Part 11

“I cannot make you realize, sir, the awful fear that surged up in me, mastering me, throttling me. I almost choked. The lights, the houses, the people swam in my vision. For some moments I walked along blind, unseeing. I trust that I am not a coward, that ordinary danger would find me ready to meet it with some calmness of mind, but in contact now with the peril I had dreaded, such firmness as I have gave way. The seeming innocence of the manner in which my death-sentence was conveyed, the apparently innocuous character of the messenger they had sent, accentuated my terror. I felt that it was useless to appeal to my fellow-creatures for help. The certain reply would have been an imputation of madness. Above all, the purpose of the dog baffled me. It seemed impossible that my enemies, with all the vast forces at their command, should use so petty an instrument to strike at me. I could not even imagine in what manner the dog was to bring about my annihilation. The disparity of means to the end seemed grotesque.

“So strongly did I feel this that I half-persuaded myself that I was under an illusion, that the dog was merely a stray that had followed me for a few yards in the hope of finding a new home. Walking along, looking straight in front of me, for I dared not turn my head, I was almost comforted by a semi-belief that the dog was no longer in pursuit. Presently, with an effort of will, I looked back--to find, as reason told me I should, the animal still at my heels, padding along with its nose to the ground.

“I stopped, more from a suspension of faculties than from any desire to do so, and the dog stopped also. It sat calmly down, looking at me, and I could almost fancy a quiet, diabolic smile on the loose, ugly, dripping jaws. We exchanged a steadfast gaze--I can see it now; its eyes were red-rimmed, bleary, cunning. Standing there, I strove to divine its purpose. Suddenly it flashed upon me. The dog was tracking me to my home. Over the trail it had gone once it would go again, this time accompanied by the active agents of my foes. Why this roundabout method of reaching me was adopted will no doubt seem a puzzle to you, sir--it is so to me. But I was and am convinced of the fact.

“No sooner had I realized this,” pursued the old gentleman, “than I thought over means of ridding myself of it. The obvious way was simple. I walked along the streets in quest of a policeman. The dog got quietly on its legs again and followed. Some hundred yards or so farther on I saw an officer and approached him. It was at the corner where the street flows into Piccadilly Circus, and the open space was a maelstrom of traffic, starred overhead by the lamps which were beginning to glow against the darkening sky. I had to wait an agonized minute or two at the policeman’s elbow whilst he set two fussy and nervous old ladies upon their right way. At last he turned to me, and a radiance of hope commenced to break over the dark tumult of my mind as I explained to him that I was being followed by a stray dog and wished to give it into his charge.

“He looked patiently down at me from his towering bulk of body, nodded, and asked: ‘Where’s the dog?’ I turned to point it out. To my astonishment, it had disappeared. No shape of dog was anywhere visible. The policeman’s eyes rested upon me with so questioning a look that I felt uncomfortable. I could divine that he was thinking me deranged or intoxicated. My mind was in a state of bewilderment also at the sudden disappearance of the creature that a moment before had hung at my heels with all the quiet persistency of Fate. I stammered, strove to explain, found myself entangled in nervous foolishness rendered worse by the slightly contemptuous, steady gaze of the policeman. I leaped desperately out by the common exit from such embarrassments and tipped the policeman with the only coin I happened to have in my pocket. It was a half-crown. He smiled as I made off quickly, my ears burning.

“Thank God, at any rate I was freed from my enemy. With a bounding lightness of spirits I plunged into the vortex of traffic and made my way across the Circus. I was supremely happy. I remember smiling round at the garish lights, at the thronging people, at the poor, at the wealthy, at the flower-girls, at the vicious. I was glad, unutterably glad, like a prisoner just reprieved, to be among my kind, of whatever sort. I am not musical, but I found myself singing a trivial melody, picked up somewhere from a barrel-organ.

“Thus I proceeded on my way, going eastward, making, in fact, for the station, where I take train to my home some few miles farther down the line than this.

“I was somewhere in the Strand when suddenly I heard a girl who passed me say to her companion: ‘Oh, what an ugly beast!’ I turned sharply, an ice-cold hand clutching at my heart, and saw to my horror the white dog again at my heels. He looked up at me, and I fled, with a cry, down a side street. The dog followed easily.

“In wild terror I ran as fast as my strength, never great, would permit. It was useless, of course. The dog found no difficulty in keeping up with me. I stopped at last from sheer exhaustion, and the creature seemed to grin at my distress. Had a policeman been visible, I would have tried again to hand it over to him, convinced though I was that the attempt would be in vain.

“One means of escape presented itself to me, but I could not avail myself of it. I might have called a taxicab, but I had no money. I ought to have tried that way first.

“A wild rage seized me. I rushed at the dog, kicking at him furiously. The animal dodged me with ease. I could not touch him. I ran on again.

“Thus, now running in mad panic, now walking with the slow deliberation of settled despair, I continued on my way, and always the dog followed. Why I did not go in another direction and throw the animal off the scent, I do not know. My one leading idea was to get home, and perhaps subconsciously I knew that, whatever stratagems I tried, the dog was not to be shaken from his trail.

“I was almost demented with terror when unexpectedly salvation showed itself. My station was not many hundred yards distant--I was in Broad Street, I think--when suddenly there was a snarl and a furious barking behind me. A large dog, belonging to some passer-by, had sprung at my enemy, and they were locked in desperate fight. In a few seconds a crowd collected. I saw a policeman hastening up. It was my chance. With all that remained to me of strength I ran toward the station.

“I heard voices calling after me, but I heeded them not. The sounds of angry strife continued, muffled, and lent me hope and speed. Calling up every energy, I raced along, sped down the approach, saw that it wanted but the fraction of a minute to seven-thirty, dashed through the gate, which clanged behind me, and flung myself into the train for home just as it started. I thought I was safe. As I put my hand out of the window to shut the door, I heard a commotion at the gate. I looked out and saw the dog struggling with the officials, vainly striving to leap the barrier. We moved out of the station, leaving him behind.”

He stopped, looking at his host. Mr. Gilchrist gasped and nodded. The stranger continued:

“For a few exultant minutes I thought that I was saved. But presently, as I calmed and my reason began to work, I realized that ‘they’ had gained their point. They had only to watch and wait. On the morrow a human emissary of my foes would accompany the dog over the trail, starting at the same time, arriving within a few minutes of seven-thirty at that station platform. From that the direction, at least, of my home could easily be deduced. Convinced that sooner or later I should be journeying on that line, they had only to watch and wait till I appeared. I knew that there was no hope for me, that my doom was certain.

“I reached home, in a turmoil of fears, and fell ill. For a week I did not leave the house, and all through my indisposition the spectre of that white dog dominated not only my dreams but every waking thought. I could see it looking out at me from under the furniture, sitting with patient eyes on my every movement, in corners of the house, barring my way to the door, if I wished to enter or leave a room. It haunted me, kept me at an excruciating point of mental anguish.

“This morning, however, I felt better, and my business imperatively claiming my attention after a week of absence, I decided to go to town.

“I left the house with the feeling of a man who goes out to execution. Nevertheless, human nature revolted at the prospect of dying without resistance, and I went armed. In my pocket was a revolver which had belonged to my father. He had fought in the Indian Mutiny. I was born in India myself. Some of his fighting instincts arose in me as I walked down to the station fingering the weapon in my pocket.

“Dread oppressed me as I entered the train and journeyed cityward. I felt that I was going to meet my fate. None the less I went about my business, and all day nothing occurred, save moments of fear, to alarm me. I made up my mind to return by a midday train--would that I had done so!--though perhaps it would have made no difference. So great a press of work awaited me, however, that it was impossible. One hindrance after another stood in my way, and with rapidly rising fears I was forced to remain and see the time slip away until the only train that remained to me was the seven-thirty.

“My office is a little room at the top of a large building. I keep no clerk. Most or all the other workers in the building had left while I was still writing letters, and the solitude which broods over the city in the evening weighed more and more oppressively on me every minute. My nerves were already at stretch when I heard something thrust into the letter-box. I jumped to my feet, trembling with premonitions. I heard no footfall along the passage. After a moment, when my heart seemed to stop, I went to the box, and to my horror--drew out a piece of paper identical with the one pushed into my hand a week before. It bore the same solemn words: ‘Prepare to meet thy Judge,’ and nothing more. I believe I reeled and staggered. I know that in a flash of frenzy I flung the door wide and rushed into the passage. I could have sworn--I could swear it now--that I saw the white dog slink round the corner a few yards along the corridor.

“Trembling in every limb, my head on fire, I hastily locked up the office and made my way to the station. The building seemed quite deserted as I left it. I saw no sign of the white dog. Choosing the most frequented thoroughfares, I soon reached the terminus without any cause for alarm. I remember that my heart beat so violently as to make me feel faint as I passed the barrier. I scarcely dared look for the dog, but with an effort of will I did so and assured myself it was not there.

“I chose an unoccupied carriage and settled myself in it--waiting, with throbbing anxiety, for the few remaining minutes to slip away before the train was due to start. Those minutes seemed vast spaces of time in which the movement of the world had stopped, waiting for some catastrophe. At last I heard the bell ring. For one wild, exultant moment I thought that I was safe.

“Then, just as the train commenced to move, I saw a man running along the platform, holding a dog in leash. The animal strained powerfully at the lead, his nose to the ground. On the instant, I recognized it--the white dog! The door of my compartment was thrown open, and man and dog leaped in. A porter slammed the door after them, and we were moving fast out of the station. Short of throwing myself on the rails there was no escape possible.

“The man was dressed in the garb of a clergyman. He was a large, powerfully built fellow, strength of mind and body marked all over him. He nodded and smiled at me as he drew a long breath to recover his wind and sat down. The dog slunk under the seat, where it lay watching me with steady eyes.

“I cowered in my corner in terror. Had I wished to speak, I could not have done so. The sight of one of my all-powerful foes, visible for the first time, fascinated me. I could not take my eyes from him. Occasionally he looked up at me from his newspaper with a slow, quiet smile which seemed to say: ‘All right, my friend. I’ll deal with you presently.’

“The train clanged and banged over the switches and gathered speed for its rush into the dark night and the loneliness of the countryside. Minute after minute I sat there in panic, watching him, agonized every now and then by that terrible sure smile with which he glanced at me. The silence in the carriage was the oppressive silence which awaits a tragedy to break it with a lightning-flash.

“Mile after mile the train raced on, and nothing happened. The suspense was maddening me. My lips were dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I could feel a cold sweat beading my forehead. I took out my handkerchief to wipe it, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground, close to his feet. I recognized it. It was the second warning. Before I could move, the man bent to pick it up. He handed it to me with that meaning smile and said, with awful quietness: ‘Are you prepared?’

“I started with terror and felt something hurt the hand which all the time had been gripping the revolver in my pocket. It was the tense pressure of my finger on the weapon.

“The man nodded and smiled at me again. I gasped, feeling certain that my hour had come. With the fascination of a man trapped and bound, I saw him bend sideways and put his hand into his hip pocket. Instantly--I know not how--there was a deafening report in the carriage, and a film of smoke floated between me and him. He sank to the floor. He rolled slightly with his last gasp, his arm outflung. I had killed him! I stood fixed with horror. In his hand was--not a revolver, but a tobacco-pipe.

“For a moment my senses left me. I knew nothing. I was brought to consciousness by a sharp pain in my leg. The white dog held me in a savage grip, growling in a manner frightful to hear. Frenzy overcame me; I kicked and fought in vain. Then, suddenly recollecting the revolver in my hand, I pressed it to his head and fired. I was free. Free? No, trapped in the swaying carriage splashed with blood, its floor heaped with the large body of the man I had killed. The train was racing along at top speed. In five or ten minutes more we should stop and the crime would be discovered. Mad with horror, I rushed to the door, opened it, flung myself into the black night. I remember the roar of the train passing me as I rolled down the embankment, have an impression of a bright light whisked away, and then I lost consciousness.

“When my senses returned, I saw the light in your house. Clambering over a wall, I made my way to it, fainting, scarce able to walk, but frantic, it seemed to me, for help. You kindly took me in. For the moment I have respite, but ‘they’ have triumphed. By their cunning manipulation of the forces behind Life, I have been tricked into murdering one who to all outward semblance was an innocent man. In a day or two I shall be standing in the dock, and finally my life will be violently cut short by my fellow-men, accompanied by every circumstance of ignominy. Fully, indeed, are they revenged!

“Now, sir, you know my story; and if, after hearing it, you care to call in the local police----”

* * * * * *

At that moment there was a sound of carriage-wheels on the road. They stopped just in front of the house. The stranger sprang to his feet. His eyes swept round the room in a swift, panic-stricken quest for concealment. Then, crying: “No! They shall not take me! They shall not take me!” he rushed from the room.

Mr. Gilchrist, still spellbound by the story to which he had been so intently listening, stood for a moment as though paralyzed, staring at the open door. A familiar whistle from outside, a cheery call--“Gilchrist! Gilchrist!”--gave him back his faculties. It was Williamson--thank God!

Mr. Gilchrist ran out into the hall, found the front door still open from the stranger’s abrupt departure, peered out into the dark night intensified by the two staring eyes of Williamson’s gig-lamps.

“Come in, Williamson!” he called. His voice was joyous with relief. As he spoke, he heard swift feet upon the gravel! The words had barely left his mouth when a violent collision knocked him breathless against the doorpost. It was the stranger, back again!

“The white dog! The white dog!” he gasped in terror.

Mr. Gilchrist clutched at him and fought for breath to speak.

“But, my dear sir----” he began, irritably. This was absurd! Of course there was a dog--the harmless old white bull which was Williamson’s invariable companion. He tried to explain, but the stranger, tugging frantically to get free, would listen to nothing. With the strength of a madman he wrenched himself from Gilchrist’s detaining grasp and fled into the house.

Williamson, preceded by his old dog, came up the gravel path.

“All alone?” he asked, cheerily.

Mr. Gilchrist hesitated, and then, obeying an obscure impulse, lied.

“Er--yes,” he replied. “Come in.”

The absurdity of the falsehood occurred to him at once. Cursing his folly, he tried to think of some plausible explanation as he led his friend to the dining-room, where, of course, the stranger’s presence would stultify his ridiculous statement. He glanced round the room as he entered. It was empty! Where, then? His eyes rested on a suspicious bulging of the window-curtain.

He waved his friend to a chair.

“Sit down,” he said, with an assumption of normality. “What’s the news?”

“There’s news, right enough,” said Williamson, dropping into the proffered seat. “Terrible business on the seven-thirty to-night. Poor old Hepplewhite--shot dead--he and his dog. Ghastly struggle, evidently--blood over everything!”

“Good God!” ejaculated Gilchrist, chilled with a sudden horror. He had given no real credence to his visitor’s fantastic story. This brutal contact with the reality paralyzed him in an awful terror at his own false position. What was to be done? He strove to think--played for time. “And the murderer?” he asked thickly.

“Escaped--for the moment,” replied Williamson in a tone that suggested confidence in the police. “Here, Tiger! Come here!” He addressed the dog, which was sniffing uneasily about the room.

The dog came up to him obediently, wagging his stump of tail. He carried in his mouth a piece of folded paper which he had picked up and now presented to his master. Gilchrist recognized it with a little shock as his friend opened it.

“_Prepare to meet thy Judge!_” Williamson read out with mock solemnity, and smiled in superior tolerance of the evangelist enthusiasm which had printed the leaflet.

Gilchrist shuddered and thought suddenly of the terrified man behind the curtain, dimly realizing the significance to that overwrought brain of these fatal words. He glanced at the betraying bulge, saw it move slightly.

Williamson smiled down into the intelligent eyes of his old dog.

“Tiger, old fellow,” he said jocularly, “you’ve made a mistake--you’ve brought this message to the wrong man. It is evidently meant for the person who shot poor old Hepplewhite. Here”--he held it out to the dog--“take it to him. _Find him!_”

The dog took the paper in his jaws, wagged his tail with a comprehending look up at his master, and ran, following the scent which was on the paper, across the room. He stopped, pawing at the bulged curtain.

Williamson stared after him in amusement.

“Is he there, Tiger?” he said, humouring the intelligent animal. “Have you found him?”

Gilchrist stood speechless. What was coming next?

The curtain was flung suddenly aside. The old gentleman stood revealed, stepped forward into the room. His bulbous eyes were unwholesomely bright.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I surrender. You have won. I might, of course, shoot you”--he took a revolver from his pocket--“as I shot your confederate in the train to-night. But I recognize that it would be useless. Your Society would raise up yet other avengers----”

Both Gilchrist and Williamson had shrunk back in alarm from that brandished revolver--were unable, in their astonishment, to utter a word. They could only stare, bewildered.

The old gentleman looked down at the dog which still offered him the paper.

“I understand--perfectly,” he said, with a grim appreciation of some subtlety which eluded them. “In a better cause, I should admire the ingenuity with which you have utilized means which are apparently of the simplest. I do homage to your powers, gentlemen. Or perhaps you yourselves are only half-conscious tools of that occult force you think you control--that occult force which has, with such singular completeness, worked my ruin.” There was a sneer in his voice. He turned to Gilchrist. “As for you, sir, I congratulate you on your faculty of dissimulation. You gulled me excellently well. I can only bow in acknowledgment of the supreme irony with which you beguiled me into telling you the miserable story which, of course, you already knew far better than I. I do not grudge you your triumph. It was superbly well planned. You held me without suspicion whilst you awaited the arrival--for the last time--of the symbol of my doom--_the white dog_!” His smile was an illumination of savage sarcasm.

There was a pause of silence in which Williamson glanced inquiringly at his friend.

The old gentleman laughed in a mirthless mockery which was hideous to hear.

“But now, face to face at last with you whose monstrous plot I was at least able to detect, if I could not baffle it--I yet cheat you!” he cried. “I cheat you of your complete vengeance! You thought to condemn me to the ignominy of a murderer’s trial!” He laughed again. “I elude you--thus!”

With a quick movement he raised the revolver and fired.

The two friends, after the moment in which they recovered from the shock, bent over his body.

“I don’t understand!” said Williamson, horror-stricken and mystified. “Who and what was he?”

Gilchrist answered him in one terse word.

“Mad,” he replied, pushing away the white dog, which sniffed innocently at the body.

A POINT OF ETHICS

He leaned forward across the flower-decked dinner-table and raised his glass.

“To many happy anniversaries, darling!”

The pretty woman he addressed raised her glass also. Gowned in a simple evening robe whose discreet _décolletage_ revealed shoulders still youthfully rounded, she was the incarnation of that delicate refinement which lifts beauty into charm with one deft touch. The single dark rose at her breast was its present symbol. It was also, indubitably, the deliberate symbol of something more. The large, emotional eyes which smiled upon him were radiant with happiness.

“_Many_ anniversaries, Jack!” she echoed, shaking her head slowly in emphasis, her gaze in his. “All as happy as this--all of us together!”

Both turned, as with a common thought, to the demure little five-year-old girl who watched them with grave eyes from her place at the dinner-table. She smiled at their smiles, confidently.

“I’m as fond of her as you are, Evelyn,” he said, with evident sincerity. “Never fear! I couldn’t love her more if she were my own daughter.”

“You couldn’t be kinder to her, Jack,” said the young woman, in affectionate agreement. “Oh, my dear, we are very fortunate, both of us, Dorothy and I! Without you!” she sighed. “A whole year! A whole year of perfect happiness! I thought I was happy before--but I did not know what happiness was--until it began a year ago to-day!”

He smiled.