“Poor old Jacob,” said Hugh aloud, as he stood before the fireplace with his hands thrust deep in his pockets in an attitude of despair. “It must be truly hard for him to leave me. He was my father’s valet when he was a young man; he has known me ever since I could toddle, and now I’m compelled to throw him out of doors, as if he were a common drudge who didn’t please me. He’s been more than a servant – he was the friend and adviser of my youth. Yet now we must part, owing to my own mad folly. Some people carry wealth in their pockets, others in their hearts.”
With a sigh and a muttered imprecation, he paced the room with deliberate, thoughtful steps.
Suddenly he noticed the evening newspaper that had been placed upon the table by his servant. Anxious to know the result of a race, he took it up mechanically, when his eyes fell upon the head-line in large capitals, “Mysterious murder in the Strand.”
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Why, I had really forgotten that strange incident last night. It must be the man I saw taken from the omnibus. By Jove, that was a curious affair; I wonder what the paper says about it?”
Reseating himself, he commenced to read the column of elaborately worked-up sensation with which the journal regaled its readers.
It certainly was an extraordinary case, inasmuch as the crime must have been committed with a swiftness and dexterity that was little short of marvellous. As far as the representative of the journal had been able to ascertain, the body was still unidentified, and, after advancing an extravagant theory of his own, the enterprising scribe terminated with the stereotyped phrase, invariably used on such occasions, declaring that the police, “though very reticent upon the matter, were prosecuting diligent inquiries.”
“Remarkable!” ejaculated Trethowen, when he had finished reading this account. “I wonder who the victim is, and what object anybody could have had in murdering him? So daring, too – in a public conveyance in the very heart of London. There was some motive, I suppose; but evidently the person who committed the crime was no novice, and went to work with swiftness and caution for the purpose of baffling the police. I’ve been thinking so much of my own affairs to-day that the remembrance of last night’s tragedy had entirely gone out of my head. Yet, after all, why should I puzzle my brains over a case that will require all the wit and cunning of skilled detectives before the guilty person is revealed?”
He cast the paper aside, and passed his hand wearily across his aching brow.
“No,” he continued, after a brief silence. “I’ve got too much to think of with my own affairs. Here am I, ruined irretrievably, with no hope beyond that of dragging out a miserable existence in a poverty-stricken sort of way, while my friends laugh over my misfortunes, and make themselves fat upon what they’ve won from me by foul means as well as fair. Bah! I’ve been a downright consummate fool, and deserve all this punishment; by Heaven I do!”
And he sprang to his feet, and again paced the room.
“What is my punishment?” he asked of himself, after some soliloquy. “Social ostracism, perpetual poverty, interminable despair. Yet, after all, what have I done to deserve it? I’ve not been more wild than other fellows during the sowing of my wild oats, as old fogies term it. No; the simple reason for it all is merely because I’m a younger son. My brother has enough to keep him in luxury, whereas I had but a pittance at most, and upon it was expected to keep up appearances and spend it like other fellows. I’ve done so, and now am doomed to pay the penalty of poverty. Even death would be preferable to the life before me.”
He halted, suddenly impressed by the idea. His face was pale and haggard, and in his eyes was a strangely intense look.
“Death! Why not?” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. “I have no longer any interest in life, therefore death would be the easiest means to end my difficulties. It would be all over in a moment.”
Shuddering, he sank slowly into the chair, and resting his arms upon the table, buried his face in his hands.
“Yes,” he muttered in bitter despair. “I’ve staked everything, and lost, through my cursed ill-luck. If I exiled myself it would be running away from my creditors, as if I feared them. No, by God! I – I won’t do that; I’ll choose the other alternative.”
With a firm, resolute expression upon his grave features he rose, strode quickly across the room, and, unlocking a Japanese cabinet, took therefrom a tiny phial of colourless liquid.
Holding it up to the light, he gazed upon it with a curious smile of gratification at having the poison in his possession. Strange that a man should laugh when about to take his own life; yet such is frequently the case. What is the motive that prompts him to smile when the grave is before him? What, perhaps, but the fascination of suicide. There are some men who at first feel like jumping from a high elevation into the void below. The feeling grows if at all indulged. There is a strange and, indeed, wonderful fascination in high precipices. The very fact that life can be taken is fascinating often to fatality. The majority of cases of suicide by pistol or by poison would not have occurred if the weapon or potion had been absent. Their very presence keeps the temptation to use them before the would-be suicide with more or less power.
In this case it was the same as many others. Hugh Trethowen’s lucidity of mind, granting that there was mental aberration, could not have been fully absent. The fascination of rest, of a possible life beyond, of dramatic sensationalism – all combined – may have been the chief motive-power.
Nevertheless, he stood looking at it calmly. He was bent upon his purpose.
Lifting the glass of brandy and soda, he poured the contents of the phial into it, afterwards tossing the bottle into the grate. His hand trembled a little, but by setting his feet firmly he overcame this sudden nervousness, and looked around him for the last time calmly and seriously.
“Well, here’s health to my creditors, and long life to the men who, posing as my friends, have ruined me!” he said bitterly, with a harsh laugh.
Heaving one long sigh, he raised the glass to his lips. He was preparing to drink it at one gulp.
At that moment there came Jacob’s well-known tap at the door, and he entered, bearing a letter upon a salver.
Trethowen started, and quickly replaced the glass upon the table. He was confused, and felt ashamed of being caught in the act of self-destruction, although the old man could not have been aware of what the glass contained.
Without a word he took the letter, and Jacob retired.
Tearing it open impatiently, he eagerly read its contents. It was a purely formal communication from Messrs Graham and Ratcliff, an eminently respectable legal firm, who, some years before, had transacted his late father’s business, and who now expressed a desire that he should call at their offices in Devereux Court, Temple, at noon on the following day, as they wished to have an interview with him on a most important and pressing matter.
He re-read the letter several times; then, without a word escaping his lips, flung the contents of the glass upon the fire.
The letter puzzled him sorely. He resolved to call at the address given and ascertain the nature of the mysterious business.
It had saved him.
Chapter Five
Under St. Clement Danes
The office was small, dingy, and undusted, with a threadbare carpet that had once been green, long rows of pigeon-holes filled with faded legal papers, and windows so dirt-begrimed that they only admitted a yellow light, which added to the characteristic gloom.
Before a large writing-table sat Mr Bernard Graham, solicitor and commissioner for oaths, interestedly reading some documents which had apparently been taken from a black tin box that was standing open near him. He was a clean-shaven, wizened man of sixty, with scanty white hair, a forehead denoting considerable self-esteem, a pair of small, cold grey eyes, and an aquiline nose, surmounted by pince-nez with tortoiseshell frames. Attired in broadcloth of an antiquated cut, he looked exactly what his clients believed him to be – a respectable family solicitor, the surviving partner of the once popular