CHAPTER XXII.
LOUISE O'DONNEL'S FATHER.
Next day Jack Haines came to see me. Mr. Haines promised to be anuisance.
Jack Haines and Daniel J. Carruth had been partners. I might havemarried either of them, for the matter of that. I might have marriedany one in Strikehigh City. Of two evils I chose what seemed to me tobe the lesser, which was Daniel. For one thing, he was the boss partnerand had the larger share, and for another, he was the older man. Icould have twisted either of them round my finger, but it occurred tome that I might manage best with Daniel. So I became Mrs. Daniel J.Carruth, and poor dear Daniel lived just long enough to capitalizehis share--he made a better thing of it than we had either of usexpected--and then he died. Hardly was he buried than the chief mournerat his funeral, Mr. Haines, wanted me to marry him. He hinted that itwould be just as well to keep the partnership alive, which struck me asabsurd. Anyhow, I did not seem to see it. I came straight away toEngland, instead of marrying him, with the intention of getting as muchfun out of Daniel's dollars as I possibly could.
What I had not bargained for was his coming after me.
The folks in Strikehigh City had all lived queer lives, but I ratherguess that, in some ways, Jack Haines had lived one of the queerest. Hehad told me about it over and over again, and, whatever I might thinkof him, I knew that he had told me the truth.
He had been married. He and his wife had lived like cat and dog. Shehad died. She had left a daughter. He had brought the daughterup--trying to rule her with a heavy hand. There came a time when sheobjected. There was a disturbance--she left him. That was just beforehe came to Strikehigh City--in fact, her going sent him there, and hehad never seen her since. I could see plainly that he had been more inthe wrong than she had. In his way, he loved her. His consciencepricked him all the time. When Daniel died, it began to prick him worsethan ever. Finding that I would not have him, he set himself to lookfor her.
This I learned from his own lips when I met him again in London.
It seemed that, when she had left him the girl had gone on to thestage--attaching herself to a variety show. From that she had passed toa burlesque troupe. The burlesque troupe had gone to England--she wentwith it. The burlesque troupe returned--she had stayed behind. No doubtfor reasons of her own. Jack Haines wanted very much to know what thosereasons were, because, no sooner had the troupe gone, and left her,than she vanished. No one seemed to have the faintest notion what hadbecome of her. She had simply disappeared--gone clean out of sight.
The old man had come over to see if he could not succeed where othershad failed; if he could not light on the clue which others had missed.
The desire to find the girl had become with him a regular mania. It waslike a bee in his bonnet. It occupied his thoughts, to the exclusion ofall else, both by night and day. As I have said, the man was becoming anuisance. I did not want to quarrel with him, but I saw that, without aquarrel, I never should be rid of him. He insisted on making me hisconfidant. And, although I took care never to give him a chance to saya word outright, I knew that, as soon as he had found the girl, hewould renew that hint about the desirability of keeping the partnershipalive.
On the day after that little trip to Brighton, he turned up in mydrawing-room. I had run over to Kensington High Street for something.When I came back, there he was--and I was not by any means best pleasedto see him there.
I should have disliked him for one thing if I had disliked him fornothing else--he was so deadly serious. I do not think I ever saw himsmile. Indeed, I doubt if he had a smile left in him. He had no senseof humour, and, to him, a joke was as meaningless as double Dutch. Hewas bald at the top of his head, his face was as long as one's arm, hiseyes generally had an expressionless, fishlike sort of stare, and,since he had assumed the garb of respectability, he was always attiredin funeral black. He seemed to be under the impression that that wasthe only hue in which respectability could appear. As for his temper,it varied from doubtful to bad, and from bad to worse, and when he wasin a rage, which he quickly was, he was by no means an agreeable personto have to deal with. He and Daniel were always falling out, and, untilI came upon the scene, he used to ride over poor dear Daniel roughshod.But, when I did I let him understand that whoever fell out with Danielfell out with me.
For my part, I did not wonder so much at his daughter's having run awayas at her having lived with him as long as she did.
His hat was on one chair, his umbrella on another, he himself sat, withhis hands clasped in front of him, on a little centre table, in anattitude which suggested that he was about to offer prayer. He did notrise as I entered--respectability has not yet worked such havoc withhim as that. He stared at me as I went in, solemnly speechless, as ifhe wondered how I could venture to interrupt the meeting.
"Well, Mr. Haines, any news?"
I did not care if there was any news, but I did object to his sittingand staring at me like that.
"She is dead."
"Dead!--You don't mean it!--How do you know?"
"It was told me last night in a dream."
Among the rest of his little peculiarities, he was one of the mostsuperstitious creatures breathing. In religion, I believe, he calledhimself a spiritualist. Anyhow, he was always seeing things, andhearing things, and having things revealed to him. Talking to him insome of his moods reminded one of that scene in Richard II. where thepoor dear king wants to sit upon a gravestone and talk of epitaphs.
"Is that the only reason why you know that she is dead--because it wastold you in a dream?"
"Do not mock at me. The voice which speaks to me in visions does notlie. I saw a coffin lying in an open grave, and 'Louise O'Donnel' wason the coffin-lid."
"You did not happen to see in which particular graveyard that gravemight be located."
"I did not. But I know that she is dead. My daughter, oh, my daughter!"
I had to turn aside to smile. I grant that it was not a subject forlaughter--but he was so funny!
"And as I looked the coffin-lid was lifted. And, on her breast, therewas an open wound."
He rose slowly, painfully, inch by inch. He pointed with his right handtowards the floor.
"Woman, my daughter has been slain."
"Really, Mr. Haines, you are always seeing the most dreadful things indreams. If I were you I should take less supper."
"It's not the supper. It's the spirit."
"Well, in that case, I should take less of that."
He frowned.
"You know very well what I mean. I am not speaking of the spirit ofalcohol, but of the spirit of the soul. Now one task is ended. Anotheris begun. I will be the avenger of blood. Mine will it be to executejudgment on him who has destroyed my daughter's body, having first ofall destroyed her soul."
"Jack Haines, what nonsense you do talk."
"What do you mean, woman?"
"My good man, do you think that you awe me by your persistence incalling me woman? I am a woman; but let me tell you in confidence thatyou strike me as only being part of a man!"
"You jeer at me. You are always jeering. You know not what you say."
"That is good--from you. Your style of conversation may have beensuited to Strikehigh City, where they all were lunatics. But in Londonit is out of place."
"London!--bah!"
He threw out his arms, as if to put the idea of London clean behindhim.
"Precisely. Then if it's London!--bah! Why don't you return toStrikehigh City?"
"I will finish the work which I came to do. Then I will return."
I had sat down on an easy-chair. I had crossed my legs, and wasswinging my foot in the air. Old Haines stood glowering down at me,clenching his fists to hold his temper in. I looked him up and down.After all he was, every inch of him, a narrow-minded, cross-grained,hidebound New Englander.
"You are more likely to see the inside of a prison if you don't takecare. You know, they manage things differently upon this
side. JackHaines, let me speak to you a word in season--a candid word. It may doyou good. You killed your wife; I do not mean legally, but you killedher all the same. A prolonged course of you would be sufficient to killany wife."
"Woman!"
"You drove your daughter from you. So unwilling was she to have itknown that she was connected with you, that she took her mother's name.She called herself Louise O'Donnel. Under that name she came toEngland. Conscious that, even underneath her mother's name, you mighttrace her out in England, she has changed her name again. Under thatnew name she is deliberately hiding herself away from you."
"It is false."
"It may be. It is but a surmise. But, as such, it is at least as muchlikely to be correct as yours."
"She is dead."
"You have not one jot or tittle of proof that she is anything of thekind."
"I will have proof." He brought down his fist upon my pretty, fragiletable with a crash. "I will have proof."
"Don't destroy the furniture."
"Furniture!" He glared at the inoffensive table as if he would haveliked to have chopped it into firewood. "You should not anger me. I saythat I will have proof. And I will have proof of who it is has murderedher. And I will find him, though he hides himself in the uttermostcorners of the earth. And when I have found him I will have aquittance."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Do you not know what I mean? Have you known me so short a time thatyou should need to ask?"
"Do you mean that, if there is anything in these wild dreams of yours,you will kill the man who has killed your girl?"
He raised his hands above his head in a sort of paroxysm.
"Like a dog."
"Then let me tell you that you are treading the road which leads to thegallows. They manage things in their own way upon this side. Killing'smurder here. And the more excuse you think you have the tighter you'relikely to fit the rope about your neck."
"The hemp has not been sown which shall hang me on an English gallows.Do you think I am afraid?"
He gave me the creeps. Although it surpassed my powers to adequatelyexplain the thing, I knew that he had a trick of seeing things whichhad taken place before they became known to other people. I had hadunpleasant experience of it more than once. One might begin by laughingat what he called his dreams and his visions, but, in the end, thelaugh was apt to be upon the other side.
It was quite possible that his girl was dead. Young, pretty, simple,innocent, alone in a foreign land--what more possible? It was evenpossible that she had been done to death. Some one might think that noone would miss her. In that case, that some one might as well at onceplace himself in the hangman's hands as wait to interview Jack Haines.
I was glad to be rid of him. He was not a cheerful companion at thebest of times. But since he had got this bee in his bonnet he was morethan I could stand.
In the afternoon I went to see Kate Levett. Kate and I had beentogether in Pfeinmann's "King of the Castle Operatic Combination." Wewere friends all through. I fancy it was a case of "a fellow-feelingmakes us wondrous kind"--after a fashion we were girls of a feather.When the Combination came to eternal grief at Strikehigh City, we wentdifferent ways. I stayed where I was, Kate went East. It was at Bostonshe married Ferdinand Levett. He was touring at that time through theStates as acting manager for a famous English comedy company. It was acase of marriage at first sight as it were. It proved to be the bestthing Kate had ever done in her life. Levett turned out a regulartrump, and they hit it off together to a T. Now they were settled inEngland, and, although Kate had kept off the boards, they were doinguncommonly well in a modest sort of a way.
When I turned up at their flat on the Thames Embankment, at the back ofthe Strand, Kate wanted me to stay and dine. So I stayed. After dinnerwe went to a theatre. Levett was at business--managing the Colosseum,so we went there. To finish up, we went back to supper at the flat.
I had gone originally to Kate with the idea of gleaning a littleinformation. Before I left I had got all that I wanted, and, perhaps, alittle more. What I wished to find out was whether Kate knew anythingabout a Mr. Reginald Townsend. She and her husband knew something aboutall sorts and conditions of men, and it struck me that my friend, thegentleman, was just the sort of man of whom one or the other of themmight have heard.
I did not want to seem too anxious. So I just slipped my question incasually, as if I was indifferent whether I received an answer to it ornot. I kept it till after supper. Kate was at the piano strummingthrough all the latest things in comic songs. I was lolling in arocker, joining in the chorus whenever there was a chorus. Ferdinandwas taking his ease upon a couch. We were all as snug as we could be.Kate had been saying she knew somebody or other, I don't know who, whenI struck in.
"Between you, you two seem to know pretty nearly every one."
"Those whom we don't know are not worth knowing."
"Quite right, my dear!"--this from Ferdinand, on the couch.
"Have you ever heard of a Mr. Townsend?"
"What!--Reggie Townsend?"
She spun round on the piano-stool like a catherine-wheel.
"Reginald Townsend--that's it."
She and her husband looked at each other--in that meaning sort of way.
"Fred, have we ever heard of Reginald Townsend?"
Ferdinand laughed. She held out her hands in front of her.
"Why, my dear, there have been times and seasons when we've heard oflittle else but Reginald Townsend."
"Perhaps your man is not my man. My man's tall."
"So's our man!"
"And dark."
"You couldn't paint our man blacker than he is."
"And very--very swagger, don't you know."
"Our man's the swaggerest man in town. It's impossible that there couldbe two Reginald Townsends. What do you know of him?"
"Oh, I only met him once. But he rather struck me."
"Take care that he doesn't strike you too much. He's not only theswaggerest, he's also the wickedest man in town. I could tell you talesof him which would shock your innocent ears. He's a terror, isn't he,Fred?"
"He has rather liberal ideas on the subject of the whole duty of man."
"I should rather think he has."
And Kate went off at score. I could see from what she said that myfriend the gentleman was all my fancy painted him. When she gave me anopening, I slipped another word in edgeways.
"Is he received in respectable society?"
"That depends, my dearest child, upon what you call respectablesociety. He's the boon companion of dukes, marquises, and earls, andthat kind of thing. He visits the best houses and the best people. ButI was raised at Salem, Mass., and our ideas of respectable society wereperhaps our own. I haven't found that they obtain to any considerableextent round here."
It was scandalously late when I left for home.
The same thing occupied my thoughts in the cab as on the nightbefore--my friend the gentleman. Whatever could have made him do thething which he had done? That is, if Kate's Reginald Townsend wasmine--of which, by the way, I had no doubt. A man may be all that'sbad; he may be worse than a murderer, but he takes particularly goodcare not, if he can help it, to be the thing itself. What could it bewhich, in the judgment of a man in his position, had compelled him toplace himself within the shadow of the gallows?
The problem occupied my mind. The man had been placed by nature in sucha fortunate position. It appeared that he had so much to lose--and hehad lost it all! What for? I wondered. What was it which hadconstrained him to choose between the devil and the deep sea--and thento choose the devil?
As I thought of it, and how handsome he was, and how well bred, and howthere was everything to please a woman's taste, and to gratify her eye,a wild notion germinated in my brain--which was watered bycircumstances, and grew.
I dismissed the cab at the end of my road. The night, though dark, wasfine. The horse was tired. I had no objection to saving the creature'slegs by
walking the rest of the way. I did not suppose that, at thathour of the night, or, rather, of the morning, there would be any oneabout.
In supposing that, however, I was wrong.
The street was a pretty long one. When I got about half way along it Iperceived that a cab was stopping at a house in front of me. As Ireached the cab a man got out of it in a fashion which, to say theleast of it, was rather sudden. He plunged on to the pavement, ratherthan stepped on to it. As his feet touched solid ground, he turnedtowards me.
It was Tommy Tennant!
For a moment I was frightened half out of my wits. It was such an hour,he was without a hat, he looked wild and dishevelled, his appearance atsuch a place--within a stone's throw of my own house--at such a momentwas so wholly unexpected, that it fairly took my breath away.
But if his appearance startled me, my appearance seemed to have an evenmore startling effect upon him. He gave one glance at me and tumbled ina heap on to the pavement.
The driver of the hansom leaned down towards me from his perch.
"It's all right, miss; he's only been enjoying of hisself. The coldstones will cool 'is head."
I said nothing; I hurried on.