Episodes Before Thirty/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
The days passed; I grew slowly better; the wound still had to be drained and bandaged, and the doctor kept me to my bed. Kay, writing from Toronto, had contrived to send us ten dollars. More French translations had gone to McCloy, but only one or two had been used.
If the loneliness of the long days was dismal, the feverish nights were worse. I knew my few books by heart; Shelley and the "Gita" were indeed inexhaustible, but I longed for something new. To play the fiddle was too tiring. There was endless time for reflection . . . and, thank heaven, through the two dirty windows I could watch the sky. Many a story I published fifteen years later had its germ in the apparently dead moments of those wearisome hours, although at the time it never once occurred to me to try and write, not even the desire being in me.
It was the interminable nights that were most haunted. In the daylight there was colour in the changing clouds and sky, a touch of pink, a flame of sunset gold that opened the narrow crack through which I slipped into some strange interior state of happiness. There were the visits of the beloved, mysterious doctor, too. But the night was otherwise. The gas I left burning till Boyde woke and turned it out in the morning, made it impossible to see the stars. I could never settle down until he was comfortably asleep beside me. He kept late hours always. I reproached and scolded, yet in the end I always forgave. It was a comfort to know him within reach of my hand, while at the same time I dreaded his coming. My mixed feelings had reached that stage—I feared his coming and yet longed for it.
I lay waiting, listening for his step. Far below I would hear it, down in the well of the sleeping house, even on the first flight of stairs. It mounted, mounted, stealthy, cautious, coming nearer and nearer, but always at the same steady pace. It never hastened. As it approached, rising through the stillness of the night, my heart would begin to beat; I dreaded the moment when our landing would be reached, still more the actual opening of our door. I listened, smothering my breath, trying to lessen the loud thumping against my ribs. The steps might not be his, after all; it might be someone else; that stealthy tread might pass my door without opening it and go upstairs. Then, when at last the handle rattled faintly, the door opened, and I saw him slowly enter, carrying his boots in his hand, my first instinct always was to--scream. Then he would smile, the eye-glass would drop from his eye, he would begin his explanations and excuses, and my dread soon evaporated in the friendliest of intimate talk.
So well, at last, did I learn to recognize his approach, that I knew the moment he opened the front door three flights below. The sound of the handle with its clink of metal, the dull thud as the big thing closed--I was never once mistaken. In my fitful snatches of sleep these sounds stole in, shaping my dreams, determining both cause and climax of incessant nightmares which, drawing upon present things and recent memories, and invariably including the personality of Boyde, made those waiting hours a recurrent horror. I would fight in vain to keep awake. Only when he was safely asleep at my side did the nightmares cease.
I had once seen Dixon, a Toronto photographer, walk across the Niagara river, just below the Falls; he used Blondin's old tight-rope; he lay down on his back half way over, turned round, knelt, hovered on one foot, using an immense balancing pole. Thousands watched him from both shores on a day of baking sunshine; his background was the massive main waterfall, slowly rolling down and over; below him swirled and boiled the awful rapids. Dixon now came walking, walking in my dream again. I could hear his soft tread as his stockinged feet gripped the cable that swayed slightly as it sagged to the centre half way across. The sound, the figure came nearer; it came at me; it--was not Dixon after all. It was Boyde.... Then, as he moved with slow, creeping tread, nearer, ever nearer, I perceived suddenly that the rope was gone. There was no rope. He walked on empty air towards me--towards--me. I was appalled, speechless, paralyzed. That figure walking on space, walking towards me, walking remorselessly nearer was terrible.... The next second the door opened and Boyde stood peering at me round the edge, his boots in his hands.
One morning, tired of learning the "Witch of Islam" by heart, I leaned over the bed, and something in the waste-paper basket close beside it caught my eye; a scrap of coloured paper--several scraps--pink. Looking nearer, I saw it was a torn-up cheque. Without any particular interest at first I stared at the unfamiliar thing, wondering vaguely how it came to be there. Only after this casual inspection did it occur to me as being rather odd. A cheque! What was it? Whose was it? How did it come to be there, torn up in my waste-paper basket? It was a long time since I had seen such a thing as a cheque; and idly, with no more curiosity than this, I lay gazing at the scraps of coloured paper.
The basket lay within easy reach; I stretched out an arm and picked it up; I emptied the contents on the white counterpane; I sorted out the coloured scraps from among the general litter. The scraps were small, and the puzzle amused me. It was a long business. Bit by bit the cheque took shape. The word "Toronto" was the first detail that caught my attention closer. Presently, fitting three tiny scraps together, I saw to my surprise a name in full--Arthur Glyn Boyde. Another little group made "Kay." A third read "Seventy Five Dollars." My interest increased with every moment, till at last the complete cheque lay pieced together before my eyes.
It was drawn by Kay on my old Toronto bank for the sum mentioned, and it was payable to Boyde. The date was--three days before.
I lay and stared at it in blank bewilderment. Fitting the scraps together on the counterpane was nothing compared to my difficulty in fitting the pieces together in my mind. I could make neither head nor tail of it. Kay had, indeed, been acting in Toronto on the date given, but--a bank account...! And why was the cheque torn up? It must have been delivered with a letter--yesterday. Boyde had not mentioned it. I felt as confused as though it were a problem in arithmetic; but a problem in arithmetic would not have stirred the feeling of pain and dread that rose in me. Something I had long feared and hated, had deliberately hidden from myself, had cloaked and draped so that I need not recognize it, now at last stared me in the face.
The chief item in the puzzle, however, remained. That it was not Kay's real signature, I saw plainly, it was a reasonably good copy; but why was the cheque torn up? It had been taken from my old book in the packing-case downstairs, of course; but why was it destroyed? A forgery! The word terrified me.
It was while trying to find the meaning that my fingers played with the rest of the littered paper ... and presently pieced together a letter in the same writing as the signature; a letter, written from Toronto, with Islington Jersey Dairy as address, and bearing the same date as the cheque--a letter from Kay to Boyde. It had been also torn into little bits.
"Dear B.," it ran, "I am awfully sorry to hear poor Blackwood is so ill still, and that he has no money. I enclose my cheque for $75 to help him out, but, for God's sake, see that he doesn't waste it in dissipation, as he did the last I sent. I know I can trust you in this".... A page and a half of news followed. A postscript came at the end: "Better not let him know how much I've sent. I'll send another cheque later if you let me know it's really needed."
With these two documents spread on the counterpane before me, I lay back thinking, thinking, while an icy feeling spread slowly over me that for a long time made clear thought impossible. The word "dissipation" made me smile, but all I knew in those first moments was an aching, dull emotion, shot through from time to time by stabs of keenest pain. There was horror too, there was anger, pity ... as, one by one, recent events dropped the masks I had so deliberately pinned on them. These thin disguises that too sanguine self-deception had helped me to lay over a hideousness that hurt and frightened me, fell one by one. My anger passed; horror and pity remained. I cannot explain it quite; an intense sorrow, an equally intense desire to help and save, were in me. Affection, no doubt, was deep and real....
At the same time, the shock numbed something in me; the abrupt collapse of a friendship that meant so much to my loneliness bowled me over. What exactly had happened I did not know, I could not understand; treachery, falsity, double-dealing, lies--these were obvious, but the modus operandi was not clear. Why was the cheque torn up and so carelessly flung away? There was a mist of confusion over my mind. I thought over my police court experience, the criminal tricks and practices I already knew, but these threw no helpful light. Was Kay, too, involved? Did the warning of a few weeks ago include him as well? There had been forgery, yet again--why was the cheque torn up? The mystery of it all increased the growing sense of dread, of fear, of creeping horror. My newspaper work had given me the general feeling that everyone had his price ... but between friends in adversity, Englishmen, gentlemen as well ... was it then true literally of everybody?
After a time I collected the two documents and pieced them together again between the pages of a book, lest someone might enter and discover them. The doctor was not coming that day, but there might be other visitors. Then it suddenly dawned on me--why hadn't this occurred to me before?--that the whole thing must be a joke after all. Of course ... why not? It might even have something to do with the rôle of understudy in the Sothern Play. It could easily be--oh, surely!--a bit of stupid fun on Kay's part. The carelessness too! Throwing the scraps in the basket under my very nose, where anybody could easily see them, where Mrs. Bernstein might find them, or the woman who came in twice a week to do the room. This was certainly against criminal intent.
The most far-fetched explanations poured through my mind, invited by hope, dressed up by eager desire, then left hanging in mid-air, with not the faintest probability to support them. I deliberately recalled the kind actions, the solicitude, the sharing of receipts, a thousand favourable details, even to the innocent expression and the frank blue eyes, only to find these routed utterly by two other details; one negative, one vague, yet both insistent; the doctor's silence and the shadow noticed recently on the sleeping face.
It was eleven o'clock; Boyde had said he would return about four; I expected him, for the doctor, whom he avoided, was not coming. There were five hours of waiting to endure first.
The situation which another might have tossed aside with a wry laugh at himself for having been a guileless fool, to me seemed portentous with pain and horror.
I had no plan, however, when the door opened at half-past three, long before I expected it. There was in me no faintest idea of what I was going to say or do. The book lay on my knee, with the documents concealed between the pages. I had heard no footstep, the rattle of the handle was the first sound I caught. Yet the door opened differently--not quite as Boyde opened it. There was hesitation in the movement. In that hesitation of a mere second there again flashed across my mind a sudden happy certainty; the documents could be explained, it was all a joke somewhere. He had done nothing wrong, he would clear up the whole thing in a moment! Of course! It was my weak, feverish condition that had raised a bogey. A few words from him were now going to destroy it. Then, instead of Boyde, I saw Grant standing shyly on the threshold, the young actor who had pawned his overcoat. This time he wore it.
The relief I felt at seeing him betrayed me to myself.
I welcomed him so heartily that his shyness disappeared. He had dropped in by chance, he told me. I gave him an account of my discovery, and he bent over me to see the cheque and letter, asking if the writing was really Kay's. He looked very grave.
"It's not unlike it, but it isn't his," I replied. "What do you make of it? Why are they torn up?" I was burning to hear what he thought.
He did not answer for a moment. He asked instead a number of questions about Boyde, listening closely to my account of him, which mentioned the good with the bad. He went down to examine the packing-case and returned with the report that my cheque-book was not there. I asked him again what he made of it all, waiting with nervous anxiety for his verdict, but again he put me off. He wanted to know when I last heard from Kay. Eight days ago, I told him, from Toronto. He asked numerous questions. He seemed as puzzled as I was.
"What do you think it means?" I begged. "What's he been doing?"
"Are you quite positive it's not Kay's writing," he urged, "even, for instance, if he was--" he hesitated--"a bit tight at the time?"
I clung to the faint hope. "Well, of course--I really couldn't say. I've never seen his writing when he was tight. I suppose----"
"Because if it isn't," interrupted Grant decisively, "it means that Boyde has been getting money from him and using it for himself."
I realized then that he was trying to make things less grave than they really were, trying to make it easier for me in the best way he could. The torn-up cheque proved his suggestion foolish.
"Do you think he's an absolute scoundrel?" I asked point blank, unable to bear the suspense any longer. "Really a criminal--is he?"
"I wanted to tell you the other day," he said quickly. "Only you were too ill. I thought it would upset you."
"Criminal? Tell me at once. He may be in any minute. I must know."
"His reputation is bad," was the reply, "as bad as it could be. I've heard things about him. He's already been in gaol. He's supposed to be a bit dangerous."
I was listening for the sound of a step on the stairs. I lowered my voice a little. It was clear to me that Grant did not want to tell me all he knew.
"So--what do you make, then, of this?" I asked in a half whisper, pointing to the documents.
He looked at me hard a moment, then gave his reply, also in an undertone:
"Practising--I think."
I did not understand him. The uncertainty of his meaning, the queer suggestion in the word he used, gave my imagination a horrid twist. I asked again, my heart banging against my ribs:
"Practising--what?"
"He didn't think it a successful--copy--so he tore it up," Grant explained.
"You mean--forgery?"
"I think so. That is--I'm afraid so."
I think the universe changed for me in that moment; something I had been standing on for years collapsed; I was left hanging in space without a platform, without a rudder. An odd helplessness came over me. Grant, of course, had only confirmed my own suspicions, had merely put into words what, actually, I had known for a long time; but it was just this hearing the verdict spoken by another that hurt so abominably. Grant had quietly torn off me the last veil of self-deception. I could no longer pretend to myself. It seems absurdly out of proportion now on looking back; at the time the shock was appalling.
We talked together, we tried to devise some plan of action, we reached no settled conclusion. The minutes passed. I never ceased listening for the familiar footstep on the stairs. Of one thing only was I perfectly sure: whatever happened, I intended to take charge of it all myself. I would deal with Boyde in my own way. The principle lay clear and decided in me; I meant to frighten Boyde as severely as I possibly could, then to give him another chance. Anticipation made the minutes crawl. Grant talked a good deal.
"He spotted you and Kay from the start," I heard Grant saying. "He saw your ignorance of the town, your inexperience, your generosity. He felt sure of free lodging anyhow, perhaps a good deal more———"
A faint thud sounded from downstairs.
"There he is," I said instantly. "That's the front door banging. He's coming. Keep quiet."
I told Grant to get into the cupboard and hide. He was only just concealed in the deep cupboard and the door drawn to, when the other door opened quietly and Boyde came in.