No Name Wilkie Collins (e book reader android TXT) 📖

He shrank back from the paper which she offered to him.

“I don’t understand this,” he said, nervously. “I don’t know what you want, or what you mean.”

Mrs. Lecount forced the paper into his hand. “You shall know what I mean, sir, if you will give me a moment’s attention,” she said. “On the day after you went away to St. Crux, I obtained admission to Mr. Bygrave’s house, and I had some talk in private with Mr. Bygrave’s wife. That talk supplied me with the means to convince you which I had wanted to find for weeks and weeks past. I wrote you a letter to say so⁠—I wrote to tell you that I would forfeit my place in your service, and my expectations from your generosity, if I did not prove to you when I came back from Switzerland that my own private suspicion of Miss Bygrave was the truth. I directed that letter to you at St. Crux, and I posted it myself. Now, Mr. Noel, read the paper which I have forced into your hand. It is Admiral Bartram’s written affirmation that my letter came to St. Crux, and that he enclosed it to you, under cover to Mr. Bygrave, at your own request. Did Mr. Bygrave ever give you that letter? Don’t agitate yourself, sir! One word of reply will do⁠—Yes or no.”

He read the paper, and looked up at her with growing bewilderment and fear. She obstinately waited until he spoke. “No,” he said, faintly; “I never got the letter.”

“First proof!” said Mrs. Lecount, taking the paper from him, and putting it back in the bag. “One more, with your kind permission, before we come to things more serious still. I gave you a written description, sir, at Aldborough, of a person not named, and I asked you to compare it with Miss Bygrave the next time you were in her company. After having first shown the description to Mr. Bygrave⁠—it is useless to deny it now, Mr. Noel; your friend at North Shingles is not here to help you!⁠—after having first shown my note to Mr. Bygrave, you made the comparison, and you found it fail in the most important particular. There were two little moles placed close together on the left side of the neck, in my description of the unknown lady, and there were no little moles at all when you looked at Miss Bygrave’s neck. I am old enough to be your mother, Mr. Noel. If the question is not indelicate, may I ask what the present state of your knowledge is on the subject of your wife’s neck?”

She looked at him with a merciless steadiness. He drew back a few steps, cowering under her eye. “I can’t say,” he stammered. “I don’t know. What do you mean by these questions? I never thought about the moles afterward; I never looked. She wears her hair low⁠—”

“She has excellent reasons to wear it low, sir,” remarked Mrs. Lecount. “We will try and lift that hair before we have done with the subject. When I came out here to find you in the garden, I saw a neat young person through the kitchen window, with her work in her hand, who looked to my eyes like a lady’s maid. Is this young person your wife’s maid? I beg your pardon, sir, did you say yes? In that case, another question, if you please. Did you engage her, or did your wife?”

“I engaged her⁠—”

“While I was away? While I was in total ignorance that you meant to have a wife, or a wife’s maid?”

“Yes.”

“Under those circumstances, Mr. Noel, you cannot possibly suspect me of conspiring to deceive you, with the maid for my instrument. Go into the house, sir, while I wait here. Ask the woman who dresses Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s hair morning and night whether her mistress has a mark on the left side of her neck, and (if so) what that mark is?”

He walked a few steps toward the house without uttering a word, then stopped, and looked back at Mrs. Lecount. His blinking eyes were steady, and his wizen face had become suddenly composed. Mrs. Lecount advanced a little and joined him. She saw the change; but, with all her experience of him, she failed to interpret the true meaning of it.

“Are you in want of a pretense, sir?” she asked. “Are you at a loss to account to your wife’s maid for such a question as I wish you to put to her? Pretenses are easily found which will do for persons in her station of life. Say I have come here with news of a legacy for Mrs. Noel Vanstone, and that there is a question of her identity to settle before she can receive the money.”

She pointed to the house. He paid no attention to the sign. His face grew paler and paler. Without moving or speaking he stood and looked at her.

“Are you afraid?” asked Mrs. Lecount.

Those words roused him; those words lit a spark of the fire of manhood in him at last. He turned on her like a sheep on a dog.

“I won’t be questioned and ordered!” he broke out, trembling violently under the new sensation of his own courage. “I won’t be threatened and mystified any longer! How did you find me out at this place? What do you mean by coming here with your hints and your mysteries? What have you got to say against my wife?”

Mrs. Lecount composedly opened the traveling-bag and took out her smelling bottle, in case of emergency.

“You have spoken to me in plain words,” she said. “In plain words, sir, you shall have your answer. Are you too angry to listen?”

Her looks and tones alarmed him, in spite of himself. His courage began to sink again; and, desperately as he tried to steady it, his voice trembled when he answered her.

“Give me my answer,” he said, “and give it at once.”

“Your commands shall be obeyed, sir, to the letter,” replied Mrs. Lecount. “I have come here with two objects. To open your eyes to