Part 35 (2/2)
”Yes; your secrets are like your situations--you can't keep 'em long. My poor poet, I pity you--betwixt the devil and the deep sea.”
”They're a pair of harpies, each holding over me the Damocles sword of an arrest for bigamy. Neither loves me.”
”I should think they would come in very useful to you. You plant one in my house to tell my secrets to Wimp, and you plant one in Wimp's house to tell Wimp's secrets to me, I suppose. Out with some, then.”
”Upon my honour, you wrong me. Jane brought _me_ here, not I Jane. As for Kitty, I never had such a shock in my life as at finding her installed in Wimp's house.”
”She thought it safer to have the law handy for your arrest. Besides, she probably desired to occupy a parallel position to Jane's. She must do something for a living; _you_ wouldn't do anything for hers. And so you couldn't go anywhere without meeting a wife! Ha! ha! ha! Serve you right, my polygamous poet.”
”But why should _you_ arrest me?”
”Revenge, Denzil. I have been the best friend you ever had in this cold, prosaic world. You have eaten my bread, drunk my claret, written my book, smoked my cigars, and pocketed my money. And yet, when you have an important piece of information bearing on a mystery about which I am thinking day and night, you calmly go and sell it to Wimp.”
”I did-didn't,” stammered Denzil.
”Liar! Do you think Kitty has any secrets from me? As soon as I discovered your two marriages I determined to have you arrested for--your treachery. But when I found you had, as I thought, put Wimp on the wrong scent, when I felt sure that by arresting Mortlake he was going to make a greater a.s.s of himself than even nature had been able to do, then I forgave you. I let you walk about the earth--and drink--freely. Now it is Wimp who crows--everybody pats him on the back--they call him the mystery man of the Scotland Yard tribe. Poor Tom Mortlake will be hanged, and all through your telling Wimp about Jessie Dymond!”
”It was you yourself,” said Denzil, sullenly. ”Everybody was giving it up. But you said 'Let us find out all that Arthur Constant did in the last few months of his life.' Wimp couldn't miss stumbling on Jessie sooner or later. I'd have throttled Constant, if I had known he'd touched her,” he wound up with irrelevant indignation.
Grodman winced at the idea that he himself had worked _ad majorem gloriam_ of Wimp. And yet, had not Mrs. Wimp let out as much at the Christmas dinner?
”What's past is past,” he said gruffly. ”But if Tom Mortlake hangs, you go to Portland.”
”How can I help Tom hanging?”
”Help the agitation as much as you can. Write letters under all sorts of names to all the papers. Get everybody you know to sign the great pet.i.tion. Find out where Jessie Dymond is--the girl who holds the proof of Mortlake's innocence.”
”You really believe him innocent?”
”Don't be satirical, Denzil. Haven't I taken the chair at all the meetings? Am I not the most copious correspondent of the Press?”
”I thought it was only to spite Wimp.”
”Rubbish. It's to save poor Tom. He no more murdered Arthur Constant than--you did!” He laughed an unpleasant laugh.
Denzil bade him farewell, frigid with fear.
Grodman was up to his ears in letters and telegrams. Somehow he had become the leader of the rescue party--suggestions, subscriptions came from all sides. The suggestions were burnt, the subscriptions acknowledged in the papers and used for hunting up the missing girl. Lucy Brent headed the list with a hundred pounds. It was a fine testimony to her faith in her dead lover's honour.
The release of the Jury had unloosed ”The Greater Jury,” which always now sits upon the smaller. Every means was taken to nullify the value of the ”palladium of British liberty.” The foreman and the jurors were interviewed, the judge was judged, and by those who were no judges. The Home Secretary (who had done nothing beyond accepting office under the Crown) was vituperated, and sundry provincial persons wrote confidentially to the Queen. Arthur Constant's backsliding cheered many by convincing them that others were as bad as themselves; and well-to-do tradesmen saw in Mortlake's wickedness the pernicious effects of Socialism. A dozen new theories were afloat. Constant had committed suicide by Esoteric Buddhism, as witness his devotion to Mme. Blavatsky, or he had been murdered by his Mahatma or victimised by Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Somnambulism, and other weird abstractions. Grodman's great point was--Jessie Dymond must be produced, dead or alive. The electric current scoured the civilised world in search of her. What wonder if the shrewder sort divined that the indomitable detective had fixed his last hope on the girl's guilt? If Jessie had wrongs why should she not have avenged them herself? Did she not always remind the poet of Joan of Arc?
Another week pa.s.sed; the shadow of the gallows crept over the days; on, on, remorselessly drawing nearer, as the last ray of hope sank below the horizon. The Home Secretary remained inflexible; the great pet.i.tions discharged their signatures at him in vain. He was a Conservative, sternly conscientious; and the mere insinuation that his obstinacy was due to the politics of the condemned only hardened him against the temptation of a cheap reputation for magnanimity. He would not even grant a respite, to increase the chances of the discovery of Jessie Dymond. In the last of the three weeks there was a final monster meeting of protest.
Grodman again took the chair, and several distinguished faddists were present, as well as numerous respectable members of society. The Home Secretary acknowledged the receipt of their resolutions. The Trade Unions were divided in their allegiance; some whispered of faith and hope, others of financial defalcations. The former essayed to organise a procession and an indignation meeting on the Sunday preceding the Tuesday fixed for the execution, but it fell through on a rumour of confession.
The Monday papers contained a last masterly letter from Grodman exposing the weakness of the evidence, but they knew nothing of a confession. The prisoner was mute and disdainful, professing little regard for a life empty of love and burdened with self-reproach. He refused to see clergymen. He was accorded an interview with Miss Brent in the presence of a gaoler, and solemnly a.s.severated his respect for her dead lover's memory. Monday buzzed with rumours; the evening papers chronicled them hour by hour. A poignant anxiety was abroad. The girl would be found.
Some miracle would happen. A reprieve would arrive. The sentence would be commuted. But the short day darkened into night even as Mortlake's short day was darkening. And the shadow of the gallows crept on and on, and seemed to mingle with the twilight.
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