_ BOOK I. IN LONDON
CHAPTER VI
The physician arrived too late--physicians were hard to get for civilians. While he was being hunted down and brought in, Verrinder fought an unknown poison with what antidotes he could improvise, and saw that they merely added annoyance to agony.
His own failure had been unnerving. He had pursued this eminent couple for months, trying in vain to confirm suspicion by proof and strengthen assurance with evidence, and always delaying the blow in the hope of gathering in still more of Germany's agents. At last he had thrown the slowly woven net about the Weblings and revealed them to themselves as prisoners of his cunning. Then their souls slipped out through the meshes, leaving their useless empty bodies in his care, their bodies and the soul and body of the young woman who was involved in their guilt.
Verrinder did not relish the story the papers would make of it. So he and the physician devised a statement for the press to the effect that the Weblings died of something they had eaten. The stomach of Europe was all deranged, and Sir Joseph had been famous for his dinners; there was a kind of ironic logic in his epitaph.
Verrinder left the physician to fabricate and promulgate the story and keep him out of it. Then he addressed himself to the remaining prisoner, Miss Marie Louise Webling.
He had no desire to display this minnow as his captive after the whales had got away, but he hoped to find her useful in solving some of the questions the Weblings had left unanswered when they bolted into eternity. Besides, he had no intention of letting Marie Louise escape to warn the other conspirators and to continue her nefarious activities.
His first difficulty was not one of frightening Miss Webling into submission, but of soothing her into coherence. She had loved the old couple with a filial passion, and the sight of their last throes had driven her into a frenzy of grief. She needed the doctor's care before Verrinder could talk to her at all. The answers he elicited from her hysteria were full of contradiction, of evident ignorance, of inaccuracy, of folly. But so he had found all human testimony; for these three things are impossible to mankind: to see the truth, to remember it, and to tell it.
When first Marie Louise came out of the avalanche of her woes, it was she who began the questioning. She went up and down the room disheveled, tear-smirched, wringing her hands and beating her breast till it hurt Verrinder to watch her brutality to that tender flesh.
"What--what does it mean?" she sobbed. "What have you done to my poor papa and mamma? Why did you come here?"
"Surely you must know."
"What do I know? Only that they were good sweet people."
"Good sweet spies!"
"Spies! Those poor old darlings?"
"Oh, I say--really, now, you surely can't have the face, the insolence, to--"
"I haven't any insolence. I haven't anything but a broken heart."
"How many hearts were broken--how many hearts were stopped, do you suppose, because of your work?"
"My what?"
"I refer to the lives that you destroyed."
"I--I destroyed lives? Which one of us is going mad?"
"Oh, come, now, you knew what you were doing. You were glad and proud for every poor fellow you killed."
"It's you, then, that are mad." She stared at him in utter fear. She made a dash for the door. He prevented her. She fell back and looked to the window. He took her by the arm and twisted her into a chair. He had seen hysteria quelled by severity. He stood over her and spoke with all the sternness of his stern soul.
"You will gain nothing by trying to make a fool of me. You carried messages for those people. The last messages you took you delivered to one of our agents."
Her soul refused her even self-defense. She could only stammer the fact, hardly believing it as she put it forth:
"I didn't know what was in the letters. I never knew."
Verrinder was disgusted by such puerile defense:
"What did you think was in them, then?"
"I had no idea. Papa--Sir Joseph didn't take me into his confidence."
"But you knew that they were secret."
"He told me that they were--that they were business messages--secret financial transactions."
"Transactions in British lives--oh, they were that! And you knew it."
"I did not know it! I did not know it! I did not know it!"
She realized too late that the strength of the retort suffered by its repetition. It became nonsense on the third iterance. She grew afraid even to defend herself.
Seeing how frightened she was at bay, Mr. Verrinder forebore to drive her to distraction.
"Very well, you did not know what the messages contained. But why did you consent to such sneaking methods? Why did you let them use you for such evident deceit?"
"I was glad to be of use to them. They had been so good to me for so long. I was used to doing as I was told. I suppose it was gratitude."
It was then that Mr. Verrinder delivered himself of his bitter opinion of gratitude, which has usually been so well spoken of and so rarely berated for excess.
"Gratitude is one of the evils of the world. I fancy that few other emotions have done more harm. In moderation it has its uses, but in excess it becomes vicious. It is a form of voluntary servitude; it absolutely destroys all respect for public law; it is the foundation of tyrannies; it is the secret of political corruption; it is the thing that holds dynasties together, family despotism; it is soul-mortgage, bribery. It is a monster of what the Americans call graft. It is chloroform to the conscience, to patriotism, to every sense of public duty. 'Scratch my back, and I am your slave'--that's gratitude."
Mr. Verrinder rarely spoke at such length or with such apothegm.
Marie Louise was a little more dazed than ever to hear gratitude denounced. She was losing all her bearings. Next he demanded:
"But admitting that you were duped by your gratitude, how did it happen that your curiosity never led you to inquire into the nature of those messages?"
"I respected Sir Joseph beyond all people. I supposed that what he did was right. I never knew it not to be. And then--well, if, I did wonder a little once in a while, I thought I'd better mind my own business."
Verrinder had his opinion of this, too. "Minding your own business! That's another of those poisonous virtues. Minding your own business leads to pacifism, malevolent neutrality, selfishness of every sort. It's death to charity and public spirit. Suppose the Good Samaritan had minded his own business! But-- Well, this is getting us no forwarder with you. You carried those messages, and never felt even a woman's curiosity about them! You met Nicky Easton often, and never noted his German accent, never suspected that he was not the Englishman he pretended to be. Is that true?"
He saw by the wild look in her eyes and their escape from his own that he had scored a hit. He did not insist upon her acknowledging it.
"And your only motive was gratitude?"
"Yes, sir."
"You never asked any pay for it?"
"No, sir."
"You never received anything for it?"
"No, sir."
"We find the record of a transfer to you of securities for some twenty thousand pounds. Why was that given you?"
"It--it was just out of generosity. Sir Joseph said he was afraid I might be--that his will might be broken, and--"
"Ah! you discussed his will with him, then?"
She was horrified at his implication. She cried, "Oh, I begged him not to, but he insisted."
"He said there were other heirs and they might contest his will. Did he mention the heirs?"
"No, sir. I don't think so. I don't remember that he did."
"He did not by any chance refer to the other grandparents of the two children? Mr. and Mrs. Oakby, the father and mother of the father of Victor and Bettina?"
"He didn't refer to them, I'm sure. Yes, I am quite sure."
"Did he say that his money would be left in trust for his grandchildren?"
"No."
"And he gave you twenty thousand pounds just out of generosity?"
"Yes. Yes, Mr. Verrinder."
"It was a fairish amount of money for messenger fees, wasn't it? And it came to you while you were carrying those letters to Nicky?"
"No! Sir Joseph had been ill. He had had a stroke of paralysis."
"And you were afraid he might have another?"
"No!"
"You were not afraid of that?"
"Yes, of course I was, but-- What are you trying to make me say--that I went to him and demanded the money?"
"That idea occurs to you, does it?"
She writhed with disgust at the suggestion. Yet it had a clammy plausibility. Mr. Verrinder went on:
"These messages, you say, concerned a financial transaction?"
"So papa told me."
"And you believed him?"
"Naturally."
"You never doubted him?"
All the tortures of doubt that had assailed her recurred to her now and paralyzed her power to utter the ringing denial that was needed. He went on:
"Didn't it strike you as odd that Sir Joseph should be willing to pay you twenty thousand pounds just to carry messages concerning some mythical business?"
She did not answer. She was afraid to commit herself to anything. Every answer was a trap. Verrinder went on: "Twenty thousand pounds is a ten-per-centum commission on two hundred thousand pounds. That was rather a largish transaction to be carried on through secret letters, eh? Nicky Easton was not a millionaire, was he? Now I ask you, should you think of him as a Rothschild? Or was he, do you think, acting as agent for some one else, perhaps, and if so, for whom?"
She answered none of these. They were based on the assumption that she had put forward herself. She could find nothing to excuse her. Verrinder was simply playing tag with her. As soon as he touched her he ran away and came at her from another direction.
"Of course, we know that you were only the adopted daughter of Sir Joseph. But where did you first meet him?"
"In Berlin."
The sound of that word startled her. That German name stood for all the evils of the time. It was the inaccessible throne of hell.
Verrinder was startled by it, too.
"In Berlin!" he exclaimed, and nodded his head. "Now we are getting somewhere. Would you mind telling me the circumstances?"
She blushed a furious scarlet.
"I--I'd rather not."
"I must insist."
"Please send me to the Tower and have me imprisoned for life. I'd rather be there than here. Or better yet--have me shot. It would make me happier than anything you could do."
"I'm afraid that your happiness is not the main object of the moment. Will you be so good as to tell me how you met Sir Joseph in--in Berlin."
Marie Louise drew a deep breath. The past that she had tried to smother under a new life must be confessed at such a time of all times!
"Well, you know that Sir Joseph had a daughter; the two children up-stairs are hers, and--and what's to become of them, in Heaven's name?"
"One problem at a time, if you don't mind. Sir Joseph had a daughter. That would be Mrs. Oakby."
"Yes. Her husband died before her second baby was born, and she died soon after. And Sir Joseph and Lady Webling mourned for her bitterly, and--well, a year or so later they were traveling on the Continent--in Germany, they were, and one night they went to the Winter Garten in Berlin--the big music-hall, you know. Well, they were sitting far back, and an American team of musicians came on--the Musical Mokes, we were called."
"We?"
She bent her head in shame. "I was one of them. I played a xylophone and a saxophone and an accordion--all sorts of things. Well, Lady Webling gave a little gasp when she saw me, and she looked at Sir Joseph--so she told me afterward--and then they got up and stole 'way up front just as I left the stage--to make a quick change, you know. I came back--in tights, playing a big trombone, prancing round and making an awful noise. Lady Webling gave a little scream; nobody heard her because I made a loud blat on the trombone in the ear of the black-face clown, and he gave a shriek and did a funny fall, and--"
"But, pardon me--why did Lady Webling scream?"
"Because I looked like her dead daughter. It was so horrible to see her child come out of the grave in--in tights, blatting a trombone at a clown in that big variety theater."
"I can quite understand. And then--"
"Well, Sir Joseph came round to the stage door and sent in his card. The man who brought it grinned and told everybody an old man was smitten on me; and Ben, the black-face man, said, 'I'll break his face,' but I said I wouldn't see him.
"Well, when I was dressed and leaving the theater with the black-face man, you know, Sir Joseph was outside. He stopped me and said: 'My child! My child!' and the tears ran down his face. I stopped, of course, and said, 'What's the matter now?' And he said, 'Would you come with me?' and I said, 'Not in a thousand years, old Creepo Christmas!' And he said: 'My poor wife is in the carriage at the curb. She wants to speak to you.' And then of course I had to go, and she reached out and dragged me in and wept all over me. I thought they were both crazy, but finally they explained, and they asked me to go to their hotel with them. So I told Ben to be on his way, and I went.
"Well, they asked me a lot of questions, and I told them a little--not everything, but enough, Heaven knows. And they begged me to be their daughter. I thought it would be pretty stupid, but they said they couldn't stand the thought of their child's image going about as I was, and I wasn't so stuck on the job myself--odd, how the old language comes back, isn't it? I haven't heard any of it for so long I'd almost forgotten it." She passed her handkerchief across her lips as if to rub away a bad taste. It left the taste of tears. She sighed: "Well, they adopted me, and I learned to love them. And--and that's all."
"And you learned to love their native country, too, I fancy."
"At first I did like Germany pretty well. They were crazy about us in Berlin. I got my first big money and notices and attention there. You can imagine it went to my head. But then I came to England and tried to be as English as I could, so as not to be conspicuous. I never wanted to be conspicuous off the stage--or on it, for that matter. I even took lessons from the man who had the sign up, you remember, 'Americans taught to speak English!' I always had a gift for foreign languages, and I got to thinking in English, too."
"One moment, please. Did you say 'Americans taught?' Americans?"
"Yes."
"You're not American?"
"Why, of course!"
"Damned stupid of me!"
Verrinder frowned. This complicated matters. He had cornered her, only to have her abscond into neutral territory. He had known that Marie Louise was an adopted child, but had not suspected her Americanism. This required a bit of thinking. While he studied it in the back room of his brain his forehead self was saying:
"So Sir Joseph befriended you, and that was what won your amazing, unquestioning gratitude?"
"That and a thousand thousand little kindnesses. I loved them like mother and father."
"But your own--er--mother and father--you must have had parents of your own--what was their nationality?"
"Oh, they were, as we say, 'Americans from 'way back.' But my father left my mother soon after I was born. We weren't much good, I guess. It was when I was a baby. He was very restless, they say. I suppose I got my runaway nature from him. But I've outgrown that. Anyway, he left my mother with three children. My little brother died. My mother was a seamstress in a little town out West--an awful hole it was. I was a tiny little girl when they took me to my mother's funeral. I remember that, but I can't remember her. That was my first death. And now this! I've lost a mother and father twice. That hasn't happened to many people. So you must forgive me for being so crazy. So many of my loved are dead. It's frightful. We lose so many as we grow up. Life is like walking through a graveyard, with the sextons always busy opening new places. There was so much crying and loneliness before, and now this war goes on and on--as if we needed a war!"
"God knows, we don't."
Marie Louise went to the window and raised the curtain. A haggard gray light had been piping the edges of the shade. Now the full casement let in a flood of warm morning radiance.
The dull street was alive again. Sparrows were hopping. Wagons were on the move. Small and early tradesfolk were about their business. Servants were opening houses as shops were being opened in town.
The big wheel had rolled London round into the eternal day. Doors and windows were being flung ajar. Newspapers and milk were taken in, ashes put out, cats and dogs released, front stoops washed, walks swept, gardens watered. Brooms were pendulating. In the masters' rooms it was still night and slumber-time, but humble people were alert.
The morning after a death is a fearful thing. Those papers on the steps across the way were doubtless loaded with more tragedies from the front, and among the cruel facts was the lie that concealed the truth about the Weblings, who were to read no more morning papers, eat no more breakfasts, set out on no more journeys.
Grief came to Marie Louise now with a less brackish taste. Her sorrow had the pity of the sunlight on it. She wept not now for the terror and hatefulness of the Weblings' fate, but for the beautiful things that would bless them no more, for the roses that would glow unseen, the flowers that would climb old walls and lean out unheeded, asking to be admired and proffering fragrance in payment of praise. The Weblings were henceforth immune to the pleasant rumble of wagons in streets, to the cheery good mornings of passers-by, the savor of coffee in the air, the luscious colors of fruits piled upon silver dishes.
Then she heard a scamper of bare feet, the squeals of mischief-making children escaping from a pursuing nurse.
It had been a favorite pastime of Victor and Bettina to break in upon Marie Louise of mornings when she forgot to lock her door. They loved to steal in barefoot and pounce on her with yelps of savage delight and massacre her, pull her hair and dance upon her bed and on her as she pleaded for mercy.
She heard them coming now, and she could not reach the door before it opened and disclosed the grinning, tousle-curled cherubs in their sleeping-suits.
They darted in, only to fall back in amazement. Marie Louise was not in bed. The bed had not been slept in. Marie Louise was all dressed, and she had been crying. And in a chair sat a strange, formidable old gentleman who looked tired and forlorn.
"Auntie!" they gasped.
She dropped to her knees, and they ran to her for refuge from the strange man.
She hugged them so hard that they cried, "Don't!"
Without in the least understanding what it was all about, they heard her saying to the man:
"And now what's to become of these poor lambs?"
The old stranger passed a slow gray hand across his dismal face and pondered.
The children pointed, then remembered that it is impolite to point, and drew back their little index hands and whispered:
"Auntie, what you up so early for?" and, "Who is that?"
And she whispered, "S-h-h!"
Being denied the answer to this charade, they took up a new interest.
"I wonder is grandpapa up, too, and all dressed," said Victor.
"And maybe grandmamma," Bettina shrilled.
"I'll beat you to their room," said Victor.
Marie Louise seized them by their hinder garments as they fled.
"You must not bother them."
"Why not?" said Victor.
"Will so!" said Bettina, pawing to be free.
Marie Louise implored: "Please, please! They've gone."
"Where?"
She cast her eyes up at that terrible query, and answered it vaguely.
"Away."
"They might have told a fellow good-by," Victor brooded.
"They--they forgot, perhaps."
"I don't think that was very nice of them," Bettina pouted.
Victor was more cheerful. "Perhaps they did; perhaps they kissed us while we was asleep--
were asleep."
Bettina accepted with delight.
"Seems to me I 'member somebody kissin' me. Yes, I 'member now."
Victor was skeptical. "Maybe you only had a dream about it."
"What else is there?" said Mr. Verrinder, rising and patting Victor on the shoulder. "You'd better run along to your tubs now."
They recognized the authority in his voice and obeyed.
The children took their beauty with them, but left their destiny to be arranged by higher powers, the gods of Eld.
"What is to become of them," Louise groaned again, "when I go to prison?"
Verrinder was calm. "Sir Joseph's will doubtless left the bulk of his fortune to them. That will provide for their finances. And they have two grandparents left. The Oakbys will surely be glad to take the children in, especially as they will come with such fortunes."
"You mean that I am to have no more to do with them?"
"I think it would be best to remove them to a more strictly English influence."
This hurt her horribly. She grew impatient for the finishing blow.
"And now that they are disposed of, have you decided what's to become of me?"
"It is not for me to decide. By the by, have you any one to represent you or intercede for you here, or act as your counsel in England?"
She shook her head. "A good many people have been very nice to me, of course. I've noticed, though, that even they grew cold and distant of late. I'd rather die than ask any of them."
"But have you no relatives living--no one of importance in the States who could vouch for you?"
She shook her head with a doleful humility.
"None of our family were ever important that I ever heard of, though of course one never knows what relatives are lurking about. Mine will never claim me; that's certain. I did have a sister--poor thing!--if she's alive. We didn't get along very well. I was too wild and restless as a girl. She was very good, hard-working, simple, homely as sin--or homely as virtue. I was all for adventure. I've had my fill of it. But once you begin it, you can't stop when you've had enough. If she's not dead, she's probably married and living under another name--Heaven knows what name or where. But I could find her, perhaps. I'd love to go to her. She was a very good girl. She's probably married a good man and has brought up her children piously, and never mentioned me. I'd only bring disgrace on her. She'd disown me if I came home with this cloud of scandal about me."
"No one shall know of this scandal unless you tell."
She laughed harshly, with a patronizing superiority.
"Really, Mr. Verrinder, did you ever know a secret to be kept?"
"This one will be."
She laughed again at him, then at herself.
He rose wearily. "I think I shall have to be getting along. I haven't had a bath or a shave to-day. I shall ask you to keep to your room and deny yourself to all visitors. I won't ask you to promise not to escape. If the guard around the house is not capable of detaining you, you're welcome to your freedom, though I warn you that England is as hard to get out of as to get into nowadays. Whatever you do, for your own sake, at least, keep this whole matter secret and stick to the story we agreed on. Good morning!"
He bowed himself out. No rattling of chains marked his closing of the door, but if he had been a turnkey in Newgate he could not have left Marie Louise feeling more a prisoner. Her room was her body's jail, but her soul was in a dungeon, too.
As Verrinder went down the hall he scattered a covey of whispering servants.
The nurse who had waited to seize the children when they came forth had left them to dress themselves while she hastened to publish in the servants' dining-room the appalling fact that she had caught sight of a man in Miss Marie Louise's room. The other servants had many other even more astounding things to tell--to wit: that after mysterious excitements about the house, with strange men going and coming, and the kitchen torn to pieces for mustard and warm milk and warm water and strong coffee, and other things, Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were no more, and the whole household staff was out of a job. Strange police-like persons were in the house, going through all the papers in Sir Joseph's room. The servants could hardly wait to get out with the gossip.
And Mr. Verrinder had said that this secret would be kept! _