Helen Vardon's confession
“Could you call again a little later?” she asked, at length. “He will
have finished with his visitor by about half-past seven, or say a
quarter to eight. Could you look in again at eight?”
I had not wanted to be out as late as this would make me, but if I was
to see Mr. Otway at all, it would have to be to-night. Eventually I
accepted the arrangement, somewhat, I think, to Mrs. Gregg’s relief.
As I descended the stairs I heard the footsteps of two
persons--apparently a man and a woman--ascending. On the first-floor
landing I met the man, who turned out to be the lamplighter. Just as I
had passed him he lit the landing lamp, and its light, which came from
behind me, fell full on the woman who was coming up. It was only a
momentary glimpse that I caught as she passed me on the stairs, but I
recognised her instantly. She was Mrs. Campbell, the wife of the
Wardour Street dealer.
It was an odd meeting, and it gave me the material for a good deal of
thought and speculation. Mr. Otway’s chambers were the only ones on
the second floor; from which it seemed probable that Mrs. Campbell was
the visitor whom he was expecting. This was a rather queer
coincidence; but it was not the only one. That sudden recognition of
the face, thrown into strong relief against the dark background by the
bright lamplight, had set my memory working. I remembered how, when I
had seen Mrs. Campbell in the shop and had heard her speak, her face
had seemed to suggest something familiar, and her accent and the
intonation of her voice had called up some accent and tone that I had
heard before. It had been but a vague impression at the time; but now,
in the new setting and aided by association, the impression became
quite definite. The face that hers had suggested was Mr. Otway’s face;
but the really odd thing was that her voice and accent suggested not
Mr. Otway’s but Mrs. Gregg’s. And this very queer resemblance was made
yet more queer by a singular discrepancy. Mrs. Gregg spoke with a
distinct Scottish accent. It was a peculiar one, different from that
of any other Scots person whom I had ever heard speak; but it was
quite pronounced. Mrs. Campbell, on the other hand, had no trace
whatever of a Scottish accent; of that I was quite sure. But I was
equally sure of the resemblance between the two, subtle and elusive as
it was.
Here, then, was a problem the consideration of which gave me quite a
considerable amount of occupation, and helped me to while away the
hour and a half that I had to wait. The almost fantastic oddity of the
coincidence might have made me reject my impressions as mere
delusions; but, on the one hand, there was Mrs. Campbell evidently
making for Mr. Otway’s chambers, and, on the other, was the fact that
it was Mr. Otway who had introduced me to the shop in Wardour Street.
However, I could get no farther than speculation; and, as speculation
tends rapidly to exhaust its limited material, I presently dismissed
the problem and returned to the consideration of Mr. Otway’s health
and its bearing on my own future.
The hour and a half I spent in a leisurely survey of Lincoln’s Inn and
the Temple. My perambulations with Jasper had brought home to me that
London is an entertainment in itself; that no observant person need be
dull who has access to its historic streets and picturesque
backwaters. And now it was very pleasant to revisit the scenes of
former rambles--to be repeated often in the future--and meanwhile to
reflect on the happenings of the present and let my thoughts stray to
the new life that was about to open; and the time slipped away so
agreeably that when the three-quarter chime was struck in a polite
undertone by the genteel clock in the Inner Temple, it came to me as
quite a surprise.
On the stroke of eight I rang the bell of Mr. Otway’s chambers, and
was forthwith admitted by the taciturn Mrs. Gregg. In silence she
conducted me along a narrow corridor that led from the entrance lobby,
across a largish room furnished partly as a library, partly as a
dining-room and by a communicating door into the bedroom, when--still
without uttering a word--she departed, shutting the door after her.
Mr. Otway half rose in bed as I entered, and made a vague gesture of
welcome, finally extending his hand, which I shook formally.
“This is really good of you, Helen,” said he, “to come and see me, and
to come so promptly. I am sorry Mrs. Gregg sent you away. There was no
need. My other visitor could have been put off.”
“It is of no consequence,” said I. “My time was my own to-night. What
is the new trouble--for I infer from your letter that there is some
new development. Is there any definite threat?”
Again he half rose in bed, and looking at me with anxious intensity
said, in a low, suppressed tone: “Helen, just see that the door is
properly shut.”
I did so, and he then begged me to draw the chair, which had been
placed for me, closer to him. This I also did, and, having seated
myself, looked at him expectantly.
Still half raised in bed, he bent his head as near to me as he could,
and in a whisper said, “Helen, I want to ask you a question. What
became of your father’s stick?”
The question, whispered with such strange secrecy, and accompanied by
a singular look compounded of eagerness, fear and suspicion, somewhat
startled me; for I remembered, even as he spoke, that the same
question had been asked by Dr. Thorndyke.
“I haven’t the least idea,” I replied. “Haven’t you got it?”
“No. I never had it. I have never seen it since the--ah--the occasion
when--ah--you remember----”
“Of course I remember. I have good reason to.”
“Ah--no doubt. Yes. But are you quite sure--I thought you might have
taken it away with you.”
“But, Mr. Otway, you let me out of the house yourself. You saw me go,
and you must have seen that I was not taking it. And you know that I
never came to the house again.”
He sank back on his pillow with a gesture of despair.
“Yes,” he murmured, “that seems to be so. It must be so, I suppose.”
“It is so,” I said. “There is no question about it. When I went away
that morning the stick was in your house. But why are you asking me
about it? Is it of any importance?”
He turned towards a table that stood by the opposite side of the bed,
and taking up a bunch of keys, unlocked a deed-box that was on the
table, and took from it a sheet of paper.
“Read that,” said he, handing me the paper.
The document was a type-written letter of a similar character to the
previous ones, and of about the same length. It ran thus:
“Mr. Lewis Otway,
“Some funny questions are being asked. What about Mr. Vardon’s
stick--the loaded stick with the silver knob to hide the lead loading?
Where is it? Somebody says they know where it is and who’s got it. And
they say there is a bruise on the silver top, and they say something
about a smear of blood and a grey hair sticking to it. Do you know
anything about it? If you don’t, you’d better find out. Because I
think you’ll hear from that somebody before you are many weeks older
or else from the police.
“A Well-Wisher.”
As I came to the end of this document I raised my eyes and met Mr.
Otway’s fixed on me with a very singular expression. But he quickly
averted his gaze, possibly embarrassed by the steady intensity of my
own. For this letter, together with Mr. Otway’s agitated questionings,
had revived the old doubts in my mind. Could there be any truth in
this veiled accusation? Was it possible that I had really made a
hideous mistake in shielding this man? As these doubts flashed through
my mind, some reflection of them may have appeared in my expression as
I steadily looked Mr. Otway in the face. At any rate, he looked away
as I have said; and when I handed him back the letter, he took it in a
hand that shook like a dipsomaniac’s, and replaced it in the deed-box
without a word.
For a space we were both silent, and I sat looking at him and his
surroundings with profound distaste. The close, stuffy air of the room
aroused a faint disgust; the objects on the bedside table--the
cigarette box--the large spirit decanter and siphon and a bottle of
veronal tablets--conveyed a disagreeable impression of drinking and
drug-taking. And the man himself, with his pasty face, his baggy
eyelids, creased with multitudinous wrinkles, his drooping, tremulous
underlip, was distinctly repellant. The whole atmosphere of the place
and its occupant was unwholesome, sordid and abnormal.
Yet, unwholesome and unhealthy as he looked, there was no striking
change in Mr. Otway’s appearance; nothing new to justify, so far as I
could judge, his alarming account of himself. His aspect supported the
suggestions of the spirit-bottle, the cigarettes and the veronal; he
looked distracted, terrified, nerve-shaken; but he did not, to my eye,
look like a dying man. I inspected him critically during that interval
of silence, and arrived, almost regretfully, I fear, at the conclusion
that his forebodings were merely the result of a chronic state of
fear--if they were real and not deliberately assumed to excite my
sympathy.
I think he must have had a feeling that I was regarding him with
disfavour, for presently he turned towards me with a deprecating air
and sighed wearily.
“I am afraid, Helen,” said he, “that you are very tired of me and my
troubles. But you must try to be patient. It may not be for long.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked. “Is your health really bad, apart from
the worry of these letters?”
“My health gets worse from week to week,” he replied. “Not that I am
suffering from any definite disease. But the constant alarm and
anxiety, the shocks which keep coming one on top of another, are
breaking me up. I get no interval of peace in which to recover. I am
in a constant state of worry and depression by day, which leads to
that,” and he pointed to the spirit-decanter, “and it is even worse at
night unless I secure a little rest by those things,” pointing to the
veronal bottle; “and cigarettes, whisky and veronal don’t make for a
long life or robust health.”
“Still,” I said, “you mustn’t exaggerate or alarm yourself
unnecessarily. You are not in very good condition, I can see; but
there is no reason to suppose that you are in a dangerous state.
Couldn’t you cut off these drugs and the whisky and go away for a
change?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t go away,” he said. “They would find me
out and follow me. And as to cutting off the stimulants and the
sedatives, that is impossible. Bad as they are, they are the last
bulwark against something worse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He did not answer immediately, but seemed to be considering my
question and debating whether he should make any further confidences.
At length he turned to me somewhat abruptly with an expression which I
had never seen on his face before: a wild expression strangely unlike
his usual, heavy stolidity, suggesting excitement and terror, with yet
a curious dash of exultation.
“Helen,” he said with a singular intensity of voice and manner, “there
are men who are born into this world under sentence of death. The
black cap hangs over their cradles. Throughout their lives they have
continually to watch--to evade the execution of the sentence if they
can. But the time comes when they can escape no longer. They are tired
of evasion, of the struggle to escape; and then they give themselves
up; and that is the end.
“I am one of those men, Helen. My mother put an end to her own life.
My only brother put an end to his life. My mother’s father made away
with himself. It is in the blood. My mother was found hanging from a
tree in an orchard. My brother disappeared and was found a month later