Part 35 (1/2)
”You remember at Nimes telling me that your father had lost the last remnant of his fortune speculating in one of the Clifford Matheson companies?”
”Yes. And I was surprised to find how different you were to my conception of your brother.”
”I am Clifford Matheson.”
”I don't understand!” she gasped.
”I am Clifford Matheson. I took the name of John Riviere because ...
well, the reason for that is one part of the story I have to tell you.”
The pain, so evident in the drawn lines about her mouth, made him pause.
It was the first stroke of the scalpel.
From outside the window came the care-free chirping of the birds making their Spring nests and telling the whole world of their happiness.
Presently she whispered ”Go on,” as though she had steeled herself to bear the next stroke of the knife.
”My reason was that I wanted to cut myself loose--completely--from my life in the financial world and from my married life. A sudden opportunity came to me two days before I first met you at Arles. I seized the opportunity and planned to disappear entirely from my world.
I arranged evidence of a violent death, in the belief that it would be accepted by my friends and by the Courts. My wife would be freed; she would come into my property; and I myself should be free to carry out in quiet the scientific work I'd planned.”
”Which was _the_ reason?”
”The last.”
”Your wife, then, is the woman I saw in the Cote d'Azur Rapide?”
”Yes.”
Elaine considered this in silence for some moments. A question framed itself on her lips; she hesitated; finally it came out:
”Then you were not happy together?”
”My marriage was a ghastly mistake. I was quite unsuited to my wife....
But I made a bigger mistake when I thought to cut loose from the life I'd woven for myself. One thread pulled me back inexorably. I had half committed myself to a deal involving five millions of the public's money with Lars Larssen, the s.h.i.+powner----”
”Larssen!” she exclaimed.
”You know him?”
”No; but he was once pointed out to me at the Academy, the year the portrait of his little boy was exhibited there. I could feel at once the tremendous strength of will behind the man. Something beyond the human.
I was fascinated and repelled at the one time. So that is the man who----”
”Who wants to drag you into a divorce court.”
Elaine sat up rigid with shock. ”A divorce court! How--why? What possible----?”
”Larssen doesn't stick at possibilities.”