Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1348 page)

The events of the next morning altered the whole complexion of affairs fatally for the worse.

Arriving at the cottage, I found a man prostate on the road, dead drunk — and the Cur’s servant looking at him.

“May I ask something?” the man said. “Have you been having my master watched?”

“Yes.”

“Bad news, in that case, sir. Your man there is a drunken vagabond; and my master has gone to London by the first train.”

When I had recovered the shock, I denied, for the sake of my own credit, that the brute on the road could be a servant of mine.

“Why not, sir?”

“Do you think I should have been kept in ignorance of it, if my gamekeeper had been a drunkard? His fellow servants would have warned me.”

The man smiled. “I’m afraid, sir, you don’t know much about servants. It’s a point of honour among us never to tell tales of each other to our masters.”

I began to wish that I had never left Germany. The one course to take now was to tell the lawyer what had happened. I turned away to get back, and drive at once to the town. The servant remembered, what I had forgotten — the five pound note.

“Wait and hear my report, sir,” he suggested.

The report informed me: First, that Mr. Toller was at the mill, and had been there for some time past. Secondly: that the Cur had been alone, for a while, on Mr. Toller’s side of the cottage, in Mr. Toiler’s absence — for what purpose his servant had not discovered. Thirdly: that the Cur had returned to his room in a hurry, and had packed a few things in his travelling-bag. Fourthly: that he had ordered the servant to follow, with his luggage, in a fly which he would send from the railway station, and to wait at the London terminus for further orders. Fifthly, and lastly: that it was impossible to say whether the drunkenness of the gamekeeper was due to his own habits, or to temptation privately offered by the very person whose movements he had been appointed to watch.

I paid the money. The man pocketed it, and paid me a compliment in return: “I wish I was your servant, sir.”

CHAPTER XVII

UTTER FAILURE

My lawyer took a serious view of the disaster that had overtaken us. He would trust nobody but his head clerk to act in my interests, after the servant had been followed to the London terminus, and when it became a question of matching ourselves against the deadly cunning of the man who had escaped us.

Provided with money, and with a letter to the police authorities in London, the head clerk went to the station. I accompanied him to point out the servant (without being allowed to show myself), and then returned to wait for telegraphic information at the lawyer’s office.

This was the first report transmitted by the telegram:

The Cur had been found waiting for his servant at the terminus; and the two had been easily followed to the railway hotel close by. The clerk had sent his letter of introduction to the police — had consulted with picked men who joined him at the hotel — had given the necessary instructions — and would return to us by the last train in the evening.

In two days, the second telegram arrived.

Our man had been traced to the Thames Yacht Club in Albemarle Street — had consulted a yachting list in the hall — and had then travelled to the Isle of Wight. There, he had made inquiries at the Squadron Yacht Club, and the Victoria Yacht Club — and had returned to London, and the railway hotel.

The third telegram announced the utter destruction of all our hopes. As far as Marseilles, the Cur had been followed successfully, and in that city the detective officers had lost sight of him.

My legal adviser insisted on having the men sent to him to explain themselves. Nothing came of it but one more repetition of an old discovery. When the detective police force encounters intelligence instead of stupidity, in seven cases out of ten the detective police force is beaten.

There were still two persons at our disposal. Lady Rachel might help us, as I believed, if she chose to do it. As for old Toller, I suggested (on reflection) that the lawyer should examine him. The lawyer declined to waste any more of my money. I called again on Lady Rachel. This time, I was let in. I found the noble lady smoking a cigarette and reading a French novel.

“This is going to be a disagreeable interview,” she said. “Let us get it over, Mr. Roylake, as soon as possible. Tell me what you want — and speak as freely as if you were in the company of a man.”

I obeyed her to the letter; and I got these replies:

“Yes; I did have a talk, in your best interests, with Miss Toller. She is as sensible as she is charming, and as good as she is sensible. We entirely agreed that the sacrifice must be on her side; and that it was due to her own self-respect to prevent a gentleman of your rank from ruining himself by marrying a miller’s daughter.”

The next reply was equally free from the smallest atom of sympathy on Lady Rachel’s part.

“You are quite right — your deaf man was at his window when I went by. We recognised each other and had a long talk. If I remember correctly, he said you knew of his reasons for concealing his name. I gave my promise (being a matter of perfect indifference to me) to conceal it too. One thing led to another, and I discovered that you were his hated rival in the affections of Miss Toller. I proved worthy of his confidence in me. That is to say, I told him that Mrs. Roylake and I would be only too glad, as representing your interests, if he succeeded in winning the young lady. I asked if he had any plans. He said one of his plans had failed. What it was, and how it had failed, he did not mention. I asked if he could devise nothing else. He said, “Yes, if I was not a poor man.” In my place, you would have offered, as I did, to find the money if the plan was approved of. He produced some manuscript story of an abduction of a lady, which he had written to amuse himself. The point of it was that the lover successfully carried away the lady, by means of a boat, while the furious father’s attention was absorbed in watching the high road. It seemed to me to be a new idea. “If you think you can carry it out,” I said, “send your estimate of expenses to me and Mrs. Roylake, and we will subscribe.” We received the estimate. But the plan has failed, and the man is off. I am quite certain myself that Miss Toller has done what she promised to do. Wherever she may be now, she has sacrificed herself for your sake. When you have got over it, you will marry my sister. I wish you good morning.”

Between Lady Rachel’s hard insolence, and Mrs. Roylake’s sentimental hypocrisy, I was in such a state of irritation that I left Trimley Deen the next morning, to find forgetfulness, as I rashly supposed, in the gay world of London.

I had been trying my experiment for something like three weeks, and was beginning to get heartily weary of it, when I received a letter from the lawyer.

“Dear Sir, — Your odd tenant, old Mr. Toller, has died suddenly of rupture of a blood-vessel on the brain, as the doctor thinks. There is to be an inquest, as I need hardly tell you. What do you say to having the report of the proceedings largely copied in the newspapers? If it catches his daughter’s eye, important results may follow.”

To speculate in this way on the impulse which might take its rise in my poor girl’s grief — to surprise her, as it were, at her father’s grave — revolted me. I directed the lawyer to take no steps whatever in the matter, and to pay the poor old fellow’s funeral expenses, on my account. He had died intestate. The law took care of his money until his daughter appeared; and the mill, being my property, I gave to Toller’s surviving partner — our good Gloody.

And what did I do next? I went away travelling; one of the wretchedest men who ever carried his misery with him to foreign countries. Go where I might on the continent of Europe, the dreadful idea pursued me that Cristel might be dead.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MISTRESS OF TRIMLEY DEEN

Three weary months had passed, when a new idea was put into my head by an Englishman whom I met at Trieste. He advised turning my back on Europe, and trying the effect of scenes of life that would be new to me. I hired a vessel, and sailed out of the civilized world. When I next stood on
terra firma,
my feet were on the lovely beach of one of the Pacific Islands.

What I suffered I have not told yet, and do not design to tell. The bitterness of those days hid itself from view at the time — and shall keep its concealment still. Even if I could dwell on my sorrows with the eloquence of a practised writer, some obstinate inner reluctance would persist in holding me dumb.

More than a year had passed before I returned to Trimley Deen, and alarmed my stepmother by “looking like a foreign sailor.”

The irregular nature of my later travels had made it impossible to forward the few letters that had arrived for me. They were neatly laid out on the library table.

The second letter that I took up bore the postmark of Genoa. I opened it, and discovered that the —

No! I cannot write of him by that mean name; and his own name is still unknown to me. Let me call him — and, oh, don’t think that I am deceived again! — let me call him the Penitent.

The letter had been addressed to me from his deathbed, and had been written under dictation. It contained an extraordinary enclosure — a small torn fragment of paper with writing on it.

“Read the poor morsel that I send to you first” (the letter began). “My time on earth is short; you will save me explanations which may be too much for my strength.”

On one side of the fragment, I found these words:

“... cruise to the Mediterranean for my wife’s health. If Cristel isn’t afraid of passing some months at sea...”

On the other side, there was a fragment of conclusion:

“... thoroughly understand. All ready. Write word what night, and what ... loving brother, Stephen Toller.”

I instantly remembered the miller’s rich brother; thinking of him for the first time since he had been in my mind for a moment, on the night of my meeting with Cristel. On the fourteenth page of this narrative Toller’s brother will be found briefly alluded to in a few lines.

I returned eagerly to the letter. Thus it was continued:

“That bit of torn paper I found under the bed, while I was secretly searching Mr. Toller’s room. I had previously suspected You. From my own examination of his face, when he refused to humour my deafness by writing what I asked him to tell me, I suspected Mr. Toller next. You will see in the fragment, what I saw — that Toller the brother had a yacht, and was going to the Mediterranean; and that Toller the miller had written, asking him to favour Cristel’s escape. The rest, Cristel herself can tell you.

“I know you had me followed. At Marseilles, I got tired of it, and gave your men the slip. At every port in the Mediterranean I inquired for the yacht, and heard nothing of her. They must have changed their minds on board, and gone somewhere else. I refer you to Cristel again.

“Arrived at Genoa, on my way back to England, I met with a skilled Italian surgeon. He declared that he could restore my hearing — but he warned me that I was in a weak state of health, and he refused to answer for the result of the operation. Without hesitating for a moment, I told him to operate. I would have given fifty lives for one exquisite week of perfect hearing. I have had three weeks of perfect hearing. Otherwise, I have had a life of enjoyment before I die.

“It is useless to ask your pardon. My conduct was too infamous for that. Will you remember the family taint, developed by a deaf man’s isolation among his fellow-creatures? But I had some days when my mother’s sweet nature tried to make itself felt in me, and did not wholly fail. I am going to my mother now: her spirit has been with me ever since my hearing was restored; her spirit said to me last night: “Atone, my son! Give the man whom you have wronged, the woman whom he loves.” I had found out the uncle’s address in England (which I now enclose) at one of the Yacht Clubs. I had intended to go to the house, and welcome her on her return. You must go instead of me; you will see that lovely face when I am in my grave. Good-bye, Roylake. The cold hand that touches us all, sooner or later, is very near to me. Be merciful to the next scoundrel you meet, for the sake of The Cur.”