“And how did you discover it?”
“I was down by the waterside this evening, before dinner, and overheard your conversation with Mr Ashwicke.”
“All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. I know that I am your wife;” and she sighed, while her little hand trembled within mine.
“I love you, Beryl,” I said, simply and earnestly. “I have known all along that you are my wife, yet I dared not tell you so, being unable to offer sufficient proof of it and unable to convince you of my affection. Yet, in these few weeks that have passed, you have surely seen that I am devoted to you – that I love you with a strange and deeper love than ever man has borne within his heart. A thousand times I have longed to tell you this, but have always feared to do so. The truth is that you are my wife – my adored.”
Her hand tightened upon mine, and unable to restrain her emotions further, she burst into tears.
“Tell me, darling,” I whispered into her car – “tell me that you will try to love me now that you know the truth. Tell me that you forgive me for keeping the secret until now, for, as I will show you, it was entirely in our mutual interests. We have both been victims of a vile and widespread conspiracy, therefore we must unite our efforts to combat the vengeance of our enemies. Tell me that you will try and love me – nay, that you do love me a little. Give me hope, darling, and let us act together as man and wife.”
“But it is so sudden,” she faltered. “I hardly know my own feelings.”
“You know whether you love me, or whether you hate me,” I said, placing my hand around her slim waist and drawing her towards me.
“No,” she responded in a low voice, “I do not hate you. How could I?”
“Then you love me – you really love me, after all!” I cried joyously.
For answer she burst again into a flood of tears, and I, with mad passion, covered her white brow with hot kisses while she clung to me – my love, my wife.
Ah! when I reflect upon the ecstasy of those moments – how I kissed her sweet lips, and she, in return, responded to my tender caresses, how she clung to me as though shrinking in fear from the world about her, how her heart beat quickly in unison with my own, I feel that I cannot properly convey here a sufficient sense of my wild delight. It is enough to say that in those tender moments I knew that I had won the most beautiful and graceful woman I had ever beheld – a woman who was peerless above all – and that she was already my wife. The man who reads this narrative, and whose own love has been reciprocated after long waiting, as mine has been, can alone understand the blissful happiness that came to me and the complete joy that filled my heart.
We stood lost in the ecstasies of each other’s love, heedless of time, heedless of those who might discover us, heedless of everything. The remembrance of that hour remains with me to-day like a pleasant dream, a foretaste of the bliss of paradise.
Many were the questions that I asked and answered, many our declarations of affection and of fidelity. Our marriage had been made by false contract on that fateful day, months before, but that night, beneath the shining stars, we exchanged solemn vows before God as man and wife.
I endeavoured to obtain from her some facts regarding Ashwicke and his accomplice, Tattersett, but what she knew seemed very unsatisfactory. I related to her the whole of the curious circumstances of our marriage, just as I have recounted it in the opening chapters of my narrative, seeking neither to suppress nor exaggerate any of the singular incidents.
Then, at last, she made confession – a strange amazing confession which held me dumb.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Put to the Test
“I remember very little of the events of that day,” my love said, with some reluctance. “I know Ashwicke, he having been a guest here last year, and a frequent visitor at Gloucester Square. With Nora and Sir Henry I returned to London in early May, after wintering in Florence, and one morning at the end of June I met Major Tattersett unexpectedly in the Burlington. He told me that his sister and niece from Scotland were visiting him at his house in Queen’s-gate Gardens, and invited me to call and make their acquaintance.”
“Had you never been to his house previously?”
“Never. He, however, gave me an invitation to luncheon for the twenty-fourth of July, which I accepted. On arrival I found the Major; his sister and his niece were out shopping, therefore I sat alone awaiting them in the drawing-room, when of a sudden I experienced for the first time that curious sensation of being frozen. I tried to move, but was unable. I cried out for help, but no one came. My limbs were stiff and rigid as though I were struck by paralysis, while the pain was excruciating. I fought against unconsciousness, but my last clear recollection of those agonising moments was of an indistinct, sinister face peering into mine. All then became strangely distorted. The balance of my brain became inverted and I lost my will-power, being absolutely helpless in the hands of those who directed my movements. I could not hold back, for all my actions were mechanical, obeying those around me. I remember being dressed for the wedding, the journey to the church, my meeting with my future husband – whose face, however, I was unable to afterwards recall – the service, and the return. Then came a perfect blank.”
“And afterwards?”
“Night had fallen when I returned to my senses, and the strange sensation of intense cold generally left me. I looked around, and, to my amazement, saw the pale moon high in the sky. My head was resting upon something hard, which I gradually made out to be a wooden seat. Then, when I sat up, I became aware of the bewildering truth – that I was lying upon one of the seats in Hyde Park.”
“In Hyde Park? And you had been placed there while in a state of unconsciousness?”
“Yes. Upon my finger I found a wedding-ring. Was it possible, I wondered, that I was actually married to some unknown man?”
“You saw nothing of Ashwicke?”
“I saw no one except the maid-servant who showed me into the drawing-room, and cannot in the least account for the strange sensation which held me helpless in the hands of my enemies. I saw the man I married at the church, but so mistily that I did not recognise you when we met again.”
“But you knew the house in Queen’s-gate Gardens. Did you not afterwards return there, and seek an explanation of Tattersett?”
“On discovering my whereabouts I rose and walked across the park to Gloucester Square. It was then nearly one o’clock in the morning, but Nora was sitting up in anxiety as to what had become of me. I had, however, taken the ring from my finger, and to her told a fictitious story to account for my tardy return. Two days later I returned to the house to which Tattersett had invited me, but on inquiry found, to my amazement, that it was really occupied by a lady named Stentiford, who was abroad, while the man left in charge knew nothing whatever either of the Major or of his sister and niece. I told him how I had visited there two days previously, but he laughed incredulously; and when I asked for the maid-servant who had admitted me, he said that no maid had been left there by Mrs Stentiford. In prosecution of my inquiries I sought to discover the register of my marriage, but, not knowing the parish in which it had taken place, my search at Somerset House was fruitless. They told me that the registers were not made up there until six months or so after the ceremony.”
“You did not apply at Doctors’ Commons?”
“No,” she responded; “I thought the entry would be at Somerset House.”
“What previous knowledge had you of the Major?”
“He was a friend of Ashwicke’s, who had been introduced to us one night in the stalls at Daly’s. He afterwards dined several times at Gloucester Square.”
“But Sir Henry does not know him.”
“It was while he was away at the Cape.”
“Then you have not the faintest idea of the reason of our extraordinary marriage, darling?” I asked, holding her hand. “I have told you all that actually occurred. Can you form no conclusion whatever as to the motive?”
“Absolutely none,” she answered. “I am as utterly in the dark as yourself. I cannot understand why you were selected as my husband.”
“But you do not regret?” I asked tenderly.
“Regret? No,” she repeated, raising her beautiful face to mine, perfect in its loveliness and purity. “I do not regret now, Richard – because I love you.” And our lips met again in fervent tenderness.
“It is still an absolute mystery,” I observed at last. “We know that we are wedded, but there our knowledge ends.”
“We have both been victims of a plot,” she responded. “If we could but discern the motive, then we might find some clue to lead us to the truth.”
“But there is a woman called La Gioia,” I said; and, continuing, explained my presence in the park at Whitton, and the conversation I had overheard between herself and Tattersett.
Her hand, still in mine, trembled perceptibly, and I saw that I had approached a subject distasteful to her.
“Yes,” she admitted at last, in a hard, strange voice, “it is true that he wrote making an appointment to meet me in the park that night. I kept it because I wished to ascertain the truth regarding my marriage. But he would tell me nothing; he only urged me to secure my own safety because La Gioia had returned.”
“And who is La Gioia?”
“My enemy – my bitterest enemy.”
“Can you tell me nothing else?” I asked in a tone of slight reproach.
“I know nothing else. I do not know who or what she is, or where she lives. I only know that she is my unseen evil genius.”
“But you have seen her. She called upon you on that evening at Gloucester Square when she assumed the character of your dressmaker, and a few nights ago she was here – in this house.”
“Here?” she echoed in alarm. “Impossible!”
Then I related how I had seen her, and how her evil influence had fallen upon me when afterwards I had entered my room.
“The thing is actually beyond belief,” she declared. “Do you really think you were not mistaken?”
“Most assuredly I was not. It was the woman who called upon you in London. But you have not told me the reason you were absent from your room that night.” She was silent for a few moments, then answered, “I met Tattersett. He demanded that I should meet him, as he wished to speak with me secretly. I did so.”
“Why did he wish to see you?”
“In order to prove to me that he had no hand in the tragic affair at Whitton. I had suspected all along that he was responsible for the Colonel’s death, and my opinion has not altered. I begged him to tell me the reason of the plot against me, the motive of my marriage, and the identity of my husband. But he refused point-blank, telling me to ask La Gioia, who knew everything.”
“Have you no idea of her whereabouts?”
“None whatever.”
“If we could but find her,” I said, “she might tell us something. Ah! if we could but find her.”
My love was trembling. Her heart was filled to overflowing with the mystery of it all. Yet I knew that she loved me – yes, she loved me.
How long we lingered there upon the terrace I know not, but it was late ere we re-entered the drawing-room. Who among those assembled guests would have dreamt the truth – we were man and wife!
As I went upstairs I found a letter lying upon the hall table in the place where the guests’ letters were placed. Barton had, I suppose, driven into Corsham and brought with him the mail which would, in the usual course, have been delivered on the following morning. The note was from Hoefer, a couple of awkwardly scribbled lines asking me to come and see him without a moment’s delay.
Eager to hear whether the queer old fellow had made any discovery, I departed next morning by the eight o’clock express for London, having left a note with Beryl’s maid explaining the cause of my sudden journey, and soon after eleven was seated with the old German in his lofty laboratory. The table was, as usual, filled with various contrivances – bottles of liquids and test-tubes containing fluids of various hues – while before him, as I entered, a small tube containing a bright blue liquid was bubbling over the spirit-lamp, the heat causing the colour to gradually fade.
“Ah, my frient,” he said, with his strong accent, holding out his big fat hand encased in a stout leather glove, “I am glad you have come – very glad. It has been a long search, but I haf discovered something, after all. You see these?” – and he indicated his formidable array of retorts and test-tubes. “Well, I have been investigating at Gloucester Square, and have found the affair much more extraordinary than I believed.”
“And you have discovered the truth?” I demanded.
“Yes,” he responded, turning down the flame of the lamp and bending attentively to the bubbling fluid from which all colour had disappeared while I had been watching. “Shall I relate to you the course of my investigations?”
“Do. I am all attention.”
“Well,” he said, leaning both elbows upon the table and resting his chin upon his hands, while the tame brown rat ran along the table and scrambled into his pocket, “on the first evening you sought my assistance I knew, from the remote effects which both of us experienced, that the evil influence of that mysterious visitor in black, was due to some unknown neurotic poison. It was for that reason that I was enabled to administer an antidote without making an exact diagnosis. Now, as you are well aware, toxicology is a very strange study. Even common table-salt is a poison, and has caused death. But my own experiments have proved that, although the various narcotic poisons produce but little local change, their remote effects are very remarkable. Certain substances affect certain organs in particular. The remote action of a poison may be said to be due, in every instance, to its absorption into the veins or lymphatics, except when there is a direct continuity of effect traceable from the point where the poison was applied to the point where the remote effect is shown. It is remarkable that the agents which most affect the nervous system do not act at all when applied to the brain or trunks of nerves. Poisonous effects result from absorption of the poisoning body, and absorption implies solution; the more soluble, therefore, the compound is, the more speedy are its effects. Do you follow me?”
“Quite clearly.”
“The rapid, remote effect produced on leaving that room made it plain that I must look for some powerful neurotic poison that may be absorbed through the skin,” he went on. “With this object I searched microscopically various objects within and without the room, but for a long time was unsuccessful, when, one morning, I made a discovery that upon the white porcelain handle of the door a little colourless liquid had been applied. Greater part of it had disappeared by constant handling, but there was still some remaining on the shaft of the handle, and the microscope showed distinct prism-shaped crystals. All these I secured, and with them have since been experimenting. I found them to be a more deadly poison than any of the known paralysants or hyposthenisants, with an effect of muscular paralysis very similar to that produced by curare, combined with the stiffness about the neck and inability to move the jaws so apparent in symptoms provoked by strychnia. The unknown substance – a most deadly, secret poison, and, as I have since proved, one of those known to the ancients – had been applied to the door-handle on the inside, so that any person in pulling open the door to go out must absorb it in sufficient quantity to prove fatal. Indeed, had it not been for the antidote of chlorine and the mixed oxides of iron which I fortunately hit upon, death must have ensued in the case of each of us.
“To determine exactly what was the poison used was an almost insurmountable task, for I had never met with the substance before; but, after working diligently all this time, I have found that by treating it with sulphuric acid it underwent no change, yet by adding a fragment of bichromate of potassium a series of blue, violet, purple, and red tints were produced, very similar to those seen in the tests for strychnia. The same results were brought about, also, by peroxide of lead and black oxide of manganese. I dried the skin of a frog and touched it with a drop of solution containing a single one of the tiny crystals, when strong tetantic convulsions ensued and the animal died in ten seconds. At last, however, after many other experiments, the idea occurred to me that it was an alkaloid of some plant unknown in modern toxicology. I was, of course, aware of the action of the calabar bean of the West Coast of Africa, the akazga, the datura seeds of India, and such-like poisons, but this was certainly none of these. It was a substance terribly deadly – the only substance that could strike death through the cuticle – utterly unknown to us, yet the most potent of all secret poisons.”
“And how did you determine it at last?”
“By a reference I discovered in an ancient Latin treatise on poisons from the old monastery at Pavia, now in the British Museum. It gave me a clue which ultimately led me to establish it as the alkaloid of the vayana bean. This bean, it appears, was used in the tenth and eleventh centuries by a sect of the despotic Arab mystics called the Fatimites, who had made Cairo their capital, and held rule over Syria as well as the northern coast of Africa. The last Fatimite was, at a later date, dethroned by Saladin, conqueror of the Koords, and who opposed Richard the First of England. The poison, introduced from Egypt into Italy, was known to the old alchemists as the most secret means of ridding one of undesirable acquaintances. Its effect, it was stated, was the most curious of any known drug, because, for the time being, it completely altered the disposition of the individual and caused him to give way to all sorts of curious notions and delusions, while at the same time he would be entirely obedient to the will of any second person. Afterwards came fierce delirium, a sensation as though the lower limbs were frozen, complete loss of power, exhaustion, and death. But in modern toxicology even the name of the vayana was lost.
“My first step, therefore, was to seek assistance of the great botanist who is curator of Kew Gardens, and, after considerable difficulty and many experiments, we both arrived at the conclusion that it was the bean of a small and very rare plant peculiar to the oasis of the Ahir in the south of the Great Sahara. At Kew there was a stunted specimen, but it had never borne fruit, therefore we both searched for any other specimen that might exist in England. We heard of one in the wonderful gardens of La Mortola, near Mentone, and, after diligent inquiries, discovered that a firm of importers in Liverpool had sold a specimen with the beans in pod, which was delivered to a person named Turton, living in Bishop’s-wood Road, Highgate, and planted in a small greenhouse there. I have not been idle,” he added with a grin. Then, taking from a drawer in the table before him a photograph, he handed it to me, saying, “I have been able to obtain this photograph of Mrs Turton – the lady who purchased the plant in question.”
He held it out to me, and in an instant I recognised the face. It was that of the woman who had crept so silently through the rooms at Atworth – La Gioia!
Briefly, I told him all that had transpired on that night, and declared that I recognised her features, whereat he grunted in satisfaction.
“You have asked me to try and solve the mystery, and I have done so. You will find this woman living at a house called ‘Fairmead’ in the road I have indicated. I have not only established the cause of the phenomena, but I have, at the same time, rediscovered the most extraordinary and deadly substance known in toxicology. As far as the present case is concerned, my work is finished – I have succeeded in making some of the vayana alkaloid. Here it is?” and, taking a small yellow glass tube, securely corked and sealed, he handed it to me.
In the bottom I saw half a grain of tiny white crystals. I knew now why he was wearing gloves in his laboratory.
“And have you seen this woman?” I asked the queer old fellow, whose careful investigations had been crowned with such success. “How did you know, on the following day, that it was La Gioia who had come in the guise of a dressmaker?”
“I have seen her, and I have seen the plant. It is from one of the beans which I secured secretly that I have been able to produce that substance. I knew her by overhearing a conversation between Miss Wynd and her cousin on the following morning.”
“And the woman is in ignorance that you know the truth?”
“Entirely. I have finished. It is for you now to act as you think fit.”
I expressed admiration for his marvellous patience and ingenuity in solving the mystery, and, when I left, it was with the understanding that, if I required his further assistance he would willingly render it.