The Wharf by the Docks by Florence Warden (novel24 TXT) 📖

Wedmore came across the yard at this moment, followed by Dr. Haselden, Carrie ran back into the house as Max met his father.

"What's all this about a dead man found in the barn?" asked Mr. Wedmore, with all the arrogance of the country gentleman, who thinks that no one has a right to die on his premises without his permission.

Max held his father back for a moment until the doctor had passed on. In the excitement of this occurrence, Mr. Wedmore was glad to have an opportunity of appearing to forget that there was any quarrel between them. On second thoughts, he inclined to think that he had perhaps, on this occasion, been a little too hard on his son, and he was anxious for some loop-hole by which he could creep out of the consequences of his own sternness. This, however, could hardly have been guessed by his manner, which was at least as arrogant as ever.

"It's somebody who was mixed up in the death of Edward Jacobs, sir, I think," said Max, in a low voice. "A man who has been living down at the East End of London disguised as a woman, and who was, I believe, at the bottom of all the mischief."

"Man disguised as a woman?" cried Mr. Wedmore, incredulously. "What an improbable story! And what should he do down here in my barn?"

"I think he must have come down to see Dudley, sir. We believe that it was he who tried to drown Dudley, after he had succeeded in drowning Edward Jacobs."

Mr. Wedmore frowned in perplexity.

"Trying to drown Dudley! What on earth should he do that for? What had Dudley to do with him?"

"Well, sir, we don't quite know. But Dudley was acquainted with this man, undoubtedly, though we don't know whether he knew him to be a man, or only as Mrs. Higgs, which was the name the man went by."

"Let me see the man," said Mr. Wedmore.

And, pushing past his son, he entered the barn.

The doctor made way for him.

"He is quite dead. He must have been killed instantly," said Doctor Haselden, as his friend came up.

Mr. Wedmore took the lantern from the man who held it, and looked at the dead face. As he did so, his first expression of curiosity gave place to one of perplexity, followed by a stare of intense amazement and horror.

"What is it? Do you know him?" asked Doctor Haselden, while Max, who had followed his father in, watched with intense interest and surprise.

Mr. Wedmore did not seem to hear. He continued to look at the dead face for some moments with an appearance of utter absorption, and then, suddenly staggering back, he made for the open air without a word of explanation.

Max stared at the doctor, and then followed his father out. But Mr. Wedmore was already half way to the house, where he shut himself into the study, and locking the door, refused to be disturbed.

Max was more bewildered than ever by this new turn of affairs. With a dogged determination not to be kept any longer out of a secret of which everybody but himself seemed to know something, he went straight up to the sick-room in search of Carrie. His knock, however, was answered by the professional nurse, who opened the door and asked him what he wanted.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Max. "At least--I wanted to know how Mr. Horne is now."

"He won't be so well to-night, I expect," answered the nurse, tartly. "There's been a great noise and disturbance outside, and he's heard something of it, and it's made him restless and curious. He is asking questions about it all the time, and he won't be satisfied. He keeps asking for the other nurse, who is out taking her walk, as I tell him."

At this point Dudley's voice was heard from the bed. "Who's that at the door? Who is it?"

Max, after a moment's hesitation, during which the nurse assumed an air of washing her hands of the whole matter, answered:

"Me, old chap--Max. How are you?"

Dudley sprang up in bed. The nurse folded her arms and frowned.

"Come in, oh, come in, just one moment! I'll be quiet, nurse, quite quiet. But I must see him--I must see somebody."

Max threw an imploring glance at the nurse, who refused to look at him. Then he went in.

"Only a minute--I won't stay a minute."

The nurse shrugged her shoulders.

"It's against the doctor's orders. I wash my hands of the consequences," said she.

And, with her head held very high, she left the room.

Max stood irresolute. By the look of excitement on Dudley's face, he judged that anything must be better for him than the eager suspense from which he was evidently suffering. This news of the death of the odious inhabitant of the house by the wharf must surely bring relief to him. As soon as they were alone together, Dudley burst out eagerly:

"That noise! It's no use deceiving me; I know what it was. They were after him. Tell me--has he got away? Has my father got away?"


CHAPTER XXVI.

BACK TO LOVE AND LIFE.

Max fell into a chair. He stared at Dudley for a few moments before he could speak. Dudley's father! The man supposed to have died years and years ago in an asylum abroad, was the person who had passed as "Mrs. Higgs!" Even before he had had time to learn any of the details of the strange story, the outlines of it were at once apparent to the mind of Max.

Here was, then, the explanation of the mysterious bond between Dudley and Mrs. Higgs; here was the meaning of his visits to Limehouse.

Dudley repeated his question before Max had recovered from the shock of his surprise.

"Yes," said he at last, "he has got away."

But Dudley detected some reserve in his manner, or perhaps his own suspicions were aroused. He looked searchingly at Max, and asked abruptly:

"Is he dead?"

Max looked at him askance.

"Yes," he said at last.

Dudley lay back in his pillows.

"Thank God!"

And Max knew by the look of intense relief on his friend's face that he had done right in telling him the truth.

But, indeed, Max could not guess how intense the relief was from the burden of the secret which Dudley had had to bear for so long; and undoubtedly the discovery that it was a secret no longer, that the necessity for concealment was now over, helped his recovery materially.

Max told him, as briefly as possible, the details of the occurrence; but he neither asked nor invited any more questions.

It was not until some time afterward, when Dudley had left the sick-room, that the whole of the story became known to the family. But, in the meantime, the inquest on the body brought many facts to light.

Mrs. Edward Jacobs, the widow of the man who had been found drowned in the Thames off Limehouse some weeks before, had been, so it was discovered, the person to give information to the police against Dudley, as the suspected murderer of her husband. She had traced to him the weekly postal orders, which she looked upon as blood-money, and she had then hung about his chambers, and on one occasion followed him to Limehouse, without, however, penetrating farther than the entrance of the wharf.

Upon the information given by her a warrant was issued against Dudley; but in searching his chambers a number of letters were found, all addressed to Dudley, which threw a new and lurid light upon the affair. The letters were written by the father to the son, and contained the whole story of his return to England a few months before; of his anxiety to see his son; his morbid fear of being recognized and shut up as a lunatic, and his equally morbid hankering after information concerning Edward Jacobs, the man who had ruined him.

All these letters, which were directed in a feigned handwriting, seemed sane and sensible enough, although they showed signs of eccentricity of character.

The next batch were written after the disappearance of Edward Jacobs, and in them the signs of morbid eccentricity were more apparent. The writer owned to having "put Jacobs out of the way," upbraided Dudley for interfering on behalf of such a wretch, and accused him of ingratitude in refusing to leave England with his father, who had done mankind in general and him in particular a service in killing a monster. The writer went on to accuse Dudley of siding with his father's enemies, of wishing to have him shut up, and told him that he should never succeed.

Some of these letters were directed to The Beeches, and some to Dudley's chambers, showing an intimate knowledge of his whereabouts.

The latest letters were wilder, more bitter, showing how insanity which had broken out into violence before was increasing in intensity, and how the feelings of regard which he had seemed to entertain for his son had given place to strong resentment against him.

After the reading of these letters, it was plain that the crime of murder which Mrs. Jacobs had laid to Dudley's charge had been really the work of his father; and Mrs. Jacobs herself, on being made acquainted with these facts, agreed with this conclusion.

There remained only the question of Dudley's complicity in the crime to be considered, and that was a matter which could be left until the sick man's recovery.

It was on the first day of Dudley's appearance in the family circle that the subject was broached, clumsily enough, by Mr. Wedmore, who was dying to know a great deal more than anybody had been willing to tell him.

Dudley had come into the drawing-room, which had been well warmed for the occasion with a roaring fire, and it was here that they found him after luncheon, with the professional nurse beside him.

The girls greeted him rather shyly, especially Doreen, but Mrs. Wedmore was motherly and gentle. Mr. Wedmore attacked him at once.

"I can't understand, Dudley, why you kept it all so dark. Couldn't you see for yourself that it was better for your father to be under restraint, as well as safer for other people?"

Mrs. Wedmore tried to interpose and to change the conversation to another subject, but Dudley said:

"I would rather explain now, once and for all. I shall be going away to-morrow, and there are several things which I should like to make clear first." He paused, and Mrs. Wedmore, her daughters and the nurse took the opportunity to leave the room. "Now, Mr. Wedmore, tell me what you want to know."

"Well, you told us nothing about your father's being alive and back in England, for one thing."

"It was by his wish that I kept it a secret. He persisted that he was sane; he seemed to be sane. But he believed that if it were known that he was in England he would be shut up."

"But the passing himself off as an old woman, this living in a sort of underground way, didn't that look like madness?"

"I took it for eccentricity and nothing more, until--until he sent for me one day, and brought me suddenly into a room--a little dark, bare room--where there was a man lying on the ground asleep, as I