The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (21 page)

Duncan Calton
.'

When Fitzgerald had finished the last of the closely written sheets, he let the letter fall from his hands, and leaning back in his chair, stared into the dawning light outside with a haggard face. He arose after a few moments, and pouring himself out a glass of brandy, drank it feverishly. Then mechanically lighting a cigar, he stepped out of the door into the fresh beauty of the dawn. There was a soft, crimson glow in the east, which announced the approach of the sun, and he could hear the chirping of the awakening birds in the trees. But Brian did not see the marvellous breaking of the dawn, but stood staring at the red light flaring in the east, and thinking of Calton's letter.

‘I can do no more,' he said, bitterly, leaning his head against the wall of the house. ‘There is only one way of stopping Calton, and that is by telling him all. My poor Madge! My poor Madge!'

A soft wind arose, and rustled among the trees, and there appeared great shafts of crimson light in the
east; then, with a sudden blaze, the sun peered over the brim of the wide plain. The warm, yellow rays touched lightly the comely head of the weary man, and turning round, he held up his arms to the great luminary, as though he were a fire worshipper.

‘I accept the omen of the dawn,' he cried, ‘for her life and for mine.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WHAT DR CHINSTON SAID

His resolution taken, Brian did not let the grass grow under his feet, but rode over in the afternoon to tell Madge of his intended departure.

The servant told him she was in the garden, so he went there, and guided by the sound of merry voices, and the silvery laughter of pretty women, soon found his way to the lawn tennis ground. Madge and her guests were all there, seated under the shade of a great witch elm, and watching with great interest a single-handed match being played between Rolleston and Peterson, both of whom were capital players. Mr Frettlby was not present, as he was inside writing letters, and talking with old Mr Valpy, and Brian gave a sigh of relief as
he noted his absence. Madge caught sight of him as he came down the garden path, and flew quickly towards him with outstretched hands, as he took his hat off.

‘How good of you to come,' she said, in a delighted tone, as she took his arm, ‘and on such a hot day.'

‘Yes, it's something fearful in the shade,' said pretty Mrs Rolleston, with a laugh putting up her sunshade.

‘Pardon me if I think the contrary,' replied Fitzgerald, bowing, with an expressive look at the charming group of ladies under the great tree.

Mrs Rolleston blushed and shook her head.

‘Ah! it's easy seen you come from Ireland, Mr Fitzgerald,' she observed, as she resumed her seat. ‘You are making Madge jealous.'

‘So he is,' answered Madge, with a gay laugh. ‘I shall certainly inform Mr Rolleston about you, Brian, if you make these gallant remarks.'

‘Here he comes then,' said her lover, as Rolleston and Peterson, having finished their game, walked off the tennis ground, and joined the group under the tree. Though in tennis flannels, they both looked remarkably warm, and throwing his racket down, Mr Rolleston followed its example, with a sigh of relief.

‘Thank goodness it's over, and that I have won,' he said, wiping his heated brow, ‘galley slaves couldn't have worked harder than we have done, while all you idle folk sat
sub tegmine fagi
.'

‘Which means?' asked his wife, lazily.

‘That onlookers see most of the game,' answered her husband impudently.

‘I suppose that's what you call a free and easy translation,' said Peterson, laughing. ‘Mrs Rolleston ought to give you something for your new and original adaptation of Virgil.'

‘Let it be iced then,' retorted Rolleston, lying full length on the ground, and staring up at the blue of the sky as seen through the network of leaves. ‘I always like my “something” iced.'

‘It's a way you've got,' said Madge with a laugh, as she gave him a glass filled with some sparkling, golden coloured liquor, with a large lump of ice clinking musically against the side of it.

‘He's not the only one who's got that way,' said Peterson gaily, when he had been supplied with a similar drink.

It's a way we've got in the army,

It's a way we've got in the navy

It's a way we've got in the 'Varsity.

‘And so say all of us,' finished Rolleston noisily, and holding out his glass to be replenished, ‘I'll have another, please—whew, it is hot.'

‘What, the drink?' asked Julia, with a giggle.

‘No, the day,' answered Felix, making a face at her. ‘It's the kind of day one feels inclined to adopt Sydney
Smith's advice, by getting out of one's skin, and letting the wind whistle through one's bones.'

‘With such a hot wind blowing,' said Peterson gravely, ‘I'm afraid they'd soon be broiled bones.'

‘Go, giddy one,' retorted Felix, throwing his hat at him, ‘or I'll drag you into the blazing sun, and make you play another game.'

‘Not I,' replied Peterson, coolly. ‘Not being a salamander, I'm hardly used to your climate yet, and there is a limit even to lawn tennis;' and, turning his back on Rolleston, he began to talk to Julia Featherweight.

Meanwhile, Madge and her lover, leaving all this frivolous chatter behind them, were walking slowly towards the house, and Brian was telling her of his approaching departure, but not his reasons for going.

‘I got a letter last night,' he said, turning his face away from her, ‘and as it's about some important business I must start at once.'

‘I don't think it will be long before we follow,' answered Madge, thoughtfully. ‘Papa leaves here at the end of the week.'

‘Why?'

‘I'm sure I don't know,' said Madge, petulantly, ‘he is so restless, and never seems to settle down to anything. He says for the rest of his life he is going to do nothing but wander all over the world.'

There suddenly flashed across Fitzgerald's mind a line from Genesis, which seemed singularly applicable
to Mr Frettlby—‘A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.'

‘Everyone gets these restless fits, sooner or later,' he said, idly. ‘In fact,' with an uneasy laugh, ‘I believe I'm in one myself.'

‘That puts me in mind of what I heard Dr Chinston say yesterday,' she said. ‘This is the age of unrest, as electricity and steam have turned us all into Bohemians.'

‘Ah! Bohemia is a pleasant place,' said Brian absently, unconsciously quoting Thackeray, ‘but we all lose our way to it late in life.'

‘At that rate we won't lose our way to it for some time,' she said laughing, as they stepped into the drawing-room, so cool and shady, after the heat and glare outside.

As they entered Mr Frettlby arose out of a chair near the window, and appeared to have been reading, as he held a book in his hand.

‘What! Fitzgerald,' he exclaimed, in a hearty tone, as he held out his hand, ‘I am glad to see you.'

‘I let you know I am living, don't I?' replied Brian, his fair face flushing as he reluctantly took the proffered hand. ‘But the fact is I have come to say goodbye for a few days.'

‘Ah! going back to town, I suppose,' said Mr Frettlby, lying back in his chair, and playing with his watch chain. ‘I don't know that you are wise,
exchanging the clear air of the country for the dusty atmosphere of Melbourne.'

‘Yet Madge tells me you are going back,' said Brian, idly toying with a vase of flowers on the table.

‘Depends upon circumstances,' replied Midas, carelessly. ‘I may and I may not. You go on business, I presume?'

‘Well, the fact is Calton—' Here Brian stopped suddenly, and bit his lip with vexation, for he had not intended to mention the lawyer's name.

‘Yes?' said Mr Frettlby interrogatively, sitting up quickly, and looking keenly at Brian.

‘Wants to see me about business,' he finished awkwardly.

‘Connected with the sale of your station, I suppose,' said Frettlby, still keeping his eyes on the young man's face. ‘Can't have a better man. Calton's an excellent man of business.'

‘A little too excellent,' replied Fitzgerald, ruefully, ‘he's a man that can't leave well alone.'

‘
Apropos
of what?'

‘Oh, nothing,' answered Fitzgerald hastily, and just then his eyes met those of Frettlby. The two men looked at one another steadily for a moment, but in that short space of time a single name flashed through their brains—that name was Rosanna Moore. Mr Frettlby was the first to lower his eyes, and break the magnetism.

‘Ah, well,' he said lightly, as he arose from his chair, and held out his hand, ‘if you are two weeks in town call at St Kilda, and it's more than likely you will find us there.'

Brian shook hands in silence, and watched him pick up his hat, and move on to the verandah, and then out into the hot sunshine.

‘He knows,' he muttered, involuntarily.

‘Knows what, sir?' said Madge, who came silently behind him, and slipped her arm through his. ‘That you are hungry, and want something to eat before you leave us?'

‘I don't feel hungry,' said Brian, as they walked towards the door.

‘Nonsense,' answered Madge merrily, who, like Eve, was on hospitable thoughts intent. ‘I'm not going to have you appear in Melbourne a pale, fond lover, as though I were treating you badly. Come sir—no,' she continued, putting up her hand as he tried to kiss her, ‘business first, pleasure afterwards,' and they went into the dining-room, laughing.

Mark Frettlby wandered down to the lawn tennis ground, thinking of the look he had seen in Brian's eyes. He shivered for a moment in the hot sunshine, as though it had grown suddenly chill.

‘Someone stepping across my grave,' he murmured to himself, with a cynical smile. ‘Bah! how superstitious I am, and yet—he knows, he knows!'

‘Come on sir,' cried Felix, who had just caught
sight of him, ‘a racquet awaits you.'

Frettlby woke with a start, and found himself near the lawn tennis ground, and Felix at his elbow, smoking a cigarette.

He roused himself with a great effort, and tapped the young man lightly on the shoulder.

‘What?' he said with a forced laugh, ‘do you really expect me to play lawn tennis on such a day—you are mad.'

‘I am hot, you mean,' retorted the imperturbable Rolleston, blowing a wreath of smoke.

‘That's a foregone conclusion,' said Dr Chinston, who came up at that moment.

‘Such a charming novel,' cried Julia, who had just caught the last remark.

‘What is?' asked Peterson, rather puzzled.

‘Howell's book,
A Foregone Conclusion
,'
said Julia, also looking puzzled. ‘Weren't you talking about it.'

‘I'm afraid this talk is getting slightly incoherent,' said Felix, with a sigh. ‘We all seem madder than usual today.'

‘Speak for yourself,' said Chinston, indignantly. ‘I'm as sane as any man in the world.'

‘Exactly,' retorted the other coolly, ‘that's what I say, and you, being a doctor, ought to know that every man and woman in the world is more or less mad.'

‘Where are your facts?' asked Chinston, smiling.

‘My facts are all visible ones,' said Felix, gravely,
pointing to the company. ‘They're all crooked on some point or another.'

There was a chorus of indignant denial at this, and then everyone burst out laughing at the extraordinary way in which Mr Rolleston was arguing.

‘If you go on like that in the House,' said Frettlby amused, ‘you will, at all events, have an entertaining Parliament.'

‘Ah! they'll never have an entertaining Parliament till they admit ladies,' observed Peterson with a quizzical glance at Julia.

‘It will be a Parliament of love then,' retorted the doctor dryly, ‘and not medieval either.'

While everyone was laughing at this remark, Frettlby took the doctor's arm, and walked away with him. ‘I want you to come up to my study, doctor,' he said, as they strolled towards the house, ‘and examine me.'

‘Why, don't you feel well?' said Chinston, as they entered the house.

‘Not lately,' replied Frettlby. ‘I'm afraid I've got heart disease.'

The doctor looked sharply at him, and then shook his head.

‘Nonsense,' he said, cheerfully, ‘It's a common delusion with people that they have heart disease, and in nine cases out of ten it's all imagination, unless, indeed,' he added waggishly, ‘the patient happens to be
a young man.'

‘Ah! I suppose you think I'm safe as far as that goes,' said Frettlby, as they entered the study, ‘And what did you think of Rolleston's argument about people being mad?'

‘It was amusing,' replied Chinston, taking a seat, Frettlby doing the same. ‘That's all I can say about it, though, mind you, I think there are more mad people at large than the world is aware of.'

‘Indeed!'

‘Yes; do you remember that horrible story of Dickens, in the
Pickwick Papers
,
about the man who was mad, and knew it, yet successfully concealed it for years? Well, I believe there are many people like that in the world, people whose lives are one long struggle against insanity, and yet who eat, drink, talk and walk with the rest of their fellow men, evidently as gay and light-hearted as they are.'

‘How extraordinary.'

‘Half the murders and suicides are done in temporary fits of insanity,' went on Chinston, ‘and if a person broods over anything, his incipient madness is sure to break out sooner or later, but, of course, there are cases where a perfectly sane person may commit a murder on the impulse of the moment, but I regard such persons as mad for the time being; but, again, a murder may be planned and executed in the most cold-blooded manner.'

‘And in the latter case,' said Frettlby, without
looking at the doctor, and playing with the paper knife, ‘do you regard the murderer as mad?'

‘Yes, I do,' answered the doctor bluntly. ‘He is as mad as a person who kills another because he supposes he has been told by God to do so—only there is method in his madness. For instance, I believe that hansom cab murder, in which you were mixed up—'

‘Damn it, sir, I wasn't mixed up in it,' interrupted Frettlby, pale with anger.

‘Beg pardon,' said Chinston coolly, ‘a slip of the tongue; I was thinking of Fitzgerald. Well, I believe that crime to have been premeditated, and that the man who committed it was mad. He is, no doubt, at large now walking about and conducting himself as sane as you or I, yet the germ of insanity is there, and sooner or later he will commit another crime.'

‘How do you know it was premeditated?' asked Frettlby, abruptly.

‘Anyone can see that,' answered the other. ‘Whyte was watched on that night, and when Fitzgerald went away the other was ready to take his place, dressed the same.'

‘That's nothing,' retorted Frettlby, looking at his companion, sharply. ‘There are dozens of men in Melbourne who wear evening dress, light coats and soft hats—in fact, I generally wear them myself.'