The Woman in White (68 page)

I was determined to believe that there WAS a case, and in that
determination shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.

"Are there not other proofs that we might produce besides the
proof of identity?" I asked.

"Not as you are situated," he replied. "The simplest and surest
of all proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I
understand, altogether out of your reach. If you could show a
discrepancy between the date of the doctor's certificate and the
date of Lady Glyde's journey to London, the matter would wear a
totally different aspect, and I should be the first to say, Let us
go on."

"That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle."

"On the day when it is recovered, Mr. Hartright, you will have a
case. If you have any prospect, at this moment, of getting at it—
tell me, and we shall see if I can advise you."

I considered. The housekeeper could not help us—Laura could not
help us—Marian could not help us. In all probability, the only
persons in existence who knew the date were Sir Percival and the
Count.

"I can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present," I
said, "because I can think of no persons who are sure to know it,
but Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde."

Mr. Kyrle's calmly attentive face relaxed, for the first time,
into a smile.

"With your opinion of the conduct of those two gentlemen," he
said, "you don't expect help in that quarter, I presume? If they
have combined to gain large sums of money by a conspiracy, they
are not likely to confess it, at any rate."

"They may be forced to confess it, Mr. Kyrle."

"By whom?"

"By me."

We both rose. He looked me attentively in the face with more
appearance of interest than he had shown yet. I could see that I
had perplexed him a little.

"You are very determined," he said. "You have, no doubt, a
personal motive for proceeding, into which it is not my business
to inquire. If a case can be produced in the future, I can only
say, my best assistance is at your service. At the same time I
must warn you, as the money question always enters into the law
question, that I see little hope, even if you ultimately
established the fact of Lady Glyde's being alive, of recovering
her fortune. The foreigner would probably leave the country
before proceedings were commenced, and Sir Percival's
embarrassments are numerous enough and pressing enough to transfer
almost any sum of money he may possess from himself to his
creditors. You are of course aware—-"

I stopped him at that point.

"Let me beg that we may not discuss Lady Glyde's affairs," I said.
"I have never known anything about them in former times, and I
know nothing of them now—except that her fortune is lost. You are
right in assuming that I have personal motives for stirring in
this matter. I wish those motives to be always as disinterested
as they are at the present moment—-"

He tried to interpose and explain. I was a little heated, I
suppose, by feeling that he had doubted me, and I went on bluntly,
without waiting to hear him.

"There shall be no money motive," I said, "no idea of personal
advantage in the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde. She has
been cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born—
a lie which records her death has been written on her mother's
tomb—and there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are
responsible for it. That house shall open again to receive her in
the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the
grave—that lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the
authority of the head of the family, and those two men shall
answer for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in
tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given my life to
that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will
accomplish it."

He drew back towards his table, and said nothing. His face showed
plainly that he thought my delusion had got the better of my
reason, and that he considered it totally useless to give me any
more advice.

"We each keep our opinion, Mr. Kyrle," I said, "and we must wait
till the events of the future decide between us. In the meantime,
I am much obliged to you for the attention you have given to my
statement. You have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every
sense of the word, beyond our means. We cannot produce the law
proof, and we are not rich enough to pay the law expenses. It is
something gained to know that."

I bowed and walked to the door. He called me back and gave me the
letter which I had seen him place on the table by itself at the
beginning of our interview.

"This came by post a few days ago," he said. "Perhaps you will
not mind delivering it? Pray tell Miss Halcombe, at the same time,
that I sincerely regret being, thus far, unable to help her,
except by advice, which will not be more welcome, I am afraid, to
her than to you."

I looked at the letter while he was speaking. It was addressed to
"Miss Halcombe. Care of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, Chancery Lane."
The handwriting was quite unknown to me.

On leaving the room I asked one last question.

"Do you happen to know," I said, "if Sir Percival Glyde is still
in Paris?"

"He has returned to London," replied Mr. Kyrle. "At least I heard
so from his solicitor, whom I met yesterday."

After that answer I went out.

On leaving the office the first precaution to be observed was to
abstain from attracting attention by stopping to look about me. I
walked towards one of the quietest of the large squares on the
north of Holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a
place where a long stretch of pavement was left behind me.

There were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped
also, and who were standing talking together. After a moment's
reflection I turned back so as to pass them. One moved as I came
near, and turned the corner leading from the square into the
street. The other remained stationary. I looked at him as I
passed and instantly recognised one of the men who had watched me
before I left England.

If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I should probably
have begun by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him
down. But I was bound to consider consequences. If I once placed
myself publicly in the wrong, I put the weapons at once into Sir
Percival's hands. There was no choice but to oppose cunning by
cunning. I turned into the street down which the second man had
disappeared, and passed him, waiting in a doorway. He was a
stranger to me, and I was glad to make sure of his personal
appearance in case of future annoyance. Having done this, I again
walked northward till I reached the New Road. There I turned
aside to the west (having the men behind me all the time), and
waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some distance from
a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen to
pass me. One passed in a few minutes. I jumped in and told the
man to drive rapidly towards Hyde Park. There was no second fast
cab for the spies behind me. I saw them dart across to the other
side of the road, to follow me by running, until a cab or a cab-
stand came in their way. But I had the start of them, and when I
stopped the driver and got out, they were nowhere in sight. I
crossed Hyde Park and made sure, on the open ground, that I was
free. When I at last turned my steps homewards, it was not till
many hours later—not till after dark.

I found Marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room.
She had persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising to
show me her drawing the moment I came in. The poor little dim
faint sketch—so trifling in itself, so touching in its
associations—was propped up carefully on the table with two
books, and was placed where the faint light of the one candle we
allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best advantage. I sat
down to look at the drawing, and to tell Marian, in whispers, what
had happened. The partition which divided us from the next room
was so thin that we could almost hear Laura's breathing, and we
might have disturbed her if we had spoken aloud.

Marian preserved her composure while I described my interview with
Mr. Kyrle. But her face became troubled when I spoke next of the
men who had followed me from the lawyer's office, and when I told
her of the discovery of Sir Percival's return.

"Bad news, Walter," she said, "the worst news you could bring.
Have you nothing more to tell me?"

"I have something to give you," I replied, handing her the note
which Mr. Kyrle had confided to my care.

She looked at the address and recognised the handwriting
instantly.

"You know your correspondent?" I said.

"Too well," she answered. "My correspondent is Count Fosco."

With that reply she opened the note. Her face flushed deeply
while she read it—her eyes brightened with anger as she handed it
to me to read in my turn.

The note contained these lines—

"Impelled by honourable admiration—honourable to myself,
honourable to you—I write, magnificent Marian, in the interests
of your tranquillity, to say two consoling words—

"Fear nothing!

"Exercise your fine natural sense and remain in retirement. Dear
and admirable woman, invite no dangerous publicity. Resignation
is sublime—adopt it. The modest repose of home is eternally
fresh—enjoy it. The storms of life pass harmless over the valley
of Seclusion—dwell, dear lady, in the valley.

"Do this and I authorise you to fear nothing. No new calamity
shall lacerate your sensibilities—sensibilities precious to me as
my own. You shall not be molested, the fair companion of your
retreat shall not be pursued. She has found a new asylum in your
heart. Priceless asylum!—I envy her and leave her there.

"One last word of affectionate warning, of paternal caution, and I
tear myself from the charm of addressing you—I close these
fervent lines.

"Advance no farther than you have gone already, compromise no
serious interests, threaten nobody. Do not, I implore you, force
me into action—ME, the Man of Action—when it is the cherished
object of my ambition to be passive, to restrict the vast reach of
my energies and my combinations for your sake. If you have rash
friends, moderate their deplorable ardour. If Mr. Hartright
returns to England, hold no communication with him. I walk on a
path of my own, and Percival follows at my heels. On the day when
Mr. Hartright crosses that path, he is a lost man."

The only signature to these lines was the initial letter F,
surrounded by a circle of intricate flourishes. I threw the
letter on the table with all the contempt that I felt for it.

"He is trying to frighten you—a sure sign that he is frightened
himself," I said.

She was too genuine a woman to treat the letter as I treated it.
The insolent familiarity of the language was too much for her
self-control. As she looked at me across the table, her hands
clenched themselves in her lap, and the old quick fiery temper
flamed out again brightly in her cheeks and her eyes.

"Walter!" she said, "if ever those two men are at your mercy, and
if you are obliged to spare one of them, don't let it be the
Count."

"I will keep this letter, Marian, to help my memory when the time
comes."

She looked at me attentively as I put the letter away in my
pocket-book.

"When the time comes?" she repeated. "Can you speak of the future
as if you were certain of it?—certain after what you have heard
in Mr. Kyrle's office, after what has happened to you to-day?"

"I don't count the time from to-day, Marian. All I have done to-
day is to ask another man to act for me. I count from to-morrow—-"

"Why from to-morrow?"

"Because to-morrow I mean to act for myself."

"How?"

"I shall go to Blackwater by the first train, and return, I hope,
at night."

"To Blackwater!"

"Yes. I have had time to think since I left Mr. Kyrle. His
opinion on one point confirms my own. We must persist to the last
in hunting down the date of Laura's journey. The one weak point
in the conspiracy, and probably the one chance of proving that she
is a living woman, centre in the discovery of that date."

"You mean," said Marian, "the discovery that Laura did not leave
Blackwater Park till after the date of her death on the doctor's
certificate?"

"Certainly."

"What makes you think it might have been AFTER? Laura can tell us
nothing of the time she was in London."

"But the owner of the Asylum told you that she was received there
on the twenty-seventh of July. I doubt Count Fosco's ability to
keep her in London, and to keep her insensible to all that was
passing around her, more than one night. In that case, she must
have started on the twenty-sixth, and must have come to London one
day after the date of her own death on the doctor's certificate.
If we can prove that date, we prove our case against Sir Percival
and the Count."

"Yes, yes—I see! But how is the proof to be obtained?"

"Mrs. Michelson's narrative has suggested to me two ways of trying
to obtain it. One of them is to question the doctor, Mr. Dawson,
who must know when he resumed his attendance at Blackwater Park
after Laura left the house. The other is to make inquiries at the
inn to which Sir Percival drove away by himself at night. We know
that his departure followed Laura's after the lapse of a few
hours, and we may get at the date in that way. The attempt is at
least worth making, and to-morrow I am determined it shall be
made."

"And suppose it fails—I look at the worst now, Walter; but I will
look at the best if disappointments come to try us—suppose no one
can help you at Blackwater?"

"There are two men who can help me, and shall help me in London—
Sir Percival and the Count. Innocent people may well forget the
date—but THEY are guilty, and THEY know it. If I fail everywhere
else, I mean to force a confession out of one or both of them on
my own terms."