The Whispering Lane/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
A CLUE
Aileen’s father—the released war-prisoner—the long-missing man? Frozen into an amazed silence by the revelation, Dick had strong doubts as to its truth. It seemed incredible that this elfish little creature, smiling cynically, could be the brown-haired, stout, scanty-bearded friend of Inspector Trant. “It’s impossible!” he stammered, after a lengthy pause, during which he waited vainly for an explanation.
“Why impossible, Mr. Hustings?” asked More, alias Chane, in his light voice.
“Trant’s description of your”
“Yes! Yes! Aileen told me how he described my twenty-years-ago appearance. Very accurate then—but now—Time brings changes—Time brings changes.”
“Surely not such great ones as would alter your looks so completely,” blurted out the still-astonished young man. “Trant did not know you.”
“Naturally. Twenty years: twilight: candle-light! How could he know me?”
“There was light enough for him to read Mrs. Jerr’s letter.”
“But not sufficient for him to recognize an old friend.”
“Going by Trant’s description, I doubt if any one of your old friends would know you, sir.”
“Aileen knew me,” retorted More, curtly.
“I should think so. It is not long since she saw you.”
“Yet when she did see me, before I went to France,” said the little man with twinkling malice, “I was still brown-haired, brown-bearded and stout, though a trifle the worse for wear and tear.”
“Is that so?” Dick turned to the girl, more puzzled than ever.
She nodded, “I did not know my father immediately; but when I looked into his eyes—you can’t alter the colour and individual expression of the eyes. Also, my father has a trick of stroking his chin when thoughtful, and”
“And I stroked it when surprised by your unexpected visit,” interposed More, shrugging. “Oh, these mannerisms: they always betray the best disguise.”
“Disguise!” Dick scrutinized the speaker keenly, recollecting that the suspected Mrs. Jerr had been his tenant.
“An ominous word, isn’t it?” jeered More, derisively, “and rather suggestive of my complicity in this Slanton murder. But you have found a mare’s-nest, Mr. Hustings. My changed looks are due to an attempted escape from prison.”
“A German war-prison?” asked Aileen, unthinkingly emphasising the noun.
“Surely my child, I am not a felon, although you imply a doubt.”
She protested, flushed and apologetic, “I never meant”
“I will take it that you meant less than your speech hinted,” said her father with some dignity. “Aileen, Aileen”—he shook his head, sadly—“you never loved me as your brother did.”
“How could I when you never showed any signs of wanting my love?” demanded the girl, almost fiercely. “All your affection was given to Roddy.”
“Not all. I had much left for you.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me, father? You never allowed me to come into your life. I was exiled to Aunt Amy’s house: after she died, to that boarding-school at Brighton. All my life I have hungered for what I never obtained.”
“We are at cross purposes, it seems,” commented More, coldly.
“Not on my part,” denied his daughter, vehemently. “To me you have always been a guardian, never a father. Only Edith loved me”
“And now I love her,” struck in Dick, thinking it just as well that this dry-as-dust scientist should know the truth, “we are engaged to be married.”
“I have not yet been consulted,” said More, stiffly.
“It was impossible to consult you, father, when you were missing and, by many, supposed to be dead. Also, why should I consult you, seeing that I am less a daughter to you than a stranger.”
“I am to blame,” admitted More, again dignified, “but not so much as might appear to a superficial observer, which I fear you are, Aileen. Let me explain—and let us be seated,” he shrugged, smilingly, “for I really don’t know why we have been standing all this time.”
Dropping lightly into the nearest chair, the little man, a strange mixture of gaiety and gravity, signed that the others should follow his example. They did so, the girl seating herself as closely to Dick as was possible. He guessed that she wished for the comfort of his presence and closed a strong hand over one of her own. More noted the encouraging clasp, which revealed plainly that his daughter trusted her lover and doubted him. “Don’t judge me until you hear my explanation,” he said satirically, but wincing at the action.
The young people said nothing, and somewhat disconcerted by their silence, the speaker, now standing at the bar of judgment, entered into details. He related how he had taken a Government appointment in France, connected with aeroplane wireless operations; how, left behind during a forced retreat of the Allies, he had been captured, and how a German prison-camp had held him for months, fretting his heart out. “I tried to escape several times,” he went on with the calm precision of a scientist, “but invariably I was brought back. Finally I was transferred to another and safer district, and in my new prison I found a friend. Herr Hopf was, like myself, a scientific student, disapproving of the war, and therefore declined to regard me as an enemy.”
“A rare specimen of a German professor,” remarked Dick, grimly.
“Quite so,” retorted More, sharply, “but one with whom I was fortunate enough to come into contact. He helped me to get away by transforming my appearance from that which you knew, Aileen, to that which you now see. Meagre prison-fare had already rid me of my stoutness, and it was easy for me to shave off my beard. Hopf bleached my hair; changed, by a process, which I need not describe, the contours of my face, and”
“He has altered your nose, father,” said the girl, staring.
“Yes! And by cutting certain nerves, he changed my expression. Also he lightened my skin, formerly ruddy, now pale golden, and—and, oh in various ways he turned me from one man into another. But the eyes—you are right, Aileen, clever as he was, Hopf could do nothing with the eyes. It was clever of you to see in them your transformed father.”
“I don’t know,” she said, slowly, “if you hadn’t stroked your face”
“Ah, yes. Hopf warned me against mannerisms, but one forgets.”
“And your voice,” went on Aileen, “it’s so—so thin and—and—light.”
“Used to be heavy, didn’t it? Hopf again: you wouldn’t understand if I explained, so I won’t waste my breath. But that change isn’t lasting—I can, if I chose go back to”—here More suddenly checked himself with a swift glance at Dick, “Well, well, so much for my changed looks.”
“And you escaped!” said Hustings, wondering why the man had pulled himself up.
“Only out of the frying-pan into the fire,” muttered the scientist, between his teeth, and frowning darkly, “it was impossible to creep westward out of Germany, so I was forced to struggle eastward.”
“You went to Russia?”
“I went to Hell, Mr. Hustings. There, the new disorder of things drew me into their whirlpool, to be beaten, starved, shot at, tortured, and—oh let me talk no more of what I underwent,” and covering his face with his hands, the cold little man became much more human for the moment.
Aileen’s generous heart forgave him on the instant. Leaving her chair she went to kneel by the broken man and smooth his hand. “Don’t think anything more about it, father. You are safe now, and happiness lies before you.”
“Good child, good child,” murmured More, not unmoved, “let us be better friends for the future, Aileen. But happiness is not for me,” he rose with a tragic gesture, with a despairing cry. “I have lost my Roderick—my only son.”
“But you have your daughter!” Dick reminded him gently, for the cry came poignantly, and rang truly in its revelation of suffering.
“My daughter will marry you; go away, and forget me.”
“No, Father, no. We have been at cross purposes, as you say. But now”
“Now we will be better friends: no more. You mean well, my dear. I thank you. But Roderick was everything to me, and I have lost him, lost him, lost him.”
“Surely Aileen” began Dick, indignant that the girl’s proffered affection should be so definitely rejected.
More cut him short, fiercely positive. “Can Aileen carry on my research work—has she the brains, the training, the knowledge to finish what I have begun? No! You little understand my feelings, which are those of a scientist as well as those of a father. I have lost more than my son. I am deprived of an assistant, who helped me as no one else could have done, as no one else ever can do. My brilliant, clever boy. Oh what a loss to the world of science.”
“He gave up his life for his country, sir.”
“Oh!” More stared strangely at the speaker, ignoring his daughter, who clung sobbing to that speaker’s shoulder, “he gave up his life for his country, you say. Why—so he did!” and he smiled so weirdly, that Hustings shrank back. He wished, for Aileen’s sake, to like More, but he could not bring himself to the point of liking. There was something sinister, threatening, uncanny, about him.
“Oh, father, I am sorry for you,” sobbed Aileen, raising her tearful face.
“There! There!” said More, gloomily, and patting her shoulder, “I appreciate your sympathy, my dear. Roderick is dead; crying and raging, prayer and fasting will not bring him back. But, as for those who killed him” he stopped abruptly and clenched his fists, smiling in a most venomous manner.
“You hate the Germans, I see, sir. But—the fortune of war!”
“Hate the—oh yes! Fortune of war—naturally,” he laughed shrilly, “my son—only son, who might have been—would have been, helpful beyond knowing to humanity, with his discoveries. A genius, sir a genius! And he is dead! dead! dead! Fortune of war did you say, Mr. Hustings? Why, of course! Fortune of war!” and he laughed again, thinly, cruelly, mockingly.
Drying her tears Aileen glanced anxiously from her father to Dick, who was likewise perturbed. They simultaneously thought that the poor soul’s mind was unbalanced. And small wonder if such was the case. The laborious work in France, the sordid captivity in Germany, the infernal torments in Russia, and above all the irreparable loss of his son—less crowded disasters than these would serve to shake a man’s sanity. More noted their silence and guessed their thoughts with uncanny perspicuity. “Perhaps I am mad!” he said, piteously, “only I wish that my madness would include loss of memory. But there! there! there!” he recovered his self-control with startling rapidity. “What else is there to say? I got away from Russia, some few months ago, in the steamer of a Petrograd skipper, to whom I did a good turn. That’s all there is to tell.”
“But your change of name?” questioned Dick, swiftly, as he and Aileen sat down again, “why did you change your name?”
“To match my changed looks maybe,” replied More with a shrug.
“And why did you not write to me immediately—come to see me without delay?” demanded Aileen, “you knew how anxious I was.”
“Did I? I forget,” replied her father, indifferently, “but I learned that you were living with that woman who seduced Roderick into loving her, and for that reason I left you in ignorance of my doings.”
“Don’t say a word against Edith,” cried Aileen, flushing up with sparkling eyes, “she is the best and dearest friend I have. When Mr. Quick ran away with the money you left for me”
“I heard of that,” interpolated her father, grimly, “and I shall settle accounts with Quick, sooner or later, never fear.”
“Well, when his dishonesty drove me to work in a City office, Edith sought me out and took me to live with her.”
“On Roderick’s money,” sneered More, cynically, “she could well afford to do that, since he was fool enough to leave it to her. The scheming adventuress.”
“She is not that, father. You misjudge her. Edith went to find you and offer back the money, which she did not want. Failing to find you, she offered the money to me. I refused, so she engaged me as her companion. Does that look as if Edith was a bad woman? No! She loved Roderick truly and for himself.”
More seemed rather taken aback by-this information. “I am sorry if I have misjudged her,” he said, slowly, “she may be better than I have thought.”
“She is—she is,” Aileen assured him, vehemently.
“Offered to return the money did she?” mused More, ignoring the speech. “If I had known that I might have—but it’s too late now,” his face darkened, and he sighed, regretfully, Dick fancied. A moment later and he went on, briskly, “I changed my name because I am engaged in certain scientific work, which I hope will end war. War deprived me of my son, and it is my desire to save other fathers from suffering as I am suffering.”
“And your invention?”
“No, Mr. Hustings. I shall say nothing of that just now. But when I am ready I hope to place at the disposition of a sane Government, a weapon which will give that Government the mastery of the world. I say a sane Government, you observe: one which will use this weapon to stop war, not continue war.”
“Our own Government?” asked Dick, rather mockingly.
“I don’t know: I can’t say. It depends upon the Government in which I find most common sense. What did Tennyson say, years ago in Locksley Hall?” and the little man quoted with fiery emphasis:
- “‘When the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe.’
“Maybe I shall be the one to fulfil that prophecy. In the hands of sane men, this weapon I am inventing will shape the policy of the planet. And again I emphasise the word ‘sane.’”
“Where do you hope to find the sanity that will exercise unlimited power, in a selfless way, for the benefit of humanity?” asked Dick, with a doubtful shrug.
More did not answer this question, save that he imitated the disbelieving gesture. “So that is my explanation. I work in London usually, but come down here for rest. I bought this bungalow from Mrs. Brine’s executors for this purpose. But this silly ghost business worried me, so I let it to Mrs. Jerr. As you know, she could not stand that trouble either and left.”
“Did you hear the Voice before Mrs. Jerr came?”
“Yes! And tried my best to arrive at some explanation. But it proved impossible. That it is a trick I am convinced: but how and why I can’t say. However, now that I am here again with Rackham to look after me, I shall search again into the matter.”
“Rackham!” echoed Aileen, starting, “that was Roddy’s servant.”
“His batman. Yes! When I arrived in England I found that Rackham had left a letter at my office, saying that he wished to see me—to deliver some articles left by his master. I wrote to the address Rackham gave, and had an interview with him when he called.” More’s face darkened again. “It was a very interesting interview,” he said slowly, and gloomily, “and resulted in Rackham becoming my servant. It was the least I could do for one so faithful to my son. Rackham worshipped Roderick, as I did. Who could help doing so?”
“Is Rackham here?” asked Dick, suddenly.
“Yes. He came down this morning. Why?”
“He was in the Base-hospital when your son died, and might be able to tell us something about Dr. Slanton.”
“Oh, yes. Slanton was the doctor there. Rackham told me that, but he said very little about the man, save that few liked him. Unless Miss Danby”
“She detested him,” broke in Aileen, angrily, “the man wished to marry her.”
“So it was stated at the inquest proceedings, if the newspaper reports are to be relied upon. She must have detested him to some purpose, to have drugged, and tattooed, and finally to have strangled the poor devil.”
“She did not—she did not. Edith is as innocent as you are, as I am, father.”
“I hope so!” More spoke with genuine honesty. “I never liked the woman when she was my secretary, as I thought that she was scheming to marry Roderick, for the fortune his mother left him. But, if she really wished to restore it”
“She did—she really did. Not finding you she several times offered it to me.”
“And what is more,” chimed in Dick, meaningly, “Miss Danby told me herself about her will, leaving the income to Aileen.”
“Ah!” More looked up quickly, “she expects to be hanged then?”
“She expects death, anyhow, Mr. More; if not by hanging, then by cancer.”
“Cancer!” More arose, his light-coloured face working with emotion, “Poor woman. I fear that I have misjudged her. Had I only known”—his hands opened and shut convulsively—“oh, had I only known.”
“Known what, father?” It was Aileen who put the question, surprised at this display of feeling by the cold-natured little man.
“That she loved Roderick for himself and not for his money. Then I would not have forbidden the marriage. And my son might have been still alive. Shakespeare is right in his Puck saying: ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ But I am punished: Roderick is dead. I am alone.”
“You have me, father!”
“Have I,” he looked keenly at the girl, “then come and live here with me.”
Aileen drew back, “No!” she replied, resolutely, “I shall stay in Edith’s cottage until Edith’s character is cleared.”
“Or until she dies,” mocked her father, shrugging. “That seems more certain than her chance of being proved innocent.”
“Can’t you help, sir?”
“No!” More looked both surprised and regretful, “I only wish it was in my power to do so, seeing how sadly I have misjudged this woman. But, as I have told all I know about Mrs. Jerr, and know nothing of Slanton, but what Rackham has told me, I don’t see what I can do.”
“I should like to ask Rackham a few questions, with your permission.”
“Certainly!” More pulled the bell-rope dangling near his hand, “but I fear you will learn little from him. Still, he may suggest something useful, as possibly in Slanton’s past will be found the reason for Slanton’s death. Ah, Rackham!” he went on, lightly, as a tallish, soldierly man appeared at the door “this gentleman wishes to learn what you know of that doctor who attended Mr. Roderick when he died.”
Rackham presented himself as a grim-looking person, with a lean, weather-beaten face, clean-shaven, and cruelly marked. On its left side, a reddish scar ran down his cheek from ear to mouth, giving him a somewhat sinister appearance. He saluted, stood rigidly straight, and answered gruffly. “Dr. Slanton. A bad lot, sir: smoked opium and was much too free in his habits, begging this young lady’s pardon. Saw him often when Lieutenant More died; but haven’t seen him since, and don’t want to.”
“Had he any enemies do you know?”
“Heaps of ’em I should think, sir. I’m one.”
“You?”
“Yes, sir!” returned the ex-soldier, phlegmatically. “I don’t think he knew his business as a doctor or Lieutenant More wouldn’t have gone west.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“What I say, sir. Sister Danby who nursed my master was handy enough and did her best. But that blighter—if you’ll excuse the word, sir—didn’t give Lieutenant More proper attention.”
Before Dick could ask another question Aileen put one herself. “Do you know that Dr. Slanton has been murdered?”
“Saw it in the newspapers, Miss. And I’m neither surprised nor sorry, Miss. The Devil came for his own and got him, as I knew he would some day.”
“And the name of the Devil—the person who killed Slanton?” asked Dick, dryly.
“I know nothing of that, sir. If it’s Sister Danby as they say, I’d like to shake her by the hand. That physic-merchant was a Hun, sir—leastways he’d all the devilment of one. I’m glad he got it in the neck.”
“Then you can tell me nothing about the man?”
“Nothing, except what’s rotten, sir.” Rackham smiled grimly, and the wrinkling up of his gruesome face caused the scar to writhe unpleasantly. “Any more questions, sir? Not that I can tell you anything.”
Dick shook his head, woefully disappointed, whereupon More dismissed his servant with a curt nod. “You mustn’t be angry with Rackham’s blood-thirsty talk!” he said, looking apologetically at the young people. “He loved Roderick as much as I did. Of course I can’t swear that Slanton caused my son’s death by inattention, or ignorance; but if I had known, for certain”—and his face became fiercely cruel—“I should have—should have—well there’s no saying to what lengths I should have gone to revenge Roderick. But there you are! You know everything now. Let us change the subject. I am not master of myself when I think of my lost son. Well, well, well. Luncheon?”
“No thank you, father,” refused Aileen, who was feeling exhausted by the somewhat stormy half-hour, “I wish to return to the inn and see Mr. Trant.”
More was by no means offended, and, indeed, seemed relieved. “If you do, tell him who I am, and explain the reason for my changed appearance,” said More, accompanying his visitors to the outer door, “it will save me from repeating myself when Trant comes to see me again.”
With marked courtesy he conducted Aileen and her lover to the gate, waving a friendly farewell as he returned to the house. But behind these externals—and both the young people felt the sensation—there lurked a hidden gladness at having got rid of them. “I am willing to help father, and father is ready to be friendly with me,” said Aileen voicing her feelings, “but it’s too late. I can never feel that he is really my father.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, dear. It’s my belief that he is slightly crazy.”
“Oh, Dick!” cried the girl in dismay, and with a shiver of pity and horror.
“Well, is it to be wondered at, considering what he has gone through? Let us accept the position, Aileen, and leave him to Rackham and his inventions. We must think of ourselves, of Miss Danby’s plight, of getting things settled.”
She nodded sadly. “If father showed the least sign of wanting me, I shouldn’t agree with you, Dick. But, as it is, I think you are right. Poor father. He has nothing to live for now.”
“Oh, there’s his invention and dreams of creating a world-peace. Those will comfort him and help him to forget.”
Dick spoke soberly, being really sorry for the wretched little man, in spite of his innate distrust, and was about to guide Aileen down the lane when the unexpected happened. A distant shout came to their ears, and they turned simultaneously to see a figure plodding wearily towards them-—the figure of a man, with a dog running beside him. “Jimmy!” cried Dick delightedly, and he ran to meet the boy, leaving Aileen where she stood expectant of news.
“Jimmy, boy,” Hustings put his arm round the weary, dusty lad, who seemed to be on the point of falling, “I am glad to see you. Let me help you to the inn. You are worn out, and the dog isn’t much better. When you have eaten and rested you can tell me your news.”
“I must tell you now,” gasped Jimmy, hoarsely, “that girl Jenny Walton?”
“Jenny Walton? How did you—yes—yes?”
“She has run away. And—and—oh Bill Tyson—Old Wung!” the lad collapsed.