Mark Danver's Sin

by Herman Cyril McNeile

MARK DANVER'S SIN

by

“SAPPER”
(H. C. McNeile)

THE letter came to me at breakfast—a bulky one, addressed in an unknown hand. The eagle eye of my hostess's small son had at once spotted the stamp, and an instant demand had gone forth that it should be presented to him in due course. It was a Tonga Island—one of those nice stamps which portray strange birds and animals in beautiful colours—and even as I promised he should have it, I was trying to think who on earth could be writing to me from such an outlandish spot. The letter had been re-addressed on to me from my club, and after a while, in deference to young Jack's continued demands for the stamp, I gave up the delightful pastime of guessing and opened it. There were two enclosures inside: one a heavily-sealed envelope addressed to me in a well-known hand, but one that I had not seen for many long years: the other just a covering letter.

It was the envelope I studied first. What could have induced dear old Mark Danver to break the silence of years, and then label his letter “strictly private”? And what a strange coincidence that it should have reached me in this of all houses!

Then I glanced at the covering letter, and for a moment I felt as if someone had given me a blow in the face. It was from a firm of lawyers, and was brief and to the point.

“Dear Sir,” it ran,—“The enclosed was amongst the effects of the late Mr. Mark Danver. We should be glad if you would acknowledge the receipt in due course.”

I laid down the letter by my untouched breakfast, and stared out of the window. Poor old Mark dead—that priceless, cheery soul who had so strangely dropped out of our lives. In Tonga Island of all places. For he had known my host and hostess too, known them before I did. And now, seated at their table, I had got the news of his death.

I don't know why I said nothing at the time; I think perhaps that it was because Mark had been my particular pal, and now from the grave he was speaking to me. And I wanted to hear what the old chap had to say first. So I put his letter unopened in my pocket, and I gave young Jack his stamp. And half an hour later I carried a dock chair into the shade of a chestnut tree and carefully slit the envelope. Inside were several sheets of foolscap covered with Mark's writing, and for a moment my eyes grew a little blurred. Then I began to read.

THEY tell me, old man, that I haven't very long to go. The doctor here, who diagnoses quite well when he's sober and operates quite well when he's drunk, broke it to me this morning. Incidentally I'd guessed it already, and I can't pretend that I mind very much. But since the end is coming fairly soon, I want to write to you, my oldest pal, and explain why I have cut myself adrift from you all these last few years. And also I want to put on record a confession which will come as a big surprise to you. In case anything should happen in the future you will have it by you, and will know what use to make of it. And apart from that, it's going to be a bit of a comfort to me to put it down on paper, and know that someone I trust will see it. One gets a bit cowardly towards the end—sometimes. Depends, I suppose, on the race you've run. And if there's been a bad foul it gibbers at you and mocks you. Especially at night, when you can't sleep. I've been sleeping damnably just lately.

There will be parts of this confession of mine that you know already; but I'm going to put it down in full in case it should ever be needed. I'll tell it to you, Dick, in the form of a story—my first attempt at literary work. But they say that everyone could write at least one yarn—the yarn of their own life, so perhaps the fact that it is true will atone for lack of style. Anyway—here goes.

It's just eight years ago this month that I was up on a shooting trip in Uganda. And on the way back through British East Africa I went down with a bad dose of fever. Luckily for me, there was a farm close by, and my boys carried me there. That farm belonged to a youngster whom you got to know afterwards—Jack Onslow. And since you know him I won't waste time describing him for you. Just sufficient to say that he was one of the straightest, cleanest boys that I have ever met; a white man through and through. He was there by himself growing coffee, and he wouldn't hear of my going on until I was absolutely fit. As a matter of fact I think he was glad of the companionship; it's lonely work, that sort of life, as you know.

So I stopped on with him after I was fit, and day by day I got to know him and like him better. And then there came an evening when I asked him why he didn't get married.

“It's not good, Jack,” I said, “for a man to live in the wilds alone.” He turned a bit red, and fumbled in his pocket. Of course, I guessed at once what he was looking for, but I tried to look suitably surprised when he handed me a battered leather case.

“I'm engaged, old man,” he said, a bit awkwardly. “There's her photograph. And I'm just trying to get the place into a real going concern before she comes out to join me.”

I took the case and I opened it, and I tell you, Dick, I was staggered. It was just a coloured photograph of a girl, and for sheer flawless beauty I had never seen her equal. She was more than beautiful—she was lovely, with the sweetest expression in her eyes. And I just sat there holding the portrait in the circle of the lamplight, drinking her in.

I hardly heard what Jack was saying, so absorbed was I in that perfect face. He was rambling on, talking a little disjointedly, a little shyly. His face was in the shadow, and for a while he talked of the things that lie deep down in a man—the things which it is not given often for another man to hear. I don't suppose he evolved a single original idea, but who wants original ideas? He just told me in a queer, half-jerky voice of his hopes and plans; of what life was going to bring him; of what he was going to do. But always he came back to his girl; it was “we”—never “I.”

“She's wonderful, Mark,” he said, and he took the frame out of my hand. “She's such a marvellous pal.”

“Well, frankly. Jack,” I answered, “I felt nervous when I saw you producing that frame. I have suffered before from lovers' rhapsodies, and my sole coherent thought was that it's lucky we don't all think alike. But this girl of yours strikes me as being the loveliest thing I've ever seen. You're a lucky devil.”

He looked at me quietly.

“Wait till you see her herself, Mark. She's a thousand times more lovely than this photograph.”

I smiled, and reached for the whisky bottle.

“I'll take your word for it, old man,” I said. “In the meantime, a final nightcap, and I'm turning in.”

And I remember that night, as I was going to my room, I looked back at the wrong moment. He had his lips pressed to the picture, and I could almost feel the savage intensity of his longing. It's not good for a man to be alone in the Tropics.

I SUPPOSE it was a week later that it happened. I was returning from shooting when the native house-boy met me gibbering like a monkey. He was in the last extremity of terror, but I caught enough to make me start running like a hare towards the bungalow. Outside, the other servants were cowering together like frightened sheep, and I dashed past them up the steps and into the living-room. Seated at the table, quite motionless, with a revolver in his hand and an empty bottle of whisky beside him, was Jack Onslow. In the other hand he clutched a letter, and in front of him was a copy of the Times.

He paid not the slightest attention to me, though once his eyes, with a dreadful glitter in them, stared at me and through me. Then he began to laugh, hardly and discordantly, and my first thought was that he'd gone mad. Such things have happened before in the back of beyond. Then he stopped laughing, and stared at me again.

“Mark Danver, isn't it?” he croaked. “Well, sit down, Mr. Mark Danver, and don't dare to move, or I'll plug you as full of lead as a mine. Because I've been telling you lies—packs and packs of rotten damned lies—and you've got to hear the truth. I've told you, haven't I, that there was a girl in England of surpassing beauty? I was engaged to her, Danver, that wonderful girl. I was going to marry her, Danver, and she was going to come out here and live with me. I've shown you her photograph, haven't I?” He stared at me, and his head nodded a little. “Speak, damn you,speak!”

“Yes, Jack, you've shown me her photograph,” I said, quietly.

“Well, if you look behind you on the wall you can see it a second time.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw the frame nailed to the wall. He'd been shooting at it with his revolver, and more than one bullet had gone clean through the picture.

“That's what it's worth, Mr. Danver. That's all that rotten girl is worth. I've put five shots through her, and there's one left here for me.” He laughed again discordantly, and began muttering to himself “'A fool there was, and he made his prayer.'”

“You haven't told me yet, Jack, what's happened,” I said, steadily. At all costs I had to calm him sufficiently to get his revolver away from him, and to do that I wanted to get close to him without making him suspicious. Jack Onslow was mad right enough, but only with drink, for he was usually an abstemious boy.

“Haven't I told you?” he snarled. “What a regrettable oversight! Well, I'll tell you now. This wonderful girl of mine has married another man. It's all quite in order; they've put it in the Times, and if you come round here you can see the announcement.”

It was what I was waiting for, and I crossed the room to his side. I didn't look at the Times—that could wait: but 1 caught his right wrist. He wasn't expecting it. and anyway I was a stronger man than he. And the next instant I'd slipped his revolver into my pocket.

He sprang to his feet, and for a moment or two I thought he was going to strike me. And then, quite suddenly, came the change. After all he was but a boy. He just crumpled up in his chair and, putting his arms on the table, he laid his head on them and sobbed like a little child. No—that is not right, for a child's tears are as a passing shower. And Jack Onslow sobbed as a man sobs, and there is no more dreadful sound in all this world. But I knew the danger was over.

After a while he grew silent. Only a deep shuddering breath every now and then told me he was conscious: except for that he was motionless in his exhaustion. And my heart bled for the boy.

I had seen the announcement in the Times—scored and scored again by Jack with a thick blue pencil:—

Dryden: Carstairs.—On the 5th May, at the Old Parish Church, Okehampton, Herbert Dryden to Joan Carstairs, only daughter of Captain Carstairs, late of Royal Navy.

And I marvelled in my mind that such a girl as she had seemed to me from her picture could do such a thing.

At length his breathing grew quieter, and he slept. I didn't touch him or disturb him; it was better to let Nature have her way. Through all the dreary months ahead he'd have to suffer; let him sleep now and forget. So I left him there with the letter still clutched in his hand. And when he woke the African night had come down and the lamps were lit.

He sat up and stared at me dazedly across the table. Memory hadn't come back; he didn't realize what had happened. And then he saw the letter in his hand, and his face went haggard.

“I've been asleep, Mark?” he asked.

“Yes, old chap,” I said, “you've been asleep. I want you to eat some dinner now.”

He shook his head.

“It was that whisky,” he said, slowly. “I've been mad. Did I say some terrible things, Mark, about Joan?”

He steadied his voice well—remarkably well—as he said her name.

“Whatever you may have said, Jack,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, “it was only I who heard you. And when a man's lowered a bottle of whisky neat, only a fool pays any attention to what he says.”

He looked at me, and his eyes were tired.

“Dear old Mark,” he said, “I think you saved my life. It's in here”—he touched his forehead—“like a bad dream—all that happened after you came in. But what I want you to understand, old man, is that it's not her fault. It's not one little bit Joan's fault. It's all in her letter here. You see, this man Dryden had her father in his power. Something about money it was; dear old Carstairs is the biggest fool in the world over money. And he threatened to ruin him and her mother unless she married him.” He shook his fists suddenly in the air, and the sweat glistened on his forehead. “Great God!” he shouted, “what a swine that man must be!” Then he pulled himself together again and went on quietly: “So, you see, she couldn't help it—my little girl. She couldn't see her father and mother made penniless beggars, could she? So she sacrificed herself for them. It's all down here in the letter.”

“Confound it all,” I snapped, “it seems to me she sacrificed you as well.”

For a moment his shoulder shook and he turned away. Then he steadied himself, and I went out on to the veranda. I wasn't in the mood to hear any more excuses about the girl; to me the big tragedy was the one at hand—that priceless boy. And then I heard his voice again, and looked back into the room.

He was standing by the photograph and I think he'd forgotten my existence for the moment, or else he thought I'd gone into the compound. But as he took it down from the wall he spoke.

“Forgive me, my darling. I couldn't help it. I was mad. But I understand, Joan; I understand now.”

And, damn it, Dick, I couldn't have spoken at that moment if my life had depended on it.

THAT'S the first part of my confession, old man. You will probably say to yourself that up to now there's been nothing to confess. Quite right; but I had to put it down in detail so that you should know the terms I was on with Jack Onslow. He was a pal of mine—almost as great a pal as you yourself, save that he was a younger man. I want to make that clear; I want to emphasize it, for it has a big bearing on what is to come.

I suppose it was a month later that I left Jack. He was still carrying on, but all the spring had gone out of his work. Only once did he allude to the girl, and that was the night before I left.

“What's the use, Mark?” he said, with an odd twisted smile. “I was doing it for her, and now, what's the use?”

The next day I left him. I was going back to England, and I remember looking back as the road turned for a last view of the farm. Jack was standing on the veranda and he waved his hand once. Then he went inside, and I pictured him sitting at the table staring in front of him with hopeless eves.

“What's the use, Mark; what's the use?”

His words were echoing in my brain, and as I rode on I made up my mind that when opportunity offered I would seek out Mrs. Dryden and I would paint a picture for her which she would not forget in a hurry. I would tell this girl exactly what the salvation of her father had meant to Jack Onslow. And it was three months later that I arrived in Okehampton with the intention of looking for her.

Of course, I had no idea where she was living, but since the wedding had taken place there I thought I should be able to get the information I wanted. And I was right; the first person I asked at one of the hotels told me where they lived. Then he looked at me a bit curiously.

“Do you know him—Herbert Dryden?”

“No,” I said, briefly, “I don't. What sort of a man is he?”

“You'll see for yourself,” he answered, and I couldn't get any more out of him. But his tone of voice spoke volumes.

And as I ate my lunch I reflected that she deserved all she got; my mind was still sore over Jack.

I'm not going to weary you with a long account of how I got to know Dryden. It was through Brayfield, a major in the Gunners who was in camp there, as a matter of fact. I'd known him in the past, and he asked me up to dine one guest-night. And Dryden was there—a thin-lipped, austere-looking man of about fifty. His face seemed to be set in a continual sneer, and his eyes were cold and fishy. I remember I asked Brayfield about him, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“He's exactly what he looks like,” he remarked. “Personally, I think he's one of the most horrible swine I've ever met in my life, and how he ever induced his wife to marry him is one of those things which are beyond human comprehension.”

“What sort of a girl is she?” I asked, carelessly.

“Well, I don't think I'm exaggerating,” he answered, quietly, “when I say that she is the sweetest and most lovely woman I've ever seen in my life. And,” he finished up savagely, “he treats her like a dog. By the way, you paint, don't you?”

“I dabble in it,” I said, rather surprised at the question.

“So does he,” answered Brayfield. “I'll introduce you to him after dinner, and he's sure to ask you up to his house. And then you can see his wife for yourself.“

IT fell out as he said. Dryden, it appeared, was inordinately proud of his water-colours, and liked nothing better than to show them to an appreciative audience. And since I wanted to get to the house I exaggerated my ability somewhat.

I went up the next day to lunch. It was a big house, standing in rather a lonely position. The grounds were well kept and extensive, and it was evident that Dryden had money. And a woman who could chuck Jack and marry Dryden for money must be pretty rotten. I'm afraid I didn't pay too much attention to the ruined father stunt; in fact, I had almost forgotten it. All I could think of was Jack sobbing his soul out as the night came down on his farm in Uganda.

And then I saw the girl. You know her, Dick, so I won't bore you with trying to describe her. But all I could realize at the moment when I saw her picking some flowers in the garden was that Brayfield had understated the case. She had on a cotton frock—I can remember it as if it were yesterday—and when she saw me she put down her basket and came towards me.

“How do you do?” she said, holding out her hand. “My husband will be here in a moment.”

I stood there, Dick, like a callow schoolboy gaping at her, and then, moved by some uncontrollable impulse, I blurted out what was in my mind.

“Why, in Heaven's name, have you smashed Jack Onslow's life?”

For a moment I thought she was going to fall. Every vestige of colour left her face and she swayed dizzily. Then she pulled herself together, and I heard her agonized whisper:—

“Don't mention it before my husband, for God's sake!”

I heard a step behind me on the gravel, and turned round to find Dryden approaching. By day he looked even more unpleasant than at night, and it was with a feeling almost of repugnance that I took his hand.

“I see you have introduced each other,” he remarked, suavely. “Mr. Danver is interested in painting, Joan; and—what should appeal to you more—he has been in Uganda.”

Every word came out like a drop of iced water, and he was watching her as a cat watches a mouse.

She was superb.

“Indeed!” she said. “How interesting! It must be a most fascinating country.”

She led the way towards the house, and we followed. Every hard thought I'd had about her had vanished—just been blotted out. I knew that it wasn't her fault—that Jack had been right. Knowing her as you do you'll understand my sudden conversion. All I knew and felt for certain was that some damnable tragedy had taken place, and that this fish-eyed brute was at the bottom of it.

I wish I could give you some idea of the devilish way he treated that wonderful, glorious girl. At lunch that day, for instance, he wouldn't keep off the subject of Uganda; asked me if by any chance I knew a man called Jack Onslow; hoped that he was in the best of health and spirits; trusted that he would marry some nice girl soon. And all the time his eyes were fixed on his wife—searching her face to see if his shots had got home. And I, fool that I was, had added to her burden by telling her that she'd smashed Jack's life.

Not by a quiver of an eyelid did she let her husband see that he'd scored. She sat there calm-eyed and disdainful, and I was torn between a desire to cry: “Well played, you topping girl,” and a positive craving to hit the swine in the face.

She disappeared after lunch, and Dryden bored me with his rotten paintings. I escaped as soon as I could; I felt I couldn't bear the man any longer. And I wanted to see the girl again, and tell her that Jack was all right and that he understood. But there was no sign of her about the garden, and with a sick feeling of impotence I walked out over the moors. I felt I wanted to get away into the open, and try to get the taste of Dryden out of my mouth.

And then quite suddenly and unexpectedly l came on her. She was sitting down in a little hollow, and a terrier was at her feet. She stared at me as I came up, and the hopeless misery in her eyes made me catch my breath.

“So I've smashed his life, have I?” she said at length.

I sat down beside her on the grass.

“He's better now, Mrs. Dryden,” I answered, gently. “But I was with him when the news came—and he took it hard. Tell me—why did you do it?”

And then little by little the whole story came out. She wasn't very clear on the business points involved, but I gathered that it was concerned with a mortgage. Her father had speculated—led on, as she found out later, by Dryden. Then he had mortgaged his house and Dryden had taken it up—only to threaten to foreclose a month or two later. It was utterly impossible to find the money, and Dryden's price for not foreclosing was—her.

She had told him everything—gone down on her knees to him, but it was useless. He had wanted her for years, and her love for Jack Onslow was nothing to him. He wanted her for his wife, and he was going to have her for his wife. Otherwise utter absolute ruin for her mother and father. That was the choice he gave her.

You heard him at lunch to-day, Mr. Danver,” she said, and her voice was trembling. “It's always the same. I believe he hates me; hates me because I won't pretend what I can't feel. I know I hate him, and though he forced me to marry him, he can't force me to love him. There will never be anybody in my life but Jack. And if”—the tears were running down her cheeks—“if you see him again, will you tell him so? Tell him that Tim and I come out here and talk about him.” She laid her hand on the dog's head. “Tim is his dog, you know.”

I bit at my pipe, Dick, and sat there like a tongue-tied fool.

“Don't tell him I'm miserable, because that would make him miserable too. But don't tell him I'm happy, Mr. Danver, because I couldn't bear him to think I could be happy tied to Herbert.”

“But look here, Mrs. Dryden,” I cried, “why go on like this? A man who could drive such an abominable bargain as your husband has doesn't deserve the slightest consideration. Write to Jack, and tell him to come home and take you away with him back to Uganda. It would be less wrong than going on as you are.”

She gave a little pitiful smile.

“Three days after we were married, Herbert informed me that he still held the mortgage, and that should I be foolish enough to contemplate leaving his roof the question of foreclosing would again arise. He also stated that he was unalterably opposed to divorce.”

And then she fell to asking me about Jack: how he was looking; how the farm was doing; all the little intimate details a woman wants to know about her man. Who looked after his clothes—of all things—God bless her. As if I knew.

And at last, after about an hour, she rose.

“Good-bye, Mr. Danver,” she said. “I think if you don't mind I'd sooner not see you again.”

“I'm going to-morrow,” I answered. “And if I see Jack I'll tell him.”

She gave a little choking cry and was gone, stumbling over the rough ground, with Tim scampering round her feet. And having watched her out of sight I turned and strode away over the moor. I felt I'd like to hit somebody or something; I felt that life could hold no more wonderful joy than ten minutes alone with Herbert Dryden and a rhinoceros-hide whip. And at that moment, Dick, I saw him.

SOMETIMES now I think it was Fate's inexorable decree; sometimes now I think that it was intended from the beginning of things. And then, at others, I lie sweating in the night and wonder. You know that they brought it in as an accident. You know that he was found with his head crushed in at the bottom of Dead Man's Pool, with his easel and his camp-stool on the edge of the cliff two hundred feet above. You know that at the inquest I gave evidence to the effect that I had seen him stand up with his pencil in his hand as if to take some measurements, and suddenly stumble and disappear into the depths below. And they brought it in as a sudden attack of vertigo.

It was a lie, Dick; I murdered him. I killed Herbert Dryden that evening at Dead Man's Pool, and I leave the verdict in your hands.

He saw me coming towards him and he waved his hand.

“Having a look round for some local colour?” he cried. “Well, you won't find a better place to start than this. I've done it half-a-dozen times and the light is never the same.”

I stood by his side in silence, watching him work. For an amateur he wasn't at all bad, and had he been anybody else I should have been interested. It was an ideal spot for a sketch, with some wonderful colour effects. Deep down below us lay the sheet of black water—sombre and sunless—with the sinister name earned from tragedies of the past. Once, presumably, an old quarry, now it was disused, and the local people avoided it.

There were stories told about it: one in particular of a hard-riding, hard-living squire of a bygone day, whose horse had bolted with him and gone over the edge. And it was said that the great shout of “Gone away” which he gave as he realized that he'd come to the last fence, and was falling like a stone into the depths below, could sometimes now be heard echoing faintly over the moors.

The top of the quarry lay in a little depression, so that we were at the bottom of a saucer, so to speak. And for a while I watched him getting in the wonderful yellow of the broom on the opposite side of the pool. He worked in silence, his fishy eyes absorbed in their task, until suddenly he put down his brush and looked at me.

“So you know Jack Onslow,” he said, with an ugly smile. “Tell me about the young swine.”

It was then that something snapped, Dick; up to that moment I swear I had no thought of what I was going to do. But in my brain I could see only two pictures—Jack sobbing his soul out across the table, and this fish-eyed brute gloating in front of me.

But I didn't do anything rashly; to this day I can remember how ice-cold and clear my mind felt.

“I think it should interest you, Mr. Dryden,” I remarked, “to know that one of the last times I saw Jack Onslow, he was mad drunk on a bottle of whisky. He had a photograph nailed to the wall of his bungalow, and he was firing at it with his revolver. And the photograph was of your wife.”

I took one quick look round: there was no soul in sight. And then I picked up a huge stone lying at my feet. There was just time to see the unholy joy on his face turn to a fearful terror—but no more. I brought the stone down on his head with all my force, and he fell over the edge like a log. I heard the crash as he hit the rock below, and then he toppled into the pool. Finally I threw the stone far out into the water, picked up his camp-stool, which had fallen over, and went straight back and gave the alarm.

The result you know; there was no known motive in my killing him; there was never even any suspicion of it. It was an accident—and as such it has remained to this day.

But now, old Dick, as my own last fence is looming in sight, it haunts me sometimes. Was I justified in doing such a thing? Can anyone ever be justified in doing such a thing? When I can't sleep o' nights, I see those eyes of his staring at me out of the darkness—and they mock me. They seem to say: “You're coming too, Mark Danver; you, who dared to judge me.”

But it wasn't for myself, Dick, that I did it—that much I can say. It was for Jack and that wonderful girl. And when those eyes of his get very bad there's another picture comes to my mind, and the eyes fade away. I see again Jack's farm, with Jack standing on the veranda. On his face is a look of dawning wonder, as he stares at the girl standing beside him. Just once he passes his hand across his eyes, and I hear him whisper: “Dear heavens! but I'm dreaming.”

And then she goes to him and her arms are round his neck.

“Not dreaming, my darling—it's truth. It's all come right at last.”

At that I leave it. They must never know, Dick; they must never have an inkling that it was not an accident. But now that I'm going I've written this to you in case anything ever happens. It's not likely to, so long after, but it might. And if it did—you know.

The final punishment will lie in other hands, though it's begun already. These last few years have been hell. That's why I've buried myself and cut adrift from you all. You see, I loved her too, as I never believed I could have loved a woman. That's another thing they must never know.

Good-bye, old chap.

FOR a while I sat staring across the sunlit garden. On the lawn young Jack was being instructed in the rudiments of cricket by his father, while his mother kept wicket. And even more did I marvel at the strangeness of the coincidence that had brought Mark's letter to me in this of all houses.

At last the game was over, and young Jack departed with his nurse. And as they watched him go I saw Jack Onslow turn to the girl at his side. For a moment he looked at her as a man may look at only one woman, and she gave a little happy laugh. Yes—it's all come right at last, dear old Mark—it's all come right.