after what she had seen and heard: "The man is mad."
Then she thought how she should best act. To establish the ident.i.ty of Mr. Dering and Edmund Gray must be done. It was the one thing necessary.
Very well. That could easily be done, and in a simple way. She had only to march into his office at the head of a small band of witnesses and say: "You wanted us to find out Edmund Gray! I have found him. And thou art the man!"
He would deny it. He certainly knew nothing about it. Then she would call upon her witnesses. First, Athelstan"s commissionaire, who declared that he should remember, even after eight years or eighty years, the gentleman who sent him to cash that cheque. "Who is this man, commissionaire?"
"That is Mr. Edmund Gray."
Next the landlord of his chambers. "Who is this man?"
"That is Mr. Edmund Gray, my tenant for nine years."
Then she would call the eminent Barrister, Mr. Langhorne. "Do you know this man?"
"He is my neighbour, Mr. Edmund Gray."
And Freddy Carstone the Coach.
"He is my neighbour, Mr. Edmund Gray."
And the laundress, and she would say: "I have done for the gentleman for nine years. He"s a very good gentleman, and generous--and his name is Mr. Edmund Gray."
And the people from the Hall--and they would make answer, with one consent: "That is Mr. Edmund Gray, our preacher and our teacher."
And she herself would give her testimony: "I have sat with you in your Chambers. I have heard you lecture in your Hall, surrounded by these good people, and you are Edmund Gray."
The thing was quite easy to do. She could bring forward all this evidence at once, and it would be unanswerable and convincing even to Sir Samuel.
Except for one thing which made it difficult.
The discovery would be a most dreadful--a most terrible--revelation to one who believed himself to be the most respectable solicitor in the whole of London; the most trustworthy; the clearest in mind; the keenest in vision; the coldest in judgment. He would learn without the least previous suspicion or preparation, or any softening of the blow, that for many years he had been---- What? Is there any other word--any kinder word--any word less terrifying or less humiliating by which the news could be conveyed to him that he had been Mad--Mad--Mad? Heavens! what a word it is! How terrible to look at with its three little letters which mean so much! All the words that mean much are monosyllables: G.o.d--Love--Joy--Hate--Fear--Glad--Sad--Mad--Bad--h.e.l.l--Home--Wife-- Child--House--Song--Feast--Wine--Kiss--everything--they are the oldest words, you see; they have been used from time immemorial by prehistoric man as well as by ourselves.
Mr. Dering had to be told that he was Mad. Somehow or other, he must be told that. It seemed at first the only way out of the difficulty. How could this girl communicate the dreadful news to her guardian, who had always been to her considerate, and even affectionate? She shrank from the task. Then she thought she would hand it over to her brother Athelstan. But he was far more concerned about clearing up the hateful business than about softening the blow for Mr. Dering. Or of communicating it to George. What should she do? Mr. Dering was mad. Not mad all the time, but mad now and then, sometimes every day, sometimes with intervals. This kind of madness, I believe, takes many forms--a fact which should make the strongest men tremble. Sometimes it lasts a long time before it is found out. Sometimes even it is never found out at all. Solicitors and doctors tell queer stories about it. For instance, that story--quite a common story--of an old gentleman of irreproachable reputation, a speaker and leader in religious circles, a man enormously respected by all cla.s.ses, concerning whom not his bitterest enemy had a word of scandal--yet, after his death, things deplorable, things incredible, things to be suppressed at any cost, were brought to the knowledge of his lawyers. At certain times he went mad, you see. Then he forgot who he was: he forgot his reputation, his place in the world, and the awful penalties of being found out: he went down: he lived among people of the baser sort, and became an inferior man with another name, and died without ever knowing his own dreadful record.
Another of whom I have heard was mad for fifteen years, yet the Chief of a great House, who all the time conducted the business with great ability. He was found out at last because he began to buy things. Once he sent home six grand pianos: another time he bought all the cricket bats that were in stock in a certain shop; and another time he bought all the hats that fitted him at all the hatters" shops within a circle whose centre was Piccadilly Circus and the radius a mile long. After this they gave him a cheerful companion, who took walks abroad with him, and he retired from active business.
Some philosophers maintain that we are all gone mad on certain points.
In that case, if one does not know it or suspect it, and if our friends neither know nor suspect it, what does it matter? There are also, we all know, points on which some of us are mad, and everybody knows it. There is the man who believes that he is a great poet, and publishes volume after volume, all at his own expense, to prove it: there is the man--but he ought to be taken away and put on a treadmill--who writes letters to the papers on every conceivable subject with the day before yesterday"s wisdom: there is the man who thinks he can paint--we all know plenty of men mad like unto these, and we are for the most part willing to tolerate them. Considerations, however, on the universality of the complaint fail to bring consolation to any except those who have it not.
In the same way, n.o.body who dies of any disease is comforted with the thought of the rarity or the frequency of that disease; its interesting character has no charm for him. Nor is the man on his way to be hanged consoled by the reminder that thousands have trodden that flowery way before him. To Mr. Dering, proud of his own intellect, self-sufficient and strong, the discovery of these things would certainly bring humiliation intolerable, perhaps--even--shame unto Death itself.
How--oh! how could things be managed so as to spare him this pain?
Elsie"s difficulties grew greater the more she pondered over them. It was past midnight when she closed the volume of thought and her eyes at the same moment.
In the morning, Athelstan kissed her gravely.
"Do you remember what you said last night, Elsie? You said that we could rest at peace because the thing was done."
"Well, Athelstan, the words could only have one meaning, could they? I mean, if you want me to be more explicit, that the thing is actually done. My dear brother, I know all about it now. I know who signed that first cheque--who sent the commissionaire to the Bank--who received the notes--who placed them in the safe--who wrote about the transfers--who received the letters and carried on the whole business. I can place my hand upon him to-day if necessary."
"Without doubt? With proofs, ample proofs?"
"Without the least doubt--with a cloud of witnesses. My dear brother, do not doubt me. I have done it. Yet--for a reason--to spare one most deeply concerned--for the pity of it--if you knew--give me a few days--a week, perhaps, to find a way if I can. If I cannot, then the cruel truth must be told bluntly, whatever happens."
"Remember all the mischief the old villain has done."
"The old villain? Oh! you mean Checkley?"
"Of course; whom should I mean?"
"n.o.body--nothing. Brother, if you bid me speak to-day, I will speak. No one has a better right to command. But if this--this person--were to die to-day, my proofs are so ample that there could be no doubt possible.
Yes--even my mother--it is dreadful to say it--but she is so hard and so obstinate--even my mother would acknowledge that there is no doubt possible."
Athelstan stooped and kissed her. "Order it exactly as you please, my child. If I have waited eight long years, I can wait another week.
Another week. Then I shall at last be able to speak of my people at home. I shall go back to California with belongings like other men. I shall be able to make friends; I can even, if it comes in my way, make love, Elsie. Do you think you understand quite what this means to me?"
He left her presently to go about his work.
In the corner of the room stood her easel with the portrait, the fancy portrait, of Mr. Dering the Benevolent--Mr. Dering the Optimist--Mr.
Dering as he might be with the same features and the least little change in their habitual setting.
Elsie stood before this picture, looking at it curiously.
"Yes," she murmured, "you are a dear, tender-hearted, kindly, benevolent, simple old Thing. You believe in human nature: you think that everybody is longing for the Kingdom of Heaven. You think that everybody would be comfortable in it: that everybody longs for honesty.
Before I altered you and improved your face, you were Justice without mercy: you were Law without leniency: you were Experience which knows that all men are wicked by choice when they get the chance: you had no soft place anywhere: you held that Society exists only for the preservation of Property. Oh! you are so much more lovable now, if you would only think so--if you only knew. You believe in men and women: that is a wonderful advance--and you have done well to change your old name to your new name. I think I should like you always to be Edmund Gray. But how am I to tell you? How, in the name of wonder, am I to tell you that you are Edmund Gray? First of all, I must see you-- I must break the thing gently-- I must force you somehow to recollect, as soon as possible. I must make you somehow understand what has happened."
She had promised to meet Mr. Edmund Gray at his Chambers that evening at five. He showed his confidence in her by giving her a latch-key, so that she might let herself in if he happened not to be in the Chambers when she called, at five. She would try, then, to bring him back to himself.
She pictured his amazement--his shame--at finding himself in strange rooms under another name, preaching wild doctrines. It would be too much for him. Better go to Mr. Dering, the real Mr. Dering, and try to move him in his own office, to recollect what had happened. Because, you see, Elsie, unacquainted with these obscure forms of brain disease, imagined that she might by artful question and suggestion clear that clouded memory, and show the lawyer his double figuring as a Socialist.
She waited till the afternoon. She arrived at New Square about three, two hours before her engagement at Gray"s Inn.
Mr. Dering received her with his usual kindness. He was austerely benignant.
"I tried to see you last night," she said, untruthfully, because the words conveyed the impression that she had called upon him.
"No--no. I was-- I suppose I was out. I went out----" His face clouded, and he stopped.
"Yes--you were saying, Mr. Dering, that you went out."
"Last night was Sunday, wasn"t it? Yes; I went out.--Where did I go?" He drummed the table with his fingers irritably. "Where did I go?
Where?--What does it matter?"
"Nothing at all. Only it is strange that you should not remember."
"I told you once before, Elsie," he said, "I suffer--I labour--under curious fits of forgetfulness. Now, at this moment, I--it really is absurd--I cannot remember where I was last night. I am an old man. It is the privilege of age to forget yesterday, and to remember fifty years ago."