Tinman. Gallon Tom
at me for daring to be on the same road with him. I wondered a little where he was going; I understood better when, on reaching the house, I saw him lounging with his hands in his pockets in the doorway of the drawing-room. I thought of my ruined painting, and of my escape from an accident but a few minutes before; but I said nothing. I could not quarrel with the fellow there, but I made up my mind that I would have something to say to him before we parted for the night.
The house was an old and roomy one – just the sort of country house that one would expect a substantial man of business to have. There were several guests besides myself: one elderly lady, whom I understood to be a sister to old Patton; a doctor from the neighbourhood and his wife; and a tall pleasant-faced young man, not very intelligent-looking, but with good-humour writ large all over him. For some reason our host was not there when we arrived, but he came in almost immediately afterwards, with Barbara on his arm, and closely followed by Jervis Fanshawe.
I cannot account for it even now, save by the suggestion that I was myself fully on the alert that night, and expectant of anything and everything that might happen; but the very air was stormy. The mere mutterings of that storm came, as it were, into the room with old Patton and his daughter; the menace of it was in the white watchful face of my guardian behind them. And yet there was nothing in the least stormy in the appearance of old Patton himself; indeed, he was quite a benevolent-looking gentleman, rather too old, I thought, to be the father of Barbara, for his hair was white, and he stooped a little as he walked. But he had a kindly face, with yet a certain strong note of determination in it.
Barbara raised her eyes to mine once, and once only; and in that flash I strove to read her thoughts and her heart. In the look I thought I detected that she mutely asked me something, or pleaded with me; so much I seemed to understand, but no more. She gave no sign of knowing me, and only bowed slightly when I was introduced; old Patton, on the other hand, greeted me warmly, and had a cordial word or two to say about my guardian. He shook hands, too, with Hockley, and seemed to know him; I gathered that Hockley had been there before.
I had had a wild dream that I might take Barbara in to dinner; but that was reserved for the young man of the good-humoured face. Somehow I felt I did not like him quite so well as I had at first, but, remembering our meeting in the wood, I felt that Barbara probably shared my feelings on the matter, and suffered as much as I did. I went in at the tail end of the little procession, and was consoled to find that Barbara was seated opposite me, and that I could watch her easily during the progress of the meal. Other eyes were watching her, too, with a curious intentness; my guardian's, with his nostrils distended, and his hands nervously gripping each other; Hockley's, with the brutal dull look that belonged to him. For her own part, she kept her eyes on her plate, and only now and then seemed to answer a remark addressed to her by the young man of the good-humoured face, whose name I heard was Lucas Savell.
I do not remember the dinner; it seemed all Barbara. I know I replied to words addressed to me, and I suppose I replied fairly intelligently; but all the time I seemed to see that face before me, and to see it, strangely enough, as the centre of that storm-cloud that was gathering. From that face I would glance for a moment to the face of Jervis Fanshawe, that never seemed to change, and that was like a white mask; and from that again to the face of old Patton, at the head of the table, watching the bent head of his daughter; or again to Hockley, lounging clumsily in his chair, with his shoulder turned towards the doctor's wife, the while he carelessly flung a remark or two over it at that lady. And so back to Barbara again.
I awoke to the consciousness that the doctor was telling a story, and telling it, as it seemed, rather well, to judge by the interested faces about him; even Barbara had raised her head a little, and seemed to be listening.
"It came to this, therefore," the doctor was saying, "that this man had a reason for getting rid of two people, and, so far as I can make out (for, of course, you will understand that I cannot give names or dates or places), set about deliberately to compass the death of both. The one man he determined should, if possible, be induced to kill the other, and in so doing should, of necessity, kill himself, in suffering the just penalty of his crime."
"And did the plan succeed?" It was old Patton who asked the question, and it was obvious that he asked it more to keep the conversation alive than for any real interest he felt in such a subject.
"Yes, the plan succeeded," said the doctor, softly crumbling a morsel of bread, and looking down at it, before raising his bright eyes for a moment to his host. "He brought the two men together, as if in the most innocent way; saw to it that they were thrown much into each other's company; arranged that they should become on such intimate terms that they should know each other's secret lives, and so should play into each other's hands, and into his. And in that way he almost overshot the mark; for they became so friendly that there seemed for a time but little prospect that the one should ever quarrel with the other sufficiently to seek his life. Therefore our friend determined to introduce another element – a mere pawn in the game. He chose a woman."
A little sigh went up from the company, and there was some small nodding of heads, as though this was quite what might have been expected. Glancing round the table, I caught sight of only one face, and that a horrible one; the face of Jervis Fanshawe, thrust forward, with eager eyes fixed on those of the doctor. It fascinated me, and I watched it.
"He saw to it that the woman was young, and attractive, and virtuous; he rightly calculated that, if carefully managed, it might happen that the younger man would fall in love with her. And sure enough that was exactly what did happen; the younger man, although quite hopelessly, worshipped her in a romantic and very ideal sort of way."
"I begin to understand," said Lucas Savell, nodding his head. "The other man fell in love with her, too." "Nothing so commonplace," replied the doctor. "Our friend who had the scheme in mind went to that other man, and whispered lies about the woman – dropping a sure poison where he knew it would take root and spread. And presently it happened that the elder of the two men who were destined to die breathed a word against the woman the other loved, and another word, and yet another; the breach grew and grew, and the man who had repeated the lie strove hard to justify what he had said. Then came the final business of all, when the younger man, in a fit of rage, struck down his friend, and in due course paid the penalty with his life."
Another little sigh, almost of relief, as the story finished; then, after a pause, conversation broke out more generally. Looking up, I caught the eye of my guardian, and saw that he was watching me; he smiled, as a man does who catches the eye of a friend, and then looked away. And then in a moment, as it seemed, that storm that had hovered over us burst suddenly and relentlessly.
Old Patton made a sign to a servant, and whispered something to the man, who bent his head to listen; then the man and another hurried round, and began to fill the champagne glasses. I saw that Barbara was watching her father; I saw her lips parted, as though she would have spoken, but dared not. And still I did not understand; still it never occurred to me to look at the young man of the good-humoured face, who sat beside her, and who had, I imagine, begun to colour a little consciously.
"And now for something a little more pleasant," said old Patton, with the somewhat dictatorial air of the host. "Your glasses are charged, friends, and I have a toast to propose – "
"Not now, father," I heard Barbara's distressed voice say.
"A toast you will all be glad, I am sure, to drink heartily. I give you – "
"Father! – not now!"
"My dear child, better now than at any time," he retorted, nodding at her with a kindly frown. "My friends," he went on, looking round at us – "I have an announcement to make to you – an announcement of a very pleasing character." He cleared his throat, and jerked his chin up a little, with an air of importance. "I have to announce the engagement of my daughter Barbara to her cousin – Lucas Savell – and I ask you to drink their healths."
I know that my heart seemed to stand still; in the momentary silence I could only stare straight across at the girl. She had raised her eyes, and was looking straight at me; and again in those eyes I read pleading and entreaty, and perhaps a prayer that I would understand. Our eyes held each other's then, just as they had held by their glances in the wood.
"I am getting on in years,