CHAPTER XXV.
SCRAFTON'S STORY.
Harry had not heard of him for nearly four years, had not set eyes onhim since their scuffle at the school. But only a few days laterLeonard Bickersteth had called at the flat with strange news ofScrafton. He had never returned to the Hollies; he had disappeared fromhis lodgings; it was impossible to trace his whereabouts. The motive ofhis flight, on the other hand, seemed pretty clear. Mrs. Bickerstethhad been questioning the boys, with the result that Harry's chargeswere sufficiently proved, as Scrafton must have known they would be,and hence his sudden desertion. Leonard Bickersteth had proceeded, onhis mother's behalf, to make Harry an apology and an offer which didthat lady equal credit. But the younger man was too perturbed either toaccept the one or to decline the other as cordially or as civilly as hedesired. He had his own explanation of Scrafton's flight. It had been anightmare to him ever since. And here was the central figure of thatnightmare standing before him in the flesh, with his snuff-box in hishand, and the old ferocious grin upon his pallid glistening face.
"Surprised to see me, are you?" cried Scrafton, taking another pinch.
"I am," said Harry, looking the other in the face, and yet reflectingits pallor.
"You'll be still more surprised when you hear what I've come to tellyou. Ain't you going to ask me in?"
"Come in by all means, if you wish," said Harry, coldly.
"I do wish," was the answer. "Are you alone?"
"Absolutely," said Harry, as he closed the door and led the way intothe sitting-room.
"I thought you lived with your mother?"
"She is away."
"Do you keep a servant?"
"Yes."
"Not next door, I hope?" said Scrafton, tapping the wall to gauge itsthickness.
"No, at the other end of the flat; and she's used to late comers."
Scrafton glanced at Harry obliquely out of his light-blue eyes. Thenthey fell on the whisky bottle, and he favoured Harry with a differentlook.
"Help yourself."
Scrafton did so with his left hand so clasped about the glass that itwas impossible to see how much he took. His hand seemed bonier thanformerly, but it was no less grimy, and the fingernails were stillrimmed with black. He was dressed as of old, only better. It was amoderately new frock-coat, and as he sat down with his glass Harry sawthat he did wear socks. His beard and moustache were whiter; theyshowed the snuff-stains all the more.
It was the rocking-chair this man was desecrating with his pestilentperson; while Harry, having shut the door, had reseated himself at hisdesk, but turned his chair so that he sat facing Scrafton, with anelbow on his blotting-pad.
"I have come," said the visitor, putting his glass down empty, "to tellyou the truth about your father."
"I thought as much."
"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," continuedScrafton, eying the bottle wistfully. "Do you suppose now that he isliving or dead?"
"I have no idea."
"He is dead."
Harry did not open his mouth. He could not appreciate the news of hisfather's death, but then he would have been equally slow to realisethat he was alive. So completely had the missing ironmaster passed outof the world of ascertainable fact and of positive statement; so deadwas he already to his son.
"When did he die?" asked the latter presently; and his voice wasunmoved.
"On the night between Good Friday and Easter Day."
"This year?"
"No; over four years ago."
Harry leapt to his feet.
"Where was it he died?"
"At sea----"
"At sea!"
"Between Newhaven and Dieppe."
"But how--how?"
"He was murdered."
Harry seemed to have known it all along. He could not utter anothersyllable. But his wild eyes and his outstretched hands asked theirquestion plainly.
"By your friend Gordon Lowndes," said Scrafton coolly.
Harry came down heavily in his chair, and his hands lay on the desk,and his face lay in his hands; but he was acutely conscious, and heheard the furtive trickle as Scrafton seized the opportunity ofreplenishing his glass. The man drank. To anybody but an innocent itmight have been obvious four years ago. He was one of those whom drinkmade pallid and ferocious; to get more from him while still sober,Harry started up as suddenly as he had subsided, causing the other tospill some liquor in his beard.
"Take all you want," cried Harry, "only tell me everything first. Imust know everything now. I have suspected it so long."
He leant forward to listen, this time with an elbow on each knee, butwith his face again buried in his hands. Scrafton kept a gleaming eyeupon him, as he dried his beard with his coat-sleeve, and supplementedthe spirit with a couple of his most sickening inhalations.
"I will begin at the beginning," said he; "but you needn't have anyfears about my not reaching the end, for I've never had less than abottle a night when I could get it, and the man doesn't breathe whoever saw Jeremiah Scrafton the worse. What you have here is only enoughto make me thirsty, and I may want another bottle broached before I'mdone. Meanwhile, to begin at the beginning, you must know that it issome years now since I made our friend's acquaintance at Richmond. Wespotted each other one night by the river, and though he was old enoughto be your father, and I was old enough to be his, I'm hanged if itwasn't like a man and a woman! He took to me, and I took to him. Wewere both clever men, and we were both poor men. His head was full ofways of making his pile, and my head was full of one way worth all hisput together. You're a dunce at mathematics, Master Ringrose. Have youever played roulette?"
"Never."
"Then you wouldn't understand my system, even if I was to tell it you,and I wouldn't do that for a thousand pounds. Lowndes has offered memore than that for it--wanted to form a syndicate to work it--offeredme half profits; but not for Jeremiah! I'll double the capital that'sput in, and I'll pay it back with cent. per cent. interest, but I'llrot before I do more. I told him so years ago, and I've never budged. Inever told him or anybody else my system, and I never will. I may notlive to work it now. I may never get another chance of the capital. Butif I don't benefit from it, nobody else ever shall; it's my secret, andit'll go with me to the worm. One comfort is that nobody else is likelyto hit upon it--no other living mathematician has the brain!"
Harry could not help looking up; and there sat Scrafton in his mother'schair, his head thrown sublimely back, a grin of exultation amid therank hair upon his face, and the light of drunken genius in his fieryblue eyes. There was something arrestive about the man; a certain viledistinction; a certain demoniac fascination, which diverted Harry'sattention in spite of himself. It was with an effort that he shook thecreature from his brain, and asked how all this affected his poorfather's fate.
"There is a weak point common to every system," replied Scrafton, "andwant of money was the one weak point of mine. Without capital it was nouse."
"Well?"
"With a thousand I'd have backed myself to bring it off; with five itwas a moral certainty; with ten a dead certainty. Now do you see whereyour father came in?"
"It was ten thousand pounds Lowndes got him!"
"And twenty I'd have handed him, cent. per cent., on what he put in."
"Go on," said Harry, hoarsely.
Scrafton grinned until his yellow fangs gleamed through their snuffyscreen; he took another pinch before complying. "It's waste of breath,"said he, "for you must see for yourself what happened next. Lowndesknows I've been waiting all my life for a man with ten thousand poundsand the nerve to trust me, but he comes to make sure of me before goingdown to your father with the ten thousand and the dodge of making ittwenty. I'm his man, of course; but your father won't listen to it; asgood as shows our friend the door, but keeps the money, and says he'llpay it back himself, and then fail like an honest man. Back comes oldLowndes to Richmond, with his tail between his legs, on the Thursdaynight. Next day's Good Friday
, and your father spends it athome--thinking about it--thinking about it--saying good-bye toeverything--making up his mind to fail next day. All right, I'll stopif you like; he couldn't do it, that's all; and on the Saturdayevening, just as I was going to ask Lowndes if the crash had come, andif we couldn't run down together and try again before it did, whoshould I meet coming out of the gate but Lowndes and the man himself!He'd caved in of his own accord. I was the very man they wanted, and infive minutes we were all three on our way to the station. It was thenafter eight, I recollect, but we just caught a fast train to Waterloo,and from there we galloped to London Bridge, and jumped into theboat-train as she was moving out of the station at nine sharp."
"Which boat-train?" asked Harry suspiciously. It was his first chanceof cross-examination. Up to this point every statement tallied with thestatements of Fanny Lowndes, made now nearly four years ago, butunforgettable in the smallest detail. And for an instant he was back inthe little room at Richmond, the bright fire within, the white fogwithout, and the face of his beloved red with shame and wet with agony.Good God, what a barrier it had been! Her father the murderer of his!He remembered that the thought had occurred to him, but only in hiswild moments, never seriously. And she must have suspected--might evenhave known it--at the time!
"What did you say?" said Harry, for, in the sudden tumult of histhoughts, Scrafton's answer had been lost upon him.
"It was the train for Newhaven, that runs in connection with the boatto Dieppe."
"What was your destination?" asked Harry, alert and suspicious oncemore.
"Monte Carlo."
"That was no way to go."
"It was an unusual way; your father insisted upon it on that account;he was the less likely to be seen and recognised."
Harry started up, mixed some whisky and soda water for himself, andtossed it off at a gulp.
"Now," he said, "tell me the worst--tell me the end--and you shallfinish the bottle."
"As you like," said the other. "It isn't the most hospitable way oftreating a man; but as you like--especially as there's very little totell. I'll tell you exactly what I saw and discovered; neither more norless; for, first of all, you must understand that we were all three totravel separately. I went third in the train and second on the boat,but they took first-class tickets right through. They were not to lookat me, nor I at them. At Newhaven I saw them, but turned my back. Theywere both very quiet, and I foresaw no trouble. Of foul play I neverdreamt until Lowndes stole into the second saloon and touched me on theshoulder. Nobody saw him, for it was a nasty night, and all but me weresick and prostrate. But I was practising my little combination with apencil and a bit of paper, and I tell you his face gave me a turn. Hesaid it was sea-sickness; but I knew better even then.
"I was to go aft and see Ringrose that minute. What was the matter? Hewas trying to back out--swearing he'd return by the next boat and facehis creditors like a man. Would I go and reassure him of the absolutecertainty of doubling his ten thousand? So I got up, and Lowndes ledthe way to the private cabin your father had taken for the night.
"And a wicked night it was! I recollect holding on for dear life as wemade our way aft along the gallery where the private berths were. Onone side the rail hung over the sea, on the other a line of doors andportholes hung over us, and underneath you had a wet deck at an anglethat felt like forty-five. It was very dark, just light enough to seethat we had the lee-side down there to ourselves. And when Lowndesopened one of the doors and climbed into one of the cabins he nearlyfell out again on top of me. Or so he pretended. The cabin was empty. Ipushed him in and shut the door, and stood with my back to it. Yourfather had vanished; yet there were his ulster and his travelling capon the settee; and Lowndes's teeth were chattering in his head.
"'He's jumped overboard!' says he.
"'You pushed him over,' says I. 'You may as well make a clean breast ofit, for I see it in your face.'
"In another minute he had confessed the whole thing. Your father hadbeen leaning over that rail, feeling fit to die, and swearing he wasgoing back by the next boat. In a fit of passion Lowndes had tipped himover the side, and in the black darkness, and the noise of the wind andthe engines, he had gone down without a cry. That was the end of HenryRingrose. He was drowned in the Channel in the small hours of EasterDay, four years and a half ago. Instead of a runaway swindler he was amurdered man--and now you know who murdered him!"
Harry never spoke. His face was still in his hands.
Scrafton opened his snuff-box and took an impatient pinch.
"I tell you that your father is a murdered man," he cried, "and GordonLowndes is his murderer!"
Harry looked up with a curious smile.
"It's a lie," said he. "He wrote to my mother from Dieppe."
"Show me the letter."
"I can't; and wouldn't if I could."
"It was a forgery."
"But I have seen it."
"I can't help that."
"I thought it might be a forgery until I came to examine it," admittedHarry.
"It was one. You can only have examined the first page."
"What do you mean?"
"It was genuine; the next was not. The letter was written on both sidesof half a sheet, and the other half torn off. If you could get hold ofit I would show you in a minute."
"You shall show me!" cried Harry Ringrose. "If you prove what yousay----"
He checked himself with a gesture of misery and bewilderment. What washe to do if the man proved what he said? What would it be his duty todo?
He knew where his mother kept the letters she most prized, the onesthat he had himself written her from Africa, and this last letter fromher husband. He went into her room and broke open her desk withoutcompunction. It was no time for nice scruples on so vital a point. Andyet when he returned to the other room, and found Scrafton smacking hislips over the tumbler that he had filled and almost drained in thosefew moments, it seemed a sacrilege to let such eyes see such a letter.Instinctively he drew back from those outstretched unclean talons; butScrafton only burst into hoarse laughter.
"Don't I tell you it's more than half a forgery?" cried he. "Oh, keepit yourself, by all manner of means. I've seen it before, thank you.But it's waste of time looking at the front page; that's genuine, Itell you; turn over and try the other."
"I believe that's genuine too."
"Then you'd believe anything. Why, it's written in different ink, tobegin with. Hold it to the light and you'll see."
Harry did so; and the ink on both sides looked black at first sight;but closer inspection revealed a subtle difference.
"It was begun in blue-black ink," gasped Harry, "and finished in someother kind."
"Exactly."
"But the pen seems to have been the same."
"It was the gold pen your father used to carry about with him in hiswaistcoat pocket. But it seems he felt hot when he returned to theberth, after writing this letter in the saloon, for I found hiswaistcoat hanging on one of the hooks, and the pen was in the pocket."
"You say 'after writing this letter.'"
"I meant the first page of it. The second is a forgery. Look again atboth, and you will see that whereas there is a kind of regularirregularity about the first page, due to the motion of the boat, theirregularity of the second is a sham. It was the most difficult part toimitate."
Harry could see that it was so; but at these last words he looked upsuddenly from the letter.
"You speak as though you had committed the forgery yourself," said he.
"I did," was the calm reply. "Lowndes couldn't have used his pen likethat to save his life. Don't excite yourself, young fellow. I make nosecret that I was his accessory after the fact. I am going to confessthat in open court, and I don't much care what they do with me--so longas they hang the dog who refused to give me a sixpence this evening."
He glared horribly out of his now bloodshot eyes, and took snuff with atruculent snap of his filthy fingers.
"So th
at's what brings you to me?" said Harry Ringrose. "You would havedone better to take your confession straight to the police; but sinceyou are here you had better go on if you want to convince me. You saymy father went overboard in mid-Channel. How was it he was afterwardsseen in Dieppe?"
Scrafton leant forward with his demon's grin.
"He wasn't," said he. "_I_ was seen in his ulster, with his comforterround my beard, and his travelling cap over my eyes. It was I whowalked into thin air, as the papers said, from the _cafe_ in Dieppe.And it was in the _cafe_ the second page of the letter was written, asyou see it now. As your father wrote it, the letter finished on thefourth page, the two in between being left blank. I finished it on thesecond page, and then tore off the fourth. I have it here."
And he produced the greasy pocket-book which he had used as ascore-book in Bushey Park.
"Let me see it," whispered Harry.
"Will you give me your word to return it instantly?"
"My word of honour."
The page of writing that was now put into Harry's trembling hands isprinted underneath the genuine beginning of his father's letter, andabove the forgery.
"S.S. _Seine_, "Easter Morning, "188--
"My dearest Wife,
"Half frantic with remorse, degradation, sorrow, and shame, I sit down to write you the last letter you may ever receive from your unhappy husband.
"When I said good-bye to you this morning I could not tell you that it might be good-bye for ever. I told you I was going up to town on business. How could I tell you that the business was to take my passage for the Continent? Yet it was nothing else, and I write this midway between Newhaven and Dieppe, where I shall post it.
"My wife, I could not bear to give back the ten thousand pounds that was only half enough to save us. I am going where I hope to
(genuine)
double it in a night. A man is going with me who has an infallible system; also another man who swears by the first man, and whom I myself can trust. I know that it is a mad as well as a wicked thing to do. I am going to gamble with other men's money--to play for my home and for my life. Yes; if I lose, my end will be the end of many another dishonest fool at Monte Carlo. You will never see me again.
"I am altogether beside myself. I am not mad, but I am near to madness. I do not think I should have done such a wild thing in my sane senses--and yet these men are so sure! Forgive me whether I win or lose, whether I live or die, and let our boy profit by my example and my end. I can say no more. My brain is on fire. I may or may not post this. But I was obliged to tell you. God bless you! God bless you!
"Your distracted husband."
(forgery)
"be forgotten altogether, going with other men's money! I know that it is a mad as well as a wicked thing to do. I do not think I should have done such a wild thing in my sane senses, but I am altogether beside myself. I am not mad, but I am near to madness.
"Good-bye for ever. You will never see me again. Forgive me whether I live or die; and let our boy profit by my example and my end. I can say no more. My brain is on fire. God bless you! God bless you!
"Your distracted husband."
The devilish ingenuity of the fraud was not lost upon the reader.Hardly a word, hardly a phrase was used in the forgery for which therewas not a definite model in the original, and the imitation was noless miraculous as a whole than when taken word by word. The veryincoherence of the letter was one of its most convincing features; theway in which it began by saying it might be "good-bye for ever," andended by confessing that it was, was just the way a maddened man mightchoose for breaking the news of his terrible intention.
Judged impartially, side by side, the genuine page looked no moregenuine than the other.
The clock struck two: the younger man raised his face from a longreverie, and there were the terrible eyes of Scrafton still upon him.He was equally at a loss what to think, what to believe, what to do;but all at once his eyes fell upon the "copy" on his desk; it must goby the three o'clock post, or it would be too late for the next issue.
Mechanically he began folding up his various contributions--punningparagraphs--four-line quips--a set of verses that he had completed. Theother set, upon which he had been engaged on Scrafton's entry, hetossed aside, but all that was ready he put into a long envelope, whichhe addressed, weighed, and stamped as though nobody had been there.Scrafton watched him with his grinning eyes, but leapt up and overtookHarry as he was leaving the room.
"You're not going out, are you?"
"Yes, to the post."
"What, like that?"
"Not a soul will be about, and there's a pillar just under thewindows."
"What is it you want to post?"
"Nonsense for a comic paper."
Harry held up his envelope. The other read the address, and it quenchedthe suspicion in his fiery eyes, but opened them very wide.
"So you can think of your comic paper after this!"
"I must think of something, or I shall go mad."
"Well, where's another bottle of whisky before you go?"
Harry fetched one from the dining-room, and in another moment he was onthe stairs, with an overcoat over his pyjamas, and the latch-key in hishand. His brain was in a whirl. He had no idea what to do when hereturned, what steps to take, and no clear sight of his duty by hisdead father. If he was dead, there was an end. But how could he believethe word of that ghoul upstairs? And yet, was there anything to begained by his returning with the police? For the very idea had occurredto Harry, of which Scrafton had at first suspected and then acquittedhim.
He could see his way no farther than the posting of his "copy"; thatlittle commonplace necessity had come as a timely godsend to him; heonly wished the pillar was a mile instead of a yard away.
As he emerged from the mansions a couple of men retired farther intothe shadow of the opposite houses; as he turned from the pillar-box oneof these men was crossing the road towards him, having recognisedHarry; and it was the very man of whom he was thinking--of whom he wastrying to think as his own father's murderer.