"What about his hair? They'll be sure to notice that."
He smiled a little pityingly, I thought; but then, to the very end the man retained some contempt for me. "Come and see for yourself," he said.
So I went back with him into that room where we had left the dead man, and there I saw a miracle. For while I slept the doctor had been at work, and the head of poor Gregory Pennington was cropped as closely as my own. I shuddered and turned away.
"How you ever contrived to escape puzzles me," said Bardolph Just. "You haven't half my courage."
The man was certainly amazing. He met everything blandly; he was firm, and quiet, and dignified with this official and with that. He told me afterwards all that he did, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. For my own part, of course, I had to keep out of the way, and I spent most of my time in the spacious grounds surrounding the house. There was an old ruined summer-house at one corner, under a high wall; and there, fortified with a few of the doctor's cigars, I awaited quietly the turn of events. According to the doctor's description to me afterwards, what happened was this:
In the first place, the puzzle fitted so neatly together that there was no feeling of suspicion. A tall, well-built, dark-haired man, in the clothes of a convict, was roaming over the country; by a miracle a man answering that description, and dressed in those clothes, and having the necessary number upon him, had got to this house on the northern heights above London, and there, in despair of escaping further, had hanged himself. Dr. Bardolph Just was a man of standing in the scientific world – a man who had made discoveries; there was no thought of calling his word in question. This dead man was undoubtedly the escaped convict – Norton Hyde.
A very necessary inquest was held, and twelve good men and true settled that matter once and for all. There had been one curious point in the evidence, but even that was a point that had been miraculously explained. The doctor spoke of it airily, and I wondered a little why he did not explain the matter with more exactitude.
"It seems," he said, "that they discovered on the head of the unfortunate man the mark of a blow – a blow which had undoubtedly stunned him – or so, at least, they thought. It's impossible for me to say how the unfortunate Gregory Pennington came by such an injury, but at all events even that was accounted for in the case of Norton Hyde."
"How?" I asked.
Dr. Just laughed. "A certain motorist put in an appearance, and frankly explained that he had picked you up on the roadside near Penthouse Prison, and had given you a lift as far as this very house. Then there was an accident, and he and his passenger were both pitched out; he was convinced that in that way you got your injury. The thing was as simple as possible – you had recovered consciousness before he did, and had scrambled over the fence here."
"But did they swallow the story of my being in the house – of my breaking in?" I asked.
"I had thought of that," said the doctor. "So my tale was that you had hanged yourself from a beam in an outhouse – probably because you failed in your purpose of breaking into my dwelling. As a doctor, the moment I discovered you I cut you down, and carried you in, and did my best to restore animation, but in vain. You will like to know, Mr. Norton Hyde, that my humanity was warmly commended by the jury and coroner."
I laughed in a sickly fashion. "But I am not Norton Hyde any longer," I reminded him.
"True – and I have thought of a name for you that shall, in a fashion, mark your entry into another phase of existence. A nice name, and a short one. What do you say to the title of John New, a personal friend of my own?"
I told him that any name would suit me that was not the old one, and so that matter was settled.
He displayed so great an anxiety to see the matter ended, and was altogether so sympathetic with that poor convict who in his despair had hanged himself, that he even attended the funeral. Which is to say, that he carried the fraud so far as to go to Penthouse Prison, what time that disguised body of Godfrey Pennington was carried there, and to see it interred with all due solemnity within the prison precincts; I believe he lunched with the governor of the prison on that occasion, and, altogether, played his part very well.
It is left to me to record here one other happening of that time, and one which made a deep impression upon me. On the night of that strange finishing of the fraud, when Dr. Bardolph Just returned, I was sitting smoking in the summer-house, and enjoying the evening air, when I heard what seemed to be the quick, half-strangled cry of a woman. I tossed aside my cigar and started to my feet and came out of the summer-house. It was very dark in that corner of the grounds, and the summer-house in particular had great deep shadows inside it.
There came towards me, flying among the trees, and looking back in a scared fashion over her shoulder, the girl I had seen with Gregory Pennington – the girl he had called Debora. She came straight at me, not seeing me; and in the distance I saw Bardolph Just running, and heard him calling to her. On an instinct I caught at her, and laid a finger on my lips, and thrust her into the summer-house. Bardolph Just came running up a moment later, and stopped a little foolishly on seeing me. And by that time I was stretching my arms and yawning.
He made some casual remark, and turned back towards the house. When he had gone I called to the girl, and she came out; she was white-faced and trembling, and there were tears in her eyes. I felt that I hated Bardolph Just, with a hatred that was altogether unreasonable.
"I saw you here yesterday," she said, looking at me earnestly. "I need friends badly – and you have a good, kind face. Will you be my friend?"
I do not know what words I said; I only know that there, in the dark garden, as I bent over her little hands and put them to my lips, I vowed myself in my heart to her service.
CHAPTER III.
THE MISSING MAN
I find it difficult to write, in my halting fashion, of what my sensations were at that time. God knows what good was in me, and only God and time could bring that good out of me; for I had had no childhood, and my manhood had been a thing thwarted and blighted.
You have to understand that in a matter of a few days I had lived years of an ordinary life; had been in prison, and had escaped; had come near to death; had found myself buried and done with, and yet enlisted on life under a new name; and, to crown it all, now come face to face with someone who believed in me and trusted me – broken reed though I was to lean upon.
I stood in the dark grounds, holding the girl's hands and looking into her eyes: and that was a new experience for me. I remembered how someone else – dead, and shamefully buried in the precincts of a prison – had held her hands but a little time before, and had begged that he might help her. Well, he was past all that now; and I, with my poor record behind me, stood, miraculously enough, in his place. Yet there were things I must understand, if I would help her at all: I wanted to know why she had fled from her guardian, and why, in his turn, he had chased her through the grounds.
"What were you afraid of?" I asked her gently; and it was pleasant to me that she should forget to take her hands out of mine.
"Of him," she said, with a glance towards the house; and I thought she shivered. "I wonder if you can understand what I feel, and of what I am afraid?" she went on, looking at me curiously. "I do not even know your name."
I laughed a little bitterly. "You must indeed be in need of friends if you come to me," I answered.
"But my name is John New, and I am a – a friend of Dr. Just."
"Oh!" She shrank away from me with a startled look. "I did not understand that."
"I am a friend of Dr. Just," I repeated, "because it happens that I am very much in his power, and I must be his friend if I would live at all. If that is your case, too, surely we might form some small conspiracy together against him. You're not fond of the man?" I hazarded.
She shook her head. "I hate him – and I'm afraid of him," she said vehemently. "And yet I have to look to him for everything in the world."
"Sit down, and tell me about it," I said; and I drew her into the summer-house, and sat by her side while she talked to me. She was like a child in the ease with which she gave me her confidence; and as I listened to her, years seemed to separate me from my prison and from the life I had led. For this was the first gentle soul with whom I had yet come in contact.
"You must first tell me," she urged, "why you are in the doctor's power. Who are you? and what have you done, that he should be able to hold you in his hands? You are a man; you're not a weak girl."
It was difficult to answer her. "Well," I began, after a pause, "I did something, a long time ago, of which the doctor knows; and he holds that knowledge over me. That's all I can tell you."
She looked straight into my eyes, and I found, to my relief, that I was able to look at her with some frankness in return. "I don't believe it was anything very wrong," she said at last.
"Thank you," I answered, and I prayed that she might never know what my sin had been.
"You see," she went on confidentially, while the shadows grew about us; "I am really all alone in the world, except for Dr. Just, who is my guardian. He was made my guardian by my poor, dear father, who died some two years ago; my father believed in the doctor very much. They had written a scientific treatise together – because the doctor is very clever, and father quite looked up to him. So when he died he left directions that I was to be taken care of by the doctor. That was two years ago, and I have lived in this house ever since, with one short interval."
"And the interval?" I asked.
"We went down to a country house belonging to the doctor – a place in Essex, called Green Barn. It's a gloomy old house – worse than this one; the doctor goes there to shoot."
"But you haven't told me yet why you were running away from him," I reminded her.
She bent her head, so that I could not see her face. "Lately," she said in a low voice, "his manner to me has changed. At first he was courteous and kind – he treated me as though I had been his daughter. But now it's all different; he looks at me in a fashion I understand – and yet don't understand. To-day he tried to put his arm round me, and to kiss me; then when I ran away he ran after me."
I felt that I hated the doctor very cordially; I had an insane desire to be present if by any chance he should repeat his conduct. I felt my muscles stiffen as I looked at the girl; in my thoughts I was like some knight of old, ready to do doughty deeds for this fair, pretty girl, who was so ready to confide in me. I forgot all about who I was, or what had happened to me; I had only strangely come out into the world again – into a world of love.
But the fact that it was a world of love reminded me that I had had a rival – another man who had held her hands and looked into her eyes, and pleaded that he might help her. I could not, of course, ask about him, because I held the key to his fate, and that fate intimately concerned my own safety; but I was consumed with curiosity, nevertheless. Strangely enough, she voiced my thoughts by beginning to speak of him.
"There is something else that troubles me," she said earnestly. "I have one friend – a dear, good, loyal fellow; but he has unaccountably gone away, and I can hear nothing of him."
I felt myself turning hot and cold; I blessed the darkness of the summer-house. "What was his name?" I asked.
"Gregory Pennington," she answered softly.
"He was my friend before my father died; he followed me here when the doctor took charge of me. He was afraid of the doctor – not for himself, but on my account; he had a strange idea, and one that I have tried to laugh at, that the doctor wanted to kill me."
She looked at me with smiling eyes, laughing at such a suggestion; but I, remembering the earnestness of Gregory Pennington's words to the girl on that first occasion of my coming to the house, seemed now to hear that warning as though it came indeed from the dead. And I could not answer her.
"That was foolish, wasn't it?" she said, with a little laugh. "But then, I think poor Gregory loves me, and that made him afraid for me. You have been in the house here for some days; have you seen nothing of him?"
I was obliged to lie; there was nothing else for it. I shook my head, and lied stoutly. "No," I replied, "I have never seen him."
"It's all so strange," she said, as she got to her feet. "The doctor did not like him, and had forbidden him the house, in spite of my remonstrances. As he was my friend, Gregory and I used to meet secretly in these grounds in the evening."
I remembered how I had seen them together; I remembered, with a shudder, all that had happened afterwards. But still I said nothing; for what could I say?
"It was all so strange," she went on; and her voice sounded ghostly in the darkness. I had risen, and was standing opposite to her; I seemed to feel that the air had grown suddenly very chill. "The last time I saw him he told me that he would go to the house, and would see my guardian. I did all I could," she proceeded helplessly, "to dissuade him, but he would not listen. He said he must have an understanding with Dr. Just, and must take me away; although I think I should never have consented to that, in any case – because, you see, I did not really love him. He had always been like a good, kind brother to me, but nothing more."
"And did he go to the house?" I asked, for the want of something better to say.
She nodded. "I would not go in with him," she replied, "but I saw him go towards the doctor's study. I went off to my own room."
"And you heard nothing, and saw nothing after that?" I asked breathlessly.
"Nothing at all," she whispered. "Early the next morning the doctor sent me off to Green Barn, with a woman who is his housekeeper; I only came back to-day. I expected a letter from Gregory – even expected to see him. It's all so funny; it is just as though he had walked into that study – and had disappeared from that time."
"You mustn't think such things as that," I exclaimed hurriedly. "A dozen things may have happened; he may have been repulsed by the doctor, and so have decided to go away. If he knew you did not love him, he would feel pretty hopeless about the matter."
"That is possible, perhaps," she said. Then, suddenly, she held out her hand to me. "I have one friend at least," she said, "and his name is Mr. John New. It's a curious name, and I shan't forget it. You tell me that you are in trouble, too: so that is a bond between us. Good-night!"
I watched her as she flitted away through the garden. Even in my relief at the thought that she did not love Gregory Pennington, there was the dismal feeling that some day she must learn the truth – the ghastly thought that I stood there, actually in the clothes of the dead man. The whole business was a nightmare from beginning to end, in which alone she stood out as something bright, and fair, and unsullied.
We were a curious household. There were one or two rather scared-looking servants, presided over by a woman to whom the doctor referred always as "Leach"; in fact, he called her by that name when speaking to her. As she was destined to play rather an important part in that strange business upon which we were all entering, she deserves a word or two of description.
She must have been about forty years of age, and had once been, and still was, in a way, astonishingly handsome. She was tall and very dark; she had hair of that blue-black quality that is so rarely seen. Her eyes were as brilliant as those of Dr. Bardolph Just himself, save that there was in hers a curious slumbrous quality, quite unlike the sparkle in the man's. I may best describe her by saying that she suggested to me that in the very soul of her was something lurking and waiting for expression – some smouldering fire that a touch or a word might start into flame.
So far as I could gather, Dr. Just was exceedingly contemptible of her, and treated her with a sort of bitter playfulness. He seemed to take a delight in making her perform the most menial offices; and to me it was rather pitiful to see the eagerness with which she anticipated his every wish or command. I did not know at that time what bond there was between them; only, whenever I think of them in this later time one scene always rises before my memory.
It was on a morning soon after I had arrived at the house, and the doctor was in a ferocious mood. Everything had gone wrong, and I had seen the woman Leach, who ordinarily waited behind his chair, and by quick signs directed the servants what to do, cower under the lash of his words more than once. It happened to be at the breakfast table, and I was seated at one end, facing the doctor. It was the morning after that memorable night when I had talked with the girl Debora in the grounds; and now she sat on my right hand, at one side of the table, between the doctor and myself.
Absurd as the suggestion is, it almost seemed to me that the doctor was striking a balance between the two women for the mortification of them both. He pressed dishes upon the girl, with suave compliments at one moment, and in the next turned to Leach behind him with what was almost a coarse threat.
"Why the devil don't you wait on your young mistress?" he snapped. "What do you think I keep you here for? What do I pay you for?"
He turned to the table again, and, looking down the length of it, I saw the woman swiftly clench and unclench her hands behind him, as though she would have struck him. And if ever I saw murder in a face I saw it then; yet she looked not at the doctor, but at the bowed head of the girl beside me.
"Come – move – stir yourself!" cried the man, bringing down his fist with a bang on the table beside him. "Don't wait for the servants to carry things; carry them yourself. Take this dish to your mistress – Miss Debora Matchwick."
It was the first time I had heard the girl's name in full; but I took but little notice of it then, so interested was I in watching the little scene that was going forward. While the doctor sat looking at the girl, I saw the woman behind him draw herself up, and I saw her nostrils dilate; then she seemed to swoop to the table, and to catch up the dish he had indicated. She moved round slowly to where the girl sat, and purposely handed the dish from the wrong side. And down came Bardolph Just's fist again on the table.
"The other side, you jade!" he roared; and with a glance at him she moved round, and presented it to the girl in the proper fashion. And the face that bent above the fair hair of the girl was the face of a devil – of a soul in torment.
"I want nothing, thank you," said Debora in a low voice.
"Come, my dear child, we shall have you pining away to a shadow if you don't eat," broke in the doctor, with a mocking smile. "Is it possible that you are fretting over something – hungering for someone? We must have a private talk about this after breakfast; you must confide your troubles to me. And may I ask," he went on, with bitter politeness, as he turned to the other woman, "may I ask why you are standing in that absurd attitude, when your mistress tells you she wants nothing?"
The woman Leach turned away abruptly, and set down the dish. Debora had risen from the table, as if to make her escape, and the other woman, after a quick glance at her, was preparing to go from the room also. But her humiliation was not yet completed; the doctor called her back.
"Wait, Leach," he said, and she stopped on the instant. "You are in a tempestuous humour this morning, and that sort of humour must be quelled. Ring the bell."
She gave a quick, nervous glance at him, and then walked across the room and rang the bell. She waited, with her eyes cast on the ground, until a servant came in, carrying in his hand a pair of shoes. The doctor turned round in his chair, and the man carrying the shoes dropped on one knee, as if to put them on. But Bardolph Just waved him aside.
"You needn't trouble; get up," he said; and the man rose from his knees, looking a little bewildered. "Leach, come here!"
The woman stood still for a moment, and then walked slowly across the floor, till she stood in front of him. He pointed to the shoes at his feet, and smiled; and I, who had risen in my place, stood helplessly, waiting to see what would happen.
It took her quite a long time to get to her knees, but she did it at last, and began to put on the shoes. All this time the man-servant stood gaping, not knowing whether to go or stay. Debora, too, had paused at the door, in amazement at the scene. And in that oppressive silence the woman Leach fastened the shoes with fingers that seemed clumsy enough for that work. Nor were the doctor's words likely to mend her confusion.
"You're precious slow, I must say! What's the matter with you? are you getting past your work? You know what happens to people who are no longer fit to work, don't you? We have to cast them out into the street, to make a living as best they can – or to die. There – that'll do; you've been long enough to fasten a dozen pairs of shoes."
I think he struck her with his foot as she was rising from her knees, but of that I cannot be sure. I know that she turned away abruptly, but not before I had had time to see that those great eyes of hers were blinded with tears. Yet her gait, as she went from the room, was as stately as ever.
But perhaps the strangest being in that strange house at that time was William Capper. He wandered like a lost spirit, and one never knew quite where he would appear. Knowing what I did as to what had become of the dead man, this man who looked for him and waited for him was as a ghost that would not be laid. More than that, he was a ghost who might suddenly spring into live flesh and blood, and tell what he knew.
The doctor seemed as disconcerted by his presence as I was, and yet he made no effort to get rid of the man. Capper wandered about the house and about the grounds just as he pleased, while those peering eyes of his seemed always to be searching for his master. But it happened that, as Debora had been sent away on the very morning following the death of poor Gregory Pennington, and had only returned now, she had not yet come in contact with the man Capper. I found myself wondering what would happen when she did.
She was destined to meet him under curious circumstances. On that morning which had seen the degradation of the woman Leach before us all, Dr. Bardolph Just called me into that room that was half study and half surgery, and told me quite abruptly that he wanted me to go down into London for him. I suppose my startled face told its own tale, for he laughed a little contemptuously.
"Do you imagine anyone will be seeking you, or even expecting to find you above ground?" he asked. "Can't you get into your mind the idea that Norton Hyde is dead and buried in his own prison, and that another man – John New – has come alive in his place? People only look for what they expect to find, my dear John New; you are as safe as though by a miracle you had changed your features. I merely want you to go down into Holborn, to inquire about a certain scientific book which was promised to be sent to me and has not arrived. If it has not already been sent, you can bring it back with you."
He gave me the address, and money wherewith to travel; and I felt my heart sink at the prospect of going down, in this bare-faced fashion, into the great world. In my heart of hearts I determined that I would not go; the book might arrive in my absence, and the doctor might forget that he had sent me at all. So I made a feint of going, but in reality did not pass beyond the grounds.
It was a slumbrous day in early summer, and the grounds being very wide and extensive, I had rather an enjoyable forenoon of it. I determined that I would calculate to a nicety how long it should have taken me to get down to Holborn and back again, allowing a margin for accidental delays. Then I would put in an appearance at the house, and tell the doctor that I had reached the shop, only to find that the book had been sent off.
It may have been some sentimental feeling that carried my feet in the direction of that dark and half-ruined summer-house; or, as I think now, some direct Providence guiding me. Believing that it would be deserted, and that I might kill time there with some comfort, I was making straight for it among the tangled grasses and dead leaves of the garden, when I stopped, and drew away from it. For I had heard voices.
I make no attempt to excuse my conduct; I only urge that at that time I was surrounded by mysteries, and by trickery of every sort, and that I was, moreover, in hiding, in peril of my liberty. All the world might be conspiring against me – above all, those in this house, with one exception, might be only too glad to give me up to justice. I was fighting for myself; I make no excuse that I crept near to the summer-house, and listened. More than that, I looked in, for through a chink of the ruined boarding at the back of it I could see clearly all that happened.
Debora Matchwick was seated in a corner, drawn up tense and still, with her hands gripping the seat on either side of her; and in the doorway, with his arms folded, completely blocking her way of escape, stood the doctor.
It would seem that I had arrived at the very moment the man had discovered her, for his first words referred to the previous day. Whatever other words I had heard had been but a mere skirmishing before the actual battle began.
"I lost you in this direction yesterday, Debora," said the man; "you managed to elude me rather cleverly. What makes you afraid of me?"
"I – I'm not afraid of you," she said, with more bravery than she seemed to feel.
He laughed at her, showing his white teeth. "You're very much afraid of me," he corrected her. "And yet you have no reason to be; we should never be afraid of those who love us."
"You are my guardian, and you were my father's friend," she said quietly. "Beyond that guardianship you have nothing to do with me, and I will not – "
"You talk like a child, and you have a child's knowledge of the world," he broke in roughly. "I that am a man can teach you, as only a man can teach a woman, what life and the world hold for her. Prudishly you step aside; with false modesty you refuse to look at facts as they are. You are a child no longer, in the ordinary sense of things; and I am a man that loves you. Your father liked me – "
"To my everlasting sorrow, he did!" she exclaimed passionately.
"And he would have approved of the arrangement. Above all things, the management of your extremely troublesome affairs are in my hands, and if you belonged to me the whole thing would be solidified. I have great power in regard to your fortune now; I should have greater powers then."
"It's the fortune that tempts you!" she exclaimed, starting to her feet. "God forgive me for saying it, but my father must have been mad when he made up his mind to place me in your care. I hate you – but I'm not afraid of you. I hate you!"
Bardolph Just stepped forward quickly, and took her prisoner in his arms. I had made a sudden movement, recklessly enough, to run round the summer-house and spring upon the man, as I heard her give a little gasping cry, when there came a strange interruption; and it came from outside and from inside the summer-house almost at the same moment.
I had heard the doctor say, over and over again, with a sort of savage triumph, as he held her, "You shall love me! You shall love me! You shall love me!" and I had made that movement of which I speak, when there broke in the sound of someone singing, in a high querulous voice, and that someone was moving towards the summer-house. The girl heard the sound, and she broke away from the man who held her; she seemed literally to shriek out a name —
"Capper!"
All the rest happened in a flash. Scarcely knowing what I did, I ran round and confronted them all – and that, too, at the moment that the girl, breaking from the summer-house, ran swiftly to where the little grey-headed old man was emerging from the trees. In her agitation she flung herself at his feet, and caught at his hands, and cried out her question:
"Capper, dear, good Capper! – where's your master?"
We stood there in silence, waiting to see what would happen. For both Bardolph Just and myself could have answered the question, but what was the man Capper about to say? This was just such a crisis as I had been expecting and fearing; it seemed hours before the little grey-haired man, who had been looking down at her in a bewildered fashion, made any reply.
"I don't – don't know," he said, and he smiled round upon us rather foolishly, I thought.
"But, Capper – you remember me, Capper; I was your master's friend," went on the girl despairingly. "You remember that Mr. Pennington came to this house – oh! – oh, a week ago!"
She had risen to her feet, and was staring into his eyes. He put a hand over those eyes for a moment, and seemed to ponder something; then he looked up, and slowly shook his head. "I can't – I can't remember," he said. "Something has gone from me – here" – he laid the hand upon his forehead – "and I can't remember."
The doctor drew a deep breath, and took a step towards the girl; of me he seemed to take but little notice. "Don't worry the man, Debora," he said in a gentle tone; "I can't make him out myself, sometimes. Why he should remain here, where his master is not, I cannot understand."
Both Just and the girl spoke of the old man in hushed tones, as they might have spoken of someone who was ill. But Capper himself stood looking smilingly from one face to the other, as if his eyes would question them concerning this mystery in which he was involved.