Part 75 (1/2)
As she spoke, the doctor, restless, as men are in excitement, had moved over to the mantelpiece, and stood with one foot upon the edge of the fender. Thinking deeply, he glanced over the photographs of Cuckoo's acquaintance, without actually seeing them. But presently one, at which he had looked long and fixedly, dawned upon him, cruelly, powerfully. It was the face of Marr.
”Who is that?” he said abruptly to Cuckoo.
”That?” She too got up and came near to him, lowering her voice almost to a whisper. ”That's really _him_.”
”Him?”
”Valentine.”
The doctor looked at her in blank astonishment.
”Yes, it is,” Cuckoo reiterated, and nodding her head with the obstinacy of a child.
”That--Valentine! It has no resemblance to him.”
The doctor took up the photograph, and examined it closely. ”This is not Valentine.”
”He told me it was. It's Marr--and somehow it's him now.”
”Marr,” said the doctor, sharply. ”Why, he is dead. Julian told me so.
He died--he died in the Euston Road on the night of Valentine's trance.
Ah, but you know nothing about that. Did you know Marr, then?”
”Yes, I knew him.”
Cuckoo hesitated. But something taught her to be perfectly frank with the doctor. So she added:
”I'd been with him at that hotel the night he died.”
”You were the woman! But, then, how can you say that this (he touched the photograph with his finger) is Valentine?”
”He says he's really Marr.”
Cuckoo spoke in the most mulish manner, following her habit when she was completely puzzled, but sticking to what she believed to be the truth.
”Marr and Valentine one man! He told you that?”
”He says to me--'I'm Marr.'”
Cuckoo repeated the words steadily, but like a parrot. The doctor said nothing, only looked at her and at the photograph. He was thinking now of his suspicion as to Valentine's sanity. Had he, perhaps in his madness, been playing on the ignorance of the lady of the feathers?
She went on:
”It was on the night he told me all that. I couldn't understand what he is and what he's doing. And he said that the real Valentine had gone. And then he said--'I am Marr.'”
”The real Valentine gone. Yes,” said the doctor, gravely, ”that is true.
Does he then know that he is--?” ”Mad” was on his lips, but he checked himself.
”What else did he say that night?” he asked. ”Can you remember? If you succeed, you may help Julian.”
Cuckoo frowned till her long, broad eyebrows nearly met. The grimace gave her the aspect of a sinister boy, bold and audacious. For she protruded her under lip, too, and the graces of ardent feeling, of pain and of pa.s.sion, died out of her eyes. But this abrupt and hard mask was only caused by the effort she was making after thought, after understanding.