Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1238 page)

“She told me.”

“You wish to know, Doctor Allday, what discoveries Miss Emily may yet make, among her aunt’s papers. Judge for yourself, when I tell you that she has been deceived about her father’s death.”

“Do you mean that he is still living?”

“I mean that she has been deceived — purposely deceived — about the
manner
of his death.”

“Who was the wretch who did it?”

“You are wronging the dead, sir! The truth can only have been concealed out of the purest motives of love and pity. I don’t desire to disguise the conclusion at which I have arrived after what I have heard from yourself. The person responsible must be Miss Emily’s aunt — and the old servant must have been in her confidence. Remember! You are bound in honour not to repeat to any living creature what I have just said.”

The doctor followed Miss Jethro to the door. “You have not yet told me,” he said, “
how
her father died.”

“I have no more to tell you.”

With those words she left him.

He rang for his servant. To wait until the hour at which he was accustomed to go out, might be to leave Emily’s peace of mind at the mercy of an accident. “I am going to the cottage,” he said. “If anybody wants me, I shall be back in a quarter of an hour.”

On the point of leaving the house, he remembered that Emily would probably expect him to return the Handbill. As he took it up, the first lines caught his eye: he read the date at which the murder had been committed, for the second time. On a sudden the ruddy colour left his face.

“Good God!” he cried, “her father was murdered — and that woman was concerned in it.”

Following the impulse that urged him, he secured the Handbill in his pocketbook — snatched up the card which his patient had presented as her introduction — and instantly left the house. He called the first cab that passed him, and drove to Miss Jethro’s lodgings.

“Gone” — was the servant’s answer when he inquired for her. He insisted on speaking to the landlady. “Hardly ten minutes have passed,” he said, “since she left my house.”

“Hardly ten minutes have passed,” the landlady replied, “since that message was brought here by a boy.”

The message had been evidently written in great haste: “I am unexpectedly obliged to leave London. A bank note is inclosed in payment of my debt to you. I will send for my luggage.”

The doctor withdrew.

“Unexpectedly obliged to leave London,” he repeated, as he got into the cab again. “Her flight condemns her: not a doubt of it now. As fast as you can!” he shouted to the man; directing him to drive to Emily’s cottage.

CHAPTER XVIII. MISS LADD.

Arriving at the cottage, Doctor Allday discovered a gentleman, who was just closing the garden gate behind him.

“Has Miss Emily had a visitor?” he inquired, when the servant admitted him.

“The gentleman left a letter for Miss Emily, sir.”

“Did he ask to see her?”

“He asked after Miss Letitia’s health. When he heard that she was dead, he seemed to be startled, and went away immediately.”

“Did he give his name?”

“No, sir.”

The doctor found Emily absorbed over her letter. His anxiety to forestall any possible discovery of the deception which had concealed the terrible story of her father’s death, kept Doctor Allday’s vigilance on the watch. He doubted the gentleman who had abstained from giving his name; he even distrusted the other unknown person who had written to Emily.

She looked up. Her face relieved him of his misgivings, before she could speak.

“At last, I have heard from my dearest friend,” she said. “You remember what I told you about Cecilia? Here is a letter — a long delightful letter — from the Engadine, left at the door by some gentleman unknown. I was questioning the servant when you rang the bell.”

“You may question me, if you prefer it. I arrived just as the gentleman was shutting your garden gate.”

“Oh, tell me! what was he like?”

“Tall, and thin, and dark. Wore a vile republican-looking felt hat. Had nasty ill-tempered wrinkles between his eyebrows. The sort of man I distrust by instinct.”

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t shave.”

“Do you mean that he wore a beard?”

“Yes; a curly black beard.”

Emily clasped her hands in amazement. “Can it be Alban Morris?” she exclaimed.

The doctor looked at her with a sardonic smile; he thought it likely that he had discovered her sweetheart.

“Who is Mr. Alban Morris?” he asked.

“The drawing-master at Miss Ladd’s school.”

Doctor Allday dropped the subject: masters at ladies’ schools were not persons who interested him. He returned to the purpose which had brought him to the cottage — and produced the Handbill that had been sent to him in Emily’s letter.

“I suppose you want to have it back again?” he said.

She took it from him, and looked at it with interest.

“Isn’t it strange,” she suggested, “that the murderer should have escaped, with such a careful description of him as this circulated all over England?”

She read the description to the doctor.

“‘Name not known. Supposed age, between twenty-five and thirty years. A well-made man, of small stature. Fair complexion, delicate features, clear blue eyes. Hair light, and cut rather short. Clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers. Small, white, well-shaped hands. Wore valuable rings on the two last fingers of the left hand. Dressed neatly — ’“

“That part of the description is useless,” the doctor remarked; “he would change his clothes.”

“But could he change his voice?” Emily objected. “Listen to this: ‘Remarkably good voice, smooth, full, and persuasive.’ And here again! ‘Ingratiating manners.’ Perhaps you will say he could put on an appearance of rudeness?”

“I will say this, my dear. He would be able to disguise himself so effectually that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would fail to identify him, either by his voice or his manner.”

“How?”

“Look back at the description: ‘Hair cut rather short, clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers.’ The wretch was safe from pursuit; he had ample time at his disposal — don’t you see how he could completely alter the appearance of his head and face? No more, my dear, of this disagreeable subject! Let us get to something interesting. Have you found anything else among your aunt’s papers?”

“I have met with a great disappointment,” Emily replied. “Did I tell you how I discovered the Handbill?”

“No.”

“I found it, with the scrap-book and the newspaper cuttings, under a collection of empty boxes and bottles, in a drawer of the washhand-stand. And I naturally expected to make far more interesting discoveries in this room. My search was over in five minutes. Nothing in the cabinet there, in the corner, but a few books and some china. Nothing in the writing-desk, on that side-table, but a packet of note-paper and some sealing-wax. Nothing here, in the drawers, but tradesmen’s receipts, materials for knitting, and old photographs. She must have destroyed all her papers, poor dear, before her last illness; and the Handbill and the other things can only have escaped, because they were left in a place which she never thought of examining. Isn’t it provoking?”

With a mind inexpressibly relieved, good Doctor Allday asked permission to return to his patients: leaving Emily to devote herself to her friend’s letter.

On his way out, he noticed that the door of the bed-chamber on the opposite side of the passage stood open. Since Miss Letitia’s death the room had not been used. Well within view stood the washhand-stand to which Emily had alluded. The doctor advanced to the house door — reflected — hesitated — and looked toward the empty room.

It had struck him that there might be a second drawer which Emily had overlooked. Would he be justified in setting this doubt at rest? If he passed over ordinary scruples it would not be without excuse. Miss Letitia had spoken to him of her affairs, and had asked him to act (in Emily’s interest) as co-executor with her lawyer. The rapid progress of the illness had made it impossible for her to execute the necessary codicil. But the doctor had been morally (if not legally) taken into her confidence — and, for that reason, he decided that he had a right in this serious matter to satisfy his own mind.

A glance was enough to show him that no second drawer had been overlooked.

There was no other discovery to detain the doctor. The wardrobe only contained the poor old lady’s clothes; the one cupboard was open and empty. On the point of leaving the room, he went back to the washhand-stand. While he had the opportunity, it might not be amiss to make sure that Emily had thoroughly examined those old boxes and bottles, which she had alluded to with some little contempt.

The drawer was of considerable length. When he tried to pull it completely out from the grooves in which it ran, it resisted him. In his present frame of mind, this was a suspicious circumstance in itself. He cleared away the litter so as to make room for the introduction of his hand and arm into the drawer. In another moment his fingers touched a piece of paper, jammed between the inner end of the drawer and the bottom of the flat surface of the washhand-stand. With a little care, he succeeded in extricating the paper. Only pausing to satisfy himself that there was nothing else to be found, and to close the drawer after replacing its contents, he left the cottage.

The cab was waiting for him. On the drive back to his own house, he opened the crumpled paper. It proved to be a letter addressed to Miss Letitia; and it was signed by no less a person than Emily’s schoolmistress. Looking back from the end to the beginning, Doctor Allday discovered, in the first sentence, the name of — Miss Jethro.

But for the interview of that morning with his patient he might have doubted the propriety of making himself further acquainted with the letter. As things were, he read it without hesitation.

“DEAR MADAM — I cannot but regard it as providential circumstance that your niece, in writing to you from my house, should have mentioned, among other events of her school life, the arrival of my new teacher, Miss Jethro.

“To say that I was surprised is to express very inadequately what I felt when I read your letter, informing me confidentially that I had employed a woman who was unworthy to associate with the young persons placed under my care. It is impossible for me to suppose that a lady in your position, and possessed of your high principles, would make such a serious accusation as this, without unanswerable reasons for doing so. At the same time I cannot, consistently with my duty as a Christian, suffer my opinion of Miss Jethro to be in any way modified, until proofs are laid before me which it is impossible to dispute.

“Placing the same confidence in your discretion, which you have placed in mine, I now inclose the references and testimonials which Miss Jethro submitted to me, when she presented herself to fill the vacant situation in my school.

“I earnestly request you to lose no time in instituting the confidential inquiries which you have volunteered to make. Whatever the result may be, pray return to me the inclosures which I have trusted to your care, and believe me, dear madam, in much suspense and anxiety, sincerely yours,

“AMELIA LADD.”

It is needless to describe, at any length, the impression which these lines produced on the doctor.

If he had heard what Emily had heard at the time of her aunt’s last illness, he would have called to mind Miss Letitia’s betrayal of her interest in some man unknown, whom she believed to have been beguiled by Miss Jethro — and he would have perceived that the vindictive hatred, thus produced, must have inspired the letter of denunciation which the schoolmistress had acknowledged. He would also have inferred that Miss Letitia’s inquiries had proved her accusation to be well founded — if he had known of the new teacher’s sudden dismissal from the school. As things were, he was merely confirmed in his bad opinion of Miss Jethro; and he was induced, on reflection, to keep his discovery to himself.