Helen Vardon's confession
extend to Lyon’s Inn Chambers, though they were in the same
neighbourhood. At any rate, I wanted the bag, and in my restless state
a journey with a defined purpose offered more relief than an aimless
walk through the streets.
During the short journey from Mark Lane to the Temple I turned over
and over again the words of the telegram without obtaining any glimmer
of enlightenment. If I had been less sure of Jasper, I should have
been intensely wretched; but now, as the shock subsided, my optimism
revived and I found myself looking forward to Jasper’s letter with a
confident expectation of reassuring news.
Emerging from the Temple Station, I walked up Arundel Street, and,
crossing the Strand, presently passed through Half-Moon Alley and cast
a glance of friendly recognition at the old gilded sign, so pleasantly
associated with the scarlet parasol that hung outside the
umbrella-maker’s shop in Bookseller’s Row. The two signs recalled the
old delightful explorations with Jasper, and put me in quite a
cheerful frame of mind, which lasted until I found myself once more
ascending the bare and rather sordid stone stairs of Lyon’s Inn
Chambers. Then there came a marked change. As I walked up the cold,
gloomy staircase a feeling of depression settled on me. I passed the
grimy lantern that had looked on my head-long, terror-stricken flight,
and some of the forgotten qualms came back. I breathed again the close
air of that unpleasant bedroom; I saw again the unwieldy figure in the
bed, with its pasty face and puffy eyelids; and even the
sinister-looking peg on the wall came forth with uncomfortable
vividness from the recesses of memory. By the time I reached the
landing, my distaste for the place had grown so strong that I was half
inclined to turn back and complete the transaction by means of a
letter.
This weakness, however, I overcame by an effort of will and resolutely
rang the bell. There was a short interval and then the door opened,
revealing the figure of Mrs. Gregg, who, according to her custom,
stood and stared stonily at me without uttering a word.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Gregg,” said I. “When I went away last night I
left my wrist-bag behind.”
“Ye did,” she answered; “and ye left the bedroom door open and the gas
full on. I found it so this morning.”
“I am very sorry,” I said.
“’Tis no matter,” she rejoined, impassively, and continued to stare at
me in a most singular and embarrassing fashion.
“Could I have my bag, please, Mrs. Gregg?” I asked.
“Ye could,” she replied; but still she made no move, nor any
suggestion that I should enter; and still she continued to look at me
with the strangest, most enigmatical expression.
“I hope,” said I, by way of relieving the extraordinarily
uncomfortable situation, “that Mr. Otway is better to-day.”
“Do ye?” said she; and then, after a pause, “Maybe ye’d wish to see
him?”
“I don’t think I will disturb him, thank you,” I replied.
“Ye need have no fear,” said she. “Ye’ll no disturb him.”
“Well, I don’t think I have time to see him to-day. I just called to
get my bag.”
“And is that all ye’ve come for?” she demanded, glowering at me in the
most astonishing manner.
“What else should I have come for?” I asked.
She thrust her head forward and replied in a low, mysterious tone:
“I thought maybe ye’d come to ask where your husband is.”
“I don’t understand you, Mrs. Gregg. Is Mr. Otway not at home?”
“He is not,” she replied; and as I made no comment, she asked: “Shall
I tell you where he is?”
“It really isn’t any business of mine, Mrs. Gregg,” said I.
“Is it not?” she demanded. “Will it no interest ye if I tell ye that
your husband is in St. Clement’s Mortuary?”
“In the mortuary!” I gasped.
“Aye, in the mortuary.” She glared at me in silence for a few moments,
and then, suddenly grasping my arm, exclaimed: “Woman! do ye ken yon
peg on the bedroom wall? Aye, ye may well turn pale. Ye’d ha’ turned
paler if ye’d seen what I saw by the gaslight this morn hangin’ from
yon peg.”
I gazed at her for a few moments in speechless horror, until she
seemed to sway and shimmer before my eyes. Then, for the first and
only time in my life, I must have fainted, for I remember no more
until I found myself lying on the floor of the lobby, with Mrs. Gregg
kneeling beside me slapping my face with a wet towel.
I rose with difficulty, feeling very weak and shaken. Mrs. Gregg
silently handed me my bag and preceded me towards the door, where,
with her hand on the latch, she turned and faced me.
“Weel, mistress,” said she, “’tis a fit ending, seeing how it began.
Ye’ve been a poor wife, but ye’ll make a bonny widow, though I doubt
it will stay long at that.”
To this insolent and brutal speech I made no reply. I was completely
broken, physically and mentally. I tottered out on to the landing and
slowly descended the stairs, holding on to the iron hand-rail, my
horror of the place urging me to hasten away, my trembling limbs and
lingering faintness bidding me go warily. As I walked unsteadily up
Holywell Street, a newspaper boy, running down the narrow
thoroughfare, halted and held out a paper.
“Here y’are, Miss, sooicide in Lyon’s Inn. The housekeeper’s story.”
I hurried past him with averted face, but out in the Strand there were
others, shouting aloud the dreadful tidings or displaying posters on
which the hideous fact was set forth in enormous type. And it seemed
as if each and all of them were specially addressing themselves to me.
I returned down Arundel Street, instinctively making for the station,
but as I approached it a fresh group of newsboys made me swerve to the
left and pursue my way along the Embankment on foot.
As I walked on, and the air and exercise helped me to recover
physically from the shock, I began to collect my faculties. At first I
had been utterly bewildered and overborne by a sense of horror and
guilt. I had sent this wretched man to his death. I had ordained the
means, the manner and the time of his death, and it had duly befallen
according to my directions. Morally--and perhaps even legally--it
amounted to murder. I had willed, I had suggested; and that which I
had willed and suggested had come to pass. That was what had flashed
into my mind in the very moment in which Mrs. Gregg had made her
dreadful communication.
But now, as I walked on, I began to argue the case in my own favour.
In the first place, I told myself, it was not certain that the act of
the dead man had any connection with the willing or the suggestion. It
might have been a mere coincidence. I tried to dwell on this view; but
it would not do. The coincidence was too complete to be explained away
by any such casuistry. I could not in this way escape the
responsibility for Mr. Otway’s death.
Then I considered the question of intention. I told myself--truthfully
enough--that I had not consciously willed that Mr. Otway should kill
himself. I had not even been conscious of any intention to suggest to
him that he should kill himself. But though I did make some sort of
point in my own defence, it was extremely unconvincing. I had allowed
my mind to dwell with hardly-disguised satisfaction on the possibility
of his suicide (in a particular manner at a particular time), and
between that and actual willing the distinction was not very obvious.
And then there were those words, spoken to him in his sleep. It was
not conscious, deliberate suggestion; but what was it? The impulse to
speak those words was apparently evolved from the subconscious. But
does no moral responsibility attach to subconscious intentions?
So I argued, back and forth, round and about; but always came back to
the same conclusion. Mr. Otway was dead; and it was my act that sent
him to his death. Locked up in my own breast this dreadful secret
might remain; but it was my companion for life. There was no escape
from it.
But would it remain locked up in my own breast? That was another
question that began to loom up with a very real menace. How much did
Mrs. Gregg know? She might easily have overheard our conversation and
even those final, fatal words. And if she had, would she understand
their significance? Now that I came to consider the circumstances,
there was something rather alarming in the manner of this inscrutable
woman; something threatening and accusatory which I had vaguely felt
at the time. And as I reflected on this and the possibilities that it
suggested, a fear of something more substantial than my own accusing
conscience began to creep around my heart.
When I arrived home, Jasper’s letter was awaiting me. But it contained
nothing new. He had seen the posters, had bought an early paper and
had immediately sent off the telegram. His tone was that of
matter-of-fact satisfaction. The legal impediment to our marriage had
now been removed. No declarations were necessary now. We could marry
like other people. We were free.
That was the burden of the letter. All our troubles were at an end.
Until everything was settled, we had better avoid meeting. But when
the chapter was closed with all due formalities we could sing “_Nunc
dimittis_,” and thenceforth live only for one another.
I laid the letter down. All that it said was true. The picture that my
imagination had drawn under the guidance of desire as I had sat
looking into the shadowy corner of the bedroom in Lyon’s Inn had
become a reality. The fetters that I had forged and put on that fatal
morning in the little church at Maidstone, had fallen off and given me
back my freedom.
And even as I told myself this, some voice from within seemed to
whisper a _caveat_, and my heart was sensible of a chill of fear.
BOOK III--CRIME
Chapter XXIII.
The Dead Hand
The entry of Mr. Otway into my life inaugurated a long succession of
disasters. The very first words that I heard him speak shattered the
peace of a lifetime. Thenceforward, like the Ancient Mariner, I was
haunted by a malign influence which seemed to exhale continuously from
his ill-omened personality. And even now that he was dead that
malignant spirit was not at rest. His very corpse, lying in the
mortuary, was a centre whence radiated sinister influences that crept
into my secret soul and enveloped me from without. During his life Mr.
Otway had been my evil genius; and death had but transformed him into
a malicious _poltergeist_.
His first, tentative appearance in this character was made on the very
evening of my second visit to Lyon’s Inn Chambers, when the coroner’s
officer called at Wellclose Square to serve the subpœna for the
inquest. The announcement of his arrival caused me some qualms of
vague alarm, which I knew in my heart to be nothing but the stirring
of my own conscience. For the purpose of this inquest was to find an
answer to the question, “How did Lewis Otway come by his death?” And
that question I could have answered in four words--Silent Willing and
Suggestion. But I had no intention of answering that question; and
hence, as I entered the room into which the officer had been shown, I
was consciously on the defensive.
I had, however, no occasion to be. The officer was a civil, fatherly
man in a constable’s uniform, sympathetic, deferential and not at all
inquisitive.
“I have called, ma’am,” he began, “on a very sad errand. I don’t know
whether you have heard the dreadful news----”
“Of Mr. Otway’s death?” said I.
“Ah! then you have heard. That is a relief. Well, I have called to let
you know that the inquest is arranged for the day after to-morrow, at
3 p.m. in the room adjoining the mortuary.” He gave me a few explicit
directions as to how to find the latter and then added: “If there is
any information that you could give us that would guide us in starting