in the cool of the evening i knocked at dr. crackenthorpe’s front door. no one answering—his one servant was gadding, probably—i tried the handle, found it to be on the latch only, and walked in. the house was quiet as a desert, save that from the doctor’s private consulting-room, as he called it, issued a little, weak, snoring sound.
i paused in the dusky passage before tapping at the closed door of this room. the whole place was faintly stringent with the atmosphere that comes from a poor habit of ventilation—an atmosphere like that emitted from crumbling old leather-bound folios. a ragged strip of carpet, so trodden up its middle to the very string as to give the impression of a cinder-path running between dully flowering borders, climbed the flight of stairs before me, and stretched itself upon the landing above in an exhausted condition.
in a shallow alcove to one side of me stood a gaunt and voiceless old grandfather clock. a gas-browned bust of pitt, rendered ridiculous by a perfect skull-cap of dust, stood on a bracket over a door opposite and a few anatomical prints of a dark and melancholy cast broke the monotony of the yellow walls.
rendered none the less depressed in my errand by these dismal surroundings, i pulled myself together and tapped roundly on the doctor’s door. no response followed. i knocked again and again, without result. at length i turned the handle and stepped of my own accord into the room.
he was sitting at the table, half his body sprawled over it and an empty tumbler rolled from one of his hands. overhead, the row of murderers’ busts looked down upon him with every variety of unclean expression, and seemed to prick their ears with sightless rapture over that bestial music of his soul.
the doors of a high cabinet, that in other brief visits i had never seen but closely locked, now stood open behind him, revealing row upon row of shelves, whereon hundreds of coins of many metals lay nicely arranged upon cotton wool. a few of these, also, lay about him on the table, and it was evident that a drunken slumber had overcome him while reviewing his mighty collection.
so deep was he in stupor that it was not until i hammered and shook the very table that he so much as stirred, and it was only after i had slipped round and jogged him roughly on the shoulder that he came to himself.
then he dragged his long body up, swaying a little at first, and turning a stupid glazed eye on me two or three times and from me to the scattered coins and back again.
suddenly he scrambled to his feet and backed from me.
“thieves!” he yelled. “thieves!”
“that’ll do,” i said, coolly. “i’m not the thief in this house, dr. crackenthorpe.”
“what are you doing here?” he cried in a furious voice. “how did you get in? what do you want?”
“i want a word with you—i’ll tell you what when you’re quieter. as to getting in? i knocked half a dozen times and could get no answer. so i walked in.”
“curse the baggage!” he muttered. “can’t i rely upon one of them? i’ll twist her pretty neck for this.”
“you need twist nothing on my account. if i had failed to catch you now i would have dogged you for the opportunity.”
“oh, that’s it, is it?” he said, with a laugh and a savage sneer. “well, state your business and be off.”
he spoke ferociously, but on the instant, seeing my eye caught by something lying on that part of the table his body had covered, dived for it and had it in his grasp. then with a backward sweep of his hand he closed the cabinet doors and stood facing me.
“now, sir,” he said.
“dr. crackenthorpe,” i answered, “you won’t bully me away from my purpose. i’m a better man than you, and a stronger, i believe; but i won’t begin by threatening.”
“and that’s very kind,” he put in mockingly. “still we’d better come to business, don’t you think?”
“i’m coming to it and straight. what’s that you’ve got in your hand?”
“what i intend to keep there. is that all?”
“it’s a cameo you stole from my father. don’t take the trouble to deny it.”
“i don’t take any trouble on your account, my good fellow. it’s a cameo, as you very properly observe, but it happens to belong to me.”
“by thieving, i’ll swear. now, dr. crackenthorpe, i intend to make you disgorge that cameo, together with one or two other trifles you’ve coerced my father into handing over to you.”
“no?” he said, in the same jeering tone.
“further than that, i intend to put a stop here and at once to that blackmailing process you’ve carried on for a number of years.”
“blackmailing’s a very good word. it implies a reciprocity of interests. and how are you going to do all this?”
“you shall hear at the assizes, maybe.”
he gave a laugh—quite rich for him; walked to the table, picked up deliberately the coins lying strewn there; stepped to the cabinet, deposited all therein; shut and locked it, and put the key in his pocket.
“now, mr. bookbinder,” he said, facing me again, “you’ve a very pretty intelligence; but you’ve not acquired in london that knowledge of the nine points of the law without which the tenth is empty talk. here’s a truism, also, that’s escaped your matured observation, and it’s called ‘be sure of your facts before you speak.’”
“am i not?” i cried, contemptuously.
“we’ll see. even a crichton may suffer trifling lapses of memory. let me lead yours back to that melancholy morning of your departure from the parent nest. let me recall to you the gist of a few sentences that passed between your father and myself prior to the advent of your amiable brother, who was so hard on you. some mention of a lost trifle was made then, i believe, and permission given me to keep it if i happened to alight upon it. wasn’t that so?”
“i can remember something of the sort,” i muttered, gloomily.
“ah, so far so good. now, supposing that lost trifle were the very trinket your most observant eyes just now caught sight of?—i don’t say it was; but we will presume so, for the sake of argument—supposing it were, should i not be entitled to consider it my own?”
“you may be lying,” i said, angrily. “probably you are. where did you find it?”
“that is as much outside the question as your very offensive manner.”
“you’ve always been the bane of our house. what do i care what you think of my manner? the sharper it cuts, the better pleased am i. you’ve worked upon moods and weaknesses of the old man with your infernal cunning and got him under your thumb, as you think. don’t be too sure. you’ll find an enemy of very different caliber in me. there’s a law for blackmailers, though you mayn’t think it.”
he cocked his head on one side a moment, like a vile carrion crow; then came softly and pushed a lean finger at my breast.
“and a law for fratricides,” he said, quietly.
i laughed so disdainfully that he forgot himself on the instant in a wild burst of fury.
“toad! filthy, poisonous viper!” he yelled. “you think to combat me with your pitiful little sword of brass! have i overlooked your insolence, d’ye think? speak a word further—one word, you pestilent dog, and i’ll smash you, body and soul, as i smash this glass!”
in his rabid frenzy he actually seized and threw upon the floor the tumbler from which he had lately been drinking, and, putting his heavy heel on it, crushed it into a thousand fragments.
“oh!” he moaned, his breath chattering like a dry leaf in the wind, “i’ll be even with you, my friend—i’ll be even with you! you dare—you dare—you dare! you, the poor dependent on my bounty, whom i could wither with a word. the law you call upon so glibly has a long arm for murderers. you think a little lapse of years has made you safe”—he laughed wildly—“safe? holy saints in heaven! i’ve only to step over to the police station—five minutes—and you’re laid by the heels and a pretty collar weaving for your neck.”
he checked himself in the torrent of his rage and lifted his hand menacingly.
“harkee!” he cried. “i can do that and at a word i would! now, d’ye set your little tin plate against my bludgeon?”
“yes,” i said.
he seemed to doubt my answer, as if his ears had misinterpreted it, for he went on:
“if you value your life keep out of my way. take the lesson from your father. he knew what i could do if i chose; and he took the best means in his power to buy my silence.”
i gave a cry of fierce triumph.
“so—the secret is out! it was to save me, as he thought, that my father parted with his treasure!”
the blackmailer gave no answer.
i went and stood close up against him, daring him with the manliness he lacked.
“you are a contemptible, dastardly poltroon,” i said, with all the coldest scorn i could muster.
he started back a little.
“if i had killed my brother in good reality, i would go to my hanging with joy if the only alternative were buying my safety from such a slimy, crawling reptile as you!”
“if?” he echoed, with a pale effort at another laugh.
“‘if’ was what i said. pretty doctor you, not to know, as i have since found out, that the boy died by other means than drowning!”
in an ungovernable burst of fury i took him by the throat and drove him back against the table—and he offered no resistance.
“you dog!” i cried. “oh, you dog, you dog! you did know it, of course, and you had the devil’s heart to lie to my father and beat him down in the dust for your own filthy ends! had i a hand in my brother’s death? you know i had not any more than you—perhaps not so much!”
on the snap of the thought i spurned him from me and staggered back.
“why,” i cried, staring at him standing cowering and sullen before me. “had you, if the truth were known? you were in the house that night!”
he choked once or twice and, smoothing down the apple in his throat with a nervous hand, came out of his corner a pace or two.
“you can put two and two together,” he said in a shrill voice, defiant still, but with a whining ring in it. “what interest could i possibly have in murdering your brother? for the rest—you may be right.”
“and you can say it and plume yourself upon having successfully traded on the lie?”
“yes,” he said, with a recovering grin, “i think i can.”
i turned from him, sick at his mere presence.
“and now,” said he, “i intend to trade upon the truth.”
i forced myself to face round upon him again. “the boy,” he said, looking down hatefully and shifting some papers on the table with his finger-tips, “it was obvious to any but the merest ignoramus, never died of drowning.”
“how then?”
“from the appearances—of strangulation, i should say.”
“strangulation? who——”
“do you want these trifles back? ask your father first why he had modred’s braces in his pocket the morning after? he was very drunk that night—furiously drunk; and he left me alone in the parlor for awhile.”
