Part 8

As Mr. Todmorden went home, he looked years older than the man who had traversed the same ground twenty-four hours earlier. Grief-stricken though he was, at the loss of his dear friend, his predominant emotion was a fierce lust for vengeance on the murderer. His fingers worked, gripped the air, as he brooded on him--the hated unknown--and his step oscillated from fast to slow and slow to fast, as thoughts, hopeful or despondent, got the upper hand. If he could only lay hands on the scoundrel. A black and bitter wrath seethed in him. It was, unjustifiably, the more bitter at the remembrance that Fate had placed for a moment in his hand the power to avert the tragedy, had given him a glimpse into the future--and yet had turned aside his will. The wickedness of it! That dear, kind, charitable old soul! Shot like a dog! He stamped his foot on the pavement at the thought of it; tears welled up in his eyes.

“I’ll double that reward if he isn’t caught within a week!” he decided. The decision comforted him.

All through his solitary dinner he brooded on the crime, and sat afterward, for long hours, trying to think of someone who might have an urgent reason for possessing himself of that diamond brooch. He went to bed at last, baffled, weary, heartsick. Had he met the murderer on the stairs he would gladly have throttled him with his own hands.

Putting on his pyjamas, he noticed something unusual--something hard--in the pocket. Mechanically, he drew out the object and looked at it. He stood as if petrified, his eyes staring, sweat breaking out on his brow.

In his hand he held Miss Hartley’s diamond brooch!

He gazed at it, overwhelmed with amazement and horror. What was happening? Was he crazed? Was his mind unhinged by the event of the morning, was this an hallucination? All that was his familiar self prayed, prayed hard, that this might be madness. Or--his instinct of self-preservation caused him to clutch at the thought--was he the victim of some atrocious trick? Impossible. Was it real? He felt the jewel--turned it, so that it sparkled under the electric light.

“My God!” said Mr. Todmorden, sinking into a chair. The familiar concrete surroundings crumbled about him, were dissipated. He gazed into unfathomable mysteries.

How could the brooch have got into his pocket? Someone must have put it there! Someone! Who? Who could have come into his bedroom and put that damnatory brooch into the pocket of his pyjamas? The servants? He reviewed them swiftly. Impossible! Then who? Not--surely not--he must be going mad--not himself! It was absurd, unthinkable. He had gone to bed and slept without a dream. Or, was there a dream--a dream of running in the darkness, fast, barefoot? Nonsense! Nonsense! He did not get up in the middle of the night, walk down the street, murder his dearest friend, and come back as though nothing had happened! His mind flashed on the portrait of Miss Hartley, and he felt the cruel irony of the supposition, though he himself made it. Then who--who? A wave of superstition swept over him. Devils? It was inexplicable. He revolted at something obscure within him, something which pointed a finger to the accusing brooch, which whispered the inexorable corollary in his ear. No! No! It could not be! He was innocent, he was conscious, instinctively conscious of his innocence.

But was he?

The something whispered persistently. An idea came to him--the proof. He went quickly across to a drawer in his dressing-table and took out his revolver. With trembling hands he examined the charges. One had been exploded! Had devils fired his revolver also? Oh, God! He thought he was going to faint.

How? Why? How? Why? These two questions besieged him incessantly, battering at his crumbling mind. He clasped his head in his hands, rocked to and fro on his chair.

Madness? Madness came in these sudden attacks, so an imp of thought assured him. He was mad! Mad!

For hours he strode up and down the room, wrestling with demons in the night. He had killed his dearest friend. He had no doubt of it; the realization filled him with an agony of horror and grief. He would gladly have died rather than have done this awful thing. And how had he done it? How had he committed this crime without the faintest remembrance of it? It was impossible! He had not--then he looked at the brooch, and knew he had. It was monstrous, unthinkable--but true.

At length, physically exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and continued the struggle--striving, striving to see light in this appalling mystery. At last he fell asleep.

He woke and looked around him. He was in a dark room. That was strange. He knew he had left the light on. He was standing up. He held something in his hand--a book. Puzzled, he put out his hand to where the switch of the electric light should be. It was not there. In a new terror that surged up, obliterating the older horrors of the night, he groped along the wall for the switch, and found it. The place sprang into light. He was in the dining-room! In his hand he held the report of his grandfather’s trial. The truth flashed on him.

He was a somnambulist.

With a wild cry he sank down in a swoon.

When he returned to consciousness, the electric lamps were yellow patches in the sunlight which filled the room. He struggled to his feet and switched them off. He stood for some moments unsteadily, trying to adjust his mind to these unfamiliar surroundings, to remember--to remember something. Then his ghastly situation rushed on his mind, vivid with a new light. He was a criminal! He risked discovery, ruin! He heard people moving about--servants. They must not suspect him of any abnormality. Haggard, trembling, giddy, an old, old man, he tottered up the stairs to his own bedroom.

Escape--escape from the consequences of his involuntary crime was his master impulse. He was no longer the benevolent Mr. Todmorden, successful, respected, the eminent solicitor; he was a hunted criminal, happed by Furies. He must not be found out. He sobbed in self-pity and strove for the control of his faculties. He must think--must think. The brooch must be got rid of. He would drop it over London Bridge. Yes, that was the way. The brooch gone beyond all possibility of recovery, who would suspect him? He had not suspected himself. He breathed more freely, feeling himself already safe. He would triple that reward. That would avert suspicion. Yes. Yes. He repeated the monosyllable to himself as he walked up and down the room.

But suppose there was some trace of the crime on him? He must make sure. The inspector’s story of the light-suited fugitive came into his mind--his pyjamas! That fugitive must have been himself in his pyjamas. He had again that flashed memory of running, running silently. He doubted no longer, but examined the pyjamas on his body, searching for a spot of blood, for any sign that might betray him. Yes! There on the trouser-leg was a smear of stone-coloured paint--the paint on Miss Hartley’s window-sill. He must get those pyjamas away, destroy them--somehow. He thought of half a dozen plans and rejected all. Everything he thought of seemed to proclaim his guilt. The problem was still unsolved when another danger occurred to him. His revolver contained a discharged cartridge. He must reload it. Feverishly he did so. As he clicked the chambers into place there was a knock at the door. He put down the revolver and listened in sudden panic. The knock was repeated. He tried to speak and could not. At last words came:

“What is it?”

“Please, sir, a man from the police-station wants to speak to you at once.”

He tried hard to reply in his normal tones.

“All right. Tell him I’ll be down presently.”

“Please, sir, he says he can’t wait. It’s very urgent.” Discovery? No! Impossible--as yet! He kept a tremor out of his voice by an effort.

“Show him into my dressing-room.”

Mr. Todmorden thought swiftly for a vivid second. That smear of paint must be concealed. He slipped on a dressing-gown. Then he caught sight of his revolver on the table, and, on a blind impulse, dropped it into his pocket. He took a long breath. Now--was there anything about him suspicious? He opened his dressing-gown and surveyed himself in the mirror. Yes!--there was a button gone from his pyjama-jacket! Where had he lost that button? He would have given anything for certainty. But he must not keep the police waiting. That would look strange. He girdled his gown about him and went into the dressing-room.

The chief inspector awaited him. A sharp expression of surprise came into the officer’s face.

“I have had a bad night, inspector,” said the old gentleman, noticing the look and feeling his haggard appearance needed explanation.

The inspector condoled with him.

“I am pleased to say we have found a slight clue to the criminal, Mr. Todmorden,” he said, looking again sharply at the old gentleman. Mr. Todmorden felt he quailed under the glance. “It’s a button. And, the curious thing is, it is a pyjama button.”

“Yes?” Mr. Todmorden’s mouth went dry.

“Funny wear for a burglar--pyjamas,” commented the inspector. “Don’t you think so, sir?”

“Very curious.” Mr. Todmorden recognized the urgent necessity for a normal voice. “Yes; very curious.” He must talk--say something! “By the way, inspector, I’ve been thinking about that reward. I’ve decided to triple it. I--I am determined to catch the scoundrel.”

“Very kind of you, sir. I hope we shall ask you for the cheque. We’re on the road, anyway. We’ve only got to find out where those pyjamas came from, and, quite likely, we shall get on his track.”

“Yes, yes, quite so.” Would the interview never end? Mr. Todmorden agonized.

“If we can only find some buttons like this we can make a start. There are differences even in pyjama buttons, you know, sir. I have compared it with mine, but it doesn’t tally. Would you mind comparing it with yours?”

Mr. Todmorden stared at him, speechless.

“Would you mind comparing it with yours, sir? We must not neglect any chance of getting a clue. Allow me!”

He stepped quickly to the old gentleman and flung aside his dressing-gown. The buttons, with the hanging thread of their missing fellow, were revealed. Triumph flashed in the inspector’s face.

“James Henry Todmorden, I----”

Mr. Todmorden jumped back from his grasp. With a sharp cry he drew his hand swiftly from his pocket. There was a report, and he dropped to the floor.

The inspector looked at his lifeless body.

“I thought the old rascal did it,” he said. “A well-planned bit of work, though.”

THROUGH THE GATE OF HORN

The young man’s face was pale. His jaw, hard-set in a grip of self-control, lent his clever, handsome features a suggestion of force remarkable for his twenty-two years. At maturity, his intellect, backed by so much character, would be formidable. He turned to the window, stared out of it for a long moment. Then he switched round upon the girl.

“So that’s your last word, Betty?--Finish?”

Her eyes dropped under his, were raised again in a volition which dared to match itself, though she was tremulous with the effort, against the challenge of his voice. Their blue depths were charmingly sincere.

“I cannot help myself, Jack.” She shook her head pathetically. “You ought to understand.”

His voice came grimly, with intent to wound.

“You are selling yourself to James Arrowsmith. Yes, I understand.”

She shuddered, turned away her head in despair of sympathetic comprehension. There was a silence during which both gazed down vistas of gloomy thought. Then she looked up again, diffidently venturing another appeal to his magnanimity.

“You know Father’s position----”

He nodded, sardonically.

“I know. He thinks his business is safe if James Arrowsmith is his son-in-law instead of merely his go-ahead competitor. He’s wrong. Arrowsmith would cut his own brother’s throat if he met him on a dark road and thought he had a dollar in his pocket. He’s just a modern brigand!”

The girl sighed.

“What can I do, Jack?--Father----”

He blazed out in a sudden fury.

“Oh, yes, I know! Father! I can’t help your father being a fool! It’s not my fault that he can’t recognize potentiality in a man--that he is only capable of appreciating a success that is already made, which he can measure by a balance in a bank! Give me ten years--I’ll eat up James Arrowsmith!”

The girl shook her head sadly.

“Ten years, Jack--it’s a long time ahead. We have got to deal with things as they are to-day. And to-day----”

“I’m nothing!” he said, bitterly.

She looked up at him.

“You are just a promising young man fresh from college, Jack! With a big future before you, I am sure of that--but it’s only a future!”

“I’ve started, anyway!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got that job on the _Rostrum_--begin next week. And I’m going to make good!”

“Of course you are--but--we can’t marry on your pay as a very junior sub-editor.” She shook her head again. “We must be reasonable, Jack. If I saw any chance----”

“Yes,” he interrupted, brutally, “if you saw any chance of my driving you about in six months’ time in a big motor-car like James Arrowsmith’s--then you would condescend to love me!”

She stood up, her eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, _don’t_, Jack!” She turned away her head, pressed her hand to her eyes, dropped it in a hopeless gesture. She faced him again, her sensitive mouth quivering at the corners, her expression appealing from misery to compassion. Evidently, she hardly dared trust herself to speak. “You know I love you!” Her voice caught, almost broke. “You know I love you now--shall never love any one else. All my life I shall remember you--if I live fifty years----”

His short laugh was intended to express that terrible cynicism of Youth losing its first illusions.

“Cut it out, Betty! In fifty years you will be seventy. No doubt you will be a charming old lady. You may even be sentimental--you can indulge safely in the luxury, then! But you won’t even remember my name. You’ll only be interested in the love-affairs of your grandchildren!”

She smiled at him involuntarily--and then consciously maintained the gleam in her eyes, quick to emphasize and elaborate the note of comedy he had accidentally struck. It was escape from threatening acrimony.

“And you, Jack? In nineteen-seventy-two? Will you remember _my_ name?--Will you be even sentimental, I wonder?--Oh, I should like to see you--a cynical old grandfather, telling your grandchildren not to marry for money, but to marry where money is!--Oh, Jack!” Her voice was genuinely mirthful. “You _will_ come and see me and talk their affairs over with me, won’t you? We shall be two such dear old cronies!”

He had to concentrate on his frown, endangered by her infectious sense of humour.

“I shall never marry!” he announced, gloomily. “So there’s not much use in promising to discuss my grandchildren’s affairs with you fifty years hence. I shall never love another woman.”

She ignored the sombre vaticination, determined to keep on a safer plane of futurity.

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to see, Jack? Fifty years ahead--and all that will happen in the meantime?” There was just a hint of seriousness in the light tone, in the bright eyes which smiled into his. “If one could only know!” Her face went wistful. “I often wonder--these crystal-gazers and people--whether they can really see----” She looked up at, him. “Jack! You are so clever and know everything--don’t you know any place where one can go and really see what is going to happen?”

He smiled, half in pleasure at her flattery, half in the consciousness of being about to say a clever thing. The smile was wholly youthful, despite his assumption of withered cynicism.

“Yes. The place to which you are sending me.”

“What place?” Her tone was puzzled.

“Hell!” he said shortly.

She wrinkled her brows.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course, you haven’t read Virgil,” he said, with the crushing superiority of the newly fledged graduate. “It’s in the sixth book--where he takes Ænas into Hades. He describes two gates there--a gate of horn and a gate of ivory. They are the gates through which all dreams come. Those that pass through the ivory gate are false dreams--the true ones come out of the gate of horn. I will sit down beside it, and report if any of them concern you. You haven’t left me much other interest,” he concluded, bitterly, “and this life will be just Hell.”

She looked at him in a short silence.

“You are being very cruel, Jack. Do you think there will be much happiness for me?” She turned away her head.

He laid both his hands on her shoulders, compelled her gaze to meet his.

“Then let me give you happiness! Betty, I love you! I love you! I care for nothing in the world but you! Risk it! Forget everything except that you love me and I love you! You will never regret it. I will make you the happiest woman on earth as I shall be the happiest man. You cannot live without love! I love you, Betty!--and I shall always, always love you! Trust yourself to it, whatever happens!”

She withdrew herself from him, shook her head hopelessly.

“I can’t,” she said, wearily. “I have promised----”

“Arrowsmith?”

“Father.” Her tone answered all the implications of his question with a dreary finality that left no issue. Her sigh was a seal upon resignation.

“Then it’s good-bye?”

She nodded in a forced economy of speech.

“Good-bye.”

He picked up hat, stick, and gloves and moved toward the door.

“You’ve nothing more to say to me?”

She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.

“No, Jack. Except that I shall remember this birthday as the most miserable day of my life. You have not made it easy for me.”

“Why should I?” he asked, the uncompromising egotism of youth suddenly harshly apparent. “You refuse the best gift I can offer you--myself!”

“I can’t help myself. But,” she hesitated on the pathetically forlorn appeal, “you might be kind.” Her eyes implored him.

He struck himself upon the forehead with a dramatic little ejaculation which matched the gesture.

“Bah!--It all seems like an evil dream to me!”

She smiled at him, sadly.

“I wish it came out of the gate of ivory, Jack--and not out of the gate of horn!”

He flushed, his raw sensitiveness resentful of this boomerang return of his own witticism.

“You can keep your sense of humour for James Arrowsmith, Betty!--Good-bye!”

He snatched open the door, went out. He could not visualize her standing there listening for his shattering slam of the front door, running to the window for a last glimpse. He thought of her only as mocking at the tragedy which was so real to him.

In a furious rage with the universe as constituted, he marched blindly out of the house and straight across the pavement with intent to quit even her side of the road. His brain in a whirl, he looked neither to right nor left, careless of an environment which was at that moment scarcely real to him. He only half-heard the raucous scream of a Klaxon horn, a warning human shout--and then something struck him violently on the side, followed it with a crashing blow on his head.

He could not see Betty’s face, tense and white, bending over his senseless body as it was extricated from under James Arrowsmith’s plutocratic car and--after her emphatic prohibition of hospital--borne into her father’s house.

* * * * * *

He felt himself shoot upward in the vast, familiar elevator of the _Daily Rostrum_ building. His head was full of important business, interviews with Senators, statesmen, financiers which had filled his busy day. With practised mental control he screened these matters temporarily from his consciousness, cleared his brain for the immediate tasks which awaited him. The elevator stopped opposite a door which bore his name. As he opened it he heard, with the little glow of observed success, the awed recognitory whisper of one of the two seedy journalists he left behind him in the lift: “_The Editor!_”

He entered the big room hung with wall-maps above the low-ranged bookcases, where a lady clerk was arranging his afternoon tea on a little table by the side of his massive desk. His secretary, evidently alert for his entrance, appeared at another door.

“Mr. Bolingbroke is waiting to see you, sir!”

“Good! Show him in!”

He settled himself in his big chair, glanced at the pile of papers on his desk, looked up to nod a curt greeting to the keen-faced young man who entered.

“Five minutes, Mr. Bolingbroke!” he said warningly, with a gesture toward the papers which awaited him.

The young man smiled.

“I can do more business with you, sir, in five minutes, than I can with another man in fifty,” he said, extracting a wad of typescript from an attaché case. “Here’s the draft of the last article.”

He took it, leaned back in his chair, ran his eye over it. It was headed “_The Cut-throat Combine. The Arrowsmith Apaches Uneasy For Their Own Scalps. More Points for the Public Prosecutor._”

He skimmed it through rapidly. It was a scathing denunciation of a predatory Trust with which the proprietors of the _Daily Rostrum_ had quarrelled. Chapter and verse were given for a series of malpractices which, substantiated after this publicity, would infallibly bring the wrongdoers before a court of justice. He leaned forward, picked up a pencil, struck out a few sentences, made other points more telling. Suddenly he frowned, scored out a whole paragraph.

“You’re too tame over this infantile mortality business! You want to let yourself scream over it. That’s the note that’ll wake ’em up! Get all the sentimental parents clamouring for his blood!” He handed back the typescript. “Rewrite the final paragraph and it’ll pass.” He glanced at his watch. “Four and a half minutes, Mr. Bolingbroke!” he said, an almost boyish note of triumph in his voice, “and I guess it’s finish for Mr. James Arrowsmith!”

He turned to his tea while the journalist made his exit. Then he bent himself forward to the business on his desk.

As he ran through and signed letter after letter, his own phrase “Finish for Mr. James Arrowsmith!” rang in his head, repeated itself over and over again with almost the distinctness of an auditory hallucination. A detached portion of his consciousness listened to it, was lured into a train of thought that was not unpleasant.

Of course, he had no real personal grudge against James Arrowsmith. Without him----! He smiled as he set his signature at the foot of yet another letter. That was a long time ago! And he had prophesied it--he remembered, suddenly, his own words--“Give me ten years and I’ll _eat_ James Arrowsmith!” Ten years! He glanced involuntarily at the calendar in front of him, read the date--1932. By Jove, it _was_ ten years--ten years ago--Betty’s birthday! He glanced again at the calendar--and dropped his pen on the desk with a sharp exclamation of annoyance. Good Lord, of course it was! It was Betty’s birthday to-day! And he had forgotten it!

For a moment or two he stared in front of him, his brows contracted into a frown which was directed impartially at circumstance and himself. He had been so terribly busy of late--but, of course, he must find time. Poor old Betty! He took up the telephone instrument on his desk, gave a number.

“Hallo! That you, Betty?--Jack. Jack speaking. Many happy returns of the day! What?--Of course I remembered!--What?--Well, it’s only five o’clock,” his tone was one of self-extenuation. “I say, old girl! We’ll go out to dinner--any restaurant you like! What? You’ve got an appointment?” He repeated the words incredulously. “Oh, very well!--I say, Betty! You haven’t got a cold or anything, have you?--Oh, all right--no, I only thought your voice sounded strange.” He frowned. “Very well--do as you like! Good-bye!” He put back the receiver with a vicious thud.