Geoffrey, in spite of, or perhaps owing to his anxieties, slept long and late, and it was already after ten when he came half dressed from his bedroom to the adjoining sitting room, in quest of letters.
But there was no word either from Dr. Armytage or Lady Oxted, and here no news was distinctly good news. No fresh complication had arisen; Harry, it might be certainly assumed, was safe at Oxted, Mr. Francis, as certainly, at Vail, though his safety was a matter of infinitesimal moment. Yet, in spite of this, Geoffrey had no morning face; an intolerable presage of disaster sat heavy on him, and he brooded sombrely over his meal, reading the paper, yet not noting its contents, and the paragraphs were Dutch to him. Even here in London, the fog centre, one must believe of created things; the morning was one of fine and exquisite beauty. Primrose-coloured sunshine flooded the town, the air was brisk with the cleanly smell of autumnal frost. How clearly could he picture to himself what this same hour was like at Vail, how familiar and intimate was the memory of such mornings, when he and[Pg 394] Harry had stepped after breakfast into the sparkling coolness of the young day, and the sunshine from without met with a glad thrill of welcome the sunshine from within! The lake lay level and shining—the brain picture had the vividness of authentic hallucination—a wisp of mist still hanging in places over it. Level and shining, too, were the lawns; a pearly mysterious halo moved with the moving shadow of the head. Blackbirds scurried and chuckled over the grass, the beeches were golden in their autumn liveries, a solemn glee even smiled in the gray and toned red of the square house. At that, regret as bitter as tears surged up within him; never again, so he thought, could the particular happiness of those unreflecting days be his; tragedy, like drops from some corroding drug, had fallen in sting and smoke upon him; over that fair scene slept on the wing the destroying angel; between himself and Harry had risen the barrier of irreconcilable estrangement. And, like a monstrous spider, spinning threads God knew where, or to catch what heedless footstep, Mr. Francis stretched his web over every outlet from that house, and sat in each, malign and poisonous.
These vague forebodings and the mordancy of regret grew to be unbearable, and, taking his hat, Geoffrey walked out westward, aimlessly enough, only seeking to dull misgivings by the sight of many human faces. The crowd had for him an absorbing fascination; to be in the midst of folk was to put the rein on private fancies, for the[Pg 395] spectacle of life claimed all the attention. But this morning this healthful prescription seemed to have lost its efficacy, or the drugs were stale and impotent, and the air was dark with winged fears that came to roost within him, chatting evilly together. Yet the streets were better than his own room, and for nearly two hours he wandered up and down the jostling pavements. Then returning to Orchard Street, he entered his weary room, and his heart stood suddenly still, for on the table was lying a telegram.
For a moment he stood by the door, as if fearing even to go near it; then with a stride and an inserted finger the pink sheet was before his eye.
"Harry has just left for Vail," it ran, "passing through London. Sanders has telegraphed that his master is dangerously ill, and he must come at once to see him alive. Take this direct to Dr. Armytage."
The shock was as of fire or cold water, disabling for the moment, but bracing beyond words. All the brooding, the regret, the dull, vague aches of the morning had passed as completely as a blink of summer lightning, and Geoffrey knew himself to be strung up again to the level of intelligent activity. As he drove to Wimpole Street he examined the chronology of the message: it had been sent off, it appeared, three hours ago; it was likely that even now Harry was passing through London. A cab was standing at the doctor\'s door, which was open, a servant by it. At the same moment of receiving these impressions[Pg 396] he was aware of two figures in the hall beyond, and he stopped. One was with its back to him, but on the sound of his step it turned round.
"O Geoff," said Harry, holding out his hand, "Uncle Francis is ill, very dangerously ill. I am going to Vail at once, and was just coming to see you first. But now you are here."
By a flash of intuition, unerring and instantaneous, Geoffrey saw precisely what was in Harry\'s mind, and knew that next moment an opportunity so vitally desirable, yet vitally dishonourable to accept, would be given him, that he had no idea whether in his nature there was that which should be strong enough to resist it.
"Won\'t you come with me?" asked Harry, low and almost timidly. "Can\'t you—in case we are in time—just ask his forgiveness for the wrong you did him? He is very ill, perhaps dying—dying, Geoff."
At this moment the doctor stepped forward, Bradshaw in hand, to the brighter light by the open door. In passing Geoffrey, he made a faint but unmistakable command of assent. His finger was on the open page, and he spoke immediately.
"We can catch the 3.15, Harry," he said. "Shall I telegraph to them to meet it?"
"Please," said Harry, still looking at the other.—"Geoffrey!" he said again, and touched him on the arm.
Geoffrey heard the leaf of the Bradshaw flutter,[Pg 397] and the sound of his name lingered in his ears. Much, perhaps, was to gain by going, and the price? The price was just deliberate deception on a solemn matter. To say "yes" was to declare to his friend that he desired the forgiveness of that horrible man whom he soberly believed to be guilty of the most monstrous designs. But the momentous debate was but momentary.
"No, Harry, I can not," he said.
The two turned from each other without further words, and Geoffrey took a step to where the doctor stood.
"I came to have a word with you," he said, and together they went into the consulting room.
Scarcely had the door closed behind them, when Geoffrey drew the telegram from his pocket.
"I have just found this from Lady Oxted," he said. "Probably she has telegraphed the same to you. Now, how did Harry come here, and what has passed between you?"
The doctor glanced at the sheet.
"Yes, she telegraphed to me also," he said. "Harry\'s coming was pure luck. He wanted me to go with him down to Vail, to see if anything can be done for Mr. Francis. I hope," he added, with a humour too grim for smiles, "to be able to do a great deal for Mr. Francis."
"So you are going, thank the Lord!" said Geoffrey. "And do you believe in this illness?"
"He may have had another attack," said the doctor with a shrug; "indeed, it is not improbable[Pg 398] after the agitation of yesterday. Again, he may not, and it is a subtle man."
"It is a trap, you mean, to get Harry there."
"Possibly, and if so, a trap laid in a hurry. Else he would never have telegraphed to Harry at Lady Oxted\'s. He might have guessed it would be passed on to us. I am sorry, by the way, that you could not manage to say \'yes\' to his wish that you should go with him. But I respect you for saying \'no.\'"
"I couldn\'t do otherwise," said Geoffrey. "All the same, if it appears desirable, I shall come to Vail."
"Ah, you will come secretly on your own account, just as you would have if you had not seen Harry. That will do just as well. Now I can give you three minutes. I shall be in the house; you, I suppose, will not. How can I communicate with you?"
Geoffrey thought a moment, and his eye brightened.
"In two ways—no less," he said. "Listen carefully, please. At any appointed time, tap at the portrait of old Francis in the hall. I shall be just behind it, and will open it. Or, secondly, go to the window of the gun room, open it and call me very gently. I shall be within three yards of you, in the centre of the box hedge just outside. I will do whichever seems to you best."
"Does Mr. Francis know of either?" asked the doctor after a pause.
"He knows of the passage inside the house;[Pg 399] of that I am sure. I don\'t know that he knows of the box hedge."
"Then we will choose that. Now, how will you get to Vail? You must not go by the same train as we. You must not run the risk of Harry seeing you."
"Then I shall go by the next, 5.17, same as Mr. Francis went by yesterday. It gets in at half past six. I will be at the box hedge soon after seven."
"Very good," said the doctor. "Now, in turn, listen to me. Mr. Francis believes he has the metholycine with him; he has also Sanders. It seems to me therefore probable that he will attempt to carry the thing out in the way he indicated to me, which I told you and Lady Oxted."
Geoffrey shook his head.
"Not likely," he said. "You hold the evidence of the metholycine he has taken from your cabinet."
"Yes, but he is desperate, and the drug almost untraceable. Also the fact that he has the metholycine from my cabinet may be supposed to shut my mouth. It looks very much as if I was his accomplice, does it not? He will guess that this is awkward for me, as indeed it would be, were not the metholycine common salt."
"Ha!" said Geoffrey. "Go on."
"I suspect—I feel sure, then—that his plans are more or less the same as before, only he and Sanders will have to carry it through alone. I see no reason why they should alter the idea of[Pg 400] the supposed burglary. It is simple and convincing, and my mouth is sealed in two ways."
"How two?" asked Geoffrey.
"Two—so Mr. Francis thinks: Harmsworth and metholycine. Now the metholycine will fail, and they will have to get Harry into their power some other way. Also, Mr. Francis will be very anxious, as I told you, that he should not suffer pain. Of that I am certain; it is a fixed idea with him. Probably, also, the attempt will be made as planned, late, when the servants are in bed. Now, is there not a groom in the stables very like Harry?"
Geoffrey stared.
"Yes, the image of him," he said. "And what about him?"
"Go down to the stables as soon as you get to Vail, and tell him he is wanted at the house. He knows you, I suppose. Walk up with him yourself, and let him be in the box hedge with you."
For a moment the excitement of adventure overpowered all else in Geoffrey\'s mind.
"Ah, you have some idea!" he cried.
"Nothing, except that it may be useful to—have two Harrys in the house. Allowing time for this, you should be at the box hedge by eight. That shall be the appointed hour."
"But what shall I tell Jim?"
"Jim is the name of the groom? Tell him that it may be in his power to save his master from great peril. Harry is liked by his servants,[Pg 401] is he not? All that we know at present is that he must wait in the box hedge with you in case we need him. But supposing he is swiftly and secretly needed, how are we to get him into the house?"
"By the secret passage within," said Geoffrey, quick as an echo.
"Good again. It looks as if the Luck was with us. And this passage comes out at the back of old Francis\'s portrait? Bad place."
"Yes, but also at the bottom of the main stairs, through a panel between them and the hall."
"That is better. There, then—O God, help us all! And now you must go. Harry is waiting for me. I dare not risk trying to convince him. He quarrelled with you, his best friend, for the suspicion—I can serve him better by going with him."
They went out together and found Harry in the hall. He detained Geoffrey with his hand, and the doctor passed on into the dining room.
"You will lunch here, Harry," he said. "It is ready."
From outside the lad closed the door. Geoffrey knew that a bad moment was coming, and set his teeth. But the moment was worse than he anticipated, for Harry\'s voice when he spoke was broken, and his eyes moist.
"O Geoffrey," he said, "can not you do what I asked? If you knew what it meant to me! There are two men in the world whom I love.[Pg 402] There, you understand—and I can not bear it, simply I can not bear it!"
The temptation had been severe before; it was a trifle to this.
"No, I can\'t!" cried Geoffrey, eager to get the words spoken, for each moment made them harder to speak. "O Harry, some day you will understand. Before your marriage—I give it a date—I swear to you in God\'s name that you will understand how it is that I can not come with you to ask Mr. Francis\'s forgiveness!"
Disappointment deepened on Harry\'s face, and a gleam of anger shone there.
"I will not ask you a third time," he said, and went into the dining room.
Geoffrey had still three hours to wait in London before the starting of his train, and these were chequered with an incredible crowd of various hopes and fears. At one time he hugged himself on the obvious superiority of their dispositions against Mr. Francis; he would even smile to think of the toils enveloping that evil schemer; again mere exhilaration at the unknown and the violent would boil up in effervescence; another moment, and an anguish of distrust would seize him. What if, after all, Dr. Armytage had been playing with him, how completely and successfully, he writhed to think? A week ago the sweat would have broken out on him to picture Harry travelling down to Vail with that man of sinister repute, to be alone in the house with him, Mr. Francis, and the foxlike servant. Had he[Pg 403] been hoodwinked throughout? Was the doctor even now smiling to himself behind his paper at the facility of his victim? At the thought, London turned hell; he had taken the bait like a silly staring fish; even now he was already hauled, as it were, on to dry land, there to gasp innocuously, impotent to stir or warn, while who knew what ghastly subaqueous drama might even now be going on? He had trusted the doctor on evidence of the most diaphanous kind, unsupported by any testimony of another. The sleeping-draught given to Harry, the brushing aside of the revolver he had passed to him, when to shoot was impossible—these, with a calculated gravity of face and an assumption of anxious sincerity, had been enough to convince him of the man\'s honesty. He could have screamed aloud at the thought, and every moment whirled Harry nearer, helpless and unsuspecting, to that house of death!
Meantime the journey of the two had been for the most part a silent passage. Each was absorbed in his own thoughts and anxieties: Harry, restless, impatient, eager for the quicker falling behind of wayside stations, while the doctor brooded with half-closed eyelids, intent, it would seem, on the pattern of the carriage mat, his thoughts inconjecturable. Once only, as the train yelled through Slough, did he speak, but then with earnestness.
"Don\'t let your uncle know I have come, Harry," he said. "It may be that Sanders has unnecessarily alarmed you. So see him first[Pg 404] yourself, and if this has been a heart attack like to what he had before, and he seems now to be quietly recuperating, do not let him know I am here. It may only alarm him for his condition."
"Pray God it may be so!" said Harry.
The doctor looked steadfastly at the carriage mat.
"Medically speaking," he said, "I insist on this. I should also wish that you would guard against all possibility of his knowing I am here. Sanders, I suppose, looks after him. I should therefore not wish Sanders to know."
"Oh, he can keep a secret," said Harry.
"Very likely; but I would rather he had no secret to keep. I am not speaking without reason. If, as you fear, and as the telegram seems to indicate, this attack has been unusually severe, I must assure you that it is essential that no agitating influence of any kind should come near him. If he is in real danger, of course I will see him."
"Would it not be likely to reassure him to know you are here?" asked Harry.
"I have told you that I think not," said the doctor, "unless there is absolute need of me. I hope"—and the word did not stick in his throat "that quiet will again restore him."
A trap was waiting for them at the station, driven by Jim, and the doctor had an opportunity of judging how far the likeness between the two might be hoped to deceive one who knew them both. Even now, with the one in livery, the other in ordinary dress, it was extraordinary, not[Pg 405] only in superficialities, but somehow essentially, and he felt that it was worth while to have arranged to profit by it, should opportunity occur. The groom had a note for Harry, which he tore open hastily.
"Ah! that is good," he said, and handed it to the doctor.
It was but a matter of a couple of lines, signed by Templeton, saying merely that the severity of the attack was past, and at the time of writing Mr. Francis was sleeping, being looked after by Sanders, who had not left him since the seizure. And to the one reader this account brought an up-springing of hope, to the other the conviction that his estimate of Mr. Francis\'s illness was correct.
Harry went upstairs immediately on his arrival, leaving the doctor in the hall. Templeton, usually a man of wood, had perceptibly started when he opened the door to them and saw the doctor, and now, instead of discreetly retiring on the removal of their luggage, he hung about, aimlessly poking the fire, putting a crooked chair straight, and a straight chair crooked, and fidgeting with the blinds. All at once the strangeness of his manner struck the doctor.
"What have you got to tell me?" he asked suddenly.
The blind crashed down to its full length as the butler\'s hand dropped the retaining string. The rigid control of domestic service was snapped; he was a frightened man speaking to his equal.
[Pg 406]
"This is a strange illness of Mr. Francis\'s," he said.
The doctor was alive to seize every chance.
"How strange?" he asked. "Mr. Francis has had these attacks before."
"I sent for the doctor from Didcot, as soon as it occurred, unknown to him or Sanders," said Templeton, "but he was not allowed to see him. Why is that, sir? There was Sanders telegraphing for his lordship, and saying that Mr. Francis was dying, yet refusing to let the doctor see him. But perhaps he was expecting you, sir."
"He does not know I am here, Templeton, nor must he know. Look to that; see that the servants do not tell Sanders I am here. Now, what do you mean? You think Mr. Francis is not ill at all."
"Does a man in the jaws of death, I may say, play the flute?" asked the butler.
"Play the flute?"
"Yes, sir. It was during the servants\' dinner hour—but I had no stomach for my meat to-day, and went upstairs—when we might have been at dinner perhaps five minutes, and along the top passage to his lordship\'s room to see if they had it ready. Well, sir, I heard coming from Mr. Francis\'s room—very low and guarded, so that I should have heard nothing had I not stood outside a moment listening, you may say, but I did not know for what—a little lively tune I have heard him play a score of times. But in a minute it ceased, and then I heard two voices talking, and after that[Pg 407] Mr. Francis laughed. That from a man who was sleeping, so Sanders told us."
"This is all very strange," said the doctor.
"Ay, and then the door opened, and out came that man Sanders; black as hell he looked when he saw me! But little I cared for his black looks, and I just asked him how his master was. Very bad, he told me, and wandering, and he wondered whether his lordship would get here in time."
The doctor came a step nearer.
"Templeton," he said, "I rely on you to obey me implicitly. It is necessary that neither Mr. Francis nor Sanders know I am here. Things which I can not yet tell you may depend on this. And see to this: let me have the room I had before, and put his lordship into the room opening from it. Lock the door of it which leads into the passage, and lose the key, so that the only entrance is through my room. If he asks why his room is changed, make any paltry excuse: say the electric light in his room is gone wrong—anything. But make his usual room look as if it was occupied; go up there during dinner, turn down the bed, put a nightshirt on it, and leave a sponge, brushes, and so on."
"Master Harry!" gasped the butler, his mind suddenly reverting to old days.
The doctor frowned.
"Come," he said, "do not get out of hand like that. Do as I bid you, and try to look yourself. I can tell you no more."
[Pg 408]
Harry came down from the sick room a few minutes later, with a brow markedly clearer.
"He is much better, ever so much better, Sanders thinks," he said. "He was sleeping, but when he wakes he will be told I have come."
"Ah! that is good," said the doctor. "Did Sanders tell............