The Last Call: A Romance (Vol. 3 of 3)

CHAPTER IX

At half-past six a train left Rathclare for Dublin. The evenings were now cold and short. It was getting near winter, the end of autumn. As the train was about to start from the platform, a man with the collar of a large boat-cloak turned up about his ears, and a soft felt hat pressed low over his brows, stepped into an unoccupied first-class compartment, and took his seat. He did not speak to the guard who checked his ticket, nor had the guard any opportunity of seeing his face, as the man in the cloak kept his face carefully averted. He sat muffled up in the corner without moving, hour after hour, as the train sped on through the darkness. Every time the speed slackened and they drew near a station at which they were to stop, he shook himself slightly, straightened his hat down over his eyes, and pushed up the collar of his cloak. All the way from Rathclare to Dublin fortune favoured him, if he desired to be alone. For, although they stopped several times, and came to a junction where he had to change, he succeeded in making his journey in solitude. On three occasions the door of the compartment in which he sat had been opened, and a passenger was about to step in. On each occasion that passenger drew back, repelled by the motionless, dark figure, and by a sense of solitude surrounding that figure. Not one of the three passengers knew what it was which gave the air of this solitude, and yet each had felt that around that motionless figure were gloom and loneliness which startled and repelled. Yet the reason was very simple. Between that muffled form and the surrounding world there was no link, no band of union, however slight. There was an absolute figure, set in the absolute vacuity of the compartment. Beside, above, or beneath that figure was no article such as is usually seen by a traveller. No baggage of any kind; no stick; no umbrella; no newspaper; no rug; no book; no bag. Nothing but the bare figure and the bare compartment. Under that hat and cloak a form of terror or of danger might lie hidden, and it would not be pleasant to sit there, when practically beyond human aid, speculating on what that hat and that cloak hid. It would be still less pleasant if suddenly that cloak and that hat revealed what they hid, and it was found to be a figure of menace or of danger. At the Kingsbridge Terminus, Dublin, the solitary man got into a cab, and said briefly to the driver: "Westland Row Station." When he arrived there he learned he was a couple of hours too soon for the Holyhead mail. He paid the cabman, and went to a hotel close by, where travellers may wait up for the mail, and have food and drink while they wait. Here he ordered some light refreshment, and getting into a corner of the large coffee-room, and turning his back to the room, he ate and drank without removing his cloak or hat. When it was announced that it was time to be stirring for the mail, the cloaked man rose, walked rapidly to the station, and took a first-class single ticket to Euston. When he got on board the boat he secured a berth, lay down, and did not move until the passengers were summoned for landing. Late in the forenoon he got into the train at Holyhead. Here he was not so fortunate as he had been in his Irish journey. He had to share a compartment with three others. Still he remained muffled up, silent, motionless. Hour after hour went by, and he never moved, beyond occasionally adjusting the collar of his cloak or his soft felt hat. On his arrival in London he seemed undecided for a while as to what he should do, for he walked up and down the platform at Euston until all the other passengers had left. He spoke to no one. He did not answer any of the porters who asked him if he wanted a cab, and, finally, he left the terminus on foot, and, taking a southerly direction, walked straight on for half-an-hour. It was now quite dark, and had been dark for some time. He did not look to the right or the left, but kept straight on through a line of dingy third-class streets. Then, coming out on a busy thoroughfare, he took a hansom and gave the address of a quiet hotel in the City. When he arrived at his destination he said he needed no refreshment, and desired to be shown at once to a bedroom. Had the gentleman no luggage? No luggage. The man seemed to hesitate. At this the traveller held out a handful of gold, saying: "Take some of this; I shall be here a few days." The man still seemed to waver. "Be good enough to keep five pounds for me until I want them, and let me have a bed at once." He was then shown to a room. He bolted and locked the door on the inside, and no more was heard of him till morning. Then he rang his bell, and asked if he could have breakfast in a private room. He was told he could. He ordered his breakfast, and came down at the time he was told it would be ready for him. He remained in all that day, and passed the time in reading newspapers of the current day and of a few days back. When it was night he went out, drove to a street off the Strand, and asked at a house there if Mr. Dominique Lavirotte was in. Mr. Lavirotte was not in. He was still in the hospital, and would not be home until the third day from that. The traveller, still wearing the cloak and hat, drove back to his hotel, and spent the remaining three days indoors reading the newspapers. In the meantime, the inquest on the body of Lionel Crawford had taken place. The jury had returned an open verdict, and the mortal remains of Lionel Crawford had been committed to earth under the management of Mr. John Cassidy. Lavirotte had been brought from the hospital to where the inquest was held, and told his story. The medical evidence was that there was no sign of violence before death on the body. The cuts and bruises discovered were consistent with Lavirotte's story-that is to say, they might have been inflicted after death by the falling stones and wood. But the police were not quite satisfied. They had ascertained from the police at Glengowra the particulars of the case in which Lavirotte had played a part some months ago. They shook their heads, deplored the fact that the medical evidence was in accord with Lavirotte's story, and had grave suspicions that what the medical evidence called syncope might have been the result of a drug and not of mere unaided nature. In fact, the police inclined to the belief there had been foul play. At about seven o'clock on the evening of the fourth, day after the traveller called first at Lavirotte's lodgings he once more drove there, and without sending up a name asked if he might see Mr. Dominique Lavirotte. Word came down that the gentleman was to be shown up. When he was shown into the room, where Lavirotte sat alone in an easy-chair, he threw aside his hat and cloak and said: "Dominique Lavirotte, you are suspected of murdering Lionel Crawford, as you are suspected of having attempted to murder my son. As I came along this street, and while I was delayed at the door, I saw two men idling about-I took them for detectives." "For God's sake, what do you mean, Mr. O'Donnell?" "That the police are watching you; that in all likelihood you will swing for the murder of that old man in that lonely tower; and that you deserve to swing for your attempt to murder my son, and your deliberate trifling with me in my cruel necessity." "I never trifled with you, Mr. O'Donnell," cried Lavirotte feebly. "You lie, sir!" cried the old man, suddenly flushing up, drawing his right hand from his back pocket and placing the muzzle of a revolver within three feet of Lavirotte's breast.

CHAPTER X

For a while neither James O'Donnell nor Dominique Lavirotte moved. At last the old man said: "Whether I shoot you or not is a matter of perfect indifference to me. There would be no pity, no shame in doing so. I look on myself as a dead man, and I am not only dead in my own eyes, but also dishonoured. I do not say you were the cause of my dishonour, but you are a criminal with regard to my son, and an unprincipled liar with regard to myself. I do not know why I am talking to you. The sight of your dead body would be better for me than those shaking limbs and that craven face. Shall I put you out of your pain? Shall I fire?" "For God's sake, Mr. O'Donnell, put down that dreadful thing, and let us talk like men." "You a man!" cried the old man, in a low, scoffing voice. "Who, in the darkness of the night, sprang upon an unarmed man, who had never done you any harm, and sought to stab him to death without giving him one chance for his life! You, who not only did this, but did this to your greatest friend, call yourself a man! You are a low, mean, cowardly hound, and shooting is too good for you!" A queer look came into Lavirotte's eyes. "If you put down that revolver," he said more collectedly, and with a ghastly smile, "I will tell you how all that thing happened. How is it that, although, as you say-to my shame I confess it-I made a murderous assault upon my dear good friend Eugene-" "If you wish to live a few minutes longer," said James O'Donnell, "you had better give up that horrible, lying slang of dear good friend Eugene. I am in no humour to dry the crocodile's tears of an arch-blasphemous hypocrite like you." Lavirotte seemed gaining courage. With a wave of his hand he put aside the old man's violent interruption and proceeded: "How is it that, after an occurrence such as you describe, Eugene forgave me?" "Because he is too noble and good a fellow for a cowardly wretch like you to know." Lavirotte now smiled a smile of self-assurance and ease. "Mr. O'Donnell," he said, making a motion towards a chair, "have the goodness to sit down. This house is not all my own. I rent only two rooms, this one and the one behind. I do not think it would be fair of you to disturb the quiet of this house with anything so rude as a pistol-shot, or to shock the susceptibilities of my good friends here with anything so revolting as a murder. But if you will drop that revolver I'll tell you something about that affair with your son you never heard before, and which, perhaps, even to your blind and bigoted mind, may put a new aspect on the matter." The old man dropped his arm in mute amazement at this attack. He had come there with the intention of shooting Lavirotte, after reproaching him violently for the injuries he had inflicted and the hopes he had betrayed. And now, here was Lavirotte coolly turning on him, abusing him instead of sitting mutely under his reproaches, and smiling with as much assurance as though he were the person with the grievance who was about to extend mercy. "It would be," said Lavirotte, "more convenient and comfortable if you sat down. I am scarcely strong enough to stand. You say you are a dead man. I am a man only very slightly alive." "I will never, sir," said the old man, "sit down in the presence of a scoundrel such as you, again." "I was never very intimate with you, Mr. O'Donnell-" "Never, thank Heaven, sir." "Because I always had a natural aversion from fools." "Fool, sir! Fool! Do you mean to say I am a fool?" "Yes, a pitiable fool. Who but a pitiable fool would entrust the savings of a lifetime to a sanctimonious old swindler like Vernon? I never yet met a man who made a parade of his religion that was not as great a villain as his courage would allow. But I am getting away from the point. I was saying a little while ago does it not seem strange to you that Eugene should forgive me utterly after I had attempted to murder him?" "I said no, sir. The boy was always distinguished by his generosity." "Does it not seem strange to you that I, being Eugene's great friend, should have made a murderous attack upon him without any cause known to you?" "No, sir; it does not seem strange. It would seem strange to me if you had acted according to any ordinary principle of honour or honesty." "But why, in the name of reason, should I attack Eugene, my dearest and best friend?" "Because he was your dearest and best friend, and it satisfied the demands of your vile nature that you should sacrifice the man who was your most intimate friend." "No; that was not the reason. That is what a shallow-pated fool might think. Something of greater moment than the virtues or vices I possess was the cause of it." "Ay, some foolish quarrel between two young men. Perhaps you were both heated in argument; perhaps you had both been too free with liquor. But, however you put it, or however high the anger of you both may have gone, only a coward and scoundrel would take a man unawares and attempt to stab him. Young men may have their quarrels; but in these countries, sir, young men do not in their quarrels use the knife!" The old man was still standing a few feet distant from the chair in which Lavirotte sat. His left hand was clenched behind his back. His right hung down by his side, holding the revolver. "There was no quarrel of any kind. We had not even been together that night. I waited for him. I lay in hiding for him, and as he was passing by I sprang at him and tried to kill him without a word of warning." "Infamous monster," cried the old man, shaking with rage. "Do you mean to tell his father this?" James O'Donnell's hand tightened on the revolver, and without raising his wrist he threw the muzzle slightly upward. "Keep your hand still, sir. Keep your hand still. You came here to shoot me because I had failed to keep a promise which I had every reason to hope I could keep. You came here to shoot me, because, through no fault of mine, but through your own stupid wrong-headedness, you, in the decline of life, found yourself commercially a ruined man. You have had a long and prosperous career. I have had nothing but struggles and difficulties and disappointments all my life, short as it is. Suppose for a moment that Eugene, without knowing it, ruined all my life, all my future." "I can suppose nothing so absolutely absurd." "Then, sir, your want of imagination in this thing only confirms my former opinion of you-you are a fool. Keep your hand quiet. It might be a satisfaction for you to murder me when you came in first, and when your faith in my wickedness was without a flaw. But it will not do now, and you would have no more comfort in shooting me at this moment than you would in facing all the widows and orphans made by that bank, that rotten concern which you in your infatuation believed to be sound, which paid you heavy dividends for your money and your consent to be stupid, and which in the end reduced thousands of simple, thrifty folk to penury. Sir, will you put that pistol down on the table and take a chair?" This was even a still more unexpected attack than the former one. Mr. O'Donnell's mind was thrown into some confusion by finding that he was not only opposed in the field where he had made sure of success, but that his flanks were turned while he had been announcing victory to himself. Never in the whole course of his life had anyone before seriously questioned even his judgment, not to say the foundations of his honesty. And here was the very man for whom he entertained the greatest contempt and loathing, calmly assuming a superior tone and impugning the honesty of one who had hitherto been regarded as impeccable. In a dazed, stupid way he put the revolver on the table and took the chair, as he had been asked. "Now, sir, it is time you knew all. Your son is now happily married to a woman I once madly loved. Remember, I am not using the word 'madly' in any figurative or poetic sense; I am talking the commonest and most ordinary prose. I loved her madly, notwithstanding the fact that I was engaged to be married to another woman. And without knowing that he did it, and to tell the truth, after I had been rejected by her, he made love to her and succeeded. Then it was that something rose within me, which you have to-night called by a variety of names, which others would call hate, jealousy, revenge, but perhaps which might be called insanity more truly than anything else. I am sure I must have been mad at the time. I remember nothing of it but a hurry in my head, a tumult in my blood, a wild desire to do something that I knew was not right, and yet which I knew I must do. Then I remember no more until I awoke healed of the fever of madness and hurt in the encounter with Eugene." He rose from his chair heavily as he spoke, crossed to the table where the revolver lay, took up the weapon, and said: "A capital revolver-a splendid revolver, sir-a six-chamber one. According to our own showing neither of us has much to live for; and according to your showing the hangman would be the only person seriously injured if I committed suicide. If you are disposed to have half of this I promise to take the other half, and then we shall both be quits." "Are you mad again?" "Not yet; but I feel it coming on."

CHAPTER XI

"Personally," continued Lavirotte, "I have no desire to shoot you. You are at perfect liberty to live. But as you were so sure a little while ago that you were a dead man, and I was one also, it doesn't make much difference who pulls the trigger. Yet I think, before we take our final leave of the world, it would be just as well we had a quiet little chat." "You don't mean to say," cried James O'Donnell, "that you would murder me in cold blood?" "How can I murder you in cold blood, or in heat, since you say you are already dead? When a man is dead to the law, as in the case of a man sentenced to death, no one ever thinks of calling the hangman's office that of a murderer. Viewing your case from my point, I cannot see that death would be any grievous harm to you. By your stupid folly you have ruined yourself, your family, and been accessory to the ruin of hundreds. You are old, and have no reason to hope for any great prolongation of life. Outside your own business you never have been remarkable for any quality which could now bring you bread. Candidly, Mr. O'Donnell, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't die, and why I shouldn't shoot you." The old man was paralysed with horror, and did not speak. In the fury of his disappointment and despair it was easy for him to think he would come to London and kill Lavirotte and then himself, but since he had entered that room, and Lavirotte had spoken, a change had come over the whole aspect of affairs. He was no longer quite sure that he would be justified, morally or humanly, in killing Lavirotte. He was no longer quite sure that he had any grievance at all against Lavirotte. An hour before he was quite sure. He felt fortified by ten thousand reasons in the opinion that he was called upon to kill the man who had attempted to kill his son, and who had led him himself into a fool's paradise. Now the notion of death was hateful to him. Although every penny of his fortune might be lost in the gulf of Vernon and Son, and although his mill and other places of business would inevitably be sold, he might be appointed manager of the business; for no doubt it would be carried on by someone, and no one could be so fitted to manage it as he who had created it. The thought of his wife and his son came strongly back upon him, now that he found himself face to face with an armed man who had owned he was subject to fits of insanity, an armed madman towards whom he had, a few moments ago, used the strongest language. He now felt, for the first time, that what he had contemplated towards Lavirotte would have been a crime, and serious doubts began to arise in his mind as to whether his own life was in reality ended. The first shock caused by the news Eugene gave him had now passed away, and he was able to see with clearer vision what had been, what was, and what might be. At last he mustered courage enough to say: "Whatever may have occurred before, Mr. Lavirotte, supposing you were justified in your attack upon my son, and in the promise you made to me of material help in my great difficulty, there could not be the shadow of a justification for your taking my life." "I don't seek for justification," said Lavirotte. "You have no reason to suppose I desire justification. A while ago you used the vilest language towards me. It may suit me to take ample revenge for such language, when I may do so with safety." "Safety!" cried the old man; "safety! How can you talk of safety? You told me a few minutes ago that there were other people in the house. If you fired they would hear the shot-" "Shot," said Lavirotte, with a sinister smile, "there are six here;" tapping the revolver, which he held in his right, with the forefinger of his left hand. "Shots!" repeated the old man with a shudder. "Good God! you don't mean to say you could shoot a man with that smile on your face!" "That is a question quite apart from the matter we are discussing," said Lavirotte, smiling still more. "Yes, they would hear the shots." "Then there are the men I saw outside watching the place. They also would hear, and knowing that you and I were not friends-" "How should they know we are not friends? We have been friends up to this. Your secret designs upon my life have not been, I assume, communicated to anyone." "Yes, but they would come then and find me wounded, perhaps dead. They would find you here. They would know that you have had some unaccountable connection with the assault upon my son, were found in the vault with the dead body of that man Crawford, and are now found here with another injured man, and with a revolver in your hand. All this would be strong enough, I am sure, to convince people that I had been the victim of foul play." "Up to a certain point, sir, I quite agree with you; and if the facts were to be exactly as you have described them, I have no doubt whatever that an intelligent jury would string me up. But there is a slight difference between what you fancy would occur and what seems to me likely to happen. I will describe to you briefly what, to my mind, would occur. I would hold this revolver thus and pull twice, sending one bullet through the head to insure instant insensibility, sending a second through the cavity of the chest to secure ultimate death. Then I would take this revolver and put it in your hand." Lavirotte held the weapon in his right hand, and pointed at James O'Donnell's head. With his left hand he touched the barrel as he spoke. "For God's sake put that thing down!" Lavirotte laughed. "You have not yet been so long under the magic ordeal of its glance as I was a little while ago. Within a minute some persons would be in this room. They would find me in a state of terrible excitement. They would find me calling for help at the door and at the window. They would find me a man absolutely distracted. They would find you either sitting in that chair dead or dying, or lying on the floor. They would find this revolver-your own revolver-in your hand, or close by, where you let it fall after committing suicide." "Suicide!" "They would hear from me how you received news that I could not help you, although I had hoped to be able to do so; that you came over here to learn from me personally if there were not some chance of my being able to aid you, and that upon my telling you there was not, you, to my grief and horror, put an end to yourself. You see, sir," said Lavirotte, lowering the revolver and throwing himself back in his chair, "your story could not be heard. Mine would be the only one forthcoming, and on each of the six sides of the cube of my story is the hall-mark of truth." "But surely, Mr. Lavirotte," said the merchant, "anything I may have said or done would not be a sufficient excuse for your committing so terrible a crime as making away with an old man who had never done you any serious injury. I may have said violent, unjustifiable things; I own I have. But I said them in heat and in ignorance. You can understand that I spoke under tremendous excitement, and in the belief that you had, without provocation, assailed my son, and that you had, for no reason known to me, promised me aid in my great trial and forsaken me in the moment of peril." "Then, sir, am I to assume that you hold me at my word, and that you believe when I attacked your son I was suffering under extreme excitement and not responsible for my actions?" "I believe what you say." "And that when I promised to help you out of the money I made certain I was about to receive, I was sincere?" "That," said the old man, with some hesitancy, "is a question I am not yet qualified to answer." "Will you, sir, say that you are now as open to believe I was in good faith when I promised to help you as you were to believe I had committed an unprovoked assault upon your son when you came in here?" "I see no reason why I should not say so." "Then, sir, we may take it that we have arrived at the end of what might have been a fatal talk. Let us put an end to any further chances of fatality thus." He cocked the revolver, placed the butt of the weapon on the floor, held the barrel in his left hand, and placing the heel of his right foot on the hammer, he tore it out from its place, and flung the weapon on the table, saying: "Now, sir, a child may play with it in safety." The old man rose up in supreme relief, and said: "I have often thought hard things of you. I shall never think them again. When I came in I believed I had matters all my own way, and that I should shoot you like a dog. I had the merciless intention of shooting you as you were. You then got the upper hand of me and had me at your mercy. I cannot now but believe all you have told me. Will you shake hands?" "Very gladly indeed," said Lavirotte, with the tears in his eyes. "This is one of the happiest moments of my life. Now it is only fair I should tell you upon what I grounded my hopes of being able to help you." Lavirotte told James O'Donnell the whole history of the treasure and St. Prisca's Tower. When it was over, the old man said: "Why, in the name of goodness, did you not get twenty men to dig instead of risking both your lives in such a silly way?" "We did not wish that anyone beyond ourselves should know. We did not want to share our good luck with the Crown." "There was no need to share your luck with the Crown. The law of Treasure Trove has lately been altered." "Good Heavens!" cried Lavirotte. "To think it is so, and that poor old Crawford should have lived all his life and died the death he did, without knowing this!"