Ancestors: A Novel

  XV

  "Come up-stairs," said Zeal. "We are liable to interruption here."

  "Have they put you up decently?" asked Gwynne, with his mind's surface."The house is rather full."

  "I shall leave by the seven-o'clock train, and it must be three now. Ihave no intention of going to bed."

  "Is that wise? You look pretty seedy, old man. You haven't had ahemorrhage?" He almost choked as he brought the word out, and yet he wasnot in the least surprised when Zeal replied, tonelessly, "I hadforgotten I ever had a chest;" for his mind was vibrating with atelepathic message which his wits attacked fiercely and without avail.

  As they entered his room he pushed his cousin into an easy-chair andturned up the lamp on the writing-table. Then he planted his feet on thehearth-rug with a blind instinct to die standing.

  "Fire away, for God's sake," he said. "Something has happened. You knowyou can count on me, whatever it is."

  Zeal, who was sitting stiffly forward, his hands gripping the arms ofhis chair, laughed dryly. "You will be the chief sufferer. The othersdon't count."

  "Has my grandfather speculated once too often? Are we gone completelysmash?" Gwynne was rapidly assuring himself that he was now prepared forthe worst, that nothing should knock the props from under him again,that it was the sight of Zeal's face that had upset him; he was not oneto collapse before the stiff blows of life.

  "It is likely. Anyhow, if he lives long enough he'll make a mess of whatis left." He raised his head slowly, and once more Gwynne, as he metthose terrible haunted eyes, felt as Adam may have felt when he wasbeing bundled towards the exit of Eden. He braced himself unconsciously,and after Zeal's next words did not relax his body, although his lipsturned white and stiff.

  "I am going to kill myself some time to-day," said Zeal, in a voice soemotionless that Gwynne wondered idly if all his capacity for expressionhad gone to his eyes. "I should have done it several hours earlier, butI felt that I owed you an explanation. You can pass it on to mygrandfather when the time comes."

  He paused a moment, and then he too seemed to brace himself.

  "I killed Brathland," he said.

  Gwynne moistened his lips. "Poor old Zeal," he muttered. "It must be ahorrid sensation--"

  "To be a murderer? I can assure you it is."

  Gwynne's mind seemed to darken until only one luminous point confrontedit, the visible tormented soul of his kinsman. He walked over to thetable and mixed two tumblers of whiskey-and-soda, wondering why he hadnot thought of it before. They drank without haste, and then Gwynne tookthe chair opposite Zeal's.

  "Tell me all about it," he said.

  "Brathland and I had not been friends for some years. He was a bounder,and an ass in the bargain. I never, even when we were on speakingterms, made any particular effort to hide what I thought of him--itwasn't worth while. Of course, with every mother firing her girls at hishead, and the flatterers and toadies from whom a prospective duke cannotescape if he would, he had an opinion of himself that would have made methe object of his particular rancor, even if I hadn't cut him out withthree different women that couldn't marry either of us. When I got theverdict that I must pull up or go under, he chose that particular momentto take up with Stella Starr, the only woman I ever cared a pin for.Somehow, he got wind of my condition, and knowing that I would prefer toretire as gracefully as possible, it struck him as the refinement ofvengeance to make a laughing-stock of me when I was no longer in acondition to play the game out; to advertise me as a worn-out rake forwhom the world of Stella Starrs had no further use. We never spoke againuntil Friday night."

  He paused, then mixed and drank another whiskey-and-soda, lit acigarette, and resumed.

  "I had objected to his being let into the mine, which Vanneck's agentand private letters had persuaded the rest of us would make ourfortunes; but I was helpless, for he was not only Vanneck's cousin, buthis brother is out in Africa and also interested in the mine. Itherefore consented to attend the dinner at which the whole business wasto be discussed, fully intending to treat him as I should any strangerto whom I had just been introduced.

  "At first all went well enough. We had the private dining-room andsmoking-room on the second floor at the Club, the dinner was excellent,and Brathland, although nearly opposite me, behaved as decently as healways did when sober. It was champagne that let loose the bounder inhim, and that was one reason I always so thoroughly despised him: theman that is not a gentleman when he is drunk has no right to be alive atall.

  "We were not long discussing the mine threadbare, for we did not knowenough about it to enlarge into any picturesque details, and the agent,who had seen each of us separately, was not present. Raglin read apersonal letter from Vanneck, and Brathland another from Dick. Then, thesubject being exhausted long before we reached the end of dinner, wedrifted off to other topics; and went into the smoking-room with thecoffee.

  "It was at least six years since I had tasted anything stronger thanwhiskey-and-water, and what devil entered into me that night to drink aquart of champagne, and liqueurs, and pour port and brandy on top, thedevil himself only knows. Perhaps the old familiar sight of a lot ofgood fellows; most likely the vanity of forcing Brathland to believethat he beheld a rival as vigorous and dangerous as of old--I had gainedten pounds and was looking and feeling particularly fit. At all eventsthe mess affected me as alcohol never had done in even my salet days,and although my thoughts seemed to be moving in a crystal procession, Ibecame slowly obsessed with the desire to kill Brathland; whose face,chalky white, as it always was when he was drunk--and he always gotdrunk on less than any one else--filled me with a fury of disgust andhatred. My mind kept assuring this thing that straddled it that I hadnot the least intention of making an ass of myself; and that processionof thought, in order to support its confidence, entered into an argumentwith my conscience, which was in a corner and looked like a codfishstanding on its tail and grinning impotently. A jig of words escapedfrom the mouth of the codfish: copy-book maxims, Bible admonitions, thecommandments, legal statutes; all in one hideous mess that annoyed me soI slipped out, went up to my room, and pocketed a pistol. That logicalprocession of thought in my mind assured me that this unusual move at afriendly business dinner was merely in the way of self-protection, forBrathland had once been heard to say that he wished we were bothcow-boys on an American ranch so that he could put a bullet into mewithout taking the consequences--he never had a brain above shillingshockers. My thoughts, as they visibly combined and recombined in thecrystal vault of my skull, asserted confidently that he had been readingsuch stuff lately, and that, ten to one, he had a pistol in his pocket.

  "When I returned Brathland was standing by the hearth, supportinghimself by the chimney-piece. The rest were lying about in long chairs,smoking, and drinking whiskey-and-sodas. They were all sober enough, andBrathland looked the more of a beast by contrast.

  "I took a chair opposite him and ordered my thoughts to arrangethemselves in phrases that should pierce his mental hide and wither thevery roots of his self-esteem--his vanity was the one big thing abouthim. But he took his doom into his own hands and built it up like ahouse of cards.

  "'How does it feel to be drunk once more?' he asked, with his damnablesneer. 'It makes you look less of a hypochondriac, anyhow. "GrannyZeal"--that's what the girls call you.'

  "'If they do I've no doubt you taught them,' I replied, in tones as lowas his own. Several men were seated not far off, but neither of us hungout a storm signal.

  "'I did,' he said. 'Not but that I had had revenge enough. I had madeyou ridiculous--you with your damned superior airs--like that infantphenomenon cousin of yours who is making the family ass of himself overJulia Kaye--'

  "Those were his last words. I pulled the pistol and fired straight intohis abdomen--knew I couldn't miss him there.

  "God! what a commotion there was. He doubled up with a yell--just likehim. The men fairly bounded out of their chairs. There were two waitersin the room--just come in with Apollinaris. Rag
lin slammed the doors to,and, while Ormond and Hethrington laid Brathland out on a sofa, askedthe servants if they would hold their tongues until it was known whetherhe would die or not. They assented readily enough, knowing how damnedwell worth their while it was. Then he went off for a surgeon--didn'tdare telephone--went straight for a young fellow named Ballast hehappened to know, and asked him if he would probe for a bullet and callit appendicitis, for a thousand pounds. Apparently there was no timewasted in argument, for he returned in half an hour with his man. Thesurgeon probed for the bullet, but without success. Then he bandagedBrathland, had him carried up to Raglin's room, and sent for a nursethat he could trust.

  "We all regathered in the smoking-room, shut the waiters in thedining-room, and talked the matter over. By this time I was morehideously sober than I ever had been in my life. What they thought of meI neither knew nor cared, and it is doubtful if they knew themselves;their one thought was to keep the matter from getting out and draggingthe Club into a scandal; and of course Raglin was equally keen onsheltering the family, whether Brathland lived or died. Anyhow, I fancythey would have stood by me, for if we have no other virtue we do standby each other.

  "Practically the only question was the amount to be paid in blackmail,for every trace of the affair had been removed; even the smell ofantiseptics and ether had gone. We finally called the waiters in andoffered them four hundred each for their silence, or in the case ofBrathland's death--the surgeon held out hopes--a thousand. They coollyreplied they would take a thousand apiece before noon on the followingday, and ten thousand each in case of death. We--or rather Raglin andone or two others--jawed for an hour; but the wretches never yielded aninch. They had us on the hip and were not likely to be put off by anyamount of eloquence. Of course we caved in and God knows what amount offuture blackmail the Club is in for. Then there was the thousand for thesurgeon, and the nurse would expect a thousand more. Of course I mademyself responsible for the entire amount. Raglin insisted for a timeupon going halves--blood may be blood, but he had despised Bratty asmuch as I ever did--but of course I would not hear of it.

  "The next afternoon the surgeon probed again, and Brathland died underthe ether. The wound after probing looked sufficiently like an ordinaryincision to deceive any one. Raglin and Harold Lorcutt--who, of course,was told the truth--naturally had the body sealed up in lead beforetaking it north. The old duke and the women of the family are in a fairway to know nothing."

  He paused abruptly and lifted his eyes once more to Gwynne's, burstinginto a laugh that sounded like the crackling of fire under dry leaves.

  "Lovely story, ain't it?"

  But Gwynne made no reply. His mind, released, was working abnormally,and his face was as livid as his cousin's had been.

  Zeal rose. The narrative had excited him out of his apathy and physicalexhaustion, the confession shaken the rigidity from his mind. He plantedhimself on the hearth-rug with an air that approached nonchalance. Histhin clever face had a burning spot on either cheek, his sunken eyeswere no longer haunted, but brilliant and staring; his thin high noseand fine hands twitched slightly, as if his nerves were enjoying a toosudden release.

  "Heavenly sensation--to be a murderer. What beastly names things haveand how we are obsessed by them! The word rings in my brain night andday--I haven't slept three hours since it happened, and I never had theremotest hope that he would live. It's the second time in my life I'vebeen up against a cold ugly fact that stands by itself in a region whererhetoric doesn't enter. I believe I could tolerate the situation if I'ddone it in cold blood, if I'd thought it out, determined to gratify myhatred of the man; if, in short, the deed had been the offspring of myintelligence, for which I have always had a considerable respect. But tohave been under the control of a Thing, like any navvy, to be a criminalwithout the consent of my will--

  "I don't know that that fact alone would make life insupportable. Butthere are other and sufficient reasons. I shall never get the hideoussight of Brathland as he doubled up, and his horrid gurgling shriek, outof my mind this side of the grave. And I am practically cleaned out. Youknow how much I have left of my mother's property! It barely coverswhat I paid out to-day. There isn't a penny for the girls. They will bedependent on Strathland--as I should be if I lived; a position for whichI have as little relish as for that of a murderer on the loose. Andshould I ever be really safe? If this stinking quartet takes it into itshead to levy annual blackmail, where is the money coming from? I won'thave the others let in while I'm alive. If it did come to that--and ofcourse it would--I'd get out anyhow, so I may as well go now and savemyself further horrors. Besides, with all our precautions, we may haveoverlooked some significant detail, there may have been an eavesdropper,the undertakers may have had their suspicions--for all I know I may bearrested to-morrow--well, Jack, what would you do in my place?"

  Gwynne shook himself and stood up. "I don't know. I have been feeling asif I had killed Bratty myself. But I cannot imagine myself committingsuicide--talk about ugly words! In the first place I don't think thatone crime is any reason for committing another, and in the second--"

  "It is cowardly! You don't suppose that old standby slipped my mind, doyou? Well, I am a coward. There you have my dispassionate opinion ofmyself. I don't see myself in the prisoner's dock, in the graceful actof dangling from the end of a rope; or, if the judge was inclined tohave pity on the family, of dying in a prison hospital. Even if Itrumped up the necessary fortitude I should be a blacker villain than Iam to bring disgrace upon my five poor girls and the woman that haspromised to marry me, to say nothing of Vicky and yourself. Nor, on theother hand, do I see myself skulking in some hole abroad with the hueand cry after me. I have just as little appetite for the role of thehaunted man in comparative security. Well, what would you do yourself?"

  Gwynne shuddered. His own eyes were hunted. "How, in God's name, can anyman tell what he would do until he is in the same hole? I should like tothink that I would speak out and take the consequences. There is littledanger of your swinging, and as for imprisonment--one way or anotheryou've got to answer for your crime, and it seems to me that the honestthing is to accept the penalty of the law you live under."

  "Well, it doesn't to me," said Zeal, coolly, and lighting anothercigarette. "I asked the question merely out of curiosity, as theworkings of your mind always interest me. But I have quite made up myown mind. The only reason I hesitated a moment--to be exact, it was halfa day--was on your account. Of course I know what my death will mean toyou."

  "It was for that reason I was almost coward enough not to remonstrate."Gwynne scratched a match several times before he succeeded in getting alight. "Nevertheless, I meant it."

  "Don't doubt it. And I am sorry--it is about the only regret I shalltake with me, that and some remorse on account of the girls. I supposeStrathland will throw them a bone each--"

  "I will look out for them. But you are not bent on this horror!" heburst out. Wild plans of drugging his cousin, of locking him up, chasedthrough his mind, and at the same time he was sick with the certainty ofhis own impotence. He knew his cousin, and he had the sensation that anilluminated scroll of fate dangled before his eyes.

  Zeal nodded. His excitement, his fears, had left him. He felt somethingof the swagger in calm peculiar to the condemned in their final hour,that last great rally of the nerves to feed the fires of courage. Hefinished his cigarette and flung himself on the sofa.

  "Wake me at twenty to seven, will you?" he asked. "I have ordered thetrap."