The Lust of Hate by Guy Newell Boothby (ebook reader for pc .txt) đź“–
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in. I followed to receive him.
On reaching the inside of our defences, Nikola raised his hat
politely to Mr. Maybourne, while he handed his reins to a trooper
standing by.
“Mr. Maybourne, I believe,” he said. “My name is Nikola. I am
afraid I am thrusting myself upon you in a very unseemly fashion, and
at a time when you have no desire to be burdened with outsiders. My
friendship for our friend Wrexford here must be my excuse. I left
Buluwayo at daylight this morning in order to see him.”
He held out his hand to me and I found myself unable to do
anything but take it. As usual it was as cold as ice. For the moment
I was so fascinated by the evil glitter in his eyes that I forgot to
wonder how he knew my assumed name. However, I managed to stammer out
something by way of a welcome, and then asked how long he had been in
South Africa.
“I arrived two months ago,” he answered, “and after a week in Cape
Town, where I had some business to transact, made my way up here to
see you. It appears I have arrived at an awkward moment, but if I can
help you in any way I hope you will command my services. I am a
tolerable surgeon, and I have the advantage of considerable
experience of assegai wounds.”
While he was speaking the bell rang for tea, and at Mr.
Maybourne’s invitation Dr. Nikola accompanied us to where the meal
was spread—picnic fashion—on the ground by the kitchen door. Agnes
was waiting for us, and I saw her start with surprise when her father
introduced the newcomer as Dr. Nikola, a friend of Mr. Wrexford’g.
She bowed gravely to him, but said nothing. I could see that she knew
him for the man Bartrand had warned me against, and for this reason
she was by no means prepossessed in his favour.
During the meal Nikola exerted all his talents to please. And such
was his devilish—I can only call it by that name—cleverness, that
by the time we rose from the meal he had put himself on the best of
terms with everyone. Even Agnes seemed to have, for the moment, lost
much of her distrust of him. Once out in the open again I drew Nikola
away from the others, and having walked him out of earshot of the
house, asked the meaning of his visit.
“Is it so hard to guess?” he said, as he seated himself on the
pole of a waggon, and favoured me with one of his peculiar smiles. “I
should have thought not.”
“I have not tried to guess,” I answered, having by this time
resolved upon my line of action; “and I do not intend to do so. I
wish you to tell me.”
“My dear Pennethorne-Wrexford, or Wrexford-Pennethorne,” he said
quietly, “I should advise you not to adopt that tone with me. You
know very well why I have put myself to the trouble of running you to
earth.”
“I have not the least notion,” I replied, “and that is the truth.
I thought I had done with you when I said good-bye” to you in Golden
Square that awful night.”
“Nobody can hope to have done with me,” he answered, “when they do
not act fairly by me.”
“Act fairly by you? What do you mean? How have I not acted fairly
by you?”
“By running away in that mysterious fashion, when it was agreed
between us that I should arrange everything. You might have ruined
me.”
“Still I do not understand you! How might I have ruined you?”
This time I took him unawares. He looked at me for a moment in
sheer surprise.
“I should advise you to give up this sort of thing,” he said,
licking his lips in that peculiar cat-like fashion I had noticed in
London. “Remember I know everything, and one word in our friend
Maybourne’s ear, and—well—you know what the result will be. Perhaps
he does not know what an illustrious criminal he is purposing to take
for a son-in-law.”
“One insinuation like that again, Nikola,” I cried, “and I’ll have
you put off this place before you know where you are. You dare
to call me a criminal—you, who plotted and planned the
murders that shocked and terrified all England!”
“That I do not admit. I only remember that I assisted you to
obtain your revenge on a man who had wronged you. On summing up so
judiciously, pray do not forget that point.”
Nikola evidently thought he had obtained an advantage, and was
quick to improve on it.
“Come, come,” he said, “what is the use of our quarrelling like a
pair of children? All I want of you is an answer to two simple
questions.”
“What are your questions?”
“I want to know, first, what you did with Bartrand’s body when you
got rid of it out of the cab.”
“You really wish to know that?”
He nodded.
“Then come with me,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.” I led him into
the house, and, having reached the bed in the corner, pulled down the
sheet.
He bent over the figure lying there so still, and then started
back with a cry of surprise. For a moment I could see that he was
non-plussed as he had probably not been in his life before,
but by the time one could have counted twenty, this singular being
was himself again.
“I congratulate you,” he said, turning to me and holding out his
hand. “The king has come into his own again. You are now one of the
richest men in the world, and I can ask my second question.”
“Be certain first,” I said. “I inherit nothing from Mr.
Bartrand.”
“What do you mean by that? I happen to know that his will was made
in your favour.”
“You are quite mistaken. He made a later will this afternoon,
leaving all his money and estates to four London hospitals.”
Nikola’s face went paler than I had ever seen it yet. His thin
lips trembled perceptibly. The man was visibly anxious.
“You will excuse my appearing to doubt you, I hope,” he said, “but
may I see that will?”
I called Mr. Maybourne into the room and asked him if he had any
objection to allowing Dr. Nikola to see the paper in question. He
handed it to him without hesitation, keeping close to his elbow while
he perused it. The Doctor read it slowly from beginning to end,
examined the signature, noted the names of the executors, and also of
the witnesses, and when he had done so, returned it to Mr. Maybourne
with a bow.
“Thank you,” he said, politely. “It is excellently drawn up, and,
with your evidence against me, I fear it would be foolish for me to
dispute it. In that case, I don’t think I need trouble your
hospitality any further.”
Then, turning to me, he led me from the house across to where his
horse was standing.
“Good-bye, Pennethorne,” he said. “All I can say of you is that
your luck is greater than your cleverness. I am not so blase
but I can admire a man who can surrender three millions without a
sigh. I must confess I am vulgar enough to find that it costs me a
pang to lose even my sixty thousand. I wanted it badly. Had my
coup only come off, and the dead man in there not been such an
inveterate ass, I should have had the whole amount of his fortune in
my hands by this time, and in six months I would have worked out a
scheme that would have paralyzed Europe. As it is, I must look
elsewhere for the amount. When you wish to be proud of yourself, try
to remember that you have baulked Dr. Nikola in one of his
best-planned schemes, and saved probably half-a-million lives by
doing so. Believe me, there are far cleverer men than you who have
tried to outwit me and failed. I suppose you will marry Miss
Maybourne now. Well, I wish you luck with her. If I am a judge of
character, she will make you an able wife. In ten years time you will
be a commonplace rich man, with scarcely any idea outside your own
domestic circle, while I—well the devil himself knows where or what
I shall be then. I wonder which will be the happier? Now I must be
off. Though you may not think it, I always liked you, and if you had
thrown in your lot with me, I might have made something of you.
Good-bye.”
He held out his hand, and as he did so he looked me full in the
face. For the last time I felt the influence of those extraordinary
eyes. I took the hand he offered and bade him good-bye with almost a
feeling of regret, mad as it may seem to say so, at the thought that
in all probability I should never see him again. Next moment he was
on his horse’s back and out on the veldt making for the westward. I
stood and watched him till he was lost in the gathering gloom, and
then went slowly back to the house thinking of the change that had
come into my life, thanking God for my freedom.
Three months have passed since the events just narrated took
place, and I am back in Cape Town again, finishing the writing of
this story of the most adventurous period of my life, in Mr.
Maybourne’s study. Tomorrow my wife (for I have been married a week
to-day) and I leave South Africa on a trip round the world. What a
honeymoon it will be!
“The Pride of the South,” you will be glad to hear, has made
gallant strides since the late trouble in Rhodesia, and as my shares
have quadrupled in value, to say nothing of the other ventures in
which I have been associated with my father-in-law, I am making rapid
progress towards becoming a rich man. And now it only remains for me
to bring my story to a close. By way of an epilogue let me say that
no better, sweeter, or more loyal wife than I possess could possibly
be desired by any mortal man. I love her with my whole heart and
soul, as she loves me, and I can only hope that every masculine
reader who may have the patience to wade through these, to me,
interminable pages, may prove as fortunate in his choice as I have b
Den. More fortunate, it is certain, he could not be.
THE END
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