CHAPTER XL
MADNESS AND CRIME
The pair dashed to the stables: by seven minutes past eleven the curricle cleared the gate-posts, with Tom driving furiously and Wyeth seated grimly at his side. At twenty past they turned into Macquarie Street, were rattling up Hunter Street next minute, then into George Street—the whip whistling—a wheel on the curb at every corner—pedestrians flying and constables challenging—and so up Charlotte Place to the church. The clock on the round castellated tower made it 11.24: time yet if they had waited for the ring. But there were no carriages outside, and Tom’s heart stopped as he saw a woman emerge and lock the church door behind her.
“Is the marriage over?” he screamed.
“There’s no marriage this morning. It’s put off!”
“For the ring?”
“No, for the bride; she never came!”
“Never came?”
But the woman had been robbed of her fees, and the loss involved that of her temper. “Better go to the Pulteney Hotel if you want to know more,” said she, and four wheels would have locked in the mad whirl with which Tom turned curricle and horses.
Over the bridge to O’Connell Street; a vehicle was ahead of them at the Pulteney, a waiter spoke to the occupants, and it drove off without one of them getting out. Meanwhile Tom had seen the Fawcetts in the gaping crowd outside; had left them on guard over the curricle and Wyeth, and himself rushed into the hotel.
“There’s no wedding; the guests are being sent away,” said a waiter, standing in his path.
“Where’s Mr. Daintree?”
“In the ball-room, but there’s a gentleman—”
Tom hurled him on one side, and was in the ball-room himself next instant. It was a spacious saloon, the best in Sydney at that time, and the first thing Tom saw was the long table with the vista of silver and glass leading to a snow-clad mountain of a wedding-cake at the far end. The chairs were empty, the table untouched, and only two men were in the room: the bridegroom in his marriage garments, and a person of equal stature, in top-boots and a pea-jacket, whose face Tom could not see. Next moment Nicholas Harding turned his head. It was to him Daintree had drunk in the grey dawn that seemed a year ago.
The ruddy hair was shot with silver, the massive face refined by suffering; he had aged ten years in eighteen months.
Tom went straight to his old enemy, turning his back on his old friend.
“You came out to stop this marriage, sir?”
“I did—it was the only way.”
“I congratulate you on arriving in time. You would have had a murderer for your son-in-law!”
Daintree gave a cry; Tom had turned upon him with flashing eyes.
“How do you know?” cried Harding in amazement.
“I will tell you. This man has been my best friend. He paid for my defence, and he took me away from the iron-gang. Do you know why?”
“I know one reason.”
“So do I, but there was another. He’s been hedging matters with his God. He murdered Blaydes himself.”
“Blaydes!”
And Mr. Harding flung up his hands, while Daintree sank into a chair, as yellow as a guinea, but with hot eye-balls fixed searchingly upon Tom.
“Your proofs!” said he hoarsely. “Your proofs in support of this—monstrous—charge!”
“I have clear proof in my pocket,” said Tom to Mr. Harding, as he buttoned up his coat. “I have the receipt I gave Blaydes for his watch and chain!”
Daintree sprang up: he was trembling from head to foot, but his fists and his teeth were clenched.
“Thief!” he hissed. “You have broken open my desk! I saved you from the gallows. You think you’ll hound me there in return—you fool, when you know what I know! What you have stolen is no proof at all. Ingrate! serpent! it will only tighten the rope round your own ungrateful neck!”
He turned on his heel, and wrote something on a card. He rang a bell, met the waiter at the door and handed him what he had written.
“That may be so,” said Tom to Nicholas Harding. “I may swing yet—but, thank God! not for Blaydes!”
“It is really the receipt?”
“Undoubtedly: written by Blaydes and signed by me: it will clear me of that crime, if it doesn’t convict him. I don’t want to convict him.”
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“It would be useless. There’s madness in his blood, as well as crime! But is that your only evidence?”
“No, I have a witness outside who all but saw him do it. He did see him taking the papers from the dead man’s pocket.”
“Papers!” cried Mr. Harding. His high colour fled and came again. “They belonged to me: give them to me, Erichsen, for God’s sake!”
“Then keep your eye on him, and you shall have all but the one I may want. I saw they were letters to you.” And in an instant they were in Nicholas Harding’s pocket, all but the one with the receipt upon the back; and he also buttoned up his coat.
Meanwhile, Daintree was at the other end of the long room, guarding the door; and now they saw him fling it open with an evil smile. Next moment a strange gang entered: two constables, Ginger, Nat Sullivan—and Peggy O’Brien.
Peggy’s presence is only too easily explained: when her own ears heard Tom consent to leave the country, she shut her teeth and swore that he should not. In New South Wales he should remain, though back he went to the chain-gang, but she trusted to her own testimony to save his neck. So she slipped out of the bungalow while the master was being dressed, followed the Fawcetts into Sydney, and went straight to the Pulteney Hotel to tell Nat Sullivan the truth about Tom. She found that worthy in his usual state when in town. Ginger complained that there was no doing anything with him. And so powerfully did the blear-eyed, thick-lipped sot repel Peggy, now she saw him again, and in this condition, that she had told him nothing when Daintree’s message was brought to Nat’s rooms.
Nat read it in his shirt-sleeves, and staggered off to achieve a measure of outward decency, leaving Peggy in a strange turmoil. She could have betrayed Tom herself—so she still thought—but the idea of the master turning traitor in this way was to her intolerable. She had heard the marriage was put off, she divined some all-sufficient cause, and with the ebbing of her last hopes of Tom, her first generous good-will to him returned. She looked at Ginger and found Ginger looking at her. At Castle Sullivan he had been a furtive admirer; he was an open one now Nat was in the next room.
“Well, Ginger, an’ what is it y’ intind to say?”
“I shall have to swear to him, though I’d never have let this out in my sober senses. He saved my life. I meant to save his.”
“An’ you will do that same: say you made a mistake—it’s his life ye’ll be swearin’ away!”
“But it’s true, Peggy!”
“An’ it’s meself ’ll be thruer still, Ginger darlin’, if you will but say the word an’ do by Tom as he did by you!”
She had not thought of it before: it was a sudden inspiration of the quick Irish brain, a sudden impulse of the warm Irish heart. When Nat came in, with wet hair plastered over his thick skull, the coal-black head and the fiery beard were far enough apart. But it had not been so during every minute of his absence. And a pretty fiasco awaited him in the ball-room.
Led up to Erichsen, the overseer shook his head.
“No,” said he, “the bushranger was inches taller. I can’t swear to him after all.”
“Not swear to him?” roared Mr Nat. “Why, you took your oath he was the man!”
“Not swear to him?” said Daintree, stepping forward. “Happily, my good fellow—”
But Tom’s eye was on him, and the police were in the room.
“Try the girl,” said one constable.
“Ginger is right,” said Peggy promptly. “It’s a taller man he was entirely.”
“But you’re looking at his feet!”
Peggy raised her eyes, and calmly and coldly they met Tom’s for the last time.
“No,” said she; “this is not the man at all.”
“The liars!” Nat Sullivan screamed. “They’ve made up their minds to lie; and you two fools stand there and listen!” He stormed and wept; grew violently abusive, and was put out by the constables before they left themselves. In the scuffle and confusion Ginger found an opportunity both to grip Tom’s hand and to whisper that one good turn deserved another. But Peggy O’Brien turned her back without word or look. Warm heart and nimble brain had done Tom Erichsen their last service; had undone their first and only injury; and this was the end between these two.
When the three men had the great room once more to themselves, Tom turned quietly to Daintree, who was now perfectly livid with rage and chagrin, and simply inquired whether he still denied his own crime.
“Deny it!” cried Daintree. “It is too preposterous to be worth denying. Show me what you have stolen; let us see this precious proof!”
“I have a live witness, too, if you force me to call him in.”
Tom went to a window and had thrown up a sash before the other two joined him. Outside was the curricle and Wyeth seated at Fawcett’s side.
“Stop—stop—don’t call to him!” whispered Daintree, in a choking voice.
“Do you deny it now?”
“Yes—no—listen to me!”
“Which do you mean?”
“I—killed him.”
“Good God!” cried Nicholas Harding.
Tom shut down the sash.
“Yes, I killed him,” cried Daintree, recovering his spirits; “and I’d do it again this minute. Why? You shall hear—and then Claire shall hear—for I mean to see her; it will take all Sydney to keep us apart. That night she refused me—God alone knows why—she loves me now and will stick to me in spite of you all—but she refused me then. I stayed for an hour where she left me. Then I got out by the back way and wandered through the fields—just as I was—thinking of her! At last—I hardly knew where I was or what I was doing—I heard voices—his was one. Yours was the other, Erichsen—I didn’t know it then—and you were just leaving. I heard him say he was thinking of being married. I joined him when you had gone, and asked who the happy lady might be. What do you think he said? What do you think? What do you think?”
“Claire?” said Nicholas Harding.
“Yes —Claire!” screamed Daintree. “That incarnate devil—and my angel! He said he loved her—that smooth hound—and she had hinted she did care for somebody. God knows what more he said! You would consent—he had you in his power. Either he said that or I saw it. At any rate he taunted me—maddened me—and when I looked about for something to strike him with, there was the very thing at my feet. I killed him! I meant to kill him! I have never for one moment regretted killing him! What do you suppose was the first thing I found in his pocket? No, Harding, I’m not thinking of you, my honest friend! It was a letter that showed the kind of cur he had been. I let Claire see it. I thought of a way. I showed her that dead devil in his true colours—I cured her of her folly——and I thanked God I’d put him out of her way and mine! Regret it? Repent it? Never for an instant—never to this hour!”
And the man trembled no more, save with his savage passion. His eyes flashed, his face shone, and never had he looked finer or handsomer than now, as he drew himself up in his wedding-garments and impiously gloried in his crime. The deep chest swelled beneath the pale buff kerseymere waistcoat. The stubborn chin rose proudly above spotless Prussian collar and dazzling white satin cravat. Bearing and countenance alike were those of a conscious hero rather than of a criminal self-convicted and self-confessed.
“You let an innocent man suffer for your crime!” said Nicholas Harding, with a shiver.
“Did I? And do you suppose I would have let him hang? I was under the impression that I saved his neck. I would have saved it with my own had that been necessary. Only yesterday I risked my life to save his. Who took him away from the iron-gang? I had to commit a forgery and risk my liberty to do it, by God! Who would have treated him like a brother from that day? It was his own doing, mark you, that made him a menial! And he would hang me, would he, for ridding the earth of the crying rascal who picked his own pocket like a common thief? He shakes his head, but I know him better. And that’s his gratitude—after all I’ve done! Something like yours, you Harding! I save your daughter from a poisonous scoundrel, so I am not to marry her for my pains. A just pair—convict bushranger and fraudulent M.P.!—a precious pair to join forces against an honest man! Do your worst: I shall marry her against you both—I shal—I shall—I shall!”
Tom knew this voice: he wondered he had not heard the madness in it from the first.
“Never!” cried Harding. “I would rather see her in her coffin.”
“You soon will if you prevent it!”
“You would murder her too? I quite believe it—if you got the chance!”
“You fool!” said Daintree, with a superior sneer. “Can’t you see that it would kill her not to marry me?”
Mr. Harding shook his head.
“She loves me as I love her!”
“She does not love you at all.”
At these words a feeling of pity crept over Tom: they rang so true, and they told so palpably upon that distorted heart which could bear up better against a charge of murder.
“Does she not?” cried Daintree. “We shall see!” And he darted from them with an altered face, was first out of the room, first up the stairs and first into the ladies’ sitting-room; but Tom’s foot was in the door before he could bang it behind him; and Tom and Mr. Harding burst their way in together.
On the threshold they stopped with one accord. Daintree had not turned to confront them; he had flung himself at the feet of Claire, who was seated on a sofa by her aunt’s side. Tom noticed that both ladies (in grim contrast to the wretched bridegroom) wore the dresses in which he had seen them the day before; and that Lady Starkie held Claire’s hand.
“They say you do not love me,” whispered Daintree, in a voice that broke with very tenderness, and yet retained a confident ring. “I love you better than my own life and all the world. Tell them nothing can part us—nothing they can say—nothing I have done. Tell them you love me as I love you!”
Tom’s eyes were fast to a sweet face white with terror: it flushed and fell, and then the nut-brown head was all he saw.
“Ah, yes!” said that madly tender voice. “You may blush to see your lover so humbled on his wedding morning; but it was not your fault; you love me as you have always loved me, and as I love you. Tell them that! Tell them you would marry me if I had to go to prison tomorrow!”
The brown curls moved slowly from side to side.
“What! There is truth then in what they say?”
“Forgive me—forgive me!” were Claire’s only words.
“So it is true!”
His tone would have been a marvel of restraint in any man; in this one it was a miracle. Still on his knees he besought her, as a last favour, to tell him whom she did love. Her eye flew to Tom’s: the cunning of the criminal lunatic shone through the tears in his. “So it is Erichsen—not Blaydes,” he said, getting up and standing harmlessly in their midst; next instant he had whipped out his pistol and fired it point-blank at Tom’s heart. The report was appalling; a white cloud filled the room; as it thinned away, there was Tom still standing, with the one calm face present. The charge had contained no ball. Next instant the pistol itself was hurled at his head, and Daintree was upon Tom with tooth and nail—cursing, raving, moaning—fighting Tom and Nicholas Harding both—fighting the constables and waiters who poured in like water—and still wailing, raving, cursing as he fought.
It was a horrible sound—human no longer—though the fist of the sportsman still flew hard and true from the shoulder—though the tears of the lover were still wet upon the madman’s face. It was, nevertheless, but the husk of a man that was at last overpowered and carried to a distant bedroom. That complex heart still squirted liquid fire through every vein; but the brain was not; inherent mania had claimed its own.