The Tigress

"Did you think I could leave you with him – alone?" he asked.

"But your business?"

"My business can wait. You needed me."

She gave him her hand.

"I am sick to my very soul," she said miserably. "I have abased myself and been kicked in the face."

"But he is not responsible," he reminded her; "you know that. I can conceive of nothing more pitiable."

She straightened herself, sitting erect.

"I know it. For just a little I thought only of myself. Something must be done. But what? I feel so helpless."

"He'll probably be refused admission to the gardens," said Andrews.

"Then he's sure to make trouble," Nina declared. "There will be a scene and exposure. He may be hurt, too."

"Why not try the sphinx solicitor yourself? I'll go with you."

She sprang up at that.

"It's the only way," she agreed. "He must do something. I'll make him do something."

Five minutes later they were in a taxicab together, rolling through the rain to Fleet Street. Arrived at the Inner Temple, old Mr. Widdicombe received Nina with chilling politeness. She was painfully nervous and obviously distressed.

"I've come about Lord Kneedrock," she said, fingering her handkerchief. "Have you seen him recently?"

Mr. Widdicombe nodded. "I have, Mrs. Darling," he said.

"How recently?"

"Within the month."

"Did you observe anything singular in his manner? Did he appear – "

"His manner has always been more or less singular."

"Did he appear less rational than usual, I mean?" she persisted.

"He was quite rational. Quite so."

"Well, he isn't now," said Nina bluntly. "He's quite the reverse. It may be simply a nervous disorder – I sincerely trust so – but he appears to be mad."

Mr. Widdicombe rubbed together his lean hands.

"You sent me that message this morning," he reminded her. "His lordship was then in my office."

"Here – then?" Her surprise was manifest.

"In an inner room. The door was ajar, and I fancy he heard every word of your messenger's statement."

"Is that what you meant by 'within the month'?" She felt somehow that she had been trapped.

"This morning was within the month. I made a statement of fact, did I not?"

His skin was like yellow parchment, crisscrossed with incised lines. Those at the sides of his mouth moved outward, which was as near as Lord Kneedrock's solicitor ever came to a smile.

Nina sprang to her feet in a rage. "You are quite impossible, Mr. Widdicombe!" she flared. "There are none so blind as those that won't see. I came to you for assistance, and you treat the matter – the very grave matter – as though it were a joke."

"I treat all matters just as I find them, Mrs. Darling," was his calm retort.

"Viscount Kneedrock is mad," she affirmed, mincing the manifest fact no longer.

The solicitor bowed.

"If so, I deplore it," he said; "but he has had quite enough in his life to make him so."

Upon Nina the veiled allusion was not lost.

"That is neither here nor there," she rejoined sharply. "We are only losing time in discussion. He must be saved from himself, whatever the cost."

Again there appeared that makeshift for a smile.

"If you had only thought of that sooner, Mrs. Darling," he murmured.

"I did not come here for your recriminations. I came for your aid," was her reply. "Will you come to Regent's Park and use your influence?"

But Mr. Widdicombe shook his head with some emphasis.

"Certainly not. I have no influence to use. I am a solicitor – neither an alienist nor a wet-nurse." He bowed for the third time. "I have the honor to bid you a very good morning."

Nina, in a state between rage and despair, rejoined Gerald Andrews in the visitors' room.

"He is a beast!" she said with trembling voice. "An abominable old boor! There is but one thing left for us to do. We must go alone, and pray God we are not too late to avert trouble."

They made all the haste possible, assisted and abetted by a well-driven taxicab with a fairly good engine. But they were too late to avert trouble, nevertheless.

There had been a disturbance in the tiger-house, and Lord Kneedrock had been seriously, perhaps mortally, injured.

CHAPTER XXIX

The Mantle of Heroism

It was generally conceded that the Earl of Dumphreys was eccentric. He was an ardent disciple of Tolstoy, and lived on his estate in the North in the simplest fashion, unshaven and unshorn, and affecting coarse girdled robes and sandals.

Despite his titles and his lands, he was as much out of the world as though he rested with his sires beneath the gray stones of Dumphreys Abbey.