CHAPTER VIII
THE scene shifts to London—London, so indifferent, so cruel, so drab a city to those whom she is stranger, not mother.
Harry Garlett and Dr. Maclean had gone to a city hotel where they felt sure that they would run little risk of meeting any one from their part of the world.
And it was there, within sound of what he vaguely felt to be the comforting roar of London's busiest traffic, that Garlett paced up and down a big private sitting room in the cold, foggy atmosphere of a December afternoon, while he waited for the doctor's return from the Criminal Investigation Department of the Home Office.
At last he stopped and looked at his watch. But for the cruel man or woman who had written the anonymous letters of which Dr. Maclean had told him, he and Jean would by now have been man and wife. He reminded himself drearily that he had forgotten to cancel his order for the small suite of rooms overlooking the Thames where they were to have spent their Christmas honeymoon. Well, so much the better! It gave him a little satisfaction to know that the rooms which were to have been the scene of his ecstatic happiness were empty of life, of joy, of laughter, for at least a little while.
The door of the darkened room burst open, and Dr. Maclean's hearty voice exclaimed exultantly: “Our trouble's over! The Home Office is going to take no further action in the matter”
Then he shut the door, turning on, as he did so, the electric light.
“I had a great stroke of luck! One of the two men sent to examine me was an old fellow-student of mine, a fellow called Wilson, an Aberdeen chap. It made everything easy, of course.”
Putting his hat down on a table, he came close up to the other man.
“My God, Harry, don't look like that! The trouble's over, man—don't you understand?”
“You're a good friend, Maclean. I'll never forget how you've stood by me in this thing”
“Nonsense!” he said strongly. “I was as much in it as you were—your poor wife was my patient, after all. I signed her death certificate.”
“I want to ask you a question—and I trust to you to answer it truly,” said Harry Garlett in a low, tense tone.
“Ask away, man!”
The doctor said the words jokingly, but he felt hurt and disappointed—tired, too. He had put every ounce of power he possessed—and there was a good deal of power in Jock Maclean—into the difficult interview he had just carried through so successfully.
“Did you obtain an assurance that the inquiry into the cause of Emily's death would never be reopened?”
Harry Garlett's question made Dr. Maclean feel acutely uncomfortable. It seemed to bring back, echoing in his ears, the last words that old friend of his, Donald Wilson, had uttered: “The matter is now closed, Maclean—unless, of course, anything in the form of real evidence be tendered us.”
So it was that for a fraction of a minute he remained silent.
“I take it they gave you no such assurance?”
“How could they do such a thing?” exclaimed the other. “Come, Harry, be reasonable!”
Garlett started once more his restless pacing up and down the now brightly lit room; then, all at once, he turned on the older man.
“I consider myself entitled to such an assurance, and I won't be satisfied with less. The greatest indignity that can be put on an innocent man has been put on me. You weren't present during my interview with that police inspector, Kentworthy! At first the man scarcely took the trouble to conceal his belief that I was a murderer.”
As the other uttered an impatient exclamation, he added: “Can't you see what it would mean to me, to Jean, to feel that awful possibility always hanging over us? I've made up my mind to go to the Home Office myself to-morrow morning. If they refuse to give me an assurance that the matter is closed once and for all, I shall insist on my right to an exhumation order.”
“Then you will do a stupid, as well as a very cruel and selfish thing,” said the doctor sharply.
“Cruel? Selfish? I don't follow you” And as the other remained silent he went on, in a low voice, “Again I ask you to try and realize what it would mean—not only to myself but to Jean—if, after we had been married say six months, or a year, we suddenly learnt that an exhumation order had been
Dr. Maclean began to feel thoroughly angry.
“Pull yourself together, man,” he said sharply, “and don't go havering on as to what might happen—I am thinking of what will certainly happen if you follow the course you propose.”
Harry Garlett stared at Dr. Maclean. “What d'you mean?”
“I mean that you've really only been considering yourself in this matter. You're not really thinking of that poor little girlie who loves you”
“I am thinking of her—only of her!”
“You're doing nothing of the sort. If you had only yourself to think of you might insist on settling this horrible matter at once for all in the drastic way you propose. But to do so now would be a cruel wrong to Jean.”
He waited a moment, then, speaking very solemnly, he went on:
“Most people are convinced of the truth of that evil old proverb, 'There's no smoke without fire.' The fact that your wife's body had been exhumed, and certain portions of that poor body submitted to certain tests by a government expert, would never be forgotten.”
“I suppose that's true,” said Garlett slowly, and Dr. Maclean pursued his advantage.
He put his hand on the younger man's shoulder, “For God's sake, let the matter rest. As things are now I regard it as practically certain that this painful business will never be known beyond just our four selves.”
“Our four selves?” repeated Harry Garlett uncertainly.
“Of course, man! Myself, my wife, Jean and you.”
There was a long pause, and Dr. Maclean, with intense relief, believed that he had gained his point. But suddenly Harry Garlett exclaimed:
“It's no use, Maclean! I can't see it as you do. I shall go to the Home Office to-morrow morning.”
“I suppose you agree that Jean has a right to be consulted before you take a step that may cloud all her future life?”
“I know Jean will agree with me,” said Harry Garlett obstinately.
“Give her a chance of hearing the other side, man. Damn it all! You do owe me something”
He turned toward the door. “I'll telephone my wife to bring the girl up to-night.” Without waiting for the other's assent he left the room.
Then, for he was an upright man, and not given to deceiving himself, Dr. Maclean stayed his steps for a moment on the big, empty hotel landing.
He was asking himself whether, after all, Harry Garlett might not be taking the right course in settling this painful, degrading question once for all. He had felt, in spite of the courtesy, nay, the kindness, with which he had been treated at the Home Office, that an uncomfortable suspicion did still linger in the minds of the two men with whom he had had his difficult interview. Deep in his heart he was well aware that it was the fortunate accident of his old acquaintance with that now important government official, Donald Wilson, coupled, of course, with his own absolute conviction that Mrs. Garlett had died a natural death, which had achieved what at the moment had seemed such a triumph.
It was five hours later. The hotel sitting room was in darkness, save that no uncurtained room in London is ever really dark, and there was also a little fire in the black grate. But no one coming in casually would have seen the two who sat on the sofa hand in hand.
As soon as Jean and her aunt had arrived, there had begun the painful, difficult consultation—if, indeed, consultation it could be called, for Jean and the man she loved had listened in silence while the doctor and Mrs. Maclean tried to dissuade Harry Garlett from taking the course he meant to pursue.
At last, after having used every conceivable argument, husband and wife got up together.
“Let us go down and have a little supper,” said the doctor. “After that you two shall come up here alone and talk it over. Don't be in too great a hurry to make up your mind, Harry. Weigh everything, and, above all, remember that 'What's done can't be undone.'”
And now at last they were alone together. For a while neither of them spoke, and then Harry Garlett said quietly, “Your uncle has made me see one thing, my dearest. That I ought to leave the decision with you.”
“If the decision rests with me, then I say—do what you feel right.”
Moving up closer to him, she whispered: “The only thing that matters to me—surely you know it—is our love. Nothing can take that away. After all, we're not bound to go on living in Terriford.”
“That's true!” he exclaimed. “All the same, remember that if you feel the slightest doubt I'll put aside my wish.”
“I feel not the slightest doubt. On the contrary, I'm quite sure,” she answered, without a tremor in her voice, “that whatever you feel should be done will be well done.”
Big Ben was booming out the hour of half-past ten as Harry Garlett was ushered into one of the bare waiting rooms of the Criminal Investigation Department. And it seemed to him a long time before the door opened again to admit the man he had asked to see.
Dr. Wilson was a good-humoured, cheerful-looking Scot, very much on the alert, and, if the truth be told, though it was a truth mercifully concealed from Garlett, a man sufficiently interested in human nature to feel a considerable thrill at seeing face to face a human being he was strongly inclined to believe a successful murderer.
“I'm told you've specially asked to see me, Mr. Garlett. So I take it you've not seen our mutual friend, Dr. Maclean? He spent a couple of hours here yesterday, and I think I may go as far as to assure you that unless some new and unexpected development should take place, the matter concerning which Mr. Kentworthy came down to Terriford will go no further.”
“Does that mean,” asked Harry Garlett quietly, “that I may rest assured that no order for the exhumation of my late wife will ever be issued?”
The Scotsman looked at him keenly. “We could not give such an assurance to any living man, Mr. Garlett. Not even,” he smiled grimly, “to the Lord Chancellor or the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Then the speaker's whole manner changed—it became grave, official. “Perhaps,” he went on, “I had better send for my colleague, and, may I add, my superior, Mr. Braithwaite? He will tell you exactly how the matter stands.”
“That,” said Garlett firmly, “is what I have come here to discover—I mean exactly how the matter stands.”
Dr. Wilson left the room, and when at last, after what seemed a long delay to the waiting man, he did come back, he was accompanied by a younger official. Garlett, perhaps by now morbidly sensitive, noticed that the new man only bowed; he did not shake hands with him, as Dr. Wilson had done.
“I understand that you wish to know exactly how the matter stands with regard to the action we took on the receipt of certain anonymous letters concerning the death of Mrs. Emily Garlett?”
“What I wish to know,” said Garlett coldly, “is not how the matter stands, but how I stand.”
As neither of the men opposite him answered his question, he went on deliberately: “Though I believe I was successful in convincing of my innocence the police inspector you sent down to make inquiries, he made it clear to me that nothing short of an exhumation would set the matter absolutely at rest.”
“In saying such a thing,” said Mr. Braithwaite sharply, “Kentworthy went very much beyond his instructions. But of course I admit that in a sense, speaking to you as man to man, he spoke the truth.”
Harry Garlett looked fixedly at the speaker, as if suddenly dowered with something like second-sight. He could almost see the interrogation mark in Mr. Braithwaite's mind: “Is this man standing here before me an innocent man, or that vilest form of murderer—the secret poisoner?”
Speaking in a hard, composed tone of voice, he said firmly:
“I will be open with you, gentlemen. You probably know that I am going to be married. Putting myself out of the question, I feel that for the sake of my future wife I am compelled to ask the Home Secretary to issue an exhumation order. Surely I have the right, as an Englishman accused—however you may gloss over the fact—of the hideous crime of murder, to insist on the only thing that can absolutely clear me?”
At that moment Harry Garlett triumphed. The two civil servants looked at one another, each of them convinced that the man who had just spoken those strong, determined words was innocent.
“Have you the slightest conception of what will happen if the Home Secretary accedes to your request, Mr. Garlett?”
The words were uttered gravely and kindly.
“Do you realize that it will be impossible for the fact of the exhumation of your wife's body to be concealed from the press—not only the local press, mind you, but the press of the whole country?”
“Yes, I do realize that. In fact, everything to be said against an exhumation has been put to me, and very strongly, by Dr. Maclean.”
“Then why not let the matter rest for the present?” interposed Dr. Wilson. “While it is obviously impossible for us to give you any promise, unofficially we can assure you that the matter is closed, and that only in the case of real evidence of foul play would it be reopened.”
Mr. Braithwaite chimed in: “Forgive me for alluding to your private affairs, but may I say that what you are now asking us to do may be a very grave matter for the lady who is going to be your wife, Mr. Garlett?”
“We talked it over last evening, and I left the final decision to her. So you see that it is her wish as well as mine that the matter should be laid to rest for ever in the only way it can be laid to rest.”
And then, speaking with deep feeling, he exclaimed:
“Put yourselves in my place! Think what you would feel”—he looked from one to the other of the men who were confronting him—“if you were situated as I am situated. Would you not do everything in your power to put an end, once for all, to so horrible, so hideous a suspicion?”
“I wonder if I should,” said Mr. Braithwaite musingly. “Honestly, I don't feel at all sure!”
He waited a moment.
“You formally ask that an exhumation order be issued, Mr. Garlett?”
“Yes, I do most earnestly ask that it may be issued. Nay, more, I regard it as my right.”
Both men shook hands with him, yet after the last echoes of their visitor's footsteps had died away, they simultaneously exclaimed the one to the other: “I don't know what to think—do you?”
“It isn't often that you and I are so absolutely of one mind, Wilson, eh?” Mr. Braithwaite spoke jokingly, but there was an undercurrent of deep questioning in his voice. “If Garlett is guilty, then he's the most cunning devil of the many cunning devils you and I have come across! But of one thing we may be quite sure—nothing of a surprising nature will be found in the poor woman's body. If our friend did kill her, he has completely covered up his tracks!”
“I am inclined to believe,” said the other hesitatingly, “that Garlett is an absolutely innocent man.”
“In that case, God help the poor devil! He doesn't know what he's letting himself in for,” observed Braithwaite. “He'll be a marked man all his life. Think of what a country town can be like for malice and all uncharitableness.”
“I wonder,” said the Scotsman, “if it's the girl who's driven him to this extreme course? What if she's made her marriage conditional on all this mess being cleared up? She may have done that—if she's a fool. It's plain he's entirely devoted to her.”
“Kentworthy says they were talked about long before his first wife's death.”
“I didn't forget that fact just now,” said Dr. Wilson smiling. “When he first spoke of the girl I said to myself: 'She's the cause of all the mischief. Keep clear of the sex, Donald, my boy!'”