Part 40 (1/2)
Again Doria rouses Robert Redmayne from the grave; again he challenges you! A thousand simple and safe ways had offered to dispose of Albert Redmayne. The region in which he chose to live and his own trusting and ingenuous character had alike made him the easiest possible prey of any human hunter; but Michael's vanity has grown by what it feeds on. He is an artist, and he desires to complete his masterpiece with all due regard to form. It must be fas.h.i.+oned to endure and take its place forever in the highest categories of crime. His pride rebels against the line of least resistance. All shall end on the same large pattern in which it was originally conceived. He courts danger and creates difficulty that his ultimate achievement may be the more august.
”So the forgery is trotted out once more; and it is not enough that Jenny shall report to her uncle the advent of Robert Redmayne beside Como. An independent witness is demanded and a.s.sunta Marzelli sees the big man with the red mustache, red hair and red waistcoat. She also records the tremendous shock to her mistress that resulted from this sudden apparition. Remember that Jenny's husband was still supposed by Albert to be in Turin. Then the old game is played; Doria presently arrives in person; they toy with their subject; they enrich it with details; awaken the alarm of their unhappy victim and send for you, designing to treat you in the same manner as before.
”Nor does Albert's appeal to me hasten their operations. Who is Peter Ganns? A famous American bull. Good! They will have another victim at their chariot wheels. It shall be an international triumph. Albert Redmayne must be murdered before an audience worthy of the occasion. The combined detective forces of the States, of Italy, of England, shall seek Robert Redmayne and succour Albert; but the one shall evade capture, the other perish under their eyes.”
He turned to Brendon. ”And they brought it off--thanks to you, my son.”
”And paid for it--thanks to you,” answered Mark.
”We are but men, not machines,” answered the elder. ”Love thrust a finger into your brain and created the inevitable ferment. Of course Pendean was lightning quick to win his account from that. He may have even calculated upon it when he made Jenny beg your aid at the outset. He knew what men thought of her; he had doubtless taken stock of you at Princetown and probably learned that you were unmarried. So, when time has pa.s.sed and you can look back without a groan, you will take the large view and, seeing yourself from the outside, forgive yourself and confess that your punishment was weightier than your error.”
In gathering dusk the train thundered through the valley of the Rhine while, above, the mountain summits melted upon the night. A steward looked into the carriage.
”Dinner is served, gentlemen,” he said. ”I will, if you please, make your beds while you are absent.”
They rose and went together to the saloon carriage.
”I'm dry, son, and I've sure earned a drink,” said Peter.
”You've earned a vast deal more than I or any man can ever pay you, Ganns,” said Brendon.
”Don't say it, or think it. I've done nothing that you wouldn't have done if you had been free. And always remember this: I shall never blame you, even when I think with dearest affection of my old friend. I shall only blame myself, because the final, fatal mistake was mine--not yours. I was the fool to trust you and had no excuse for doing so. You were not to be trusted for a moment just then, and I ought to have known it. 'Twas our limited capability that made you err, that made me err, that made Michael Pendean err. The best laid plans of mice and men--you know, Mark. The villain mars his villainy; the virtuous smudge their white record; the deep brain suddenly runs dry--all because perfection, in good or evil, is denied to saints and sinners alike.”
CHAPTER XVIII
CONFESSION
During the autumn a.s.sizes, Michael Pendean was tried at Exeter and condemned to death for the murders of Robert, Bendigo and Albert Redmayne. He offered no defence and he was only impatient to return to his seclusion within the red walls of the county jail, where he occupied the brief balance of his days with just such a statement as Peter Ganns had foretold that he would seek to make.
This extraordinary doc.u.ment was very characteristic of the criminal.
It possessed a sort of glamour; but it failed of real distinction and the quality proper to greatness, even as the crimes it recorded and the man responsible for them. Pendean's confession revealed an insensibility, a faulty sense of humour, an affectation and a love for the glittering and the grandiose that robbed it of any supreme claim in the annals or literature of murder. The doc.u.ment ended with an a.s.surance that Michael would never die at the hands of his fellow man. He had repeated this a.s.sertion on several occasions and every conceivable precaution was taken to prevent evasion of his sentence--an issue to be recorded in its proper place.
Here is his statement, word for word as he wrote it.
MY APOLOGIA
”_Hearken, ye judges! There is another madness besides, and it is before the deed. Ah! Ye have not gone deep enough into this soul!
Thus speaketh the red judge: 'Why did this criminal commit murder?
He meant to rob.' I tell you, however, that his soul hungered for blood, not booty: he thirsted for the happiness of the knife!_”
And again:
”_What is this man? A coil of wild serpents at war against themselves--so they are driven apart to seek their prey in the world._”
So wrote one whose art and wisdom are nought to this rabbit-brained generation; but it was given to me to find my meat and drink within his pages and to see my own youthful impressions reflected and crystallized with the brilliance of genius in his stupendous mind.
Remember I, who write, am not thirty years old.