The Crime and the Criminal

Lucy turned on her heels. Without another word she left the room.

CHAPTER VII

A VISITOR

These might be a silver lining to the cloud. If there was, I should have liked to have had a peep at it. Just then it would have done me good. I could not see much promise of happiness either in the near or in the distant future. I had been reading a good deal lately about the "ethics of suicide." If my wife believed me guilty, I should find it difficult to convince a judge and jury of my innocence. I might as well commit suicide as hang. I should be the victim of a judicial murder if they did hang me; but I did not see how my situation would be materially improved by that.

Such reflections did not tend to make me sleep. As a matter of fact, I never closed my eyes. The consequence was that, when the time came for me to rise and start for the City, I was ill-really ill. My head burned. It felt every moment as if it would burst. I could not see out of my eyes. The paroxysms of indigestion from which I suffered bent me double. My wife came and found me in this condition.

"You are not looking well," she said.

I was aware of that without her telling me. I could not see how it could be otherwise, suffering as I was suffering then. If ever there was an object of pity, I felt that I was one. But there did not seem to be much pity either in her voice, words, or manner. I said nothing in reply to her remark. I only groaned.

"Will you have your breakfast in bed?"

"I don't want any breakfast, thank you."

"Shall I send for Dr. Ferguson? Though I don't know if he is an authority on dipsomania."

"Lucy! don't talk to me like that!"

"Why not? I merely made a statement of fact. And, of course, you are suffering from the after effects of overindulgence."

That was a charming fashion in which to endeavour to smooth the pillow of an invalid. I changed the subject.

"How is Minna?"

Minna is my little girl-a little fair-haired darling she is. With all her father's tender-heartedness; more-with, I hope, some of that father's power of forgiving injuries.

"I am going to send her away to-day."

"Send her away?"

"Certainly. I have not yet made up my mind whether I shall go with her myself or send nurse with her alone. Are you well enough to enter into a discussion?"

"No," I said; "I'm not."

Nor was I. At that moment I was neither mentally nor physically her equal. Since, at any time, Lucy has about nine-parts of speech to my one, I had no intention of measuring myself against her, conversationally and argumentatively, when I had none.

I was ill four days. So ill that I could not leave my bed. At least, I was clear upon that point, if no one else was. I am almost inclined to suspect that Lucy had her doubts; or she pretended to have them. I am disposed to believe that she would not have allowed me to have stayed in bed at all if she had had her way. She threw out hints about the necessity of attending to matters in the City; though I explained to her, as clearly as my illness would permit me, that in the City things were absolutely stagnant. Then she dropped hints upon more delicate subjects still; but to these I resolutely turned a deaf ear. I vowed that I was too ill to listen.

However, on the afternoon of the fourth day things reached a climax. Facts became too strong for me. I had to listen. Lucy came into the room with an envelope in her hand.

"There is some one who wishes to see you."

I supposed it was Parker, my senior clerk. He had been backwards and forwards bothering me two or three times a day.

"Is it Parker?"

"No. It is a stranger to me. I believe you will find his name in that envelope. He would not give it me."

I opened the envelope which she handed to me. It contained half a sheet of paper, on which was written, "The gentleman who travelled in the next compartment to yours." At sight of those words I sat up in bed-rather hurriedly, I fancy.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed; "where is he? I hope you haven't let him in."

"Jane let him in. At present he is in the drawing-room waiting to see you."

"It's that blackmailing ruffian."

I gave her the sheet of paper.

"I guessed he was something of the kind. So this is the man who holds you in the hollow of his hand? I see."

She might see, but I didn't. There was about her vision a clearness and coolness which made me shudder. It was dreadful to hear her talk in that cold-blooded way about anybody "holding me in the hollow of his hand." She continued to regard me in a manner which I had noticed about her once or twice of late, and which, although I said nothing about it, I resented.

"Perhaps now I may be allowed to talk to you as if you were a reasonable man. During the last few days I have hardly known whether you wished me to regard you as a child."

"My dear!"

"You have been lying there, pretending to be ill, doing nothing, and worse than nothing, while your fate and my fate has been hanging by a hair. I had not thought that my husband could be so contemptible a thing."

"Really, Lucy, I wish you wouldn't speak to me like that."

"Possibly. I have discovered, too late, how you dislike to hear unpleasant things."

"I don't know that I am peculiar in that respect."

"I don't doubt that there are other backboneless creatures in existence besides yourself-unfortunately for their children and their wives."

"Lucy, I won't have you talk to me like that-I won't."

"Then get up and play the man! Do you know that the hue and cry is out all over England for you?"

"For me?"

"For the man who threw the woman from the train. 'The Three Bridges Tragedy,' they've christened it. The papers are full of it; it is the topic of the day. They have found the carriage from which she was thrown. It seems that it was all in disorder and stained with blood, and that the window was broken. You said nothing about that to me. They have found the porter who saw her into your carriage. Who was it saw you off from Brighton?"

"Jack and George. Why do you ask?"

"Because the porter who admitted her to your carriage declares that you were talking to two gentleman. They are looking for them now."

"Surely they will never make Jack and George give evidence against me."

"You may be sure they will. A porter has come forward who says he saw you in the carriage at Victoria. He has given a description of you, which is sufficiently like you to show that he will probably recognise you if he sees you again. It seems that the only thing they are in want of is your name."

I sank back in bed, appalled. The prospect, in my weak state, was too terrible for contemplation. It seemed incredible that a wholly innocent man could, by any possibility, be placed in such a situation.

My wife went on, her voice seeming to ring in my ears almost as if it had been a knell of doom-